This is what the intent was. To scare teachers from even approaching the subjects. They are being forced to teach lies or risk being personal money loss. There is no CC, sorry
The Florida House could be poised to pass two fiercely debated bills that would place restrictions on how issues about race, gender identity and sexual orientation are taught in public schools.
The Republican-dominated House is scheduled to take up the bills Tuesday, after weeks of opposition from Democrats and other critics such as LGBTQ-advocacy groups.
“If we are prohibiting discussion around sexual orientation, are we therefore prohibiting discussion around people being gay?” Rep. Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, asked Friday before the House Judiciary Committee voted 13-7 to approve the bill along party lines.
The bill would ban discussing these issues in primary schools and restrict how they are discussed in other grades if they are deemed “not age-inappropriate.” However, it does not specify what would be considered age-appropriate, or who decides.
Any parent could sue their child’s school for compensation for alleged harm if they believe those discussions have occurred. The likely outcome of the bill would be to deter teachers from addressing these issues and to chill open discussions and support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students.
The bill would also require school personnel to notify parents of changes in a student’s physical, mental, or emotional health. It would significantly limit the ability of counselors and teachers to be a confidential resource for students.
The ABA is opposing provisions in Florida legislation dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill because they would undermine the well-being of LGBTQ students and chill beneficial faculty speech.
ABA President Reginald Turner outlined the ABA opposition to the bill, which discourages some classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity, in a Feb. 16 letter to Florida lawmakers.
Turner’s letter said the ABA adopted a resolution in 2020 urging publicly funded elementary and secondary schools to include information about the contributions of LGBTQ people in their curricula.
UPDATE: Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill is scheduled for a vote in the House on Tuesday.
UPDATE: Florida House Republicans are allowing opponents a grand total of 40 MINUTES on Tuesday to debate the "Don't Say Gay" bill which would prohibit many teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender in classhttps://t.co/pbtsY1ixuy
PSA: If we make health care a right, employers who currently tie health care to employment could then use that spending to raise wages for their workers.
The Child Tax Credit was the most potent anti-poverty program since Medicaid. If Democrats can’t make the case for its continuation, the party is not worthy of the name.
.@RBReich is exactly right: The last thing we need is for the Fed to raise interest rates, slow the economy and put the burden of inflation on regular people struggling to get by.
"To deny a President immunity from civil damages is no small step. The court well understands the gravity of its decision. But the alleged facts of this case are without precedent…" https://t.co/AZDAMScwKS
Kim Potter, a white police officer, was just sentenced to less than two years for killing Daunte Wright.
This is the same system that sentenced Crystal Mason, a Black mother of three, to five years for voting when she didn't realize a past felony conviction made her ineligible.
Stories with no context are propaganda. White supremacy runs on propaganda.
The misinformation right wing media tries to keep their base riled up with anger and outrage to keep them engaged. They know if the base is angry they will be more active in the cause. But anger clouds judgement and the right wing media misleads to get the desired actions from the base. The result is cognitive dissidence on a massive scale. The base has to deny reality and create conspiracy fantasies to make the ideas work. Normal things are taken as if nefarious plots. A guy they call sleep Joe and claim has lost his mental abilities is also a mastermind taking away their nebulous freedom thing. The right uses the same arguments in support of their conspiracies that they refute on things they do not want others to have the freedom to do. Such as abortion. Against vaccines then it is their body their choice, but if it is a woman wanting an abortion it is her body but someone else’s choice mandated by law.
Conservative gospel: think only of yourself while thinking the worst in others. Convert your shame into anger. Never atone.
It’s a FUCKING DEATH CULT!
⭐️JESUS
⭐️GUNS
⭐️BABIES
Gun manufactures love the cries that crime is worse, that life is super dangerous, that someone anyone doesn’t matter who is coming to take your guns. It drives sales. Fear is what they use as advertisements. I have to wonder at people willing to lose their job to avoid getting a vaccine while fighting to keep kids from life saving masks, but wont allow any restrictions on guns to save the lives of school children. I just looked up the numbers.
… surveys show that gun ownership in America is actually highly concentrated. Only 22 to 31% of Americans adults say they personally own a gun.
