Understand this is about indoctrination and preventing social acceptance. Where do kids encounter their most diverse and accepting environment, yes watching social media influencers who are openly different, LGBTQIA / or supporting of, and display rainbow flags and talk about how grand diversity and inclusion is? That leads kids to understand the truth, it is OK to be different. Young people’s programming on media starts with cartoons, and animated shows, and moves online. Why do you think the right / DeathSantis went after Disney so hard also why the hard rabid right Daily Wire started all their own kids programming with hard right indoctrination? It is why states like Florida approved using Prager U YouTube videos in public schools. It is all about getting to the kids when they are young and developing so they can be indoctrinated in a regressive fundamentalist Christian right wing philosophy. Also to prevent the Taylor Swift phenomenon from happening. Hugs. Scottie.
Ever wonder why left leaning stars are so popular they can sway large majorities of the public, but the right wing stars are so much less able to do it, especially individually? Because the idea, policies, and goals of the repressive right are unpopular with the majority. They want minority rule.
“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”
The Florida House of Representatives has passed two bills banning social media for minors under age 16 and requiring age verification for pornographic sites, just two weeks into their 2024 legislative session.
With House approval, the bills will now head to the state Senate before making its way to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s desk. If the governor signs both bills, they will likely go into effect in July, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
The measure does not include which social media platforms will be banned for users under 16. State House Speaker Paul Renner, R, said the bill doesn’t focus on content, but on “addictive technologies” and “the courts will decide” what those are.
Read the full article. As I reported earlier this month, the social media ban is authored by freshman Rep. Fiona McFarland. Republicans hold supermajorities in both Florida chambers and can therefore force pretty much anything they want into law.
RELATED: McFarland’s mother, K.T. McFarland, served as Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor under Michael Flynn and she was accused by Robert Mueller of complicity in Flynn’s lies to the FBI. The accusations scuttled the elder McFarland’s nomination by Trump to be US ambassador to Singapore.
ONE STEP CLOSER: Florida bill meant to ban minors from having social media accounts has passed. What it could mean for teens across the state 📱 https://t.co/yQWLF7oSPR
The measure does not include which social media platforms will be banned for users under 16. State House Speaker Paul Renner, R, said the bill doesn’t focus on content, but on “addictive technologies” and “the courts will decide” what those are.
I thought the exact same thing. Then I was going to say it sounds like they’d probably put the onus on Social Media sites to follow the law, but the point would remain the same: Enforcement is going to be a bitch.
I hope social media co.s do what pornhub did and just make their sites unavailable in that state (although I could see how that could have a negative impact on the kids who count on it for social support and stuff).
What the fuck!!! This culture war against the LGBTQIA and the attempt to drive the country hard back to the 1950s has got to stop. We have had these fights, these arguments, and society has progressed into acceptance. They found one exposed nipple? Have any of you been to a redneck bar in the deep south? I went to a bar in Georgia when I was 19 and in the US Army. Man what I saw there made what I saw working in a gay bar in the 1990s look like a church picnic. One booth was reserved for giving blow jobs by the local bar sluts. I had to be very worried because they loved to get them some young army boys fresh from boot camp in training schools. They about do you on the bar stool. But that is OK to the haters because it is cis straight sex in the open, not an exposed nipple in a gay bar. Wait, I am confused, I thought only female boobs were sexy and to be hidden. Men boobs are fine to see everywhere. There are different kinds of bars for different likes. I bet you some of the high-end places are offering sex also, but those are upper society, so the police won’t bother them. The republican Christian Taliban won’t be happy until everyone is as repressed and unhappy as they are. Hugs. Scottie
Marching into a gay bar to issue citations feels a bit vintage in 2024. Nevertheless, over the weekend, the Joint Enforcement Team (JET), which is a coalition of Seattle Police, Fire, the state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB), and others, entered two gay bars, The Cuff Complex and The Seattle Eagle, and started looking around.
And what did they find? A bartender’s exposed nipple and a few people wearing jockstraps, offenses that law enforcement can cite you for in Washington if you’re also selling alcohol.
At 12:30 on Saturday morning, a 10-member JET crew filed into Cuff, according to owner Joey Burgess. They came in with flashlights, scaring some patrons who left in a hurry. Inside, they saw the offending nipple, a violation of state law the JET may penalize in some way.
A group of Capitol Hill gay bars and clubs are teaming up with neighborhood queer community leaders Dan Savage and Terry Miller in calling for the state’s liquor control board and Seattle Police officials to explain what they say was a weekend crackdown reminiscent of historical harassment of Seattle’s LGBTQ friendly venues.
Ownership at the bars including The Cuff, Queer/Bar, Massive, and The Eagle along with Savage and Miller say that citations issued over weekend over clothing and decency violations at a handful of clubs recorded by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board and so-called Joint Enforcement Team inspectors were targeted.
The group is asking for the community to demand the liquor control board explain its actions.
A coalition of law enforcement officials raided two Seattle gay bars and found nipples and jockstraps in close proximity to booze. Bar owners at Cuff and the Eagle say they may face citations.
