Tag Archives: Ron DeSantis

February 19, 2024 · 5:15 am

Republicans as the cult of Trump

Much of what we’re seeing in the Republican Party these days would be there even without Trump. But much of it wouldn’t

It has, since the civil-rights movement and the women’s rights movement, been moving increasingly rightward in a desperate attempt to reassert white male patriarchy. As Fred Clark says, that explains a lot of religious conservative support for Trump — the white evangelical stance is to deny the full humanity of non-white people. I’d add that they’re also big on denying the full humanity of women (see this post).

But as several political bloggers have pointed out, Trump has also turned it into a cult that worships him. That’s one reason nobody stands a chance of beating him in the primaries — Ron DeSantis can imitate Trump’s polices and promote himself as a more effective hatemonger but you can’t replace a cult leader just by claiming you’re a better leader.

Thus we have Arizona Republicans pushing a resolution that would declare Trump the automatic winner in November.Back in 2020, a lot of Republicans really were ready to overthrow the government and as Trump is still lying about fraud, so are they. Or Stephen Miller declaring that if Trump doesn’t have immunity, he’ll have Joe Biden prosecuted and tried for something. Laura Ingraham demands candidates celebrate Trump. The Republican National Committee seriously considered making Trump the nominee without further contest. Matt Gaetz insists Trump did not commit insurrection in 2021. Trump himself says Nancy Pelosi caused it.

And no matter how stupid his babble gets, they’ll defend him. Trump declared he’d encourage Putin to invade NATO members who don’t pay us protection money, they’re going to defend him on that too. That includes defending Putin’s right to the Ukraine as Trump’s against us supporting them: Tommy Tuberville, for example, claiming NATO provoked him even though Putin’s made it very clear he wants an empire.

And while Republicans clearly prefer a border crisis to stabilizing things, Trump opposing a bill seems to have killed it. Not even on immigration, an issue their voters care a lot about, are they willing to defy the cult leader.

And now Trump wants his daughter-in-law, Lara, as RNC chair and she’s already declared she’ll spend every penny of RNC cash on his re-election bid. Which would work out great if it starves the RNC of funds for down-ballot races — I mean that would doom Democrats, please, please don’t do that!

But not everything is Trump’s fault. I could easily see Republicans 20 years back declaring that Palestinian babies are not innocent in war. Or libeling a scientist to the point he collected bigly because science is against their belief. Or an elected Republican identifying Texas as one of the original U.S. states. And the latest in the long history of politically paranoid theories, that the Deep State will replace Joe Biden with Michelle Obama (also here). Orson Scott Card was working an early version of that bull more than a decade ago.

There’s also the overlap effect: as Trump spouts racist bullshit and proves he can get away with it, more Republicans say it openly. Like discussing how the government is Jewish-controlled, or pushing other anti-semitic bullshit.

This tells us something about the party’s future … but I’m not sure what. Other than that Republicans will be a scourge for a long time to come.

 

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October 26, 2023 · 5:15 am

Let’s start off with the good news!

Filing bankruptcy will not save Alex Jones from his $1.4 billion Sandy Hook settlement. The article makes clear that some of the parents who’ve sued him won’t see everything they’ve been awarded — the complexities of bankruptcy law — and I’m sure he’ll do all he can to weasel out of as much as possible — but that’s still a big win for justice.

The Justice Department is getting tough with right-to-life violent protesters.

Planned Parenthood sued one anti-abortion activist and won $2 million over his efforts to videotape them committing crimes. The Supreme Court rejected his appeal.

In their continuing lust for a banana-republic dictatorship, NC Republicans now have control of the election boards. Our dem governor is suing over it.

Texas’ anti-drag law has been struck down.

The judge in Trump’s New York case has hit TFG with a $5,000 fine for violating his gag order. Chump change to Trump but he’s such a chiseler I’m sure it will gnaw at him. Now, will the judge follow through on his threat to lock Trump up if he does it again …?

Now to the usual assortment of less cheery links:

Health-care fraudster Philip Esformes got 20 years for his crimes, then Trump commuted his sentence. Now the Justice Department is trying him again. There’s much discussion at the link as to whether this violates double jeopardy but I also notice it’s very much a sign of our two-tier justice system: if he’d been poor and had the same moral awakening (that he claims to have had, anyway), it’s unlikely anyone with as much clout as his connections would have been pulling for clemency.

