Florida’s State Board of Education is the governing body of the state’s K-12, community college and university system. Members are appointed by the governor. Governor Ron DeSantis just appointed a woman named Esther Byrd to the board. Ms. Byrd is the wife of a wingnut state legislator from a deep red district who just happens to be a staunch DeSantis ally.
DeSantis has already stocked the board with shady GOP megadonors and charter school grifters who do his bidding. But as far as I know, Esther Byrd is the first insurrection fan girl on the board. Here’s her comment about January 6 on her Facebook page [source: Florida Politics]:
“ANTIFA and BLM can burn and loot buildings and violently attack police and citizens. But when Trump supporters peacefully protest, suddenly ‘Law and Order’ is all they can talk about! I can’t even listen to these idiots bellyaching about solving our differences without violence.”
“In the coming civil wars (We the People vs the Radical Left and We the People cleaning up the Republican Party), team rosters are being filled. Every elected official in DC will pick one. There are only 2 teams… With Us [or] Against Us. We the People will NOT forget!”
Ms. Byrd is also a Proud Boys booster:
“Why do you think Facebook is throwing people in FB Jail who share information about Proud Boys? (Side note: I must really have great friends cause a whole bunch have been locked up! ?) I think it’s because they’ve seen a drastic spike in searches and they are worried that people are educating themselves rather than blindly believing what MSM narrative. Anyone have a better theory?”
Is she a QAnon nut? I don’t know, but her friends are, so probably:
Byrd’s wife @EstherByrd19 organized their first yacht club event on May 16 and their next one is on June 14. Mrs. Byrd posted photos of their friends’ boat they rode in for the first event. Notice the QAnon flag they’re flying.https://t.co/weHFRHYIaZhttps://t.co/dAUTSa31YI pic.twitter.com/QpaR0b9yBZ
— Phillip Perry (@phillipperry) June 7, 2020
DeSantis also appointed Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie to the board. She’s a religious fanatic and forced birther who’s been a speaker at the National March for Life and is a senior fellow at a “religious liberty” organization. But while the official statement announcing the picks provided details on Christie’s impressive education, it described Byrd as a legal assistant and office manager at her husband’s law firm. The pick appears to be 100% trolling.
Byrd’s confirmation is subject to FL Senate approval, but since that chamber confirmed anti-mask, anti-vax quack Dr. Ladapo as surgeon general, authorized creation of an election police force that answers to the governor and passed laws designed to make teachers afraid to teach history or acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ people, my guess is they’ll rubberstamp this “own the libs” appointment too. Dog help us.
Open thread.
Baud
We’ll find out in November if that’s was Floridians want.
sab
Liz Cheney has also said that Antifa and BLM people have burned and looted buildings when we know that it was Proud Boys doing false flag activities.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Nothing in the recent history of Florida supports an optimistic view.
Baud
@James E Powell:
I’m not saying I’m optimistic. Just that we’ll have to wait and see.
Zelma
Question is, can the usually incompetent Democratic Party of Florida get its act together? Why are they so incompetent?
Kay
If DeSantis were a D governor of a blue state and these appointments were far Left instead of far Right it would be covered as national news as part of a narrative that Democrats are radicals.
Baud
@Kay:
Very true. We see the same story all the time.
cmorenc
Desantis only won in 2018 by 32k votes out of 8 million and small change total votes. Any chance he has alienated more voters than he has kept since then?
Sure Lurkalot
Ms. Cracker, I enjoy all of your pictures and stories of life in your swamp haven…well, maybe (actually definitely) not the gators. I just don’t know how you put up with this heightened and incessant level of insanity. They outdo themselves at every turn.
Ella in New Mexico
Betty, I know you’ve been there forever and it’s a frigging paradise in so many ways, but I hope you’ve got some pre-packed bags and can easily grab your personal paperwork for a fast escape because I strongly feel that Florida will soon become dangerous for anyone living there with more than two neurons governing their thinking.
Which is, as I’ve said before, EXACTLY what this is all about. Drive out people who care about good government getting good services to the people, close the public school system and create an oligarchy of RWNJ’s and foreign trillionaires.
We’d love to have you and yours here in NM…its every bit as glorius and beautiful as Florida, just, differently. And while those of us who live her like to crank on and on about a lot of stuff we don’t like about our state, we actually have a pretty decent government. And the people are–with the exception of a few–frigging awesome and don’t tolerate mass extremist insanity well at all
Also: part of me feels that if we have to have these fucking people in this country (above Floridians) and they’re all wooed to come live in paradise together on one place in the country maybe that’s bad for that place but good for the rest of us?
Kay
@Baud:
He barely won:
If this were a Democrat there would be a whole narrative on the risk he’s taking with alienating centrists.
That simply doesn’t exist when the politician is far Right. The NYTimes political team shamelessly promote him as the 2024 GOP nominee- no mention at all of radicalism.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: You’re absolutely right, and the fact that DeSantis is widely thought to be Trump’s political heir makes it all the more relevant nationally. His press sec basically said gay teachers are pedophiles the other day, and I didn’t see any national coverage of that. We’ll see if the appointment of this kook makes ripples outside the state. I’ll be surprised if it does.
Calouste
So is she his second, third, or fourth wife, and is she 20, 30, or 40 years younger than him? Just drawing some interferences about how things usually go in those circles.
Baud
@Kay:
Can’t scare the normies by telling the truth.
Geminid
There’s good news for the many people gathered at the Florence, South Carolina Airport waiting for this evening’s Trump rally. The tornado watch has lifted!
The forecast for the 7pm rally start is clear and windy, with the temperature 37° and dropping.
