In Texas, It's the Context, Stupid!

 

Reading about the 5th Circuit's decision in the Texas 10 Commandments case, sent me into reveries about my own experience with religion in Texas public school classrooms. 

ME AND MY SHADOW

I was a student in Texas public schools from 1st grade through high school graduation -- the 1950s through the election of John F. Kennedy. Of course I was indoctrinated. In grade school, first thing of a morning we had Bible readings and prayers blasted into every classroom over a speaker system -- pious little moments to start the school day. They were probably majority Southern Baptist in hue and flavor, if I were betting, but at least pointedly Protestant, not that theology meant squat to me at that age. The Bible readings and prayers -- "devotionals," they were called -- were meant to make us "mindful," quiet and observant, tamed for classroom decorum by Protestant doctrines of sin and punishment. I'm sure those devotionals were tactical for teachers and administrators, who probably preferred their children guilt-ridden and docile.

Though I learned the 10 Commandments at church, not at school, I'll be honest here and say out loud that I don't think the display of the 10 Commandments in every classroom of my upbringing would have hurt me. Actually reading them now could start a lot of arguments, or at least a lot of wide-ranging thought, like when did "Remember the Sabbath day" become "Your butt better be in a pew on Sunday"? The Protestant text of the commandments -- which is actually quoted in the 5th Circuit majority's opinion -- gets me asking all sorts of questions -- like, did the original author of the Commandments -- looking at you, Jesus -- know nothing about human nature? To outlaw coveting things your neighbor has, including his wife and his slaves, guaranteed a pretty universal participation in sin, don't you think? And I have other questions about just exactly what "land" God has given us -- or who is the "thee" he gave it to if not us? And what does honoring father and mother have to do with keeping that land? 

I concur with the 5th Circuit majority in the need to review the actual text: 

I AM the LORD thy God.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.

Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his
maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

The Commandments are a somewhat quaint, historically resonant, very culturally specific document that every kid should know, but having it forced on kids' -- and their parents, not to mention teachers unwilling to be conduits of partisan thought-control -- by state legislators and Ken Paxton, whose motives have little to do with education but a great dealt to do with the winds of conservative orthodoxy and the wielding of power -- that is the context that made SB 10 a threat. 

  

BACKGROUND TO THE LAWSUIT

1. Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas SB 10 into law in 2025, which mandated the "conspicuous" display of the Protestant 10 Commandments in each and every Texas classroom, from 1st grade to 12th, with "a typeface visible from anywhere in the room." The posters were mandated to be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall. Schools were not required to purchase the posters. They were ordered to accept donations of them. (And if that doesn't sound like a bag job of ulterior motives, I don't know what would!) SB 10 was part of a much broader conservative push since God put Trump in the White House as 2nd Son to censor library books, clamp down on "deviance," and "infuse Christianity into public schools."

2. Some 15 parents of school-age children in certain Texas school districts became the plaintiffs in an ACLU challenge to SB 10, and the parents won in two different Federal District courts, which first halted the law in the specific 15 school districts represented by the plaintiffs and then enjoined it statewide, ruling it was likely, on the face of it, that SB 10 violated the "establishment of religion" clause in the US Constitution. 

3. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, that scourge of God who appears to have been behind much of the push for the 10 Commandments law, appealed to the 5th Circuit in January, and the 17 active judges on the Circuit heard the case en banc. They decided 9-8 that the Texas law is not coercive because it does not require students to learn the Ten Commandments nor does it give teachers authority to undermine students’ religious beliefs. 

But the best reading in the 118-page 5th District ruling are the several dissents appended by the eight judges who know a stinkbug when they see one. 

How Much Fatter Can He Get Before He Explodes?

 

Harper's Weekly, 1871

 

 

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a non-profit government watchdog org founded in 2002 by a former chair of the Federal Election Commission, has cataloged very specific instances of "pay-to-play" corruption by the Donald J. Trump administration. It's an infuriating list partly because the corruption is spectacularly theatrical in its unembarrassed obviousness. Beware the man who can't be embarrassed, my mom always said.

