Well the party supporting Putin and loving fascist strongman dictators who rule their country’s people rather than listening to them is using Russian footage for the advertisements in the US saying they should be put in charge here so they can rule over all of us. This is them telling you who they are. Hugs
Kevin McCarthy, insurrectionist leader of the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene, announced his new Contract For Cruelty, which he refers to as the Commitment for America, a plan that seeks to ban abortion nationwide, eliminate social security and medicare, raise prescription drug prices, and put extremists into power. During the announcement video shown by the McCarthy, a Huffington Post reporter quickly realized that much of the stock footage was not from America — but rather from Russia.
I read this article earlier in the day, then did some other things, and then read it again. I was not sure how to introduce it on my Playtime Site. Why I decided I had to post it is because I have long thought that circumcision is wrong and is male genital mutilation. This is the first article I have read that used that term and compared it to female genital mutilation. Yes! I agree whole heartly. I have posted on my blogs about how wrong FGM is and how it ruins the pleasure of sex for women. I think that is the reason religions call for it to be done is that it reduces the sexual pleasure for those that it is done to. I think the old males in charge of these religions understood how much pleasure they were deprived of in their youth they would rebel then, but now in their older age they use it to discourage sexual exploration because it is not as fun. So how do I know that it is harmful and reduces sensation greatly if you were circumcised as a kid. Well I have dated and had sex with circumcised men, and I can tell you that circumcision lowers the sexual sensations, it reduces the pleasure of sexual acts with the penis, and it can increase the time to orgasm to the point where sometimes it is very hard for circumcised men to orgasm. I have had sex with men in their prime who could only orgasm with a lot of stimulation and some sexual fun acts simply would be enough to get them to orgasm. As the doctor in the article says your are taking a highly sensitive part of the body and removing all protection from it so it is constantly rubbed on clothing and other things. I don’t know if it causes the brain to shut down the sensation or wears the nerves out or what but it is like having gloves on and trying to feel things with your fingers. As someone who was highly sexualized in childhood and has been highly sexual all my life, I can understand how someone in their early twenties would think life not worth living if that part of their life were taken away from them. It would have destroyed me also. In case it is not clear I am NOT circumcised. (yes for those worried about how much information about myself online I am poor and while my penis is very important to me it is not listed on my credit reports that I can find so it won’t help anyone to important me to gain money) The read is long but very informative and I would ask you all to read the article and consider joining the ranks of the people trying to stop the routine sexual mutilation of baby boys. For those worried that children are being given sexual surgery and it is harming them, well people here are the real child sexual surgeries that are happening that are harming little kids. Hugs
By Caroline Lowbridge BBC News
Published
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
Alex Hardy sent his mum Lesley Roberts an email explaining his decision
“It quickly became apparent that what had just happened was a catastrophe… I died in 2015, not now.”
Lesley Roberts was stunned as she read the devastating final email from her beloved son Alex Hardy.
The email had been timed to arrive on 25 November 2017, 12 hours after he killed himself. Less than an hour before the email arrived, Lesley had opened her front door to find a police officer standing there, explaining her son was dead.
Alex was an intelligent and popular 23-year-old with no history of mental illness. Lesley could not understand why he would have wanted to take his own life.
His email explained how the foreskin of his penis had been surgically removed two years before. This is commonly known as circumcision, but Alex had come to believe it should be regarded as “male genital mutilation”.
He never mentioned this to his family or friends when he was alive. Lesley did not even know her son had been circumcised.
In the following months, she tried to find out more about circumcision. Why had it affected Alex so badly, and why did he feel killing himself was his only option?
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
Lesley says her “dreams came true” when she became a mother in July 1994
Alex was the eldest of Lesley’s three sons and had been very much longed for, having been conceived after fertility treatment.
Lesley says her “dreams came true” when she became a mother in July 1994.
“He was everything I could have wished for,” she says. “Gorgeous, easygoing, and adoring of his younger brother Thomas who arrived following more treatment almost three years later.”
