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Regarding Editorial: Our next goal in COVID vaccination? Reaching the reachable. Yes, they're out there. (Aug. 16): As the COVID-19 pandemic surges again, with infections increasing daily among mainly the unvaccinated, feelings of anger are surging among the vaccinated towards the unvaccinated. However, the unvaccinated are not one homogenous grouping. People have different reasons for their views. Some unfortunately do seem to be driven by political culture wars. Changing their minds appears to be most difficult unless they personally experience COVID. Others, however, may have real personal reasons for avoiding vaccination based on experience, circumstance, fear, cultural practices or strongly-held beliefs. These individuals are reachable and are prime candidates for vaccination. It is time to move beyond the conflicts and anger rampant on both sides of the vaccine debate. We are a society truly at war with COVID, a war we appear to be losing. The concerted, focused grassroots efforts called for in the Aug. 16 editorial are very much needed to change minds among the unvaccinated. Our path to victory over COVID is clearly paved with vaccinations and masks. It is a path we must follow together.

Grant Revell, Mechanicsville, Va.

The husband of a relative just died of COVID after being in intensive care for four weeks. He had not been vaccinated. Imagine the emotional cost to his family. Try to imagine the emotional cost to the medical staff who are tasked with caring for people who, by choice, refuse to get the vaccine. What will the cost be to people he may have infected? What will the ultimate financial cost be to the family, to insurance, to you and me? Intensive care aint free. And what is the continuing cost to the economy of those who refuse to get the shot and continue to spread the disease? Its no secret the economy is dependent on getting the pandemic under control.

This was totally avoidable. Stupidity is a choice. And if the cost impacted just the stupid, I could live with that. Unfortunately, the cost to you and me and society is not negligible.

Roger Vaught, Houston

Regarding Taliban vow to respect women, despite history of oppression, (Aug. 17): Its always the groups which have committed evils or disasters that want everyone to forget the terrible things theyve perpetrated in the past. The Talibans appeal for the world to ignore their history of violent repression, supposedly promising peace and freedom, rings hollow if one looks back at their beliefs and previous strategies. Its impossible to have freedom when the whole Taliban system is based on stamping it out.

Bob Gayle, Houston

Regarding Biden vows to evacuate all Americans -- and Afghan helpers, (Aug. 19): Last year, Biden said that he had many decades of experience with diplomacy, that he had great relationships with both our friends and our enemies, and that, unlike Trump, he would work with our allies. The media backed him up and this may have been partially why Biden was elected.

Recently, Biden said that Afghanistan would not collapse, that he had contingencies for every possible scenario, and that, after 20 years of war, we needed to leave; that it made no sense to be involved in someone elses civil war. He said there wouldnt be another Saigon evacuation. Afterward, he said chaos was inevitable. He said that the Afghanistan troops wouldnt fight. He said that he would protect the rights of women.

Do you believe that America will protect the human rights of Afghan women when they wont even protect our citizens? Do you believe we are stronger now than we were last year? Do you believe that Biden even knows whats going on? Do you believe the same would have happened if Trump was in office? Do you regret voting for Biden? I have been watching politics for over 50 years and have never been more embarrassed.

Pat Wetuski, Kingwood

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Opinion: We're at war with COVID. We shouldn't be at war with each other. - Houston Chronicle

Napa Institute co-founder Timothy Busch speaks during Napa's annual summer conference July 22-24. About 700 people gathered in person for the event at Busch's Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa, California, with thousands more watching online. (NCR screenshot)

The Napa Institute, a conservative Catholic organization known for its annual high-end conference featuring wine tastings and cigars, announced plans to expand its work to include programs on "priestly formation" and a lecture series at the University of Notre Dame, with the latter's first scheduled speaker to be U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Fifteen families have pledged donations totaling $500,000 over the next five years for program expansion, Napa co-founder Timothy Busch announced at the conference, held virtually and in person at one of Busch's spa resorts in California July 22-24.

