As has been the case with the Trump administration after a mass shooting event, the president and key legislative leaders are discussing in the wake of Saturday’s Odessa, Texas, shoot-out a series of possible measures, including expediting the death penalty. As is also the case during a long presidential primary season, Democratic candidates are one-upping one another with gun-control proposals, with Texan Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) both suggesting “mandatory buy-backs” of “weapons of war.” So what will and should actually be done?
So kicks off a lively discussion on the latest Editors Roundtable edition of the Reason Podcast, feauring Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman and Matt Welch. Other topics include: Reflections on back-to-school week and the state of education policy/politics, ideas from both the Trump administration and the Democratic presidential field about getting U.S. troops the hell out of Afghanistan, plus the latest social-commentary comedy from Dave Chappelle
As has been the case with the Trump administration after a mass shooting event, the president and key legislative leaders are discussing in the wake of Saturday’s Odessa, Texas, shoot-out a series of possible measures, including expediting the death penalty. As is also the case during a long presidential primary season, Democratic candidates are one-upping one another with gun-control proposals, with Texan Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) both suggesting “mandatory buy-backs” of “weapons of war.” So what will and should actually be done?
So kicks off a lively discussion on the latest Editors Roundtable edition of the Reason Podcast, feauring Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman and Matt Welch. Other topics include: Reflections on back-to-school week and the state of education policy/politics, ideas from both the Trump administration and the Democratic presidential field about getting U.S. troops the hell out of Afghanistan, plus the latest social-commentary comedy from Dave Chappelle
Although they are no longer taking applications, three weeks ago Caduceus Healthcare posted the following ad seeking “entry-level” employees for Dulles International Airport, just outside of Washington, DC.
To screen passengers that have traveled back from Ebola affected nations. This will include checking vital signs, temperature and having passengers fill out questionnaires. This will include tracking and reporting all recovered results.
Have a current and unrestricted EMT License
Current BLS
Must be a US citizen or Green Card holder
Here’s a screenshot of the advertisement just in case it gets memory-holed, because we all know how that goes.
The Epoch Times contacted Caduceus Healthcare and spoke to an official at the company.
“We’re a contractor with the federal government; we saw a proposal that came out looking for MPs, PAs, and public health advisers to be at a couple of main hubs at airports,” Jared Beuther, an official at Caduceus Healthcare, told The Epoch Times.
“The federal government put out a proposal bid because our company has worked closely with the CDC before and then emergency response, being able to provide them physicians.”
“The proposal went out last week, before that they were just reaching out to see if any companies were interested in that position,” Beuther noted. (source)
You know, just casually checking travelers for a deadly hemorrhagic disease. No biggie.
It isn’t just isolated to Washington DC, either.
In the Epoch Times’ very thorough report, they discovered that the Los Angeles Public Department of Health is also looking for someone to handle a potential Ebola outbreak.
The Program Specialist (PS), Public Health Nurse (PHN) in the Hospital Outbreak and Biothreat Response Unit, under the direction of the ACDC physician, will be responsible for leading all components of outbreak investigations that occur in the acute care hospital setting, providing recommendations for outbreak control, and follow-up of infection prevention measures implemented to prevent further disease transmission.
Essential Job Functions
Oversee all aspects of outbreak investigations that occur in the acute care hospital setting.
Coordinate, direct and manage activities for outbreak investigations, including collecting, organizing, and interpreting clinical and laboratory data, leading site visits, and coordinating laboratory specimens and environmental sampling.
Develop and write recommendations, letters, and comprehensive investigation reports for outbreak control to facilities.
Prepare reports summarizing investigations, surveillance trends within Los Angeles County, and other correspondence as needed.
Lead meetings with facilities and provide technical expertise on communicable disease issues such as healthcare-associated infections (HAI), infection control, multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROs), medical device-associated infections, contaminated products, and emerging infectious diseases to healthcare personnel.
Collaborate and consult with professional organizations and local, state and federal government agencies, such as the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), Health Facilities Licensing and Certification, California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Develop and update hospital outbreak investigation policies and procedures and infection prevention and control guidelines based on healthcare community standards of practice, established outbreak investigation activities and the Public Health Nursing Practice Model.
Participate in local, state and national committees that support control and prevention of hospital outbreaks.
