Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Bark louder, little dog.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

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

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

The willow is too close to the house.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

How stupid are these people?

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

You are here: Home / Politics / Education / Repub Stupidity Open Thread: Ugly Bill for the Sake of Ugliness

Repub Stupidity Open Thread: Ugly Bill for the Sake of Ugliness

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This is why we can’t have nice things!



So proud to be a Democrat, and proud of my President…

Dumb, ugly ‘legislation’ from the dumbest members of the ReichWing Caucus…

Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    West of the Cascades

    Who were the five Republican defectors? I want to see Democrats in those seats in 2025 after they get primaried from the right by rabid MAGA-heads.

  2. 2.

    Dangerman

    Right now, I’m picturing Bart Simpson dropping his pants and humming the National Anthem at the Aussies. The Republicans are waving their ass for no other purpose then to wave it.

    I’m also picturing the Aussie with the giant boot. Same episode.

  4. 4.

    Dangerman

    Right now, I’m picturing Bart Simpson dropping his pants and humming the National Anthem at the Aussies. The Republicans are waving their ass for no other purpose then to wave it.

    I’m also picturing the Aussie with the giant boot. Same episode.

    ETA: Not saying they all deserve a swift kick in the ass. Just most if them.

    Weird duplicate. Haven’t seen that previously. WG, sorry I broke the blog!

  5. 5.

    Scout211

    @West of the Cascades:
    Link

    A couple of surprises there

    H.R. 5 passed in a 213-208 vote Friday morning, with five Republicans — Reps. Andy Biggs, Ken Buck, Matt Gaetz, Mike Lawler and Matt Rosendale — joining all Democrats to vote against the measure.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Just gonna drop this here before I get back to work:

    The Recount
    @therecount
    State Sen. Megan Hunt (D), speaking directly to Republicans, reaffirms vow to filibuster all legislation if #NEleg anti-trans bill passes:

    “No one in the world holds a grudge like me. And no one in the world cares less about being petty than me. I don’t care. I don’t like you.”

    2:33 of FAFO.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    There must be some Dems missing.  Five GOP defections should have defeated the bill.

    Also, too, anyone who thinks Republicans will leave abortion for the states to decide is a fool.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “No one in the world holds a grudge like me. And no one in the world cares less about being petty than me. I don’t care. I don’t like you.”

    Rotating tag!

    She’s one to watch.

  12. 12.

    jonas

    As the parent of a trans student, I have a right to demand that my school’s library be chock full of empowering literature about LGTBQ youth and solid history books that provide an honest examination of America’s past, warts and all. Yet somehow, I get the impression this bill wasn’t aimed at me…

  13. 13.

    FridayNext

    This is the bill that requires school districts to give parents a list of the books in their libraries

    School library catalogs are online. Anyone, anywhere can search their catalogs from home. People know that right?

  16. 16.

    gene108

    @Dangerman:

    Right now, I’m picturing Bart Simpson dropping his pants and humming the National Anthem at the Aussies. The Republicans are waving their ass for no other purpose then to wave it.

    I’m also picturing the Aussie with the giant boot. Same episode.

    This is their Party platform. It’s not performative.

    Republicans voted to repeal Obamacare over 60 times in the House, starting in January 2011. Then they got control of the Senate and White House and came within one vote of actually repealing it in 2017.

    If Republicans get control of the federal government in 2025, this is exactly what they plan on doing: Banning books about LGBTQ+ topics, black historical figures who were “uppity”, etc.

    When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

    This is the modern Republican Party. A party of book banning fundamentalists.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    @gene108: I agree.

    My wish is that people start not only focusing on what the Republicans would do with power but also on who stops the Republicans from doing it — Dems.

  18. 18.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Scout211: the bill probably didn’t go far enough for Gaetz and Biggs. Buck is an odd duck. God knows what his reason was.

  19. 19.

    waspuppet

    @FridayNext: No they don’t know that. They may or may not know they can go into their kids’ school and look at the books in the library.

    But that would mean they’d have to get up off the couch and DO SOMETHING. And the entire conservative movement is organized around not having to do that.

    They might find some things out for themselves. They might find out that the librarian doesn’t have horns and a tail. They might find out that they didn’t learn everything there is to know by the time they peaked at 14. And they’ll let Those People die before they’ll learn any of those things.

    This way, someone can send the list to someone who knows someone who knows one of Tucker Carlson’s producers. Then they can be told what to get angry at. Without ever having to do any work or learning anything. Living the dream, they call it.

  20. 20.

    Shalimar

    What fucking bullshit.  Why don’t I get a say in my kid’s education if I want her to learn about Harriet Tubman?

