Lonestarblue
Lonestarblue's JournalAlmost 50,000 Wisconsin voters just told Biden to stop the Gaza war. Will he listen?
Ignoring the message that swing voters are sending is dangerous. US policy for arming Israel must change. I don’t think these voters are protesting the existence of Israel. They are protesting Israel’s decimation of Gaza and its murders and deliberate starvation of innocent Palestinians, and now humanitarian aid workers, and the US role enabling Israel. Not a good look. I hope Biden’s advisers are paying attention.
We all know that Trump would be a worse alternative since he would just tell Bibi to do whatever he wants so long as he reserved waterfront property in Gaza for a Trump development. But I think these protest voters are registering their belief that our policy is wrong and needs to change. How that will play out in November is anyone’s guess at this moment, but if nothing changes and Israel has murdered many thousands more Palestinians, the result for Biden will be a lot of no votes.
Edited to add link and info:
“This Tuesday, more than 48,000 people defied cold, rainy weather to register protest votes in the Wisconsin Democratic primary against the Biden administration’s unrelenting support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
In 2020, Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by an excruciatingly narrow margin of victory of about 21,000 votes. As of Wednesday afternoon, Wisconsin’s “uninstructed” vote tally – the equivalent of the “uncommitted” campaign that Arab Americans launched in Michigan – was 48,093 votes, more than twice Biden’s 2020 win margin.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/04/wisconsin-democrats-biden-stop-gaza-war
Workers were on break in cars when Baltimore bridge collapsed, wife of survivor says
Most of this information has already been posted here, but I’m posting this article for its information on an organization that is raising money for the families of the victims in case anyone wants to donate.
“A crowdfunding campaign set up by the Latino Racial Justice Circle, a non-profit organization serving the Baltimore area, had raised nearly $100,000 for the victims’ families as of Wednesday afternoon. The funds will be distributed across the families and will be put towards basic needs including rent, groceries and utilities, the campaign said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/28/baltimore-bridge-collapse-workers
From New England to Notre-Dame, a U.S. Carpenter Tends to a French Icon
We can all use a happy story, and this one about a carpenter from New England who is helping to restore Notre Dame cathedral is such a story. It’s well worth reading the whole article about artisans who are using ancient wood-working techniques to be faithful to the restoration.
Free link
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/world/europe/notre-dame-restoration-carpenter.html?ugrp=m&unlocked_article_code=1.gU0.vmvQ.FzuyxjQ4h1wF&smid=url-share
The next Clarence Thomas? Abortion pill case spotlights rightwing judge and his wife's shadowy connections
Packing the courts with right-wing extremists is just one weapon in the Republican war on freedom in the US. Evidently the Ginni-Clarence corruption duo on the Supreme Court was a model to pack federal courts with the same. There are many people like the Hos working to impose right-wing extremist theocracy on this country, and most of them are unknown to voters who just vote for Republicans based on the lies they tell, not the laws they pass to hurt people and take away freedoms. Unfortunately, Republicans have done a far better job of setting up media as their propaganda machines, and too many voters do not bother learning about real issues. I truly fear for the future of this country..
“The Hos are just one of the increasing number of power couples in the conservative movement in which the wife of a prominent official works in the background, laying the groundwork for Republican policies that their spouses will rule upon or legislate. In the mifepristone case, the wife of the Missouri senator Josh Hawley, Erin, is the attorney of record for Alliance Defending Freedom and argued the case before Ho. The supreme court justice Clarence Thomas rankled the legal world when he refused to recuse himself from a case involving questions about the January 6 insurrection and the “Stop The Steal” campaign to which his wife, Ginni Thomas, was closely tied.
