US Politics, April 2023: Fucking Florida

Because Florida is the new fascist laboratory, that's why.

Thank you for your service, Alfred.

Doesn’t Ron know that arresting them only makes them stronger?

Things are great here in TN, too. My state rep is one of three Democrats slated for an expulsion vote later this week — literally, the GOP supermajority wants to throw them out of office — for staging a brief protest on the House floor last week when they weren't allowed to speak on gun restrictions (just days after the school shooting in Nashville). Red states are really going all-out, they don't want any dissenting voices at all.

https://t.co/8nhuB95z9q pic.twitter.com/KF26j5nWfP

— Aftyn Behn (@AftynBehn) April 4, 2023

On the plus side, the people chanting "fascists" there are mostly high school and college kids who staged a huge class walkout in Nashville today to go to the capitol and call for gun restrictions. A massive turnout, by all accounts.

From @brotherjones_ on the ground in Nashville— the Tennessee legislator is planning to expel lawmakers who stood with gun control advocates today.

They have been stripped from committee assignments and their member ID’s have been shut off.

THIS IS NOT DEMOCRACY. pic.twitter.com/QiFzFrwj79

— Olivia Julianna 🗳 (@0liviajulianna) April 3, 2023

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that the GOP really hates at least two of the three — my rep, Gloria Johnson, because she has a tendency to call them racists and liars, and Justin Jones because he was a very vocal social justice activist who was forever getting in their faces (and was once arrested for allegedly throwing a coffee cup at a Republican representative). He was just elected to office last fall.

They hate my rep so much that even though they weren't able to completely gerrymander her out of a seat, they went to the trouble to carve a new district and left her house out of it just to fuck with her. She had to move to run for reelection (which she won easily). But now it looks like I and the other 70,000 people in my district might be without a state representative come Thursday.

I tried to use Google to translate the motto of GOP state legislators everywhere into latin, but it bowdlerized it. So instead I offer you the English original: "If we have the votes to do it, why the fuck not?"

I am fine with the thread name but...
if Florida is the nation's wang, is it being fucked or is ot doing the fucking?

Apologies to any peninsulasexuals out there who I may have inadvertently offended. May you find your inlet, or isthmus, or whatever.

Personally I'm a fjord explorer.

This is how they talk to children asking for help

Sorry y'all, but some of you are just going to have to die.

What a coward. https://t.co/VYCtjkdh8u

— whatajoke (@wattaj0ke) April 3, 2023

YMP is that a joke ridiculing people who identify in unusual ways? On a thread about, essentially, the creeping fascism of America? Just checking

Just absurdity, nothing more

Florida is not America's wang, it is America's lower intestine.

i love that the knuckle-dragging conservatives are calling that mild protest in Tennessee an "insurrection".

we're not even at peak galaxy-brain yet in this country

otoh, I now have no shortage of examples for why "states' rights" is a horrible thing and always was.

Good mornign!

Tennessee Republican legislators are some of the most crooked political thugs you can imagine.

I can only assume that when Kelsea Ballerini sang with four drag queens at the CMT Awards who’s weekend, approximately four dozen baby Morgan Wallens received their origin stories

who’s this weekend

Florida Senate meanwhile passed their 6-week abortion ban yesterday. House still has to vote on theirs and reconcile w/ Senate bill. bill may be on DeSantis's desk to sign next week.

I've been reading that the law doesn't go into effect until FL Supreme Court rules on the 15-week lawsuit (I have a hard time determining if that's accurate, as the media gets so much wrong). if that IS true, that means abortions will probably be available through 15 weeks at least another month or so, but assuming FL Supreme Court rules as expected, it means abortions in the South will be largely curtailed.

Abortion funds that provide resources for travel and lodging are going to need more donations than ever

i'm proactively researching them all but abortionfunds.org seems a good place to start as you can split a donation among 90 diff funds nationally or choose specific state funds

Yeah, that's why Nikki Fried and Lauren Book were arrested: they were protesting the abortion bill (this is for the benefit of unaware ILXers).

A rundown:

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2023/04/04/nikki-fried-lauren-book-arrested-in-florida-6-week-abortion-ban-protest/70078878007/

Tennessee Republican legislators are some of the most crooked political thugs you can imagine

the bar's high but it's honestly very remarkable & concerning

Personally I'm a fjord explorer.

