Supreme Court: Yes to Gays, Clean Water and Sanctuary Cities, No to Trump/Pence

Today was a wonderful day for LGBT Americans as the U.S. Supreme Court in Bostock v. Clayton County ruled that existing civil rights non-discrimination laws regarding sex applied to LGBT citizens, thereby effectively making employment discrimination and other forms of anti-LGBT discrimination illegal nationwide. It was also a good day for California which saw the Court reject the Trump/Pence regime attack on so-called sanctuary cities   It was also a good day for environmental activists as the Court left the Clean Water Act intact.  The big loser was the Trump/Pence regime which was on the opposite side of the issue in all three cases.  The other big losers were white evangelical Christofascists who sought to have their bigotry and hatred placed above the law so that they could discriminate against LGBT citizens at will.  Indeed, some of the usually suspect in the Christofascist world are shrieking as if the world was ending - and also attacking Trump for his Court appointee, Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion.   As a gay man, it is hard to describe my feelings.  Had this decision been handed down almost 20 years earlier, I might have been spared a financial nightmare when I was forced from a law firm for being gay.  At the time, I had zero employment non-discrimination protections.  I am SO happy that in the future LGBT individuals may be spared the experience that befell me. A piece at SCOTUS Blog explains the importance and impact of this ruling:

In affirming that Title VII’s broad scope prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, the Supreme Court immediately ended a form of stigmatic injury suffered by millions of citizens who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth. The question whether the phrase “because of … sex” means what it says in the context of employer actions prohibited by Title VII has been definitively answered—it does. That is, because sexual orientation and gender identity cannot be explained as traits that someone has without making reference to the sex of the person, discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is also because of an individual’s sex. The Supreme Court also once again concluded that it makes no difference under the text of Title VII whether an employer intended also to discriminate based on an additional reason, like motherhood or the identity of one’s spouse, if sex is a basis for the decision.

With that legal uncertainty removed, gone too is the practical uncertainty faced by real individuals weighing questions of whether to make career moves, geographic moves or moves to reveal aspects of their personal lives by openly sharing their authentic selves at work.

The opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County fulfills the best promises of textualism. The Supreme Court’s confirmation that all people have the right to be given the full measure of protection afforded to them by laws having meaning anchored in the written word is a powerful statement about the enduring power of people-led movements.

Maryland, along with 20 other states and the District of Columbia, expressly prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity through statute or regulation. Title VII now definitively joins these statutes in prohibiting all forms of discrimination based on sex, including discrimination based on traits like sexual orientation and gender identity that cannot be separated from an individual’s sex. The Bostock decision affirms that citizens may rely on the achievement of broad legislative protections against discrimination to provide long-lasting victory.

Importantly, the confirmation of Title VII’s sweep immediately cements protections for federal government workers, no matter their state of residency, and for individuals who work in states that have not yet specifically prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In those states, LGBT workers facing discrimination may now bring complaints under Title VII to directly improve their own working conditions.

Other benefits will accrue over time. As Maryland and the 20 states and District of Columbia set forth in their amicus brief, discrimination is expensive. Reducing salary disparities, health care instability and increased health care costs due to the mental health effects of stigmatic discrimination will immediately benefit individuals and the states that care for them. There is also a body of evidence demonstrating that private industry benefits from reducing discrimination because of the increased creativity and productivity LGBT people bring to the workplace when they are included and when they are freed from the health effects of stigmatization. LGBT individuals and their families benefit from better working conditions, and so do states, which experience decreased use of their public benefits system and increased tax revenue as a result of increased innovation and productivity.

Indeed, everyone benefits except religious extremists - think Trump's evangelical base - motivated by hatred and a sick need to have others to denigrate so that they can feel a sense superiority.  

But, as noted, LBGT Americans were not the only winners today.  In its opinion in County of Maui v. Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund the Court (including Justice Kavanaugh) sided with clean water advocates that point source discharges to navigable waters through groundwater are regulated under the Clean Water Act.   The Supreme Court also rejected the Trump administration’s effort to blow a big hole in the Clean Water Act’s protections for rivers, lakes, and oceans. As explained here these were defeats for the Trump/Pence regime:

In other words, the Clean Water Act prohibits unpermitted discharge of pollution “into navigable waters, or when the discharge reaches the same result through roughly similar means.” In doing so, the Court rejected the Trump administration’s polluter-friendly position in the clearest of terms: “We do not see how Congress could have intended to create such a large and obvious loophole in one of the key regulatory innovations of the Clean Water Act.”

Lastly, the Court also ended Trump's war on blue states that include so-call sanctuary cities.  A column in the Los Angeles Times looks at the Court's action (it is noteworthy that both of Trump's appointees ruled against his regime): 

Since his inauguration in 2017, President Trump has waged a mean-spirited, costly and unnecessary war against undocumented immigrants — many of whom have been living in this country for years and have been hard-working, law-abiding members of the their communities. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed Monday that states and cities can’t be forced to support that pernicious effort.

California has been a regular target of Trump’s anger and frustration, particularly after the state passed a so-called sanctuary law in 2017 that limits how state and local law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal immigration agents. Former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions sued to overturn the state’s restrictions, complaining that California was trying to secede from federal law.

The Supreme Court brought that lawsuit to a halt Monday when it sided with California and rejected the Trump administration’s challenge. Notably, even Trump’s two appointees on the court — Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — refused to hear the administration’s appeal.

At least for now, my faith in the Court is somewhat restored.  It would seem that with Trump's decline in the polls, even his appointees to the Court have decided to put the law first and Trump's whims and misogyny last. 

The Supreme Court Is on the Brink

While the Supreme Court made the right call late last Friday in rejecting a church challenge to California's shutdown order involving church services, what is disturbing is that four of the justices (two are Trump appointees) put right wing ideology and a preference to grant special rights to far right christian groups - I use a small "c" because many are Christian in name only - ahead of public safety and religious freedom for all citizens. But for Chief Justice Roberts' shift to vote with the so-called "liberals," gubernatorial orders across the nation would have been struck down.  These four justices exemplify the extremists and ideologues that Trump and his Senate Republican enablers are appointing to life time positions on the federal bench.  The harm being done will last literally for decades.  Should Trump get to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court, the damage could be irreparable during the lifetimes of anyone over 40 years of age.  It is yet another reason Trump must be defeated in November.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the politicizing of the Court by Trump and the far right.  Here are excerpts:

The Supreme Court made the indisputably right call last week when it refused to block California from limiting attendance at religious services in an effort to control the spread of Covid-19.