For Aronson, these are examples of “serious concerns about what is becoming an apparent pattern of coordinated activity by some of these couples in this extremist movement, including the Thomases, Hawleys and Hos”.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/judge-james-ho-wife-mifepristone-abortion-pill
Revealed: documents shed light on shadowy US far-right fraternal order
A British-owned news site does a far better job of reporting on the organizations that secretly work to undo our democracy. US media rarely reports on any right-wing organizations, though they often report Republicans lies about the Soros Foundation. These organizations are actively working to turn the US into a theocracy. One would think that overturning democratic government for theocratic rule would be of some interest to our media.
“New documents have shed light on the origins and inner workings of the shadowy Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), including methods for judging the beliefs of potential members on topics such as Christian nationalism, and indications that its founders sought inspiration in an apartheid-era South African white men-only group, the Afrikaner-Broederbond.
They also show that Boise State University Professor and Claremont thinktank scholar Scott Yenor tried to coordinate SACR’s activities with other initiatives, including an open letter on “Christian marriage”.
One expert says that one of the new documents – some previously reported in Talking Points Memo – use biblical references that suggest a preparedness for violent struggle against the current “regime”.
The SACR is a secretive far-right men-only organization with an emphasis on Christian nationalism and a desire to open branches across the US.“
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/far-right-fraternal-order-sacr
Missouri law bars divorce during pregnancy - even in cases of violence
How long before extremist Republicans ban divorce for any reason in their war to force women to live by their religious views of patriarchal control? These laws jeopardize women’s lives but Republicans just do not care.
“Under a Missouri statute that has recently gained nationwide attention, every petitioner for divorce is required to disclose their pregnancy status. In practice, experts say, those who are pregnant are barred from legally dissolving their marriage. “The application [of the law] is an outright ban,” said Danielle Drake, attorney at Parks & Drake. When Drake learned her then husband was having an affair, her own divorce stalled because she was pregnant. Two other states have similar laws: Texas and Arkansas.
…
“In Missouri, homicide was the third leading cause of deaths in connection with pregnancy between 2018–2022, the majority (75%) of which occurred among Black women, according to a 2023 report by the Missouri department of health and senior services, which examines maternal mortality data. In every case, the perpetrator was a current or former partner. And in 2022, 23,252 individuals in the state received services after reporting domestic violence, according to the latest reporting from Missouri Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence, which compiles data from direct service providers in the state.“
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/15/missouri-law-divorce-pregnancy-violence-abortion
The 10-Year-Old Boy Who Has Become the Face of Starvation in Gaza
The photo at the top of this article of a starved child is what Israel is turning innocent Gazans into, not because they are eradicating Hamas but because they are eradicating as many Palestinians as possible. This war is shameful and has not served any purpose for months. Israel has retaliated beyond reason for October 7. Israelis are now doing to Palestinians what was done to them in WWII. Genocide by starvation is still genocide.
“ It is all too easy to trace the skull beneath the Gazan boy’s face, the pallid skin stretching tight over every curve of bone and sagging with every hollow. His chin juts with a disturbing sharpness. His flesh has shrunk and shriveled, life reduced to little more than a thin mask over an imminent death.
In one of a series of news photographs of the boy, Yazan Kafarneh, taken with his family’s permission as he struggled for his life, his long-lashed eyes stare out, unfocused. In that widely shared picture online, his right hand, bandaged over an intravenous line, contracts in on itself at an awkward angle, a visible marker of his cerebral palsy.
He was 10, but in photographs from his last days at a clinic in southern Gaza, he looks both small for his age and at the same time ancient. By Monday, Yazan was dead.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/world/middleeast/yazan-kafarneh-gaza-starvation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bU0.sObf.Ss_IKoF_27KX&smid=url-share
Missouri: home to child marriage, corporal punishment and sick 'child welfare' ideas
The Republican war on children continues. State representative Jamie Gragg has introduced a bill that would force teachers to become registered sex offenders if they honor a child’s preferred pronouns. A Missouri state senator has claimed that he knows kids who have been married at age 12 (to another minor) and they’re “thriving”! I thought Texas was closest to being the Taliban, but maybe it’s backwards Missouri.