Rates of personal and household gun ownership appear to have declined over the past decades – roughly two-thirds of Americans today say they live in a gun-free household. By contrast, in the late 1970s, the majority of Americans said they lived in a household with guns.
Most of America’s gun owners have relatively modest collections, with the majority of gun owners having an average of just three guns, and nearly half owning just one or two, according to a 2015 survey by Harvard and Northeastern researchers, which gave the most in-depth estimate of Americans’ current patterns of gun ownerships.
But America’s gun super-owners, have amassed huge collections. Just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms – half of America’s total gun stock. These owners have collections that range from eight to 140 guns, the 2015 study found. Their average collection: 17 guns each.
If the police can kick in your door while you are sleeping and kill you for defending yourself from an unidentified intruder while you are still half asleep and in the dark, you don’t really have rights.
Seems as though the same christian Taliban that believes Transgender schoolgirls will somehow utilize their penile extremity to their advantage in sports, didn’t think the massive strength and abilities of the Williams sisters put an unfair advantage over other girls in Tennis.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
This is the craziness that the right promotes about public health mandates. Creating rules that keep the public safe is cause to kill some one. WTF
Protesting is legal, and in a way patriotic… no matter what the subject, it is an expression of living in a free country.
Breaking the law while protesting… that’s another thing. You CAN make that choice, it is called “civil disobedience”. But these people (and Lisa) don’t seem to comprehend that you are still breaking the law, and that there will be consequences.
There are groups who have been protesting for decades (from environmentalists, to pro-life movements… all political stripes). And these experienced protesters understand that you need to work with the system. You have to play the game. You set up a blockade, and you wait to be arrested, testing how long you can hold out, hoping you can get some media attention, and cause some grief to your opponent. These “truckers” on the other hand are actually saying “your laws don’t apply to us”. That’s not protest, that’s anarchy.
The Truckers can protest on the side of the road, in the park almost anywhere they would like. the TRUCK is a tool that is regulated by the state and as such it has NO FREE SPEECH RIGHTS.
But it’s not about COVID, vaccination, or mandates. As part of an interview with Pat King, leader of the “Freedom Convoy”, he tells us exactly why they’re “protesting”:
“Now, what it is, is the part of the depopulation. And a lot of people don’t understand what that means.”
(Tell us, Pat. Tell us what it means)
“And what there is, see, is there’s an endgame. It’s called depopulation of the caucasian race. Or the Anglo-Saxon.”
Blink
“And, that’s what the goal is, is to depopulate the Anglo-Saxon race, because they are the ones with the strongest bloodlines.”
The Democrats face an uphill battle to get their message out. Also historically the party in power loses seats in the midterms. But the Republicans are facing their own serious voter issues with only the shrinking base fully committed to the current message out of the Republican party. For example tRump is very popular with the base but not popular with the average Republican and swing voter. The Jan 6th denials are very popular with the base, but despised by the main stream Republicans and swing voters. If the Republicans run on the emotion of blocking every thing the Democrats try to do to help the public while pushing tRump with his big lie and trying to sell the fantasy that Jan 6th was legitimate political discourse the Democrats will keep control of congress and may even gain seats.
What would you have him do, start world war three? Nuke Moscow and end civilization as we know it. Putin wants to lie and and invade with little cost to himself. By Biden keeping it in the news, marshaling the NATO countries, by getting other countries to agree to crippling sanctions he is doing as much as he can to deter Putin. Plus the US has increased our arms sales to Ukraine and encouraged other countries to do so. Anything else is just counter effective and would prove Putin’s point that he needs to take other countries to keep his safe.
There was a cartoon about cannibals in this space. While I thought the punchline was funny it was pointed out to me that the way the individuals in the cartoon were drawn, it was very stereotypical and is a trope used by racist bigots. I have decided because of that to remove the cartoon and explain that my intent was not to cause harm. The punchline would have worked without the characters being drawn that way and it is a shame the cartoonist went in that direction. I apologize for missing the offending part of the cartoon and I thank the person who pointed it out to me. Thanks.
Legislation introduced in the Tennessee state legislature this month is raising alarms from the state’s police union and gun control advocates who say it could turn the streets into the “old West.”
Two bills in the state assembly and state senate, HB 254 and SB 2523, would amend Tennessee law and designate “a person who has been issued an enhanced handgun carry permit” as a member of law enforcement.
