I bet the next election will be well attended and these people will lose their seats and new progressive inclusive people will win. That is what has happened all over when the right bigots and haters snuck into school board seats, they go too far trying to erase the LGBTQ+ kids / people from existence, then they get kicked out. Sadly by then the damage is done. What they hell do they want people perving on kids in the bathrooms for? To make the kids scared to use them and to make sure the weird kids are not doing weird gay stuff in them, right? Hugs. Scottie.
By the way. We have a hurricane headed right at us. It will be here Wednesday at around noon, but we have three days of wind and rain beforehand. It will hit at a class three. It is projected to hit just above us but could hit us directly. We will be spending the next few days getting as much done as possible, stocking in cat food Ron forgot and getting more gas and propane for the generator. It is unlikely that pole of ours will survive another storm as it is already leaning hard. Repair crews are already stretched thin in other areas so won’t be able to come rescue us in our time of need. Going to be a very long few months. Hugs. Scottie
YORK DISPATCH EDITORIAL BOARD
York Dispatch
At the risk of stating the obvious, South Western’s elected school board is making some strange decisions.
For the last two years, they’ve fixated on which bathrooms LGBTQ+ kids use. In 2023, officials in this Hanover-area district played musical chairs with school bathrooms in a misguided attempt to appease the loudest bigots among them — ending up with five different types of bathrooms.
After a low-turnout school board election in which several far-right members joined their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin banning books and reopened the bathroom issue. Board President Matthew Gelazela, who was elevated to his post after previously serving as the board’s most vocal bomb-thrower, pointed to Red Lion’s discriminatory policiesas something to aspire to.
These adults want to make it easier for other people to watch your children while they’re in the bathroom. It’s absolutely mind-boggling.
Gelazela, who’s steadfastly refused to explain the logic here, said in a public meeting that the windows help “[add] privacy in the toilet facility” and that they “increase oversight of the wash area.”
There’s a reason public restrooms tend not to have windows — or, if they do, they have frosted glass.
No one wants to be spied on when they’re relieving themselves.
The parents who spoke to The York Dispatch about the latest bathroom renovations said their children no longer feel comfortable using these bathrooms. One of the parents went to the principal and asked for an exemption to allow her son to use a different bathroom further away from class.
Her 13-year-old doesn’t want to be spied on while he’s in the bathroom.
And we don’t blame him.
It’s creepy and weird.
And let’s not ignore the bigger picture: This is happening at a time when this and other York County school boards are pushing policies that would restrict what books students read, what sports teams they compete on and even which pronouns they use.
All of this is part of an attempt to erase LGBTQ+ people.
Cutting a window into these bathrooms is an intimidation tactic designed to make sure students who use the so-called “gender-identity” facilities — and, let’s be honest, any student who doesn’t fit neatly into the worldview of the school board’s far-right majority — know they’re being watched, controlled and judged.
In their quest to punish LGBTQ+ kids, however, the misguided “adults” on this South Western School Board are doing the things they accuse others of doing.
This is an invasion of privacy and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from a Denver Public Schools parent who sought to force the district to honor his request to display “straight pride” flags in his children’s classrooms.
Nathan Feldman brought suit on behalf of himself and his two children, alleging discrimination and a violation of the First Amendment stemming from DPS declining to add a straight pride flag in his children’s classrooms alongside displays of LGBTQ pride flags.
In a June 26 order, U.S. District Court Judge Regina M. Rodriguez determined the pride flags amounted to the government’s own speech, which the First Amendment does not regulate. Therefore, a decision by DPS not to display a flag did not violate Feldman’s rights.
“DPS policy reflects careful consideration about what views can be expressed and that any expressions must reflect DPS’s policy of equality and inclusion. Accordingly, the Court finds that DPS has maintained control over the flag displays,” wrote Rodriguez, an appointee of President Joe Biden.