Spanky
@Sure Lurkalot:
It’s not insanity, and it shouldn’t be framed this way. This is evil, and is the mainstream Republican view. It should be framed as such.
Kalakal
Hopefully in their boat parade that’ll be one of the little boats that gets swamped and sunk as their more bloated CoSwine push them out of the way
Baud
@Geminid:
He’s still allowed to do rallies at the airport?
Yarrow
Sounds like it’s time to follow some money with these crazy people. Who’s funding them?
Yarrow
@Geminid: Maybe he’ll strand them at the airport in freezing temperatures like he did at some other rally – was it Iowa maybe?
VOR
There must be some point where reality will show its well known liberal bias. These are not serious people and are off attacking windmills rather than dealing with actual problems. Take the lack of oversight on things like the recent condo collapse.
Kansas ran a multi-year experiment w supply side economics and eventually elected a D. Danielle Roehm was elected as a trans woman because her campaign focused on making government work, like fixing potholes. Gravity eventually comes for Wile E. Coyote.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: The Florida dailies are pretty good about covering the corrupt and evil stuff DeSantis does, but I can’t recall once reading that he’s governing as if he has a huge mandate after winning in a squeaker. Not saying no one has ever written that, but it’s not a common theme for sure. It should be, but I guess after Trump increased his FL vote share in 2020, everyone assumes people are cool with DeSantis’s radical hard-right heel turn. And maybe they are; we’ll find out soon enough.
Yarrow
@VOR:
In my area a few years ago a local Dem politician won by saying he would fix the roads. I think the transwoman who’s in the VA legislature won the first time by saying she would fix the roads – one specific road I think. Maybe Dems should run on “we’ll fix the roads.” They even passed the infrastructure bill so they can prove it. Fixing roads is popular.
Geminid
@Yarrow: I think that was Nebraska. What’s really going to mess up some of these people is that it was warm there this morning before the front came though, and they won’t have warm clothing. Not even a fleece vest!
Yarrow
@Geminid: I’m completely uninterested in the fate of anyone who goes to a TFG rally, outside of press, venue staff, small children and anyone else who had no say in the matter. They choose to go – they can deal with the consequences.
Geminid
@Yarrow: And local media loves to cover groundbreaking and ribbon cutting events. There’s free advertising in infrastructure.
Geminid
@Yarrow: Well, I’m interested. Just not in a beneficent way.
Brachiator
Even her name sounds a little crazy.
DeSantis is a weird little demagogue. Like Trump, he surrounds himself with people who are as demented as he is.
Man, Florida is a strange place.
Kristine
@Geminid: I’ve been on the North Side of Chicago when the breeze changed direction. It was shorts and T-shirt’s and then the breeze came in off the lake. Instant coat weather. They showed folks at Wrigley Field huddling to keep warm.
Yarrow
@Geminid: This is very true. Dems could really do a lot with it. “We’re fixing the roads!”
S. Cerevisiae
I’ve lived near Lake Superior most of my life so I know all about the lake effect. Everyone keeps extra layers in the car. @Kristine:
TerryTime
@Yarrow: Gretchen Whitmer ran on “Fix the damn roads!” in Michigan.
Mike in NC
A couple of weeks ago I saw a “Trump-DeSantis 2024” bumper sticker, and yes it incorporated a Confederate battle flag.
Yarrow
@TerryTime: Maybe we need to make a list of Dem politicians who won close races or even races they weren’t expected to win and who ran on “Fix the roads.” It might be a winning strategy in a lot of places.
Chris
@Geminid: OMG that motherfucker is within an hr of my house! Jesus he should be hiding in shame after fellating Putin 2 weeks ago..
Betty Cracker
@Ella in New Mexico: I’ve been to New Mexico, and I agree it’s gorgeous. I’d love to see it again, but I can’t see living anywhere else but Florida. It’s home. Chock full of stupid and baffling and crazy, but home nonetheless.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Unfortunately, the 21st century GOP’s Talibangelical problem has infected the whole damned country, even those who have been vaccinated and immunized.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@S. Cerevisiae: I once read a Michigan Tech ad for a tech comm professor that claimed it wasn’t as cold as you’d expect because of the “modifying influence of Lake Superior.” I laughed and laughed.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Siberia is much much colder because it only has Lake Baikal.
I had a friend from North Dakota who went to grad school in Durham England. He said he had never been as cold in his life, when it hardly ever went below freezing. Very damp, thus raw.
ETA Not disagreeing with you. Perceptions are weird. Being from Ohio I thought Durham was kind of usual climatewise.
Geminid
@Chris: He’s not there yet. And his jet might lose an engine again.
One interesting aspect of this rally is that Florence is in Impeacher Tom Rice’s district. So Trump will be trashing another “RINO” who’s been a Republican far longer he has been.
Kent
These people are fucking insane.
But I honestly don’t think the way to win in places like FL is to fight the battles on the ground of their choosing. Yes, you push back against this stuff. But Dems crushed the 2018 midterms running on health care, not whatever latest MAGA insanity the Trumpers were promoting.
Democrats need to run on their strengths, not waste endless time arguing that “no, we don’t actually teach critical race theory in elementary schools” or whatever. Yes, you push back on that shit, but not necessarily in Congressional campaigns. You relentlessly attack their weak points and promote your strong points and don’t let them change the subject.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
You’re lucky you have “Florida daily” papers. It’s a huge plus for state level corruption, etc.
Their work on Epstein was amazing- especially considering he also operated in NY and NY media did nothing to investigate him, for decades.
Kent
I spent a decade living and working in Alaska. During the winter Fairbanks was consistently 50+ degrees colder than Juneau. What is the difference? Proximity to water. During the summer it reverses.
