Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore)
Sabrina Rodriguez at Politico reports that the Republican Party's growing strength among Latinos is often led by women, at least in the counties that border the Rio Grande River in Texas. Many of them are opposed to abortion and many have family who work in border control and support stricter immigration policies. Mostly, they still believe in the American Dream and do not like the way a certain kind of liberal talks down America. The next time someone tells you Democrats should stop worrying about regaining the votes of white, working-class voters because demographics will save the day, tell them to think again.
At Commonweal, Massimo Faggioli writes about the need for Catholic universities to get involved in the synodal process, not only so that their own voices will be heard, but for the sake of the church. The inability to maintain the kind of fraternal dialogue between bishops and theologians that was so much a part of the reason the Second Vatican Council succeeded is one of the great missed opportunities of the past 60 years. Faggioli is right that we need to reconstitute those relationships in the years ahead.
At The Washington Post, columnist Greg Sargent looks at the racially-charged way Republicans tend to link their false allegations about voter fraud with specific, always urban, locations. I knew Josh Mandel was doing this in Ohio and Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, but I did not realize Adam Laxalt was doing it in Nevada. I hope this race-baiting stupidity backfires. It is the worst kind of ugly.
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Michelle Cottle of The New York Times' editorial board asks when Republicans became such snowflakes. It is a good question. Sen. Ron Johnson is holding up the confirmation of Deborah Lipstadt as special envoy to combat anti-Semitism. Lipstadt is a scholar on the subject and her lawsuit against a British Holocaust revisionist served as the basic plot for the movie "Denial." Why is Johnson upset with her? Because when he was defending the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and saying he would have been worried if it was a Black Lives Matter protest, Lipstadt accurately and appropriately tweeted: "This is white supremacy/nationalism. Pure and simple."
Also in the Times, a look at how the little town of Lake Placid, New York, has kept its Olympic legacy alive, nurturing athletes in winter sports with the kinds of facilities you can't find easily, as well as hosting a museum of nostalgia. The town recently renovated the indoor arena built for the 1932 winter games and will be hosting the Winter World University Games in 2023.
From WCVB Channel 5 in Boston, a look back at the blizzard of 1978. This winter has been nasty here in New England, but nothing like the '78 blizzard. I remember we lost power for five days. The only good thing to come from it was that Connecticut Gov. Ella Grasso did such a magnificent job marshalling the state's response to the storm, she breezed to reelection that autumn.
