Skip to content

Month: May 2023

DeSantis’ falter opens up the field

There’s lots of reporting that the GOP primary field is about to get very crowded. Christie, Sununu, Youngkin, a Dakota Governor nobody’s ever heard of on top of already announced DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott are preparing to run against Donald Trump. Why is this happening when it was assumed that the smart move for the party was to field just one opponent to confront Trump? Well… Meatball Ron just isn’t making anybody’s heart beat faster:

No seasoned, successful politician runs for president without a theory of the case — a detailed and plausible path to victory. And as more prospective candidates surface, it’s becoming clearer what’s at the heart of those plans: a growing belief within the party that DeSantis is a paper tiger.

At one time, the Florida governor looked to be the candidate best positioned to knock off Trump, en route to finishing off President Joe Biden. DeSantis was Trump without the baggage — and 32 years younger.

He was coming off an epic 2022 reelection victory in the nation’s third-largest state, marked by Florida’s biggest winning margin in 40 years. Officials in both parties did a double take at his robust performance among all Latino groups.

With DeSantis, the GOP could get the same conservative policies as Trump, the same unyielding approach, the same judges, the same trolling of the libs. He was a party leader on Covid. The suburbs would be back in play. So would the five states Biden flipped from Trump in 2020.

But DeSantis’ Disney jihad and his Ukraine-is-a-territorial-dispute stumble have undermined his aura of competence among donors and the business community. Trump’s relentless attacks — none of them answered — and his drum beat of abuse have left the two-term governor bruised. Far from projecting strength, DeSantis suddenly appears to be a candidate who’s thrived in a protective cocoon, isolated from media scrutiny, and surrounded by a compliant legislature afraid to test him.

On the eve of his launch, DeSantis now confronts the perception that he is a porcelain candidate, glazed and decorative, durable enough, but not really built to withstand the blunt impact of Trump’s hammer or the full fury of a united Democratic Party.

Yet the notion that DeSantis is ripe for a takedown is only part of the reason why the presidential race is suddenly looking so enticing. In the three years since Trump lost reelection, there is little evidence to suggest he can win back the White House and much evidence to suggest he’ll drag the party to defeat with him.

This is what a healthy portion of the GOP political operative class — and the donor class — believes. Most of Trump’s primary rivals think it, too. Some of them, like Christie, are willing to say it out loud.

“Donald Trump has done nothing but lose since he won the election in 2016. We lost the House in 2018. The Senate and the White House in 2020. We underperformed in 2022 and lost more governorships and another Senate seat,” he said in a recent radio interview.

DeSantis says it privately. According to a New York Times report, the governor told supporters and donors in a call Thursday that Trump can’t win, pointing to “all the data in the swing states, which is not great for the former president and probably insurmountable because people aren’t going to change their view of him.”

Against that backdrop, it’s not a bad bet to jump in now under the expectation of filling the role DeSantis was once assumed to hold. But there is a sense of urgency: any new entrants must get in before DeSantis has the opportunity to use his considerable resources to make it a two-person primary with Trump. The clock begins ticking next week.

I will never understand why they think calling Trump a loser is going to win them the primary. The vast majority of their dipshit voters believe that Trump won and won big. And they aren’t telling them otherwise! This makes no sense.

But there’s another problem. The bigger field almost guarantees that Trump will win the nomination. Here’s why:

In 2024, more states will award delegates through winner-take-all primaries — a system that helped Trump when opponents divided the vote, allowing him to be awarded all or most of the delegates with less than majority support.

Once in office, Trump used his influence to stack state parties with loyalists who increased the number of winner-take-all states from seven in 2016 to 17 in 2020.

Do they not know this? Or is it all some elaborate kabuki dance?

I have to assume that all of them, including DeSantis, are running to be the last man standing in case Trump keels over. That’s the only possible reason.

Deja Vu Vu

This is really a thing:

This has an air of desperation to it, I’m afraid. They are flailing around with one investigation after another, now this nonsense based on the Durham dud. But it does serve one purpose. it keeps the Trump cult conspiracy nuts excited. But I’m fairly sure that if they launch yet another crusade against Hillary Clinton the general public will not be amused.

