The administration of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) quietly took down LGBTQ+ youth resources from a state website after a conservative media outlet questioned the links, records show, building on a pattern of removals derided by public health employees who say their work is being politicized.
Within hours of an inquiry from the Daily Wire, a dozen resources, including a live-chat online support group for teens, were removed from the state health department website at the direction of a Cabinet-level agency, according to emails obtained under the state’s open records law.
The presence of the materials — and their subsequent disappearance on May 31 — generated two headlines and a flurry of online reaction from conservative readers of the outlet, co-founded by right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro.
Youngkin officials quietly pulled LGBTQ+ youth resources off a VA Dept. of Health website.
LGBTQ+ youth do better socially, emotionally and academically when they have access to resources and feel connected to a supportive community.https://t.co/x24eGKY6dg
The Youngkin administration has three times stripped the state health department website of information: on abortion, sexual health and now LGBTQ+ youth resources.https://t.co/swRgQWbyDo
They WANT dead kids. From mass shootings to removing suicide prevention to allowing pedophile clergy to outlawing loving same-sex family adoption. How much more obvious can it be????
Ron DeeeeeSantis must wake up every morning and think to himself, “what can I do today to further destroy the lives of the little people?” And then he sets out to do it.
The problem is that they view our pride as their shame. They don’t understand that it’s not about them. They don’t have to feel anything, just acknowledge that we are fellow creatures and move on.
Hey white trash rednecks. Guess what? We don’t need a rally or a fucking hat. We vote for true honor and respect of our country. Go put your confederate flag on the back of your tacky ass pickup truck, while you hurl empty cans of manly beer at electric cars.
Told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
IDK, I rather enjoyed seeing that paltry Trump rally in Bumblefuck, SC…especially the booing of Ms Lindsey. (Imagine being boo’d by the citizens of the very county you were born, raised & lived in. Must be how Trump felt in NYC.)
thatotherjeana day ago No, Brian, no. Nobody wants to “steal” your independence: they want to share in your rights. You’re treating those rights as though they belonged exclusively to white, straight, male people, to be granted to others as you see fit. No. The rights to “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” among other rights, belong to all of us.
That man on the right is anti-LGBT hate leader Brian Brown, meeting with US Supreme Court justices Kavanaugh and Alito aa they decide whether people can be fired for being LGBT.
Brown is heavily involved in Russia, and supports its anti-gay laws (which have proven deadly). pic.twitter.com/RCmPVI61wr
Karma Chases Dogma thatotherjean20 hours ago A man you don’t even know sticks his pecker in another man you don’t even know. Tell me, Brian, exactly how is this stealing YOUR independence? The gay agenda is to live a normal life like everyone else
Brian is objecting to the fact he no longer has the “independence” to stone gay people to death without repercussions as his religion demands. To misquote George Orwell: Some rights are more equal than others.
An armed transphobe in Eugene, OR attempts to intimidate folks at a Pride festival and fails pic.twitter.com/hiVsl3WPEj
— Marjorie Gaylor Queen 🏳️🌈 (@Tim_Tweeted) July 3, 2023
Paddycakes2001 jaspersdad18 hours ago That was great. One thing I wish he had also asked when the guy said drag is inherently sexual is “Oh, does that turn you on?”
True story. There was a guy in the gay bar years ago, who said he was totally straight, but got off on drag queens. But he’s totally straight and it wasn’t gay at all. That’s how their minds work.
AyJayDee221 hours ago There’s a real, concerted effort by the Republicans and the anti-liberal left to use RFK Jr. And Cornel West to spoil the 2024 election and help Trump win another term.
I ran into someone on the left who tried the “why the hating on RFK Jr?” on one of my social media pages. I responded, “Because of the belief in numerous conspiracy theories and ads that appear to have been made in Russian troll farms. No other reason, tho!” 😉
He is not a democrat. He is being supported by the far right. This is their new thing–sham candidates, many of whom run as a democrat and if they win, they change their party affiliation to republican. This sure stinks of election fraud to me. I hope he gets so humiliated that he slinks away back into whatever cave he’s been hiding in and is never seen or heard from again.
