Well let’s see, the Republicans have blamed mass shootings on porn, lack of praying (Really, I bet those 10 year old kids were praying harder than they ever did to a god who did not intervene) too many doors, liberals, CRT, transgender / transexuals / the entire LGBTQ+, Democrats, BLM, and now it is smartphones. Anything / everything but guns and bullets. Also can you imagine if classroom doors locked each time they were closed? How do all the kids get into the classroom, does someone have to sit at the door to let them in? What about kids that go to the bathroom how do they get back in? These assholes have no idea of what happens in school, did they not go to school, or is it they are paid to be this stupid. They want schools to become prisons. What next strip searches in entry or exit? A officer to lock kids in classrooms or walk the stray kids to the bathroom? Yes it would reduce school shootings but how will kids learn, and what will they learn? All so some people can stroke their unrestricted freedom while people die. He asks what changed in the last 50 years, well for one these guns did not exist that long ago and the idea that everyone could have unrestricted gun ownership also was not a thing back then. Hugs
The congressman made the comments following the emotional testimonies of multiple gun violence survivors and their families.
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) speaks during the House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing with victims’ family members and survivors of the Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas massacres on June 8, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Pool/Getty Images
U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) is rejecting calls to pass stricter gun laws and is instead blaming the use of smartphones for a rise in mass shootings. During a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on gun violence Wednesday, Fallon told members of Congress that guns were around long before mass shootings became disturbingly commonplace in the U.S.
“The truth is that guns have always been readily available in this country,” Fallon said. “But mass shootings and in particular mass shootings of schools are nonexistent or at least extremely rare until they became a grisly recent phenomenon. So what’s changed in the last 50 years?”
The Republican congressman then proceeded to give his own theory. “There’s been a noticeable breakdown of the family. There’s been an erosion of faith and there’s been a seismic drop in social interactions in large measure due to the overuse of these dang smartphones, and the proliferation of social media, which is probably better described as anti-social media,” Fallon said while holding up his own phone.
Fallon claimed passing gun laws doesn’t work and listed out what he called “real solutions.”
“We must harden our schools with controlled access and single point-of-entry with a tiered entry procedure,” he said. “The main office should be located directly by the front door, which is single-access entry. Classroom doors should automatically shut and lock like hotel rooms do.”
The congressman also called for school teachers and volunteers to be trained and armed through school marshal programs, increasing the number of school resource officers on campuses, adding more cameras to schools, and training rapid response teams to address threats.
“Our goal should be to protect our children,” Fallon said. “No parent, educators, citizen legislature or nation has a higher calling. Let’s look at real and effective solutions and shelve the divisive rhetoric because American children deserve nothing less.”
Fallon’s comments followed the emotional testimony of survivors of gun violence and their families, including 11-year-old Uvalde, Texas school shooting survivor Miah Cerrillo who told Congress she covered herself in the blood of her friend to play dead as the gunman shot her classmates and teacher. Other witnesses included Kimberly and Felix Rubio, the parents of fourth grade Uvalde victim Alexandra “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, who demanded the passage of stricter gun measures during their testimony.
My phone was a rescue, so it was gun-neutered before I even got it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve lost it or left it unattended, so it’s good to know no one was ever at risk.
Well, your right wing social media disinformation and incitement ain’t helping, Congressman, but you Republicans are the one pushing hatred, despair, and a wounded sense of entitlement over the things. Also as a matter of fact all these guns *weren’t* around like this back in the ‘days before,’ …despite them being all over entertainment media.
The spotted wing drosophila may look like a common fruit fly, but it’s so much worse. Just as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries are ripening in the field, this fly saws into them and lays her eggs inside. The growing maggots turn the fruit into a mushy mess. Could a wasp and its own hungry maggots save the day?
The problem here is the word "even". Otherwise, the point is worth making. We've seen repeatedly how much more Democrats and their allies can get away with, versus Republicans- and EVEN ordinary Trump/GOP supporters.
The far right accused Pizza Hut of ‘going woke’ and demanded the company be canceled after they selected a featuring a book about a drag performer in its kids literacy program in the US known as Book It. Texas Paul dissects The GOP’s homophobia and racism.
As I said in a recent post these hyper religious anti-LGBTQ+ should be careful complaining about men with beards reading and talking with children. I again post several pictures of their savior god who is in a dress, wearing a beard, surrounded by children. What is it these people think is happening in public with children and drag performers? It is only dress up. It is not a stip and have sex show. Plus when they do the drag queen story hour again everyone is in public and they are just men in costumes reading to kids. And why do these assholes think they get to tell everyone else what they can do and can not do when it comes to raising their own children. These are the same assholes who claim no one can make them vaccinate their kids, no one has the right to demand their kids wear masks at schools. Yet they feel entitled to tell you what event you can allow your child to attend. Entitled wannabe kings of the world or as I call them big asshole jerks. Hugs
From Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton:
The events of this past weekend were horrifying and show a disturbing trend in which perverted adults are obsessed with sexualizing young children.
