It’s been 75 years since the beginning of the liberation of Europe from the Nazis.
… too goddamn bad we’re still dealing with Nazis in this day and age.
As far as anniversaries go, D-Day is a pretty huge one.
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But it’s an especially big deal in the small town of Bedford, Virginia, which is home to the National D-Day Memorial.
Why Bedford, you ask?
Because this small town, now home to fewer than 7,000, lost the most residents per capita on the beaches of Normandy. In 1944, Bedford’s population was about 3,200, and over 30 young men from the town were in D-Day infantry companies. By D-Day’s end, 19 of the “Bedford boys” were dead, and because of the town’s size, this meant that, proportionally, this community suffered the nation’s severest losses on June 6.
Over 50 years later, the town finally got a memorial honoring those and the thousands of other Americans who died that day.
It’s quite something, actually. Worth a visit. It’s just a bit to the east of Roanoke and a pretty good haul from basically anywhere else.
And while we’re talking about Virginia …
Guns vs. But … er ...: Tragically, war zones aren’t the only places where people die from gunfire.
- On May 31, 11 people were murdered in Virginia Beach by a gunman who used a high-capacity magazine and a silencer.
- This week, Gov. I-did-blackface-this-one-time-but-definitely-not-this-other-time Northam managed to make himself useful by declaring that he’ll call a special session of the Virginia legislature to take up gun safety measures.
- No word on when, but presumably this’ll happen pretty soon, since all 140 state House and Senate seats will be on the ballot in six short months.
- GOP lawmakers are already talking trash about the move.
- House Speaker Kirk Cox called it “hasty and suspect.”
- Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment derided it as “political posturing.”
- Sen. Bill DeSteph, whose district includes the scene of the mass shooting, fell back on that favorite Republican trope, “politicizing this tragedy.”
- Meanwhile, Sen. Jill Vogel sees a “silver lining” in the special session and believes it will create more demand for her yard signs.
- And while GOP control of both chambers of the legislature is slim, the party does, indeed, control them.
- Which is why a bill that may have mitigated the Virginia Beach tragedy died earlier this year.
- Republicans killed legislation that would have banned the kind of large-capacity ammunition magazine used by the gunman on a party line vote in a Senate committee on Jan. 28.
- In fact, the last big gun bill that passed in Virginia was way back in 2012, when GOP then-Gov.
Good Hair Bob McDonnell signed legislation repealing the one-per-month limit on handgun purchases.
- This was just five years after a gunman killed 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech.
- Oh, and Republicans won’t be coming to the special session table, so to speak, empty-handed.
- Nope, they’ll be throwing down a demonstrably racist proposal for mandatory minimum sentencing for gun crimes.
- Not-so-fun fact: Black defendants are more likely to be convicted of a crime that carries a mandatory minimum sentence than white defendants.
- Both parties will use the debate over gun safety to rally their bases this November.
- But it’s going to be tough for Republicans to come out of this looking super great.
- For one thing, opinion polls indicate that most Virginians favor enhanced gun safety measures.
- And if Republicans block forward movement on this issue, they’re going to look like the stubborn gun nuts they are.
- And if they give, Northam and the Democrats on the ballot this fall get to take credit for the success.
But a lot can happen in a special session, so we’ll just have to see.
History Lesson: Waaaaaaaaay back when, I wrote in this space (okay, more than once) about how Michigan Republicans, who were thoroughly put out that citizens had the temerity to not only place proposed new laws that GOP lawmakers wouldn’t pass in a bajillion years before voters as ballot measures, but to also actually get them passed into law, decided to make that process quite a lot more difficult.
- The GOP-controlled legislature effectively gerrymandered the signature-gathering process by which measures qualify to appear on the ballot.
- Specifically, Republicans passed a law back in December (just before that pesky Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would get sworn in and be able to veto their nonsense) requiring that no more than 15 percent of signatures come from any one of Michigan’s 14 congressional districts.
- This establishment of completely arbitrary caps is based on Michigan's extremely GOP-skewing congressional map.
- Also, this garbage requirement makes signature-gathering harder by preventing canvassers from racking up totals in accessible and densely populated urban areas.
- Well, Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel clapped back. Hard.
- A couple of weeks ago, she issued a legal opinion concluding that that law restricting ballot initiatives is unconstitutional.
- Okay, it’s not quite as sexy as it sounds. See, this opinion is only binding on state officials.
- So, some voting rights groups have filed a lawsuit in state court to block the state from enforcing those lousy new restrictions.
- The outcome of the suit will either result in the opinion being overturned, or it could be upheld and given the force of law throughout the state—permanently resolving the issue in democracy’s favor.
Drip Drip Drip-Day: Speaking of Michigan, you may remember one GOP state Rep. Larry Inman, who got indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of bribery, extortion, and lying to the FBI for trying to sell his vote last year on a contentious bill to repeal the state’s prevailing wage law.
