The Status Interview—Or How To Write Up a Senate Purge List

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Over the last couple days I’ve argued both that the denouement of the shutdown standoff was a flub and an embarrassment and also that the overall situation is going reasonably well. This isn’t defending the members of the Democratic caucus. I don’t need to defend or attack them because I’m mostly indifferent to them. I’m looking to a half-dozen year or more time horizon in which almost all the current senators need to be convinced to take a dramatically different approach to politics or purged from the ranks of elected office. Let’s call it Change or Purge. To me, from March to now was a big step forward. The way of operating during this shutdown was very different from what happened in March. And the way it ended — here I know many disagree with me — doesn’t negate what happened during the last five weeks, either in terms of the changed behavior or what was accomplished. This is a multi-course treatment. The results of the first course were encouraging. So, on to the remaining nine.

Since I’ve focused on this Change or Purge framework in this post I’d like to flesh out some of what that means. Of course a lot of this is either characterological or a way of using power. That can be hard to capture in bullet points or outside the context of a specific political situation. But there are a series of things senators support or don’t support that gives a clear indication of whether they are serious about confronting the challenge of the moment or battling back from Trumpism.

Continue reading “The Status Interview—Or How To Write Up a Senate Purge List” →

Shutdown Deal Lets GOP Senators Personally Sue Over Jack Smith Probe

Posted on by David Kurtz

$500K For Election Subversion

Tucked into a spending bill that is part of the deal to end the government shutdown is a provision that would allow GOP senators to personally sue the federal government for as much as $500,000 over Special Counsel Jack Smith’s lawful search of their phone records, according to the NYT.

As part of his Jan. 6 investigation, Smith properly subpoenaed the toll records of some GOP members of Congress. In recent weeks, Republicans on the Hill have resurfaced this fact and morphed it into a Deep State conspiracy theory, exaggerating what Smith obtained and trying to turn it into a constitutional clash.

District Judge James Boasberg of D.C. approved measures that barred phone providers from notifying lawmakers that their data from around Jan. 6 was requested as part of the investigation, Politico notes. The provision in the bill imposes new restrictions that would require senators to receive notice of their records being sought and bars judges from preventing that notice unless the senator is under criminal investigation.

Most controversially, the provision in the bill retroactively allows senators targeted by Smith to sue the federal government, the NYT reports: “Because the provision is retroactive to 2022, it would appear to make eligible the eight lawmakers whose phone records were subpoenaed by investigators for Mr. Smith as he examined efforts by Donald J. Trump to obstruct the results of the 2020 presidential election.”

The Republican senators in question are Lindsey Graham (SC), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Bill Hagerty (TN), Josh Hawley (MO), Dan Sullivan (AK), Tommy Tuberville (AL), Ron Johnson (WI), and Cynthia Lummis (WI).

The language in the bill came directly from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Politico reports.

Jan 6. Pardons Are Trump’s Bat Signal

A good piece by Politico’s legal reporting duo on the implications of President Trump’s latest pardons in the 2020 Big Lie scheme:

(1) It’s a precursor for election denialism in the future:

The mass pardon — the first in history to cover people accused of criminally conspiring with the president who issued it — comes as Trump continues to stoke false claims about rampant cheating by Democrats and sow doubts about the integrity of future elections. And his opponents see the pardon as a permission slip for similar efforts in 2026 and 2028.

(2) It’s extremely broad:

But the language in the pardon also underscores that Trump’s clemency is not limited to people named in the document. Rather, it applies to anyone who helped devise or advocate for Trump’s strategy to use fraudulent slates of presidential electors as a prong of his strategy to remain in power, as well as others who worked to “expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities” in the 2020 election.

The Corruption: Pardonpalooza Edition

In addition to the latest round of Jan. 6 pardons, President Trump continues to give special treatment to a combination of the politically connected and the publicly corrupt:

  • Former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada and his former chief of staff Cade Cothren were pardoned even though they’d only been convicted in May on fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges tied to a scheme involving constituent mailer services, Politico reports. Casada had been sentenced in September to 36 months in prison.
  • Without making a public announcement, President Trump pardoned Robert Harshbarger Jr., the husband of Rep. Diana Harshbarger (TN), who pleaded guilty to health care fraud in 2013, the NYT reports.

Blanche: Trump DOJ ‘At War’ With Judges

With the Trump DOJ struggling to retain lawyers and staff, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made a pitch to young conservative lawyers Friday at a Federalist Society event in D.C. to join the war against “activist judges.”