Feldman filed suit after school administrators allegedly allowed “non-binary and non-cisgender students to have flags displayed that represent their genders but not allowing Plaintiffs to have flags displayed that represent their genders.” He asked for damages of at least $3 million and for an order allowing him to display the straight pride flag.
A “straight pride” flag. Source: Feldman et al. v. Denver Public Schools et al.
DPS, in moving to dismiss the lawsuit, noted Feldman’s allegations were contradictory, as he simultaneously asserted “each” classroom at Slavens School had a pride flag and that “not all teachers displayed these flags.” Nonetheless, the district argued the display of flags constituted government speech, as DPS policy endorsed the use of LGBTQ pride flags as “symbols consistent with the District’s equity-based curriculum.”
“Plaintiffs assert that passing a resolution recognizing LGBTQIA+ students or staff without providing equal recognition to those who don’t so identify is an actionable distinction. Not so,” wrote the district’s attorneys.
Feldman responded that individual teachers at his children’s school made the decision to display pride flags. Therefore, DPS was not in control of the displays and they did not constitute the government’s own speech.
In August, U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak recommended that Feldman’s claims be dismissed. He cited a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Boston’s practice of allowing private entities to fly flags outside city hall. The court did not find such circumstances amounted to speech by the government.
However, wrote then-Justice Stephen G. Breyer, “when the government speaks for itself, the First Amendment does not demand airtime for all views.”
“Here, DPS selected the Pride Flag, and not Plaintiffs’ Flag, as representing the message that DPS wished to convey,” Varholak wrote in deeming the flag displays governmental expression. “Conversely, there is no allegation that DPS had a history of accepting for display other flags submitted by the public.”
In this 2018 file photo, a supporters of the LGBTQ community fly a Pride flag in the Colorado Springs PrideFest Parade.
(Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette, File)
As for Feldman’s sex discrimination and equal protection claims, Varholak noted that unless there are allegations of unequal treatment, there is no legal claim based on the absence of a flag representing cisgender, heterosexual students.
“Plaintiffs plainly disagree with DPS’s selected messaging, and phrase this disagreement in constitutional terms,” he concluded, “but ultimately fail to allege any injury except exposure to a flag that they do not feel represented by.”
Feldman objected to portions of Varholak’s analysis, but Rodriguez, the district judge, concluded Feldman was either raising new arguments for the first time or had failed to show why Varholak was mistaken.
To the claim that displaying a flag is discriminatory when it repesents a different group’s sexual orientation or gender identity, “Plaintiffs offer no legal support for their argument,” she wrote, “and the Court finds none.”
Attorneys for both parties did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is Feldman et al. v. Denver Public Schools et al.
Benny Briolly beams as she strides through the concrete favela alleyway of Brazil’s city of Niteroi in a snow-white ball gown, onlookers proudly wave campaign flags emblazoned with her face. The city councilwoman and nearly 1,000 other transgender politicians are running Sunday in every one of Brazil’s 26 states, where the number of transgender politicians has tripled since the last elections four years ago.
Springfield city government announced Wednesday that only residents of Clark County will be permitted to speak during the public comment portion of City Commission meetings in the future.
“The city of Springfield is committed to prioritizing the voices of our local residents at all commission meetings,” a city statement released Wednesday said. “To enhance community engagement and ensure that our decisions reflect the needs and interests of Springfield residents, we are implementing a new policy effective immediately.”
For months, Springfield City Commission meetings have been packed with attendees, many of them addressing grievances toward the commission over Haitian immigration issues. Some recent meetings have met the capacity limit for the City Hall Forum, forcing some later arrivals to sit outside on City Hall plaza.
To participate in the public comment portion of future commission meetings, speakers will have to complete a comment card and present valid proof of residency. Accepted forms of identification will include a State of Ohio driver’s license or a State of Ohio ID card.
