There is yet another child Herschel Walker has been hiding from the public, estranged from his father for roughly a decade. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“Just one day after the news came out about Herschel Walkerโs โsecret son,โ the Georgia Republican Senate nominee confirmed he has at least two more previously unknown children.
The Daily Beast broke the story that Walker had a 10-year-old son who he has virtually no contact with โ unlike his other 22-year-old son, Christian, who Walker was actively involved in raising.
The story was shocking to political observers, given that Walker has made a point of blaming African American issues on fatherless households; and yet, the mother of Walkerโs 10-year-old son born out of wedlock had to sue him about a decade ago for child support and a declaration of his paternity.
The Beast followed up by reporting they received a statement from Walker wherein he confirms that he has a 13-year-old son born to a woman living in Texas, plus an adult daughter who he had while he was in college. Walkerโs campaign took umbrage with the notion that these children were being kept secret โ citing a form he filled out in 2018 in order to join President Donald Trumpโs Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition.
The form reportedly bears the names and ages of Walkerโs kids.”
Pastor Mark Burns, a loyal supporter of former President Donald Trump and a Republican congressional candidate, said earlier this week that parents and teachers who communicate with children about LGBTQ issues pose a “national security threat” to the United States and added that those found guilty of “treason” should be executed. Coach D reacts.
A toy yellow school bus is placed in front of a cross to honor Rojelio Torres, one of the children killed during the mass shooting in Robb Elementary School, while an American flag is seen in the foreground, Sunday, May 29, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas.ย Wong Maye-E/AP
Some 44% of Republicans say mass shootings are “something we have to accept as part of a free society,” a poll found.
The poll found that a majority of Democrats and Independents said shootings are preventable “if we really tried.”
The survey comes after a string of mass shootings have again prompted Congress to assess gun control.
More than 4 in 10 Republicans think mass shootings are inevitable in a “free society,” according to a newย pollย by CBS News and YouGov.
One of the questions in the poll asked respondents if they feel that mass shootings are “unfortunately something we have to accept as part of a free society” or “something we can prevent and stop if we really tried.”ย
In response, 44% of Republicans said mass shootings are inevitable “as part of a free society.” Meanwhile, 85% of Democrats and 73% of Independents said mass shootings are preventable “if we really tried.”ย
The survey had a sample size of 2,021 US adults that were interviewed between June 1 and June 3, perย CBS News, which noted the margin of error is ยฑ2.6 points.ย
Following the shooting in Uvalde, President Joe Biden insisted that Senate Minority Leaderย Mitch McConnell is a “rational Republican”ย who could agree to gun control measures, despite the party’sย longtime refusalย to seriously entertain policy changes on firearms.ย
McConnellย signaled his willingnessย for Republican senators to work with Democrats on a bipartisan push for gun safety legislation, but he did not endorse any specific proposals. The Minority Leader said he had “encouraged” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, to talk to key Democrats “who are interested in trying to get an outcome that’s directly related to the problem.”
Days later, a conservative radio host tweeted that Cornyn was “open to making gun laws more restrictive.” Cornynย respondedย to the tweet, saying it was “not gonna happen.”
In the CBS/YouGov poll, respondents from political parties across the board seemed to agree that it is unlikely Congress will “pass any laws in the next few months that will make significant changes to gun policy.”
A total of 66% of Democrats, 72% of Independents, and 71% of Republicans indicated that they think it is “not very likely” or “not at all likely” that Congress passes significant, new gun policies in the coming months.ย
A rightwing lawyer explained how the fights for reproductive rights and for transgender peopleโs access to gender-affirming medical care are connected when it comes to the law.
Ohioโs House Families, Aging, and Human Services Committee Meeting held a hearing today about H.B. 454, which would ban doctors from providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth and requires teachers to out trans kids to their parents. All of the witnesses at the hearing supported the bill, and most were from religiously affiliated organizations.
Citing an abortion rights case, Matt Sharp of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) testified to explain that courts actually might uphold the law even though itโs telling doctors to practice medicine in a sub-optimal way.
โOpponents challenged the law on several grounds, including that the lawโs requirements conflicted with best medical practice,โ Sharp said. โBut the Sixth Circuit upheld the law and the authority of the legislature to pass it.โ
โThe court found that states can enact laws that limit medical procedures even when opponents claim that the laws were, quote, โdirectly contrary to medical profession customโ and that certain medical groups did not consider them to be necessary.โ
Sharp was referring to the 2019 appeals court decision inย EMW Womenโs Surgical Center v. Beshear, where a reproductive health care provider challenged Kentuckyโs 2017 Ultrasound Informed Consent Act. The bill required people who wanted an abortion to have an ultrasound over 24 hours before the procedure and required doctors to allow the pregnant person to hear the fetal heartbeat and explain the images the ultrasound produced. They argued that it violated doctorsโ freedom of speech.