A man Betsy DeVos claimed had been victimized by the #metoo movement later killed his girlfriend.

Groomers. Never mind how much right-wingers insist all the grooming is by gays. Speaking of which, the architect of Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bills got four months for covid-funding fraud.

More Christian grooming. And more.

Fox News’ Jeanine Piro decides we need to stop all immigration until this country is better.

Republicans are pushing harder to keep kids off social media. While I know social media has its drawbacks, I suspects it’s primarily the desire to keep conservative parents’ kids carefully inside the “evangelical bubble” where they won’t learn the Wrong Things.

Right wing North Dakota Republican Brandon Prichard claims he went to U of Minnesota Law School. When the school revealed he didn’t he accused them of anti-Christian bias and threatened to sue.

The Texas Senate passed a ban on vaccine mandates at hospitals and clinics.

A student’s dance at a private party cost her her scholarship. My sympathy’s with her.

Fraud on the Zelle app.

Ron DeSantis made a big thing out of helping Americans evacuate when war broke out in Israel (“Where the federal government drags its feet, we are delivering results.”). It seems they ended up stranded in Cyprus.

Death threats over refusal to vote for “Gym” Jordan as speaker? According to Fox News, big whoop.

Cap property insurance rate increases? Not in Florida!

 

 

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October 2, 2023 · 5:22 am

“Don’t say gay” is a golden opportunity for added bigotry.

According to Florida’s attorney general, Ron DeSantis’ Don’t Say Gay rules require schools keep sexuality-related (i.e. gay or trans) material out of school classrooms but not libraries. Nevertheless, Charlotte County’s school superintendent has ordered school libraries purge “all books with LGBTQ characters or themes.” Possibly this is pre-emptive compliance — do what you think the state wants before it even demands it — but it feels like bigots in the system are seizing an opportunity. As witness their flimsy rationale that as classroom activities sometimes happen in the library, therefore it’s a schoolroom, QED!

In related matters about schools, kids and conservatives:

“Board president Joan Cullen, who marched in the Jan. 6 protests at the U.S. Capitol, has come under fire for controversial social media posts, including one calling a survivor of the deadly 2018 Parkland school shooting a “tyrant.”” — from a post about what happens when Moms for Liberty takes over a school board.

Just 11 people provide the majority of book-banning requests to school library.

“As school board members, your sworn duty and responsibility is to enforce the Parents’ Bill of Rights law to protect our young grandkids from sexual harassment, from homosex groomers lurking in our schools, unions, PTAs, libraries and moms for porn groups,” Duane Hansen said at last week’s Wake school board meeting. I’ve no idea who Hansen is but this sounds more like bigoted fantasies that let Mr. Hansen imagine he’s a virtuous man. I bet he’d be outraged if I suggested doing something about Christian ministers grooming kids or that given the scope of the Presybterian abuse crisis we should keep girls away from the church. Or there’s the Baptist worship leader who’s been busted for producing child porn.

But let’s be fair, plenty of right-wing pastors have other issues — like complaining autistic children are demon-possessed.

Let’s not forget, some of the religious right are openly in favor of indoctrinating (other people’s) children.

Brooklyn Library’s drag-story hour gets a bomb threat. The threateners may have deluded themselves that they’re the good guys too.

A school insists that suspending a black kid for his hairstyle isn’t discrimination.

A teacher in South Carolina taught a class around Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book on race. She was willing to talk to students who complained; she didn’t expect they’d report her.

Another teacher, another burst of outrage.

Sen. Joe Manchin opposes expanding the child tax credit because, he says, parents will just buy drugs with the money.

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September 25, 2023 · 5:04 am

Three examples of right-wing Christian bullshit

Right-wing watch reports that, unsurprisingly, many religious-right leaders wants judges who will support their march to theocracy — oh, sorry, a Biblical worldview. Which is the first lie covered in today’s post — the belief that there’s a single Biblical worldview and that it conforms to the worldview of white, homophobic, misogynist religious conservatives.

