The Right's Assault on Facts, Data, and Reality

[Bact PhD]

Aug 12, 2021 19:32:27 GMT LFC said:

Josh Marshall discusses the Republicans using anti-mask / anti-vax sentiment as a campaign tool. The problem is that there are a lot of vaccinated people that are pretty pissed at the willfully unvaccinated and blame them (and rightly so) for the current setback. It may not play well politically after all.

As we’ve discussed a number of times, Republican leaders made a clear decision over the winter of 2020-21 to embrace and cater to anti-vax, anti-mandate sentiment to supercharge their midterm election odds. I’ve seen some debate over whether GOP elites convinced GOP voters or GOP voters dragged along the elites. I think it’s a bit of both but mainly a non-issue. Unsurprisingly, elected officials and voters in a political party tend to think in similar ways. They decided to become the anti-vax party and thus helped usher in the fourth COVID wave.

But something happened on the way to the party: the Delta variant.

Not that that this wasn’t a very bad, sociopathic decision to start with. After all the great majority of GOP elected officials were, like Tucker Carlson, at the front of the line to get vaccinated themselves. But the consequences became far more acute. Three months ago many people believed that in the US COVID was basically over. You could cater to anti-vax sentiment and reap the electoral rewards while free-riding off the vaccinated herd. There was no downside – at least no political one. Whether that was ever going to be true, Delta clearly made it not true.

Today our team is reporting on two current manifestations of this dynamic. Republican governors with national political ambitions are not only maintaining a lax approach to mitigation they are courting anti-vax and anti-mandate sentiment by forbidding local governments to take decisions to protect their own localities. This is playing out in bans on school districts mandating masks in schools. Schools are a unique case since despite children generally having mild outcomes, most children aren’t vaccinated and children under 12 can’t be vaccinated.

More from that piece; this part jumped out at me:

At the same time – and this is another topic we’re going to be looking closely at today on the site – you have local, often suburban and rural, school board meetings disrupted by anti-mask protestors. This is part of a more general pattern we’ve seen since the beginning of the pandemic: protests at school boards first over COVID restrictions and then also over “critical race theory” and Black Lives Matter activism and “anti-woke” activism. These have been followed by waves of recall elections. (There’s been parallel “big lie” activism which has targeted local election administrators who’ve been subjected to recalls or otherwise driven from office – often with campaigns of harassment or threats of violence.)

The piece also draws a parallel to what occurred in the run-up to the ACA. I have the same question now that a lot of people raised then: Is this shouting truly “grass roots” sentiment, or is it “Astroturf”?

[goldenvalley]

The piece also draws a parallel to what occurred in the run-up to the ACA. I have the same question now that a lot of people raised then: Is this shouting truly “grass roots” sentiment, or is it “Astroturf”?

My completely unsupported but based on my gut response to this is that the Tea Party was Astroturf in origin but it touched and motivated people to act on their latent racism and resentments. Once activated it gained momentum. There are still elements of Astroturf...instigators that offer the words to express the inchoate feelings of the people who then go out and behave as they do...sparking insurrection without leaving fingerprints that show their presence.  Hmmm did I just express a conspiracy theory?

[pnwguy]

Tim Miller's weekly videos are funny, if not frightening. But this one was exceptionally on target

youtu.be/-Lmnr4G3Urs

[LFC]

"Law" should probably be added to the subject line. Here's one of the Republicans' activist judges sweeping away intent, precedent, and actual language with casual disregard. They know the outcomes that simply must be in advance. Then they tailor their "opinion" (in the broadest sense of the word) to fit.

Almost immediately after President Joe Biden took office, his administration started to roll back his predecessor Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required many asylum seekers who arrive at the United States’ southern border to stay in Mexico while they await a hearing on their asylum claim.

In a memo outlining why the Biden administration abandoned “Remain in Mexico,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas argued that the program drained limited border security resources, required diplomatic negotiations with Mexican officials that “draws away from other elements that necessarily must be more central to the bilateral relationship,” and forced many migrants to live in squalid conditions without “stable access to housing, income, and safety.”

On Friday, however, a Trump-appointed judge to a federal court in Texas effectively ordered the federal government to reinstate this Trump-era policy — which is officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) — permanently. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s opinion in Texas v. Biden makes the implausible argument that a federal immigration law enacted by Congress in 1996 makes the Remain in Mexico policy mandatory, unless the federal government detains every asylum seeker who is not sent back to Mexico.

Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy was not implemented until early 2019. So the upshot of Kacsmaryk’s opinion is that the federal government was in violation of this 1996 statute for half of the Clinton administration, the entire George W. Bush administration, the entire Obama administration, and most of the Trump administration.

In reality, that 1996 federal law is part of a web of statutes and constitutional doctrines giving immigration officials multiple options when an asylum seeker arrives at the US-Mexico border. One provision of federal immigration law provides that most of these asylum seekers “shall be detained” while they await a hearing.