In the four years since DeSantis took office, his administration has routinely stonewalled the release of public records, approved a slew of new legal exceptions aimed at keeping more information out of the public eye, and waged legal battles against open government advocates, the press and other watchdogs. DeSantis, a Harvard-educated lawyer and former U.S. attorney, is the only Florida governor known to use “executive privilege” to keep records hidden, transparency advocates and experts said. His travel records, previously under scrutiny by the media, are now secret, thanks to a new legal exemption — one of a record number created in 2023 by the Republican-led Legislature and approved by the governor. DeSantis also has fought to conceal information about some of the most significant events during his tenure, including withholding Covid infection data and blocking release of records about the controversial relocation of dozens of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, legal filings show.
I just listened to episode 2 of Rachel Maddow’s latest podcast, Deja News. Great analysis of how the current dictator of FL is dredging up the hate & fear of others, just as the John’s Report did in the 50s & 60s.
Doughty last appeared on JMG in June 2021 when he blocked the COVID vaccine mandate for federal workers in a ruling that was riddled with false anti-vaccine claims and which cited a notorious anti-vaccine activist. In September 2022 he issued a permanent injunction against vaccine mandates for teachers.
I read through the decision. It’s bonkers. It’s all just regurgitating conspiracy theories and complaining about the decisions of Twitter and Facebook that *every* other court who has looked at this nonsense has held to be private action, not government action, and thus not violating the 1st Amendment at all. And it gripes about things done when Trump was still president. One of the plaintiffs is Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit, a/k/a the dumbest man on the Internet, and the judge complains about a Twitter suspension before Biden became president. And, of course, it claims the story about “Hunter’s laptop” was suppressed even though it was the biggest story in the country — and happened when Trump was president.
This is really nutty stuff. Not surprising, I guess. This is the same judge who credulously quoted anti-vax nonsense and granted an injunction against HHS’s requirement that healthcare workers get one of the vaccines. The Supreme Court undid that and held that “mandate” was perfectly constitutional. This judge can’t learn his lesson and control himself. Given the current composition of the 5th Circuit, though, we shouldn’t be surprised if it stays in place for a while.
They don’t know their flag. They don’t know the law. They don’t know the Constitution. They don’t know their history. They don’t know their Buybull. This is today’s anti-woke Republicans.
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Treaty Of Tripoli, Article 11, 1796… passed unanimously in the US Senate by many of the actual ‘founders’.
As a forriner I find it super weird how much the Founding Fathers are respected and ‘claimed’. It’s like a religion to some Americans.
They were just people, and more importantly, people of their time. Slave owners, white, educated (read: rich). People who wanted to do their best for their country but they were full of flaws like the rest of us.
Who gives a fuck what someone said several hundreds years ago? Oh, right: Bible humpers.
“And here’s the thing,” Robinson said during his speech on Sunday. “Whether you’re talking about Adolf Hitler; whether you’re talking about Chairman Mao; whether you’re talking about Stalin; whether you’re talking about Pol Pot; whether you’re talking about Castro in Cuba; or whether you’re talking about a dozen other despots all around the globe, it is time for us to get back and start reading some of those quotes.”
We have reached the point where Republican elected officials are pushing for bans on LGBTQ books but encouraging all to read books by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. https://t.co/pLBlzpk95F
BartmanLA2 days ago They’re not going to “tolerate” what the actual fuck??? The LGBTQ community has been TOLERATING the hate and bullshit discrimination from the right and conservatives for DECADES… Get off your fucking high horse and go do something actually worthwhile, better yet just go crawl in corner and die!
This is why there is no middle on the issue lgbt rights. We want equal rights; they want us to disappear. At the very least they want us all back in the closet afraid that we will be fired, ostracized or even killed if we come out. There is no middle ground between the two.
Big shots on the right, even the supposedly educated “conservative thought leaders,” always sound so incredibly ignorant when they talk about LGBTQ+ America. They always seem to talk about us like we’re citizens of a different country (the way most of them think Puerto Ricans are citizens of a different country). Are they just pandering to the rank-n-file, or are they really so genuinely clueless? Honestly, part of me would prefer Machiavellian pandering to braindead ignorance.
Former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has called LGBTQ rights the “biggest threat” to religious morality in America.
In an interview with The Christian Post, Huckabee…decried acceptance of LGBTQ people and blamed the “Christian Church” for not doing enough to combat LGBTQ equality.
One of the most wild revelations coming out of the backlash over the anti-trans and anti-gay ad released by the DeSantis team is that the Gays Against Groomers org is basically a Ron DeSantis astroturf organization.