Support outbreak prevention and control activities in acute care facilities
Directly supervise an Assistant Program Specialist (APS) and provide cross-coverage for biothreat responses (e.g. Ebola, anthrax, botulism, smallpox).
Requirements
Must currently be a permanent Los Angeles County employee who holds the payroll item of Program Specialist, Public Health Nurse. (source)
And of course, here’s another screenshot for the inevitable moment when they take down the post and a bunch of people start screaming in the comments that I made this up.
New York City is likewise concerned.
The Epoch Times reports:
New York City and state health departments carried out a full Ebola drill on April 30 with a mock Ebola patient, noting in a press release, “Given the current outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history with over 1,100 confirmed cases and 700 deaths, it is critical that the healthcare system is prepared to handle an actual case of Ebola or other infectious disease threat. Despite this critical need for readiness, federal funding for Ebola preparedness is set to expire in 2020, placing the future of these emergency response capabilities in jeopardy.”
New York carried out its drill a full month before 13 African migrant families that crossed the U.S. southern border moved permanently to New York City. (source)
And there seems to be a trend of drills happening right before the real thing happens, doesn’t there?
How worried should we be?
Honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t done this sooner. Ever since the last Ebola scare, I’ve been troubled by the apparent lack of concern about these types of deadly diseases being passed on by travelers.
This doesn’t mean it could never happen here but it means, for now, things are okay. It would be wise to compare your preps to this article about pandemic readiness and invest in this excellent book, Prepping for a Pandemic. As well, check out my book, Be Ready For Anything, which has some specific pandemic recommendations as well as general preparedness advice. This is one of those things that could happen suddenly but may never happen at all.
However, when the government becomes publicly concerned, I always pay a little more attention and wonder what they know that we do not.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MQSloI Tyler Durden
Having suddenly lost his parliamentary majority earlier today, and having accused opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn of intentionally weakening the UK’s hand in Brexit negotiations, Boris Johnson (BoJo) just suffered – as expected – another setback as the UK parliament voted to seize control of parliamentary business (and negate BoJo’s prorogue).
The ayes win by 328 votes to 301.
Johnson raged:
“Parliament is on the brink of wrecking any deal that we might get.”
Rebel UK lawmakers now aim to pass legislation that would force Johnson to delay Brexit if he hasn’t reached a deal with EU leaders in Brussels (implicitly blocking a no-deal Brexit).
However, BoJo has said he will try to trigger a snap election (the country’s third in just over four years) for Oct. 14 if he lost control of the agenda, and now that he has, we will have to see how the process evolves. Notably, Johnson’s office doubled-down on a threat to expel any Tory who votes against the government tonight – saying even those who abstain will be ejected. However, as one rebel (Dominic Grieve) noted, it’s not going to work:
“If he thinks that the device of withdrawing the whip this evening is going to change my mind or that of my honorable and right honorable friends he has got another thing coming, because it will be treated with the contempt it deserves.”
And as we have seen, it didn’t. The question now is – will BoJo eject all the rebels.
As Bloomberg details, BoJo needs the votes of two-thirds of MPs to trigger an election — 434 of them. His government includes only 311 — even fewer if he starts throwing out rebels, as he’s threatened to do. Making up the difference should be straightforward: The opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose socialist agenda roils financial markets, has been asking for an election since he narrowly lost the last one in June 2017.
The pound is stable for now…
Source: Bloomberg
We look forward to Nigel Farage’s reponse!
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2PGiokG Tyler Durden
Leif Olson, a Trump appointee in the Department of Labor, resigned from the federal government this week after attracting scrutiny from Bloomberg Law reporter Ben Penn, who accused Olson of referencing anti-Semitic tropes in a Facebook post from 2016.
“A recently appointed Trump Labor Department official with a history of advancing controversial conservative and faith-based causes in court has resigned after revelations that he wrote a 2016 Facebook post suggesting the Jewish-controlled media ‘protects their own,'” wrote Penn.
The post does reference anti-Semitic tropes, but the post itself is not anti-Semitic. On the contrary, it is clearly mocking the kind of alt-right people who hold such views.
