Where is the outrage?

Stories you might not have heard of that should be front and center.

Zach Radcliff.

You’ve probably never heard of him. Google him and most of what you will see are stories from October, after he was arrested for making and distributing pornography to and with minors.

I Googled him Thursday night and I found three more stories, about how the 30 original charges against him had been doubled after “several young men testified against Radcliff” in a preliminary hearing held this week, according to MLive and CBS News.

Eight young men and one 17-year-old testified that within the last decade, when they were all minors, Radcliff had sent them videos of himself masturbating and had solicited sexual videos from them. The young men said Radcliff had even ordered them to perform oral sex for losing a bet, according to an MLive news report from February 24, when Radcliff was arraigned.

Should I mention that some of the charges against Radcliff were dropped because three of the victims were too traumatized to appear? And there still remain 60 charges against Radcliff, who is 29 and will likely be sent away for life?

Oh, also… I should probably mention that Radcliff was the youth pastor and music director at Oakwood Church in Michigan, where his father, Frank, is senior pastor.

Hemant Mehta, who runs the Friendly Atheist Substack, unearthed an interview that Frank, along with Zach, did with Christian radio host Chris Ayotte.

When Ayotte said “gender identity ideology” was “from the pit of hell” and was putting young people in danger, both Frank and Chris agreed, with Frank calling parents with trans children child abusers.

District Court Judge J. Cedric Simpson told the court after this week’s hearing that Zach Radcliff “ranks up with one of the most egregious predators that I have ever seen as it regards these individuals."

It was Mehta’s Substack that alerted me to the existence of the charges against Radcliff. I missed it on NBC and CBS, when their very short stories were posted once in October when the charges were brought and again this week after the hearing. MSNBC and CNN haven’t had anything on it. The New York Times (I still get the headlines via email) didn’t report anything, and nothing comes up in a search. Neither did anything come up in the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, or even the Detroit Free Press. Local Michigan TV news stations did report it.

I mean, it’s a story, right? That yet another person involved in leadership of a church or a religious order has been charged with abusing their position so they can sexually assault young people?

It’s a story that needs to be told, not just something the evening news finds salacious. Right?

Trans athletes.

I’m certain that you’ve heard of them. Many times this week alone, as the U.S. Senate tried, but failed, to schedule a vote to ban trans women from women’s sports.

Relatedly, you may have heard about the Montana legislature defeating two anti-trans bills, one of which would have banned drag performances and pride parades, and the other of which would have taken trans children from their families.

Or perhaps you’ve heard that California Governor Gavin Newsom urged Democratic legislators not to bring up trans rights bills this session, and told right wing youth agitator Charlie Kirk that he agrees with him that trans women and girls should not play women’s sports.

Perhaps you’ve seen the ACLU tracking the 456 anti-trans bills all over the U.S.

Or, if you are like me, you get sometimes twice daily updates from Erin Reed, whose reporting on trans rights legislation and other attacks is incomparable.

Who’s the Erin Reed bringing all of the sexual assault charges in religious spaces together in a Substack that reaches over a hundred thousand people? Which journalist is undauntedly listing one breach of trust after another? Who is bravely and relentlessly exposing the hypocrisy of the religious right every single day?

I know the ACLU is about the Bill of Rights, and sexual assault isn’t part of the Bill of Rights, but what major organization is standing up for people assaulted by trusted leaders at religious institutions?

Where is the daily outrage?

The very people who are using their daughters as a pretext for their bigotry are regularly sending those daughters into religious institutions where they are far more likely to be harmed.

Where is the outrage?

Ukrainians.

There is also little outrage for the fate of Ukrainian refugees, who were brought to the U.S. after Russia attacked their country.

According to Reuters, the Trump administration is weighing whether to evict 260,000 Ukrainian refugees, after the little scene in the oval office with President Zelensky on February 28. Reuters had previously reported that the Trump administration had already decided to expel Ukrainians.

According to this man, Reuters’ original reporting was correct. He says he and his family and other Ukrainian refugees are being told they will have to leave in April.

This guy’s worry isn’t that he wants to stay. It’s that his newborn doesn’t have a passport.

And we have seen that Trump and his lackeys will gladly take children away from their parents.

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Unlawful detention of German tourists.

You probably haven’t heard this one, either.