The Ultra MAGA Karens

Since when do you need ID to go into a bathroom? (That apparently happened some years ago but you can bet it’s happening today.)

Take a look at these horrible people who are institutionalizing more of this grotesque nonsense:

Members of the conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty are known for making impassioned and sometimes spicy speeches to school boards to complain that teachers are supposedly indoctrinating students. This can include mothers, often in the group’s trademark tee, standing at a lectern reading sex scenes from books they deem inappropriate to have near their children.

Supporters post videos of these speeches, some of which have gone viral. And the group has claimed success, pointing to growing membership nationwide as well as policies and elections going their way. But because Moms for Liberty is working on such a local level, opponents have found plenty of opportunities to take action.

“I just got back from forcibly re-closeting myself for 90 minutes to infiltrate a Moms for Liberty meeting. … I got so much juice!” a TikTok user who goes by Morgan Howls said in a video. The video is one of many on social media made by parents who say they’ve “infiltrated” the group and give details of its strategy to others who do not support its politics.

When CNN traveled to Colorado earlier this month to observe a lunch meeting held by the El Paso County chapter of Moms for Liberty, chapter chair Darcy Schoening cautioned that some opponents might show up. It had happened before. Schoening knew there were liberal parents lurking in her chapter’s private Facebook group, because her group had some moles in the liberals’ Facebook group.

“We all know what’s going on. I don’t even know why we keep stuff private,” she said about the clandestine monitoring. She even said she welcomed some of the intended attacks on her group, showing screenshots of opponents messaging about what to tweet in protest.

“What they don’t realize is that they’re doing half the work for us,” Schoening said. “Because the more and more they post… You get those parents that are sitting out there saying, ‘Oh, this doesn’t sound so crazy. I want to go be a part of this.’”

Darcy Schoening says her Colorado Springs chapter of Moms 4 Liberty has about 250 people in it.CNN

There were no confrontations at the Moms for Liberty meeting held in a Mexican restaurant in Colorado Springs. There was some provocative talk about purported sexual content in library books – Schoening claimed a book about “how do two men pleasure each other” was available to first graders. (She did not name the book or say what school it was supposedly found in.) But the attendees spent more time on how to wield their power.

Activists helped to get conservative majorities elected to several school boards in El Paso County in 2021. At issue then were Covid mandates and teaching about racial injustice, two issues that spurred the creation of Moms for Liberty by two mothers in Florida earlier that same year.

The El Paso County chapter’s latest push was to get Colorado Springs’s District 11 school board to adopt a policy banning teachers from asking kids about their pronouns – whether they preferred “he,” “she,” or “they” – which Schoening described as “grooming.” But the proposal sparked a big backlash, and after protests in March, the board tabled it.

One man at the lunch said some school boards were “afraid to act” on issues like pronouns and bathroom access for trans kids because of the demands of “the loudest minority,” referring to progressives.

“It’s a very loud minority,” another attendee said. “It’s very loud. It’s very intimidating,” a third agreed.

But that was not a justifiable reason, the first speaker said. “The fact of the matter is, when we come out and we campaign for them, and we put them in an office. … We’re their stakeholders, and they’re beholden to us.”

As CNN filmed the meeting, a woman sitting in the back passed the crew a handwritten note: “We have the other side of this story. This is a hate group.” This time, the opponents were being covert, not overt.

The note-passer was Carolyn Bedingfield, who said a like-minded person was coming to the restaurant who had “more info.” In the parking lot, Emily Vonachen was waiting in her car. Vonachen said Colorado Springs had changed a lot in the two years she’d lived there. She’d been researching every conservative power player in the area and how they were all connected. She agreed to an interview, and then called several people from Neighbors for Education, a group set up after the conservatives’ school board wins in 2021.

The dispute between the two groups was clear, and they took it seriously. The Neighbors for Education crowd thought Moms for Liberty was operating in a different reality.

Schoening of Moms for Liberty explained why she viewed asking a child what pronouns they preferred was “indoctrinating” them into questioning their gender.

“If you ask my children, who are 7 and 8, ‘What are your pronouns?’ They don’t even know what that is,” she said. “When you ask that, you’re planting the seed in their minds, that they maybe should identify as another gender or that identifying as another gender is hip or cool – ‘Hey, my teacher’s asking me, so maybe this is what I should do.’”