He also adored his baby brother James, who was born when Alex was 13. The walls and windowsills of Lesley’s home in Cheshire are covered in photos of all of them.
Alex sailed through his education and was particularly gifted at English, so much so that his old school established the Alex Hardy Creative Writing Award in his memory.
“Alex was passionate about history but as his English teacher I saw in him a true talent for writing,” says Jason Lowe, who is now head teacher at Tarporley High School.
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
Alex was intelligent and sailed through school
It was while on a school skiing trip to Canada, aged 14, that Alex fell in love with the country. He had enjoyed skiing as a child and the trip reignited his passion. So, when Alex reached 18, he decided to defer university and live in Canada for a year.
“He fell in love completely with Canada and made so many friends and got a promotion at work,” says Lesley.
“After one year he rang me and said ‘Mum, I’m deferring my place for university’. The same thing happened after year two.”
Two years turned into three, then four, and by the time of his death Alex had been living in Canada for five years and had obtained residency.
“He was known as the ‘super-smart Brit’ with impeccable manners,” says his mother. “The super-intelligent guy from the UK who helped people with their Canadian residency applications.”
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
Alex was a keen skier and snowboarder, but he found physical activity painful after being circumcised
Lesley visited her son several times, both alone and with his brothers and stepfather. They were a close family, but Alex did not tell any of them he was secretly suffering with a problem with his penis.
“I had issues with a tight foreskin,” he eventually wrote in his final email, “but from my late teens it created issues in the bedroom as it meant my foreskin would not retract over the glans as intended which caused some awkward moments.”
In 2015, still silently suffering, Alex consulted a doctor in Canada. He was given steroid cream to stretch his foreskin, but went back to the doctor after just a few weeks because he did not think the treatment was working.
The medical name for Alex’s problem is phimosis. It simply means his foreskin was too tight to pull back from the head of his penis, or the “glans” as Alex referred to it in his email. This is perfectly normal for boys in the early years of their life. As boys get older, their foreskin usually starts to separate from the head of the penis.
Image caption,
Lesley says Alex was “intuitive, empathetic, gentle, kind, witty, quirky, unassuming and caring”
Phimosis does not always cause problems, but if it does, problems can include difficulty urinating and pain during sex. In England, the NHS advises topical steroids and stretching techniques – and circumcision as a last resort.
Over in Canada, where circumcision is more common, Alex was referred to a urologist.
“He immediately suggested circumcision,” Alex wrote. “I asked about stretching and he completely lied to my face and said it would not work for me.
“I was mostly trusting as I felt he was the expert who knew best in this regard so with a pinch of salt I accepted it.”
Lesley has since read online reviews of this urologist which have made her question his competence. One patient said she had been unable to work since having surgery for kidney problems, and he had “destroyed” her quality of life.
“I’m a mother of three young children who are scared every day I will die as they see me suffering in so much pain,” she wrote.
“I can see how he misdiagnosed others, botched surgeries, and ruined lives,” said another review. “He’s dangerously incompetent.”
Another review of Alex’s urologist read: “They left a surgical instrument in my bladder but I only got notified three months later. Run away before you get hurt!”
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
Lesley says she misses Alex’s “big sparkly eyes, his grin, his sense of humour, and his bear hugs”
Lesley, who was “horrified” by these reviews, has asked for the urologist to be investigated. She has been told an inquiry is ongoing.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia told the BBC it “cannot disclose the existence of a complaint against a physician, and only may do so if the complaint leads to formal discipline”.
“I will wish with my last breath and with all of heart that my darling son had run away,” says Lesley.
Much to his regret, Alex was not able to research the urologist – or circumcision – properly at the time because his laptop was broken.
He had tried researching the topic in a public computer space but felt uncomfortable, and also felt it was “too much of a taboo” to discuss with friends.
So Alex booked what he believed was a minor procedure and had the surgery in 2015, at the age of 21.