MattF
Speaking of RWNJs and the eternal question of where the money comes from, Allen West is moving on…
mrmoshpotato
@Kristine:
Can confirm!
Hildebrand
@sab: We lived in North Dakota thirty years ago, I think I’m still thawing out from the experience.
Cameron
@Kay: I don’t care if Andrew Gillum ate coke for breakfast the way some people eat Wheaties; whatever his social and legal problems, he’d have been a better governor while in a deep coma than this creature could ever be. I thought that right after the election and haven’t come across anything that would change my mind. I’ll stick around through the next election, but it looks increasingly like Pennsylvania is back in my future..
germy
He was speaking to a group of Republicans.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
some homes are abusive and toxic, no matter the wealthy benefits
Rusty
In New Hampshire our supposedly moderate Republican Governor Sununu appointed a nut Edelbut, as our commissioner of education. He home schooled his six children and is completely to public education in the state. He set up on the state education website a page to report public school teachers for teaching decisive concepts. He recently proposed legislation to gut what is considered an essential education. English language arts, math, science and history got to stay. Art, physical education, computer literacy, world languages, engineering and everything else would be eliminated. The purpose was to allow towns to cut there school budgets. It also would get the state out of lawsuits that it wasn’t providing an essential education. It was so extreme that this week the state legislature education committee (controlled by the Republicans), rejected the proposal and even went so far as to add financial literacy, along with logic and rhetoric to the state requirements for an essential education. Still, the entirely Republican controlled state government is driving toward school vouchers. The only thing holding them back is that the state provides so little money to the schools that it would have to force the towns to implement any plan, which would be exceptionally difficult.
Kay
Leader of the woke panic. Rufo is the leader but plenty of our supposedly liberal “public intellectuals” also pushed the woke panic, although they’ve disappeared now that the laws they inspired are being passed.
mrmoshpotato
Good lord! This woman is super wingnut!
Cameron
@Brachiator: That’s not very nice – her name is ‘pozo,’ not ‘pazzo.’
Kay
Panics are always, always supposedly about the safety of children. Every single one has used this justification and the woke panic is no different. There will be real victims before this one becomes stale and unfashionable – there are always are- and everyone who ginned it up will pretend they had nothing to do with it.
germy
He’s doing a Trump impersonation. The intonation, the hand gestures:
It reminds me of the early 1960s, after the success of the British Invasion rock groups, all the American bands combed their hair forward and donned matching suits and cuban heels, chasing glory.
Brachiator
@Cameron:
Her name reminds me of one of the characters in Waiting for Godot, Pozzo,
Also, I have some limits, but I don’t have to be nice.
mrmoshpotato
@germy:
At some point, Clarence? Like in the future?
Jeffro
DeSantis has a fundraising email out that states:
“Woke Disney is now echoing Democrat propaganda and falling for the corporate media’s phony hysteria over a Florida bill that prohibits K-3rd graders from being indoctrinated with transgenderism and R-rated lessons about sexuality.”
Let’s see:
The slightest questions, concerns…and most especially, pauses in donations to the GQP…will not be tolerated
Cameron
@sab: Many, many years ago I was hitchhiking in England and got stuck by the side of the road a few miles north of Newcastle. Froze my ass off. In May.
germy
@mrmoshpotato:
“What goes around comes around!” spat Kavanaugh at his hearing.
But it’s the Democrats who are politicizing the court.
Kay
This is probably the 4th or 5th indoctrination of children by gay people panic. They all look the same. The only question with panics is how many victims of the panic there are before it burns out or there’s a backlash.
JMG
@Jeffro: It’d be hard to move Disney World, but very very easy for Disney Cruise Lines to hoist anchor and relocate in Georgia or South Carolina. Then he’d really howl.
Cameron
@germy: “Come to Florida, Land of Restaurants!” It’s got a certain panache, a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, a certain Grey Poupon…..it’s woke!
Kay
@germy:
Their concern about the crediblity of that court exactly coincided with gaining a far Right majority.
His scolding lectures aren’t going to help. Credibility is earned. They had it and they pissed it away. If they want it back they are going to have to earn it themselves. Tendentiously lecturing people and demanding they recognize your credibility is not how it’s earned. It’s gone, Justice Thomas. Think about how you might earn it back.
Baud
@germy:
That point was 2020.
sab
@Cameron: As we said in October at Hadrian’s Wall: ” Oh to be in April now that England is here” having no idea how fucking raw April in England can be.
Kay
@germy:
It continues to amaze me that people who are paid to think still do not understand that “credibility” is based on their actions.
Where do they think it comes from? Do they have any inkling at all on why they might have lost it? Demanding it FROM US is not how this works.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro:
DeathSantis is fucking insane.
Kim Walker
As someone living outside the US due almost entirely to the USSC shenanigans in the 2000 election, I understand when the institution was compromised. See also former Justice Kennedy. Pack the Court!!
Kay
I wonder if the far Right justices refusal to recognize Roe v Wade had anything at all to do with their lack of credibility. I guess “credibility” is just a concept completely divorced from actions people take. Powerful people can just demand it, and our job is to give it to them.
Who raises these fucking people? Thomas should have made this connection by 1st grade.
debbie
Am I the only one who didn’t hear about this?
Old Dan and Little Ann
Just survived walking in Rochester’s St. Patrick’s Day. Parade. 11 degree wind chill. Holy Fuck was it cold.
Jeffro
Yup. Just as all their concerns about ‘equity’ coincided with an openly white supremacist president* firing up the base to levels never seen before…and still losing by 7 million votes.