Given the obvious difference between walking through a store and sitting among fellow worshipers for an hour or more, as well as the documented spread of the virus through church attendance in such places as Sacramento (71 cases), Seattle (32 cases) and South Korea (over 5,000 cases traced to one person at a religious service), California’s limits are both sensitive and sensible, hardly the basis for constitutional outrage or judicial second-guessing.

So why did the court’s order, issued as midnight approached on Friday night, fill me with dread rather than relief?

It was because in a ruling that should have been unanimous, the vote was 5 to 4. And it was because of who the four dissenters were: the four most conservative justices, two of them appointed by the president who a couple of months ago was demanding that churches be allowed to open by Easter and who, even before the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, was openly encouraging protests in the capitals of states not reopening as quickly as he would like.

As an astonished country witnessed on Monday night, as he [Trump] held a Bible in front of a church near the White House after demonstrators were violently cleared from his path, Donald Trump is using religion as a cultural wedge to deflect attention from the consequences of his own ineptitude. The recognition that four Supreme Court justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — would have invoked the court’s power to undermine fact-based public policy in the name of a misbegotten claim of religious discrimination was beyond depressing. It was terrifying.

Take a look at Justice Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion. “California’s latest safety guidelines discriminate against places of worship and in favor of comparable secular businesses,” he wrote. “Such discrimination violates the First Amendment.”

It’s interesting that while Justices Gorsuch and Thomas signed Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion, Justice Alito did not. Perhaps he’s just too good a lawyer to subscribe to the flimsy analysis underlying this opinion. . . . . but he evidently couldn’t be bothered to explain his own dissenting vote. And no less than his fellow dissenters, he obviously inhaled the unfounded claim of religious discrimination that the president has injected into an atmosphere already saturated with polarizing rhetoric.

The concept of discrimination, properly understood, simply doesn’t fit this case. California is not subjecting things that are alike to treatment that’s different. Churches are not like the retail stores or “cannabis dispensaries” in Justice Kavanaugh’s list of “comparable secular businesses.” Sitting in communal worship for an hour or more is not like picking up a prescription, or a pizza, or an ounce of marijuana. You don’t need a degree in either law or public health to figure that out. If anything, California is giving churches preferential treatment, since other places where people gather in large numbers like lecture halls and theaters are still off limits.

So what was the dissenters’ problem?

Last weekend was also Shavuot, a major Jewish holiday. But it’s the Christian calendar about which recently appointed federal judges seem exclusively concerned. In April, Judge Justin Walker of the Federal District Court in Louisville, Ky., blocked that city from enforcing a ban on drive-in church services. “On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” his overheated opinion began.

The only other opinion filed in this case was that of Chief Justice John Roberts, explaining why the court was denying the church’s request. I am willing to bet that he never intended to write anything; orders denying applications of this sort are typically issued without explanation.

But he must have concluded that the Kavanaugh dissent couldn’t go unrebuted. Writing just for himself in five paragraphs devoid of rhetoric and labeled “concurring in denial of application for injunctive relief,” he offered a sober explanation of the obvious. He noted that “similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports, and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time.” The California rule, he observed, “exempts or treats more leniently only dissimilar activities, such as operating grocery stores, banks, and laundromats, in which people neither congregate in large groups nor remain in close proximity for extended periods.”

After noting the severity of the pandemic and the “dynamic and fact-intensive” question of how to respond to it, Chief Justice Roberts said that the politically accountable state officials charged with answering that question were entitled to act within “broad limits” and “should not be subject to second-guessing by an unelected federal judiciary, which lacks the background, competence, and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people.”

Predictably, the chief justice was excoriated on the political right, in recognition that his vote was the one that mattered, just as in the Obamacare case eight years ago, for which the right has never forgiven him.

Everyone who cares about the Supreme Court is busy looking for signs of how John Roberts will navigate the political thicket in which the court finds itself, how he will reconcile his conservative heart and his institution- and history-minded head.

Justice Kavanaugh might have chosen to observe the norm, casting his vote without issuing an opinion that served only to raise the political temperature. Instead of that unspoken gesture toward collegiality, he gave us more proof that the polarization roiling the country has the Supreme Court in its grip. The court can’t save us; that much is clear. It can’t even save itself.

Supreme Court Rejects Church's Challenge To Coronavirus Rules

I have followed extreme right wing "Christian" organizations and related "family values" groups for over a quarter of a century now and several things are a common theme with them: (i) they view themselves above the law, (ii) they want their toxic version of Christianity to be the established religion in America, (iii) their followers seemingly hate almost everyone, but especially gays, who don't embrace their ugly beliefs, and (iv) most have very strong white supremacist overtones and some groups, like The Family Foundation here in Virginia, traces their roots back to strident segregationists.  Simply put, they are NOT nice people and they hold constitutional democracy in contempt unless they are in control and can discriminate and harm those they dislike - which is most of the nation's population.  

In June, 2016, the leaders of these groups - some of which are certified hate groups - made a pact with Donald Trump where they agreed to support a man who embodies the seven deadly sins if he gave them special rights. They bear a huge responsibility for Trump being in the White House and for his part Trump has delivered in the form of reactionary ideologues being appointed to the federal courts, the undoing of Obama administration policies that protected gays and other minorities, and supporting the myth that they are being persecuted when in reality what they face is a majority of Americans saying they are tired of the hate and bigotry that these false Christians represent.  

Enter the Covid-19 pandemic and many of the right wing churches have objected to social distancing and shutdown orders implemented to control the spread of the virus.  Some filed federal lawsuits challenging such orders and claiming they "discriminated against religion (a church in Virginia among them).  Late Friday, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court  rejected their self-centered and selfish claims and ruled against a church in California and several others.  The ruling should be dispositive of the Virginia lawsuit as well.  NPR looks at this welcome ruling that clearly states these people are not above the law.  Here are story excerpts:

The Supreme Court has rejected a California church's attempt to overturn the state's coronavirus restrictions on in-person religious services.

In a 5-4 decision issued late Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberal bloc in upholding the state's right to impose limits on congregations in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.

"Although California's guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment," Roberts said, in an opinion that denied a request by the South Bay United Pentecostal Church for relief from the rules.

The Chula Vista-based house of worship sued Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, over an order limiting congregations to 25% capacity or 100 attendees, whichever is lower. The plaintiffs told the court its services typically attract 200 to 300 congregants.

Worship services and nonessential retail were halted for more than two months in California, which has recorded nearly 107,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 4,000 deaths.