Nobody is sure why, but ICE in California seems to have been given orders to arrest and detain German tourists.

Two of them are sitting in detention centers in San Diego after visiting Tijuana and trying to come back to the U.S.

On January 25, Jessica Brösche, met up with her best friend, who had recently moved to Los Angeles, in Tijuana. As the two were crossing the border, ICE flagged Brösche and put her in detention - including solitary confinement - because the tattoo equipment the women carried indicated to border patrol agents that they were going to set up a business in LA.

The friend, Nikita Lovfing, said the pair were planning to add tattoos to each others’ bodies, before Brösche was scheduled to return to Germany on February 15.

According to The Guardian, “Brösche had her German passport, confirmation of her visa waiver to enter the country, and a copy of her return ticket back to Berlin. But she was still pulled aside for a secondary inspection by a US Customs and Border Protection agent.”

She is still there as of this writing, missing her February 15 flight home. She told a San Diego news outlet that her detention was “like a horror movie.”

German national Lucas Sielaff is also experiencing that horror. Sielaff is engaged to an American - Las Vegas doctor Lennon Tyler. They met in Germany a couple of years ago when Tyler was volunteering. Their romance has been one of constant travel.

From her home in Vegas, Tyler and Sielaff went to Tijuana for Tyler’s dog to get cancer treatment. They have made the journey before. Sielaff, like Brösche, has a travel visa to enter and exit the U.S.

But on February 14, as the couple and their dog were returning to Vegas, Sielaff was picked up and put in detention.

He also had a return ticket back to Germany.

Tyler told NBC 7 San Diego:

“Lucas hands his German passport to the first checkpoint, and they look at his German passport, and they become very aggressive and hostile almost immediately.”

Tyler said the officers sent them to secondary inspection and took him inside, searched their car and chained her to a bench.

“Every time I tried to ask a question, they said, ‘No one's going to answer your questions. You need to be quiet,’” Tyler said.

Hours later, she said they tried to get her to sign some paperwork, but she refused, and they told her to leave.

“They told me if I didn't leave, I would be arrested and that my dog would be thrown in a cage and my car would be impounded,” she said. “Make your choice is what they said.”

So, not only is ICE detaining German citizens who have valid papers, but they are chaining American citizens to benches and threatening to detain them.

While giving them an almost literal Sophie’s Choice.

February 14, when all this happened, was three weeks ago. Sielaff is still in custody.

I ask again, where is the outrage?

Did you hear Democrats rise from the floors of the House and Senate to decry the detention of people lawfully visiting the country?

Have you heard the leaders of California and Nevada - both legislatures are in session at the moment - decrying that their own citizens were threatened?

Please share and comment.

Citizen Cane

I’m sure you have heard of Al Green. No, not the singer. The Congressman from Texas, who this week, interrupted Trump’s speech to Congress by lifting his cane and defending Medicaid.

After Green was thrown out of the House chambers, he told reporters:

This is about the people who are being punished by virtue of losing their health care. This is the richest country in the world, and we have people who don't have good health care. We've got to do better and now we're about to cut Medicaid, which is for the poor.

Two days later, 10 Democratic House members joined 214 Republican representatives to censure Green.

New York Representatives Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen both cited “decorum” as the reason for their censure votes.

Suozzi wrote on X: “Both parties must hold themselves to the same standards we expect from the other side. I am angry about plenty that the President is doing and what he said the other night, but the punch, counterpunch is not working.”

I find this quite interesting, since Suozzi seems to be admitting that Democrats are just waiting for Republicans to do things, then react to them.

Counterpunch is a defensive term. It implies the puncher has been weakened, is back on his heels.

In this piece, I have surfaced three stories that any opposition party in a country under fascist threat would jump on.

1. Make sexual assault by religious zealots - who now control the government - a defining issue.

2. Make detaining tourists a defining issue (and an economic one!).

3. Make Trump’s total capitulation to Putin a defining issue.

4. Keep pounding. Don’t allow for a counterpunch. Don’t let up.

Where is your outrage, Congressman Suozzi?

The country needs your outrage, not your decorum.

Be. Outraged.

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Historian Steven Beschloss also wrote about this on Friday

When Civility and Decorum Don’t Cut It

Noah Berlatsky has some good ideas about this, too.

Anger at Dems is not a left/right issue

I have written about this before.