If you care about abortion rights, Nazis flouting the swastika in public supporting one party telling you what that party really is about, If you care about religious zealots pushing their church doctrines on others,
I am sorry but I can not deal with this. For the last few days I have read of how bad gays and trans people are and I have even posted religious leaders screaming about this. I am really not able to process that the very religion’s that scream about how bad people like me are but they don’t seem to care about the members of their faith that rape or even kill the followers of their faith. Before anyone tries to tell me about the very few gay / trans killers please remember that our community did not gather around to protect those horrible people. Churches / religious organizations do! Hugs
Dozens of Kenyans came to identify the remains of their relatives, thought to have starved themselves to death in hope of going to heaven after joining the self-proclaimed Good News International Church, led by Patrick Mackenzie https://t.co/aGSE8LULYzpic.twitter.com/AZmKhlTMHK
This is so sickening. Decades after Jim Jones poisoned his congregants with Kool-Aid, here we go again with another Messianic mass murderer cloaked in religious garb.
“Suffer the little children?” Seriously, if adults want to do this to themselves, that’s one thing. But children do not have any choice. This is sickening and learning that most of the dead are children is even worse.
How dare anyone question the king wannabe? How dare anyone say something different from the authoritarian thin-skinned guy who runs the state like a mob boss. Just like the trump who first made him governor DeathSantis thinks he is smarter than anyone else and knows more than any other. He attacks those who even dare ask him a question he doesn’t like, and tries to destroy those who dare to disagree with him. One of DeathSantis claims is his standards teach students civic, but I guess it is only credit worth if it is republican ideology being supported, not time to go to the capital and protest the hateful republicans. Hugs
The administration is coming after the Leon superintendent’s teaching certificate as well.
Florida officials are threatening to revoke the teaching license of a school superintendent who criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis, accusing the educator of violating several statutes and DeSantis directives and allowing his “personal political views” to guide his leadership.
Such a revocation by the state Department of Education could allow DeSantis to remove Leon County Superintendent Rocky Hanna from his elected office. The Republican Governor did that last year to an elected Democratic prosecutor in the Tampa Bay area who disagreed with his positions limiting abortion and medical care for transgender teens and indicated he might not enforce new laws in those areas.
Disney also sued DeSantis this week,saying he targeted its Orlando theme parks for retribution after it criticized the governor’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law that then banned the discussion of sexuality and gender in early grades, but has since been expanded.
Hanna has publicly opposed that law, once defied the governor’s order that barred any mandate that students wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and criticized a DeSantis-backed bill that recently passed that will pay for students to attend private school. The Leon County district, with about 30,000 students, covers Tallahassee, the state capital, and its suburbs.
“It’s a sad day for democracy in Florida, and the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, when a state agency with unlimited power and resources, can target a local elected official in such a biased fashion,” Hanna said in a statement sent to The Associated Press and other media Thursday. A Democrat then running as an independent, Hanna was elected to a second four-year term in 2020 with 60% of the vote. He plans to run for reelection next year and does not need a teacher’s license to hold the job.
“This investigation has nothing to do with these spurious allegations, but rather everything to do with attempting to silence myself and anyone else who speaks up for teachers and our public schools in a way that does not fit the political narrative of those in power,” Hanna said.
He said the investigation was spurred by a single complaint from a leader of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group, requesting his removal.
“We are fighting tirelessly with our local school board to no avail,” Brandi Andrews wrote DeSantis, citing Hanna’s mask mandate, his opposition to the state’s new education laws and directives and his public criticism of the governor. She noted that she had appeared in a DeSantis reelection TV commercial.
Her letter was stamped “Let’s Go Brandon,” a code used by some conservatives to replace a vulgar chant made against President Joe Biden. DeSantis is expected to soon announce he will seek the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in next year’s election. Andrews issued a statement saying her complaint against Hanna was one of many.
Education department spokesman Alex Lanfranconi said in a statement that while officials would not discuss the Hanna investigation in detail, “nothing about this case is special.”
