Monthly Archives: September 2021

Separate but equal

03 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Missouri General Assembly, Missouri Governor

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A Friday evening news dump *:

Department of Natural Resources moves LGBTQ exhibit to Lohman Building
Friday, September 3, 2021
Lohman is part of Jefferson Landing State Historic Site

JEFFERSON CITY, MO, SEPT. 3, 2021 – The Missouri Department of Resources announced today that an exhibit detailing the history of the LGBTQ community in Missouri has been relocated for display at the Lohman Building, part of the Jefferson Landing State Historic Site. The exhibit will be available for viewing beginning tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 4. (The Missouri State Museum and the Jefferson Landing State Historic Site will be closed Sunday and Monday for Labor Day.)

The Lohman Building is located adjacent to the Capitol and is easily accessible. Missouri State Museum team members staff and operate the Jefferson Landing State Historic Site.

The display was moved from the Missouri State Museum in the Capitol earlier this week after the department received complaints.

“We apologize for the way this unfolded,” said Dru Buntin, director of the Department of Natural Resources. “We agree the history of all Missourians is an important story that needs to be told, and we’ve made a commitment to work with the members of the State Capitol Commission and the Board of Public Buildings to do so.”

Careful review of the museum’s interpretive and exhibit guidance shows that exhibits on loan from other institutions like this one are often housed at Jefferson Landing State Historic Site.

The Making History: Kansas City and The Rise of Gay Rights exhibit is on loan to the Missouri State Museum from UMKC. The exhibit, which was produced by UMKC, was borrowed due to its connection to a notable date – the formation of the Phoenix Society of Individual Freedom – on the Missouri Bicentennial timeline on display in the museum’s History Hall. It is on loan through the end of the year.

“In response to a number of concerns, we made the decision to move the exhibit while we clarified and reviewed our internal process to make sure we were complying with state law,” said Mike Sutherland, deputy department director.

The Department of Natural Resources is charged with maintaining an historical state museum in the Capitol. The museum develops many of its exhibits, but it also accepts exhibits on loan from other institutions to expose visitors to a wide variety of topics significant in Missouri history and culture. State law requires the museum to coordinate with the Board of Public Buildings for the use of space in the Capitol. The board has delegated responsibility for that coordination to the Missouri State Capitol Commission.

The department invites the public to attend its Sept. 16 public meeting for the Missouri State Museum and Jefferson Landing State Historic Site. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the Riverside Collections Facility, 117 Riverside Drive, Jefferson City. Following the informational meeting, museum staff will provide a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum’s collections area.

Another profile in courage.

“…’In response to a number of concerns, we made the decision to move the exhibit while we clarified and reviewed our internal process to make sure we were complying with state law,’ said Mike Sutherland, deputy department director…” Ah, pearl clutchers.

Previously:

What are they afraid of? (September 3, 2021)

* A tip of the hat to Dave Helling for the meme, pace Blue Girl.

Aunt Lydia

03 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Missouri House, social media

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Representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman (r) [2019 file photo].

Today:

MaryElizabethColeman @meaccoleman
The architects of #hb126 are confident the 8th cir will uphold #MissouriStandsForTheUnborn. We commit that we will take advantage of every opportunity to ensure Missouri’s unborn receive the same protection as babies in Texas @NickBSchroer @adamSchnelting @Koenig4MO @elijahhaahr
6:55 AM · Sep 3, 2021

Some of the comments:

What is your plan for all of these unwanted babies? Does Betsy Devos need some new product to sell?

A modest proposal.

You have no concern for these “babies.” We are not fools.

What would stop you? Even when we vote on things in this state the extreme right blatantly disregards it. So what’s the point. Do whatever you want.

What are you doing for living children? I’ll wait.

Y’all are begging for backlash. Good

Aunt Lydia, will you make sure our kids are fed once they’re out of the womb? [….]

Why do you hate women and want to hurt born children?

You must take great pleasure putting your boot in the neck of young women. The Aunt Lydia of Missouri.

Don’t let anyone tell you this is about abortion! It is anti-intellectualism at its core. Terrorize and intimidate the doctors, scientists, teachers is the fascist playbook. If this were about stopping abortion, the conversation would be about birth control and sex education.

What about the born? History books won’t mention you by name because you aren’t significant, but your movement will be treated harshly. You represent everything that is wrong with our society, enjoy being lumped in with Prohibitionist and other quack groups, ya zealot.

You’re all horrible people and gigantic, embarrassing hypocrites. If you care so much about the unborn, you should try giving a shit about them after they’re born by working to prevent gun violence and poverty. How about not destroying public education?

They consider that a feature, not a bug.

