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Bundbuster
Bundbuster's Journal
Bundbuster's Journal
June 13, 2024
In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon swept the country, and rates of domestic violence and spousal murder began to drop as people — especially women — gained more freedom to leave dangerous situations.
Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce. The Texas Republican Party added a call to end the practice to its 2022 platform (the plank is preserved in the 2024 version). Federal lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, have spoken out in favor of tightening divorce laws. And that will cause huge problems, especially for anyone experiencing abuse. “Any barrier to divorce is a really big challenge for survivors,” said Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline. “What it really ends up doing is prolonging their forced entanglement with an abusive partner.”
It’s worth noting that though the no-fault laws initially led to spikes in divorce, rates then began to drop, and reached a 50-year low in 2019, CNN reports. But today, an end to no-fault divorce would cause enormous financial, logistical, and emotional strain for people who are trying to end their marriages, experts say. Proving fault requires a trial, something many divorcing couples today avoid, said Kristen Marinaccio, a New Jersey-based family law attorney. A divorce trial is time-consuming and costly, putting the partner with less money at an immediate disadvantage. It can also be “really, really traumatizing” to have to take the stand against an ex-partner, Marinaccio said.
No-fault divorce can be easier on children, who don’t have to experience their parents facing each other in a trial, experts say. Research suggests that allowing such divorces increased women’s power in marriages and even reduced women’s suicide rates. A return to the old ways would turn back the clock on this progress, scholars say. “We know exactly what happens when people can’t get out of very unhappy marriages,” Zug said. “There’s much higher incidences of domestic abuse and spousal murder.”
The Christian right is coming for divorce next
https://www.vox.com/today-explained-newsletter/354635/divorce-no-fault-states-marriage-republicansIn 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon swept the country, and rates of domestic violence and spousal murder began to drop as people — especially women — gained more freedom to leave dangerous situations.
Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce. The Texas Republican Party added a call to end the practice to its 2022 platform (the plank is preserved in the 2024 version). Federal lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, have spoken out in favor of tightening divorce laws. And that will cause huge problems, especially for anyone experiencing abuse. “Any barrier to divorce is a really big challenge for survivors,” said Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline. “What it really ends up doing is prolonging their forced entanglement with an abusive partner.”
It’s worth noting that though the no-fault laws initially led to spikes in divorce, rates then began to drop, and reached a 50-year low in 2019, CNN reports. But today, an end to no-fault divorce would cause enormous financial, logistical, and emotional strain for people who are trying to end their marriages, experts say. Proving fault requires a trial, something many divorcing couples today avoid, said Kristen Marinaccio, a New Jersey-based family law attorney. A divorce trial is time-consuming and costly, putting the partner with less money at an immediate disadvantage. It can also be “really, really traumatizing” to have to take the stand against an ex-partner, Marinaccio said.
No-fault divorce can be easier on children, who don’t have to experience their parents facing each other in a trial, experts say. Research suggests that allowing such divorces increased women’s power in marriages and even reduced women’s suicide rates. A return to the old ways would turn back the clock on this progress, scholars say. “We know exactly what happens when people can’t get out of very unhappy marriages,” Zug said. “There’s much higher incidences of domestic abuse and spousal murder.”
June 11, 2024
Martha-Ann Alito, who is married to Justice Samuel Alito, has admitted that she flies politicized flags outside her homes because she can’t stand the colors of the rainbow. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag,” she told a woman posing as a Catholic conservative, “because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.” Tellingly, in the surreptitiously recorded conversation, she even fantasized about creating her own fiery flag with the word “vergogna” (“shame” in Italian) so she could say to her neighbors, “Shame, shame, shame, on you.”
To be honest, these comments aren’t particularly surprising. Ms. Alito is the wife of a justice who agreed that the country needs to return to “a place of godliness” and has argued that the court’s 2014 ruling on marriage equality restricts the free speech rights of religious conservatives. (If that’s really true, somebody should tell her to zip it before she’s jailed for her words.)
