Conservatism News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

Texas Wants to Ban Credit Card Companies From Processing Abortion Pill Transactions

Republicans in Texas are really escalating their assault on abortion access and finding new ways to go after people who don’t want to be pregnant. State Rep. Drew Spring (R) proposed a bill Thursday that would make it a felony for credit card companies to “process a transaction” for abortion pills sales. On top of that, the proposed law would allow any citizen to sue a credit card company for allowing that sale to happen.

If you’re confused as to how someone (“a person” as in the bill’s language, not law enforcement) would find out that someone else has used a credit card to purchase abortion pills in an illegal fashion (it’s not illegal right now), you’re comprehension is great! It is confusing and makes no tesense. But since the Supreme Court allowed the citizen civil lawsuits to go into effect with S.B. 8 (remember those $10,000 civil suits?), it seems like civil lawsuits among citizens is the trendy way to enforce laws these days.

This isn’t even the first bill this week in Texas that is trying to monitor abortion seekers. On Tuesday, state Rep. Steve Toth introduced a bill that says internet service providers “shall make every reasonable and technologically feasible effort to block Internet access to information or material intended to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug.”

Among the sites that Toth wants blocked are telehealth sites that don’t send abortion pills to Texas as well as Plan C (which supplies information) and Aid Access (which will supply you with abortion pills).

This bill also uses the citizen civil lawsuit framework. The proposed language wants to criminalize abortion funds for helping people leave the state of Texas, even if the abortion is performed in a state where it’s legal. This is particularly egregious because on Feb. 24, a federal ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman found that abortion funds can provide financial support to people seeking abortions outside of the state. “No extremist, anti-abortion politician should be able to prevent Texans from leaving the state to seek abortion care. All Texans deserve the right to control their reproductive lives and futures,” said the plantiffs. “Texans should be able to access abortion care in their own communities when they need it without delay, and we’re looking forward to supporting Texans who are forced to leave the state to access abortion.”

more: https://jezebel.com/texas-wants-to-ban- ... 1850185716

The republican party has officially lost its mother fucking mind!

[weatheriscool]

The Montana Legislature: Helping you run every aspect of your sin-filled life

What’s going on at the Montana Legislature? And why is this happening? Two questions that I have heard being asked because of the kind of proposed resolutions and bills that are being reported in local media.

Well, let’s try to come up with a valid answer.

With their super-majority “mandate” the Republicans, led by their mis-named “Freedom Caucus” have set about the task of imposing their will on the citizens of Montana. Self-anointed as the keepers of the flame to protect you from yourself, they think GOP stands for “Guarantee Our Purity.”

So, while they mouth “local control,” “parental responsibility,” and “smaller government” they are drafting and passing bills that tell you what medical care you can have, what books you can read, what events you can take your children to, what schools and libraries can have on their shelves and they even want to dictate to the medical profession what procedures and medications they can prescribe.

They believe their mandate isn’t just from the voters, it’s from their god. They know it is their god, because he hates the same people they do – trans-children, LGBTQIA+ people, people of color, and anyone who doesn’t agree with them. We can tell they have little or no empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, because of the way they react to people from other walks of life.

They have an ideology that guides them in making these decisions for you and your family. The great thing about an ideology is that you don’t have to think, or rely on facts, or explore whether something is true or false. Their ideology has all those answers and is all that they need. Their particular ideology is some kind of “Christianity” that has nothing to do with the teachings of Christ. Some of them believe their god talks to them and has given them “the word.”

https://www.newsfromthestates.com/artic ... illed-life

[firestar464]

"Drag shows, drag queens, Victoria's Secret, and other lingerie catalogs, apparently arouse prurient feelings or “lustful excitement” in some of these Republicans, so they feel they have to protect your children from these experiences."

*raises eyebrows*

[weatheriscool]

DeSantis and Florida GOP push hard-right agenda, including expanding 'Don't Say Gay'

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Banning preferred pronouns at schools. Mandating K-12 libraries immediately remove and review books that are flagged as inappropriate. Prohibiting majors in gender studies.

Florida’s Republican leaders, who have restricted how race and gender are taught in schools and colleges, are poised to go even further in the next few months as they prepare to hand Gov. Ron DeSantis a new round of education victories he can tout while running for president.

The sizable agenda ranges from targeting school unions to greatly expanding the use of state dollars to send children to private schools. GOP lawmakers, who have supermajorities in the House and Senate, are also gearing up to cancel diversity, equity and inclusion programs at colleges.

