Republican Assault on Democracy and March Towards Fascism

[goldenvalley]

For those of us of a certain age the comparison to Nixon is meaningful. But we are becoming fewer in number.  We and the "media" and pundits must stop short handing the description of the behavior by saying Nixon-like.  Then we have to explain both what Nixon did and how DeSantis is similar or identical.  Too many words for our social media driven conversations.

[goldenvalley]

Looks like the right wing has been searching for something to support a "you are too" argument in response to the repeated replays of Senator Hawley moving rather quickly in a Capitol hallway during 1/6.  It showed up on a Facebook post and was flagged by Meta and analyzed by PoliticFact.

"‘JUST SH.UT YOUR MOUTH’ watch Chris Murphy RUN like COWARD after Ted Cruz EXPLODED on him with facts," reads the description of the video in the April 9 post.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The video is from Sept. 14, when Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., objected to a unanimous consent request from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in connection with a Republican-backed school safety bill that would allow school districts to put more armed police in schools.

Murphy walked off the Senate floor as Cruz resumed speaking, criticizing the Democrat and his colleagues, Fox News reported at the time. But then Murphy returned to the floor to accuse Cruz of engaging in political theater.

When Cruz took the mic yet again, he said that if Murphy had "just shut his mouth, just sat there," the proposed bill would have been passed into law.

The video in the Facebook post shows this exchange. What it doesn’t show (because it didn’t happen that way): Cruz exploding at Murphy and telling him to "just shut your mouth" as the Democratic senator flees.

[LFC]

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the terrorism thread but since they are actually Republican government officials, I thought it fit better here. Welcome to Oklahoma.

A Southeast Oklahoma newspaper says a secret recording reveals McCurtain County commissioners discussing hiring hitmen to kill and bury local newspaper reporters during a public meeting.

The newspaper wrote about the audio recordings in this weekend’s edition of the McCurtain Gazette-News, and told News 9 in Oklahoma City that a Gazette reporter, Bruce Willingham, secretly recorded the meeting hoping to find evidence of illegal meetings.

Instead, Willingham said he heard commissioners discussing killing the paper’s reporters.

Willingham told News 9 he didn’t think the conversations he heard on the recordings could be spun as a joke.

Voices Willingham identifies as county commissioner Mark Jennings and Sheriff Kevin Clardy also discussed burying bodies.

Jennings: I know where two big deep holes are here if you ever need them.

Sheriff: I’ve got an excavator.

Jennings: Well, these are already pre-dug.

Later in the recording, a voice Willingham identifies as County Commissioner Mark Jennings, lamented the discontinuation of lynchings with the sheriff, stating he would run for sheriff if he could beat up a black man and throw him in jail.

Jennings: Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a d--- rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.

A press release from the governor’s office stated Governor Stitt called for the county officials’ resignation, and said there is no place for such hateful rhetoric in Oklahoma.

[LFC]

More on Corrupt Christian Justice Kacsmaryk, who clearly bore false witness when he swore to uphold the Constitution, and his ideological, not judicial, decision.

The Texas case illustrates how judges apply their own reading of science to a thorny political question. Kacsmaryk’s reasoning echoes Justice Anthony Kennedy’s approach in a Supreme Court case known as the Carhart decision, which restricted doctors from performing a second-trimester abortion procedure.

In that 2007 case, Kennedy asserted that women experience psychological harms from having an abortion. Yet scientific studies show that the harm of denying an abortion and forcing women to birth are greater and longer lasting, with higher rates of death. Law influences public discourse, and these statements about psychological harms are now commonplace in anti-abortion communications. These arguments were central to the Texas judge’s critique of the FDA’s scientific process.

Here's the other decision in opposition of Kacsmaryk's.

Drastic rulings potentially altering the future of medical abortions in this country have been coming near daily in the last few weeks, resulting in a furious frenzy of filings that quickly made their way up to the Supreme Court.

Judge Thomas Rice from the Eastern District of Washington has been caught up in the maelstrom, as he handed down a decision last Friday ruling that 17 states plus Washington D.C. have to keep mifepristone available as usual in their borders.

That ruling came a few minutes after Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in the northern district of Texas ruled to stay the Food and Drug Administration’s original approval of mifepristone nationwide. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a few days later, disagreed with Kacsmaryk on the FDA’s original approval of the drug, but upheld challenges to the FDA’s rules expanding access to the drug since 2016. The Supreme Court granted the Justice Department’s emergency motion to stay the Texas and Fifth Circuit Court rulings Friday afternoon.

