‘The anointment of God’: Rep. Boebert’s July 4 rally speech was filled with Christian nationalism
Right-wing QAnon conspiracy theorist and United States Representative Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) on Friday asked the Twitter audience to explain to her why the law does not “require” LGBTQ+ Americans to wait until they are 21 years old to come out.
Boebert, a radically socially conservative high-school dropout who supports unfettered access to firearms, drew absurd parallels between LGBTQ+ identity struggles and established legal limitations on who can buy “alcohol beverages” and cigarettes. She also stated that sexuality is a choice, which it is not.
“We require people to be 21 to purchase alcohol beverages, and 21 to purchase tobacco products. Why is it so unreasonable to require people to reach a certain level of maturity before making life-altering decisions about their sexuality and identity?” Boebert posited.
We require people to be 21 to purchase alcohol beverages, and 21 to purchase tobacco products.
Why is it so unreasonable to require people to reach a certain level of maturity before making life-altering decisions about their sexuality and identity?
The brutal responses that Boebert received were probably the opposite of what she had anticipated. Or maybe she just wanted to stir the pot. If so, mission accomplished.
Users tore into the freshman lawmaker’s disjointed bigotry.
Why is it unreasonable to ask people to wear a mask in public during a pandemic?
— Lara reads banned books in Florida📚🇺🇸 (@MadeInTheUSANJ) April 1, 2022
Interesting! Why is it reasonable that 16/17yr olds can acquire semi automatic weapons that could make them a potential mass shooter or mass murderer. They have not reached a certain level of maturity either (some never will) & that is surely a potential life altering choice! https://t.co/TFxBgtGl8b
• Must be 21 to purchase alcohol beverages • Must be 21 to purchase tobacco products • Must be 21 to decide sexuality and identity BUT⬇️ • Can be ANY age with ANY background and can buy ANY type of gun without question
You married a guy who exposed himself to minors. Your decision-making skills haven't improved since then.
Why is it so unreasonable to require representatives to have a certain level of morality before making society altering decisions about anything at all?
— Frank Wears A Mask (@Frankwearsamask) April 1, 2022
The stream of antiwar letters to a St. Petersburg lawmaker has dried up. Some Russians who had criticized the Kremlin have turned into cheerleaders for the war. Those who publicly oppose it have found the word “traitor” scrawled on their apartment door.
Polls and interviews show that many Russians now accept Mr. Putin’s contention that their country is under siege from the West and had no choice but to attack. The war’s opponents are leaving the country or keeping quiet.
Polls released this week by Russia’s most respected independent pollster, Levada, showed Mr. Putin’s approval rating hitting 83 percent, up from 69 percent in January. Eighty-one percent said they supported the war, describing the need to protect Russian speakers as its primary justification.
Please note what state control of the media can do and how it sways the public perceptions. Fox news, Alex Jones, Newsmax, Breitbart and a couple more are doing that in our country. It is all propaganda at all times. If we don’t get a handle on it soon we will be back 100 years in to the past with a country run by corporations and a starving population desperately trying to make it another day with no rights or protections by the government.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into the internationally known televangelist Perry Stone nearly two years after allegations of sexual harassment and assault surfaced against the Cleveland, Tennessee-based faith leader.
The TBI has interviewed at least five people who claim to be victims or who are connected to Stone’s ministry, according to three people who were present for the conversations.
The state’s investigative agency is in possession of a list of at least nine alleged victims as well, according to a recording of a phone conversation obtained by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Perry Stone says God personally told him that the COVID pandemic is punishment for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Perry Stone says it’s not a coincidence that God sent the most coronovirus cases to blue states. Perry Stone checks his text messages while speaking in tongues. Perry Stone warns that he will have God strike down those who dare to criticize Trump. Perry Stone declares that the “pro-gay Donkey Party” will bring about the destruction of America.
The TBI has interviewed at least 5 people who claim to be victims or who are connected to Perry Stone's ministry. The state's investigative agency is in possession of a list of at least nine alleged victims as well.https://t.co/vGj3wuQxDQ
Is the Supreme Court confirmation process irreparably broken? Some senators say yes.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is on track for a narrow confirmation, but her hearings illustrated an ongoing disintegration of the process. Senators fear it will only get worse.