In fairness, this was one of the founding propositions of Protestant Christianity: The Bible’s truth is so plain and clear that there’s no need for a church to explain what it means. The Civil War put paid to that idea: half of white america fought slavery and fought for slavery, both claiming the Bible supported them. If we get something that big wrong — and obviously, a lot of people did (just as obviously, it was the slaveowners) — there’s no reason to assume that our “biblical worldview” represents the divine worldview. As  Fred Clark put it once at slacktivist (I don’t have the specific link) even if the Bible is infallible, our interpretation is not.

Christian feminist Beth Allison Barr, for instance, believes her opposition to Christian misogyny represents a Biblical worldview; a lot of Christian misogynists firmly believe otherwise. I doubt religious conservatives are going to respect her worldview as legitimate; many of them don’t think any liberal or Democrat has a Biblical worldview. It’s the same logic by which people who call for a Christian nation don’t want a Christian nation, they want a specifically sectarian version of Christianity to be on top. This never ends well; that’s one reason we have a First Amendment.

My second piece of bullshit is  Ron DeStalinist’s proclamation that “The Left may say they oppose the establishment of religion, but they are the ones trying to establish a religion … the religion of leftism. If there is a conflict between the Left’s agenda and your faith, they want you to bend the knee. We will not.”

Leftism is not, however, a religion, it’s a political stance. Some leftists are motivated to support equality and oppose discrimination because they believe it’s god’s will; others do so for secular reasons.  Right-wingers have been arguing since the 1970s that liberalism is some sort of religion because then schools adopting liberal principles like tolerance for gays are then religious and the First Amendment says no.

But in DeSantis’ case, facts don’t matter as much as appealing to the Republican whiny vote, the conservative Christians convinced they’re the persecuted and wretched of the Earth. Christian conservatives are martyrs, just like the oppressed Christians of the New Testament; that our faith is now closer to the Roman Empire in its secular power goes ignored. Having to coexist with Americans who don’t share their worldview — married gays, independent women — feels like oppression because they’re not getting the country they want. How can that be just? DeSantis has realized how easy it is to exploit that: “the only lies you’ll ever have to tell them are the lies they were already telling themselves.”

And given many conservative Christians scoff at Jesus’ calls for mercy and forgiveness as weakness, I don’t think they have the stomach for real martyrdom. Much better to fantasize you’re being martyred, then lash back at the imagined oppressor.

Third, we have nitwit pundit Charlie Kirk declaring we should cut Social Security because “I don’t think retirement is biblical.” People shouldn’t be sitting on their ass in retirement, they should be helping with their grandkids! Lots of people take part-time jobs! We’re taking money from struggling kids in their twenties and thirties and giving it to well-off seniors!

While Kirk has embraced Christian nationalism, I notice he doesn’t offer any specifics why retirement goes against the Bible. It’s another conservative Christian bit of bullshit: just declare your preferred policy position is godly, don’t worry about the details, like some conservative Christians declaring that the Bible’s rules for slaves require employees obey employers absolutely.

Of course nothing about receiving Social Security stops people doing any of the things Kirk recommended. Age, however, can stop them: some retirees, as I observed a decade ago, are not in shape for any of that. Kirk, spending his days sitting behind a microphone and babbling bullshit (as I’ve mentioned before, he doesn’t live up to the image of manliness he says America needs), may be in great shape when he hits retirement age; retail workers, miners, dock workers may not be so lucky.

And if Kirk gets his wish, Republicans will not be funneling that money back to young Americans in need. It’ll go to where all their money goes: corporate welfare and tax cuts for the rich. And Kirk will be fine with that.

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August 31, 2023 · 5:19 am

The power of anti-anti

“The true commitment of today’s Republican Party is not to racism (though there are plenty of genuine racists who thrill to what the GOP offers, and especially to former president Donald Trump). It is to what is best described as anti-antiracism.” Which as Paul Waldman describes it at the link, an argument that “we must stop talking and thinking about racism, and most of all we must stop trying to do anything about racism … It allows people to claim a commitment to equality while opposing policies meant to achieve actual equality. It enables them to proclaim their own victimhood, which has become absolutely central to the conservative worldview.”

Case in point, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declaring that black history courses are left-wing indoctrination. A Florida college group for black students having to change its name. Or a pundit arguing that supporting legacy admissions but not affirmative action is the right choice. A trustee for one Texas school district complaining an image of black and white kids holding hands had traumatized a student (the trustee ain’t racist, she just wants to shield the students!).