I have become more worried about the TYT network. Anna was given more authority over the show and the hosts, and she has since them abused that authority. She talks over every other host, belittles them, and acts toward Cenk like she is a host on Fox who is the one talking to a token not hard right person. Anna acts like the over top authority that shall not be questioned, and by her own admission has moved very right wing in her thinking. She demands the limelight on every show. She interrupts him constantly yet refuses to let him interrupt her, she rails against his opinions unless it is him attacking democrats.
Cenk got really bitter and admitted he burned his bridges in the Democratic Party after he ran for congress and lost badly. He was someone who never held any public office yet felt entitled to the office due to his show to gain entry to the federal House of Representatives. So now he attacks Joe Biden / the Democratic Party at every turn no matter how trivial the reason just because he is constantly pushing for someone to primary Biden, which is not going to happen. All Cenk is doing with these constant angry attacks is to provide the republicans with stuff they can use to attack Biden in the General election. The show has changed a lot over the last year and I have canceled my membership.
TYT was once was a news program that cut through the bias driven media of opinion corporate networks. Now the shows they host have become inflammatory opinion driven episodes that could be shown on Fox News or delivered by their hosts. Sad but Anna had a change in thinking just 6 months ago because of a traumatic incident, and Cenk got bitter that he couldn’t just move into congress. Between them they changed their show from news to opinions. They have gone from saying remove emotion to see the misinformation to screaming emotionally about the misinformation they spew. This is one of a dozen videos from former workers and guest hosts who have recently been turned on by Cenk and Anna. Hugs
A Christian nationalist white supremacist doesn’t want a Klan slaughter of black people, taught as if skin color has anything to do with what happened. WTF! This is the outcome of decades of these people worming their way into positions of authority in states, and now they are making their move. They believe leaders like DeathSantis gives them cover and acceptance. Hugs.
Oklahoma’s far-right superintendent of public instruction thinks that schools should teach students about the Tulsa race massacre, so long as teachers don’t actually acknowledge that the white supremacist attack was about race.
Walters held a public forum Thursday night, during which someone asked him how teaching about the Tulsa race massacre doesn’t violate his ban on CRT. “I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of the color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist,” Walters said.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals. Oh, you can. Absolutely, historically, you should. ‘This was right. This was wrong. They did this for this reason.’ But to say it was inherent in that because of their skin is where I say that is critical race theory. You’re saying that race defines a person.”
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre occurred when white Klan members and vigilantes stormed the Black community of Greenwood. Over the course of two days, the mob shot, looted and burned nearly 40 blocks of homes and businesses. In all, more than 300 were killed, 10,000 were left without shelter and millions in generational wealth was destroyed.
During the attack, witnesses recalled seeing planes flying over Greenwood, dropping explosive turpentine bombs to ignite more buildings. The Massacre marks the first time in American history that bombs were dropped on US soil. Every credible historical account of the Tulsa Race Massacre acknowledges white hatred toward the Black community as the cause.
Last month Walters appeared here when he announced that Oklahoma’s public schools will soon have a mandatory daily prayer, the mandatory posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and a mandatory high school course in “Western civilization.”
Walters, who was appointed state secretary of education by Christianist Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2020, faced calls to resign in 2022 after it was revealed that a Koch-funded group that advocates for privatizing public schools was paying him $120,000/year.
Stitt rejected calls for Walters’ resignation and attempted to reappoint him again earlier this year, but the state Senate refused to allow him to hold the elected superintendent and appointed secretary of education posts at the same time.
Protesters greet OK Superintendent Ryan Walters at the Norman Public Library. He’s set to speak at a county Republican Party meeting tonight pic.twitter.com/sPduUNMy0m
Ryan Walters just said he wants the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre to be taught in public schools but objects to the teaching that the event happened “because of the color of people’s skin.” pic.twitter.com/Jy3FNqxzjw
Ryan Walters again blames a vendor tasked with helping distribute the money through an online platform. We previously reported that Walters granted “blanket approval” for parents to buy stuff like TVs, grills, and other noneducational items.https://t.co/JtHYLr7s8R
Exactly, no one is telling them that. They are telling them about the racist history of our country. How can we do better if we don’t learn from our mistakes. Of course these are people who are nostalgic for Jim Crow and would love to bring it back.
As expected. One aspect of fascism is to bury any and all history that runs counter to the nationalistic propaganda. “Whites have always been kind and supportive to blacks, and racism is a fabrication used to justify black hatred of whites. Everything that shows this for a lie is itself a lie that must be buried under bullshit until it is forgotten.”
““I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of the color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist,” Walters
You constantly tell gay and transgender people that they are less of a person.
And that has nothing to do with being inherently racist.