“This requirement for proof of residency is designed to uphold the integrity of our meetings by ensuring that Clark County residents have a proper platform to address issues that matter to them,” city officials said. “This policy also aims to minimize disruptions from individuals who may misrepresent their residency to seek notoriety or cause distractions during meetings.
City officials said they do encourage all residents to speak up and share their perspectives on community matters at the meetings.
The next City Commission meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8, in the City Hall Forum at 76 E. High St. in downtown Springfield.
Neo-Nazis, the KKK and other hate groups are now routinely visiting Springfield, marching through city streets or distributing recruitment flyers and raising fears of intimidation and violence.
Over the weekend, the Blood Tribe — a violent Neo-Nazi hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — stood outside Springfield Mayor Rob Rue’s home waiving swastika flags. In a previous march through the city, some carried guns.
Also this weekend, an unidentified group stood outside Springfield city hall with a banner that said “Haitians Have No Home Here” in English and Haitian Creole.
These groups are responding to the growth of Springfield’s Haitian community, an issue that made the national spotlight following unsubstantiated rumors circulated on social media and parroted by politicians that Haitian immigrants were eating Springfield residents’ pets.
Since then, Springfield NAACP president Denise Williams says residents have also reported to her agency flyers being distributed in local neighborhoods from a group associated with the Ku Klux Klan.
“They’re trying to intimidate us. But we’re not a city that’s easily intimidated,” Williams said. “We need to stand together.”
The group, the Trinity White Knights, has a P.O. Box based in Kentucky. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported in September that similar flyers from the same group were distributed in Covington, Ky.
Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott said the department is aware of the flyers.
Some residents have reported harassment from a group of people purporting to be members of the Proud Boys, which the SPLC designates as a hate group that believes in “Western chauvinism” and “an anti-white guilt agenda.”
Clark County Democratic Party chairman Austin Smith said a volunteer canvassing near the political party’s Springfield headquarters earlier this month was returning to the office to drop off campaign materials when a truck with large flags that appeared to say “Proud Boys” pulled up.
A group of men in the truck, the volunteer told Smith, made “vaguely threatening” statements.
“We’ve had threats and things pour into the office. No bomb threats, but ‘You better watch out.’ ‘We’re watching you.’ So that definitely created a lot of fear,” Smith said.
The party increased security measures for its recent meeting as a safety precaution, Smith said.
Members of the religious group Israel United in Christ (IUIC) were also in Springfield in September, gathering in multiple public places around the city.
The members, clad in purple shirts with the group’s name and logo, were seen marching and passing out literature to passersby.
At one point, group members gathered in the parking lot of Groceryland on South Limestone Street, near the corner of East John St. Members were preaching into a microphone about the organization’s teachings. Members also met with NAACP leaders from Dayton and Springfield.
According to its website, the IUIC is a Bible-based organization that believes people within the Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities represent “the true and historical descendants of the Biblical Israelites.”
SPLC categorizes IUIC as one of the handful of “Radical Hebrew Israelites” groups in the U.S. The SPLC designates these groups as hate groups. IUIC denies that it is a hate group, according to a post on the IUIC Classrooms Facebook page. The newspaper reached out to IUIC but did not hear back.
Williams said the Springfield NAACP chapter has plans to host a virtual community meeting to talk about recent activity in the city.
Springfield’s police chief asked residents to remain vigilant and “say something if you see something suspicious or out of the norm.”
“We know our city has looked a little different lately, and you also may notice an increased public safety presence. We assure you that our top priority has always been and will continue to be safety,” Elliott said. “Safety is a shared responsibility and our officers, along with our public safety partners, take all tips and information seriously.”
Serhiy Kraskov picked up a twig and poked at a small fish floating in the Desna River. “It’s a roach. It died recently. You can tell because its eyes are clear and not blurry,” he said. Hundreds of other fish had washed up nearby on the river’s green willow-fringed banks. A large pike lay in the mud. Nearby, in a patch of yellow lilies, was a motionless carp. “Everything is dead, starting from the tiniest minnow to the biggest catfish,” Kraskov added mournfully.