The hypocrisy here is painful to see. McConnell has no problem with outright lying and contradicting what he said only a short time ago. He is all about getting, keeping, and increasing the right wing power and control over the Supreme Court. He has admitted that. He said that control of the congress changes frequently back and forth but control of the courts is for decades. He voted for Judge Jackson last year. What has changed? The position she is up for is the top court that right now is approving or disapproving laws based on the outcome they want, not the constitution and legal structure of the US say is correct. Many of the right wingers on the court are getting very old. Thomas was recently in the hospital for an unknown length of time. They don’t want anyone on the court who is not a right wing ideolog.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is putting public and private pressure on Senate Republican colleagues to oppose President Biden’s nominee to the Supreme Court, despite the historic nature of her nomination to be the first Black woman on the court.
McConnell has dug in against Biden’s nominee, arguing the vote isn’t about “race or gender” but about Jackson’s record, which he says is too soft on crime and indicates she’ll likely turn into an activist judge on the bench.
McConnell made an impassioned plea at a recent Senate GOP lunch for his colleagues oppose Biden’s choice, according to senators who attended the meeting.
One Republican senator said McConnell leaned in hard on Jackson’s nomination.
“He sought recognition and said, ‘I just want to thank the members of the Judiciary Committee for the great work they’ve done in exposing this judge’s radical record and in particular her record on child pornography cases are alarmingly extreme,’” the source said, recounting McConnell’s message to the conference.
McConnell talked about Jackson’s record in detail, including her decision to give one offender, Wesley Hawkins, a three-month sentence when federal prosecutors asked for him to be sent to prison for two years.
McConnell said, “I think the Democrats thought this would be an easy process, confirmation but it’s not going to be because she’s a radical nominee and I would hope that every Republican would look seriously at her record, which I think is troubling.”
The message is putting pressure on GOP swing voters such as Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) to toe the party line and vote “no.”
Murkowski was present at the meeting where McConnell delivered his comments about the nominee but didn’t say anything. The Alaska Republican who is up for re-election this year and faces a Republican primary challenger also declined to comment about Jackson when asked about it by reporters on Tuesday and Thursday.
Romney says he still has to dig deeper into Jackson’s record before announcing his decision.
He said he “enjoyed” meeting with her Tuesday and said “her dedication to public service and her family are obvious.”
Republican strategists and longtime observers of McConnell’s leadership style say he views a unified Republican vote against Jackson as good politics heading into the midterm election and good for his own standing within the Senate GOP conference, which he plans to lead again in 2023 and 2024.
Scott Jennings, a Kentucky-based GOP strategist who has advised McConnell’s past campaigns, said Biden’s nomination of Jackson “fits into the overall the Democrats are soft on crime and criminals and Republicans aren’t.”
“That is going to be a big narrative in this campaign. You’ve already seen that,” he added. “Any time you can throw another piece of evidence on that, I do think it furthers that narrative.”
Republican aides say Jackson’s record in sentencing child pornography offenders will be a tough one for vulnerable Democrats such as Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) to defend on the campaign trail later this year.
The more Republicans that vote this week for Jackson, the more political cover it gives to Democrats on the campaign trail.
So far, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who represents a state that Biden won by nine points, is the only Republican who has said she will vote to confirm Jackson.
Democrats have pushed back against this criticism. The argue that Republicans have taken Jackson’s sentencing decisions in seven child pornography cases out of context by harping on the fact that she handed out prison terms below what federal prosecutors demanded and below the advisory guidelines.
Democrats say that Jackson is one of many federal judges who view the federal advisory guidelines as out of date and in need of updating since they were established in 2003 with the Protect Act because Internet use became more prevalent.
Al Cross, a professor of journalism at the University of Kentucky and a longtime commentator on Kentucky politics, says McConnell likely sees a good opportunity to stand with some of the rising young conservatives in his conference, such as Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), with whom he clashed over their efforts to halt the certification of Biden’s election victory on Jan. 6.
“Once Cruz and the others made this a big issue, it gave McConnell and opportunity to practice some solidarity with his caucus,” he said.
“He’s in a difficult position. He’s got to deal with Trumpers, he’s got to keep the caucus together and any time the caucus can find something to essentially agree on, then that’s probably a good thing for his leadership of the caucus,” he added.
Cross noted that McConnell is known to view “the unity of the caucus as a prime directive.”
“I can’t imagine he really believes her judgment in these child porn cases is a disqualifier to be on the Supreme Court but once its been such an issue in conservative media, then it takes on a life of its own,” he said.
McConnell has come out strongly against Jackson in his public statements, as well.
“She has a particularly curious view about certain kinds of criminal behavior, in this particular case, people who distributed child pornography,” McConnell told Fox News’ Shannon Bream. “She’s a judicial activist. She’s very smart, she’s very capable. She’s going to be exactly what President Biden wants: A very liberal Supreme Court justice.