Option two is the one implemented by Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy. When an asylum seeker arrives by land from Mexico, the government may “return” that asylum seeker to Mexico while the potential immigrant awaits a hearing.

But another federal law enacted that same year, gives federal officials a third option. The government may “parole into the United States” an immigrant seeking admission to this country “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” Thus, if the appropriate officials determine that there are adequate reasons to do so, an immigrant may remain in the United States without being detained prior to their hearing.

The federal government created special parole programs for certain categories of immigrants, including Haitians and Cubans with family in the United States, and children and family members of children from Central America. Other immigrants may request parole on an individual basis.

Kacsmaryk’s opinion largely ignores this third option. He claims that federal immigration law only “provides the government two options vis-à-vis aliens seeking asylum: (1) mandatory detention; or (2) return to a contiguous territory.” Then, after effectively erasing the government’s ability to grant parole to asylum seekers, Kacsmaryk orders the Biden administration to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy “until such a time as the federal government has sufficient detention capacity to detain all aliens subject to mandatory detention ... without releasing any aliens because of a lack of detention resources.”

Additionally, courts and federal immigration officials have long recognized that the government has discretion not to bring enforcement actions against individual immigrants under a doctrine known as “prosecutorial discretion.”

All of which is a long way of saying that Kacsmaryk’s opinion is dead wrong. It ignores a key provision of federal law, as well as broader principles that have long guided immigration enforcement. But Kacsmaryk’s opinion is not an isolated attack on Biden’s immigration policy and the rule of law. Almost immediately after Biden took office, conservative federal judges started sabotaging the new president’s immigration policies.

Kacsmaryk’s decision, moreover, is expected to be appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative courts in the country — and then potentially to a Supreme Court where Republican appointees have a 6-3 supermajority.

So, while Kacsmaryk’s opinion is wrong on the law, there is no guarantee that it will be reversed by a higher court.

[LFC]

Wisconsin goes full blown Republican when it comes to its annual wolf hunt, ignoring science and data in favor of the segment of their base that just want to kill wolves.

For years, conservationists have successfully fought to restore the Midwest’s wolf population. A new state policy could imperil that progress: Wisconsin’s Natural Resources Board voted last week to allow hunters to kill up to 300 wolves during a fall killing period this year, ignoring recommendations from an advisory panel of biologists.

The scientists from the state’s Department of Natural Resources said the board should impose a limit of hunting 130 wolves based on concerns about a state-sanctioned hunt in February. During that four-day hunting and trapping season, Wisconsin hunters killed 218 gray wolves despite officials capping the kill at 119. The hunt, which came just a month after gray wolves lost protections under the federal Endangered Species Act, killing an estimated 20% of the state’s wolf population.

“Wisconsin’s February 2021 hunt earned Wisconsin a black eye across the state and nationally for conducting a wolf hunt divorced from science and ethical norms,” Elizabeth Ward, director of the state’s chapter of the Sierra Club, said at a heated meeting with the Natural Resources Board last Wednesday, speaking in support of the DNR’s biologists. “We can’t allow this to happen again.”

She and other conservationists noted that a green sheet from the board itself said that the effects of the February hunt are “uncertain.” Five of seven members voted to ignore the department’s recommendations and increase the killing quota to 300 wolves. Right-wing members of the board claimed that the wolves in the state are abundant and said hunting will help manage the pack and protect livestock. Last year, though, the DNR documented just 235 confirmed livestock and work animal depredations tied to wolves where it issued payouts to farmers. (For comparison, the state has 3.45 million cows.)

I'm very pro-hunting but I have a hard time with hunting apex predators that will never be consumed. If a cull is truly needed but that doesn't sound remotely like the case here. Increasing the kill limit after blowing past the last kill limit and not even assessing the impact is classic right-wing. Science, data, facts, and reality simply don't matter. There's wolves to be killed!

There's one upside though. I wonder how long before Wisconsin's Republicans find a way to go back on the treaties and f*** the tribes. After all, it's the American way!

Even though the board set a kill limit of 300 wolves for state-licensed hunters, they probably won’t actually get to hunt that many. As part of treaties ceding territory in the 1800s, the state’s Chippewa tribes are legally authorized to hunt half of the state’s allowed quota of wolves. But the tribes consider wolves to be sacred creatures and therefore don’t hunt them, so if they claim their full half of the limit, those wolves will likely remain living, meaning just 150 will die.

[LFC]

Aug 17, 2021 19:52:01 GMT LFC said:

"Law" should probably be added to the subject line. Here's one of the Republicans' activist judges sweeping away intent, precedent, and actual language with casual disregard. They know the outcomes that simply must be in advance. Then they tailor their "opinion" (in the broadest sense of the word) to fit.

