GOP Delenda Est

The entire GOP and all of its donors, voters, consultants, officials appointed and elected are now a clear and present danger to the national security. It has to be stopped, and stopped by overwhelming and repeated electoral defeat.

 

This is a call to democratic and Democratic arms: voting repugs out of office and out of public life is a patriotic duty.

Erik Loomis:

In fact, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh quickly, then Roberts fast-tracks Roe repeal and assigns the decision to Kavanaugh, just to give a big “fuck you” to Democrats. That sentiment is after all the primary motivating factor for Republicans, other than giving money to the rich.

This is a revolting party, a threat to the republic, one openly flirting with fascism. When Graham threatens that Republicans will simply make up sexual assault claims to destroy future Democratic court nominees, that is fascism. This is a party that combines racism, misogyny, and crushing the poor as its core features. There is no redemption here. We must destroy the Republican Party, making it so toxic that it cannot win elections and is forced to reconstitute itself as something less extreme. That begins in November, but that’s only a first step. Defeating Donald Trump in 2020 is only a second step. In 2009, way too many liberals sat back and thought Barack Obama would take care of their problems. We saw how that turned out in 2010 and after. To save this nation from the Republican menace, we have to continue our onslaught against them under the next president, both in terms of passing policies and confirming judges that move justice forward, but also in terms of candidate recruitment, grassroots activism, and everything else that fuels our wins now. The nation’s future relies on it.

And Kevin Drum

The problem here is not that Republicans were grandstanding over imagined liberal schemes to destroy anyone and anything in pursuit of their poisonous schemes to crush everything good about America. The problem is that most of it wasn’t grandstanding. They believe this deeply and angrily. And it explains the lengths Republicans are willing to go to these days—even to the appalling extent of accepting a cretin like Donald Trump as a party leader. If you believe that your political opposites aren’t just opponents, but literally enemies of the country, then of course you’ll do almost anything to stop them. I would too if that’s what I thought.

There are some liberals who do think that—and more and more of them since Donald Trump was elected. But it’s still a relatively small part of the progressive movement. In the conservative movement it’s an animating principle. This is why it so desperately needs to be stopped—not by destroying Republicans, but by voting them out of office. We simply can’t afford to have a major party run for the benefit of fearful whites who are dedicated to a scorched-earth belief that liberals are betraying the nation. It has to end, and Republicans themselves are ultimately the only ones who can end it. We need a real conservative party again.

Party of Rape

Down with Tyranny:

Paid for Abortion

Down with Tyranny:

KY Anti-Abortion Law Struck Down

Holy Shit.  And another excuse for Gov. "Only Penises Have Rights" to waste more tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in fruitless appeals.

From the AP:

In a victory for abortion-rights supporters, a federal judge struck down a Kentucky law that had put the state's last abortion clinic at risk of closing when Gov. Matt Bevin's administration cited it in a licensing fight with the facility.

U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers, in a long-awaited ruling, said Friday that the two-decade-old law violates constitutionally protected due process rights. The law required Kentucky's abortion clinics to have written agreements with a hospital and an ambulance service in case of medical emergencies.
Stivers said the so-called transfer agreements "do not advance a legitimate interest" in promoting the health of women seeking abortions.

"The court has carefully reviewed the evidence presented in this case and concludes that the record is devoid of any credible proof that the challenged regulations have any tangible benefit to women's health," Stivers wrote in his 60-page ruling. "On the other hand, the regulations effectively eliminate women's rights to abortions in the state. Therefore, the challenged regulations are unconstitutional."

The ruling was welcomed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which joined the legal fight on behalf of the Louisville abortion clinic. A spokeswoman for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin said the decision will be appealed.

In a statement, ACLU attorney Brigitte Amiri said: "The court's decision recognized the Kentucky law for what it is: an attack on women wrapped up in a bogus justification and pushed by politicians who've been transparent in their pursuit to ban abortion in the state of Kentucky."

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article219207890.html#storylink=cpy

37 Days

Dok Zoom at Wonkette:

Remember that the good guys can win. We're them. We have to make it happen.

Remember Molly Ivins, who would tell you to have a good cry and then GET MAD AND PUT YOUR ANGER TO WORK:

So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.

November 6 is 37 days away. Let's get to work.

Don't assume everyone you know is registered or plans to vote.  Next Friday is Kentucky's deadline to register. Ask, and if they say no, drag them down to the County Clerk and register them.  Make sure they know where their polling place is, and they have a ride if they need one.

And fight repug/russian voting fuckery!  Check with your county clerk and make sure you are still registered and that your polling place is still where you think it is.

The Men Who Fought

Down with Tyranny:

Report: Home Schooling Is a Scam. Also, Water is Wet.

For pity's fucking sake.  People in Kentucky have been screaming this fact for literally decades.  Everybody knows home schooling is a fraud.  Always has been, always will be.

From the Herald:

While acknowledging there’s quality education in many home schools, state public school officials worry that some families “who claim to be home schooling” are actually trying to hide truancy.

Eighty-two percent of state pupil personnel directors — those responsible for enforcing attendance laws — told researchers with the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability, they have observed families they believe are taking advantage of flexibility in home school laws to avoid legal consequences of truancy, Deborah Nelson, an analyst for the OEA told state lawmakers Tuesday.
 
Attendance verification was just one of the multiple issues with home schooling accountability that made an OEA report.
 
In Kentucky, parents are required to tell local districts annually if their children are being home schooled and they must maintain attendance and grade reports, but the OEA report said there is little guidance in how they should be monitored.
 