Naomi Lopez, one of the people gathered by Neighbors for Education, called that “ridiculous.” Lopez is a speech pathologist who works in a District 11 school. She’s also the mom of a trans kid.

“That’s not happening,” she said of Schoening’s scenario. “We’re not going around saying, ‘OK, you know, I want you to think about it, what gender are you?’” When teachers meet new students, they ask how they want to be addressed, she said – a kid named Josiah might want to go by Joe. A kid could say they wanted to use a particular pronoun, and the teacher would respect that.

Naomi Lopez flatly rejected many of the assertions made by Moms for Liberty.CNN

Schoening made a series of claims that are not true, but are common amid a backlash to advocacy for trans rights.

For example, Schoening raised the idea that a tomboy – a girl who wore flannel and sneakers – would be told by a teacher, “You know, it might be time to gender transition. Let’s go talk to the school therapist. Let’s go talk to a physician. Let’s do this.” Schoening said she did not know any tomboys who’d actually transitioned after social pressure. But, she said, “Imagine the kids that aren’t strong enough to go talk to their parents and say, ‘My teacher is trying to gender transition me.’ We’re speaking for those kids. And those parents who aren’t made aware.”

Further, Schoening claimed 8-year-old boys could get surgery to remove their penises, and that she feared her state would pass a law saying if parents refused to have their boys’ penises surgically removed, the state would take them away. She thought this issue would eventually go to the US Supreme Court.

Medical guidelines do not call for gender affirming surgery on young children, and many health care providers do not offer it to patients under 18. Children diagnosed with gender dysphoria go through many years of care. In some instances, they can receive puberty-blocking hormones at the onset of puberty. These drugs are FDA-approved to treat children who start puberty at a very young age, but are not approved for gender dysphoria.

CNN asked Schoening if she was saying she believed there was some kind of high-level coordinated effort to make more children trans and gay. “There is,” she said. Who would be directing it? “Teachers’ unions, and our president, and a lot of funding sources,” she said. Why would they do that? “Because it breaks down the family unit,” she said. And why would they want that? “So that conservative values are broken down, and that we can slowly erode away at constitutional rights,” she said.

There is no evidence of a coordinated plot to make kids trans.

CNN asked Lopez what she thought of Schoening’s claims. Lopez flatly rejected the idea that teachers would encourage little kids to get surgery. “No, that’s ridiculous. The hell? No,” Lopez said.

CNN asked Lopez if there was a plan by President Biden and teacher unions to make more kids gay and trans to break down the traditional family. She began to get exasperated. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Attacking a whole sector of society who happen to be our children in order to push whatever agenda you have is dangerous, irresponsible, hateful, egregious – should I go on? No.”

And Lopez said there was no evidence that her child’s classmates cared.

“My child thinks it’s ludicrous, that it’s such a big deal, because to them, it’s just normal. To their friends, they don’t care how my child identifies, they love them for who they are.”

Another person in the Neighbors for Education group, Tiana Clark, said the controversy was a waste of time and resources. Clark is a parent and substitute teacher in that district. After one parent complained about five books, the school district had to form a committee to determine whether each book could stay in the school library. Clark sat on a committee.

“Of the five books, three of them had never been checked out. Two of them were only checked out once,” Clark said. All five books remained in the library, but the effort cost more than $20,000, she said, and asked, “What could that $20,000 have been spent on?”

These people are in a manic state, a frenzy of hate. And they’re finding strength in numbers. They’re horrible Serena Joy, witch hunting, harpies.

Vlad just loves the former guy

Sadly, I’m sure his vacuous followers think this is just great:

Russia has expanded its list of sanctioned Americans in a tit-for-tat retaliation for the latest curbs imposed by the United States. But what is particularly striking is how much President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is adopting perceived enemies of former President Donald J. Trump as his own.

Among the 500 people singled out for travel and financial restrictions on Friday were Americans seen as adversaries by Mr. Trump, including Letitia James, the state attorney general of New York who has investigated and sued him. Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia who rebuffed Mr. Trump’s pressure to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election, also made the list. And Lt. Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who shot the pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, was another notable name.