“We need you, because it is a war, and it’s something we will not win unless we keep on fighting,” the DOJ’s No. 2 said.

Blanche was specifically referring to legal setbacks the Trump administration has suffered in court at the district level.

 It’s hard to get the media, it’s hard to get the American people to focus on what a travesty it is when you have an individual judge be able to stop an entire operation or an entire administrative policy that’s constitutional and allowed just because he or she chooses to do so. So, it’s a war.

Blanche’s remarks came the day after former Trump DOJ official told the same conference that Congress should start impeaching judges who have blocked Trump policies.

“What’s going to force the Supreme Court to do something is fundamentally political pressure. It’s going to be when Congress starts impeaching judges and saying … ‘You are now encroaching into our territory,’” said Mizelle, whose wife is a federal district judge.

SCOTUS Takes Mail-In Ballot Case

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case challenging a Mississippi law that allows the counting of mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. The case had nationwide implications, with some 30 states allowing the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day.

Mass Deportation Watch

  • The Trump administration took steps in court late last week to deport the repeatedly brutalized Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, a country with which he no ties.
  • The NYT interviewed 40 of the Venezuelan men who were unlawfully imprisoned at CECOT earlier this yeat after being deported by the Trump administration under the Alien Enemies Act.
  • The Trump administration made a $7.5 million payment to the government of Equatorial Guinea as it seeks to deport people to the West African country, according to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
  • Since April, DHS has stopped automatically capturing communications between officials and instead requires them to take screenshots of their messages in a bizarre work flow, the NYT reports: “The policy expects officials to first take screenshots of the text messages on their work phones, send it to their work email, download it on their work computers and then run a program that would recognize the text to store it in searchable formats, according to the department’s guidance submitted to the court.”

Trump’s Murderous Misadventure

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been busy purging at least two dozen flag officers and sidelining military lawyers precisely to allow the kind of unsanctioned war the Trump administration is engaged in against drug cartels and the Maduro regime in Venezuela:

  • The number of lawless U.S. strikes against boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific has risen to 19, with a death toll of 76 … that we know of.
  • The Trump administration has created a secret list of 24 of Latin American cartels and criminal organizations that are now “designated terrorist organizations,” The Intercept reports.
  • Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham, a retired Air Force judge advocate, calls the U.S. strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats “murder.”

Kash Patel Leaves MI5 Hanging

FBI Director Kash Patel reassured the head of MI5 that he’d preserve the job of an FBI agent in London who helps with counterintelligence surveillance – then reneged on the promise, the NYT reports.

Trump Goes After BBC

President Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for $1 billion over how it edited a clip of his Jan. 6, 2021 speech on The Ellipse for a documentary last year. The disputed edit has already lead to the resignations of BBC Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News Chief Executive Deborah Turness. BBC Chairman Samir Shah issued an apology yesterday for the controversy.

Quote of the Day

“The deference and servility to Ms. Maxwell have reached such preposterous levels that one of the top officials at the facility has complained that he is ‘sick of having to be Maxwell’s bitch.’”–Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), describing preferential treatment allegedly being given to convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell since her arrival at a minimum security prison camp

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There Are No Weird Blogs Anymore Cause It’s More Fruitful to Drive Them Out of Business

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

I learned many surprising lessons from my 20 months as editor-in-chief of Deadspin, the skeptical, irreverent, hilarious, trailblazing sports outlet that entertained, offended, and educated audiences in roughly equal measure. 

I learned from a cease-and-desist letter that Jacuzzi is a trademarked brand, and that the hotel room in which a world-famous soccer star was alleged to have raped a woman contained a mere “spa” or “hot tub.” I learned from inhaling Chartbeat that our very dumbest stories and our very smartest stories would always be our biggest traffic drivers. I learned from our general counsel more than I ever wanted to know about the precise limits of fair use. I learned from my coworkers — all of them brilliant and entirely deranged — that there is no limit to how hard I can laugh in a soul-suckingly bland Times Square cubicle farm. Even knowing how it all ended, I’d still take the job 100 times out of 100.

The most consequential lessons I learned, though, were about the ways in which I had misunderstood “free market” capitalism, and about what that meant for the industry that gave me my career. Those are the lessons I haven’t stopped agonizing over six years later, the ones that led to my first book but also caused scores of sleepless nights. 