I used to have a lot of respect for the police. In the past 12-15 years, that has really eroded away. When I see the times they have shot people because they felt threatened by somebody sitting in a car or reading that the person was shot 56 times, I question them. It’s become worse when they show up dressed like tactical assault troops for simple things. They are getting away with murder. I am not sure how much that I trust them anymore.
And if Trump assumes his dictatorship, cops will have his blessing to be non-compliant with laws and free of any accountability. That’s exactly what he said.
For me, watching the old man get shoved down nonchalantly in Buffalo was the tipping point. First time I used a porcine term to describe them, just after an expletive.
I’ve distrusted cops ever since I shared a house for a while with, among others, a police cadet. The stories I heard about what cops allow other cops to get away with!
And this was just run-of-the-mill police dishonesty and corruption. At the time, I wasn’t aware of how aggressively violent many of them are, as well.
Dude, you and I have a very similar take on this shit and I applaud you for the spot on comment. Being SWM I sometimes have to edit what I say but can always count on you to “send it”.
Even if there is a god/gods (I’m agnostic), I doubt that He/She/It/They would care about people seeing each other’s nipples and various body parts. He/She/It/They made them that way, after all, even if through evolution.
Being that this was open knowledge for many years. I mean, it’s the cuff and the Eagle and all they found was an open nipple and jock strap. Lol I too am wondering who’s behind this. At the liquor board. You know damn well that there’s some religious nut or right-wing POS behind it.
This follows closely upon the attempt to shut down one of the city’s two traditionally gay nude beaches (by building a children’s playground next door). Thankfully, that was nipped in the bud by an overwhelmingly oppositional public protest. Hopefully this will be too.
Brattleboro, Vermont built West River Park next to the traditionally nude (optional) beach on West River for that exact reason. No nudity within 500 feet of a park.
Remember when some liquor control guy took a snap shot of the Eagle balcony and caught some penises in the picture? They said they were going to close it until Dan Savage went around town taking pictures of himself in City Hall, etc with his dick out (public nudity is NOT illegal in Seattle) asking if they were going to close them down too and they backed off.
I know that they can only show ‘beefcake’ pictures on the monitors in bars, a bit amazing down in CA where they have full on porn movies going in some of the bars…
Ya, the last time I was in an Eagle there was someone locked in a cage in the center of the room performing oral sex and being urinated on by strangers. A nipple and jockstrap seem almost wholesome in comparison.
Seattle has a reputation for being a liberal haven, but in fact the SPD is virulently bigoted. Remember that they were under a consent decree for 11 years, effectively under federal supervision until they changed a racist culture that had led to the murder of a First Nations man. Parts of that decree are STILL in effect.
Nipples, jockstraps and alcohol? You can see more flesh, alcohol, and lewd conduct on a public beach in any Summer. Yeah, the originators of that raid on gay bars has some ‘splainin’ to do, and an apology to make. Seattle, you’re better than this!
2016, Americans elected a rapist to the White House. 2024 that rapist is running for the Republican nomination. Rapists gonna rape.
If you think that your liberties are protected by case law, – the Supreme Court, let me introduce you to the strict constructionists, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Any Barrett, Kavanaugh. Raids on gay bars, – you ain’t seen nuttin yet
Are we worried yet about marriage equality, about gay health clinics, about PDAs, about flags or drags, about our freedoms of association in or out of gay bars……….. Are we worried yet about camps, about quarantines, about being ostracised ? Are we worried yet about what the Evangelicals want to do to us?
Wow, the rush to the past is not slowing down even as Florida reaches the edge of the cliff. Anything that threatens right wing fundamentalist Christian world view must be banned, removed, buried along with the regressive indoctrination taught. What is the republican idea of real history? That slaves benefited by being slaves? Rapes and beatings were free for them, I guess? How did we get here, to this point?
The US was not always a backwards country. We started out with a radical idea, a representative democracy. Let the people have a say in how things are run. Other countries took this idea and made it great for the public. The future US kind of tried to pull it together, had a major set back with entrenched racism, which we are still dealing with today. Then a period of growth for some, oppression for others. Then the Enlightenment of the New Deal where again the people, the public welfare mattered. Yes we struggled as each generation challenged the generation before them to expand and grow, open up society so more people could share in it equally. Then we had a pivotal moment. A black man was voted in to the highest office in our country, the Presidency. The right / those that couldn’t accept equality lost their collective minds. And overnight racism became vogue again, became acceptable to be publicly voiced by some people. Leaders of political groups on the right, and religious leaders also on the right rallied their followers to push the idea that racism is not wrong as was held true for 40+ years and these people pushed back on the gains in equality of the blacks.
Well that worked so well for them that racism was extended back to mean anyone not white. Yes all brown people were deficient and inferior along with basically born bad, especially brown people at the southern border who wanted only to come to the US to work and share the “American dream”. Well that got a mob boss thug wannabe elected president who gave his followers permission to throw all decency away and revert back to the lowest common denominator they could be. Racism was joined by bigotry against anyone different, openly being crude, rude, and thuggish became OK for them. As long as it was towards others, not them. They demanded they and only them be given back the celebrated highest position in society / the country with everyone else being made lessor with many fewer rights. They want a return to a distant past before enlightenment, and with the added boost of recreating a fictitious history that never was, which is that the US was founded as a Christian country. With a racist bigoted moron leading the way, the right surged into office propelled by the idea of taking back the country to something worse for most people but great for a minority. The minority that was to be given a higher station loved it, and with the majority not paying much attention, managed to get into positions of authority over schools.