During the lawsuit's path through the lower courts, the state issued guidelines earlier this week allowing for a limited reopening — but that did not satisfy the plaintiffs, who felt the eased restrictions remained unconstitutional.

In rejecting that challenge, Roberts wrote that the Constitution generally grants broad leeway to state leaders in circumstances of medical uncertainty. In particular, the chief justice found that Newsom's order was consistent in limiting not just religious services, but also various kinds of activities "where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time."

"The notion that it is 'indisputably clear' that the Government's limitations are unconstitutional seems quite improbable," wrote Roberts.

The court's four reliably conservative justices — Samuel Alito Jr., Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas — dissented. Kavanaugh said the guidelines violate the First Amendment because they "discriminate against places of worship and in favor of comparable secular businesses."

In a separate case, the court also rejected a lawsuit from two churches in Illinois seeking to block Gov. J.B. Pritzker's rule limiting religious services to just 10 worshipers. Pritzker later modified the order to allow for up to 100 people at services, and the court denied the churches' request for relief without a noted dissent.

The limits on church services have been a flashpoint in the national conversation surrounding the coronavirus, with President Trump wading into the controversy earlier this month to push for churches' right to reopen. Even as many states — such as California and Illinois — have moved to loosen their restrictions in recent weeks, critics continue to argue that the rules on houses of worship are discriminatory. 

“The precise question of when restrictions on particular social activities should be lifted during the pandemic,” Roberts declared, “is a dynamic and fact-intensive matter subject to reasonable disagreement.” The Constitution leaves such decisions “to the politically accountable officials of the state,” whose decisions “should not be subject to second-guessing” by judges who lack “background, competence, and expertise to assess public health.” Multiple coronavirus outbreaks in California have been traced back to religious services. California has good reason to treat churches more like concerts—where people “congregate in large groups” and “remain in close proximity for extended periods”—than grocery stores, where they can social distance. For courts, that should be the end of the matter.

But Kavanaugh’s assertion that California treats churches and “comparable secular businesses” differently begs the question: what is a comparable secular business? When it comes to the spread of infectious disease, is a church really just like a grocery store, where people spend as little time as possible, separated by aisles and shopping carts, rarely speaking to one another? Or is it more like a concert, where people congregate for lengthy periods, shoulder to shoulder, often speaking or singing and thereby spreading droplets that may contain the coronavirus?
 What is genuinely shocking about Kavanaugh’s dissent is that he does not even address this question. The dispute lies at the heart of the case, and Kavanaugh ignores it. He simply takes it as a given that churches are “comparable” to grocery stores when it comes to risk of spreading COVID-19. By warping the facts, Kavanaugh paints California’s rules as irrationally discriminatory, when in fact they are based on medical advice Newsom has right now. If the justice wants to override public health measures during a pandemic, shouldn’t he at least admit that he’s substituting his own scientific judgment for that of a democratically elected lawmaker’s?

Roberts seems to think so. His opinion ends with a clear swipe at Kavanaugh: “The notion that it is ‘indisputably clear’ that the Government’s limitations are unconstitutional,” the chief justice wrote, “seems quite improbable.” Roberts went out of his way to telegraph his displeasure with the raft of lawsuits contesting COVID-19 restrictions as unconstitutional burdens on religious liberty. Even in borderline cases, he suggested, courts must defer to the people’s representatives if they decide the health crisis requires limitations on public assemblies.

Kudos to Roberts for putting science and medical knowledge above myths and superstition.  Let the charlatans in pulpits and scamvangelist - who put money ahead of public safety - continue to lose money as their flocks stay home.  

California Exiles' Revenge on Trump

Virginia has moved into the blue state category due to two principal factors: (i) it has an increasingly college educated population, and (ii) it has seen a large influx of residents from liberal states.  These phenomenon are especially evident in Northern Virginia and the rest of Virginia's urban crescent that stretches south through Richmond and then south east to Hampton Roads. As a piece in the New York Times notes, similar things are happening in other states that are trending blue, often driven by exiles from California who take their more liberal views and support for the environment with them to their new home states. Donald Trump constantly trashes California and its progressive policies, yet that states' former residents are transforming the political landscape in Nevada. Colorado and Arizona - and, in time, perhaps even Texas.  Here are column highlights:

President Trump clearly hates the most populous state in the country he governs. While trashing California with his gutter mouth, the president has used his office to physically trash the home to nearly one in eight Americans — seeking to make its air more polluted, its water less clean, its forests more vulnerable to catastrophic fires.

But now the Golden State is poised to strike back. By moving its presidential primary from June to March 3, California will finally exert a political influence commensurate to its size. Almost 500 delegates, a fourth of the number needed to win the Democratic nomination, are at stake.

Perhaps more consequential — or at least overlooked — is what’s happening among the vast diaspora of more than 7.3 million people who have left California since 2007. They appear to be changing the political makeup of the states they’ve moved to, perhaps enough to alter the Electoral College map in favor of Democrats.

With nearly 40 million people, California is still gaining population — barely. But stratospheric home prices and unbearable rental costs have created a reverse “Grapes of Wrath,” forcing those who are not rich to flee to states with much lower costs of living.

The question is: Are they bringing California values — fierce defense of the environment, tolerance of immigrants and a multiracial society, insistence on universal health care — with them? It could be just demographic churn. But if you look at the changing politics of Nevada, Colorado and Arizona, all fast-growing states packed with new arrivals from California, the answer is yes. Texas may not be far behind.

In Nevada, to which 500,000 Californians moved between 2008 and 2018, Democrats won the governor’s mansion and a second U.S. Senate seat in 2018. There used to be more Republicans, by registration. But Democrats now have a 70,000-voter advantage, and they prevailed there in the last three presidential races.

Colorado, another favorite landing spot for those who can no longer afford California, is now reliably blue. Democrats won majorities there by more than 100,000 votes in the last two presidential elections. The state is likely to flip a Senate seat, bouncing the inept Republican Cory Gardner for a popular former governor, John Hickenlooper.

Arizona could be the next to fall to Democrats. The state known for retirees and tax-averse whites is becoming more diverse and younger and is full of ex-Californians. Between 2001 and 2014, Arizona added about a quarter-million people from its neighboring state to the west.

[I]f the Dems were to win Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes, as polls show they could, and lose Wisconsin’s 10, while getting back Pennsylvania and Michigan, that would be enough to remove the vile and corrupt man occupying the White House.

