Bishop Ryle Approves This Message

Elections, Mother Jones, & Sundries

Not bad! AI generated “J.C. Ryle in a political poster.”

Dear Friends,

Are you ready for it all to be over? Wow. Out here in Big Sky Country it is wall-to-wall advertising for the Sheehy v. Tester senate race. We sometimes get a dozen flyers in the mail in a single day. Every time we want to watch a YouTube video or stream something we are forced to watch dystopian ads. One would think that if either of these parties loses the race it will be The End Of The World As We Know It™. They all look exactly like this:

I confess, despite everything I know about partisan politics, to being shocked at the shamelessness of it all. Both sides are engaging in hyperventilating campaigning, to be sure. But at least Tim Sheehy has the advantage of pointing out some truth that Jon Tester cannot escape. Jon Tester has voted for his entire senate career precisely the way Chuck Schumer has told him to vote. Period. Sheehy is well within his rights to saddle Tester with every radical thing the Democrat Senate has done.

It is also true that sometimes Chuck Schumer has allowed Jon Tester to vote against something because A) The Dems were already going to win or lose the vote without him, and B) Tester is up for reelection in a “red” state. Folks, that is the way this works. And it allows Tester to get in front of a camera and brag about how he’s only interested in protecting Montana and how he bucks his party and has a big independent streak. People who buy this ridiculous schtick are total dupes. And there are a lot of total dupes.

Is Sheehy completely untested? Yep. Do I like his over-the-top “I’m a MAGA Republican!”? Nope. Is he going to do the exact same thing and vote however the Republican Senate Majority Leader tells him to vote? Yep. So, in this case I happen to like the odds that a Republican senate is going to do things I support—blocking blowing up the filibuster, stacking the Supreme Court, and refusing to confirm radical judicial candidates. Outside of that, I expect them to spend ungodly amounts of taxpayer money, not care one bit about the country’s fiscal situation, and never even whisper about our country’s real problems like entitlement spending. That’s the tradeoff and, frankly, there aren’t any better options.

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If you’re in Montana or in a state voting on abortion referenda, please read and share this. Do not essentially vote to allow Planned Parenthood to forever write with total impunity your state’s abortion laws.

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If you’ve read The Square Inch Newsletter for any length of time, you will be familiar with the very loud online “TheoBros,” the so-called “Christian Nationalists” who are often very cozy and/or sympathetic to Nazis. Mother Jones, the most progressive magazine in America, recently did a full-length exposé on that whole motley crew.