And so the purge has started. We have seen all this before. Now the school textbooks must be scrubbed of the information the radical right doesn’t want anyone to know. Remember that a recent example of changing history was the Russian young adults receiving sickening and deadly radiation dose by digging into and staying in the highly contaminated radioactive soil. Why did they do this? According to the Chernobyl plant workers the Russians never heard about Chernobyl, they were not taught it, they never seen reports on the news about it, never had talks at home about it. Maybe their bosses had heard of it either. In the US a decade ago Texas tried to scrub their history books of any information that showed the US in a bad light and less than always exceptional. Because the view of the newly elected board god created the US to be his nation on earth (not sure how that works with the bible) and unless you constantly sing the praises of the US you are unpatriotic. And we all know that only bad people like Democrats and the left are unpatriotic, right? I want to again make sure that when the radical right says CRT they are not talking about the real CRT but instead they are talking about the boogieman they created that claims the real history of mistreatment of black is CRT. The person who pushed this strategy admitted it was to link anything the right doesn’t like with the letters CRT.
Remember the Republicans claim the don’t say gay bills are about not teaching sex to little kids. Really math books are teaching kids sex. Damn I needed those math textbooks in school I might have learned more math. Would have kept me interested as a teenager I can say. So think of what this purge really is for. Making sure all mentions of mistreatment of blacks and any mention of LGBTQ+ even in the peripheries or vaguely because the scapegoats cannot be made mainstream / accepted by kids. It really makes clear why these bills are called “Don’t say gay”.
The Miami Herald reports:
The Florida Department of Education on Friday said the state will not include dozens of math textbooks in a list used by school districts to buy books for classrooms because their content included references to critical race theory and other “prohibited topics” and “unsolicited strategies.”
The announcement was made in a press release titled “Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students.” It did not include the names of any of the books or provide specific examples of the content that prompted their objections.
The state agency said that 54 of the 132 textbooks that publishers submitted for the state’s review were “impermissible with either Florida’s new standards or contained prohibited topics — the most in Florida’s history.” Most of the books that were not approved were for grades K-5, the statement said.
Salon reports:
On Friday, Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran announced that the state had rejected the math textbooks under the state’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) standards. Corcoran has been pushing the moral panic over Critical Race Theory.
In a December press release from Gov. Ron DeSantis, Corcoran claimed, “our classrooms, students and even teachers are under constant threat by Critical Race Theory advocates.” DeSantis praised the banning of math textbooks.
“I’m grateful that Commissioner Corcoran and his team at the Department have conducted such a thorough vetting of these textbooks to ensure they comply with the law,” DeSantis said after Corcoran found 21% of math textbooks “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.”
Host of Twinkies • 38 minutes ago • edited
This is how the rubes will hear this: “Even math books contain Critical Race Theory” and that will be the end of it. The Republicans can literally say or do anything and the rubes will vote them as long as they are racist, phobic and sexist. Women are whores, minorities should be obliterated and men are kings who can do as they please.
Please notice the framing because that is driving me nuts. Teacher teaching sex to kindergarten. Oh yes that is what the bills are about right, because the 5 to 8 year old’s are tired of having all the orgies and just want them to stop. That framing makes it seem reasonable to mandate the exclusion of entire segment of the population. Think of it this way, we need laws preventing these same teachers from mentioning or talking about different race marriages. We need this law because teachers are forcing the little kids to pair up by different races and pretend to be married for the week before changing different race partners to be married to at the beginning of the new week. If we don’t let kids know they exist, they meaning different race couples, they will think all married people are like their parents, all the same race. When a kid joins the class that has different race parents, we will make sure they do not mention it in the class or school and never talk about it with the other kids. That way no kid will grow up falling in love with someone of a different race.
Sounds nuts right? Well that is what the don’t say gay bills are doing and the reasoning behind them. There is not a rash of public school teachers showing six year old’s any sexual positions or acts much less gay ones. Kids do ask questions and teachers are very good at knowing how to answer in a way that gives just the needed information without launching into the Kama Sutra. Think about what is really behind the push of these laws. Any law that singles out one segment of society for open discrimination is a really bad law. It makes a scapegoat of a group of people for society to take out their anger on about things. Where have we seen that trick before by fascist.
