GOP House Candidate Destroys Satanic Temple Display

The guy is proud of himself.  After all, only his religion should be acknowledged in the US.  After all, religious freedom is only for Christians.  If the country is to be a democracy for everyone, then Christians must understand that they don’t get to rule over others.  They don’t have the right to make rules that allow only their way of life and force others to live as they do.  What do you think these same assholes would do if a Muslim or a person from another faith destroyed one of their Christian displays?   Plus remember that this guy destroyed private property.  That is a crime. Hugs.  Scottie


Des Moines’ CBS affiliate reports:

The Satanic Temple of Iowa says a statue in its Iowa capitol display was destroyed “beyond repair.” The display made headlines this week when an Eastern Iowa state lawmaker called for the governor to remove it, calling the display “blasphemous.”

Governor Kim Reynolds issued a statement saying, “In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech.”

The Satanic Temple said in a Facebook post, “We are proud to continue our holiday display for the next few days that we have been allotted. We ask that for safety, visitors travel together and use the 7 Tenets as a reminder for empathy, in the knowledge that justice is being pursued the correct way, through legal means.”

The right wing Republic Sentinel reports:

Michael Cassidy, a Christian and former military officer, tore down and beheaded a Satanist altar erected in the Iowa Capitol as the display provoked nationwide controversy, The Sentinel has exclusively learned. Cassidy said in comments exclusively provided to The Sentinel that he destroyed the shrine on Thursday in order to “awaken Christians to the anti-Christian acts promoted by our government.”

Cassidy turned himself into police officers present in the Iowa Capitol, who confirmed that the Satanic Temple of Iowa desires to press charges. The Sentinel obtained a complaint and affidavit which said Cassidy was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief. “I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged,” Cassidy continued. “My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.”

Cassidy ran for the US House in Mississippi last year, finishing 35 points behind incumbent GOP Rep. Michael Guest in the primary. Earlier this year he lost a bid for the Mississippi House.

 

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Yes. So proud of the Episcopal Church for this move. Sure it split the world-wide Episcopal Church, but boy will they look good in the future.

Unfortunately, the right thing to do is not always the popular thing. I respect them very much for doing the right thing, anyway. They did it with women in the church, too. Surprise! The world did not come to an end.

Unless he was in Iowa for other reasons, this cultist drove 13 hours from Mississippi to Des Moines to earn social media cred from Christian nationalists.

He’s probably already raising money.

Social media cred? Is that a thing? I mean, it’s social media where there’s literally no credibility whatsoever.

Their god must be really weak if he is unable to destroy a statue by himself.

Omnipotence. It ain’t what it used to be.

I’m beginning to wonder if they mistranslated “Impotence”.

Pfft. Their god can’t protect them from being shot up in fucking church.

What a useless, impotent little god He must be.

 

That’s the problem with monotheism, the god has to run everything and even deities can get worn out. It’s why pantheons are better, the work gets delegated and important aspects get more focus.

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And they still call it love.

They kill because they care.

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Imagine if a Muslim beheaded a statue of the Virgin Mary and said it was against his religion. I don’t think many Christians would applaud that. But they’re cool with beheading a satanic statue.

As they would be fine with a Christian defacing an Islamic display.

For evangelicals, religious freedom is only for them.

 

Let’s talk about Iowa, Tennessee, and a temple….

IMPEACH BIDEN!!? | Christopher Titus | Armageddon Update

Texas has banned more books than any other state, new report shows

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/19/texas-book-bans/

 

Across the country, more books have been challenged and removed as religious and conservative groups target LGBTQ and race issues.

 
Books at Vandegrift High School's library on March 2, 2022.
Books at Vandegrift High School’s library on March 2, 2022. Credit: Lauren Witte/The Texas Tribune
 
 
 
 

Those Were the Days

By my dogs that love gravy, this is perfect.  One of the best cartoons I have seen all year.  So spot on.  Hugs.  Scottie

Liberal Redneck – Why Does Texas Hate This One Pregnant Woman So Much?

MO Bills Allow Murder Charge For Having An Abortion

Read the full article. Missouri is one of 27 states with the death penalty and has carried out around two dozen executions in the last decade.

State Rep. Mike Moon recently appeared here for saying that 12-year-olds should be able to marry with parental permission. In February 2023, Moon introduced a K-12 “Don’t Say Gay” bill.