“Any teacher with an extensive history of repeated violations of Florida law would be subject to consequences up to and including losing their educator certificate,” he said. The threatened revocation was first reported by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.
Before any punishment is meted out, Hanna can have a hearing before an administrative judge, attempt to negotiate a settlement or surrender his license. He said in his statement he has not decided what he will do.
Hanna received a letter from Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. earlier this month saying an investigation found probable cause that he violated a 2021 DeSantis directive barring districts from mandating that students wear COVID-19 masks. Hanna required students to wear masks after a Leon third grader died of the disease early that school year. The fight went on for several months until Leon and several other districts had their legal challenge rejected by the courts.
Diaz also cited a memo Hanna issued before this school year telling teachers, “You do You!” and to teach the way they always had, allegedly giving instructors approval to ignore new laws enacted by DeSantis and the Legislature. That includes the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, which supporters call the “Parental Rights in Education Act.”
His letter also cites the district’s failure for one month in 2020 to have an armed guard or police officer at every school as required after the 2018 Parkland high school massacre. Hanna said then that there weren’t enough available officers to meet that requirement and the education department cleared him of wrongdoing.
Diaz also complains that parents were told that their children could get an excused absence if they chose to attend a February student protest at the state capitol opposing DeSantis’ education policies.
Offering students a “free day off of school” to attend the rally “is another example of (Hanna) failing to distinguish his political views from the standards taught in Florida schools,” Diaz wrote.
“If God is for us, who can be against us? Certainly not some mentally ill tranny freak show of a four star admiral in Biden’s cabinet. Why don’t the bishops at this Catholic Church say that? That’s why they hate me, because I do and they don’t and they know it!
“If God is for us who can be against us? Certainly not the mentally ill—and they are mentally ill!—not the mentally ill tranny freak show man in Biden’s Department of Energy, who stole women’s luggage at the airport.
“Do not take offense when I call out the freaks in their freak show. It’s not my opinion. Almighty God said it, ‘A woman shall not wear a man’s garment nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing, for anyone who does such a thing is an abomination to the Lord your God.’
“So, we should crush like the vermin that they are—and they are—every filthy school board member or teacher who tries to shove their mentally ill tranny freak show down the throats of our precious children.” – Father James Altman.
As you can see below, we’ve heard from Altman before.
Right-wing activist Zoe Warren repented on behalf of "government" at the "re-covenanting ceremony," declaring that this nation has become so wicked that "we deserve for our women to be raped and our children to be ripped apart.” https://t.co/BjHHnSQShShttps://t.co/ELOfq7L0HFpic.twitter.com/QZdfDArZQO
I had May 10, 1933 as the date the Nazi’s took the records from Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute, and began rounding up the trans and gay patients for extermination.
BOTH dates are correct – the book burning was on May 6th, and the records were taken on the 10th
I notice he has no beard. I also suspect he’s eaten shrimp and bacon at one time or other. Just one more sick, angry bastard with deep-seated issues, raging against any convenient target.
Notice it is his god, not a generic god or an inclusive what ever your deity may be god. Nope he wants to marry the nation to his Christian god and screw anyone with a different religious view. Hugs
Right-wing priest James Altman ranted that "we should crush like the vermin that they are—and they are—every filthy school board member or teacher who tries to shove their mentally ill tranny freak show down the throats of our precious children." https://t.co/BjHHnSQShShttps://t.co/ELOfq7L0HFpic.twitter.com/9ziVTimPBJ
Just a strong reminder that not all religious people are hateful, nor are all Christians bigots. We have some great religious people that visit here. Hugs
They even recorded their vandalism, shouting, “This is an abomination!”
Volunteers repaint the church’s steps.Photo: Screenshot
Vandals defaced the rainbow steps in front of the Pitt Street Uniting Church in Sydney, Australia during the city’s World Pride celebration. But the church’s community repainted the steps less than half a day later, refusing to let the hateful act deter them from their welcoming message.