As a father of two young children, I would never take my children to a drag show and I know Speaker Dade Phelan and the rest of my Republican colleagues wouldn’t either.
Protecting our own children isn’t enough, and our responsibility as lawmakers extends to the sexualization that is happening across Texas.
I promised my voters that I would stand up for their values and fight to protect Texas kids.
I was re-elected on that promise and I intend to keep it by authoring legislation to defend kids from being subjected to drag shows and other inappropriate events.
I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this important legislation.
Slaton, who is fond of making public appearances carrying an assault weapon and wearing a belt of ammunition, first appeared on JMG in March 2021 when he introduced a bill making abortion a death penalty crime for doctors and even women who undergo the procedure.
Earlier this year he introduced a bill requiring genital exams for trans athletes in public schools.
As I reported yesterday, extremists on Saturday mobbed and attempted to enter the Dallas gay bar hosting the event that has enraged the usual haters.
Drag shows are no place for a child.
I would never take my children to a drag show and I know Speaker Dade Phelan and my Republican colleagues wouldn’t either.
Reminds me of the line in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” from Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer’s character): “Isn’t it interesting how fascists always abuse the word ‘freedom?’”
Parents have the FINAL WORD on how they raise their propertymini-mes children!!!!
Unless it’s something the most holy and righteous straight-and-narrow Rethuglicans declare to be perverted and evil, then parents absolutely CANNOT be trusted!!!!
are you going to ban Milton Berle, Flip Wilson (Geraldine), Laugh-in, The Three Stooges, all sorts of 1930s-2000’s Broadway plays, college plays, school plays, and the like to “protect” kids from “drag queens” ?
Your wife is Asian ..guess who plays female roles in Japanese and Chines plays from long ago? Yep — men.
But sure, walk around with police-killing bullets and a weapon of war on your shoulders … and watch the innocents get slaughtered, doing nothing in the legislature, except make it easier to destroy our youth …
This state cannot adequately fund their schools now and just wasted billions on a border stunt that failed. But they will do anything other than talk about how easy it is to get a gun in their state to shoot school kids. Hugs
Patrick said he wants police in as many Texas schools as possible to have bulletproof shields before the fall. He’s asked other state leaders to move around money in the state budget to make it happen.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, center, has asked state officials to move $50 million in the state budget to provide bulletproof shields for school police officers before the start of classes in the fall. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune
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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called on state leaders Friday to move around $50 million in the state budget to buy bulletproof shields for school police officers following a mass shooting last month at an elementary school in Uvalde where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers.
“I am asking the Speaker of the House to join the Senate members of the Legislative Budget Board and me next week in a budget execution letter to move $50 million to either the Governor’s Office or Department of Public Safety (DPS) to begin buying these bulletproof shields as soon as possible so every member of school law enforcement has one,” Patrick said in a statement Friday afternoon. “This will begin the funding necessary to eventually provide bulletproof shields to all law enforcement.”
Patrick’s request would require the approval of House Speaker Dade Phelan and other House members of the state’s Legislative Budget Board. But because lawmakers have already appropriated the money for the two-year budget cycle, it would also require letters from the agencies where the money would be taken certifying that the transfer would not negatively impact their functions.
Patrick said he would send a draft letter Monday and asked Phelan to act quickly. Phelan’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
State Republican leaders have already signed off on twosimilar transfers worth about $1 billion this year to send money to Gov. Greg Abbott’s costly border security initiative, Operation Lone Star, which was running out of funds. Patrick, who approved those transfers, said the same should be done to provide bulletproof shields to school police officers.
“We have used transfer authority this year to spend billions on the border. We can surely find this amount of money to better protect our kids,” Patrick said, adding that there are “several sources in the current budget that can be tapped to provide this funding.”
Patrick did not name those sources.
During the last of these budget transfers in April, DPS, one of the agencies that Patrick is suggesting should be given money to pay for the bulletproof shields, was forced to relinquish $160 million of its approved budget to keep Operation Lone Star going. Without that transfer, leaders for the Texas Military Department, which has assigned 10,000 service members to the mission, would have been unable to continue the operation.
Patrick said the state should start by providing bulletproof shields to all school police officers and then expand to all law enforcement officers. The state could experience supply-chain issues in obtaining the shields, but it should push to get “every quality shield we can find.”