Now they used that authority to attack all areas with the full force of racism, bigotry, and forced religious indoctrination. Christianity only though, no other religion was acceptable. They removed books or media that had any member of society they disliked, they did the same for any ideas expressed they disagreed with. Freedom became only for them, white cis straight Christians, all others had no freedom. Parent’s rights were twisted to mean only the rights of white cis straight Christian racist bigots, and those rights included forcing every child to be indoctrinated with the right wing racist bigoted Christian teachings regardless of the child’s parents wishes. A complete authoritarian take over was what they tried.
It was noticed because like all bigots they were not quiet about the damage they were doing once they got the authority to do it. They aggressively rammed their backwards oppression on everyone. History has shown when they tried this same shit in the past, it was quickly stopped so they tried to create laws cementing their ideas in place. But the public which was still a progressive majority woke up, and started fighting back. They took back a lot of the school boards, they took back as many positions as came up for vote. The only ones they couldn’t fix were the ones not yet up for vote, like Governor and state officials. Which brings us to now, today in Florida where educational classes on subjects long thought important for the growth of students is being removed to further the forced indoctrination of right wing political racism, bigotry, and Christianity along with a made up fictional history. Hugs. Scottie
Two quotes from the article.
“Sociology is the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers,” the association said in a statement to the New York Times.
“Failure to prioritize the scientific study of the causes and consequences of human behavior is a failure of Florida’s commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness,” it added.
Students should be focused on learning the ‘truth,’ rather than be ‘radicalized by woke ideologies in the college classrooms,’ said education commissioner
Published 01/26/24 10:05 PM ET|Updated 01/26/24 10:05 PM ET
Ron DeSantis: On a mission to reshape education.Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ so-called “anti-woke” crusade has now removed sociology as a core class from all 12 of the state’s public universities.
The Board of Governors voted to make the change on Wednesday. A core sociology course was also removed earlier this month from all 28 Florida public colleges, meaning that Florida students will no longer be able to chose sociology to fulfill their core class requirements.
What the board refers to as a “factual history course” is replacing Principles of Sociology in the universities in what is widely seen as the start of a general rout of sociology classes.
When discussing sociology late last year, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. said that “students should be focused on learning the truth about our country instead of being radicalized by woke ideologies in the college classrooms.” He also said the subject had been “hijacked by left-wing activists.”
The Board of Education has promised the history curriculum will include an examination of the “horrors” of slavery, even though the same board pressed lower schools to teach that slaves — who lost their freedom, were beaten, raped and forced to labor for their masters — benefited from slavery because they learned work “skills”
Florida has one of the country’s largest public university systems, with more than 430,000 students.
The latest change is part of a sweeping reorganization of education in Florida from top to bottom. Under DeSantis’ sweeping book censorship, at least one district has banned dictionaries from their schools’ libraries because they contain the word “sex.”
The American Sociological Association called the decision to dump the core sociology class “outrageous,” and one informed by a “gross misunderstanding” of sociology as somehow “radical.”
“Sociology is the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers,” the association said in a statement to the New York Times.
“Failure to prioritize the scientific study of the causes and consequences of human behavior is a failure of Florida’s commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness,” it added.
"The decision to remove sociology from Florida's core curriculum is a tragic blow to students’ intellectual freedom. It will prevent generations of students from being introduced to subject matter that is uniquely suited to address complex challenges."https://t.co/JxhDw5B9Sg
— American Association of University Professors (@AAUP) January 25, 2024
Florida will no longer allow a sociology course to count toward students’ graduation requirements at state universities, replacing it with a class officials say will teach “factual history” in a decision critics say was fueled by political motivations. https://t.co/FyEhQt9CVv
Well, it’s done. Now all state colleges AND universities will be removing #sociology from the gen ed curriculum. Summer intro courses are now on hold anticipating tanking enrollments & grad student instructors are the first to be axed. Thanks #Florida. https://t.co/DmuIxOTXud
The American Sociological Association condemns the State University System of Florida board's decision to cut sociology from core course requirements as "a failure of Florida's commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness." https://t.co/DHRdeGt7CF
FOOLS…my sociology course in school required us to float theories in class, while using statistical databases to prove them. It was like two courses in one, and highly illuminating for dispelling old assumptions.
I refuse to believe in a book that SUPPOSEDLY has all the answers to life that was written by a bunch of people who didn’t know where the sun went at nigh…
I like the chapter in the “factual history” textbook where Jesus and George Washington free all the babies in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, lock up Hillary Clinton and then travel to Kentucky to comfort the citizens of Bowling Green in the wake of Al Sharpton’s horrific massacre.
The helicopter was in the shop so they needed an airstrip. There were some wooden teeth smashed into the air intake valve and the repair parts were still on order at the time of the attack. Everyone knows this is the reason helicopters didn’t get used again until after WW2.