Rice responded to government lawyers’ request to tell them how to navigate the conflict on Thursday. But he didn’t do just that. In a six-page ruling (more like four without the cover sheet and signature), he spent three pages quoting the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at length in regards to the danger of district judges issuing national injunctions.

It’s an extremely thinly veiled critique of Kacsmaryk, who does this all the time. These kinds of national injunctions are also a critical aspect of the right-wing judge shopping process that has so rewarded ideological litigants. They locate a judge — often a Trump appointee, often in a one- or two-judge division, often Kacsmaryk — and file their lawsuit in his court.

Kacsmaryk, who used to work as an anti-abortion lawyer, gets virtually every case filed in Amarillo. And he also has the power to issue national injunctions — e.g. to make his ruling bind the entire country. Kacsmaryk, who’s nakedly motivated by politics, doesn’t hesitate to wield this enormous power early and often.

At best, these litigants then get the dice roll of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel, which, because of the makeup of the Fifth Circuit, will likely be stacked with Republican appointees. At worst, they get whatever policy they want instituted across the country for however many weeks, months, or years it holds before getting overturned on appeal.

Rice, clearly seething, acted with judicial restraint in his ruling: He applied it only to the states and district involved in the case.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 17, 2023 16:30:13 GMT LFC said:

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the terrorism thread but since they are actually Republican government officials, I thought it fit better here. Welcome to Oklahoma.

A Southeast Oklahoma newspaper says a secret recording reveals McCurtain County commissioners discussing hiring hitmen to kill and bury local newspaper reporters during a public meeting.

The newspaper wrote about the audio recordings in this weekend’s edition of the McCurtain Gazette-News, and told News 9 in Oklahoma City that a Gazette reporter, Bruce Willingham, secretly recorded the meeting hoping to find evidence of illegal meetings.

Instead, Willingham said he heard commissioners discussing killing the paper’s reporters.

Willingham told News 9 he didn’t think the conversations he heard on the recordings could be spun as a joke.

Voices Willingham identifies as county commissioner Mark Jennings and Sheriff Kevin Clardy also discussed burying bodies.

Jennings: I know where two big deep holes are here if you ever need them.

Sheriff: I’ve got an excavator.

Jennings: Well, these are already pre-dug.

Later in the recording, a voice Willingham identifies as County Commissioner Mark Jennings, lamented the discontinuation of lynchings with the sheriff, stating he would run for sheriff if he could beat up a black man and throw him in jail.

Jennings: Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a d--- rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.

A press release from the governor’s office stated Governor Stitt called for the county officials’ resignation, and said there is no place for such hateful rhetoric in Oklahoma.

snark LOL, just joking.  Can't y'all recognize gallows humor when you see it?  snark

This is another example of bar room talk ending up in a public meeting setting...totally juvenile behavior that any serious person knows does not belong in a commission meeting. Do we have no grownups anymore?

[LFC]

Apr 17, 2023 18:25:09 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apr 17, 2023 16:30:13 GMT LFC said:

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the terrorism thread but since they are actually Republican government officials, I thought it fit better here. Welcome to Oklahoma.

snark LOL, just joking.  Can't y'all recognize gallows humor when you see it?  snark

This is another example of bar room talk ending up in a public meeting setting...totally juvenile behavior that any serious person knows does not belong in a commission meeting. Do we have no grownups anymore?

Not in the GOP.

[LFC]

I'd never heard of this guy before but I'm lovin' him!

[LFC]

Nebraska, tying all their perceived enemies to white Christian nationalism into a little bundle.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 18, 2023 14:48:38 GMT LFC said:

Nebraska, tying all their perceived enemies to white Christian nationalism into a little bundle.

White women must be forced to reproduce with white men in large numbers.  That's the opposite of the past Chinese limit of one child per family.  Seems like the government is forcing people to do something or other...I thought that was un-Amurican

[LFC]

Well, now we know how Florida's CFO got his job. I hope he wiped his mouth before this interview.

[LFC]

Matthew Kacsmaryk, the right-wing's extremist, corrupt, go-to judge, hid information during his confirmation hearing. I wish I could say I was surprised but it seems to be par for the course for Republican nominees going right up to SCOTUS.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted to confirm Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. And boy, does she regret it.

Sure, she disagrees with his decision to try and block access to abortion medication. But a Washington Post report that he switched out his name on an article not disclosed during his confirmation process criticizing Obama administration policies on abortion and transgender people has the Alaska Republican hopping mad.

“You want to talk about the ultimate bait and switch? I feel like I got duped. I feel like voted for somebody based on what had been presented to me. And you do this? That is totally, totally wrong,” Murkowski said in an interview on Wednesday.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 20, 2023 14:39:02 GMT LFC said:

Matthew Kacsmaryk, the right-wing's extremist, corrupt, go-to judge, hid information during his confirmation hearing. I wish I could say I was surprised but it seems to be par for the course for Republican nominees going right up to SCOTUS.

