Remember this was for older kids, and the parents could have just withdrawn from the classes. At the school board hearing there was 38 parents / students who wanted the books used and the classes given. Four parents were against it and only three of them spoke. Yet the maga minority got their way. Because of the way the law is written any parent can sue and get big money from the school district and the school personal personally. Same as the abortion laws, designed to cast fear of ruin for doing what the maga minority disapproves of. Hugs
CNN’s Alisyn Camerota talks to Miami-Dade School Board member Luisa Santos, who says there will be no sex education in Miami-Dade County schools because of controversy against the use of new textbooks.
Yes this is CNN and yes the CC is gibberish on that network. But if you stand to listen to them am post this to show how deluded and unwilling to face reality these people have become. I don’t know what is wrong with people like this or how to reach them. What makes them this way? Hugs
CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan visits Arizona and speaks with Republican voters at competing Trump and Pence events
The ad, released Monday by Mothers Against Greg Abbott PAC, shows a doctor explaining to an expectant couple that their new child will be born with a “catastrophic brain abnormality” and will only be able to survive a few hours after birth.
The crying mother then starts to consider the available options only to have the doctor tell her that “here is only one person who can make this choice, and that person is Greg.” The father wonders, understandably, “Who the fuck is Greg?”
The doctor then opens a locker with the face of the Republican governor and grabs a red phone and places a call. After a brief conversation, the doctor hangs up the phone and tells the parents, “Yeah, that’s gonna be a no. Best of luck to you.”
Read the full article. Watch both ads below. The second one went viral on Twitter last week.
A better one might be: “your fetus is going to die and you will probably die too.” “What can we do?” “It’s up to Greg… he says ‘sorry, best of luck but it’s in God’s hands now. Doctors are prohibited from helping you.’”
A horse dewormer and treatment for some human parasites, ivermectin was initially promoted, despite the lack of research, as a way to treat or prevent Covid infections. Now it is increasingly being marketed for long Covid, pushed by physicians with ties to political groups spreading anti-vaccine and anti-science messaging.
There’s no credible evidence that supports ivermectin’s use for this purpose, and doctors at long-hauler clinics say they frequently see patients who’ve tried the drug without relief. But anecdotes of ivermectin working as a miracle cure swirl around social media, repeatedly referenced on Facebook groups for people suffering from long Covid.
Two physician-led groups, America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) and Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), have been particularly active in promoting the drug, charging a minimum of $90 — and up to $1,650 to meet with the founder of the alliance — for online appointments to get an ivermectin prescription.
The leaders of groups promoting ivermectin for long Covid have achieved large followings on social media through ties to right-wing political organizations and Trump administration officials. https://t.co/erjXbsJqJE
While YouTube has started deleting videos promoting false information on abortion, the South Carolina Senate introduced a new bill that strives to block Internet users from talking about abortion truthfully online.
Known as the “Equal Protection at Conception—No Exceptions—Act,” the bill would ban any website from hosting or publishing any information about accessing or self-inducing abortion “knowing that the information will be used, or is reasonably likely to be used, for an abortion.”
Specifically, the bill restricts “providing information to a pregnant woman, or someone seeking information on behalf of a pregnant woman, by telephone, Internet, or any other mode of communication.” That includes restrictions against providing abortion referral services, including to doulas performing abortions, as well as hosting or maintaining a website that’s “purposefully directed to a pregnant woman” living in South Carolina. Less specifically, the bill notes that further restrictions will apply once the law becomes enforced.
The law is not designed to prosecute pregnant people—the one linked here does that—but instead expands the web of punishment by targeting the people who attempt to “aid and abet” an abortion. If it’s passed, felony charges could be brought against anyone who violates, attempts to violate, or threatens to violate the law by a range of stakeholders, including the state attorney general, solicitors, the father or grandparents of the unborn child, or the parents or legal guardians of pregnant minors. The punishment for the crime is the same for anyone who performs or induces abortion “knowingly or intentionally”: imprisonment “for not more than 25 years if the unborn child dies as a result of the violation” or “not more than 20 years if the unborn child is born alive despite the violation.”