“Did you know that child marriage is still legal in much of the US? About 300,000 children and teenagers were legally married in the US between 2000 and 2018, according to the advocacy group Unchained at Last. At least 60,000 of those marriages “occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime”.
Did you know that, until quite recently, Missouri was a “destination wedding spot” for children who wanted to tie the knot? The state has tightened its child marriage laws now – and is seeking to ban the practice – but not all lawmakers are happy about the changes. Missouri state senator Mike Moon said last year that he knows kids who have been married at age 12 (to another minor) and they’re “thriving”!“
Snip
“The bill states that any teacher or school counsellor who provide support or “other resources to a child regarding social transition” could be found guilty of a class E felony and placed in the same sex offender registration category as someone possessing child sexual abuse images. They would not be able to work at a school again or be within 500ft of one.”
Snip
“But just because HB2885, as it is currently written, is unlikely to move through the state legislature doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t alarm us. Extreme bills like this signal where Republicans want to head and help push the Overton window more and more to the right. Pretty soon a “moderate” is going to mean a raging conservative who is kind enough to think that a teacher shouldn’t be called a sex offender for using someone’s preferred pronouns. (Oh, hang on, that’s already what it means! Just how look at how frequently Nikki Haley is labelled a “moderate”.)”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/07/missouri-anti-trans-bill-teacher-sex-offender
Eyebrows raised as Viktor Orbn to visit Donald Trump in Florida
The Heritage Foundation, whose leaders created Project 2025 as a blueprint for dictatorship, are now hosting the dictator of Hungary for a speech and ideas on ending democracy. Trump also will see him, no doubt to learn how he can help Putin.
“In an almost unheard-of move for a Nato country’s leader, he is not expected to meet anyone from the Biden administration.
Instead, he is scheduled to speak on Thursday on a panel with the head of a conservative think tank , the Heritage Foundation, before meeting Trump in Florida on Friday.
The visit, which comes at a low point in Hungary’s post cold war relationship with Washington, is being watched closely in foreign policy circles, in part due to fears that Orbán could use his access to the Republican presidential candidate to promote Kremlin talking points on Ukraine.“
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/viktor-orban-to-visit-donald-trump-in-florida-hungary
The US supreme court could still swing the election for Trump
An article in the Guardian today explains how the SC’s decision to accept the immunity appeal may allow them to help Trump, as it already has by granting him a delay that jeopardizes any trial before the election. It is disheartening to think we have such a corrupt SC with the MAGA 6, but I certainly do not trust their decision to take the appeal rather than just affirm the DC Circuit’s ruling.
“The timing also permits the court to influence the federal trial and possibly the election in a second, potentially more insidious fashion. The court is poised to decide a case this spring in which Trump is not a party, but which could have major consequences on his belated federal trial. The case involves a challenge brought by a January 6 rioter who argues that his federal indictment is based on a misapplication of the federal obstruction statute. The federal case against Trump also charges the former president with violating this statute, which criminalizes the “corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding”. Indeed, the charge lies at the heart of the case against Trump. Should the court conclude that federal prosecutors have misapplied the statute, not only would numerous convictions of rioters be tossed out, but the case against Trump would be dramatically, if not fatally, weakened.
What does this have to do with timing? Had the court chosen not to hear Trump’s immunity claim, leaving intact the circuit court’s pointed rejection, Trump’s federal trial might have ended and a verdict rendered before the court had decided the rioter’s case. Imagine Trump had been found guilty and the court subsequently voided the conviction – the cries of foul would have been loud and fierce and long. Now, however, the court has given itself the opportunity to rule on the obstruction charge before Trump’s trial has begun. Defanging a prosecution before it has even started would certainly arouse outrage, but nothing like the partisan scorn and unrest that would come with a post-conviction intervention.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/05/us-supreme-court-election-donald-trump
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