“You want to talk about the ultimate bait and switch? I feel like I got duped. I feel like voted for somebody based on what had been presented to me. And you do this? That is totally, totally wrong,” Murkowski said in an interview on Wednesday.

Yeah and he's still a District Court judge.  Lie, cheat, steal, win the prize and there is very little anyone can do to withdraw the confirmation.  

[LFC]

Disney outflanked DeStalinist in more ways than one.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' new oversight board has discovered another "11th hour agreement" that allows Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) to set its own utility rates at its Orlando theme parks, the board's chairman said on Wednesday.

A Disney subsidiary, which provides utility services to the central Florida district that includes the Walt Disney World Resort, negotiated an agreement in February to extend its contract through 2032, Chairman Martin Garcia said at a public meeting. Disney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"Last Friday afternoon I learned for the first time about one of these new 11th hour agreements entered into between Disney and the district. This one relates to our utility services," Garcia said. "We'll have to evaluate the legality of that agreement, that essentially enables Disney to set their utility rates.

"I've never heard of such a thing," Garcia said.

The board was established to provide state oversight of a special district around Walt Disney World.

"Chairman" Garcia may have never "heard of such a thing" but long-term contracts are quite common. Nobody supplying large-scale utility services is going to do it on a year by year contract basis.

[LFC]

Man who joins the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party is shocked that leopards are eating his face.

Ed Krassenstein
@edkrassen

The 60 Minutes interview with Ray Epps won’t stop the conspiracy theories because once a conspiracy theorist gets an idea stuck their head, they don’t ever let it go. We’ve seen this with Seth Rich, the “stolen election” lies and Obama’s citizenship.

Ray Epps isn’t totally innocent here, but he’s also not an FBI agent. The DOJ didn’t charge him because you need evidence of wrongdoing to charge someone and he never even entered the Capitol. Infowars started the ridiculous conspiracy theory. That should tell you everything you need to know. The GOP just wants to blame someone other than their own for the January 6th events.

He chose the company he kept and now he's getting the same treatment that so many innocent people have faced from the side he chose. I can't find even a shred of sympathy for him.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 24, 2023 21:03:31 GMT LFC said:

Man who joins the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party is shocked that leopards are eating his face.

Ed Krassenstein
@edkrassen

The 60 Minutes interview with Ray Epps won’t stop the conspiracy theories because once a conspiracy theorist gets an idea stuck their head, they don’t ever let it go. We’ve seen this with Seth Rich, the “stolen election” lies and Obama’s citizenship.

Ray Epps isn’t totally innocent here, but he’s also not an FBI agent. The DOJ didn’t charge him because you need evidence of wrongdoing to charge someone and he never even entered the Capitol. Infowars started the ridiculous conspiracy theory. That should tell you everything you need to know. The GOP just wants to blame someone other than their own for the January 6th events.

He chose the company he kept and now he's getting the same treatment that so many innocent people have faced from the side he chose. I can't find even a shred of sympathy for him.

Yeah but as I mentioned in the Tucker thread, Epps might be part of the reason Tuckums is out. If true, I can maybe find a tiny particle of sympathy for him.

[LFC]

Apr 24, 2023 21:42:49 GMT goldenvalley said:

Yeah but as I mentioned in the Tucker thread, Epps might be part of the reason Tuckums is out. If true, I can maybe find a tiny particle of sympathy for him.

For me still no sympathy, but perhaps a bit of gratitude.

[LFC]

This is "freedumb" when the fascists take control.

In a seemingly long gone era – before the Trump presidency, and Covid, and the 2020 election – Doni Chamberlain would get the occasional call from a displeased reader who had taken issue with one of her columns. They would sometimes call her stupid and use profanities.

Today, when people don’t like her pieces, Chamberlain said, they tell her she’s a communist who doesn’t deserve to live. One local conservative radio host said she should be hanged.

Chamberlain, 66, has worked as a journalist in Shasta county, California, for nearly 30 years.

Never before in this far northern California outpost has she witnessed such open hostility towards the press.

She has learned to take precautions. No meeting sources in public. She livestreams rowdy events where the crowd is less than friendly and doesn’t walk to her car without scanning the street. Sometimes, restraining orders can be necessary tools.
An American flag hangs from the railing of a bridge overlooking a river and lush green hills.
Far-right county throws out voting machines – with nothing to replace them
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These practices have become crucial in the last three years, she said, as she’s documented the county’s shift to the far right and the rise of an ultraconservative coalition into the area’s highest office. Shasta, Chamberlain said, is in the midst of a “perfect storm” as different hard-right factions have joined together to form a powerful political force with outside funding and publicity from fringe figures.

