News bits: Christofascist judge bites nationwide abortion access hard: Etc.

By now, we are all very familiar with US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in the fascist state of Texas. He has become a favorite forum for American Christofascist theocrats seeking to desecularize America by ramming God's fv#!ed-up rules into our unwilling lives. I've been watching this case and now, as I confidently expected, the Christian nationalist poison flows out into the light. 

Multiple sources are reporting on this major, unwarranted intrusion of Christian Sharia law into American society. Bloomberg reports:

Abortion Pill to Be Blocked Nationwide Under Judge’s Order

Trump-appointed judge upends FDA approval of mifepristone

A federal judge in Texas issued a ruling Friday on the medication abortion drug mifepristone, saying he will suspend the FDA’s two-decade-old approval – but paused his ruling for seven days so the federal government can appeal.

Less than two hours later, a federal judge in Washington state ruled the FDA must keep medication abortion drugs available in more than a dozen Democratic-led states.

The two decisions mark the most significant abortion-related rulings since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

One important point to know is that this is the first time ever that a federal judge has forced a drug the FDA approved as safe and effective off the market for no reason. Mifepristone has been on the market for about 20 years. There is no valid reason for any federal judge to make such an outrageous, clearly illegal decision. 

Another warning about Christian nationalism (CN)

I keep providing rock solid evidence showing the very real power and obvious intent of American Christofascism. I will keep warning about how dead serious the CN movement is about getting rid of secular Constitutional law and replacing it with Christian Sharia law. The CN movement holds secular law in open contempt and refuses to acknowledge its validity. God's law trumps the Constitution, settled law and public opinion. This is another warning about the rise and power of toxic Christofascism in American government, law, society and commerce.

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Regarding ignorance of the law: The NYT writes:

Justice Clarence Thomas said on Friday that he had followed the advice of “colleagues and others in the judiciary” when he did not disclose lavish gifts and travel from a wealthy conservative donor.

In a statement released by the Supreme Court, the justice said he believed he was not required to report the trips.

In a statement, the justice said that he had followed past guidance from others at the court, but that he would now comply with new guidelines and disclose gifts and free travel.

How is it possible that a US Supreme Court justice could not know his legal obligation to disclose gifts? It is easily possible if the judge feels he is above the law. Here, Thomas really is above the law. He will face little repercussion for his law breaking, just like T**** has faced little legal repercussion throughout his adult life.

Also note that those sources of legal advice that Thomas claims to have followed are unnamed. They are unnamed because they probably don't exist. Even if someone comes forward now and says, ‘I gave Clarence bad advice 20 years ago’, I would not believe it unless (i) the bad advice was recorded or in writing, (ii) made public, and (iii) the authenticity of the evidence independently verified as genuine. Genuine verification means not verified by Mike Lindell, Ginny Thomas, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, any Republican federal judge, Tucker Carlson, Donald T**** or any other Republican elite. 

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Regarding American fascism in Tennessee: One of the outrageous things about Republicans in the Tennessee legislature is their blatant, insulting irrationality about their fascism. Yesterday, NPR broadcast comments by a radical right Republican legislative leader who justified expelling two Black lawmakers. His justification was stupid and ridiculous. It was an outrageous insult.

In essence, the fascist excuse for expelling the two Black guys, but not the White lady, was that they disrupted legislative proceedings on the very topic, gun safety legislation, that the expelled lawmakers wanted to see progress on. What??? Impeding progress on gun safety legislation?? In Tennessee?? Oh for Fv#^'s sake. No one outside an insane asylum is that mentally impaired.

What an outrageous insult. The Tennessee legislature is controlled by radical right Republicans. They have no intention of ever passing a meaningful gun safety law. It has had decades to pass meaningful gun safety law. Why is a short peaceful protest somehow any impediment to the legislature not doing what it had no intent to ever do?

