Miami Herald: Whose Free Speech Rights Will DeSantis Stomp Next?

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2023 //
13

The Miami Herald editorial board published the following editorial in defense of free speech. It was cross posted in The Orlando Sentinel.

Last week, Florida’s government refused to grant permission to the League of Women Voters to hold a rally on the steps of the Old Capitol in Tallahassee, according to a ProPublica story. The group was told that, under a DeSantis administration rule, its rally needed to be sponsored by a state agency.


A thwarted rally during the legislative session may not seem like it warrants a ton of attention in the torrent of bad ideas pouring out of Tallahassee, but this is not small; it’s one more way the state is tightening its chokehold on free speech in Florida.


The league said it was denied permission by the Florida Department of Management Services under a rule that went into effect March 1 that says the use of the space must be “consistent with the Agency’s official purposes.”


In other words, if it isn’t part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-woke agenda or some other Republican cause, you need not apply.


The supposed reason is to protect public safety and make sure state workers and officials can do their jobs. Funny how, in all these years, that hasn’t been an issue. The area around the state Capitol has long been the site of all sorts of demonstrations, rallies and marches. But suddenly, that’s a problem.


Call us crazy, but could it have something to do with the perception that the League is left-leaning? Last year, a local official in Lake County, Illinois, called League members there “partisan hags” in a Facebook posting, apparently because he thought their debate formats favored Democrats. He later apologized — for the “hag” part, anyway.


In Florida, the League has taken an openly adversarial stance against the DeSantis administration in at least one instance. The group went to court to fight a 2021 voting law, with a judge striking down several provisions on grounds they were discriminatory. The state is appealing.

The change in rules for rallies — an excuse to restrict speech — isn’t happening in a vacuum. We’ve already had the effort by the Republican Legislature to stop discussion of systemic racism at universities and in workplace training, the smackdown of Disney for daring to oppose the governor’s “Don’t say gay” law on sexual orientation and gender identity instruction in schools and a bill to make it easier to sue for defamation that would have a chilling effect on public discourse.


In this latest iteration, the government is using state rules and red tape to stop dissent from being heard. What are lawmakers so afraid of?


And while the League managed to hold its event on a plaza nearby and discussed the muzzling of free speech, that’s poor consolation. Lawmakers need to be open to hearing dissent if they are truly representing the will of the people — and not just the will of one man.


This editorial was published by the Miami Herald. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com
© 2023 Orlando Sentinel

Categories Censorship, DeSantis, Fascism, Florida, Freedom of Speech

South Carolina: 21 Republicans Want Death Penalty for Women Who Get Abortions

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2023 //
63

Now, here is an example of the extremism and stupidity that has overtaken the Republican Party. A group of 21 Republican legislators in South Carolina want to impose the death penalty on any woman who gets an abortion. They assert that life begins at the instant of conception so any act that ends the life should require the murder of the woman who ended the pregnancy, even if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.

Let’s say that a 12-year-old girl is raped by a member of her family. She must carry the child of rape to term or be killed by the state. Meanwhile, her rapist walks free. Her life is worth nothing compared to that of the fetus.

It seems clear that the pro-life Freedom Caucus cares only about the lives of the unborn, not the lives of women who are pregnant. Why is one life more valuable than the other?

South Carolina Republican lawmakers are considering a bill that would make a person who has an abortion eligible for the death penalty.

The bill, titled the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023, would change the state’s criminal code and redefine “person” to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception.

According to the bill, the change would “ensure that an unborn child who is a victim of homicide is afforded equal protection under the homicide laws of the state.” Under South Carolina law, that includes the death penalty.

The bill provides exceptions for pregnant people who had an abortion if they were “compelled to do so by the threat of imminent death or great bodily injury” and also provides an exception if the abortion was done to save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.

Rolling Stone wrote about this story as well.

Rep. Rob Harris, a sponsor of the bill, is a member of the Freedom Caucus. Asked if he saw any irony between being a member of the so-called “Freedom Caucus” while proposing such harsh restrictions on reproductive freedoms, Harris responded simply: “Murder of the pre-born is harsh.”