This horribly flawed ruling is headed to the Supreme Court. I guess we'll find out how willing the right-wing contingent is to twist the law to what they want it to be. We have some indication of that with Roberts's "reasoning" on his gerrymandering opinion that was brimming with logic so ridiculous that a background in law wasn't remotely required, just a background in reality. Bold is mine of summation of how mind-numbingly stupid and political this decision really is.

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s opinion in Texas was wrong for many reasons, including that he completely misread federal immigration law. Kacsmaryk wrote that a 1996 federal law only gives “the government two options vis-à-vis aliens seeking asylum: (1) mandatory detention; or (2) return to a contiguous territory.” Federal immigration law actually gives immigration officials several options, including granting “parole into the United States” to individual immigrants or releasing the immigrant on “bond of at least $1,500.”

On Thursday, a panel of three right-wing appellate judges, two of whom were appointed by Trump, refused the Justice Department’s request to stay Kacsmaryk’s order and prevent it from taking effect. Kacsmaryk intended for his order to take effect on Friday, giving the Biden administration just one week to reinstate a complex policy that requires careful negotiations with foreign governments.

Late on Friday, Justice Samuel Alito extended that period until 11:59 pm ET on Tuesday, “so that the full Court can consider” the DOJ’s request to suspend Kacsmaryk’s decision.

The most obvious stakes in this case are whether thousands of migrants will be forced to live in harrowing conditions — without “stable access to housing, income, and safety,” according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — because of an egregious misreading of federal law. But the potential consequences of a Supreme Court decision allowing Kacsmaryk’s order to take effect stretch far beyond these immediate humanitarian concerns.

Remain in Mexico was implemented in early 2019, and effectively suspended in March 2020, because the government imposed stricter, temporary border restrictions in order to reduce the spread of Covid-19. Thus, Kacsmaryk’s opinion rests on the improbable claim that a federal law enacted in 1996 requires the government to implement a policy that was only in effect for 14 months, and that wasn’t implemented until nearly a quarter-century after the 1996 law took effect.

As the Justice Department explains in its brief asking the Court to stay Kacsmaryk’s decision, “implementing MPP required extensive coordination with and assistance from Mexico, which took a variety of steps to assist the United States and the migrants who were returned.” Reimplementing it would also require such coordination with Mexican officials, who may not be inclined to be charitable if US negotiators abruptly break their own promise to end the Remain in Mexico policy.

Historically, and over the course of many decisions handed down for many decades, the Supreme Court has warned against “the danger of unwarranted judicial interference in the conduct of foreign policy.” Foreign relations involve sensitive negotiations, where US diplomats need to know that their country will keep their promises. If a judge can order the United States to make significant changes to its foreign policy, especially when the judge’s order is rooted in a preposterous reading of federal law, that will disrupt our relations with foreign governments and diminish our credibility abroad.

The question in Texas, in other words, is whether the Supreme Court will abandon the judiciary’s longtime posture of deference to the elected branches on matters of foreign relations — or whether it will give an increasingly right-wing judiciary a permission slip to interfere with America’s negotiations with foreign partners and rivals.

[jackd]

The Supremes ruled against the Biden administration. Now you know how willing they are to twist, .. . etc.

[LFC]

Vox covered the 6-3 SCOTUS ruling on Trump's immigration policy. The first sentence says it all.

The Supreme Court handed down an order Tuesday evening that makes no sense.

It is not at all clear what the Biden administration is supposed to do in order to comply with the Court’s decision in Biden v. Texas. That decision suggests that the Department of Homeland Security committed some legal violation when it rescinded a Trump-era immigration policy, but it does not identify what that violation is. And it forces the administration to engage in sensitive negotiations with at least one foreign government without specifying what it needs to secure in those negotiations.

One of the most foundational principles of court decisions involving foreign policy is that judges should be extraordinarily reluctant to mess around with foreign affairs. The decision in Texas defies this principle, fundamentally reshaping the balance of power between judges and elected officials in the process.

Moscow Mitch has his fascism embracing court.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 25, 2021 23:13:37 GMT LFC said:

Vox covered the 6-3 SCOTUS ruling on Trump's immigration policy. The first sentence says it all.

The Supreme Court handed down an order Tuesday evening that makes no sense.

It is not at all clear what the Biden administration is supposed to do in order to comply with the Court’s decision in Biden v. Texas. That decision suggests that the Department of Homeland Security committed some legal violation when it rescinded a Trump-era immigration policy, but it does not identify what that violation is. And it forces the administration to engage in sensitive negotiations with at least one foreign government without specifying what it needs to secure in those negotiations.

One of the most foundational principles of court decisions involving foreign policy is that judges should be extraordinarily reluctant to mess around with foreign affairs. The decision in Texas defies this principle, fundamentally reshaping the balance of power between judges and elected officials in the process.

