“This one is personal to me. Because of my former boss. I have a 14-year-old son who is gay. Recently came out as gay. I have his permission to talk about this. He didn’t want to tell his friends where I worked.
“He was ashamed of where I worked, rightfully so, but also the fact that there’s this ‘don’t say gay’ – even slogan – out there, it’s making children feel different.
“It’s creating a problem where I don’t think there is one.” – Former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, today on The View. Watch the clip.
Don’t bother vaccinating your kids against COVID, even though the CDC says it’s a good idea. Quit fussing; they’ll be fine. Dr. Joseph Ladapo promises.
You don’t have to wear that mask, either. Dr. Ladapo says it’s a lie that they save lives, and that doctors who believe otherwise are “zombies.” That was his actual word.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his recently confirmed surgeon general know they are a lot smarter than all those epidemiologists, virologists, cardiologists and pulmonary specialists at the Centers for Disease Control and state and local public-health officials. They are the heroes of the narrative they’ve created and they are ready to deliver the
Gov. Ron DeSantis held this slickly produced event on March 7, showcasing several COVID-denying medical experts. Screenshot from DeSantis’ YouTube channel. – Original Credit: YouTube screenshot (Courtesy photo)
message with lights, cameras and snappy catchphrases.
DeSantis has picked up the phrase “COVID Theater” and is using it a lot lately. It’s an odd choice coming from the office that has stage-managed a public health crisis into a series of sound bites and rants about freedom and jobs.
Monday’s 90-minute roundtable to announce the anti-vax position for kids took things to a whole new level. Shot in a studio, it featured a large table with DeSantis flanked, Last-Supper-style, by a cast of six COVID skeptics. Behind them, a giant, curved video screen displayed more than 200 individual (people pictured on) video feeds. According to the Tampa Bay Times, many of them were state employees, presumably getting paid to serve as living wallpaper. The screen would occasionally be taken over by the giant heads of more “experts,” including some of the nation’s most notorious anti-mask, anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine advocates.
All this time and money – taxpayers’ time and money – was devoted to delivering one message: Parents don’t need to vaccinate healthy children against COVID. But there was an insidious, ridiculous subtext that the bulk of the last two years has been an elaborate illusion crafted to make people afraid.
It’s a sharp contrast to the message being put out by the nation’s medical community. After two years of trying to predict an ever-shifting pandemic, health leaders are wearily gathering around this consensus: They are not really sure what’s coming next. COVID could be mostly gone by the end of the year. The highly infectious omicron variant could continue to infect people. Or we could see yet another variant – possibly even more contagious, or more debilitating, or more fatal. Which option is most likely? They don’t know.
All they can do is recommend the safest decisions, with the most medical support. And that means vaccination, for kids as young as 5. It’s true that children don’t catch COVID easily– at least, not the current variant. It’s also true that vaccines aren’t providing protection for as long as some people thought. Florida has dropped from its 60,000-plus peak of daily new infections to a still-grim 1,800. But COVID is still a threat, and about 170 people die every day. Kids are still getting infected as well. The vaccine reduces children’s chance of getting COVID significantly – up to 91 percent – and it lessens symptoms and duration. If another nasty variant emerges, it could save lives.
That doesn’t seem to move Ladapo or his boss DeSantis, who seems more concerned with coming up with new ways to make “Fauci” into a verb and yelling at high school students to take off their masks. They’ve co-opted a dangerous, highly infectious disease into a political stunt. And now they’re urging parents to ignore the best available protections for their children.
If this is a play, DeSantis is the one writing the script, seemingly blind to the reality that he’s directing a farce.
I am still fighting to get my systems back to full capacity. I have good news and bad news on that front. I will tell you when I get everything done. On this bill, it is clearly an attack on LGBTQ+ books and materials by the right but mostly the religious groups. I was listening to a podcast today that described several top Republicans crowing about how targeting trans KIDS and framing any books or material about the LGBTQ+ as obscene sex, pornography and harmful to kids was the winning strategy that was going to get them a sweep in the midterm elections. They admitted it was garbage but attacking KIDS got the base riled up to turn out and it anything protecting kids makes the side against it the enemy of the people. I have stored about five different attacks on the LGBTQ+ to post, from the DeathSantis spox saying if you oppose the don’t say gay bill you are a pedophile who wants to groom kids, to more attacks on trans kids. I love this bill is numbered 666. I will post this and go back to updating my computers, dumped and reinstalled for the 6th time.