Categories Cruelty, Extremism, Republicans, South Carolina

Extremist Judge Will Decide Future of Abortion Pills

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2023 //
7

Mimi Swartz of the Texas Monthly described the federal judge who will decide whether to allow abortion pills to remain legal. He was appointed by Trump, undoubtedly recommended by the Federalist Society, which vetted all of Trump’s judicial picks. This judge was his parting gift to the anti-abortion lobby. Judge Kacsmaryk has the power to declare the abortion pill illegal across the nation; he is taking testimony about whether the drug was wrongly approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 2000. Medically-induced drugs account for more than half of the abortions in the U.S.

Much of the public attention now focused on Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, the Amarillo-based federal judge who is expected to soon outlaw mifepristone, the so-called abortion pill, has focused on the ways in which his political and religious beliefs have shaped his legal career. His fervent opposition to abortion arose as an issue during his confirmation hearings in 2019, as did his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage and his previous statement that transgender Americans were “delusional.” He isn’t a fan of birth control either: in 2015, as deputy general counsel for a Plano-based nonprofit law firm called First Liberty Institute, Kacsmaryk arguedin an amicus brief that pharmacies should be prevented from providing contraception. Kacsmaryk’s time on the bench has only reinforced the view that he is an activist judge who allows his private beliefs to govern his legal opinions—and it seems that the antiabortion activists who venue-shopped to land the mifepristone suit in his courtroom would agree.

The Washington Post wrote:

AMARILLO, Tex. — The federal judge who could upend access to a key abortion medication seemed open on Wednesday to the argument that the drug had not been properly vetted and could be unsafe — claims the Food and Drug Administration and leading health organizations strongly contest.

While the antiabortion group challenging the drug acknowledged there is no precedent for a court to order the suspension of a long-approved medication, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk questioned whether mifepristone has met the rigorous federal standard necessary to be prescribed to patients in the United States.

He asked a lawyer for the group whether the court could unilaterally withdraw FDA approval for a drug, and engaged with attorneys for both sides about whether mailing the pills should be prohibited because of a 19th-century law that bans sending articles “for any indecent or immoral use” through the Postal Service….

During the hearing, lawyers for the antiabortion group argued that the FDA’s decision to allow abortion pills to be distributed by mail violates a 150-year-old law. The Comstock Act, they say, prohibits mailing any drug used “for producing abortion.”

Those arguments appeared to resonate with Kacsmaryk, who asked government lawyers if there was “any dispute” that the law prohibits mailing abortion medication.

The Justice Department argued that the modern-day reading of the law has never prevented the mailing of abortion pills, in part because the medications have other uses and because abortion remains legal in many circumstances.

Categories Civil Rights, Elections, Extremism, Gender, Trump

New Hampshire: Dark Money Undermines Democracy

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2023 //
9

Garry Rayno writes in InsideNH about the dramatic change in the legislature’s agenda. Instead of dealing with the issues that affect people’s lives, legislators are now grappling with the same fake issues funded in many other states by Dark Money: vouchers, abortion, vaccines, guns, “parental rights.”

Rayno writes:

A quick look at the House and Senate calendars for this week will convince even those with casual political interests that the culture wars have come to New Hampshire.

Lawmakers will spend hours debating the war on public education, parental rights, abortion rights, voting rights, vaccines and medical care, firearms, drugs and governmental power to name about half the debates to grace Representatives Hall and the Senate Chamber.

Not that long ago, these more global issues were not front and center in every session of the General Court.

Instead it was the state’s support for institutions like nursing homes and higher education, reducing the uncompensated care for hospitals, tax credits to attract businesses and yes how the state funds education.

It was not about furries and cat litter boxes, drag shows and grooming, or face masks and lockdowns.

How did the state get from dealing with its own issues to making New Hampshire deal with the same issues as Texas or Florida or any of the other states undergoing the same forced “rehabilitations.” [Emphasis added]

It is easy to blame social media for the universalization of issues and concerns, but it is just the vehicle. What has caused the manipulation of this country’s consciousness is the information or misinformation that has been spread over the electronic infrastructure.

Very sophisticated networks are doing damage to this country that could not have happened in a war or limited military conflict.