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
Alex “adored” his little brother
In the email to his mother, Alex explained, in great detail, the physical problems he had suffered afterwards.
He described experiencing constant stimulation from the head of his penis, which was no longer protected by his foreskin.
“These ever-present stimulated sensations from clothing friction are torture within themselves; they have not subsided/normalised from years of exposure,” he wrote.
“Imagine what would happen to an eyeball if the eyelid was amputated?”
“He was in so much pain that it hurt to do normal physical activity,” says Lesley. “He was a keen skier and snowboarder so you can imagine the pain he was in.”
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
The foreskin protects the head of the penis, known as the glans
Consultant urological surgeon Trevor Dorkin, who is a member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, advises his patients that the head of their penis will be more sensitive after circumcision.
However, this sensitivity usually reduces.
“I always say to guys ‘it’s going to feel more sensitive to start with’ because all of a sudden you haven’t got this protection over the head of the penis and it will feel different,” says Mr Dorkin, who has carried out more than 1,000 circumcisions.
“But in the vast majority of the cases the man adjusts to that, the brain adjusts to that, it adjusts to the signals that are coming back through the nerves from the head of the penis.”
Alex also wrote about experiencing erectile dysfunction, and burning and itching sensations, particularly from a scar which sat where his frenulum was removed. The frenulum is a band of tissue where the foreskin attaches to the under surface of the penis. Some men refer to it as their “banjo string”.
“It’s one of the more erogenous zones so it’s thought to be important in sexual function,” says Mr Dorkin.
“The foreskin, the head of the penis and the frenulum is a very, very sensitive area.
“But again when you do circumcision sometimes the frenulum is not preserved and it doesn’t necessarily have an effect on overall sexual function and enjoyment.”
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
A growing movement regards male circumcision as male genital mutilation
But Alex felt his frenulum had been important.
“Through its absence I can certainly verify it is the most erogenously sensitive area of the penis and male body overall,” he wrote.
“If someone were to amputate your clitoris you may begin to be able to understand how this feels.”
He wrote about experiencing cramps and contractions in his muscles and “uncomfortable” sensations which extended deep into his abdomen.
Lesley does not know whether or not Alex had sex after his circumcision.
“Where I once had a sexual organ I have now been left with a numb, botched stick,” he wrote. “My sexuality has been left in tatters.”
He asked: “Nature knows best – how can chopping off a section of healthy tissue improve nature’s evolved design?”
Foreskin ‘protects head of penis’
Like many people, Lesley admits she knew very little about the foreskin or circumcision before her son died.
“I didn’t know anything apart from I believed it was a very routine surgery,” she says.
The foreskin is sometimes dismissed as a “useless flap of skin”, but Mr Dorkin says it does have a purpose.
“It covers the head of the penis,” he says. “In terms of what’s it for, it provides a bit of protection to the head of the penis. It’s thought to have some sort of immunological function perhaps.”
Circumcision rates vary a lot depending on where you are in the world and which culture you grew up in.
According to the World Health Organization, 95% of men are circumcised in Nigeria but only 8.5% of men in the UK are.
Most of the men circumcised in the UK are either Muslim or Jewish, as circumcision is regarded as an important part of their religions.
According to the 2011 census, Muslims accounted for 4.8% of the population in England and Wales, while 0.5% were Jewish.
People who question circumcision are sometimes accused of being anti-Semitic or Islamophobic, but Lesley stresses her son was neither.
“For me, this has nothing to do with religion at all. I respect all people of faith or indeed no faith, as Alex did,” she says.
In Canada, where Alex had moved to, an estimated 32% of men are circumcised.
Alex felt male circumcision has been normalised to the extent that most people do not question it, while female circumcision has become known as female genital mutilation (FGM) and is now illegal in many countries.
Image caption,
Alex was the eldest of Lesley’s three sons
He felt male circumcision should be known as “male genital mutilation” – a view shared by a growing anti-circumcision movement.
