The actions of Republicans in the Tennessee legislature resemble the attempts of White Southern Redeemers to take back the South at the end of the 19th century.
These new Redeemers are using their power as a tool of intimidation. What other conclusion can be drawn from the inappropriate and disproportionate response to a decorum infraction?
Four people were killed and eight others were injured, including two police officers, when a gunman opened fire Monday morning inside a bank building in downtown Louisville.
Louisville Metro Police said officers responded to the scene around 8:30 a.m. at 333 E. Main St. — at the Preston Pointe building near Louisville Slugger Field — on reports of a “active shooter.” Police spokesman Col. Paul Humphrey said the first responding officers arrived to hear the sound of gunshots still firing inside.
The eight injured were taken to University of Louisville Hospital. Speaking around 11 am., Humphrey said the suspected shooter, who police believe was either a current or former employee at Old National Bank, was “dead on the scene.”
This is some live footage provided by a bystander.
… a new reality playing out in hospitals in antiabortion states across the country — where because of newly enacted abortion bans, people with potentially life-threatening pregnancy complications are being denied care that was readily available before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
When abortion was legal across the country, doctors in all states would typically offer to induceor perform a surgical procedure to end the pregnancy when faced with a pre-viability PPROM case — which is the standard of care, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and an option that many women choose. Especially before the 20-week mark, a fetus is extremely unlikely to survive without any amniotic fluid.
But in the 18states where abortion is now banned before fetal viability, many hospitals have been turning away pre-viability PPROM patients as doctors and administrators fear the legal risk that could come with terminating even a pregnancy that could jeopardize the mother’s well-being, according to 12 physicians practicing in antiabortion states.
The medical exceptions to protect the life of the mother that are included in abortion bansare often described in vague language that does not appear to cover pre-viabilityPPROM, doctors said. That’s because the risks of the condition are often less clear-cut than other medical emergencies, such as an ectopic pregnancy, in which a fertilized egg grows outside of the uterus, dooming the fetus and posing an immediate danger to the mother’s life.
A 2022 study on the impact of Texas’s six-week abortion ban found that 57 percent of pre-viability PPROM patients in Texaswho were not given the option to end their pregnancies experienced “a serious maternal morbidity,” such as infection or hemorrhage,compared with 33 percent of PPROM patients who chose to terminate in states without abortion bans. According to 2018 ACOG guidance, “isolated maternal deaths due to infection” have been reported in early PPROM cases.
Women in states with abortion bans are nearly three times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after giving birth, according to a report from the Gender Equity Policy Institute shared first with AXIOS.
This statistic is not likely to improve given the number of hospitals and doctors bailing on maternal and obstetric care. CNN reports “Maternity units are closing across America, forcing expectant mothers to hit the road.” That’s some quixotic headline, isn’t it?
The Chartis report says that the states with the highest loss of access to obstetrical care are Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, Kansas and Wisconsin, with each losing more than 10 facilities.
Data released last fall by the infant and maternal health nonprofit March of Dimes also shows that more than 2.2 million women of childbearing age across 1,119 US counties are living in “maternity care deserts,” meaning their counties have no hospitals offering obstetric care, no birth centers and no obstetric providers.
Maternity care deserts have been linked to a lack of adequate prenatal care or treatment for pregnancy complications and even an increased risk of maternal death for a year after giving birth.
Money is one reason why maternity units are being shuttered.
According to the American Hospital Association, 42% of births in the US are paid for by Medicaid, which has low reimbursement rates. Employer-sponsored insurance pays about $15,000 for a delivery, and Medicaid pays about $6,500, according to the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit that analyzes health care cost and utilization data.
“Medicaid funds about half of all births nationally and more than half of births in rural areas,” said Dr. Katy Kozhimannil, a public health researcher at the University of Minnesota who has conducted research on the growing number of maternity care deserts.
…
More stringent abortion laws may be playing a role in the closures, too.
Bonner General said in a news release last month that due to Idaho’s “legal and political climate, highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.”
According to the Guttmacher Institute, Idaho has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country: a complete ban that has only a few exceptions.
Idaho requires an “affirmative defense,” Guttmacher says, meaning a provider “has to prove in court that an abortion met the criteria for a legal exception.”
No matter the reason, Kozhimannil said, closures in rural communities aren’t just a nuisance. They also put families at risk.
Shortly after, the couple says their baby developed jaundice, a common liver condition in newborns that often resolves itself without treatment.
Temecia and her husband, Rodney Jackson, said they were following their midwife’s care protocol for their baby’s jaundice, which was to care for her at home rather than admit her to the hospital.
After a routine doctor’s visit, the couple alleges their child’s pediatrician called Dallas Child Protective Services (CPS) because the parents were going to continue to follow their midwife’s guidance. Days later, Desoto police officers and CPS agents arrived at the couple’s home, demanding they turn their daughter over to authorities.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Saturday he is seeking the pardon of an Uber driver convicted of murder a day earlier in the July 2020 shooting death of a man at a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin, the state capital.
Abbott, in a post on Twitter, said he will pardon Daniel Perry, 37, a U.S. Army sergeant, as soon as a request from the parole board “hits my desk.”
The Republican governor noted that he can grant pardons only on the recommendation of the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles, but that he is allowed to request pardons.
Then we come to Saturday. That is when GOP Texas Governor Gregg Abbott announced he would pardon a man convicted just 24 hours before of murdering a US military veteran who had taken part in a 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest. Why is Abbott–who only pardoned two people in all of 2022—so anxious to pardon the killer who shot 28 year-old Air Force veteran, Garrett Foster to death in the middle of a Texas street? Simple, because he was being “goaded” to do so by right wing figures from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to Kyle Rittenhouse to the chair of the Texas GOP.
Gov. Abbott pardoning a man convicted of MURDERING a BLM protester–who posted before the shooting he was going to kill someone–sends a dangerous message. Abbott is saying you can literally KILL people the GOP disagrees with politically and we will protect you.
The facts of the case are, for the most part, straightforward. On the night of July 25, 2020, defendant David Perry was working as an Uber driver in Austin during the time of protests surrounding the gruesome murder of George Floyd. As the Austin police detailed, Perry was driving his car when he approached BLM protesters blocking the traffic. At first, Perry honked at protesters as they walked through the street but then seconds later, Perry ran a red light, driving his car into the crowd.