They are also emblematic of a broader campaign by the religious right to erase or shame queer culture from public view, often in the form of attempted — and successful — bans on books, flags, drag performances and curriculums. The only thing mildly revealing about Ms. Alito’s comments is that they signal it is still socially acceptable for religious conservatives to demean the queer community in supposedly polite company.
While it is undeniably exhausting that anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiments continue to infect members of America’s most powerful institutions, queer people should take heart that even the most benign of our symbols, the rainbow flag, still so bothers those who hate us.
Happy Pride Month, Martha-Ann Alito!
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/04/opinion/thepoint?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.qLCL.6l5u7RWTr9NZ&smid=url-shareMartha-Ann Alito, who is married to Justice Samuel Alito, has admitted that she flies politicized flags outside her homes because she can’t stand the colors of the rainbow. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag,” she told a woman posing as a Catholic conservative, “because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.” Tellingly, in the surreptitiously recorded conversation, she even fantasized about creating her own fiery flag with the word “vergogna” (“shame” in Italian) so she could say to her neighbors, “Shame, shame, shame, on you.”
To be honest, these comments aren’t particularly surprising. Ms. Alito is the wife of a justice who agreed that the country needs to return to “a place of godliness” and has argued that the court’s 2014 ruling on marriage equality restricts the free speech rights of religious conservatives. (If that’s really true, somebody should tell her to zip it before she’s jailed for her words.)
They are also emblematic of a broader campaign by the religious right to erase or shame queer culture from public view, often in the form of attempted — and successful — bans on books, flags, drag performances and curriculums. The only thing mildly revealing about Ms. Alito’s comments is that they signal it is still socially acceptable for religious conservatives to demean the queer community in supposedly polite company.
While it is undeniably exhausting that anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiments continue to infect members of America’s most powerful institutions, queer people should take heart that even the most benign of our symbols, the rainbow flag, still so bothers those who hate us.
June 8, 2024
Gains in economic growth have too often buoyed the fortunes of the richest instead of lifting all boats. Prosperity even in the most prosperous countries hasn’t been shared. But all the attention to inequality is just a crack in the edifice of economic orthodoxy. Now a much more radical proposition has emerged, looming like a wrecking ball: Is economic growth desirable at all?
In 1972, the French theorist André Gorz coined the word décroissance to ask whether “no-growth — or even degrowth” in material production was necessary for “the earth’s balance,” even if it ran counter to “the survival of the capitalist system.” Gorz was writing the same year that “The Limits to Growth” was published, a report by a group of scientists warning that surges in population and economic activity would eventually outstrip the carrying capacity of the planet. “The Limits to Growth” was initially met with skepticism and even ridicule. Critics pointed to humanity’s undeniably impressive record of technological innovation. As one representative economist put it, “Our predictions are firmly based on a study of the way these problems have been overcome in the past.”
Take Hickel, an anthropologist who teaches in London and Barcelona and is one of the movement’s most spirited exponents. Like other contemporary critics of unfettered growth, he emphasizes the climate crisis. His book begins with scenes of ecological devastation: dying earthworms, declining crop yields, collapsing fish stocks. He points to the connection between growing G.D.P. and energy use, identifying an ideology of “growthism” that he equates with “a kind of madness.” He says that he is not promoting a deliberate reduction in G.D.P. But if G.D.P. stagnates or declines because we conserve energy instead of consuming it, so be it.
In what could be a mission statement for the movement, Hickel writes: “Degrowth is about reducing the material and energy throughput of the economy to bring it back into balance with the living world, while distributing income and resources more fairly, liberating people from needless work, and investing in the public goods that people need to thrive.”
Shrink the Economy, Save the World? Is economic growth desirable at all?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/08/books/review/shrink-the-economy-save-the-world.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yE0.R_TR.97Hq5RgU_smE&smid=url-shareGains in economic growth have too often buoyed the fortunes of the richest instead of lifting all boats. Prosperity even in the most prosperous countries hasn’t been shared. But all the attention to inequality is just a crack in the edifice of economic orthodoxy. Now a much more radical proposition has emerged, looming like a wrecking ball: Is economic growth desirable at all?