McConnell dismissed the publicly lobbying of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) who has called on his GOP colleagues to recognize “the historic significance of this nomination” and stressed the importance of Abraham Lincoln’s party, “the grand old party” is “on board.”
“The Democrats want to make this confirmation about race or gender. We don’t look at judges that way,” he said. “Most all Republicans believe in what’s called a strict construction, that is judges who make their very best effort as [late] Justice [Antonin] Scalia put it to follow the law.”
Jennings, the GOP strategist who has advised McConnell, said Jackson’s refusal to express her opinion about adding more justices to the Supreme Court was a big red flag for the leader.
“He’s extremely worried about left-wing, progressive attacks on the institution” of the court, he said. “When she would not take the Ginsburg, Breyer line on keeping the Supreme Court at nine, it was as signal to him that she’s pretty beholden to the liberal allies who have been the very people calling for court packing.”
McConnell in recent days has repeatedly raised his concerns about Jackson’s refusal to take the same public stance as late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer against expanding the court.
This is an interesting review of studies on advantages of trans people in sports. Now the date is old. I noticed it was published in 2016 so there maybe a more modern review but a quick google search did not produce it for me. I have been interested in the medical science of this subject because most of the time it is only dealt with on an emotional level. This article is very long and some times very tedious. So I am only going to post the intro to the review and its summary conclusion. If you want to dig through the data please go to the link above. Thanks.
Whether transgender people should be able to compete in sport in accordance with their gender identity is a widely contested question within the literature and among sport organisations, fellow competitors and spectators. Owing to concerns surrounding transgender people (especially transgender female individuals) having an athletic advantage, several sport organisations place restrictions on transgender competitors (e.g. must have undergone gender-confirming surgery). In addition, some transgender people who engage in sport, both competitively and for leisure, report discrimination and victimisation.
Objective
To the authors’ knowledge, there has been no systematic review of the literature pertaining to sport participation or competitive sport policies in transgender people. Therefore, this review aimed to address this gap in the literature.
Method
Eight research articles and 31 sport policies were reviewed.
Results
In relation to sport-related physical activity, this review found the lack of inclusive and comfortable environments to be the primary barrier to participation for transgender people. This review also found transgender people had a mostly negative experience in competitive sports because of the restrictions the sport’s policy placed on them. The majority of transgender competitive sport policies that were reviewed were not evidence based.
Conclusion
Currently, there is no direct or consistent research suggesting transgender female individuals (or male individuals) have an athletic advantage at any stage of their transition (e.g. cross-sex hormones, gender-confirming surgery) and, therefore, competitive sport policies that place restrictions on transgender people need to be considered and potentially revised.
Keywords: Gender Identity, Sport Participation, Competitive Sport, Sport Organisation, International Olympic Committee
The majority of transgender people have a negative experience when engaging in competitive sports and sport-related physical activity.
There is no direct and consistent research to suggest that transgender female individuals (and transgender male individuals) have an athletic advantage in sport and, therefore, the majority of competitive sport policies are discriminatory against this population.
There are several areas of future research required to significantly improve our knowledge of transgender people’s experiences in sport, inform the development of more inclusive sport policies, and, most importantly, enhance the lives of transgender people, both physically and psychosocially.
FILE — Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey gives his state of the state address at the Arizona Capitol, Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, in Phoenix. Governor Ducey signed a series of bills Wednesday, March 30, targeting abortion and transgender rights, joining a growing list of GOP-led states pursuing a conservative social agenda. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
FILE — A number of Arizona reproductive health, rights, and justice advocates protest an abortion bill at the Arizona Capitol Monday, April 26, 2021, in Phoenix. Arizona governor Doug Ducey signed a series of bills Wednesday, March 30, targeting abortion and transgender rights, joining a growing list of GOP-led states pursuing a conservative social agenda. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey refused to say Thursday if transgender people actually exist, twice dodging direct questions on the subject just a day after he signed legislation limiting transgender rights.
The Republican worked instead to defend his signatures on bills that bar transgender girls and women from playing on girls high school and women’s college sports teams and barring gender affirming surgery for anyone under age 18.
When specifically asked if he believed that there “are really transgender people,” the governor paused for several seconds before answering.
“I’m going to ask you to read the legislation and to see that the legislation that we passed was in the spirit of fairness to protect girls sports in competitive situations,” Ducey said, referring to the new law that targets transgender girls who want to play on girls sports teams. “That’s what the legislation is intended to do, and that’s what it does.”
Asked again if he believed there are “actual transgender people,” he again answered slowly and carefully.
“I … am going to respect everyone, and I’m going to respect everyone’s rights. And I’m going to protect female sports. And that’s what the legislation does,” Ducey said.