The Idaho Legislature’s House State Affairs Committee advanced a bill Thursday that opponents say could criminalize librarians for “disseminating material harmful to minors.”
Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt, R-Eagle, sponsored House Bill 666.
“For a long time, many years, I have been concerned about the obscene and pornographic material that finds its way into our schools and libraries,” DeMordaunt told the House State Affairs Committee. “While likely this is inadvertent, the increasingly frequent exposure of our children to obscene and pornographic material in places that I as a parent assume are safe and free from these kinds of harmful materials is downright alarming.”
If passed into law, House Bill 666 removes an exemption in existing state law protecting schools, colleges, universities, museums and libraries and their employees from prosecution for “disseminating material harmful to minors.”
Testimony during the public hearing on the bill Thursday was mixed.
Several parents and concerned residents named and even brought with them several books that feature LGBTQ+ characters or storylines, arguing those books are obscene. One parent was upset that her daughter encountered a library book that depicted a romance between a prince and a knight who slay a dragon together and are supported by their community.
Books mentioned included “An ABC of Equality,” “Lawn Boy,” “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” and “Gender Queer: A Memoir.”
“How did we go from ‘Pollyanna’ to drag queen for the kids? My daughter’s innocence was violated,” parent Kara Claridge told legislators. “But what happens when kids start acting on these graphic behaviors put forth in these books?”
“The sad reality is children are being taught to be confused about their gender and even groomed into lifestyles they wouldn’t have chosen otherwise,” Claridge added, saying the children’s library is no longer a safe place to take her children.
Librarians who testified said the bill is dangerous and the language in the bill about materials that are harmful to children is too vague.
“We walk down the slippery slope of censorship of constitutionally protected speech when we have a bill like this,” librarian Erin Kennedy told legislators.
Other librarians said the bill wouldn’t even address parents’ concerns about material in books available in the library.
“Everything that we have been hearing on this bill, I would just like to point out that this bill is not to get the books out of the library, this bill is to criminalize library workers. We are not talking censorship and removing these books; we are talking about criminalizing library workers if minors get these books,” librarian Huda Shaltry told legislators.
Shaltry also said the books parents mentioned during the hearing are available at the library but are not located in the children’s section of the library.
DeMordaunt denied the bill would criminalize librarians.
But substitute Rep. Holli Woodings, a Boise Democrat and City Council member who is subbing for Rep. Chris Mathias, said it was clear the bill criminalizes librarians because the bill cites Title 18, which is the criminal code for the state of Idaho.
“If my daughter brings home ‘Twilight,’ which has explicit material in it, can I then go and press charges against my librarian for allowing her to check out ‘Twilight’ and potentially put them in jail for a year or give them a $1,000 fine?” Woodings said. “This is a slippery slope. It does not correct the problem that it is seeking to correct. We had many people come and testify today on books that had various social topics. Not pornography, not explicit material.”
Shortly before the vote, two legislators condemned libraries after looking through packets that contained examples from the books parents mentioned during the meeting.
“I am absolutely appalled, I feel dirty,” said Rep. James Holtzclaw, R-Meridian, garnering loud applause from several in the crowd at the hearing. “I cannot believe that our children can look at this stuff. And I can’t believe we fund the libraries to allow this to happen.”
Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, said “trash is being placed in front of our children.”
The House State Affairs Committee voted along party lines to send House Bill 666 to the floor of the Idaho House of Representatives with a recommendation they pass it. To become law, the bill still needs to pass the Idaho Senate and be signed into law by Gov. Brad Little or allowed to become law without Little’s signature.
Idaho clears a legislation with the potential to fine librarians $1,000 and send them to jail for a year for checking out material to a minor that could harm them https://t.co/apbdqUUvkW (via AP)
Not a single fucking person is sitting at home thinking, “I’m totally not trans, but I’d probably give it a whirl if I could easily and cheaply change my birth certificate to reflect a gender with which I do not identify.”
Stop being fucking stupid, you absolute ballbags.
— Fancy Brenda 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (they/them) (@SpillerOfTea) March 4, 2022
“People who are already trans and have always existed will be much more likely to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate if the process ceases to be so costly, time-consuming and dehumanising.”
— Fancy Brenda 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (they/them) (@SpillerOfTea) March 4, 2022
BREAKING: Florida legislators voted to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy on Thursday, a move that would severely restrict access to the procedure in a state that for decades has been a refuge for women from across the South, with @aglorioshttps://t.co/RUKhWYA45c
At a moment when democracy is under attack from authoritarian regimes around the world, we must address the growing authoritarian factions in our country.
