This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1471096
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1471096
O/T but of interest
‘Twenty-three thousand Floridians died’: A settlement over DeSantis’ Covid-19 lies imperils campaign (msn.com)
Now, the Florida Health Department “will pay the plaintiffs’ $152,000 legal bill and resume regular posting of the data that DeSantis’s communications team insisted at the time was no longer necessary because cases had ‘significantly decreased’ and that Florida was ‘returning to normal.’”
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Covid is still among us. New variants are frequent. Eventually one will emerge like the Spanish flu did and then go on a killing spree. Unless people stay current with vaccinations and remember to wear that damn mask.
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That’s the problem right there…The governor’s concept of "normal " is so fucking aberrant and few have the courage to really challenge his half baked nonsense.
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“Substantively, they moved away from solely invoking their rights to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. They began, instead, emphasizing their right to creative expression and free speech, also protected by the First Amendment, as the foundation of their claims to exemptions”.
The free speech/creative expression exemption is bull. Thank you for spotlighting the way these fascists frame our human rights in conflict with each other. The natural law I was taught by Jesuits is an essential part of conservative Catholic teaching. It’s pure fantasy. Mechanistic nonsense.
The rube Christian Right may buy this stuff.
If Leonard Leo believes any of it, he’s a lot stupider than his record suggests.
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Biden raises $71 million in 3rd quarter, far outpacing Trump and the Republican field (msn.com)
Team Biden-Harris also reported strong grassroots enthusiasm, which grew in Q3 from the solid foundation built in Q2. Team Biden-Harris doubled its individual contributions since launch to a total of more than 1.4 million and has brought in over 240,000 new donors who did not contribute to the campaign in 2020. Additionally, Team Biden-Harris doubled the number of sustaining donors this quarter over last quarter , for a Democratic record total of over 112,000 people who have committed to donating every month. 34% percent of our donor universe are new donors since our 2020 campaign. In Q2, Team Biden-Harris’ grassroots fundraising program made up approximately ⅓ of the entire raise. In Q3, grassroots fundraising soared to 49% of overall revenue.
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Gee. Wish I could dodder up 71M in a quarter.
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By overturning these lower court decisions, the Supreme Court’s ruling upends this standard of human dignity as central to liberty.
The current radical corrupt SCOTUS piss all over human dignity…they have no regard for the laws they are pretending to uphold. Their unbridled power bodes poorly for the future of the America we all envisioned as that beacon of freedom to the world…the Roberts court is surely the most pathetic group of corrupt untouchables ever assembled…their destructive work continues to affect us all.
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Florida returning to normal?
Maybe stark raving normal.
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True! My hope is they quickly overdo it - which they are wont to do - and are brought down by their own hubris - yes, the how and when is unknown but, as we’re learning, things can break bad when a people are as divided, weakened and manipulated as we are today.
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The Pied Piper of Covid.
In reality, as DeSantis dismissed reporting on the pandemic as “media hysteria”, the Delta variant of the virus was just taking hold, and cases and fatalities spiked, to a record 385 a day in Florida by September 2021. Simultaneously, Florida led the nation in pediatric Covid hospitalizations.
Critics dubbed DeSantis “the Pied Piper of Covid, leading everybody off a cliff”, as he forged ahead with an executive order banning mask mandates in schools, having already signed legislation awarding himself veto power over coronavirus mandates set by municipalities.
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Regression to the mean people.
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Exactly so!
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None of these Christian Right people believe it, nor do those that support them with their radio air-time, their TV-shows, and their vast amounts of money. Not even their whores believe it.
They are frauds, fraudsters, and in it for the money and power, and “retribution” and revenge for ills done to them in the past. They are all Jerry Falwells, and actors. Like I’ve said, Mary Baker Eddy “evangelists.” They find their marks easily, in the political/corporate sphere, and in the public.
Frauds. Start telling that to them, in their face “You are a fraud!” Watch them melt.
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I’ve been reading about Alabama banning a book because the authors name was Gay. They should be consistent. I propose that they should ban all performances of Mack the Knife. Sure it was written by Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill, but it was based on a translation of The Begger’s Opera by John Gay. Naturally all his works and derivatives should be banned including Die Dreigroschenoper, Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, the recordings by Ella Fitzgerald and Bobby Darin. I’m up in the air about names that might sound similar to names from the original, but anyone named MacHeath should be pretty suspicious anyhow.
Life is jest and all things show it, I thought so once and now I know it.
Then again, “I’m not dead yet.”
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Not always, they burn with the fires of the inquisition (as was said of Mary Tudor). They’ll melt, but some of them meltdown.
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The short answer: Not in modern times, and not likely now either.
The United States Constitution gives the Senate the power to expel any member by a two-thirds vote.[1] This is distinct from the power over impeachment trials and convictions that the Senate has over executive and judicial federal officials: the Senate ruled in 1798 that senators could not be impeached, but only expelled, while debating the impeachment trial of William Blount, who had already been expelled.[2] Expulsion has not occurred since the Civil War.[1]
Censure, a lesser punishment which represents a formal statement of disapproval, has been more common since the start of the 20th century. Although censure carries no formal punishment, only one senator (Benjamin R. Tillman) of the nine to be censured has ever been re-elected. Unlike the House of Representatives, which also disciplines by reprimand, a censure is the weakest form of discipline the Senate issues.
Expelled senators[edit]
Year Senator Party State Reason
1797 William Blount Democratic-Republican Tennessee Treason and conspiracy to incite the Creek and Cherokee Indians to assist Great Britain in invading Spanish Florida.
1861 James M. Mason Democratic Virginia Supporting Confederate rebellion; Sebastian’s expulsion was posthumously reversed in 1877.
Robert M. T. Hunter Democratic
Thomas Lanier Clingman Democratic North Carolina
Thomas Bragg Democratic
James Chesnut Jr. Democratic South Carolina
Alfred O. P. Nicholson Democratic Tennessee
William K. Sebastian Democratic Arkansas
Charles B. Mitchel Democratic
John Hemphill Democratic Texas
Louis Wigfall Democratic
John C. Breckinridge Democratic Kentucky
1862 Trusten Polk Democratic Missouri
Waldo P. Johnson Democratic
Jesse D. Bright Democratic Indiana
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Well played.
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Republicans have always been good with framing the issue - “the moral majority” was neither moral nor a majority.
Immoral minoriry is more descriptive.
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