“If I were a female (in Western nations) this would have been illegal, the surgeon would be a criminal and this would never have been considered as an option by doctors,” Alex wrote.
“I do not believe in championing one gender over another but I feel strongly that gender equality should be achieved for all.”
Campaigners for “genital autonomy” believe it is wrong to circumcise a baby or child – whether they are male or female – because the patient cannot give consent, and these campaigners regard circumcision as a human rights issue.
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Campaigners for “genital autonomy” argue that circumcising a baby is wrong because an infant cannot consent
Having lived with an intact penis for 21 years, Alex believed men circumcised as babies or young children would “tragically never be able to fully comprehend what has been taken away”. He estimated he had been stripped of 75% of the sensitivity of his penis.
However, experiences of men circumcised as adults differ dramatically.
Some men actually prefer sex afterwards because they no longer have the pain of a tight or inflamed foreskin.
Some report a significant loss in sensitivity and greatly reduced sexual pleasure.
Some report being less sensitive but say there is no change in their overall enjoyment of sex.
Some are very happy with their decision to get circumcised.
Some, like Alex, deeply regret having it done.
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
Alex went whale watching with his mother for his 21st birthday
Alex sought further medical help following the circumcision as well as psychological help, but never shared his problems with his family or friends.
“I was with him during those two years and I think I would be lying if I said I didn’t think something wasn’t right,” says Lesley.
“I did say ‘Is something bothering you? Are you OK?’ and he would absolutely reassure me that he was.”
Lesley, who used to be a teacher, now hopes to go into schools and speak to young men about sharing their problems, even if they are very personal.
“I think we all know that men don’t particularly tend to talk about their problems in the same way that girls do but I think circumcision is very much a taboo subject,” she says.
“Alex was reserved. He certainly wouldn’t have said ‘I’ve got a tight foreskin and it really hurts’. And he didn’t. And I didn’t know.”
Only a week after Alex died, a friend opened up to Lesley about his own circumcision.
“He told me he wouldn’t normally have mentioned it but he had a circumcision as an older man, 10 years ago, and he was in constant daily pain,” says Lesley. “It just seems it’s more common than you think.”
Image caption,
Consultant urological surgeon Trevor Dorkin, who is a member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, warns his patients of risks before circumcising them
Mr Dorkin says serious problems following a circumcision are rare, but not unheard of.
“You do hear of horror stories where a circumcision has been done poorly and there’s damage done to the head of the penis itself,” he says.
Sometimes too much skin is taken and this can result in what’s known as “burying” or shortening of the penis, where it gets pulled back into the body.
“Surgeons at the end of the day are human and there is potential for human error and technical error during any operation,” he says.
“One of my mentors told me every case is a tricky case, that’s got to be your approach to surgery. You never take anything for granted in surgery.”
** Scottie note, there is a video at the link above for here on circumcision in South Africa if you are interested. **
Media caption,
Circumcision in South Africa
There have been cases of children and men dying after being circumcised.
In Canada, where Alex was living, newborn baby Ryan Heydari bled to death after being circumcised by a doctor in Ontario.
Recently there have been reports of two babies dying within weeks of each other after home circumcisions in Italy, and a two-year-old boy died after being circumcised at a migrant centre in Italy.
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
As a child Alex was “gorgeous, easygoing, and adoring of his younger brother Thomas”
“I’m not qualified to say that circumcision is always bad, because it isn’t,” says Lesley.
“It certainly was in my son’s case and I think we need more research. We need to look into the risks, what can really go wrong, and we need to be more aware of them.”
If a circumcision is necessary, Mr Dorkin says it is important to tell patients about potential complications.
“Particularly when you are doing the operation in a guy who is in his late teenage years or early adulthood, it’s a very sensitive area and sexual function is important, so you have to explain the risks to them,” he says.
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Image caption,
Alex asked his mother to share his story after he died
“Alex said he was not made aware of all the risks,” says Lesley. “If he had, I feel sure he would not have had the surgery.