Equally insulting is fascist Tennessee Republican propaganda comparing the peaceful protest to the 1/6 coup attempt. Fascist arrogance here just takes one's breath away. 

The insults and contempt of the fascists is what finally led to switching from calling it and them radical right authoritarian to calling to what it is, i.e., fascism, Christofascism, American fascism and the like. Divisive or not, it's just a matter of calling a spade a spade.

From the pro-life Republican Party…

North Dakota Senate Votes to Increase Its Own Meal Budget After Rejecting Free School Lunch Bill

Just over a week ago, North Dakota lawmakers voted to prevent giving free school lunches to low-income students. Then, on Thursday, they voted to increase the amount of money they get to spend on their own lunch.

Debating free school lunch for low-income kids, North Dakota State Sen. Mike Wobbema (R) says families are to blame for their hunger: "It’s really the problem of parents being negligent with their kids, if their kids are choosing to eat in the first place."

The bill died, 23-24.

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) March 29, 2023 Link here.

On Thursday, the Senate voted 26–21 to pass a bill to raise per diem meal reimbursements for state employees traveling within the state, from $35 to $45.

Now I don’t know all the ins-and-outs of these bills.  And I do know politics and the media can be overly dramatic in presenting the so-called facts.  But on its face, this stinks to their high heaven. 

If there is a problem with parents abusing the allowances for their kids lunches, work on fixing that.  Don't scrap the allowance altogether for such kids in need.

Q: Do you agree that there is something wrong with this picture?  What’s the justification for decreasing meals for kids, while increasing meal allowances for your own meals?  Explain that to me.

This story gave me the chills !! 😏

 

German Doctors Are Attempting to Reverse Death and Resurrect Humans

• A company called Tomorrow Biostasis is focusing on human cryopreservation in the hopes it can eventually reverse death.
• The new Berlin startup has already preserved the bodies of about 10 deceased humans.
• Liquid nitrogen is the main ingredient used to ensure cryopreservation.
• According to a report from Tech.Eu, the company’s “standby ambulance” has already been busy, with cofounder Emil Kendziorra working to launch Europe’s first cryogenics company (there are already a handful of them in the United States). Kendziorra’s goal: As soon as somebody dies, Tomorrow Biostasis immediately responds to preserve the person’s body and/or brain in a state of stasis. Then, once future advances materialize, the company will treat and reverse the person’s original cause of death and bring them back from the dead to enjoy a life extension.
• When the bodies get transported to Rafz, Switzerland for long-term storage at the European Biostasis Foundation—the process is technically considered a scientific body donation, to make it legal—they get cooled to -196 degrees Celsius and placed inside an insulated tank with liquid nitrogen to lock in the preservation.
• Of course, waiting for medical advancement to progress to the point it can reverse what caused your death isn’t the only hurdle in this entire cryopreservation concept. There’s still the small issue of nobody knowing how to actually revive a dead cryopreserved human. Sure, they can freeze the brain to preserve cells and tissues, but bringing a previously dead brain back to life with regular function and memories isn’t quite a thing in our world—yet.
• https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/technology/german-doctors-are-attempting-to-reverse-death-and-resurrect-humans/ar-AA17dn8P?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=8aee92684d5a4cccb44c542fe72c9e87&ei=14
  

America's radical right is full-blown fascist

Patience has run out

I held off as long as I could. I just can't do it any more. It's long past time to call a spade a spade. Most Republican Party elites (~95% ?) are full blown American-style fascist tyrants (Christian nationalist zealots and/or brutal brass knuckles capitalists). Most of the Republican rank and file (~85% ?) are either (i) full blown American-style fascist tyrant supporters, or (ii) horribly duped and manipulated into a false belief that they are innocent, terribly persecuted pro-democracy patriots valiantly defending democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties, mom, the flag, apple pie, inconvenient truth, etc. 

I don't know what the other ~15% might be, maybe mostly chronically pissed off people mad at the world and/or their plight in it. Regardless, both narratives are indisputably much more bullshit than truth.