Among the donors, according to Busch's presentation, is Leonard Leo, an influential Washington insider who played a key role in advising former President Donald Trump on Supreme Court nominations and other appointments to the federal judiciary. A former executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leo also serves on the board of the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

At Notre Dame, the new Napa Institute Forum lecture series will be housed at the Notre Dame Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government, which launched in May and is led by political science professor Vincent Phillip Muoz. Thomas will speak at the forum on Sept. 16.

"I couldn't be more proud to be bringing Justice Thomas back to Notre Dame, and I can't be any more thankful to Tim and Steph Busch and the Napa Institute for allowing us to make that happen," Muoz said at the start of a video address he delivered to the conference focused on religious liberty issues and the Supreme Court.

The center "plans to expand its focus on political leadership by bringing more national political figures to campus and hosting regular events in Washington, D.C., especially with established and aspiring Catholic politicians," according to a university news release. It will be funded by the Napa Institute, the Charles Koch Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the M & T Foundation and several Notre Dame alumni and parents of alumni.

These new ventures supplement Napa's flagship summer conference, an annual fall business conference, occasional conferences for priests and various pilgrimages and tours.

Attendees enjoy a glass of wine July 26, 2019, at the Napa Institute's annual summer conference in California. (CNS/Courtesy of the Napa Institute)

'Chaos in the streets'

This year's summer conference included daily confession and more than 100 Masses, including a daily Mass in Latin, which Pope Francis recently scaled back unless special permission is granted. (The conference received that from Bishop Robert Vasa of Santa Rosa, California, according to Busch.)

With about 700 people gathered in person and thousands more watching online, speakers rallied participants to fight the culture wars, reject the Black Lives Matter movement, debunk what they called the lies behind gender ideology and defend the church's teachings in the face of what organizers view as an increasingly hostile secular society. Several speakers also referenced President Joe Biden, the country's second Catholic president.

Retired Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, who received a Lifetime Service Award that was presented with a bottle from Busch's winery, told the audience that despite the many contributions the Catholic Church makes to the United States through hospitals, schools and vast social service networks, "none of this matters, none of it, to political leaders and lobbies that hate what the church teaches."

Retired Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia speaks during the Napa Institute's 2021 summer conference. (NCR screenshot)

The archbishop, who has advocated denying Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians, also made a thinly veiled swipe at President Biden.

"There is no such thing as purely cultural Catholicism," Chaput said. "An emotional attachment to rosary beads is not a bad thing, but it does not exhaust the nature and the demands of a living faith." President Biden often cites his faith and carries his deceased son Beau's rosary.

The veteran conservative political activist, L. Brent Bozell III, whosigned a letterin December that declared Trump to be "the lawful winner of the presidential election" called Biden "the president of the most radical leftist ideology in history."

L. Brent Bozell III, speaking during the Napa Institute's summer conference (NCR screenshot)

Bozell, president and founder of the Media Research Center, said Biden is a "figurehead" for "elements of Marxism at play in America."

He characterized the political and cultural zeitgeist in apocalyptic terms. "Our social order is collapsing," he said. "There is chaos in the streets. There is repugnance in our schools. The Judeo-Christian tradition is being thrown away as is the very history of the United States."

Other speakers combined a vision of an embattled Catholic Church preaching hard truths, along with a consistent nostalgia for the leadership of Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan during the Cold War era. Another common theme was the state of liberal Christianity.

"The thing that really divides Christians is those Christians who realize their faith stands against the cultural tide and against the cultural pathologies of our day and those who use their Christian faith, or I would say contort their Christian faith, to affirm it," said Carl Trueman, a theologian in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

"Each week I read the National Catholic Register and the National Catholic Reporter. I won't tell you which one I enjoy reading most, but I'm shocked by the number of Catholics who culturally want to be liberal Protestants," he said.

Blasting Black Lives Matter and 'gender ideology'

Napa speakers frequently maligned Black Lives Matter and critical race theory, a field of scholarship developed by African American legal scholars in the 1980s to examine institutional racism in society.

