The Tennessee State Senate maps have been ruled unconstitutional and must be redrawn by January 31, 2024.

“Because Ms. Jones gave birth prematurely, due to LCSO’s deliberate indifference, the baby was unable to fully develop full audiological function, resulting in complete deafness in one ear and only thirty percent function in the other.”

After the baby’s birth, a male officer was assigned to remain in her hospital room until she was taken back to the jail eighteen hours later, depriving Jones of the chance to bond with her daughter. She was also denied the ability to express breast milk.

A short while later, she was released from jail on her own recognizance.

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The Supreme Court has been packed with lawyers from the Federalist Society, established in the 1980s to push back on what its members believed was the judicial activism of federal judges who used the Fourteenth Amendment to defend civil rights in the states. Federalist Society lawyers were key to creating legal excuses for Trump to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election, and yet the society has never addressed how their people have turned into such extremists.

In the New York Times today, leading former Federalist Society lawyer George Conway, former judge J. Michael Luttig, and former representative Barbara Comstock (R-VA) called out both the Federalist Society for failing to respond to the crisis Trump represents, and “the growing crowd of grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution and long-established constitutional principles for the whims of political expediency.”

The rest of the toons

When Bill Lee was sworn in as governor in 2019, he wasted no time verbalizing his desire for school vouchers and charter schools; he was transparent about his preference to offer families “school choice” across the state. What he failed to mention, though, was that to make “school choice” appealing, he had to find a way to make public schools in Tennessee appear as if they weren’t a viable educational option for families — he needed to float the idea that public education wasn’t effective or, even worse, a system hellbent on indoctrinating students with divisive concepts.

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Worried about illegal immigrants? Not me. I'm more worried about the end of our planet's ability to support civilization.

Every species is a link in the chain of sustainability. These rare fish are the canaries in the mine that tell us something is wrong with the planet that we must live upon. I'm proud to be involved with Conservation Fisheries and the work they do. The Chattanooga Aquarium often gets the press and should be applauded as well, but the original work on the Barrens was done with CFI.

Here's one of our local heroes getting wet. Warren Stiles is the fisheries restoration biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We don't have a specific threshold for when we start paying attention to how drought is impacting headwater streams, but as the USDA’s U.S. Drought Monitor starts moving to higher levels, it comes to mind,” said Warren Stiles, a listing and recovery biologist at USFWS’s Tennessee Ecological Services Field Office in Cookeville, Tenn.

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It’s important to emphasize that Trump’s rhetorical excesses are not new. To know anything about the Republican is to know that he, on a nearly daily basis, finds new and needlessly provocative ways to shock, offend, insult, and degrade. It’s a core element of his personality, and the more people are outraged by what he says, the more the former president seems to revel in their disgust.

With this in mind, there’s generally little value in reacting too strongly to every rhetorical escalation. The question of who he is was answered years ago.

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Johnson is part of a growing cohort of far-right Republican lawmakers who have embraced Dutch Sheets’ Appeal to Heaven campaign, but unlike most of these lawmakers, Johnson is not a fringe or sideshow figure. He has leapt from the ranks of congressional back-benchers to second in line to the presidency of the United States. His elevation is the apogee (to date) of the normalization of the Jan. 6 riot, its legal façade, and its spiritual diffusion into Republican and Christian communities.

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The rest of the toons

The campaign to elect the next CEO of the Confederation of Conservative States of America was in high gear, and no one who listened to the radio could avoid knowing all about it. “If we have to execute the woman to save the baby, then that’s exactly what we’re going to do. God personally told me that’s what he wants,” shouted Oliver M. Waldrip, the candidate of the Divine Party, who was, against all odds, trying to wrest supreme leadership from the popular incumbent CEO.

Chapter One:

The Split

Be sure and check out the rest of the toons. This has been an interesting week, unfortunately...

More toons

more toons

We are talking about the very same Jim Jordon who protected a sexual predator on his college wrestling staff:

Someone like Jim Jordan has the opportunity to be the voice of Joe the Plumber, right? Of the soccer moms out there that are worried about the kids.

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I'm loving this. It has several guitar videos imbedded in the article. If you only have time for one try "Drop D":

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This is as strange as it gets in Tennessee, and Tennessee is home base for strange in politics and governance:

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) has filed for the dismissal of a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former employee against the State of Tennessee, TWRA and TWRA Executive Director, Jason Maxedon.

The Motion to Dismiss was filed Oct. 10 and says, "Defendants deny that they violated Tenn. Code Annotated 50-1-304 and 8-50-116. Nevertheless, Plaintiff’s claims as alleged are due to be dismissed.... Plaintiff’s claims that Defendants have violated state law are barred by sovereign immunity."

Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine whereby a government entity cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution.

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Democrat and Loyal American, Hakeem Jeffries, Received more votes for Speaker than Jordan:

Jordan was “the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier, and an insurrection inciter.” He has “spent his entire career trying to hold our country back, putting our national security in danger, attempting government shutdown after government shutdown, wasting taxpayer dollars on baseless investigations with dead ends, authoring the very bill that would ban abortion nationwide without exceptions, and inciting violence on this chamber. Even leaders of his own party have called him ‘a legislative terrorist.’”

Aguilar pointed out Jordan’s opposition to disaster relief, veterans’ relief, support for Ukraine, and military aid to our allies, including Israel, and added: “This body is debating elevating a speaker nominee who has not passed a single bill in 16 years.

more toons

Too danged good!

Most of the current war trouble in the world has the same players, Russia and Iran, with a side of China.

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Quote of the Day:

We need to be very clear about this: Republican voters do not care that they are destroying our country. If winning means shredding the fabric of our democracy, then Republican voters are all for it.
But make no mistake. Republican voters are getting exactly what they want -- and it isn't affordable health care, sensible measures to address climate change, job retraining programs, or affordable higher education.

They want none of this. They only want the hate. And promising the hate is the one thing that Republicans can guarantee.

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Seemore Toons: (link...)

MAGA Caucus Works Across the Aisle to Punish McCarthy for...

According to the Associated Press, the bill would fund the government until Nov. 17.

A total of 91 representatives voted against the bipartisan deal, including four Tennessee Republicans who represent Middle Tennessee:

Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville) voted nay
Diana Harshbarger (R-Kingsport) voted nay
Mark Green of Clarksville
Andy Ogles of Columbia
John Rose of Cookeville
Scott DesJarlais of Murfreesboro

Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) voted yea
Charles J. Fleischman (R-Chattanooga) voted yea

David Kustoff (R-Germantown) voted yea
The bill was passed by Congress just after 8 p.m. Central.

Both Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator Bill Hagerty were two out of nine U.S. lawmakers in the Senate who voted against the bill.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on the bill to keep our government running:

“Here’s what went down: we just won a clean 45 day gov extension, stripped GOP’s earlier 30% cuts to Social Security admin etc, staved off last minute anti-immigrant hijinks, and averted shutdown (for now). People will get paychecks and MTG threw a tantrum on the way out. Win-win[.]”

Dr Cox on the whole thing