It’s all part of Operation: Freeze Privilege In Place. They’ve worked hard to get where they are…can’t have it all undone by a simple SCOTUS expansion, now, can we? Can’t have Democrats exercising power in order to stay a democracy, right? Can’t possibly have ‘equity’ as one of many values that guides our public schools.
Nope. The Court stays where it is, 6-3, Democrats. Our justices get to speak to partisan audiences and yours don’t. And since all of us can’t afford to send our kids to private schools, we’re going to make sure that the public schools cater to our views exclusively and help our already-ahead kids stay ahead. And on and on…Operation: Freeze Privilege In Place.
Miss Bianca
@germy: A group of Republicans is the only group that has a vested interest in believing that the Court *hasn’t* been politicized already, and that “the institution’s credibility” hasn’t *already* been damaged, possibly beyond repair, at this point.
Or that his appointment *didn’t* mark the beginning of its current slide into a creamy and delicious blend of ideology and ineptitude.
So…funny!
sab
@Kay: Haven’t been a lawyer in 50 years and wasn’t good at it then, but I did and do revere the concept of “Law” and respect for law. It is what holds real societies together.
My MBA brother used to believe it and then they convinced him he was being a sucker and he went to the dark side. Money is everything and all virtues are punished. Fauci was backing biological weapon research. My brother actually believes all the conspiracies. If you work for these people they suck you in.
I cannot even bring myself to talk to him. Feeling is mutual. We cannot even start to talk without arguing. My oldest sister still tries, and her multi-racial multi-national kids are puzzled by the whole situation.
Now I understand how families never healed after our Civil War.
sab
Deleted duplicate
Ivan X
Our neighbors and fellow citizens elect these scum, and the media has their hands on the scales in their favor. Further, their side is ruthless and relentless and on message and has not a single principle besides win at any cost and damage the other side 100% as much as possible all the time. They could give two fucks about American ideals. Or really any ideal other than that white Christians should rule and that people with money should be allowed to extract as much money as possible from everyone else so that they can have more money.
The cheaters win because hey, when you cheat, you have an advantage. I don’t know that there’s anything to do except to accept that what we want is not what our neighbors and fellow citizens want, and, because we live in a democracy, that’s the shit we have to eat. Hate to be so pessimistic but for me it always seems to come back to “yes but that is the scum that these people voted for.” What the fuck can anyone do about it? How do you fight against an evil army high on their own imagined aggrievement and righteousness? You can move to a solid blue state, I suppose, but it’s not like our people have the fucking guns when the monsters decide they want it all and are going to take it by force.
I know that demoralization is part of their war strategy, but what’s the alternative? All of this election law hacking they’re doing might turn the tables, but it shouldn’t, because none of these elections should be even remotely close. So, I’m fucking demoralized. Do we keep pissing in the wind, occasionally winning something by the slimmest of margins so then we can still be stymied by the most conservative members of our party or procedural rule exploitation or the next election? I’m not really a pessimist by disposition but I just don’t see a hopeful future when this is what 4-5 out of every ten Americans want. I’m also in a horrible mood today, for other reasons, so, if this is all a bit much, please tell me to fuck off.
Geminid
@sab: George Thomas was a Virginian, but when the Civil War came he stayed with the U.S. Army and became a famous general. His two sisters never spoke to him again, and all three lived for years after the war.
Yarrow
@Kay: Credibility should be based on actions but a lot of time it’s not. In the case of Supreme Court Justices, they’re granted credibility by virtue of their title. They get speaking spots or book deals because of their job title. The job gives them credibility with a lot of people, no matter what they do
Note: I’m not saying this is a good thing. I’m just saying it’s a thing that happens.
Villago Delenda Est
Yet another domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States.
RaflW
Rooting for civil war.
I think a lot of us here knew this sort of thing was coming, but to see it elevated to a state Board appointee is still shocking (because I can be shocked to see the thing I worried would happen, happening).
How this gets reported will, I suspect, focus on minimization. Our press cannot seem to grapple with how crazed and dangerous one major party in this country has become.
To that end, this brief thread last night caught my eye. I’m not a huge Bruni fan, but he hit this right on the nose:
Certainly, the big press machines and name journalists are rarely here for speaking the truth about power (never mind ‘to’ power).
raven
@Geminid: I haven’t communicated with my wing nut half brother and his fucking nazi wife in over 7 years but, somehow, I’ve butt dialed him twice this week. I’ve caught it quickly and I have him blocked so he can’t call back. fuck them both
Miss Bianca
@RaflW: finally, one of them admits it…
sab
@Geminid: Didn’t Robert E Lee’s inlaws have permanent problems?
My mother’s grandmother lost her oldest brother in the Civil War, and when we moved to Florida we were not allowed to have friends whose families respected the Confederates.
Then I thought it was quirky on my Mom’s part. Now it is visceral. I understand
ETA Lots of Virginians and also some Georgians stayed loyal. It wasn’t just regional. It was mostly political. Country or state.
Cacti
@Kay: Thomas is basically giving the Eric Cartman argument from South Park:
“Respect mah authoritay!”
James E Powell
@Kay:
And the Sunday shows would feature elected Democrats denouncing him.
RaflW
The flipside is that places like Idaho are actively pushing for more conservatives to move there. There’s a nascent genre of right wing realtors fluffing the ‘lifestyle’ of hating gays and rolling coal.
Meanwhile, I see fairly frequent calls for liberal people to move out of FL, TX, ID and so on. Even if one can afford to move, it’s traumatic to uproot and go if, other than laws passing (or politicians getting elected) you don’t want to.
Move away from friends, extended family, job/career track, etc?