Paul Manafort, who was an advisor to the Pro-Russia/Pro-Putin former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, was Trump’s campaign Chairman. He worked for free. Manafort picked Pence for VP.
Manafort never stopped working and talking with Russia throughout the 2016 election.
Trump bragged about love letters from North Korea. He was Putin’s puppet. Truly vile.
Republicans are soft. Soft-headed. Soft on our enemies. Soft of racism. Soft on sexism.
Having no principles or morals is disqualifying.
Yep, that would be totally believable. Because China has such a large fleet of F-22s. And planes’ affiliations are definitely only identifiable by flags.
I think we’re beyond any viable off-ramps for Putin at this point, but this is certainly one way to make the war less popular in Russia. https://t.co/QvFmwDDU9k
The judge has "has effectively taken a 10,000 ton, $1.8 billion guided-missile destroyer out of commission. As the Navy builds up its naval presence in Europe to guard against further Russian aggression, it is down a ship" https://t.co/acaW41MzvR
As you can see, the right has created another no-win situation for President Biden. If President Biden doesn’t cut the flow of Russian oil, then the right can accuse him of being weak. Even though he has been sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing other sanctions. If President Biden cuts off the flow of Russian oil, then Republicans can blame him for the higher oil prices because there is less oil available. Even though there is very little President Biden can do about the price of oil. It will take two years for Keystone XL pipeline to be completed if President Biden restarted the program. That doesn’t solve the problem right now. That oil would also be sold on the open market, so we possibly wouldn’t get it. The oil is being transported by other ways as well currently. We could make land available for oil drilling, but it would also take time to put the wells in place. Assuming the oil companies want to do it. They might like the way things are because it is more profitable that way.
This situation could have been prevented if Republicans and more Democrats voted for the Green New Deal in order to reduce our dependence on oil.
Plus as I understand it the oil companies are sitting on land leases they already have but have not done anything with. The US is the largest producer of oil, and yet it is sold on the open market you mention instead of being restricted to home use. Also there is the question of refineries. Oil comes in grades, and not all refineries refine the same grades of oils. So there is a mix of sending oils from country to country to where the ability to take that grade of oil and make it into the final product for sale. It really is a complicated mess. The US president has little control over it, if any.
And then the right can blame President Biden for the price of oil being too high. We could put our military in Ukraine and hope Putin doesn’t retaliate with nukes. Even if Putin doesn’t the right will be upset when a soldier gets a paper cut.
Despite the attempts to smear Biden, the Democrats have proposed and are trying to enact boycotts and restrictions on Russian oil. Strangely the Republicans have not supported this effort even as the right wing media is demanding it. It is a double edged sword, if Biden does sanction the Russian oil even though the US part of it has already shrunk to very low levels if the price of oil increases the right can blame Biden. If Biden doesn’t act to sanction the Russian oil then the right can accuse Biden of not supporting Ukraine. The right wing loves this as it lets then do what they do best, talk out both sides of their mouth because for them it is not the policy that counts but how to attack Democrats. They are kids wanting to hurt the other. They don’t care about policy or what is best for people. They want the emotional childish game. So let us see how many of the Republicans in congress support sanctions on Russian oil.
This is done by a right wing media cartoonist to try to force the US into a war because of the fact most people care about the hurt of other people. But it is not that simple. Yes Ukrainians are dying. How many more will die if madman Putin who is repeatedly demonstrated he doesn’t care about human life feels backed into a corner and does launch nuclear weapons? How many more will die then. How long will the destruction last then? There are ways to handle this war that are not flashy and does not beat the breast of the wannabe macho men, but it keeps the death toll down.
The right has deliberately poisoned the well on CRT. ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain,” Rufo wrote. He takes critical-race theory as a concept, strips it of all meaning, and repurposes it as a catchall for white grievances. “The goal,” he tweeted, “is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” As you can see this is a manufactured crisis for political gain by the right and a person very arguably a white supremacist. CRT has become a code for the racist history of the US and some white people don’t want it taught accurately and if taught it must be watered down to seem a beneficial action by white people toward blacks. Not sure why so many white people identify with the slavers rather than the abolitionists. CRT is only a legal theory taught in law schools or advanced degree programs. It is not taught in high schools, and it is not taught in grade schools. That idea is another right wing media misinformation campaign. And Rufo admits it.