“This straightforward solution can begin right away,” Patrick said. “If all responding law enforcement had bulletproof shields last week, lives may have been saved.”
Patrick’s plan continues the trend in the state’s Republican leadership of responding to mass shootings by pushing for more teachers to be allowed to use firearms in schools and funding school police. But the law enforcement response to the shooting has been roundly criticized after state and law enforcement officials gave inaccurate information in the initial aftermath of the shooting that has since been debunked.
Police responding to the shooting took more than an hour to engage the gunman who was inside a classroom shooting at children and teachers. The police chief for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, Pete Arredondo, determined police were dealing with a “barricaded suspect” and that the children were no longer in danger, state officials said. The leader of DPS later said it was the “wrong decision, period.”
Patrick said that if every police officer in the state had a bulletproof shield, “their ability to respond to an active shooter situation would be greatly enhanced.”
Texas lawmakers have responded in a similar manner in the past. After a gunman with a high-powered rifle ambushed and killed five Dallas police officers in July 2016, state lawmakers responded by allocating $25 million in the state budget for police agencies across the state to buy bullet-resistant vests that could withstand rifle ammunition.
Last session, after two DPS troopers were fatally shot through a windshield in their patrol car, lawmakers agreed to foot the bill to bulletproof windshields in DPS patrol cars, Patrick said.
While a huge crowd was gathering in Fair Park for the first day of Dallas Pride weekend and the Miller Lite Music Festival, a handful of right-wingers hit The Strip on Cedar Springs today (Saturday, June 4) to protest …. well, something.
The protesters reportedly gathered first in front of Mr. Misster, at the corner of Cedar Springs Road and Reagan Street before Dallas police officers forced them to move across Reagan to the sidewalk in front of the fire station.
Activist Cannon Brown, who was at the scene, said the protesters were there to rally against a drag queen story hour happening at Mr. Misster. “They were there to scream at kids,” Brown said on Facebook, noting that some were Roman Catholics who were “actually behaved and just chanting the rosary. It’s the Infowars/fascist crowd that is problematic.”
The group, described by Brown in a Facebook post as “christofascists,” carried signs vaguely resembling the Texas flag and the U.S. flag along with a large white flag with some sort of X symbol in red, and a gold-and-white flag with some symbol in the center. The size of the group has changed over the course of their protest, but Brown said it averaged about 20.
Photos show one protester carrying a sign declaring “confuse a child, abuse a child,” and another had a sign shouting “stop groomers.” Yet another demands, “Stop exploiting our kids.” And, in what is apparently a swipe at the rainbow power of Pride Month, one woman wore a black T-shirt with a block of rainbow colors saying “rainbow revival.”
— Tammye Nash, photos by Chad Mantooth
From Joe My God the right wing religious bigots couldn’t resist lying.
A spokesperson for the extremists claimed to Dallas’s ABC News affiliate that police removed children from show. That didn’t happen. The bar reports having gotten hundreds of threatening emails. Some of the tweets below are from far-right extremists.
I want to respond to the religious asshole in the above video. He starts out making a claim about doing something to between boys legs, then he makes a comment about letting children near men in dresses. Has this pious asshole threatening parents with children which is traumatizing the kids ever looked at the pictures in his church? What does he think Jesus and the disciples wore, three piece suits?
So I do not want to hear anything more about men in dresses talking with or reading to kids.
Kelly Neidert is the ignorant trumpist that is causing trouble in Dallas Texas. Shes the one you will see protesting here in our gayborhood because she has HATE in her heart. Remember God is watching you. pic.twitter.com/zGB1qUH5Ei
If they didn’t blame us they would have to face the fact that they have been enabling child predators in the name of their worthless non-existent god. Introspection isn’t their strong suit.
Hell, if these folks didn’t have external targets to focus their hate and measure their “moral superiority” against, they would be tearing each other apart. (I’ve seen it first hand.)
Lol, what was your first hint. Maybe the fact that 75% of rethuglicunts actually believe that the election was stolen! Proof positive that if you say a lie enough times it is believed regardless of facts. This is the same ploy they are using to paint the LGBTQ community as those grooming children to become gay. As if it were a fucking choice in the first place! All the while they hand over their kids to the real groomers, the churches, where they are indoctrinated and scarred mentally for life by the daily harrowing experiences they are forced to endure by the church community. What is worse is that the people they most should be able to rely on for protection, their family, are the very ones that force them into it! Seriously hating what this country is becoming.
