Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

The revolution will be supervised.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / This Is Effective Civic Action! The Texas Democratic State Legislators Head To DC To Stymie Governor Abbott’s Special Legislative Session and New Voter Suppression Legislation

This Is Effective Civic Action! The Texas Democratic State Legislators Head To DC To Stymie Governor Abbott’s Special Legislative Session and New Voter Suppression Legislation

by | 99 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

Back in May when I did my post on revolutionary warfare and the concept of counter-revolutionary warfare, I delineated that counter-revolutionary warfare (CRW) is counter-guerilla warfare (CGW) + counter-political action (CP) + civic action (CA). When the Democratic state senators and representatives in the Texas state legislature walked out of the legislature to deny the Republican majorities a quorum and proven the passage of the new voter suppression laws during the final evening session on 30 May, they took both effective counter-political action and civic action. The former in that their actions denied the Republicans the ability to pass the new voter suppression laws. The latter because their actions achieved what Fall described as civic action of trying to fight a militant doctrine with proposals of better policy outcomes, but through finding simple, but adequate appeals. Basically doing and saying things that cut through the noise, cut through the bullshit, and plainly and clearly convey to the citizenry that actions are actually being taken to prevent them from coming to further harm or to promote their interests.

While it had not been formally stated until earlier today, everyone pretty much assumed that the Texas Democratic state senators and representatives would do the same thing – deny the Republican majorities a quorum – by not appearing at all for the special session that Governor Abbott has called for this month. This is not unusual in state legislative fights. The Texas Democrats have done this before. So have Washington Oregon’s state level Republican legislators. Usually they make headlines, get their points across, and either negotiate a better legislative package in exchange for returning and not holding up the legislative session or the state governor sends state law enforcement to arrest them, bring them back, and force them to go back to work in the legislature. In one of the most recent examples of this from Oregon state, one of the Republican legislators threatened to kill any and all state law enforcement from Washington who came to bring him back, as well as any law enforcement from the state he had fled to.

My concern has always been that like the last time Texas’s Democratic state legislators fled the state to prevent legislative actions, they’d go to Oklahoma City because it is close. The problem with that is that Oklahoma has a Republican governor and a Republican majority legislature and a Republican attorney general. Which means that if they’d fled there, or any other state with that kind of political dynamic, the statewide Republican officials would order the state’s law enforcement to assist the Texas Rangers who wold be sent to bring them back in bringing them back. In order to prevent that, they needed to go to a state or a jurisdiction that functions sort of like a state with a Democratic governor and attorney general. I was hoping they’d pick Colorado or New Mexico, because they’re close, but they made a decision that exceeded my wildest expectations.

https://twitter.com/cam_joseph/status/1414634197432557569

You can click through to Vice to read the details, but from a counter-political action + civic action perspective this is brilliant. Between DC Mayor Bowser, President Biden who controls the DC National Guard, and Speaker Pelosi who controls the Capitol Police, the Texas Democratic state legislators have just dared Governor Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Patrick who controls the legislature, and indicted and under additional Federal criminal investigation Attorney General Paxton to try to force them back. The counter-political action is denying the Texas Republican majorities a quorum so they can either vacate the special session, sit there during the special session and be able to accomplish nothing legislatively, or break the state legislature’s own rules to move the legislation without a quorum. My money is on option three as they broke the legislative rules to try to move it on the last evening of the session on 30 May.

The civic action component is having the Texas Republican leadership look impotent by not being able to have the Texas Rangers bring the Texas Democratic legislators back because the Texas Ranger can only get person they are after when that person is outside their jurisdiction if the jurisdiction that person is in cooperates and allows them to. The civic action component also includes very publicly lobbying their Federal Democratic counterparts to take even a little bit of the risks that the Texas Democratic state legislators are taking in fighting off Texas’s attempts at voter suppression.

Simple, but adequate appeals indeed!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

99Comments

  2. 2.

    NYCMT

    Back in 2003, the Lege’s quorum was broken the same way until there was a defector and the DeLay intra-decadal redistricting plan went ahead.