None of those three has anything to do with Russia policy and the only reason they would have come to Moscow’s attention is because Mr. Trump has publicly assailed them. The Russian Foreign Ministry offered no specific explanation for why they would be included on the list but did say that among its targets were “those in government and law enforcement agencies who are directly involved in the persecution of dissidents in the wake of the so-called storming of the Capitol.”

I guess the point of this is to signal to Trump that he still has his back? Or maybe he’s been infected with MAGA brain too…

It’s all up to MyKevin

The assumption is that if only Biden will give the Freedom Caucus everything they want — in other words, destroy all of his accomplishments and more — then they will allow the government to pay its debt. No. They. Will. Not. Once they realize Biden will give them anything there will be no end to it, even if the country defaults. Krugman asks the right questions here:

So much writing on the debt ceiling right now seems utterly behind the curve. The question now is what does Biden do if Rs refuse any deal that doesn’t effectively give them complete control of US policy? Or maybe even actively seek financial crisis? 

Unilateral actions might fail — or be blocked by a partisan Supreme Court. But what are people pointing out these risks saying that Biden should do? Capitulate completely? (Even that might not be enough). If that’s the plan, say it clearly.

That is the plan but it won’t be enough.

The only legislative way out of this is for the Senate to pass a bill and send it back to the House. If Kevin won’t bring it to the floor, then they have have to go the 14th Amendment route and hope the Supreme Court isn’t so batshit insane that the will crash the world economy (and it might crash anyway just because of the chaos.)

Otherwise, MyKevin will have to give up his job and bring a Senate bill to the floor against the wishes of the insane clown posse. The vote will then be won with Democratic votes and some Republican votes (depending on what’s in it the majority could go either way.) And then Marjorie Taylor Green, under orders from Dear Leader, will present a motion to vacate the chair and MyKevin will lose the Speaker’s chair. (Some centrist Dems have said they would vote for him if it came to that but it’s hard to see how Kevin could continue with a full revolt of the Freedom Caucus on his hands.)

These are the two possibilities. The winguts are so crazy they staged a full blown spectacle for the Speaker’s race. And they loved it. Does anyone think those loons are going to give in on this debt ceiling short of forcing Biden to roll back the entire 20th and 21st century? And even then, they’d just start agitating for the return of the Confederacy.

“More than you hate mine”

A mother’s reply to bills targeting her kid

After Nebraska passed its 12-week abortion ban last week (attached to a bill restricting “gender-affirming care for people younger than 19”), Spocko tweeted out a tee shirt he helped design last year. He got my attention. Spocko is very good at that.

NPR reported:

Conservative lawmakers called in a visibly ill colleague so they would have enough votes to end a filibuster and pass a bill with both measures. Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, who pushed for the bill, has promised to sign it into law.

The mood in the Nebraska Capitol has been volatile since lawmakers on Tuesday advanced by a single vote the hybrid measure that ties together restrictions that Republicans have pursued across the U.S. One lawmaker, Omaha state Sen. Megan Hunt, disclosed in March that her teenage son is transgender and said Friday that she now plans to leave the state.

In case you missed Hunt’s response from the floor, here it is: “I’m asking you to love your family more than you hate mine.”

Her GOP colleagues don’t. They demonstrated that by their actions and their votes.

And the tee shirt.

Is ratchet-brain a medical condition?

“Government spends too much” is back

We know how this goes. When Republicans lack the ability to control the fate of legislation, they are born-again, small-government fundamentalists. Government is too big. Government spends too much (on the Irresponsibles). Deficits must be brought under control!

Then when they hold the White House, they backslide. Tax cuts : GOOD. Deficits : MEANINGLESS.

But the push-pull budgeting conversation is too wonky for the general public to wrap its brain around. To default or not to default is an inside-the-Beltway drama. Or one for G7 leaders to fret over. Until it tanks your retirement fund or hammers the dollar.

The remoteness makes it difficult for the left to effectively exploit the shameless flip-floppiness of conservative lawmakers on spending. The only people paying attention are the people already paying attention.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy issued one of his “stubborn aphorisms” on the subject on Friday: “Washington has to spend less.”