State Sen. Joey Hensley, who introduced the state Senate version of the bill, told ABC News that the goal of the bill was to allow enhanced gun permit carriers to carry their weapons into locations where off-duty law enforcement enter, such as a store or restaurant that prohibits guns inside their business.
Hensley last appeared on JMG three weeks ago when he introduced a bill that would ban “obscene” books from public school libraries.
He first appeared on JMG in 2019 when he introduced a bill to ban same-sex couples from adopting.
Four-times-married Hensley, a physician, returned to our attention the following year when he was accused of prescribing opioids to family members and his girlfriend. His girlfriend, not incidentally, was his married cousin.
Hensley was also the sponsor of Tennessee’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” public schools bill and he authored a bill which would have declared children conceived via artificial insemination to be illegitimate.
In 2017 he was accused of adultery in a local couple’s divorce filing. In 2015 one of his ex-wives took out an order of protection against him after she claimed he deliberately hit her twice with his car.
Two bills in the state assembly and state senate, HB 254 and SB 2523, would amend Tennessee law and designate "a person who has been issued an enhanced handgun carry permit" as a member of law enforcement. #tnleg
In Miami Beach, getting pulled over by city police didn’t just mean a ticket for some drivers. Officers also handed them an invitation to check out a website selling Trump 2024 merchandise.
A city police flier in circulation until last week explaining how to resolve minor traffic tickets online dropped a crucial hyphen for a Miami-Dade County courts website, steering drivers away from a bland judicial portal and to an online store selling flags, videos and caps celebrating former President Donald Trump.
Offerings at miamidadeclerk.com include Trump 2024 camouflage caps, a DVD exploring the possibility of a “one-world centralized government” without Trump in the White House, and two Trump-themed flags featuring the obscenity “F***” (one paired with “Biden”, the other with “Your Feelings.”)
Read the full article. The deceptive URL now redirects to a website offering advice on how to file complaints against Florida judges. A spokesman for the Miami Beach police is describing the fliers as merely containing a “typographical error.”
In Miami Beach, getting pulled over by city police didn’t just mean a ticket for some drivers. Officers also handed them an invitation to check out a website selling Trump 2024 merchandise.
Patrick’s declarations come days after the UT-Austin Faculty Council approved a measure reaffirming instructors’ right to teach about racial justice and critical race theory in the classroom.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s announcement to eliminate faculty tenure tees up the next major fight at the Texas Capitol over how college students learn about the history of race and racism in the United States. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Friday that he will push to end professor tenure for all new hires at Texas public universities and colleges in an effort to combat faculty members who he says “indoctrinate” students with teachings about critical race theory.
“Go to a private school, let them raise their own funds to teach, but we’re not going to fund them,” said Patrick, who is running for reelection. “I’m not going to pay for that nonsense.”
Patrick, whose position overseeing the Senate allows him to drive the state’s legislative agenda, also proposed a change to state law that could make teaching critical race theory grounds for revoking tenure for professors who already have it. His announcement tees up the next major fight at the Texas Capitol over how college students learn about the history of race and racism in the United States.
Conservatives over the past year have used “critical race theory” as a broad label to attack progressive teachings and books in college and K-12 schools that address race and gender.
Tenure is an indefinite appointment for university faculty that can only be terminated under extraordinary circumstances. Academics said Friday that tenure is intended to protect faculty and academic freedom from exactly the kind of politicization being waged by Patrick.
“This kind of attack is precisely why we have faculty tenure,” said Michael Harris, a professor at Southern Methodist University studying higher education, who likened tenure to lifetime appointments given to federal judges. “The political winds are going to blow at different times, and we want faculty to follow the best data and theory to try to understand what’s happening in our world.”
Patrick on Friday also proposed making tenure review an annual occurrence instead of something that takes place every six years. At the press conference, he said his proposals already have the support of state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, who chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee.
Last legislative session, Creighton filed a bill that would have reduced tenure review periods to every four years and expanded the reasons universities could revoke tenure to include sexual harassment, fiscal malfeasance, plagiarism, conduct involving moral turpitude and “other good causes.” That bill never got out of committee. Nor did another bill that proposed revoking tenure for faculty members who file civil lawsuits against their students. Creighton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Patrick’s plan drew swift condemnation from the American Association of University Professors, the body that helped develop the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure that has been adopted by universities and colleges nationwide.