That is when Perry and Foster—both white and both legally armed–came to meet. Foster was openly carrying his AK-47 when he and other protesters approached Perry’s car.
However, at this point there were conflicting accounts as to whether Foster had raised his weapon to point at Perry or if Perry shot first. Witnesses testified at trial that Foster had been pushing the wheelchair of his quadruple-amputee fiancée, Whitney Mitchell—who is pictured above— and never raised his assault rifle before Perry killed him. Perry claims he shot in self-defense after Foster pointed his weapon at him.
It’s undisputed, though, that Perry fired five shots from his .357 revolver through his car window killing Foster. Perry drove away but later did call the police to admit he killed Foster, claiming self-defense.
During the trial, the key question for the jury was whether Perry’s shooting was justified under the state’s “stand your ground” law–which allows deadly force to be used by a person who feels their life is in danger. Prosecutors argued Perry had instigated the incident and introduced messages that suggested the shooting by Perry was not spur of the moment, but pre-mediated.
One of the most damning was Perry’s Facebook message to a friend before the shooting that he might “kill a few people on my way to work. They are rioting outside my apartment complex.”
During Perry’s 8-day trial, dozens of witnesses testified and forensic evidence was presented. The jury—after deliberating for 17 hours– rendered a unanimous verdict finding Perry guilty of murder.
That is when Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and others on the right began to publicly pressure Gov. Abbott to in essence overturn the jury verdict by issuing a pardon because they didn’t agree with it. On his Fox News show Friday night shortly after the verdict, Carlson called on Abbott to pardon Perry, arguing the defendant had acted in self-defense—despite the jury unanimously rejecting that very defense. Carlson even attacked the prosecutor by employing the common anti-Semitic refrain from the right that he was a “Soros-funded DA”—as in Jewish billionaire George Soros supporting him. Carlson wrapped up by declaring that the verdict “means that in the state of Texas, if you have the wrong politics, you’re not allowed to defend yourself.”
Carlson is lying. Perry had the ability to fully defend himself in his trial. But the jury unanimously rejected Perry’s defense and found him guilty of murder.
Guns have moral agency but women do not. Welcome to Christo-Fascism 101 for Wipopo.
Today’s cartoon has a backstory. The MAGAt I drew has been in many of my cartoons the last couple of years. He trolls a group of friends of mine on FB with right wingnut memes. Yesterday, my toons triggered him so much he actual made a meme. Living proof The Right Can’t Meme. pic.twitter.com/uvA9WzcxTm
Wherever they go, they create a hell realm. They don’t seem to get that looks pleasant compared to being in their company and listening to them. I’d rather be anywhere than near just one of them. Let’s get them out of government ASAP before they kill everything!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Life will kill you That’s what I said Life will kill you And then you’ll be dead Life will find you Wherever you go Requiescat in pace That’s all she wrote
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Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) successfully urged the Louisiana Bond Commission on Thursday to delay a $39 million future line of credit for the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board–which the city needs for its flood response–until city officials agree to enforce the state’s abortion ban. The move comes right at the start of hurricane season, on the same day New Orleans has issued a flood advisory.
The financing that’s being held hostage would, specifically, be used to build a power station for the Sewerage & Water Board to help combat flooding. Melinda Deslatte, a research director at Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, live-tweeted today’s meeting, in which Republican politicians decided to punish New Orleans, a Democratic stronghold in the state, for defending abortion rights in the wake of a near-total ban. (Officials in New Orleans, including even the police, have vowed not to enforce the state’s new ban, which has already pushed out all three of its abortion clinics.)
Read more about the impact on the City at the link. Here’s more from investigative reporter Sam Karlin living in the city. The NOPD will not make arrests but now say they will investigate.
City councilmember JP Morrell reacts to our story on NOPD's policy that requires officers to investigate abortions, even if they don't make arrests. https://t.co/A5d7ofQCxg
We currently have a police shortage typical of many big cities these days. Why put our police to work on this ridiculousness and make a big deal of it? Landry seeks to replace John Bel Edwards as Louisiana’s governor next year. Will Louisiana’s three big cities that lost their abortion clinics and the surrounding areas come out to ensure he doesn’t get into the position to Desantis/Abbott our state into White Christian Nationalism? Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, a shocking story presented on MSNBC by Alex Wagner shows that “DeSantis imposes extreme culture war framing on nuanced U.S. civics.” This includes downplaying the role of slavery in the country, promoting Scalia and his strict views on originalism, showing that slave-owning founders didn’t like slavery with no citations to the quotes, and promoting the idea that the founders really wanted a country that was essentially a Christian state with no separation between that religion and the state. It even includes a cartoon of the idea of a porous and fluid fence rather than a wall. This is all wrapped up in a seminar aimed at getting Florida’s educators to join in clearly White Christian Patriarchal Nationalism propagandizing.
Please watch and see the appalling materials as a young Florida Civics Teacher reveals the material and its shortcomings. A discussion with Professor Jelanie Cobb follows.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the first arrests made by the state’s new elections police force Thursday: Twenty people previously incarcerated for murder or sexual assault who he said had illegally voted in the 2020 election.
The GOP-led Florida legislature passed a bill creating the Office of Election Crimes and Security earlier this year at DeSantis’s behest. While the 2020 election went smoothly in Florida — DeSantis called it the “gold standard” for elections — the governor has said there are still issues and conservative lawmakers have sought to further tighten voting regulations.
The governor — widely considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate — heralded the arrests, saying the unit had “sprung into action to hold individuals accountable for voter fraud.” DeSantis said they had been arrested for violating the rules of a constitutional amendment passed by Florida voters in 2018 that allows formerly incarcerated people to register to vote — except for those who committed felony sexual assault or murder.
“This is just the opening salvo,” DeSantis said. “This is not the sum total of 2020.”
But voting groups and experts said that if anything the initial arrests indicate Florida’s election system is robust and crimes rare. Some expressed concern that the new unit could have a chilling effect, particularly on vulnerable groups of voters, such as formerly incarcerated people who are legally entitled to vote.
“It’s 20 people out of millions of voters,” Michael McDonald, an expert on voting and a professor of political science at the University of Florida. “These arrests are inconsequential to the integrity of the electoral system.”
DeSantis made the announcement flanked by law enforcement officers in Broward County, which has the most registered Democrats of any county in Florida. The arrests came about six weeks after the office opened and five days before the state’s primary election.