“And indeed, Washington could spend less,” responds Prem Thakker at The New Republic. “For instance, America’s 2024 proposed military budget is some $842 billion—$100 billion more than 2022, and $26 billion more than 2023.”

But the ratchet in Republican brains only turns one way under a Democratic administration. And on military spending under virtually any administration. It’s so well-understood that it’s almost a medical condition.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) nevertheless tried pushing back (for the benefit of those already paying attention):

Thakker continues:

The most outlandishly rich have long benefited from tax breaks and loopholes that maintain and even expand such vulgar levels of wealth. But twice-impeached, criminally indicted, and liable for sexual abuse former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax bill opened up those channels more. It brought such wild provisions, including allowing the full price of private jets to be deducted in the first year.

A poignant example of how this came into practice is in the tale of longtime Republican donor Mori Hosseini, who made his fortune as a homebuilder in Florida. After spending $19.5 million on a private jet in 2017, he netted nearly $8 million in tax savings immediately, ProPublica reports. And that was just to start out with.

Soon enough, Hosseini, a close advisor to Ron DeSantis, taxied the governor and his family around like a friend giving another a ride. In 2019, ProPublic notes, Hosseini’s jet carried DeSantis’s wife Casey from Tallahassee to Jacksonville for a fundraiser hosted by—and this is not made up—a defense contractor.

But it’s culture war everywhere these days, and guns, guns, guns. With abortion restriction after transgender hate bill dominating the news, gaining any public bandwidth for the latest in class warfare assaults against the rest of us is almost a fool’s errand.

I commend AOC for trying.

Update: This just popped up.

SIFF-ting through cinema: Wrap party!

The 2023 Seattle International Film Festival is wrapping up this weekend (my eyes hurt-oy) and I have a few more reviews to share. Hopefully, some of these films will be coming soon to a theater (or a streaming service) near you!

Adolfo (Mexico) ***½ – Strangers in the night, exchanging…cactus? Long story. Short story, actually, as writer-director Sofia Auza’s dramedy breezes by at 70 minutes. It’s a “night in the life of” tale concerning two twenty-somethings who meet at a bus stop. He: reserved and dressed for a funeral. She: effervescent and dressed for a party (the Something Wild scenario). With its tight screenplay, snappy repartee, and marvelous performances, it’s hard not to fall in love with this film.

Being Mary Tyler Moore (USA) ***½ – Robert Redford recalls in this film, “I had a place in Malibu. I was sitting there, looking out at the ocean, and this woman walks by. What it looked like to me was that she was sad. I said ‘Oh…that’s Mary Tyler Moore.’ And we’d always seen Mary Tyler Moore as this happy, upbeat, wonderful, wonderful character who was full of joy and innocence.”

Famously, what Redford saw in Moore the day of that chance encounter led to him offering her the part of the insular mother in his critically acclaimed 1980 film Ordinary People (a very un-“Mary Richards” character). This dichotomy forms the nucleus of James Adolphus’ documentary, offering an intimate glimpse at a complex woman who, while undeniably  groundbreaking and influential, had her share of tragedies, personal demons, and insecurities.

(Set for release April 26th on HBO and HBO Max)

Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy (USA) ***½ – Aside from its distinction as being the only X-rated film to earn Oscars, John Schlesinger’s groundbreaking, idiosyncratic character study Midnight Cowboy (1969) also ushered in an era of mature, gritty realism in American film that flourished from the early to mid-1970s. The film was Schlesinger’s first U.S.-based project; he had already made a name for himself in his native England with films like A Kind of Loving, Billy Liar, Darling, and Far From the Madding Crowd.

As pointed out in Nancy Buirski’s absorbing documentary, what came to be called the “New Hollywood” movement was fueled in part by ex-pat European filmmakers (like Schlesinger) bringing their unique “outsider” perspective on American politics, social mores, and popular culture to the table. Buirski not only offers  fresh insights on how Midnight Cowboy came together, but perfectly recreates the zeitgeist of 1969.

