Conservatism News and Discussions

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Tucker Carlson Helped Broker The Deal That Got McCarthy The Speaker's Gavel

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson extracted concessions from Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), helping the California Republican to get the votes he needed from MAGA members of his caucus to become Speaker of the House, according to text messages obtained by Insider.

On Jan. 3, as McCarthy struggled to corral the votes he needed on the first day of the new Congress, Carlson made two demands on his prime time Fox News show.

Carlson claimed McCarthy could win the speakership if he released footage from the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot — which the former anchor falsely and repeatedly alleged was a peaceful protest. He also believed that McCarthy could seize the gavel if he appointed Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to lead the new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

More than a dozen far-right Republicans refused to vote for McCarthy for days and forced a historic 15 rounds of votes.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/tuck ... kers-gavel

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BREAKING: Arizona Supreme Court sanctions Kari Lake and her attorneys "

BREAKING: Arizona Supreme Court sanctions Kari Lake and her attorneys "ecause Lake’s attorney has made false factual statements to the Court."

The Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday ordered sanctions against former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's lawyers for "unequivocally false" claims made in court about 35,000 ballots added to last year's election vote count.

Attorneys for Gov. Katie Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, both Democrats, sought sanctions against Lake for bringing what they called a frivolous and unfounded lawsuit.

The order signed by Chief Justice Robert Brutinel declined to award Hobbs and Fontes their attorneys fees and said Lake's lawyers must pay $2,000 to the court clerk for repeatedly claiming it was an "undisputed fact" that 35,563 ballots were added to the results at Maricopa County’s third-party ballot processor, Runbeck Election Services. Hobbs, Fontes and Maricopa County all disputed the claim.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/po ... 177506007/

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Conservatives Have A New Target For Their Moral Panic: High School Musicals

Conservatives seem to agree that queer people are public enemy No. 1. So far, they’ve come for drag story hour,trans people in sports and now they’re dealing one of their lowest blows: Trying to ban high school theater productions that contain mildly gay themes.

This past January, a school in Ohio halted its production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” partly because one of the characters has two fathers, The Washington Post reported. Other high school productions with LGBTQ+ characters have been pulled all over the country — including the production of “Indecent” at a Florida school and “The Addams Family” in Pennsylvania.

Of course, banning school theater productions because of homophobia isn’t a new concept. In the early 2010s, “Rent” caused a moral panic all over the country, and high school productions of the play were canceled left and right. This time, though, the haters are being extra petty and going after plays with any sliver of queerness. This all feels like part of a larger and more concentrated push for queer erasure and an effort to blot out a space for young LGBTQ+ people.

In many places that do not accept LGBTQ+ people, high school theater programs can serve as the only space where they’re welcome and able to express themselves authentically and safely. To rob queer students of that community because of tangential characters who might or might not be gay is not only an unnecessary reach — it’s evil.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/conse ... r-AA1aN8R8

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[Time_Traveller]

That says alot about a state under the republicans.

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Florida law takes aim at teachers union that defied DeSantis
Source: AP

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Teachers and other government employees will have to write monthly checks if they want to stay in their union after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Tuesday banning automatic dues deductions from public employees’ paychecks,

The anti-union bill also gives employees the right to immediately quit a union for no reason and requires unions to recertify if the number of dues-paying members drops below 60% of those eligible to join.

“If you want to join, you can, but you write a check and you hand it over. That is gonna lead to more take-home pay for teachers,” DeSantis said at the bill-signing ceremony.

It was one of several bills that DeSantis signed that affect education, including new term limits for school board members, restrictions on student social media use and protections for teachers who report administrators they believe are violating state education policies.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/desantis-edu ... a79141889f

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Sen. Marsha Blackburn Proposes Armed Grandparents Guarding Schools

Granny, get your gun. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told a rapt Kayleigh McEnany Tuesday on Fox News that grandparents could join a force of armed military vets and retired police officers to protect schools from shootings. (Watch the video below.)

McEnany, Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary, was rapt as Blackburn promoted her SAFE Schools Act, which would supply $900 million to “harden schools” with more security. The proposal, which she introduced after a Nashville school shooting in March, does nothing to address the root of the problem: easy access to powerful guns.

“To have this grant pool and to allow local school systems and local law enforcement to work together to bring in veterans and retired law enforcement to serve as a security officer at a school — they know how to use weapons,” Blackburn said. “They know to de-escalate situations. I’ve talked to a lot of them. They like this idea. They are grandparents like we are — my husband and I are grandparents — and they want to be there to help protect children.”

