Clearly racism and bigotry.Β They even rescinded anti-discrimination policies.Β Β Why not discriminating is good, discrimination is bad.Β But we can thank tRump for making it safe for these … people to come out from under the rocks and openly push for white supremacy.Β Their goal is to push the LGBTQIA out of public view and remove any equality for black / brown people. Read the quote below and see if you can find the real truth he is saying.Β Β
Cook, in July, defended rescinding the anti-racism resolution, saying the board βdoesnβt need to be in the business of dividing the community.βΒ Β
Why would anti-racism divide the community unless a lot of the white community wants to be racist against the black community, and the whites feel targeted / put on by the resolution.Β Hugs.Β Scottie
OβFALLON, Mo. (AP) β A conservative-led Missouri school board has voted to drop elective courses on Black history and literature, five months after the same boardΒ rescinded an anti-discrimination policyΒ adopted in the aftermath of the killing ofΒ George Floyd.
The Francis Howell School Board voted 5-2 Thursday night to stop offering Black History and Black Literature, courses that had been offered at the districtβs three high schools since 2021. A little over 100 students took the courses this semester in the predominantly white suburban area of St. Louis.
In July, the board revoked an anti-racism resolution and ordered copies removed from school buildings. The resolution was adopted in August 2020 amid the national turmoil after a police officer killed Floyd in Minneapolis.
The resolution pledged that the Francis Howell community would βspeak firmly against any racism, discrimination, and senseless violence against people regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability.β
The resolution and course offerings were targeted by five new members who have taken control of the board since being elected last year and in April, all with the backing of the conservative political action committee Francis Howell Families. All seven board members are white.
Β
The PACβs website expresses strong opposition to the courses, saying they involve principals ofΒ critical race theory, though many experts say the scholarly theory centered on the idea that racism is systemic in the nationβs institutions is not taught in K-12 schools.
The decision to drop the courses was met with protests outside the board meeting. Several parents and students chanted, βLet them learn!β Inside, speakers questioned the decision.
βYouβve certainly taught me to not underestimate how low you will go to show your disdain toward the Black and brown communitiesβ experiences and existence,β Harry Harris, a Black father, told the board.
Another speaker, Tom Ferri, urged the board to focus on bigger issues such as high turnover among teachers.
βTapping into a diverse talent pipeline would be a great way to slow attrition, but what diverse staff wants to work in a district waging culture wars?β he asked.
Board Vice President Randy Cook Jr., who was elected in 2022, said the Francis Howell courses to which he and others objected used βSocial Justice Standardsβ developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center with a bent toward activism.
βI do not object to teaching black history and black literature; but I do object to teaching black history and black literature through a social justice framework,β Cook said in an email on Friday. βI do not believe it is the public schoolβs responsibility to teach social justice and activism.β
District spokesperson Jennifer Jolls said in an email that new Black history and literature courses βcould be redeveloped and brought to the Board for approval in the future.β
This semester, 60 students at the three schools combined enrolled in the Black History course, and 42 took Black Literature, the district said.
Francis Howell is among Missouriβs largest school districts, with 16,647 students, 7.7% of whom are Black. The district is on the far western edge of the St. Louis area, in St. Charles County.
The countyβs dramatic growth has coincided with the equally dramatic population decline in St. Louis city. In 1960, St. Louis had 750,000 residents and St. Charles County had 53,000. St. Louisβ population is now 293,000, nearly evenly split between Black and white residents. St. Charles County has grown to about 415,000 residents, 6% of whom are Black.
Racial issues remain especially sensitive in the St. Louis region, more than nine years after a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri,Β fatally shot 18-year-old Michael BrownΒ during a street confrontation. Officer Darren Wilson was not charged and the shooting led to months of often violent protests, becoming a catalyst for the national Black Lives Matter movement.
Cook, in July, defended rescinding the anti-racism resolution, saying the board βdoesnβt need to be in the business of dividing the community.β
βWe just need to stick to the business of educating students here and stay out of the national politics,β he said.
The districtβs description of the Black Literature course says it focuses βon contemporary and multi-genre literary works of Black authors and will celebrate the dignity and identity of Black voices.β
For the Black History course, the description reads, βStudents understand the present more thoroughly when they understand the roots of todayβs world in light of their knowledge of the past. This Black History course tells the history of Blacks from the beginning Ancient Civilizations of Africa through the present day accomplishments and achievements of Black individuals today.β
School board elections across the U.S. have becomeΒ intense political battlegroundsΒ since 2020, when some groups began pushing back against policies aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19.
PACs in many local districts have successfully elected candidates who promised to take action against teachings on race and sexuality, remove books deemed offensive and stop transgender-inclusive sports teams.
Never ceases to amaze me that a word generally understood to mean “not asleep,” “awake” is theΒ worst epithetΒ that Trump and his thugs can throw at progressives.
It just shows how entrenched they are in their dogma they are, that equality is so undesirable. They are incapable of considering anything that challenges their bigotry
I recall reading about a journalist who asked a bunch of Trump supporters what “woke” means to them. The replies were hysterical.
Half of them really didn’t have any idea what it means. The other half used the usual “commie, socialist, atheist, homo” description they use when describing anyone or anything they don’t like or don’t understand.
It was first used by white liberals to mean “I’m listening to women, black, hispanic, lgbt, etc. voices and hearing what they are saying.” How horrible. To acknowledge other people’s lived experiences and treat them with respect.