Or the angry outcries on the right that even thinking about diversity in college or business is a bad thing. I wrote several years back that the people making these arguments wouldn’t be the least bit bothered if we went back to the days of affirmative action for white men.

Ron DeSantis, for instrance, screams a lot about how diversity and wokeness are ruining education; he and right-wing grifter Chris Rufo have taken Florida’s New College and brought in a new class that’s less academically qualified. The incoming freshmen include 70 baseball players even though the school isn’t part of intercollegiate athletics groups, doesn’t have baseball facilities — but Rufo is quite specific it’s a good thing because the college has too many women. A school full of male jocks will change the environment in ways he likes. I suspect he’d share the general distaste on the right for educated women.

Of course Rufo phrases it as trying to counter left-wing ideology, and restoring an even gender balance — as if just the presence of so many women proves something must be hinky. He can pretend he’s not misogynist, just anti-anti-misogyny. Though one difference between anti-anti-misogyny and anti-anti racism is that the misogynists don’t pretend as much. They’re much more open about wanting male dominance and ending women’s suffrage; there’s much less need to use anti-anti-misogyny as a pretense. Though they’ll still squeal that feminism is tyranny.

We could also extend this to the anti-anti-covid wing. They won’t come out and say they’d be willing to see another pandemic for personal or political gain, they just claim any steps to fight covid by vaccines or masking are evil; e.g., right-wing lawyer Matt Staver shrieking bullshit about how vaccines will drive people to suicide — send him money to fight the mandates! I will bet solid cash he and every right-wing pundit who wasn’t a known anti-vaxxer before covid is vaccinated.

Likewise a lot of people who want conformity and submission to authority, at least for others, don’t phrase it that way. They’re anti-anti conformity, grumbling that individualism and personal choice have just gone too damn far. When Dennis Prager argues wives should put out for their husbands even if they don’t want to, he phrases it as “In determining how one ought to act, feelings, not some code higher than one’s feelings, became decisive: ‘No shoulds, no oughts.’ In the case of sex, therefore, the only right time for a wife to have sex with her husband is when she feels like having it.” Yes, how unreasonable (as many other right-wingers think). I’ve linked to this before but with Prager’s teaching videos now telling Florida students climate activists are Nazis and slavery isn’t so bad, it seems worth remembering what a shit he is.

Similarly Paul Deneen condemns feminism as part of the “liberation of humans from established authority, emancipation from arbitrary culture and tradition.” which he thinks is a bad thing (I know, I’ve linked to that one before, too). Women need to be in shackles and he wants to help with that. And no, I don’t think it’s blind chance that he and Prager both worry about women’s roles in their musings.

 

For more on misogyny, Undead Sexist Cliches is available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights remain with current holders.

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August 14, 2023 · 5:10 am

Right-wing electoral campaigns and those who support them

It’s hardly news that a lot of American Nazis support Republicans, but Ron DeSantis insists his Nazi supporters are a false flag. Meanwhile he’s banning an AP Psychology course because it violates his Don’t Say Gay laws. And one of his supporters claims the Irish were enslaved in America so it’s not like blacks have a monopoly on suffering or anything (I guess DeSantis is hoping this plays better than claiming slavery was a good thing). Real problems like the increasing homeowners insurance crisis in Florida? Come on, how will that help him win the White House?

Not that he has a chance. The Republican voters are overwhelmingly pro-Trump. He will be the candidate, unless perhaps he goes to prison — though I’ve heard plenty of argument that even in prison, the voters would still pick him. DeSantis, who attended Harvard and Yale, can claim he’ll fight the elites (who somehow exclude himself) but the voters seem happy to have Trump, the billionaire son of a billionaire, claim he’s doing that. Of course, as Adam Serwer observes, lots of right-wing elites are on Trump’s side: “they have nevertheless repeatedly failed the most basic test of democratic citizenship posed to them, defending the right of their public to choose their leaders … Republican lawmakers, now including Trump’s own primary opponents, have validated the idea that Trump is a victim of political persecution rather than someone who engaged in a conspiracy to keep himself in power.”

