Below is my column in the New York Post on the rising rhetoric over the expulsion of two members of the Tennessee legislature. Democrats are denouncing the “fascists” and “racists” for sanctioning members who have been lionized for stopping legislative business with a bullhorn. The incident perfectly captures our amplified rage in today’s politics.
Here is the column:
This month, there was an “assault on democracy” in Tennessee.
However, it was apparently not members halting the legislative process, but rather their expulsion.
It appears that nothing says democracy like a bullhorn and obstructing legislative work.
I recently wrote a column on how American politics has become a simple matter of amplification after Democrats stopped the Tennessee House proceedings with a bullhorn to protest the lack of gun control measures.
I noted, “Today, for many, there is no room for nuance. Instead, they live in a world occupied only by ‘fascists’ and ‘insurrectionists.’ ”
Right on cue, Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) proceeded to add their own amplified voices to the madness.
AOC even shared a video of protesters chanting “F–k you fascists” and promising that “Gen Z” will even the score.
I do not agree with the expulsion of the two members as opposed to other sanctions.
Expulsion should only come in rare and extreme circumstances.
While repeated disruption of the proceedings might qualify, I would have recommended censures and suspension from Committee positions.
Vice President Harris did not visit the families of the victims of the recent mass shooting in Nashville, but flew to the state to express her outrage at the expulsion of two legislators.
She praised the legislators while blaming the Republicans for victimizing the families whom she ignored on her visit.
Disrupting discourse
The full-throated support for the actions of the expelled legislators is a bizarre position for the Senate president who enforces the same rules in Washington, DC.
Yet she was disgusted by sanctioning members who refused to allow their colleagues to continue legislative business because they lacked the votes for a gun control measure.
Harris proclaimed “it’s about whose voices they were channeling. Understand that — and is that not what a democracy allows?”
Liberal sites like HuffPost gushed with praise for Harris and her “powerful message on Democracy.”
Democracy does not invite or entail the disruption of democratic process.
It is the same bizarre claim for many on the left that silencing others by shouting them down on campuses is a form of free speech.
These legislators were upset because they are in the minority and lack sufficient votes to get what they want.
They were protesting the democratic process, not advancing its principles in shutting down the floor.
For her part, AOC returned to calling the GOP members fascists and said Gen Z was coming: “Their fascism is only further radicalizing and awakening an earthquake of young people, both in the South and across the nation. If you thought youth organizing was strong, just wait for what’s coming. Gen Z don’t play.”
Others piled on: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) decried, “This is fascism . . . expelling your political opponents . . . is disgusting.” Likewise, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) declared, “This is fascism, full stop.” Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) added “straight-up fascism in its ugliest, most racist form” because “there is no justification for ousting two legislators who were protesting with and for their constituents.”
Echo chamber
It is an ironic position of some Democrats who have supported calls for expelling House members after Jan. 6, including false claims that members personally assisted rioters in surveilling and getting access to the building.
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin also called for expelling Republican members who voted against certifying the 2020 election.
It did not matter that members like Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) had previously voted against the certification of Republican presidents and called it democracy.
In 2004, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi heaping praise on Boxer declared, “This is not as some of our Republican colleagues have referred to it sadly as frivolous. This debate is fundamental to our democracy.”
Rubin declared, “Every Republican bears a responsibility for what happened on Wednesday, whether or not they participated in a seditious attempt to overthrow our democracy.”
January 6th committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) voted to challenge the certification of the 2004 results of President George W. Bush’s re-election; committee member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to challenge President Donald Trump’s certification in 2016.
It did not matter that Rubin and members like Rep. Bill Pascrell demanded expulsion of dozens of members for their voting the wrong way on certification.
There were no cries of disgust from Harris or others even when Pascrell later called for prevention of 120 GOP members from being seated for signing an amicus brief that the Democrats disagreed with.
Likewise, when GOP members said something on the floor that Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) felt wrongly portrayed Jan. 6, he called for their censure.
Dangerous hypocrisy
Now, however, Rubin and others are outraged with the expulsion of two members, objecting to “the stunning sight of white lawmakers condescendingly dismissing two young black men.”
Others packed a litany of left-wing grievances in the controversy.
One columnist wrote: “White nationalistic, theocratic, radical, ‘conservative’ movement that wants to burn this country to the ground if the masses refuse to be ruled by them alone do wish to conserve something. White (straight, ‘Christian’) male privilege and power. What happened was a very public lesson on structural racism, or even better, critical race theory.”
The media is complicit in this dangerous hypocrisy.
There is no discussion of how reckless rhetoric to rise up against the “fascists” fuels violence despite the common objections to such rhetoric from figures like Trump.
When witnesses recently called for an investigation into government censorship efforts, Democratic members denounced those calling for greater transparency as “Putin lovers” and apologists for insurrectionists and racists.
The reason appears to be the very rationalization of Vice President Harris: “It’s about whose voices they were channeling.”
Preventing legislative proceedings because the majority denied the “right” result is now democracy itself.
AOC’s promise of a radical reckoning is of little surprise.
The self-proclaimed socialist has long objected to aspects of our constitutional democracy, even questioning the value of having a Supreme Court.
Because she disagrees with the rulings of the Court, she asked, “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.”
It all comes down to “whose voices are being channeled” as opposed to what the law or democracy may dictate.
It is all part of Politics BYOB (Bring Your Own Bullhorn).
Judd Legum:
Tennessee House Speaker @CSexton25 secretly bought a 600K home in Nashville
He went to extensive efforts to shield the purchase from the public
It raises serious Qs about whether Sexton legally represents his district and whether he is misusing taxpayer funds
Rep. Gloria Johnson: “It’s interesting that there appear to be Republicans on the floor right now breaking rules by video recording on the house floor while in session. #justsaying”
The Tennessee Holler: “⚡️NEW LEAKED AUDIO: TN House Republicans infighting over #TennesseeThree votes.
“CEPICKY: “You gotta do what’s right even when you think it might be wrong.”🤔
“Leadership says Barrett made them look racist, Cepicky says they’re at “war”, etc. must-listen.”
audio: https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1646548124272324608
Using the racial and sexual differences (most any proclivity can be used) in a ‘forceful manner’ that are practiced into honed a skill to knowingly intimidate Others in order to accomplish (Get) what you want, has become the Social-Martial Arts of some Individuals that have a self-serving agenda (Bullies).
Those whom are Victim of these instances are left: stunned, terrified, dumbfounded, and hurt (injured and mentally scared). It is also easy for the Perpetrator to turn the story around to make the Victim look like the culprit adding more to the Victim’s anguish.
The Perpetrators are usually left undisciplined and left unaccountable for Their actions.
That’s why it works for Them (reward & reinforcement). They know what They are doing when They do it.
The Three Tennessee Representatives; Justin Jones,Justin Pearson, and Rep. Gloria Johnson,
got what They were after.