"We're dealing with a new religion and its wokeism," said Chris Stefanick, an author and popular public speaker in traditionalist Catholic circles who leads Real Life Catholic, a nonprofit that produces videos and a television show on EWTN.

"We would agree there has been injustice in American history and racism," Stefanick said. "The woke world would tell you that America is nothing but a political expression of racism, and that capitalism is nothing but a racist system, and the family is nothing but a system created to exclude LGBTQ people, and that men are nothing but a sex that oppresses women, and that Junpero Serra is nothing but a representation of colonialism, and by the way we have to topple those statues and the entire Catholic Church with them."

"If you're part of an oppressor class, you're dangerous," Stefanick said. "The world is ever more treating us as if we are dangerous."

Conference speakers also repeatedly warned about "the homosexual lifestyle" and "gender ideology."

In a video talk titled "Toxic Rainbows: The 7 Deadly Deceits of Gender Ideology," Mary Rice Hasson, director of the Catholic Women's Forum and fellow in the Catholic studies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, lamented that "we have a whole generation of children who are being brought up with this idea that their feelings decide reality."

Human beings are "created either male or female," Hasson said. "Sex cannot change. Your feelings are really irrelevant to that conversation. You can't change a single cell in your body. You can't change your fundamental identity."

Hasson criticized what she viewed as a fairly recent ideologically motivated shift among medical experts who once viewed transgenderism as a "mental illness" to an accepted category today. "It's a false science, a corruption of science that puts out these lies," she said. "People are being shamed, being canceled and losing jobs if they do not use the language that is being pushed by this ideology."

Mary Eberstadt, the Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, blasted what she called "the nonstop obsession with identity politics." According to Eberstadt, abortion, contraception, high divorce rates, the decline in religious affiliation among young people, increased use of pornography and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement all spring from one source: the sexual revolution.

"Beneath the performative rage of Black Lives Matter last summer, as it menaced bystanders and woke people up in the middle of the night, and indeed beneath the increasingly punitive insistence about gender, beneath even cancel culture itself, the loving eyes that we are supposed to see our brethren with uncover a common denominator: suffering," Eberstadt said.

Jesuit Fr. Robert Spitzer (CNS/Courtesy of Robert Spitzer)

"These people who claim to be victims are indeed victims but they are not victims of the abstractions that they have been taught to cling to. They are victims along with many people born after 1960 of the destructive maelstrom of a revolution that racked and shrunk and sometimes destroyed their families, even as it sometimes destroyed their churches and their communities," she said.

Robert Spitzer, a Jesuit priest and a former president of Gonzaga University who co-founded the Napa Institute and serves as its president, suggested how to reach Catholics who no longer look to the church for moral guidance on issues of sexuality, gender and marriage.

"There is a credibility gap we just have to face," Spitzer said. "The majority of our kids strongly disagree with church teaching even though it's necessary for their mental health and salvation. But our teaching has to be defended for the church and the culture."

The priest presented a series of slides and snippets from academic studies he said proved how homosexuality, transgenderism, use of pornography and sexual relations before marriage are destroying lives.

"In order to avoid the accusation of religious bias we have to give our Catholic school teachers a shield to stand behind," Spitzer said. "We have to use secular studies. If we can get good secular studies from Harvard and Stanford and Pew and Gallup, that is what will do the credibility trick. Then young people won't think we're pitching Catholic Church propaganda."

Fortress Catholicism

Napa was founded in 2010, with Busch's financial backing, after then-Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput warned in an article about what he called "the next America," a secularized country hostile to religious rights and traditional morality.

In his welcome address, Busch, chairman of Napa's board,exuded the sunny disposition of an affable CEO, while delivering a dire assessment of politics and culture. His message blended traditional Catholic themes with blistering resentment toward racial justice activists.

He described Napa's mission of "faith formation, truth telling and uniting Catholic leaders to transform the culture" as more urgent than ever as "religious liberty is attacked, right to life is attacked, transgender ideology is forced upon our children and Black Lives Matter is promoting racism, critical race theory, and destroying the nuclear family."

Busch added that "this neo-Marxist movement, operating under some discriminatory theory of Black Lives Matter, is attacking the American experiment, which is based on Judeo-Christian principles. We need to pray it will end or our country will be destroyed."

The audience unmasked and almost exclusively white applauded his paean to Christian nationalism delivered in the comfortable confines of Busch's Meritage Resort and Spa.

In response to critics of the Napa Institute, Busch touted his close relationship with church leaders, including the president of the U.S. bishops' conference, Los Angeles Archbishop Jos Gomez, whom he called "one of my closest advisers."

Busch has emerged as an influential player in the church by financing academic institutes, elite conferences and a business school to create networking spaces for Catholic politicians, religious liberty attorneys, corporate leaders and clergy at events that are part spiritual renewal, part political strategy sessions and part charismatic tent revivals that celebrate unfettered capitalism.

In 2016, Buschmade a $15 million donationto the Catholic University of America in Washington, the largest gift in the school's history, which has powered the university's business school named after him and his wife. During a 2017 Napa Institute conference at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, Buschpraised President Trump as a pro-life leaderat a National Press Club dinner attended by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and former senator Rick Santorum.

The Napa Institute claims to advance a muscular, heroic orthodoxy in the face of secular threats and a weak-kneed liberal Christianity. Its dogmas are amplified by echo chambers such as EWTN, First Things and a network of institutions that anoint themselves the true arbiters of Catholic identity in public life.

"We're in a season in which we need to rebuild the walls of the church," R.R. Reno, editor of First Things, said in a panel focused on how to renew and reform the church. "Today our problem is there is very little distinction between the church and the world. It is time to rebuild. Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of the Temple. We're in a Nehemian moment in the 21st century where we rebuild the walls of the church so the world sees we are a fundamentally distinct institution that lives in accord with its own laws and principles, and not the principles and laws of the world."

Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver also framed the state of Catholicism in gloomy, defensive terms. "These are dark times," he said during the conference's closing panel. "I often tell my seminarians some of you may become martyrs if our country continues in the direction it's going. Secularism has become the false god. We have to be bold enough and courageous enough to live the costs of discipleship."

[John Gehring is Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life and author ofThe Francis Effect: A Radical Pope's Challenge to the American Catholic Church.]

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Napa Institute expands to fight the culture war - National Catholic Reporter

Conservatives have a new target in the culture wars: requiring women to register for the draft.

The Senate Armed Services Committee included in its version of the annual defense policy bill a provision that would require women to register with the Selective Service System, the agency in charge of administering the draft if the United States ever imposes one again.

Conservative senators are vowing a fight when the bill moves to the floor and through negotiations with the House, but even the top Republican on the committee concedes it is likely a losing battle since Republicans are split on the issue.

Still, conservatives, including several seen as potential future presidential contenders, are betting appeals against drafting our daughters will resonate with their base.

The fight over expanding selective service registration to include women is a redux of several years ago. But the latest iteration comes as Republicans have leaned into cultural issues as part of their electoral strategy, including roping the military into their effort to ban critical race theory.

And some of the same conservative firebrands who have taken up the critical race theory fight are turning their attention to the provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would make women register for the draft.

Our military has welcomed women for decades and are stronger for it. But Americas daughters shouldnt be drafted against their will. I opposed this amendment in committee, and Ill work to remove it before the defense bill passes, tweeted Sen. Tom CottonTom Bryant CottonOvernight Defense: Biden administration expands Afghan refugee program | Culture war comes for female draft registration | US launches third Somalia strike in recent weeks Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Chuck Todd is dead wrong: Liberal bias defines modern journalism MORE (R-Ark.), seen as a potential 2024 White House hopeful.

A source familiar with Cottons thinking told The Hill he is still figuring out the exact approach to take but will likely work to remove the provision during the conference process between the Senate and House, which is expected to include a similar requirement in its own version of the bill.

