Clothing is scary for republicans it seems. Pants on women, dresses on men, I wonder they don’t freak out about ear rings on men or long hair. Stupid, pure stupidity, rather than work on real issues they want to worry about what other people wear. Hugs
The Arkansas GOP thinks if you’re gender non-conforming and tell a dirty joke, you’re like a sex worker.
Arkansas state Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R) has filed a bill that would classify drag queens as employees of an “adult-oriented business,” similar to nude models, porn actors, and sex workers.
The bill would put restrictions on transgender and non-binary people singing and dancing in public. It would also require bars, restaurants, shops, and theaters to relocate if they allow such behavior from people of those identities or anything resembling drag.
The bill, S.B. 43, defines a drag performance as one in which a performer “exhibits a gender identity that is different from the performer’s gender assigned at birth using clothing, makeup, or other accessories that are traditionally worn by members of… the performer’s opposite sex,” and performs a song or dance “intended to appeal to the prurient interest” in front of an audience of two or more people.
By this broad definition, a transgender or non-binary person singing a song about lovemaking, reciting a sexual story, or gyrating while dancing would be legally considered the same as a sex worker or someone having sex on camera. In fact, the law would consider any person doing these things as someone who works for an “adult-oriented business” if they wore anything not associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
The law would also redefine an adult-oriented business as any place where such a performance occurs. This would include bars, restaurants, and any places that allow gender non-conforming individuals to sing, dance, or otherwise perform.
The state’s zoning laws would require such businesses to be relocated outside of areas where children can easily view them.
Legislators from at least seven states — Arizona, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas — have proposed anti-drag laws in recent months, according to Bloomberg Law. Republican legislators in these states claim that drag shows “sexualize children” even though such performances rarely ever feature sexual content.
The proposed legislation would almost certainly be challenged in court soon after being signed into law since it violates constitutional protections for free speech. But the real aims of such laws are to silence LGBTQ+ allies and generate outrage against the LGBTQ+ community.
Their proposed legislation has also emboldened neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, white supremacists, and other anti-LGBTQ+ activists to issue death threats against businesses and public libraries that hold all-ages drag events. At least 124 incidents targeting drag events were reported in 2022 far this year across 47 U.S. states, according to the LGBTQ+ media watchdog group GLAAD.
ICYMI: Idaho Republican Rep. Jack Nelsen compares women to farm animals and says experience working with cattle has given him "ideas on repro and women's health thing" in his first-ever committee meeting. pic.twitter.com/Y4DSusQBAc
A bill proposed in the unicameral would place limitations on who can watch drag shows in Nebraska. The bill would ban anyone under 19 from watching a drag show, and it would prohibit anyone under 21 from watching drag shows where alcohol is present.
LB371 was introduced by Republican State Sen. Dave Murman and is already stirring debate in the Legislature. Democratic State Sen. Megan Hunt has filed a motion to postpone the bill indefinitely, a decision that is still pending.
Anyone who knowingly brings someone underage to a show would be subject to a misdemeanor. The entities themselves would be subject to a $10,000 fine per violation. The bill would also make it illegal to use state funds to host a drag show.
This bill doesn't even bother with the "prurient interest" part.
It entirely is just "if you are exhibiting a gender identity other than your own and making jokes or doing a play or monologuing or creating art, you're doing drag"
Senator Murman just introduced a bill to put age limits on drag shows, and I just filed a motion to indefinitely postpone it which would kill the bill. We will fight this bill every step of the way. #NELeghttps://t.co/CWHVnf8CfA
Federal prosecutors say a Woodbury County woman committed widespread voter fraud to support her husband in two 2020 electoral races. The U.S. Department of Justice announced charges Thursday against Kim Phuong Taylor, 49, of Sioux City.
According to a DOJ press release, Phuong Taylor faces more than 50 felony charges, including 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting.
Phuong Taylor is married to Jeremy Taylor, a former Iowa House member and current Woodbury County supervisor. Taylor ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination to replace Rep. Steve King in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District.
Read the full article. Taylor finished third in the 2020 GOP primary with 7.8% of the vote.