Give Me, Give Me, Give Me, at your Cost, not Mine.
It’s absolutely Nuts, and It doesn’t cost them anything.
Here is an example that hits Home:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/woman-demanding-reparations-target-punched-face-security-guard-rosa-parks-moment
In other legal news, an appeals court panel has denied Peter Navarro’s attempt to stay the district court ruling that required him to return 200-250 presidential records he kept after leaving the Trump White House.
So?
Blatant Democrat hypocrisy. And they have the “bullhorn” of the media lapdogs.
Rep Justin Pearson has now also been reinstated to the TN House.
Expel him again and pass legislation that prevents reinstating any member once they’ve been expelled.
Yes, please convince even more young voters to abandon the GOP.
It’s called doing the right thing.
Once a member is expelled, that’s it, they’re out.
They need to stop this political nonsense from the radical Democrat party because it’s wrong.
Better to remove his power within the legislature, for without power, he cannot respond to the needs of those who elect him. The people will then vote another man in without making him a martyr. That will frighten others that wish to abuse their colleagues.
Interesting thought, but no. He should be re-expelled repeatedly.
I respect that opinion, but how is it working out?
Martyrs frequently become more powerful dead than when alive.
The truth will out, as they say.
Expel them both.
Change the rules.
Did you note how the Republicans backpedaled? Is that good?
The old saying ‘rules are meant to be broken’ is not the end of the problem. One can twist rules, and more frequently or not are unclear.
One needs to look at the past and look forward to the future. Many actions in the past are regretted today, and actions today will be regretted in the future.
Both of them….should be re-expelled repeatedly.
“The Arizona statehouse has voted to expel Republican Liz Harris from the chamber. Harris was expelled by her peers in the House of Representatives on a vote of 46-13 Wednesday. The expulsion vote stems from an election integrity committee hearing conducted by Harris in February in which she invited a speaker who made unfounded accusations of bribery against members of the legislature, including the Republican Speaker of the House Ben Toma.”
https://www.abc15.com/news/state/house-rep-liz-harris-ousted-from-office-after-ethics-review
Right, unfounded accusations….backed up by actual evidence they have zero intention of looking into….why would they investigate themselves? So of course they expelled Harris. How corrupt is AZ? Thoroughly.
Crazy.
Lisa Rubin: “Trump asks SDNY Judge Lew Kaplan to postpone E. Jean Carroll’s defamation/assault trial until late May. Why? Because of the substantial publicity surrounding the Manhattan DA’s recent indictment. Never do Trump’s lawyers acknowledge how much of that maelstrom Trump created.”
Hopefully Kaplan will reject it. Just last night in his Tucker interview, Trump was saying how many fans he has in NYC. He should be able to find an impartial jury.
And in other Trump legal news, he just filed a lawsuit against Michael Cohen: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.645291/gov.uscourts.flsd.645291.1.0_2.pdf
LOL that Trump is such a narcissist, he includes statements like “Defendant stated that Plaintiff was ‘smart’” in his statement of facts.
Trump also brings up Cohen’s part in the Stormy Daniels hush money payment. This will definitely convince Judge Kaplan to postpone the Carroll v Trump trial because that there’s too much publicity around the hush money indictment.
Ex-Fox News producer Abby Grossberg said in an amended legal complaint that Fox News failed to provide Dominion with multiple recordings she made of Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies admitting they had no proof to support their election lies.
If true, that would be pretty bad.
“Fox News sanctioned for withholding evidence in Dominion defamation case
“The judge is giving Dominion Voting Systems a chance to conduct another deposition, at Fox’s expense.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/media/fox-sanctioned-withholding-evidence-dominion-case-rcna79377
But you won’t hear a peep about it from JT.
ATS, you are a true Stalinist. You want everyone to think and talk about what you wish to say.
Here’s what the TN legislature needs to do
1. Pass a law prohibiting legislators from returning if they’ve been expelled for aiding and abetting violent insurrectionists
2. Expel him again
This isn’t difficult
Play to win or get played by Democrats in a deep red state
@dcdraino
There was no violence at the TN capitol.
“There was no violence at the TN capitol.”
Said by a blind and deaf man who observed the riot.
Rioters bearing arms
The fact that the “Tennessee Insurrectionists” were immediately defended by the Biden White House, and escaped condemnation by the MSM, and were furiously cheered on by the DNC trolls on this blog, must mean one thing: what happened in Nashville on March 30 was not spontaneous or organic. It is was a strategy green-lit, if not actually planned, by the leaders of the Democratic Party and will be repeated around the country. We must hope that Republican leaders in other legislatures realize what is at stake in the battle with this new form of intimidation.
Republicans are getting more and more extreme.
Missouri House Republicans just voted to defund all of the state’s public libraries. Libraries are one of the great inventions of humankind, only extremists would choose to defund them.
And what are libraries run by perverts? See you can’t have it both ways.
The Missouri legislature enacted a law banning explicit sexual material, as defined below, in schools. The ACLU and the Missouri Library Association want young children to have access to explicit sexual material so they filed a lawsuit challenging the law. The House responded by defunding the public libraries.
All the libraries had to do was comply with the law to receive funding. Instead, they place such a high value on exposing young kids to sexual perversion and deviancy that they chose to go to court over the law.
(1) “Explicit sexual material”, any pictorial, three-dimensional, or visual depiction, including any photography, film, video, picture, or computer-generated image, showing human masturbation, deviate sexual intercourse as defined in section 566.010, sexual intercourse, direct physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse, or emphasizing the depiction of postpubertal human genitals; provided, however, that works of art, when taken as a whole, that have serious artistic significance, or works of anthropological significance, or materials used in science courses, including but not limited to materials used in biology, anatomy, physiology, and sexual education classes shall not be deemed to be within the foregoing definition;
“All the libraries had to do was comply with the law to receive funding. “
Thank you for explaining the falsehoods provided by the other anonymous. He provides false information all the time, so no one knows when an anonymous is telling the truth.
All the legislature had to do was wait to see the court’s ruling on the constitutionality of the law.
@Anonymous
You are an idiot.
Jonathan, Can the Chief judge of a federal district court assign a judge from another federal district to rule in all matters in a lawsuit brought by his son?
The background to the above comment by Anonymous is the recent anactment by Missouri of a law that prevented school libraries from providing explicity sexual materials to children. The heart of the statute says:
15. Section 573.550.1 states:
A person commits the offense of providing explicit sexual material to a student if
such person is affiliated with a public or private elementary or secondary school
in an official capacity and, knowing of its content and character, such person
provides, assigns, supplies, distributes, loans, or coerces acceptance of or the
approval of the providing of explicit sexual material to a student or possesses with
the purpose of providing, assigning, supplying, distributing, loaning, or coercing
acceptance of or the approval of the providing of explicit sexual material to a
student. [Quoted from hyperlink below, at p. 19}
Such action is far from “extreme” even in the eyes of normal Democrats.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit to nullify the law. This might be called “more and more extreme” https://www.aclu-mo.org/sites/default/files/sb_775_petition_final.pdf
The vote yesterday by the Missouri House to defund public libraries appears to be a tactical response to that lawsuit. https://www.rawstory.com/missouri-house-republicans-defund-public-libraries-report-2659837053/
Strange that they can’t wait to see what a court rules on the constitutionality of the law.