If you’re working that hard to deny historical racism, it’s because you’re a modern day racist asshole who thinks their ancestors were right to fuck everyone else.
Not only do they need to learn about Tulsa. That was a massacre, btw, not a riot. There were a few dozen of those that happened around the country. It wasn’t just the one event. It was a pattern of events where any attempt by African Americans to create anything was destroyed. Here is a link to videos about other events. They should learn abut Tulsa, no there were others, and perhaps study one in detail that happened closer to them (where that is applicable).
Erasing this history is the American equivalent of Holocast denial in Europe. It happened, and we need to make damn sure it doesn’t happen again. The people wanting us not to learn want to repeat this to other groups.That’s why we all need to learn.
The Tulsa Race “Riot”, the Chicago 29th Street Beach Race “Riot”, the Rosewood Race “Riot”, and pretty much most of them up to 1968 were all white people rioting, burning, and murdering in Black communities.
When Native Americans were mentioned (albeit rarely) in my high school history classes, it was as a kind of abstract way, as in “The such-and-such tribes could be found in the Great Plains States, while the so-and-so tribes lived farther east/west/north/south.” “The Navajo tribes now live on reservations in the Southwestern US.”
In a similar vein, Manifest Destiny was good for America, opening up the western frontier, etc., don’t recall ANY mention of Native Americans.
Why the land was empty just waiting to filled with white people. Of course not mentioned was the fact that the land was full of people before 1492 and the new fatal diseases would burn through them like an out of control wild fire.
I guarantee it. Walters constantly says inflammatory things just to keep his name in the news. Supposedly pornoghaphic books in school libraries. Claims liberals are brainwashing kids to be Trans. Even pulled the furry/litter box in school restrooms nonsense when he was campaigning.
Keep in mind that what racists call “critical race theory” is a fictional chimera used by racists to justify abolishing any and all facts that show how racist they really are. Actual CRT as such is a very specific, arcane area of case law taught in law school and cannot be taught outside of that context
That’s what blows my mind. So if the massacre wasn’t about race what the hell was it about? Are they just going to say one group decided to burn down the entire town for no reason? Yes, tis an eternal mystery! They sure want a whitewashed history don’t they? Idiots!
Twin brothers Blake Krenzer, 19, and Brandon Krenzer, 19, of Gambrills have been charged for alleged involvement in the vandalism of the Black Lives Matter and Pride signs at the Ark & Dove Presbyterian Church. Officers responded to the Odenton church on the morning of June 14, where they found the vandalized signs. An investigation revealed the vandalism had happened around 10 p.m. the previous evening. Police said the Krenzers were identified with the help of the public.
While the Court’s decision only addresses expressive original designs, I’m deeply concerned that the decision could invite more discrimination against LGBTQI+ Americans. More broadly, today’s decision weakens long-standing laws that protect all Americans against discrimination in public accommodations – including people of color, people with disabilities, people of faith, and women.
American Christianity isn’t “merely” anything. It’s a foul pestilence that should be righteously and vociferously mocked and shunned as the anti science, anti logic and reasoning millstone dragging society down to stupidity that it is.
If you want context that this is a made up political issue watch this
If Republicans are truly worried about members of the first family improperly benefitting from their name, Mehdi says there are two people besides Hunter Biden that they should be looking at: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Because that was the price for the top-secret intelligence documents Kushy obtained from his FIL’s top-secret stash at Mar-A-Shitto and passed on to Saudi intelligence….
At least that’s what I believe. I fear that someday, we will discover that Kushy did more damage to the US than every other convicted spy combined. No wonder Skanky is trying to distance herself from Daddy…..
I wonder if any of her GOP opponents in the upcoming debates are going to have the guts to call her “Nimrata” and ask her why she insists on trying to pass as White…and oh by the way, why hasn’t she released her “long form birth certificate” to prove that she was really born in the USA and not India?
It goes back to Aristotle and Aquinas plus back to Old Testament where a man “plants his seed.” The DNA for the complete human being is in the man’s seed, just like a plant. The woman is just the furrow where the seed is planted.