“Alex wasn’t alone. I now know he wasn’t the only one that this has happened to. And that can’t be right.”
The UK charity 15 Square, which tries to educate people about circumcision, says Alex is not the only man to have killed himself after being circumcised.
“It happens more frequently than people realise,” says chairman David Smith.
There are no statistics on men who have killed themselves after being circumcised. Alex died over a year ago but his story has not been told until now. An inquest into his death was held in the UK but it was not reported by the media.
Lesley, who is normally private and reserved like her son, only agreed to share Alex’s story because it was his dying wish.
“If the following information can benefit anybody then it has served its purpose,” he wrote.
“I did not feel comfortable raising the issue when I had a choice, so if my story can raise awareness to break this taboo within society regarding men’s health then I am happy for release of my words.
“Alex said in his letter ‘We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us’,” says Lesley.
“This is the last thing I’m doing for my precious son.”
For details of organisations which offer advice and support, go to BBC Action Line.
** Scotties note, at the link above is the links to these other circumcision articles. The links were not correctly embedded in the post. **
This is what happens when red state republican governors, right wing media hosts, and religious hate preachers make wild untrue accusations and targe the LGBTQ+. They put targets on the LGBTQ+ people and their organizations. While the police have not released the full context of the notes, one phone shows a note blaming the LBTQ+ for ” … holding get homosexual togethers for middle schoolers”. You know where that rhetoric comes from. It energizes the maga thug base to commit act of violence against those the republican governors like DeathSantis claim harm kids. About that harming kids, DeathSantis used taxpayer funds of hundreds of thousands of dollars to ship Venezuelan legal asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard and one of those was a month old baby. DeathSantis rants about saving kids by the don’t say gay bills and tough abortion bills, but he did not care he was sending a one month old baby all across the country with no warning to those where they landed and no way the mother could get help. Lucky the community there rallied to do they could for the asylum seekers that were being used as pawns and it really pissed the right wing off that the left was not assholes like the right is. Hugs
On Saturday morning, members of the Pride Community Center in Gainesville received a call from a real estate office in the same complex about their building being vandalized.
“She told me that she was just informed by somebody that came to her office that the pride center had been vandalized and that the windows were all smashed,” said board member Debbie Lewis. “The reason it’s being investigated as a hate crime is because of the notes that were left.”
Members didn’t want to share the messages due to the ongoing investigation and the community joined in helping board up the windows.
The attack came just weeks before the highly anticipated return of the Gainesville Pride Festival on Oct. 22, which was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. Those who showed up at the center helped clean the mess left behind, sweeping up glass and rocks.
“Later I will be angry about this vicious hate crime but right now I’m incredibly sad for every vulnerable person in my community,” County Commission candidate Mary Alford said, adding that she faults some elected Republicans who have shared anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
The attack came just weeks before the highly anticipated return of the Gainesville Pride Festival on Oct. 22. https://t.co/hWDKiOlDRh
For me, the hate that has been generated by the likes of DeSantis, Trump, Abbott, Youngkin, Green and their likes has turned into sadness for our country and her citizens. I cannot understand what is going on anymore and why citizens cannot have some peace and reprieve from Republicans.
A teacher in Texas reported one of her own students' families to child welfare services after stalking their Instagram page and identifying them as transgender. Luckily the family had already left Texas for Colorado after Governor Abbott ordered the state to persecute them. pic.twitter.com/rO5mAZ82lB
Beginning to understand how the Nazis did it now. Just ordinary people, thinking it’s their civic duty to do what the government tells them, and if it aligns with their own prejudices even better.
My Lyft driver on Friday that took me home from the airport was brand new here in Palm Springs, just arrived from Fort Lauderdale 2 months ago, with the cutest little dog who slept in the front seat. I welcomed him to California and gave him a big tip.
God I wish I could afford to get out. if i had the money I would be gone. The place is a human cess pool and getting worse by the minute. But alas Im poor, all my friends live here, have dogs and cats so its hard to leave right now.