So patient ATS is until it is Get Trump
So patient ATS is until it is Destroy the Constitution
So patient ATS is until it is …
That is the hallmark of a hypocrite.
BTW, among the books that were pulled from the libraries for violating the law: the childrens’ Bible.
The publisher renamed the book the Family Bible perhaps because some of the stories were difficult to explain to children.
It wasn’t the Bible that was removed, and the book apparently isn’t bad, but it delves into things that some families would prefer not to explain until the child is a bit older. That would be a good reason to remove a book directed to children and meant for children to read.
ATS, there is something wrong with you. You look for confirmation bias and then regurgitate it on the blog without knowing anything about what you are regurgitating. That is why another had to explain a potential problem with the book, invalidating your complaint.
Confirmation bias permits you to make a point you couldn’t otherwise make. That makes you a liar and a deceitful one. That might be considered acceptable to others, but to me, it is an insult directed at the blog and should not be tolerated.
Well, when your 60-year-running democrat district graduates is at best 50% literate, like Baltimore, Detroit or a few other once wonderful places (pre-dem), maybe a library isn’t the best use of precious tax dollars (ripped from outside those districts) – call me extreme.
You think defunding libraries will improve literacy?!?
No public libraries are being forced. No bookstores are being forced.
Stop the BS. All these books are available.
Groomers and perverts stay away from schools.
“It appears he does. His rationale seems to exhibit a bit of fallacious syllogism.”
Another self-deletion by ATS.
But is this his next step in his meltdown. Deletions and then the use of pretend friends to bolster his support.
MO Library Association:
“The MO House of Representatives voted to remove all funding to public libraries because they don’t want MLA to use state money in our lawsuit against govt censorship. A few notes:
“1- MLA receives no state money. At all. We are 100% volunteer. You’d think that would be an easy thing for them to find out. Maybe at a library.
“2- The lawsuit is being handled by @aclu_mo pro bono, which means no money is changing hands even if MLA were receiving state aid.
“3- This tactic, meant to bully MLA into submission, instead directly harms public libraries who rely on those funds, especially the smaller, more rural libraries.
“4- Library funding is guaranteed in the MO constitution. State aid cannot be removed, making this decision unconstitutional.
“View our full comment below or on our website [molib.org]. We will continue to dispute this vote. …”
https://twitter.com/MOlibraries/status/1641140653793878016
Republicans are getting more and more extreme.”
Nope, that is more Democrat party propaganda.
That is more Biden administration spreading of disinformation and lies.
The Democrat party *are* the extremists.
Those running Biden’s administration *are* the extremists.
Biden’s DOJ *are* the extremists.
Biden’s FBI *are* the extremists.
Biden’s policies *are* extremist, on the fringe, and *not* helpful for most people.
Biden’s policies *are* extremist and harmful to most Americans.
We are at war in this country courtesy of the *extremists* running the Biden administration.
We are nearing WW3 courtesy of the *extremists* running the Biden foreign policy.
We are nearing a collapse of the USD courtesy of the *extremists* running the Biden economy into the ground.
The Democrat party and the Biden administration *are* the extremists. Make no mistake.
FBI = domestic blackmail wing of DNC
CIA = paramilitary wing of DNC
Journalism = propaganda wing of DNC
So Democrats believe that using a bullhorn to shut down democracy is done in service of democracy. No surprise there. They live in opposite world, where fascists are called “anti-fascist,” racism is called “anti-racism,” rioting, looting and arson are “mostly peaceful,” biological men not only can get pregnant but they belong in women’s sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms, shutting down speech is free speech, an open border with illegal immigrants, sex-traffickers, and drug-traffickers pouring across is “secure,” and on and on. Wake me up when Democrats regain sanity. That won’t be soon so I’ll get a good long nap.
Old man, just like the old brown shirt days.
As I have generally said before, I strongly support the 13th, 14th,15th, and 19th amendments to the Constitution as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act. Also, the Supreme held in Texas V White (1869) that States do not have a constitutional right to secede.
Supreme Court, 1973, Americans have a national, constitutional right to abortion.
Supreme Court, 2022, Americans DO NOT have a national, constitutional right to abortion, and the Supreme Court of 1973 was totally corrupt and subversive, not simply wrong, those Justices were far too intelligent to have been wrong.
_________________________________________
No prohibition of secession in the Constitution was produced in the proceedings of the corrupt Supreme Court, 1869, or here – it doesn’t exist.
The Framers availed themselves of their natural and God-given right to secession in 1776.
Secession is ubiquitous throughout history and around the globe.
West Virginia seceded from Virginia.
Concerned Citizen is obsessed with lying and fabricating in the complete absence of any evidence to the contrary of fully constitutional and, not prohibited, secession.
Concerned Citizen has absolutely no proof or credibility.
Concerned Citizen is hereby impeached with extreme prejudice.
Secession was and is fully constitutional and every act of Lincoln, subsequent to his unconstitutional denial of secession, war, tyranny and oppression was, and remains, illicit, illegal, invalid, illegitimate and unconstitutional, including the “Reconstruction Amendments” which were improperly ratified with a gun to America’s head, under the duress of brutal, post-war military occupation, oppression and tyranny. Violence is not enumerated in the Constitution as being part of the amendment process. Extant immigration law was illegally and unconstitutionally not enforced.
It’s time to accept reality and history George: the Confederacy is over and the Reconstruction amendments are here to stay!!
The Supreme Court acted retroactively by 50 years to strike down the wholly unconstitutional federal right to abortion, returning it to the States. That’s corrective action, taking America back to the Constitution. The Supreme Court must similarly act retroactively by 150 years to enforce the Constitution in 1860 and 1863, when Lincoln’s high criminal acts to unconstitutionally deny fully constitutional secession and Lincoln’s gross dereliction and refusal to enforce extant immigration law took place.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Criminal acts are crimes and no act resulting from a criminal act is legal. Every act of Lincoln was illicit, illegal, illegitimate and unconstitutional and every act of Lincoln remains so to this day. America awaits corrective action taking America away from communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) and back to the future.
And now some Good News
TL,DR: Stop catastrophizing.
The World Is Ending, but It’s Been Ending Many Times Before
Gerald Baker
WSJ
Maybe our tendency to see catastrophe is a product of how easy we have it in this age of abundance.
America and the world are living through a very long Good Friday. Like Jesus’ terrified and defeated disciples, we have no inkling of any Easter rising in our future. We are figuratively locked in an upper room of our own fears, bereft of hope, pondering the many ways in which the world is going to demolish us.