    Hope there are no defectors!

  3. 3.

    Anonymous At Work

    What are the ramifications of the State Lege breaking its own rules to pass legislation?  Would the Texas Supreme Court/Fifth Circuit/Supreme Court rule that the laws passed were unconstitutional or would Justice Roberts, “with a heavy heart,” overrule precedent?

    Not entirely hopeful on that part.

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anonymous At Work: I don’t know. I think it would give Marc Elias something additional to work with in terms of legal arguments, but whether that would be effective I do not know.

  7. 7.

    CaseyL

    @Anonymous At Work: Good question.  If the TexLege does pass the legislation in absence of a quorum, and Abbott signs it, and the TXDems bring suit, and the suit goes to SCOTUS… then if Roberts does want to preside over the dissolution of the US then he will find in favor of TexLege.

    The question isn’t whether Roberts wants an anti-democratic oligarchy to rule this country: he does.

    The question is whether he wants to be so naked about it.

    And I don’t know the answer.

    I’ve said before, the destruction of the US as a liberal democracy has been the GOP plan for at least 40 years, possibly longer.  The attacks on our political processes have reached a breaking point, what with the Insurrection and the GQP lining up solidly behind it.

    This may be their best shot at bringing the long-term plan to fruition.  SCOTUS might indeed go for it.

  8. 8.

    Anoniminous

    @Anonymous At Work:

    Robert has already “with a heavy heart” ruled that Democracy must needs be halted when it looks like the Republicans will lose.

    See:  George, the Shrub – “election” of

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    Are they airborne?  Out of Texas (and Oklahoma) airspace??  Otherwise, it is bad to have this news leak out.  ETA:  Their flight path still takes them over at least four or five red states.  Not Oklahoma, thank dog.

    CNN: The majority of the Democrats fleeing Texas are flying to Washington, DC, on two chartered jets. They have kept planning secret because they can be legally compelled to return to the Capitol and believed law enforcement could be sent to track them down, the sources said.

  14. 14.

    Kent

    @CaseyL: It would likely be a case for state courts not the Federal courts.  Because they would be interpreting State statutes and the State constitution.  I don’t think there are any Federal constitutional issues involved with the TX state legislature breaking its own quorum rules. So I don’t see how SCOTUS or the lower Federal courts get involved.

  15. 15.

    Kelly

    Oregon Republican’s demand you respect their craziness as much as Washington R’s. When they walked out in 2019 over a carbon tax Governor Kate Brown sent the Oregon State Police to bring the absent Republican senators back to the Capitol, and imposed a daily fine of $500 on the truants. Republican Brian Boquist announced “Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon.” They’ve walked out two more times since then most recently this January over COVID restrictions. Oregon Dems last walked out in 2001.

  16. 16.

    Mary G

    I love it when Democrats fight back and get feisty. Thanks for the encouraging news, Adam.

  17. 17.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    “Were American aid to Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war a man, he would be starting to go bald and gray. Nonetheless, it is  highly relevant to all of my current complaints about current Democrat Party office holders.”

    – by Glenn Greenwald

    (semi parody)

  18. 18.

    Craigie

    Now that’s a filibuster.

    if Mitch and co want to block legislation they should have to flee to somewhere they feel comfortable, like Russia

  19. 19.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    By my recollection, airports are Federal jurisdiction, and the state authorities can’t impede a filed flightplan.

  20. 20.

    Spanky

    There is no Texas or Oklahoma airspace, only US airspace. I’m pretty sure Abbott is not going to dispatch TANG to bring down an airliner. While that may play well with the rubes, the feds would come down on TX like a ton of bricks.

  21. 21.

    kindness

    Republicans have been doing this same thing to thwart Democrats in Oregon from enacting laws they don’t like.  Turn around is fabulous play even though right wing sites won’t say it.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @Spanky:

    There is no Texas or Oklahoma airspace, only US airspace.

    There are no red airspaces and blue airspaces, only the United Airspace of America.

  23. 23.

    KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))

    Big Civic Action plus, they can lobby Congress (esp. Senate) to pass voting rights bills while they’re in DC! They can make a real PR impact by going to visit Senators Manchin and Sinema to talk about how important it is to their state that voting rights be passed, even without Republican support.

  24. 24.

    CaseyL

    @Kent:  You’re probably right.  TXDems might not want to bring suit to SCOTUS even if they had a legal argument to do so, for fear SCOTUS would simply repeat its mantra that states can run their elections and legislative sessions any old way they want.

  25. 25.

    Benw

    I hope the TX Dems had the foresight to paint TCB on the side of their charter flights!

  27. 27.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @CaseyL: Absent a violation of Constitutional rights, states can set their own rules.  They can also set higher protections of rights than the Constitution mandates, but they can’t go lower.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    Sad. The CRT panic claims some innocent victims:

    Against the backdrop of hostility to discussions of race in schools — and as five states have passed laws limiting how teachers can address “divisive concepts” with students — administrators and teachers across the country say they have been pushed out of their districts. Some have opted to leave public schools entirely, while others are fighting to save their career. The result in these districts is what educators and experts describe as a brain drain of those who are most committed to fighting racism in schools.
    In Southlake, Texas, at least four administrators who were instrumental in crafting or implementing a plan combat racial and cultural discrimination in the Carroll Independent School District left the district this spring following a community backlash to diversity and inclusion efforts.
    In Eureka, Missouri, the only Black woman in the Rockwood School District’s administration resigned from her position as diversity coordinator after threats of violence grew so severe that the district hired private security to patrol her house.

  31. 31.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @gvg:

    Like somebody else in this thread said, airports are under federal jurisdiction. Could the TX Rangers still try to enter the airport to arrest TX Dems without the cooperation/permission of the Feds?

  35. 35.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    I want to know who these people are (the ones making threats) and I want them punished

  36. 36.

    Kay

    The local backlash to addressing race in schools has been fueled in part by national conservative groups and activists, who see the anti-critical race theory fights as a winning political issue and have helped parents mobilize. As more parents confronted administrators over diversity and equity initiatives over the past year, their activism has been highlighted by conservative media, amplifying the pressure on districts.
    “A single school district can’t combat a national propaganda machine that’s intent on pushing a particular narrative and driving wedges in communities,” said Tracey Benson, associate executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association.

    The most disgusting part of this is they launched the campaign just as public schools were recovering from covid and trying to prepare for next year.
    The Texas “equity” drive in public schools was completely non-controversial and backed by the governor. Three months later they have to end it because of this panic. Same program.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Although 13 percent of the U.S. population is Black, only 7 percent of all public school teachers are. And despite efforts to diversify the teaching workforce, the percentage of Black teachers has dropped by one percentage point in the last 20 years

    while the total number of students in American public schools has risen, the percentage of those students who are white has steadily fallen. According to the Pew Research Center, in 1997, over 63 percent of the 46.1 million U.S. public school students were white. Today, white students comprise just 49.7 percent of the 50 million students enrolled.

  39. 39.

    A Ghost to Most

    Strategic bugouts have an honored history, when followed by a strategic return.

  40. 40.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    OK, so what can be done to stop them? It’d be important to know how they’re organized. Do they physically meet with these parents? Do the parents meet with each other? Perhaps these meetings could be disrupted with trolling, causing infighting

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I like your idea about calling the panic-mongers out for wasting everyone’s time on this trivial bullshit when teachers are already overloaded with trying to keep kids physically safe and help them catch up from the pandemic year. But we shouldn’t expect individual districts to carry that additional burden alone either. Maybe Secretary Cardona could take this on in a big way.

  43. 43.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    There’s been a decades long push to undo whatever integration requirements were mandated from the 1960’s through the 1980’s.

    A lot of it has been done through the courts, starting in the 1990’s, where prior court ordered integration requirements were rescinded, in part because school districts argued they had integrated.

    After the integration requirements were withdrawn, the school districts went back to finding ways to make sure the districts re-segregated.