Texas, the top state for California exiles, will probably come up short for Democrats this year, though it’s in play. Democrats have a growing advantage in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, all seeing heavy U-Haul traffic from California.

Polls in Texas show Trump failing to get above 48 percent in matchups with Democrats. And 45 percent of voters wanted to impeach and remove him from office.

Trump treats these fellow citizens as aliens. He’s going out of his way to gut the state’s clean air standards, to turn the Eden of its public lands over to industrial pillagers and to cast its immigrant strivers as criminals. He has done nothing — rebuffing the state’s plea for additional housing vouchers for the poor — to mitigate the homeless crisis. He’d prefer a dystopia on the Pacific, largely because he lost the Golden State by more than four million votes.

And yet Californians, those who still proudly call it home and those who left their hearts there, could be the force that sends him packing.

Under New State Laws, Catholic Church Could See Tidal Wave of Abuse Suits

Following up on this morning's post about the removal of the bishop of Buffalo, New York, the Insurance Journal is reporting that the Roman Catholic Church is likely facing a tidal wave of new lawsuits as 15 states have amended their laws to extend the time within which victims of abuse can file lawsuits.  Financially, the bill for the Church as a whole within the USA alone could exceed 44 billion. As I noted to some commentators on the cross posting of the blog post on Facebook, I am not necessarily advocating for believers to give up their faith, I merely believe (i) the Catholic Church hierarchy needs to be held accountable for its misdeeds and cover ups of crimes against children and youths, and (ii) that a thorough house cleaning of the hierarchy is needed.  For good measure, the Church needs to throw away its 12th century dogma and update its positions on modern science based knowledge.  Sadly, given the Church's history of making money (and control over its members) its true god, punishing monetary judgments are likely the best way to force these needed reforms.   Here are excerpts from the Insurance Journal piece:

A wave of new laws in 15 states that allow people to make claims of sexual abuse going back decades could bring a deluge of lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church that could surpass anything seen so far in its clergy abuse crisis.

Associated Press reporting found it could result in thousands of new cases against the church and more than $4 billion in payouts.

It’s a financial reckoning playing out in such populous Catholic strongholds as New York, California and New Jersey, among the eight states that go the furthest with “lookback windows” that allow sex abuse claims no matter how old.

That has lawyers fighting for clients with TV ads and billboards asking, “Were you abused by the church?” And Catholic dioceses are considering bankruptcy, victim compensation funds and even tapping valuable real estate to stay afloat.

“It’s like a whole new beginning for me,” said 71-year-old Nancy Holling-Lonnecker of San Diego, who plans to take advantage of an upcoming three-year window for such suits in California. Her claim dates back to the 1950s, when she says a priest repeatedly raped her in a confession booth beginning when she was 7 years old.

AP interviews with more than a dozen lawyers and clergy abuse watchdog groups offered a wide range of estimates but many said they expected at least 5,000 new cases against the church in New York, New Jersey and California alone, resulting in potential payouts that could surpass the $4 billion paid out since the clergy sex abuse first came to light in the 1980s.

Some lawyers believe payouts could be heavily influenced by the recent reawakening over sexual abuse fueled by the (hash)MeToo movement, the public shaming of accused celebrities and the explosive Pennsylvania grand jury report last year that found 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children in that state over seven decades.

“The general public is more disgusted than ever with the clergy sex abuse and the cover-up, and that will be reflected in jury verdicts,” said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who was at the center of numerous lawsuits against the church in that city and was portrayed in the movie “Spotlight.”

This summer, when New York state opened its one-year window allowing sexual abuse suits with no statute of limitations, more than 400 cases against the church and other institutions were filed on the first day alone. That number is now up to more than 1,000, with most against the church.

New Jersey’s two-year window opens this week and California’s three-year window begins in the new year, with a new provision that allows plaintiffs to collect triple damages if a demonstrable cover-up can be shown. Arizona, Montana and Vermont opened ones earlier this year.

The church’s response weighs heavily on compensation funds and bankruptcy.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan set up the first fund in 2016, pitching it as a way to compensate victims without walloping the church and forcing it to cut programs. It has since paid more than $67 million to 338 alleged victims, an average $200,000 each.

The idea has caught on in other states. All five dioceses in New Jersey and three in Colorado opened one, as did seven dioceses in Pennsylvania and six in California, including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the U.S.

More drastic and increasingly more common is the bankruptcy option. Less than a month after New York’s one-year lookback window took effect, the upstate Diocese of Rochester filed for bankruptcy, the 20th diocese or religious order in the country to do so.

When a diocese files for bankruptcy, lawsuits by alleged abuse survivors are suspended and payments to them and others owed money are frozen while a federal judge decides how much to pay everyone and still leave enough for the diocese to continue to operate. It’s orderly and victims avoid costly and lengthy court cases, but they often get less than they would if they were successful in a trial.

Bankruptcy can also leave abuse survivors with a sense of justice denied because the church never has to face discovery by plaintiff lawyers and forced to hand over documents, possibly implicating higher-ups who hid the abuse. . . .  “It’s a different process in bankruptcy _ you don’t get discovery and you don’t get it in compensation programs. The truth never comes to light.”

Unfortunately, Pope Francis has been nowhere near aggressive enough in cleaning house and this failing, combined with insincere crocodile tears by bishops and cardinals has only increased victims' feeling of having been victimized twice.  One can only wonder if the Church's leadership will ever "get it" that they are the biggest obstacle. 

The Insanity of Pence's "Latinos for Trump" Initiative

Donald Trump has called Mexican and Central American migrants coming to the United States  “rapists,” “criminals,” and “animals,” yet has his morally bankrupt lap dog, Mike Pence out launching an initiative called "Latinos for Trump."  Apparently, Trump and Pence are hoping there is an element within the Latino voting block that will act like gay Republicans and vote against their own best interests and certainly that of their larger community.  The further irony of the endeavor is that Trump's core base of white supremacists and evangelical Christians (the two groups, in my view are more or less synonymous) absolutely hates Latinos - indeed anyone without lily white skin.  So far, the Trump/Pence theme is playing heavily on the supposed dangers of socialism in the form of expanded health care for all and, will likely include calls to religious extremists within the Latino community and Cubans still more obsessed with harming Cuba than their own best interests in America.  A piece The Atlantic looks at this effort to recruit supporters for their own worse enemy.  Here are excerpts:

Vice-President Mike Pence, an Irish-American from Indiana, visited Miami on Tuesday to launch a new 2020 initiative for his boss’s reelection called Latinos for Trump. Describing it as “one of the most important coalitions of the 2020 campaign,” Pence praised the president — whose robust support of the demographic mostly consists of a picture of himself with an inedible Trump Tower taco bowl and the caption “I love Hispanics!” — as “a great champion of Latino and Hispanic Americans.”

