I have always enjoyed Ethel’s videos. I have been watching them since she was a teen. She is passionate, yet she not only well versed in the subject she speaks on, but includes all her resources in the channel notes so anyone can double check what she says if they disagree with her. She has a slight speech impediment but the closed caption is great.
The story of Luna and her rabid anti-trans Christian father is a story I have followed since I heard it when Luna was around 7 or 8, and of the horrible abuse anti-trans fanatics will go too against letting a child be themselves. Despite court orders and against the child’s will he forcibly cut her hair, he refused to even allow girl’s clothing in his home and when she came to his home when he still had court ordered visitation would make her strip in the doorway after it was closed and go to the room assigned to her and put on male clothing. He then would destroy the girl clothing in front of her. Remember, at this point she was only socially transitioning, and he simply wouldn’t allow it. His parental rights were removed because of his refusal to follow court orders and treat Luna as the girl she was. And as is normal for Anti-trans haters he would go on the anti-trans Christian circuit and lie his ass off on everything. For an example he would say his wife only took Luna to one pro-trans mental health doctor when in fact she saw four or five, two were ones he insisted on including a Christian practitioner. They all agreed that Luna identified a girl. But his denial abuse got so bad that the girl and her mother fled the state and moved to California to be safe, a court approved move. But this is a man who would rather lose his child or see them dead than admit they might not be the gender that glancing between their legs at birth was assigned to them. Hugs
[Script & References] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J… [Chapters] 00:00 – Intro & Content Warning 01:28 – Jeff Damon Younger 16:01 – The Ministry of ‘Truth’ Film Festival 18:42 – Jeff Damon Younger Boasts About Turning Luna Into A Refugee 32:48 – Jeff Damon Younger’s Antisemitism [Social Media]
This is an important update to the illegal police raid on a newspaper’s office, taking all their equipment and personal items sent in by Ali. I hope the federal government / DOJ will investigate and prosecute the police and the judge that authorized a clearly illegal raid, and the fact that police illegally copied the information and kept it, including the names of the people who talk to the reporter about the illegal actions of the police chief, judge, and the restaurant owner. It is a dangerous and chilling example of how some police and judges feel they are above the laws, able to do what ever they want. Hugs
Wednesday, August 30th 2023, 3:27 PM CDT
written by Kansas Reflector
A new lawsuit says Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, top left, spearheaded the Aug. 11 raid of the Marion County Record in retaliation against the journalists who worked there.
(Marion County Record screen capture of surveillance video)
TOPEKA — Police Chief Gideon Cody arrived at the Marion County Record and handed a copy of a search warrant to Deb Gruver, the veteran reporter who had questioned him about alleged misconduct at his previous job.
As Gruver read the search warrant, she told Cody she needed to call her publisher and editor, Eric Meyer. The police chief, who was ostensibly investigating another reporter’s computer use, snatched the phone out of Gruver’s hand.
The scene is recounted in a lawsuit Gruver filed Wednesday in federal court that says Cody had no legal basis for taking her personal cellphone. She is seeking damages for “emotional distress, mental anguish and physical injury” as a result of Cody’s “malicious and recklessly indifferent violation” of her First Amendment free press rights and Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.
Cody spearheaded the Aug. 11 raid under the pretense that reporter Phyllis Zorn committed identity theft when she accessed public records on a public website. His real motivation, Gruver’s lawsuit contends, was to punish the journalists for investigating and reporting news stories.
Gruver had questioned Cody in April, when he was hired as police chief, about allegations made by his former colleagues with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department. They accused Cody of making sexist comments, being a poor leader and driving over a dead body at a crime scene. The newspaper initially declined to write about the allegations without an on-the-record source or documentation that Cody was in danger of being demoted when he left Kansas City.
Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver on Wednesday had the words “freedom of the press” tattooed on her arm.(Submitted by Deb Gruver to Kansas Reflector)
In Marion, a town of about 1,900, Cody became an ally of Kari Newell, who owns a restaurant and cafe.
A dizzying drama unfolded in the days preceding the Aug. 11 raid as Newell had Cody evict Meyer and Zorn from a public meeting at her cafe, and a confidential source provided Zorn with information that could jeopardize Newell’s efforts to obtain a liquor license at her restaurant.
The source said Newell had lost her driver’s license following a 2008 drunken driving conviction. When Zorn asked the Kansas Department of Revenue how to verify the information, the agency directed her to search the public records in its online database. Meyer told Cody about the information in part because the source also alleged that police knew Newell was driving without a license and had ignored repeated violations by Newell of driving laws.
Cody prepared an affidavit that claimed Newell was the victim of identity theft, and he requested permission to raid the newspaper office. Cody wrote in his affidavit that Zorn had accessed Newell’s driver’s license history by impersonating Newell or lying. Magistrate Laura Viar authorized the raid.
Nothing in the affidavit or search warrant connects Gruver or her cellphone to the alleged crime. The search warrant only identifies Zorn as a suspect.
Cody ignored federal and state laws that prohibit authorities from taking journalists’ materials as he and his four police officers, aided by two sheriff’s deputies, seized an assortment of electronic devices from the newsroom that were unrelated to Zorn’s supposed crime.