Moon first appeared here in 2017 when he slaughtered a chicken on Facebook Live because abortion is bad.

 

They’d charge a 12 year-old with murder for aborting her father’s incest baby.

Good people, this GOP. Vote accordingly.

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Republicans just keep doubling down on this issue that clearly is not what the public wants and then claim voter fraud when elections don’t go their way.

Well, Republicans have abandoned Democracy. Their plan is fascist rule.

Because they control SCOTUS.

There are no instances of Republicans doing anything that the public wants. This is one of them.

Republicans want to appeal to ONLY the most reactionary part of their base. It is not a winning strategy. But they can’t seem to understand that

My mother had a potentially fatal miscarriage around late 1965. Abortion was a crime in California at the time, but she was able to get a medical exemption and had the termination. Had she not, she likely would have died; if she survived, she certainly would not have been able to have more children. Because of the termination, she went on to have me and three younger siblings. Four children alive because of that one necessary abortion.

Republicans would rather have seen my mom dead and the rest of us never born.

Just last year I was prepared to drive my sister-in-law out of state to have a fetus that had been dead for two weeks removed from her uterus. The Republicans here are morally bankrupt.

Same thing with my mom when I was 16, right around 1970. There was no way she would have lived if she had carried that fetus to term. I would have ended up taking care of it…

Yes. See the great writer Ursula K. LeGuin on how the abortion she had at age 20 or so resulted in her having three loved and happy children and a brilliant career, rather than one miserable unloved fatherless child and absolutely no career (at that time, lovely Radcliffe would have expelled her had she had a BAY-BEE.).

I was once told a story by my mother, concerning a relative who had a level of developmental disability. Back in the 40’s she was taken advantage of, impregnated, and the father skipped town. Her parents found a back alley abortionist. Things did not go well, and he ended up dying horribly from sepsis. That has stuck in my mind all these years.

That is exactly the world that Republicans are desperate to restore.

And where do they get those rights they would give to fetuses? They rip them away from the women of Missouri. Time to take to the streets, ladies of Missouri. Dismantle the state capitol building, brick by brick.

To anti-choice pro-forced-birth people, fetuses are infinitely more important than the people who carry them. They’re also more important than children.

Fetuses have more rights than women and girls. And guns have more rights than even fetuses.

Of course, child support also begins at conception, right? /s

“We’re so pro-life we’ll kill you if you have an abortion.”

That way the father doesn’t have to lose any money in a divorce.

Don’t stop there. Charge men with murder if they masturbate and “spill their seed.” Those little sperms are basically pre-born babies. So masturbation is akin to killing babies. (Their logic, not mine.)

Its why its called seed. Back in the old times they hadnt discovered women have eggs that need to be fertilized. The womb was just a patch of dirt waiting for its seed.

“Every sperm is SACRED…..” 🤣

I’ll thank them for making it clear what the voting in ’24 is going to be about.

Here’s hoping the Republicans get the Know-Nothing treatment. Everyone, just forget about voting for those guys. Just forget them…

The MSM will absolutely make sure the election is a neck-and-neck horserace down to the very last second.

They hype Biden’s age way more than trumps fascism, plus they downplay Biden’s accomplishments

 

 

Texas top court rules against woman who sought abortion for medical emergency

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-woman-who-sought-emergency-abortion-court-will-leave-state-care-2023-12-11/

You can bet the state will go after, and try to go after the out of state doctors / facilities that help her.  Plus the republican fundamentalist die hard anti-abortions will sue for their mandatory 10,000 dollars regardless of what that would do to the family and her other two children.  Plus the way the law is written all court costs and lawyer fees are paid by the person getting sued even if they win, which is the reverse of how all other lawsuits go, the loser normally pays if they start the lawsuit.   This is totally about control over a woman, her body, and her sexual life.  This treats woman little different from breeding stock.  It was done to black women to get more slaves babies.   Ask why when the baby can not survive, and it endangers the health, life, and ability of the woman to have more kids, do these people still insist she carry it to birth?   Do they think that god will do a miracle and have the baby healed as soon as it is born? Do they think the doctors are lying?  That a woman that wants more children is lying to abort one?   Hugs.  Scottie


Dec 11 (Reuters) – The Texas Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed a pregnant woman to get an emergency abortion under the medical exception for the state’s near-total abortion ban, granting a petition by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The unanimous ruling from the Texas Supreme Court came hours after lawyers for the woman, Kate Cox, said in a court filing that she had left the state to obtain the abortion, but nonetheless wanted to pursue the case. Cox has said her fetus had a fatal diagnosis and that her health was at risk if she continued the pregnancy to term, including her ability to have more children in the future.