I’m reminded of the Comstock Act, especially as it pertained to mailing birth control or abortifacients in the 1870s. It was expressed that one of the underlying reasons for this was In reaction to the influx of the Irish Catholics (especially in NYC), and the need to insure that English Protestants didn’t become a minority.
if students wanted their loans forgiven, why the fuck didn't they just take Sam Alito on a luxury fishing vacation and tell him how to vote? I mean, show some initiative, people
Sam_Handwich5 days ago edited In my very blue neck of the woods a “controversy” has arisen after the local zoo posted pictures on FB of Pride decorations in some of the animal enclosures. Not sure this would even be an issue were it not for the right’s renewed tantrum that gay people exist. I have mixed feelings about zoos as a thing, haven’t been there in years, but might visit today or tomorrow.
DeSanctimonious is a dangerous religious maniac, craven for power, and there is nothing he won’t say or do to achieve his goals. It is a relief to see the Orlando Sentinel has stood up to this fascist bigoted governor. More leaders need to stand up and do the same thing.
Floridians are not ready for a new fight to begin. They overwhelmingly reelected a fascist governor who hates us. Down here in SWFL, there is a practical news blackout on the the horrible new laws taking effect in a couple of days. Nobody seems to care. It feels like what 1930’s Germany must have felt like to live there.
Dennis5 days ago They spent billions to indoctrinate Republican voters to become far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists and now they are trying to stop someone who is representing such views..
They never liked trump, they thought they could control him. That went badly. Now they see a nazi that they don’t need to babysit and they are rightly afraid the orange shit stain is gonna rain on their parade.
The only reason they want to stop Trump is because they can read the polls which say he will lose to Biden in 2024.
In other news, the New Hampshire House passes legislation to ban gay and trans panic defenses 271-98 with the Senate concurring. I am so pleased to see this LGBTQ civil rights measure head to Gov. Sununu's desk and am happy to have played a part in drafting the bill's language. pic.twitter.com/lzGDB7HX5x
— Anthony Michael Kreis (@AnthonyMKreis) June 29, 2023
Yves R. Mektin5 days ago So they plan on doing absolute zilch nada zip for the American people or their constituents. Nothing but performative obstruction.
I’d ask on what grounds, but it’s just petty political vindictiveness that will only serve to waste time and taxpayer money; in other words, business as usual for the GQP
Conversion therapy is complete and utter quackery, and it’s a crime that it’s not outlawed federally. This practice should be outlawed regardless of age, not just for minors.
At least a large chunk of states are picking up the slack.
We’ve been far too tolerant for all manner of quackery (Dr Oz for example) for far too long. Frauds and scammers should be put out of business. This isn’t a first amendment issue. This is an issue of lying to people (or their parents) and inflicting harm on them.
It is psychological terrorism. The pray away “movement” coincided with APA’s declassification of same sex orientation as illness. Evangelicals were pissed not to have a “sick” scapegoat.
Great news. Once again, if it weren’t already obvious, LGBT rights expand under Democrats and contract under Republicans. The folks who are always saying the Dem’s do nothing aren’t paying attention.
They know their voters are captured assets. They only listen to propaganda and have inoculations in place to keep any outside information of getting in.
Message of the year: How do you spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel. The kindest person in the room is often the smartest. 🏆 @GovPritzkerpic.twitter.com/X8BvFq5215
Read the full article. There’s much more. Gift link here. This same developer has given DeSantis and wife rides on his private jet and was in the news just last week for an unreported $27,000 golf simulator he had installed at Florida’s governor’s mansion.
Read the full article. Hunt last appeared on JMG in February 2023 when she responded to an anti-drag bill with a troll amendment that would bar parents from enrolling their children in “religious indoctrination camps.” The final April 1st tweet below is pinned to the top of the hate group’s feed.
A Nebraska lawmaker filed a defamation lawsuit against a local far-right political action committee after members claimed she was grooming her transgender son.
DmR4 days ago I live near her district, which is in a blue pocket in an otherwise bright crimson state. She is making quite the name for herself and the Wingers do not like the attention and support she is getting.
I’m not as disturbed by the picture at the Governor’s mansion as I am concerned for her children. The height of their creativity is a brainwashed image of a picture of torture? Where are the flowers, magic fairies, animals?
This deliberate violation of church/state can’t be prosecuted either.
Evangelicals now have their required threshold majority in key places. Once they are the solid majority wherever they are they are the de facto standard and NOTHING can remove them. That’s why we’re becoming a failed nation. Once a nation is ruled by Bronze Age religious mythology it collapses.
Something tells me in coming years the entire LGBTQ community will be required to march and fight for our rights all across this country…. Even us quiet, middle aged suburban gays are needed to get more involved.