Officers read the reporters their Miranda warning during the raid, then left them waiting outside for three hours in heat that reached 100 degrees. After the raid, Gruver went to the sheriff’s office, where police stored the confiscated equipment, to ask for her personal cellphone.
Gruver spoke with Cody there and told him she had nothing to do with the search of driver’s license records.
Cody grinned.
“I actually believe you,” he said, according to the court filing.
A Marion County undersheriff on Aug. 16, 2023, reaches into an evidence locker for items seized from the Marion County Record during an Aug. 11, 2023, raid. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Gruver is seeking at least $75,000, the minimum threshold for filing a civil case in federal court. She is suing Cody in his individual capacity for the “shocking, unprecedented and unconstitutional police raid,” her lawsuit says. Cody could claim qualified immunity, but the lawsuit argues that no reasonable police officer would think his actions were constitutional.
“At this point I will let the lawsuit against Chief Cody do the talking and will have no comment, other than to say: Although I brought this suit in my own name, I’m standing up for journalists across the country. It is our constitutional right to do this job without fear of harassment or retribution, and our constitutional rights are always worth fighting for,” Gruver said.
Blake Shuart, a Wichita attorney, is representing Gruver.
Newell is not a defendant in the lawsuit, but her name appears 25 times through 18 pages of the complaint.
The lawsuit notes that Gruver and Newell had been friendly before Cody’s arrival. When Gruver was new to town in August 2022, the lawsuit says, she wrote a “glowing review” of Newell’s restaurant. The review complemented Newell’s spatchcock chicken with whole new potatoes and asparagus, followed by “death by chocolate” cake.
Then, in April 2023, Newell objected to Gruver talking to sources on the phone while at her restaurant and began complaining about her reporting, the lawsuit says. In a contentious exchange of text messages, according to the lawsuit, Newell told Gruver she was not one to mess with.
News of police raiding a newsroom attracted international scrutiny. The Marion County Record continued to publish its weekly paper and report on the circumstances surrounding the raid.
Recent Record stories revealed additional allegations made against Cody by his former colleagues. A former internal affairs detective for the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department said he “lost count” of Cody’s violations. The detective asked not to be named.
“He has horrible, horrible ‘little man syndrome.’ His ego is taller than he is,” the detective said.
What a way to entice young people to come to your church or endorse your religion by screaming hate and angry virtual at them. What a great way to save souls. What this really is meant to show what they think is their superior morals and showcase their bigotry / hate. It is driven by right wing media anti-LGBTQIA propaganda. It is fueled by conservative preachers that can not adjust to the modern age, preferring a time when only cis straight people who dressed more modestly were in public and young people deferred to adults as a normal practice. Hugs
AUSTIN (KXAN) — As students were released from McCallum High School Tuesday afternoon, the district confirms roughly eight people stood outside with anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion signs.
“The protesters were on the sidewalk but were blocking the buses, so they were asked to move,” a spokesperson for AISD said. “Austin ISD Police officers were on-site to ensure everyone’s safety, and the protesters left after about an hour.”
KXAN does not share photos or videos of possible hate speech as standard practice, which is why we have not included photos in this story and blurred signs in the video above.
“Instead we need to be standing up and saying that everyone belongs, and this is a community for everyone,” said Council Member Alison Alter of District 10.
Alter said the goal is twofold: One, to make reporting a hate crime easier and two, to connect people with resources and support.
“{The We All Belong website} tells you when to call 911, when to use IReport,” Alter said. “Not every hate crime or hate incident is the same, but people do need to report.”
You can also partner with the city to host a pop-up event through the program. The city will provide materials and messaging for the event. You can apply to host an event here. Some funding is available.
“Take action in the form of having those hard community conversations or creating a space where people can come together and celebrate,” Alter said. She continued: “Fight hate with love, fight hate with light.”
The district said school counselors will be on standby for students at McCallum upset about the Tuesday incident.
This shows just how stupid the anti-trans movement has become. In the republican debate last night, one of the republican governors was asked why he signed an anti-trans in sports bill when there was not one trans student in the state on a sports team or wanting to be on one. He was asked if it was a cause fishing for a reason to be. These anti-trans people have gone from saying men by simply being born male are superior just for that. Now it goes to saying that people born males are superior mentally simply by being born male. Misogyny anyone? All the science says by the end of one year of transitioning males lose most if not all of the advantages they may have had and by two years they are actually at a disadvantage. The famous case the anti-trans women in female sports people like to cite is Lia Thomas and the terf signature anti-trans victim Riley Gaines. Gaines went on every right wing media to say she was cheated out of her titles by Thomas, a trans woman. What those right wing media did not tell the viewers is that both tied for fifth and were beaten by four other cisgender women. But she wouldn’t have gotten fame for hating on the four women who beat her so she had to attack the one trans-woman in the swim meet. This is more of the same stupidity. Hugs
Last week, FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs), the international chess governing body, introduced new regulations that, among other things, essentially ban trans women from FIDE-sanctioned women’s tournaments and jeopardize the safety of all trans chess players. The news wasn’t widely reported until yesterday, shocking many notable chess players across the globe.