Yep, in the city of Saint Louis , in the gated private streets of 1904 Worlds Fair era mansions just north of the large city park where the Fair was held. Private streets are really private, they donβt allow (certain) non-residents to walk or drive there – the streets hire private security. I have lived about 2 blocks from idiot gun-totersβ house for over 30 years, in a neighborhood of pre-WWII high rise apartment buildings. 1904 Worldβs Fair is the one immortalized in the Judy Garland movie Meet Me in St. Louis. βHave yourself a merry little Christmasβ¦β
Yes, it’s population boomed, growing more than four-fold in the ’50s. O’Fallon, MO, should not to be confused with O’Fallon, IL or the O’Fallon neighborhood in north St. Louis, all within the same metro and named after the same rail baron. The O’Fallon neighborhood was hard-hit by block-busting, white-flight, and subsequent red-lining. It’s to recent to be allowed to publish the individual household records to see how many moved from the O’Fallon neighborhood to what is now the largest, and exceedingly white, suburb of St. Louis.
Think about the line that the school claims is unacceptable.Β βWouldnβt it be nice to live in paradise… where we’re free to be exactly who we are.βΒ That is what the school district finds so unacceptable.Β Why?Β It must be something to do with demanding everyone must live by the church doctrines of the minority.Β Hugs.Β Scottie
A federal court in Wisconsin declined to dismiss a teacherβs First Amendment retaliation claim against the school district that fired her for publishing a tweet critical of its decision to prohibit her first-graders from singing βRainbowlandβ by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton at a school concert. She has shown that her employment was terminated for exercising her First Amendment rights, so her claim survives the motion.
A Wisconsin school board has banned the song βRainbowlandβ by Dolly Parton & Miley Cyrus from a concert because they say the lyrics are βcontroversial.β The song says, βWouldnβt it be nice to live in paradise… where we're free to be exactly who we are.β https://t.co/I5GRTpv44P
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) March 24, 2023
First-grade teacher @melissatempel was fired last week after she publicly criticized the Waukesha, Wisconsin, board of education for not allowing students to sing the song βRainbowland,β citing a βcontroversial content policy.β βIt was really horrifying,β says Tempel. pic.twitter.com/8wQzukuNFq
I never heard of the song and never heard it, either, but I just looked up the lyrics.
in those lyrics, there is not a single mention of race, gender, sex, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, or even a bigotry. All of those are the usual sources for bigotry, and thus of “controversy”.So what exactly is the problem?
Who knew that a plea for tolerance could be considered “controversial”, except to the highly and terminally intolerant?
We just want things to be the way they used to be β when you people were invisible and uppity brown folk knew how to hold their tongue. Just like white Jesus promised. Merry Christmas!
Oh, it’s much worse than that. The lyrics also say, “We are rainbows, me and you, rvery color, every hue,” and if that isn’t a direct call out to CRT, I don’t know what is. They might as well have said slavery is bad or something else equally controversial to the snowflake replubican’ts.
Because of course – “In her lawsuit, Tempel says that although Sebert announced in August 2021 that the policy would equally ban signs, flags and materials promoting causes like Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter, signs saying βStudents for Lifeβ and βThin Blue Lineβ were permitted to be displayed in school common areas while Gay-Straight Alliance locker signs and signs stating, βthis classroom is anti-racistβ and βthis school welcomes youβ were prohibited.”
I was thinking of the photo of the Wisconsin HS students giving the Nazi salute in their class photo. The only one who wouldn’t was the gay gentleman in the top right corner, who was rightly disgusted.
The policy appears to originate with Neola, a company that provides school policy services to 317 clients in Wisconsin in addition to more than 1,000 others across six states, according to the companyβs website. A call to Neolaβs business office in Ohio could not immediately reach a spokesperson who could answer questions about the lawsuit and the policy on Tuesday.
In her lawsuit, Tempel says that although Sebert announced in August 2021 that the policy would equally ban signs, flags and materials promoting causes like Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter, signs saying βStudents for Lifeβ and βThin Blue Lineβ were permitted to be displayed in school common areas while Gay-Straight Alliance locker signs and signs stating, βthis classroom is anti-racistβ and βthis school welcomes youβ were prohibited.
In July 2021, the district also suspended diversity, equity and inclusion training for staff and suspended the work of its Equity Leadership Team, according to the complaint.
I was a regular babysitter in the 1970s for one family. They let their son watch TV, notably ‘The Electric Company” which, in my opinion, was so frenetic that the boy almost became agitated. The show that followed was Mr Rogers Neighborhood, which he loved – as did I watching for the first time as a teenager. One day while the show was on, his father came home from work to change clothes and go out on the bay. Walking by the TV set on his way to his room, the Dad muttered, “get that fag off the tv.’ Years later, I remember the Dad crying into my arms at the funeral home visitation after his son committed suicide by putting a rifle into his mouth in his bedroom.
I want to send this teacher some money for the fight.
Thanks to ten Bears for the link.Β This is a scary and important read, and people need to understand what will happen this time if tRump and his ilk get into power again.Β We must put small time bickering of age and other things aside until the threat posed by these people are gone.Β If we don’t stand together and vote for Biden and other democrats in large numbers or democracy goes away and the US becomes a hell of inequality, no rights, no personal freedoms, and required living as you are ordered to do so.Β The LGBTQIA will be illegal, as will other personal freedoms.Β Reading material and movies will have to be state sanctioned and follow party lines, like in China.Β Β Β Hugs.Β Scottie
If you thought it canβt happen here, I have an old Sinclair Lewis book to share with youβ¦
If Trump is re-elected, heβd be Americaβs 47th president, so heβs named the plans for his second term βAgenda 47.β At best, itβs a dystopian nightmare: at worst it means ending our current system of American government; aligning the US with Russia and other autocratic nations; and the USA leading the charge against democracy and in favor of authoritarian, strong-man forms of government across the world.
Over at his website, Trump lays out the details of his governing agenda, complete with short videos promoting each of the steps he plans to take. They, and his many statements about future plans, include:
Criminalizing homosexuality
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Part of Agenda 47, Trump says, is βfinishing the jobβ he started as president between 2017 and 2021.
Just two hours after he and Pence were sworn into office, theyΒ removedΒ all mention of LGBTQ+ issues from the White House website.
