Category: Anger
Black Transgender Woman FINALLY Gets Justice For Sham Arrest
“A federal jury ordered an Atlanta police officer to pay $1.5 million to Ju’Zema Goldring, who said she was profiled and falsely arrested for identifying as a Black, transgender woman. Goldring’s attorneys say she was walking with friends in October 2015 when two Atlanta Police Department officers stopped her for jaywalking, which Goldring denies she committed. Officers found a “stress ball” in her purse and tested it for cocaine. Goldring’s attorneys said officers charged Goldring with trafficking cocaine despite receiving a negative test result. Goldring spent nearly six months in jail. She was released when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation independently conducted a test, which attorneys said failed to detect cocaine. Attorneys also conducted tests in front of a jury at the trial.”
Fragile Nazis Throw Pathetic Temper Tantrum At Library
TX. Gov. Greg Abbott DEMONIZES Trans Children
“Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered state agencies to investigate reports of transgender kids receiving gender-affirming care as “child abuse,” but it’s unclear what immediate effect the directive will have on kids, teachers, doctors and parents. In a letter to the Department of Family and Protective Services sent Tuesday, Abbott said the agency “is responsible for protecting children from abuse.” He warned that educators, medical professionals and others who don’t report alleged abuse could face consequences. “Texas law imposes reporting requirements upon all licensed professionals who have direct contact with children who may be subject to such abuse, including doctors, nurses, and teachers, and provides criminal penalties for failure to report such child abuse,” Abbott said.”
Texas governor compares healthcare for trans kids to ‘child abuse’ in chilling attack
In a letter sent Tuesday (22 February), Abbott reminded the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that it is “responsible for protecting children from abuse” so must shield trans youth from treatment.
The Republican demanded the agency “to conduct prompt and thorough investigations of any reported instances of Texas children being subjected to abusive gender-transitioning procedures”.
Doctors and nurses, he said in the directive, could face jail time for failing to report such care and said parents and guardians should also incur criminal penalties for pursuing treatment on behalf of their trans children.
Abbott’s intervention signalled Texas‘ clearance intent yet to erase trans youth, with treatments such as puberty blockers, that researchers say is “life-saving,” being dubbed “monstrous” by the attorney general Ken Paxton.
On Monday, Paxton issued a 13-page legal opinion under the category “child abuse” providing public officials with a justification to hammer down on trans healthcare.
While an attorney general’s opinion does not carry the force of law and is just advisory, state officials are expected to take them into account in their decision-making.
“Sex-change operations and puberty blockers prescribed by kids is ‘child abuse’ under Texas law,” Paxton tweeted.
“These procedures are monstrous and tragic,” he tweeted before quoting his statement: “I’ll do everything I can to protect against those who take advantage of and harm young Texans.”
Paxton said that “it remains medically impossible to truly change the sex of an individual because this is determined biologically at conception”, a claim that Abbott said he agrees with.
Paxton issued his opinion, which is a written interpretation of current law, after Republican Fort Worth representative Matt Krause asked him to weigh in on the issue.
Neither Paxton’s opinion nor the governor’s directive has any legal effect, but both amount to domineering efforts to tear down the rights of trans people in Texas.
“The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has now confirmed in the enclosed opinion that a number of so-called ‘sex change’ procedures constitute child abuse under existing Texas law,” Abbott wrote in his letter.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“Because the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) is responsible for protecting children from abuse, I hereby direct your agency to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas.
“As OAG Opinion No. KP-0401 makes clear, it is already against the law to subject Texas children to a wide variety of elective procedures for gender transitioning, including reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilisation, mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or estrogen.”
A spokesperson for DFPS said in a statement to local news outlet KCAN that the agency “will follow Texas law as explained in attorney general opinion KP-0401”.
“At this time, there are no pending investigations of child abuse involving the procedures described in that opinion,” the spokesperson added. “If any such allegations are reported to us, they will be investigated under existing policies of Child Protective Investigations.”
Activists decry anti-trans Texas governor and attorney general: ‘This is an absolute nightmare’
Across the US, dozens of bills have appeared in statehouse dockets all with similar aims: To deeply restrict the lives of trans Americans, from the sports they play to the healthcare they can access.