  22. 22.

    Old School

    Rep. Matt Gaetz
    @RepMattGaetz

    From Wokeness to funding to bathrooms to Critical Race Theory, the federal government SHOULD NOT be involved in education.

    I don’t want to strengthen the federal Department of Education. I want to abolish it.

    I don’t want Congress more involved in decisions that are best made in local school districts. I want the Congress less involved.

    Therefore, I voted against today’s Republican bill to establish a federal “Parents Bill of Rights.”

    11:22 AM ¡ Mar 24, 2023

  23. 23.

    jonas

    @tam1MI: I saw this story earlier as well. Good God, that’s some nuclear-grade kray-kray there. Apparently even the DeVoses are saying they want nothing to do with the state GOP as long as she’s there (not meaning they won’t continue supporting evil, conservative causes, just that the state party org won’t be getting any of their money).

  24. 24.

    Old School

    Rep. Ken Buck
    @RepKenBuck

    The overwhelming majority of the House Republicans will now be on record supporting the idea of expanded federal powers in your child’s education. I have no doubt the Democrats will remind them of this poison when they are back in charge and want to pass federal education bills.

    4:57 PM ¡ Mar 23, 2023

  25. 25.

    Ohio Mom

    Now this is just my experience but I always knew all about what Ohio Son was learning in school.

    For starters, in early September there was a Curriculum Preview Night in which, get this, parents would sit in their child’s classroom and the teacher would preview the curriculum. Even in high school! And later in the year, there were parent-teacher conferences. Once in the fall and again in the spring.

    All through the year, every year, I saw his textbooks, homework and reading assignments, special projects and reports. And his report cards.

    When he was in elementary and middle school, parents were encouraged to volunteer in the classroom (in third grade, I went in once a week to review spelling words with the kids who were having trouble, looking at you, Noah R). And we parents were also asked to volunteer to chaperone field trips and help out at classroom parties.

    There were fewer volunteer opportunities in high school but still some.

    I know we live in the archetypical “good” suburban school district but most of these opportunities are available to any parent, anywhere. There is always homework to look at.

    The school day is not some impenetrable mystery for parents.

  27. 27.

    Redshift

    It’s infuriating to me that news outlets are echoing the egregiously bad faith “parents’ rights” labeling. If what you’re doing is giving parents the right to ban subjects and materials for everyone, then book-banners are the only ones whose “rights” you’re protecting. These bills are an outright assault on the rights of parents who do want their kids to learn these things.

    It’s especially annoying because it’s so obvious. If they were really trying to support parents’ rights, they’d be supporting parents being able to opt their kids out of things (however unworkable that might be.) By supporting bans instead, they give away the game, and it shouldn’t be seen as partisan to point that out. (If only our media weren’t conditioned to believe that citing facts in response to partisan claims is somehow “too partisan”…)

  30. 30.

    Sister Golden Bear

    More performative ugliness: TX College Sued For Banning “Degrading” Drag Show.

    The president of West Texas A&M University faces a federal lawsuit calling his cancellation of a student group’s drag show to benefit LGBTQ+ suicide prevention “textbook viewpoint discrimination” that violates the First Amendment.

    Student group Spectrum WT, which scheduled a show titled “A Fool’s Drag Race” for March 31, seeks an injunction forcing the university to allow the event on campus.

    In their 45-page federal lawsuit, the group notes that the university’s president Walter Wendler “confessed he is censoring” the show for personal reasons and “unabashedly admitted that doing so violates the Constitution.”

    Wendler claimed that drag shows are inherently “degrading to women” and he compared drag to wearing blackface — both of which are straight-up TERF talking points (some TERFs also claim trans women are the equivalent of blackface).

    I’m sure it’s not coincidental that the drag show was raising funds for the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ suicide prevention group (despite Wendler’s claim that he supports the group).

  32. 32.

    scav

    Guns aren’t deadly, ideas are.  And, newly empowered parents, your children will be no more educated than the loudest, meanest, scardest and partisan of your neighbors will allow.  See above for decisions concerning their healthcare also too.

  33. 33.

    Ohio Mom

    I also want to point out that there are a handful of states where teachers are not allowed to organize. For one example, there are no “union bosses” standing in the way of Texas parents.

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    As a parent who has children in public schools, as well as someone who went to public schools for her entire (very lengthy) educational career, please allow me to assure you that I want my kids to have well-resourced school libraries. If they see or read something that freaks them out or that they have questions about, I hope they come to me and ask me about it and we can talk about it. I would much rather they ask a trusted adult than find out surreptitiously on the playground or the internet. We treat our children like idiots if we think they’re not going to learn about sex, race, gender, violence, human’s inhumanity to human. The goal should always be dialogue, not shielding.