There are many reasons why Pence’s statement isn’t true, and why this thing is unlikely to work. Polling among Hispanic voters seems to be the most prominent one: In Florida, which has a more conservative Hispanic population than in other states, only 34 percent of Hispanic voters said they’d reelect Trump while 56 percent said they’d elect a Democrat, according to a poll by Telemundo and the firm Mason-Dixon.

In California, that ratio dipped to 26-66 and dropped further in Texas, where just 25 percent of Hispanic voters want a two-term Trump presidency and 69 percent want him out in January 2021. In the New York metro area, only 19 percent want him reelected, while 73 percent prefer a Democrat.

If the numbers show a grim chance for Trump’s viability among Latino voters, [Trump's ]the president’s rhetoric certainly isn’t helping. (Nor does his administration’s failure to respond to Hurricane Maria benefit his image among the estimated 1.2 million Puerto Ricans living in Florida.) For four straight years, he has derided Mexican and Central American migrants coming to the United States as “rapists,” “criminals,” and “animals,” a verbal history that certainly hollows out Pence’s “great champion” designation. As In the Thick host Julio Ricardo Varela wrote last year:

It’s pretty clear that the xenophobic narrative of all Latinos as somehow “other” has become a central part of his administration’s policies. From the Central American children dying preventable deaths at the Southern border, to ending temporary protected status for Haitians, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans and Hondurans who fled wars and natural disasters, to making it more difficult for victims of domestic violence to apply for asylum, to parading around white people whose family members were victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants (even though immigrants are less likely to commit serious offenses and now less likely to report being victimized), Trump’s rhetoric about “Mexicans” was as much about bashing Latinos in general as about Mexican Americans in particular.

A heavy theme of Pence’s speech was the dangers of socialism, comparing the offerings of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal to the state-run economy of Venezuela. . . . Undoubtedly, such calls will be a frequent theme of the campaign’s new initiative, as it seeks to boost Trump’s percentage of Florida’s Hispanic vote, of which he won 35 percent last time around — just seven points higher than his overall take of the demographic, despite winning well over half the state’s Cuban voters.

Pence is despicable and his boss is even worse.  Both are little better than human excrement in my view. 

Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandal Intensifies As Illinois AG Blast Church for Cover Ups

The 2018 has not been good for the Roman Catholic Church as a number of cardinals and bishops have been forced to resign over sexual abuse of children and minors or for covering up for predatory priests. This week, in the wake of the criminal conviction of the highest ranking prelate in Australia and the 3rd highest official at the Vatican and the launch of criminal investigations by federal and state prosecutors, a California bishop has been forced to resign due to credible accusations of sex abuse and the Illinois Attorney General blasted the Illinois diocese of failing to disclose close to 350 accused predator priests.  Despite voluminous quantities of crocodile tears, the Vatican has failed to take effective measures to clean house of bishops and cardinals implicated in cover-ups,  As a result, many are left with the impression that the Catholic clergy feel the equivalent of a droit du seigneur - historically, a supposed legal or customary right of a feudal lord to have sexual relations with a vassal's bride on her wedding night - when comes to sexually abusing children and youths.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the latest developments in Illinois.  Here are excerpts:

Illinois' attorney general’s office Wednesday accused the Catholic Church of dramatically lowballing the scope of allegations of clergy sex abuse, saying her investigators found at least 500 additional accusations against priests and clergy — compared with the 185 cases the church has found credible. 

[S]he alleged in a statement that a probe her office opened into the Church in August is finding that Catholic leaders are failing to dig deep into the guilt of their clerics. The probe “has revealed that allegations frequently have not been adequately investigated by the dioceses or not investigated at all,” the statement said. Madigan’s office is one of more than a dozen to open state investigations this year into Catholic handling of abuses cases. But Wednesday, some experts said, seemed to up the ante because it pushed on a controversial topic that has angered Catholics from left to right -- whether the Church, under fire since the early 2000s, is really coming clean with its lists. The problem: There is no standard within the Catholic Church for what constitutes “credible" accusations, and many Catholics and members of the public are skeptical that church leaders are coming forward to civil authorities and the public with everything they have. Madigan, said longtime survivor advocate Terry McKiernan, is trying to force the church to produce lists that are more transparent and meaningful. Even in recent weeks, McKiernan said Wednesday, some lists around the country are being shown to not have included names that they should have.

“There’s a big debate about what ‘credible’ means, but these lists are clearly incomplete in a number of ways. Or at least there is lag before names are added,” he said. “Let’s face it, an allegation is an allegation, and very few are unsubstantiated if the diocese does the work to look into it."

Dioceses are dragging their feet on substantiating allegations "because they don’t want to acknowledge the crisis they’re in, ”McKiernan said.

Earlier Wednesday, the Vatican announced that a Los Angeles bishop was being removed after a review of a child sex abuse charge from the 1990s.

Since Madigan’s probe began in August, her spokeswoman said, the six Illinois dioceses have had to add 45 new names to their various lists of credibly accused priests. This reflects a lack of candor, said the office’s communications director, Maura Possley, and it’s why Madigan publicized the number of accusations.

Cardinals, bishops and other top clergy say they want to make amends and help victims heal, but the church’s glacial pace of revealing allegations runs counter to that stated goal, said Towey, who was a lawyer and a Bush administration official before taking the helm at Ave Maria University, one of the nation’s most prominent conservative Catholic colleges.

"It won’t start until all the names are out there. The church has to clean up its act,” Towey said. “The fact is – this is a mess of the Church’s creation and all of us, laity and ordained, have to come together and fix it.”

With Christmas but days away, what should decent, moral Catholics sickened by the sex abuse scandal do?  Perhaps attend the midnight mass service at their local Episcopal church or Evangelical Lutheran Church in America parish rather than their home parish.  The service will be remarkably the same and they will not feel dirtied by supporting a morally bankrupt institution.