In 1972, the French theorist André Gorz coined the word décroissance to ask whether “no-growth — or even degrowth” in material production was necessary for “the earth’s balance,” even if it ran counter to “the survival of the capitalist system.” Gorz was writing the same year that “The Limits to Growth” was published, a report by a group of scientists warning that surges in population and economic activity would eventually outstrip the carrying capacity of the planet. “The Limits to Growth” was initially met with skepticism and even ridicule. Critics pointed to humanity’s undeniably impressive record of technological innovation. As one representative economist put it, “Our predictions are firmly based on a study of the way these problems have been overcome in the past.”
Take Hickel, an anthropologist who teaches in London and Barcelona and is one of the movement’s most spirited exponents. Like other contemporary critics of unfettered growth, he emphasizes the climate crisis. His book begins with scenes of ecological devastation: dying earthworms, declining crop yields, collapsing fish stocks. He points to the connection between growing G.D.P. and energy use, identifying an ideology of “growthism” that he equates with “a kind of madness.” He says that he is not promoting a deliberate reduction in G.D.P. But if G.D.P. stagnates or declines because we conserve energy instead of consuming it, so be it.
In what could be a mission statement for the movement, Hickel writes: “Degrowth is about reducing the material and energy throughput of the economy to bring it back into balance with the living world, while distributing income and resources more fairly, liberating people from needless work, and investing in the public goods that people need to thrive.”
June 7, 2024
Team Trump boasted about people “braving” extreme heat in Arizona while waiting to watch Trump ramble incoherently at a campaign rally for over an hour on Thursday, making no mention that at least 11 people collapsed and were hospitalized for heat exhaustion. “That’s an enthusiasm that Joe Biden will never see,” Trump’s newsletter proclaimed of the crowds stuck roasting on unshaded concrete. “That’s the enthusiasm Americans have to Make America Great Again!”
The intense loyalty to Trump from his supporters—largely elderly and more prone to heat stroke—is a disturbing example of how far his extremist base is willing to suffer just for a glimpse of their dear leader. Their queasy dedication speaks to the religious fervor cultivated by Trump who touts himself as a messiah who has come to save the masses from the satanic swamp, a Jesus preaching gobbledygook from the mountaintop of Dream City megachurch in Phoenix. On Friday, Trump boasted about a song that refers to him as “the chosen one”—words he has explicitly said in the past.
That Team Trump apparently took no measures to meet its base’s most basic human needs amid an anticipated high of 108 degrees on Thursday—neither handing out water nor setting up cooling tents in anticipation of the heat—and instead touted their suffering as “enthusiasm” speaks to the level of appreciation Trump has for those who support him, which is to say obviously none.
Team Trump Brags About Letting Supporters Pass Out From Heat Stroke at Phoenix Rally
https://newrepublic.com/post/182449/team-trump-brags-supporters-heat-stroke-arizonaTeam Trump boasted about people “braving” extreme heat in Arizona while waiting to watch Trump ramble incoherently at a campaign rally for over an hour on Thursday, making no mention that at least 11 people collapsed and were hospitalized for heat exhaustion. “That’s an enthusiasm that Joe Biden will never see,” Trump’s newsletter proclaimed of the crowds stuck roasting on unshaded concrete. “That’s the enthusiasm Americans have to Make America Great Again!”
The intense loyalty to Trump from his supporters—largely elderly and more prone to heat stroke—is a disturbing example of how far his extremist base is willing to suffer just for a glimpse of their dear leader. Their queasy dedication speaks to the religious fervor cultivated by Trump who touts himself as a messiah who has come to save the masses from the satanic swamp, a Jesus preaching gobbledygook from the mountaintop of Dream City megachurch in Phoenix. On Friday, Trump boasted about a song that refers to him as “the chosen one”—words he has explicitly said in the past.
That Team Trump apparently took no measures to meet its base’s most basic human needs amid an anticipated high of 108 degrees on Thursday—neither handing out water nor setting up cooling tents in anticipation of the heat—and instead touted their suffering as “enthusiasm” speaks to the level of appreciation Trump has for those who support him, which is to say obviously none.