Ducey’s response was “appalling,” according to the Arizona director of the Human Rights Campaign, a national civil rights group that advocates for equality for LGBTQ people. The organization worked to ensure families and transgender young people came to the Capitol to testify against the bills as the Republican-led House and Senate considered them this session.
“It’s quite shocking that he can’t even address trans people or even say that he thinks they exist,” Bridget Sharpe said.
Wednesday’s signing of the two transgender bills and a third that bars abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and is currently unconstitutional put Ducey right in the middle of two top issues national Republicans are highlighting in the runup to November’s midterm elections.
Ducey also signed election legislation that minority Democrats said amounted to voter suppression by requiring longtime Arizonans to be thrown off the voter rolls if they did not prove their citizenship and residence location.
The governor leads the Republican Governors Association, which is charged with helping elect GOP chief executives in U.S. states. He in is the last year of his second term as Arizona governor and term limits bar him from seeking reelection.
The top Democrat in the state House, Rep. Reginald Bolding, called Wednesday “probably one of the darkest days we’ve seen in the history of Arizona.”
“With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Ducey has hurled Arizona backwards to its ugliest past,” Bolding said Wednesday. “And today, he put in jeopardy pregnant people, transgender youth in danger and curtailed voting rights for people of color.”
Social conservative groups and the Arizona Republican Party praised Ducey’s action. The Center for Arizona Policy, whose president shepherded the abortion and women’s sports bills through the Legislature, called it a victory.
“Thank you, Governor Ducey, for taking a bold stand for women athletes, vulnerable children, and the unborn by putting your signature on (the bills) in the face of intense opposition from activists,” Center for Arizona Policy president Cathi Herrod said in a news release she posted on Twitter.
She said the legislation protects the unborn, ensures a level playing field for female athletes and shows that “Arizona will do everything it can to protect vulnerable children struggling with gender confusion” by enacting the surgery ban.
Ducey said the surgery ban protects children from irreversible decisions.
“These are permanent surgeries of reassignment that are irreversible, and those discussions can happen once adulthood is reached,” he said.
The American Civil Liberties Association has vowed to sue over the surgery ban. U.S. Supreme Court precedent currently says women have a constitutional right to abortion until about 24 weeks of pregnancy, although it is considering whether to uphold a 15-week ban enacted in Mississippi and may overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision enshrining a woman’s right to choose.
Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s failed anti-COVID strategy, at a 2020 news conference.
(Associated Press)
Throughout much of the pandemic, Sweden has stood out for its ostensibly successful effort to beat COVID-19 while avoiding the harsh lockdowns and social distancing rules imposed on residents of other developed nations.
Swedish residents were able to enjoy themselves at bars and restaurants, their schools remained open, and somehow their economy thrived and they remained healthy. So say their fans, especially on the anti-lockdown right.
A new study by European scientific researchers buries all those claims in the ground. Published in Nature, the study paints a devastating picture of Swedish policies and their effects.
Projected ‘natural herd-immunity’ levels are still nowhere in sight.
— Brusselaers, et al, Nature
“The Swedish response to this pandemic,” the researchers report, “was unique and characterized by a morally, ethically, and scientifically questionable laissez-faire approach.”
The lead author of the report, epidemiologist Nele Brusselaers, is associated with the prestigious Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; her collaborators are affiliated with research institutes in Sweden, Norway and Belgium.
The details of Swedish policies as described by Brusselaers and her co-authors are horrifying. The Swedish government, they report, deliberately tried to use children to spread COVID-19 and denied care to seniors and those suffering from other conditions.
The government’s goal appeared geared to produce herd immunity — a level of infection that would create a natural barrier to the pandemic’s spread without inconveniencing middle- and upper-class citizens; the government never set forth that goal publicly, but internal government emails unearthed by the Swedish press revealed that herd immunity was the strategy behind closed doors.
Explicit or not, the effort failed. “Projected ‘natural herd-immunity’ levels are still nowhere in sight,” the researchers wrote, adding that herd immunity “does not seem within reach without widespread vaccinations” and “may be unlikely” under any circumstances.
That’s a reproach to the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely criticized white paper endorsing the quest for herd immunity and co-written by Martin Kulldorf, a Sweden-born Harvard professor who has explicitly defended his native country’s policies.
The country’s treatment of the elderly and patients with co-morbidities such as obesity was especially appalling.
“Many elderly people were administered morphine instead of oxygen despite available supplies, effectively ending their lives,” the researchers wrote. “Potentially life-saving treatment was withheld without medical examination, and without informing the patient or his/her family or asking permission.”