Welcome to the white fundamentalist maga paradise, Florida. The purge is well on the way. Again the goal is to remove / wipe out all representation of LGBTQIA from public society. Also part of the goal is to return black / brown people to a lower stature and keep them there. To stop any integration or upward movement of the minority groups. These people demand a return to the time whenwhite males were automatically in charge, Christianity was the assumed only real religion and all things Christian were good, women were subservient to males and functioned to do for men in the home / public / bedroom, blacks knew their place and stayed there, and the LGBTQIA were not seen or heard of terrified of being found out. That is the world these people are fighting to have. Florida is well on the way. They have basically outlawed the teaching of acceptance or inclusion of any group not dedicated to white people or Christianity. They have removed any representation of LGBTQIA or racism from schools. They have rewritten history, legislated being cis, being straight until adult, legislated having a small groups of bigoted racist parents over ruling all other parents on what school age kids can do, read, see, say, and do medically. They call anything not right wing fundamentalist maga is indoctrination. Welcome to Florida, a state run by Christian Taliban with help from the moral police. Hugs. Scottie
The Florida Board of Governors voted to prohibit using state funding for public university programs or activities that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
TAP TO UNMUTE
Create your free profile or log in to save this article
Students at the University of North Florida protested the imminent closing of the school’s four diversity centers, including the campus LGBTQ center, on Wednesday.
The protest took place the day the Florida Board of Governors, the governing body of the State University System of Florida, voted to prohibit funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and activities at the state’s public universities. The vote comes several months after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure into law banning all of the state’s public higher education institutions from using state or federal funding for diversity programs.
UNF, in Jacksonville, will close its Office of Diversity and Inclusion — and, with it, its interfaith, intercultural, women’s and LGBTQ centers — to comply with the new law, President Moaz Limayem said in a letter to the university community Wednesday night.
Limayem said the four university centers will be “phased out” immediately but added that registered student organizations that aim to promote diversity will remain active on the university’s campus and that no staffers will lose their jobs. He did not weigh in on student protests or on his views about the state policy.
“We want UNF to be a place where all people feel safe and welcome, and where there is no place for hate,” Limayem said. “This semester, we will begin seeking ways to reinforce UNF’s values in everything we do, and we will review and expand resources as necessary to ensure success for all members of our campus community.”
Cassandra Edwards, a spokesperson for the university system, said in an email Thursday that Florida “will remain focused on high-quality education for our students and not allow indoctrination.”
UNF student Lissie Morales was among the protesters, many of whom were waving rainbow Pride flags and shouting: “What do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
“The center provided me friends; it provided me education to learn more about my gender and sexual orientation,” Morales told NBC affiliate WTLV of Jacksonville. “In regard to the turnout, it warms my heart to see people care about something as much as I do, especially when it comes to the LGBT center, because it was one of the reasons why I came to UNF in the first place.”
In 2022, UNF was among 40 institutions on Campus Pride’s list of best universities for LGBTQ students.
Carlos Guillermo Smith, a former Florida House Democrat who is a policy adviser at the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida, called the new state law “a rubber stamp for Ron DeSantis’s agenda of censorship and surveillance.”
“The Board of Governors had the opportunity to hit the brakes, but instead, shamefully followed their censorship agenda off a cliff in service to DeSantis’s failed political ambitions,” Smith said in a statement Wednesday.
A representative for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The regulation comes as Florida continues to build on its reputation for enacting anti-LGBTQ laws and legislation aimed at limiting diversity initiatives.
Dozens of UNF students attend a rally in support of the school’s LGBTQ center. WTLV
Florida made national headlines when it enacted what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law in 2022, which limited the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools in kindergarten through third grade. DeSantis signed a bill last year that expanded the law to apply to students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Last year, Florida lawmakers prompted outcry for blocking an Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools.
Since the start of the year, Florida lawmakers have introduced roughly a dozen anti-LGBTQ bills. They include a sweeping measure that would force Floridians to sign an affidavit when they apply for new driver’s licenses and state IDs to certify that the gender markers on their birth certificates will match their new IDs. Another bill would allow some published accusations of homophobia and transphobia to be considered “defamation per se.”
Student protests over Florida’s policies about LGBTQ issues have also become common. In November, students at a high school in Coconut Creek, about 15 miles north of Fort Lauderdale, staged a walkout after their principal and other school staffers were reprimanded for letting a transgender girl compete on the school’s girls volleyball team.
Students at the University of North Florida protested the imminent closing of the school’s four diversity centers, including the campus LGBTQ center. https://t.co/gt8e8q3kS4
Exactly! My whole youth was steeped in the straight world, I knew not one gay person and had zero history of the gay movement, yet I still turned out gay.
Same for the rest of us. This is how we can tell that the evangelicals are completely, utterly delusional; and why they’re a minority now in the US. Dems need to vote them out. If they refuse the evangelicals will begin their new Spanish Inquisition.
The War on Women’s Rights The War on LGBT Rights The War on Voting Rights The War on Oversight The War on Accountability The War on the Elderly The War on The Arts
From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling cast, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.