In their regulation posting, FIDE (pronounced FEE-day) wrote that the participation of transgender players is “an evolving issue in chess” and these new regulations may be changed in the future “in line with research evidence” (it’s not really clear what this is supposed to mean, however.)
I’m gonna walk y’all through how absurd and unnecessary this all comes across to competitive chess players, but because I understand there’s very little context for folks who don’t play competitive chess, it would be wise to answer some of the questions I’m sure have come to mind for those unfamiliar.
For example, I’m sure y’all are wondering: why are there women’s tournaments?
Competitive chess is notorious for being a predominantly-male world. This is not because boys and men are naturally better at chess. It’s primarily because competitive chess has historically excluded and otherwise marginalized women and girls. It wasn’t until the past few decades that sexism in the culture of competitive chess was confronted, and even now, problems persist.
One of those problems is sexual harassment and assault. This year, prominent U.S. grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez was finally investigated after he was accused of assaulting more than half a dozen women and girls, with incidents going back to 2016.
Action was only taken after the insistent advocacy of Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion and one of the most well-known chess celebrities in the United States.
Ms. Shahade had been sounding the alarm for years, and even with her considerable influence, chess authorities (virtually all men) were reluctant to take action.
And yet, this is still a problem! This week, Chess.com (the world’s leading website for chess competition and news) announced it would be cutting ties with the St. Louis Chess Club after it failed to investigate Ms. Shahade’s claims back in 2020.
St. Louis Chess Club in Missouri is widely considered the nation’s preeminent club after philanthropist Rex Sinquefield started poured tens of millions of dollars back in 2007 and successfully lobbied to get the World Chess Hall of Fame moved to the area. It’s also where Ramirez has primarily spent his professional career, as both a coach and grandmaster-in-residence.
Essentially, for the world of chess, this situation would be like ESPN cutting ties with the New York Yankees after the club failed to investigate numerous allegations of sexual misconduct against the team captain.
Again and again, the message to women and girls in chess has been they are not as welcome as their male colleagues and do not deserve equal support.
Back in March of this year, there was significant controversy at the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix after several players withdrew, in part, because of an astonishing lack of organization by tournament organizers, something that would never occur at a tournament predominantly played by male elite players.
There’s another reason that the world of competitive chess is predominantly male: as with so many other areas of life, women are far less likely to participate due to time-consuming labor such as caregiving. It’s very common to see fathers of school-age children play competitive chess; it’s rare to see mothers in tournaments.
All of this amounts to a competitive playing environment that is far more accessible to boys and men, and it shows. In 2020, FIDE stated that just under 10 percent of its members are girls and women, the vast majority of them being girls under 18.
Ms. Shahade, who has built a sterling reputation in the chess world over the past two decades, has emphasized that girls in chess typically stop playing around 12 or 13 because of the lack of social or parental support.
Because chess is an intense, skill-based discipline, it almost always takes many years to reach the highest levels of competition, and it’s nearly impossible for adults to pick up the game and reach that level. Starting young is essential, and if girls aren’t supported or are sexually harassed or otherwise feel unwelcome, they leave the world of competitive chess, and we lose yet another potential future champion.
Thus, tournaments that are restricted to girls and women have become essential spaces for the development of great players. It doesn’t mean girls and women don’t play in open tournaments (meaning, tournaments open to all genders)—nearly every girl or woman in competitive chess does—but gender-restricted spaces offer safety and dignity and community to learn and grow in the discipline.
This is the same reason for women-only titles. What are titles? Y’all have heard of “grandmaster,” right? That’s a title. It’s earned through a complicated system based on consistent excellence in competitive play. Most chess players will never come close to earning a title. It is exceedingly difficult.
There are four “open” titles (open to all genders), descending in order of difficulty to obtain: grandmaster (GM), international master (IM), FIDE master (FM), and candidate master (CM).
There are also four titles restricted to girls and women: woman grandmaster (WGM), woman international master (WIM), woman FIDE master (WFM), and woman candidate master (WCM).
Gender-restricted titles were introduced to encourage girls and women to stick with competitive chess and recognizing that girls and women face unfair obstacles in their development that are not experienced by men.
It’s important to emphasize that women and girls can earn any of these titles, and some girls and women choose to only earn the open titles and reject the gender-restricted titles. On the other hand, many prominent women players, including Ms. Shahade, a WGM, have encouraged their use to motivate girls to stay with the game.
While it’s understandable that some feminists would be incredulous that there are woman-only titles, it needs to be understood, again, that the world of competitive chess has been historically hostile to girls and women to the point that gender-restricted titles have sustained some participation.
An unfortunate byproduct of this system is that outsiders who are already under the false impression that males have a biological advantage in chess ability perceive the gender-restricted titles and tournaments as confirmation of their perception.
To be clear: there is no evidence that boys and men have a biological advantage in chess. None. Zilch. The belief that girls and women can’t compete with boys and men in chess is deeply rooted in sexism. It holds no water.
I repeat: the reason girls and women are rare at the most elite level of competitive chess is not because of biological aptitude but because of very low rates of participation due to a lack of social support.
I have been playing competitive chess (tournament chess), off and on, since I was a 12 year-old in 6th grade. I won probably a dozen or so tournaments when I was a kid, including a state championship. I am also a trans woman, and I’m telling y’all: trans women do not enjoy a particular advantage in chess ability.