Please notice in trying to clarify his comment he said that: But I think it is reasonable that kids in kindergarten and first grade are not taught about their sexual orientation in school. First kids don’t need to be taught their sexual orientation, it is part of who they are since birth. So what does this person really think is being taught to kids about sexual orientation. Notice it is about being gay or lesbian not trans as some would like to claim. He is very clear he doesn’t want kids taught about their sexual orientation. So what are teachers teaching about it when Johnny says he has two daddies that love each other or little jill says her older sister has a girlfriend? An orgy doesn’t burst out. The teachers merely let the kids know it is OK to be different than the constant hetero couples and GF / BF situations they have seen every day of their lives, on all media, in stores when taken out with mom and dad, in most of their family. Heterosexuality is pushed on kids from birth. These bills keep teachers from letting kids know it is OK not to be heterosexual and to be gay or lesbian. That is what the groups behind these bills want, to stop kids from learning tolerance and acceptance. Kids are not learning sex acts, they are not being taught how to be gay. How do you be gay anyway? Is it a certain walk or way of talking? I thought it was who you were attracted to and I don’t see how a teacher could teach that to little kids anyway. Oh right to some groups it is a choice to be gay, despite all the evidence it is not a choice but instead something we are born being. So teachers are making kids, forcing kids to identify as gay by … of course, talking about sex and forcing them to pair off and do the deed. When do the teachers find time teach reading so the kids can read all those gay porn books in the school libraries. Ok I know this turned into a rant, but people must see this for what it is.
Asked on a conservative radio talk show about the controversial law, Rep. Tom Suozzi leaned into right-wing talking points about not wanting teachers discussing sexual orientation and gender identity.
Rep. Tom Suozzi said he thought Florida’s controversial “Don’t say gay” law was “reasonable.” MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES
Rep. Tom Suozzi, who is running against Gov. Kathy Hochul in the Democratic primary for governor, called a controversial new Florida law aimed at discouraging discussions about sexuality and gender in classrooms “reasonable.” Dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by its opponents, Democrats and LGBTQ activists have rallied against the bill as a discriminatory attempt to prevent any LGBTQ topics from getting discussed.
Suozzi was asked about the law while a guest on WABC’s Bernie & Sid in the Morning on Thursday. “I want to ask you about this Florida law, the Parental Rights Act, which prohibits teachers from talking sex, genitals, stuff like that, with kids kindergarten to third grade,” Sid Rosenberg said to Suozzi. He referenced the bill’s formal name, the Parental Rights in Education act, as well as right-wing talking points about the intent of the law being to protect children from age inappropriate sexual discussion in the classroom. Suozzi responded by echoing the same talking points.
“I think it’s a very reasonable law not to try to get kids in kindergarten to be talking about sex,” he said on the show. “I wish it wouldn’t become such a hot button issue where people are just attacking each other – it’s just common sense.”
Suozzi followed up his reply with an assurance that he is not anti-gay. “I’m very much in favor of equal rights, I’m very much in favor of treating gay people fairly and treating them like the human beings they are,” he added without directly addressing the controversy surrounding the Florida law. When Rosenberg began bemoaning policy “based on 3% or in some cases 1% of the population” – an apparent reference to LGBTQ-centric legislation – Suozzi quickly took the conversation in a different direction to criticize Hochul’s Buffalo Bills stadium deal.
As written, the law does not explicitly prohibit discussion of genitals nor being gay. “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” reads the section in contention. Republicans have said the law is overall fairly innocuous and simply serves as a means to prevent “groomers” from indoctrinating kids. The term has become a common dog whistle among the right when discussing LGBTQ issues, connecting them with pedophilia. On the left, most view the legislation as a thinly veiled attempt to censor any LGBTQ discussions in a classroom setting.