Two days later, his State DepartmentΒ deletedΒ former Secretary of State John Kerryβs apology to the nation for the βLavender Scareβ government persecution of gays and lesbians during the McCarthy era 1950s and early 1960s. A month later, Trumpβs Justice DepartmentΒ announcedΒ theyβd no longer defend the civil rights of trans kids.
His Education and HUD offices bothΒ withdrewΒ their court defenses of queer people, particularly students and those in homeless shelters, and his Secretary of StateΒ refusedΒ to mention to the Russian Foreign Minister the detention and brutal executions of gay men by Russian soldiers in Chechnya. On May 4, 2017 Trump signed an executive order letting the DOJΒ ignoreΒ claims of illegal discrimination against queer people and womenΒ throughoutΒ every single one of the nationβs federal agencies.
In September, 2017, Trumpβs Secretary of Education, billionaire Betsy DeVos, officially endedΒ thatΒ agencyβs Title IX guidance requiring schools to do something about sexual harassment, including sexual violence, against women and LGBTQ+ kids. In response to a question from the media about the change in policy and gay men, TrumpΒ saidΒ that his Vice President βwants to hang them all.β
In January of 2018, TrumpΒ rolled outΒ the βDivision of Conscience and Religious Freedomβ at HHS, which would backstop people who wanted to use the excuse of βdeeply held religious beliefsβ to justify explicit discrimination against queer people and women, or to simply to make life difficult for government agencies.
All of this is just the beginning. The Human Rights Campaign hasΒ documentedΒ page after page of anti-queer policies put into effect by Trump that will be resurrected and put on steroids in a second term.
Destroy academic freedom and gut our public schools
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In the Agenda 47 section of his website, Trump explains how heβs going to use our schools and colleges to indoctrinate young Americans in rightwing ideology. He explicitlyΒ says:
βWhen I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics. We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all.β
Any colleges thatΒ continueΒ to teach βunder the guise of [racial] equity will not only have their endowment taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.β
In other words, just like Viktor OrbΓ‘n did in Hungary and Putin did in Russia, heβs going to bankrupt the nationβs schools and colleges if they continue to teach the true history of America and promote egalitarian values. As Trump notes at his website:
β[W]e are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all.β
Gut the EPA, OSHA, CPSB, IRS, the Labor Department, and other federal agencies that keep our air clean, our water pure, and protect average Americans from predation by the morbidly rich and their corporations
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Back in the 1970s, Richard Nixon said he was going to use βimpoundmentβ to strip funding from agencies his donors didnβt like, claiming that, even though Congress had appropriated budgets for them, he could, as head of the Executive Branch, simply βimpoundβ the money and refuse to spend it. His plan to remake the federal government was interrupted by Watergate.
In 1974, Democrats in Congress got together and passed legislation outlawing this and Jerry Ford signed it into law. But Trumpβs lawyers apparently think they can get it overturned through their appointees on the courts or even, if they can take both branches of Congress, through new legislation. As Trump says on his website:
βI will use the presidentβs long-recognized Impoundment Power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings.β
Since the fossil fuel companies, banks, refineries, anti-union big employers, and their billionaires who fund the GOP hate all of these agencies, itβll be a bonanza for them.
Not so much for working people, retirees, and those of us concerned about a livable future environment for our kids and grandkids, though.
Destroy the media and the truth
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First, he wants to make it illegal for the federal governmentβs security services to notify social media platforms about Russian disinformation and other foreign efforts to swing elections, since nearly 100% of those efforts are coming from authoritarian countries in support of Trump and against democracy.
βI will ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as βmis-β or βdis-information,β TrumpΒ proclaimsΒ on his Agenda 47 website.
He also wants to force social media to carry his buddy Putinβs trollsβ lies and attempts to pit Americans against each other, and limit the companiesβ ability to label or block lies and propaganda. As TrumpΒ puts it:
βI will ask Congress to send a bill to my desk revising Section 230 to get big online platforms out of censorship business.β
In Hungary, one way Viktor OrbΓ‘n got rid of actual news media and replaced the ownership of all the nationβs major radio and TV networks, websites, and newspapers was by changing the libel laws so that public figures (like OrbΓ‘n himself) couldΒ sue for libelΒ when they thought they were treated unfairly.
They then sued company after company, commentator after commentator, reporter after reporter, into bankruptcy.
OrbΓ‘nβs rightwing buddies could buy the media properties out of bankruptcy which is why now virtually all the media in Hungary is like Fox βNews,β broadcasting suck-ups to OrbΓ‘n and criticism of βliberals,β immigrants, and gays 24/7.
Trump wants to do the same here in the US.
When Michael Wolffβs bookΒ Fire and FuryΒ came out with some unflattering characterizations of Trump in it, the then-presidentΒ said:
βWe are going to take a strong look at our countryβs libel laws so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts. And if somebody says something thatβs totally false and knowingly false, that the person that has been abused, defamed, libeled, will have meaningful recourse.β
Simply reporting on what Trumpβs up to could bring lawsuits that would bankrupt even theΒ TimesΒ or theΒ Post, and, like in Hungary and Russia, pretty much end the existence of a free and independent press in America.
Turning America into a vigilante police state
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Trump has promised toΒ pardonΒ the January 6th insurrectionists who tried to murder the Vice President and Speaker of the House (and whose actions led to the death of four police officers), and put into place aΒ nationalΒ βstop and friskβ law that upends the 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
It would also β like Duterte in the Philippines who executed over 10,000 people during his reign of terror β authorize the federal government to immediatelyΒ executeΒ anybody convicted of trafficking in drugs without further due process or appeals.
Republicans in Texas have already pioneered using vigilantes to hunt down women whoβve had abortions and the people whoβve helped them. Expect these vigilante-enforced laws to spread across the country with a second Trump administration, with groups like the Proud Boys and III Percenters becoming the modern-day equivalent of the old westβs 19th century bounty hunters.