Underrated punchline.

The hilarious (enraging) thing about expelling those TN legislators is no Congresshuman got expelled for January 6th, at which PEOPLE WERE KILLED

^^^

also the literal rapists who were serving in state Congress that didn't get expelled

And legislators under federal indictment, also not expelled.

Fortunately for us here in TN, Marianne Williamson is on the case. (Marianne Williamson otm, I have to say.)

The state of Tennessee is something to behold right now.

Authoritarian extremist legislators are exerting, or are trying to exert, all kinds of absurd power over people’s lives… from women to drag queens to students.

People are resisting, fiercely and powerfully.

To those…

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) April 4, 2023

When Marianne Williamson is able to drop more truthbombs than most other prominent public figures there is definitely something afoot.

Also definitely cosign on giving generously to abortionfunds.org if you are able.

Crazy times here in Northern California.. Shasta County supes:

Last week the supervisors took steps to replace it with a hand-count system. The county ended its contract with Dominion before establishing a replacement and now, with a potential special election months away and the presidential primary a year out, it has no voting system in place as it embarks on a plan to create an entirely new system from scratch.

I guarantee this will metastasize

Shasta Co. contains some beautiful parts. It also contains Redding and among the most reactionary, conservative populations I encountered living in that part of the world. Even Siskiyou felt more liberal!

they can have a ballot-counting pancake breakfast and crowdsource the effort

I woke up today feeling sick as a dog, I've had nothing but water and Pedialyte and have spent most of the day in bed, but I still dragged my ass up to vote in the WI Supreme Court election, because fuck these assholes who want to impose a Republican stranglehold on a state that generally leans slightly Democrat. Turnout seemed really big for this type of election too, given the lines you'd think it was at least a midterm.

Everything feels kinda weird and unstable right now, huh? I mean, I know it has for a while obviously, but it feels like another uptick at the moment, or a move to a new level of widespread instability. The center cannot hold etc etc. Maybe it's partly just the full realization that there is no "normal" to return to, we're gonna have to fight our way through all this shit.

otm

My daughter got to vote in Wisconsin today. She and her cohort showed up as a big voting block.

I hear you, tipsy, but I haven't felt at ease since at least November 2000. Iraq War, torture, credit default swaps, Black Muslim, Guantanamo, 2016, the Trump presidency -- it hasn't stopped. I think of that Mekons lyric from 2002: "Everyday is a battle/How we still love the war."

Anti-trans/LGBTQ+ bills aren't exactly new, but they've skyrocketed since 2021, especially the last two years. Conservatives view progressive gains or even something that marginally helps people as "shots fired" and get revenge by doing nothing by nonstop hateful shit.

A "whitelash", as Van Jones put it. They always frame it as "see how we felt", but fuck, all we did is grant marginalized people more rights and tell you that you couldn't use your religion to discriminate. They're outright killing people.

I like this metaphor: right before a star dies, it makes a giant blinding flash

And that's what's happening with the Trumpy crowd - demographics are obviously not in their favor, we're leaning urban - or the urban libs are moving to montana and texas etc.
The country as they know it is changing, and they're not going down without a fight... but inevitably they will go down

(I hope I'm right)

For me, I definitely saw and felt the ugly undercurrent, but when institutions were holding against some of the more extreme shit (or slightly bending), so it was unsettling, but we knew we had pushback against States trying to pass extreme hate bills. Not to say that even then, all of that shit got stopped. But much more of it did.

Now that backstop is gone and States can enact their Christofascist nightmare and dare us to challenge them

I don't mean to imply that this is the end of angry conservatism in the U.S. I just mean that the peculiar cult of personality around Trump is ultimately doomed

A lot of people who voted for him in 2016 had never voted before, or had voted for Obama twice
I don't see anyone on the current roster who has that kind of pull

No I read what you mean!

I agree Alfred, the post-9/11 era was bad and lots of it has never gone away. I do think it was still rooted in this kind of Cold War model that still felt somewhat rooted in the postwar world. Like you could still assume some basic things (good or bad) about the world. The current moment feels more rootless to me. That's not all bad, there's opportunities for change, but uneasy it is.

Conservatives view progressive gains or even something that marginally helps people as "shots fired" and get revenge by doing nothing by nonstop hateful shit.