It’s not at all easy, even if resourced.
Betty
Do any people other than teenagers protest these clowns?
James E Powell
@Kay:
I still wonder if overruling Roe will harm any Republicans’ election chances.
Baud
Two groups of heroes not talked about enough are rural Dems and white people who put country over family when called for.
Kay
@Yarrow:
Right now in this country you can’t draft a state election law and have any idea how these justices will rule on it. None. No one even tries to guess anymore. Last year they pulled an entire new legal theory completely out of their ass on elections and are getting ready to apply it.
You can’t even defend against them if you try if you’re drafting state law- precedent is ignored, statutes are ignored, they could rule any way, on anything.
That’s why they have no credibility. Judges who don’t recognize precedent and are completely impossible to predict are less credible than judges who do. That’s how this works. That’s how it works in a county court and that’s how it works in the Supreme Court. They’re being measured on their work. They’re unhappy with the grade they got and are demanding a better one. The public is under no obligation to meet their demand. We extended them credibility and we, and only we, can also withdraw it.
sab
@Kay: Paper ballots down the line. In this respect we are making progress because they are so inept. In 2002 they wanted electronic ballots. Now they want paper so they can be counted.
I am game. Paper ballots everywhere. If you don’t like the computer count then recount with people.
Betty
@Yarrow: Senators Casey and Whitehouse are talking a lot about fixing infrastructure, especially bridges.
Yarrow
@James E Powell: I don’t think it will. They’ve been chipping away at Roe for years and it doesn’t seem to affect elections. It’s a thing that affects women the most so culturally it’s a “woman’s issue” and therefore not important. The media owners, who are mostly rich and live in blue states, will still be able to get abortions for their daughters or mistresses so they’ll downplay it. There will be a day or so of commentary on it, if something bigger doesn’t take precedence, and everyone will move on. It certainly won’t hurt Republicans. If anything it might help them. “Look! We promised to ‘protect the unborn’ and we did!”
cliosfanboy
@VOR:Roehm is from northern Virginia, not Kansas.
Yarrow
@Kay: That’s how credibility should work. It may even work that way with lawyers and judges and those who interact with the Supreme Court Justices. But most people don’t know what the Justices do, who they are, which ones do what and why it matters to them. The Supremes are given credibility because of their title. “He must be smart – he’s on the Supreme Court.”
sab
@James E Powell: Ask my niece who had an extremely painful and scary ectopic pregnancy that had the inevitable abortion. Her sisters and cousins noticed.
Very Catholic. Very pro-life. These bozos are fine with killing her for politics. You don’t think her three sisters, her mother and multiple cousins and aunts and uncles didn’t notice?
What the nuns teach the kids doesn’t correspond with the real world. Catholics not in a cult bubble often notice.
Baud
@Yarrow:
We’ll see when the bodies start piling up.
Geminid
@Baud: I’m a rural Dem and I talk about myself all time!
Oh. That’s right. You said we.
sab
@Geminid: I am glad you do.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@James E Powell:
Only in the inevitable stories in the aftermath – the deaths from bad pregnancies, the raped 11 year olds forced to carry their rapists children to term, the arrests of mothers and back alley providers. The people prohibited from leaving places like Alabama when pregnant, the people prosecuted for miscarriages. The financial tragedies suffered by families forced to bear hydrocephalic fetuses or downs babies they didn’t want.
The first few thousand stories will yield the appropriate facial expressions of concern and thoughts and prayers and acknowledgement that these are hard results but gosh darn it, we’re doing so much GOOD out there for My Personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Only after years and much pain suffered by other people will this get undone.
Yarrow
@Baud: I think it’s going to take many women dying to get people’s attention. It may take a poster-woman, like that poor married woman in Ireland who couldn’t get an abortion and died, to get people to wake up.
Yarrow
@sab: They may have noticed. But how will they vote? That’s what matters. Will they vote for the crazy people who would sentence your niece to death because of her ectopic pregnancy?
Another Scott
@VOR: Are you thinking of Danica Roem in Virginia?
Cheers,
Scott.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Yarrow:
“But CRT and the colored people! And tax cuts and liberals!”
Baud
@Geminid:
Keep fighting the good fight.
Cacti
It really is part and parcel of the right wing mindset that if they wear a robe, a shiny badge, or crisply pressed uniform with lots of patches and medals, we’re all just supposed to genuflect before them.
BlueGuitarist
@Baud:
2000 Bush v Gore was a completely dishonest, corrupt, partisan Republican decision.
sab
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:That is just becuse we haven’t talked about this before. I do not know if these families want to let themselves open to this.
Last few marches I went to the speechifying abortion advocates were girls who made stupid decisions in college. Abortion kept their lives on track, but these aren’t who we really save.
In my brief stint in law I saw propective divorcees absolutely and utterly terrified of their abusive and probably homicidal husbands. Abortion allowed them to move on to a free life.
Or the parents of a much wanted child who has a very bad medical problem, who will die soon and horribly after birth.
And that’s just the rich people perspective. How about women who have no way to support the kid on the way? Normal modern societies would help her raise the kid, or eventually find it a place. We just shrug.
persistentillusion
@mrmoshpotato: South Side, also confirming.
Baud
@Cacti: they think we should genuflect to them regardless of what clothes they’re wearing.
@BlueGuitarist:
Yes, but that didn’t really hurt the court’s credibility in a lasting way as we saw in 2016 when we had a chance to take control and it was shrugged off.
Cacti
@BlueGuitarist: On the short list for worst SCOTUS decision of all time.