In a flashback to Hitlerβs βwork campsβ that preceded the death camps by five years, Trumpβs also proposed building concentration camps around the country to house βmillionsβ of undocumented aliensΒ andΒ his political enemies. As heΒ notedΒ in a speech on Veteransβ Day this year:
βWe pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,β adding that Russia isnβt a problem. Instead, he said, βthe threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.β
Presumably that means people like me and you, who would oppose his fascist agenda.
Corrupting the federal government
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Way back in 1881, a man named Charles GuiteauΒ thoughtΒ heβd properly bribed President James Garfield by giving the president, during an in-person visit in the White House, a speech heβd written for Garfield to use. Garfield was polite but didnβt offer Guiteau a federal speechwriterβs Β job, which provoked a murderous rage: shortly thereafter, Guiteau met Garfieldβs train and shot him twice, killing him.
The explicit and institutionalized practice of exchanging gifts and personal loyalty for federal jobs dated back to the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), arguably the second-most depraved president in American history behind Trump (which is probably why Trump hung his picture in the Oval Office; JacksonβsΒ favorite nicknameΒ for himself β given him by the Cherokee he slaughtered β was βThe Indian Killerβ).
Jackson had elevated the practice of bribing the president β himself, at the time β to get federal jobs into an art-form: it was called the βspoilsβ or patronage system and was insanely corrupt. It was also, by Garfieldβs presidency in 1881, routine.
After Guiteau failed to gain his βspoilβ or βpatronageβ from Garfield and killed him, President Chester Arthur oversaw the writing and passage of theΒ Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883.
It separated all those government jobs from the administration in power, turning federal workers from patrons of the president into permanent bureaucrats, whose first loyalty was to the nation instead of the guy who happened to be in the White House at any particular time.
It also explicitly outlawed bribing the president for a job. The goal, which it accomplished and has held for 140 years, was to end corruption in the bureaucratic branches of the federal government.
Donald Trump wants to functionally end the Civil Service system and replace the top levels of the nationβs 2.7 million federal workers with people loyal exclusively to himself.
He tried to do this in the last months of his presidency through an October 21, 2020 executive order,Β Schedule F, (which Biden reversed on his first day in office) that reclassified those workers out of their Civil Service jobs and into political appointee positions, doing the same work but now entirely dependent on the good will of the president to keep their jobs.
The next Republican administration will almost certainly put Schedule F back into force, reestablishing the 1829 spoils system for the federal government, and ending any possibility that people in the government will push back against Trump the way they did during his presidency.
Making the nationβs police into Trumpβs private enforcers
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The Department of Justice was established by President Ulysses S. Grant after the Civil War, in part to enforce federal laws protecting the rights of people whoβd recently been freed from slavery.
After Richard Nixon tried to use it against his enemies (and his Attorney General, John Mitchell, went to prison for his efforts), Congress in 1978 passed theΒ Ethics in Government ActΒ which put a wall of separation between the DOJ and the White House.
Trump has explicitly proclaimed his intention to tear that wall down and go farther than Nixon ever imagined in using our armed investigative services for personal revenge and harassment of people he perceives as his enemies.
He wants the nationβs premiere police agencies to become his own personal enforcers, and has already said they will be hunting down βliberals,β Black Lives Matter protest participants, and Joe Biden, his family, and members of his administration.
He wants to imprison them, as well as the prosecutors and judges who have been participating in the effort to hold him to account for the crimes he committed over the past 7 years.
This politicization of law enforcement has been a first-order and primary feature of every authoritarian or totalitarian regime thatβs risen to power over the past few hundred years, worldwide. ItβsΒ alwaysΒ one of the first things fascist leaders do when they seize power.
βFreedom citiesβ
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In an apparent attempt to portray himself as a visionary like JFK, with his promise to send men to the moon and bring them back safely, Trump is promising to build βfreedom citiesβ in his second term. The main feature heβs discussed is that people will get around in them in βflying cars.β
While itβs being portrayed as a goofy stunt designed to make him seem like an imaginative idealist, in fact there has been a movement among rightwing billionaires for some time to create cities that they basically run as little feudal fiefdoms, the same way the morbidly rich run their companies and their football teams.
Some libertarian billionaires assert that the only reason thereβs never been a successful libertarian nation in the history of the world is because true libertarianism β government doing nothing but running the police, army, and courts and everything else left to private charity and business owners β βhas never been tried.β
The βfreedom citiesβ could be a new libertarian experiment, or they may be the 21st century version of the old βcompany town,β where nobody has rights or protection of the law but is subject to the whims of the local billionaire owner. A group backed by Silicon Valley billionaires has already put forward what appears to be aΒ planΒ to build a new city in California that they may or may not envision running along these lines. The group has so far purchased more than 53,000 acres of land, an area larger than the entire city of Beaumont, Texas, or Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Ending democracy across Europe and the world
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Trump is also promising that heβll end the brutal attacks against Ukraine on βday oneβ by simply turning the country over to his good friend, Vladimir Putin.
For the first time since World War II, this would legitimize a nation attacking another nation simply to seize their land, resources, and people.
It would greenlight China to do the same with Taiwan, and encourage every other tinpot dictator in the world to grab nearby territory that he wants. It would encourage war, and could very easily lead to a world war.
Abandoning Ukraine like this, along with Trumpβs oft-stated preference to leave or end NATO and stop support for the UN, would lead the autocracies of the world β particularly Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and North Korea β to destroy the democracies in their sphere of influence, replacing those democracies with strongman autocracies.
The democratic experiment on this planet is only 250 years old, more or less, and this would signal a return to the way the world had been ruled for the 7,000 years prior to that: by kings, popes, mullahs, strongman warlords, and the morbidly rich.