Take the pardon for Paul Walczak, the former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty in Nov. 2024 to tax crimes arising from his use of over $10 million withheld from the paychecks of nursing home staff to pay for personal expenses, including luxury goods and travel. In April 2025, Walczak was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment and ordered to pay over $4.4 million in restitution. Twelve days later an unembarrassed Trump gave him a presidential pardon -- purely coincidental, we're sure, to the $1 mil that Walczak's mother donated to MAGA Inc., Trump's super-PAC.

Or take Mr. Timothy J. Leiweke, a CEO indicted for bid-rigging, who got a Trump pardon following a round of golf at Mar-a-Lago for Leiweke's lawyers, who may have reminded the president that Mr. Leiweke's company had made a hefty donation to Trump's 2nd Inaugural. 

In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged crypto-currency entrepreneur and investor Justin Sun and three of his companies with illegally offering and selling unregistered crypto securities. Soon after, Sun bought $18.6 million worth of $TRUMP, the Donald Trump “meme coin,” making Justin Sun the leading holder of $TRUMP and therefore worthy of an invite to Trump’s private “crypto dinner” at the White House in May 2025 (most attendees were top purchasers of the $TRUMP meme coin). Sun had also previously invested $75 million into crypto tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto venture managed by President Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Trump, Jr. As soon as Trump got his rump into the Oval Office in January 2025, almost magically, the SEC paused its enforcement action again Sun and his companies.

CLC summarized the whole sordid round-up of demonstrable pay-to-play:

Multimillion-dollar political donors have been rewarded with prominent government positions and the power to financially benefit their own bottom lines; seven-figure corporate donations have translated to executive branch support for legislative and policy positions; major media companies seeking to stay in the administration’s good graces have paid Trump millions of dollars to settle meritless lawsuits; federal investigations and enforcement actions have dissolved for the right price.

The cases of public corruption cataloged by the Campaign Legal Center make for the slightly dizzying realization that 2nd Trump is the most nakedly corrupt, on-the-make, aggressively avaricious bunch to have ever ruled the District of Columbia (and I see your Warren G. Harding). I wouldn't want, nor could I imagine anything worse than we've experienced just since January 20, 2025. Donald Trump begins to resemble the gluttonous Mr. Creosote in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, who literally explodes, a victim of his own obscene appetite.

 

 

 

 

A Tale of Maps

 

Abuse and revenge. That's the pattern of Democratic and Republican gerrymandering for the last 20-some years in North Carolina.

I love maps, especially historical ones and most especially historical ones that show changes to landmasses over time, like "The Roman Empire At Its Height" and "The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire." Today, it's "The Evolution of North Carolina Gerrymandering" put together by Carolina Forward -- a compilation of historic maps of Congressional districts under both parties, analyzing how Ds and Rs fared. (Blair Reeves has built Carolina Forward into a go-to source for new data and for endorsements of General Assembly candidates. Reeves' frequent videos on Facebook are always enlightening about what's really happening in our state.)

Map 1, the last gerrymander of the Dem bosses before the Tea Party eruption of 2010, still makes me wince. The abuse looks palpable. But as the analysis points out, that gerrymander actually produced majorities of Republican reps in some 2-year cycles and a near-even swap in others. The election of 2008 stands out for its Democratic surge, which elected 8 Dems to 5 GOP House members. You might note that 8 Dem reps serving 2009-2011 is the highest Dem count in the last 20+ years. With improved computer programs, the GOP has done much more advanced gerrymandering, managing to arrange us voters so there are now 10 Rs to 4 Ds (Maps 2 and 4). Map 3, the court-appointed one that lasted only one election cycle, produced the first even split between the parties -- 7 Ds to 7 Rs. 

Those were the days, my friends! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

The Self-Parody of Franklin Graham

 

I have a church history. I sat in a hard wooden pew three times a week from the age of 12 until I went off to college at 18 (and found perdition). I've been harangued as a hormonal teenager by a pastor who demanded I reject worldly ways and turn away from temptation. I've been told by another preacher of the Gospel that I was inviting the Devil into my life by watching TV. I've been electrified by an evangelist who told us, as Christians, that we had every right to demand God smite the wicked wicked world on our behalf, and that if we did not pray with muscle and sweat, we were insufficient in our faith. I've been elated -- transported into the bare rafters -- by a visiting Christian platform performer who embodied the bubbling smug champagne of knowing we're saved and most others are lost.