A Trump-appointed judge, John K. Bush, wrote the majority opinion and said that the bill was fine because it โprovides relevant informationโ that โgives a patient greater knowledge of the unborn life inside her.โ
Effectively, Sharp argued that a court already said that doctorsโ opinions on whatโs best for patients can be overridden by legislatures and that courts will allow the same to be done to transgender people.
In case you didn't believe us when we said it originally, here is the guy from Alliance Defending Freedom explicitly linking HB 454 which detransitions all trans teens, with fetal ultrasound and anti abortion bills.
This has been well known for a century, maybe longer.ย ย People who have nothing, who are hungry, cold, hopeless will do whatever they can to get what they need, even crime.ย ย Let’s give them another way, we can easily afford it in this country if we stop robbing the public to funnel the money to the wealthy.ย ย Hugs
A new paper in theย Quarterly Journal of Economics,ย published by Oxford University Press,ย indicates that removing cash welfare from children when they reach age 18 greatly increases the chances that they will face criminal justice charges in subsequent years. ย
Supplemental Security Income is a United States program that provides payments to people with disabilities who have low incomes. Children qualify for the program based on their disability status and their parents’ low income and assets. Until 1996 children automatically continued to qualify for the adult program when they reached 18 years old unless their incomes increased.
As part of changes made to US social welfare programs in 1996 the US Social Security Administration began to reevaluate children receiving SSI when they turned 18 using different, adult, medical eligibility criteria. The Social Security Administration began removing about 40% of children receiving benefits when they turned 18. This process disproportionately removes children with mental and behavioral conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Using data from the Social Security Administration and the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System researchers estimated the effect of losing Supplemental Security Income benefits at age 18 on criminal justice and employment outcomes over the next two decades. By comparing records of children with an 18th birthday after the date of welfare reform enactment on August 22, 1996, and those born earlier (who were allowed onto the adult program without review) the researchers were able to estimate the effect of losing benefits on the lives of the affected youth.
They found that terminating the cash welfare benefits of these young adults increased the number of criminal charges by 20% over the next two decades. The increase was concentrated in what the authors call โincome-generating crimes,โ like theft, burglary, fraud/forgery, and prostitution. As a result of the increase in criminal charges, the annual likelihood of incarceration increased by 60%. The effect of this income removal on criminal justice involvement persisted more than two decades later.
The researchers found that the impact of the change was heterogeneous. While some people removed from the income support program at age 18 responded by working more in the formal labor market, a much larger fraction responded by engaging in crime to replace the lost income. In response to losing benefits, youth were twice as likely to be charged with an illicit income-generating offense than they were to maintain steady employment.
While each person removed from the program in 1996 saved the government some spending on SSI and Medicaid over the next two decades, each removal also created additional police, court, and incarceration costs. Based on the authorsโ calculations, the administrative costs of crime alone almost eliminated the cost savings of removing young adults from the program.
โTraditionally, economists talk about the income effects of welfare programs in the context of the formal labor marketโthat welfare discourages work,โ said the paperโs authors, Manasi Deshpande and Michael Mueller-Smith. โWhat we find is that the income effect of welfare benefits can also manifest as reductions in criminal activity. In fact, in the SSI context, cash welfare has a much larger discouragement effect on criminal activity than it does on formal work.โ
Please read this short article.ย It details how the drive to return the country to 1950s was driven mostly by one man who was disgusted by the 1960s and any changes to his white Christian male dominated society.ย He quickly spread his message of hate to the party to win elections.ย ย Now that segment of the party has shrunk to about 20% but are the driving force behind the entire culture wars the republicans are pushing.ย ย The goal is return to 1950 where they felt happy and in charge, sex was still icky, and done in only one way.ย ย That is the other thing, what do these people have against sex, it is really wonderful, they should try it.ย ย Also notice the way they attack trans people.ย No real mention of trans, they ignore trans boys / men, instead focus only on bodies of trans girls and fear.ย ย It is really interesting how the lives of the people do not to matter as long as these people get the political power and the religious power they want.ย ย Hugs
The recent blitz of anti-trans bills may not align with what many Republicans believe, but party lawmakers pursue them on behalf of their most important interest group.