Continue reading “There Are No Weird Blogs Anymore Cause It’s More Fruitful to Drive Them Out of Business” →

Only a Fraction of Republicans’ Much-Touted $50 Billion Rural Health Fund Can Help Struggling Hospitals Pay Their Bills

Posted on by Layla A. Jones

As President Donald Trump’s deadline for a massive budget bill drew near early in the summer, Republican Senate leadership needed to corral the support of some members of the conference. The bill would help pay for tax cuts for the wealthy partly through cuts to Medicaid and needed nearly all Republican votes to pass. The impact on rural hospitals, analysts warned, would be severe. But Republican leadership was able to win over key votes by directing a small slice of money to a “rural hospital fund.”

Now, all 50 states are now vying for a piece of that $50 billion fund, billed as a savior for floundering rural hospitals — and a backstop against the harmful impacts of the now-passed, historic cuts to Medicaid. The fund, and its application process which closed last Wednesday, has been called “the rural health ‘Hunger Games.’” States are in a mad dash for a slice of the investment. 

Despite that, due to Trump administration restrictions on how the fund can be used, advocates now say that hospitals will not be able to spend it in the areas they most need to address.

Under Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rules for distributing the funds, only 15% of any money awarded to states from this fund can be used to cover unpaid patient care, a major funding shortage for rural hospitals.

“If enough people keep coming in who can’t pay their bills, the hospital can’t just survive on nothing,” Adam Searing, an attorney and research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, told TPM. “That’s why we have more hospitals closing in non-Medicaid expansion states than elsewhere and this is just going to make that program worse.”

The grant funding will be distributed to states whose applications are approved by CMS over a five year period. Half of the $50 billion will be distributed equally to all approved applications. The other half will be distributed based on a complex weighted formula under which a range of policy-based factors account for about 15% of a state’s score. Some of those factors, advocates note, have a partisan valence. 

Those policy points include whether a state restricts certain health insurance plans, sometimes called junk plans, which skirt Affordable Care Act rules, but also such MAHA-coded criteria as whether states restrict SNAP users from buying “non-nutritious foods” and whether states plan to institute Trump’s “Presidential Fitness Test” in schools.

“Ultimately the CMS administrator has non-reviewable authority to distribute that money,” Searing said. “And so that means they can do pretty much what they want and the states can’t complain about it.”

In the meantime, more than 300 rural hospitals are immediately at risk of closure, and more than 1,000 are at risk in general as of October 2025, according to an analysis by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform’s rural hospitals initiative. More than 75% of the hospitals in either category are in states that went for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. 

Solving the Wrong Problem

Ultimately, the rural health “fund” doesn’t deserve the name, rural emergency physician Rob Davidson told TPM last summer.

“I think we — probably all of us — need to stop saying that it’s a rural health fund,” he said.

Trump’s $3.4 trillion tax cuts and spending package, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, earned enough support from Republican lawmakers to pass the Senate largely only after the last-minute $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program was added. 

Yet the $50 billion fund is largely designed not for shoring up hospitals budgets left by the Medicaid cuts and other gaps in patients’ ability to pay, but for state spending on workforce recruitment and retention, modernization and technological advancement initiatives, and preventative care. The initiatives are mostly things that, barring historic health care cuts, Searing said would garner bipartisan support. 

In addition to the CMS provision that only 15% of the cash can be used by rural hospitals to cover the cost of uncompensated care, only 10% of any award amount can be used to cover direct and indirect administrative costs, and no funds can be used to supplement clinical services already covered by other insurance sources including private plans, Medicaid or Medicare. This despite the fact that insurer payments to hospitals don’t always cover the cost of patient services, according to a report from the CHQPR’s rural hospitals arm.

“We have found that many small rural hospitals are losing money because of low payments from private health plans, not because of how many Medicaid patients they have,” Harold D. Miller, CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, told TPM in an email. 

Speaking to the Daily Yonder, a national rural news service, CEO of the National Rural Health Association Alan Morgan said the fund largely pushes preventative services, initiatives his organization supports.

“But you can see there’s a huge disconnect here,” Morgan said. “The $50 billion cannot by legislation (and is not by the administration) going to be used to help rural hospitals keep their doors open. This $50 billion is about sustaining health care for the future. It has nothing to do with maintaining access today.”

During negotiations, advocates decried the provision, saying the $50 billion boost was a drop in the bucket compared to the $1 trillion cuts, about $137 billion of which will be taken away from rural hospitals, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. They warned the legislative language wasn’t strong enough, and didn’t even ensure that the comparatively small amount of money allotted would go to the most vulnerable rural communities.

Now that CMS has released its rules for the program’s grant application, those warnings are proving prescient.