Baud
If, against all odds, we have a gangbuster election in November, the abortion issue will be taken care of through legislation, I think. Then people can go back to taking us for granted.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Abortion and religious “liberty” is going to be a long fight. The conservative Supreme Court will try to undo much and throw other stuff to the states, as a way to blunt any federal legislation.
And abortion. Hell, this Supreme Court will attack contraception.
There are right wingers who yearn for a pre 1954 social culture and fight tooth and nail to restore it.
And then on to the 1850s.
BlueGuitarist
@Ivan X:
Keep in mind
1) that the 50 Democrats in the US Senate represent 43 million more people than the 50 Republicans. And 48 Build Back Better Democrats represent 34 million more people than the other 52 in the Senate.
2) Some of our neighbors aren’t well informed.
Check out the Join the fight link!
Consider writing some postcards at the appropriate time.
Hope things get better!
S. Cerevisiae
Oh they are definitely gunning for Griswold next, can’t have them hussies having teh sexxyy…
MisterDancer
This, for all of this.
DeSantis, and many of the rest of his ilk, like Abbot, McMaster, Ivey, etc., aren’t crazy, insane, stupid, any of that. They all made a set of deliberate decisions to harm multiple marginalized groups for political power. Just because it’s an horrific and immoral choice doesn’t make it irrational, no moreso than the early efforts to get the nascent KKK and other groups to inflict acts of terror post-American Civil War were “crazy.”
Those act of terror and propaganda succeeded for damn near a century.
The connection is that by saying these people are crazy we risk signaling to others they are worth ignoring. The fact that many people can’t see the harm they are doing — which is why they target marginalized groups to begin with! — does not help.
We have to make plain and clear the connections between making life hard for Trans folx, for Gay folx, making voting and so much more hard for Black folx — and the risks to not just Reproductive Rights, but to all of Privacy and resisting actual real governmental intrusion. These state-level laws are baselining those attacks for potential/future Federal attacks, even outside the current SCOTUS.
That, just as inflicting Voter manipulation on poor whites turned out to be a warm-up for Black Voter suppression, these acts and “laws” are clearly preludes and projections for overturning a century+ of liberty-granting laws. We have to draw clear lines between the HBCU bomb scares as prepping and riling up people for acts that will kill actual humans, and once the Black population is put back inline, they’ll just move on — just as, when the pushback against harming Blacks finally became too much, they shifted to attacking Women’s Reproductive Rights.
I know, because I took all of this for granted for so long, how easy it is. How simple,in a complex and chaotic world, to just pretend like politics doesn’t affect you — and if you’re not marginalized? It doesn’t, by and large.
So much of Democratic voting patterns, stems from that one realization.
So it’s on all of us, not just our politicians, to help change that understanding, as best we can.
(I have to bounce, this week — this month — has been a lot, even outside War and Rumors of War. Just wanted to get that out here.)
Ivan X
@BlueGuitarist: thank you
sab
In all political discussions we need to have our policy.
We also need to have our squirrel, “See the squirrel…whatever.” I have no idea whst it is.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@sab:
George Tiller got savaged with very little effective pushback from NARAL, even though his late term procedures were about very wanted pregnancies gone bad. Shrieking about “my choice” was utterly ineffective when what was really being discussed was the inherently libertarian proposition of the sanctity of medical privacy and intimate choices being outside the purview of government and church.
i recall a lot of snickering in right wing circles in the late 70s and early 80s about the “penumbra of privacy” being “judge-made law”; meanwhile, Blackmun was correct, and NARAL, NOW and other groups adopted “choice” framing instead.
I’m afraid that the next proclamation from SCOGOP will be a 14th amendment protection of fetuses which will also be used to smack down contraceptives nationwide. The goons have talked about it for years, no doubt Ginni has put that bug in Uncle Clarence’s ear.
S. Cerevisiae
@MisterDancer: what he said…
Kay
@Yarrow:
If you’re a judge – a job that consists of issuing orders and opinions- and you feel the need to go out every 90 days and whine about how people aren’t affording you the “credibility” you deserve you should instead wonder why your work doesn’t hold up.
They made decisions. They could have blocked the Texas law and held a heating and issued an opinion reversing Roe. They CHOSE not to. There are consequences for that behavior. One of the consequences is a loss of credibility as judges, based on their work.
Do better work. Or, petulantly demand that people pretend you’re credible. Their choice.
sab
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Not to interrupt, but NARAL seriously sucks and should not be listened to or supported. Just my opinion watching them for decades of bad behavior.
Baud
@sab:
Seconded on both policy and squirrel.
Miss Bianca
@MisterDancer:
You are absolutely right about this. And the idea that rights are like pie, and that if some marginalized population get *more* rights, that that leaves white Christian het folk with a smaller piece of the rights pie, is a pernicious myth that has to be exploded.
HinTN
@Yarrow: Al D’Amato (R, NY) was known as Senator Pothole because he brought home the bacon to fix the roads.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
When one’s preferred pie is status over others, the pie does shrink though.
oatler
@Jeffro: Also, “the”. Knowing who wrote it is warning enough.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: Here’s the lieutenant governor saying no one has the right to criticize legislation in the “free” state of Florida:
These people are fascists.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@sab:
They raked in piles of cash with nothing to show for it but constant retrenchment which wasn’t effectively countered.
Another couple of observations-Roe came about only 6 years after Loving. People have never really considered how shitty an institution SCOTUS always was, and only a tiny course correction to make it slightly less awful made the right wing go batshit crazy.
Geminid
Since I did not get it quite right downstairs, I’ll repeat some succinct messaging fom House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries:
sab
Cleveland newspaper has just noticed that Judge Adams is cantakerous. It is in regard to First Energy being FirstEnergy. I am glad that FE might be getting their well deserved comeuppance but that is not is what is happening. Judge Adams is a poster child for judges without judicial temperment.