In just a few short years in politics, Evelyn Rios Stafford has managed to make an impression at the highest levels of government, and at the most local, too.
The first transgender person to hold elected office in Arkansas, Rios Stafford serves as Justice of the Peace for her small district in Fayetteville. In her role, she’s officiated dozens of weddings for constituents. “That’s one of the highlights of this gig as Justice of the Peace. It always gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling to do that for people,” she told LGBTQ Nation.
Now, Rios Stafford is running for reelection to the post without serious opposition, a vote of confidence even before the election that constituents view her time in office as effective.
Rios Stafford’s first political involvement was getting a local civil rights ordinance passed in the late 2010’s. In 2020, she ran for an open seat on the local Quorum Court, the equivalent of a board of supervisors, and won. She represents about 16,000 people in her district.
At 49, with a broad smile and the easy, thoughtful cadence of a Texas native, Rios Stafford says being trans wasn’t a focus of her first campaign. “You know, I made one post…about it on National Coming Out Day during the campaign. But that was about it.” It wasn’t until after she was elected that “some folks got wind of the fact that I was a first of something.”
But her victory would become pivotal in the fight over trans rights in the state.
In 2021, the Arkansas legislature passed HB1570, also known as the Save Adolescents from Experimentation or SAFE Act. Like similar legislation introduced in other red states, the bill would ban all gender-affirming care for minors, prohibit insurance from covering gender transition procedures, and criminalize those assisting minors in the process.
The bill was awaiting Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson’s signature when Rios Stafford was enlisted by an Arkansas legislator to help halt the bill’s march into law. From the “phone call to me to meeting the governor was probably, I’d say 24 hours.”
While Rios Stafford was trans, she hadn’t transitioned as a youth. “I knew that I needed to also make space for folks who had this experience and were directly impacted, because their voices are really the ones that have been left out of this whole thing,” she said. Rios Stafford brought 18 year-old Willow Breshears, who began transitioning at 16 with her family’s active support, to the ornate conference room table for her meeting with the governor.
“This was probably the first time that he had ever had a sit down, face-to-face discussion with a trans person before, or in this case two trans people. And, you know, he was kind of starting at zero in terms of knowledge.” A 15-minute appointment turned into half an hour and then 45 minutes. “He was just wanting to know more, basically.”
“I was on pins and needles walking out of that room, like, you know, almost on the verge of having a panic attack. I was replaying all of my answers in my head, like, did I say the right thing, did I screw this up completely?”
Not only did Hutchinson veto the bill, he wrote a Washington Post op-ed explaining why and also went on Tucker Carlson’s show to defend his decision. No matter, the Arkansas legislature overrode his veto, though the law remains tied up in court challenges.
Still, Rios Stafford was satisfied to hear “echoes of some of the things we talked about” in Hutchinson’s defense of the veto.
“‘Traditionally, Republicans have held themselves up as champions of limited government,’” Rios Stafford told the governor. “‘In what way, shape or form is this limited government? Because this is big government. This is government getting in between the families and their doctors.’”
Rios Stafford’s own gender awakening was pivotal to her work in her adopted home state. She majored in English at Rice University in Houston and was pursuing a career in journalism when she got a call from the ABC-TV affiliate in San Francisco asking her to come in for an interview. She got the job. She was young and bright and on the loose in Baghdad by the Bay.
“It was a great time to come there,” she recalled. “During the dot-com boom, the city was kind of going crazy, and it was a really fun time to be there in my 20s. And obviously San Francisco is a place where you can really explore your identity, as well.”
Born and raised in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, she grew up attending Catholic school, where she encountered the first signs of her conflicted gender identity.
“In Catholic school, I had a boyfriend when I was 15. A couple of our friends knew about it, but it definitely wasn’t something that we were out about. I knew that I wasn’t straight, exactly,” she remembers thinking, “but I didn’t really have the language or knowledge to have an understanding of exactly in what way.”