They forget about that whole pesky “separation of church and state”. If the Roberts court is a “traditionalist” court, more states should be challenging the unconstitutional legislation passed in many States (esp the Federal Gov as this is setting up a State vs Federal legal battle), otherwise the Supreme Court will have to justify their reason for overturning Roe and much more. Not that it matters but it’s important for the public to understand.
BREAKING: President Biden just released this devastating ad calling out Donald Trump’s cognitive decline. Retweet to make sure everyone in the country sees. pic.twitter.com/SgYfYPWfRt
How far the down in the gang thug chaos are the republicans wanting to go? Attacking the defenseless simply because they already have nothing and nowhere to go. What happened to bettering society, making things better for everyone? These people only want to make it great for them, the rest are for exploitation and amusement. This country, the US, had a brief resurgence of enlightenment and now in the last 8 years, especially the last 3, the right wants to tear it all down, destroy anything good or enlightened in the country. They mock decency and act like they are superior for being cruel. I am at a loss these days what is driving these people. I have seen them before, in my childhood. I thought they were going extinct, yet here they are within inches of full power over everything. Hugs. Scottie
The bill would at the same time enhance penalties for drug use (specifically fentanyl, as it is their go-to talking point at the moment), and making it a felony to run away from the police…
Just anything that is observed among those whose living situation is so desperate, and basically saying it is illegal for anyone from a minority community to be fed up with this shit..
–
Also, considering the rate of LGBT+ homelessness compared to the general population. 5% of the youth population in general, yet accounting for 25% of homeless youth. I consider the Bill to be specifically targeted at LGBT+ people.
Republicans just cannot give up on their dream of ending Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Nor can they give up on the idea that they’ll be shielded from the voters’ blowback of cutting those programs if they get someone else to tell them to do it. That’s what they tried back in 2010 with the Bowles-Simpson fiscal committee, dubbed the “catfood commission” by the left, and again with the failed “super committee” in 2011.
The House Budget Committee was back at it this week, approving yet another fiscal commission they want to see included in the final appropriations package they should be voting on in March, having kicked that can down the road again with the short-term funding bill they passed this week. They want another commission that could fast-track cuts to social insurance programs, blocking efforts by Democrats to add protections for those programs in the bill.
Congress can secure Social Security and Medicare for current *and* future generations.
We don't need Republican benefit cuts — we just need the courage to make the wealthy and well-connected pay their fair share. pic.twitter.com/IFeCS2QXaS
— House Budget Committee Democrats (@HouseBudgetDems) January 18, 2024
The House GOP has been harping on this since they regained the majority in 2022. They tried to include a fiscal commission in their failed attempt to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government back in September. It even featured highly in the fight to find a new speaker after the Freedom Caucus ousted Kevin McCarthy last fall.
Cutting the programs took center stage when GOP Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma nominated Jim Jordan for the job. Jordan showed “courage,” Cole said, in fighting “to get at the real drivers of debt, and we all know what they are. We all know it’s Social Security, we all know it’s Medicare, we all know it’s Medicaid.”
We all know that cutting these programs has been at the top of Republicans’ wish list since the programs were created decades ago. It’s never going to change. But it is providing yet another powerful opportunity for President Joe Biden to shine.
The right lives on hate, racism, and bigotry. They can not allow other religions, minorities, people different from them to have the same rights and opportunities. For some reason they feel that others having the same rights they have makes them less than, makes them lessor as people. They take no joy in the happiness and success of others. They hate the inclusion of anyone slightly different from them, and they react with temper tantrums. Look at the meanness towards and smug superiority they think they have over others. Instead of admiring the skill of the flight crew, the pilots and the plane stewards that saved lives, these people mock and slur others. Hugs. Scottie
They’re blaming airline safety issues on disabled people, Black people, women, and drag queens to gin up anti-diversity sentiment.
Secretary Pete Buttigieg/Rep. Lauren BoebertPhoto: Shutterstock
Conservatives are angry that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been, for at least a decade, trying to expand the diversity of its workforce, and they’re blaming gay Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
A terrifying video of a door blowing off Alaska Airlines flight 1282 went viral earlier this month. No one died, but the Boeing 737 Max 9 was forced to return to the airport and make an emergency landing. Some loose bolts around doors were found when other planes of the same type were later inspected.
She didn’t hesitate to launch homophobic attacks on the out Transportation Secretary and his husband, but now that she wants some of that cash for her district, she’s trying to play nice.
“The FAA is the latest victim of the radical [diversity, equity, and inclusion] agenda,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) wrote on social media this week. “Instead of prioritizing the most qualified candidates, the FAA will now look for individuals with ‘severe intellectual disabilities.’ How can anyone feel safe flying when the people responsible for their safety are being hired based on DEI rather than qualifications for the position?”
DEI stands for “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” workplace policies that seek to hire and support candidates from diverse backgrounds. Right-wingers have increasingly targeted these policies as a “woke” form of “identity politics” while ignoring the workplace disparities that they seek to address.
The FAA is the latest victim of the radical DEI agenda.
Instead of prioritizing the most qualified candidates, the FAA will now look for individuals with 'severe intellectual disabilities.'
How can anyone feel safe flying when the people responsible for their safety are being…
Boebert was likely referring to a story that spread like wildfire on conservative media. The conservative New York Post ran a story about the FAA policy – which the Post stressed is “overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation” – with the headline, “FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with ‘severe intellectual’ and ‘psychiatric’ disabilities.”