It’s the climate, roasting us in a crucible. It’s that old tormentor thermonuclear war, long submerged beneath trendier concerns, back with a vengeance because of an actual land war in Europe and a seemingly inevitable conflict with China. Plague, an older agent of human destruction, stalks us again; Covid was a mere foretaste if the alarmists are right. The latest terror is artificial intelligence. If you haven’t read it, do seek out the article in Time everyone is talking about, by Eliezer Yudkowsky, an AI expert. Given all the other threats we face, there is something perversely calming about its essential conclusion: We’re all going to die soon.
At home the republic and democracy are finished. From one side the orange beast is slouching back toward Washington. From the other, a left wing authoritarianism is moving its slow thighs, crushing free speech and politicizing the law, its weird ideology pitting race against race even as it denies the existence of biological sex. A much noted Wall Street Journal/NORC poll last month found that tens of millions of Americans seem to have lost their faith and their values and think about nothing other than making money.
But the 20th century—when more people died under the heel of godless ideologies than had perished in all of Western civilization’s religious wars put together—ought to have put paid to the idea that there was something intrinsically religious about a monomaniacal belief that you are right and your opponents evil.
You can see this in the frailties of the generation now emerging into maturity, the furthest removed from actual calamity in their lives and the ones most attuned to the supposed imminence of it. They require trigger warnings to read Shakespeare or Jane Austen, as they fill their social-media accounts with lurid panics over climate, gender, race, elections.
In addition to exposing themselves to alternative ideas and a little history, maybe they could read the Gospels. It might cheer them up.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-is-ending-but-its-been-ending-many-times-before-gospel-easter-war-crisis-imminence-2449a32a
Estovir – that excerpt makes some good points. But one aspect doesn’t ring true – the bothsidesism in this pair of sentences: From one side the orange beast is slouching back toward Washington. From the other, a left wing authoritarianism is moving its slow thighs, crushing free speech and politicizing the law, its weird ideology pitting race against race even as it denies the existence of biological sex.
What he says about the left-wing authoritarianism is most definitely true. But the “orange beast” is not actually harmful, just scary to the little children on the left who hate him. Why do I say that? Just think about the actual results of four years of Trump, and compare it to now. Here is a partial list off the top of my head (no I did not copy it from some website): (1) energy independence, (2) energy exporting, (3) affordable gas and groceries, (4) low inflation, (5) historically low unemployment especially for minorities, (6) highest real wages in half a century, (7) high property values, (8) high stock market, (9) violent crime under control, (10) border under control, Title 42 and remain-in-Mexico enforced, thus reducing human sex trafficking and deadly fentanyl infiltration into U.S. communities, as well as drowning and heat deaths of the migrants themselves (mostly children), (11) no defunding of police, (12) no war in Europe, (13) criminal justice reform, (14) trade deals benefiting America, (15) reduction of regulatory burden on small businesses, (16) no being beholden to globalist elites (e.g., Davos crowd) who despise free markets and America’s economic system, (17) no political weaponization of the Justice Department or FBI, (18) no labeling of concerned parents as domestic terrorists, (19) no wokeness in military, (20) no catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal weakening America’s position in the world, (21) China and Russia don’t dare act aggressively, (22) no being in thrall to the green cultism and waging war on our best energy sources thereby depressing civilization into a state of poverty (23) no slandering half of the American electorate as alleged fascists (odd that fascist now means someone who wants to *reduce* size and power of the central government and to *oppose* state-corporate joint action to suppress dissent — the exact opposite of what fascism previously meant), (24) no double-standard whereby illegal aliens can come in permanently while not vaxed, but tennis stars can’t come in temporarily if not vaxed.
By contrast, under Biden: the opposite of all of the above. So in terms of fancy sounding prose, nice both-sides equivalence phraseology. But in terms of the actual effect on people’s lives, day and night.
Jonathan: There’s more happening in Tennessee politics. GOP lawmakers tried to cut the Nashville Metropolitan Council by half–from 40 seats to 20. Why? Because Nashville is a Democratic leaning city that blocked the 2024 Republican Nat. Convention from coming to the Music City. Vengeance? Yep. Especially when you consider a quarter of Nashville’s council seats are held by Black members, half by women and 5 members who identify as LGBTQ+. In other words, the GOP wanted to just abolish 20 members elected by the people.
Fortunately, a three-judge panel temporarily ruled against the GOP move. But this shows what happens when a right-wing racist GOP majority controls the levers of power. It’s not just opposed to gun control. Tennessee has one of the most draconian anti-abortion laws in the country. The GOP also passed a bill to rename a portion of Nashville Rep. John Lewis Way to “Trump Boulevard”.
In the GOP/MAGA controlled Tennessee House the popular will, the will of the “majority” doesn’t count. That’s the part you missed in your column.
Dennis – what does any of this mean ?
Who cares how many members on are the Nashville City Counsel ?
Why is it racist to shrink or grow the city counsel ?
\
Is cutting the number of seats likely to change the makeup ?
Don’t Nashville Voters control the makeup of their own city counsel ?
I do not know if there was a rational reason for the GOP to cut the number of seats.
But I do know that “racism” is not the reason – that is just an idiotic claim.
The State GOP does not have the power to alter the votes of Nashville democrats.
If the makeup of the City counsel changes – that would reflect the Racism of Nashville – not the GOP.
I do not know what the basis for the judges to interfere in this. If they claimed racism – they are IDIOTS.
As a rule of thumb, all government power in a state originates with the state government – local government have no ability to define their own powers.
That strongly suggests the Judiciary was medlling in things it has no jurisdiction over.
There is no right of a city that entitles it to judicial protection.
At the same time as I said at the start – I do not see how the number of members of a city counsel is worth political conflict.
If republicans wish to actually effect Nashville, all the need to do is cut off the money.
“Why is it racist to shrink or grow the city counsel?”
– John Say
________
It’s “racist” because you cower your phantom guilt complex at the accusation of racism.
It’s racist because “racist” works on you (as if, they’re not similarly racist, perhaps in “Hymietown,” eh, Jessie?).
It’s like calling a N.Y Giants fan a Philadelphia Eagles fan, OMG, how effing disgusting! None of it’s really real, is it?
Tell ’em to get up on Olde Paint and get the —- where they ain’t.
That should do the trick.
___________________
Imagine, the “passengers” call the captain of a slave ship “racist” and he immediately falls to his knees, crying, then apologizes profusely, grabs the ship’s wheel and makes a violent u-turn back to Africa. Not! I’m just sayin’ (sarc).
if the GOP/MAGA control the TN house – they ARE the majority.
John say, elections have consequences.
The constitution and the rule of law actually require those to be tiny.
Limited government is supposed to mean it really does not matter who is elected they have no power to violate our rights and therefore can do very little.
Did you see your favorite POTUS fly off to visit his ancestral homeland, Ireland?