During the Vietnam War the conflict was often described as a war for the “hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people.

And now the war for the hearts and minds has come home 50 years later.

The polarization between red and blue and the resulting cultural wars intended to energize “the base,” has created a country with little use for compromise and that is apparent in the New Hampshire legislature as well.

Much of what has been passed in the last three years is unpopular, some very unpopular with the general public if you read the polls, but lawmakers who push these agendas or proposals that serve a small portion of the state continue to be elected.

In New Hampshire it is easy to see how Republicans gerrymandered the Senate and Executive Council and to some extent the House, to have control of all three although Democratic candidates received more votes than Republican candidates in all three bodies.

The state has an all Democratic Congressional delegation, and until Gov. Chris Sununu won in 2016, controlled the governor’s office for 16 of the previous 18 years.

New Hampshire is truly a purple state but you would not know that looking at the legislation approved and proposed in the last three years by the House and Senate.

The public has not given the lawmakers a mandate to turn New Hampshire into a Libertarian Shangri-La but that is what is happening.

Money is being drained out of the public school system, taxes are cut and some eliminated like the interest and dividends tax which benefits the wealthy not the poor, regulations are eliminated, and personal freedoms are emphasized to the detriment of a safe society.

The one thing that has really not worked out “as planned” for the Libertarians is Gov. Chris Sununu’s power grab of federal money that he used to concentrate power in the executive branch.

And ironically it is the flow of money into politics that has driven what is happening in New Hampshire, and other states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Texas, Florida and in the Midwest.

Extreme school voucher programs, attacks on reproductive rights and the gay and transgender communities, all similar if not identical in legislation that is intended to reduce the power of government, its reach and return to a time that never was in our lifetimes, but did exist before the Civil War or at least before Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

The US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in January 2010 struck down restrictions on corporate contributions saying they violated First Amendment rights.

It not only gave corporations the same rights as citizens it opened the floodgates for corporate money into campaigns and allowed them to influence elections like they never had before.

It also allowed that corporate money to operate in the dark money universe where super PACs do not disclose where the money comes from.

The decision essentially took government out of the hands of voters and put it into the hands of the mega donors.

And it trickled down to New Hampshire as well.

In each of the last two elections about $1 million was spent on House seats alone, while the Senate PACs received about an equal amount with spending on a senate seat often over $100,000 and some over $200,000.

That is a lot of money for a position that pays $100 a year and you know whoever gave big money will expect a return.

Please open the link and finish reading this important and perceptive article. It is an incisive analysis of the rightwing attack on local democracy.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Budget Cuts, Censorship, Citizenship, Corruption, Dark Money, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Lies, New Hampshire, Politics, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Florida: State Education Board Will Extend “Don’t Say Gay” Through 12th Grade

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
28

Florida’s state board of education voted to expand its ban on any mention of LGBT topics through 12th grade, effectively censoring the topic for all grades. This move is intended to protect the rights of parents who don’t want their children to learn that gay people exist, but it is a slap in the face to gay families in Florida, as well as to people who are comfortable with discussions of reality.

The DeSantis administration next month could effectively bar all public school teachers from providing classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity, a move that would expand Florida’s controversial 2022 law and go even further than the legislation Republican lawmakers are pushing in Tallahassee this spring.

A proposed State Board of Education rule, scheduled for a vote next month, says teachers in grades 4 to 12 “shall not intentionally provide classroom instruction” on either topic, expanding the prohibition in last year’s law that critics dubbed “don’t say gay.” Teachers who violate the rule could face suspension or revocation of their teaching licenses.


Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, views the suggested rule as part of “larger, disturbing trend” where Florida’s Republican leaders seek to use “every lever of government to censor conversations about LGBTQ people,” said Brandon Wolf, the group’s spokesman.


The goal, he said, seems to be to paint LGBTQ people as “wrong,” Wolf said, “or that we should be written out of society.”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, DeSantis, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Gender

Arizona: GOP Goes to the Far Right, Expecting Vetoes from Governor Hobbs

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
0

Arizona has a Democratic Governor, Katie Hobbs, who beat election denier Kari Lake, by a small margin. Each house of the legislature has a small Republican majority, by one vote only. Yet the Republicans have decided to copy the zany extremist initiatives of Ron DeSantis of Florida. Some Republicans think it’s a risky bet.