Between Agenda 47 and Project 2025, Donald Trump and the rightwing billionaires who own the GOP have big plans for this nation, regardless of which Republican takes the White House next. Theyβre dead serious and far more well-funded than any of the groups that fight for and advocate democracy.
If you thought it canβt happen here, I have an old Sinclair LewisΒ bookΒ to share with you.
Triple check your voter registration, especially if you live in a Red state where the voter purges have already begun, and make sure everybody you know is registered vote.
Thank you for reading The Hartmann Report. This post is public so feel free to share it.
FILE – Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at an annual Basque Fry at the Corley Ranch in Gardnerville, Nev., Saturday, June 17, 2023. The mother of a transgender girl sobbed in federal court Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, as she contemplated having to move away from her Navy officer husband to get health care for her 12-year-old if Floridaβs ban on gender dysphoria treatments for minors is allowed to take affect. (AP Photo/Andy Barron, File)
A federal judge hearing aΒ challenge to a transgender health care ban for minorsΒ and restrictions for adults noted Thursday that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly spread false information about doctors mutilating childrenβs genitals even though thereβs been no such documented cases.
The law was sold as defending children from mutilation when it is actually about preventing trans children from getting health care, Judge Robert Hinkle said to Mohammad Jazil, a lawyer for the state.
βWhen Iβm analyzing the governorβs motivation, what should I make of these statements?β Hinkle asked. βThis seems to be more than just hyperbole.β
Hinkle said he will rule sometime in the new year on whether the Legislature, the Department of Health and presidential candidate DeSantis deliberately targeted transgender people through the new law. He raised some skepticism about the stateβs motivation as lawyers gave their closing arguments.
Jazil said the motivation behind the law was simply public safety in an area that needs more oversight and can have permanent consequences.
βItβs about treating a medical condition; itβs not about targeting transgender individuals,β Jazil said.
Jazil added that if the state was targeting transgender people, it could have banned all treatment for adults and children. Hinkle quickly replied that Jazil would have trouble defending such a law.
At least 22 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and many of those states face lawsuits. Courts have issued mixed rulings, with the nationβs first law, in Arkansas,Β struck down by a federal judgeΒ who said the ban on care violated the due process rights of transgender youth and their families.
Enforcement is blocked in two states besides Florida, and enforcement is currently allowed in or set to go into effect soon in seven other states.
Thomas Redburn, a lawyer representing trans adults and the families of trans children, said DeSantis and the Legislature have shown a pattern of targeting transgender people. He listed other recent laws that affect the community, including restrictions on pronoun use in schools, the teaching of gender identification in schools, restrictions on public bathrooms and the prohibition of trans girls from playing girls sports.
Read theΒ full article. Hinkle first appeared here in 2021Β when he blockedΒ Floridaβs law that sought to prevent social media platforms from banning users for hate speech.
A federal judge says Florida Gov. DeSantis repeatedly spread false information while advocating for a transgender health care ban for minors law in his state. https://t.co/SEEpu8rmxR
So he wants to pass a law to protect children against genital mutilation that doesn’t exist and even if there was genital cutting it would be done on a person old enough to ask for it. Yet countless thousands of boys in the state of Florida have part of their genitals cut off without their consent every year and no one has even considered a law protecting males from involuntary genital cutting. I’m all for anyone doing anything they want to their own genitals when they’re old enough to make the decision themselves but 100% against anyone having anything unnecessarily cut from their body without their consent.
Circumcision performed on a male before he’s old enough to understand and consent to the procedure is involuntary genital mutilation, plain and simple.
The Genital Autonomy Legal Defense and Education Fund (www.galdef.org/equal-protec…Β has a strategy to remedy the fact that over 1.25 million baby boys in the U.S. each year are subjected to medically unnecessary genital cutting with no legal protection of their bodily integrity or eventual autonomy. Subscribe to GALDEF’s newsletter at their homepage and help them build their war chest to launch an equal protection lawsuit.
The practice started in Egypt millennia before the Israelites were a people. They adopted circumcision from them, in the same way they adopted monotheism from the Babylonians.
Not quite. Christianity did away with the Jewish requirement for male circumcision at the Council of Jerusalem or Apostolic Council, circa, 48-50 CE. It was the fear of masturbation which sparked its resurrection in the U.S. in the early 1870s.
Hinkle said he will rule sometime in the new year on whether the Legislature, the Department of Health and presidential candidate DeSantisΒ deliberately targeted transgender people through the new law.
For those wondering, Robert Hinkle is a judge put on the courts under Bill Clinton and is a longtime LGBT ally. But both sides are the same right? I’m sure someone like this would totally have been put on the courts under Trump or George W or a Cruz etc. Oh wait…
DeSantis is a laughing stock at this point in time. The stuff of SNL. Even if Trump were to disappear, there’s no way in hell that the Republicans would nominate DeSantis as their 2024 candidate.
Besides being a total asshole, he is SO weird and awkward. We need to get rid of him and his government in Floriduh as well.
I’m just chilling with my long time best friend (60 years) in Delray Beach, having a tasty Knob Creek 9 on the rocks. Gonna get gummied soon. Nice plans for the Christmas weekend here. Wishing your and your hubby a wonderful holiday weekend!! Cheers!!