The new majority, backed by militia members, anti-vaxxers, election deniers and residents who have long felt forgotten by governments in Sacramento and Washington, has fired the county health officer and done away with the region’s voting system. Politically moderate public officials have faced bullying, intimidation and threats of violence. County meetings have turned into hours-long shouting matches.

Chamberlain and her team at A News Cafe, the news site she runs, have covered it all. Her writing has made her a public enemy of the conservative crowd intent on remaking the county. Far-right leaders have confronted her at rallies and public meetings, mocking and berating her. At a militia-organized protest in 2021, the crowd screamed insults.

The response of parts of her community has left her shocked: “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be to be a journalist. I shouldn’t go to my car afraid one of these guys is gonna bash me in the head with a baseball bat,” she said on a beautiful spring day in Redding late last month.

But it has left her with a sense of urgency, a determination to warn readers about a movement that shows no signs of slowing down and could have national repercussions as extremists try to create a framework that could be replicated elsewhere. “I can’t imagine how bad things can get here,” she said.

[LFC]

More fascism.

Montana’s Republican-controlled legislature is punishing the state’s first trans representative for speaking out about proposed anti-trans legislation by refusing to recognize her to speak on any bills moving forward.

On Thursday, State Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D) pointed out she wasn’t being called on at all during a debate about defining sex in state law as not including trans people. “No amount of silencing tactics will deter me from standing up for the rights of the transgender community. This year, I have lost friends to suicide, and I have listened to the heart-wrenching stories of families dealing with suicide attempts, trans youth fleeing the state, and people being attacked on the side of the road—all due to legislation like this,” Zephyr said in a statement. “I will not apologize for speaking with clarity and precision about the harm these bills cause.”

A rules committee decided that the leader of the State House can opt to not recognize individuals without giving an explanation, Zephyr said. “This decision is a direct assault on the principles of our democracy and serves to silence the voice of my community, as well as the 11,000 constituents I represent.”

Zephyr is being silenced for having spoken out against an anti-trans bill on Tuesday. “This body should be ashamed,” she’d said. “If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”

[goldenvalley]

Apr 26, 2023 21:58:11 GMT LFC said:

This is "freedumb" when the fascists take control.

In a seemingly long gone era – before the Trump presidency, and Covid, and the 2020 election – Doni Chamberlain would get the occasional call from a displeased reader who had taken issue with one of her columns. They would sometimes call her stupid and use profanities.

Today, when people don’t like her pieces, Chamberlain said, they tell her she’s a communist who doesn’t deserve to live. One local conservative radio host said she should be hanged.

Chamberlain, 66, has worked as a journalist in Shasta county, California, for nearly 30 years.

She is great, as is the registrar of voters up there who has also been threatened.  That's State of Jefferson land, an area that has wanted to secede from California for years now. The timber industry has declined so some folks have time on their hands. They've been complaining that Sacramento ignores them since forever and ever.  Meanwhile their schools get money, their roads are paved...the usual rural area short sightedness.  

What is a bit different is that there is a guy who is bankrolling some of it. Named Reverge Anselmo (my brain reads the 1st name as Revenge), he's turned over about $1 M to various PACs active in the area.

After weeks of rumors that Reverge Anselmo was riding to the rescue of Shasta County’s flailing rightwing political movement, the Connecticut multimillionaire has donated $100,000 to the newly formed Water Users Committee, just in time for the Nov. 8 midterm elections, according to forms filed yesterday with the Shasta County Elections department.

Well-known local Tea Party activist Lyndia Kent is listed as the Water Users Committee treasurer. She and her like-minded activist brother Mark Kent were involved with the Shasta General Purpose Committee and the Liberty Committee political action committees, which collectively received more than $830,000 from Anselmo during the past two years.

Roughly half of that amount was spent on the successful recall of former District 2 Supervisor Leonard Moty earlier this year. The other half was spent on a failed effort to install rightwing candidates in the elected offices of County Clerk, District Attorney and Superintendent of Schools in the June primary election.

With his latest donation, Anselmo, one of three heirs to a billion dollar fortune his late father made as a satellite TV pioneer, has now given well over $1 million to ultraconservative political candidates in Shasta County since bankrolling District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones’ 2020 campaign with $110,000.

He tried to start a winery and affiliated businesses in the county a number of years ago and couldn't get the permits to do so.  He no longer lives in California, let alone in Shasta County.