The post in question discusses the victory of former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R–Wisc.) over his 2016 primary challenger, Paul Nehlen, a white supremacist. “[Ryan] just suffered a massive, historic, emasculating 70-point victory,” wrote Olson. “Let’s see him and his Georgetown cocktail-party puppetmasters try to walk that one off.” It’s obvious that Olson is pro-Ryan, and is not actually attacking the congressman. He’s copying the language of an anti-Ryan troll.
Written in the voice of a Breitbartist conservative who hates Paul Ryan, the post assails Ryan for his “emasculating 70-point victory” after Ryan defeated Nehlen by that overwhelming margin. The comments are what got Olson in (undeserved) trouble: “Neo-cons are all Upper East Side Zionists who don’t golf on Saturday if you know what I mean,” and, after a friend joked about Ryan being Jewish, Olson added, “It must be true because I’ve never seen the Lamestream Media report it, and you know they protect their own.”
You do not need a PhD in linguistics to correctly identify this as obvious sarcasm — another commenter on the thread praised the post’s “epic sarcasm.” Conservatives, especially ones of a neoconservative bent on foreign policy, have made sarcastic jokes like this about what they perceive as (and what sometimes, as in the case of Nehlen, is) anti-Semitic criticism of neoconservatism, a movement primarily founded by Jewish intellectuals.
But if that post was not clear enough on its own, Olson added an additional post making his point extremely, extremely clear.
Matthews goes on to note that he is generally supportive of cancel culture, and thus it’s important to hold the cancellers accountable when they unleash the mob on an undeserving target. “The Department of Labor ought to rehire Olson so he can keeping advising them to pursue policies I disagree with,” Matthews wrote. “Not doing so would damage our societal immune system and make it easier for false charges like this to stick in the future.”
Going after Olson for this post was an obvious misfire on Penn’s part, and it’s a shame that Penn seems to have doubled down on his mistake.
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On Tuesday September 3, 2019, former Texas congressman Ron Paul appeared on an episode of the Quoth the Raven podcast to weigh in on the state of equity markets, the media’s role in indoctrinating the masses with Keynesian theory, how Tulsi Gabbard “isn’t getting a fair shake” and his view on the second amendment.
Here’s the former presidential candidate’s most recent take things, and the full podcast interview below.
On The Current State of the Market
When first talking about the state of the Fed and equity markets, Paul unloaded on Central Bankers:
“I think it’s historic. I think it’s coming to an end and I think we’re going to see a real real big bust in the economy because I think until we admit we are bankrupt both financially and morally, there can be no answers.”
He also commented that he believes the Fed understands the catastrophic path we are currently on:
“A lot of people know there’s problems. Even members of the Federal Reserve I think are much more aware of what’s happening than they’re willing to admit…”
“…the Fed will get rid of itself, because it’s not viable…”
On Gold
Paul also spoke about a breakfast meeting he had with Paul Volcker decades ago, who he said was overtly concerned with the price of gold at the time. Paul said about gold:
“Gold is real money. Paper money only exists when you can fool the people…gold is the ultimate measurement of value. They know that…”
On Helping Main Street Understand Austrian Economics
When asked about how to empower the ordinary citizen with knowledge of Austrian economics, Paul responded:
“It has to be by word of mouth, it has to be through education…because it’s ideological. The idea is that the universities are not the answer.”
He continued:
“I can remember it dawning on me as I left college and I got more involved in politics that my job seemed to be unlearning the things I had learned…that’s where I think the real progress is made…”
“…students are more likely to quote some socialist professor than they are any of us…”
On The Media Censoring Tulsi Gabbard
When asked about the media’s coverage of his 2008 and 2012 Presidential run, Paul also noted that he thought Tulsi Gabbard was not getting a fair shake.
“She’s not getting a fair shake, but she has to realize that she’s in a hornet’s nest. She dramatizes how badly the progressive democrats have drifted away…”
“I think she should just put her head down and say what she believes, because she will reach people outside of Democratic circles…”
“I think she has been attacked and mistreated maybe more than I was…”
On Whether Or Not The Fed Is Buying Stocks Or S&P Futures
When asked about whether or not he thought the Fed and Central Banks are currently in the stock market and/or futures market, Dr. Paul responded:
“…I believe they are. They don’t want us to know the details and that’s why they don’t let the audit go through because you could find out…”
“…The Presidents Working Group on Financial Markets, that’s their job, to keep stocks from going down…”
“…they have total control and they’re really not monitored…”
You can subscribe to future episodes of the QTR podcast on YouTube here and on iTunes here.