The “Biden weak” trope wore out, so let’s try “Harris incompetent.” Biden’s day off, attack Harris. Ho, hum. Perhaps the alleged cartoonist should be worried about the Trump Principle: the ability to spectacularly fail upwards while destroying everything around you. It’s well practiced by most Republicans. She has undertaken several difficult tasks and done — not perfectly: This is politics — but pretty well. However, like the big lie(s) about Hillary promulgated by the reich wingers, I suspect their big lies about Harris will prevail in the end, if only by 55% to 45%.
church ministry has found a new way to indoctrinate public school students, and the Pennridge School District in Pennsylvania is giving them the platform to pull it off.
There’s also a flyer for “RE:VIVALS Outreach Center” which offers free tutoring for students in the district. The flyer even notes that the volunteers who work with them “are educators, administrators, counselors, and aides. All have received full clearance from the State of Pennsylvania to work with children and youth.”
It’s not until you read the fine print at the very bottom that you notice the catch: This is a bait-and-switch attempt to “bring hope and healing to the community through the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
That’s not just some euphemism. This isn’t a church that expresses its faith by helping members of the community. This is a blatant attempt to indoctrinate public school students. And we know that because one mother reached out to them in the hopes they could help her daughter catch up in her AP Biology class after she missed several lessons on evolution… and the response was jaw-dropping:
Laura Foster, a district parent, reached out to the program, Re:vivals Resource Center, to inquire about assistance for her daughter, Camille, with her AP Biology exam.
In an email response to Foster, Donna Tindall of Re:vivals, wrote that a tutor could help Camille understand evolution through a “biblical worldview… meaning that we believe that God created the world in six literal days.”
“Although we accept this through faith, there is evidence pointing in that direction,” said Tindall. “I think our tutor would welcome the opportunity to help [Camille] understand what is being presented and perhaps to examine the presuppositions as well as the supporting facts for both conclusions.”
None of that would help Camille. What it would do it confuse her by injecting mythology into a science class, leaving her worse off as she prepares for an advanced placement exam that could earn her college credit. Spreading misinformation and embracing lies may be acceptable for members of the First Baptist Church of Perkasie, which sponsors the program, but it shouldn’t be an option for people who take education seriously. It’s despicable that the school allows this program to be publicized on its website without any sort of disclaimer that this ministry is mostly interested in winning converts and undoing what students learn in the classroom.
When Emily Rizzo of public radio station WHYY inquired about this with Pennridge Superintendent David Bolton, he initially said any group is allowed to request their flyers listed on the district’s website… before offering his personal stamp of approval for this particular for of misinformation:
In an email to Foster, Superintendent Bolton said he had “spoken directly with Re:Vivals about the tutoring program before it began and [had] personally visited multiple times and [had] received feedback from multiple families who have used the service.”
I’m sure it all seems very nice and the volunteers mean well. That doesn’t erase the fact that this is just an attempt to indoctrinate kids through the public school system or that the “tutoring” involves material that contradicts what kids learn in the classroom.
Parents shouldn’t have to investigate the organization themselves in order to understand the real mission. The school should make that clear up front instead of suggesting they vetted and approved all the groups posting flyers on the website.
Perhaps it’ll take Satanists or atheists demanding their own groups’ flyers get listed on the district’s website before these people take the matter seriously.
WHYY also notes that this particular district has been at the center of a number of recent “culture war” battles that pushed for conservative Christian policies:
The district is effectively functioning as an arm of the local churches. And students are the ones who are ultimately punished for that partnership.
HEMANT MEHTA
Hemant Mehta is the founder of FriendlyAtheist.com, a YouTube creator, podcast co-host, and author of multiple books about atheism. He can be reached at @HemantMehta. More by Hemant Mehta
I have committed heresy in Washington. I’ve been in the Senate for only three years, and I have released an 11-point plan with 128 ideas on what Republicans should do after we win the coming elections and take control of the Senate and House. In the real world beyond the Beltway, Republicans and independents demand bold action and a plan to save our nation.
They see no point in taking control of Congress if we are simply going to return to business as usual. So, I went out and made a statement that got me in trouble. I said that all Americans need to have some skin in the game. Even if it is just a few bucks, everyone needs to know what it is like to pay some taxes. It hit a nerve.
Part of the deception is achieved by disconnecting so many Americans from taxation. It’s a genius political move. And it is bankrupting us. There will be many more attacks on me and this plan from careerists in Washington, who personally profit while ruining this country. Bring it on.