There’s also the fear that the partisan aspects of the application rules could be used to block funding Democratic states, several of which have at-risk rural hospitals.

“We have an administration which just says right out, ‘We’re gonna cut money to blue states and blue communities,’ and it is doing it,” Searing said. “If you happen to live in a community that we disagree with politically, too bad.”

With a Day to Think About It

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I wrote last night’s post fresh off the news that at least eight Democrats had voted to take John Thune’s deal and vote for a continuing resolution, which got essentially none of the demands that had started this fight over. I stand by everything. If anything I feel surer of my impression of this.

There’s a key distinction I was trying to draw in what I wrote. And that is there’s a difference between the deal itself and where the deal leaves Democrats and the broader anti-Trump opposition. This deal shows us that Democrats still don’t have the caucus they need for this fight that will be going on at least through this decade. But the shutdown also accomplished a lot. And not withstanding the WTF fumble at the 10-yard line, it’s still a dramatically different caucus than we had in March. To me it’s a proof of concept that worked. Democratic voters need to keep demanding more, keep up the pressure and keep purging the Senate caucus of senators who are not up to the new reality.

In other words, it’s not defending anything. I’m certainly not happy with how this ended or endorsing anything this caucus did. I’m feeling good about what Democratic voters accomplished in forcing change on the caucus from March until November. So it’s not that Democrats demanded more and this deal isn’t that bad. It’s Democrats already got their representatives to shift a lot, and they need to keep ratcheting up the pressure, purging and reshaping how Democratic elected officials approach the question of power. And another continuing resolution cliff is just around the corner in January. If you haven’t already read my piece from last night, I encourage you to do so.

‘No Separation Between Church and State’: Inside a Texas Church’s Training Academy for Christians Running for Office

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

This article is co-published with Fort Worth Report and The Texas Tribune as part of an initiative to report on how power is wielded in Texas.

Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline’s energy was palpable as he gazed out from the video on the computer screen, grinning ear to ear, the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up. 

The Republican legislator from Fort Worth had a message to share with people watching the prerecorded video: As a Christian, you have an essential role in politics and local government. 

“There is no greater calling than being civically engaged and bringing the values that Scripture teaches us into every realm of the earth,” Schatzline said.

The legislator was teaching a section of Campaign University, a series of online lessons he and others associated with Fort Worth-based megachurch Mercy Culture created to raise up so-called “spirit-led candidates.” 

The course, created in 2021, is an extension of Mercy Culture’s increasingly overtpolitical activities that have included candidate endorsements. The church’s political nonprofit, For Liberty & Justice, houses Campaign University. 

Campaign University builds on Mercy Culture’s growing political reach as Schatzline, a pastor at the church, joins President Donald Trump’s National Faith Advisory Board and as the course now is offered at other congregations across the country. 

The lessons emphasize that would-be candidates don’t need to be experts in government or the Constitution to seek public office or a place in local government. They also train potential candidates to “stand for spiritual righteousness” and teach them how to build a platform and navigate the campaign trail while maintaining a strong family and church life.

At the core of Campaign University is the idea that there is no separation between what happens within the church and what happens in the government. Students are taught to interpret the First Amendment’s establishment clause on the separation of church and state as a protection against government involvement in religion, rather than vice versa.

Previously, churches risked losing their tax-exempt status by discussing or engaging in politics. Then this summer, the Internal Revenue Service decided to allow religious leaders to endorse political candidates from the pulpit, a decision Schatzline took as a green light for him and other pastors to ramp up political activity. 

Programs such as Campaign University serve as the “next stage” of this religion-driven political movement, said Eric McDaniel, a government professor who researches the intersection of race, religion and politics at the University of Texas at Austin. Past movements encouraged churchgoers to become activists, he said, but Campaign University stands out for training Christian conservatives to seek public office. 

“One of the things about this movement that’s really important is that they started winning local elections, then started winning state and then now they’re winning at the national level,” McDaniel said. “And that’s how you’re able to build a movement and maintain a movement — you start locally.” 

In an attempt to better understand Mercy Culture’s approach to recruiting candidates, two journalists from the Fort Worth Report purchased and completed the more than five-hour Campaign University course and listened to hours of the For Liberty & Justice podcast. What became clear in the course is For Liberty & Justice’s mission to push Christian conservative values beyond church doors and into the public sphere. 

The nonprofit states on its website that it vets and supports “candidates who are willing to do whatever it takes to protect our God-given liberties and take a stand for Biblical Justice!” Its leaders have said they stand against LGBTQ rights and abortion access, and they have pushed for the ban of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in government and public education. 