 

The high court, whose nine justices are all Republicans, said in its unsigned opinion that a “good faith belief” by Damla Karsan, a doctor who sought to perform the abortion and sued alongside Cox, that the procedure was medically necessary was not enough to qualify for the state’s exception.

Instead, the court said, Karsan would need to determine in her “reasonable medical judgment” that Cox had a “life-threatening condition” and that an abortion was necessary to prevent her death or impairment of a major bodily function.

 

“A woman who meets the medical-necessity exception need not seek a court order to obtain an abortion,” the court wrote. “The law leaves to physicians – not judges – both the discretion and the responsibility to exercise their reasonable medical judgment, given the unique facts and circumstances of each patient,” the court wrote.

The case is a major test of the scope of the medical exception, an issue that is already before the court in a separate case brought by 22 women who experienced pregnancy complications, though none of those women was seeking an immediate abortion. Monday’s ruling appeared to reject a key argument by the plaintiffs in that case – that doctors’ good-faith belief should be enough to meet the exception.

 

“This ruling should enrage every Texan to their core,” Molly Duane of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a lawyer for Cox, said in a statement. “If Kate can’t get an abortion in Texas, who can? Kate’s case is proof that exceptions don’t work, and it’s dangerous to be pregnant in any state with an abortion ban.”

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Denton’s city council meets to vote on abortion trigger law enforcement a low priority

A few abortion rights demonstrators remain in the crowd after hours of public comments and discussion as Denton’s city council meets to vote on a resolution seeking to make enforcing Texas’ trigger law on abortion a low priority for its police force, in Denton, Texas, June 28, 2022. REUTERS/Shelby Tauber/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

Cox’s fetus was diagnosed on Nov. 27 with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or death soon after birth.

 

Paxton had urged the Texas Supreme Court to quickly step in after District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble at a hearing in Austin last Thursday issued a temporary restraining order allowing Cox to have an abortion.

In his filing to the top court, Paxton’s office said Cox fell “far short of demonstrating” she met the criteria for a medical exception and warned that Texas courts were not intended to be “revolving doors of permission slips to obtain abortions.”

Cox, 31, of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, filed a lawsuit last Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order preventing Texas from enforcing its abortion ban in her case.

Cox’s lawyers have said her lawsuit is the first such case since the U.S. Supreme Court last year reversed its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide.

Cox, who was about 20 weeks pregnant when she first sued, said in her lawsuit that she would need to undergo her third Caesarian section if she continues the pregnancy. That could jeopardize her ability to have more children, which she said she and her husband wanted.

Cox said in her lawsuit that although her doctors believed abortion was medically necessary for her, they were unwilling to perform one without a court order in the face of a lack of clarity in how the exception would be interpreted and potential penalties including life in prison and loss of their licenses for violating the state’s abortion laws.

Paxton warned in a letter sent shortly after Gamble issued the order that it did not shield doctors, hospitals or anyone else from prosecution or potential civil liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws. The letter was sent to three hospitals where Karsan has admitting privileges.

Last Friday, while the case was pending, a pregnant woman in Kentucky filed a new class action lawsuit challenging that state’s abortion ban.

Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Bill Berkrot and Leslie Adler

Read the full article. As I reported this weekend, one of the Texas justices that voted to block her abortion has been arrested 37 times while protesting outside abortion clinics.

 

I fully expect the Texas legislature to figure out some law that they can apply to charge the woman for getting the abortion in another state, and use that to throw her in jail, all because she wanted to save her own life! You can bank on it.

Hell, if she doesn’t return to Texas, count on them demanding her return through some sick & twisted legal theory bullshit, amounting to the fugitive slave act of the 19th century.

Woman are little more than slaves in tex-ass so that would be about right.

CA has passed laws to protect them (along w/ Trans kids).

 

So has Illinois

CT too

 

Fugitive pregnant woman act.

Missouri tried to claim fetuses as state citizens and claimed their right to protect the lives of their citizenry. It was also their excuse for attempting to block pregnant women (likely to be seeking abortions) from leaving the state.