Incredibly, Rick Scott has doubled down in his bid to get the nation to pay attention to his plan to eliminate Social Security & Medicare and raise taxes on half the countryhttps://t.co/wIjqn6asqT
Scott writes WSJ op-ed defending his agenda, including making all pay income tax. He says “free-loaders who abuse the welfare system” should pay something.
Republicans “don’t deserve to govern” unless they want to fix America.https://t.co/HqiphBIemB
Sen. Rick Scott released a television ad promoting an 11-point Republican agenda for the midterms. The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he’s pushed the plan on the Rescue America website. “Our borders are being invaded, inflation is raging and our shelves are empty,” Scott says in narration.
“Crime is rampant. Police are being killed, and God-fearing people are being silenced.” The plan stokes culture wars on abortion and anti-LGBTQ stances, quoting the Bible and making a case for a heartbeat bill.
The ad can be watched online now and will begin airing on television airways nationwide on Friday. Paid for by Scott’s own PAC, Scott for Florida, he said the ad is backed by a seven-figure national TV and digital buy.
Rick Scott, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, put out an agenda for Republicans to run on that includes requiring "all Americans" — including low-income families and the elderly — to pay income taxes.
That means raising taxes on 100+ million Americans.
New on the 11-point plan: Rick Scott's campaign tells me this would also apply to the 2030 census, meaning that there would be no data at all on the racial makeup of the US.https://t.co/vo6NRRVEty
NEW: Rick Scott just went on Fox to defend the new GOP 2022 platform that calls for raising taxes on the middle class and seniors — he claimed that “of course” he didn’t call to raise taxes. His plan specifically calls for raising income taxes on “over half of Americans.”
Let’s remember: Rick Scott refused to expand Medicaid, denying health care to about 800,000 Floridians. Now, he’s promising higher taxes for middle-class and working-class families.
In a private meeting at Mar-a-Lago a few days ago, Donald Trump made a personal pitch to Senate Republican campaign chief Rick Scott. “You should run for Senate majority leader,” he told the NRSC chair. It wasn’t the first time, either: Trump has repeatedly told Scott he’d be great at the job and should challenge Mitch McConnell.
The Florida governor-turned-senator is navigating some treacherous terrain — and we’re not talking about the Senate landscape.
He’s trying to balance working with the GOP’s two most powerful figures in McConnell and Trump, who also happen to despise each other. Scott, 69, made waves — and infuriated some McConnell allies — when he bucked the GOP leader’s decision not to lay out a policy agenda for 2022 and instead released his own.
Sen. Rick Scott continues to project optimism about the electoral climate for Republicans, forecasting an “unbelievable” shift in school boards in 2022. During an interview Wednesday morning on Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade Show, the Senator said there would be an “unbelievable number of school board changes this next year.”
Scott expects cultural backlash to prevail. “Because parents are fed up with these school boards telling them that your kid’s oppressed or your kid’s an oppressor. That is so crazy,” Scott added.
Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, closed out 2021 trumpeting much of the same message he has all year, an expectation that critical race theory can be used to mobilize November voters.
I am pretty proud there is a round up today. I love the roundup and I wake up early. Today I got up at 4:30 AM and at 5 AM I started the roundup. I got half way through the first 400 pages when I lost the entire thing. The reason I lost the entire thing was my router. We have been having issues, well really Ron was on his electronics for about a month. I sort of dismissed it because I couldn’t replicate it when he told me. But now the entire router cut out. I got one side of the router back up and running. After hours. Took me a lot of resetting and initializing and trying to adjust thing. Some parts of the router are still off line. Once I got the computers / internet up I investigated new routers. I was doing this as Ron kept telling me all the issues he has had with his electronic over the last few months that I apparently had not paid the needed husband in charge of the electronics should have done.
I have found something I did not know. Routers are now only good for 3 to 5 years. There is an entirely new standard since 2019. Our router was about 10 years old. Back then I needed a really strong router so I got one nearly $500.00 dollars.
I did some quick research and found one far better than our current one for only $165.00 and I ordered it. It will be here tomorrow some time. So the problems of the day solved right? Nope. I had to go lay down, and Ron has not been feeling well all day and after lunch my body gave out so we both went to bed until about 2 PM. I started working again and the toilet in the center of the house backed up. Shit. Well no luckily it was not, it was pee.
Last summer the electric company replaced the pole behind out home. They had a really grand machine on tracks that could dig the hole and hold / carry the pole and do all the work. It was small enough to go between the homes. But the sewer pipes run between the homes and apparently this thing crushed them. So every now and again we have to dump boiling pots of hot water down the toilets to clear any slow drainage. Yes the park knows and it is on their to do list. We have a nice green flag out there to say so. It doesn’t help the toilets to drain.