Moscow Mitch has his fascism embracing court.

The Supreme Court isn't even in session and so I assume there was no briefing or arguing.  How is this valid?

[LFC]

Aug 26, 2021 14:47:50 GMT goldenvalley said:

The Supreme Court isn't even in session and so I assume there was no briefing or arguing.  How is this valid?

Look up "shadow docket." We've discussed it a few times before but the posts might all be on the old TRS.

[andydp]

So many good articles today, I thought I'd just compile a couple in one posting.

First we have a Sidney Powell interview. It always amazes me how foreign news agencies seems to ask the tough questions.

Powell pressed by Australian reporter: 'Do you ever hear yourself and think it sounds ridiculous?'

During an interview for the Australian Broadcast Company's two-part series, "Fox and the Big Lie," Sidney Powell struggled to respond to "basic factual errors" that correspondent Sarah Ferguson pointed out in her claims and threatened to end the interview.

<SNIP>

After reluctantly returning to finish the interview, Powell continued to stick by her baseless claims that widespread election fraud was perpetrated in 2020.

"I am saying that thousands of Americans had some role in [2020 election fraud], knowingly or unknowingly. It was essentially a bloodless coup where they took over the presidency of the United States without a single shot being fired," Powell said.

After Powell added that the election fraud had been planned for at least three years, Ferguson asked her, "Do you ever hear yourself and think it sounds ridiculous?"  (At this point, I would have asked what color the sky is in her world.)

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/election-fraud-conspiracy-theorist-sidney-powell-pressed-by-australian-reporter-do-you-ever-hear-yourself-and-think-it-sounds-ridiculous/ar-AANVjcd?ocid=msedgntp

Not to be outdone, our friend Madison Cawthorn is also spouting off

Rep. Madison Cawthorn falsely suggests elections are ‘rigged,’ says there will be ‘bloodshed’ if system continues on its path

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) on Sunday falsely suggested that elections in the United States are “rigged” and said there will be “bloodshed” if the country’s electoral system continues on its current path.

“Because, you know, if our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place — and it’s bloodshed.”

Luke Ball, a spokesman for Cawthorn, said in a statement Monday that the lawmaker was “in no way supporting or advocating for any form of violence.”

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rep-madison-cawthorn-falsely-suggests-elections-are-rigged-says-there-will-be-bloodshed-if-system-continues-on-its-path/ar-AANULCg?ocid=msedgntp

[LFC]

American traitor Madison Cawthorn said more than that. He's a firehose of lies and treason.

He lied about the traitors and terrorists arrested for taking part in the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection. He also threatened violence to free the traitors.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) mused about busting Jan. 6 “political hostages” out of government custody at a raucous Macon County Republican Party meeting Sunday.

Responding to a question about how he would support the people who were “captured” on Jan. 6, Cawthorn began by calling them “political hostages” then said that one problem was that he wasn’t sure exactly where they were being held pending trial.

“The big problem is, we don’t actually know where all the political prisoners are, and so if we were to actually be able to go and try and bust them out–”

Cawthorn abruptly stopped and changed course.

“And let me tell you, the reason why they have taken these political prisoners is because they’re trying to make an example, because they don’t want to see the mass protests go on in Washington.”

Then, someone in the crowd interrupted: “When are you going to call us to Washington again?”

“We are actively working on that one,” Cawthorne grinned, before adding that he didn’t have a specific answer for the man but that “we have a few plans in motion that I can’t make public right now.”

He then falsely claimed that “we’ve 536 people who are being held in solitary confinement.” For one thing, closer to 600 people face charges related to Jan. 6. More to the point, hundreds are not in federal detention at all. According to a Guardian analysis in May, well more than half of roughly 400 Jan. 6 defendants at that time had been released from custody pending trial.

The Jan. 6 defendants were just one in a slew of topics Cawthorn discussed Sunday.

Then he lied about the BLM protests.

Cawthorn falsely said that racial justice protests in 2020 had left “dozens of cops dead” and “cities completely destroyed and burned.” He said he would be willing to “prosecute Anthony Fauci for lying.” He said he supported pursuing the removal of Joe Biden from the presidency under the 25th Amendment. And after Biden is removed, Cawthorn added, “when Kamala Harris inevitably screws up, we will take them down one at a time.”

Then he lied about the risks vs. protection of the COVID vaccine. (Bonus points for saying "son" rather than "child". How very, very Republican of him.)

As the event wrapped up, Cawthorne signed a shotgun that the Macon County GOP is raffling off, and was asked about the government “pushing” the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Defend your children,” he told the inquiring mother, adding later: “It’s not worth it to put an experimental jab into your son’s arm.”

Then he lied about the purpose of the Second Amendment.

“The Second Amendment was not written so that we can go hunting or we can shoot sporting clays,” he said. “The Second Amendment was written so that we can fight against tyranny.”