Blackburn said she proposed something similar after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers. In that case, hundreds of law enforcement personnel were slow to act while the shooter carried out the massacre.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/marsha-b ... 269bb0d9bd

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Warnings not to visit Florida are global now. It is dangerous for many people. What a commentary
on Florida this governor, DeSantis is doing. I think it will effect those traveling to Florida for recreation. I find this chilling.

https://www.donotvisitflorida.com/

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Ron DeSantis Bans Credit Card Companies From Helping Track Gun Criminals
https://newrepublic.com/post/172712/ron ... -criminals

No paywall
https://archive.is/TlpZO

Just weeks ago, Ron DeSantis made it legal in Florida to conceal carry a gun without a permit, training, or even a background check.

And on Friday, he signed a bill to prevent credit card companies from tracking the sale of firearms and ammunition. The bill stops companies from helping track suspicious weapons purchases—an increasing concern while the United States is flooded with random shootings and mass shootings essentially every few hours.

Instead, DeSantis in rapid succession has made it easier for potentially violent people to conceal carry guns with no abandon, while making it more difficult for law enforcement to proactively respond when those carriers may have nefarious intentions.

Companies found in violation of the bill will be fined up to $10,000.

Credit card companies had expressed willingness to adopt the gun-tracking practice, which pretty much involves ascribing a distinct four-digit “merchant category code” for sales at gun businesses. Such codes are already used to distinguish purchases from oft-frequented places like grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants.

Consequently, while DeSantis claims the bill to be a defense against big government, it really is just a stake he is laying on the issues of guns. If he was really so concerned about government overreach or mass data surveillance, he would ban the use of such codes outright. But the very limited purportment of principle is DeSantis’s entire brand. Also this week, he again escalated his war against Disney and its monorail, going not against universal corporate immunities or misdeeds, but just Disney specifically—because he doesn’t like that they spoke out against his infamous and repressive “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

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Florida teacher investigated by state agency for showing Disney movie in class
Ana Goñi-Lessan
Tallahassee Democrat

A Florida teacher is under investigation by the state Department of Education after what she believes is a targeted attack by a school board member who took issue with a Disney movie shown in her classroom.

At a Hernando County School Board meeting Tuesday, fifth-grade teacher Jenna Barbee alleges school board member Shannon Rodriguez reported her to DOE for showing her students Disney's 2022 movie "Strange World." It's the first Disney movie with an out, gay character.

Barbee, a teacher at Winding Waters K-8, said during public comment the Disney movie tied into her students' Earth science lesson and did not have sexually inappropriate content.

"The word indoctrination is thrown around a lot right now, but it seems that those who are using it are using it as a defense tactic for their own fear-based beliefs without understanding the true meaning of the word," Barbee said at the lectern.

Read more: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/ ... 211841007/

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DeSantis signs bill to defund DEI programs at Florida's public colleges
Source: Washington Post

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill into law Monday barring the state’s colleges and universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and limiting how race can be discussed in many courses.

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Florida’s new law prohibits public colleges from spending state or federal money on DEI efforts. These programs often assist colleges in increasing student and faculty diversity, which can apply to race and ethnicity, as well as sexual orientation, religion and socioeconomic status.

The law also forbids public colleges from offering general education courses — those that are part of a required curriculum for all college students — that “distort significant historical events,” teach “identity politics,” or are “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.”

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DeSantis said students who want to study “niche subjects,” such as critical race theory, ought to look elsewhere. “Florida’s getting out of that game,” he said. “If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley. Go to some of these other places.”

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/educatio ... -colleges/

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MT: Gianforte signs additional abortion restriction bills; one court challenge already refiled

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed four more bills this week targeting abortion access, including one that is already being challenged in court, just days after the state Supreme Court again affirmed that abortion is protected under the state constitution’s right to privacy.

Chief among the measures he signed Tuesday is House Bill 721, sponsored by House Speaker Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, which creates a ban in most instances on pre-viability abortions via the dilation and evacuation procedure – the most common method used for abortions for pregnancies 15 or more weeks from conception in Montana. It’s also referred to as a surgical abortion.

At a news conference earlier this month in which the Republican governor signed five other abortion restriction bills, Gianforte called the method “barbaric” and said it was “dangerous” for women and “demeaning” to medical professionals who perform the procedures.

The dilation and evacuation abortion procedure involves a practitioner removing a fetus from a person’s uterus through the use of surgical instruments. It is most often used in the second trimester of a pregnancy, while medication abortions are more often used in the first trimester.