“Whether it is education or health, keeping parents in the dark is unacceptable,” state Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said in a statement. “Our schools should be teaching students to respect and obey their parents, not hiding critical information from them.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/0 ... r-00085545

[weatheriscool]

Democratic AGs Condemn DeSantis Administration's Transphobic Request

(CNN) -- A coalition of 16 Democratic attorneys general criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his administration's request to public colleges in the state for information about students receiving gender-affirming care, saying it intimidates physicians and could have a chilling effect on students seeking the care.

The coalition, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, said in a letter sent on Friday to DeSantis, a Republican, that they have an "interest in protecting the rights and medical decisions of the many students and staff members in the Florida state university system who are citizens of our states."

"The information request you have issued threatens to undermine the private medical decisions made by transgender individuals together with their families and health care providers and risks the lives and welfare of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities," the letter says.

It's unclear why DeSantis' administration is seeking this information. CNN has reached out to DeSantis' office for comment on the letter.

Gender-affirming care -- particularly for trans youth -- has recently come under assault by conservatives, with several GOP-led states moving to restrict it for minors over the last few years. LGBTQ advocates and their supporters have said that targeting the care could have dire consequences for a vulnerable group that suffers from uniquely high rates of suicide.

https://www.advocate.com/politics/desan ... ce=twitter

[weatheriscool]

Trump at CPAC Pitches Sending Military to Cities 'Until Law and Order Is Restored'

Former President Donald Trump promised attendees at an ultra-conservative gathering Saturday night that he would use a second term in the White House to implement an authoritarian vision for policing crime that would include deploying the National Guard into US cities with high crime rates.

“I will send in the National Guard until law and order is restored. You know we’re not supposed to do that,” Trump said in his address closing out the annual Conservative Political Action Conference conference in Oxon Hill, Md., where he easily won a presidential straw poll of attendees.

Trump used his diatribe against cities to zero in on nearby Washington, D.C., whose federal prohibition on fully governing itself has drawn increased attention in recent days, as President Joe Biden and Congress appear poised to block the district’s divisive crime bill from becoming law.

The CPAC crowd, made up largely of right-wing political supporters and various officials from his former administration, stood and applauded when Trump called for full federal control of the city that is also the nation’s capital. “Frankly the federal government should take over control and management of Washington, D.C.,” Trump said, adding at one point, “I wouldn’t even call the mayor.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-cpac-p ... 03463.html

[firestar464]

https://apnews.com/article/trump-desant ... e89f0c8ccc

Musk reading this be like "whatev"

[weatheriscool]

Former President Donald Trump Calls For The Arrest Of the January 6 Committee For Treason As New Footage Of Capitol Raid Emerges

As Tucker Carlson continues to release more footage from the January 6 investigation, former president Donald Trump has decided to chime in.

The business CEO turned politician is calling for not only the release of those arrested for the attempted insurrection, but also for the arrest of the committee ruling over the investigation.

Trump claims that the recently released footage of the “January 6 Shaman” being escorted around the capitol “totally discredits” the entire operation and calls those in charge of the investigation “political hacks and thugs.”

In a recent Truth Social post the former president shared a video of a capitol cop wearing a MAGA resigning from the force believing he didn’t see any future for himself in that position.

The post included a statement in all caps which read: “GREAT JOB BY TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.”

He continued, “They knowingly refused to show the Videos that mattered. They should be tried for Fraud and Treason, and those imprisoned and being persecuted should be exonerated and released, NOW.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA18o0aS

[weatheriscool]

Idaho Senate goes full Nazi
https://cdapress.com/news/2023/mar/09/s ... blic-fire/

The Republican supermajority in the Idaho Senate passed a bill Monday that repeals a state law banning groups of people from parading in public with firearms in any Idaho city or town.

[funkervogt]

I finally clicked on this thread to see what it was about. Instead of it being full of articles that show the perspectives of politically conservative people, it's full of articles that criticize them and make them look bad.

The thread should be renamed "Anti-conservative news and discussions".

[firestar464]

Well, it's called "Conserv. News and Discussions" as it's about conservatism. It isn't really a thread that is intended as support or opposition. You're right that the majority of posters are opposed to conservatism, though.

[weatheriscool]

DeSantis' woke war is unpopular in Florida

But the poll offers warning signs about those proposals, showing they remain broadly unpopular among the same voters that delivered a sweeping landslide for Republicans last fall.

A Florida GOP plan to ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a much stricter rule than the state’s current 15 weeks, is opposed by 75% of voters, compared to just 22% who back it.

DeSantis’s move to allow unfettered concealed carry of guns is even more unpopular, with just 21% supporting it.