    The push to ban CRT just seems an offshoot of the long standing backlash against diversity training and other measures of promoting inclusion, but the CRT backlash has gone to another level earlier attempts failed to reach.

    In the end, making schools less integrated and less inclusive will only hurt the students who aren’t already on a college track, because the kids are on the college track because their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. all went to college.

  44. 44.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Texas Republicans view that constitutional requirement about “republican form of government” differently than the Founders intended…

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betty Cracker: I read that. That psychologist doesn’t know or understand a damn thing about how the military does psychological operations.

  48. 48.

    Butch

    I think it’s worth noting that the Texas legislators are paid almost nothing and rely on their “day jobs” for income.  These people are giving up weeks of income for a fight they believe (and so do I) is worth fighting.

  49. 49.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    The Texas “equity” drive in public schools was completely non-controversial and backed by the governor. Three months later they have to end it because of this panic. Same program.

    The attack on “Critical Race Theory” being taught in schools is too well coordinated to be a natural panic.

    We all laugh at the stupid things Louis Gohmert says, but there are very smart, very well funded conservatives who more than make for the high profile dunces. There are very rich people, like the Koch’s, DeVos’s, etc., who want undo all the social progress of the last 70 years, and every so often they find their shrewd operative to make it happen.

    It’s ridiculous how money can successfully push through a conservative agenda that runs counter to what the majority of people want.

  50. 50.

    gene108

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    OK, so what can be done to stop them? It’d be important to know how they’re organized. Do they physically meet with these parents? Do the parents meet with each other? Perhaps these meetings could be disrupted with trolling, causing infighting

    Be more organized and persistent in demanding diversity and inclusion be part of official school district policy than these reactionary forces.

    These sort of things really need some dedicated people above the local level to help local people organize.

    Conservatives have an easier time with this high level organizing, because there’s always a local conservative millionaire or billionaire with a political axe to grind about how society should be run willing to support people promoting the same agenda.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Maybe Secretary Cardona could take this on in a big way.

    I don’t think he can. Public education is really and truly almost entirely a state issue. Other than outright violation of civil rights laws- barring the schoolroom door- he just doesn’t have legal authority to intervene.
    States and districts have BROAD power when it comes to K-12 schools. Anything that can be construed as “curriculum” or keeping schools “orderly” is allowed.
    The Texas districts really show what bullshit this is, though. The State of Texas, governed by far Right Republicans, approved these “diversity and equity guidelines” last year.
    This is boilerplate, mainstream “inclusiveness” for public schools. It’s been mainstream for years. It’s a practical recognition that public schools are no longer majority white. It is quite literally about the kids who attend public schools. It’s just recognizing the reality of the kids currently attending the schools.
    The repulsive Andrew Sullivan has clambored on this bandwagon to sell his shitty substack. I loathe him. He’s never been any fucking use to anyone and now he’s actively malicious.
    Add “US public schools” to the vast, vast realm of “things he knows nothing about but yammers about anyway”.

  53. 53.

    Uncle Cosmo

    I presume the destination airport of those charter flights was either IAD or DCA, both in VA where the Democrats are in charge. It would be a rather nasty own-goal if they were booked into BWI only to run afoul of our lame-duck GOP governor with a bug up his butt ordering the MD State Police to hold them up shy of the DC line long enough for the Rangers to fly in & drag ’em back.

  57. 57.

    rikyrah

    Part of them should go to DC.

    The other part should disperse themselves around the United States, so that they can’t be found.

  58. 58.

    Belafon

    @NYCMT:

    Back in 2003, the Lege’s quorum was broken the same way until there was a defector and the DeLay intra-decadal redistricting plan went ahead.

    Hope there are no defectors!

     

    Democrats can hold out until redistricting occurs later this year.

  59. 59.

    Dan B

    @Baud: My partner insists that Roberts was in the Brooks Brothers Riot at Florida Elections.

     

    I’m doubtful but the image is sticky, in several ways.

  60. 60.