In college, she figured it out. It was “literally, when I was, like, doing research in the college library, that I came across the idea of transgender. And it was this lightbulb moment of like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s what’s been going on with me.’”
In San Francisco, she embraced her new reality. “Gradually, I became more and more out,” Rios Stafford recalled. “It was not a surprise for some people. It was a surprise for others.” While she was “bracing for the worst,” she was “really pleasantly surprised and so grateful for having such a positive experience.”
Evelyn Rios Stafford on her wedding day Provided
“Back then, this was sort of like, this was new territory,” she said. “I think I was the first employee at an ABC owned-and-operated station to transition on the job.” The following year, Rios Stafford picked up two Emmys for her producing. “I feel like it was all tied together.”
The total package arrived shortly after she transitioned, when Rios Stafford met her future husband, Bob Stafford, an artist and graphic designer, online. She was “smitten from the beginning.” The two shared mutual friends in the arts scene South of Market in San Francisco, and Southern roots, as well. Soon after, the couple moved east to Stafford’s hometown of Fayetteville. They were married in 2016.
According to Rios Stafford, performing weddings in her job as Justice of the Peace is optional. “Not all the JPs do it. I have a feeling that one or two of them might not be on there because if they were on the list, they might have to do a same-sex wedding, and it’s against their personal beliefs or something? But I was like, ‘Sign me up! I’ll do anybody.’”
In a test of the maturity of anyone who happens across this story, Rockman School Board candidate Craig Ladyman has been exposed for posting violently queerphobic and antisemitic imagery online.
Ladyman posted an image of four pride flags arranged to form a swastika pattern on Trump social media network Truth Social under the incredible username “@LadymanForLiberty”. The candidate writes, “Like my new Pride flag?” (very respectfully capitalizing the “P” in “Pride”, of course).
Appalled parents and voters sent the post along to Superintendent Steven Matthews, who says he shares in their outrage.
“It makes me feel angry,” he tells Fox WXMI. “Certainly, a symbol like that represents the and represents divisiveness. It’s a symbol that I don’t think represents who we are as a community, and anybody who would use it I don’t think represent who we are as a community.”
In addition to the bastardization of the Pride flag, the invoking of nazi imagery is deeply unsettling to community members.
Rabbi David Krishef, a leader at the Ahavas Israel congregation in neighboring Grand Rapids, explains to WXMI the harm that sentiments like Ladyman’s pose.
“It cheapens the Holocaust, it cheapens the suffering,” he says. “It’s a misuse of the imagery, it’s a misuse of the language.
“No matter what’s going on in this country, whether you’re coming from the right wing being afraid of what the left wing are doing or vice versa, we are not rounding people up wholesale and consigning them to concentration camps and death camps. But that’s what the Nazi imagery evokes.”
Not to psychoanalyze transphobes on main, but this candidate’s anti-trans rhetoric is particularly vehement and loud. His official school board candidacy poster reads, “Vote Craig Ladyman/Rockford School Board/He knows what a woman is!”
It’s giving “graphic design is my passion”:
His campaign website boasts, “I promise to fight for parental rights and children’s rights in school. I will never go along with unconstitutional mandates, medical tyranny, or the woke agenda.”
We’re not saying that this man was so horribly bullied for his name growing up that gender stricture became deeply embedded in his psyche and is now his only personality trait. Not out loud, at least.
Bexar Sheriff Javier Salazar says there is an open investigation of Venezuelan migrants lured under false pretenses and displaced from San Antonio to Florida and then Martha’s Vineyard. The Majority Report crew discusses how the Venezuelan migrants were in the United States legally with court dates and promised expedited work papers. The MR crew questions the funding behind this political stunt and if it could possibly be Right-wing money as Florida Governor DeSantis’ office staff is involved.