“There’s always been attempts to interfere in higher education, but I have never seen anything as egregious as this attack,” said Irene Mulvey, president of the AAUP. “This is an attempt to have government control of scholarship and teaching. That is a complete disaster. I’ve never seen anything this bad.”
Mulvey said Patrick had a “fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of tenure” and his definition of academic freedom was “misguided.”
The Texas Faculty Association also criticized the idea and argued it will undermine the state’s future.
“The lieutenant governor’s job is to give our public institutions of education the support they need for student success, and that means encouraging professors and students to discuss theories and issues that some people may find uncomfortable,” said TFA spokesperson Pat Heintzelman. “Patrick, instead, seems intent on ignoring the First Amendment rights of faculty members and their students.”
According to federal data, about 53% of full-time faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin are tenured. Around 40% of all full-time instructional staffers at all public universities and health-related institutions were tenured in 2020.
Patrick said his latest priority is in response to the UT-Austin Faculty Council after it passed a nonbinding resolution Monday to reaffirm instructors’ academic freedom to teach on issues of racial justice and critical race theory.
“Legislative proposals and enactments seek to prohibit academic discussions of racism and related issues if the discussion would be ‘divisive’ or suggest ‘blame’ or cause ‘psychological distress,’” the resolution stated. “But fail to recognize that these criteria … chill the capacity of educators to exercise their academic freedom and use their expertise to make determinations regarding content and discussions that will serve educational purposes.”
One day after the resolution passed, Patrick signaled on Twitter that he would continue the fight against teaching the discipline in the next legislative session.
“I will not stand by and let looney Marxist UT professors poison the minds of young students with Critical Race Theory,” Patrick wrote on Twitter. “We banned it in publicly funded K-12 and we will ban it in publicly funded higher ed. That’s why we created the Liberty Institute at UT.”
Patrick’s mention of publicly funded Liberty Institute, a new center that is still in the planning stages at UT-Austin, also drew criticism from UT-Austin professors. They said his comments suggesting lawmakers are behind the new center contradict previous statements by university officials. On Friday, Patrick said he meant that the resolution passed by the faculty council is an example of why the university needed such an institute.
The proposal to end tenure would fundamentally change the way Texas universities operate in terms of hiring, teaching and research. Faculty members warn it’s likely to impose major challenges for Texas universities to recruit and retain researchers and scholars from across the country.
“Your top-tier talent has lots of options,” Harris said. “And if you hurt your ability to hire the best, you’re not going to do that. … I guarantee you there are university leaders across the country that are making a shopping list of who they’re going to try to steal from the University of Texas if this goes through.”
Harris said even the headlines to propose ending tenure could hurt Texas universities that are hiring faculty members for next year who might think twice about whether to take a job at a public university.
In a statement, the first vice chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus slammed the plan.
“Our public universities are the keystone of Texas’ economic prowess,” said state Rep. Toni Rose, D-Dallas. “As Republicans like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick make it their mission to undermine public trust in our education system, they will chase away the best and brightest students and educators our state needs to remain great.”
UT-Austin pharmacy professor Andrea Gore, chair of UT’s Committee of Counsel on Academic Freedom and Responsibility, brought the initial resolution forward to the UT Faculty Council. She told the Tribune she was shocked that a nonbinding resolution passed by the council would elicit such a reaction.
“Those resolutions are important because they allow us to assert our opinions and rights as faculty members, but they normally do not elicit any responses. In fact, they typically gather dust in the faculty council archives,” Gore wrote in an email to the Tribune. “What the [lieutenant governor’s] actions and words tell me is that not only has he been waiting for an opportunity to ban ideas that are counter to his own, he has been preparing to attack tenure as well.”
UT-Austin President Jay Hartzell has remained quiet on the issue. University spokesperson J.B. Bird did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Tribune after Patrick’s press conference Friday.
Domino Perez, president of the Faculty Council, said the council had no official comment but she awaits a response from Hartzell on the plan.
Patrick crusaded last summer against critical race theory in K-12 schools. He said it teaches that “one race is better than another and that someone, by virtue of their race or sex, is innately racist, oppressive or sexist.” Academic experts have said that interpretation is a misrepresentation of critical race theory.