Welcome to the Whose Republican Party Is It Anyway, where everything is made up and your votes don't matter.

[LFC]

Lyin' for money is a hallmark of the wingnut right.

In his column for the New York Times, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman suggested that in multiple ways the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed over 600,000 Americans has been a good thing for right-wing extremists looking to make a buck any way they can.

Hard right conservative politicians and extremist gadflies have for years made a living by railing about "big government" and cashing in on fears of loss of freedoms by spinning reality in a way that inflames their followers and builds their following.

However, as economist Krugman notes, there is a financial component that gives extremists an added reason to push anti-vaccination conspiracies: hawking alternative remedies and supplements that, in the long run, could imperil those same followers' health.

As the columnist explained, "...there is an economic element to political extremism, just not what you'd think. Right-wing extremists, and to some extent even more mainstream conservative media, rely on financial support from companies selling nutritional supplements and miracle cures — and that financial support is arguably a significant factor pushing the right to become more extreme."

Adding, "Consider where we are right now in the fight against Covid-19. A few months ago it seemed likely that the development of effective vaccines would soon bring the pandemic to an end. Instead, it goes on," Krugman suggests that vaccine refusers are ripe for the plucking, writing, "they're also turning to life-threatening alternatives."

Noting the sudden and inexplicable rise of a horse deworming paste that has been embraced by the anti-vaccine right, Krugman says it goes deeper than that.

"As the historian Rick Perlstein has pointed out, there's a long association between peddlers of quack medicine and right-wing extremists. They cater to more or less the same audience," he wrote before elaborating, "That is, Americans willing to believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that Italian satellites were used to switch votes to Joe Biden are also the kind of people willing to believe that medical elites are lying to them and that they can solve their health problems by ignoring professional advice and buying patent medicines instead."

Case in point, several well-known conservative commentators who double as pitchmen for the highly-profitable supplement industry.

[LFC]

This article wonders about the reaction of the wingnuts to mandatory vaccination by both the federal government and private employers. The analysis of what they expect actual reactions to be is interesting.

Given how resistant some have been to getting vaccinated — given how apocalyptic some of their rhetoric has been — you might be wondering if being forced to get vaccinated might trigger violent reactions. (After all, many of these same people are in the "good guys with guns" crowd.) This is a good question. It puts violence at the heart of the GOP project. In case you haven't noticed, there isn't much interest in policy these days. Instead, it's in power. But even that is a concern among Republican elites more than normie Republicans. As the journalist Jeff Sharlet said recently, they are not spoiling for policy victories. They don't care. Instead, they are spoiling for a fight. Being forced to get vaccinated might be the spark they've longed for.

I think this is more complex than it seems. In explaining, I'm going to bring together various threads of ideas I've been working on here at the Editorial Board. They might sound a bit familiar to some but by putting them together, I hope they bring more and fresher light.

First and foremost, you have to understand that authoritarians are weak on account of being authoritarians. They don't really have convictions, though there is no shortage among them of beliefs. By this, I mean they believe they are entitled to everything in our society breaking their way, but they are not going to work for it if the labor is too hard. Convictions are expensive. They require investment. They demand sacrifice. Beliefs, however, are cheap and plentiful. And it doesn't take much effort to keep telling yourself wild, howling lies.

Quite literally, these lies about themselves and their place in this country constitute their identities. As long as they can be maintained, most of America's authoritarians will comply with vaccine mandates, especially mandates with teeth. (For instance, you can't fly unless you are vaccinated.) Oh, they will complain. They will hew and pule and cry! They will say it's all so unfair. But they will do what they're told.

Why? Well, because mandates will actually help them! The thing about being an authoritarian is that you are trained from childhood never to think for yourself. In saying this, I'm deadly serious. When you do not have the skills to think for yourself, you fear making choices. You are even more terrified when people you respect are equally afraid. But neither you nor your peers admit fear. That would signal weakness of character, which is the God-given truth, but your whole identity has been constructed from an early age around hiding it. So you fabricate some reason why you can't get vaccinated, like protecting your liberties etc. They don't mean what they say, though. Their "freedoms" are built on sand. Push them just enough and they'll fold like paper.

The other thing about being an authoritarian is this. The wild, howling lies they tell themselves often take the form of violent rhetoric. You can see this in those videos of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers at school board meetings. Beneath the details is a confession of what they say to each other in private. These conversations are as varied as the people engaged in them, but they share fundamental features. These people are equal parts victim and hero, and they take pleasure in imagining righting some kind of imagined "wrong" with some kind of imagined violence. Again, they don't mean what they say. The point of these private conversations is strengthening in-group bonds and making themselves feel better for the emptiness that should be a moral core.