When it came down to it, Rick Colby called on his spirituality in deciding how to support his transgender child, Ashton.
It wasnโt a guarantee. Colby had dedicated his life to Republican politics, starting in 1984 on the field campaign to reelect Ronald Reagan. Reagan and the Republican Party with him and in the decades following would push anti-LGBTQ+ policies. But Colbyโs Methodist church by comparison preached inclusivity and empathy, a message that conflicted with what he was hearing from Republicans.ย
Colby went with Ashton to his first endocrinologist appointment. He held Ashtonโs hand the following year as Ashton awoke from gender-affirming top surgery.
ย โYou know, as a parent, you want to protect your child from the nastiness of the world,โ Colby said. โI was so relieved as a parent that he was being accepted. And it was just wonderful.โย
Survey after survey show that Americans support LGBTQ+ equality, and Republicans are no exception. Still, Republican-dominated states have seen a blitz of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation since 2020, particularly anti-transgender bills. That dissonance โ between the reality of the electorate and the priorities of Republican lawmakers โ may seem counterintuitive to many.ย
Randall Balmer, a Dartmouth professor who was raised evangelical, has spent much of his career researching those kinds of contradictions. His book,ย Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of Religious Rightย traces the rise of the evangelical voting bloc from nonexistent in the 1960s to the single most important interest group for any Republican candidate in the 1980s. In a conversation withย The 19th, Balmer said that rise was driving Republican support for anti-trans legislation now.ย
ย
โThey have an interest in keeping the base riled up about one thing or another, and when one issue fades, as with same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage, theyโve got to find something else,โ Balmer said. โItโs almost frantic.โย
Bob Jones University sign at entrance on Wade Hampton Boulevard, Greenville, South Carolina, United States.ย (John Foxe/Wikimedia)ย [CC BY-SA 3.0]
While many people believe that abortion was the issue that first galvanized evangelicals to the polls in the 1980s, Balmer points to a different issue. Paul Weyrich, an evangelical Christian who helped initially organize the โreligious right,โ had been testing out issues that would drive other evangelicals to the polls in the 1970s, Balmer says. Weyrich found it in Bob Jones University, a religious institution that wasย facing the loss of its tax-exempt statusย for refusing to racially integrate.ย
Weyrichโs strategy worked. In 1980, evangelicals โ a group of denominations separate from mainline churches like Colbyโs โย flocked to the polls to back what had been billed as the freedom of a religious school to operate without government interference. Reagan backed Bob Jones University, withย two-thirds of the evangelical vote, denied President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat and an evangelical himself, a second term. It cemented White evangelicals as the key ingredient to Republican wins.ย
Any Republican who wanted to cross the finish line would have to kneel at the feet of the evangelical base, Balmer says. Decades later, Donald Trump would initially campaign on welcoming LGBTQ+ people into his Republican platform, only to later adopt the ideology of the far-right evangelical base he needed to win.ย
While Trump appeared to start out a social moderate, far-right evangelical policies increasingly dominated his agenda. On the campaign trail, Trump brieflyย vowed to be an allyย to queer Americans. In office, his administration made so many policy moves against LGBTQ+ Americans that advocacy organizations branded his leadership โThe Discrimination Administration.โย
The religious rightโs fixation on โsocial issuesโ โย abortion, religious-based education, LGBTQ+ rights โย served two purposes. In addition to keeping evangelicals a cohesive voting unit, they also formed an ideological bedrock for the religious right. Before Weyrich died, he argued that conservatives should be fighting to return to family structures of the 1950s, a goal that has been picked up by leaders after him.ย
In his bookย The Next Conservatism, Weyrich wrote that the goal was to weed out โcultural Marxism,โ and โrestore a non-ideological American republic, which is what we had up until the wretched 1960s,โ when women and Black and LGBTQ+ Americans pushed for and won greater rights.
ย
ย After Reaganโs 1980 victory, Weyrich would continue to test issue after issue to keep evangelicals voting, including abortion. This idealized rewind to 1950s America would systematically challenge the basic rights gained by Black Americans, LGBTQ+ people and those with disabilities.