From criminalizing drag shows to legalizing guns on college campuses, Republican lawmakers at the Arizona Capitol are proceeding like it’s a normal year for them, pushing forward with proposals that appeal to the furthest-right voters in the state.

They’re advancing election bills based on conspiracy theories and pushing back at critics, even silencing speakers for using the phrase “conspiracy theory.” Some proposed laws that were rejected in past years due to Republican opposition have made it further this year, even as they have less chance of becoming law.

Republicans expect Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to veto what they believe are good bills, hoping their commitment to far-right conservative values will help them in next year’s election.

It’s a risky strategy if they want to avoid seeing the Legislature flip to Democrats next year, according to some observers on both sides of the aisle.

“The party right now is tone-deaf,” said former Sen. Paul Boyer, a Republican from Glendale who served in the Legislature for five terms but didn’t run for reelection last year after some constituents and GOP peers pilloried him for failing to embrace election denialism. “They haven’t figured out that if they keep this up, we’re going to get massacred.”

Categories Arizona, Democrats, Elections, Florida, Republicans

Florida: New College Faces Financial Woes After DeSantis Takeover

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
9

Governor Ron DeSantis grabbed control of Florida’s only progressive public college—New College—and installed the hard-right former State Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran as its president. The DeSantis-controlled board of trustees voted to award Corcoran nearly $1 million in annual compensation, then struggled to find the money to pay for it. Students and faculty have protested the takeover, but they have been ignored. Corcoran intends to turn New College into the Hillsdale of Florida (Hillsdale being an evangelical Christian college in Michigan beloved by rightwingers).

The Tampa Bay Tribune writes:

New College of Florida has finally found a way to pay Richard Corcoran, who took over as interim president after the school’s board of trustees fired his predecessor in January.

At a Friday meeting of the New College Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the school financially, vice chairperson Dan Stults explained that the school will exploit a loophole in state law that allows them to use mostly public funds to cover Corcoran’s expenses until June 30, when the 2022 fiscal year ends.

For now, that takes the pressure off the foundation to come up with additional funds to cover the president’s salary. The board has not arrived at a plan to cover Corcoran’s nearly $1 million annual compensation package.

Corcoran, a former state education commissioner, receives a base salary of $699,000 — more than double that of his predecessor Patricia Okker and making him the third-highest-paid president among Florida’s public universities, not including bonuses and other stipends.

Under Florida law, only $200,000 of a university president’s salary can come from state funds. The rest typically comes from private donors through the school’s foundation.

However, state law does not restrict how the $200,000 state-funded portion must be allocated throughout the year. That allows New College to use the entire amount to cover most of Corcoran’s compensation until the end of the fiscal year.

Corcoran’s compensation from February through June totals approximately $265,000, Stults said.

That leaves just $65,000 to be covered by the foundation, which will come from a pool of funding that is not already earmarked for certain scholarships or other uses.

When the board of trustees approved Corcoran’s contract in February, board chairperson Debra Jenks said that the foundation has the money to cover Corcoran’s compensation, but did not identify where the additional funds would come from.

Future funding of the foundation has come into question, as many current New College donors have signaled their intention to withhold more than $29 million in future donations after Gov. Ron DeSantis began transforming the school’s leadership, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.

Open the link to read about the donors who are withholding funds, and the effort by other colleges to recruit students from New College.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Corruption, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Funding

Indiana: Teachers Oppose Bills to Divert More Public Funds to Private Schools and to Demonize Teachers and Librarians

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
6

Our reader Carolmalaysia received a letter from the Indiana State Teachers Association, protesting two bills to undercut public schools, teachers and librarians. She signed the petition.

1.] TAKE ACTION: Tell legislators to prioritize public schools and reject private school voucher expansion in radical state budget

All kids, no matter where they live, should be able to pursue their dreams in a great public school. However, the currently proposed radical budget increases spending on private school vouchers by 70%, while increasing traditional public school funding, where 90% of Hoosier students attend, by only 5%.

