Fascism Update for 9 April 2023

Republican Abuses of power, Federal:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Everything. Not even going to link, look it up. But you should contact your Federal legislators and demand impeachment.

Fox News’s Mark Levin is demanding Republican DAs come up with any charges they can to prosecute President Biden, for any or no reason, in retaliation for charges being filed by New York against Donald Trump for business fraud. I’m not going to cover the major portions of this until and unless the charges start directly addressing his acts of treason and sedition. I’m sure you’ll be able to find it elsewhere.

A Republican Trump judge is working very hard to backdoor ban abortion drugs, and that, I’m sure, you’re hearing about.

Now, let’s go to the states:

Florida:

Florida Republicans are expanding Don’t Say Gay into charter schools, which they lied about being in large part about academic freedom. This was, as everyone who wasn’t a filthy liar acting in 100% bad faith at all times said, was bullshit, and here’s the proof.

Florida Republican Governor DeSantis wants to execute a lot more people, and wants to execute them for a lot more things, so he’s seeking a dramatic expansion of the death penalty.

Florida Republicans are, of course, also passing new laws making it harder and scarier to vote. As they always do. They really, really don’t want you voting; they just want to rule. See also Tennessee.

Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who fought DeSantis hard about COVID-19 and claims she was pressured to fake numbers, talks about her son’s arrest on a warrant largely based on social media material made from accounts that aren’t her son’s. Despite being 13, he’s being charged as an adult on charges of terrorism. She’s reasonably convinced it’s retaliation, and I can’t blame her.

Mississippi:

Mississippi Republicans are creating a new White-controlled non-elected court system for Black residents in Jackson. How this will go should be obvious.

Montana:

Montana Republicans are about to ban most abortions past the first trimester. This will kill women, and they know it, and they don’t care.

North Carolina:

Republicans in North Carolina, already one of the most explicitly gerrymandered Republican states at the Federal level, are announcing they’re going to ignore their own constitution and re-gerrymand at the state level in 2025 now that they have a state Supreme Court majority which has already indicated it will go along.

Texas:

Daniel Perry who had talked about wanting to kill Black Lives Matter protestors and later did, was convicted of murder by a Texas jury. Republican Governor Abbott immediately promised a pardon, because apparently driving into a crowd of BLM protestors and opening fire should be legal as far as he’s concerned. The Texas Senate approved a bill that would defund public libraries where drag queens are allowed to read to children.

Tennessee:

After a Republican lawmaker was accused of sexually assaulting 15- and 16-year-old girls he had taught and coached, he was made chair of the education committee. But speaking out of turn? That’s what gets you expelled and your constituents disenfranchised. If you’re Black, that is. The Nashville Metropolitan Council are going to vote to reinstate Justin Jones – one of the two expelled elected representatives – as his own replacement, and the Republicans are promising to retaliate if they do. Here’s an interview with Justin Pearson, the other expelled Democratic legislator, and here’s a report on how Fox News is systematically lying about what they did. (And here’s what actually happened.)

Meanwhile, someone shot up the house of Justin Kanew, founder of the progressive Tennessee Holler. He and his family were home, including his children.

Wisconsin:

As I’ve been saying, Wisconsin – where the GOP has a permanent supermajority even when losing the popular vote statewide and functionally cannot be voted out of power – is the model. Now every Republican-controlled state is going to emulate it. There’s a real chance that with a retaken Supreme Court that democracy could be salvaged in the state, but as noted before – Republicans are already talking about impeaching her to prevent that from happening, as their plan for 2024 apparently involved using a Republican State Supreme Court to prevent or overturn a popular vote loss in the state.

Republicans no longer give up power voluntarily at any level.

NEW NO-GO STATES FOR QUEERS, particularly queer kids, and for health providers:

ALABAMA, where Republican judges are ordering parents to turn over health records for their trans children.

KANSAS, where Republicans just outlawed gender-affirming health care for minors.

IDAHO, where Republicans passed the first law in history banning leaving the state to get an abortion under various circumstances and criminalised

INDIANA, where Republicans outlawed health care for trans minors

IN CONTRAST:

More refugee states are declaring themselves: New Jersey Governor Declares State a ‘Safe Haven’ for Gender-Affirming Care.

It’s always projection and hypocrisy, and that’s part of the point because that’s also impunity:Founder of “Protect Our Kids First” arrested for allegedly downloading child sex abuse material. Meanwhile, Fox News is moving to scapegoat LGBT people for mass shootings, in much the same way that the fundamentalist movement accused queers of being violent dangerous deviants my entire life.

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Today in Musk Twitter

At the same time as putting limits on American non-fascist media sites like NPR, Musk Twitter has lifted restrictions on Russian/Putinist accounts, actively boosting these propaganda accounts while non-authoritarian media is being suppressed.

Meanwhile, journalists are still sucking at the Twitters teats, the Twitter Files bullshit continues to implode, and Musk has started a feud with Substrack and is blocking interaction with posts mentioning it.

Elon may suck at Twitter, but he’s really pretty good at fascism. But that’s why Elon bought Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, you’re helping him.

In other Musk news, don’t buy a Tesla: Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars, making memes out of them and passing them around.

And finally, get the hell out of Russia. They’re going to be kidnapping people, just like they always have, to use as pawns to trade.

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So egregious it deserves its own post: Republican Abbott will pardon the murderer

Texas Republican Abbott will pardon the protester murderer.

The victim was – I stress – legally armed. But that was enough for the also-legally-armed anti-Black Live Matter man to say he felt “threatened” after posting to Facebook that he might kill a few people on his way to work and then driving his car into the protest group.

In Texas, “threatened” is all you need to get off so many murder raps, and yet, he was still convicted, which shows you how egregious it was.

And Abbot will still grant a pardon, overturning the conviction.

This is absolutely legalised murder, the vigilante violence against political opposition that Republicans want and will at very least give a pass, and maybe reward.

See also: Kyle Rittenhouse.

The Republican Party is a fascist movement, fully aware of – and enjoying – the hypocrisy, the double-standards, the corruption, the looting, the impunity, and the sheer, raw hatred and torture of others. The only emotion Republicans feel about this murder is rage that the killer was charged at all.

I’m paraphrasing Tucker Carlson on Fox News in that last line, by the way. They’re so angry one of their own was charged for murdering a protestor. After all, it’s a god-given right. Apparently.

This is what Republicans want, and it is what they do with power.

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The question I’m sure was on everyone’s mind: can you combine PEI and glass beds?

Yes! You can. And there are some benefits. Read on.

This is a combined/expanded version of a couple of other posts I’ve made here, rewritten for /r/3dPrinting. It’s a good summary so I’m posting it here, too.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

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