Powerful majorities of Sunshine State voters in the poll also support a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational use of marijuana and oppose DeSantis’s plans to halt efforts to increase diversity in public colleges and restrict discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.


“Many voters we spoke to are not so thrilled about some of DeSantis’s most recent proposals in his war on ‘woke’ culture,” Binder said.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politi ... story.html

You'd think these people would vote against Desantist and his gang of thugs?

[caltrek]

I finally clicked on this thread to see what it was about. Instead of it being full of articles that show the perspectives of politically conservative people, it's full of articles that criticize them and make them look bad.

The thread should be renamed "Anti-conservative news and discussions".

I think that it is certainly true that a majority of news sources cited in this thread are liberal. Still, the thread does include citations from National Review and The Bulwark. More open to question are Newsweek, The Business Insider and various local news channels. Are those sources liberal or conservative? There was a time where I thought of Newsweek as being a mildly conservative news source.

While most of the news sources cited (excluding the above) are more to the left, they often sympathetically cited conservatives such as Laura Boebert uncharacteristically criticizing Marci Greene, Liz Cheney, conservative scholar Henry Olsen, Mitt Romney, Lindsay Graham, David Jolly and Kevin Down.

Of course, a lot depends on what you define as "conservative". In most cases, these "conservatives" were criticizing more right-wing extremist views.

A thesis I have been trying to push, regrettably largely ignored by other posters in this thread, is the Trump and the MAGA crowd are so extreme that they do not deserve to be considered "conservative." Nihilist perhaps, fascists maybe, or just plain batshit crazy, but not "conservative" in any sensible sense of the word. Citation of the conservates I list are often very much an effort to reassert the philosophical doctrine of conservatism in the face of that word being hijacked by folks who are anything but "conservative." Sometimes by spokespersons who are very inconsistent in that regards. Certainly, Laura Boebert and Lindsey Graham have suffered from such inconsistency.

Yes, more often than not, coverage of these "conservatives" involved citing "liberal" sources.

Edit: Removal of the word "not" before liberal in first sentence of my reply to reflect my original intent. Also, to correct the spelling of "inconsistent" "inconsistency" and "regards."

[weatheriscool]

21 South Carolina GOP Lawmakers Propose Death Penalty for Women Who Have Abortions

MEMBERS OF THE South Carolina State House are considering a bill that would make a woman who has an abortion in the state eligible for the death penalty.

The “South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023” would amend the state’s code of laws, redefining “person” to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception, affording that zygote “equal protection under the homicide laws of the state” — up to and including the ultimate punishment: death.

The bill was authored by Rep. Rob Harris, a registered nurse and member of the Freedom Caucus; it has attracted 21 co-sponsors to date. (Two former co-sponsors — Rep. Matt Leber and Rep. Kathy Landing — asked to have their names removed as sponsors of the bill. Leber and Landing could not be reached for comment.)

Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who represents South Carolina in the U.S. House, took to the floor on Friday to call attention to the bill, which she sees as part of a “deeply disturbing” trend. (Multiple Texas lawmakers have floated the idea of executing women who have abortions in the past. Those bills, proposed before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, failed.)

“To see this debate go to the dark places, the dark edges, where it has gone on both sides of the aisle, has been deeply disturbing to me as a woman, as a female legislator, as a mom, and as a victim of rape. I was raped as a teenager at the age of 16,” Mace said. “This debate ought to be a bipartisan debate where we balance the rights of women and we balance the right to life. But we aren’t having that conversation here in D.C. We aren’t having that conversation at home. We aren’t having that conversation with fellow state lawmakers.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... 234695566/

[weatheriscool]

Second voting machine company approved for lawsuit against Fox News. This time for $2.7 billion!
Goodbye Fox News!

A defamation lawsuit against Fox News by voting machine company Smartmatic appears to be headed to trial after the New York Supreme Court gave the green light last week.

An analysis by The Guardian found that the $2.7 billion lawsuit could be "more dangerous" than the $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. In both cases, Fox News personalities are accused of falsely claiming President Joe Biden won the election because of a voting machine conspiracy.

"The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four," Smartmatic's 2021 complaint began. "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable."

The complaint also noted: "Defendants did not want Biden to win the election. They wanted President Trump to win re-election … They also saw an opportunity to capitalize on President Trump’s popularity by inventing a story.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 6008&ei=36

[weatheriscool]

The Supreme Court Just Keeps Deciding It Should Be Even More Powerful
Whatever conservative ethos of restraint there once was has vanished.