As much as overwhelming evidence shows that providing gender-affirming healthcare to trans youth is more beneficial than hurtful, Republican legislators have increasingly sought to ban treatments altogether.
Withholding gender-affirming healthcare from trans youth can lead to higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicide, studies have found.
This culture clash more or less came out of nowhere, with a wave of more than 100 anti-trans laws being proposed in early 2021, according to legislative tracker Freedom for All Americans. And this trend has continued to rip into 2022, with dozens already introduced.
While similar proposals were pitched by Republicans in the past, efforts in 2021 and 2022 to chip away at trans rights are now often more organised and slick, with bill names that claim to be promoting “fairness” in single-sex sports or “protecting” children.
But as activists stress, this noble-sounding language is a front to single out trans folk and feed into transphobia. After all, the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics all support providing care for children experiencing gender dysphoria and have publicly opposed the push to restrict such healthcare options.
“This is an absolute nightmare,” tweeted Chase Strangio, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.
“What [Paxton and Abbott] are doing is terrifying,” they added. “They are scaring kids, their families and their doctors into believing they will be investigating if they affirm their trans children and patients.
“This will cause severe stress and anxiety, could limit medical care, will discourage parents from loving and supporting their kids and could lead to illegal investigations into families.”
I want to make clear because the article doesn’t that sex surgeries re not happening on minors for gender dysphoria. Sex surgeries have happened on minors if there is an accident or a problem with the genitals. No minor is having breast removed or penises changed. Also puberty blockers are not new and they are not dangerous. They have been proscribed for a lot of different medical issues. Plus they are completely reversible by simply not taking them. That is all that happens, a person goes through puberty later. No what they are important for is so a trans kid doesn’t develop the features of an adult of the wrong gender. No male wants female parts, no female wants to look like a guy. It is incredibly hard to change these features once they are set. Imagine being a young person watching your body changing daily into something horribly wrong for you. But for a political party that keeps touting parents’ rights in schools and in book banning’s from libraries, now they want to remove parents’ rights when it comes to medical decisions for the child.
OK AG Moves To Ban “Obscene” Classics From Libraries
The Oklahoma Frontier reports:
Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor is reviewing dozens of books found in public school libraries to determine whether they violate state obscenity law.
Books under review range from classics such as Of Mice and Men and Lord of the Flies to newer titles that cover LGBTQ and social justice issues. The Frontier obtained a list of 51 books under review from the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office.
In a brief interview with The Frontier on Monday at a Republican Women’s Club South Tulsa United meeting, O’Connor said he decided to investigate after receiving complaints from parents and conservative groups including Reclaiming Oklahoma Parent Empowerment, and the Tulsa County chapter Moms for Liberty.
Read the full article.
In 2018, O’Connor was nominated by Trump to the federal bench but he did not get a hearing in the US Senate after the American Bar Association rated him “not qualified” on the grounds of “professional competence and integrity.” He was appointed Oklahoma Attorney General in July 2021 by GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt and immediately joined a suit to block Biden’s vaccine mandates.
House panel OKs revised ban on videotaping police
So no civilian oversite and never video the cops breaking the laws. Think of it, the police were never held accountable until there was video evidence of their crimes. And they do illegal acts, plant drugs and weapons on people, kill unarmed black people shoot people running away and they often file false reports. The police want that halo of not being challenged as the good guys we had in the 1950s before we understood reality of cops. So they want to stop the public from filming them. This is a horrible idea
An Arizona House committee on Monday approved a proposed law that would make it illegal to make video recordings of police in many circumstances after the Republican sponsor made changes he said were designed to address constitutional concerns.
The original proposal from Rep. John Kavanagh made it illegal to record within 15 feet of an officer interacting with someone unless the officer gave permission.
Kavanagh said the amendment he offered that was adopted by the House Appropriations Committee Monday lowers the distance to 8 feet. It also allows someone who is in a car stopped by police or is being questioned to tape the encounter and limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.
He said the 8-foot limit was based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case involving abortion protesters.
“I think this fully conforms with constitutionality and weighs officer safety with the citizens’ right, the public’s right, to see law enforcement officers in action,” Kavanagh said.