They're offended by the mere presence of other ideas, at a level of intensity that I think reflects three decades of poisonous right-wing media. It's bred a cadre of people who are literally unaccustomed to hearing any conflicting thoughts or opinions. It's pretty absolutist, it doesn't feel like there's an endpoint for them short of obliterating the First Amendment.

I think of that Mekons lyric from 2002: "Everyday is a battle/How we still love the war."

love this, and yes

Trump will eventually die; another Trump will replace him; the battle goes on.

I once thought Rumsfeld-Bush-Cheney-Rice the most evil people of my lifetime. Expect worse always.

I'm pretty ready to get a vasectomy tbh. Mostly because of abortion laws and not wanting to put someone in the position of having to travel to get one

My bro can give my folks grandkids

(tbh there's a fairly big reason why it wouldn't matter of I did or didn't rn but)

Ohio GOP eliminated August elections late last year... but wait! They now want a new one (in August) to make the threshold for changing the constitution to 60%. Coincidentally, there's an abortion rights issue on the ballot in November.

Reporters asked DeWine on Monday why he’d back an August election after just signing legislation that purged most from Ohio’s calendar; whether it’s cynical to schedule an election to preempt an amendment effort already in motion; whether Ohio should make it harder to amend the Constitution; or why he’d leave such a major change in the hands of the traditionally thin turn out of an off-season August election.

He sidestepped each question and said he’d rather focus on issues like mental health and the state budget.

“I’m done,” he said, chuckling as he stepped away.

https://www.cleveland.com/open/2023/04/gov-mike-dewine-says-he-would-sign-bill-allowing-august-election-to-decide-constitution-change.html

this is good:

The South Carolina state Senate rejected a near-total abortion ban on Thursday, after the chamber’s five female lawmakers led a multiday filibuster against the bill.

Three Republicans, a Democrat and an Independent joined together as the only five women in the state Senate to block the legislation, which sought to ban abortion from conception with exceptions for rape, incest, fatal fetal anomalies and to save the life of the mother.

Didn't Nebraska's push for an extreme ban just fail, too?

That's why I love that Nebraska State Senator. She's all, no way, you don't get to push an extreme anti-trans bill just to offer a slightly less extreme bill that makes it seem in comparison like you're compromising or being reasonable. You push your extreme shit, you're stuck with your extreme shit, and I'm not going to let you wiggle out of it.

This is the third time in SC that a near total ban has failed since June... which means they'll probably try to pass it again

Not going to post it here, but the leaked video of Steven Crowder talking to his pregnant wife is some serial killer stuff

I think I saw a smidge of that the other day, and then I was, like, who the fuck is Steven Crowder? And stopped the video. Social media, the internet, all of that/this is cool, but sometimes you have to remind yourself that there are some things just not worth caring about. (Like this dude specifically, not the broader menace of abuse.)

ok sure, but this guy recently turned down a 50 million dollar contract

I can imagine! But all these dorks like Dan Badabingo or Ben Sheetcake or Charlie Crockett or Candance Owememoney or Catturd69420 or whoever, I assume someone pays them all millions and millions of dollars. They might as well live in the Phantom Zone.

always a good time to revisit this gem

Steven Crowder getting punched by a dripped out IBEW member at a rally against right to work in Michigan. pic.twitter.com/8SvirVNcKC

— Dripped Out Trade Unionists (@UnionDrip) June 25, 2022

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/04/28/florida-teacher-ousted-michelangelo-david-visits-florence

(btw: The complaining parents, who were also invited, did not accept the invitation)

This is the best and most comprehensive piece I've read on DeSantis's utter hopelessness as a candidate and the idiocy of those who thought he might ever amount to anything (both rich scumbags throwing money at him and journalists falling at his feet).

Debt limit confounds the both sides brain.