June 6, 2024
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/06/06/d-day-normandy-world-war-ii-paratroopers-00161916
Eighty years ago, hours before the Allied forces launched a million personnel across the English Channel to fight Hitler’s Third Reich in Fortress Europe, U.S. and British paratroopers painted their faces black, shaved their heads, handed letters to loved ones out the windows of their planes and took to the sky. Some would never again feel the ground beneath their feet. Some would drown in the flooded fields below them. One would have his cigarettes shot out of his pants mid-air. But all of them, together, would triumph in perhaps the greatest undertaking in all of human history, defeating fascism in Europe and changing the world forever.
Sgt. Dan Furlong, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne: I landed flat on my back in a cement cow trough. It was full of water. There was a farmhouse back up about 150 yards from where I dropped, so I snuck up to it, and inside I could hear Germans talking. I was going to sneak away and then one came out — maybe he heard me or something. He came round the corner. I was standing flat against the wall, and I killed my first German right there. I hit him on the side of the head with my rifle butt, then gave him the bayonet treatment. Then I took off, ran like hell.
Pvt. John E. Fitzgerald: Shortly, I met a captain and a private from the 82nd Airborne Division. We decided to band together for safety in numbers. No sooner had we moved out when another wave of planes appeared overhead. They were some of the last elements of the flight to be dropped. German anti-aircraft guns opened up all around us. We spotted a gun firing nearby and knew we would have to try to knock it out. With all the noise, we were able to crawl to within 25 yards of it. The gun was firing from a raised platform. Surprisingly, it had no protection. The captain gave us a brief plan of attack: “Let’s get those bastards!” The private from the 82nd set up his Browning Automatic Rifle and pulled back the bolt. He fired several short bursts and hit the two men on the right of the platform. The captain threw a grenade that exploded directly under the gun. I emptied my M-1 clip at the two Germans on the left. In a moment it was all over.
Pvt. John E. Fitzgerald: Most of us were exhausted. I laid down against a stone wall and immediately fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke a short time later, it was almost dawn. While looking for water to fill my canteen, I spotted a well at the rear of a nearby farmhouse. On my way to the well, the scene I came upon was one that has never left my memory. It was a picture story of the death of one 82nd Airborne trooper. He left a graphic heritage for all to see. He had occupied a German foxhole and made it his personal Alamo. In a half circle around the hole lay the bodies of nine German soldiers. The body closest to the hole was only three feet away, a potato masher [grenade] clutched in its fist. The other distorted forms lay where they fell, testimony to the ferocity of the fight. His ammunition bandoliers were still on his shoulders, empty of M-1 clips. Cartridge cases littered the ground. His rifle stock was broken in two, its splinters adding to the debris. He had fought alone, and like many others that night, he had died alone. I looked at his dog tags. The name read Martin V. Hersh. I wrote the name down in a small prayer book I carried, hoping someday I would meet someone who knew him. I never did.
__________________________________________________________________________
Much more, with fantastic photos, at this memorable article, from the book When the Sea Came Alive. Copyright © 2024
'As Lonely as a Man Can Get': The True Story of D-Day, as Told by Paratroopers
The men who leaped from planes into the world’s greatest battle tell their harrowing story, in their own words.https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/06/06/d-day-normandy-world-war-ii-paratroopers-00161916
Eighty years ago, hours before the Allied forces launched a million personnel across the English Channel to fight Hitler’s Third Reich in Fortress Europe, U.S. and British paratroopers painted their faces black, shaved their heads, handed letters to loved ones out the windows of their planes and took to the sky. Some would never again feel the ground beneath their feet. Some would drown in the flooded fields below them. One would have his cigarettes shot out of his pants mid-air. But all of them, together, would triumph in perhaps the greatest undertaking in all of human history, defeating fascism in Europe and changing the world forever.