For $100, Campaign University provides its students the knowledge, practical skills and spiritual guidance “to make an impact for the kingdom in government” — not “just in a way that’s passionate but in a way that’s calculated,” Schatzline says within the first five minutes of the course. 

The Fort Worth Report identified at least 10 people — through social media posts, press releases and podcasts — who completed Campaign University. They included Texas GOP Chairman Abraham George; an unsuccessful candidate who ran for a Dallas City Council seat this year; Tarrant County Republican precinct chairs; campaign managers; and a number of people who work for or previously worked for Mercy Culture or For Liberty & Justice. 

None returned the Fort Worth Report’s requests for comment.

Schatzline twice agreed to an interview but never responded to efforts to set a date and did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment. He and other Mercy Culture pastors created Campaign University after working on Texas political campaigns, including the legislator’s, through For Liberty & Justice. Schatzline previously told the Fort Worth Report that he’s working to take the nonprofit to the national level. 

It’s not unusual for churches or spiritual leaders to encourage political activity from congregants, said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and lead organizer of the national nonprofit’s Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign. 

“What does seem unusual — and perhaps unique — is an actual candidate training academy that’s run out of the church,” Tyler said. “Often, particularly if we’re talking about partisan campaigns for public office, that’s a place that churches and other houses of worship have largely steered clear of partisan politics.”

Schatzline has said he won’t seek reelection to his seat representing north Fort Worth and its surrounding suburbs but plans to continue as a pastor with Mercy Culture and to lead For Liberty & Justice. 

The national faith board that Schatzline has been tapped to join declares its mission is to be “a strong, unified, uncompromising voice” on issues such as religious freedom, marriage, reproductive and parental rights, and gender-affirming care.  

“It’s never been more apparent that the church has to rise up and be a bold voice in American government today,” Schatzline said in an Oct. 27 video he uploaded to social media announcing his new position. 

That sentiment is recognizable in Campaign University. 

At the start of the course, Schatzline tells Christians to ask themselves three questions the typical candidate might not consider but that he stresses are key to success if one is called to serve. 

Did the call to government come from the Holy Spirit? Will your loved ones pray with you about it? Even if you don’t win, are you still giving God glory? 

Don’t run if you “can’t hear the Holy Spirit” because other voices on the campaign trail may “shift your perspective,” Schatzline said. 

A Divine Calling 

Campaign University and other Mercy Culture political activities deliver on a commitment that Steve Penate told the Report he and fellow church pastor Landon Schott made to each other years ago: build a church that would “turn the city upside down” and be a leader in local politics. 

Schott and his wife, Heather Schott, senior pastor of Mercy Culture, did not return emails seeking comment for this story.

Over its six years, the church has become a center of conservative religious politics in the region and increasingly across the state. This year, members gathered for prayer at the Texas Capitol, blessing its walls on the first day of the 2025 legislative session. 

Last year, pastors urged Fort Worth City Council members — using threats of litigation — to approve the church’s new shelter for victims of human trafficking, despite opposition from residents of the adjacent neighborhood. Council members in favor of the move said at the time that politics did not affect their decision. 

Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, a Republican, did not return a request for comment on Mercy Culture’s impact on the city through political efforts such as Campaign University.

The skills taught in Campaign University build off lessons learned from Penate’s failed campaign for Fort Worth mayor in 2021, when he lost to Parker, the pastor told the Fort Worth Report.

Penate said “tons” of people have completed Campaign University since its creation. Neither he, Schatzline nor Campaign University’s other instructors provided lists of graduates. About 50 people were pictured in the Campaign University’s first graduating class, according to a 2022 Instagram post by For Liberty & Justice. 

Mercy Culture’s expansion has included additional church campuses in Fort Worth, Dallas, Waco and Austin, and it plans to open a San Antonio campus next year. Penate said For Liberty & Justice aims to partner with churches across the country as it seeks to elevate Campaign University to a national level. Although he didn’t provide specifics, Penate said the goal is to create lessons for local churches to politically mobilize congregants, similarly to how Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA mobilizes students on college campuses. 

He said the church is already spreading awareness about Campaign University by opening For Liberty & Justice chapters in other states. 

As of late October, two For Liberty & Justice chapters outside of Texas offer Campaign University, Penate said. They are Florida’s nondenominational Revive Church and Hawaii’s Pentecostal megachurch King’s Maui, according to Schatzline’s social media posts. Representatives from the churches did not return requests for comment. 