Hunter and sister Valerie hopped on board AF1 with him.
Biden is throwing in a speech here, a brief diplomatic meeting there….and ALL of it is a personal trip to visit his family ancestry and a trip at taxpayer expense where Biden shoves it in America’s face by bringing his corrupt mess of a son Hunter along for the ride. Biden is the most corrupt, disgusting president in recent memory.
He smirks and laughs at any press who dare to ask him a real question.
He just laughs as if he does not have to anser to anyone.
And he literally does not have to answer to anyone or anything. Literally, Joe Biden himself never has to anser for anything.
Because the corrupt fake news media protect him 24/7. And Joey knows it.
It’s disgusting on every level.
FJB x a gazillion.
and just fyi, there are way more of us who share this FJB sentiment than your left wing media lets on.
You have no idea what’s really going on. You think you do, but you do not. Not even a little bit.
Sad.
https://twitter.com/PelosiTracker_/status/1645837532171739136
Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker ♟
@PelosiTracker_
Well this is odd.
Pelosi seems to be building a habit of reporting her trades around market holidays
Day before New Years – filed $3M of buys
Friday before MLK Day – filed $8M of sells
Week after Thanksgiving – filed $5M of sells
Good Friday – filed $2M of buys
Too bad Nancy doesn’t work for Merrill lynch.
OT
“Do we [Europeans] have an interest in speeding up on the subject of Taiwan? No. The worst of things would be to think that we Europeans must be followers on this subject and adapt ourselves to an American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction.”
– French President Emmanuel Macron
_______________________________
China conquers France – America loses another “ally.”
American dead in the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, are rolling over in their graves.
What Professor Turley will never mention is the history between Hiouse Speaker Cameron Sexton and Jones in particular and Pearson as well, though they’d only been in the House for less than 4 and 3 months respectively. Jones was a leader for a couple of years during a ten-year protest to remove the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Capitol. Jones got on Sexton’s radar in 2019, Sexton was vehemently opposed to removing the bust, saying it was “whitewashing history” though the bust makes no mention of Forrest’s history as a slave trader, war criminal (Fort Pillow Massacre), and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The bust was eventually moved to another site. Jones led a 62-day sit in in the aftermath of George Floyd which inconvenienced the Legislators who didn’t want to act on any of the proposals. Pearson enraged House members who tweeted from their official site that he should consider another occupation after being sworn in wearing a dashiki. I submit Sexton and others were looking to get rid of the pair long before the bullhorns came out. Once it appeared they would return, Sexton threatened not to seat Jones and to cut off funding from Shelby County where Pearson comes from if their communities temporarily reinstated the pair. Tennessee still celebrates Nathan Bedford Forrest Day and until recently, by law the Governor had to make a proclamation celebrating Nathan Bedford Day, Robert E. Lee Day, and Confederate Memorial Day which coincided with Jefferson Davis’s Birthday. Each used to be an official holiday, now just unofficial. Even Ted Cruz blasted the proclamation.
https://williamspivey.medium.com/the-history-of-nathan-bedford-forrest-day-in-tennessee-4f2ace54a32
Nathan Bedford Forrest was the finest military mind this country ever produced up to and including today. Take one look at the lying buffoon Mark MIlley if you need any proof. He should behonored along with Lee, Jackson and every other confederate who fought to defend their home from perceived oppression. (Jefferson Davis was a cad by any definition as well as a coward). Slavery was both unversally legal and moral in every major religion at the outset of the War and that position changed with the gambit of laws and proclamations that changed the instituion. If the Left can justify the illegal burning of blacks and their businesses by other blacks and their allies then surely they can understand the homage gven to NBF for defending oppresses Southern farmers from yankee interlopers.
In a society of laws, the laws must be obeyed.
Slavery must have been terminated in the U.S. and Europe through legal means, including advocacy, boycotts, divestiture, etc.
Secession is not prohibited by the Constitution; Confederate States would have seceded and reunited after failing “by popular demand” throughout the West.
Extant immigration law must have been enforced.
Lincoln threw the baby out with the bathwater; he threw the Constitution out with reprehensible slavery.
Mespo,
I agree with you on Nathan Bedford Forrest should be honored even through to this day.
Gen ” High Heels Fag*got” Milley on the other, just from the evidence known to us in the general pop if President George Washington would have him hung as a traitor to the USA along with many more… Bidens….. Pelosi/Schumer/McConnell ….., they all should immediately step down & surrender to the true will of the American Citizens.
So you’re ignoring both the Grand Wizard part and the Fort Pillow Massacre? Literally defending the Klan and mass murder. I expect that from George, a little disappointed in you, Mespo.
Enigm,
Memphis Tenn., is doing so much better today under Your American Hating Commie/Fascist Aholes Right!
That ole type slavery was fast on it’s way out back then just as a matter of economics & transferring to this modern day type of slavery the Globalist Banking Trash has placed use all under. Grow up!
Enigma:
The Klan was hardly a monolith with NBF ran it. Their main target were carpetbaggers but they did perpetrate crimes against Reconstruction blacks. NBF role in those crimes is not clear. As for Ft. Pillow, NBF did not order the massacre and comtemporaneous accounts point to both the bravery of free blacks who would not surrender and confederate officers losing control of their men.The truth will never be known because the Yankees seized on the massacre as a propaganda tool shortly after the battle and distorted it for their recruiting. Don’t be disappointed. Be glad I know history.
I know the history too, the troops were under his command were they not? Here are a couple quotes from and about your hero, one after Fort Pillow.
“The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards…. Negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners”
Perhaps slaughtered means something else in your dictionary. Forrest joked afterwards that his men ate the dead Black soldiers and that he himself ate their babies. Another quote comes from biographer Brian Willis
“After his successful raid at Murfreesboro for instance, a Confederate officer brought before Forrest ‘a mulatto man, who was the servant to one of the officers in the Union forces.’ Forrest cursed him and asked what he was doing there. The man replied that he was a free man, not a slave, came out as the servant to an officer, whom he named. Forrest drew his pistol and blew the man’s brains out. The Confederate officer, who knew the man from Pennsylvania and had never been enslaved, ‘denounced the act as one of cold-blooded murder and declared that he would never again serve under Forrest,'”
Now the lost causers who believe the negative things said about Forrest were “Yankee propoganda” only refer to his positive acts. If you want to credit him for quitting the Klan (he also testified before Congress he wasn’t even a member) and being concerned for his legacy, feel free. I choose not to forget he was a war criminal, the female slaves he sold were to be raped and bear more children to be sold. He promoted one sale by claiming the young slave was Frederick Douglass’s daughter. This is no hero and I am disappointed in you because I respected your ability to reason and consider facts; no longer.
Blacks murdered more blacks in a year in the streets of the USA since 2020 then all of the Grand Masters (or whatever they’re called) and their minions have in history.
Tell us how any black Memphis kid’s life will change if Bedford is honored or not.