You are an embarrassment and a shame to all women and all Missourians. You are one sad, sick individual if you put clumps of cells before living, breathing women and children. Reexamine your life and your choices, they are extremely bad ones.

We see what you did there.

Oh look, another white woman standing up for the patriarchy. They’ll turn on you in a heartbeat when they no longer have a use for you. Stand up for women and girls, you drunken clown. [….]

Pre 1973 2021 medical equipment.

Previously:

Susan Collins (r) weighs in (September 1, 2021)

Always there (September 1, 2021)

Here we are (September 2, 2021)

Where we’re going (September 2, 2021)

What are they afraid of?

03 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Missouri General Assembly, Missouri Governor, Missouri House, Missouri Senate

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Representative Crystal Quade (D) – House Minority Leader [2019 file photo].

[House Minority Leader] Crystal Quade [D]
STATEMENT
Governor offers false excuse for pulling LGBT exhibit

“The Parson administration’s removal of an exhibit on LGBT history from the Missouri Capitol Museum was disappointing. That the governor lied about his reasons for doing so is indefensible. The statutory procedure the governor says wasn’t followed for approving exhibits does not exist. State law authorizes the Board of Public Buildings to allocate space to the museum but gives the board no power to determine the content of exhibits, and there is no evidence the board has ever done so. The governor had no justification for removing this exhibit and no excuse for not restoring it.”

Oops.

Governor Mike Parson (r) [2018 file photo].

Campaign Finance: from working people

03 Friday Sep 2021

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Yesterday at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C211659 09/02/2021 United We Stand PAC CHIPP POLITICAL ACCOUNT 1401 HAMPTON AVE SAINT LOUIS MO 63139 9/1/2021 $50,000.00

C180584 09/02/2021 UFCW Active Ballot Club-Missouri Federal Committee United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Active Ballot Club 1775 K ST, NW Washington DC 20006 9/2/2021 $10,000.00

We’re gonna need a bigger boat.

“…it’ll be dark soon and they mostly come at night. Mostly.”

02 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in social media

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Eric Schmitt (r) [2021 file photo].

Eric Schmitt (r) [2021 file photo].

Late last night:

Eric Schmitt @Eric_Schmitt
There’s an awakening happening in this country. It’s bubbling up

Regular folks showing up to school board & city council meetings. They’ve had enough

They want America back & it’s terrifying to the ruling class who want everyone to take orders & be quiet. God bless America
10:09 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Awakening? We see what you did there.

Regular folks? Really? Regular folks. That’s one heck of a loud whistle.

Faux populism. By every definition the Attorney General of Missouri is part of the “ruling class”.

Fascist pig.

Where we’re going

02 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in Uncategorized

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Pre 1973 2021 medical instruments.

Late yesterday, at the U.S. Supreme Court:

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 21A24
WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH ET AL. v. AUSTIN REEVE
JACKSON, JUDGE, ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
[September 1, 2021]

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting.

The Court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand. Last night, the Court silently acquiesced in a State’s enactment of a law that flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents.

Today, the Court belatedly explains that it declined to grant relief because of procedural complexities of the State’s own invention. [….] Because the Court’s failure to act rewards tactics designed to avoid judicial review and inflicts significant harm on the applicants and on women seeking abortions in Texas, I dissent. [….]

KAGAN, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 21A24
WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH ET AL. v. AUSTIN REEVE
JACKSON, JUDGE, ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
[September 1, 2021]

JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting.

Without full briefing or argument, and after less than 72 hours’ thought, this Court greenlights the operation of Texas’s patently unconstitutional law banning most abortions. The Court thus rewards Texas’s scheme to insulate its law from judicial review by deputizing private parties to carry out unconstitutional restrictions on the State’s behalf. As of last night, and because of this Court’s ruling, Texas law prohibits abortions for the vast majority of women who seek them—in clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey.

Today’s ruling illustrates just how far the Court’s “shadow-docket” decisions may depart from the usual principles of appellate process. That ruling, as everyone must agree, is of great consequence. Yet the majority has acted without any guidance from the Court of Appeals—which is right now considering the same issues. It has reviewed only the most cursory party submissions, and then only hastily. And it barely bothers to explain its conclusion—that a challenge to an obviously unconstitutional abortion regulation backed by a wholly unprecedented enforcement scheme is unlikely to prevail. In all these ways, the majority’s decision is emblematic of too much of this Court’s shadow docket decisionmaking—which every day becomes more un-reasoned, inconsistent, and impossible to defend. I respectfully dissent.

End the filibuster. Now.