The DeSantis message is kind of amazing: "You might have thought Trump is a bigot, but occasionally he seems to say non-bigoted things. I'll be all bigotry all the time!" https://t.co/CYZblJAwgY
Team DeSantis boasting, like all normal socially adjusted people would, that his laws "literally threaten trans existence" https://t.co/8GbdWauFgg
— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) July 1, 2023
GayOldLady3 days ago Peanuts 🥜 DeSantis trying to prove his manhood by leaning into the Pulse massacre! This bastard is a danger to our community and we ignore him at our own peril. We must proactively stand against him. 🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🌈
We will fight him in the orchards, we will fight him in the mangroves, we will fight him on the beaches, we wll fight him in the cornfields, we will fight him any fuckin place he challenges our Civil and Human rights
Well, at least DeSantis has finally shown his true colors. His ridiculaous campaign has NOTHING to do with “Protect the Children” and everything to do with “Hate the Gays.” Which we knew all along.
This is not only deranged and idiotic, it’s a not so subtle call for violence against LGBT people. The subtext is that DeFascist will get rid of these people once and for all. And of course the Log Cabin quislings are surprised the leopards are eating their faces.
Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️4 days ago With Supreme Court LGBTQ decision, marriage equality is at risk The court’s decision demeans our nation’s aspirations to equality and inclusion and thereby diminishes us all. By Laurence H. Tribe and Jeffrey B. Abramson Until this week, under long-standing state public accommodations laws, if a business wanted all the benefits that came from being generally open to the public, then it had to serve all customers equally. Since 1964, this principle has applied to a motel in the heart of Atlanta, Ollie’s barbeque joint in Birmingham, Ala., and social clubs and private schools that advertised to the general public. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted about the historic case involving Ollie’s, it would not do for the owner to have said, “I’ll serve Blacks but only on a takeout window, not inside my restaurant because that sends a message that I endorse integration.”
By twisting free speech into a license to discriminate, the court has now carved out an exception from public accommodations law for businesses that recast their services in ways that highlight their expressive features. But the court offers no workable principle to cabin that exception in any meaningful way.
Todd20036 Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️4 days ago Sodomy laws are next Hiv meds could be no longer covered by insurance We could be arrested for holding hands in public or kissing in public Don’t think that’s impossible
One would think that the court would find for the nation’s best interests to encourage a fair, equitable, and cohesive society, not to promote the very toxicity that tears society apart, no matter whether it’s disguised in “free speech” or “religion.”
I knew the night RBG died that we were fucked and would be fucked for longer than I’ll likely be alive. Right wingers have made no secret that they hated anything that gave rights to minorities. They like to frame it in a libertarian argument so it sounds like freedom, but the freedom they want is the freedom to be bigots. Everything is going to be ruled unconstitutional and that’s going to affect the blue states, not just the red. And especially the blue islands in red states! So very fucked and not in the good way.
Tie up the courts, the judges, and waste lawyers time along with the time of Congress…. …for not wanting to put on a CDC recommended mask when in the company of others.
It’s all very interesting that after years of these fascists whining that they couldn’t breathe when wearing a mask, so many of them now show up at protests…WEARING MASKS!
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
The other names weren’t a surprise, but I have to admit, Ralphie didn’t ring a bell for me. Had to look him up, and wow, shocker, real estate mogul old white guy. Jokes about sexual assault. Negligent with firearms. Used the supposedly MAGA hated remote voting to skip town to get to CPAC. Hates student loan forgiveness, but got some $300k+ of PPP loans forgiven. Wanted Steve King back after his boot for white nationalist comments. Wants to impeach Biden.
Weird, he hits all the same marks as the MTGs and Boeberts and such, but I had absolutely no recollection of him. Wonder if he’ll join the GOP presidential clown car next…
northalabama Gene Perry4 days ago standing, schmanding! it’s 2023, you just have to invent a plaintiff out of thin air, then have enough billionaires lined up to pay your expenses for years until you win, easy peasy.
It amazes me that these decisions so blatantly favour the rich and privileged. Striking down Affirmative Action can only harm the less privileged. Student loans are used by those who need them and don’t have their own resources. and the LGBT community can now be refused services by public commercial operations. Nothing here for the poor or the minorities can take any comfort in. It looks like the Supreme Court has found their own ‘protected class’ of wealthy privileged bourgeoisie.
What Paxton and his office did not say: The law firm that produced the report, Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, has been paid more than $500,000 in public money to defend him against whistleblowers who sued the agency for wrongful termination because they went to the FBI with allegations of corruption.