The current budget would provide more than $1 billion for wealthy families making up to $220,000 to attend private school for free, while neighborhood public schools continue to struggle to provide enough resources for students and pay hard-working educators a competitive salary.

Urge lawmakers to prioritize public education and oppose this huge expansion of unaccountable private school vouchers in the budget. Ask them to increase their commitment to public schools.

2.] TAKE ACTION: TELL LEGISLATORS TO OPPOSE A BILL THAT WOULD REMOVE LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS
02/17/2023

SB 12 is yet another culture war bill furthering a false narrative about our public schools. Rather than locally addressing issues over content, the bill would open teachers and librarians to criminal prosecution over educational materials. The bill would remove existing legal defenses schools and school libraries may use when locally determining educational materials. These matters will end up in litigation without administrative steps.

This bill has passed out of the Senate and is now under consideration by the House. Tell your representative to oppose SB 12.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Indiana, Inequity, Injustice, Librarians, Lies, Privatization, Religion, Republicans, Separation of church and state, Teachers, Vouchers

Florida Plans to Expand “Don’t Say Gay” Law Through Middle School

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
8

Florida legislators and Governor DeSantis are so pleased with the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, that they plan to expand it. The original law prohibited any discussion of sexuality and gender identity in grades K-3. The new law will prohibit such discussions in grades K-8. So, the state will cement and expand their combination of hate and censorship. Children of gay parents will be forbidden to mention their family.

TIME magazine reported:

Republican lawmakers in Florida appear likely to expand provisions in the Parental Rights in Education Act, or so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law with a host of new restrictions on what teachers can and cannot say in their classrooms about gender, sex, and sexual orientation.

Bills currently being debated in the Florida state House would make it a statewide school policy to define sex as “an immutable biological trait.” Teachers would be banned from addressing students by pronouns that differ from those they were assigned at birth. Staff would also be unable to share their own preferred pronouns if they do not “correspond to his or her sex.”

The bills would also heavily restrict in-school discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity until ninth grade when most students are 14 or 15. The current “Don’t Say Gay” law bans such discussions through third grade.

Open the link to read on.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, DeSantis, Florida, Gender

John Thompson: Will Sane Republicans in the Oklahoma Legislature Finally Speak Up?

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
4

John Thompson is a retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma who follows the goings-on in his state closely. I wish there were someone like him in every state: wise, experienced, intelligent, articulate.

What was Oklahoma Secretary of Education Ryan Walters thinking when, this weekend, he posted on Twitter a photo of a White, blond, young woman washing her hands in a bathroom with two Black, young women in the mirror next to her? To see the photo, click here.

Walters added the message, “I will always fight for students,” and “Student Safety over liberal agenda.” But, why would Walters see the photo as a real-life portrait of Blacks threatening Whites?

Since I’m not familiar with the insides of female students’ bathrooms, I checked out the 1.3k replies to the post. One responder found the same three young women in another photo that indicates it didn’t capture a real-life interaction. Another apparently found the source of the photo, a Linkedin post by Femly, entitled Period Equity Laws: Here’s why organizations should go above and beyond to ensure their period care offering is equitable! So, it appears to me that Femly’s message is about combating the stigma and shame that surrounds menstruation, even though Ryan’s use of the photo obviously sent the opposite message in terms of race.

One response on Twitter asked why Walters would choose “a period equity ad and then present it in such as a way that it looks pro-segregation?” But another had a different answer, noting that one of the Black students “clearly has books in that backpack. I’ll bet they’re books that promote CRT—books about the Tulsa Massacre or the Trail of Tears.”

Seriously, these tweets all add support for the editorial, It’s Time for Ryan Walters to End Disparaging Rhetoric or Resign, by the Oklahoman’s managing editor for diversity, community engagement & opinion, Clytie Bunyan. Bunyan wrote the “tweet was the latest of Walters’ blatant and unapologetic insults on Oklahoma.” She also provided context:

When you’re looking at curricula and allowing European history but surgically removing Black history, that’s racism. When Walters poses for a Christmas photo with his family with a white Santa and declares “No Woke Santa this year” at a time when stories about the popularity of a Black Santa and representation from a Native American Santa are published and aired in local media, that’s racism.