Kraskov is the mayor of the village of Slabyn, in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region. The rustic settlement – population 520 – escaped the worst of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. But the war arrived last week in a new and horrible form. Ukrainian officials say the Russians deliberately poisoned the Seym River, which flows into the Desna. The Desna connects with a reservoir in the Kyiv region and a water supply used by millions.
Serhiy Kraskov, the mayor of the village of Slabyn, near the banks of the Desna River in northern Ukraine. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian
A toxic slick was detected on 17 August coming from the Russian border village of Tyotkino. According to Kyiv, chemical waste from a sugar factory had been dumped in vast quantities into the Seym. It included ammonia, magnesium and other poisonous nitrates. At the time, fierce fighting was going on in the surrounding area. Ukraine’s armed forces had launched a surprise incursion into Russia and had seized territory in Kursk oblast.
The pollution crossed the international border just over a mile away and made its way into Ukraine’s Sumy region. The Seym’s natural ecosystem crashed. Fish, molluscs and crayfish were asphyxiated as oxygen levels fell to near zero. Settlements along the river reported mass die-offs. Kraskov got a call from the authorities warning him a disaster was coming his way. He spotted the first dead fish on 11 September. “There were a few of them in the middle of the river,” he said.
He returned the following weekend to find the Desna’s banks clogged with rotting fish, stretching out from the shore for three metres into the water. Volunteers wearing rubber boots, masks and protective gloves shovelled the fish into sacks. They found a metre-long catfish. “The stench was terrible. You could scarcely breathe. The river was quiet. Nothing moved apart from a few frogs,” Kraskov said. A tractor took the sacks to an abattoir that used to belong to the village’s Soviet-era collective farm. They were buried in a pit.
Serhiy Zhuk, the head of Chernihiv’s ecology inspectorate, described what had happened as an act of Russian ecocide. “The Desna was one of our cleanest rivers. It’s a very big catastrophe,” he said. Zhuk traced the slick’s route on a map pinned to his office wall: a looping multi-week journey along the Seym and Desna. “More than 650km is polluted. Not a single organism survived. This is unprecedented. It’s Europe’s first completely dead river,” he said. (snip-MORE)
This is what tRump and maga are, gang thugs enforcing their ideas of right and wrong with violence regardless of other people’s rights. This is what the party of tRump is, violence to any who they disagree with. This is brownshirt stuff from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. This is domestic terrorism, the use of violence and harming others to achieve a political goal / gain. This stuff was going away as unacceptable in the US, and now it is back thanks to tRump and his people. Hugs. Scottie
Blaze Pizza’s 96 California pizzerias are known for build-your-own pies rapidly fired in 800-degree ovens, along with Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James’ corporate investments. Last week, its Roseville location made headlines for an uglier reason.
A delivery driver walked into the Highland Reserve Marketplace restaurant about 10:15 p.m. Sept. 19, saw a Pride flag hung by employees inside and tore it down to the ground, according to the Roseville Police Department.
When a manager and employees confronted the man, he reportedly uttered a homophobic slur and left. He then returned with two other men, at least one of them wearing mixed martial arts gloves, and kicked off a brawl with two employees that multiple passersby caught on video.
Read the full article. Police are calling it a hate crime and the attackers remain at large. One of the employees was hospitalized due to his injuries.
Doesn’t any good people see what this is. This is government by the tRump cult thugs willing to threaten or even do violence. Horrible way for our country to be run. We need to stop this right now as forceable as we can. Hugs. Scottie.
For Jamie McGregor, a businessman in Springfield, Ohio, speaking favorably about the Haitian immigrants he employs has come to this: death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor for hiring immigrants.
They came by the hundreds — phone calls, emails and letters from white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other people they had never met. “The owner of McGregor Metal can take a bullet to the skull and that would be 100 percent justified,” said one message left on the company voice mail.