Judge Adams is notorious locally because, being appointed for life to the federal bench, he will not actually talk to the other judges. He will only talk to the clerks, because he is too pissed off about the other judges about whatever to talk to them. Poster child for bad judicial temperament. Costing my city and me tens of millions of dollars in sewer fees (paid through the nose by local ratepayers) because this asshole wanted to prove he was stubborn.
Thank you George Voinovich ( thankfully dead) who wanted him and George W Bush who appointed him.
dww44
@Baud: Yes, I keep thinking how awful it will be if the GOP takes back either the House or the Senate. If we had a sane citizenry, they’d realize, as we here do, that that party needs to be out of power for the next decade or more. That our democracy needs for them to be banished to the hinterlands til they get their heads back on straight or they disappear and we get another saner party in its place.
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid:
Yeah? Why hasn’t Biden eliminated the deficit yet? Huh huh huh?
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Public servant? What are you, some kind of a nut?
“I know Florida is hot, but I look so fetching in ermine.”
//
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Speak for yourself. I lost all faith in SCOTUS in December of 2000. Ironically, just 7 months after graduating law school.
Kent
They spent far too much time and energy sucking up to and supporting “moderate” Republicans who never stood for reproductive rights when it actually mattered. Like Susan fucking Collins.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker: Yep. They view themselves as rulers rather than public servants.
NotMax
@Kent
Collins is very, very, very concerned.
Extra-bold emphasis on con.
Baud
If a Supreme Court with 9 justices is credible, imagine how credible a Supreme Court with 15 justices would be. 66% more credible!
Geminid
@mrmoshpotato: Give him time. The Democrats are practicing “trickle up” economics. Republican “trickle down” economics only led to the rich getting richer. Democratic trickle up policies, especially the judicious investments, invigorate the entire economy. The rich will still get richer, but so will the rest of us.
But you’re a savvy spud and I think you know this already.
Kay
When we look back on this period we’re going to read all these supposedly smart people who looked around at the world and settled on “cancel culture” as the biggest threat.
I mean, come on. It’s embarrassing already. How’s it gonna look in 5 years? Not better!
Professor Bigfoot
@Cacti: That’s certainly TFG in a nutshell.
Ella in New Mexico
@Betty Cracker: I hear ya but never forget, we’re here for ya if a need to hightail it outta crazyland to saver yourselve happens
sab
Yarrow
@Kay: But credibility with whom? People in general pay little attention to things like judges. They see “Supreme Court Justice” and they assign credibility based on title.
A judge’s performance may be terrible. Lawyers and other judges may know that. But something has to happen for it to break through so that other people think the judge isn’t credible. Otherwise they just get the benefit of the doubt. “They’re a judge. They’re credible.”
You can say all you want they’re not credible. How are you going to convince others of the same thing?
Kay
When they’re taking the first teacher in front of the first tribunal in Florida because she said “gay” the NYTimes will still be assigning articles on how Right wing students disapprove of their classmates at expensive universities.
It must be sinking in by now- that they created the exact environment they said they opposed, except now it’s by law. Maybe not. Maybe they’re just not that smart?
Betty Cracker
@MisterDancer:
Ah but it does, except maybe for families that have been insulated by fat stacks of cash for generations. Politics affects marginalized people more directly and harshly, but quality of life and opportunities have been declining for all but the wealthy for decades, thanks mostly to bad political choices.
And even the very rich will be affected when climate change wipes out their coastal estates and causes wars, famines and diseases that make life a hell on earth. Politics affects everyone.
Betty Cracker
@Ella in New Mexico: Thank you! :)
@Yarrow: Gallup poll published 9/23/2021: Approval of U.S. Supreme Court Down to 40%, a New Low
Kay
@Yarrow:
Well, they are worried that they’re not credible. They’re giving these defensive, aggrieved speeches.
Barrett, Alito and now Thomas are demanding we find them credible. I think if they were secure in the quality of their work they would not do that. It really is supposed to speak for itself. That’s not just a saying.
I get it. Prestigious position, less valuable if they’re perceived as hacks, but it’s not really my problem. I can’t create “more credibility” and hand it to them. That’s not within my power.
Yarrow
@Kay: I agree they’re worried about their credibility because otherwise they wouldn’t be talking about it all the time.
I think they’re like Cartman – “Respect mah authoritah!” We don’t like their rulings and they’re upset we aren’t bowing down to them. It’s about power and control, as usual with “conservatives” (whatever that word means).
Baud
Balloon Juice is credible. That’s why there are no front page posts demanding that we regard Balloon Juice as credible.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: Approving of what the court is doing may not be the same as seeing them as credible. Perhaps I’m splitting hairs with that.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: Since older people vote at higher rates than younger people, most of the people voting right now will be dead before the worst of climate change happens. The worse effects will hit other people, even if those other people are their own kids and grandkids. It’s the ultimate IGMFY.
Martin
@Kay: It’s hard to argue you deserve credibility and respect when you have a job you literally cannot be fired from.
M31
@Baud:
Balloon Juice is incredible
James E Powell
@Kent:
NARAL & Planned Parenthood both supported Joe “the can take an ambulance” Lieberman when we actually had a chance to get rid of him.
sab
@James E Powell: NARAL did. Did PP?
Kay
@Yarrow:
Precedent really is important though. To practicing lawyers, certainly, in a narrow sense, because not knowing what will most likely happen makes us miserable but also to the country.