By the by, the repeal narrowly succeeded, with Inman on the winning side of the 56-53 vote.
- His Republican colleagues subsequently booted him from his House caucus after he ignored calls from GOP leadership to resign from the legislature.
- Despite his expulsion from the caucus, Inman still gets to vote on legislation and pull down his $71,685/year taxpayer-funded salary.
- Well, now his colleagues have gotten SUPER “serious” about getting him out of the legislature: They’ve introduced a resolution calling on Inman to resign or risk expulsion.
Fun fact! A two-thirds supermajority vote of the chamber is required to expel a sitting member.
- And if Inman does resign (or gets the boot), Democrats could have a shot at winning his seat in a special election.
GTFO of the Speakership, cont.: Yes, I know I’ve covered this before, but we all crave closure, don't we? And I think this is the final chapter in this ridiculous story.
- My last missive detailed the Tennessee House speaker’s office saga, a riveting tale of intrigue, racism, illegal drug use on state property, misogyny, and betrayal.
- But because clicking back to refresh your recollection and finding your place again in this week’s edition is kind of a pain in the ass, here’s the short version of Shit Speaker Hires Shit Staff:
- It all started when information came to light indicating that Tennessee Republican House Speaker Glen Casada’s office may have tried to frame a black activist for violating a no-contact order with the express purpose of getting him thrown in jail.
- In late February, student activist Justin Jones was arrested after someone threw a cup into the speaker’s own personal elevator.
- Jones was released on bond on the condition he have no contact with Casada.
- He’s obeyed the order and hasn’t set foot in the capitol for the past few months.
- But Casada’s then-chief of staff, Cade Cothren, seemed to reeeeeeeally want to take away Jones’ freedom.
- Why else would he have shared a copy of an email with the DA purporting to show that Jones sent this email to Cothren and copied Casada after he’d been released on bond, thus violating the no-contact order?
- The thing is, Jones has a copy of his original email, and that email shows that it was sent before this arrest or the subsequent no-contact order.
- Confronted with evidence of the doctored date on the email shared with the DA’s office, the speaker’s office claimed there was a lag in terms of when the email was delivered versus when it was sent due to “a security issue.”
- Thankfully, the DA has stopped trying to throw Jones in jail over this.
Wow, that’s terrible, you’re thinking. But wasn’t there more?
Oh yes.
- Enter one “former acquaintance,” an unidentified person with whom Cothren and Casada had been exchanging text messages for years.
- He (the nature of some of these messages makes it clear we’re talking about a dude here, so I’m gonna run with that pronoun) decided to share texts from Cothren with a Tennessee TV station—texts that demonstrated Cothren’s outright racist sentiments, signaling that he’s totally the type of a-hole who’d lie to get a black man thrown in jail.
- Cothren first tried to claim the texts had been fabricated.
- Then, when Cothren was confronted with texts from that same acquaintance in which the staffer bragged about snorting cocaine in his legislative offices, he admitted they were real.
- Casada stood by his man at this point, claiming Cothren came to him about his personal struggles—including a drug problem—a few years ago and is working towards “redemption.”
- But that “former acquaintance” was extremely not done.
- Still more incriminating texts surfaced.
- And this batch was … bad.
- I mean, they were all bad, but these were bad in a fresh new way.
- In these texts, the speaker’s top aide:
- Solicited nude photos and oral sex from an intern
- Sought sex with a lobbyist
- Referred to various women in demeaning or sexually explicit ways
- And so forth, and so on.
- And Speaker Casada—who was married at the time (can’t imagine why didn’t last)—participated in some of these text exchanges, making disgusting comments about touching and intercourse with women.
- After an article on these texts ran in The Tennessean, Cothren fell on his sword and resigned.
- But pressure on Casada continued to build.
- His own caucus began to turn on him, and Republican leaders demanded he resign the speakership.
- When Casada declined to resign, GOP House members voted 45-24 (not even close—woof) that they no longer had confidence in his ability to lead the chamber.
- Then, finally, finally, Casada announced he’d be resigning his post as speaker (but not his seat in the legislature).
- This was all more than two weeks ago.
- And guess what? Dude’s still Tennessee House speaker.
- And he will be for quite a while yet.
- About two more months, to be specific.
- Casada recently announced he’d be stepping down as speaker on Aug. 2, which just happens to be his 60th birthday.
- Members of his own caucus aren’t super thrilled he’s going to be around that long, but there’s not much they can do.
- … except plan him a hell of a birthday party, maybe.
Also, can we toast that "former acquaintance” with the texts that set all this in motion? Happy birthday to that guy, whenever it is.
Welp, that’s all for this week. You should probably be out honoring war heroes or something. Or preparing for Pride. Either way, you should definitely knock off early and take a day tomorrow. Just print this out and show it to your boss, I’m sure she won’t mind.