DL Open Thread: Sunday, October 15, 2023

Louisiana Goes Full-On Right-Wing Crazy.  Guess I won’t be visiting N’Awlins soon:

Jeff Landry, the Louisiana attorney general and a hard-line conservative, trounced a crowded field of candidates on Saturday to become the state’s next governor, cementing Republican control of Louisiana after eight years of divided government.

Mr. Landry, a brash conservative who repeatedly fought Democratic policies in court as Louisiana’s top lawyer, will replace Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat limited to two terms. In Saturday’s “jungle primary,” which pits candidates of any political affiliation against one other, Mr. Landry stunned many political watchers by winning more than 50 percent of the vote and eliminating the need for a runoff.

Mr. Landry, a confrontational litigator and politician, had won over much of the Republican base by battling Mr. Edwards and the Biden administration in court over pandemic vaccine mandates, efforts to work with social media companies to limit the spread of misleading or false theories, and environmental regulations.

He served as a sheriff’s deputy and two-term lawmaker in the House of Representatives as the Tea Party took hold in American government. But it was over the last eight years as attorney general where Mr. Landry flexed the power of a political office and his particular style of combative conservatism.

During the coronavirus pandemic, he challenged vaccine and mask mandates on the local and national level for health care workers, students and federal workers, voicing skepticism even as the vaccines were proven to help stem the spread and toll of the virus.

Welp, they got the government they deserve.

Jim Jordan And Allies Go Full-On Scorched Earth To Try To Win Speakership:

Representative Jim Jordan and his allies have begun a right-wing pressure campaign against Republicans opposed to electing him speaker, working to unleash the rage of the party’s base voters against any lawmaker standing in the way of his election.

In efforts to close the gap, lawmakers and activists close to him have taken to social media and the airwaves to blast the Republicans they believe are blocking his path to victory and encourage voters to browbeat them into supporting Mr. Jordan.

It is an extraordinary instance of Republican-on-Republican fighting that underscores the divisions that have wrought chaos inside the party, paralyzing the House of Representatives in the process. Several of Mr. Jordan’s supporters have posted the phone numbers of mainstream G.O.P. lawmakers they count as holdouts, encouraging followers to flood the Capitol switchboard with calls demanding they back Mr. Jordan — or face the wrath of conservative voters as they gear up for primary season.

The strategy is reminiscent of the bullying tactics that Mr. Jordan and his allies have used over the past decade to pull the G.O.P. further to the right, and borrows a page from former President Donald J. Trump, who is backing Mr. Jordan.

In a caucus full of despicables, I would argue that Jordan is the most despicable.  It is perhaps only fitting then, that he wind up as Speaker.

Florida Settles Case Over Covid Data That DeSantis Kept Hidden:

A courtroom settlement over withheld Covid-19 data that critics say cost thousands of lives has deflated Ron DeSantis’s campaign trail persona as a courageous freedom warrior who kept his state open during a deadly peak of the pandemic.

Among the efforts DeSantis has made to try to arrest his slide among Republican hardliners include positioning himself as a champion for “medical freedom”, and defying federal health guidance to advise Floridians against taking new Covid-19 booster shots.

The department will pay the plaintiffs’ $152,000 legal bill and resume regular posting of the data that DeSantis’s communications team insisted at the time was no longer necessary because cases had “significantly decreased” and that Florida was “returning to normal”.

In reality, as DeSantis dismissed reporting on the pandemic as “media hysteria”, the Delta variant of the virus was just taking hold, and cases and fatalities spiked, to a record 385 a day in Florida by September 2021. Simultaneously, Florida led the nation in pediatric Covid hospitalizations.

What do you want to talk about?