A federal judge has suspended partial enforcement of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” a bill that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed that restricts how companies and schools discuss race.
DeSantis signed the bill into law in April. It would limit race-based teachings in schools, and the way that private companies carry out mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings. Companies that have 15 employees or more could face civil lawsuits if someone accuses them of violating the law.
In his opinion, Chief US District Judge Mark Walker blocked the employer portion of the law, saying it violated free speech. He compared the law to Netflix’s blockbuster science-fiction hit, “Stranger Things.”
“In the popular television series Stranger Things, the ‘upside down’ describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world,” Walker, a nominee of then-President Barack Obama, wrote in his opinion. “Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down.”
“Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely,” Walker continued. “But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.”
The governor’s press office told Insider on Friday that it planned to appeal the decision.
“Judge Walker has effectively ruled that companies have a first amendment right to instruct their employees in white supremacy,” said communications director Taryn Fenske. “We disagree and will be appealing his decision.”
The law targeted what many Republicans call “critical race theory.” Formally, critical race theory examines racism in US institutions stemming from slavery and the Jim Crow era. Democrats have argued it’s mostly taught in law schools, and defenders of DEI trainings say it’s necessary to prevent implicit bias, discrimination, and racism.
Gustav Klimt – Hope, II, 1907′
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your future Orwellian Republican State!
The bad news for Never Trump Republicans this week wasn’t just that Liz Cheney lost the primary for her Wyoming congressional seat on Tuesday. It wasn’t even that she lost by such an overwhelming margin. It was that her loss fit a pattern in which the GOP’s voters have roundly rejected Republican after Republican who voted to impeach Trump. Only two of the 10 House Republicans who did so will even be on the ballot in November — one of whom is running in a district that Joe Biden won by more than 10 percentage points in 2020.
It’s clear at this point that the Republican Party is a pro-Trump party, and that its voters recoil from candidates who are ardently opposed to the former president. The results of this primary season — and Cheney’s loss in particular — show a Never Trump wing on the verge of extinction.
Cheney’s loss follows those this year of Reps. Peter Meijer of Michigan, Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, and Tom Rice of South Carolina, among those Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. Another four Republican House members who voted to impeach — Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, John Katko of New York, and Fred Upton of Michigan — opted against even running for reelection.
This continues a trend within the GOP since Trump took office, as Republican critics like Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona have opted not to seek reelection, while others, like Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, lost their primaries.
“I’m unaware of any Republican primary where the organizing principle that Trump is a bad guy was ever successful,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a close Trump ally in Congress who had been campaigning against Cheney since days after her impeachment vote, told Vox. “Republicans might have squeaked through who were not pro-Trump, but those candidates had some other organizing principle. Liz Cheney didn’t, and that’s why she lost so badly.”
Even an ardent Never Trumper like Tim Miller, a former top Republican operative and author of a recent New York Times bestseller, Why We Did It, conceded that Trump won the battle for the soul of the GOP. “A lot of people misunderstand what is happening in this moment and think the Republican Party might somehow go back to being the party of Liz Cheney and Paul Ryan,” Miller said. “It’s never going back — at least not any time on the horizon.”
By Wednesday, Eric Trump was bragging about his father as one of the all-time great political assassins. “Last night, my father killed another political dynasty, and that’s the Cheneys,” he told the Newsmax host Eric Bolling. “He first killed the Bushes, then he killed the Clintons. Last night, he killed the Cheneys. He’s been rino hunting ever since he got into politics, and last night he was successful again.” Trump’s story, as narrated by his son, is that of a political axe murderer—a grim reaper of the “Republican in Name Only” establishment. In the Trump lexicon, “killer” is a compliment. Donald Trump himself has bragged about this, explaining that the term constituted high praise from his ruthless father, Fred, who taught him to be one.
The family must be so proud. Trump has zealously stuck to the paternal creed. From the start, he has been an almost uniquely destructive force in American politics, a leader not only willing to blow anything up that stands in his path but one who glories in the act. The result has been a Republican Party transformed almost entirely into Trump’s Republican Party. Nearly all of those who stood against him have been purged or defeated or have cravenly renounced their previous views. “She may have been fighting for principles,” Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesperson, said, after Cheney’s loss, “but they are not the principles of the Republican Party.” Which is as close to an inarguably true statement as has ever been issued by the Mar-a-Lago government in exile. The Republican Party’s ideology these days is simply whatever-Trump-wants-ism, as it made clear when it did not even bother to issue a new policy platform at its 2020 convention, settling instead for a simple resolution saying that it was for Trump. Being a classy winner, though, is clearly not part of the emerging party doctrine. After the Wyoming results came in, Budowich posted to Twitter a video compilation of Trump dancing, set to the tune of “na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye,” along with the message “Bye bye, @Liz_Cheney.”
The results of this midterm season so far have shown how nearly complete Trump’s Republican triumph already is. Dozens of election deniers who have adopted the former President’s lies about his 2020 election loss have won Republican nominations, up and down the ballot. Only two of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection are still in the running to remain in Congress. And, of course, polls show that Trump himself remains a strong front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024. The headlines after Tuesday’s voting would have been inconceivable in the immediate aftermath of his failed effort to hold onto power: “Trump’s dominance in GOP comes into focus,” the Washington Post said. “Cheney’s Wyoming defeat is a win for Trump and a decisive blow to fading GOP establishment,” the Los Angeles Times declared. “Cheney’s defeat end of an era for GOP; Trump’s party now,” the Associated Press said. So why are Trump’s opponents—at least some of them—feeling in any way optimistic?
But, over the summer, a new school of what might be called “Trumptimism” has taken hold among some Democratic strategists and independent analysts. In the mess of our current politics, they discern a case for optimism—history-defying, experience-flouting optimism that maybe things won’t work out so badly after all in November. “In the age of Trump, nothing is normal,” Simon Rosenberg, the president of the liberal think tank the New Democrat Network and a veteran strategist, told me, on Thursday. “Nothing is following traditional physics and rules, so why would this midterm?”
Follow the link to read the rationale behind the assertion. Meanwhile, the Republican with the most fluid values ever discourages Liz Cheney from running for President. “What Mitt Romney says about Liz Cheney possibly running for president”. If this man ever had a hope to make any of us sorry he couldn’t hold any higher office he’s blown it now.
As Rep. Liz Cheney contemplates her next move after losing the Republican primary in Wyoming this week, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney says he wouldn’t encourage her to run for president.