Douglas Sirk-Hope as in Despair (Switzerland) *** – I’ve never thought of director Douglas Sirk (best-known for vivid technicolor 50s melodramas like Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life) as a personal filmmaker, but Roman Hüben makes a convincing argument in his fascinating portrait (it turns out that elements of Sirk’s personal life were quite…Sirkian, and formative to his work). Pigeonholed during his heyday as a purveyor of “women’s weepies”, Sirk has gained critical appreciation and influenced filmmakers like Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Gloriavale (Australia) **½ – Just when you thought you’d heard about every faith-based commune led by a charismatic figure who preaches altruism but ultimately turns out to be an autocratic sexual deviant, another one pops out of the woodwork. Directors Noel Smyth and Fergus Grady’s expose of New Zealand’s Gloriavale Christian Community follows the story of several courageous whistleblowers (former and current members). The film is a tad dry in presentation, but the survivors’ tales are harrowing and eye-opening.

Irati (Spain) ** – Writer-director Paul Urkijo Alijo’s fantasy is set in Moorish Spain, with pagans, Christians, and the odd mythical creature engaging in various set-tos in the time of Charlemagne’s domination of Europe. On the plus side: impressive sets and lush photography; but the uneven blend of historical fiction with sword and sorcery never quite gels. The film strives to be an adult fairy tale like John Boorman’s Excalibur but falls about one grail short of its quest.

Mother Superior (Austria) **½ – Submitted for your approval: A young woman in 1970s Austria hired as a live-in elder care nurse for a demanding Baroness is about to embark on a strange psychic journey, making an unscheduled stop at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hotel Terminus.  Writer-director Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s gothic chiller/Wagnerian nightmare is economically paced, well-acted and stylishly photographed, marred slightly by a “gotcha” dénouement that makes what proceeded it play like an extended Twilight Zone episode.

Retreat (Switzerland) *** – Movie rule: If a father picks up his young son, whisks him to an isolated location (in this case, a family cabin in the mountains) and casually asks something to the effect of “So-what’s Mommy’s new boyfriend like?”- you know there is going to be a lot of brooding. And unease. Swiss writer-director Leon Schwitter’s impressive feature debut contains a lot of brooding and unease (I was reminded of Roger Donaldson’s Smash Palace). The lovely Alpine setting belies a creeping dread. With two actors carrying the film, the story simmers on a slow boil, but nonetheless keeps you glued to the screen.

Satan Wants You (Canada) *** – Raise your hand if you remember Dana Carvey’s recurring SNL sketch character “The Church Lady” and her catchphrase: “Could it be…SAY-tan?!” Yes, me too-I always fell about the place when she would say that. But do you remember what precipitated the creation of that character? Ol’ Scratch enjoyed a major comeback for a spell (sorry) back in the 1980s; I can recall the daytime talk shows being agog with people who told bone-chilling tales of being swept up in blood-drinking satanic cults and barely escaping with their souls intact. But was there a possibility that these were just “tales”? Why so many, and so suddenly?

According to Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams documentary, the genesis of this “satanic panic” can be traced to the 1980 book “Michelle Remembers”. Co-written by Catholic psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient, it was based on deep hypnosis sessions he conducted with Michelle Smith, in the course of which she allegedly “remembered” being abducted and abused by a satanic cult when she was a child (the book was a bestseller). A fascinating study of mass hysteria, and a cautionary tale (not lost on the filmmakers) that points to contemporary phenomenon like Q-anon. I won’t sink to quoting P.T. Barnum, but (sadly) there will always be “someone” out there poised and ready to cash in on ignorance and fear.

Table for Six (Hong Kong) *** – Hong Kong director Sunny Chan’s colorful, sometimes raucous mashup of dysfunctional family melodrama with door-slamming bedroom farce is uneven in tone, but good-natured enough to be forgiven (if quickly forgotten). Three adult brothers live together in an inherited restaurant-turned apartment. The eldest is nurturing a broken heart, the middle is excited about a new girlfriend, and the youngest is set to get married. Complications and hilarity ensue. Not a masterpiece, but fun while it lasts.

Previous posts with related themes:

2023 SIFF Preview

SIFF 2023: Week 1

More reviews at Den of Cinema

This. Is. Insane.

What kind of a country are we living in?

The man stood in a red Make America Great Again baseball cap pointing his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle toward the sidewalk.