Remember state national guards are under the control of both the state and the DOD, and have to observe military rules.Β Β Deathsantis created his own militia, totally under the singular control of the governor of Florida.Β It is the governor’s private army.Β The republican legislature gave Deathsantis a huge amount of money from the Florida taxpayers for this, and then twice added even more millions.Β Normally these types of state national guards are there to help with national disasters like floods and hurricanes and are trained for that work.Β But the governor’s private army is training with weapons, boats, and aircraft to attack people, non-white people.Β Right now DeathSantis makes it seem Florida is being overrun with migrants and illegal immigrants, but remember when he needed a press stunt to fly immigrants out of state they had to go to Texas to get enough to partially fill the plane.Β We get most of our undocumented immigrants from Cuba, but because there is a huge republican voting group of Cubans in Florida.Β While DeathSantis keeps pretending to be a tough man by threatening to “flatten” the Bahamas, which is a place that has never threatened or been a threat to the US, yet he ignores that Cuba once did have Soviet bases they were going to put missiles in, and now has a Chinese spy base designed to hear US military traffic.Β But that is what happens when you are pretending to be a tough guy instead of being one.Β Oh, and did I mention you have to pass the ideological screening to be a member, which means you have to be a republican maga white supremacist Christian nationalist bigot who hates the LGBTQIA and wants kids indoctrinated with Christian hate.Β Β Oh did I mention that DeathSantis insisted that they be given arrest powers so they can arrest / detain, and remove people including those the governor thinks shouldn’t be voting.Β Β Hugs.Β Scottie
A select group of volunteers expected to help Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis intercept migrants at sea gathered at a Panhandle combat training facility this fall for lessons on how to use rifles and pistols, treat βmassive hemorrhagesβ and practice βaerial gunnery.β
A $1.2 million purchase order signed in August makes clear the DeSantis administration felt it had an βimmediate and emergent need for specially trained personnelβ to intercept migrants traveling by boat.
A draft plan of instruction shows the vendor, Stronghold SOF Solutions, offered to recruit, vet and train volunteers at its facility in Defuniak Springs. The contract was executed without a competitive process, made possible after DeSantis declared a state emergency in January related to illegal immigration.
Read theΒ full article. Earlier this year some members of DeSantisβs private armyΒ quit during training, saying they didnβt sign up to be part of what they feel is a militia.
You can’t charge someone with breaking a law until they have broken it. It’s more likely than not, the FBI has underground observers in the ranks. The FBI is unlikely to announce who and what they investigating.
“States have the power to create defense forces separate from the national guard, though not all of them use it. If Florida moves ahead with DeSantisβ plan to reestablish the civilian force, it would become the 23rd active state guard in the country, DeSantisβ office said in a press release, joining California, Texas and New York. These guards are little-known auxiliary forces with origins dating back to the advent of state militias in the 18th century. While states and the Department of Defense share control of the National Guard, state guards are solely in the power of a governor.
The Florida State Guard was created in 1941 during World War II as a temporary force to fill the void left behind when the Florida National Guard was deployed to assist in the US combat efforts. It was disbanded after the war ended, but the authority for a governor to establish a state defense force remained.”
The stupidity here is that it’s theΒ migrantΒ farm workers who are picking Florida’s oranges and winter vegetables. Go right ahead and shoot yourself in the foot … morons!
Oh they’re going to do away with child labor laws and send the little brats out to do that work. Kids don’t need education–they might get woke and start thinking for themselves and grow up to vote democrat. (sic) And what the hell? 6 year olds with machetes. What could go wrong?
Friendly reminder that the isolationists trying to cut off aid to Ukraine today were the ones trying to cut off aid to Britain before we were forced to enter World War Two.
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The New York Times ran this headline recently:
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Polish parliament’s Speaker to take action against MP who targeted Jewish holiday celebration
Szymon HoΕownia, the Speaker of the Sejm [Parliament], told reporters that a complaint will be filed with the prosecutorβs office against Grzegorz Braun, a member of the far-right Konfederacja party, Gazeta Wyborcza reports.
Braun used a fire extinguisher to put out a Hanukkah menorah in the parliament.
On the eve of the German occupation of Poland in 1939, 3.3 million Jews lived there. At the end of the war, approximately 380,000 Polish Jews remained alive, the rest having been murdered, mostly in the ghettos and the six death camps: Chelmo, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Is the point we are at now, the anti-LGBTQIA haters can’t get the books they hate out of schools or public libraries, so they call the police and lie that porn is being shown to kids?Β These groups did a sneak attack and got into positions to act on their racism and their bigotry.Β But now people understand who they really are and the public is fighting back.Β The majority doesn’t believe what the haters do, just as the majority of the public doesn’t agree with the maga republicans and what they are claiming and want to do.Β Just as the maga republicans keep claiming that they speak for the country, they represent what the people want, which is clearly not true, it is the same with the haters.Β They also claim to represent the people, the public, the parents, everyone!Β Yet their ideas and what they want are very unpopular, so clearly they don’t speak for the majority, do they?Β Β This is like calling in bomb threats to stop drag shows.Β Just because you don’t like something doesn’t give you the right to deny it to everyone else.Β Hugs.Β Scottie
The ACLU is concerned about a police officer’s having searched a classroom at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School for the coming of age novel, “Gender Queer” after receiving a complaint. The incident has prompted outrage in the school community.
AP FILE PHOTO
GREAT BARRINGTONΒ β The plainclothed police officer who entered an eighth grade classroom to search for a book wore a body camera and recorded the incident, leading to more legal questions and concerns.Β
The American Civil Liberties Union and other free speech advocates say they are alarmed by the recording, as well as the entireΒ Dec. 8 incidentΒ that took place after classes let out at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School.
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They also say they cannot recall any instances of police going to a school to search for a book. Schools and libraries have internal procedures for book challenges.Β
βThatβs partly what is so concerning,β said Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts. βPolice going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia. What are we doing?β
The Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee and Superintendent Peter Dillion have, in a statement sent to the school community Tuesday, apologized for how it handled the situation, stating “clearly and unequivocally” that it does not support book banning, and committed to making all of its students feel safe.Β Β
“The recent incident at the middle school has challenged and impacted our community,” according to the statement. “Faced with an unprecedented police investigation of what should be a purely educational issue, we tried our best to serve the interests of students, families, teachers, and staff. In hindsight, we would have approached that moment differently. We are sorry. We can do better to refine and support our existing policies. We are committed to supporting all our students, particularly vulnerable populations.”
The ACLU has requested that body camera footage and other records related to the complaint and the investigation, Bourquin said.