In addition to these restrictions, the bill paints abortion providers as an organized crime syndicate that must be regulated as such and abortion pills as a street drug that senators predict will be trafficked like fentanyl.
No one’s sure yet if the bill will stand, even if it manages to get through the state legislature and to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster’s desk to sign. Wired reported that any states restricting access to abortion pills would face challenges from the Food and Drug Administration, which has defended the legality of mail-ordering pills. And President Joe Biden says that pharmacies not filling abortion pill prescriptions violate civil rights laws. There are also First Amendment concerns. The Washington Post reported that “there’s broad uncertainty about how courts would interpret such bills,” but legal scholars say that regardless, the South Carolina bill will likely be “a harbinger of other state measures, which may restrict communication and speech as they seek to curtail abortion.” The bill notes that if any section is deemed unconstitutional, the rest of the sections will remain valid unless also successfully challenged in court.
McMaster and state senators sponsoring the bill did not immediately respond to Ars’ requests for comment. Because the legislation is not yet active, a spokesperson for online civil rights nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation tells Ars that they do not yet have an official position on the bill.
Proposed abortion laws broaden political divide
SC’s proposed “No Exceptions” Act is the most recent in a dizzying array of proposed laws seeking to regulate abortion more stringently since the Dobbs decision. Some states, like Louisiana, tried and failed to make abortion punishable by death, while Republicans in Idaho announced their party platform wouldn’t make abortion exceptions for pregnant people whose lives become endangered. The Washington Post reported that more Republicans are ready to do away with rape or incest exceptions, too.
A recent viral tweet also caused a stir by calling attention to a stalled North Carolina bill introduced last year that declared abortion would be treated like first-degree murder, punishable by death, and made provisions so that lethal force could be used to prevent someone from seeking an abortion. That’s seemingly not a looming reality right now, but it does show how extreme proposed laws can go to disregard the life of the pregnant person when restricting abortion.
Meanwhile, Congress is currently debating the “My Body, My Data Act” introduced last month, which attempts to restrict companies from sharing reproductive health data that could serve as evidence in states enforcing stricter regulations. Last month, President Biden said he would also support making an exception to the filibuster so that Democrats could more easily pass legislation protecting abortion access nationwide.
Kylie Jenner isfar from the only celebrity to make short hops using private jets despite mounting concerns over the climate crisis
Private jets are seen on the tarmac at Friedman Memorial airport in Sun Valley, Idaho. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Kylie Jenner has faced a torrent of criticism for her decision to take her private jet on a flight that lasted just 17 minutes. But the practice of taking brief journeys on luxury aircraft appears to be common among the rich and famous despite mounting concerns over the climate crisis.
Jenner, the 24-year-old socialite and businesswoman, has faced online opprobrium after she posted an Instagram picture of herself and her partner, rapper Travis Scott, on the runway of an airport between two private jets with the caption “you wanna take mine or yours?”
According to an automated Twitter account that tracks celebrity flights based on transponders and tail fin marking, Jenner’s flight on 12 July lasted just 17 minutes, taking her from Van Nuys in Los Angeles to the nearby town of Camarillo. The model had earlier taken a 27-minute trip in her jet, a $72m Bombardier BD 700, to Van Nuys from Thermal, California.
She was subsequently attackedby Twitter users for her “absolute disregard for the planet” and for being a “full time climate criminal”.
It’s estimated that her 17-minute jaunt would’ve resulted in a ton of carbon dioxide emissions, which, while in itself not a huge amount, is about a quarter of the total annual carbon footprint of the average person globally. The trip would have taken Jenner about 40 minutes in a car, causing just a fraction of the emissions.
But Jenner – who took an even shorter flight, lasting just nine minutes, between the same two locations in June – is far from the only celebrity to make short hops using private aircraft rather than driving or using public transport.
A review of the Celebrity Jets tracking account shows that just in the past month, the rapper Drake took an 18-minute flight from Hamilton, Ontario to Toronto; Kenny Chesney, the country music singer, was in the air for just 20 minutes between Akron, Ohio and Pittsburgh and the actor Mark Wahlberg took a 23-minute flight from Dublin to County Clare in Ireland, among other short trips.
