DL Open Thread: Friday, December 8, 2023

The Zieglers Of Florida.  Looks like the sex was consensual, but the Liberty Mom was supposed to be part of it.  Speaking Of The Mom For Taking Liberties, she’s toast:

On Wednesday, the Daily Beastreported that the Leadership Institute, the conservative political training group where Bridget Ziegler works as a vice president, had removed her profile from its website; the group later confirmed that she had stepped down. Later that day, Sarasota school board chair Karen Rose, a conservative, said in a statement that she planned to ask Bridget to resign from the board. “I am shocked and deeply saddened by the conduct and deplore the salacious news coverage,” she wrote. “I personally care about Bridget and her family and deeply regret the necessity for this course of action, but given the intense media scrutiny locally and nationally, her continued presence on the Board would cause irreparably harmful distractions to our critical mission.”

Rose said she planned to officially call for Ziegler’s resignation at the school board meeting scheduled for December 12. If she does resign, this will mark the end of Ziegler’s notoriously influential tenure, during which she pushed through an agenda that sought to rid schools of books and curricula that were inclusive of LGBTQ people. In a Facebook post last week, the day before news of the scandal broke, she boasted that she had “terminated gender diverse guidelines,” “eliminated equity committee,” and “eliminated equity policy & position.”

Is Texas’ AG Ken Paxton The Most Despicable Rethug?:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday threatened to prosecute any doctors involved in providing an emergency abortion to a woman, hours after she won a court order allowing her to obtain one for medical necessity.

Paxton said in a letter that the order by District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin did not shield doctors from prosecution under all of Texas’s abortion laws, and that the woman, Kate Cox, had not shown she qualified for the medical exception to the state’s abortion ban.

They’re Sure Making An Example Of Hunter Biden.  Yes, he’s a total screw-up, but this hardly seems like an equal application of the law:

Hunter Biden has been indicted on nine tax charges in California, becoming the second indictment against the president’s son, adding fuel to a scandal that Republicans have been seizing on in the lead-up to the 2024 election.

He had previously been on track to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, which covered $4m in personal income taxes that he allegedly failed to pay in 2017 and 2018.

But the agreement imploded in July after a judge raised questions about it. The deal had been pilloried as a “sweetheart deal” by Republicans, who have been investigating nearly every aspect of Biden’s business dealings as well as the justice department’s handling of the case. He eventually paid back taxes with a loan from a friend.

B-b-but the charges against Trump are part of a DOJ witch-hunt.

A shorter open thread than usual.  Just didn’t find a whole buncha stuff that interested me.  Meaning, I’m counting on you.

What do you want to talk about?