โAs they were searching for different issues, I think they understood that any issue that had some sort of connection to sexuality or sexual behavior was going to work for them,โ Balmer told The 19th.ย
The first issue was โsodomy laws,โ which aimed to make gay sex illegal. The Supreme Court overruled the last of them in 2003 inย Lawrence v. Texas. Next came marriage equality, which was granted nationwide by the Supreme Courtโsย Obergefellย ruling in 2015. Still, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, evangelical Protestants were the only major religious group as of 2020 that opposed same-sex marriage:ย just 34 percent of those surveyed support marriage equality.
The country, however, moved on. ย
โItโs staggering how quickly [marriage] disappeared as an issue,โ Balmer said โAnd so, they almost frantically began looking for something else. And of course, the trans thing was the next thing on the horizon.โย
Today, nearly 8 in 10 Americans back nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, accordingย to a pollย from the nonpartisan โโPublic Religion Research Institute. That includes 65 percent of Republicans. Aย 2021 pollย by PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll found that two-thirds of Americans opposed bills limiting the rights of transgender people.ย
Mapsย of states that haveย passed lawsย that would ban abortion if the Supreme Court struck downย Roe v. Wadeย almost mirror those that have passed anti-trans bans. Eleven of the 15 states with a sports participation ban for trans youth have also moved to curtail abortion rights.ย
Zein Murib, assistant political professor at Fordham University, says that overlap is no mistake.ย
โTheyโre saying, โForget about rights. This is about bodies,โโ Murib said. โThis is about these bodies being in places where they again presumably do not belong. โฆ You see them deploying scare tactics like, โmen disguised as women in girlsโ restroomsโ or โboys in girlsโ locker rooms.โโ
As 19th Newsย found in an investigation in 2021, the vast majority of anti-transgender bills never use the word โtransgenderโ at all. Lawmakers instead pitch the bills as critical to securing rights for women in sports and larger society. Those arguments fail to acknowledge transgender women, and advocates say they are increasingly out of touch with the general electorate.ย
Chris Bull is the editorial director of queer media firm Q.Digital and the author of the 2001 bookย ย Perfect Enemies: The Battle Between the Religious Right and the Gay Movement. Bull argues that Republican lawmakers have abandoned 80 percent of their voters to cater to a sliver of their voters.ย
ย
โI think that the cliche of American politics is not holding anymore,โ he said. โTheyโre really running base campaigns, that 20 percent of the electorate.โย
Still, political scientists warn that the strategy to attack trans rights could backfire and cost them support among an increasingly diverse electorate. More Americans, like Colby, know transgender people than ever before. More than that, evangelicals are statistically shrinking as a voting block, while the number who support LGBTQ+ people continues to rapidly grow.ย
In the 2018 midterms, the Human Rights Campaign, with polling firm Catalyst, found that people they dubbed โequality voters,โ those whose support for LGBTQ+ rights strongly influenced their voting choices,ย made up 29 percent of the electorate. White evangelicals made up 26 percent of the vote.
Please notice in this short article the references to protecting the children from the propaganda of LGBTQ+.ย ย This guy praises these laws that are more don’t say gay, outlawing any mention of the LGBTQ+ and the authoritarian strongman leaders that implement them.ย ย They want to outlaw the LGBTQ+ out of existence,ย and where do you think the US rabid right Republicans get these ideas.ย ย ย More and more as these laws pop up all across the world to either stop or roll back acceptance of the LGBTQ+ people / rights I remember how Brian Brown, Scott Lively, and other US religious figures went to developing nations and pushed for strict punishments for any same sex conduct, anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and helped elect politicians with religious views.ย ย Some big money person / groups are pushing this hate world wide.ย ย The haters are using the same laws and same talking points.ย ย ย Hugs
Miloลก Zeman, president of the Czech Republic, vows to veto legislation that would give same-sex couples the right to hold civil weddings in the country. (Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty)
Czech president Miloลก Zeman has said he plans to veto proposed legislation that would give same-sex couples the right to get married in the country.ย
The measure, which was drafted by lawmakers across the Czech political spectrum, was submitted to the parliamentโs lower house on Tuesday (7 June),ย the Associated Pressreported.
ย
Lawmakers have yet to set a date to debate the proposed same-sex marriage legislation.ย Yet the countryโs president has said he is strongly opposed to the measure and will strike it down should it even land on his desk.
โIโd like to announce that if I really receive such a law to sign I will veto it,โ Zeman said.