In densely populated Stockholm, triage rules stated that patients with co-morbidities were not to be admitted to intensive care units, on grounds that they were “unlikely to recover,” the researchers wrote, citing Swedish health strategy documents and statistics from research studies indicating that ICU admissions were biased against older patients.
These policies were crafted by a small, insular group of government officials who not only failed to consult with experts in public health, but ridiculed expert opinion and circled the wagons to defend Anders Tegnell, the government epidemiologist who reigned as the architect of the country’s approach, against mounting criticism.
The bottom line is that Swedes suffered grievously from Tegnell’s policies. According to the authoritative Johns Hopkins pandemic tracker, while its total death rate from February 2020 through this week, 1,790 per million population, is better than that of the U.S. (2,939), Britain (2,420) and France (2,107), it’s worse than that of Germany (1,539), Canada (984) and Japan (220).
Sweden has done better than the U.S. and Britain against COVID, but worse than many other countries that imposed stricter lockdowns and much worse than its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland.
(Johns Hopkins University via Our World in Data)
More tellingly, it’s much worse than the rate of its Nordic neighbors Denmark (961), Norway (428) and Finland (538), all of which took a tougher anti-pandemic approach.
Anti-lockdown advocates continue to laud Sweden’s approach even today, despite the hard, cold statistics documenting its failure.
The right-wing economic commentator Stephen Moore, a reliably wrong pundit on many topics, preened over Sweden’s death rate compared to other countries that imposed more stringent lockdowns: “Sweden appears to have achieved herd immunity much more swiftly and thoroughly than other nations,” Moore wrote.
That was better than the rate of 6.84 in the U.S. , where lockdowns had been fading and had always been spotty, and in Denmark (5.65), but worse than France (3.97), Germany (2.23), Britain (2.23), Canada (2.03) and Norway (0.92).
Moore also declared, “What is clear today is that the Swedes saved their economy.”
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, of which Sweden is a member, isn’t quite so sanguine.
The OECD found that in terms of pandemic-driven economic contraction, Sweden did marginally better than Europe as a whole, but markedly worse than its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland, “despite the adoption of softer distancing measures, especially during the first COVID wave.” COVID-19, the OECD concludes, “hit the economy hard.”
The Nature authors show that Swedish government authorities denied or downplayed scientific findings about COVID that should have guided them to more reasoned and appropriate policies.
These included scientific findings that infected but asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people could spread the virus, that it was airborne, that the virus was a greater health threat than the flu and that children were not immune.
The Swedish policymakers “denied or downgraded the fact that children could be infectious, develop severe disease, or drive the spread of the infection in the population,” the Nature authors observe. At the same time, they found, the authorities’ “internal emails indicate their aim to use children to spread the infection in society.”
So the government refused to counsel the wearing of masks or social distancing or to sponsor more testing — at least at first. One fact that tends to be glossed over by anti-lockdown advocates is that Sweden did eventually tighten its social distancing regulations and advisories, though only after the failure of its initial policies became clear.
At first, in early March when other European countries went into strict lockdowns, Sweden only banned public gatherings of 500. Within weeks, it reduced the ceiling to 50 attendees. The state allowed no distance learning in schools at first, but later permitted it for older pupils and university students.
In June 2020, Tegnell himself acknowledged on Swedish radio that the country’s death rate was too high. “There is quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done in Sweden,” he said, though he backtracked somewhat during a news conference after the radio interview aired.
And in December 2020, King Carl XVI Gustaf shocked the country by taking a public stand against the government’s approach: “I think we have failed,” he said. “We have a large number who have died and that is terrible.”
He was correct. If Sweden had Norway’s death rate, it would have suffered only 4,429 deaths from COVID during the pandemic, instead of more than 18,500.
What may be especially damaged by the experience is Sweden’s image as a liberal society. The pandemic exposed numerous fault lines within its society — notably young versus old, natives versus immigrants.
The Nature authors underscore the irony of that outcome: “There was more emphasis on the protection of the ‘Swedish image’ than on saving and protecting lives or on an evidence-based approach.”
The lesson of the Swedish experience should be heeded by its fans here in the U.S. and in other lands. Sweden sacrificed its seniors to the pandemic and used its schoolchildren as guinea pigs. Its government plied its people with lies about COVID-19 and even tried to smear its critics.
These are features of the policies of the states that have been least successful at fighting the pandemic in the U.S., such as Florida — sacrifices borne by the most vulnerable, scientific authorities ignored or disdained, lies paraded as truth. Do we really want all of America to face the same disaster?
1,3 
Scottie's Playtime 