A trial national separation?

A national trial separation?

4/11/2023

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A week or so ago, Cong. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Crazytown) called for a national divorce between the country’s red (Republican) and blue (Democratic) states. Truth is, it feels like we’re going through a trial separation already.

For example:

• Tennessee Republicans expelled two young Black Democratic state legislators from the chamber because the pair protested on the floor and used a bullhorn to support protestors outside who were calling for the legislature to pass gun control measures after the killing of three nine-year-old’s and three adults at a Memphis school days before. The Republicans did it, basically, because they could. A 60-ish White woman who joined the pair in the protest was not expelled (Republicans said she never used the bullhorn).
• The most recent (at least as of my posting this blog) mass shooting was in Louisville, Kentucky, where a young man wielding a just legally purchased AR-15. At an emotion-filled press briefing at noontime today Dr. Jason Smith, chief medical officer at University of Louisville Health, said he was “weary” of the gun injuries and death he’s seen and that his hospital needed do nothing different to handle this week’s shooting because they handle so many shooting victims every day. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenfield called on the Kentucky legislature to allow the state’s cities to deal with gun violence on their own.
• A Texas federal judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, ruled that an abortion pill, approved two decades ago by the Federal Drug Administration after a vigorous study, and in safe use since then, suspended that approval citing rhetoric used by the Pro-Life community and not basing his decision on the science. The judge has worked for First Liberty Institute, a Christian conservative legal group and while there he submitted an amicus brief for a Supreme Court case about a Washington law mandating pharmacies to provide contraceptives. The pro-lifers shopped for that judge because they knew how he’d rule. Judgement not by facts and science but by beliefs and fiat.
• In Florida, the legislature is passing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ agenda — actually what some say will be his presidential campaign’s platform — to, among other things, ban gender studies at the college level, limit the use of transgender pronouns in K-12 schools, and extend a ban on teaching about gender…