Meanwhile… In Opposite Land
Tuesday, Sep 24, 2024 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* South Carolina…
Amari Marsh had just finished her junior year at South Carolina State University in May 2023 when she received a text message from a law enforcement officer.
“Sorry it has taken this long for paperwork to come back,” the officer wrote. “But I finally have the final report, and wanted to see if you and your boyfriend could meet me Wednesday afternoon for a follow up?”
Marsh understood that the report was related to a pregnancy loss she’d experienced that March, she said. During her second trimester, Marsh said, she unexpectedly gave birth in the middle of the night while on a toilet in her off-campus apartment. She remembered screaming and panicking and said the bathroom was covered in blood. […]
The next day, when Marsh woke up in the hospital, she said, a law enforcement officer asked her questions. Then, a few weeks later, she said, she received a call saying she could collect her daughter’s ashes.
At that point, she said, she didn’t know she was being criminally investigated. Yet three months after her loss, Marsh was charged with murder/homicide by child abuse, law enforcement records show. She spent 22 days at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center, where she was initially held without bond, facing 20 years to life in prison.
This August, 13 months after she was released from jail to house arrest with an ankle monitor, Marsh was cleared by a grand jury. Her case will not proceed to trial.
* AP…
Some Florida school districts are rolling back a more comprehensive approach to sex education in favor of abstinence-focused lessons under pressure from state officials who have labeled certain instruction on contraception, anatomy and consent as inappropriate for students.
Officials from the Florida Department of Education, led by an appointee of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, have been directing some of the state’s largest school districts to scale back their lesson plans not only on sexual activity, but on contraceptives, human development, abuse and domestic violence, as first reported by the Orlando Sentinel.
The shift reflects a nationwide push in conservative states to restrict what kids can learn about themselves and their bodies. Advocates are concerned that young people won’t reliably be taught about adolescence, safe sex or relationship violence at a time when sexually transmitted infections have been on the rise and access to abortion is being increasingly restricted.
Under recent changes to state law, it’s now up to the Florida Department of Education to sign off on school districts’ curriculum on reproductive health and disease education if they use teaching materials other than the state’s designated textbook.
* Tennessee…
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked Tennessee from enforcing a law banning adults from helping minors get an abortion without parental permission.
In a 49-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger argued that the Republican-controlled state cannot “make it a crime to communicate freely” about legal abortion options even in a state where abortion is banned at all stages of pregnancy except for a handful of situations. Trauger’s decision means that the law will be placed on hold as the case make its way through court.
“The Tennessee General Assembly apparently determined that, when the topic at hand is ‘abortion trafficking,’ the best interests of the pregnant child are not merely a secondary consideration, but unworthy of particularized consideration at all,” Trauger wrote.
Earlier this year, Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers and GOP Gov. Bill Lee signed off on a proposal making it illegal for an adult who “intentionally recruits, harbors, or transports” a pregnant child or teen within the state to get an abortion without consent from the minor’s parents or guardians. Those convicted of breaking the law risked being charged with a Class A misdemeanor, which requires a nearly one-year jail sentence.
* Florida…
Nearly three dozen new state laws will take effect Oct. 1, including a contentious measure that will limit where homeless people can sleep. […]
“Florida has chosen to reject comfortable inaction and tackle this problem head-on,” House bill sponsor Sam Garrison, R-Fleming Island, said in June after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of an Oregon city’s ordinance cracking down on public camping.
The new Florida law bars local governments from allowing people to sleep at places such as public buildings and in public rights of way. Local governments would be allowed to designate areas for homeless people to sleep.
Another part of the measure will give legal standing to residents and business owners to file civil lawsuits against local governments that allow sleeping or camping on public property. That part of the law will take effect Jan. 1.
* Texas…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is suing the Biden administration for classifying the dunes sagebrush lizard in May as an endangered species.
The sand-burrowing lizard is native to a portion of the oil-and gas-rich Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and Paxton in a statement Monday called the designation an “unlawful misuse of environmental law” and a “backdoor attempt to undermine Texas’s oil and gas industries.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service deemed the lizard to be endangered due to factors including habitat loss, “degradation from development by the oil and gas and the frac sand” mining industries and “climate change and climate conditions.” […]
However, Paxton contends in the lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, that the designation was based on “inaccurate and arbitrary assumptions.”
“Because of this, the federal government’s action would unduly undermine vital economic development in the Permian Basin, subjecting Texas industries and private landowners to regulatory uncertainty and ambiguity about what they can do with their own land.”
- Give Me A Break - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:09 am:
How long before Red States declare Ward and June’s birthdays state holidays?
- thechampaignlife - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:10 am:
===labeled certain instruction on contraception, anatomy and consent as inappropriate for students===
I guess they’ll have to get their education from TikTok, Snapchat, OnlyFans, and similar unfiltered Internet sources.