The story noted that the FAA has a diversity statement on its site that says it recruits people with disabilities, including “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism.”
X CEO Elon Musk shared the Post’s story and wrote: “Just had a conversation with some smart people could not believe this is happening.” He also shared a post that claimed that Black airline employees lower the “average IQ of US Air Force pilots.”
The problem with their explanation? The policy has been on the FAA since at least 2013, during the Obama administration, and the Trump administration didn’t do anything to remove it. The Post’s story didn’t mention the fact that the policy is from 2013 and instead just noted that the FAA’s website was updated in 2022, which isn’t a relevant fact to the story but may have been intended to imply that the policy was put in place during Buttigieg’s tenure.
“The FAA employs tens of thousands of people for a wide range of positions, from administrative roles to oversight and execution of critical safety functions,” the FAA said in a statement. The FAA has 45,000 employees. “Like many large employers, the agency proactively seeks qualified candidates from as many sources as possible, all of whom must meet rigorous qualifications that, of course, will vary by position.”
Snopes noted that the rightwing “media coverage provided no evidence linking any DEI initiative with the Alaska Airlines incident” and that the investigation into the Alaska Airlines flight is still ongoing.
But disabled and Black people aren’t the only group that conservatives are blaming for the incident. Hate influencer and former realtor Chaya Raichik – whose Libs of TikTok account has been massively influential in spreading anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and has led to hospitals getting bomb threats and queer and trans teachers getting death threats – decided it was women’s fault.
That’s because Southwest Airlines made an innocuous post about an all-women flight crew shortly after the Alaska Airlines incident.
“All female flight crew? Go off, queens!” the Southwest Airlines’s X post read. The post included a picture of six smiling women in a plane.
“They’re openly mocking us,” Raichik wrote, sharing the post. “They know what they’re doing.” The implication was that supporting women in the workplace was somehow inappropriate following the incident in the Alaska Airlines flight.
Her post was viewed around 300,000 times and widely shared on the platform. Southwest later deleted their post celebrating the women.
Later in the week, Raichik raged at United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby doing drag at a Halloween party in 2011. Kirby is married to a woman and has seven children with her, but being a stereotypically masculine, straight, cisgender white man wasn’t enough to protect him from the right’s grievances about diversity in the workforce.
“This is Scott Kirby, the CEO of United. He’s a drag queen and has been incorporating drag into United,” Raichik wrote. “This video should tell you everything you need to know.”
This is Scott Kirby, the CEO of @united. He’s a drag queen and has been incorporating drag into @united.
Anti-trans activist and fifth-place swimmer Riley Gaines responded to the video, writing, “It’s time to bring back shame.” She also wrote that people “fly United at your own risk,” not explaining exactly how she connected the video to flight safety.
Cisgender, heterosexual white men on the right have donned drag in the past without controversy, including Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) boyfriend, rightwing media personality Brian Glenn. Greene, who has protested drag queen shows in the past, laughed off claims that there was anything inappropriate about her boyfriend doing drag because it happened “years ago.” The same grace, though, apparently doesn’t apply to CEOs of airlines that support diversity in the workplace.
Buttigieg, for his part, assured travelers that he has confidence in the FAA’s ability to keep flights safe, noting that they grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 jets for further inspection following the Alaska Airlines incident. He explained that FAA staff is putting in extra hours to get to the root of the problem.
“I have confidence in any aircraft cleared by the FAA,” he told reporters last week. “The FAA’s doing a great job and [FAA Administrator] Mike Whitaker’s doing a great job.”
He added that, as a father, the images of the plane with the door blown out affected him.
“Anybody looking at those pictures has to be thinking about what you’d do in that situation,” he said, explaining that he was just on a flight with one of his children. “That is what’s on our mind.”
This goes along with my last post, Christian take over of the US pushed by Churches, leaders with money, and wealthy older people who see it as a way to enforce their bigotry to remain a white cis straight 1950s society. I really want to emphasize the hard right bigotry and hate these billionaires have and the changes they are making to society. They fund the very rabid right wing media that is trying hard to change all of our society and political leanings, increasing hate for LGBTQIA and hate against blacks / brown people. They push a pro Christian white cis straight male in charge of society. Dunn & Wilks also control influential legal, policy, & advocacy organizations. One of those orgs argued in court that pharmacies shouldn’t sell birth control. The lawyer who argued that case later became a federal judge. He banned the abortion pill. And they’ve even created their own right-wing media bubble. Dunn & Wilks fund Texas Scorecard, the top far-right publication. Wilks owns the Daily Wire and bankrolls PragerU, a right-wing “education” platform they’re trying to force into our schools. Prager U is now being used in red state public schools as instruction materials. Florida pushes their message hard. There is a serious push by really wealthy old Christian bigots to turn the US into a Christian Iran, a Christian Saudi Arabia, a Christian Afghanistan. Do we the poor majority want to allow this? Hugs. Scottie
For more than three months, Republican Party of Texas Chair Matt Rinaldi has vigorously attacked critics of Defend Texas Liberty, and rebuffed calls to distance the state party from the powerful group over its ties to white supremacists. As he did so, Rinaldi was also working as an attorney for one of the group’s two billionaire funders, Farris Wilks, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Since 2021, Wilks has given nearly $5 million to Defend Texas Liberty, which last year was the state party’s largest financial supporter. With Rinaldi’s help, the group has sought to purge the Texas GOP of more moderate voices by bankrolling far-right causes and primary candidates. Publicly, Rinaldi has also been silent about Defend Texas Liberty as the Tribune extensively reported on ties between the group and other white supremacists and Nick Fuentes acolytes.