Marchers cheer during the Come Out With Pride Parade in downtown Orlando on Saturday, October 15, 2022. Thousands lined the streets for the yearly event supporting inclusion. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) User Upload Caption:
Any comprehensive history of Pride Month starts with savagery and defiance — commemorating the first time the nation’s gay community openly mutinied against routine oppression and casual violence. The Stonewall Riots radiated from one small bar in Greenwich Village, which was, in the late 1960s, seen as one of the few tiny havens for LGBTQ+ Americans to live their lives with some degree of openness.
Even inside those confines, any kind of openly non-heterosexual behavior could put life and liberty at risk. That’s why gay-friendly establishments, including the Stonewall Inn, were owned or controlled by organized crime-syndicates. Yes, there was a time in American history when the Mafia did a better job of protecting individual rights than any governmental agency did.
Instead, governments across the nation served as oppressors, raiding gay-and-lesbian clubs or posing as potential sexual partners as a form of entrapment. For the most part, Florida was no different. But slowly, small bastions of liberty began to emerge. And they included Central Florida, where ex-military people were transitioning into the space program.
Pride’s beachhead in Florida
Orlando’s first gay nightclub, The Palace Club, opened the same year as the riots. When Disney’s Magic Kingdom opened its gates, the City Beautiful took on added allure as a safer — though still not safe — space for non-heterosexual Americans to love and live their lives. As documented by the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida, a group of entrepreneurs known as the Gay and Lesbian Gang quickly established a series of nightclubs that included the iconic Parliament House. Within a decade of the Stonewall riots, Orlando saw its first Pride Picnic at Turkey Lake Park.
It still took decades to unwind Florida’s layers of hateful, oppressive laws. Every step felt hard-won: Stonewall-era law enshrined total bans on any expression of alternate sexuality. Some of those laws were not invalidated until the early 2000s, when a rapid tumble of landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings battered sexual-identity and orientation laws until they crumbled. And the ugliness never fully went away. Within the past few decades, Florida has seen cruel debates on whether LGBTQ people could adopt children, or marry.
The hearts and minds of Floridians, however, shifted much more quickly. By the turn of the century, most Sunshine State residents expressed support for civil unions and adoption rights. People flew rainbow flags and showed up for Pride demonstrations without fear.
Every step seemed to move things a little closer to a day when sexual orientation and non-gender-conformity were simply accepted as defining traits. When fear and hate were reviled and forced into the shadows, where love was welcome in the full light of day.
Florida saw the reflections of the fear and anger of the Greenwich Village riots shift to cheerful acceptance of sexuality in The Villages —- saw it as a change for the better. The surge of love and alliance after the massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub helped heal hearts ripped apart by an openly acknowledged act of terrorism.
But as this Pride Month draws to a close, we must ask: How is it, in 2023, that we are sliding backward?
Back, to a day when providing gender-affirming care — or simply being transgender — could mean losing access to healthcare or even at risk of arrest and prosecution?
Back, to a time when Florida teachers are warned not to talk about sexuality with their students and innocent books that merely acknowledge the differences among families are outlawed?
Back, to a place where official government sources refer to gay people as “groomers” and suggest their mere existence puts children at risk of predatory behavior? Where the governor seems to obsessed by the mere existence of drag queens, and not in a healthy way?
This is nothing to be proud of.
So as Pride Month draws to a close, Floridians must make it clear: They are ready for this new fight to begin. They are ready to rebuke those who would force shame on people who yearned so long for the right to live in safety and with dignity.
They are ready to stand up for the right to love and be loved without fear once again — and be proud to do so.
Lance makes a great point. He is cis so doesn’t understand what it is like to be trans. But if he was forced against his will to be trans it would lead to the same issue in him that trans people feel now being forced to be cis. Wonderful point. Hugs
If Republicans are truly worried about members of the first family improperly benefitting from their name, Mehdi says there are two people besides Hunter Biden that they should be looking at: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Media coverage of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s all-but-announced candidacy for president is already in full frenzy, and so far the script is exactly as his handlers would like it to be. The governor regularly opens up new fronts in the culture wars, sowing alarm over critical race theory, transgender rights, or border policies. In response, liberal pundits fall into the trap of accentuating the very issues DeSantis has chosen to fire up his base.
Omitted from the public debate about DeSantis’s policies is almost any discussion of his actual record of governance—what exactly he has delivered to the citizens of his state, especially those without seven-figure incomes and lush investment portfolios.