An elementary school student ran home crying. Parents were terrified. Neighbors called the police. While he had not explicitly threatened people in this suburban neighborhood, just the sight of him walking near school bus stops was enough for the nearby elementary school in Anne Arundel Countyto delay bus drop-off this week.

“The presence of someone with a weapon at or near a bus stop raises fear and anxiety for students and parents, especially in a day and age where we’ve had a number of school shootings across our country,” said Bob Mosier, the spokesman for the school district of more than 83,000 students.

The man, J’Den McAdory, said in an interview with The Washington Post that he is protesting recent state legislation regarding guns by open carrying his weapon around the neighborhood and that he was not singling out school bus stops. Although it crossed his mind that children — who have grown up practicing active shooter drills and who know that others just like them have been killed by men with big guns — may be scared by the sight of him, he thought he could soothe their fears by simply waving.

“I have remorse because the kids, you know, they were afraid. I have the remorse for that just because they’re still children,” said McAdory, who lives less than two miles from the local elementary school of about 500 students. “But I’m not saying what I’m doing is wrong either.”

Carrying his AR-15-style rifle along neighborhood sidewalks is legal, even in a state with some of the toughest gun laws in the country. According to gun-control advocates and state lawmakers, it will remain legal under the new laws that McAdory is protesting. Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed new gun-control legislation this week, and the National Rifle Association mounted a legal challenge in federal court.

McAdory, who lives with his parents in Severn, Md., and is 20, said he has been taking these walks with a long gun since February, but tensions reached a peak this past week. An Anne Arundel police spokesperson said in a statement that the department has received “numerous” calls about “an armed subject in a residential community.” The local elementary school’s principal warned people to steer clear of McAdory but lamented that there was nothing authorities could do. He wasn’t doing anything illegal, the principal wrote to families and staff. Police said he is a legal gun owner. It was his constitutional right to open carry a semiautomatic rifle.

Although officials said they do not believe this man has any intent to cause harm, the principal wrote that parents should increase their presence at bus stops, students should not engage with him, everyone should report any interactions with him to the school or police, and school counselors were available for any child who needs to talk about their feelings.

More than 352,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine

“He’s made clear to me and others that he wants to change the stigma of people carrying guns in public,” Mosier said. “I encouraged him to try to understand that while that may be his goal, that’s not the impact he was having on children attending our schools and parents of those children.”

Gun rights activists have been emboldened by a Supreme Court decision in June that expanded the Second Amendment’s reach, sending state lawmakers to try to expand or restrict when, where and how people can own and carry firearms. New rules in Maryland that take effect in October restrict where people can carry their guns, expanding the list of “sensitive places” where firearms are prohibited, such as schools, day-care facilities and hospitals.

Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), who sponsored one of Maryland’s new laws, said McAdory was demonstrating a “completely inappropriate form of protest” — a point echoed by Moore’s press secretary, Carter Elliott, in a statement calling for partnership “to stem the tide of gun violence and create safer, stronger communities …not shallow acts of cowardice and intimidation.”

When asked if there were aspects of this kind of protest he did not think through ahead of time, McAdory replied: “Everything I did was thought through and calculated.” He later added, “I was telling my dad before all this stuff, I was, like, ‘Positive and negative feedback would be a good thing on this type of thing.’ … It creates conversation about it.”

McAdory said he is trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. He grew up in the area, graduating from Old Mill Senior High School in Millersville, Md., in 2020, juggles two jobs as a produce worker and driver for DoorDash, and is thinking of enlisting in the Army this summer.McAdory, who likes to hunt,can’t yet purchase alcohol but said that when he turned 18, he bought his first gun — the same one he displayed as he started walking around his neighborhood in February. Recently, he said, he bought the AR-15-style rifle that he now carries for about $500 when he went to a local gun store and learned of “a cheap AR deal going.”

On Thursday, Anne Arundel County Attorney Gregory J. Swain warned in a letter to McAdory that his conduct could lead to criminal charges including assault, stalking, harassment, disturbing the peace and obstruction of school administration, according to a copy of the letter McAdory provided to The Post.