Sgt. Dan Furlong, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne: I landed flat on my back in a cement cow trough. It was full of water. There was a farmhouse back up about 150 yards from where I dropped, so I snuck up to it, and inside I could hear Germans talking. I was going to sneak away and then one came out — maybe he heard me or something. He came round the corner. I was standing flat against the wall, and I killed my first German right there. I hit him on the side of the head with my rifle butt, then gave him the bayonet treatment. Then I took off, ran like hell.
Pvt. John E. Fitzgerald: Shortly, I met a captain and a private from the 82nd Airborne Division. We decided to band together for safety in numbers. No sooner had we moved out when another wave of planes appeared overhead. They were some of the last elements of the flight to be dropped. German anti-aircraft guns opened up all around us. We spotted a gun firing nearby and knew we would have to try to knock it out. With all the noise, we were able to crawl to within 25 yards of it. The gun was firing from a raised platform. Surprisingly, it had no protection. The captain gave us a brief plan of attack: “Let’s get those bastards!” The private from the 82nd set up his Browning Automatic Rifle and pulled back the bolt. He fired several short bursts and hit the two men on the right of the platform. The captain threw a grenade that exploded directly under the gun. I emptied my M-1 clip at the two Germans on the left. In a moment it was all over.
Pvt. John E. Fitzgerald: Most of us were exhausted. I laid down against a stone wall and immediately fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke a short time later, it was almost dawn. While looking for water to fill my canteen, I spotted a well at the rear of a nearby farmhouse. On my way to the well, the scene I came upon was one that has never left my memory. It was a picture story of the death of one 82nd Airborne trooper. He left a graphic heritage for all to see. He had occupied a German foxhole and made it his personal Alamo. In a half circle around the hole lay the bodies of nine German soldiers. The body closest to the hole was only three feet away, a potato masher [grenade] clutched in its fist. The other distorted forms lay where they fell, testimony to the ferocity of the fight. His ammunition bandoliers were still on his shoulders, empty of M-1 clips. Cartridge cases littered the ground. His rifle stock was broken in two, its splinters adding to the debris. He had fought alone, and like many others that night, he had died alone. I looked at his dog tags. The name read Martin V. Hersh. I wrote the name down in a small prayer book I carried, hoping someday I would meet someone who knew him. I never did.
__________________________________________________________________________
Much more, with fantastic photos, at this memorable article, from the book When the Sea Came Alive. Copyright © 2024
June 6, 2024
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-conviction-maga-prophets-1235033898/
A trio of prominent, far-right Christians who purport to channel the word of God as it pertains to American politics are pointing to Trump’s guilty verdicts as a divine head-fake. The woe that has presently befallen Trump, they prophesy, will “boomerang” against his enemies, who will suffer “defeat” as Trump steps again into the “power” God has ordained for him.
Julie Green is an internet preacher from Iowa who hands out biblical prophecy as if it were a daily horoscope. In a prophetic word filmed shortly after Trump’s conviction, Green delivered a message she claimed was sent down from the most high. “Woe to the enemies of Almighty God. You are laughing, thinking you got what you desired,” Green said, voicing her version of the Christian deity. “I will tell you I will have the last laugh. Your verdict is a joke. And an illusion … I will show you whose verdict really counts.
“My son is not guilty,” Green claimed God said of Trump. “And the world will … see your kangaroo courts, and how they are a joke, and how they are nothing against Me.” Casting Trump in the mold of a biblical king, Green continued, “I say, you do not have my David where you want him. But I have you where I want you. I told you you will reap what you have sown … Your show is about to end, and my children are about to laugh.”
“God said there would … be a boomerang,” Kunneman said on a show filmed shortly after the Trump verdict was handed down. “In other words, those who would seek for indictments, they themselves would be indicted.” Kunneman then asserted that Trump’s conviction is also set for reversal. “God said, you will see things flop. It will look like it is absolutely over. And then it will flop — and then flip. And it will turn in the way of the favor of God.”