Last year, Gov. Greg Abbott signed two laws that dictate how teachers can discuss race in the classroom. While neither used the phrase “critical race theory,” lawmakers who supported the measures characterized the legislation as anti-critical race theory.
Senate Bill 3 states a “teacher may not be compelled to discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.” The law doesn’t define what a controversial issue is. If teachers discuss these topics, they must “explore that topic objectively and in a manner free from political bias.”
The law also has provisions for teaching about the history of slavery in America, including that slavery cannot be taught as contributing to the “true founding of the United States” and that “with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”
Disclosure: Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Sarasota Republican Martin Hyde was cited Monday morning for failing to display the proper registration on his vehicle at a speeding stop, according to records obtained by Florida Politics. He was stopped at 9:45 a.m. on Feb. 14. That’s a minor enough infraction, one bearing a civil penalty of just $116. But apparently it was enough to irritate Hyde to the point of threatening an officer’s livelihood.
Officer Julia Beskin in her official report states that Hyde became belligerent when he was stopped. She wrote that Hyde, when he did not produce his registration immediately, told her to “look it up cause he did not have it.” That’s when he threatened her job. “Do you know who I am?” Hyde said before threatening to call the police chief. “This is going to end your career.” Hyde is challenging U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan in a Republican primary.
Read the full article. As you’ll see, Hyde, who has made multiple failed runs for local office, has a history of assholery and racism. Last year one of his rants before a school board earned him a spot in a Lincoln Project roundup of crackpots. Below is his latest campaign ad.
Apparently, congressional candidate Martin Hyde was worried about more than chocolates and roses on Valentine’s Day.
The Sarasota Republican was cited Monday morning for failing to display the proper registration on his vehicle at a speeding stop, according to records obtained by Florida Politics. He was stopped at 9:45 a.m. on Feb. 14.
That’s a minor enough infraction, one bearing a civil penalty of just $116. But apparently it was enough to irritate Hyde to the point of threatening an officer’s livelihood.
Officer Julia Beskin in her official report states that Hyde became belligerent when he was stopped. She wrote that Hyde, when he did not produce his registration immediately, told her to “look it up cause he did not have it.”
That’s when he threatened her job.
“Do you know who I am?” Hyde said before threatening to call the police chief. “This is going to end your career.”
Hyde is a two-time failed Sarasota City Commission candidate now challenging U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan in a Republican Primary.
He acknowledges the events took place, and said he felt bad enough about it to call the officer after the incident. But he questioned the newsworthiness of the interaction.
“Man doesn’t like getting three tickets when he barely deserved one,” Hyde said. “And by the way, I called her afterward and said sorry.”
He also said he never intended to literally call the chief of police, and said that’s simply a phrase he says in moments of conflict. In this incident, he said he’s still not sure if he was driving 57 mph in a 40 mph zone, and he said the officer jumped on him about paper registration when his car had a tag and questioned his cell phone use. He maintains he was not using his phone. “It was all annoying,” he said.
This isn’t the first run-in with police for Hyde. During his first city race in 2017, police reports surfaced dating back to his 2010 divorce proceedings including a request for an injunction.
During a second run for the Commission in 2019, he became the central figure in a viral video shot at the Sarasota Bath & Racquet Club. In it, Hyde was complaining about teenagers using the club in which he is a member. At one point, he said, “I don’t know what drugs they are on.”
One of the people filming repeated a moment not caught on video, asserting Hyde told the Puerto Rican teens to “cut some grass.”
Hyde for years has been a regular speaker at local government meetings, and of late has been a staple at Sarasota School Board meetings. One of his rants recently led off a Lincoln Project video.
But Hyde said anyone who knows him will not hold these moments against him.
“I can’t get upside down about it,” he said. “I don’t think it will derail any limited appeal I might have. It’s not news. I’m getting bored of it. There’s a lot of stuff nobody talks about, serious things worthy of conversation. This is in the vein of ‘dog chases cat’ and it’s just crap.”
For America’s white nationalists, there is only one nation—and one leader—worth emulating. And it has nothing to do with lederhosen or Wagner.