Fox News pundits are unanimous that trivial things like trying to send fake electors to DC isn’t at all criminal; Julie Banderas went to far as to say “hatching schemes to stay in power” isn’t a crime. But there’s a big difference between “I think the election was rigged” and talking to people to rig it. The latter is not covered by the First Amendment, any more than you have a First Amendment right to hire an assassin. Given Fox swung right on “it was rigged” after losing eyeballs to OANN and Newsmax, I assume the united front is Rupert Murdoch giving viewers what they want, even if it’s lies. Popehad adds more legal detail.

On the other hand, we have Trump-supporting attorney and alleged indicted co-conspirator John Eastman who argues yes it was a coup but it was justified: “At some point abuses become so intolerable that it becomes not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish the existing government” so Trump was really like the Founding Fathers.

Meanwhile, Trump attorney Alina Habba argues that news headlines about her client are intentional election interference. I suspect the quality of Trump’s legal representation hasn’t improved.

In my state, African-American gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson is an aspiring theocrat who despises gays, Jews and blacks, at least blacks who aren’t conservative. Anti-trans Republican Dan Bishop is running for attorney general. He’s also a pro-gun, anti-immigrant forced-birther.

Vivek Ramaswamy is a conservative Hindu running for the Republican nomination. Forced-birther Abby Johnson explains supporting his candidacy is anti-God. Right-wing self-proclaimed prophet Hank Kunneman agrees but Dem. Rep. Ro Khanna sticks up for Ramaswamy’s religious freedom. I’m glad he did even though Ramaswamy (and several other prominent conservatives) is cool supporting racist trolls.

Speaking of forced-birthers, Ohio’s Janet Porter is quite frank that Republicans’ efforts to make it harder for voter initiatives to pass are intended to block an abortion-rights initiative this fall. Because if they can’t win the voters, they’ll settle for overriding their wishes.

The Supreme Court told Alabama their gerrymandered voting maps need at least one more black majority district. The state has ignored them. We’ll see what happens next.

Over in Texas, AG Ken Paxton’s rich right-wing Republican supporters are fighting to save him from impeachment.

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August 7, 2023 · 5:36 am

Why yes, there are limits to the First Amendment

The Washington Post recently published an article looking at doctors who’ve prescribed quack cures for covid such as ivermectin (an extremely profitable line of bullshit). Very few doctors have paid any penalty for so doing which doesn’t surprise me: doctors have a long history of not policing their own. Nor is it surprising that Republican states want to make it even harder to discipline anti-vaxx doctors; Ron DeSantis is clearly cool letting people die of covid if it convinces anti-vax Republicans that he’s on their side.

What did strike me about the article, though, is that some of the doctors spreading misinformation (masks don’t work! The vaccine is death!) or pushing quack cures go with the First Amendment as a defense: refusing to let them prescribe what lines their pockets (they don’t phrase it that way) violates their right of free speech! It’s “viewpoint discrimination!”

This is a common cry on the right: any criticism of them for being anti-trans, misogynist or whatever is oppression. They have a right to judge trans people, working women, rape victims, etc. because Free Speech but if conservatives get judged in return, that’s not Free Speech, it’s anti-Free Speech. They can punch down (or what they imagine is down) but nobody has the right to punch back up.

(The same is true of the fight over public libraries: I’m sure Moms for Liberty and similar groups would be outraged if liberals started filing to ban books the banners liked (for the record, I do not think “if you ban our books, we’ll ban yours” is a good tactic). Take this WaPo story about conservative Catholics demanding their community library take books out that offend them; Delores Oates, a local politician running for higher office, posted to a Catholic online group that they need supervisors “who care about the well-being of children.” I’m betting if someone pointed out the Catholic Church has done anything but protect children (some pedophilia cases are still being prosecuted) they’d be outraged.)

As for “viewpoint discrimination,” it’s perfectly reasonable to discriminate against some viewpoints, particularly in a scientific/medical setting. Sure, there’s a subjective element in medicine (as the excellent book Untreated says): at what point should someone with pneumonia go into the hospital? Does an injury need surgery or will it recover after rest? When do you send a patient to a specialist? And no, doctors should be free to make their best judgment call even if there’s room for disagreement.