 

So kidnapping as well as murder?

You know what? If they want to make Ken Paxton the national face of the GOP going into 2024 and make the whole election about abortion rights, then I say let them. Go right ahead, Republicans.

Already done:

The Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy includes an unusual measure designed to ensure the law is enforced: Residents of the state can sue clinics, doctors, nurses and even people who drive a woman to get the procedure, for at least $10,000.

https://www.cbsnews.com/new…

 

Yes, those that help. But there are so many rabid MAGAts out there, they will sue the husband, family members, the gas station where they might have filled up, etc. Even if she went alone and the husband stayed home with the kids, he has to defend himself and prove that in court. Even if he is found not guilty, there is no compensation for court costs, lost time from work, etc.

perhaps someone from out of state came and transported her.

I’m sort of expecting that, but I hope they (texas) just leave her the fuck alone. I doubt they will. That state, like christianity gets off on the pain and suffering they cause.

Remember who you’re dealing with here…. Paxton sued other states over how they handled their 2020 elections.

Yes, he’s fond of launching “lost cause” legal efforts for the publicity.

He’ll attempt to drag her back to Texas in leg irons to face prosecution. He’ll fail, but the attempt will make him a hero to the radical right which will only embolden others to try the same stunts.

The hypocrisy is sickening…

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Then the answer is obvious:

DEAD BABY CAKES!

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But that would apply to those “others” and they can’t be having that.

GOOD FOR HER !! There is no reason this woman’s life & health should be held hostage by a cruel, misogynist & sadistic gov’t seeking to only use this woman’s agony for their political gain.

Also, GOOD FOR HER to bring this intimate, private matter to a national audience. She’s very brave.

I do wonder how many women have been in the same situation over the past year but didn’t have the same media access.

Probably several, but it’s not media access that’s the issue. Going public to fight right-wing policies is a dangerous business these days, and if anyone is brave enough to try, the media will happily run with their stories.

Paxton is going to go after this woman, her husband and anyone who helped her after this. There’s no way he’s going to let her “win” by going around all the authority he believes he has in the state.

He’s a revenge machine now that he’s been acquitted.

Yep. In TX we’re going to see just a tiny, insignificant taste of what a Trump presidency will be about 100% of the time if Dems don’t get out that vote.

Not only does he feel it “violates his authority & (faux) morality,” but it serves as a distraction from all of his previous crimes & corruption. He knows this helps to firm up support of the Christofascist right. “Sure, he’s dirty, but he supports our beliefs.”

I wonder how many abortion his mistress needed.

She’s going full Rosa Parks in the face of Paxton et al’s ongoing rampage against her – what guts

fascist fucks, you are going to LOSE this war

I hope that she sues the state of Texas for reimbursement of all costs plus millions and millions of dollars in damages.

These fucking Bible-toting yahoos, have no right to risk the lives of American women.

The point is and always has been CRUELTY Delayed suffering is their objective These are all males who know so fuckung much about child birth MUST control a woman’s body Abortion should be on every states ballot and it, above much else would sink the GOP For this singular reason alone No woman should vote Republican

I wouldn’t be surprised if she is not immediately arrested and jailed upon re-entry into Texas. I mean, the cruelty dictates that.

Fugitive Slave Act, Part 2

It’s absolutely disgusting that this woman and her husband are being forced to have what is probably one of (or the) most difficult and personal things they’ll ever deal with play out on the national stage. Fuck the Christofascists.

This shit would end fast if that cell cluster could be reimplanted into a man’s abdomen. Nope buddy, you got to carry it full term, even if it kills you. No backsies, your law, you deal with it.

Disgusting she should have to add this crap on top of the heartbreak of losing a child.

This is the new normal for women in certain states. Tell me again how republicans should, in any way or any race, be seriously considered for elected office.

It should be an automatic disqualification. Disgusting misogynist Nazi fucks

She probably didn’t want any of this, just wanted to take care of her own health.

The final takeaway: Texas has no legal exemptions. If you think you do, you will be litigated to hell, until the abortion is no longer viable.

She better set up house in a new state. Paxton will try to put her and anyone with her in prison for decades. He will probably try to prosecute the doctor and nurses who perform the abortion.

 

Let’s talk about SCOTUS expediting consideration of Trump’s claim….

SAY WHAT?! Speaker God Warrior Mike Johnson Claims He is Moses