[LFC]

The threats of violence from the MAGAt brown shirts continues to cause poll workers to leave. AFAIC anybody caught making such a threat should face automatic jail time. This is a direct attack on America.

Counties across the country are likely to see massive turnover in their local election administration before the 2024 election, a new study finds.

On Tuesday, the Brennan Center for Justice released a survey which found that about one in five local officials will have never worked a presidential election by the time the 2024 race rolls around. Out of 10,974 officials polled, 21% of them either began serving after the 2020 election or said they were unlikely to stay until the 2024 cycle.

“This rate of turnover is equivalent to one to two local election officials leaving office every day since the 2020 election,” the study said.

The officials polled cited threats and harassment – which have plagued the field since former president Donald Trump started propagating the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him – as rationale for their decisions.

“Nearly three in four feel that threats against election officials have increased in recent years,” the study said. “Over half say they are concerned that threats, harassment, and intimidation will harm retention and recruitment; likewise, nearly half are concerned about the safety of their colleagues and/or staff.”

According to the study, nearly one in three local officials had been threatened, harassed or abused personally for their work, while about a quarter said they knew of others who’d left their jobs “at least in part because of fear for their safety, increased threats, or intimidation.”

Local election officials have faced an uptick in harassment since 2020. A 2021 study found that one in three election officials felt unsafe at their jobs.

Seasoned industry vets are resigning at a rapid pace: Tommy Gong, who worked as clerk-recorder in San Luis Obispo County, California, left the job in 2021 after receiving a note that said “We The People are coming for your corrupt head.”

[goldenvalley]

Speaking of elections and Shasta County, CA

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to allocate millions of taxpayer dollars to pay for seven new employees who will assist in the county’s switch to manual ballot tallying. But the man behind the switch is paying a large price, too.

Conservative Supervisor Kevin Crye, who has perpetuated the claim that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden, was served recall papers at the board meeting.

In March, Shasta became the first county in California to pivot to a manual tally. The county’s contract with Dominion Voting Systems ended in January, and after right-wing news outlets and commentators spread the falsehood that the machines were rigged, board members decided not to renew it; instead of replacing it with different machines, they opted for the controversial decision to count ballots by hand at great expense.

Chief fiscal officer Erin Bertain warned the board on Tuesday that the decision to hand count votes could cost the county at least $3 million through the 2024-2025 fiscal year, because the county will likely need to hire 1,500 ballot counters for the 2024 election. There are nearly 112,000 registered voters in Shasta County; in the last presidential election, 94,084 people turned out to vote.

And here's something interesting:

Mike Lindell, the My Pillow CEO and noted election denier, has thrown his support behind the Board and Crye specifically, and even offered to pay for any future legal fees if the county is sued for its decision to pivot to a manual tally.

I wonder where the county will find 7 people willing to take the jobs to switch the system and 1500 ballot counters.  It takes about 4 people for every one ballot to make sure the chain of custody is documented and to count.  

[LFC]

And this is what happens when you're governed by a bunch of know-nothing f***wits. They're too ignant to grasp how much their simple, "common sense" ideas will actually cost.

[pnwguy]

Apr 27, 2023 20:23:09 GMT LFC said:

And this is what happens when you're governed by a bunch of know-nothing f***wits. They're too ignant to grasp how much their simple, "common sense" ideas will actually cost.

That's a big part of the narrative of Tom Nichol's book from a few years ago, The Death Of Expertise.  A huge part of the 'Murican voter population has become Cliff Claven and is absolutely certain they know as much or more than any expert in virtually any field.  I'm listening to the audiobook version this week.

[AnBr]

Dunning–Kruger effect.

[LFC]

DeStalinist's attack on actual education continues.

A longtime top University of Florida official is out in what is President Ben Sasse's first major leadership shakeup since taking office.

Sasse sent out an email late Friday evening announcing that longtime Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Charlie Lane is no longer with the university. The abrupt departure comes just two months after Sasse took the helm at the flagship university.

Lane, who has been with the university for nearly a decade, has been responsible for overseeing numerous university-wide functions, including information technology, human resources, audits, business and real estate. He was also the leader in bridging a relationship between the school and city of Gainesville.

"I want to let you know that we've made a change in the leadership of UF's operation," the former Republican Nebraska senator wrote late Friday. "Effective today, Charlie Lane, chief operating officer, is no longer with the University of Florida."

Sasse went on to say that the university over the next few weeks will begin a "strategic review" and launch a national search for a replacement. In the interim, UF's Vice President for Business Affairs Curtis Reynolds and Associate Vice President for Enterprise Projects Colt Little will split the duties that Lane was responsible for.