The comments from Suozzi come not long after other prominent Democratic leaders in New York have taken strong public stances against the Florida law. New York City Mayor Eric Adams last week unveiled an ad campaign in support of gay New Yorkers and in opposition to the statute. Billboards reading “Loud. Proud. Still Allowed,” and “People say a lot of ridiculous things in New York. ‘Don’t Say Gay’ isn’t one of them,” will go up around the state.
Hochul has also taken a public stance against the Florida law. “The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill that far-right Republicans in Florida are pushing through is hateful, discriminatory, and dangerous,” the governor said in a February tweet. When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation in March, Hochul called it a “cruel and shameful political stunt,” in another tweet. Her campaign referred to these public statements when asked for comment. A spokesman for gubernatorial campaign of New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – who himself has invited criticism for past comments on gay marriage – when asked for comment provided a statement saying “It’s dangerous for any leader not to see Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law for what it is: a direct, hateful attack on the LGBTQ+ community.”
In a statement to City & State, Suozzi did not walk back what he said on the radio. “Let me be clear, as I said on the radio, I fully support LGBTQ and equal rights,” Suozzi said. “I absolutely do not support the Florida governor in most policies he supports. But I think it is reasonable that kids in kindergarten and first grade are not taught about their sexual orientation in school… Maybe this isn’t a politically correct position but it certainly seems like common sense to me.” The statement once again did not address the concern by many other members of his party that the law will lead to discrimination against queer students in school, but added that “it’s the far left and the crazy right who are making this a divisive issue.”
Suozzi’s stance on the “Don’t Say Gay” law shocked gay Democratic lawmakers in New York. “I think his comments are bone chilling,” state Sen. Brad Hoylman, who has heralded into law a number of prominent LGBTQ rights bills, told City & State. “I think every LGBTQ New Yorker should be put on notice that Tom Suozzi is no friend to our community.” State Sen. Jabari Brisport expressed similar outrage.
“One in three trans youth have considered suicide and a queer nightclub in Brooklyn was recently set on fire,” Brisport said in a text. “Tom Suozzi should be finding ways to support the LGBTQ+ community, not validating Ron Desantis’ bigoted moves.”
Germany seizes the world’s largest yacht (at least according to volume)
German authorities impounded the 15,917-ton yacht after confirming that sanctioned Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov had transferred ownership to his sister, who is also under Western sanctions.
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/AneQsi44lTRiIEF9CBIxlsw
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Sent from my iPad,Best wishes,
Scottie
The US and other democracies had better wake up and pay attention. All across the world fascist authoritarian governments sponsored by US billionaires along with countries like Russia and those they support like Steve Bannon are spreading anti-democratic fascist bull all around the world. There are well monied groups that want white supremacy and Christian religious dominance all across the globe. When you look into it the facts become really scary.
The Associated Press reports:
French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen warned today against sending any more weapons to Ukraine, and called for a rapprochement between NATO and Russia once Moscow’s war in Ukraine winds down.
Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist who has long ties to Russia, also confirmed that if she unseats President Emmanuel Macron in France’s April 24 presidential runoff, she will pull France out of NATO’s military command and dial back French support for the whole European Union.
Macron, a pro-EU centrist, is facing a harder-than-expected fight to stay in power, in part because the economic impact of the war is hitting poor households the hardest.
Read the full article.
Politico reports:
Dozens of wealthy candidates run for Congress every election cycle. What sets Cory Mills apart are some of the mileposts on his road to riches: Selling tear gas that was used against Black Lives Matter demonstrators and purchasing a company that sold rubber bullets to Hong Kong to crack down on protesters.
Mills, a first-time Republican candidate running in a competitive primary in Florida’s 7th district, is the co-founder of PACEM Solutions. The company sells arms and riot-control gear and provides law enforcement training and private security consulting in the U.S. and around the world.
PACEM Solutions has estimated annual sales of $13.5 million, according to Dun & Bradstreet, a business data and analytics firm. Mills is funding his own run for Congress mostly with money he earned through the company.
Read the full article.
Scottie's Playtime 