The nonprofit plans to open its next chapter in Arizona at the start of 2026, Penate said. After that, he expects For Liberty & Justice to grow exponentially thanks to Schatzline’s visibility on Trump’s faith advisory board. 

“Next year is going to be explosive,” Penate said. 

Religion has long had a historic role in major American political movements, McDaniel, the government professor, said.

Leaders such as Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. were involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Televangelist Jerry Falwell founded the political organization called the Moral Majority in 1979 and mobilized a generation of Christian conservative voters. 

“This idea that God has called you to do this is a very empowering message. It gives you a clear source of identity and direction,” McDaniel said.

Many of Campaign University’s teachings address basic civics that might be useful to anyone running for office. Its lessons and 92-page course materials offer hands-on assignments for participants to start engaging with local government, such as reading the U.S. Constitution, identifying the elected officials who represent them at different levels of government and creating lists of potential campaign donors.

Campaign University’s goal is to bring Jesus into “every sphere of influence and every mountain,” Joshua Moore, another course instructor, says in the course’s second lesson. “That’s what we’re called to do as political activists.” Moore, who serves as Schatzline’s district director in the Texas House, is a former Republican New Hampshire state lawmaker. He did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment for this story.

In Campaign University, instructors often emphasize what they describe as a divine calling for Christians to serve in local government.  

“A grandma can pray at home on her knees, but who’s in Austin on the inside, that has a voice, that has a vote?” Penate told the Report. “It starts in prayer, but you gotta get on the inside.”

Schatzline embodies this ethos in many ways, and he’s become a well-known face in far-right Christian conservative politics in Texas. 

During this year’s legislative sessions, he authored 75 state bills on a range of issues, such as limiting DEI initiatives in local government, banning drag show performances in front of children and further penalizing the possession or promotion of child pornography. He failed to get many of his bills passed this year, except for one aimed at criminalizing the promotion or possession of child-like sex dolls. 

“We’re going to give this space back to the Holy Spirit,” Schatzline said at the Capitol during the Mercy Culture-led worship session earlier this year. “We give you this room. … The 89th legislative session is yours, Lord. The members of this body are yours, Lord. This building belongs to you, Jesus.”

Landon Schott, the Mercy Culture co-founder, also participated in the January event at the Capitol, as did George, the state Republican Party chair, who has taken the Campaign University course. 

“There is no separation between church and state,” George said at the event, according to published reports. 

Campaign University lessons highlight what its instructors argue were the Founding Fathers’ “deep religious beliefs” as evidence that “God was not separate from the public square; nor was that the intent of the founders.” 

The Founding Fathers “insisted upon a country that welcomed the role of religion in society, viewing it as a public good,” said Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for the First Liberty Institute, a Plano-based legal group known for representing clients in high-profile religious freedom cases, including a Plano student who was banned from distributing candy cane pens with a religious message on them at a school party and an Oregon woman who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple due to her religious beliefs. 

“Abandoning our societal cynicism toward religion would strengthen our commitment to liberty. It would do much to strengthen our country to regain the vision of our founders that celebrated the role of religion in our lives, public and private,” Dys said in an email to the Report. 

But under the establishment clause, government entities shouldn’t impose religious laws or policies, said Tyler, the Christians Against Christian Nationalism organizer. Laws should “serve and support a pluralistic society,” she said. 

“If our goal in engaging in partisan politics is to impose our own interpretation of the Bible, our own religious views on other people, that will lead to harm for people in our communities that are not of the same religious views,” Tyler said. 

County at a Crossroads

For Liberty & Justice’s efforts to mobilize Christian conservatives through Campaign University come at a pivotal moment in Tarrant County, where Fort Worth is located, as Republicans seek to maintain control of the nation’s largest urban red county, which has shown occasional signs of turning purple. Tarrant voters supported Joe Biden’s presidential bid in 2020 and twice voted in favor of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s Democratic opponents, in 2018 and 2024. 

“Every single seat matters, and now is the time to rise up. Now is the time to run. Now is the time to get godly men and women in office,” Schatzline told dozens of attendees at a Sept. 9 For Liberty & Justice event at Mercy Culture aimed at encouraging political action. 

The Republican-majority Tarrant County Commissioners Court, the county’s governing body, led by County Judge Tim O’Hare, steamrolled through a redistricting process this summer to gain a stronger majority as detractors alleged racially motivated gerrymandering. In late October, a federal appeals court upheld a judge’s decision not to block the new map. 

O’Hare did not respond to a request for comment.