    Cmorenc

     

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Though airports are under federal jurisdiction, consider the case where someone with an outstanding indictment for murder committed in downtown Austin could be arrested by Texas Rangers at the Austin airport trying to board a flight to an out-of-state destination.  Think they would be helpless to apprehend the suspect themselves?  Would they have to rely on federal law enforcement to apprehend the suspect once he made it inside the terminal, else stand by helplessly as the suspect checked his bags and boarded his flight?

  61. 61.

    Old School

    @Dan B:

    A Google search tells me that John Roberts advised Jeb Bush during that time, but he is not listed as a participant in the riot itself.

  62. 62.

    Adam L Silverman

    @sdhays: Which one? The research scientist in California Adam Silverman? The physician in Philadelphia with the arrest records for minor drug paraphernalia? The one in north central Florida with an AA in Ag Science from UF’s Ag Extension program?

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Dan B: Unfortunately Matt Schlapp’s three chins are blocking a clear view of at least 1/2 a dozen of the rioters.

  65. 65.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Maybe Cardona could address it from a messaging standpoint since he has little or no legal power? Or someone high profile? It seems important to counter the massive, nationally coordinated propaganda campaign that’s raining crap on school districts everywhere and interfering with real work. Maybe it’s got to be up to the teachers and parents. I don’t know.

    I saw on Twitter where Sullivan was flipping out about an anodyne classroom exercise to demonstrate that students with the same qualifications are likely to be treated differently due to race, as study after study demonstrates. It confirms what we already knew; they just want all discussions about racism to stop, in school, at work, wherever. Their extra-dainty feelings must be protected, I guess.

  66. 66.

    Anyway

    @Dan B:

    My partner insists that Roberts was in the Brooks Brothers Riot at Florida Elections.

    It was Kavanaugh…don’t think Roberts was at the scene.

  68. 68.

    Mike in NC

    Just finished reading “Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda” by Jean Guerrero. Miller’s reputation as a sociopath dates from his high school days, where his far-right mentors included David Horowitz, Richard Spencer, and Andrew Breitbart. Another one was Larry Elder, an ultra-conservative radio talk show host and self-loathing black man, in the mold of Dinesh D’Souza and Michelle Malkin. In college, Miller thought about going into politics at the national level. His first job was working for whacko Rep. Michelle Bachman (remember her?).

    We already knew that Miller was Trump’s anti-immigration fanatic, whose mission wasn’t just going after illegals, but putting a stop to ALL immigration. Zero immigrants welcome in America, especially refugees. He came up with the idea of putting kids in cages. Miller was also responsible for the firing or reassignment of dozens of career federal employees at DHS who weren’t willing to enact the racist Trump agenda. Miller, like Steve Bannon, had unlimited access to the Oval Office as senior advisor. Let’s hope his permanent job will be to remain as the Orange Clown’s  ball washer at Mar-A-Lago.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    It seems important to counter the massive, nationally coordinated propaganda campaign that’s raining crap on school districts everywhere and interfering with real work.

    It does. “Interfering with real work” will appeal to parents too.
    The thing is too, students find the discussions engaging. Not just black and brown students- white students too.
    I’m fairly conventional. I think schools should be orderly and safe and mostly about academics. But to say students can’t have some time allotted to talking about their lives in a place where they spend so much time? It’s so narrow and ungenerous.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I don’t know anything about Texas but wouldn’t it be great if Texas Democrats were like particularly feisty and combative?  New blood. Oh, good :)

  72. 72.

    Dan B

    As I said, I am doubtful.  Roberts is bright enough to know when to keep a low profile.

    My partner, and most of his family (sigh…) hold onto their “facts” with the vigor of a bulldog on a tear.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    jwilliamscincy
    @jwilliamscincy
    · 1h
    Sign @RepMikeTurner is still seriously considering U.S. Senate run: Some heavy-hitter SW Ohio GOP donors are hosting a reception for him tonight in Cincinnati. Interestingly, ex-Gov. Bob Taft, who’s rarely been heard from since he left office in ‘07, is part of host committee.