It was anΒ anonymousΒ complaint that led Great Barrington Police to open a probe about whether parts of the book, βGender Queerβ by Maia Kobabe, could be considered obscene material or pornographic.
Police then notified the Berkshire District Attorneyβs Office as per the departmentβs policy.
They also notified school and district administrators they were coming to the classroom, and the officer was escorted there by the school principal. The teacher, who kept the book in her resource library, was surprised to see the officer. The officer announced he was turning on his body camera and then looked for the book and did not find it.
The DA ordered the investigation closed. The matter of whether the book is appropriate now rests with the schools.
In its letter, the BHRSD School Committee said the incident “has challenged and impacted our community.”
“Faced with an unprecedented police investigation of what should be a purely educational issue, we tried our best to serve the interests of students, families, teachers and staff. In hindsight, we would have approached that moment differently. We are sorry,” the letter said.
The committee said it would work to collect feedback on how it can do better, starting by hosting a community meeting on Jan. 11.Β
“It is the obligation of the district to use its policies, existing or amended, to select curriculum. In this case, the content was not the issue. The process challenging it was. We want to ensure that students and staff feel safe and supported and that familiesβ voices are heard.”
βGender Queerβ is a coming-of-age memoir about reckoning with confusion about gender and contains sexually explicit illustrations and language.
It is this that many in LGBTQIA+ community say they believe is the reason for the censorship β not so-called βobscenityβ concerns.
In MassachusettsΒ the testΒ for obscenity is if the material is of interest sexually, depicts or describes sexual conduct “in a way that is patently offensive to an average citizen of this county,” and “has no serious value of a literary, artistic, political or scientific kind,” according to the state.
It was a complaint about so-called obscene materials in the classroom that police say led them thereΒ β something they said they had a duty to investigate.
But the ACLUβs Bourquin disagrees.
βWeβre very troubled by this notion,β she said. βThey say anytime someone could call they have an obligation to go marching into places wearing a body cam, and you know, interrogating people,β Bourquin said.
State laws, she said, are βpretty clear about police not having roles in this situation.β
Both the state and federal constitutions also protect the rights of students to receive information, she added, noting the ACLU and GLAD β Legal Advocates & Defenders for the LGBTQ Community βΒ sent an open letter in January to school superintendents statewide given the rise in attempts to ban school library books.
The letter, also sent to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, noted that legally such bans βmay constitute unlawful discrimination.β
The letter says the courts βhave recognized that the fact that some parents do not want their children to read certain books cannot justify depriving other students of their rights of access.β
The ACLUβs letter serves as a legal guide for schools and studentsβ rights to have access to information that is βfree of censorship,β and says the ACLU stands βready as a resource in this fight.β
The librarian at Du Bois middle school, Jennifer Guerin, made another point about that access. She said that it is βcritically important for concerned community members to remember that the current situation is not about forcing a book into studentsβ hands.β
βItβs about the freedom to read,β Guerin said. βIt’s about providing voluntary access to a well-written, highly acclaimed resource in a safe place for a teenager who might want or need it.β
A complaint that led police to search a middle school classroom for the book, “Gender Queer,” sparked a demonstration by Monument Mountain Regional High School students on Friday. The ACLU and other free speech advocates are worried both about the police involvement and about book banning in general.
HEATHER BELLOW β THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
Using obscenity as an excuse to censor books with literary value is a heavy legal lift, said Bourquin. Obscenity laws have been βcarefully crafted to ensure not tromping on constitutional free speech rights.β
If a book has value and isn’t meant to sexually arouse it will be hard for it to fail the legal test for obscenity, she said.Β
That test is “very specific,” and not something the average person or police officer necessarily would know, said Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition.
βItβs not a very easy test,β Silverman said. βAnd just because you have a community member pointing to something and saying, βThatβs obscene,β well, that doesnβt mean that it is obscene under the First Amendment.β
Like Bourquin, Silverman is stunned by the police involvement and thinks it wise to set a precedent for the future given the uptick in school book challenges.
βWhile it might be rare now, it doesn’t mean that it will be rare in the future,β Silverman said of police involvement in school literature. “I think the school and the police department have to come forth with a policy to make sure that this doesnβt happen again.β
The American Civil Liberties Union says it has βdeep concernsβ after a police officer in plain clothes entered a classroom, turned on his body camera, and searched for a book someone reported was sexually explicit. https://t.co/Sn0hAqyuer
Someone called the police to report that a Massachusetts classroom was harboring obscene material: Gender Queer.
The book does not meet the legal definition of obscenity: "Many see it as an important story helping build empathy," said the superintendent. https://t.co/IzbIZ1k7RQ
Listen to the student.Β He makes it clear that the attempts by people like Bridget Ziegler and other haters to make only one man / one woman cis straight sex acceptable, the students still are tolerant of other ways to express sexual enjoyment.Β What the students are not OK with is the hate and hypocrisy.Β He calls her out for teaching hate towards same sex relationships and the LGBTQIA while engaging in lesbian sex and FFM sexual relations with her husband, again while demanding it is wrong to have sex out of marriage.Β Hugs.Β Scottie
As the Sarasota County School Board convened for the final time this year on Tuesday, Bridget Ziegler entered the board chambers facing a rift largely driven by agenda item No. 1: a colleagueβs resolution calling for her resignation.
Zander Moricz, who was the class president at Pine View School in Osprey and now attends Harvard, said Bridget Ziegler deserved to lose her job, but not because of her private sex life.
βThat defeats the lesson weβve been trying to teach you, which is that a politicianβs job is to serve their community, not to police personal lives,β Moricz said. βSo, to be extra clear Bridget, you deserve to be fired from your job because you are terrible at your job.β
Read theΒ full article. The clip below has gone wildly viral with millions of views on TikTok, where I came across it a dozen times last night. Watch every second.
