I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 36th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com
This is totally illegal. It is voting interference that tRump keep claiming the democrats are doing. Yet we see which party is purging voter rolls, doing over the top gerrymandering to make sure only they can win, restricting early voting, restricting mail in ballots, making voting in person harder with aggressive poll watchers challenging any person of color who goes to vote. This man doesn’t like drop boxes and even though the supreme court of the state made it legal he just decided to steal the box before it could be locked down. Even though the elections supervisor’s office is the one with the authority to approve their use and had done so. Another republican who thinks the laws and rules do not apply to them. This is such preformative for the camera / clicks action. Notice how he dressed up for it. Also note he is holding the box hostage in his office. Plus no one had put ballots in it because it was closed and locked and due to be locked down that very morning. Hugs. Scottie
A years-long fight over voting rules in the swing state of Wisconsin sparked a criminal investigation this week after a mayor — wearing a hard hat and Department of Public Works jacket — carted off a ballot drop box the city clerk was about to make available to voters.
The mayor, who was elected in the spring with the help of the Republican Party, said he moved the drop box to his office Sunday because he believed the city council should decide whether the city should use it.
The Wausau drop box was placed outside of city hall late last week, and the clerk planned to have it secured to the ground so that it could be used starting Monday, according to city officials. It was locked, and voters could not place ballots inside while it was awaiting installation, City Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde said.
City Council President Lisa Rasmussen had sharp words for the mayor and is now asking for a public apology. She also suggested Diny could face significant consequences for his actions and said she is not aware of “issues” that would explain the removal.
“I have huge concerns about this behavior, as there is no place for elected officials to manage, alter or tamper with drop boxes, whether they agree with their use or not,” Rasmussen told Wausau Pilot.
“I have voiced my concerns to the mayor about his conduct, and requested he return the box and issue a public apology to the clerk and the community, as his actions violate the public trust and likely also the law.”
We’re going to see a lot more of this.
This is wild. In Wausau, the clerk decided to use drop boxes. Then the mayor, sporting a Department of Public Works vest, got caught on video carting the drop box inside to his office, *after the city attorney said he didn’t have the right to move it*https://t.co/ys5oTEhHCF
They don’t even hide the hatred of fellow citizens and the blatant voter suppression anymore, they make a public spectacle out of it. Makes me really hate people.My sister is one of those people and we haven’t spoken since she first cast her vote for Trump and then in the same breath told me she voted for gay marriage in our state (MN) as if it was a get out jail free card and that I should be appeased since she gave me a crumb.
I have never understood the concern about drop boxes at all. If voters don’t use a ballot drop box, they will just use a postal mail box which is no more or less secure. Why do they think (without evidence) that you can “stuff” a drop box but couldn’t also “stuff” a mail box? They are crazy. I think they just hope that with a mail box, Louis DeJoy can fck up the delivery and make them late
Republicans, uh, robbed of another campaign issue. From the FBI:
The FBI released detailed data on over 14 million criminal offenses for 2023 reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program by participating law enforcement agencies. More than 16,000 state, county, city, university and college, and tribal agencies, covering a combined population of 94.3% inhabitants, submitted data to the UCR Program through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the Summary Reporting System.
The FBI’s crime statistics estimates, based on reported data for 2023, show that national violent crime decreased an estimated 3.0% in 2023 compared to 2022 estimates:
Murder and non-negligent manslaughter recorded a 2023 estimated nationwide decrease of 11.6% compared to the previous year.
In 2023, the estimated number of offenses in the revised rape category saw an estimated 9.4% decrease.
Aggravated assault figures decreased an estimated 2.8% in 2023.
Robbery showed an estimated decrease of 0.3% nationally…
Well, we hear there’s someone who’s been found by a jury to be a sexual abuser and who’s been convicted of 34 felonies who’s running for President, so there’s that.
Embattled Philadelphia landlord Philip Pulley pleads guilty to triple voting. Yes, he’s white, he’s Republican, & a Trump voter. This is the REAL, most common type of voter fraud in America, but they holler & point fingers at immigrants to distract! https://t.co/VDjDLAUAnC
Higgins last appeared here when he lied that ABC News had given Kamala Harris the debate questions in advance.
Earlier this year he appeared here when he threatened to show Trump’s hush money judge “where the ocean is,” which is a reference to mob killings. Higgins has had several tweets removed by Twitter for inciting violence.
In his former career as a Louisiana cop, Higgins resigned from one police force after being accused of striking a handcuffed suspect and then became a spokesman cop for another city, where his bombastic video threats against suspects went viral.
Higgins, who has been sued by one of his four wives for $140,000 in unpaid child support, claims that his current wife has the power of premonition.
For those just tuning into the @RepClayHiggins show: he once filmed a selfie in an Auschwitz gas chamber, voted for David Duke, claims his wife has magic powers, has physically assaulted several people and regularly mocks Black people & women https://t.co/6iXD0a8uSE
Over 10,000 books have been banned across the entire United States over the past school year. The trend has seen a particularly strong increase in states with a strong Republican presence, according to the free-speech nonprofit PEN America.