On February 24, someone recorded and posted a video to social media of a man walking up to church volunteers who were painting the steps. He asked them, “Is this Christian? What are y’all doing here… Is God for this?”
The woman in the video smiled and calmly answered, “Absolutely. God is for love, for welcome, for hospitality. God is very hospitable towards this.”
The man then asked where in the Bible God expresses support for same-sex marriage, adding, “God is love? Of course he is, but he’s holy too.”
The man continued, “You believe God is holy, you believe he’s got commandments, and do you believe we should obey them? Because God says, if you love me, keep my commandments. But love is not at the expense of truth, is it? This is an abomination to God. Do you read the Bible? Do you read your Bible?”
The woman repeated that God supports love and then said, “I don’t think these are Christian questions that you’re asking,” before saying that she needed to continue painting the steps.
The man literally growled and told viewers, loud enough for the woman to hear, “She’s disgusting.” He then told her, “You need to repent.”
The man continued, “A Christian is a Christ-follower. You’re not really following Christ. Without Christ, you’re going to a devil’s Hell. Did you know that? You’re being deceived, man, and I don’t want to be deceived. I’m worried for your soul.” He asked her repeatedly, “Do you know what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah?”
As he left, his camera scanned the stairs as he said, “This is not Christian. This is an abomination, and God is going to judge those people. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.”
Later that night, two unknown vandals recorded their visit to the church. One poured grey paint onto the steps and spread it with a paint roller. One vandal said, “F**k the LGBT.”
Soon after, Charlie Bakhos, a man who runs the Facebook page Christian Lives Matter, reposted the video. His post said the vandals were “superheroes” who were “adding their artistic touches to the church steps.”
Though the Sydney City Police Area Command is investigating the people behind the two videos, Facebook has previously removed content from the Christian Lives Matter Facebook group for violating the social network’s hate speech policies, The Guardian reported. The group also promoted an anti-LGBTQ+ speech late last month where a large mob physically assaulted a small group of pro-LGBTQ+ protestors. The mob shouted “Leave our kids alone!” and accused police of “protecting the pedophiles,” as the protestors fled by taxi.
Really good to be able to take part in blessing the Christians at Pride at start of @sydneymardigras
Sadly some zealous Christians decided to throw paint over their rainbow stairs at Church this morning…I reminded them that light dispels darkness & perfect love casts out fear pic.twitter.com/c8T9JYE79N
The morning after the vandalism, February 25, the church quickly repainted the steps and then posted photos of them on Twitter. Church members then marched in the World Pride parade later that day, under a banner that said, “Rainbow Christians Together.”
“A place of worship is a sacred space where all people should feel welcome and safe. I stand against these acts of vandalism and verbal attacks on Church members. We send our prayers and solidarity to Pitt Street Uniting Church in Sydney and to all LGBTIQA+ people of faith and their allies.”
Pitt Street Uniting Church’s Rev. Dr. Josephine Inkpin told Insights, “Such an attack is sad but not surprising and part of a range of harassments Pitt Street Uniting Church and fellow affirming Christians are enduring.”
“Pitt Street Uniting Church has met such opposition for years on our stand for various aspects of justice and the quick renewal of the rainbow is part of our strength and determination,” she continued. “We pray however that others may now see the need for more active affirmation in both church and world.”
Pitt Street Uniting Church is providing Applified events with @SydWorldPride.
— @JPMasters@aus.social (He/Him/They/Them) (@JPMasters) February 25, 2023
An estimated 500,000 people participated in the World Pride events, and nearly 300 Pride attendees attended the church’s February 21 pancake breakfast event. The church also regularly holds interfaith events and intercultural events for trans people and people of color.