I have played in three women-only tournaments: the 2019 and 2021 U.S. Women’s Opens and the 2021 World Open Women’s Championship. I got my ass kicked in all three tournaments. Soundly. I lost nearly 70 percent of my games. I never came close to even being within shouting distance of placing or winning a prize.
Compare that with my win rate of just over 50 percent of games in open tournaments; I have literally had far more success in tournaments that included men than in tournaments restricted to women.
I am not a bad player. I’m not an amazing player, but I’m decent. I can typically hold my own with a good opponent. But the cisgender girls and women who beat me at these tournaments—including a 9 year-old who didn’t break a sweat—were quite simply better players.
Beyond being transphobic, it is deeply sexist to claim that any person assigned male at birth has a natural aptitude in chess over any player assigned female at birth. The overwhelming majority of chess players understand that chess ability isn’t based on biology, which is why this strikes us as bonkers.
Here’s the kicker, and this is something you’re not going to see in any new reports about this: no trans woman has ever won a FIDE-sanctioned women’s tournament.
It has never happened. This is a “problem” that not only lacks merit but whose premise has never existed.
And there are trans women who do compete at a professional level in women-only tournaments. For example, Yoshe Iglesias of France is a FIDE Master; she’s also the highest rated trans player in the world. She has never won a women’s tournament.
Natalia Vives of Spain (another FIDE Master) and Morgen Mills of Canada (a Woman FIDE Master) represented their countries in the 2008 and 2022 Women Olympiads, respectively. Neither of their teams made it into the Top 10, but moreover, neither of these women had great performances.
Vives won two games out of nine rounds in her Olympiad, and Mills won five games out of 11 rounds in hers.
Strangely, the Wikipedia article for Vives states that she was the runner-up in the 2008 Women’s Olympiad (this is false; Spain did not do well) and the runner-up in the 2008 Catalonia Women’s Championship (I was unable to find evidence for this).
So, there you have it: the closest any trans woman has come to winning a FIDE women-only tournament is a spurious claim that one of the few trans women competing at a high level was a runner-up in a tournament 15 years ago.
I am, of course, hurt over the intentional and unnecessary exclusion of trans women, but I also feel angry on the part of my cisgender sisters in chess who are being insulted by the men who run FIDE and never seem to miss an opportunity to denigrate the ability of women in chess.
There’s another issue here to point out: in these new regulations, FIDE reserves the right to inform tournament organizers that a player is transgender (outing them) and to intentionally mark a transgender player in the FIDE database (again, outing them).
So, for no good reason, if a player is transgender and doesn’t wish to be out, FIDE is essentially banning them from competitive chess. Transgender players, particularly girls and women, are being forced to decide between transgender and being a chess player.
Folks, this is all completely batshit. It is an intentional effort by the leadership of FIDE to marginalize transgender players in competition. I am already hearing from some trans players who are unsure if they’re going to continue with competitive chess, especially with the safety risk.
Ms. Iglesias is currently preparing for the French Women’s Championship, a FIDE-sanctioned tournament that begins tomorrow. FIDE did not give her notice of these new regulations, which go into effect on Monday. She’s not even sure she’ll be permitted to compete.
It’s worth noting that Ms. Shahade, who has been the single greatest advocate for women in chess in the United States, led the way in the U.S. Chess Federation adopting fully trans-inclusive policies back in 2018. No trans woman has ever won a USCF-sanctioned women’s tournament.
“FIDE’s transgender policy is ridiculous and dangerous,” she told me over text. “It’s obvious they didn’t consult with any transgender players in constructing it. It’s also sinister timing that this comes out just as chess is finally reckoning with sexual assault and harassment in chess highlighting the links between misogyny and transphobia is. I strongly urge FIDE to reverse course on this and start from scratch with better consultants.”
Amen.
Hi, I’m Charlotte Clymer, and this is Charlotte’s Web Thoughts, my Substack. It’s completely free to access and read, but it’s also how my bills! So, please do kindly consider upgrading to a paid subscription: just $7/month or save money with the $70/annual sub. You can also go way above and beyond by becoming a Lifetime Member at $250.
Nearly half of all LGBTQ+ youth feel unsafe in school settings, and over half said they had been bullied due to their queer identities, a new report from the Human Rights Campaign(HRC) found.
But even though over half of queer respondents also showed signs of anxiety and depression, majorities of LGBTQ+ youth have also come out to their families and feel hopeful for the future nonetheless.
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RELATED STORIESAnti-LGBTQ+ legislation is making 66% of queer youth more anxious & suicidal
A recent survey suggested several ways to help LGBTQ+ youth, too.
The HRC’s 2023 LGBTQ+ Youth Report surveyed over 13,000 LGBTQ+ youth between the ages of 13 and 17, from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Approximately 54% of transgender and gender-expansive youth and 46% of LGBQ+ youth surveyed said that they felt unsafe in at least one school setting. Nearly 60% of all LGBTQ+ youth said that they had been “teased, bullied, or treated badly” at school over their LGBTQ+ identities.
Only one in five LGBTQ+ youth reported school bullying to a school staff member. While 23.3% of these kids said the adult “didn’t help me at all,” 20.0% said the adult “helped me a lot.”
Additionally, 55.1% of survey respondents screened positive for depression, 63.5% screened positive for depression, and 64.7% rated their ability to manage stress as “fair” or “poor.” These rates were on average five points higher for transgender and gender-expansive youth. 48.9% of LGBTQ+ youth had received therapy in the prior year.
The HRC noted that these findings have likely been affected by the spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation nationwide. During the most recent legislative session, 10 have passed transphobic “bathroom bills,” 23 states have passed transphobic “sports bans,” six have passed “forced outing” bills requiring schools to out trans and gender-expansive youth to their parents, and six have passed “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” bills banning queer content from classrooms.
Despite this, 90.3% of LGBTQ+ youth said they were proud to be part of the LGBTQ+ community, and nearly 83% of queer youth said that they had come out to at least one member of their immediate family.
Trans and gender-expansive youth who feel free to express their gender identity around their families and those whose family members use their correct pronouns and names also reported the lowest levels of depression and anxiety among trans and gender-expansive youth.
Additionally, 56.8% of LGBTQ+ youth said they somewhat or strongly agree that “the LGBTQ+ community is accepted more and more every day.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.
More than 20 members of Congress want to join a federal lawsuit to help protect Gov. Greg Abbott’s buoy barrier in the Rio Grande, referencing Noah’s Ark and questioning if the river can be considered a “navigable waterway” despite being the fourth largest river in North America.
In a motion filed on behalf of U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, and other GOP members, lawyers for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation have asked to be part of the case and targeted how a key law is interpreted in it.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Abbott last month for deploying a 1,000-foot buoy barrier in the Rio Grande without first getting permission from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers as required by the federal Rivers and Harbors Act.
From their amicus brief:
Indeed, if one takes the Book of Genesis literally, then the entire world was once navigable by boats large enough to carry significant amounts of livestock. Under the federal government’s theory, these anecdotes would render any structure built anywhere in Texas an obstruction to navigation subject to federal regulation.
Arrington was among the 126 Republican House reps who voted to overturn the 2020 election.
NEW: Republicans are invoking Noah’s Ark in court to defend Greg Abbott’s border buoys in the Rio Grande
It is all part of their questioning of whether the federal government can really classify the Rio Grande as a federal navigable river despite it being the 4th largest river in North America
Texas Gov Abbott has installed circular saws between the Rio Grande border buoys to maim or kill anyone who attempts to climb over. Two bodies have already been found trapped in the floating barrier.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is under fire for installing buoys with “circular saws” in the Rio Grande along the U.S.-Mexican border. Mexican authorities say two people have died. pic.twitter.com/it5helvFYS
We filled more than 300 pages in a legal brief explaining — in detail — why Texas can use the floating barriers that we have placed in the Rio Grande River. https://t.co/mFLhNZk6UN
The cruelty is always the point. And the point is always pointless. By their lack of reason, anytime there’s a flood, no one can do a thing about it, because Noah has an ark.
Dumb Idiot Ham has something like this in his putrid attractions. There’s a placard at his “museum” claiming that it was OK for anyone to commit incest back then because it was a way for humans to produce children like rabbits in the mythical Pre-Flood world.
From that same book in their bible they’re always so fond of quoting to condemn LGBT’s,
“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
If we’re going to use the Bible to justify drowning and killing people looking for a better life, it’s important to remember that Jesus first and foremost commanded us to treat others as we want to be treated. Moreover, the Bible is full of verses telling us we should help the poor, needy, and strangers.
None of the things you mention there seem very christian, not in my experience. All I remember is bootstraps, poor people are bad and queers rot in a lake of fire for eternity. They are quite adamant about all of that. Then it gets weird.
Most of the stuff that the fundies rally around is from the Old Testament, even though Jesus said to ignore all the old teachings (which is why the Christians think it’s okay to eat pork).
An independent state of Texas would last for about 15 minutes. Then the power would go out and the cartels would take control. Texas would be reabsorbed into Mexico. Past is prologue.
The Texas Republicans have gerrymandered and dirty tricked their way into staying in power, even though they don’t actually have majority support anymore. It’s a very divided state that remains in the hands of lunatics, for now. Eventually the majority will just be too big to suppress anymore, and it will flip.
Please forgive me, This is not how I wanted to start this post. Earlier I had a great plan and took pictures, and was so happy I was kind of humming to my self. Then as I sat down to do this post when on the other computer screen came a video I shouldn’t have watched, I should have shut down. It was a news station report on two young boys fostered (me adopted) and the physical abuse they suffered. They suffered no sexual abuse, but the descriptions of the physical abuse sent all my former great happy thoughts fleeing as I totally understood their thoughts they might die and their struggles with the pain inflicted on them, I started to cry and shake and then damn it the vortex came. It howled and tried to consume me, I floundered looking for something some handle, anything in my mind to grab so it wouldn’t take me and I could with stand it. Fight it off.