Regardless, the false radical right narrative is much more bullshit than valid complaint.

Another warning

Salon writes:

Republicans caught off guard by the left's ferocious backlash

The GOP is an authoritarian, extremist political party that is out of the mainstream of American life

Reacting to the counter-culture of the 1960s and the massive social changes it engendered, the left wing of the Democratic Party was always admonished by the centrist and conservative wings not to go too far or too fast. The media even blithely asserted that "America is a conservative country" as if it were an act of God. This article of faith hobbled progress for a very long time and empowered the Reagan Revolution through the Tea Party and Donald Trump's MAGA movement.

Nobody ever seemed to consider that enabling the right wing to become more and more extreme over the course of many years might engender a backlash of its own. It appears as if that time may have finally come — and it's clear the Republican establishment doesn't know what to do about it. The question is whether the Democratic establishment does either.

The most interesting aspect of it remains the fact that the Republican establishment is circling the wagons around him once again while Republican voters seem determined to push him to the nomination.

Donald Trump has been dragging the GOP down for years but they just can't quit him. However, the party's rapid descent into extremism is bigger than Trump and the backlash is continuing to show itself in ways that are shattering the status quo.

The swing state of Wisconsin has been a battleground for years with a polarized electorate that has had power swinging back and forth between the two parties with razor-thin margins. It was assumed that the high-stakes election this week for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would be similarly tight. The future of the outrageous gerrymander that makes Republicans massively over-represented in the state legislature was at issue but, most importantly, abortion rights were front and center. Abortion has been illegal in the state since last June when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and an archaic law banning abortion that had been on the books since 1849 was no longer moot. The hard right legislature and the conservative state Supreme Court wasn't going to fix that.

And then there was the grotesque display we witnessed in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday when the Republicans expelled two Black lawmakers, Justin Pierson and Justin Jones, for staging a protest for gun safety legislation on the floor of the House. Here's an illustration of what took place: an odious, condescending comment delivered by a Republican House member who is clearly hard-pressed not to go full Bull Connor and address his colleague as "boy":

Rep. @Justinjpearson: “You all heard that. How many of you would want to be spoken to that way?”

Pearson responds to Rep. Farmer’s belittling, disrespectful rant. #TennesseeThree pic.twitter.com/5uWznU7atq

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 6, 2023

Yes, calling most mainstream Republican voters and most GOP elites full-blown American fascists is divisive. I get it. 

But it is true. There is not one shred of good faith or good will left in among Republican elites, politicians, major donors, professional propagandists or most of the rank and file. Not one damned shred shred. 

The radical right shows no willingness to reasonably compromise. No acceptance of inconvenient fact, true truth or sound reasoning. Almost nothing pro-democracy is there. America's radical right is a wasteland of lies, slanders, corruption, false narratives and pro-tyranny sentiment.

Acid sarcasm about Clarence Thomas

A Walmart parking lot:

America’s preferred playland

An acidic WaPo opinion piece by Alexandra Petri says what I have been thinking since I read the ProPublica reporting yesterday about Clarence Thomas and his corrupt, sleazy behavior and jaw-dropping lies:

“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States. … I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it.” — Justice Clarence Thomas, speaking in a documentary about his life, quoted in a ProPublica report released Thursday that Thomas has accepted undisclosed luxury trips from a prominent Republican donor, including travel by yacht and private jet, for more than two decades.

Please keep in mind, my fellow Americans, that each moment I spent on the yacht was torment! That is why I did not disclose it. It was not my idea of a vacation. Every second I spent on those magnificent islands, in those bucolic retreats, eating meals cooked by private chefs, I was seething internally, wishing I were in a Walmart parking lot.