49-year-old Kim Phuong Taylor, wife of supervisor vice-chair Jeremy Taylor, has been charged by indictment with 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting. https://t.co/T2Gaolqo3z
We are Team Taylor, the supporters of Jeremy Taylor for Congress. Those of us on Team Taylor would like to congratulate Jeremy Taylor on his promotion to Major in the Iowa Army National Guard.#IA04#iapoliticspic.twitter.com/JjjQHy9GZU
11th Hour. The 4th Quarter. We are working hard in #IA04 and running through the finish line. Lots of phone calls by incredible volunteers & last minute ballot-chasing. You get to decide and no one else for you. Thankful for real grassroots! #IAPoliticspic.twitter.com/svQgw7T47W
And so the haters / republicans / right wing pushes it further. Really it is turning the clock back. It is regressive. It is denying every advance in society and in medical science since the 1950s. Ask your self why that age / time stamp is so attractive to republican males? Because everyone but them were oppressed and they had unfettered control. Hug
Advocates want the bill to forbid discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity to 8th grade.
The Florida chapter of Moms for Liberty, the conservative nonprofit that advocates for parental rights in schools, would like state lawmakers to expand the state law that restricts classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation for children from kindergarten through the third grade.
The Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics, ignited a firestorm of criticism among Democrats and LGBTQ advocates and received national attention after it was introduced and later signed into law last year.
“We are advocating to increase that as far as ages and grades to have it be K-8,” said Angela Dubach, the Pinellas County chapter chair of the organization, speaking to the members of the Pinellas County legislative delegation as they met as a group on Wednesday morning at the Clearwater branch campus of St. Petersburg College.
A group of students, parents, and teachers filed a lawsuit last year to block the measure from being implemented, alleging it is unconstitutional in part because it “chills speech and expression that have any connection, however remote, to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Brandon Wolf,press secretary for Equality Florida, slammed the idea.
“At every step of the way, right-wing extremists have gaslit the community about its insatiable desire for censorship and erasure of LGBTQ people,” he told the Phoenix in an email.
“They insisted that the Don’t Say LGBTQ law would be narrow in scope and limited to K-3, despite knowing that the law’s impacts would be far broader and more sweeping. Already, we’ve seen books with LGBTQ characters banned, ‘Safe Space’ stickers peeled from classroom windows, the contributions of LGBTQ people in history censored, and LGBTQ History Month itself rejected in districts across Florida,” he continued.
“The desire of right-wing groups like Moms for Liberty to wield more government censorship over more students is shameful and at odds with the bogus rationalization for this harmful policy they were peddling throughout 2022. LGBTQ people are a part of society’s fabric. We are your neighbors, family members, and friends. And our state should be a place committed to protecting all students and respecting all families.”
Four asks
The expansion of that law was one of four proposals that Dubach called on lawmakers to consider going into the 2023 legislative session. Dubach said that she’d also like legislators to “take a look” at expanding the timeline on legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021 that bans private employers and government entities from implementing COVID-19 vaccine mandates and school districts from requiring face masks. The measure is slated to expire on June 1.
Another measure that the Florida chapter of Moms for Liberty supports relates to school board races.
“Myself and our organization supports partisan school board elections,” Dubach said. “That’s something that we are asking you to take a look at. I was originally told that we’d have to change the Florida Constitution so we wouldn’t be able to do that, so if you could advise me on that that’d be wonderful.”
Measures have been filed in both the House and Senate this year calling for a constitutional amendment to require members of a district school board to be chosen in partisan elections. If approved, it would go into effect in 2026.
Florida voters voted overwhelmingly in 1998 to make school board races nonpartisan, and efforts to put such an amendment on the ballot have failed in recent legislative sessions. But that was before Gov. DeSantis weighed in on the topic last summer and endorsed 30 candidates in school board races, the majority of whom won either in their Primary or General Election contests last year.
The last item Dubach mentioned was “some type of legislation” around the amount of mental health funding that public schools in Florida receive.