“I’m not going to encourage anyone to run for president. I’ve done that myself, and that’s something I’m not doing again. I don’t know if she really wants to do that. She would not become the nominee if she were to run. I can’t imagine that would occur,” Romney told the Deseret News on Thursday.
Cheney, he said, might run for other purposes but “I’m not in collaboration with that effort.”
Remember, this is from the man that put his dog on the top of his car while driving fast. He’s all in it for the convenience.
On Thursday, September 15, President Biden will host at the White House the United We Stand Summit to counter the corrosive effects of hate-fueled violence on our democracy and public safety, highlight the response of the Biden-Harris Administration and communities nationwide to these dangers, and put forward a shared vision for a more united America.
President Biden decided to run for president after the horror of the hate-fueled violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Since taking office, his Administration has consistently taken steps to counter hate-motivated violence — from signing the bipartisan COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, to releasing the first-ever National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, to signing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant legislation in three decades to reduce gun violence.
Even as our nation has endured a disturbing series of hate-fueled attacks, from Oak Creek to Pittsburgh, from El Paso to Poway, from Atlanta to Buffalo, Americans remain overwhelmingly united in their opposition to such violence. The United We Stand Summit will bring together heroes from across America who are leading historic work in their communities to build bridges and address hate and division, including survivors of hate-fueled violence. The summit will include a bipartisan group of federal, state, and local officials, civil rights groups, faith and community leaders, technology and business leaders, law enforcement officials, former members of violent hate groups who now work to prevent violence, gun violence prevention leaders, media representatives, and cultural figures. It will feature a keynote speech from President Biden as well as inclusive, bipartisan panels and conversations on countering hate-fueled violence, preventing radicalization and mobilization to violence, and fostering unity.
As President Biden said in Buffalo after the horrific mass shooting earlier this year, in the battle for the soul of our nation “we must all enlist in this great cause of America.” The United We Stand Summit will present an important opportunity for Americans of all races, religions, regions, political affiliations, and walks of life to take up that cause together.
Is this possible given that the states that have more wildlife and vacant land still control entire states and send 2 senators to the District? Will, this 30% that includes Racists, Gun Toting Militias, White Christian Militias, Incels, and folks that hate independent women and the GLBT community really coming around to uniting with the rest of us?
Thank you @potus for your leadership in combating the threat of extremist violence, including violence targeting our LGBTQ+ community. The United We Stand summit is one important step toward improving the federal government's response to these threats.https://t.co/ZIxpU5OSTw
This is from the HRC link above. It’s from The Washington Post.
Biden will deliver a keynote speech at the gathering, which the White House says will include civil rights groups, faith leaders, business executives, law enforcement, gun violence prevention advocates, former members of violent hate groups, the victims of extremist violence and cultural figures. The White House emphasized that it also intends to bring together Democrats and Republicans, as well as political leaders on the federal, state and local levels to unite against hate-motivated violence.
Biden, a Democrat, has frequently cited 2017’s white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, with bringing him out of political retirement to challenge then-President Donald Trump in 2020. He promised during that campaign to work to bridge political and social divides and to promote national unity, but fulfilling that cause remains a work in progress.
Sindy Benavides, the CEO of League of United Latin American Citizens, said the genesis of the summit came after the Buffalo massacre, as her organization along with the Anti-Defamation League, the National Action Network and other groups wanted to press the Biden administration to more directly tackle extremist threats.
But how do we solve a problem like Greg Abbott, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ron DeSantis, Jeff Landry, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, and all the the other Trump Zombies?
Vote them out if we can! I’m not sure his voters can be shamed into embracing the American Dream ever again.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Another Monday reveals all the residual chaos and damage caused by Trump and his administration, his appointments to the Supreme Court, and his White National Christianists Cult. I’m going to start with one of the Incel Militias that were part of the insurrection and have been disturbing the peace in other states.
There are more quotes and facts about this group at the link. Go there only if you want to be triggered by hate and violent threats. It figures that the first Jan. 6 defendant convicted in court would be a Threeper. The Prosecution called them “terrorists.” Indeed, they are.
The Three Percenters recruiter, the first Jan. 6 defendant convicted at trial, was found guilty of leading a charge while armed that led to first break-in at the U.S. Capitol and also of threatening his son.https://t.co/lAlSOqpNe8
This is from The Washington Post: “U.S. seeks 15-year sentence for Guy Reffitt, citing terrorism. The Three Percenters recruiter, the first Jan. 6 defendant convicted at trial, was found guilty of leading a charge while armed that led to first break-in at the U.S. Capitol and also of threatening his son. ”
… Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Nestler and Risa Berkower said Reffitt’s case is exceptional.
Reffitt “played a central role” at the head of a vigilante mob that challenged and overran police at a key choke point, a stairway leading up from the Lower West Terrace, before the initial breach of windows near the Capitol’s Senate Wing Doors at 2:13 p.m., prosecutors said. After the riot, Reffitt warned his son and 16-year-old daughter that “if you turn me in, you’re a traitor, and traitors get shot,” his son testified at the trial.
Conventional sentencing rules are of “inadequate scope” to account for the range of Reffitt’s obstruction, witness tampering and weapon offenses, prosecutors wrote in a 58-page sentencing memo.
“Reffitt sought not just to stop Congress, but also to physically attack, remove, and replace the legislators who were serving in Congress,” prosecutors wrote.
They called his conduct “a quintessential example of an intent to both influence and retaliate against government conduct through intimidation or coercion” and said it reflected the statutory definition of terrorist violence that is subject to harsher punishment.
Nowhere is there more legal chaos than in the states after the reversal of Roe. Laws older than the passage of women’s suffrage may soon come into effect. These laws are also from periods before modern obstetric and gynecology practice and knowledge.
A court order that sought to bar enforcement of a dormant law criminalizing most abortions in Michigan does not apply to county prosecutors, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Monday.
The massively consequential ruling means the 1931 law banning all abortions except those done to protect the life of a pregnant person essentially takes effect immediately, said David Kallman, an attorney for Great Lakes Justc Center, a conservative organization representing several Michigan prosecutors who challenged the injunction.
“We’re ecstatic. It’s wonderful. That’s exactly what we’ve been saying all along,” Kallman said Monday morning in a phone interview.
The decision could have a sweeping and drastic impact in the state, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and many other pro-abortion rights advocates have fought to maintain legal access to abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June.