This is a major increase compared to the 2022-2023 year, which saw a total of 3,362 books banned across the country.
The books were accused of having “obscene” material. One of them was a children’s picture book about gay penguins.
Florida and Iowa are leading in the total number of bans, with over 8,000 recorded between the two states. This number is largely due to the increasingly strict laws on book bans.
The banned books include Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie; the famous work on anti-Black racism Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B. DuBois; Alex Haley’s book about the lived experience of slaves, Roots: The Saga of an American Family; and James Baldwin’s autobiography Go Tell It On the Mountain.
Iowa’s bans stem from Senate File 496, a law restricting LGBTQ+ books from grade seven and below along with total bans on books deemed to contain sexual content. Florida’s House Bill 1069, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), resulted in a similar ban, albeit a much more strict one.
PEN America cites other laws from Utah, Tennessee, and South Carolina as contributing to these increase in banned books as well.
Individual school districts have also had a hand in banning many books. The Elkhorn Area School District in Wisconsin, for example, banned over 300 books over a several month period.
PEN America says that the types of books banned “includes books featuring romance, books about women’s sexual experiences, and books about rape or sexual abuse as well as continued attacks on books with LGBTQ+ characters or themes, or books about race or racism and featuring characters of color.”
The organization also emphasizes that these numbers are an undercount of the actual amount of banned books since many book bans go unreported. Additionally, the organization says schools have also implemented “soft” book bans, including policies that cause greater hesitancy to check out books from libraries, restrictions on who can check out restricted books out, book fair cancellations, and the removal of classroom collections.
Six major book publishers are currently suing the Floridian government after hundreds of their books were pulled from libraries, cutting severely into their profits and discriminating against their authors.
A Florida school district recently agreed to re-shelve 36 books to settle a lawsuit concerning multiple banned books, including And Tango Makes Three, an often banned children’s book about a gay penguin couple raising a chick.
Iowa’s book ban was recently brought back into law when a permanent injunction against the ban was overturned by an appeals court.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nationnewsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
Opinion | Netanyahu’s lethal bombs will turn Lebanon into another Gaza. He must be brought down now
The Israeli leader needs forever wars to keep himself in power. Innocent lives just don’t matter, says Simon Tisdall, the foreign affairs commentator of the Observer
Death toll from Israeli strikes rises to 356, Lebanon says, as fears of escalation grow – Middle East crisis live
Lebanese health ministry says more than 1,245 people injured; Israel says military moving into next stage of targeting Hezbollah combat structure
Death toll from Israeli strikes rises to 356, Lebanon says, as fears of escalation grow – Middle East crisis live
Lebanese health ministry says more than 1,245 people injured; Israel says military moving into next stage of targeting Hezbollah combat structure
“Well, obviously, it would take, you know, 10,000 inaccurate ballots or 20,000 ballots to turn things around,” he said. “No, we don’t have evidence of that. But who knows? If you find a little bit of cheating, who knows if you had the time and resources to look around for more. Who knows what you’d find.”
Grothman last appeared here in July when he lamented that society should return to living “like it was in the 1960s.”
He appeared here last year when he declared that low-income housing discourages people from getting married.
That same week he complained that Biden won’t nominate “straight white guys” to the federal judiciary.
He also appeared here in January 2023 when he posted a flag associated with the Christian nationalist movement outside his Capitol office.
Months earlier he gave a floor speech condemning the US Census for collecting data on LGBTQ Americans, which he found “horrifying.”
Before that he appeared here in June 2021 when he authored a bill that would ban teaching the history of racism in Washington DC public schools.
His first appearance here came in September 2011 when as a Wisconsin state senator he authored a successful bill that banned mentioning contraception in sex ed classes.
Grothman opposes recognizing Kwanzaa and Martin Luther King Jr. Day as state holidays. In 2015, he authored a bill to place a ban on same-sex marriage in the US Constitution.
This next one is because DeathSantis wants to be able to make a political hit job on this incident to score points and claim that Biden Harris refused to give tRump proper Secret Service protection. Hugs. Scottie
Read the full article. DeSantis has said that the feds can’t be trusted to properly investigate the shooting attempt since they are also prosecuting Trump for stealing classified documents.
This week, Montel Williams called out a now deleted post of an unaltered photo claiming that he was Diddy. Williams stated, “Here they go again with ‘all black people look alike.”
All four memes below were posted separately today by the multiple felon.
You need a manual to work on my 1979 International Harvester Scout.
Donald Trump and JD Vance have a manual, too. It’s called Project 2025, and it tells us exactly how they’re going to stick it to the middle class. pic.twitter.com/e5NjTY85tX
We truly have become numb to how completely crazed, unhinged and demented Trump is, but its possible this is his craziest midnight rant EVER because of the content, length and ALL CAPS lunacy.
I truly hope local news, network news, and newsy shows like GMA & Today show and read Trump’s post about American women from late last night. Stop the sanewashing. We WANT voters to see how demented, psychotic and misogynist he is. Stop hiding the crazy from your viewers!
Photo: Shutterstock