Read the full article. There’s much more. Give the tweets below a minute to fully load because they illuminate how deep this goes. The final tweet links to a grimly fascinating deep dive into Defend Texas Liberty’s leader.
Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi backed a group with white supremacist ties — while working for its billionaire funder https://t.co/2h63antXz5
These two billionaire-pastors are spending their fortune enacting an extreme Christian nationalist worldview in the second-largest state in the country.
In his teens and his 20s, Jonathan Stickland was a prolific internet troll.
He later made a career of it — ascending to the role of a conservative Texas powerbroker, before taking heat for hosting a meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes. https://t.co/vvMwzjDh22
Y’know that old saw that goes, “If you enter a room and there are 12 Nazis having dinner at the table and you sit down to join them, there are now 13 Nazis at the table”?
Rinaldi, Dunn, Wilks, Strickland and the rest of these guys are the ones who catered the meal.
Two billionaires funding right wing hate groups and Nazis. And both are pastors.
Who said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle then it is for a Richmond to enter the kingdom of heaven?
Who said the greatest commandment after loving God was loving your neighbor?
Who said not to store up treasures on earth?
no one of any importance whatsoever to modern fundamentalist Christianity. One could almost wish that they succeed turning Texas into a theocracy and the right wing state. Maybe they can leave the union.
I think it reveals that they don’t even believe their religious nuttery. They just want to use superstition and money to control EVERYTHING, and they also think they’re so smart that no one will pick up on the hypocrisy
Actually, they are heretic “Christians”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi… Wilks’ parents founded their own church (cult?), which denies Christian doctrines like the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, and gives primacy to the Hebrew Scriptures. While they seem to recognize Jesus as a prophet of some sort, they don’t seem to be bound to follow his teachings.
And look! Wilks is the pastor of his own church cult. Currently the Assembly of Yahweh (7th day) is a conservative Jews for Jesus-type congregation. It teaches that “the true religion is Jewish (not a Gentile religion)” and its members celebrate the Old Testament holidays rather than those related to the New Testament. The congregation considers the Old Testament historically and scientifically accurate.
One minority group using keywords to promote a crisis that doesn’t exist to remove books with characters and plots they don’t like. One minority group pushing for the right to control the children of the majority who disagree with them. One of the board members claimed it was up to the parents to decide what was sexual explicit not educators, yet he also claimed that he wouldn’t tolerate tax money to be spent on what he called sexually explicit books, which we all know he means books with LGBTQIA characters or plots. So he is taking the rights from the parents he just claimed had the rights to make that judgement. Hugs. Scottie
Opposing parents pushed back against Moms for Liberty’s campaign, saying that removing books is censorship and that one group of parents shouldn’t decide what’s best for everyone. There was even an attempt to challenge the Bible to test the system.
None of the 61 books that were challenged was available to elementary students. They only lived on middle and high school shelves. That was until the superintendent removed them all, except for the Bible, until they went through the review process.
Whether it’s a textbook or a library book, it won’t be allowed in Carroll County Public Schools if deemed sexually explicit by school officials. That’s thanks to a new policy passed unanimously by its school board Wednesday.
The vote came after a monthslong campaign by the conservative parent group Moms for Liberty, whose members challenged dozens of school library books they say are inappropriate for students.
The board decided in the fall that staff should tighten the policy on textbook and library book selection and tasked them with creating a definition of “sexually explicit.”
“Instructional materials, including supplemental materials, shall not contain sexually explicit content,” the new policy states. “Sexually explicit content is defined as unambiguously describing, depicting, showing, or writing about sex or sex acts in a detailed or graphic manner.”
The policy doesn’t apply to materials used in the health curriculum.
Opposing parents pushed back against Moms for Liberty’s campaign, saying that removing books is censorship and that one group of parents shouldn’t decide what’s best for everyone. There was even an attempt to challenge the Bible to test the system.
None of the 61 books that were challenged was available to elementary students. They only lived on middle and high school shelves. That was until the superintendent removed them all, except for the Bible, until they went through the review process. She said it’s because reviewing such a high volume of books would take too long. And school officials said removing the Bible would be a constitutional issue.
Kathryn Berling, a parent and school librarian at Taneytown Elementary School, told board members that they nor the school system asked for librarians’ input on the books. While she spoke, a handful of attendees stood with her in solidarity.
Berling noted that librarians were not asked for input when the superintendent took away the books, nor on a new policy put in place at the beginning of the year that requires librarians to complete a time-consuming checklist policing a book’s content before selecting for the library.
The board also, she noted, did not ask librarians about defining “sexually explicit.”