Many of these brief flights are to “park” an aircraft at a convenient or less expensive location, or are part of a longer, two-part journey, but many appear to have an unclear rationale, such as the decision of Floyd Mayweather, the boxer, to fly 14 minutes from Las Vegas to nearby Henderson, then to fly 10 minutes back on Sunday.
“I’m not surprised people are upset, they are right to be mad at this,” said Jack Sweeney, creator of the Celebrity Jets account, which uses data from a company that tracks aircraft transponders.
Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida, has a similar account that just tracks the private jet of Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire head of Tesla. In May, Musk took a 28-minute flight in his jet between Houston and Austin, Texas, but Sweeney believes he should be judged differently for this.
“With Elon he’s just trying to be as quick as possible and efficient for work, but someone like Kim Kardashian (who has taken long and short private jet flights) is posting ‘Kim Air’ and flexing and all that,” he said.
Private jets are responsible for around 4% of all aviation emissions, according to a 2016 study, with the airline industry keen to point out that flying in general comprises just a small fraction of the overall sources of planet-heating gases.
However, private aircraft still emit more than 33m tonnes of greenhouse gases, more than the country of Denmark, and because they carry so few people they are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes, per passenger, and 50 times more polluting than trains, researchers have found.
“These startlingly short flights show the immense impact of the wealthy in overall aviation emissions,” said Scott Hochberg, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
“The problem starts at the top with Kylie Jenner and other celebrities with private jets, which have a much larger impact than commercial aircraft on a per passenger basis. But it also includes many others, as the US constitutes the bulk of the wealthy elite that have the luxury of flying.”
Emissions from private jets flown in the US have surged since the 1990s and will balloon further as larger and more polluting aircraft come onto the market. Short trips using private jets are not solely an American phenomenon; in 2019, one tenth of all flights departing France were private jets, with half traveling less than 500km. The frequent use of aviation is the domain of the world’s wealthy, with just 1% of the global population responsible for half of the emissions associated with flying.
“There are plenty of alternatives to private jets and wanting to avoid traveling with the hoi polloi isn’t a good enough reason for excessive pollution,” said Nikita Pavlenko, fuels team lead at the International Council on Clean Transportation.
“These short flights have emissions that are small in relative terms but per person they are staggering. Aviation emissions are growing exponentially year over year and private jet pollution is growing more than general aviation.”
Major US airlines have announced climate plans that include commitments to ramp up the use of low-emission sustainable aviation fuels (or SAFs), such as cooking oil or hydrogen, with Joe Biden’s administration last year unveiling a goal of a 20% cut in aviation emissions by 2030. This target, however, is voluntary and there has been no significant shift by the industry towards lessening its climate impact.
“Aviation decarbonization is largely all talk and little substance in the US,” said Pavlenko. “As for celebrities, they need to set a positive example and ditch the planes. At the very least, they should exhibit some leadership and use sustainable fuels or a zero emissions plane when that becomes available.”
Texas lawmakers test how far their threats against abortions can reach
Letters warning of felony charges for firms who offer funds could set up a showdown over constitutional rights
Gun owners allowed to carry handguns without permits or training. Parents of transgender children facing investigation by state officials. Women forced to drive hours out-of-state to access abortion.
This is Texas now: While the Lone Star State has long been a bastion of Republican politics, new laws and policies have taken Texas further to the right in recent years than it has been in decades.
Elected officials and political observers in the state say a major factor in the transformation can be traced back to West Texas. Two billionaire oil and fracking magnates from the region, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, have quietly bankrolled some of Texas’ most far-right political candidates — helping reshape the state’s Republican Party in their worldview.
Read the full article. It’s really something and yes, the word “oligarchs” is used.
"In their sermons they paint a picture of a nation under siege from liberal ideas
" 'The cornerstones of our government are crumbling and starting to come apart," Wilks declared in a 2014 sermon. 'It's because of the lack of morality, lack of belief in our heavenly Father' " 2/2
” ‘The cornerstones of our government are crumbling and starting to come apart,”
But he totally misconstrues the reason. It’s because people like him are buying politicians and judges and media and infrastructure and health care and everything needed to sustain life and society.