Richard Spencer, the current face (and haircut) of US’s alt-right, believes Russia is the “sole white power in the world.” David Duke, meanwhile, believes Russia holds the “key to white survival.” And as Matthew Heimbach, head of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, recently said, Russian president Vladimir Putin is the “leader of the free world”—one who has helped morph Russia into an “axis for nationalists.”
For those Americans who are just now familiarizing themselves with Russia’s current political proclivities—due to the recent, high-profile Russian hacking allegations, say, or the brutal military campaign in Aleppo—Moscow’s transformation into a lodestar for America’s white supremacists is enough to cause whiplash. After all, just a few decades ago Moscow was a beacon for the far-left, and its influential Communist International provided material and organizational heft for those pushing Soviet-style autocracy around the world. Over the past few years, however, the Kremlin has cultivated those on the far-right end of the West’s political spectrum in the pursuit, as Heimbach told me, of reifying something approaching a “Traditionalist International.”
Moscow’s appeal to the American far-right is, in a sense, understandable, if no less worrying. The links between Russia and America’s white nationalists and domestic secessionists have both expanded and deepened over the past few years. And the Kremlin, as with its invasion and occupation of swaths of Ukraine, has gone to only minimal lengths to obscure such ties.
Following the chaos of the Soviet dissolution in the 1990s, Putin’s kleptocracy has restored the state to domestic primacy. Moreover, Putin has positioned Russia as a leader for those in the West attempting to roll back liberal policies, from abortion and LGBT rights to dissolving the distance between church and state. Meanwhile, Moscow has been busily cultivating relationships with far-right groups in Europe, from radical right-wingers in Hungary to Marine LePen, one of the front-runners for the upcoming French presidency.
But links between Moscow and America’s white supremacy movement are far deeper than approving rhetoric. Spencer, for instance, who has said that he “admire[s]” Putin and who has called to break up NATO, also helped organize a 2014 conference in Hungary that was slated to feature, of all people, Alexander Dugin. A political philosopher, Dugin is both an erstwhile Kremlin confidant and the progenitor of modern “Eurasianism,” which places, in part, Russia as the center of global anti-liberalism. Dugin, whose Foundations of Geopolitics continues to be assigned to every member of Russia’s General Staff Academy, was unable to attend the conclave in Hungary due to Western sanctions. But Spencer nonetheless remains married to one of Dugin’s English translators.
Traditionalist Worker Party leader Heimbach—who has led rallies featuring both Confederate and Russian imperial flags flying side-by-side—has yet to visit Russia, but was planning on attending a recent conference in St. Petersburg that would have gathered together heads of the assorted neo-Nazi and white supremacist contingents across the West. The conference, postponed until March, was organized by a group with ties to Russia’s deputy prime minister, and would have been the second iteration of the gathering. The 2015 conference featured both “race realist” Jared Taylor and former KKK lawyer Sam Dickson. All the while, Heimbach has continued expanding the reach of the TWP in the US. The party’s 2015 launch included, of all things, a Skyped-in speech from none other than Dugin.
David Duke, meanwhile, sees Russia as a country that “presents an opportunity to help protect the longevity of the white race,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. And a few years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center detailed Duke’s close personal ties with another American neo-Nazi, Preston Wiginton, who has made Moscow his adopted home.
Thus far, no smoking gun financial links have been uncovered between the Kremlin and those who would fracture the US in pursuit of a whites-only enclave. The same can’t be said, however, of ties between Moscow and those who would pursue more traditional means of secession. A few months ago, the Kremlin helped finance a secessionist conference in Moscow, bringing together contingents from Ireland, Spain, and Italy—as well as those from Texas, Puerto Rico, and California. Indeed, the head of the main group pushing California secession, Louis Marinelli, not only lives in Russia, but opened an “Embassy of the Independent Republic of California” in Moscow on Sunday. As Marinelli told a Russian interviewer last month, “In Russia, we have partners who are ready to support us in our aspiration.”
These secessionists, as the California movement indicates, aren’t solely of a far-right bent. But like the white nationalists undergirding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, they all share the same goal: the fragmentation of the United States. And the Kremlin—alongside its hacking campaigns, and in tandem with its push to undercut Western alliance structures—has been only too happy to cultivate rhetorical, financial, and organizational support for these movements.