Previously:

Susan Collins (r) weighs in (September 1, 2021)

Always there (September 1, 2021)

Here we are (September 2, 2021)

Here we are

02 Thursday Sep 2021

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Lindsey Simmons (D) [2020 file photo].

Yesterday:

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
I launched my campaign for Congress in 2019.

I was harassed. My home was vandalized, multiple times. I received violent threats. My car was followed by active Klan, with my 2 year old in the car.

We fought a righteous fight out here.

And the Dems in DC don’t give a damn. Thread
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

The thread:

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
Volunteers and activists from Columbia to Cass County, between Moberly and Marshfield and Lamar to Lebanon—these people endured the same + worse.

On their own property, close to their homes, people had signs burned to the ground, stolen, or shot up by passers-by.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
I called it terrorism as it happened. Because that’s what it is.

Violence + intimidation against civilians for a political purpose.

January 6th wasn’t a shock to us out here. It was a larger finale to a season’s long episode of aggression.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
When you stand up in a deeply red district in a deeply red state, you do it because lives depend on it.

You do it because democracy depends on it.

You do it because the future you want for your kids + grandkids depends on it.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
That future included:

new voting rights act
ending gerrymandering
euniversal healthcare
codified Roe v Wade
anti-lynching laws
ending qualified immunity
equal rights amendment
prosecution of the crimes we watched unfold before our eyes the previous 4 years
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
And Democrats in Washington, DC who have a seat at the table—they’re playing a dangerous game.

They’re betting our entire country’s future on this notion that if they don’t rock the boat too much, things will calm down, and they can get re-elected and do more@next time.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
This is a damn fairytale.

We are in the eye of a storm.

And what we do now dictates whether democracy survives after 2024.

You cannot make bets with the underlying assumption being that you will win another election.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
The autocrats aren’t trying to win. They aren’t trying to beat you.

They are actively dismantling democracy such that the American people willingly hand it over.

We won the White House.
We won the House of Representatives.
We won the Senate.

Let’s act like it.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
The days of gentlemanly handshakes and agreeing to disagree are long-gone.

Nine months ago sitting Members of Congress invited terrorists to murder the Vice President and their colleagues.

They have stolen seats on the Supreme Court.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
These are not people who care about decency or precedent or the law.

They care about control.

And we need to care more about doing the hard things instead of looking bad on cable news.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
This week you have Members of a Congress threatening telecom companies if they comply with subpoenas—that’s obstruction of justice.

You have Texas subjugating women.

You have multiple states hellbent on limiting our right to vote.

You have California facing a recall.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
School board meetings are full of parents denouncing science and history.

Politicians are using that chaos to defund public education.

Our nation is in crisis and we’re pretending our hands are tied.

We lack not options for moving forward, but the courage to do so.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Lindsey Simmons @LynzforCongress
Replying to @LynzforCongress
There is no doubt in my mind that our nation is in safer hands with President Biden.

But there’s also no doubt in my mind that if the “political consultants” had the backbone + experience of pro-democracy fighters in red states we’d be a lot more prepared to survive this storm.
8:57 PM · Sep 1, 2021

Here we are.

Previously:

Susan Collins (r) weighs in (September 1, 2021)

Always there (September 1, 2021)

Always there

01 Wednesday Sep 2021

Posted by in Uncategorized

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Kamala Harris (D) [2019 file photo].

Statement by Vice President Harris on Texas Law SB8
SEPTEMBER 01, 2021

Today, a new law takes effect in Texas that directly violates the precedent established in the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. This all-out assault on reproductive health effectively bans abortion for the nearly 7 million Texans of reproductive age. Patients in Texas will now be forced to travel out-of-state or carry their pregnancy to term against their will. This law will dramatically reduce access to reproductive care for women in Texas, particularly for women with low incomes and women of color. It also includes a disturbing provision that incentivizes private citizens to sue anyone who assists another person in receiving an abortion.

The Biden-Harris Administration will always fight to protect access to healthcare and defend a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and determine her future.

###

Previously:

Susan Collins (r) weighs in (September 1, 2021)

Susan Collins (r) weighs in

01 Wednesday Sep 2021

Posted by in US Senate

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[crickets]

She helped build this.

From Planned Parenthood [St. Louis, Missouri]:

“We are ready to help patients from Texas access the care they need and deserve. When politicians in other states have failed people in need of abortion, we have answered the call. RHS will do it again because abortion is health care and health care is a human right. However, despite our best efforts, the injustice here is that for far too many patients, traveling out of state will push access out of reach altogether. This is the reality we’ve long been warning about.” – Yamelsie Rodríguez, President and CEO, Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region

“I stand with Planned Parenthood.” [2017 file photo]