In other words, more rich people destroying America so they can strip it down and sell it for parts, leaving the rest of us to live in a fascistic, impoverished, environmentally devastated husk of what once was.
In other words, they oppose the will of their own God. Who they ‘believe’ gave everyone free choice. If people are walking away, that’s on them. If you try to force them to stay in the churches, you’re doing something that God is responsible for.
Blasphemers and wannabe gods, that’s what these preachers are. All of them.
Former President Donald Trump complained that he couldn’t give himself the Medal of Honor, America’s highest award to recognize valor in military combat.
Trump gave a speech on Saturday at the Turning Points Action conference in Tampa, Florida, where he lashed out at his political foes for the umpteenth time while going on several long-winded tangents. In one of these off-script ramblings, Trump recalled a chapter from his presidency when he flew to Iraq on Air Force One to assess the battle against ISIS, and he spoke of how they had to dim the lights on the plane to avoid detection.
Trump went on and on about the “central casting” pilots who fly Air Force One, and then went into a dramatized retelling of how he sat with the pilot in the dark cockpit as the plane began its descent.
“I said ‘Captain, we’re pretty low.’ I don’t see any runway. I don’t see anything,” Trump said. Recalling how the plane got closer and closer to the ground, Trump kept on expressing concern that he couldn’t see the runway, and he recalled “I told my wife how brave I was.” This included an aside where he mocked MSNBC’s Brian Williams over his Iraq War story fabrication.
“Captain, what the hell is going on?” Trump claimed he said as they got increasingly low. “You wanna pull up, Captain?”
In the end, the landing went fine, so Trump said he asked “how did I do, Captain? Wasn’t I brave? I didn’t think you were gonna land.”
“In fact,” Trump went on, “as president, I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor but they wouldn’t let me do it. I’ve always wanted that, but they wouldn’t let me do it. They said that would be inappropriate.”
The Medal of Honor is awarded to servicemen in the armed forces who distinguish themselves by going beyond the call of duty and risking their own lives to advance America’s military operations.
Just for the record: Idi Amin, Gaddafi, Kim Jong Un, Hitler and many other dictators gave themselves medals. (Or ordered others to give them medals.)
Trump Complains He Couldn’t Give Himself the Congressional Medal of Honor: ‘They Wouldn’t Let Me Do It’https://t.co/Cb3DFiDDEI
Trump: As President, I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor but they wouldn’t let me do it.. They said that would be inappropriate pic.twitter.com/n0Y2RRAeDx
Meanwhile, not only did he dodge the draft in Vietnam, he also likened avoiding contracting STDs during his single years to fighting in Vietnam. https://t.co/dMVQdpMIv4
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 24, 2022
I'm 50/50 on whether he was callously making light of the country's highest honor for bravery and sacrifice as a cheap joke or if he was just trying to scam the $1200/month pension that comes with the award. https://t.co/sMhZ72uRXO
Wow they are not even allowed to tell you where to find the information or what shelf the books are on. Talk about paranoia from the party of small government. This is the party that claims cancel culture and censorship. What a police state where you cannot even talk publicly about some subjects to your own family without risk of losing a lot of money. I am reminded of the old USSR and East Berlin. Hugs
Oklahoma City-area library employees were told Thursday to steer clear of offering any advice about abortion to patrons seeking information about the procedure in the wake of multiple abortion bans in the state.
It’s unclear if library employees would face lawsuits under Oklahoma’s House Bill 4327 or Senate Bill 1503, which allow private citizens to bring lawsuits against someone who performs an abortion or “aids or abets” someone in getting an abortion.
But the new Metropolitan Library System policy is an example of the confusion and fear surrounding Oklahoma’s multiple laws and how they may be interpreted.
A report by Vice cited an email and meeting notes that told employees they couldn’t discuss abortion or help with any abortion-related searches. This guidance was a placeholder until legal counsel had formed official guidelines, Metropolitan Library System Director Larry White said.