Anyway after 8 big pots of water the toilets are working great again and I could get back to the roundup. I won’t mention that I did have to go get Ron, who was napping because he did not feel well, after the first four pots because my back gave out, I couldn’t hardly walk much less carry boiling water. Ron was not happy I did not wake him before trying to carry boiling water. Oh well I am a bad boy rebel. And on to the cartoons / memes
Ron and I both have teeth issues. I had such pain in my mouth when I was younger and seen dentists that I went over 30 years without getting any dental care. In that time I developed a lot of problems. Like my bones in my body my teeth were dying and decaying. When I went to a dentist about five years ago they had a heck of a fight to save most of my teeth and I have a life long problem now with periodontal disease and even after the surgeon took the bad teeth and cleaned out the infections I still fight infections around my teeth. We spent about 10 grand having my teeth fixed and crowns put over the breaking teeth. Right now we are trying to budget nearly $500 dollars because I have an infection around one tooth that they have to go in and clean out and pack with antibiotic. I had that same area done only a year and half ago. The US has to have dental care for seniors and the disabled. It is seriously important. I am missing a tooth in the front because I ran out of insurance before I could have the needed dental surgery to implant it. It will cost 5 grand. This is something other countries consider rights for the people in their country, but the US is too worried about someone losing profit to worry that someone can not eat.
US employers added 678,000 jobs in February—well beyond predictions. While this is good news, wages didn’t grow at all.
Average hourly earnings went up just one cent, but the Fed is still set to raise interest rates later this month to head off a nonexistent “wage-price spiral."
Wow!!! I can’t believe you were getting 40 cents an hour. Where I was at we got 65 cents a day. And most Unions will bring ex cons into their apprenticeship programs.
Communities build prisons based on predicted birth rate of felons because they know the cycle of incarceration. This is truly evil.
Tucker’s demand for LSAT scores is manifestly racist in that it’s (a) selectively asked of a black candidate but not asked of others and (b) trades on a well-worn racist trope of nonwhite candidates being elevated using less stringent requirements. This is what Kenny’s defending.
Turns out that Russia is not as militarily powerful as they have portrayed themselves. Their nukes are the only thing giving the rest of the world pause from acting in force against Russia. It is clear now that Russia can not stand up to NATO. The Russian military sent to Ukraine is full of badly trained conscripts who are ill supplied. There is no fuel for the vehicles, no food for the troops, no command authority it seems. The Ukrainians were letting the Russian kids call home to their mothers because they said their families had no idea where they were. The myth of the great Russian military machine has been shattered.
This is a horrifying assessment of the #RussianInvasion of Ukraine.
Authoritarians try to negate a population, force disruption/displacement. Civilians are the obvious target. Children will suffer.
The idea of flattening empty cities is chilling.
Putin is a small, small insecure man.
Mikhail Watford was from Ukraine. He feared he was on Putin hitlist.
Putin: invasion is going as planned
I probably wouldn’t have planned to run out of gas, lose thousands of soldiers, fail to neutralize air defenses, have my forces refuse to go into Kyiv, get a Chechen commander and one of my top generals killed, or attack a nuclear power plant.
Republicans caved without a fight. They were willfully complicit with our biggest enemy.
We know why the right wing supports Putin. He is a white supremacist who hates the LGBTQ+ like they do. That is the most important thing to them. What bothers them is that the Ukrainians are white also. If the Russians were killing brown people the Republicans would be pushing to join them or give Putin arms just like they are the Saudis in Yemen.
BREAKING: Florida legislators voted to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy on Thursday, a move that would severely restrict access to the procedure in a state that for decades has been a refuge for women from across the South, with @aglorioshttps://t.co/RUKhWYA45c
Not a single fucking person is sitting at home thinking, “I’m totally not trans, but I’d probably give it a whirl if I could easily and cheaply change my birth certificate to reflect a gender with which I do not identify.”
Stop being fucking stupid, you absolute ballbags.
— Fancy Brenda 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (they/them) (@SpillerOfTea) March 4, 2022
“People who are already trans and have always existed will be much more likely to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate if the process ceases to be so costly, time-consuming and dehumanising.”
The right wing wants to support Putin but the know it is very unpopular in the country. Even Carlson has backtracked from his I love Putin stance. I think we all know Putin is not dancing over the invasion, it is going very badly for him.