MAGA 'Prophets': God Thinks Trump's Conviction Was Rigged
Far-right Christian seers claim Trump is a “martyr” and that God will deliver the vengeance MAGAdonians seekhttps://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-conviction-maga-prophets-1235033898/
A trio of prominent, far-right Christians who purport to channel the word of God as it pertains to American politics are pointing to Trump’s guilty verdicts as a divine head-fake. The woe that has presently befallen Trump, they prophesy, will “boomerang” against his enemies, who will suffer “defeat” as Trump steps again into the “power” God has ordained for him.
Julie Green is an internet preacher from Iowa who hands out biblical prophecy as if it were a daily horoscope. In a prophetic word filmed shortly after Trump’s conviction, Green delivered a message she claimed was sent down from the most high. “Woe to the enemies of Almighty God. You are laughing, thinking you got what you desired,” Green said, voicing her version of the Christian deity. “I will tell you I will have the last laugh. Your verdict is a joke. And an illusion … I will show you whose verdict really counts.
“My son is not guilty,” Green claimed God said of Trump. “And the world will … see your kangaroo courts, and how they are a joke, and how they are nothing against Me.” Casting Trump in the mold of a biblical king, Green continued, “I say, you do not have my David where you want him. But I have you where I want you. I told you you will reap what you have sown … Your show is about to end, and my children are about to laugh.”
“God said there would … be a boomerang,” Kunneman said on a show filmed shortly after the Trump verdict was handed down. “In other words, those who would seek for indictments, they themselves would be indicted.” Kunneman then asserted that Trump’s conviction is also set for reversal. “God said, you will see things flop. It will look like it is absolutely over. And then it will flop — and then flip. And it will turn in the way of the favor of God.”
June 5, 2024
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/prison-heat-air-conditioning-00160676
Temperatures inside some prison cells in the South routinely exceed 120 degrees in the summer months. Inmates in these facilities often resort to drinking toilet water to cool off. In Texas alone, at least 14 prison deaths per year can be attributed to extreme heat. Of course, there’s an easy — if costly — solution: installing air conditioning. But politicians across the conservative South have repeatedly balked at forking over tens of millions of dollars to improve conditions for a population that garners little public sympathy from their constituents. Recent efforts in both Texas and Florida to allocate major funding to address the issue have sputtered due to resistance from lawmakers.
The end result: The vast majority of facilities remain without AC in many states. Roughly three-quarters of Florida prisons lack AC, according to Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon. Over two-thirds of Texas prison beds don’t have air conditioning throughout the facilities as of 2024, with many prisons in Georgia and Alabama also without complete air conditioning.
An inmate named Bernhardt Tiede II filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice last summer after suffering what was most likely a stroke due to heat, according to the complaint. The lawsuit references inmates drinking toilet water to cool off and temperatures exceeding 120 degrees inside prisons. “If cooking someone to death does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment, then nothing does,” the complaint states.
Prison advocates say that callous disregard for the treatment of inmates is shortsighted both in terms of finances and public safety. Michele Deitch, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, said extreme heat exacerbates already existing problems in prisons. Heat-triggered violence, for example, can endanger both corrections officers and inmates — and an array of psychotropic medications can make inmates especially heat-sensitive.
'Cooking someone to death': Southern states resist calls to add air conditioning to prisons
Advocates have called the sweltering conditions in some prisons “cruel and unusual” punishment.https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/prison-heat-air-conditioning-00160676
Temperatures inside some prison cells in the South routinely exceed 120 degrees in the summer months. Inmates in these facilities often resort to drinking toilet water to cool off. In Texas alone, at least 14 prison deaths per year can be attributed to extreme heat. Of course, there’s an easy — if costly — solution: installing air conditioning. But politicians across the conservative South have repeatedly balked at forking over tens of millions of dollars to improve conditions for a population that garners little public sympathy from their constituents. Recent efforts in both Texas and Florida to allocate major funding to address the issue have sputtered due to resistance from lawmakers.
The end result: The vast majority of facilities remain without AC in many states. Roughly three-quarters of Florida prisons lack AC, according to Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon. Over two-thirds of Texas prison beds don’t have air conditioning throughout the facilities as of 2024, with many prisons in Georgia and Alabama also without complete air conditioning.