The horrible private yacht

The terrible private jet

The miserable private estate

“Is everything to your liking?” numerous solicitous waitstaff aboard the yacht asked, and I sighed, dropping my cigar butt into the provided ashtray with a heavy heart. “No,” I said. “This — ” here I indicated the blue sky, the balmy sea breeze — “is not my idea of a good time, for I am a man of the people, with the tastes of the people, and I wish I were pursuing amusement as they do, by driving to Walmart on the weekend to make memories.”

A tear came to my eye as I spoke, for I could picture them so clearly, the happy weekenders, the salts of the earth who flocked to Walmart parking lots for their entertainment. Their children in the back seats, clamoring, “Walmart! Walmart! Walmart!” Their wrinkled elders, saving their pennies so that they could arrive at that cherished destination. Those parking lots are so full, always, and that is surely because they are a magnet for Americans who want to enjoy themselves.

Well, that describes me. I am not above anyone, except in the slight technical sense that I do control what rights you get to have. But you need not worry: I understand you and I am not contemptuously pandering to you: I genuinely think that you drive to Walmart for the delight of it! The simple joy of moving the carts around and putting them back, stopping at the little stop sign, and yelling indistinctly at your children not to run in front of other people’s cars! A classic American vacation!  

So be reassured, my fellow Americans! I am just like you. I am not ruling over you without remembering what life is like for you. I, too, put on my pants one leg at a time — with only the most nominal assistance from my billionaire friend’s butler. Every time I have eaten caviar, it has been with great distaste, as I loudly remarked that it paled in comparison with Dippin’ Dots. All the private jet flights? Well, they lack the comfort and security of a larger plane, and I do not get to watch the charming United preflight video or rejoice in the whimsical Southwest safety announcements, nor partake in the American family pastime of sitting in an airport (that heaven on earth, full of shops and treats!) for hours while my flight is delayed and delayed and then canceled. I am denied such joys. Do you not feel sorry for me, when you hear that?

And the yachts were just miserable. Awful. I bit into the meal prepared by the chef and wrinkled my nose with disgust, sad the instant I noticed that it was not a DiGiorno pizza.

I prefer to be where the rest of you — the rest of us! — love to be, which I assume from how much time you seem to spend there must be the parking lot of Walmart. Or an RV park! Yes, that is all I wish. The simple life.

So, you see, I could not possibly disclose any of these things, for they were not blessings but curses. These are the weights I must bear in my position. If someone with the power I wield were not meant to accept these heavy burdens, surely we as a court would have adopted a formal ethics code. But there is no need: It is understood that I take no pleasure in any of this. The American people need not worry. The yachts were suffering enough.

Note the exotic plants

Poor Clarence suffering for us!

News chunks: Indian authoritarians officially whitewash inconvenient history; Etc.

From the Dying Democracies Files: The NYT writes about how authoritarians routinely deal with inconvenient history: 

When Indian children began the school year this week, students in thousands of classrooms were issued new textbooks on history and politics that either watered down or purged key details from India’s past that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party finds inconvenient to its Hindu nationalist vision for the country.

The changes took aim at references to the links between Hindu extremism and the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi; the secular foundation of post-colonial India; and the 2002 riots in Gujarat, where hundreds of Muslims were killed in days of indiscriminate retaliatory violence at a time when Mr. Modi was the state’s top leader. Chapters on Mughal history, covering hundreds of years of Muslim rule, were either slashed or removed.

Among the deleted passages from 12th-grade history and politics texts:

• Gandhi’s “steadfast pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists so much that they made several attempts to assassinate” him. 

• “Instances, like in Gujarat, alert us to the dangers involved in using religious sentiments for political purposes. This poses a threat to democratic politics.” 

The governing party’s leaders have also tried to minimize the founding fathers’ arguments for why India’s diversity could survive only under a secular umbrella, co-opting the legacy of many secular leaders as they push to remake India into a Hindu-first nation.

With that divisive campaign, anti-Muslim hate speech has proliferated, holy sites have been aggressively contested and Hindu lynch mobs have killed Muslims on suspicion of slaughtering or even just transporting cows, which are considered holy by Hindus.