Governor Ron DeSantis is confronted by a journalist about the state of Florida’s plans to spend tax money to displace migrants from Texas to Delaware. The Majority Report crew discusses how DeSantis wants to address people “trickling in” from border states to Florida by displacing them at the source. The MR crew talks about how asylum seekers are here legally though not citizens, and questions the usage of the word ‘legal’ when referring to people. The crew also mentions how DeSantis may be burning out quickly as campaigning for the 2024 election is still far out and questions DeSantis’ use of the ‘ultimate solution’ with regard to immigration.
“So this is how it works. You’re injected with graphene oxide. Once injected with the so-called vaccine, you become connected to the internet of things and you can be mind-controlled by artificial intelligence.
“And maybe 5G. Why are they putting 5G everywhere? It’s like the Tower of Babel. And how did God deal with the Tower of Babel? How much longer do you think he’s going to tolerate this satanic plan?
“This is trans-humanism. The internet of things. How would you like to be connected so that your thinking would no longer be your thinking, but it would be non-biological?
“The real question is who will control the computer that give you the messages? It won’t be your pastor.” – Anti-LGBTQ activist and supplements peddler Steven Hotze, speaking to a group calling themselves “Liberty Pastors.”
Hotze last appeared on JMG in August 2022 when he won a Texas ruling that may imperil insurance coverage for PrEP medications nationwide.
In April 2022, Hotze was charged with two felonies related to a bizarre 2020 “voter fraud search” incident. That case remains pending.
Hotze also appeared on JMG in 2020 when he left a voice mail for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, telling him to “shoot to kill” Black Lives Matter activists.
You may recall that Steven Hotze has compared gays to “communist termites” eating away at America’s moral fabric. He is also fond of declaring that it’s now a hate crime to denounce homosexuality.
It was Hotze who bankrolled the successful campaign to repeal Houston’s “wicked, evil, Satanic” LGBT rights ordinance, during which he compared gays to rapists and murderers.
According to Hotze, same-sex marriage will result in children “practicing sodomy” in kindergarten.
In 2017, he appeared here when he “prophesied” that God will deliver “just retribution” to lawmakers who vote for LGBTQ rights.
When he’s not calling on God to kill politicians or for the governor to kill Black Lives Matter activists, Hotze sells “miracle” supplements because high cholesterol doesn’t really cause heart disease.
Hotze regularly quotes QAnon slogans.
Watch the clip. There are slides!
Steven Hotze, a Texas-based religious-right activist and doctor, says that those who have received COVID-19 vaccines "become connected to the internet of things and you can be mind-controlled by artificial intelligence through maybe 5G." pic.twitter.com/BjpBqbPqja
ANd here I thought my cell reception was better becasue AT&T built a new tower a few blocks away. Noow we know that it is all part of the plan to control people, and we’re [aying for it through our cell phone bills.
The easiest solution for conservatives would be to turn off their cell phones, and disconnect their home internet completely.
As a person who actually works on this stuff, he’s so appallingly stupid that it boggles the mind. 5G is a problem but 4G wasn’t? And you know what the “Internet of Things” is? Any device that connects to the Internet and sends or receives data over it. The reason why they call it that is because those things might not be what we typically think of as “computers”. Your oven could be an ioT device because you could start it preheating while you’re on the way home. Your clothes dryer might be able to send performance data over the net and notify you if it needs service.
Just wait until he discovers what a “personal cloud” is… and no, it’s not a fart or BO. It’s when the various IoT devices on your body work in conjunction with each other to assist you. Your phone working with your watch and wireless headphones is a personal cloud. And as we move forward, more things that are on or in you will become part of your personal cloud. Hearing aids, contact lenses, implants in your body that monitor blood chemistry, etc… You think they’ve lost their shit now, just wait til they decide this is the “mark of the beast” they ramble on about.
Well, let’s see, according to your laughably puerile book of fairy tales, god made everybody speak a different language so that they couldn’t talk to each other to build the tower to heaven.
Then, humans developed new universal languages called “mathematics” and “science,” which allowed them to build the tower, where we discovered there’s no such dumbass thing as heaven.
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
IMAGE SOURCE,LESLEY ROBERTS
Photo: Robert Stafford
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