As I look into the mirror, shaving a greyed beard from a face lined by time and trouble, I remember a younger face once looking at me from this very glass with similarly sad eyes. A boy of dirty elbows and skinned knees, and behind that perpetually down-cast sight beat a heart filled with impotent rage. I knew my life was wrong, it was unfair, and it was a hot mess of a kid staring back from the mirror that reported horrible things filled with quiet unshed rage and denial of every truth that came anywhere near. At that younger time, I was pure lethality with a gun. I made a game of being able to spin the cap off a bottle without breaking the bottle by just nicking the side with the bullet, but I enjoyed the explosions of the shattering glass when I missed. Like many kids, I relished the wanton destruction, the control of continued existence or the end of that bottle. I felt powerful, skilled, and capable in a world where otherwise I foundered at the whim of forces I felt incapable of withstanding, weak, ineffectual.
If you have never held a gun, you know not the thrill of life, nor of death. For many a gun is the mark of independence, the goal of maturity, the status symbol of greatness. Instead, a momentary pull of a finger decides an accident of foolishness or the demands of a spurned heart and the most intimate of actions lets one be alive still and another not so very much. It is horror and excitement and at no point does the heartbeat slowly for any involved. It is but for targets, some may say, but what is target practice but the refinement of the skills necessary to kill that which you intend great harm? Some say it is an act of freedom to hold the means to life and death in your hands, but whose life, whose death? And why is the ability to take a life a definition for freedom?
From the tenor of this post, many would think I am against gun ownership. To be fair, I couldn’t care less if someone owns a gun. I similarly don’t care if someone owns a pit bull, a monster truck, or wants to live life as a raging karen. It is the unmitigated gall, the pretentious and pompous attitude that one’s ownership of a gun shall not be infringed, even in the misuse and mishandling. Bill upon bill has come before congress, requesting the mere modicum of relief to those of us unwilling to be set upon by others unfettered 2nd amendment rights, only to wither in committee, shot down by the special interests lobby. How sad a people who have decided money is far more important than the life of a school child.
I often wonder if Dylan Thomas knew about the lure of guns when he wrote “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at the close of the day.” When imagined and closeted monsters come and seek to take all that we hold precious, when fear and anger burn so bright as to risk all that is dear, do hold tight to that instrument of power, that wand of courage that burns away the dark and sends the monster back into the closet? But power is fickle, isn’t it? It isn’t only our own fear, our own rage that dispels in the smoke of a smokeless powder concussion. Quiet little sparks in Uvalde, in Sandy Hook, splashed out little stars in last moments of terror. And as those little lives fade, do you wonder if their last thoughts are to be thankful that old men may rage, that young men may rage? Hold on to your fear, gentlemen, do hold on to your fear if that is all you have left.
Don’t be sad, little ones. It’s just the cost of doing business. You understand, don’t you?
We all have seen drag. We all grew up with it. From Red Skeleton to Bob Hope, and so many more up to the 1970s Flip Wilson’s Geraldine who was amazingly popular. People love drag as it is simply dress up. It is Halloween at anytime. Drag is not a threat to society nor to anyone, not even children. What the right wants to make it is a boogieman they can use as a cudgel against others and something to rally up their base because their voting base works only on anger and rage. The right wants everyone to forget their fun drag memories and now think of any guy in a dress acting in drag as a “drag queen story hour reading to kids making them gay and trans” and also they want to make “all drag is trans people” so to spread the hate their base has for trans people to people playing dress up. Heck in their minds trans people are people playing dress up. Wow, how fucked up is that they will deny all medical science to keep their bigotry. Hugs
Knowing a trans or nonbinary person significantly reduced the chance that someone would say that they’re a threat.
A new poll found that a majority of Democratic, independent, and even Republican likely voters believe that there is “too much legislation” aimed at reducing LGBTQ+ rights at the state level.
Theprogressive polling firm and think tank Data for Progressconducted a survey of 1220 participants and asked about the 429 bills presented at state legislatures attacking LGBTQ+ rights. Most of the bills are aimed at transgender youth, and 17 have already become law this year.