If anyone thinks that things like this cannot happen in modern America today, then they would be wrong. Completely, undeniably, flat out wrong. 

The corrupt, authoritarian theocratic Christian nationalist (CN) movement has already rewritten inconvenient American history. Millions of American adults today firmly believe blatant CN lies that constitute core, unquestionable CN dogmas. The CN movement has created and spread its creation myth for American history. CN myths constitute an aggressive cancer that is spreading its deeply immoral poison to millions of minds.

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Book review: The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American: The Founding Myth is a 2019 book by Andrew Seidel. Seidel is a constitutional law attorney who argues church-state separation lawsuits for the Freedom From Religion Foundation.  

Roberta Winter wrote a review of The Founding Myth for the New York Journal of Books, which includes these quotes and remarks:

“This political environment, in which the separation of church and state is treated as a kind of heresy rather than the real rock upon which our government stands, is what makes the timing of Seidel’s book so fortuitous.”

The Founding Myth is an invigorating double-shot espresso that reveals how the original Constitution and the version slathered in religious tomes to serve political purposes are not the same document. [note the similarity to what the Hindu nationalists deleted from their falsified version of history] The former adheres to the principles of separation of church and state, freedom of speech, and the recognition of the people in the democracy. The latter is best exemplified by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who explained the imprisonment of children at the southern border by invoking God, “Every soul should be subject to the governing authorities because there is no higher authority except that which God has established.”

The founders of the first Congress were in fact free thinkers and more inclined to agnosticism, especially Washington. The portrait of his kneeling at Valley Forge was in fact an artist’s rendering not based on fact. The Declaration of Independence is opposed to biblical law and draws from democracies of cultures much older than Christianity, such as the ancient Greeks.

Since the McCarthy era of the 1950s Christians have lobbied successfully for constitutional exceptions to the Constitution, inserting God onto the currency, on public buildings, and even into the pledge of allegiance that children were required to cite daily in public schools. The latter would seem to be treasonous, citing a loyalty to God, rather than to the nation. And of course, there are plenty of healthcare exemptions in the name of religion, vaccine exemptions, birth control exemptions, and even withholding medical care from children in the name of God.

Christian nationalism views religion as a substitute for morality and above the law, so aptly demonstrated by Trump and his followers, who view themselves as the chosen ones. Secular people were more likely to demonstrate altruism in assisting the Jews in the Holocaust. As Steven Weinberg observed, “but for good people to do evil things that takes religion.”

On the first Fourth of July following Trump’s presidency, National Public Radio tweeted the entire text of the Declaration of Independence, 140 characters at a time. Many Trump supporters lost their minds, because they assumed that NPR was calling for a rebellion against Trump.

Jefferson and Madison were incredibly critical and suspicious of organized religion. Jefferson wryly observed, “priests dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of day-light.”

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Public opinion about Christian nationalism: Pew Research Center published the following poll data and findings in Oct. 2022.

45% of Americans Say U.S. Should Be a ‘Christian Nation’

But they hold differing opinions about what that phrase means, and two-thirds of U.S. adults say churches should keep out of politics

Growing numbers of religious and political leaders are embracing the “Christian nationalist” label, and some dispute the idea that the country’s founders wanted a separation of church and state. On the other side of the debate, however, many Americans – including the leaders of many Christian churches – have pushed back against Christian nationalism, calling it a “danger” to the country.

Most U.S. adults believe America’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation, and many say they think it should be a Christian nation today, according to a new Pew Research Center survey designed to explore Americans’ views on the topic. But the survey also finds widely differing opinions about what it means to be a “Christian nation” and to support “Christian nationalism.”

For instance, many supporters of Christian nationhood define the concept in broad terms, as the idea that the country is guided by Christian values. Those who say the United States should not be a Christian nation, on the other hand, are much more inclined to define a Christian nation as one where the laws explicitly enshrine religious teachings.