13 Dead in Mass Shooting at Bar Packed with College Students

Once again America's insane gun laws have claimed a dozen lives (13 if you cont the shooter) in a mass shooting in California.  The slaughter - in which every member of Congress who accepts NRA  money and votes against common sense gun laws shares complicity - took place at a bar packed with college students in Thousand Oaks, a city considered among the safest in America.  The lessons are two fold: (i) only comprehensive European or Australian style gun laws will lessen the carnage, and (ii) nowhere is truly safe as long as guns can be freely purchased.  Only America has continued mass shootings and, I'm sorry, but it is because of our insane laws that allow almost anyone to acquire a gun.  No doubt we will hear more bullshit refrains of "thoughts and prayers"  rather than see any meaningful change in America's laws that allow the slaughter to continue.  Here are highlights from the Los Angeles Times:

At least 13 people are dead after a mass shooting inside a crowded Thousand Oaks bar late Wednesday night, with a gunman throwing smoke bombs and raining bullets on an event popular with college students. 

The shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill left 12 people dead, according to Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean. A sheriff’s department sergeant responding to the scene was shot several times and died at a hospital. The gunman is also died. More people were wounded.

The gunman, who is believed to be among the dead, burst into the bar around 11:20 p.m., cloaked in all black as he threw smoke bombs and began shooting at targets as young as 18 authorities and witnesses said. Several witnesses described the weapon used as a pistol.

Deputies arrived and got into a firefight with the suspect, which left one deputy seriously injured, according to Capt. Garo Kuredjian, a Ventura County Sheriff’s department spokesman.

Witnesses reported a horrifying scene as gunfire echoed through the club and those inside ran for cover, in some cases using chairs to break windows to escape the building. Others hid in bathrooms and an attic as they frantically called loved ones who were hearing reports of the shooting.

Teylor Whittler went to Borderline to celebrate her 21st birthday on Wednesday night. She was dancing with friends in the bar when she heard what sounded like firecrackers. She quickly turned and followed the noise, only to find a man holding a gun near the entrance to Borderline.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force had been dispatched to the scene, according to an agency spokeswoman. She could not immediately comment on a motive in the shooting. Representatives from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives had also been dispatched. Kuredjian said hundreds of people were inside the bar at the time of the shooting, but he could not comment on the extent of the injuries suffered by those shot. The number of people injured is likely to rise, he said, as many victims transported themselves to area hospitals and emergency rooms with injuries.

Wednesday nights are college-themed nights open to students as young as 18, according to the bar’s website. Witnesses said the event is popular with Moorpark college students, and the Pepperdine student newspaper tweeted that students from its campus were also inside at the time of the shooting.

Some witnesses said the bar was a hub for country music fans. Many of the attendees Wednesday night normally attended the Stage Coach country music festival in California and, tragically, some were survivors of the massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas that left 58 dead last year.

Until we have meaningful gun control laws in America, the death count will continue to grow.  Meanwhile, the gun industry laughs all the way to the bank.  Utterly disgusting and morally wrong. 

FBI Arrests White Nationalist Leader

Hate crimes committed by far right groups and white supremacists are on the rise yet Trump and Republicans are depicting Democrats as a "dangerous mob."  It is part and parcel with the campaign of fanning racial fears that put Trump in the White House.  Sadly, his supporters can nothing about the truth and seem only too happy to disseminate outlandish posts that have the look of deriving from Russian bots (I just "unfriended" two people on Facebook because I could not stand seeing the utterly batshit crazy and racist stuff they were parroting).   Demonstrating were the true threat to civil order is really coming from, the FBI has arrested a number of white nationalists who have engaged in the behavior Trump pretends to condemn notwithstanding the incendiary rants at his "campaign rallies" which look like smaller versions of Hitler's infamous Nuremberg rally.  A piece in the New York Times looks at some of these arrests.  Here are excerpts:

The F.B.I. arrested the leader of a violent California neo-Nazi gang on a federal conspiracy charge after he fled the country earlier this month.

Robert Rundo, 28, of Huntington Beach, Calif., is being held at the federal jail in downtown Los Angeles. He was charged in a criminal complaint that was unsealed Tuesday.

He is the founder of the Rise Above Movement, a neo-Nazi gang based in Southern California whose members were involved in violent activity at protests throughout California in 2017. He and three other Californians associated with the group — Robert Boman, 25, Tyler Laube, 22, and Aaron Eason, 38 — were charged with inciting riots, according to court documents. Mr. Boman and Mr. Laube were arrested on Tuesday morning in Southern California. The F.B.I. said it was still searching for Mr. Eason.

Earlier this month, another four members of the Rise Above Movement — Benjamin Daley, Michael Miselis, Thomas Gillen and Cole White — were indicted on conspiracy to riot charges for attacking counterprotesters during last year’s Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Rundo left the country shortly after the four were arrested at the beginning of the month.

The F.B.I. said that Mr. Rundo and other members of the group attacked protesters in 2017 in several places, including Huntington Beach, Calif.; the University of California, Berkeley campus; San Bernardino, Calif.; and Charlottesville, Va. The criminal complaint outlined the group’s hateful ideology and its embrace of violence.

At a rally on March 25, 2017, in Huntington Beach, Mr. Laube grabbed a journalist and punched him in the face three times, according to videos of the incident that the F.B.I. referenced in the complaint. During the same rally, the F.B.I. said videos showed that Mr. Rundo punched one protester in the back of the head, and then assaulted a second protester.

Later that same day, Mr. Daley, who was at the rally, sent a text message to another member of the group bragging about the incident: “Front page of the stormer we did it fam.” The stormer is a reference to “The Daily Stormer,” the neo-Nazi website.

In April 2017, Mr. Rundo and others traveled to Berkeley, Calif. Video referenced in the complaint showed the men taping their hands in preparation for fighting and wearing skeleton masks. Mr. Boman is also seen punching at least two people. Mr. Rundo later attacked another protester and then punched a Berkeley police officer twice in the head before he was subdued and arrested.

The F.B.I. said that Mr. Rundo and other gang members used the internet “to prepare to incite and participate in violence” at various political events and committed violent assaults while at those events. The F.B.I. added that the men applauded each other for the attacks and “publicly documented their assaults in order to recruit more members” to carry out violence.

Before founding the Rise Above Movement, Mr. Rundo served 20 months in a New York State prison for stabbing a rival gang member from MS-13 in a 2009 attack in Flushing, Queens. At the time, he was part of a small, multiracial neighborhood gang called the Original Flushing Crew, which was in a feud with a subset of MS-13, known as the Guanacos Little Cycos Salvatruchas, according to a 2012 federal indictment.

Since creating his movement sometime around 2017, Mr. Rundo has established ties between the group and the West Coast chapter of the Hammerskins, an international network of neo-Nazi skinheads whose members have been involved in at least nine murders in four states.