Here are all the anti-trans bills that have become law in 2023
Republican lawmakers have worked round the clock to pass oppressive bills targeting gender-affirming care, bathroom usage, drag shows, and trans students.
72% of Democratic voters agreed with the statement that there is “too much legislation. Politicians are playing political theater and using these bills as a wedge issue,” and only 20% agreed that it’s “the right amount of legislation. Politicians are dealing with a real danger that needs to be addressed.” 65% of independent voters agreed that there is too much anti-LGBTQ+ legislation this year.
The more surprising result – considering how the vast majority of lawmakers voting for these bills are Republicans – was that 55% of Republican voters agreed that there is too much anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Only 33% said that there is the “right amount” of such bills.
The survey also asked if people believed that being transgender is a “natural phenomenon that has occurred throughout history” that’s “normal” or if they believed that being trans is a “new phenomenon created by our modern woke culture” that will “harm our children.” Most Democrats (78%) and most independents (58%) agreed that being trans is natural. Only 34% of Republicans agreed that being trans is natural, while a majority (55%) said that it’s a new phenomenon.
While Republicans lag on that issue, Data for Progress noted that a majority of all likely voters (57%) said that being trans is natural, which could indicate that attacks on trans youth might not be the potent electoral winner that many Republican strategists believe it is.
While state Republican lawmakers have been introducing anti-transgender legislation for over a decade, there was an explosion of such legislation in 2021, just several weeks after Donald Trump’s loss in the general election. Democrats accused Republicans – many of whom had never shown any concern for the state of girls’ and women’s sports – of using transgender kids to distract from the GOP’s less popular positions on the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy.
Part of the reason that such a strategy could work is that transgender people make up a small percentage of the population and many people don’t think they know anyone who is transgender. Only 36% of Democrats, 39% of independents, and 25% of Republicans said that they know someone who is trans or nonbinary, and a majority of each group said that they didn’t.
And knowing a trans or nonbinary person decreases the chance that someone will see them as a threat. Among likely voters who know someone trans or nonbinary, 78% said that trans people are not a threat to straight families and 66% said that they’re not a threat to children. Among people who don’t know anyone who is trans, though, those numbers dropped to 52% and 41%, respectively.
Most Democratic voters (54%) and independent voters (63%) believe that Democratic elected officials should be doing more to fight anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. The survey didn’t ask what they believe Democrats should be doing.
When it comes to drag bans, a majority of Democrats (68%) and independents (55%) said that they had seen a drag performance either live or on TV. 53% of Republicans, though, said that they have never seen a drag performance at all.
This post has taken me three days to do. I had all these open tabs that I finially got cleared. I have to even looked at todays news yet. But I think after I post this I will go to bed. Hugs
Trans people deserve better journalism How the anti-trans movement took over legacy media.
“As far as trans health care is concerned, however, the medical consensus is well-established: Nearly a dozen major medical associations, including the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics support and recommend gender-affirmative care.
“Yet the specific arguments about this care that make it into many mainstream media outlets result in stories that undermine the experts, stemming not from legitimate concerns but from a larger orchestrated push by the far right to mainstream transphobia.
“Journalists are failing at more than just reporting on the science. Mainstream publications like the Times increasingly follow the lead of anti-trans agitators, treating what should be understood as a fundamental human rights battle more like a semantic “debate,” fixating on terminology and labels and medical minutiae, instead of humanizing trans and nonbinary people and their experiences. In fact, this has become such a contentious pattern at the Times that this February, contributors and members of the Times’s staff posted an open letter protesting the paper’s escalating bias toward anti-trans talking points and pointing out many of these tactics.
Men have been performing in drag since at least Shakespeare’s time, and probably long before that. But the fact that someone criticizes this as being “sexual” tells us more about the person who claims that than it does about the person performing.
As proven at trial, between September 2016 and November 2016, Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to “vote” via text message or social media which, in reality, was legally invalid.