Sen. Josh HawleyJoshua (Josh) David HawleyOvernight Defense: Biden administration expands Afghan refugee program | Culture war comes for female draft registration | US launches third Somalia strike in recent weeks Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Biden's bipartisan deal faces Senate gauntlet MORE (R-Mo.), similarly seen as a possible 2024 contender, also tweeted against the provision, saying that Missourians feel strongly that compelling women to fight our wars is wrong and so do I.

I imagine therell be an amendment offered on the floor. I think youll probably get a number of Republicans to join that amendment, Hawley told The Hill when asked about his strategy going forward. We shouldnt be conscripting women against their will.

I think it'll be a pretty big issue, Hawley added. It's the leading reason I voted no on the NDAA as a whole, so I think it'll be a pretty big issue.

But just five of 13 Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee voted against the provision during the panels closed-door consideration of the bill.

When it came time to approving the bill as a whole, Hawley and Cotton were the only Republicans on the committee to vote against it.

And one of the five who opposed the amendment about the draft, committee ranking member Sen.James InhofeJames (Jim) Mountain InhofeOvernight Defense: Biden administration expands Afghan refugee program | Culture war comes for female draft registration | US launches third Somalia strike in recent weeks Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Gillibrand expects vote on military justice bill in fall MORE (R-Okla.), said this past week he does not anticipate a big fight over the issue as the NDAA moves through the legislative process.

I don't think we will because we're split, Inhofe told The Hill when asked whether Republicans will put up a fight over the draft when the bill comes to the floor and goes through conference. Judging from the response we're getting behind closed doors, I don't think we will.

Committee Chairman Jack ReedJack ReedOvernight Defense: Biden administration expands Afghan refugee program | Culture war comes for female draft registration | US launches third Somalia strike in recent weeks Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft House panel looks to help military sexual assault survivors MORE (D-R.I.) said he would not be surprised if an amendment is offered to remove the provision when the NDAA comes to the floor.

But, he added, theres strong support... on both sides of the aisle and I think among the American public to keep it in.

The United States has not instituted a draft since the Vietnam War, and Pentagon officials have repeatedly said they intend to keep the force all-volunteer.

But men ages 18 through 25 still have to register with the Selective Service System or face consequences such as losing access to federal financial aid for college.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court declined to take up a case challenging the constitutionality of the all-male draft, citing the expectation Congress would soon act on the issue.

Congress has been debating whether to make women register for selective service since the Obama administration opened all combat jobs to women in late 2015, rending moot the previous rationale for excluding women from the draft.

The following year, both the House and Senate Armed Services committees included a requirement for women to register in their initial versions of the NDAA.

But the Houses version of the NDAA dropped the language before the bill came to the floor. After conservatives pushed to exclude the language during conference negotiations, the version of the NDAA that ultimately became law in 2016 instead created a commission to review the draft registration requirements.

Last year, that commission recommended draft registration be expanded to include women, calling it a necessary and fair step.

In 2016, Cotton voted against the provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee but did not co-sponsor an amendment to remove it when the NDAA was on the Senate floor, nor did he sign a letter more than a dozen Republicans sent during conference negotiations calling for the provision to be removed.

Cottons spokeswoman, Caroline Tabler, denied he is being more vocal this time for political reasons, saying the senators position is the same in 2021 as it was in 2016; hes opposed to it.

News that this years NDAA would revive the requirement for women to register lit up conservative advocates.

Trump administration budget chief Russell Vought, who now runs a conservative think tank, responded to a news story about the provision by tweeting, No. You are not drafting our daughters.

Jessica Anderson, another Trump administration alum who is now the executive director at conservative advocacy group Heritage Action, similarly tweeted this past week, Dont draft our daughters.

Sen. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzUp next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Biden's bipartisan deal faces Senate gauntlet 228 Republican lawmakers urge Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade MORE (R-Texas), another potential 2024 candidate who while campaigning for president in 2016 said it would be nuts to make women register for the draft, told The Hill this past week he thinks it is one of the many ways Washington is out of touch that we're seeing legislation move forward to draft our daughters.