Earlier this year, Mr. Rundo traveled to Europe with members of his group in order to participate in mixed-martial arts tournaments hosted by neo-Nazi organizations in Germany and Ukraine. While in Europe, the F.B.I. said that Mr. Rundo and others celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday and met with European white supremacists.

Frightening to say the least.  And these dangerous individuals are part of the Trump/Pence regime's base.

California Senate Approves Bill Defining Conversion Therapy As Fraudulent

One of the many frauds pushed on the public by Christofascists and right wing religious extremists in the Catholic Church is the lie that gays can "change" their sexual orientation through "conversion therapy."   Ironically, even as Catholics reel from the horrors revealed by the Pennsylvania grand jury report, the "Catholic Medical Association," a very small "association" affiliated with - and likely, funded by - the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is claiming that "conversion therapy" works.  Never mind the conclusions of every non-religious funded mental health and medical association around the world.  In reaction to universal condemnation by legitimate medical/mental health  professionals, a number of states, including California have banned the practice for minors - Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly killed a similar bill  this past session.  Now, California is poised to define "conversion therapy" as a fraudulent and allow victims of practitioners to sue sham therapists.  Court House News looks at the development (Christofascists are, as expected, shrieking and whining that their "religious freedom" is under attack):

California is on the verge of shunning treatments that promise to “cure” patients of homosexuality through hypnosis, counseling and even electric shock sessions.

The state Senate on Thursday cleared a proposal to list so-called conversion therapy as a fraudulent business practice, bringing it under the umbrella of state consumer-protection laws and opening the door for victims to sue practitioners.

California outlawed conversion or reparative therapy for minors in 2012 but there is still a fringe market for adults. The current measure, Assembly Bill 2943 by Assemblyman Evan Low, makes it illegal to advertise practices claiming to “change an individual’s sexual orientation.”

Low, D-Cupertino, hopes the threat of a fine or lawsuit will encourage clinicians to forgo the controversial practice which has been discredited worldwide by medical and mental health organizations.

“We as legislators have a responsibility to protect Californians from harmful and deceptive practices,” Low said after the floor vote. “I am grateful to my colleagues in the Senate for affirming their support for those in the LGBT community who need it most by voting for this bill.”

The Senate passed the bill on a party-line vote, without a Republican vote. The measure heads back to the Assembly for a vote on procedural amendments and then to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk for final approval. The Assembly approved AB 2943 by a 50-18 margin in April.

Critics of the bill, mainly Baptist and fundamentalist Christian groups, claim it’s a direct attempt at legislating sexual behavior and a religious intrusion. The Pacific Justice Institute [a Christian extremist organization] testified that the bill has major flaws and is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

[T]he bill’s supporters are adamant that conversion therapy is not only dangerous and can cause permanent mental damage, it perpetuates the notion that homosexuality is a curable-mental illness.

“For far too long, LGBTQ Californians have been psychologically abused by sham therapists who are supposed to be caring for their emotional well-being,” Equality California executive director Rick Zbur said in a statement.

With luck after the 2019 Virginia elections, Democrats will control the House of Delegates and such common sense legislation can be enacted in Virginia. 

Franklin Graham: Working to Spread the Christofascist Cancer

Other than Donald Trump, one of the most hideous and malignant forces in American politics is the Christofascist theocratic movement and the parasitic "professional Christians" who preach a message of hate while lining their own pockets and living lavishly.  Few represent this cancer on American society more than Franklin Graham, a steadfast supporter of Trump all too willing to overlook Trump's moral bankruptcy if  it aids his insatiable thirst for power (and, of course, more money in his own pocket in the process -  in 2014, Graham pocketed $622,252.00 from his "charity", Samaritan's Purse, alone).  Now Graham with his right wing extremist allies are focused on stirring up evangelical haters in California to rescue threatened Republican Congressional seats.  Among the bogeymen that Graham will peddle is the "threat" of same sex marriage and the myths of Christian persecution.  A piece in the New York Times looks at Graham's toxic mission.  Here are excerpts:

Franklin Graham stood in a packed locker room at the Rose Bowl, surrounded by fellow evangelists, pastors, and his top Los Angeles donors. It was two weeks before the California primary, and Mr. Graham was urging them to take a stand against their state’s “blue wall.”

The blue wall of California, Mr. Graham told the gathering, represents secular values that have taken root on the country’s west coast.

“Progressive?” he went on, “That’s just another word for godless.” Now is the time for churches to “suck it up” and vote.

Mr. Graham is leading a three-bus caravan up the middle of the state, one of the biggest political battlegrounds this year, to urge evangelicals to vote and to win California for Jesus. The two week tour ends on the day of the primary, June 5. . . . the parallel political message is just as resounding: Support candidates who will advance the socially conservative causes dear to many evangelicals — especially opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage — and get to the polls and vote for them. Three of his stops are in or bordering critical House districts in the Central Valley, and others hug the line between red and blue up the state.

Don’t be afraid to preach about it, Mr. Graham told the pastors. “Lose your tax exempt status; the progressives want to take it away anyway,” he said.

Though the state has one of the highest percentages of religiously unaffiliated adults, the fast growing religious group in the country, that largely blue sea is dotted with evangelical islands that are largely red. One in five adults in the state are evangelical Christians, according to the Pew Research Center, and there are more megachurches in California than in any other state.

And while 26 percent of national voters in 2016 were white born-again Christians, according to exit polls, just 13 percent of California voters were . . .

Finances play a role, too. After Mr. Graham’s home state of North Carolina, California is the second largest donor base for Samaritan’s Purse and his other organization, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Last Sunday, the day Mr. Graham began his bus trip, a large Los Angeles church on the border of an open House seat ended its services early and directed its 3,000 congregants to write letters protesting a state assembly bill that would prohibit conversion therapy, intended to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, as a form of consumer fraud. In 2012, California passed a law restricting the practice on minors.

Even Republican political strategists and party officials doubt that Republicans could win top statewide offices like governor or senator in California this fall. . . . . As the Republican base in California shrinks, religious conservatives become an even more important part of the party’s coalition, said Dan Schnur, a longtime Republican consultant in California who is now an independent. . . . “It is going to be impossible for them to save those House seats without significant religious conservative turnout,” he said.

In 2016, Mr. Graham held rallies in all 50 state capitals to urge Christians to vote. Donald J. Trump won the White House that year, defying all predictions, in large part thanks to a groundswell of white evangelical turnout.