βYou donβt believe in public schools β you send your kids to privateβ¦ you deserve to be fired not because of a threesome, but because you are terrible at it.β pic.twitter.com/uehU7IIGp7
I would agree with that IF she agreed that other people’s private business is their own private business. But she vilified people for doing exactly what she was doing in her own bedroom. She’s bisexual but mistreated others for identifying as lgbt. She thought this was okay for others, so it’s good enough for her.
As J is pointing out, it’s not her sex life that’s the issue here – it’s her hypocrisy. Her bisexual, polyamorous sex life is evidence of the hypocrisy – that’s its only importance to anyone but herself.
That’s it. Her fellow conservatives would kick her off the school board on the irrelevant issue of her sexual “immorality.” He realizes it is her hypocritical judgmental sanctimony that is the real problem, not the issue of her private sex life.
The bottom line is this: Zieglerβs refusal to resign her School Board seat is more than just a morality play. If Ziegler steps down or is removed, three out of the five School Board seats, not just two, will be on the ballot in August 2024.
Thatβs right: Whatβs truly at stake here is that we could vote on a majority of the School Board’s seats on Aug. 20, 2024. And that would give us a chance to have a School Board with leaders who are more interested in students, teachers and academic achievement than posturing for a national audience in the culture wars.
βThat defeats the lesson weβve been trying to teach you, which is that a politicianβs job is to serve their community, not to police personal lives,β Moricz said. βSo, to be extra clear Bridget, you deserve to be fired from your job because you are terrible at your job.β
I had to look up the kid’s sweatshirt and it turns out that “you give me the ick” is teen slang for being grossed out by someone, often for undefinable reasons.
I think it can be both at the same time. Sort of like one of our cats. She will watch the dogs play with a toy she wants. When they are outside, she’ll bat it with all her might to move it under something like a grandfather clock from under which the dogs can’t retrieve it. She can’t, either, but the satisfaction she feels is tremendous. I try to stay on her good side.
That’s part of it. It’s also racism. Private schools were rare in the US until local districts were losing the last of their desegregation lawsuits in the late 60s and early 70s. (Yes, I know Brown was 1954. It was up into the 1970s for many districts to finally comply!) And then homeschooling also for the same reason. They can say whatever they want and some of it is religious and political but a lot of it is not wanting their kids to get to know black and brown kids growing up.
Context: This isn’t the first time Zander made a headline.
The class president at a Florida high school says he wasn’t allowed to share his experience as a gay student in his graduation speech or how the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law will affect students like him, so he got creative.
Let’s be very clear on what this “anti-white” discrimination is about, it is racism against any non-white people.Β Yes the entire thing is about how unfair and bad white people in the US have it, even though they control almost everything.Β Miller and his ilk do not want brown / black / those type people to be included in corporations in the US, plus they want them out of the government.Β Β The whole point of the anti-diversity movement is they see any job filled by a black / brown person as a job taken from a white person.Β To hell with the idea that the best qualified should get the job, to them the best qualified is always a white person.Β It is outright racism packaged in something they can sell to the public.Β It is why red states known for historic racism are suddenly claiming that diversity programs are wrong and evil.Β The reason that such programs are desperately needed is that white people control almost every position of authority and power in the US.Β Non-white people, people with non-white sounding names are often ruled out or judged more harshly for jobs in companies than white people.Β Β That is a simple fact.Β Often the racism is so outright an applicant with a not white sounding name doesn’t even get an interview.Β This movement is simply a refresh of the KKK and the White Council and other organizations that want only white people in good jobs that might pay more while being easier, and black people in hard labor low income jobs.Β Hugs.Β Scottie
A prominent MAGA legal nonprofit run by a top Donald Trump aide has credited itself for gathering βsome of the nationβs best legal, political, and strategic thinkersβ to fight βanti-white bigotryβ in the courts, spending a staggering $35.2 million to initiate dozens of culture-war lawsuits against the Biden administration, universities, and corporations last year.
But tax filings show that the group, βAmerica First Legal,β isnβt exactly spending all that money on lawsuits. In fact, the lawsuits account for a very small percentage of the $35 million budget. Thatβs because America First Legal blew nearly all of that money, about $30 millionβmore than 85 percent of the budgetβon advertising.
Read theΒ full article.Β As youβll see at the link and as youβve probably already guessed, most of those advertising millions reportedly went to firms linked to Trump cultists.Β Among the companies targeted by Miller for βwokenessβ are Macyβs, Target, Anheuser-Busch, Starbucks, McDonaldβs, and even NASCAR.
NEW: Stephen Miller's America First Legal nonprofit, MAGA's "answer to the ACLU," spent almost all its money on ads β $30 million of its $35 million in expenses last year went to "advertising and promotion." Me @thedailybeasthttps://t.co/VVQjR96Y28
With a heaping helping side dish of hate that they love to serve up! Honestly, Miller would probably do it for free, given his history, like screaming about how he shouldn’t have to pick up his own trash back when he was in high school since that’s what others are for…
ALL of this money comes from the very rich people and corporations who believe they don’t have the money to pay taxes. But the poor and middle class(what’s left of it) have to pony up more taxes as well as having their life lines cut to nothing.
We need to go back to those tax rates on the rich where many Americans actually prospered and push more progressive ideas for all the people, not a select few.
The orange dump just took advantage of a system that was corrupted by the Supreme Court years ago. By declaring money as speech, this opened the floodgates of legal, dark and illegal foreign money being poured into our election system.
America First Legal is a 501(c)(3), which means donors can take a tax deduction for their donations. That’s 28% or more back in their pockets. Then they are funnelling that money back to their donor class and insiders in terms of advertising spending (they can claim it as “public education” or “awareness building” — the same things a lot of more legitimate charities do, in sending out information along with their money begs and thus counting the mailing costs as spending on their mission).
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Scottie's Playtime 