Vigilanteism Now the Law of the Land
Yesterday, the Texas Supreme Court cemented in vigilante law by affirming that SB8, which our radical rightwing government rammed through during the last legislative session and permits anyone to sue any person they accuse of getting, giving, or assisting in any abortion anywhere in Texas. The law exposes ALL Texans to vigilante action with zero protection of the personal rights of anyone deemed to be involved in a medical procedure that is constitutionally protected.
The notion that his law passes any legal test is outrageous on the face, yet the radicalism that has taken over the courts has driven them to look the other way while lawlessness of a tiny group of partisans wreak havoc to everyone else’s lives. The Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court now say that they have no role in protecting the individual rights of Americans including privacy, equal protection, or voting.
I say, OK, let’s play. If vigilanteism is now the rule of law in Texas, let’s go after:
- Fox News, OANN, and Newmax – allow anyone to sue anyone else they accuse of watching those channels.
- Carrying firearms – allow anyone to sue anyone else they accuse of carrying a firearm.
- Loud Pickup Trucks – anyone can now sue others who they believe are driving a truck that’s too loud.
- Voting – let’s sue anyone who can’t prove they voted in all elections.
- Donuts – let’s sue people who eat donuts because it’s not healthy.
- Churches – let’s sue people who darken the doors of churches we don’t like. Plaintiff’s choice as to which church they don’t like.
- Snow shovel brims on cowboy hats and goofy square-toed boots – let’s sue anyone wearing those because they’re morons.
- Flags on pickups – $10,000 per flag, $50,000 if the word “Trump” appears on any flag.
- Toby Keith songs – because I’m sick of them
- Dancing with the Stars – $10,000 per episode because you’re an idiot to watch and it causes brain damage.
- Any piece of clothing that has a MAGA logo – because…you know why.
You get the point. The courts are now nothing more than observers to single party rule and fascist laws that permit spying on fellow citizens and accusing them of whatever the plaintiffs don’t like. Let’s turn it around on them.
Texas is lost.
Excellent, El Jefe! Our plan is to simply sit back and laugh as the cancel culture of Qcumber conservatives self eliminates. Like their heroes TFG and Putie, they’ve reached the end of the illogical continuum of their culture wars. Even the most abstaining of the formally disinterested apathetic are now at least somewhat woke.
The old adage: “be careful of what you wish for” is about to bite them square in the butt. They wanted to be noticed. Oops. People are noticing exactly how deplorable conservatives are.
1And I thought Nixon was bad; our state and national GOP lawmakers are almost making me nostalgic . . . almost.
2Texas is looking more and more like late 1930s Germany. “Turn in your parents and you neighbors if you see them doing (fill in the blank).” It became a time for settling scores, as this idiot law might do also. And the Supreme Court didn’t bring it to a screeching halt. That’s beyond scary.
3I would add:
412. Drivers and passengers of Big pickups with decals of assault rifles in the back window. Maybe even NRA decals.
13. Madison Cawthorn if he shows up in texas (or really anywhere when he opens his mouth).
14. Also, ted cruz, and……………………..many others for treason.
15. Ninja motorcycles with tuned exhausts joyriding at 2:00 a.m.
5Do you have any suggestions for someone to be appointed as Ambassador to Texas (or Florida)
616. People who’ve got super-bright headlights that are unfocused so that low beams are just as obnoxious as high beams.
7California is leading the way:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-18/gavin-newsom-gun-control-bills-texas-abortion-law
8How about politicians who decide parents of trans children need to be investigated as a top priority … but let Texas Department of Family and Protective Services-contracted shelters traffic children. Ones who were already victims of sex trafficing:
https://lawandcrime.com/child-abuse/young-sex-trafficking-victims-were-allegedly-trafficked-again-by-staff-at-government-contracted-shelter-in-texas/
My cynical mind suspects that the reason the Republicans are on a crusade against abortion is so they can make money off the unwanted children through private contracts for fostering them, private schools for educting them, and now for the cherry on top, selling and using them for their own perverse desires.
9NEVER forget who put these aholes in power and is keeping them there!!!!