I would certainly support an amendment to remove it, he added. The military is home to many proud fighting women and men, but that is a voluntary choice, and it is altogether different to forcibly conscript our daughters and put them into harm's way, and I think that is out of touch with the American people.

Complicating matters for those who want to remove the provision is that in addition to Republicans who support it, some anti-war Republicans would rather do away with the draft altogether.

Sen. Rand PaulRandal (Rand) Howard PaulFive takeaways from the Ohio special primaries Trump-backed Mike Carey wins GOP primary in Ohio special election Hillicon Valley: Senate report finds major cyber shortcomings in federal agencies | Gig firms seek Mass. ballot question to classify workers as contractors | Blizzard's president steps down after workplace protests MORE (R-Ky.), for example, recently signed a letter with Sen. Ron WydenRonald (Ron) Lee WydenThe job of shielding journalists is not finished Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Democratswarn shrinking Biden's spending plan could backfire MORE (D-Ore.) and Reps. Peter DeFazioPeter Anthony DeFazioUp next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Biden's bipartisan deal faces Senate gauntlet The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - Biden sets new vaccine mandate as COVID-19 cases surge MORE (D-Ore.) and Rodney DavisRodney Lee DavisUp next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft House rejects GOP effort to seat McCarthy's picks for Jan. 6 panel Banks blames Pelosi for Jan. 6 'breakdown of security' MORE (R-Ill.) calling for the abolishment of Selective Service.

I think it's mostly an act of submission, Paul said of registering for the draft. It's not really used. The government's already got your Social Security number. It's mostly just saying you'll submit to the will of the government to send you to war.

Asked whether hell offer an amendment to abolish the draft, Paul told The Hill, We havent really gotten there yet.

Still, Paul, who frequently holds up consideration of bills in an effort to force votes on his amendments, acknowledged that a lot of times they dont take amendments on the NDAA.

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Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft | TheHill - The Hill

DaBaby has always been a troll of sorts. In 2017, the rapper showed up at the Austin music festival South by Southwest in a diaper, performing a publicity stunt that poked fun at his chosen rap persona. Now, four years from his introduction to the masses, DaBaby has taken his trolling to a more troubling realm.

During his set at last weekends Rolling Loud Festival in Miami, the rapper brought out controversial Toronto rapper Tory Lanez, who Megan Thee Stallion alleges shot her in the foot last year during an altercation. Lanez is currently under a restraining order barring him from even being within 100 yards from Megan, making DaBabys choice a clear effort to humiliate the Houston rapper. Meg and DaBaby recently had a public falling-out, not only over his choice to still work with Lanez in spite of his and Megans friendship and previous working relationship but also because the 29-year-old retweeted a post that made light of Megan getting shot.

(Representatives for Rolling Loud and DaBaby did not immediately respond to Rolling Stones request for comment.)

In addition to featuring Lanez in his performance, DaBaby made homophobic and stigmatizing comments toward people with HIV and AIDS. He later doubled down, particularly on his homophobia, in an apology he posted on Twitter. He then tried to rectify the backlash from his post with a curiously-timed music video for his new song Giving What Its Supposed to Give, which was released Wednesday afternoon. In the video, DaBaby inexplicably holds up a sign with AIDS written on the front. At the end of the video, rainbow-colored text appears onscreen: Dont Fight Hate With Hate. Beneath the text is another half-assed apology. My apologies for being me the same way you want the freedom to be you.

DaBabys odd attempts to clean up his image arrive as white mainstream artists such as Dua Lipa and Elton John speak out against the statements made during his performances, stating their horror and shock. Brands like boohooMan have decided to no longer work with DaBaby after they publicly denounced his statements on social media. Today, the rapper disappeared from the lineup of Parklife Festival in the U.K.