What is wrong with these people? Radical Misogynists are eager to strip women of the rights granted to them by the Constitution to be free of forced servitude to the state or any other entity.
The Washington Post continues this discussion this morning.”Major legal fights loom over abortion pills, travel out of state. The reversal of Roe v. Wade after nearly 50 years is expected to trigger a new set of legal challenges for which there is little precedent”
The reversal of Roe v. Wade after nearly 50 years is expected to trigger a new set of legal challenges for which there is little precedent.https://t.co/2ms5qUv7Li
The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, in denouncing their colleagues’decision to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion, warned last month that returning this polarizing issue to the states would give rise to greater controversy in the months and years to come.
Among the looming disputes, they noted:Can states ban mail-order medication used to terminate pregnancies or bar their residents from traveling elsewhere to do so?
The overturning of Roe v. Wade after nearly 50 years is expected to trigger a newset of legal challenges for which there is little precedent, observers say, further roiling the nation’s bitter political landscape and compounding chaos as Republican-led states move quickly to curtail access to reproductive care. It is possible, if not probable, that one or both of these questions will eventually work its way back to the high court.
Just posted: The First Post-Roe Vote on Abortion. Check the links- the Catholic Church in Kansas has spent about $3 million to ban abortion in a state that favors it by 60% https://t.co/1Y4JwfgQEl
When Justice Samuel Alito and his colleagues squinted at history and ruled that the U.S. Constitution included no right to abortion, Dinah Sykes felt her heart sink. But here she was, on an evening in July, sweating through her blue T-shirt in ninety-five-degree heat, trying to persuade Kansans to block an effort to remove the right to abortion from the state constitution. She held a stack of flyers and carried a bottle of water in a cloth bag slung over her shoulder. A blond ponytail poked through the back of her baseball cap. “Sixty per cent of Kansans believe a woman should have a right to choose,” she said, as she walked from house to house. “And they should not have someone else’s beliefs forced upon them.”
Sykes, a local lawmaker, was in Merriam, a southwestern suburb of Kansas City. Early in her two-hour canvassing session, she climbed the steps of a split-level home and rang the bell. When Adrienne Maples, a professional photographer, came to the door, Sykes launched into her riff: “Are you aware that there is a referendum on the August 2nd ballot?” Before Sykes, who is the Democratic minority leader in the Kansas Senate, could finish explaining that the vote may lead to an abortion ban, Maples interrupted. “I’m pretty sure there are a lot of pissed-off women who will be voting no,” she said. Maples planned to be one of them. “I’m concerned that we’re slipping backwards. This is scary.
On Tuesday, in the dead of summer, when many Kansans are on vacation and college campuses are largely empty, voters will be asked to amend the state constitution, and give license to the Republican-dominated legislature to rewrite the state’s laws on abortion. It will be the nation’s first direct electoral test of abortion rights since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Catholic Church is spending millions to advance the amendment, while a broad coalition of pro-choice organizations is scrambling to stop it, testing a new message tailored to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans. The pitch casts the amendment as an infringement on personal liberties—a government mandate “designed to interfere with private medical decisions.” The front of the flyer that Sykes was tucking into screen doors did not mention abortion. It said “It’s up to us to keep Kansans free by Voting No!”
Republicans who turned their backs on Veterans last week by voting no to fund programs to help Veterans sickened by Burn Pits are ignoring that vote. I am among the constituents that trolled him for his vote. Now, he has amnesia.
The latest Trumperz Tantrum votes haunt them all in the upcoming election. Democratic Candidate Luke Mixon, running against Senator Foghorn Leghorn, is riding that horse in his ads. I’m pretty sure he’s not the only one. I would also like to say that all these snarky, trolling ads of Republicans on all kinds of issues are the only thing that puts a big ol’ smile on my face these days.
Beginnings, Helen Frankenthaler, 2002
Meanwhile, Republicans are still trying to fuck with our democratic election process. They want state legislatures to do the voting for them. This is from Politico: “Trump-backed conspiracy theorist makes a charge for chief election position in Arizona. State Rep. Mark Finchem is part of a pro-Trump coalition of secretary of state candidates running in battleground states throughout the country.”
Should he win on Tuesday, Finchem will become the latest member of the “America First Secretary of State Coalition” to secure the Republican nomination in a key battleground, putting them a general election win away from running the 2024 presidential vote in their states — four years after working to subvert President Joe Biden’s election win and falsely claiming the vote was marred. The coalition’s founder, Jim Marchant, is the Republican nominee in Nevada, while Kristina Karamo is the de-facto GOP pick in Michigan. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor picks the state’s chief election official, coalition member Doug Mastriano is the GOP candidate.
In Arizona, where GOP state legislators have embraced Trump’s fictions and financed investigations into the 2020 vote count, Trump supporters are “gunning for secretary of state,” said Mike Noble, the chief of research and managing partner at the Arizona-based polling firm OH Predictive Insights. “[It] is definitely one they have really put a priority on.”
Meanwhile, Margaret Sullivan speculates about Faux News and Trump Replacements writing this at The Washington Post. “The cautious calculation behind whether Fox will dump Trump.” Whatever will Tuckums do?
On the one hand, the opinion pages of two Murdoch newspapers — the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post — have turned on Trump recently, both offering scathing editorials that blasted him for his role on Jan. 6, 2021, particularly his utter lack of leadership in calling off the dangerous mob. And, far more important than any newspaper editorial, his most valuable media ally, Fox News, has skipped much of the live coverage of the former president’s speeches and rallies while not interviewing him live for months.
Worse, the person emerging as his chief rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has clearly caught the cable network’s eye.
But there’s still plenty of sycophancy on display. Just days ago, the talking heads of “Fox & Friends” — perhaps chastened by Trump’s raging that they had gone to the “dark side” after they reported some unfavorable poll numbers — once again stroked his fragile but oversize ego. Brian Kilmeade called him the “greatest golfing president ever,” and Ainsley Earhardt backed that up with one admiring exclamation: “Athletic!”
Former President Donald Trump has faced criticism for hosting the event at one of his golf courses in light of allegations of human rights abuses against the Arab kingdom, such as the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The 9/11 Justice group, composed of family members of 9/11 victims, has criticized Trump for hosting the tournament despite what they describe as “clear” evidence linking Saudi Arabia to the terrorist attack.
Some 9/11 family members and survivors protested near the event on Thursday.