This is where things get more complex. Even as they cave to vaccine mandates, the authoritarians will continue telling themselves lies that often take the form of violent rhetoric. The mandates will be added to the already-being-told story about their being the victims and the heroes against the big bad enemy that they would, if they could, vanquish with violence. The "if they could" part is key. They are still true to the in-group. They are still loyal to The Cause (whatever that might be). But, well … it's out of their control. The bad guys are still bad, but not so bad we need to start a civil war. Why? Convictions are expensive and demanding. Beliefs are cheap and plentiful. So much easier to tell yourself you deserve things going your way while blaming the out-group for your lack of conviction to do something about it.

I don't have as much faith. Sure the vast majority won't be violent but a few thousand can cause a LOT of trouble, especially when completely backed by a major fascist political party.

[LFC]

Another frivolous lawsuit filed by Republicans.

Tucson Democratic Rep. Charlene Fernandez is asking a court to dismiss a defamation case brought against her by two Republican state legislators and a GOP congressman because statements Fernandez made to the FBI about the two GOP legislators are privileged.

The case stems from a letter sent by Fernandez and other Democratic lawmakers asking the FBI to investigate Rep. Mark Finchem (R-Oro Valley), former state Rep. Anthony Kern (R-Glendale) and GOP Congressman Paul Gosar's connections to the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C.

In February, the trio filed a lawsuit against Fernandez accusing her of defaming them by making disparaging remarks, connecting them to the violence of Jan. 6 and conspiring against them. The trio have not brought a suit against any of the 43 other Democratic legislators who also signed the letter.

The lawsuit was stalled for months because Fernandez was immune from being served while the legislature's annual session was taking place. But when the session ended, Fernandez waived service and both sides agreed to a 60-day response period which started at the end of the session on June 30.

“Contrary to all of the rhetoric… this is not a lawsuit about alleged fraud in the 2020 election, the purported suppression of conservative viewpoints by social media companies or issues of border security," Fernandez's attorney, David Bodney, wrote in the motion to dismiss the lawsuit. “Rather, this lawsuit is about whether state legislators – or, indeed, any Arizonan – may petition federal authorities to investigate potential crimes of the utmost seriousness without being dragged into court to face frivolous and retaliatory defamation litigation."

[LFC]

Make yourself a lying pariah to all decent humans and then whine when you're treated like one. Yep, it's the right-wing way.

The owner of a private COVID testing clinic turned right-wing provocateur Candace Owens away for spreading COVID misinformation and discouraging mask use, according to a screenshot of an email posted online by Owens.

“We cannot support anyone who has pro-actively worked to make this pandemic worse by spreading misinformation, politicizing and DISCOURAGING the wearing of masks and actively dissuading people from receiving life-saving vaccinations,” the owner wrote.

“My team and myself have worked overtime, to exhaustion, unpaid and underpaid this past year, spending our own capital to ensure that our community remains protected. It would be unfair to them and to the sacrifices we have all made this year to serve you.”

According to previous media reports, the owner, Suzanna Lee, runs a private lab in the ski resort town of Aspen, Colorado. She directed Owens to the only other testing site in the city, but said it had inconsistent wait times for results.

Here was what that f***wit had to say. "Disgusting" is the right word.

Owens then posted a screenshot of the response she sent to Lee, in which she called Lee’s email “emotionally unstable and hysterical.”

“Truly, I’ve never laughed harder,” she wrote. “Nothing screams ‘this virus isn’t political’ quite like googling the names of the people who book tests with you and determining on a case by case basis whether or not you will let them comply with your community covid measures.

“Nothing screams ‘I love my community’ quite like refusing to test people who are going to a local event and wish to ensure they are negative and therefore do not spread the virus.”

[Bact PhD]

I wasn’t sure whether to put this in with abortion, or here. When my first reaction to the notifications was, “What parallel universe is this man living in?!?!”, I decided here:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday that he intends to “eliminate rape” in his state, amid criticism that a new law banning abortions at six weeks does not include an exception for victims of rape and incest.

[snip]

Asked on Tuesday why the state would force a victim of rape or incest to carry a pregnancy to term, Abbott defended the law.

“Rape is a crime, and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets. So goal no. 1 in the state of Texas is to eliminate rape so that no woman, no person, will be a victim of rape,” he said Tuesday.

This, in a place where the default setting seems to be “She led me on…”, good luck getting prosecutions.

www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/08/greg-abbott-says-texas-eliminate-rape-defends-abortion-law/5770204001/

[pnwguy]

"Eliminate Rape" is easy, as long you redefine what the term is. Rape can only happen between people who don't know each other.

"She's my wife so I couldn't have raped her"
"She's my girlfriend, so I couldn't have raped her
"We were on a date, so I couldn't have raped her"
"We go to the same church, so I couldn't have raped her"
"I didn't hold a gun to her head, so I couldn't have raped her"

Consensual sex between a white woman and a black/brown man? Now THAT'S rape. Lock him up.