“It’s a shame you cannot trust the professionalism of our CCPS media specialists,” Berling said.
Shortly before Wednesday’s vote, a few board members questioned how staff defined “sexually explicit” in the policy proposal. Sahithya Sudhakar, the student member, said she doesn’t think the definition suffices because graphic content can look different to different people. It’s a risk to content like literature that students read in class, she added.
“I’m worried we’re losing important content in our schools because a single line is taken out of context,” said Sudhakar, who does not have voting rights.
Fellow members Tara Battaglia and Patricia Dorsey, who ended up voting for the policy, echoed her concerns on the definition and asked if there was more they can do to make it less subjective.
But members Steve Whisler and Donna Sivigny saw no issue. Whisler said as an elected official he won’t tolerate any tax dollars spent on “sexually explicit” books.
“It is the job of parents, not educators … to determine what’s sexually explicit,” he said.
“We are treating adults like children, and children like adults.” -Tiffany Justice @4TiffanyJustice The material that 13yo’s have access to in schools should be very different that the content adults enjoy. We need to stop treating children like adults. pic.twitter.com/CAmLdDWqkL
— Kit Hart, American Girl (@5sweetharts_) July 13, 2023
The crisis was strategically created in order to gain control. By isolating children for years, forcing them to cover their faces, they hurt children.
By convincing children that they were born in the wrong bodies, and that the only way to fix them was with drugs and surgeries,… pic.twitter.com/tZ8vNQAUDY
And when you advocate for a better world, you become comfortable- and even embrace – controversy. Read my full commentary here. ⬇️ @Moms4Libertyhttps://t.co/5IqQhDWVfV
[Board member] Whisler said… “It is the job of parents, not educators… to determine what’s sexually explicit.”
Then why the fuck did he argue and vote for a policy that makes it the educators and school librarians responsibility to police the board‘s definition? Whisler’s just an anti-sex control freak.
I was reading books from the adult section of our libraries when I was in 7th grade. I came across depictions of sex acts. Somehow I survived. Thank God. /s
By third grade I was reading at the 12th grade level. Mostly science fiction but many biographies and other non-fiction. I was exposed to many words and terms and descriptions of things that I didn’t completely understand, but the help of the dictionary and my extremely well-read father, I quickly learned. My parents never treated me like a little kid when it came to my choices of reading materials, and I wasn’t in any way traumatized by anything I read in books.
By age 12, I was allowed to go off on my bike, alone or with friends, and frequently would be gone 8 to 10 hours on the weekends. Sometimes we’d be riding clear across town [Columbus, OH] or far out past the suburbs, going almost to Delaware, Grove City, Reynoldsburg and others. I was also allowed to go play down by the river behind the shopping center, where, in retrospect, one might even encounter somewhat shifty characters. I never got kidnapped, raped, assaulted or killed, or exposed to drugs or cigarettes. Most of those things happened at my school. I turned out ok, well-rounded, able to discern right from wrong, to make responsible decisions and other positive attributes.
hell, I was reading from the adult section of the library when I was in grade school. if I could read it, my parents let me and my dad would answer any questions I had about things. they were just happy I was reading. I remember seeing book about cattle breeds around the world and there was a photo showing the weinies of African tribal members, I loved that book!!! LOL
Christian privilege at it again. “[S]chool officials said removing the Bible would be a constitutional issue.” But it’s not a constitutional issue to ban speech unless it’s religious (Evangelical Christian). These assholes believe they’re both divinely and constitutionality sanctioned to dominate the rest of us.
The buy-bull….Talk about a book full of filth, violence and lies! No one should be exposed to it until old enough to realize is a work of fiction created by sun baked brains and changed over the centuries by crazies, drunks, and the power hungry.
“School officials said removing the Bible would be a constitutional issue.”
School officials were wrong. Applying a general law or policy without distinction and without bias against a religion is clearly constitutional. Also, the Bible is neither a textbook nor supplemental instructional material, so it’s presence is superfluous, already.
I guess it’s not within their definition of “sexually explicit” because it’s language is too ambiguous and lacking in detail when it describes sex acts with prostitutes, sisters, half-sisters, sisters-in-law, daughters, fathers, kings, concubines, refugees, war captives, under-age girls, slaves, maids, surrogates, men, donkeys, dogs, and goats.
As a voracious young reader, I had pretty much checked out everything in the kids section of our public library by age 10 and moved into the adult stacks.The librarians panicked the first time I brought a stack of Agatha Christie and John Creasey mysteries to the check out desk and refused to let me have them without parental permission. Infuriated, I ran to get my mom. She rolled her eyes and just said, “Let him read them”.
Until puberty hit, I skimmed over the sexy bits, then had an “a-ha” moment when I finally connected the naughty descriptions in the books with my own naughty bits. I think the only significant affect it had on me was using a lot of British sex slang until the 7th grade librarian asked me if I knew what “twat” actually meant.
P.S. The librarian became a lifelong friend. RIP Mrs. Pavitt.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/baltimorebanner/DWBLJWXIXJGYNCYXBIKIPEA67Y.jpg)
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/baltimorebanner/270d0731-501b-4a1a-8c04-e648be1f9b2a.png)
Scottie's Playtime 