Bunyan correctly noted that Walters has:

Problems with messaging. His incessant video tweets are filled with offensive racist implications. He apparently believes we, the people of Oklahoma, have given him the authority to be unabashedly racist in his dog-whistling pronouncements.

Buynan notes that the “confusing tweet” … “leaves no positive benchmark, only angst, tension and more poison spreading through Oklahoma.” So, if he can’t do more than spread discord, he should “resign.”

As was demonstrated in the previous week, Walters is not alone spewing hatred and racism. So, I wonder what was on the minds of the Republican House members who censured and removed Rep. Mauree Turner from her committees. What did they think was in the head of the nation’s first, non-binary, Black Muslim, when she spoke with Capitol law enforcement agents before giving them access to her office and a trans-gender demonstrator? As Politico explained, “the spouse of a protester who threw water on a state lawmaker sought shelter in their office.”

Politico also recounted the abuse and death threats Turner has received, and it added an Editor’s note:

Turner read aloud from an email sent to their inbox. The sender hurled racist, transphobic, homophobic and Islamophobic insults at Turner and said they should be shunned from society because they were a burden. POLITICO has chosen not to print the insults so as not to elevate hateful rhetoric.

So, what did Turner have in mind when speaking with the police? Rep. Turner has witnessed the stress created by 40 anti-trans and/or anti-LGBTQ bills that have been filed this session. The protest was against “HB 2177, a bill that would outlaw gender-affirming health care for transgender minors.” And clearly, Turner and her supporters were being treated differently than the two legislators who are being prosecuted for felonies.

And, I wonder what the Republican leadership was thinking when they failed to talk with Turner before filing the censure without warning. And I wonder what Republicans who were quietly embarrassed by it were feeling when they stripped Turner’s and her district’s representation in committees.

Of course, there are questions about what plenty of Oklahoma MAGA’s had in mind when they’ve made extreme statements. For instance, what did Gov. Stitt mean when he claimed “every square inch” of Oklahoma for Jesus? And what was Sen. Shane Jett thinking when attacking Social and Emotional Learning as a leftist plot to “psychologically manipulate children and surveil Oklahoma families under the guise of addressing trauma.”

Then, what was in the minds of Republicans who voted down a bipartisan bill, HB 1028 which “would prohibit schools from administering corporal punishment to “any student identified with disability in accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.”

As the Washington Post reported, “Oklahoma state Rep. John Talley thought his bill to bar schools from spanking children with disabilities would find little to no opposition at the state’s legislature.” After all, he “had a call with a U.S. Marshal who told me his autistic daughter got spanked three times in a day for not doing her math correctly — there’s a point when you have to step up and say ‘this is just wrong.’”

But, “what seemed like a rare bipartisan moment quickly came crashing down as other Republican lawmakers invoked the Bible to argue against Talley’s House Bill 1028, claiming in some instances that ‘God’s word is higher than all the so-called experts,’ as Rep. Jim Olsen posited during the proposed legislation’s debate.” The Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbiel reported that Olsen further explained, “Somebody mentioned that American (Academy of) Pediatrics thinks (spanking) is a bad idea.” Then, “After reading Bible verses he said prove that God condones corporal punishment. ‘I disagree. And I have a higher authority.’”

In other words, every week since the Oklahoma legislature convened, rightwing extremists have continually hurled one cruel and irrational assault after another at our democracy. It seems like more Republicans are disturbed by this MAGA craziness. A few have spoken out against a few of the behaviors that they see as wrong. So, I wonder what is in the minds of Republicans who are being pressured to vote for such a brutal agenda. I wonder when they will reach a point when you have to step up and say “this is just wrong.”

John Thompson added as a postscript:

“Several people were a little nervous about voting for it because they thought they were voting against the Bible,” said [John] Talley, R-Stillwater,” and he’s working to get those Republicans to reconsider their votes.

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/politics/government/2023/03/16/jim-olsen-oklahoma-spare-the-rod-corporal-punishment-disabled-students/70016228007/
Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Cruelty, Education Industry, Extremism, Racism, Religion, Shame, Special Education, Stupid
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