[AnBr]

Sept 8, 2021 19:19:59 GMT pnwguy said:

Consensual sex between a white woman and a black/brown man? Now THAT'S rape. Lock him up.

And shun her. She is obviously a slut.

[pnwguy]

Sept 8, 2021 22:36:02 GMT AnBr said:

Sept 8, 2021 19:19:59 GMT pnwguy said:

Consensual sex between a white woman and a black/brown man? Now THAT'S rape. Lock him up.

And shun her. She is obviously a slut.

No, her crime is disrespecting the white race.  Sluts are tolerable.  Miscegenation is far more odious.

[LFC]

Reminds me of the old joke, "What's the difference between a slut and a c***? A slut will have sex with anyone. A c*** will have sex with anyone but you."

[LFC]

Dan Crenshaw continues to be a lying, whining, hypocritical douche nozzle.

Dan Crenshaw
@dancrenshawtx

Mandates are cheap governance. The right path is built upon explaining, educating, and *building* trust, including explaining the risks/benefits/pros/cons in an honest way so a person can make their own decision.

The Biden Administration has completely failed in that regard.

The comments are not sparing as they shouldn't be for this piece of fascist wannabe trash.

[LFC]

Steve Bannon continues his war on reality www.thedailybeast.com/steve-bannon-hopes-homeschooling-moms-will-be-his-new-shock-troops?ref=home to spread religion and hatred for all things they disapprove of. What a good German white supremacist.

The conservative political movement has continually used schooling, especially homeschooling, as a cudgel in a larger political war over race, religion, and sex.

“The firestorm that you’re about to see,” Steve Bannon said recently, “is the American mothers. When you’ve got to go back to school and Fauci’s been talking about vaccinating the kids and using the school, going back to school as a forcing function between the mask and the CRT (critical race theory).”

Bannon’s podcast guests then urged parents to sign a pledge to homeschool their children during the week of Sept. 13 as a part of “peaceful noncompliance” under the hashtag of #ParentRising to protest school mask and vaccine mandates.

It’s not the first time that Donald Trump’s former chief strategist has put together women, race, and education. It was an undercurrent of his 2010 Citizens United movie, Fire from the Heartland, which featured conservative leaders like Phyllis Schlafly, Michele Bachmann and Dana Loesch, who’d each been vocal advocates for homeschooling as a socially conservative respite from all that was supposedly wrong with public education. And now it’s key to Bannon’s 2022 congressional electoral strategy.

But this story has been told long before Bannon entered the national stage. In fact, it features in what experts have called the mecca of the conservative movement: Kanawha County, West Virginia, and the Textbook War of 1974. Others, like journalist Rick Perlstein and education historians Gillian Frank and Adam Laats, have revealed the similarities between what happened in Kanawha County and what’s happening today, but the close connection to the homeschooling movement has often been left out.

The short, painful version of this history centers around the choice of reading materials for local public schools and violent opposition to including civil rights leaders such as Eldridge Cleaver and Malcolm X. Locals, like school board member Alice Moore, were incensed by these new readings, which they perceived as vulgar, and were ready to fight. The protest Moore organized to oppose the textbooks, though it started locally, soon became national. Much like Bannon has today, groups like Paul Weyrich’s newly-formed Heritage Foundation, the John Birch Society, and even the KKK saw a cause they could get behind.

When Moore and her allies couldn’t get the readings struck from the fall curriculum, they called on parents to keep their kids at home. One in three students did so at the start of the fall as protests quickly grew, and not of the peaceful sort. Anti-textbook protesters blocked school buses, sprayed racial epithets on buildings, and marched together with the Klan and the Confederate flag. They even detonated bombs at the Board of Education. This was a militant resistance to public education, fueled by racism and elevated by powerful national groups.

A recording saved on YouTube shows one of the protests organized at the state capitol by future California congressman Robert Dornan, then a conservative activist for Citizens for Decency Through Law. After reciting the pledge of allegiance, Dornan shouts “Parent power!” to the crowd.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 13, 2021 16:48:12 GMT LFC said:

Steve Bannon continues his war on reality www.thedailybeast.com/steve-bannon-hopes-homeschooling-moms-will-be-his-new-shock-troops?ref=home to spread religion and hatred for all things they disapprove of. What a good German white supremacist.

The conservative political movement has continually used schooling, especially homeschooling, as a cudgel in a larger political war over race, religion, and sex.

“The firestorm that you’re about to see,” Steve Bannon said recently, “is the American mothers. When you’ve got to go back to school and Fauci’s been talking about vaccinating the kids and using the school, going back to school as a forcing function between the mask and the CRT (critical race theory).”