I freed myself of preachers. I turned to other idols. Great is the God Irony. 

Last Thursday, Reverend Franklin Graham posted on Facebook an hilarious self-parody of the preacherdom I left behind:

I do not believe President Trump would knowingly depict himself as Jesus Christ — that would certainly be inappropriate. I’m thankful the President has made it very clear that this was not at all what he thought the AI-generated image was representing — he thought it was a doctor helping someone, and when he learned of the concerns, he immediately removed the post.

 

It's weak, limping around "that would certainly be inappropriate" with "I'm thankful the President has made it very clear yada yada" -- because, after all, Franklin Graham has been the main one to say that Trump is ordained by God and represents the living hand of Jesus Christ on earth. Which boxes the preacher in. "I do not believe Trump would depict himself as Jesus" is just plain bearing false witness. I chuckled as I read it. Pride goeth. 

 

Syndrome Rules

 

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.

--Donald J. Trump, April 7, 2026 

 

 

He really has become a 'toon, hasn't he? A mad tyrant or boy genius who got too big for his breeches, essentially the creation of paint, lighting, and gall. If we can see through the pathetic affectation of his pose, surely the Iranians can. And are laughing.

 

Also probably wondering, "Would he really do it?" -- along with some of the rest of us! It might occur to us that this time he boxed himself in so tight, delivering such dire ultimatums that can't be retracted without the great risk of looking like ... well, a 'toon.

 

If he does tonight what he promised this morning, it will be the end of him. The people of the United States are not going to tolerate it, finally -- Trump's final solution -- and the world will rise up in horror and condemnation. Arrest warrants from the World Court. That kind of thing. Talk about being boxed in! But he was never going to follow through on the threat. The threat was as empty as he is.

 

Another possibility -- and quite an attractive one for Trump, because he's a cold-blooded liar -- would be to claim some concession from the Iranians, whether one exists or not, and forestall hell on earth through some fiction that at least sounds plausible. Even MAGA true believers might heave a sigh of relief, while the liberals will all be slapping their knees and chortling "TACO!"

 

And finally, the remote possibility that the Iranians actually cave, because they haven't seen enough Hollywood endings.

Congressman Lists Addresses Where He Hopes Protesters Won't Show Up. Oops

 

Photo 828NewsNOW

 

 

Last November, Progressive activist Leslie Boyd of Asheville called for a boycott of Congressman Chuck Edwards's McDonald's restaurants because of his voting record:

“He says he stands for us, but he voted to reduce the availability of health care and food assistance for millions of Americans, including his own constituents,” Leslie Boyd said, speaking as a leader of Asheville Fights Back Network and calling for a walking picket at an Edwards McDonald's in Hendersonville. “He also voted for the torment of immigrants we’re seeing in the streets of North Carolina right now. That looks to me like he is the enemy.”

On March 31st, Boyd published on Facebook that she'd gotten a letter banning her for life from Edwards's McDonald's restaurants:

OK, this is freaking hilarious!!!!

My "representative " in Congress, Chuck Edwards, sent me a certified letter banning me from all his McDonald's restaurants.

First of all, I haven't eaten at a McDonald's in more than 25 years, so that's really no skin off my nose.

But here's the best part: He has hidden all their [McDonald's] addresses in real estate holding companies, so I couldn't figure out which ones were his.

Well, now I know, and now, so do you.

The letter:

 

Cost/Benefit for the Better Educated

 

I always have my doubts about hot-news social science research ("Being liberal extends your life!"), but this research below seems solidly based in math (econ) and matches the impression I've had after some 64 years of inhabiting various college and university campuses and hanging at numerous coffee pots to hear the gossip. So for what it's worth: 

The Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at American University, using research from the Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy "found that graduate degrees in medicine, law and pharmacy generally have the highest return on investment. By contrast, degrees in popular fields such as social work, psychology, and curriculum and instruction may actually have a zero to negative return after factoring in the full cost." (WashPost)

Yikes.