Stephan: Was I exaggerating when I shared my views about what the Supreme Court decision on church and state is going to mean? I will let Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor answer that question.
And I also want to note that nothing has been done about the blatant political corruption of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. This has itself become one of the most alarming trends in America. No one in high office, or working for someone in high office, is being held accountable. Where is Merrick Garland?
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court’s most outspoken liberal, accused the court’s six-member conservative majority of eroding the barrier between church and state on Tuesday by striking down a Maine policy that barred religious schools from receiving taxpayer-funded tuition aid.
“This Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build,” Sotomayor wrote, dissenting from the 6-3 decision that broke along ideological lines.
“In just a few years, the Court has upended constitutional doctrine,” she added, “shifting from a rule that permits States to decline to fund religious organizations to one that requires States in many circumstances to subsidize religious indoctrination with taxpayer dollars.”
Maine law gives school-age children the right to free public education. But because many rural districts lack a public high school, a workaround was devised that allows students to attend nearby qualifying private schools with public assistance.
The Maine law at issue in the case had deemed schools with religious instruction ineligible for the program.
The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, sided with a group of Maine parents who sued […]
Stephan: Texas Republicans are actively seeking to be a White racist anocracy, and now they are talking about seceding from the U.S. Here is the platform the Republicans in Texas just voted for. Read it and see if that is the country you would want to live in.
What the Texas Republicans don't seem to realize is that like most Red states for every dollar they put into the Federal economy they take more than a dollar in federal support out. What very few Americans seem to realize is that the Blue states underwrite the failure of the Red states. If they were to secede they would lose that support, and as we exit the petroleum era the Texas economy will crash.
The Republican Party of Texas refuses to recognize the legitimacy of President Biden’s election win. Just before Biden’s inauguration in 2021, armed groups held a rally in front of the Texas State Capitol in Austin. Credit: Matthew Busch/AFP / Getty
President Biden is the “acting” president because he didn’t win legally; Texans should vote on seceding; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be repealed; any gun control is a rights violation: this is the world as seen by the Republican Party of Texas, according to its newly adopted party platform.
“We can’t compromise with Democrats who have a different and incompatible vision for our future,” Matt Rinaldi, the state GOP chairman, said, according to The Texas Newsroom. “We need to be a bold and unapologetic conservative party, ready to go on offense and win the fight for our country.”
The Republicans’ 2022 platform is outlined in a 40-page document
✎ EditSign that addresses state issues but also much broader priorities — such as calling for the U.S. to leave the United Nations. Delegates approved it over the weekend, at the party’s […]
Stephan: Here is more on the burgeoning hate of Texas Republican citizens, and that is why I am publishing this piece. To understand what is happening in American one has to understand this hate is coming from ordinary people, who elect people like Greg Abbott, and Dan Patrick. We have a cancer of hate that has metastasized across the Red states. Hysterical fear of LGBTQ people, devotional belief in Trump, and his "Big Lie." The absolute conviction White people are being replaced (by who is never very clear). These people are already, in their minds, in a war. The problem is the rest of us don't seem to get that.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick poses for photos with supporters during the first day of the Republican Party of Texas convention. Credit: Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle/AP
Thousands of the Texas Republican party faithful voted yesterday on a state GOP platform
✎ EditSign that calls being gay an “abnormal lifestyle choice,” declares the 2020 presidential election results illegitimate, and urges the repeal of the Voting Rights Act.
The platform says that Texas students should be shown live ultrasounds as a way to deter against abortion and be taught that life begins at fertilization. At the same time, it demands that the state outlaw all sex and sexual health education—even abstinence-only sex ed. Meanwhile, it says that young people are the “most likely to need to defend themselves” and thus should have access to guns without waiting periods for “emergencies such as riots.”
And, doubling down on the anti-LGBTQ hate, the platform says the party “oppose[s] all efforts to validate transgender identity,” calling for bans on gender-affirming care for trans children and the passage of a “Don’t Say Gay” bill stronger than Florida’s. (The high-profile Florida […]
Stephan: As the hate and fear spread, a second civil war trend is beginning, MAGAts are advocating killing traditional Republicans. Can this possibly be true? Surely, I am exaggerating. No, sadly I am not, and here is the proof. Eric Greitens, a truly despicable man who a long history of violence against women, and his own children, is running for the Senate in Missouri with killing RINOs as his big campaign message. This is what Republican politics has sunk to in the U.S..
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens launched a new video for his U.S. Senate campaign featuring a group of men in tactical gear hunting Republicans Credit: screenshot.
In a video posted Monday of a fake no-knock home raid, former Gov. Eric Greitens — flanked by extras in body armor, using flash grenades and carrying firearms — promoted a fundraising program offering a “RINO Hunting Permit” to supporters of his U.S. Senate campaign.
RINO stands for “Republican in Name Only.”
The video drew over 1 million views on Twitter within the first two hours after it was posted, the Greitens campaign said in a fundraising email sent about 11 a.m. Monday.
“The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice,” Greitens says in the video, which had also been retweeted almost 600 times and drew mainly negative comments from almost 5,000 more Twitter users.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, front left, gestures as speaks to supporters and members of the media before a bill signing by Gov. Ron DeSantis, Nov. 18, 2021, in Brandon, Fla. Credit: Chris O’Meara/AP Photo
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — Florida is the only state in the nation that has not placed an order with the federal government for doses of the Covid-19 vaccine for young children, saying the distribution process is “convoluted.”
The Florida Department of Health, through a statement, said Wednesday that it did not place an order with the federal government for vaccine doses for kids five and under in part because it doesn’t advise all children get vaccinated. The deadline for placing a pre-order was Tuesday and 49 other states met the cutoff date.
“States do not need to be involved in the convoluted vaccine distribution process, especially when the federal government has a track record of developing inconsistent and unsustainable COVID-19 policies,” the DOH statement said. “It is also no surprise we chose not to participate in distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine when the Department […]