Media groups including The Associated Press said the measure raises serious constitutional issues. They signed onto a letter from the National Press Photographers Association in opposition to the bill.
“We are extremely concerned that this language violates not only the free speech and press clauses of the First Amendment, but also runs counter to the ‘clearly established right’ to photograph and record police officers performing their official duties in a public place,” the letter said.
Letting an officer decide on the spot what First Amendment-protected activity should be allowed would be problematic in many situations, the letter said.
If enacted with the original 15-foot limit, some of the people who video-recorded former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck in 2020 might have been affected. The recording was key evidence that led to Chauvin’s conviction on second-degree murder and other charges.
Kavanagh’s bill makes a violation a petty offense, the lowest-level Arizona crime that can bring a fine but no jail time. Refusing to stop recording when an officer orders it would be a low-level misdemeanor subject to a 30-day jail sentence.
The Appropriations Committee voted 7-5 on party lines, with no Democratic backing to approve the bill. It now goes to the Rules Committee for a routine constitutional review and then to the House floor.
Trump White House compiled opposition research report on Clarence Thomas’ wife: report
The Trump administration created an opposition research file on Ginni Thomas, the far-right activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
In a bombshell report published by The New York Times, reporters Danny Hakim and Jo Becker detail the power Ginni Thomas has within the conservative movement.
“This article draws on hours of recordings and internal documents from groups affiliated with the Thomases; dozens of interviews with the Thomases’ classmates, friends, colleagues and critics, as well as more than a dozen Trump White House aides and supporters and some of Justice Thomas’s former clerks; and an archive of Council for National Policy videos and internal documents provided by an academic researcher in Australia, Brent Allpress,” the newspaper reported. “The reporting uncovered new details on the Thomases’ ascent: how Trump courted Justice Thomas; how Ginni Thomas used that courtship to gain access to the Oval Office, where her insistent policy and personnel suggestions so aggravated aides that one called her a “wrecking ball” while others put together an opposition-research-style report on her that was obtained by The Times; and the extent to which Justice Thomas flouted judicial-ethics guidance by participating in events hosted by conservative organizations with matters before the court.”
The newspaper reported on a Jan. 25, 2019 meeting with Trump.
WATCH: CNN catches Trump-loving Florida group red-handed pushing voter fraud misinformation
“It was the craziest meeting I’ve ever been to,” said a Trump aide.
“It was an event with no precedent, and some of the details of what transpired soon leaked: the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice lobbying a president when several cases involving transgender rights were making their way through the federal courts,” the newspaper reported. “Before the meeting, Trump’s aides assembled the research document outlining concerns with Ginni Thomas and some of her preferred job candidates, the contents of which they shared with the president.”
The opposition research document noted that Ginni Thomas ally Crystal Clanton had been forced out of Turning Point USA for reportedly texting “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like [expletive] them all. … I hate blacks. End of story.”
Thomas reportedly pushed for positions for Dan Bongino and former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke.
“In the White House, she was out of bounds many times,” one of Trump’s senior aides said. “It was always: ‘We need more MAGA people in government. We’re trying to get these résumés through, and we’re being blocked.’ I appreciated her energy, but a lot of these people couldn’t pass background checks.”
Read the full report.
Supreme Court To Decide Whether Some Businesses Can Refuse To Serve Gay Customers
SCOTUS To Hear Hate Group On LGBTQ Protections
ABC News reports:
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new clash involving religion and the rights of LGBT people. The high court said Tuesday it would hear the case of Colorado-based web designer Lorie Smith.
Smith offers graphic and website design services and wants to expand to wedding website services, but she says her religious beliefs would lead her to decline any request from a same-sex couple to design a wedding website.
She also wants to post a statement on her website about her beliefs, but that would run afoul of a Colorado anti-discrimination law. Smith had argued the law violates her free speech and religious rights.
Read the full article.
As I reported when this suit was first filed back in 2016, it’s likely that Smith’s is yet another fake company created by the Alliance Defending Freedom in order file a “peremptory challenge.” In other words, she’s never refused any LGBT clients because she’s never had any attempt to hire her.
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