For example, on November 1, 2016, in or around the same time that Mackey was sending tweets suggesting the importance of limiting “black turnout,” the defendant tweeted an image depicting an African American woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. The ad stated: “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925,” and “Vote for Hillary and be a part of history.”
The fine print at the bottom of the deceptive image stated: “Must be 18 or older to vote. One vote per person. Must be a legal citizen of the United States. Voting by text not available in Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii. Paid for by Hillary For President 2016.”
Prosecution cross-examined Douglass Mackey and repeatedly showed him his Ricky Vaughn-era statements calling Black people gullible or low IQ.
He called women: “children with the right to vote.”
Dark, nauseating vibes in court.
Tucker Carson has made this man a cause célèbre.
— Michael Edison Hayden (@MichaelEHayden) March 23, 2023
The wide-ranging bill (HB 1069) also seeks to restrict the way teachers and students can use preferred pronouns in schools and bolsters a process for people to object to instructional materials and school-library books.
It also expands school board jurisdiction to classroom libraries. The bill would allow a parent who disagrees with a district’s ruling on a book challenge to appeal the state education commissioner to appoint a special magistrate to hear the dispute.
“This bill has given a ticket for racist, homophobic people — that this chamber does not support – to pull books that matter to our children,” said state Rep. Robin Bartleman (D-Weston).
And in about a month, they’ll expand it yet again to all grades and start looking for ways they can force their anti-LGBTQ pogrom on colleges and universities.
Incredible scene outside the Florida House chamber this afternoon as hundreds of LGBTQ students descend right as the Don’t Say Gay expansion bill passes.
When are we actually going to become a decent country? Think about all the nice things that other industrialized nations have and have had for decades: reasonable gun control, universal health care, paid maternity leave and the like, not to mention democracy that isn’t slipping into outright theocratic fascism.
When do we get to have those things? How fucking shitty and unlivable does America have to become before it finally hits rock bottom and starts to become a better country?
I’m just so fucking sick and tired of watching everything deteriorate and nothing ever fucking gets better, and anytime something does get better everyone knows deep down it’s only a matter of time before the Republicans demolish it. Meanwhile the world passed us by a long time ago when it comes to just basic human development.
I’m becoming increasingly convinced this country is headed toward fascism, civil war or both, and there’s really nothing we can do about it. The Democrats are too weak to stop it, and the media will just bothsides it.
I’m sorry to be pessimistic, but shit like this just completely drains whatever hope I have left.
“Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years….Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.” – President Truman, 1952
A powerful speech against anti-trans legislation from Kentucky State Rep. Pamela Stevenson (D-Louisville):
"First, you hated Black people. Then, you hated Jews. Now, you're hating everybody. So the question is when the only people left are you, will you hate yourself?" pic.twitter.com/9N5xHyAHpP
This is the first time that a state has put a law on the books that restricts its residents from interstate travel for abortion access. Idaho already has a near-total abortion ban in place. Neighboring Washington and Oregon allow minors to get an abortion without their parent’s consent.
Idaho’s HB 242 would imprison for up to five years any adult who accompanies a minor across out-of-state without a parent’s consent — an action that the bill calls “abortion trafficking.”
I heard last night on MSNBC that Obstetricians are leaving Idaho. Soon there will not be doctors to deliver babies in the state. It seems that doctors were not without alternatives in front of a maniacal state government.
Correct. Its happening in multiple states. First, blue states have a surge in demand so can offer higher pay. Second, treatment of legit miscarriages could cause an a doctor to be subject to police investigation or worse. The maternal death rate in red states (already higher than blue states) is going to skyrocket.
My daughter is an OBGYN in Georgia. She calls me and tells me terrifying and gory stories of things that happen on occasion, sometimes to young and perfectly healthy women, in the delivery room. Sometimes even the most skilled doctors have to hit the panic button and summon in a specialist because things can go terribly wrong in a fraction of a moment, even under the best of circumstances. Imagine now what will happen when the doctors have fled from the red states and there are not enough to go around to save the lives of these mothers and forced mothers to be? I get a chill when I think about it. What a terrifying time it is to be a girl/woman.