White emailed library employees Thursday morning and said they can provide factual information about abortion — what the procedure is, for example, or what Oklahoma laws say about abortion. But employees should not offer opinions, medical or legal advice, or “actively assist anyone in breaking the laws of Oklahoma,” according to White’s email.
White said the library is balancing protecting staff and complying with state law with its responsibility to provide information without censorship. White said employees raised concerns about their civil liability and said he doesn’t know if helping a guest find out where to receive an abortion would be considered aiding or abetting.
“That’s a question we do not know the answer to being that this is a new law,” White said. “There are no cases, there’s (nothing) … about how it’s going to be applied. … Being that we would be providing factual information, I don’t know that there would potentially be a problem, but … there is that possibility.”
The library is also “tightening” its technology security and record keeping to ensure anonymity to anyone using its computers.
“Legal advice suggests that if a guest uses our public technology in our locations to access information on this topic on their own, we shouldn’t bear civil liability for those actions,” the email from White said.
The Metropolitan Library System consists of 19 libraries throughout Oklahoma County, with branches in Oklahoma City and neighboring towns like Bethany, Edmond, Midwest City, Del City and Choctaw.
‘An example of the tremendous fear’
Oklahoma is operating under several overlapping, and in some cases contradictory, abortion bans.
The state’s multiple laws include exceptions that allow doctors to provide an abortion in the event of a medical emergency, but different laws have different definitions of a medical emergency. That can mean confusion for health care workers and devastating consequences for patients, said Rabia Muqaddam, an attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The laws also create confusion among people who work outside of health care, she said.
“What can they do in their communities? What can they tell people who are their family and friends? What can they tell people they come across in their professional life?” she said. “I think the library policy is an example of the tremendous fear and lack of certainty there is about sharing information related to abortion care.”
Some of that uncertainty comes from language in two of Oklahoma’s abortion laws, House Bill 4327 and Senate Bill 1503, which allow private citizens to bring lawsuits against anyone who performs an abortion or “aids and abets” someone in accessing an abortion.
The laws don’t define what counts as aiding or abetting.
“The problem really is, no one really knows what you have to aid and abet to come within the ambit of the law,” Muqaddam said.
New Oklahoma City library guidelines meant to reflect employees ‘neutrality’
Since Oklahoma’s law halting abortions went into effect, White said he’s not aware of library staff fielding any questions about abortions or abortion services.
But the possibility of that — including any persons or groups asking for information just to report library employees — prompted White to create guidelines employees could follow.
The library is a “neutral source of information,” White said, and the new guidelines regarding abortion information reflect that. But he’s not certain whether that would shield the library and its employees from lawsuits.
“We don’t know for sure that even if we just give answers to factual questions that we would be beyond reach of something,” White said.
Bill Young, the public information manager for the state Department of Libraries, said the department isn’t aware of other state library systems that have established guidelines on the issue. The state department may provide its own guidance in the future, but Young encouraged local library systems to consult their library boards and legal counsel for official guidance.
“(Oklahoma City’s) advice is a reflection of how librarians, as information professionals, approach reference questions every day,” Young said in an email. “We do not provide legal or medical advice.”
Vice also reported that an email was sent to some Metropolitan Library System employees that said those who disregarded the guidance and were sued would lose their job. White said he doesn’t know who sent that email and that he never said employees were in danger of being fired.
“The purpose of these laws is to generate fear in addition to banning abortion, and to chill people in supporting even the people that they love and care about in accessing health care,” said Muqaddam, with the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is among the groups challenging Oklahoma abortion laws. “It’s unfortunately, I think, going to be an increasing problem in Oklahoma if we’re not able to get these laws blocked.”
The groups are challenging both HB 4327 and SB 1503, as well as a century-old law revived by Oklahoma’s “trigger” ban.
The day Roe v. Wade was overturned, Oklahoma leaders quickly set into effect the trigger ban, which allowed the state to reinstate a 1910 law that made performing an abortion a felony, except to save the life of the mother.
In August, another state law is set to go into effect that would also classify performing an abortion as a felony, but with harsher penalties: up to 10 years in prison or fines of up to $100,000.
That one, Senate Bill 612, is also being challenged by reproductive rights organizations.
Scottie's Playtime 