People should be able to rely on judges following it. They can’t now. They don’t even overturn precedent- they just ignore it. It’s deeply damaging to The Rule of Law. That sounds pompous but it’s also just true.
Credibility and trust is something the public gives to them, wholly at our discretion. It’s not a demand they can make.
Whatever else you think about Roe it was a decision. They put their names on it. Slyly repealing Roe in this wink, wink much too clever way is not a decision. It’s cowardly. They should be ashamed.
dnfree
@sab: Our daughter spent a school year in Durham in the 1990s. Beautiful place! The University is headquartered in a castle, and that was her mailing address that year: The Castle, Durham. She didn’t live in the castle, though; it was a small dorm a couple of blocks away.
She can never give blood again, supposedly, because she was in England during Mad Cow disease.
Baud
@James E Powell:
How was JL on reproductive rights? I don’t recall. Obviously, awful overall.
Yarrow
@Kay: They should be ashamed but currently people on the right seem to have a distinct lack of shame.
It may be upsetting for lawyers and judges and important to regular people because of that, but that still won’t make people care about it. Somehow we have to make people care about why this is bad FOR THEM.
sab
Canned cat food has been absent from the grocery for at least two months. Is this supply chain, or are our olds ( me included) eating our cats out of house and food dish. After all everyone talks about olds eating catfood, and my cats are certainly not hungry enough to eat “wild hadddock with swet potato”! ?
Who the fuck ever thought anything but a starving cat would eat sweet potatoe? Tried it on them for a week and they are adamant about “No!”. Why are you feeding the dog edibles but us nothing? Until you relent we will eat nutritionally inadequate dog food.
Me: Fine! Starve and don’t expect to sleep in my bed tonight you motheaten feline
ETA Domestic cats and goats don’t point it out, but they and goats always have the go wild option.
sab
@dnfree: Can’t give forever, or just for a few years?
I loved Durham. North Brits are lovely people. My classmate with the best experience was religious (Mennonite?) from Ohio and her congregation there accepted her as if she had been born there.
Others were equally welcoming to me.
sab
@Hildebrand: Laughing. First husband was from Minnesota. Not quite Alaska.
Kay
I’m texting with my youngest abut Ukraine and it’s getting so tense. I’m insisting he use his own words and describe his position and he just keeps spewing this “empire” bullshit at me.
I sent him a Tweet from a Finnish Lefty who is anti Putin thinking he might read him but apparently not.
I’m not texting back for a while. I’ll beat him to death. He’s smart but I’ve been arguing a lot longer.
Another Scott
ICYMI, a pointer to a good (free) piece at the Financial Times:
True? No idea. But it’s something to think about.
(via dsquareddigest)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kropacetic
The Donald Quixote
Kropacetic
@M31: Incredibly credible?
James E Powell
@sab:
Yes. Both NARAL & Planned Parenthood endorsed Lieberman over Lamont in 2006. So did the Human Rights Campaign
I believe this was after he said that rape victims who were taken to a Catholic hospital & refused treatment to prevent pregnancy could simply take a taxi to another nearby hospital.
Baud
@Kay: Tell him he’s cut out of the will.
Martin
@sab: You can’t feed a cat sweet potato. They’re obligate carnivores. Crack open some tuna.
Dogs, like goats, will eat pretty much anything.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
For me, “oligarchs” is just shorthand for “those in charge.”
And this other group may be “deeply committed to the idea of Russia as a great power,” but this still does not justify the attempt to annex Ukraine.
Kropacetic
What about the right to force your values on others?
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Baud: No it was in 2000. Bush vs. Gore
sab
@Martin: Tell Purina. My cats completely agree with you. They are outraged, The dog on the other hand will eat almost anything, although she is picky for a dog.
sab
@Kay: Ha. His mom is a lawyer and argues for a living! I shouldn’t laugh. It must be stressful.
NotMax
@sab
Noticed last week that Costco has a decent price on a multi-pack of canned sardines packed in oil on an aisle endcap.
Just sayin’….
indycat32
@sab: My local grocery (Meijer) has almost no canned food but Petsmart has an adequate selection, finally, which is good because I have 4 indoor cats and am also feeding 4 neighborhood cats!
Kay
@Baud:
I would except he’s my precious angel. It’s good to be the baby :)
I sicced one of my sisters on him. She’s ruthless.
Baud
@Kay:
If he’s going on about “empire,” he doesn’t want your blood money anyway.
J R in WV
@Zelma:
I halfway suspect many of the “leadership” of the Florida Democratic party are actually RCNJs in disguise, intentionally fucking up our party every election.
Betty, what say you? Any chance we’re being fifth columned in FL by the right wing??
Glidwrith
@cmorenc: Haven’t read the thread yet, but according to NYT stats, DeathSantis has killed off 72,000 Floridians. Might make a dent in his re-election prospects.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
I can actually understand this position. I’m still in West Virginia, which was a solid BLUE state when I was a kid. But most of the Democrats died off or moved away, almost nothing left now but RWNJs.
Some of them are really nice helpful neighbors, but (for example) great next door neighbors across the road from our farm ALL had Covid, never got vaccinated. Father told me “I’ve heard too many strange things about this vaccine!” Would get up at 5 am to help you get out of a mudhole, but strange churchgoers.
Yet here we still are, smack in the middle of WV… best friends all around us.
J R in WV
@Ivan X:
Fixed that up a little bit for ya…
J R in WV
@sab:
The problem with this is that their new rules won’t give you enough time to do a manual recount. Same as the newest Texas election laws, passed so close to the elections there’s no time for courts to hear cases disputing the legality of those election laws.
Oops, too late, election starts tomorrow, fuck your concerns about the new rules! RWNJs for the win~!!~