Look, we get it, being a victim will last as long as it is profitable politically, unfortunately it only hurts blacks going forward blaming their lot on what happened 150 years ago.
The democrats had a past GM of the KKK as a senator for 50 years, until 2010…50 years.
Stop pretending to be a victim of someone else’s history.
Enigma, I hope you keep posting. I may not always agree with you, but you seem to post your ideas in a civil and reasoned manor. I do like to hear both sides. It’s good for the thought process.
Thank you!
“I know the history too, the troops were under his command were they not?”
***************************
I was hoping you’d cite Willis. Thankfully, Willis has a much more nuanced view of NBF than you. I’ve read thebook and believe it paints a large picture but not the whole one. Of coursWillis’ job is to present the whole man not the caricature you describe. Forrest disavowed the excesses of the Klan and called for its disbandment 1869 when it turned from defending poor Southerners to oppressing Reconstruction blacks. He also said:
” I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think I am doing wrong. I believe I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to elevate every man—to depress none.”
Willis also writes of Fort Pillow:
“However, there was also credible testimony some among the slain were shooting at the Confederates when the latter returned fire, and the Union commanders had not, after all, surrendered. There was also testimony Forrest himself ordered the cessation of shooting, and at one point stood between his own forces and the Union troops with revolver in one hand and saber in the other. One account even has him shooting a Confederate soldier who disobeyed his order to cease firing. Suffice to say even though’ the mood of the times would have had Forrest swinging on a noose like a Nazi war criminal after the Nuremburg trials 80 years later had proof been there to convict him, he was never brought to court for anything to do with Fort Pillow.”
So no, you don’t know your history. You know your position undaunted by contrary facts which you dismiss in service to your agenda which is no less ugly when presented with a veneer of rationality. Sorry that your agenda isn’t so easily fulfilled. Forrest was an engimatic figure to be sure but undoubtedly a great man and better soldier.
You believe what you want to believe, including that the cold blooded murder of a captured Black soldier was a caricature and that the nation was interested in punishing war crimes commited both by the South and North. Look at the percentage of the dead of the white Union soldiers vs. the Black ones. Nixon was guilty but was he punished? He was pardoned according to Ford, “for the good of the country,: the same logis applied to Forrest and also the Union troops who raped many of the formerly enslaved they were supposed to be protecting after the war’s end. Here’s an account from a white doctor who was present and interacted with Forrest personally. Had he been Black, the result would no doubt have been different.
“I told him I was from Iowa. Forrest
said what in hell are you down here for? I have a great mind to have
you killed for being down here. He then said if the North west had
staid at home the war would have been over long ago, then turning to
a Soldier told him to take charge of me and see that I was not harmed.
For which I thanked him. I was taken to the south side of the Breast
works, where I was guarded til about 10 O[‘]clock P .M. while here I
saw them kill every negro that made his appearance dressed in
Federal uniform. ”
https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/environment/archaeology/documents/staffpubs/arch_Cimprich%20and%20Mianfort%201985.pdf
You have the lost cause mentality allowing you to deny anything that doesn’t comport with your view. Don’t criticize me for knowing better.
Enigma, you would burn the world down just to get even.
Vengence kills the vengeful.
Unlike yourself, I didn’t provide any “pretend” information. Are you actually disputing any facts about the first Grand Wizard or just whining about me?
“Unlike yourself, I didn’t provide any “pretend” information. Are you actually disputing any facts about the first Grand Wizard or just whining about me?”
*************************
Pretend? I cited YOUR source to prove his view wasn’t yours. NBF doesn’t need your approval. He was a brilliant military mind who fought a war on war’s terms. You kill the enemy. The telling fact you omit is that NBF was never accused or even tried for war crimes. Obviously, the Union authorities put no stock in the salacious tales you cherry pick. As for GW status you gloss over his resignation from the organization and disbanding it calling it extreme.
mespo, I could have been more clear that I was responding to S. Meyer who supplied what he acknowledged was “pretend” information about Disney in a different discussion.
I do give no credence to the fact he wasn’t tried for war crimes after a Congressional investigation which did take place. The nation at that time was all about coming back together and letting bygones be bygones. I also give him little credit for resigning from the Klan after growing it to 40,000 members and lying about having even been a member.
Once again, I never accused you of supplying pretend information, just selectively ignoring information like the report from the doctor present at Fort Pillow that Forrest personally told he could have had shot (the doctor was white and spared) and who witnessed the murder of every Negro soldier in sight by Forrest’s troops.
“mespo, I could have been more clear that I was responding to S. Meyer who supplied what he acknowledged was “pretend” information about Disney in a different discussion.”
Anyone reading your statement would not know for sure who you were talking to. I didn’t know until I read further. Maybe you didn’t realize one might not be sure, but that is par for the course for anything you write.
Enigma, I provided an example and stated I didn’t calculate the numbers, later explaining what it takes to do so.
You have no idea what the numbers are or how to calculate them. You are ignorant of almost anything business related.
I told you up-front that the numbers were examples. That is something you never do when you make silly statements taken in the best way possible makes you appear foolish.
One example is calling Trump a racist because of a story about his father decades before DJ Trump was born. You didn’t even get the story right. You make things up.
Now I listen to your discussion with Mark who obviously knows the history and provides a complete picture. You sound like a pompous toddler wearing short pants with his zipper open.
NBK grew the Klan to over 40,000 during his tenure, while they were doing a lot more than hounding carpetbaggers.
Please tell me a single battle Nathan Bedford Forest fought (or supported by other means) on behalf of the United States of America.
If you cannot, consider revising your statement that he was the “finest military mind this country ever produced.” How could that possibly be true, if he never was an American military mind to begin with?
I will never understand honoring secessionists or traitors to this country, especially someone who was the Grand Wizard of the KKK.
The evidence that Gen Forrest was acting in Defence of the terms laid out as the Consideration granted in the USC to the States Sovereignty to join as a Union is no more then the simple observation of the Federal Govt’s evisceration of the USC’s terms grant & agreed to for the States & Citizens from 1861 to this day.
********
Yeah, & while we’re such great friends I’m going to need you to assign to me a Blanket Easement across all your assets.
Thks in advance:)
What are you talking about?
“General Forrest” was not an American general. Full stop. He willingly fought and killed American soldiers and lives. And then, once the war was over, he ran an organization, which functioned as a group of political and social terrorists. The Klan’s goals included the maintenance of absolute white supremacy in response to the rights afforded to southern African Americans after the Civil War. He is quoted as saying its purpose is to “keep N****** in their place.” Why in the world would we want a State that is supposedly representative of all Americans (including those whom me wanted to terrorize) to honor someone like this?
Why is this hard to understand?
Anon – he was born in 1821. So this country did produce him, regardless of who he fought for later on.
Aninny:
Along with respect for achievement even when it’s against you, you seem to also have trouble understanding English. Who said NBF fought for the US Army!