But whats strange about this current uproar is the fact that DaBaby has always been problematic. Just last spring, he was captured on video hitting a female fan who he argued hit him in the head with her cellphone. In an interview with TMZ, the woman in question says she wasnt even the one holding the phone. Nevertheless, his response at the time was like something pulled from Fox News. Despite alleging he couldnt see the fan in question, he said hed have reacted the same whether it was a man or woman. The astounding level of obtuseness aside, this wasnt even DaBabys first run-in with violent behavior. Earlier this year, he was named in a lawsuit after allegedly attacking a rental property owner who tried to shut down an unauthorized music video shoot.

Until now, there hasnt been any real acknowledgment from the brands or musicians who have worked with DaBaby about his pattern of violence and misogynoir. His Rolling Loud rant was entirely unsurprising if you know anything about the rapper, and his current pivot into an anti-cancel culture warrior just proves what many people, especially Black women, have always known about him.

There are conspiracy theories floating around online that suggest DaBabys Rolling Loud rant was part of a public relations move to promote the new video (the timing is rather odd). Its an unlikely claim but nonetheless points to an increasingly prevalent dynamic in hip-hop. The entirety of DaBabys response and non-response to his Rolling Loud set exemplify an ongoing culture war happening within rap culture. People like T.I. (who is facing sexual assault allegations), Boosie Badazz (a known homophobe, transphobe, and self-proclaimed child abuser),and Lanez have already come out in defense of DaBabys actions. On social media, their fans loudly profess frustration with the current generations lack of patience for misogyny and homophobia. Hip-hop, ever obsessed with authenticity at any cost, has a way of mythologizing an era when you could be abusive, misogynistic, and homophobic without facing any real consequences.

Perhaps DaBaby has always spoken to a demographic prone to taking this kind of anti-woke stance. His history of trolling shows that he never cared what the rest of us thought about him anyway. It calls to mind Megan Thee Stallions tweets about DaBabys continued support of Lanez. Support me in private and publicly do something differentthese industry men are very strange, she tweeted. For DaBaby, and artists like him who speak to an aggrieved population of men frightened by a changing world, publicly supporting a woman who was just shot by a fellow rapper is bad PR.

In the end, DaBaby and those who continue to support him are on the wrong side of history, and time isnt on their side. The culture at large is changing to encompass more equity and equality, whether those complicit in oppressive systems like it or not. Given the number of problematic men who feel protected in hip-hop, its more important than ever for prominent artists to no longer remain silent. Despite what critics of cancel culture might think, hip-hops descent into becoming an unrecognizable industry has nothing to do with sensitive millennials and has everything to do with a refusal to hold rappers accountable. Hip-hop was born out of radical thought; the rappers now flirting with right-wing cultural ideologies are and have always been the real threat.

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DaBabys Flagrant Trolling Is Another Part of Hip-Hops Intensifying Culture Wars - Rolling Stone

BOISE, Idaho This article was written by Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News.

Idahos education culture wars will come full circle Thursday.

Thats when Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachins education task force meets again, focusing this time on higher education.

Where Idahos debate began, two years ago.

Theres no disputing that the controversy over critical race theory and school indoctrination has consumed a lot of education policy oxygen in 2021 fueled nationally by Fox News and other conservative networks, and stoked locally by the Idaho Freedom Foundation and its hardline legislative allies.

This year, Freedom Foundation-aligned lawmakers killed a three-year, $18 million federal early education grant and held a $1.1 billion teacher salary budget hostage. But the battle lines over higher education politics were drawn into the map in 2019.

And the debate hasnt changed much since then.

July 9, 2019: a shot across the bow

On Marlene Tromps ninth day as president at Boise State University, she received a pointed greeting from more than a third of the Idaho House of Representatives.

I dont view the current direction of Boise State to be in the tradition of what higher education has been, or should be, in Idaho, wrote state Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, in a letter co-signed by 27 Republican colleagues. As legislators, we will seek and support academic excellence that does not pursue social or political agendas or incur additional costs.

Interestingly, Ehardts letter did not address critical race theory or indoctrination, the terms that dominate the education debate in 2021. Instead, the lawmakers criticized a menu of diversity and inclusion programs that predated Tromps arrival, including multicultural events such as Rainbow Graduation and Black Graduation, a graduate school preparation course geared toward underrepresented student groups and graduate fellowships for underrepresented minority students.

The letter foreshadowed the controversy that has followed Tromp through her 25 months at Boise State. And it signaled that a cadre of House conservatives were ready to start voting down education budgets.

Only 23 of those 28 co-signers are still in the House. But if anything, the chamber is more conservative than it was in 2019, after hardliners captured additional seats in the 2020 elections.

March 2020-May 2021: the budget battles

The culture wars began to play out on the House floor in March 2020. Even as the coronavirus pandemic began to reach Idaho, and as some lawmakers fled the Statehouse over health concerns, the higher education budget became a major impediment to closing the session. The House voted down two budget bills before finally agreeing on a third version with 20 of the 26 no votes coming from co-signers of the letter to Tromp, including Ehardt herself.

The same budget later passed the Senate 31-0.

If anything, 2020 only hinted at what would follow in 2021. The House rejected the early education money, leaving a grant from the Trump administration on the table. The House voted down the first versions of the higher education and teacher salary budgets. It wasnt necessarily about the dollars. In the end, the House actually approved a larger teacher salary budget, after lawmakers passed a separate bill calling out critical race theory.

The growing uproar over critical race theory once an obscure academic concept certainly factored into the battles that marked the 2021 session. But the backlash against higher education, beginning with the letter to Tromp and growing through the 2020 Idaho elections, provided a template for a more far-reaching campaign against education.

Summer 2021: recurring themes

The emotions from the 2021 session, including frustrations and fears, come through in some emails to the State Board of Education.

Using the state public records law, Idaho Education News requested all emails to the State Board containing the word indoctrination or the phrase critical race theory, written since Jan. 1. (Idaho Education News filed similar requests with McGeachin, Gov. Brad Little and the State Department of Education.)

The State Board released 38 emails, with 30 voicing opposition to critical race theory or indoctrination. And 17 of these began with boilerplate wording, replicated in full or sometimes changed slightly.

The template: Please weed out any and all political, medical, and religious indoctrination in our public schools before it gains an even stronger foothold in ldaho. While it may not yet be happening in every classroom in every school, it lS happening in many classrooms, schools, districts, and universities in ldaho.

One emailer acknowledged the obvious, saying the emails were part of a coordinated campaign while refusing to divulge the source of the wording. Its unclear whether the Freedom Foundation was that source. The group, which routinely ignores media requests, did not respond to an inquiry from Idaho Education News.

Regardless of the root source, the form emails illustrate one point. Two years into this debate, the Freedom Foundations assertion of widespread classroom indoctrination have been accepted as fact by a number of Idahoans despite a lack of specifics, and despite the State Boards categorical denials.

August 2021: the next chapter

The State Board also released eight emails commenting on a new proposed policy on diversity and inclusion at Idahos four-year campuses. Under this policy, Each institution shall strive to create environments in which diversity and inclusion are valued, promoted, and embraced, in alignment with the goal of achieving educational equity.

Several comments came from current or retired teachers. Six commenters urged the State Board to approve the policy or strengthen it by covering LGBT students. Two commenters opposed the proposal.

A diversity and inclusion policy is not a critical race theory policy, although all of these terms tend to be thrown about as if they are interchangeable. But diversity and inclusion programs prompted lawmakers to write their letter to Tromp two years ago. And diversity and inclusion initiatives are unlikely to win support from McGeachins hand-picked indoctrination task force. The group is slated to spend 30 minutes at Thursdays meeting discussing the State Board proposal.

The State Board is scheduled to vote on its diversity and inclusion proposal at its Aug. 25-26 meeting. That same week, the McGeachin task force is expected to hold its final meeting and issue its own recommendations.

The debate has gone full circle. Now, a showdown looms.

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Analysis: The education culture wars go full circle, and head for a showdown - 6 On Your Side