    Of course, I was the mom who asked her first-grader, “I’m sure you’ve heard of Hitler. What do you know about him?”.

  35. 35.

    sab

    @Baud: Two months ago the two houses passed abill abolishing August primaries and elections because they are too expensive and nobody much shows up to vote.

    This week the Majority leader in the Ohio Senate proposed a bill to have an August referendum to radically change the rules for amending the constitution. Instead of enough signatues from 44 counties and then a majority  (50%) win in a referendum, they are now proposing enough signatures from all eighty e8ght coubties and 60% to win at the election.

    Only purpose is to make it impossible amend the constitution to protect abortion rights.

    Thing got stopped for now because the Republican leader in the House (voted in with the help of Democrats) said no way is he allow8ng it to come to a vote in the House. He is anti-abortion but pro-constitutional amendments.

  36. 36.

    Suzanne

    @Redshift:

    These bills are an outright assault on the rights of parents who do want their kids to learn these things. 

    THANK YOU.
    I want my kids to be aware of their experiences of others in the world.

  39. 39.

    Kelly

    @Old School:

    Matt Rosendale
    @RepRosendale

    The answer to an out-of-control education system is not turning more control over to the federal government!

    By “out-of-control” he means out of HIS control and the control of his fellow travelers.

  40. 40.

    m.j.

    There’s this book by a fairly right-wing author named Robert Heinlein that I read once about Elon Musk transplanting his brain into the body of his female secretary. There was sex. I’m pretty sure it would be banned.

    The book is, I Will Fear No Evil.

  42. 42.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    These insincere motherfuckers use children to further their takeover of America and the elimination of those they hate, all the while letting children die in one school shooting incident after another without doing a fucking thing to protect the children they so love to say that they need to protect.

    In their twisted world, words and pictures are more lethal to children than guns and ammo. Fuck these monsters.

  46. 46.

    Dan B

    These bills want to return to the era of my childhood when LGBTQ people were invisible and black people were silent.  I felt alone.  The town bully beat me up in Sunday school.  Nothing was done to him or for me.  He got a thirteen year old pregnant and burned down a number of houses.  This is the paradise these folks want.  It gives me nightmares.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    Cancel culture ninnies have another Ivy League outrage to milk for 500 columns and substacks:

    But a number of progressive Stanford students weren’t interested in listening to Judge Duncan. They wanted him to hear from themselves.

    In shocking news, they come down hard on the side of the most powerful person in the room- the federal judge with the lifetime appointment.
    Because they’re asskissers. Probably have been their entire lives. They boldly defend the powerful!

  48. 48.

    Jay

    @sab:

    there is a Court Case filed in Ohio, challenging a bunch of the ReThug’s anti-medical bills, on State Constitutional grounds.

    Turns out, that back in the day, the State ReThugs, to try to kneecap the ACA, added a vague language amendment to the State Constitution, protecting any individuals “right to choose” in regards to medical care. Thus the need to re-amend the State Constitution by stealth in the off season.

    There is also an application to have the Bible banned, as it graphically and repeatably contains mention of every possible reason for censure, and then some.

    Hoist meet petard.

  49. 49.

    mwing

    Hi-  just as a practical matter, you can’t have a situation where individual parents can veto specific materials being included in a curriculum, and still have a working school system?

    Like, for every parent who says, this history text isn’t patriotic enough about, say, US govt relations with the Navajo Nation, another can say, this other text isn’t critical enough of US actions?

    So teachers wind up just not teaching it at all?
    How many topics in US history or civics have, like, no political conflict around them, most do:?

    I mean, the parents rights types seem to assume that the only curriculum objections will be coming from the political right, and that may be true now, but why would it stay true?

  51. 51.

    Kay

    Is there a single recorded instance of the cancel culture ninnies defending the speech of anyone in an ordinary college or university? One of the colleges and universities that 99.9% of Americans attend?

    I know they do nothing to defend the speech of K-12 public school teachers or others in Florida, because who cares about those losers, but not even a non-Ivy college?

  52. 52.

    Ryan

    Why are they never concerned about whether or not “biological women” are playing in men’s sports or using men’s bathrooms?  It seems this is a clue.

  55. 55.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Remember the definition of Irish Alzheimer’s?
    When you forget everything but your grudges…

  57. 57.

    different-church-lady

    @Kelly:

    By “out-of-control” he means out of HIS control

    DING DING DING DING correct answer!