Home school parents have to teach the same subjects as public schools and to hold classes for the same duration of time as the public school term, but the teaching is not monitored, the report said.
 
And those charged with enforcing attendance are confused about the criteria they should use to monitor whether parents are providing adequate information to districts because there is no legal guidance or minimum standards, Nelson said. They often don’t know what to do if they are concerned about the quality of a home school, she added.

State officials have done nothing to establish and enforce regulations to ensure home schooling actually educates children for one simple reason: freakazoid political power.  The vast majority of homeschoolers in Kentucky are xianist fanatics who don't want public school to interfere with the pure religious bullshit they indoctrinate in their children. So they forced the legislature to keep home schooling entirely unregulated.

That's not in this report, of course. 

The Face of Cowardice

Down with Tyranny:

Massa Bevin: Slaves Were Just Apprentices

When your racism and White Privilege are so ingrained that you can't even pretend any more.

Joe Gerth at the Courier:

When Master Matt Bevin thinks of the “good ol’ days,” who knew he thinks about the late 1700s?

Marse Bevin — according to WFPL — went to the Kentucky Registered Apprenticeship Summit on Monday and extolled the virtues of indentured servitude as being something akin to an early form of an apprenticeship.

According to the radio station, Marse Bevin said that a couple of his ancestors came to America as indentured servants, learned how to make bells from their master and went on to form their own company after they were freed.

He hailed the harsh practice of keeping people in bondage as a way to give workers hands-on experience.

Well shackle me up and teach me to cast bronze.

Indentured servitude, of course, was the practice of paying one’s way across the pond by selling oneself into bondage for a prescribed number of years — essentially a form of slavery.

It differed from the enslavement of Africans practiced throughout the South, though, in that with Southern slavery, there was no contract and the prescribed number of years was the rest of one’s life, and the rest of one's children’s lives and the rest of their children’s lives, and so on.

So, slavery was far worse. But indentured servitude was no picnic, either.

Sure, a few indentured servants learned trades, but the vast majority of serfs were field workers and household servants, working alongside the African slaves, or doing the same jobs in lieu of the African slaves.

For Master Bevin, this is not to be thought of as a time we should regret and think “thank heavens we’ve gotten past that and don’t allow such a barbarous practice any longer.”

No, for Master Bevin, it is the age of enlightenment. A time of great learning.

(Someone should point out right here that labor unions, which Bevin has harshly criticized and pushed to neuter or kill with right-to-work and other anti-union legislation, run amazing apprenticeship programs that don’t require bondage or a period of servitude.)

Open Season on KY Toddlers: 3 Shot Dead in 3 Weeks

But of course toddlers and children within a country mile of a gun are always in season.

From the Herald:

A 2-year-old child died after being accidentally shot by a sibling Tuesday in Western Kentucky.

The Barren County sheriff’s office said they were called to the home of an Amish family on Buck Creek Road after the shooting at about 8:45 a.m.

“The children had been sent upstairs to get some items for their parent prior to the incident taking place,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article217813570.html#storylink=cpy

The sheriff’s office said the juvenile sibling had been handling a loaded rifle when the toddler was shot. The child was pronounced dead at the scene.

It was the third fatal shooting of a small child in Kentucky in less than a month.

On Friday, a 3-year-old Harlan County boy died after sustaining a gunshot wound to the head on his front porch in the Totz community.

 

A 2-year-old boy died Aug. 15 after shooting himself in the head in Louisville.

A Herald-Leader investigation last year found that at least 36 Kentucky children had accidentally shot themselves or another child over the previous five years.

First, Let's Kill All the Bosses

This weekend I saw an NBC promo that featured some CNBC analyst purporting to advise people who are having problems with their boss.

Short version: stop forcing your boss to "explain your behavior to other people."

Fact: If your boss is spending even five seconds "explaining your behavior to other people," then you do indeed have a big problem.  Your big problem is that your boss is an asshole.

Your boss is an asshole because your boss is undermining and sabotaging you by publicly disparaging your skills and professionalism.

More broadly, your boss is an asshole because 45 years ago repug/conservative capitalism began to flip the New Deal system of powerful labor/worker that prevented owners and bosses from abusing workers to one that allows employers to treat employees as serfs without rights.

It's Labor Fucking Day, people. Let's stop giving bosses power.  Let's stop putting employers in charge. Let's stop pretending owners are "job creators."

If every boss, employer, owner disappeared tomorrow, the work - the actual work of keeping the economy humming - the work would continue without a hiccup.

Workers create jobs. Workers build and run the economy.  Workers are irreplaceable.

What would a worker-centered economy look like?  Let's start with what we lost 45 years ago and build on that.

• Criminalize non-worker interference with organizing and collective bargaining. Every workplace that votes to unionize gets a union. Every unionized workplace requires collective bargaining.
• Repeal all pro-rentier, anti-worker legislation, regulations and tax breaks.
• Permanently bar from all government contracts, tax breaks and subsidies all corporations that take anti-worker actions (not just layoffs and off-shoring but also a worker-management pay ratio of more than 50 to 1). 
• Ban all future and reverse all previous mergers/acquisitions that give any entity control of more than five percent of any economic sector. Criminalize anti-trust behavior.
• Minimum wage of $25 per hour, indexed to inflation.
• Social Security equal to minimum wage, and available at age 55.
• Medicare for All or Single Payer medical insurance.
• Universal Child Care.
• Construct 100 million new units of affordable housing.
• Build mass transportation that gets every worker to their workplace.  

This is fun!  Let your imagination run wild!  No pro-worker policy or program is too much!

McConnell vs. Kentucky

Noah at Down with Tyranny: