The only thing bring abusive cops to justice, to prevent abuse of blacks by racist cops is the videos that came out. The cop that enjoyed killing George Floyd wouldn’t have been found guilty without that video that showed him smirking and knowing killing a man. So the right wing racist in office want to protect those abusive cops and let the abuse by the police continue. This has to stop. The love that the blacks are treated like an occupied people and that police harm minorities. One state tried and I think did pass a law that made it illegal to insult a cop. WTF! Are they that fragile in their military gear they can not take an insult? Hugs
Critics say the law gives police too much discretion.
The same week that a federal judge sentenced ex-cop Derek Chauvin to more prison time for killing George Floyd, Arizona passed a law making it harder to record police by limiting how close bystanders can be while recording specified law enforcement activity. Chauvin was convicted in part because a recording showing his attack on Floyd at close proximity went viral. It was filmed by a teenager named Darnella Frazier while she was standing “a few feet away.”
The new Arizona law requires any bystanders recording police activity in the state to stand at a minimum of 8 feet away from the action. If bystanders move closer after police have warned them to back off, they risk being charged with a misdemeanor and incurring fines of up to $500, jail time of up to 30 days, or probation of up to a year.
Sponsored by Republican state representative John Kavanagh, the law known as H.B. 2319 makes it illegal to record police at close range. In a USA Today op-ed, Kavanagh said it is important to leave this buffer for police to protect law enforcement from being assaulted by unruly bystanders. He said “there’s no reason” to come closer and predicted tragic outcomes for those who do, saying, “Such an approach is unreasonable, unnecessary, and unsafe, and should be made illegal.”
This week, Kavanagh has succeeded in making close-range recording illegal in Arizona, with only a few exceptions. Perhaps most critically, the person involved in the police activity—someone being questioned, arrested, or handled by police—can record, as long as it doesn’t interfere with police actions. The same exception extends to anyone recording while in a vehicle involved in a police stop.
Additionally, anyone recording activity from an enclosed structure on private property still has a right to record police within 8 feet—unless law enforcement “determines that the person is interfering” or “it is not safe” for them to be in the area. That caveat potentially gives police a lot of discretion over who can record and when.
Kavanagh said he decided to push for this change in Arizona law after some Tucson officers complained that bystanders sometimes stood a foot or two behind them while recording arrests. The state representative also told USA Today that his decision to set the minimum distance at 8 feet “is based upon 8 feet being established by the US Supreme Court as being a reasonable distance as they applied it to people entering and leaving abortion clinics when faced with protesters.”
Responding to critics who think citizens should be able to get closer to law enforcement activity, Kavanagh said, “The argument that filming from 8 feet away does not allow for a proper view of the scene is ridiculous.” He cited impactful police brutality recordings that were recorded from further distances, including Rodney King (100 feet) and Freddie Gray (“clearly 8 to 10 feet away”).
Concerns over constitutionality
Over the past decade, similar attempts to limit the recording of police activity have repeatedly been struck down as unconstitutional.
In 2011, a top US appeals court stopped police from arresting bystanders for supposedly “secretly” recording police activity, deeming the police action a violation of both free speech and guaranteed protections against unreasonable search and seizure. This established “a constitutionally protected right to videotape police.”
The next year, the US Department of Justice stated in a letter that recording police activity should only be “subject to narrowly defined restrictions,” praising the practice because it improves public confidence in law enforcement, helps ensure public safety, and holds police accountable. In 2017, a federal appeals court re-affirmed First Amendment rights to record police, saying that recordings both protect against abuse of power and exonerate wrongly accused cops.
Ahead of the law passing, Kavanagh was concerned about the constitutionality of his bill, especially after rules attorneys for the state House of Representatives told him it might be unconstitutional to apply the 8-foot buffer “to all police encounters.” To push the law through, Kavanagh amended the bill so that it “only applies to filming during police-citizen encounters where there is a potential for violence, such as arresting or summonsing people, questioning suspicious persons, and handling emotionally disturbed people.”
Kavanagh has expressed confidence that the new law will hold up against inquiries into its constitutionality. However, earlier this year, the ACLU of Arizona tweeted that “Not only is this bill a terrible idea, but it’s also unconstitutional” because it “places unnecessary burdens on folks and grants police too much discretion.”
Today, the ACLU of Arizona renewed those concerns, with staff attorney K.M. Bell saying that the law is a “chilling” use of the “public’s most effective tool against police wrongdoing in violation of our First Amendment rights.”
“By limiting our ability to record police interactions, this law will undoubtedly make it even more difficult to hold police officers accountable for misconduct,” Bell said in an emailed statement.
Kavanagh did not immediately respond to a request for comment on constitutional concerns now that the bill has passed. (Update: Kavanagh responded to add that “no sane person with good judgment walks a foot or two away from a police officer making an arrest,” unless they are “unbelievably naive or have other agendas.” He also said that videos taken from 8 feet away give “greater context” than close-range videos. He considers the ACLU argument to be “bogus” and expects the law to hold up if challenged in court.)
For now, bystanders recording Arizona police activity (as defined in the bill) will need to rely on their camera’s zoom capabilities if they want to follow in Frazier’s footsteps and capture close-up footage that holds police accountable. Her close-range video has been deemed “one of the most important civil rights documents in a generation” by journalists and documentarians.
Ah yes, the right wings favorite tool, lie, misdirect, and misinform. Accuse, slander, make false claims, and attack anyone / anything that doesn’t walk the right wing line. Again notice the wording used to describe even just being gay or supporting equality. Hugs
Facebook and Instagram both allowed anti-LGBTQ sentiment and misinformation to proliferate despite claiming to support the LGBTQ community during Pride Month, according to a pair of Media Matters reports released this week. Both social media platforms are owned by Meta, which publicly promotes its platforms as safe spaces for LGBTQ users.
Facebook enabled right-wing media to amplify anti-LGBTQ lies during Pride month, according to Media Matters. The progressive media watchdog group found that during the month of June, right-leaning pages posted about LGBTQ and Pride nearly 3,500 times and earned just under four million interactions.
“Facebook and its parent company Meta had eagerly promoted Pride Month, adding Pride features on the platform, claiming to amplify LGBTQ creators, and reiterating the company’s supposed commitment to supporting LGBTQ people and to eliminating hate speech targeting them. But Facebook has regularly failed to remove the dangerous and dehumanizing hate speech and misinformation targeting LGBTQ people coming from right-wing outlets, figures, and groups. And this Pride Month, under Facebook’s watch, posts that amplify longstanding, baseless, and dangerous rhetoric about the LGBTQ community proliferated across the platform,” the report found.
Pages run by right-wing media outlets TheBlaze, The Western Journal, and The Daily Wire, which regularly exploit Facebook’s algorithm, spread lies and fearmongering posts about Pride events and LGBTQ people “grooming children.” Similar anti-LGBTQ posts about Pride were also found all over right-wing Facebook groups both public and private.
“During Pride Month, Meta announced it was ‘celebrating pride’ by launching Pride-themed stickers and avatars, a Global LGBTQ+ Cultural Guide, and an LGBTQ+ Safety Hub,” the report on Instagram reads. “Despite Meta’s newly announced resources, Instagram has allowed its users to spread propaganda against the LGBTQ community — and even against the same individuals it’s publicly celebrating. In several cases, these are accounts dedicated to targeting LGBTQ people, while in others, these are accounts of right-wing media outlets and personalities who also push anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Many of these posts seem to violate Meta’s policies.”
Media Matters tracked a number of right-wing accounts on Instagram – including Libs of TikTok, which has become notorious on various social media platforms for posting anti-gay propaganda and encouraging followers to harass LGBTQ people – that have been allowed to post homophobic memes and disinformation to their hundreds of thousands of followers.
As Media Matters points out, the rise in anti-LGBTQ hate on social media has coincided with a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation in state houses across the U.S. as well as Pride events being targeted by extremist groups this summer. “The false narratives right-wing figures are spinning to support these bills are being projected through online platforms and news outlets and have already led to real-world harm.”
“While some queer users are profitable for Instagram, especially during the month of June, its ongoing failure to address accounts actively spreading harmful rhetoric against the LGBTQ community make the platform’s ‘Happy Pride’ messaging hollow,” the report concludes. “Once again, Meta is showing that it will prioritize the engagement that these high-profile right-wing accounts generated through hateful, lie-filled content, even when it leads to real-world harm and the degradation of LGBTQ rights and safety.”
LGBTQ Nation reached out to Meta for comment and will update this article if they respond.
Ah the republicans are salivating over this. They dream of going this far. We all knew this was coming in Russia where they are basically making being LGBTQ+ illegal. Just existing as a gay person will be against the laws. That is the end results of the don’t say gay bills. It has been a long time goal of the religious right to return the culture to the past where only white Christian cis males have right. I can not believe in a time where around the world the smaller right wing countries are opening up and recognizing gay rights as human rights two of the largest countries are hurting backwards and establishing theocracies. Notice the wording describing just showing gay people exist as propaganda and promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships. All to make seem gay people were trying to molest, groom, teach sex to kids. The current laws states anything LGBTQ+ can not be seen by minors and that means anywhere from online, TV / movies, public spaces, cars, anywhere a minor might be able to see it. Now they want to extend that to basically anywhere anyone could see it. The entire country is off limits to display or show anything positive about LGBTQ+ yet the hate groups can still attack those people freely. They are trying to make being non heterosexual and non cis illegal and open for attack. The law maker even bragged that attempt to legalize same sex marriage is a thing of the past. That is what the right salivates to happen here. In Russia when they tried democracy LGBTQ+ acceptance was becoming very supported by the public. Laws were being changed to be more accepting. Then the religious leaders went to Putin and offered to back him, install him as the countries leader if he gave them what they wanted. He agreed and the rest is history. It is a history being repeated in the US. Why does the right wing media love Russia / Putin? Why does Fox hosts praise authoritarians worldwide especially Putin? Because these leaders / countries are hurting the same groups they hate, giving their church official status in the government / laws. Please help us defeat these people and these red state hate laws. Hugs
Gay rights activists march in Russia’s second city of St. Petersburg May 1, 2013. (OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP via Getty)
Russia lawmakers have proposed extending the country’s existing “gay propaganda” law to include people of all ages later this year.
The existing legislation was signed by Vladimir Putin in 2013 and banned any “promotion” of “non-traditional sexual relationships” among minors. Anyone found guilty under the law can be sentenced to heavy fines or imprisonment.
But Alexander Khinshtein, chairman of the State Duma’s information committee, said the 2013 law for minors is now “insufficient”, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. He said lawmakers would consider pushing the legislation further to ban depictions of the LGBTQ+ community for “audiences of all ages” in the media and online.
“We propose to fully extend the ban on that sort of propaganda among audiences of all ages (offline, media outlets, the Internet, social media, as well as in cinema theaters),” Khinshtein wrote on Telegram.
Under the proposed changes, any event or act seen as an attempt to promote the LGBTQ+ community could incur a fine, Reuters reported.
Khinshtein said his committee will consider the proposed amendments and even imposing stricter punishments for any violations of the so-called “gay propaganda law” when they are back in session in the fall.
A demonstrator holds a poster depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin with make-up. (GERARD JULIEN/AFP via Getty)
Russia’s parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the country would be banning the promotion of “non-traditional value” since it broke ties with the Council of Europe, the continent’s foremost human rights watchdog.
“Demands to legalise same-sex marriages in Russia are a thing of the past,” Volodin said. “Attempts to impose alien values on our society have failed.”
Pastor Dillon Awes called for America to implement “the solution for the homosexual,” which is mass death.
Pastor Dillon Awes of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Hurst, Texas had a very specific call for violence against LGBTQ people in sermon from this weekend.
Entitled “Why We Won’t Shut Up,” his sermon was about “the solution for the homosexual,” which he said is murder.
“What does God say is the answer, is the solution, for the homosexual in 2022, here in the New Testament, here in the Book of Romans?” Awes asked. “That they are worthy of death! These people should be put to death!”
“Every single homosexual in our country should be charged with the crime, the abomination of homosexuality, that they have,” he continued. “They should be convicted in a lawful trial. They should be sentenced with death.”
“They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head! That’s what God teaches. That’s what the Bible says. You don’t like it? You don’t like God’s Word, because that is what God says.”
On Sunday, Christian hate-preacher Dillon Awes said that the government should execute every gay person. All of them.
"They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head! That's what God teaches. That's what the Bible says." pic.twitter.com/rMzF3BHSNF
Shelley made headlines last year when he said that he was happy that a gay person was killed at a Pride event.
“The Bible says that they’re worthy of death!” he said at the time. “They say, ‘Are you sad when f**s die?’ No. I think it’s great! I hope they all die! I would love it if every f*g would die right now.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center considers Stedfast Baptist Church to be a hate group.
With students in higher education avoiding florida and businesses considering moving / no locating here, and the US military saying they will relocate service members from states that do not honor their rights I wonder if the right / Republicans will care. It is going to hurt the sports teams and economy. Hugs
Florida School Board Requires Teachers to Out Trans Students
The ruling was made in the name of parents’ rights.
A school board in Florida approved a new policy last week that would require teachers to out transgender students, in the name of parents’ rights.
All four members of the Leon County School Board voted to implement a new “LGBTQ Inclusive School Guide” after a four hour meeting, according to reporting in the Tallahassee Democrat. Although the guide professes to respect the privacy rights of LGBTQ+ youth, it also contains provisions requiring schools to inform other children and their parents if they share a physical education class, athletic team, or overnight trip with a trans student.
“Upon notification or determination of a student who is open about their gender identity, parents of the affected students will be notified of reasonable accommodation options available,” the document reads. While clearly intended to refer to students who are openly trans and nonbinary, the euphemistic language could be interpreted to refer to all young people who have a gender identity. (Agender elite rise up, apparently.)
The guide does provide protections for students’ freedom of gender expression and access to gendered facilities, as well as the formation of GSA groups and same-sex couples’ right to attend school dances in clothing that expresses their identity. But students say the new guidelines — which come on the heels of Florida’s infamous new “Don’t Say Gay” law, passed with the stated intent of expanding parental authority over LGBTQ+ education — will have a chilling effect on LGBTQ+ safety in their schools.
“The notification to all the parents can create a very stressful and unwanted situation to trans and LGBTQ students,” explained Kailey Sandell, a Leon High student who spoke at the hearing. “A lot of times kids assume that kids are gay or trans; they will easily be able to hurt them.”
“Our schools have been ground zero for anti-LGBTQ vitriol this year.”
Another district student, Benjamin Burn, said the district should be focusing instead on preventing bullying and making more facilities gender-neutral. “Trans kids want privacy,” he said. “That’s what I want, that’s what everyone wants. And trans kids honestly deserve it.”
A school board passing an anti-LGBTQ+ policy is no surprise, given a new survey that found that less than 1% of school board members nationwide identify as queer or trans.
Thousands of students across the state have protested against “Don’t Say Gay” and efforts to strip rights and protections from their LGBTQ+ peers, with some Tallahassee students marching on the Florida Capitol building itself in March. With this harmful new development, it seems certain that Florida lawmakers haven’t seen the last of their state’s pro-trans student activists.
Donald Trump went full authoritarian at a speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, saying he regrets not taking over ‘Democrat-run’ cities and pledged he will not make the same mistake next time.
Texas has hurt itself with a closed electrical grid that they refuse to add to the national grid. If they did that they would have to follow federal rules for safety and reliability. They would rather have a broken system that creates more profit than an electrical grid that supplies dependable energy to the people. After the system failed for the second time and even more people died during the winter Governor Abbott promised to fix it, requiring expensiveupgrades so people wouldn’t face this again. But that did not happen, why? Well after he got a huge campaign contributions of over a million dollars from the energy profit makers he forgot the entire thing. I wonder why. Profit over the needs of the people. Hugs
The state’s grid operator asked that Texans voluntarily reduce their power use on Monday as the blistering heat continues, and said no rolling blackouts are expected this week.
Employees monitor the state power grid at the ERCOT command center in Taylor. Credit: REUTERS/Julia Robinson
With a punishing heat wave across Texas driving record high power demand, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas late Sunday sent out a request that Texans cut back on their energy use on Monday.
ERCOT, the state’s power grid operator, asked Texans to turn up their thermostats and postpone running major appliances between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Monday. ERCOT has also called on large electric customers to lower their electricity use.
Total forecasted power demand is expected to surpass 79 gigawatts on Monday, ERCOT said — which would set another record.
An ERCOT spokesperson told the Tribune Monday that the grid operator does not expect rolling blackouts this week.
Low winds are also making it harder for the grid to keep up with demand during hotter-than-usual July temperatures. Current projections show wind generation coming in less than 10% of its capacity on Monday, ERCOT said.
Winds in Texas often drop during the daytime, especially in the summer. ERCOT forecasts more wind power will be available to the grid on Tuesday.
Power grids must keep supply and demand in balance at all times. When Texas’ grid falls below its safety margin of excess supply, the grid operator starts taking additional precautions to avoid blackouts. The first precaution is to ask the public to cut back electricity usage.
In May, ERCOT asked Texans to conserve power during a heat wave that coincided with six power plant outages.
Texas is facing extreme heat conditions, with much of the state under temperatures above 100 degrees. As of Monday morning, the National Weather Service has issued heat advisories or excessive heat warnings for 154 of the state’s 254 counties. Some regions are breaking heat records: On Sunday, San Antonio saw the hottest temperatures on record in the city at 106 degrees, while Austin hit an all-time record high for July at 110 degrees.
Climate change has made Texas heat both hotter and longer lasting. The average daily minimum and maximum temperatures in Texas have both increased by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 125 years. The state just saw its hottest December on record since 1889.
I would think it would be kinda tough to manufacture electric cars in a state that doesn’t provide enough electricity. But what do I know? I ain’t no billionaire genius.
They were right: everything really *is* bigger in Texas. This includes the shortsightedness of their government for not taking early steps to fix the issues with the power grid.
They have a provider monopoly that is in good standing with the politicians along with congestion pricing of energy that inflates profits during such times. There isn’t much motivation to break the vicious cycle.
Texan Republicans have been working overtime dreaming up ways to penalize women who might want to have an abortion, but they still haven’t fixed the power grid that they’ve known is a problem for more than a decade.
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