10Your neighbors HATE you, because it is your neighbors that put the rePUKEians into power. Texas-stan is on them – the bigots and women haters that voted!
that other Jean @3
11Let us not forget that when the Berlin wall fell we discovered that the Germans continued that practice in East Germany with the Stasi. They found that one in 63 Germans were informing their government about the actions of their neighbors. This is totally reminiscent of that to me. The Republicans are trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union in America.
Thanks to the moral perversion and disgusting intolerance of Texas’ sick government of right-wing idiots, I will hereafter go around Texas rather than through. Well, maybe I-40 through Amarillo for the Big Texas Steak Ranch. It skips most of Texas anyway.
12The chief justice of the United States, John Roberts, warned Friday that the Supreme Court risks losing its own authority if it allows states to circumvent the courts as Texas did with its near-total abortion ban. The opinion was a remarkable plea by the chief justice to his colleagues on the court to resist the efforts by right-wing lawmakers to get around court decisions they dislike.
13As this decision by the Texas Supreme Court is an abortion all by itself, can anyone sue them individually?
14I’m so sorry, Texas friends. I REALLY am. I know how hard so many of you work to elect good people to represent you. But sad to say, the fix is in. Texas was twice my temporary home, but when it came time to choose a place to live in retirement, we had to go to a more politically hospitable environment for our sanity. Even though I’m in the most purple part of a red county, my WA state is blue as Juanita Jean’s butt, and we have a kickass AG. Our short lege session just passed, among other things, bills that reaffirm women’s rights to abortion, prohibition of manufacture/importation/distribution/sale of “ammunition feeding devices” with more than 10 rounds, $35 copay cap on insulin for state regulated insurance, ban on ghost guns, clarification of use of force for people needing mental health assistance…the list goes on. You can hear the east side GOP whining all the way to Texas.
15Jonathan P HUBBERT- John Roberts needs to have a sit down with his right wing justices because it’s not the minority supremes that are the problem. They’re the ones that just go along with red state laws that go against rightfully adjudicated rulings like Roe v Wade.
16I’m actually looking for ways to unify the nation, avoiding civil war because of disagreements on control issues like abortion, kids who are trans needing medical care, and (in Florida) saying the word “gay” in schools.
So, NOBODY likes Ted Cruz … he ought to be put into a semi cab and driven all the way to the resort of his choice in Mexico. Supporters of his ought to be put in the trailer.
Nobody I know likes hairless dogs and cats … anyone sheltering one ought to be plucked bald and put out in the rain.
Nobody — left, right or “independent” — likes cold canned lima beans. Anyone with said lima bean leftovers in their refrigerator ought to be exiled to a White Castle.
And tonight, I’m aware that no one likes time changes in the Spring, when we “leap forward”. Anyone who advocates for such disruptions in the space-time continuum ought to be turned in and imprisoned in an institution that moves the clocks once a week.
17john in denver:
Nah. Ted Cruz supporters oughtta be dragged behind the trailer. About twelve feet behind Cruz hisownself.
18Slap a nickel refund on every magat pol and judge, collect them and take them to redemption center (aka slaughterhouse) for recycling into useful materials like rugs or dog food.
19magats are up to more assaults on abortions and trans people.
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/03/what-gop-tries-ban-travel-abortion-trans
Decent Amercans better wake the hell up.
20My late husband had kinfolk in Texas. Not many and by now the majority of them have passed on through the Pearly Gates. He traveled in Texas and swears that from one border to the other he experienced some sort of time warp, it was just that big. He often wondered how many states Texas could be reshaped into. Anything that large was a danger to itself and others. And no, leave Alaska alone. Unlike Texas, it is mostly melt water.
21You CANNOT reach these people in any way shape or form, they are far beyond the pale.
The quote below is an extremely mild example of the extent of their diseased brainwashed ‘minds’ [and barely coherent].
Any of y’all who are still deluded enough to think that your reasonableness and factual logic will have a good effect on these vermin are in for a huge surprise when they come gunning for your librul ass.