You can listen to the full podcast below.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZP3bli Tyler Durden
Yes, I know. I am lining up on the wrong side. You are supposed to hate him. The presstitutes hate Trump. So does the Democratic Party, part of the Republican Party, the military/security complex, the entirety of the liberal/progressive/left, the universities, feminists, and Washington’s vassal states. No one likes him but the “racist, white supremacist Trump deplorables.”
Nevertheless, I feel sorry for him. I started feeling sorry for him when he announced he would run for President of the United States. You see, I had inside information.
I had held a presidential appointment from a President of the United States. I ended up fighting battles for him against entrenched interests who opposed his policies to end stagflation and the cold war. I helped to win the battles for him, as his accolades to me testify, but my success ended any career for me in government.
I knew that, unlike Reagan who had prepared his run over the years and had a movement behind him, Trump had not. Moreover, also unlike Reagan, Trump had no idea of what he was walking into and no idea of who to appoint to important offices who might be inclined to help him. Generally speaking, the value of a presidential appointment, such as the one I had, lies NOT in helping the president, but in helping the ruling private establishment. Any Assistant Secretary can be very helpful to private interests and end up a multi-millionaire. Indeed, most of them do.
But I put the country’s interest ahead of mine and helped Reagan to cure stagflation and to end the cold war. Curing stagflation was perceived as a threat by the economics profession which had no cure and didn’t want to be shown up by dissident supply-side economists, and much of Wall Street misunderstood what the media called “Reaganomics” as more inflationary deficit spending that threatened their stock and bond portfolios. Ending the Cold War threatened the budget of the military/security complex, a dangerous undertaking.
A decade or two ago a person I had known when I was in Washington, who was a professor in Massachusetts, telephoned me. He said he had just returned from Washington where he had had lunch with some of my former colleagues. He had asked them about me, and according to his report, they said: “Poor Craig. If he had not turned critic, he would be worth tens of millions of dollars like us.” My former acquaintance said that he stood up and said that he didn’t realize that he was having lunch with a bunch of whores and left.
Obviously, my acquaintance did not intend to return to a Washington career.
What does this have to do with Trump?
Trump’s life was going well. He is a billionaire married to the most beautiful woman in the world. The last thing he needed was the problems of the United States. To change the locked in, interest group controlled course of America requires a superhero. This is definitely not a job for an unprepared man in his 70s. The truckloads of mud dumped on him by porn stars and prostitutes are unlikely to have strengthened his relationship with his wife.
As I predicted would be the case, Trump had no idea who to appoint to help him.Consequently, he appointed everyone opposed to his renewal of American jobs and peaceful relationships with Russia, China, Iran, and the Middle East. So nothing has changed. Why in the world a successful person covets an office where failure is the norm is beyond me.
Trump’s first, and perhaps only, term has been consumed in the Russiagate orchestration. John Brennan, the CIA director, and James Comey, the FBI director, along with President Obama, the Obama Justice (sic) Department, the presstitute American media, and the Hillary Democratic National Committee concocted an absurd investigation of the elected President of the United States as a Russian agent, a tool of Vladimir Putin’s plan to rule America.
How anyone could believe such a preposterous story is incredible. But Democrats and the presstitutes claimed it was true. But Mueller was unable to establish it. After his failure, Mueller’s testimony before Congress was immensely embarrassing to him, the Democrats, and the whore American media.
“The IG report confirms Mr. Comey improperly kept FBI files on President Trump at his home and that he illicitly leaked these FBI files to the New York Times in order to advance his personal agenda of getting a Special Counsel appointed to target the president. Comey also misled both the FBI and Congress about his handling of these documents. On top of all of that, in violation of law, he kept and disclosed classified information.”
Let me summarize the 80-plus pages for you by pulling out some quotes:
“Violated Department and FBI policies. …
Comey Improperly Disclosed …
Comey’s Improper Disclosures…
Comey’s characterization finds no support in the law and is wholly incompatible with the plain language of the statutes, regulations and policies defining federal records, and the terms of Comey’s FBI Employment Agreement. …
Comey violated …
this assertion is without legal basis. …
Unauthorized disclosure …
Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility … a dangerous example …..”