By Kimberly Wehle

By its own maneuvering, the modern Supreme Court has made itself the most powerful branch of government. Superior to Congress. Superior to the president. Superior to the states. Superior to precedent, procedure, and norms. In effect, superior to the people.



Most talked about in this regard, of course, is the Court’s ending of long-established reproductive rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But the assertion of extreme power extends well beyond the issue of abortion.


For example, in a case called TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, the conservative majority in 2021 narrowed Congress’s Article I power to give consumers the right to sue over data deliberately mishandled by credit-reporting agencies, reasoning that the legislature can only recognize theories of harm analogous to ones that existed as a matter of “American history and tradition.” And this year, the Court is considering a handful of lawsuits by states challenging the exercise of discretion by the executive branch on the theory that federal policy affects state budgets, which could effectively enable states—and thus the Court—to function as the ultimate overseers of federal policy. One of those, Haaland v. Brackeen, is poised to possibly upend roughly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent that recognizes American Indian tribes as political sovereigns, as well as Congress’s plenary power over American Indian affairs. The outcome of the case, which involves a decades-old federal statute that sets child-welfare standards for American Indian children, could put hundreds of U.S. tribal treaties at risk as well.
The mere fact that the Court agreed to consider these and other extraordinary claims this term exposes the right-wing majority’s appetite for asserting massive power under the auspices of judicial review.

In a November essay for the Harvard Law Review, the Stanford Law School professor Mark A. Lemley describes this Court as an “imperial” one that has embarked on “a radical restructuring of American law across a range of fields and disciplines.” .The means run along two lines: substantive changes to the Constitution made under the guise of interpretation, and procedural power grabs executed despite traditions of deference. This has pushed our constitutional system dangerously off balance, with little opportunity for correct

ion

MUCH MORE:https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... bs/673347/

[weatheriscool]

Oklahoma Republican praises 'the rod' in rejecting bill to ban corporal punishment of disabled kids - RawStory

Republicans in Oklahoma this week rejected a piece of legislation that would have barred using corporal punishment on disabled children, with one GOP lawmaker saying that using physical violence against kids with disabilities was part of God's plan.

Link: https://www.rawstory.com/corporal-punis ... -oklahoma/

[caltrek]

Oklahoma Republican praises 'the rod' in rejecting bill to ban corporal punishment of disabled kids - RawStory

Republicans in Oklahoma this week rejected a piece of legislation that would have barred using corporal punishment on disabled children, with one GOP lawmaker saying that using physical violence against kids with disabilities was part of God's plan.

Link: https://www.rawstory.com/corporal-punis ... -oklahoma/

Whatever happened to the good old days when "conservatives" sought to minimize the negative intrusive effects of government on our everyday lives?

Suddenly, it would seem, there seems to be no aspect of our private lives that they are not willing to disrupt, even at the cost of traumatizing children.

[weatheriscool]

Oklahoma Republican praises 'the rod' in rejecting bill to ban corporal punishment of disabled kids - RawStory

Republicans in Oklahoma this week rejected a piece of legislation that would have barred using corporal punishment on disabled children, with one GOP lawmaker saying that using physical violence against kids with disabilities was part of God's plan.

Link: https://www.rawstory.com/corporal-punis ... -oklahoma/

Whatever happened to the good old days when "conservatives" sought to minimize the negative intrusive effects of government on our everyday lives?

Suddenly, it would seem, there seems to be no aspect of our private lives that they are not willing to disrupt, even at the cost of traumatizing children.

They have been watching Putin, Kim jong un and the taliban and came to the conclusion that they're right. We're in a lot of trouble if we don't defeat these freaks.

[weatheriscool]

11th Circuit upholds injunction on DeSantis' 'Stop WOKE Act' pending appeal
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/ ... voa-v-diaz


FIRE
@TheFIREorg

BREAKING: Federal appeals court says Florida’s universities can’t enforce the Stop WOKE Act pending appeal.
https://thefire.org/research-learn/elev ... voa-v-diaz


Federal judge’s order—in two lawsuits, one by FIRE, the other by @ACLU & @NAACP_LDF—directing Florida’s public universities not to enforce the law remains in place. Professors must be able to discuss subjects like race and gender without hesitation or fear of state reprisal.

Any law that limits the free exchange of ideas in university classrooms should lose in both the court of law and the court of public opinion.

FIRE filed its lawsuit in September.

"Without the freedom to engage in vigorous and robust debate about important issues and contentious concepts, a college education is just an exercise in memorizing facts and repeating government-approved viewpoints," said FIRE attorney @adamsteinbaugh. "That's not freedom or education."

More background: https://thefire.org/news/lawsuit-fire-c ... t-race-sex