As 2017 dawns, there’s little likelihood these movements, and these ties, are going to fade during the Trump administration. If anything, the ranks of white nationalists emboldened by Trump’s success will almost certainly swell—as will those who would seek to crack the US under the auspices of secession. And, now, these individuals have found a common foreign backer, and in some cases, foreign financier.
As Heimbach recently said, “Russia’s our most powerful ally. Imagine what could happen to our party when Russia takes interest.” It’s clear, by now, that Russia has taken interest—and with the Trump administration approaching, we may not longer have the luxury of simply imagining just what the fallout of such relationships will be.
Attorney Alina Habba was scolded by a judge on Thursday after she claimed that her client, former President Donald Trump, is part of a “protected class” because of his Republican ideology.
During a court hearing in New York, Trump attorneys tried to convince state Supreme Court Judge Arthur F. Engoron that members of the Trump family could not be subpoenaed in connection with allegations that their company illegally manipulated property valuations.
Habba told Engoron that Attorney General Letitia James is conducting an improper investigation into Trump because she does not like him.
“She has such disdain for this person because he was president, because he is Donald Trump and he could probably win again in ’24,” Habba said. “He has First Amendment rights. He’s allowed to be a Republican.”
The Trump attorney demanded to know if James is going to “go after” Hillary Clinton, citing claims that the former president was “spied” on.
“There’s no viewpoint discrimination,” Engoron said. “I’m just saying there is none.”
“He’s a protected class,” Habba insisted.
“Ah!” the judge reacted. “What protected class is he a member of?”
“His political speech,” Habba replied. “If he was not sitting as a Republican and was not a former president who might run again, this would not be happening. So she is discriminating against him for that.”
The judge’s clerk stopped Habba to point out that the term “protected class” is usually reserved for race, religion and sex discrimination.
“The traditional protected classes are race, religion, etc.,” Engoron agreed. “Donald Trump doesn’t fit that model. He’s not being discriminated against based on race, is he? Or religion, is he? He’s not a protected class. If Ms. James has a thing against him, OK, that’s not in my understanding unlawful discrimination. He’s just a bad guy she should go after as the chief law enforcement officer of the state.”
IN RELATED NEWS: Trumpworld in full meltdown following breakup with Mazars
Capitalism would rather create a trillionaire than pay labor thriving wages.
Shareholder economics is destroying everything in its way. People and the planet.
That’s correct…median income went down for the first time and this was before COVID. Sorry to inform you, #BrokenCapitalism won’t fix itself. #Activism https://ift.tt/MRCO206
Scoop: At a mandatory anti-union meeting today in NYC, an Amazon union buster told warehouse workers they could see their wages reduced to the minimum wage if they unionize.
The US government should be able to do more than one thing at a time. So the government can address gun violence at home and address Russian aggression abroad. The fact is every time the Democrats try to do common sense gun regulations the Republican party at the request of the NRA has stopped them. Not even closing gun show loop holes for back ground checks could get past the Republicans that were blocking it. Now that the NRA has self destructed I wonder if there can be sensible gun rules / regulations enacted.
Republicans want to break education in order to protect white supremacy. They can’t defend their position[s], so they look to cancel the conversation/debate/dialog.
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
‘Enslaved people’ in America is a white construct.
Breaks her heart? What heart?
She is upset that kids, in theory, could be taught that different colors of skin have different experiences, and she clearly identifies with the racists in history and feels the shame.
This shows that it is not what is in your heart or how you live that their god cares about, but it is the rituals that are important to that deity. Being a good person not needed, the correct words for a a man made ritual ceremony is necessary.
Religion spreads by violence, not truth.
Not sure where this one is going?
Make no mistake. If Germany follows through with shutting down the gas pipeline, that is 40% of the Russian economy. I think that would hurt Putin.
Again very few police departments have had funding decreases and almost all police departments have gotten increases or demanded them. Police are organized gangs now shaking down the public for money.
The right wing media is going crazy to push back on something that not only is collaborated but that is something tRump has done all his life in his businesses. One right wing guy keeps telling me to prove it, when I mention eye witnesses he claims that is not proof.
Biden doesn’t set the price of gasoline. The US is a net oil exporter. Biden has pushed energy independence from the beginning but the GOP stands in his way. Coal is dead.