    And that’s what damn near everything is about for today’s GOP. It’s all them getting to wear the boot that’s going to stomp on a human face forever.

  60. 60.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ryan: I’ve noticed that too. Guess because men are insulted by the implication that they would need protection from someone they consider a woman?

    One newspaper article I wish I had clipped was about an Ohio trans girl on her high school softball team. She was playing outfield and admitted she’d never been particularly good at sports, just glad they let her on the team considering her lack of talent.

  61. 61.

    Lumpy

    Making parents the ‘experts’ on school curriculum, much like people who think they can ‘do their own research’ on Covid and come up with better information than epidemiologists.

  62. 62.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ryan: Well, I hesitate to explain it not because it’s mysterious but because it’s so gross:

    I suspect that’s not much of a gotcha; they’d simply explain that it’s mostly men who rape or sexually assault women (true), that anyone they call a “man” who wants to go into a woman’s locker room probably wants to rape them (false), and that’s what they’re trying to prevent.

    This is pretty much what transphobes of all sorts, right-wing or “progressive” TERF, are really focusing on here–the idea that anyone who exists outside their mental sex/gender categories probably wants to rape somebody. It’s the same thing homophobes always believed about gay people.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    That was some really good work by Rep. Connally. And funny. When the Chairman, McCaul of Texas, got the mike back he had a little bit of a smile

  64. 64.

    Gvg

    @m.j.: it’s hard to tell over the internet but are you trying to be sarcastic or something? Heinlan and that book in particular would not fit a description of right wing or conspiracy and would freak them out. In fact, he really doesn’t fit the current political splits at all. He was very free love from a so many decades ago that he was both more liberated than most men of his time but still sexist and blind in other ways and also sort of odd. He tended libertarian anti authoritarian. Not religious at all. The Christian extremists we have now would hate him and he wrote about America taken over by religious extremists and their overthrow.

  67. 67.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Gvg: He’d be 100% in with today’s “anti-woke” Internet tech bro libertarians. Probably be buddies with Elon Musk since Musk is clearly patterning himself consciously on a Heinlein character. (Not that one, I think.)

  68. 68.

    Lyrebird

    I want a bill to notify me if fascist-leaning gun nuts are in the BUILDING with me let alone in the got tamm bathroom.

  69. 69.

    Nora

    @West of the Cascades: One of them is my Rep., Mike Lawler.  I was about to send him a blistering email but fortunately checked the vote and yes, he was one of the 5 Republicans who voted against it.  He’s representing NY-17, one of the Biden districts.  I’m watching him closely.

  70. 70.

    Chris T.

    I’m curious as to how they determine who is a “biological male”. Is it penis inspection, DNA collection, or what?

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Lumpy:

    Making parents the ‘experts’ on school curriculum, much like people who think they can ‘do their own research’ on Covid and come up with better information than epidemiologists.

    I agree. Unpopular opinion though. This stupidity is already coming back to bite them. They have the loudest, dumbest 10% of parents running their schools now- all it takes is ONE big mouth idiot to cancel anything. No one can run a school like that, where a random assortment of parents can yell a lot and set the rules for the whole school. It’s insanity. Imagine now often the book rules alone will change! Each successive set of parents bans or allows sets of books, because “parents” = different people each and every year.

  72. 72.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Redshift: This is the framing they ALWAYS use.  They’ve been using since the 1950’s.  It was originally used to object to (surprise!) Racial Integration.  And since has been used to oppose pretty much anything remotely Progressive: Sex Ed, Black History, vaccine requirements, removing prayer from schools, treating LGBTQ students with dignity/respect etc.

  74. 74.

    Gvg

    @Matt McIrvin: uhh no. Really no. Heinlan was very atheist and pretty much predicted a lot of this, well religion taking over America and taking away women’s rights, treating them as breeders….and wrote about their overthrow.

    Actually wrote several anti religion tales which appealed to the younger me.

    There are inconsistencies in his writing which isn’t too surprising considering how long ago he wrote. But he wasn’t authoritarian at all.  He wrote one book that premised citizenship based on civic service usually military, ONE out of many, too optimistic in assumptions and a lot more about rebellions against takeovers or just knowing when it was time to leave, or pulling some legalistic maneuvers to derail attempts to takeover until others came to their senses. He never made the hero one of the authoritarians nor was the hero religious (by the end)

  75. 75.

    Glidwrith

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Agreed! I’m keeping a running tally of how valued children are in different states: teachers allowed to beat disabled children, no food for them in school, lower age for marriage, working in factories, raped by youth pastors, pregnant at 10 years old and, as you pointed out, guns everywhere.

    But drag queens are dangerous.

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