After state lawmakers adopted a new congressional map to create additional GOP seats at Trump’s request this summer, the political makeup of Tarrant County’s congressional delegation is poised to shift from five Republicans and two Democrats to four Republicans and one Democrat. 

For Liberty & Justice continues to develop its pipeline of candidates for local and state offices. The group circulates a friends and family list of candidates that it says share the same values. One candidate who repeatedly made the list was conservative Fort Worth City Council member Alan Blaylock, who announced his bid for Schatzline’s seat Oct. 27 after the lawmaker said he wouldn’t seek reelection. 

Others named on the list included city council and school board candidates across the county. Several told the Report they weren’t required to complete Campaign University to be included on the list and that they hadn’t taken the course.

For Liberty & Justice is prepared to ensure strong Republican results as Tarrant voters gear up for next year’s elections, plus a runoff election to fill a Texas Senate seat vacated by now-Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock.

It makes sense that Tarrant County, which political experts describe as a bellwether in national politics, may be a driver in national conversations around how religion and politics intersect, said McDaniel, the UT professor. 

His message echoed the sentiments expressed by For Liberty & Justice leaders and attendees during a recent night of action at Mercy Culture Church. 

Throughout the night, volunteers who completed Campaign University emphasized how the lessons can not only activate people to run for office but also enable them to lead small groups of fellow Christian conservatives in political action, such as advocating for policy issues at city council or school board meetings. 

Event organizers encouraged attendees to get civically engaged that night by joining small political action groups in neighborhoods scattered across Tarrant County, with specific interests such as “biblical citizenship” or “prayer and intercession.”  

To end the night, one Campaign University graduate led the crowd in prayer. “We need you, Lord, desperately to be able to accomplish what you are calling us to do for this nation, for our city, for our county, for our state.” 

Trump Completes Jan. 6 Autocoup With Mass Preemptive Pardons

Posted on by David Kurtz

For My Friends, Everything …

Let the record show that President Donald Trump issued mass preemptive pardons to those involved in his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election five years to the day since the Four Seasons Landscaping debacle in Philadelphia.

Trump granted “full, complete, and unconditional” pardons for 77 people involved in the fake electors scheme and others aspects of the 2020 subversion effort on Nov. 7, but they were not publicized by the White House. Instead, U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin revealed the pardons in a post on X late last night.

The pardons, coming the same week Republicans were routed in off-year elections, complete Trump’s promise to vindicate his co-conspirators in the first non-peaceful transfer of executive power in American history. Trump had already issued pardons or commutations for some 1,500 participants in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Those commutations, on the first day of his second term, included 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, including some convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the attack.

Among the big names in the latest round of pardons:

  • Rudy Giuliani
  • Kenneth Chesebro
  • Jeffrey Clark
  • John Eastman
  • Jenna Ellis
  • Boris Epshteyn
  • Mark Meadows
  • Sidney Powell

Trump explicitly excluded himself from this round of pardons: “This pardon does not apply to the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.”

The pardons were preemptive. While some of those involved in the fake electors scheme were charged in various state prosecutions, only Trump was charged federally in connection with subverting the 2020 election. The federal case against Trump, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, was dropped after he was re-elected a year ago.

Trump’s pardon proclamation stands as a landmark in the revisionist history of the 2020 election and its aftermath. It purports to “end a grave national injustice perpetrated on the American people” and “continue the process of national reconciliation.” The pardons granted are sweeping in their scope and include the fake electors scheme as well as “efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities.”

The unusual way in which the pardons became public — via Ed Martin on X — reinforces the lawlessness of the Trump II presidency. A GOP political hack with no experience as a prosecutor, Martin is not only U.S. pardon attorney but is also designated a “special attorney” and the chief of the DOJ “Weaponization Working Group,” in which role he is spearheading the retributive investigations and prosecutions of Trump’s perceived foes, including former DOJ personnel.

Martin’s X post on the pardons was embedded in a thread he began in May with a post that simply said: “No MAGA left behind.”

The Retribution: 2016 Election Edition

While Trump put the finishing touches on his rewriting of the 2020 election, his Justice Department is continuing to contest the 2016 election with a highly politicized Miami-based investigation of a broad swath of figures involved in probing Russian interference to benefit Trump’s candidacy.