And to further freak you out I respect Rommel, Nagumo and Chief Powhatan.
Would you want a statue of Rommel in front of public buildings? They fought to protect their home from perceived oppression too.
Neither Rommel nor Forrest should be “honored” by Americans.
Dems honored one by electing him every chance they got from 1947-2010 and as a US Senator for 50 years. They even put him on the Subcommittee for Housing and Urban Development.
If you knew that honoring one would get you a Senate seat in a state with a bunch of miners and road builders, maybe you would understand why the Democrats do it.
Here’s a list of 54 places/things honored by Byrd’s name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_named_after_Robert_Byrd.
ATS makes rules he can’t stand by.
Mespo, WOW.
@enigma, so it was personal and involved racial animosity towards the two. In essence they did exactly what ever critic is saying.
https://medium.com/the-polis/justin-jones-has-gotten-himself-into-good-trouble-again-16640aa19138
Black “Teacher” in car:
“Here you go, Mexican racist.”
“You’re always gonna be a Mexican.”
“You’ll never be white, ya know that, right?”
“You’ll never be white, which is what you really wanna be.”
“You wanna be white.”
“You wanna be white so bad…”
CARTER DEFENDS ALL‐WHITE AREAS
By Christopher. Lydon Special to The New York Times
April 7, 1976
SOUTH BEND, Ind., April 6 — Jimmy Carter said today that the Federal Government should not take the initiative to change the “ethnic purity” of some urban neighborhoods or the economic “homogeneity” of well‐to‐do suburbs.
‘If he wins the Presidency, the Georgia Democrat said at a news conference here, “I’m not ‐going to use the Federal Government’s authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods.”
Similarly, he said, “To build a high‐rise, very low‐cost housing unit in a suburban neighborhood or other neighborhoods with relatively expensive homes, I think, would not he in the best interest of the people. who live in the high‐rise or the suburbs.
“Any exclusion of a family because of race or ethnic background I would oppose very strongly and aggressively as President,” he said. “But think it’s good to maintain the homogeneity of neighborhoods if they’ye been established that way.”
Mr. Carter, making his first campaign venture into Indiana, which will hold its Presidential primary May 4, repeatedly declared his support for Federal and state open‐housing laws.
“If there is a neighborhood that’s homogeneous and if a family of another ethnic group wanted to move in,” he said “I would use the full resources of the Federal Government to enforce their right to do that.”
…
In other words Jones has a long history of disruption.
You confuse acting lawfully with acting for causes that you support.
Those are NOT the same.
I do not give a Schiff about various busts. The vast majority of what politicians do to remember each other is nonsense.
How many roads, schools, public buildings are named for people of no consequence ?
If Jones wants Forrest’s bust removed – fine. He is free to want whatever he wishes – just as Sexton is free to oppose.
It appears Jones ultimately got some version of what he wanted.
Jones is free to incvonvenience legislators – within the rules.
And they are free to inconvenience him in return. If the
TN legislature refused to allow the Floyd nonsense to drive their agenda – Good for them.
We have already jailed 4 police officers because some addict swallowed his stash – and not for the first time.
That was far more than was justified.
Left wing nut idiots also rampaged and burned and destoryed things.
EB – it is YOUR community that suffered from the destruction, not mine. it is your communities that have rising crime – not mine.
You did this to yourselves – your not entitled to have others bail you out.
Whole foods has left Portland. Cracker Barrel has left, Starbucks has left.
Downtown portland is increasingly abandoned. Some comment that it looks like a zombie apocalyspe.
You did this to yourself. No one owes you salvation from your own stupidity.
I would note 70 legislators voted to expel Jones. Not just Sexton.
“I would note 70 legislators voted to expel Jones. Not just Sexton.”
We probably learned different lessons from that. None of them would have voted to expel Jones had Sexton not determined that was the just penalty.
“How many roads, schools, public buildings are named for people of no consequence ?”
Are you now claiming the first Grand Wizard who built the Klan to 40,000 and stated them on their way is of no consequence? Note I didn’t say remove the bust because he was a plantation owner and slave trader. That would eliminate almost all the founders, a dozen or so Presidents, and most of the first Supreme Court members. (I do respect John Jay the first Supreme Court Justice who did own slaves).
Only a left wing nut thinks that 70 legislators in TN are all Sexton controled Zombies.
I would note that Sexton could not get the votes to expel Johnson – not because she was a white woman, but because her conduct was less egregious and she did not have the long track record of disruptive conduct of the other two. And finally because the bill of particulars for her was badly drafted and included charges that she clearly had not done.
In fact one of the legislators that voted against expelling her – and all it would have taken was one more vote to expel her, is on the record saying he would have expeled her if the charges had correctly reflected her actual conduct.
Put simply there is plenty of evidence that those seeking to expel these guys were capable of forming their own views.
While you are correct there is a historical conflict between Sexton and Jones. It is ALSO true that Jones had pissed off the overwhelming majority of the TN house with his antics both this day and previous.
Finally as I noted to Svelaz before – I am perfectly OK with deciding that Jone’s conduct is acceptable – If and Onl;y if the same is true of Republicans.
If you wish rules that allow any legislator anywhere anytime to disrupt proceedings – that is fine. I can live with that.
What we CAN NOT have is an arrangement where Left wing nuts can use disruption as a political and procedural tool to get what they want – and no one else can.
In the 90’s the Right hated Bill Clinton – because he very effectively stole most of their issues and tactics.
While Clinton had many problems – including disasterous foreign policy, domestically he was very conservative.
We have a similar situation with Trump and the left. Whiel Trump was mostly conservative as president. He co-opted democrats on numerous fronts.
He adopted Democratic Alynskyite grenade throwing tactics. and he strongly appealed to blue collar working class voters.
The brutal “get Trump” at all costs, no stops, effort by the left is specifically because he is so great a threat to democrats.
I do not like Trump’s tactics – they are uncivil and divisive. They are also YOUR tactics, from decades before Trump descended the escalator.
What you are seeing all over – that is pissing you off is more and more republicans adopting YOUR tactics.
How is what the TN legislature did different from Pelosi barring Jordan from the J6 committee ?
How is it different from various democratic groups engaging in lawfare to handicap Republican legislators like MTG ?
You seem to think people are stupid.
We may not all know the law in great detail. We may not be able to sort out the nuances of specific legal cases.
But we completely understand that Democrats are doing to Trump what they impeached him for.
They are capable of understanding that Democratic protestors overruning 3 site capitols in one month is no different – or possibly worse than J6.
Yet over 1000 people – nearly all of which did nothing beyond protest a lawless and untransparent election. have been jailed,
Yet no one was jailed at TN.
People know massive double standards when they see them. We do not need to understand nuanced details, to understand that the same rules are not being applied to republicans as democrats.
And THAT is actual authoritarianism, is actual fascism.
Party leaders in both parties have a great deal of power over other politicians in their party.