And so on.
The IG report generously forgot that Comey went before the FISA Court with a fraudulent request, which is a felony.
Comey’s offenses exceed those of Mike Milken, Leona Helmsley, and Martha Stewart, all of whom were put in prison on false charges in order to raise the name recognition of ambitious publicity-seeking prosecutors, one of whom was Comey himself. Comey framed Martha Stewart.
Rudy Giuliani framed Milken in order to become New York City Mayor. Helmsley was framed on the basis of a false statement by an accountant solicited by the Justice (sic) Department in exchange for dropping prosecution of the accountant for his own misdeeds.
Mueller presided over the FBI’s 9/11 investigation and deepsixed all the real evidence in order to protect the false official story.
So, what did the Justice (sic) Department IG suggest for Comey? The Justice Department refused to prosecute.
Justice is far less important to the department than protecting its own. The Justice Department is itself engaging in misconduct by refusing to prosecute a person that the Justice Department knows beyond all doubt committed crimes. Did the Justice Department decide that Comey’s crimes can be forgiven because they were committed for good cause—getting rid of President Trump?
Former US Attorneys and Assistant US Attorneys are on record predicting that there would be indictments of those who orchestrated Russiagate in a conspiracy of sedition to overthrow the elected President of the United States. I would have liked to have believed it, but I never did.The United States does not have a Justice system. In the place of justice the US has a weapon in the hands of the state. It is not a weapon that the state often uses against its own functionaries.
Don’t forget. The Justice Department and FBI covered up for Hillary. She had broken laws governing official State Department email and used a private server to hide her wheeling and dealing. Judicial Watch is attempting to open up the coverup. A federal court has given Judicial Watch power to depose Hillary Clinton and Cheryl Mills and to interrogate others. I suspect the judge will be overturned by a politically chosen Appeals Court, and that will be the end of the matter.
I am unable to recall examples of the US government or its officials being held accountable and do not remember a single incident other than President Reagan’s prosecution of the Iran-Contra neoconservatives, who were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.
Now that Comey has been protected, we have to expect that his co-conspirators in the plot to overthrow the President of the United States will also be protected from prosecution. It will be interesting to count all the crimes that will not be punished and add up all the prison years that won’t be served. When you think about the large percentage of innocent people in prison and on death row and about the mothers of young children who are imprisoned for drug possession, it makes you sick that Comey who tried to overthrow the elected President of the United States is permitted to walk.
All future presidents will have learned from Trump’s fate that their real job is to foment enough American enemies to keep the military/security complex’s budget expanding. The United States will continue on its course toward war with its homemade adversaries.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32ktpcK Tyler Durden
Leif Olson, a Trump appointee in the Department of Labor, resigned from the federal government this week after attracting scrutiny from Bloomberg Law reporter Ben Penn, who accused Olson of referencing anti-Semitic tropes in a Facebook post from 2016.
“A recently appointed Trump Labor Department official with a history of advancing controversial conservative and faith-based causes in court has resigned after revelations that he wrote a 2016 Facebook post suggesting the Jewish-controlled media ‘protects their own,'” wrote Penn.
The post does reference anti-Semitic tropes, but the post itself is not anti-Semitic. On the contrary, it is clearly mocking the kind of alt-right people who hold such views.
The post in question discusses the victory of former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R–Wisc.) over his 2016 primary challenger, Paul Nehlen, a white supremacist. “[Ryan] just suffered a massive, historic, emasculating 70-point victory,” wrote Olson. “Let’s see him and his Georgetown cocktail-party puppetmasters try to walk that one off.” It’s obvious that Olson is pro-Ryan, and is not actually attacking the congressman. He’s copying the language of an anti-Ryan troll.
Written in the voice of a Breitbartist conservative who hates Paul Ryan, the post assails Ryan for his “emasculating 70-point victory” after Ryan defeated Nehlen by that overwhelming margin. The comments are what got Olson in (undeserved) trouble: “Neo-cons are all Upper East Side Zionists who don’t golf on Saturday if you know what I mean,” and, after a friend joked about Ryan being Jewish, Olson added, “It must be true because I’ve never seen the Lamestream Media report it, and you know they protect their own.”
You do not need a PhD in linguistics to correctly identify this as obvious sarcasm — another commenter on the thread praised the post’s “epic sarcasm.” Conservatives, especially ones of a neoconservative bent on foreign policy, have made sarcastic jokes like this about what they perceive as (and what sometimes, as in the case of Nehlen, is) anti-Semitic criticism of neoconservatism, a movement primarily founded by Jewish intellectuals.
But if that post was not clear enough on its own, Olson added an additional post making his point extremely, extremely clear.
Matthews goes on to note that he is generally supportive of cancel culture, and thus it’s important to hold the cancellers accountable when they unleash the mob on an undeserving target. “The Department of Labor ought to rehire Olson so he can keeping advising them to pursue policies I disagree with,” Matthews wrote. “Not doing so would damage our societal immune system and make it easier for false charges like this to stick in the future.”
Going after Olson for this post was an obvious misfire on Penn’s part, and it’s a shame that Penn seems to have doubled down on his mistake.
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The gunman who went on a rampage in West Texas Saturday was deemed mentally unfit and had been banned from buying firearms in the criminal background check system, according to the Wall Street Journal.
36-year-old Seth Ator, who a neighbor described as a “violent, aggressive person,” killed seven people when he opened fire in an Odessa movie theater after being fired from his oil services job earlier that morning.
Authorities are investigating whether Ator bought the gun he used in the shooting.
Authorities Tuesday were still investigating how the gunman, 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator, was able to buy the AR-15 style rifle used in the attack, which left seven people dead and 22 wounded. including whether he bought the gun through a private sale, the officials said.
The gunman had earlier tried to buy a gun but failed because a nationwide criminal background system flagged the mental health determination by a local court and prevented the purchase, according to the officials.
The revelation that Ator was considered a prohibited person under federal firearms laws added a new dimension to the gun debate that intensified after the shootings in Midland and nearby Odessa, Texas, which came just weeks after mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. President Trump has expressed an openness to more comprehensive background checks for prospective gun buyers, but the case shows the difficulty of preventing mass shootings, as a stronger system wouldn’t necessarily have stopped a private sale. –Wall Street Journal
The FBI announced that a preliminary investigation has ruled out domestic or international terrorism, while the Daily Beast reported that Ator had a prior criminal record for trespassing and resisting arrest.
On Sunday, President Trump said that background checks wouldn’t have stopped any of America’s mass shootings going back “five, six, seven years,” claiming “as strong as you make your background checks, they would not have stopped any of it.”
Trump stands strong against those who hate the Second Amendment: “I will say that for the most part, sadly, if you look at the last 4 or 5 going back, even 5 or 6 or 7 years, for the most part, as strong as you make your background checks, they would not have stopped any of it” pic.twitter.com/r8DC1TO1s0
“It would be wonderful to say — to say ‘eliminate,’ but we want to substantially reduce the violent crime — and actually, in any form,” Trump added at the beginning of the Dorian briefing. “This includes strong measures to keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous and deranged individuals, and substantial reforms to our nation’s broken mental health system.“
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NPFB16 Tyler Durden
A Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee, has banned the entire Harry Potter series of books because a pastor at the school believes they contain real spells that actually work in real life.
The Tennesseanreported over the weekend that Rev. Dan Reehil, a pastor at the school, sent out an email to parents telling them that the seven books in the series were being removed from the library. In the email, he tells parents, “The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.”
The spells in the Harry Potter books are, of course, a fictional creation of author J.K. Rowling. We know this by virtue of the lack of children today zooming about the atmosphere screaming, “Ascendio!“
The ban announcement quickly went viral, no doubt fed by Reehil’s absurd reasoning and the almost nostalgic nature of it. Reehil is hardly the first to call for the banning of Harry Potter books, and he’s not the first to pin it to religion-fueled fears of occult references in fictional works. Prior to 2004, when the first books in the series were still fresh, schools faced hundreds of challenges to try to get them banned, according to the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual list of “Top Ten Most Challenged Books.”
But then the Harry Potter books fell off the list, even as the series was adapted to film and became a pop culture mainstay. You can even “visit” settings from the books and movie adaptations at Universal Studios theme parks in Los Angeles, California, and Orlando, Florida, and buy your own magic wand. You still won’t be able to fly, but the wand does other things in the park itself—through clever application of technology, not actual magic.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, interim director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, says that efforts to ban Harry Potter books still pop up occasionally, particularly in Catholic schools. Because Catholic schools are privately organized and operated, the typical First Amendment legal concerns don’t apply. As for students in public schools, a 2003 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas said that it violated the First Amendment rights of students in the Cedarville School District to lock away Harry Potter books and require children to get written permission from parents to read them.
The recent drop in such cases makes the action in Nashville much more noticeable.
“It has become a Modern children’s classic and become more widely accepted, but we still see incidents where it’s still challenged,” Caldwell-Stone explains. And it’s not just about the magic and witchcraft. “They think Harry’s a terrible role model who teaches kids to defy authority.”
In other words, the passage of more than 20 years since the first book was published has made it clear that any religious fears that the Harry Potter books would lead to real world occultism or devil worship are simply unfounded.
These days, books are less likely to be challenged for representing magic or witchcraft and are more likely to be fought because they include LGBT characters, profanity, or violence. Harry Potter is no longer a major concern, making Reehil’s abrupt decision even more head-scratching. In addition, book banning requests usually come from parents or library patrons and very rarely from administrators (and almost never from the students themselves), according to data from the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
The Tennessean notes that the Catholic Church itself has not taken any sort of position on the Harry Potter books. Reehil seems to be acting on his own. The other Catholic schools in the diocese still have the books in their libraries. Superintendent Rebecca Hammel told the Tennessean that the school hadn’t banned any other books for similar reasons. While the church might not have a formal position, Pope Benedict XVI was not a fan of the series back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, according to a letter he sent in 2003. But even back then, some other religious leaders thought it was absurd to think the books presented a danger to young Christian minds.
The reasoning behind the ban is reminiscent of the religious panic over the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game that happened back in the 1980s and 1990s (and still persists in some quarters). While part of the panic was due to dislike among some Christians of anything that embraced even a fictional representation of magic and the supernatural, this fear was also partly a result of misinterpreting what the game actually was.
Not a few critics of Dungeons & Dragons believed that kids (and adults) playing the game were literally attempting to cast the magic spells listed in the manuals in real life. You can see remnants of that idea from this unsigned Christian analysis of the game from 2003:
Magic-users, elves, and clerics use spells, which must be memorized before a game begins after consultation with the proper book of spells. The spell must then be spoken or read aloud in order to have any effect.
As a big Dungeons & Dragons nerd, I can explain how this is mistaken. It is true that the wholly imaginary characters must memorize spells, but the players themselves do not and don’t have to consult with a book prior to playing a game. All they’re actually doing is picking which spells they want to have prepared from a large list. Wizards and the like have a limited number of spells they can cast per day. This was implemented as a form of game balance to keep the game’s magical classes from being too powerful (compared to warriors and thieves and others with no magic skills) that has somehow been misinterpreted as rules that the players themselves must follow.
Similarly, I’ve seen religious critics of the game misinterpret the fanciful descriptions in the manuals of how the spells are cast with instructions that the players must follow in real life as part of the game. This is the mentality to led to the panic that players were living out these fantasies in real life. I read a panic-fueled analysis of the game back in the 1990s that warned that kids were being ordered to eat live spiders in order to gain the ability to climb walls (like Spider-man) because it was listed in a spell’s description. This was not what was actually happening. The imaginary wizards being controlled by the player were eating imaginary spiders (assuming the players even cared all that much about the spell’s components). These were fanciful accounts of how the spell is cast—and they were complete fiction.
That panic has faded, probably because decades of Dungeons & Dragons play has not resulted in any portals to Hell opening on Earth, because claims that the game lead to suicide were shown to be nonsense, and because the game is currently enjoying a renaissance. In fact, not a few Christians have become avid gamers themselves and are encouraging others to do the same. (You can play monks!)
The Harry Potter books, too, have become simply a harmless part of our popular culture and shouldn’t be inspiring this absurd ban. The ban does, however, serve as a useful reminder that Banned Book Week is coming up later this month from September 22 through 28. While the ALA documents hundreds of challenges every year, Caldwell-Stone notes that actual book bans are infrequent.
“We’re heartened by the fact that in the public school and public venues, more frequently than not, even when there are challenges the book, they choose to retain the book, on the grounds that they’re a public institution,” she says.
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