Bannon’s podcast guests then urged parents to sign a pledge to homeschool their children during the week of Sept. 13 as a part of “peaceful noncompliance” under the hashtag of #ParentRising to protest school mask and vaccine mandates.

It’s not the first time that Donald Trump’s former chief strategist has put together women, race, and education. It was an undercurrent of his 2010 Citizens United movie, Fire from the Heartland, which featured conservative leaders like Phyllis Schlafly, Michele Bachmann and Dana Loesch, who’d each been vocal advocates for homeschooling as a socially conservative respite from all that was supposedly wrong with public education. And now it’s key to Bannon’s 2022 congressional electoral strategy.

But this story has been told long before Bannon entered the national stage. In fact, it features in what experts have called the mecca of the conservative movement: Kanawha County, West Virginia, and the Textbook War of 1974. Others, like journalist Rick Perlstein and education historians Gillian Frank and Adam Laats, have revealed the similarities between what happened in Kanawha County and what’s happening today, but the close connection to the homeschooling movement has often been left out.

The short, painful version of this history centers around the choice of reading materials for local public schools and violent opposition to including civil rights leaders such as Eldridge Cleaver and Malcolm X. Locals, like school board member Alice Moore, were incensed by these new readings, which they perceived as vulgar, and were ready to fight. The protest Moore organized to oppose the textbooks, though it started locally, soon became national. Much like Bannon has today, groups like Paul Weyrich’s newly-formed Heritage Foundation, the John Birch Society, and even the KKK saw a cause they could get behind.

When Moore and her allies couldn’t get the readings struck from the fall curriculum, they called on parents to keep their kids at home. One in three students did so at the start of the fall as protests quickly grew, and not of the peaceful sort. Anti-textbook protesters blocked school buses, sprayed racial epithets on buildings, and marched together with the Klan and the Confederate flag. They even detonated bombs at the Board of Education. This was a militant resistance to public education, fueled by racism and elevated by powerful national groups.

A recording saved on YouTube shows one of the protests organized at the state capitol by future California congressman Robert Dornan, then a conservative activist for Citizens for Decency Through Law. After reciting the pledge of allegiance, Dornan shouts “Parent power!” to the crowd.

While there will probably always be a hard core home schooler block of parents I suspect many, many parents who have done a sort of modified home schooling due to COVID shut downs want nothing to do with the concept.

[LFC]

Well discussed at TRS but this sums it up nicely.

On Monday, Republican recall hopeful Larry Elder refused to say whether he would accept defeat if he failed to unseat Democratic incumbent Gavin Newsom. The far-right radio host urged his supporters to go to the StopCAFraud website to report election voting "irregularities." The site, which was funded by Elder's campaign, claimed that "statistical irregularities" proved that the California governor had won the recall election by fraud. The catch was that the election wasn't until Tuesday and no votes had been counted.

In the post-Trump era, Republican losers follow a simple formula: Cry fraud, file frivolous lawsuits and fundraise off of them. You will lose in court, because there is no fraud, but it doesn't matter because every loss burnishes the GOP's "stabbed in the back" narrative.

The Elder camp claimed to have pseudoscientific statistical proof based on Benford's Law that Newsom's imaginary win was due to fraud — before the votes had been counted. This revealed both their pessimism about their prospects for the recall and their willingness to manufacture claims of fraud out of thin air.

The GOP started chumming these waters weeks ago. Elder's StopCaFraud page was anonymously registered in August and the WayBackMachine shows that the fictional fraud allegations were visible to the site's automated crawler as early as Sept. 6. The very next day, former President Donald Trump called NewsMax and said the California recall vote was "probably rigged." The following day Elder announced that he had lawyers ready to challenge the results. Fox News hosts have been claiming for weeks that an incumbent Democrat in California could only win by fraud.

Elder's blunder would be funny if it weren't scary. It's one more piece of evidence showing that Republicans have given up on elections. It's not a free and fair election if you don't intend to concede if you lose.

The lie of voter fraud is a myth that justifies violence. The January 6 insurrection happened because Trump convinced his supporters that the election was stolen and that violence was necessary to save democracy. Elder's website engaged in the same kind of incitement, insinuating that his supporters might have to reach for "the ammo box" if their legal challenge to Newsom's as-yet-non-existent-victory were unsuccessful.

The Republicans are stoking rage and paranoia that regularly bubbles over into intimidation and even violence. Nationwide, elections officials are being deluged with death threats from people who believe the electoral fraud conspiracy theories that now constitute the core of the GOP's ideology. A private detective hired by a local Republican organization held an innocent air conditioning repairman at gunpoint in Texas because he believed the man's truck contained "stolen ballots." Republicans are also using these conspiracy theories to justify voter suppression laws in states across the country.

Trump is out of power, but the legacy of Trumpism lives on. Trump's most enduring and destructive legacy may be the way he normalized frivolous charges of election fraud.