A NYT report contains extensive new details on the grand jury investigation being run by Miami U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones:

  • Reding Quiñones issued more than two dozen subpoenas last week, including to officials who probed the ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, demanding documents or communications related to the intelligence community assessment from July 1, 2016, through Feb. 28, 2017, with a due date of Nov. 20.
  • Among the subpoena recipients: former DNI James R. Clapper Jr. and former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. (CNN separately reported that prosecutors in Florida “moved to issue” a subpoena to former CIA Director John Brennan.)
  • The probe was initiated earlier this year by criminal referrals from Trump intel officials and was assigned to U.S. attorney David Metcalf in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who “given special authority” to focus on Brennan. The case was transferred this fall by DOJ officials from Metcalf to Reding Quiñones “as part of a decision to greatly expand the scope of the Brennan investigation into other, unspecified activities.”

The NYT has quite a bit more detail but the gist of the report is that the Florida probe seems to be animated by a “grand conspiracy” that imagines a Deep State cabal targeted Trump for years. The scope of such a feverish conspiracy has the advantage of placing a vast number of perceived Trump foes under the specter of investigation and prosecution.

It remains unclear what facts arguably gave rise to the investigation being based in Miami, other than Trump having his primary residence in south Florida.

The Retribution: Letitia James Edition

In a new filing, New York Attorney General Letitia James makes a compelling case for why she is a victim of vindictive and selective prosecution by the Trump DOJ. The James filing takes special aim at Ed Martin, who has been agitating for her prosecution.

Shutdown Ends With Senate Dems Caving

A bloc of eight Democratic senators broke ranks to end the government shutdown. A late-night vote began the process of funding the government, which could take a few days to fully implement, especially if Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) slowrolls the process for his own reasons. Of the eight senators, two are retiring; none face re-election next year; and half come from two states, New Hampshire and Nevada: Angus King (ME), Tim Kaine (VA), Dick Durbin (IL), John Fetterman (PA), Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), and Jacky Rosen (NV).

Reaction to the cave, especially in light of Democrats’ strong showing in Tuesday’s election has been fierce:

  • Brian Beutler: “Caving as they were winning the fight, and as Trump abuses power to hurt regular people (withholding SNAP benefits, canceling flights) supposedly as ‘punishment’ for the shutdown, sets a nightmare precedent.”
  • TPM’s Josh Marshall: “Many people see it as some kind of epic disaster and are making all the standard threats about not voting or not contributing or whatever. That’s just not what I see. It’s a big change in the direction of the fight we need in the years to come that just didn’t go far enough. Yet.”
  • HuffPost: Democrats Line Up To Slam Deal To Reopen Government

SNAP Funding Update

On a normal Monday, the legal fight over SNAP funding — which landed at the Supreme Court — would have warranted significant attention. But given there’s a decent chance the deal to end the government shutdown will render the SNAP fight moot, it doesn’t make sense to expend your limited attention on this quite yet.

Quote of the Day

Former Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, on the Trump-led coup:

[L]et’s look at what’s happening with the boats that they’re blowing up and now in the Pacific, first in the Caribbean, now in the Pacific, they’re just simply assassinating people for no reason whatsoever. It’s completely illegal. In fact, what it now means is that Trump could just kill anyone anywhere just by saying they’re a terrorist. The way it’s going to work is they’re going to say, “Okay, these narco traffickers are terrorists. Oh, the immigrants are terrorists. Anyone protesting ICE now is a terrorist. If you’re against us blowing up boats without any legal justification or evidence, or if you are against ICE brutalizing little kids, you are a terrorist. The Democratic Party are terrorists.” So they’re trying to illegalize the opposition.

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How Elon Musk’s Changes to X Made Our Discourse Far Stupider

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

We don’t know the minute when X started throttling links to news, but we know that Elon Musk asked for it, and we basically know why. 

Musk disdains the “legacy media.” He wanted people to spend more time in his walled garden, and to build the walls so high that you couldn’t see outside of them. For the umpteenth time, maybe for the last time, people who published news were lulled into giving it away gratis. 

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A Quick Take on Team Cave’s Big Win

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I have what I suspect is a somewhat counterintuitive take on the deal Senate Democrats’ Team Cave made with the Republican Senate caucus tonight. This is an embarrassing deal, a deal to basically settle for nothing. It’s particularly galling since it comes only days after Democrats crushed Republicans in races across the country. Election Day not only showed that Democrats had paid no price for the shutdown. It also confirmed the already abundant evidence that it has been deeply damaging for Donald Trump. But even with all this, I think the overall situation and outcome is basically fine. Rather than tonight’s events being some terrible disaster, a replay of March, I see it as the glass basically being two-thirds or maybe even three-quarters full.

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