To defend himself and his family, Mr. McGregor has had to violate his own vow to never own a gun. “I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” said Mr. McGregor, who makes parts for cars, trucks and tractors.
A business owner in Springfield, Ohio had to buy a gun after his family and his 80-year-old grandmother received death threats because he hired Haitian immigrants. Even though the business owner voted for Trump twice. Donald Trump is dividing America. https://t.co/ZpmiPySU3i
September 30, 1962 Hundreds of Ku Klux Klan members, white students and others, tried to keep a black student, James Meredith, 29, from attending classes at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. They were supported by the governor, Ross Barnett, who had explicitly resisted the order of the Federal Circuit Court.In spite of the efforts to block his court-ordered registration, a deal to allow Meredith to register was reached between U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Governor Barnett. Meredith was secretly escorted onto campus; deputy U.S. marshals, border patrolmen and federal prison guards were stationed on and around the campus to protect him. Those standing guard were assaulted throughout the night with guns, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and bottles.
James Meredith being escorted to his classes by U.S.marshals and the military. Tear gas was used to try and control the crowd. Federal troops arrived, bringing the total to 12,000 (President Kennedy had activated soldiers and national guardsmen totaling 30,000), and the mob finally retreated. In the end, two were dead, 160 U.S. Marshals were injured (28 shot), 200 others injured, and 300 arrested. Integrating Ole Miss JFK Library
September 30, 2003 The FBI began a criminal investigation into whether White House officials had illegally leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer, Valerie Plame, wife of diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, IV. In early 2002 the CIA had sent Wilson to look into the claim that Saddam Hussein had sought to acquire yellow-cake uranium from the African country of Niger. Ambassador Wilson found nothing to support the claim, and some of the documents cited as evidence for the claim were clearly shown to be forgeries. President Bush, nonetheless, repeated the claim in his January, 2003, State of the Union address as part of his argument for war in Iraq. Wilson wrote a column in the New York Times in July, 2003, entitled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” Columnist Robert Novak a few days later published Plame’s identity following conversation with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Plame, who previously had worked on counter-proliferation, was in charge of operations for the CIA’s Joint Task Force on Iraq, formed the summer before 9/11.
September 30, 2004 The U.S. Navy announce the shutdown of Project ELF. read more
Braddock had fled to the Philippines where he was eventually deported last year as an illegal alien and arrested in Los Angeles.
During a call that was recorded before he became a candidate, William Braddock repeatedly warned an activist to not support GOP candidate Anna Paulina Luna in the Republican primary for a Florida congressional seat because he had access to assassins https://t.co/OQFEYln82dpic.twitter.com/08OLNgwWQy
“It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris.
Trump, as always, is lying. Financial disclosure records show that Paul Pelosi sold 2000 shares of Visa nearly three months ago. The DOJ filed its antitrust suit against Visa on Wednesday.
Trump calls for a Republican AG in "a Republican territory" to investigate Nancy Pelosi pic.twitter.com/oqbQTkptD8
Yesterday the Hollywood Reporter interviewed luxury watch experts who declared that the “Swiss” watches are likely cheap crap made in China. A disclaimer on Trump’s website says that the watches sold may not look like the “representations” seen on the site. The disclaimer also pointedly make no promises about delivery.
“And yet she’s taken in the worst of those people. The killers, the jailbirds, all of the worst of the people. She’s taking them in. And then I have to sit there and listen to her bullshit last night.
Trump on Kamala Harris speech: I have to sit there and listen to her bullshit and who puts it on Fox News? And they shouldn't be allowed to put it on.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a Saturday email: “The data in this letter is being misinterpreted. The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration. It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.”
As Dale goes on to note, Trump’s lies have been widely spread by right wing media and GOP lawmakers, such as the Hitler-quoting GOP rep seen below.
Scottie's Playtime 