An inmate named Bernhardt Tiede II filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice last summer after suffering what was most likely a stroke due to heat, according to the complaint. The lawsuit references inmates drinking toilet water to cool off and temperatures exceeding 120 degrees inside prisons. “If cooking someone to death does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment, then nothing does,” the complaint states.
Prison advocates say that callous disregard for the treatment of inmates is shortsighted both in terms of finances and public safety. Michele Deitch, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, said extreme heat exacerbates already existing problems in prisons. Heat-triggered violence, for example, can endanger both corrections officers and inmates — and an array of psychotropic medications can make inmates especially heat-sensitive.
June 5, 2024
After graduating from law school, Johnson worked as a counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a socially conservative advocacy organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. There, his expertise appeared to be centered on the legal punishment of homosexuality. Before the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that laws prohibiting private, consensual sex between adults were unconstitutional, Johnson helped write an amicus brief to oppose such a decision. And when the battleground shifted to marriage, Johnson followed, backing Louisiana Amendment 1 in 2004, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, against legal challenges that he warned would "open the floodgates to chaos and anarchy."
The "chaos and anarchy" that Johnson referred to included, in his view, polygamy, pedophilia, and bestiality. "If we change marriage for the homosexual activists, we will have to do it for every deviant group ... there will be no legal basis to deny a bisexual the right to marry a partner of each sex, or a person to marry his pet," he wrote in a 2004 Op-Ed. Johnson's escalating alarm over gay rights extended to the foundations of American democracy, which he said in the same piece would be "destroyed" if same-sex marriage were officially recognized.
Johnson's record of opposing gay rights is matched by his enduring association with Christian fundamentalist groups, some of which have hosted advocates of executing people for homosexual acts. He has also embraced Christian Nationalist tenets, claiming America's founders, despite their expressed opposition to mixing church and state, "followed the biblical admonition on what a civil society is supposed to look like." And he has worked to impose his own retrograde interpretations of biblical law, such as by suing New Orleans for giving health care benefits to gay city workers and their partners, offering pro-bono representation to clerks who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, writing a memo to Louisiana government officials detailing how they can defy the Supreme Court's ruling to legalize same-sex marriage, and opposing the anti-bullying Day of Silence, claiming its real purpose was to suggest "homosexuality is good for society."
To mark the start of 2024, Johnson appeared at an event hosted by an "anti-LGBTQ+ hate group," per the Southern Poverty Law Center, where he spoke about "cultural upheaval" at the behest of pastor Jonathan Cahn, who himself declared that LGBTQ+ and other forms of activism are a form of "demonic repossession." Johnson alone won't be able to exorcise America of gay rights. But he does have a friend in Trump, who has praised him as "doing a very good job" in Congress — and is hoping to work with him again come 2025.
Mike Johnson, Trump's ally in Congress, has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ hate
https://www.salon.com/2024/06/05/mike-johnson-and-the-homosexual-agenda-ally-in-congress-has-a-history-of-anti-lgbtq-hate/After graduating from law school, Johnson worked as a counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a socially conservative advocacy organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. There, his expertise appeared to be centered on the legal punishment of homosexuality. Before the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that laws prohibiting private, consensual sex between adults were unconstitutional, Johnson helped write an amicus brief to oppose such a decision. And when the battleground shifted to marriage, Johnson followed, backing Louisiana Amendment 1 in 2004, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, against legal challenges that he warned would "open the floodgates to chaos and anarchy."
The "chaos and anarchy" that Johnson referred to included, in his view, polygamy, pedophilia, and bestiality. "If we change marriage for the homosexual activists, we will have to do it for every deviant group ... there will be no legal basis to deny a bisexual the right to marry a partner of each sex, or a person to marry his pet," he wrote in a 2004 Op-Ed. Johnson's escalating alarm over gay rights extended to the foundations of American democracy, which he said in the same piece would be "destroyed" if same-sex marriage were officially recognized.