Taken from a local ‘Nextdoor’ forum thread [link on request]. Trust me, the neighbors get far worse, and violent …:
“It’s shows to me that you try to minimize the disaster this President has created and blame anything other than his incompetence . Anyone in my opinion that fell for all the lies that the Democrats and left wing media is a fool.
22The whole sabotage of Trumps administration was completely made up by them and your just one gullible enough to be fooled by their lies. It’s all coming out and being proven.
But, then again you won’t admit your accept that either because they’ve brainwashed you to hate Trump..”
Sandridge, I was using Nextdoor for a while until the kind of crap you shared above took over all the conversations. Kind of like repugnanticans taking over local governments and school boards, etc. There’s enough crap on social media without putting up with that forum. Deleted it after the 2020 election and Jan 6.
23Steve from Beaverton @21,
Exactly, at first I thought it might be useful for finding contractors, pets and stuff.
Then I noticed a couple threads on like inflation, EVs, and oil/gas prices that were just pure idiocy [don’t even get into the environment or politics].
So I did a little research and posted verifiable factual information and links. Even official government EIA, CIA, and PIA info and graphs.
Their totally whack statements like ‘70% of our oil is imported’, and ‘Joe is allowing huge Russian oil imports’, et al ad infinitum, which are utter bullshit.
In fact we became essentially ‘energy independent’ in the Obama administration, and Russian oil imports were/are only around 1%, an insignificant amount for either side.
We have been net energy EXPORTERS for years.
I posted documents and charts, graphs, etc. completely disproving the bullshit. And I got real unpopular [except for a few fellow libs]. Even had a post ‘disappeared’ because the facts were too threatening to the RWNJ’s tender feefees.
None of those well documented facts could overcome the brainwashing these cretins receive from FuxNooz, RWNJ radio, and ‘what they heard from another wingnut MAGAot.
It doesn’t help that my huge area votes 80% Rethuglikan.
I’m just glad that I didn’t put my real name or other identifying info in my ID…
I’ve pretty well written it off, they have a long history of hijacking and dominating lots of things that should be free and open.
They’re so hypocritical about injecting RW politics into –everything–, then if you mention the liberal side on one little item, they run for the management and complain.
We just need to be fully prepared for the conflict that is coming… like I’ve mentioned for years, they really do, under the surface, want you all libruls dead..
24Florida man!
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-man-asks-police-test-meth-authenticity-rcna19838
25My feeling about Texas is different from what most folks here are expressing. Yup, it’s been taken over by people I would not feed to a rabid skunk. I was born and reared in Texas, and before the T**** Plague hit planned on moving back with my wife. Reason: if it weren’t for rampant Republican electoral fraud and gerrymandering, Texas is close to tipping into a blue state. Tarrant County (think Fort Worthless) actually voted by a slim majority for Biden in 2020, and (1) I think two more Democrat votes will be helpful, and more importantly, (2) some more activists with ties to the region can help tip it even further.
Plus it would give JJ another island of sanity in the state that she can visit when it’s necessary to flee an occasional hurricane.
OK, enough optimism for today. I’ll now go back to my curmudgeonly, cranky, dour cynicism. Hopefully before my wife starts looking for the empty pod next to the bed that contained the alien who took over her husband’s body.
26I truly enjoyed living in Deep East Texas during the 1960’s, despite the time they tried to burn a cross on my lawn [I never could figure out whether it was because of my efforts to end de-facto segregation or because I was teaching evilution]. Almost all the people I met and the friends I made were ones I enjoyed being with. We were all Democrats at that time, but came in three different flavors: one batch later became Republicans, one batch became unaffiliated, and one batch stayed Democrat. As long as one did not mention segregation we got along just fine. But it’s a different world back there now, and I’m not sure I would feel comfortable there any more.
27Professor, speaking only for myself, we could use all the surly you can bring.
28So the next time Ted Cruz takes the family to Cancun, or any state where abortion is legal, what’s to keep concerned citizens, perhaps one in each Texas county, from suing Ted for assisting his wife Heidi in getting an abortion. From everything I’ve read, SB8 is risk free for the person filing the lawsuit. There may be very little evidence that Heidi Cruz is pregnant, but you can never be too careful.
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