I put music on the other computer, wiping off the abuse video, I have no idea the songs I can not think on them. The screen says the best soft rock of the 70s,80s,90s. But I am calming down, remembering what I wanted to post, the great idea I have. I must stop sobbing, Ron must not come out and see me like this. Such a great day, great week, and yet …
By my dogs that love gravy I wonder how my heart, my body can take these sudden panics, the mental sounds of the vortex coming for me, my body’s desperate attempt to flee or just to curl up in a ball and let it happen. My heart rate is again down to 76. According to my Apple Watch that monitors it, my heart rate went to 158. Anyway. I am calm enough to do the post I wanted to do. But damn, I need to be more careful on the news I see coming across the many web feeds. But I did not select the video, I was watching a new channel on the fires in Hawaii.
I want to just add that I was one step from activating the emergency Scottie needs help signal. That is to Randy. For those that never followed my old blog I had a breakdown in 2014. I started self harming again and was trapped in my head by the vortex, reliving my childhood abuse. I won’t and sorry can not describe it, but Randy who was working long night shifts keep his phone on all the time, called me repeatedly if he did not hear from me, texted me, and took hours long phone calls from me desperately trying to stop the nightmares in my head from the memories. He went without sleep so many days just to be there for me. When I say Randy is the best brother ever, I mean it, and that is part of the reason why. It is not an exaggeration to say that after drawing a sharp knife or razor blade across my skin drawing blood instead of doing it again I would reach out to Randy instead. It got to where instead of the blades, I reached for him. Anyway those days are past now. For good I hope. Yet it still gets scary sometimes.
Ok Ron got up, kept asking me what was wrong, I denied anything was wrong and told him my allergies were acting up. He seemed like he was going to pursue it but then dropped it, and I am glad. I just don’t want to deal with all that now at this time. I am trying hard to let the past sink back in to the deep depths of the deepest part of the ocean in a chest wrapped in many layers of big chains, weighted down by as many happier thoughts as I can push against it.
Ok my head is clearing and I want to do the happy bread post I started to do. Hugs to all who want them. Scottie
WATCH: “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no?”🤔😳
Desantis/FLORIDA’s Ed Dept approved Prager U indoctrination videos to be taught (Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens as narrators) which teach kids slavery was better than the alternative: https://t.co/cJWcVLiiUWpic.twitter.com/Hng5fsg8r8
Florida’s latest curriculum—featuring cartoon Christopher Columbus explaining, “being taken as a slave is better than being killed!” and telling time-traveling kids that slavery was “no big deal.”
This is the kind of propaganda DeSantis and his friends at PragerU are teaching… pic.twitter.com/wPY8USFzhQ
Weird. Why are these white supremacist fascists upset about being identified as white supremacist fascists. No white fascist pride? Patriot Front members sue activist who infiltrated, identified them. Kudos to the activist who infiltrated them! https://t.co/fZq3PxFkpv
By my dogs that love gravy this is so asinine I really doubted it could be true. First the trend by religious people to think they have the right to push their god and religious driven opinions on everyone else is increasing to a level that is stunning. That a judge thought it was OK for a religious Christian woman to spam and harass her co-workers with her church views and offensive pictures is also something I don’t understand. The judge was appointed by trump if that helps to understand she is a fundamentalist Christian nationalist. But what really scares me is the actions of the judge who went full fundamentalist Christian on the defendants to the point of forcing a religious indoctrination on them. HOW IS THAT LEGAL? Forcing a nonbeliever on threat of the court to not only attend forced religious indoctrination, but to also pay for it. Plus it seems a large part of the woman’s story was made up as it is becoming increasingly a tactic by religious fanatics to get their cases in court. Plus the religious hate group was no way involved with the case but the judge forced his fundamentalist views and support of the religious hate group to force them into the case. What has Texas and this country become? Hugs
The lawyers must take religious freedom classes from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the right-wing Christian group that has systematically rolled back civil liberties.
KENT NISHIMURA/LOS ANGELES TIMES/GETTY IMAGES
Kristen Waggoner, president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, speaks to members of the press outside the Supreme Court on December 5, 2022.
A Trump-appointed Texas judge has ordered three senior Southwest Airlines lawyers to take eight hours of “religious-liberty training” from the far-right Christian hate group Alliance Defending Freedom.
In his late Monday ruling, U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr specifically mandated the lawyers take the training as part of court-ordered sanctions for religious discrimination. He described ADF as one of several “esteemed non-profit organizations that are dedicated to preserving free speech and religious freedom.” The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated ADF as an extremist hate group.
The mandated hate-group training is the latest phase of a lawsuit brought by flight attendant Charlene Carter, who sued Southwest for firing her in 2017 after she sent confrontational anti-abortion messages to her union’s former president. Carter argued she had been discriminated against based on her religious beliefs, and U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr sided with her in December, ordering she be reinstated.
Starr, who was appointed by Donald Trump in 2019, also ordered Southwest to issue a statement telling its employees that the airline “may not” engage in religious discrimination against them. Instead, Southwest said that it “does not” do so, prompting Carter to demand additional sanctions against the company.
Carter had made no request for Southwest to undergo religious liberty training. ADF is not representing Carter, nor is it otherwise related to the case at all, so it’s unclear why Starr felt the need to involve the group.
It’s hard to overstate ADF’s role in rolling back civil liberties. One of its lead lawyers is Erin Hawley, who is married to far-right Senator Josh Hawley. ADF helped overturn Roe v. Wade and then sued to remove mifepristone, one of the drugs used in medication abortions, from the national market. That case is still in limbo, as the Fifth Circuit Court has yet to issue a ruling.