Planned Parenthood of Montana filed a preemptive lawsuit against HB721 on April 10 in Lewis and Clark County District Court, but the judge in the case did not at the time grant a temporary restraining order against it because it had not been signed into law. Now that it has been signed, the bulk of the bill is in effect immediately.

https://dailymontanan.com/2023/05/16/gi ... y-refiled/

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Florida school district sued for violating first amendment rights with book bans
https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-scho ... 34248.html

PEN America, a non-profit US organization that works to protect freedom of speech, along with publishing company Penguin Random House, and individual parents, have filed a lawsuit against a Florida school district for implementing book bans.

The suit argues the removal and restriction of access to books discussing race, racism and LGBTQ+ identities violates the first amendment. It comes after rightwing groups have sought to remove books from libraries and schools in the US – often ones that address issues of racism or sexual identity.

The book ban movement, led by conservative groups – some of whom aren’t even currently parents of school children – gained special traction last year, spearheaded by groups like Moms For Liberty and No Left Turn in Education.

In an interview with the Guardian, Nadine Farid Johnson, the managing director of PEN America Washington and Free Expression Programs, said Florida’s Escambia county school district in particular, was at the heart of the recent book ban movement.

“Looking at the landscape of what is happening and recognizing Escambia county, in particular, and its efforts to restrict and remove these books – it is time now to challenge this for the unconstitutional act that it is,” she said.

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"I'm a Professor. Florida Just Banned Everything I Teach."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/im-a-prof ... e?ref=home

Opinion
I’m a Professor. Florida Just Banned Everything I Teach.
UNFREE STATE OF FLORIDA
Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn’t want college students to learn anything but whitewashed history about racist violence in America.
William Horne
Published May. 17, 2023 11:18AM ET

Writing during the apartheid regime of Jim Crow, famed historian and founder of Black History Month Carter G. Woodson observed that “the philosophy and ethics resulting from our educational system have justified slavery, peonage, segregation, and lynching.” That system is exactly what Gov. Ron DeSantis has tried to resurrect in signing SB 266 into law, a whitewashing tactic that has historically coincided with white supremacist violence in the U.S.

The law builds on a wave of book, content, and course bans passed by Republican legislators, schools boards, and governors in 36 states over the last year. SB 266 not only forbids scholars of race, class, gender, and inequality from teaching in their areas of expertise, but also requires that general education courses indoctrinate students in the “Western canon,” drawing on a right-wing “American Birthright” curriculum organized in part by DeSantis ally Chris Rufo.

The information that college instructors like me are now forbidden by law from sharing with their adult students under SB 266 leaves them less able to understand the world around them and to critically engage Republican policy priorities like voter suppression or attacks on trans persons that promote inequality. It leaves students less informed and more vulnerable—that appears to be the whole point.

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Attacks on education and access to information like Florida’s SB 266 have never been about “protecting” students or promoting education. They are about wielding power and eliminating dissent. That is what makes this tactic so dangerous and, historically, a precursor to white supremacist violence.


William Horne is an Arthur J. Ennis Postdoctoral Scholar at Villanova University who writes about the relationship of race to labor, freedom, and capitalism during Reconstruction and Jim Crow.

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[Powers]

Is it just me or that photo looks fake?

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A ban on Texas public universities' diversity offices inches closer to becoming law

After hours of debate and multiple attempts to kill the legislation from Democrats, Texas is one step closer to banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices in public colleges and universities Friday.

In a 83 to 60 vote, the Texas House gave preliminary approval to one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities that would prohibit such offices, programs and any required diversity training.

In an attempt to stop a deluge of amendments from Democrats opposing Senate Bill 17, Republicans approved an amendment offered by the bill’s sponsor, Seguin Republican John Kuempel, that requires the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to conduct an impact study into the legislation, allow universities to make “reasonable efforts” to re-assign employees in DEI offices to new positions with similar pay, and shifts the day the bill goes into effect back by three months to Jan. 1.

The coordinating board is the state agency that oversees higher education policy at public colleges and universities.

This amendment was also an attempt to appease Democrats’ concerns that eliminating diversity offices and programs would put universities at risk to lose federal grants. Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, said the extension will give universities time to ensure current grants can comply with any DEI requirements.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/19 ... sity-bill/

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NAACP issues advisory against Florida travel over DeSantis 'hostile' policy

Source: Wisconsin Law Journal

Similar to when the U.S. State Department issues a travel advisory warning U.S. Citizens not to travel abroad to a certain country due to safety concerns, the NAACP issued a similar warning to persons of color, advising them not to travel to Florida.

The travel advisory issued Saturday by the NAACP Board of Directors was issued as a direct result of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools,” officials said in a written statement.

The travel advisory states:
“Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

Read more: https://wislawjournal.com/2023/05/21/na ... le-policy/

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