Trump made various remarks to reporters throughout the event, The Wall Street Journal said, including talking about Trump Doral, his Miami property that will host a second LIV event this year.
When asked how much he was being paid to work with LIV, Trump said it was “very generous” but added, “I don’t do it for that,” per the outlet.
I’m sure all of us would be glad to get him and his cult off the news cycle, but it seems highly unlikely.
Btw, the beautiful art is from American Artist Helen Frankenthaler, whose mid-century modern abstract art is amazing. Good thing we love truth and beauty here to cover all these cult activities.
Anyway, what’s on your reading and blogging list?
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Kansas voters will decide next week whether to remove protections of abortion rights from their State Constitution, providing the first electoral test of Americans’ attitudes on the issue since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The election could give the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature authority to pass new abortion limits or to outlaw the procedure entirely, potentially reshaping the map of abortion access in the nation’s center. The vote, which has been planned since last year but took on far higher stakes after the federal right to abortion was eliminated, is expected to send a message far beyond Kansas as politicians nationwide weigh new abortion measures and watch for signs of how the public is reacting.
“Kansas is the bull’s-eye of the United States in terms of its geography, but it’s also the bull’s-eye where all the energy that has emerged from the Supreme Court decision has now focused,” said Pastor Randy Frazee, who leads a large church in suburban Kansas City, and who like many clergy members supports giving legislators the power to restrict abortions.
“Complementary Yellow Twin Sisters,” unknown artist
Throughout colonial America and into the 19th century, abortions were fairly common with the help of a midwife or other women and could be obtained until the point that you could feel movement inside, according to Lauren MacIvor Thompson, a historian of early-20th-century women’s rights and public health. Most abortions were induced through herbal or medicinal remedies and, like other medical interventions of the time, weren’t always effective or safe.
“There were concerns that these other groups were demographically outpacing white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant women. And so they thought to limit the bodily autonomy of white women and limit access to contraception in order to force them to have children. That they felt would keep up with the demographic birth rate,” said Alex DiBranco, the co-founder and executive director of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism.
It took time for the anti-abortion movement to attract supporters, and unlike today, religious groups were not originally an active part of it. Still, momentum built as a small but influential number of physicians began arguing that licensed male doctors — as opposed to female midwives — should care for women throughout the reproductive cycle. In the late 1850s, one of the leaders of the nascent anti-abortion movement, a surgeon named Horatio Robinson Storer, began arguing that he didn’t want the medical profession to be associated with abortion. He was able to push the relatively new American Medical Association to support his cause, and soon they were working to delegitimize midwives and enforce abortion bans. In an 1865 essay issued by order of the AMA, Storer went so far as to say of white women that “upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.”
The Family (John Gruen, Jane Wilson and Julia), Alice Neel, 1970
There’s a lot more in the article if you can stand to read all the misogyny, racism, and basic WASP nationalism. From Cameron Joseph, at VICE we learn exactly how deep the Republican Party’s hatred of women has become. “JD Vance Suggests People in ‘Violent’ Marriages Shouldn’t Get Divorced. The Ohio Republican Senate nominee claimed people “shift spouses like they change their underwear,” and that it had damaged a generation of children.”
“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term,’” Vance said.
“And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I’m skeptical. But it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages,” Vance continued. “And that’s what I think all of us should be honest about, is we’ve run this experiment in real time. And what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that’s making our kids unhappy.”
Vance was responding to a moderator who referenced his grandparents’ relationship before asking, “What’s causing one generation to give up on fatherhood when the other one was so doggedly determined to stick it out, even in tough times?” And those comments came immediately after he brought up his grandparents’ relationship and how it differed from his parents’ generation. He described their marriage as “violent” in his best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy,” though they’d reconciled by the time he came along and helped raise him, giving him a sense of safety and stability his mother was unable to provide.
“Culturally, something has clearly shifted. I think it’s easy but also probably true to blame the sexual revolution of the 1960s. My grandparents had an incredibly chaotic marriage in a lot of ways, but they never got divorced, right? They were together to the end, ’til death do us part. That was a really important thing to my grandmother and my grandfather. That was clearly not true by the 70s or 80s,” he said.
Terrace in Balcic, Nutzi Acontz, 1930
How about once women actually get choices, where they can take care of themselves and their families, that makes the horrid man in their life irrelevant? I endured one marriage of 20 years and believe me, never again. He’s working on his third btw.
The entire right-wing ecosystem unleashed its full arsenal to discredit the 10-year-old girl as a liar, intimidate her physician, demonize liberals, and continue its march backward, undeterred, in its quest to make Handmaid’s Tale cosplay a reality—in an America that subordinates and punishes women for having the audacity to control their own bodies.
To achieve its goal, the right uses a now familiar four-part strategy.
First, Republicans use any means necessary to achieve power and promote their unpopular, extremist, counter-majoritarian agenda.
Second, they create and promote disinformation and lies to frighten their base and Jedi mind-trick them into believing they are being oppressed by the actual victims.
Third, they create a specific villain, target them, and then attack them through scapegoating, smearing, and intimidation.
Fourth, they never apologize or back down once their lie is exposed, but instead, they double down, and in times of doubt, always pivot towards racism and fear-mongering.
To illustrate the strategy, look no further than the GOP’s rationalization of the Jan. 6 insurrection and embrace of the Big Lie—which gave them the successful blueprint to promote their hateful anti-abortion policies.
First, Donald Trump deliberately promoted lies and conspiracy theories about election fraud conducted by Democrats. Instead of accepting his defeat, he unleashed a premeditated, coordinated strategy to engage in a failed coup, which eventually resulted in thousands of his supporters overtaking the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn a free and fair election.
To get to the point where a 10-year-old rape victim has to cross state lines for an abortion, look to the GOP’s four-decade effort to kill Roe v. Wade. Republicans finally got their wish by packing the Supreme Court with right-wing extremists in black robes handpicked by the Federalist Society. Sen. Mitch McConnell stole Merrick Garland’s seat by refusing to hold a confirmation hearing, citing the need to wait until after the 2016 election. Then, he went against his own bullshit precedent and bum-rushed Justice Amy Coney Barrett on to the Court after millions of votes had already been cast in the 2020 election. That’s how they got a right-wing majority to dutifully overturn Roe, which led to Republican-controlled states imposing draconian laws that are punishing women and their health-care providers.