“Right now, Pinellas County schools have $140 million allocated for mental health, and I talk to teacher after teacher after teacher and they say, ‘We are not mental health counselors. We want to educate these children and get them ready for the next grade,’” Dubach told the group of legislators. “They don’t want anything to do with mental health. That is up to the parents, their doctors, and all of that stuff is at home.”
The Phoenix reached out to the Pinellas County School District to confirm those financial figures but did not immediately receive a response. State lawmakers have five more weeks of committee meetings scheduled between now and the official beginning of the legislative session on March 7.
In this episode we chat with sexologist, author, social worker Dr Joe Kort about male sexuality and sex. We discuss – Gay sex – What is sexual fluidity? – What does non-binary mean? – Porn, good or bad? – The problem of men, sex & shame – Homosexual attractions in straight men – What does it mean to be gay & bi – What is sex therapy?
Republicans cannot seem to care how their smoking hurts others around them who don’t smoke. Sad that in 2023 with all the information around about how bad tobacco both smoked or chewed is for both those that do it and those around them. But again republicans have a real issue trying to care about anyone other than themselves. Hugs
“Smoke ’em if you got ’em.” That’s not just the name of a 2004 Cypress Hill EP but also apparently the new rule in the GOP-controlled House. Republican members are lighting up their cigars in Congressional offices — and driving members of the press corps “insane in the brain” with the smell.
An executive order signed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 banned smoking in many federal buildings, but only those under the control of the Executive Branch. The laws in Washington, D.C. similarly ban smoking in indoor spaces, but again, that does not apply to congressional offices.
Yuck, cigarette and cigar smoke stinks. Inside buildings it spreads through the HVAC system and permeates everything, everyone’s clothing. It becomes in escapable. People who smoke reek of it; you can smell the stench when they walk into a room.
Republicans have been making life worse for everyone since 1968.
It literally does not apply to Congress – perhaps we need a constitutional amendment requiring members of Congress to be held to the same legal standards as other Americans – and perhaps their salaries should be tied to median incomes in their districts, and they should not have any better medical coverage or retirement benefits than ordinary Americans.
why don’t we totally go back to the 1950s – old white guys smoking cigars in the back offices making deals. how progressive. i’m surprised if they do not allow drinking on the House floor – it’ll be just like bowling!
The GOP oft reminisce about the “good old days” of the 50s…a white man’s world, where the US dominated the world economy, while much of the world was still recovering from WWII.
They do conveniently forget the 90% tax rate on the wealthy & corporations…which helped the middle class to grow & prosper.
It seems republicans are intent on exerting their right to be rude assholes no matter the cost to themselves or others. Please keep it up until you have turned public opinion solidly against your party.
The only thing the GOP think of pregnant staffers is “you’d better have that baby or you’ll be going to jail for murder. And don’t expect any handouts or time off”
When the new Resucklicans said they need to tear down the establishment, that’s the establishment they’re talking about: considering other’s welfare. They want to be obnoxious assholes again! Make me King of Assholes again! Trump is our Assholiness!
I would refuse to work in a smoke-filled office. Hopefully many of the junior staff will quit (or sue) rather than elect to get cancer form secondhand smoke. .
OT. Lawyer said we need to prosecute Donald Trump immediately. Sitting next to his Passport? Sounds like he’s going to turn them into big $$$fortune by selling us to Putin when he needs to escape justice to Putin his protector.
AND tfg had top secret docs literally sitting in the same drawer as his PASSPORT.
Gross. I’d be pissed if I was a staffer who had to go home every day with my clothes reeking of smoke. Dry cleaning ain’t free. That’s minuscule to the effects that kind of enclosed environment can have on people with asthma and other respiratory ailments.
Plus, that nasty, greasy residue will be settling all over inside the Capitol. I guess lathering the place with that residue isn’t too unexpected from the party that smeared their own feces around the building.
*shakes head* If Biden was really as awful as the Republicans say he is, they sure have some bizarre priorities now that they control the House.
I don’t care what people do with their own lives, and it gives me some comfort knowing these assholes are opening themselves up to an old age of sickness and likely a miserable death (both my parents died of smoking-related illnesses, not pretty) but I feel sorry for the reporters and staffers who are subjected to their secondhand smoke
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Scottie's Playtime 