But in the covid case we have doctors spewing bullshit and false facts, either because they’re crackpots or because there’s money in it. Telling doctors not to spread lies about covid, vaccines or ivermectin is entirely appropriate. Patients trust doctors; doctors shouldn’t be allowed to abuse that trust, whether for profit or personal ideology. As I said of Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-vax claims, there’s no scientific controversy here, purely a political one (as witness DeSantis proposing Kennedy as head of the CDC).

There are lots of situations the First Amendment doesn’t apply. Conspiracy to commit a crime (“All I said was, I’d pay him $5,000 to kill my wife. Free speech!”). Slander. Harassment. Shakezula presents a couple of examples. I think regulating medical speech is one more.

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July 24, 2023 · 5:43 pm

Ron DeSantis: slavery had its upside

You may have heard by now that Florida’s new standards for teaching history include a reference to slaves learning skills that they were able to market for their own benefit. Not only is this a twisted logic — “hey, you became property, but you learned how to do fine embroidery! It’s a win-win!” — but as Josh Marshall points out most slaves were field hands. They did not learn a skilled trade.

(Nor, to cite an older argument, did they get “free room and board” — they earned it every day of their life in chains).

While the right-wing designers of this material offered a list of slaves who learned skills they could use in Reconstruction, most of them were not slaves, or learned their skills after they became free. This distorted history is right on-brand for Frances Rice, one of the conservatives who designed the standards. Kevin M. Kruse points out they get a lot of other stuff wrong.

Why pick this as a hill to die on? For some conservatives (and some people who aren’t conservatives), I suspect it’s uncomfortable to imagine this ugly side of American history. People want to be proud of their country and slavery is nothing to be proud of. It’s much easier to imagine that yes, it was ugly but it had an upside — or like Josh Hawley, pretend we were on the cutting edge of abolishing it (we weren’t). Or right-wing pastor Jack Hibbs insisting that the Founding Fathers couldn’t free their slaves for um, reasons, but treated them so awesome!

I suspect it’s also, partly, that lots of white parents hate the thought of their kids coming home realizing that racism and discrimination aren’t just whining by black Americans for special privileges (“Mom, remember when you said slavery wasn’t that bad for black people? You were wrong, it was horrible!”).

It’s worth remembering that nobody back in the antebellum days thought slavery was so wonderful that they fought for the privilege. No white people lined up to get that free food and board or to get a shot at learning a trade. Neither did free blacks. Any pretense slavery was a good deal is a steaming pile of bullshit.

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July 3, 2023 · 5:32 am

Courts, court cases and judges: some links

Slate shows that the originalist claims the Founders would want domestic abusers to keep their guns underestimate the scope of the Founding Fathers’ reasoning.

A judge in New Jersey struck down a ban on guns near schools.

Contrary to right-wing media no, the courts did not give Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal.

Wyoming banned abortion pills. A judge says not so fast.

A judge in Oklahoma tossed out state abortion bans.

Ron DeSantis is suing the college accreditation agencies because (I gather) their standards might not mesh with the right-wing dystopia he wants to make from college education in Florida.

Alex Jones continues using the bankruptcy system to thwart his creditors.

Retailers think the court system is too soft on shoplifting, but there’s no evidence criminal-justice reforms are to blame.

The NRA thinks there’s a better solution to mass shootings than guns: imprison the mentally ill. Okay, “thinks” is probably not the word, I’m sure they know that’s bullshit.

One of the J6 seditionists wanted a minimum security prison stay for his 4.5 year sentence. Too bad, so sad.

An atheist organization got Mississippi to stop requiring “In god we trust” on license plates.

The twentieth century saw Japanese Americans locked up, black Americans segregated, and previous centuries saw slavery. Nevertheless Neil Gorsuch thinks government covid restrictions are the worst rights violation we’ve ever seen.

DeSantis promises a way more conservative SCOTUS than Trump gave us.

“The current Supreme Court represents a coalition that has burrowed itself into the judiciary in the hope that it can reshape the political order by judicial fiat even as it loses at the ballot box. ”

“A judge dismissed Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers’ restraining order against a reporter Wednesday, saying that the investigative journalist’s conduct did not rise to the level of harassment.”