From now on, McAdory said, he won’t be taking his near-daily walks around the times children are going to school or coming home in the afternoon. He tells himself that if he continues walking, just outside of those hours, and shows he is nonviolent, people will eventually be less afraid

“I was walking home and a girl literally just took off running,” McAdory said. “I’m definitely sorry for putting any type of fear in their lives or the children’s lives. That’s what I’m not trying to do.”

But that was exactly what happened, according to interviews with a mother of an elementary school student, the Severn Elementary PTA Board, local police and a spokesman for the school district.

On Monday, one Severn Elementary School parent who lives in the neighborhood was walking her dog with her mother at 10:30 a.m. on New Disney Road when they spotted a man walking calmly with a rifle on his shoulder.

They both stopped and immediately turned around, said the mother, who has a 7-year-old boy at the school and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. She called the police and was told he was within his legal rights. The mother said the anxiety of many parents mounted when, later that day, her son’s bus did not come, she said, and parents received an alert summoning them to collect their children from the school, citing an ongoing incident.

McAdory’s presence in the neighborhood, near a playground and dog parks where people watch their pets and children play, has led some people to stay inside, she said. Reddit posts written by McAdory talking about forming “a militia” and a “tight brother hood” have circulated among parents as people question his motives.

McAdory said he had turned to Reddit to try to find people who may want to join him on his walks around the neighborhood. After all, he said, it is difficult to be a Black man who is also a Trump supporter in the blue state of Maryland. He chose the language of “militia” and “brotherhood” because they “seemed like the right words to choose.”

“I’m trying to have a peaceful brotherhood. I didn’t say I want to have a gang, the mob,” he said. “[I’m] very hopeful that people might possibly walk with me because you know, it’s hard, like, it’s very hard to spread awareness alone. A man running down the highway by himself looks crazy, but if 100 people were doing it, it looks like a marathon.”

The recipients of his protest already are weary. In a statement to The Post, the Severn Elementary PTA Board described his presence as disruptive.

“Parents have voiced that children are nervous or scared at bus stop times and the bus delays have been inconvenient even where folks understand the need,” the statement reads.

McAdory sees all of this blowback and anger. He’s aware of the terror he has caused. But none of it has bothered him enough to make him stop. He says he remains convinced that if he just keeps being a good guy with a gun, things will change. So on Friday, he put on the same MAGA hat, took his AR-15-style gun out of the case on the top shelf in his bedroom closet, loaded it with a magazine, put on his headphones and went back outside.

This time, though, he wasn’t alone. Word of McAdory’s effort had spread to people who agreed with him, and one of them decided to join him. Walking beside McAdory up the streets and down the sidewalks, the man carried a 12-gauge shotgun.

I don’t care what his intentions are. The effect of his actions are to frighten and intimidate people. Nobody wants to walk around paranoid that the guy carrying an AR-15 for no good reason isn’t one of those “good guys” but instead is a lunatic or a radical or someone with an agenda who can kill you in a moment’s notice with his deadly weapon.

What are people supposed to do with that? Wear body armor and helmets when they’re walking around on the street just in case one of the “good guys” turns out to be a “bad guy?” Is everyone supposed to carry an AR-15 with them too and have armed confrontations on the sidewalk to determine who’s good and bad?

This is total lunacy. There is ZERO reason for someone to walk around a neighborhood with a gun unless he’s trying to make a point which is exactly what this guy is doing. His stated point is stupid and the real point is to make everyone in his wake run and hide. It’s outrageous.

Gun culture is a disease. This kid is infected with it and could very easily turn out to be another Kyle Rittenhouse.

Joe unchanged

Despite all the hoopla about that one outlier poll showing that Joe Biden is loathed by just about everybody, other polls aren’t showing that. That’s from one of the latest.

His approval rating isn’t great but it’s about par for the course in our polarized electorate these days. Here are some other findings:

It looks like status quo on the Biden vs Trump rematch:

And then there’s Ron DiSaster:

It’s not like a huge number say they don’t know, either. He just isn’t popular.

Anyway, all these polls are basically just for entertainment. It’s way too early to take any of it seriously. But it’s important not to feed into the Democratic Party panic over Biden that rose up a couple of weeks ago from that one poll. They love to freak out and it’s not good for anyone.