Miloลก Zeman has served as the president of the Czech Republic since 2013. The president is considered a largely ceremonial role as the elected leader has limited executive powers, but he does have a considerable role in political affairs.ย
ย
Zeman said that the Czech Republic passed a law in 2006 allowing same-sex couples to enter into registered partnerships, but he believed โfamily is a union between a man and a womanโ, โfull stopโ.ย
Czech president Miloลก Zeman said he believes โfamily is a union between a man and a womanโ, โfull stopโ. (Getty/Mikhail Svetlov)
The registered partnership gives queer couples in the Czech Republic some rights similar to those of heterosexual married couples, but it stops short of placing same-sex couples on fully equal footing with their heterosexual counterparts.
Same-sex marriage remainsย illegalย in the country because marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman under the Czech Republicโs civil code.ย
ย
Parliament started debatingย similar same-sex marriage legislation back in 2018, but the legislation stalled as lawmakers didnโt take a vote before last yearโs general election. The measure had to then be re-submitted for debate.ย
Lawmakers in the Czech parliamentโs lower house can override Zemanโs veto if they can reach a majority vote.ย
Miloลก Zeman has often espoused anti-LGBTQ+ views in the past. Last June, Zeman said he finds trans peopleย โdisgustingโย while discussing Hungaryโs so-calledย LGBTQ+ โpropagandaโ law, which bans any depiction or discussion of queer people in schools, the media and advertising.
ย
Zema said he thought people who undergo gender-affirming treatments are โbasically committing a crime of self-harmโ.ย
โEvery surgery is a risk, and these transgender people to me are disgusting,โ he added.ย
The Czech president said Orbรกn is โnot against homosexualsโ but is just โagainst the manipulationโ of parents and children in โsex educationโ.
โI see no reason to disagree with him because I am completely annoyed by the suffragettes, the Me Too movement and Prague Pride,โ Zeman said.ย
I have heard of these studies before.ย ย But mostly it was from sites dedicated to LGBTQ+ issues.ย ย This is the first time I have heard these arguments put forth by an active preacher / priest.ย If you think the bible passages are against consensual homosexuality, please give this short video a listen.ย He clears that up well.ย ย Hugs
Charlie Kirk is launching Turning Point Academy โ the first of what will be a network of private schools focused on a โclassic, pro-Americanโ curriculum and a rejection of critical race theory, โwokeismโ and โanti-American ideas.โ
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, said the first โTurning Point Academyโ will be in collaboration with Dream City Christian School โ an existing Arizona private K-12 school that will welcome more than 600 students beginning in the fall of 2022.
Kirk said Turning Point Academy will adhere to โbedrock principles,โ including to โnever waver from the truth and to teach self-government and liberty to studentsโ and to reject critical race theory, โwokeism, deconstructionism, queer theory, radical LGBT agendas,โ anti-American ideas, and more.
After Charlie Kirk spent years telling parents to pull their kids out of public schools, now we learn why – a network of private schools to provide a true โpatriotic education.โ pic.twitter.com/d0ix0nOSXT
— Ron Filipkowski ๐บ๐ฆ (@RonFilipkowski) June 13, 2022
Here's Charlie Kirk along with Riley Grisar of LasVegas Turning Point USA (fired after appearing in video "We're gonna run the world! White Power! Fuck N*****s!") white supremacist Milo Yiannopoulos & the New Zealand #ChristChurch murderer all โplaying the circle game.โ ๐ pic.twitter.com/KgUgYn2xbU
Last week, Turning Point USA removed a chapter president for making white supremacist comments. This is just one of many controversies the right-wing campus group has faced; weโve been tracking those incidents and the groupโs history here: https://t.co/sWAM8RP90n
I’m guessing within five years, we will hear about: — Teachers working unpaid, but with promises that God will provide for them. — Sexual, physical and mental abuse on teachers and students. — Funds were stolen, but no one knows how much because their finances were unaudited. — Children tortured because their parents suspect they are gay. — Students are learning calculus at age 10 but have the personality of a doorknob.
I agree with all but your last point. I am a high school math teacher and tutor students at the local public library two nights a week. The home-school students and those who attend fundamentalist schools are horrible at math. Many of their “teachers” are uncertified, many without college degrees. Most adults serve as monitors who force the students to sit at computers using automated Christian education software. The math content is repetitive and simplified, with more emphasis on calculation than application. There is no adult on hand to provide in-person explanation or clarification.
The Christian students come to me, sometimes in tears, when they realize that they are hopelessly unprepared for the SAT/ACT math sections, as well as Precalculus and Calculus.
As you know, learning the higher mathematics requires good teachers who know their subject well and have the ability to communicate the material to others.
And don’t even get me started on the “Christian” version of science!
Scottie's Playtime 