"Republicans have been enabled by media coverage that tries to split the difference, and treats what is essentially a hostage crisis created exclusively by one side as a normal, two-sided partisan squabble." https://t.co/eNtRaB97ZB

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) April 27, 2023

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/01/bipartisan-battle-over-capping-insulin-costs-00094533

Battle of the draft Senate bills to cap insulin prices in commercial market . Earlier passed Senate bill only capped price for those on Medicare

Unclear whether either draft bill can pass

satan is the new woke, or vice versa:

A school district in Pennsylvania must allow students to convene an After School Satan Club, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

“In a victory for free speech and religious freedom, a federal court has ruled that the Saucon Valley School District must allow the After School Satan Club to meet in district facilities,” the ACLU announced.

omg they have shirts!

https://thesatanictemple.com/collections/all-products-excluding-route/products/after-school-tee-inventory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CsDF2kh0mk

Of course, by some accounts the Satanic Temple head/leader/CEO/whatever has a history of saying very questionable crypto-fascist things and hobnobbing with racists and reactionaries, so ... sigh, why can't we just have nice Satanic things?

ummm Satan would totally be into crypto currency

Leader-dude might be questionable but they're really one of the best foils against evangelical creep into daily life, via court rulings

for sure, but he is they, in essence. any money goes to him.

https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/judge-orders-pa-school-district-to

Dig the promo graphic they included

Of course some high school students would be all over this as a way to be cool and flip off school administrators and adults in general. I just hope whatever money is getting lifted out of their pockets by the Satanic Temple is minimal, because they are the perfect 'marks' for this scam.

or they're little satanists, and I approve.

The Church of Satan was just Rand + corny synths, not much surprising about a similar stance from the Satanic Temple

if they're not Temple of Set they're poseurs

the ToS was founded by my next door neighbor, who also used to own my house!

!

Was the basement full of snakes?

Church of the Subgenius is probably my fave joke religion

I had so many fun stoned hours reading The Book of the SubGenius.

Lauren Boebert for May thread title?

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/03/lauren-boebert-snarls-were-not-a-democracy-so-quit-with-that-in-response-to-calls-for-gun-laws/

Lauren rocking the Power Girl boob window, nice.

xxxp The ToS founder died a few years ago, but his family still owns and lives in the building next door to me. He was a nice guy, he was generous, and in neighborly interactions he always saw the big picture. I was acquainted with him for ~30 years or so, and in that time I ended up liking him quite a bit

https://www.axios.com/2023/05/02/florida-death-penalty-child-rape

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill Monday allowing Florida to impose the death penalty on those convicted of sexual battery against children younger than 12.

Why it matters: The legislation is in direct violation of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana, which found it unconstitutional for states to use capital punishment for a crime other than murder.

* "The death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim's life was not taken," the ruling said.

* The governor's office said DeSantis is "prepared to take this law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule" existing precedent.

Obama actually spoke out against the ruling in Kennedy v Louisiana. which is fairly ridiculous.

Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas dissented in a 5-4 decision back then, so I think you know how this vote will probably turn out.

I wonder how many of his campaign staff and/or his major donors he'll wind up signing death warrants for...

state level charges, he'll pardon every one

unfortunately this is one of those types of laws that people more than just conservatives will support, because child rape is heinous, and hey, who wants those guys around, but in addition to its exceeding an eye for an eye punishment and likely executing innocent victims (as capital punishment does today) that just opens the door for state legislatures to open up the death penalty to other heinous crimes, like, idk, destroying a police building during a protest, or professors getting the death penalty if they taught a student that later shot up a school, due to indoctrinating them with woke virus.

have no interest in defending child rapists, but the death penalty shouldn't fucking exist at all.

otm

unfortunately this is one of those types of laws that people more than just conservatives will support

didja see who co-sponsored it?

ugh

Also in that Axios:

Between the lines: DeSantis signed a bill last month that lowers the threshold for imposing a death sentence, allowing juries to recommend execution without a unanimous vote.

Florida has had more exonerations from death row than any other state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C.
Zoom in: The legislation, which goes into effect in October, requires a minimum sentence of life in prison without parole for cases of sexual battery against young children.

The state will require prosecutors seeking the death penalty in these cases to identify at least two aggravating factors, including whether the defendant has a history of sexual predation or holds a custodial position over the child.
Cases could be resentenced if the law is later deemed unconstitutional.

abolish the death penalty, again

Had thought that SCOTUS said you gotta have unanimous vote?

If so, another showdown! Seems more like Gov. Wallace all the time--maybe he can Stand In The Schoolhouse and/or Death Chamber Door.

Go and learn what this means: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice."

Also who is gonna start the MAY POLITICS THREAD already???

this never happened

US Politics, May 2023: May 1 never happened