In California, one clear goal is to change the makeup of school boards. “Can you imagine if your school boards were controlled by evangelical Christians?” he asked the pastors in Pasadena, a not so subtle reference to conservative religious protests of California’s new sex education curriculum, which includes lessons on LGBTQ sexuality.

But other evangelicals are not comfortable with the political direction Mr. Graham is taking their faith. When a Graham organizer asked Daniel Balcombe, the pastor of Living Way Church near Escondido, to promote Mr. Graham’s rally, he said no. “He’s too politically toxic,” Mr. Balcombe, a registered Republican, said in an interview. “I told the organizer this, and he made excuses and insisted that he would not be political in his crusade. Still, I told him no thanks.”

It is a reminder that evangelicalism, and the culture that goes with it, is changing. Sergio De La Mora, pastor of a large Latino-led church with five main campuses, called Cornerstone Church of San Diego, says the future of California Christianity is neither red nor blue, especially because of the growing Hispanic church whose political priorities do not fit an expected mold.

While Mr. De La Mora voted for Mr. Trump, citing his family work ethic, he says he is most passionate about issues like green energy, women’s rights and immigration. “Don’t look at us as this lost, liberal state,” he said. “Look at us as this emerging new America that says, we can coexist.” 

 Graham's toxic agenda needs to be defeated and Christofascists need to be cast into the political wilderness as if they were radioactive.  They are all about hate and division despite disingenuous bleats about Jesus and "faith."  

California: A Cautionary Tale for the Virginia GOP

The Virginia GOP 2018 lineup of extremists primary candidates.

In last year's gubernatorial race, Ed Gillespie in the end ran a campaign based of racism and religious extremism with an added dash of tax cuts for the wealthy.  He lost by 9 points.  In this year's U.S. Senate race, all three Republican candidates for the Virginia GOP nomination are extremists and at least one, if not two, of them, in my opinion, needs a mental health intervention.  Cory Stewart is running on a neo-Confederate platform, E.W. Jackson is unhinged, thus leaving Nick Freitas looking at least slightly sane in comparison.  However, given the rabid dog nature of the GOP base nowadays, it is all to possible that the most extreme candidate could walk away with the nomination, much to the delight of Democrat incumbent, Tim Kaine. A cautionary tale for the Virginia GOP can be found in California where there is a possibility that the California GOP may not even be able to field statewide candidates this year.  Part of the reason is due to California's unique nomination process, but a larger part is the GOP's extremism.  A piece in the New York Times should be required reading for leaders of the Virginia GOP.  Here are excerpts:

For anyone wondering about the state of the Republican Party in California these days, consider this: There may be no Republican candidate for governor or United States senator on the state’s ballot this November.

It’s no secret the state’s Republican Party has been in a decline for 20 years. Its challenges have been aggravated by the election of President Trump, as he has pushed tougher policies on such issues as immigration and the environment, running up against strong and often bipartisan sentiment in California.

A field of Republican candidates for the United States Senate and governor is struggling against these headwinds as they seek to end a more than 10-year drought and elect a party member to statewide office. Under the California election system, candidates compete in an open, nonpartisan primary on June 5. The two candidates who get the most votes — regardless of party — advance to the November general election.

If Republicans fall short in capturing one of those two November slots next month, which members of both parties say is a strong possibility, it would apparently be the first election since 1914 where a major party had no candidate in either the race for senator or for governor.

“You would think that if Republicans are shut out, it will be time for some serious soul-searching.”

Two of the most powerful Republican members of the congressional leadership represent central California: Kevin McCarthy, a close ally of Mr. Trump, who is in line to become the next speaker should Republicans hold the House this November, and Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House intelligence committee. Both are popular in their districts and wield plenty of influence in Washington.

But the Republican Party holds no statewide offices. Democrats control both houses of the State Legislature. Party registration is on the decline. And one of the potential Republican candidates for Senate who some polls suggest has at least a theoretical shot of making it to the November ballot is Patrick Little, an extremist who has called for the country to be “free from Jews.”

There have been hard-line strains in the California Republican Party for years, centered around law and order, taxes and immigration issues. But this is also a state with a moderate wing.

A group of Republicans led by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor, and Chad Mayes, the former Republican Assembly leader, have begun a campaign to move the party to the center . . . But that effort has run up against Republican candidates and elected officials who have tied their success to Mr. Trump and his administration’s policies.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republicans like Mayes are completely wrong,” Travis Allen, a Republican candidate for governor and member of the Assembly, said in an interview.

The division over the future of the party was on full display the other night at a forum sponsored by the North Orange County Republican Women’s Federated Dinner for Mr. Allen and another Republican candidate for governor, John Cox, a businessman — the only two Republicans in a very crowded field who appear to have a chance to capture one of the top two spots in the primary.

A few moments later, both candidates told the moderator that they firmly supported Mr. Trump’s call to build a wall along the Mexican border. . . . Mr. Mayes, who was ousted as the Republican leader of the State Assembly after he negotiated a Republican vote-delivering compromise with Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, on legislation to curb greenhouse emissions, said that sentiment threatened to further distance the party from voters.

Mr. Mayes added. “We need to come to grips with reality and understand the electorate in California has changed. We have to go to them. We are not going to win elections until we figure that out.”

The prospect that there may be no Republican candidate for Senate or governor this November casts both short-term and long-term threats for the party.

For this election, it could complicate efforts to draw Republicans to the polls in a year when Democrats are looking to oust as many as seven endangered Republican members of Congress. . . . For the long term, it is a reminder of just how little influence the party has statewide. Republicans failed to win a spot on the 2016 ballot for Senate as well.

One of the key points of contention with the Republican Party in the state is immigration. It has been a complication for Republicans since California voters passed an initiative pushed by the Republican governor, Pete Wilson, in 1994 to prohibit illegal immigrants from getting state social services. That initiative, which was thrown out in court, was seen as one of the critical reasons for the party’s decline, as the Latino population in this state has continued to grow, and as California became more Democratic.

Democrats make up nearly 45 percent of the total number of registered voters in the state. Republicans account for about 25 percent, just slightly ahead of the percentage of voters who declined to pick a party registration.

Trump himself has emerged as a critical issue as Republicans try to chart a path forward. Mr. Trump lost California by nearly four million votes, and he remains consistently unpopular overall. But he is popular with Republican primary voters, and candidates have lined up behind him.

Frankly, until the GOP ejects many of the Christian extremists and white supremacists from its base, I see little changing.  Hopefully, in both California and Virginia, 2018 will be a bad year for Republicans.