Second, the right-wing media ecosystem continues to amplify the Big Lie and fuel conspiracy theories, which has since resulted in a majority of GOP voters falsely believing Biden was not fairly elected. More than 100 Republicans who have won their recent primaries support the Big Lie, which has transformed into a MAGA litmus test for aspiring GOP candidates.
American democracy is dying. There are plenty of medicines that would cure it. Unfortunately, our political dysfunction means we’re choosing not to use them, and as time passes, fewer treatments become available to us, even though the disease is becoming terminal. No major prodemocracy reforms have passed Congress. No key political figures who tried to overturn an American election have faced real accountability. The president who orchestrated the greatest threat to our democracy in modern times is free to run for reelection, and may well return to office.
Our current situation started with a botched diagnosis. When Trump first rose to political prominence, much of the American political class reacted with amusement, seeing him as a sideshow. Even if he won, they thought, he’d tweet like a populist firebrand while governing like a Romney Republican, constrained by the system. But for those who had watched Trump-like authoritarian strongmen rise in Turkey, India, Hungary, Poland, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Venezuela, Trump was never entertaining. He was ominously familiar.
At issue was a classic frame-of-reference problem. America’s political culture is astonishingly insular. Turn on cable news and it’s all America, all the time. Other countries occasionally make cameos, but the story is still about us. (Poland is discussed if Air Force One goes to Warsaw; Iran flits into view only in relation to Washington’s nuclear diplomacy; Madagascar appears only in cartoon form, mostly featuring talking animals that don’t actually live there.) Our self-obsession means that whenever authoritarianism rises abroad, it’s mentioned briefly, if at all. Have you ever spotted a breathless octobox of talking heads on CNN or Fox News debating the death of democracy in Turkey, Sri Lanka, or the Philippines?
That’s why most American pundits and journalists used an “outsider comes to Washington” framework to process Trump’s campaign and his presidency, when they should have been fitting every fresh fact into an “authoritarian populist” framework or a “democratic death spiral” framework. While debates raged over tax cuts and offensive tweets, the biggest story was often obscured: The system itself was at risk.
Even today, too many think of Trump more as Sarah Palin in 2012 rather than Viktor Orbán in 2022. They wrongly believe that the authoritarian threat is over and that January 6 was an isolated event from our past, rather than a mild preview of our future. That misreading is provoking an underreaction from the political establishment. And the worst may be yet to come.
This is another long read, but please check it out! I think I’ve saddled you with enough angst and anxiety for a while. Oh, and sorry, but I am on a Queen binge recently. So enjoy the killer lyrics and solo guitar by Brian May, the Freddie vocals, and the artwork that is this video.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
While the sun hangs in the sky and the desert has sand While the waves crash in the sea and meet the land While there’s a wind and the stars and the rainbow ‘Til the mountains crumble into the plain Oh, yes, we’ll keep on tryin’ Tread that fine line Oh, we’ll keep on tryin’, yeah Just passing our time While we live according to race, colour or creed While we rule by blind madness and pure greed Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion Through the aeons, and on and on Oh, yes, we’ll keep on tryin’ We’ll tread that fine line Oh-oh, we’ll keep on tryin’ ‘Til the end of time ‘Til the end of time Through the sorrow, all through our splendour Don’t take offence at my innuendo You can be anything you want to be Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be Be free with your tempo, be free, be free Surrender your ego, be free, be free to yourself If there’s a God or any kind of justice under the sky If there’s a point, if there’s a reason to live or die If there’s an answer to the questions, we feel bound to ask Show yourself, destroy our fears, release your mask Oh, yes, we’ll keep on trying Hey, tread that fine line Yeah, we’ll keep on smiling, yeah (yeah, yeah) And whatever will be, will be We’ll keep on trying We’ll just keep on trying ‘Til the end of time ‘Til the end of time ‘Til the end of time
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The public library in Council Bluffs opened in 1866.
Good Day Sky Dancers!
There is nothing more telling about the state of discourse in our country than the move to censor and replace materials in libraries and public schools with pure nonsense and propaganda. As a child, I spent a great deal of the summer in the old Council Bluffs, Iowa Library doing the children’s reading club. My mother took us to the local library at least once a week.
I don’t know if you can see the inscription on top, but it reads “Free Public Library.” The city built a new library, but the Carnegie-funded library is now standing as a Union Pacific Railroad Museum. I currently use another Carnegie-funded library in my neighborhood in New Orleans which features a Drag Queen storybook hour for kids. People come from out of the Parish to protest that, but everyone here is thankful for the creative time to read books together and discuss the one thing kids like to do which is play ‘dress-up.’
The Public Library–now closed–in Vinton, Iowa.
The public library in Council Bluffs when a subscription library was established for males over the age of 12. Libraries now strive to be more inclusive unless their town goes all Fahrenheit 451 on them. This is from CNN: “Iowa library temporarily closes after full-time staff leaves following complaints about ‘liberal agenda’ in book selection.” Rather than shrugging off stuff they don’t like and simply choosing not to read it, the Trumperz Thought Brownshirts would rather close the place down.
A small-town library in Iowa is scrambling to reopen after community complaints about its book selection prompted full-time staff members to resign.
The controversy started over complaints about books on display for children with information on the LGBTQ community, according to Jimmy Kelly, board chair of the Vinton Public Library.
“They would like balance that for every book that talks about LGBTQ issues, that there also be a book describing traditional gender expression,” Kelly told CNN Thursday.
“The people basically accused the library of having a liberal agenda,” he added.
…
“A reconsideration policy allows you to object to materials or programming in which the library is joined. Libraries have this, it’s very common,” she added. “It protects the library staff, it protects the library board as well as the person who is making the complaint. It is a wonderful process.”
The content complaints followed complaints last year the library had a children’s book about Vice President Kamala Harris and one written by first lady Jill Biden, but no children’s books about former President Donald Trump, according to Kelly. It resulted in McMahon’s resignation, he said.
Since resigning last year, McMahon took a job as the library director in DeWitt, about 90 miles away. She says the controversy leading to her decision to leave the Vinton community was unfortunate.
“It was very sad. I really liked working with the city department heads I worked with,” she said. “I had a great staff and there were a few people on the library board who I thought were fantastic, but it was just the atmosphere, and we all will choose a location of where we live or where we work by what matches our personalities and I just did not feel that I needed that extra stress in my life.”