Frightening as hell. I image we will see an intra-country medical tourism where wealthy women will travel to blue states to spend there last few pregnant months near a hospital capable of delivering competent care.
It’s starts with “protecting the kids” to “we know what’s best for our women.” I’ve heard arguments that “the unborn are our state’s citizens, and we have the right to safeguard them.” How women and any men who love them aren’t outraged & unleashing hell upon their would-be captors stuns me to no end.
“Papers please. Please pee on this stick for us before you leave the state.”
Read the full article. Perhaps obviously, the bill is meant to allow Moms For Liberty fascists from anywhere in the state to run for school boards where they’d have a shot at winning. Last year Steele, a freshman rep, reported a net worth of over $440 million.
ICYMI #Florida’s GOP super majority is changing the way local communities elect their school boards: reducing school board term limits to 8 years, making those races partisan AND allowing people who don’t even live in your county to run for school board. https://t.co/pSgdj7bBvw
Seems the GQP are blood thirsty for children. “One statistic in particular stood out: one in 25 American five-year-olds today will not make it to their 40th birthday. No parent should ever have to bury their child, but in the US one set of parents from every kindergarten class most likely will.”
MO State Rep. Peter Merideth (D) on a just-passed GOP budget defunding libraries: "They actually took out all state aid for public libraries explicitly because librarians are suing over their First Amendment rights … We are starting to live in a dystopian future from 1984." pic.twitter.com/fej8ywxbCf
“And I mean, there’s things all throughout the week that I know is right to do. And sometimes, I don’t do them. And so we can nitpick what the Bible says is right and wrong, but I think just having that heart posture of wanting to serve God and do the right thing is so important.
Says the woman who attacks the gays and trans because her god hates that, but her underage son having sex outside of marriage and getting a girl pregnant is OK and hands off for some reason. WTF! Hugs
Exactly. Some portions of the Bible must be taken verbatim, and some require interpretation and context… but only Republicans can decide which and when, and that decision can vary dependent upon the situation as they see it at that particular time.
Situational Ethics, a philosophical system originally developed by Congregationalist pastor Charles Sheldon and Episcopalian priest Joseph Fletcher. In the hands of the GOP, it morphs from “How would Jesus love?” to “How can I excuse this?”
SB1993 author Sen. Mayes Middleton [photo] last appeared here for his bill to prosecute and disbar members of a law firm for “reimbursing travel costs of employees who leave Texas to murder their unborn children.”
Pretty wild: A bill in Texas would allow the SOS to overturn election results in Harris, Dallas, Bexar and other populous counties #SB1993https://t.co/xeM2uEdwqQ
Nope, not for Rethugs. First they turn a majority of voters into a minority of representation. Then they take away that minority representation altogether, creating one-party-only rule.
The demise of the US is accelerating. I can see this being illegal, but not really since so many lifetime judges are now IQ45 worshipers. Even if this were go to the SCOTUS it’s still up in the air. If it goes there and SCOTUS says TX has the right to decide an election and not the People then we will absolutely know for a fact that we are not a republic.
It’s long been the dream of “conservatives” to disfranchise Black voters. The polysyllabic racist, William F. Buckley, Jr., proposed legislation doing just that back in the 1950s, in areas where Black voters could influence the outcome of elections…because the “advanced race” just had to prevail.
He conceded that in order for the legislation to have the appearance of being Constitutional, some white voters might also be disfranchised. I don’t think he would shed too many tears over that if they were in heavily unionized areas.
Both women have alleged in interviews that the president compared them to Ivanka Trump.
Both below, courtesy of Anderson Cooper interviews with women.
Stormy Daniels : Yeah. He was like, “Wow, you — you are special. You remind me of my daughter.” You know — he was like, “You’re smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you. I like you.”