ADF also represented the plaintiff in the recent Supreme Court case 303 Creative v. Elenis. Web designer Lorie Smith was suing to have the right to refuse services to LGBTQ people. The design request she claims she received that prompted her suit appears to have been entirely fabricated.
The judge, a Federalist Society member, worked for Texas AG Ken Paxton before being appointed to the federal bench by Trump in 2019.
NEWS: Federal judge in Texas orders airline lawyers to take "religious-liberty training" from the extremist advocacy organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, in issuing sanctions in an employment case on Monday. https://t.co/onHycu5zmfpic.twitter.com/WE6cuJDr5d
If upheld, Trump Judge Brantley Starr's order would let courts force lawyers to undergo religious indoctrination sessions from an extremist group that may well contradict their own deeply held spiritual beliefs and freedom of speech. This cannot possibly be legal.
Yes, this is even worse than the state requiring attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous, which many courts have held violates the Establishment Clause:
A number of state Supreme Court and federal circuit court cases–including Arnold v. Tennessee Board of Paroles (1997), Griffin v. Coughlin (New York, 1996), Warner v. Orange County Dep’t. of Probation (2nd Cir. 1997), Rauser v. Horn (3rd Cir. 2001), and Kerr v. Farrey (7th Cir. 1996)– have defined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and other treatment programs based on AA’s 12 steps as religious in nature.
Yeah, and I also wondered how it was legal for the State of Florida to contract out supervision of those on probation to a group like The Salvation Army, but it has been that way in several FL counties for a very long time.
While the rest of the country wasn’t paying attention, evangelical Christianity became the de facto national religion. Expect the US Supreme Court to make it official any day.
1. Wear rainbow shirts, pro-choice shirts, etc. 2. Put on headphones the entire time, browse phone. 3. See how long you can hold up a middle finger during the lecture.
I followed the link to this article from Ten Bears post. This is a serious plan from the republican right wingers to weaponize the government against their enemies just like the Jim Jordan / Matt Gaetz / Boebert types keep screaming that the left is doing. The difference is Biden is keeping hands off of the DOJ, letting justice be the rule of law. Instead the right has the plans below to target and attack those who have different opinions while allowing themselves to break the laws at will. Hugs
The thrice-indicted former president and his allies have long been drawing plans to undo Smith’s investigations, as well as to punish everyone involved
A man with a plan [that’s deeply corrosive to the rule of law] JEFF SWENSEN/GETTY IMAGES
DONALD TRUMP IS a long, long way from winning the GOP primary, let alone retaking the White House. But he always has revenge on his mind, and his allies are preparing to use a future administration to not only undo all of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work — but to take vengeance on Smith, and on virtually everyone else, who dared investigate Trump during his time out of power.
Rosters full of MAGAfied lawyers are being assembled. Plans are being laid for an entire new office of the Justice Department dedicated to “election integrity.” An assembly line is being prepared of revenge-focused “special counsels” and “special prosecutors.” Gameplans for making Smith’s life hell, starting in Jan. 2025, have already been discussed with Trump himself. And a fresh wave of pardons is under consideration for Trump associates, election deniers, and — the former president boasts — for Jan. 6 rioters.
The preparations have been underway since at least last year, with Trump being briefed on the designs by an array of attorneys, political and policy advisers, former administration officials, and other allies. The aim is to build a government-in-waiting with the hard-right infrastructure needed to turn the Justice Department into an instrument of Trump’s agenda, according to five sources familiar with these matters and another two people briefed on them.
Trump’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
One idea that has caught thrice-indicted former president’s attention in recent months is the creation of the so-called “Office of Election Integrity,” which would be a new unit inside the Justice Department. It would be tasked not only with relitigating Trump’s lies about his 2020 election loss, but also with aggressively pursuing baseless allegations of election “fraud” (including in Democratic strongholds) in ways that Trumpist partisans believe the department has only flirted with in the past.
This idea was recently pitched to Trump by a longtime Republican activist and an attorney who’s known the ex-president for years, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. (Republican officials have also begun voicing their own support for state-level offices of election integrity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made the proposal a reality in his state. Officials in Tennessee, Missouri, and Wisconsin have proposed the offices, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, proposed a similarly named office.)
And when it comes to Special Counsel Smith’s office — which just handed Trump his third indictment, this one related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election — the former president and his fellow travelers already know what they want: They want the FBI and DOJ to name names.
This year, close advisers to Trump have begun the process of assembling lists of the names of federal personnel who have investigated the former president and his circle for years, and are attempting to unmask the identities of all the DOJ attorneys and others connected to Smith’s office. The obvious purpose of this, according to one source close to Trump, is to “show them the door on Day 1 [if Trump’s reelected]” — and so “we know who should receive a subpoena” in the future.
Such subpoenas would of course be instrumental in Trumpland’s vows to its voters that, should he return to power, Trump and his new attorney general will launch a raft of their own retaliatory “special counsel” and “special prosecutor” probes to investigate-the-investigator, and to go after their key enemies. As it were, Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official and a central figure in Trump’s efforts to subvert the legitimate 2020 presidential election results, has been on Trump’s informal shortlist for plum assignments, including even attorney general, in a potential second administration.