Johnson's record of opposing gay rights is matched by his enduring association with Christian fundamentalist groups, some of which have hosted advocates of executing people for homosexual acts. He has also embraced Christian Nationalist tenets, claiming America's founders, despite their expressed opposition to mixing church and state, "followed the biblical admonition on what a civil society is supposed to look like." And he has worked to impose his own retrograde interpretations of biblical law, such as by suing New Orleans for giving health care benefits to gay city workers and their partners, offering pro-bono representation to clerks who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, writing a memo to Louisiana government officials detailing how they can defy the Supreme Court's ruling to legalize same-sex marriage, and opposing the anti-bullying Day of Silence, claiming its real purpose was to suggest "homosexuality is good for society."
To mark the start of 2024, Johnson appeared at an event hosted by an "anti-LGBTQ+ hate group," per the Southern Poverty Law Center, where he spoke about "cultural upheaval" at the behest of pastor Jonathan Cahn, who himself declared that LGBTQ+ and other forms of activism are a form of "demonic repossession." Johnson alone won't be able to exorcise America of gay rights. But he does have a friend in Trump, who has praised him as "doing a very good job" in Congress — and is hoping to work with him again come 2025.
June 5, 2024
Christian media celebrities and the companies that platform them are getting closer to facing the legal consequences of falsehoods they spread about the 2020 elections. Christian radio host Eric Metaxas, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, Clay Clark of the ReAwaken America Tour and Dinesh D’Souza, the conspiracist behind the movie 2000 Mules, are among the celebrities facing defamation lawsuits and running out of legal options.
Salem Media is named in a handful of defamation cases and is clearly feeling the heat. It recently apologized for producing the 2000 Mules movie, which brought the company $10 million, and has withdrawn it from circulation. Salem also sold off the publishing company that released a 2000 Mules companion book.
Lindell has used up $60 million of his company’s profits to fund election denial events, publications and websites including FrankSpeech.com and electioncrimebureau.com. Retailers, including Walmart, Kohl’s, JC Penney, Wayfair, and Bed Bath and Beyond quit carrying his products. He also is being evicted from a Minnesota warehouse because of $200,000 in unpaid rent. The mounting pressures have challenged Lindell’s Christian witness. He called Eric Coomer a “scumbag” for suing him and has called opposing attorneys “ambulance chasing assholes.”
Dominion executive Eric Coomer has four cases against nearly two dozen people and groups:
- Metaxas and nearly a dozen other parties, including Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani
- Salem Media of Colorado and radio host Randy Corporon
- Clay Clark, producer of the ReAwaken America Tour
- Mike Lindell, MyPillow and FrankSpeech
Christian media figures may face defamation trials before November election
https://baptistnews.com/article/christian-media-figures-may-face-defamation-trials-before-november-election/Christian media celebrities and the companies that platform them are getting closer to facing the legal consequences of falsehoods they spread about the 2020 elections. Christian radio host Eric Metaxas, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, Clay Clark of the ReAwaken America Tour and Dinesh D’Souza, the conspiracist behind the movie 2000 Mules, are among the celebrities facing defamation lawsuits and running out of legal options.
Salem Media is named in a handful of defamation cases and is clearly feeling the heat. It recently apologized for producing the 2000 Mules movie, which brought the company $10 million, and has withdrawn it from circulation. Salem also sold off the publishing company that released a 2000 Mules companion book.
Lindell has used up $60 million of his company’s profits to fund election denial events, publications and websites including FrankSpeech.com and electioncrimebureau.com. Retailers, including Walmart, Kohl’s, JC Penney, Wayfair, and Bed Bath and Beyond quit carrying his products. He also is being evicted from a Minnesota warehouse because of $200,000 in unpaid rent. The mounting pressures have challenged Lindell’s Christian witness. He called Eric Coomer a “scumbag” for suing him and has called opposing attorneys “ambulance chasing assholes.”
Dominion executive Eric Coomer has four cases against nearly two dozen people and groups:
- Metaxas and nearly a dozen other parties, including Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani
- Salem Media of Colorado and radio host Randy Corporon
- Clay Clark, producer of the ReAwaken America Tour
- Mike Lindell, MyPillow and FrankSpeech
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