This candidate doesn’t even pretend to hedge her belief in this. Yet these same people in this same party are demanding these same teachers be armed to protect children even when the police cannot. All so they can keep their gun fetish. Because that is what it is if you reject common sense regulations, it is a fetish. The Republican party is / has become the party of hate and disinformation. These people think that teachers of the youngest grades are organizing gender swapping sex orgies. In their minds little kids are being made to strip off all their clothing and notice in every story they are always little boys, and then instructed in sexual acts. Some acts I doubt these Republicans really understand how they are done, maybe they should read up on it. Oh wait, those books are banned now aren’t they? These people really think this is going on, when teachers are underpaid, cannot get enough instruction time as it is, and cannot even get supplies to teach normal subjects. What did they read to give them this idea, the erotic fiction of Anne Rice? Do they think the kids have Only Fan accounts? Teachers have to be everything from mothers and nannies, to councilors, to instructors, mandatory reporters, child armed protectors, and so much more.
But beyond that what is the real point here? It is to ridicule the idea that if little johnny asks if it is OK for boys to get married or even kiss the teacher says yes two boys can love each other and move on with the lesson plan. If little Sally says someone has two mommies, the teachers say yes, some families are two mommies and move on with the lesson plan. The teacher taught acceptance of alternative non-heterosexual lifestyles instead of screaming no, no, no never boys must only marry girls and only kiss girls or the great sky daddy will destroy the planet! That is what terrifies the right and what they want to outlaw, so they have to make it as unpleasant and horrible as possible by changing it to the teacher telling the boys to line up, pull their pants down, and suck each other’s dicks.
The rabid right doesn’t want tolerance of other ideas than their own extreme traditionalist religious ideas to be taught to kids. They don’t want kids to be taught that people can be of different religions and it is OK, that people can have different kinds of families and it is OK, that two boys or two girls can fall in love and it is OK. That calling a person by a different pronoun is the right thing if they ask you to do so, and it is OK. No, they demand we indoctrinate kids that an impossible global flood happened, that the earth is only 6 thousand years old despite the evidence, that god created a man and woman from dirt just as they are, magic is real and good when our god does it, and evil and bad when someone else’s god does it or a human does it.
They want their bible to be the new textbooks and their religion to be what all society and understanding to be based on. Anything else is indoctrination and child abuse. They are violent thugs that are willing to use threats and intimidation to get their way while claiming they are victims of cancel culture who are not allowed to get their racist bigoted hate speech out to the public. I am done with these people and this party who have members sitting in congress spouting this stuff and refusing to disavow it. They are the US Taliban! Please watch the last video, it says it so much better than I can. Hugs
“You can’t just sit and say, ‘Oh, that’s terrible. Maybe somebody else will take care it. Oh, that’s not so nice.’ Well, I don’t think it’s so nice when they’re telling your five year-old that he can go suck another five year-old’s dick, do you? This is what they’re doing!” – Rayla Campbell, GOP nominee for Massachusetts secretary of state, speaking at the state Republican convention.
Campbell first appeared on JMG in February when she led a group of QAnon nutjobs and anti-vaxxers in a protest outside a Boston hospital where an anti-vax man had been denied a heart transplant for refusing to get vaccinated.
Of note, some of her QAnon tweets that I included in that report have since been deleted. In the final video below, reporters debunk her insane claims.
Rayla Campbell, Massachusetts GOP nominee for Secretary of State, tells Mass Republican convention that teachers in the commonwealth are "telling your 5-year-old that he can go and suck another 5-year-old’s dick"pic.twitter.com/aEs2ZFn6Ap
When Republicans aren’t demanding that teachers die for their students in mass shootings, they’re accusing them of being groomers and sexual deviants. Real normal party.pic.twitter.com/6unnHWwzzO
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) June 4, 2022
More secretary of state candidates have been added to my QAnon-connected election administration candidates tracker. New additions are Rayla Campbell in Massachusetts & John Cardiff Gerhardt in Nevada. https://t.co/XdxkQ7vmaXpic.twitter.com/XisN7qDOha
Where the hell are they getting this shit ? An overactive deviants mind playing havoc with her mouth. If anyone is perverted it’s people like her coming up with outrageous crap like that. Horrible, horrible person
Its all a diversion from the crisis within the church. Currently the SBC Is having to release all the names of the accused preachers and other church workers involved in sexual misconduct charges with minors.
And never an ounce of evidence that any of this is actually happening–BECAUSE IT ISN’T. I don’t know what the answer is here, but hate speech and lies are not free speech. There needs to be consequences for this.
It’s their strawman argument they use to get the parents riled up to support their next ‘Don’t say gay’ bill. They know it will get people angry, and that almost none of them will look into how true it is.
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/ade7b82fa9b5a22bae4e949f081a2403/Uvalde%20Abbott%20Presser%2005.jpg)
Scottie's Playtime 