Sources familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone that Trump and his close ideological allies — working at an assortment of MAGA-prone think tanks, advocacy organizations, and legal groups — are formulating plans for a wide slate of “special prosecutors.” In this vision, such prosecutors would go after the usual targets: Smith, Smith’s team, President Joe Biden, Biden’s family, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI director Christopher Wray. But they’d also go after smaller targets, from members of the Biden 2020 campaign to more obscure government offices.
“There are almost too many targets to keep track of,” says one Trump adviser familiar with the discussions. Trump and members of his inner orbit have already outlined possible legal strategies, examining specific federal statutes they could wield in a Republican-controlled Justice Department to go after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who delivered Trump’s first indictment of this year.
The FBI’s investigation of over a thousand rioters who breached and trashed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — officially the largest criminal investigation in Justice Department history — is another area where Trump has stated he would like to reverse course. “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” Trump told host Kaitlan Collins during a CNN town hall in May.
When the broader topic of possible second-term pardons has come up behind closed doors, Trump has at times said that such pardons should be signed at the start of the term, not saved for the later on, according to those who’ve heard him discuss it since last year. Aside from the rioters themselves, Trump has also privately floated issuing a wave of pardons to higher-ranking figures who were scrutinized in Special Counsel Smith’s two main investigations.
“This would be like hitting the delete-key on all of DOJ’s work on these investigations,” a person intimately familiar with the conversations toldRolling Stone in March. In the past several months, when confidants have quipped to Trump that he may have to “pardon yourself,” should he return to the Oval Office, the ex-president has sometimes simply smirked and replied that they’ll have to wait and see.
Another major focus of some of these counter-probes would be “grand jury violations,” says one person familiar with the matter. The counter-probe of those alleged “violations” is the surest sign yet that in a second Trump administration, the Justice Department would seek to investigate the special counsel’s use of grand juries in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases. (Indeed, Trump has already vowed to sic a special counsel on President Biden if he beats him in 2024.)
Some of these “special prosecutors” wouldn’t even be based out of the Justice Department, as special counsels typically are. In some of these private Trumpworld legal plans, some of the “special counsels” would be based out of places like the White House. This idea is nearly identical to the controversial position that Trumpist lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell tried to convince then-President Trump to give her in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Some lawyers and operatives close to Trump have pitched themselves for these kinds of roles, telling either Trump or some of his closest advisers that they’d be more than happy to take the gig in Trump’s possible return to power in 2025.
And along with having dreams of sweeping retribution and purges, the upper ranks of Trumpworld have spent years putting together projects to vet and prepare a new generation of appointments — for “special prosecutor” posts, as well as much else — and administrative talent.
In this informal vetting for Justice Department candidates, former senior Trump aides and well-connected activists have sought lawyers with a track record of loathing DOJ, particularly what they deem its supposedly “liberal,” “left-wing,” or “Marxist” elements. Between these different Trump allies, different private spreadsheets have been created in recent years, some laying out dozens of possible contenders, while some include upwards of a hundred names, sources with direct knowledge of the situation say. Former top Trump White House policy adviser Stephen Miller and other key Trump diehards have contributed names to several of these lists.
Rolling Stone has reviewed one of these internal spreadsheets that has circulated among Trump lieutenants, and the roster is heavy on individuals connected to America First Legal, the Center for Renewing America, and other Trump-backing entities.
Prominent allies of the former president are open about plans to tie the Justice Department more tightly to the White House.
“I recall talking to a senior official in the Trump administration, who said after all of [these investigations] are over, we’ve got to think of a way to bring the Justice Department back into the government,” says Tom Fitton, president of the conservative nonprofit Judicial Watch and a close ally of the former president.
The Justice Department has typically enjoyed a degree of insulation from White House control, a norm aimed at avoiding the politicization of prosecution. But Fitton argues that the department should be more “responsive” to a president’s priorities, a belief that Trump and various influential conservatives embrace enthusiastically. “Is the Justice Department going to operate as an entity outside the White House as opposed to an entity that’s controlled by the president, as the Constitution requires?” he says.
Putting it another way: “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” Russ Vought, a former top Trump official who heads the Center for Renewing America, toldThe New York Times in a story published last month.
“I think there’s an argument that what the Justice Department’s doing to Trump now is criminal,” Fitton tells Rolling Stone, suggesting — of course — that a future administration should launch an investigation into Special Counsel Smith’s work.
Fitton also says the department should revisit Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the FBI probe of the Trump campaign in 2016. Durham, he argues, was a “failure” and acted only as “a glorified inspector general.”
Once, Special Counsel Durham was supposed to be Trumpworld’s savior, someone who Trump, his allies on Capitol Hill, and large swaths of conservative media were counting on to expose and imprison “Deep State” foes. But when the Durham probe ended earlier this year with lackluster results for a vengeance-hungry GOP, he became much less a hero and more a cautionary tale to the right.
As one conservative lawyer who has discussed “special prosecutor” ideas with Trump in recent months tells Rolling Stone, the guiding principle of this project is simple: “No more John Durham’s — never again.”