“Even though Samuel Alito is a Supreme Court justice with lifetime tenure and all the power that position entails, he still wants more. The justice seems to believe that he and the court are so thoroughly supreme that they must be free of even a whiff of public criticism. Alito demands perpetual public and professional affirmation — a safe space, if you will, where he is protected from micro-aggressions, bathed in praise and consistently depicted as reasonable and judicious regardless of whether he actually is. And when his reception falls short of that, he lashes out at his critics no matter who they are.”

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a website designer who didn’t want to make websites for gay marriages — except nobody asked her to. This is significant because “somebody some day might want me to do something that goes against my conscience” is not grounds for a lawsuit; the court isn’t supposed to design hypotheticals. LGM points out the convoluted logic.

Then there’s affirmative action. As Hilzoy points out, just being in a high school where the counselors don’t give good college advice is a significant handicap, but not to SCOTUS. Oh, and in defending the discussion, John Roberts declares the Civil War was fought to end racism. Um, no. Clarence Thomas isn’t much better.

I’ll close with one of the few cases where I’m solidly with Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Colorado resident Billy Counterman sent multiple harassing messages to an unidentified musician, including  “Die. Don’t need you.” and opening new accounts when she blocked existing ones. On a 7-2 vote the Supreme Court decided he shouldn’t have been found guilty because we can’t be sure he knew he came off as threatening. WTF? Thomas, with his general distaste for freedom of speech, was one dissenter; Barrett was the other, writing “He knew what the words meant. Those threats caused the victim to fear for her life, and they ‘upended her daily existence.’ Nonetheless, the court concludes that Counterman can prevail on a First Amendment defense. Nothing in the Constitution compels that result.”

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June 29, 2023 · 5:01 am

Let’s sneer at Republicans!

Texas State Senator Angela Paxton is married to AG Ken Paxton, who’s about to be impeached. She refuses to recuse herself from the Senate trial because “my constituents deserve it.” Her husband, who fought to overturn Biden’s win, has protested that impeaching him would go against the sacred will of the voters.

Sen. Josh Hawley marks Juneteenth by claiming the US is where “slavery came to die,” ignoring that nations from England to Mexico ended it sooner. In the same spirit, Republican propagandist Charlie Kirk declares that celebrating the end of slavery gives the middle finger to July 4.

Wisconsin Republican Robin Vos says if not for abortion “how many Americans today would be alive in our workforce, doing all the things that helped make America great,” As Shakezula says at the link, “Consciously or not, Vos was riffing on the old anti-liberty message that if girls and women aren’t forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, it could deprive the world of the one person who would eventually grow up to cure cancer. (A message I’m convinced was created after they figured out that the signs that asked people to consider what would have happened if Jesus had been aborted were a tad blasphemous.) In that narrower case, no one is concerned that the inability to get an abortion might keep a living girl or woman from finding the cure. Science and medicine are for boys.”

Florida Republican Randy Fine can’t stand anyone disagreeing with him.

Florida Man Ron DeSantis continues accusing his enemies of being groomers. He also plans to transform the Department of Justice if elected, presumably renaming it something like Ron’s Gestapo. DeSantis is also happy to protect the car dealership industry. Or maybe that’s the job of his new state guard.

On the plus side of Florida, a judge has pushed back against DeSantis’ anti-trans campaign. Scientific American says DeSantis is not fit to be president.

Back when NC State Rep. Tricia Cotham was a pro-choice Democrat, she talked about having had an abortion. Now that she’s a forced-birth Republican, she claims she didn’t.

North Carolina Republicans have joined in hating on diversity in business. More here.

Robert F. Kennedy: Republican in all but name.

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts’ dream of undoing racial equality continues to bear fruit. As the NYT says, the current SCOTUS deserves some contempt. And more contempt. So do some of our past justices.

Republican conservative preacher Kenneth Copeland says this entire nation should follow George Washington’s religious views … which Copeland gets wrong.

New York Republican Elise Stefanik is raising money for herself off Trump’s indictment.

Oklahoma has just funded the first religious charter school financed by secular tax dollars.

But hey, Democrats can be bad too, like a Florida Democrat arguing for a DeSantis presidency even if he gets “the culture wars wrong.” Which makes it sound like DeSantis accidentally used the wrong pronouns rather than an organized anti-gay campaign and protecting sexual harassers.

 

 

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