- Barbie - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:14 am:
At yesterday’s Personal PAC luncheon Madame Speaker Emerita Pelosi discussed how Dobbs was the first time America rolled back personal freedoms. She also mentioned that she called a bill protecting the right to contraception to the House floor. Of the 203 Republicans in the House, 8, including Kinzinger, voted for it. 195 voted against the right to access birth control. It is all rather terrifying.
- H-W - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:14 am:
Sometimes I wonder why “Red” states don’t start building orphanages for the children to be born of forced pregnancies.
- cermak_rd - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:15 am:
Why consent? I would think everyone would be on the side of people have to consent to sex. Same thing on domestic violence. I would think everyone would be against that?
- Lincoln Lad - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:26 am:
November is incredibly important… and it’s just not the top of the ticket. People need to vote in their best interests, the country is changing in ways few want or believe in.
- Jim Mauck - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:28 am:
Pit Vipers, Black Vultures and Gray Wolves are protected too. Seems the people in Washington DC don’t get out much or have no common sense. Congress should restore Tribal Treaty Hunting and Trapping Rights in Yellowstone Park to control Ungulate and Beaver populations. Man is part of the Natural Wildlife on Planet Earth and the Apex Predator.
- Greg Wiley - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:30 am:
It seems to me as a CPA the Income Tax was a big loss of personal freedom and property.
- low level - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:38 am:
==It seems to me as a CPA the Income Tax was a big loss of personal freedom and property.==
Can you elaborate, please?
- @misterjayem - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 11:38 am:
“It seems to me as a CPA the Income Tax was a big loss of personal freedom and property.”
Oh thank God — this hero remembered the REAL victims.
– MrJM
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 12:08 pm:
==Why consent? I would think everyone would be on the side of people have to consent to sex. Same thing on domestic violence. I would think everyone would be against that? ==
This seems to be about reestablishing the patriarchy. If a man wants something, he should not be questioned.
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 12:21 pm:
===It seems to me as a CPA the Income Tax was a big loss of personal freedom and property. ===
If you are going to recycle political arguments from the 1850s or 1860s I think you should really be required to put those positions in the context of the time frame you’re borrowing them from and also recognize that you are endorsing a society with an economic policy where there would be little or no equity. Income tax was constitutional before a constitutional amendment was added to explicitly make it clear that income taxes are constitutional.
How arrogant you must be to assume that you’d be anything other than a serf in a society where wealth is hoarded to even a greater extent that it already is today.
- Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 12:31 pm:
“This August, 13 months after she was released from jail to house arrest with an ankle monitor”
If this story is not out on Democratic ads until election day…
If medieval barbarians were here today, many of them would think Republicans are backward and cruel. The spirit of Rolf is here, and he wants to rehabilitate his people’s reputation. /s
- bhartbanjo - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 12:40 pm:
“===labeled certain instruction on contraception, anatomy and consent as inappropriate for students===
I guess they’ll have to get their education from TikTok, Snapchat, OnlyFans, and similar unfiltered Internet sources”
Don’t forget the church youth councilors.
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 12:40 pm:
===This August, 13 months after she was released from jail to house arrest with an ankle monitor===
The entirety of this public policy is about terrorizing women.
- Leap Day William - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 12:54 pm:
We had an ultrasound recently and learned we lost our very unexpected but wanted surprise baby. It was high risk from get get-go just due to our ages, so while we’re crushed we are also not surprised. There isn’t a moment in the past several weeks where were not extremely thankful for being in a blue state that protects and values the health choices of women, and even more thankful now that we know the outcome.
- That Guy - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 12:58 pm:
Opposite land posts make me so grateful to be in a state that cares about its people and values science.
Must be a sad sack of (expletive) to criminally investigate a mother who just lost their child or stop teaching about consent.
- Original Rambler - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 1:25 pm:
-Sometimes I wonder why “Red” states don’t start building orphanages for the children to be born of forced pregnancies.-
That’s because they’re pro-birth, not pro-life. That misnomer always irritates me.
That SC story is just scary.
- Demoralized - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 1:37 pm:
@Leap Day:
My condolences.
- ArchPundit - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 1:43 pm:
@Leap Day: I’m so sorry.
- Leslie K - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 1:57 pm:
@Leap Day–I’m so sorry.
- H-W - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 2:08 pm:
Sorry for you both, Leap Day. Truly sorry.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 2:16 pm:
Big hugs, Leap Day.
- Roadrager - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 2:27 pm:
If you’d like another dispatch from Florida, their whackjob state surgeon general is putting out widely-debunked falsehoods about the COVID vaccines to discourage residents from getting them. Apparently he envisions a future working in federal “health” under Trump and RFK Jr., which is a near-reality that makes me shudder.
- Michelle Flaherty - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 3:34 pm:
– It seems to me as a CPA the Income Tax was a big loss of personal freedom and property. –
Is that you Chris Lauzen?
- ArchPundit - Tuesday, Sep 24, 24 @ 4:30 pm:
===Is that you Chris Lauzen?
The best thing happened to Lauzen when he became County Board Chair and had to cope with far right opponents who used the same kind of tactics he did.