Every time the Republicans need to hide some bad news story about them, they trot out Hillary. The right has been demonizing her for 30 years. Okay, now that all conserve cartoonist have played the same false accusations, we await the next ranting points from Fox Spews.
The Durham report doesn’t say that. The right needs to shift the focus away from Trump’s many scandals. Trump is in trouble for tax fraud, tried to get people to overthrow the government, he tried to replace real electors with phony electors, he wants Hillary Clinton killed, and has connections to Russia. Smart people know the right is just generating a smoke screen and are ignoring the phony scandals involving Hillary Clinton. President Biden will be running for re-election in 2024 so Hillary Clinton won’t be running.
The right wing has become energized and are trying to take over the school boards all across the country. Then they will remove anything they dislike, stop the kids from learning crititcal thinking, and install indoctrination propaganda.
In an election marked by unusually high turnout among Asian-American voters, where the most heavily rejected candidate was called out for her history of offensive anti-Asian tweets, where a principal issue was the Vincent’s efforts to reduce Asian-American representation in elite programs, where the incumbents were criticized for disproportionately appointing white women to boards and commissions, where white mothers make up an unusually low share of the electorate, Lisa Benson declares the victory belongs to . . . white women like herself.
All this shows is that people want to get things done. The principle sin of the Board Members who were kicked out was that instead of making sure the children of SF were back in school during a pandemic, they were more interested in changing the names of schools. Republicans should take note. If your only policy is to make liberals cry, sooner or later your voters are going to wonder when you’re going to get things taken care of.
That was the seed of the recall in San Francisco, where two parents launched the effort in January 2021 after the school board kept schools closed. San Francisco public schools took longer to reopen than most in the country, and almost all of the district’s 50,000 students stayed in distance learning until the fall.
Meanwhile, the school board spent its time on what many critics called misplaced priorities, including a months-long effort to rename 44 schools instead of focusing on reopening them.
Parents and other residents of San Francisco, one of the most liberal cities in America, do not dispute the need to reexamine the historical figures schools are named for, but the effort was criticized for poor research, historical inaccuracies and bad timing. It became one of several examples critics cited of the board putting progressive politics over the needs of children.
The political tracking website Ballotpedia identified 96 school districts in more than a dozen states where race in education and masks were part of the debate in 2021.
Many see that as a prelude for this November’s midterm elections, pointing to the example of San Francisco, a famously tolerant city that lost its patience when progressive politics took priority over pandemic needs.
Carter managed to get things on the right track. He got derailed by the hostage crisis and got outdone by an b movie actor, the same way Hillary was outdone by a third rate tv personality. It would be a big help if more members of Congress would put on their big girl/boy pants and stand up for the country and Constitution.
A new Johns Hopkins University study finds lockdowns only prevented 0.2% of Covid-19 deaths and were “not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic.” I can only wonder about the reason for lockdowns and those people who advocate for these measures. Especially because of the negative impact on the young.
@HskrPhanBut the study is not definitive. The research represents a non-peer-reviewed “working paper” by three economists affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. The institution did not endorse the study.
“The university hasn’t taken a position on this and typically wouldn’t in such a situation,” university spokesperson Jill Rosen wrote in an email.
“The working paper is not a peer-reviewed scientific study, and its authors are not medical or public health researchers,” Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told PolitiFact in an emailed statement. “To reach their conclusion that ‘lockdowns’ had a small effect on mortality, the authors redefined the term ‘lockdown’ and disregarded many peer-reviewed studies. The working paper did not include new data, and serious questions have already been raised about its methodology.”
And one of the authors is a fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, known to be critical of all things governmental.
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Scottie's Playtime 
Protesting is legal, and in a way patriotic… no matter what the subject, it is an expression of living in a free country.
Breaking the law while protesting… that’s another thing. You CAN make that choice, it is called “civil disobedience”. But these people (and Lisa) don’t seem to comprehend that you are still breaking the law, and that there will be consequences.
There are groups who have been protesting for decades (from environmentalists, to pro-life movements… all political stripes). And these experienced protesters understand that you need to work with the system. You have to play the game. You set up a blockade, and you wait to be arrested, testing how long you can hold out, hoping you can get some media attention, and cause some grief to your opponent. These “truckers” on the other hand are actually saying “your laws don’t apply to us”. That’s not protest, that’s anarchy.