Incorrect. This is ignoring the situation. The ones in the US who claim they need their guns to fight their own government don’t understand the Ukrainians have the support of their government. They have the support of their police. They are facing a force that is coming from out side and is limited in their number. Our police forces have the budges and weapons of the Ukrainian military. Our military has weapons and training far in advance of the Russians. It is now clear that the Russians are not even near peers or the US and they are a paper tiger with nukes. If our groups of militia think they will stand up to the US government and fight the US military and police they would be slaughtered quickly. Sorry but you are adding apples to oranges. The Russia soldiers are conscripted kids who are hungry and scared and their vehicles have no fuel. That is not the way it will be against the US military.
The right wing is desperate to not give Biden credit for anything. They are so tribal. The facts are that on Biden’s watch the country increased in jobs more than ever before. Yet Hannity tried to compare tRump’s best before Covid with just one month during Covid for Biden. One other right winger claimed Biden was wrong because the recording of job numbers was not started until 1939. WTF. So desperate. Why not just admit Biden gets credit for more job creation while saying they don’t think he did enough?
After tRump’s limited vocabulary, frequently repeated words, and half finished sentence then starting a tangent with a new subject entirely the right has no leg to stand on criticizing anyone about how they talk. Even with a teleprompter tRump read like a second grader and spoke in a monotone. I would say this is a case where people that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
When you think of the turn around from the last administrations handling of the Covid pandemic Biden has done great work for the country. 6.2 million jobs have come back, wages up, growth happening, record profits for the corporations and the wealthy. All in less than a year while fighting the misleading right wing media arm of the Republican party.
This is a catch 22 situation. If Biden does add more sanctions on Russian oil, the prices of gas in the world may rise, it may violate the contracts already signed, the right wing media arm of the Republicans would go crazy attacking Biden. However if he doesn’t sanction the Russian oil companies then he gets attacked by everyone. The fact is the US increased the importation of Russian oil under tRump and it has already decreased greatly under Biden. The situation has to do with the type of oil and where it can be refined. Oil and what is done with it is now global, it is not limited to one country. That said the Democrats have proposed a bill in congress to sanction all the Russian oil exports. Lets see if the Republicans join the Democrats on this or just claim the Democrats are against capitalism and want to hurt oil companies.
When the government tries to regulate private companies, the R’s scream—except when the R’s think they have a neat way to criticize the government. Private US companies are buying the Russian oil. Several major private companies have announced they are withdrawing from their arrangements with Russian companies (BP, Shell, Exxon), but that doesn’t fit in or get mentioned by the RW shills promoting this meme, so it gets buried in their propaganda releases.
Everybody knows checks to Russian oil companies for their exports to the USA are drawn directly from the US Treasury and signed personally by Joe Biden.
Tucker said that, or maybe it was somebody else on FOX. Or I heard it on Newsmax. Or it was on Breitbart. Or World Net Daily. Or Steve Bannon or Alex Jones, one or the other, said it on their podcast.
No, wait! It was on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Hold it a minute, I’m not absolutely positive about that.
But I heard it, or read it, somewhere reliable. Not on lame stream media, that’s for sure!
Maybe it was Lauren Boebert who said it. Or Marjorie Taylor Green, good ol’ MGM. Both of them tell it like it is. Almost as good as our President who got the election stolen from him by socialist communist libtards tells it like it is. I speak of one Donald J. Trump, of course. He says Putin is smart, remember.
Defund police, increase spending for services needed by the community like housing.
The police are funded. The communities are not.
Cortlin, a leader at the first unionized Starbucks store, on why he joined the movement… pic.twitter.com/U8OwOWWkJR
— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) March 1, 2022
Look, corporate profits are at near record levels. Of course these massive corporations could absorb cost increases. They’re not raising prices because they have to. They’re doing it because they can. And they can because many of them have killed off all of their competition. pic.twitter.com/xNEtdjI8bT
Memo to the Fed: A better alternative to raising interest rates and slowing the economy would be a windfall profits tax on big corporations who have been raising prices despite making record profits. https://t.co/Z4VBrkn8zz
Because they’re too distracted by the imaginary scary caravan
Progressive policies are common sense.
If a million people tune into every episode of your commentary on current events, whining about "the media" is equivalent to a sitting representative whining about "the government." If you hate the field in which you work that much, GTFO and let someone who likes it have a try.
Please take note of how dramatically Twitter has changed since the freezing of Russian assets. Suddenly all those anti-Biden “American patriots” have disappeared.
— Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) (@HC_Richardson) March 1, 2022
BREAKING: The Jan. 6 select committee says it believes Donald Trump violated multiple laws in his quest to overturn the 2020 election — including obstruction of Congress and defrauding the United States.https://t.co/xfJ5jYQDom
#Russia's state TV again showcases @FoxNews clips as part of their war propaganda, seeking to demoralize the Ukrainian troops with dire predictions from retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor (who gave multiple interviews to Russian state media in the past). pic.twitter.com/wmBwUrnKHB
Please remember that when you're angry at a country, you're angry at its government– not its people, who suffer under that government. This is truest when that government most closely resembles a dictatorship, which is typically why we're angry at countries.
Here’s the smoking gun email, where Eastman actually says to Pence’s lawyer that he’s aware he’s asking Pence to violate the law. “I implore you to consider on more minor violation [of the electoral count act]” pic.twitter.com/1lB1WJdHgN
— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) March 3, 2022
Just a reminder that multiple states are moving bills to criminalize health care for trans youth this week. Hearings scheduled in Alabama, Idaho and Tennessee (on a civil prohibition that reaches adult care as well).
UPDATE: The Travis County District Court has GRANTED a temporary restraining order to BLOCK the state from investigating the parents of a trans teenager for providing essential, life-saving health care or taking any action against the mandatory reporter in our case.
🚨Alabama had passed HB266 and SB184 out of House committee. SB184 has passed the Senate already. A felony ban on health care for trans people up to 19 is now close to passage. They are trying to eradicate us. 🚨
Thread about how transphobic detrans activism is about restricting or even eliminating trans people's access to healthcare, rather than trying to create more resources for people who detransition and/or are harmed by medical transition. https://t.co/mYACQCCDCp
— Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans@kolektiva.social (@reclaimingtrans) February 25, 2022
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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
Far right cartoonist Rivers is trying to sell the don’t stop Putin stupid idea. The refrain from the right is don’t stand up to Putin or it will make him run right to China. China the country Putin was kissing up to long before he went into Ukraine is the reason the right says not to appose the invasion. But the lives of the Ukrainians are worth far more the right wings fear mongering.
The destruction of cities like funding infrastructure. The devastating assault on livelihoods like a record employment increase. We have more jobs than workers right now. We are finally tackling crumbling infrastructure.
Because petroleum is an international commodity. The USA imports as much oil as they export. If Europe will pay more for Texan oil, that’s who they will sell it to. If Russian oil is cheaper than Texan oil, that’s who refineries will buy from. January saw virtually zero U.S. imports of Russian crude, with some volumes slated to arrive in February and March purchased before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So far, there haven’t been any signs of fresh bookings as buyers look elsewhere for supply.
So, the federal government is forcing women to abort up to birth? There’s no comparison of governmental policy. The right of privacy INCLUDES the right to carry to birth. QUESTIONABLE COMPARISON. No one is fighting for abortions up to birth. That is one of the most idiotic lies out there. The only exception would be if the baby was already dead and needed to be removed to save the life of the mother. If the baby is already dead it is not actually an abortion. Those that would have the mother die to birth a dead baby are dead inside. Frankly, it’s ridiculous to be bothered with this nonsense when Ukraine is currently on the front line fighting for their freedom and quite possibly the world’s.
Inflation is actually price gouging. The border and crime are basically as they’ve been for decades. Energy is a front on which the Democrats, and ONLY the Democrats, want to make progress. Inflation is a global problem. Biden is way superior to Trump on foreign policy. It is the GOP that strives to keep American dependent on fossil fuel energy. Trump was Putin’s baby. The border is incredibly exaggerated. Crime is no more a problem than it has ever been, and a lot better than it was just 30 years ago.
Scottie's Playtime 
Everybody knows checks to Russian oil companies for their exports to the USA are drawn directly from the US Treasury and signed personally by Joe Biden.
Tucker said that, or maybe it was somebody else on FOX. Or I heard it on Newsmax. Or it was on Breitbart. Or World Net Daily. Or Steve Bannon or Alex Jones, one or the other, said it on their podcast.
No, wait! It was on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Hold it a minute, I’m not absolutely positive about that.
But I heard it, or read it, somewhere reliable. Not on lame stream media, that’s for sure!
Maybe it was Lauren Boebert who said it. Or Marjorie Taylor Green, good ol’ MGM. Both of them tell it like it is. Almost as good as our President who got the election stolen from him by socialist communist libtards tells it like it is. I speak of one Donald J. Trump, of course. He says Putin is smart, remember.