    I wonder if they’re worried that Mandel and Vance are too Trumpy. Horrible, too, but also Trumpy.

  76. 76.

    burnspbesq

    @gvg:

    I wish this hadn’t leaked until they were already IN DC.

    Texas Tribune had the story on its homepage at 9:00 a.m.

  77. 77.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    A local elite-for-Columbus school here (where my nieces and nephew graduated from) kicked two students out because their parents were bitching about CRT. I just heard this and have no more details, but yikes

     

    ETA: Found this.

  78. 78.

    burnspbesq

    In other grin-inducing news, today’s sanctions hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit appears to have gone worse than very very bad for Sidney Powell and Lin Wood.

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    Biden is giving a big speech on voting rights in Philadelphia tomorrow.

    Maybe some of these Texans will be along, in the City of Brotherly Love.

  82. 82.

    Elizabelle

    @burnspbesq:   I caught the last hour or so of that.

    I hope they both lose their licenses.  Of the two, Sidney Powell seemed the more deadly, because she seemed more sane.  Her closing comments, from the parallel universe.  She has some ugly, ugly beliefs.

    Lin Wood seemed like an ill-tempered kook.

    I loved when the court reporter piped up and took the lawyers to task for all the interruptions and cross-talk, which would make for unintelligible parts of the transcript — hearing had already gone five hours at that point — and a threat that they’d have to bring in another reporter to finish the work.  Got everyone to settle down.

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    @Mike in NC:

    Soon after we were introduced to Stephen Miller, a campaign speech video from high school appeared, in which he bitched about students being told to pick their trash up off the floors, “because isn’t that what we’re paying the janitors for?”

    He seemed nice. Even then.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I read that. I cheered for the principal. “Don’t let the door hit you!”

    Unfortunately public schools can’t do what he did. No students will get kicked out because their parents are disruptive, obnoxious liars. Public schools need another plan.

  87. 87.

    Martin

    @burnspbesq: Good lord Lin Wood is a little bitch. Not sure Powell’s statement ‘we would do it all again’ is the message the larger group wanted expressed when the plaintiffs are calling for them to not be able to bring a case anywhere in the US.

  89. 89.

    Dan B

    @Adam L Silverman: It would be great to get your take on the military methods for countering propaganda and disinformation.  There is resistance, in some liberal groups, to the role that communication can seriously undermine or support the facts.  Our military seems to be aware if the importance of managing the narrative that is supported by data, imperfect data, but we’re dealing with the fog of psychology.

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: They’ve only been doing this for well over a hundred years. Just in my lifetime of there have been at least 1/2 a dozen of these attacks on curriculum and on teachers and on school boards and attempts to take over the school boards. From the Kanawha County, W VA textbook wars of the 1970s to a repeat in the late 80s early 90s in W VA, as well as the textbook wars in Texas and other parts of the south in the 70s and 80s to attempts to run stealth evangelical candidates in school boards across the south and the midwest in the 80s, 90s, and 00s to take them over and put G-d back in the classroom. There’s nothing new here. American “conservatives”, regardless of which party was the party of those “conservatives”, have been creating these bullshit moral panics since at least the 1820s. They have literally been screaming about socialism and collectivism before Marx was actually old enough to do so. And, fun fact, the foreign correspondent for the Republican’s abolitionist newspaper in the 1850s was Karl Marx!

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Dan B: Classified…//

    More seriously, I’ll try to get to it. I’ve been trying to get to a threat assessment I’ve got outlined and thought through and just need to actually draft out for about three or four weeks now. I’m hoping to get that done this week. If I do, I’ll try to get to what you’re asking me for.

  93. 93.

    Kathleen

    @CaseyL: (whispers) I’m one of those who believes a phase of this plan was manifest on 11-22-63 but I know that is not a popular opinion here. So don’t tell anybody.

  98. 98.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    @Kelly: surprised mike nearman (marquette ’81) didn’t say worse than that.

    still shocked the marquette school of government hasn’t brought nearman back to rehabilitate him.

Comments are closed.