McMahon said she also heard complaints there were no books about former President Donald Trump in the display.
“These were children’s books, these were picture books, and I did my due diligence. Did I miss someone? Did someone write a nice book about the former president? The answer at that point was no. I don’t know if there’s something now, I don’t know,” McMahon told CNN.
The Alvar Library in New Orleans, Lousiana
So, my first thought is just about every book in a collection is about traditional expressions of gender. It shouldn’t need to be singled out in a diatribe. My second thought was is there no wonder that no respectable children’s book author doesn’t want to write a book describing a corrupt, twice-impeached traitor with a wife that did soft porn? I mean seriously, how is that something a small child should be reading about?
But even more seriously, what is Governor Rick DeSantis doing to the Civics Curriculum in Florida? If this isn’t lies and propaganda being pushed into Public Schools what is? I have slave owners in my family tree. Many of them signed the Declaration of Independence. Two Signed the Constitution. One of the buggers that signed the US Constituion of the US was an ever not so great Uncle from South Carolina who was the Governor at one point and wrote the Fugitive Slave Act. My own Uncle helped pen and argued for the Japanese Internment Laws before SCOTUS during Wolrd War Two. The last one particularly hits home to me because my mother-in-law was Japanese so my ex-husband, daughters, and granddaughters are of Japanese descent.
I imagine that most of my relatives–including me–lived on land stolen from Indigenous people. Why hide where they fucked up? My mother took me around the country showing me where all this happened in the hopes that my knowledge would make sure it never happened again. Those dead people never had an ounce of an impact on me. However, my mother, local librarians, and public school teachers sure did. Some in ways they intended, others in ways they did not. The further I got in education, the more I learned that all of our history is not pleasant, it happened, but it should not happen again. It need not be covered up. I trust our education to determine how and when to elucidate the impact of slavery, of the Indigenous relocation pogroms and reeducations schools, Japanese internment, and the system of immigration that favors some races over others. Then, we work to tear down the remanents that harm our modern society and correct them.
A Florida high school teacher said a training session on Gov. Ron DeSantis' new civics standards was "pushing an ideological agenda" — and seemed to downplay the role of slavery in the country's founding.https://t.co/JXPIQxF9yR
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made it clear how he views public schools and what they’re teaching children: He doesn’t trust them.
At a recent news conference, he returned to a familiar theme.
“Following woke indoctrination in our schools, that is a road to ruin for this country,” he said. “And we’re not going to let it happen in Florida.”
Since becoming governor in 2019, DeSantis has become known for taking combative positions on controversial issues, including education. He recently signed a number of measures aimed at preventing the sort of “indoctrination” he and his Republican supporters fear is taking place.
His “Stop Woke” act sets limits on how issues involving race may be taught. And it allows parents to sue teachers and school districts that violate it.
Another measure, the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics, bans any instruction involving sexual orientation or gender identity in the earliest grades and says beyond that it must be “age appropriate.”
In a June interview with the Christian fundamentalist group, Focus on the Family, DeSantis said he believes there’s a “concerted effort to inject … gender ideology and sexuality into the discussions with the very youngest kids.”
You know something is wrong when he’s being guided by Child Beating advocates Focus on the Family.
As first reported by the Miami Herald, the training materials were prepared for the state by groups including the Bill of Rights Institute, founded by Charles Koch and Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in Michigan that is influential in developing conservative education policies.
Segal, a teacher with 18 years in the classroom, says DeSantis is pushing a false narrative that schools are promoting a “woke” progressive agenda.
“I hate to say this,” she says, “but I feel that maybe, possibly he’s pandering to a base for re-election and that’s very hurtful.”
DeSantis is running for re-election as governor in November but is also widely seen as a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
All this comes as Florida is facing a critical teacher shortage with more than 9,500 vacant jobs statewide.
In Brevard County, school board member Jennifer Jenkins says teachers are demoralized. Many have retired or found jobs in other fields. In her district, she says there are 20 vacancies at a single school that only has 40 staff members.
“I don’t know how we’re going to continue to live in this hostile environment, how we’re going to encourage educators to enter the field and stick around,” Jenkin says. “It’s really, really scary.”
School board members have become a particular target. Jenkins has had protesters outside her home, vandalism, and threats of violence stemming for her support for a school face mask mandate.
Beyond shameful that cowardly Louisiana higher leaders are supporting this effort to “study” ending tenure. /1 https://t.co/qBrZg0WvwW
Louisiana began down what one legislator calls the “slippery slope” toward eliminating job-protecting tenure for college professors who mouth off in unapproved ways.
Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, Friday received designees for the Task Force on Tenure in Postsecondary Education, putting Louisiana on the path already tread by other Republican-majority states seeking to remove what some professors call protection for academic free thought and what some conservatives say is a license to indoctrinate youth with extremist thought.
“The caricature for tenure has been weaponized on the national level for political pursuits,” University of Louisiana System President Jim Henderson testified May 11 as legislators considered creating the task force. “I encourage you that the conversation around this is around the merits and not about the politics.”
The Darby Free Library in Darby, Pennsylvania is the country’s oldest library. It was founded as the Darby Library Company in 1743 .
There’s a good list there with all states trying to pass some form of the same effort. So far, none of these efforts have passed but, just like voter suppression efforts, Republicans are hot to quash public education and send tax payer money to places with religious indoctrination agendas. One of DeSantis’ civics changes includes this doozy via Axios: “Florida training program: “Misconception” that founders wanted separation of church and state”.
Driving the news: That and other content in a state-sponsored training course has raised eyebrows among some who have participated and felt it was omitting unflattering information about the country’s founders, pushing inaccuracies and centering religious ideas, per the Post.
The Constitution explicitly bars the government from “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Scholars interpret the passage to require a separation of church and state, per the Post.
In another example, the training states that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were against slavery, while omitting the fact that each owned enslaved people.
It’s obvious that the Republican Party likes their base stupid. They also want us to be just as stupid and uninformed. Fox News Channel and AM radio shows do just that. Whatever can we do to stop all of this?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
AXIOS reported the findings of a report in January.
Black women are at highest risk. Here’s an additional hurdle with a racists bent. 
The details of the murder are absolutely horrifying. 
But how do we solve a problem like Greg Abbott, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ron DeSantis, Jeff Landry, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, and all the the other Trump Zombies?
You know something is wrong when he’s being guided by Child Beating advocates Focus on the Family.
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