They are very effective – right and left at whipping votes and getting the numbers they need to accomplish what they decide to get behind.
If as you essentially claim Sexton was the driving force to “get Jones” – there is zero doubt that his power and animus added votes.
But leaders both left and right have ZERO ability to accomplish purely personal objectives that do not have strong majority support within their party.
Schumer could no more whip a democratic majority of Senators to vote for abortion restricting legislation than McCarthy could whip republicans to vote for legislation that would create a federal right to an abortion.
The effort to expel these legislators had to have majority support independent of Sexton or there is no way he could get to the super majority needed to expel.
It is error to presume that party leaders – whether at the TN house or the US senate, whether Republicans or democrats have the power to get their entire caucus to do something that most of that caucus does not already support.
Overall Republicans are significantly more fractured than democrats. There are more factions in the GOP than in the democratic party.
Getting republicans onboard is HARDER than democrats – as evidenced by the bloody fight to elect McCarthy speaker.
At the same time while there are fewer fault lines int he democratic party – those faults are deeper and more dangerous. The woke left is significantly divorced from the rest of the country and the rest of the democratic party. They have power solely because democrats can not win elections if the left sits out the election – and past history shows those on the left very willing to sit out elections when they do not get what they want.
But what they want is NOT what the majority of democrats want – much less the majority of the country.
Democrats are bleeding voters, and they are bleeding even their own politicians. Technically Democrats are the minority party in the Senate – they only have control because USUALLY the 3 independents vote with democrats. And increasingly Manchin is more independent of the democrats than the 3 independents that still vote with Democrats.
2022 was not good for Republicans in many ways – it should have been a red Tsunami. But behind the under performance of republicans, were continued GOP gains in every single demographic except single white women. In 2008 we were told demographics is destiny and that the GOP was effectively dead, that there were just not enough white voters to prevent the democrats from taking over. And since then in every single election Republicans have gained minority voters.
Today it is the Democratic party that is in danger of becoming the party of exclusively white voters.
We are and have been for sometime in a massive nationwide political re-alignment.
Trump’s election in 2016 was the first clear sign of that. The CORRECT response from democrats was to understand they had moved too far to the left.
But instead Democrats doubled down on leftism, and doubled down on the politics of personal destruction.
As you are exemplifying here – you try to recast this as a pissing contest between Jones and Sexton.
It is likely true that Jones and sexton are bitter enemies and would do anything to destroy each other.
But sexton did not remove Jones – 70 TN legislators did – including minority republicans.
In your world – everything must be about Racism.
it is not possible for you to grasp that if all legislators are allowed the conduct of Jones the legislature serves no purpose at all.
I am all for the power of minorities to thwart government action.
I am OK with that – Are you ?
Are you still for it – when Republicans do the same thing ?
You aren;t – and the world knows that.
The assorted left wing nuts like you on this board and throughout the country are not identical – though your differences are so tiny.
But you are all massive hypocrites. Far far far more than any republican.
I do not care if Jones is in or out.
But if Jones conduct is permissible, if the conduct of the rioters at the TN capitol is permissible – then YOU owe reparations to the J6 portestors whose lives you have tried to destroy.
Whatever the rules are – they are the same for all.
Keep Jones if you want. But then you MUST release and compensate the J6 protesters for YOUR hypocrisy.
The rule of law, NOT man.
What would it take for Turley to call any right winger racist? I cannot think of an instance in which he has. Sure, maybe he could call someone from the past who held slaves a racist, but no one who exists today. So are there no right wing racists in the world?
No, just not this one, or that one, or the other one, or any other one you can point so, suggests Turley. That is how racism is systematically excused away.
RACIST???
People damn sure better agree with you, right?
The Constitution provides freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press, etc.
Seems like Americans, by extension, enjoy the freedom of thought, opinion, discernment, differentiation, distinction, discretion and discrimination.
The Constitution guarantees the freedom of individuals, not their success, fame, fashionability, acceptance, favor or rejection by others.
Seems like the Ten Commandments, Codes and Statutes prohibit property damage and bodily injury.
There is actually very little racism of consequence in America today. To the extent it exists, it is mainly on the left, which routinely denigrates in the most blatant racist language any black person who opposes progressive identity politics orthodoxy. Not to mention the left’s now routine denunciation of white people as oppressors and beneficiaries of white privilege.
And of course, the only systemic racism today is “affirmative action,” which now corrupts every institution we have.
You forgot, driving while black, voting while black, higher home, medical, car insurance rates while being black. Not to mention top corporate positions while black. See where this is going, because I can do this all day……….
Fishy:
“You forgot, driving while black, voting while black, higher home, medical, car insurance rates while being black. Not to mention top corporate positions while black. See where this is going, because I can do this all day………”
*****************************.
Driving while black? Every time it’s tested scientifcally, the racist angle fails miserably. The latest is the New Jersey study trying to find out why black drivers get stopped more on the NJ turnpike than white drivers do. Magically, the answer is the black drivers drive faster (by a ratio of 2 to 1) than white drivers do. As usual, the simplest answer is usually the best one — unless yo have an agenda.
Assumng uniform distribution of anything over a nonhomogenous population was an error I learned in stats class. (Like the average number or horns among all the barn animals as opposed to the cows). The race baiters among us seem to have missed class that day.
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/profiling-myth-smashed-1513.html#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20new%20study,the%20myth%20of%20racial%20profiling.
Did you click on your own link? The “latest” as you describe it is a 2002 study in NJ that was largely disputed as having unreliable data due to the inherent issues with how it was conducted.
Try the much more recent (and much more comprehensive – not just limited to a single non-representative highway in New Jersey) study conducted MUCH more recently in the peer-reviewed Nature journal: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0858-1
Surveying data from 95 MILLION stops in 21 states (rather than a few thousand in one location), it found that police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias.
Perhaps, your statement that “every” time it is tested scientifically, the “racist angle fails” should be revised.
Find the study proving racism.
“that was largely disputed as having unreliable data due to the inherent issues with how it was conducted.”
Where is your proof that Mespo’s study is flawed for the purpose he used it. What you say can be said about any study. ATS? You are not trustworthy. That is not the only study to show similar data.
Your article is tangential to Mesp’s and doesn’t contradict it. We see this all the time. You put pieces together even if some of the pieces don’t exist.
Why do you lie so often?
“One of the reasons I have asked to lead this police reform conversation on my side of the aisle is because I personally understand the pain of being stopped 18 times driving while Black,” –Senator Tim Scott
One of the interesting questions is the percentage of times he was stopped by a black policeman. Read some of the better studies.
Our first black president left a million unprotected, innocent, unarmed black men, women and children to be murdered in 100 days. Says he didn’t know.
But, he knew, and, he ordered his administration not to refer to it as a “genocide.”
And we in the states smoke our pot and argue endlessly seeking who will be crowned the brightest of all, and their blood cries America…