McDougal: You know, he, he’s very proud of Ivanka, as he should be. I mean, she’s a brilliant woman. She’s beautiful. She’s — you know, that’s his daughter, and he should be proud of her. He said I was beautiful like her and, you know, you’re a smart girl. And there wasn’t a lot of comparing, but there was some, yes. I heard a lot about her. Yes.
The suit was brought by extremist anti-LGBTQ activist Steven Hotze [photo], who was recently ejected from a Texas Senate hearing after repeatedly calling transgender people “pedophiles.”
Hotze appeared on JMG in September 2022 when he explained how COVID vaccines are designed to connect people to the internet “so you can be mind-controlled by artificial intelligence.”
In April 2022, Hotze was charged with two felonies related to a bizarre 2020 “voter fraud search” incident.
Hotze appeared on JMG that year when he left a voice mail for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, telling him to “shoot to kill” Black Lives Matter activists.
You may recall that Steven Hotze has compared gays to “communist termites” eating away at America’s moral fabric. He is also fond of declaring that it’s now a hate crime to denounce homosexuality.
It was Hotze who bankrolled the successful campaign to repeal Houston’s “wicked, evil, Satanic” LGBT rights ordinance, during which he compared gays to rapists and murderers.
According to Hotze, same-sex marriage will result in children “practicing sodomy” in kindergarten.
In 2017, he appeared here when he “prophesied” that God will deliver “just retribution” to lawmakers who vote for LGBT rights.
When he’s not calling on God to kill politicians or for the governor to kill Black Lives Matter activists, Hotze sells “miracle” supplements because high cholesterol doesn’t really cause heart disease.
Hotze regularly quotes QAnon slogans.
Y’all want to know why conservative judges get shouted down at law schools? Because they’re literally looking for ways to justify exposing a disfavored group to a deadly virus and claiming it’s about administrative law formalism. They’re bigots in a robe.
O’Connor has widely been described as conservative. O’Connor has become a “go-to” favorite for conservative lawyers, as he tends to reliably rule against Democratic policies. Attorneys General in Texas appear to strategically file cases in O’Connor’s jurisdiction so that he will hear them.
More judge shopping by the Republicans. But you won’t hear Democrats even talk about this.
Volunteers repaint the church’s steps.Photo: Screenshot
At that younger time, I was pure lethality with a gun. I made a game of being able to spin the cap off a bottle without breaking the bottle by just nicking the side with the bullet, but I enjoyed the explosions of the shattering glass when I missed. Like many kids, I relished the wanton destruction, the control of continued existence or the end of that bottle. I felt powerful, skilled, and capable in a world where otherwise I foundered at the whim of forces I felt incapable of withstanding, weak, ineffectual. 
and the most intimate of actions lets one be alive still and another not so very much. It is horror and excitement and at no point does the heartbeat slowly for any involved. It is but for targets, some may say, but what is target practice but the refinement of the skills necessary to kill that which you intend great harm? Some say it is an act of freedom to hold the means to life and death in your hands, but whose life, whose death? And why is the ability to take a life a definition for freedom?
It is the unmitigated gall, the pretentious and pompous attitude that one’s ownership of a gun shall not be infringed, even in the misuse and mishandling. Bill upon bill has come before congress, requesting the mere modicum of relief to those of us unwilling to be set upon by others unfettered 2nd amendment rights, only to wither in committee, shot down by the special interests lobby. How sad a people who have decided money is far more important than the life of a school child.
do hold tight to that instrument of power, that wand of courage that burns away the dark and sends the monster back into the closet? But power is fickle, isn’t it? It isn’t only our own fear, our own rage that dispels in the smoke of a smokeless powder concussion. Quiet little sparks in Uvalde, in Sandy Hook, splashed out little stars in last moments of terror. And as those little lives fade, do you wonder if their last thoughts are to be thankful that old men may rage, that young men may rage? Hold on to your fear, gentlemen, do hold on to your fear if that is all you have left. 
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