Even a cursory dip into the statistics of social and economic well-being reveals that Florida falls short in almost any measure that matters to the lives of its citizens. More than four years into the DeSantis governorship, Florida continues to languish toward the bottom of state rankings assessing the quality of health care, school funding, long-term elder care, and other areas key to a successful society.
Florida may be the place where “woke goes to die”—as DeSantis is fond of saying—but it is also where teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the nation, unemployment benefits are stingier than in any other state, and wage theft flourishes with little interference from the DeSantis administration. In 2021, DeSantis campaigned against a successful ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage, which had been stuck at $8.65 an hour. Under DeSantis’s watch, the Sunshine State has not exactly been a workers’ paradise.
DeSantis weaponizes the cultural wars to distract attention from the core missions of his governorship, which is to starve programs geared toward bettering the lives of ordinary citizens so he can maintain low taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Florida is the ideal haven for privileged Americans who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes. It has no income tax for individuals, and its corporate tax rate of 5.5% is among the lowest in the nation. An investigation by the Orlando Sentinel in late 2019 revealed the startling fact that 99% of Florida’s companies paid no corporate income tax, abetted by tax-avoidance schemes and state officials who gave a low priority to enforcing tax laws.
This is a pattern that shows up in the statistics of many Republican-led states, which on average commit fewer dollars per-capita to health care, public education, and other crucial services compared to their blue counterparts, while making sure corporations and wealthy individuals are prioritized for tax relief. Arizona cut taxes every year between 1990 and 2019, following up with a shift to a flat tax this year that will cost its budget $1.9 billion. Meanwhile, its public-school spending ranks 48 among the 50 states.
In Florida, the state’s tax revenues come largely through sales and excise taxes, which fall hardest on the poor and middle class. A 2018 study by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Florida had the third least-equitable tax system of the 50 states. In the state’s “upside-down” tax structure, the poorest 20% of Florida families paid 12.7% of their income in taxes, while the families whose income was in the top 4% paid 4.5%, and the top 1% paid 2.3%, according to the study.
Florida taxpayers get less for their money than residents of many other states. The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that studies health-care systems globally, found in its 2022 “scorecard” that Florida had the 16th worst health care among the 50 states. It’s no wonder that Florida ranks below the northern blue states in life expectancy and rates of cancer death, diabetes, fatal overdoses, teen birth rates, and infant mortality.
Largely because of DeSantis’s obstinacy, Florida is one of 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, an act of political spite that has cost those states billions in federal health care dollars and cost thousands of people their lives. More than 12% of Floridians are without medical insurance, a worse record than all but four other states. Despite having the country’s highest percentage of retirees, Florida has the worst long-term care among the 50 states, according to the American Association of Retired Persons.
Public schools fare no better than health care in DeSantis’s Florida. Not only did Florida rank 49th in the country for average teacher pay in 2020, but the Education Law Center, a non-profit advocacy group based in New Jersey, found in a 2021 report that the state had the seventh-lowest per-pupil funding in the country. Education Week, which ranks states public school annually, looking beyond mere test scores, placed Florida 23rd in its 2021 report, a lackluster showing for a large and wealthy state.
It says something about the state of our political discourse that Florida’s denuded public sector was not more of an issue in last year’s gubernatorial campaign. In endorsing DeSantis’s Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, the Tampa Bay Times spent so many column inches on the incumbent’s demagoguery, vindictiveness, and authoritarian tendencies that it never even got to the minutiae of his governance. “No matter what you think about the state of the Florida economy or its schools or its future…,” the paper wrote, “the choice really is this simple: Do you want the state governed by a decent man or a bully?”
To be fair to the media, DeSantis and his allies manned the trenches of the culture wars so ferociously that it was all reporters could do to keep up with all the bomb throwing. How do you delve into the state’s tax policy when your governor is flying planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard or declaring war on Disney for issuing a statement in opposition to the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay Law”?
But that is very much the point of wedge issues, as they have been wielded by scurrilous politicians for decades, to anger and distract voters so they won’t notice the actions of public officials that mainly benefit the wealthy and are against the public interest.
As the 2024 election draws closer, DeSantis must not be allowed to accomplish nationally what he did in his state—cloak his service to the wealthy by frightening working people with stories about transgender recruiting and “socialist” college professors. There are unmistakable signs that Americans are focused on what an activist government can do for the public good, as evidenced by Floridians’ vote to increase the minimum wage.
The failure of DeSantis to better serve the most vulnerable citizens of his state is his weak underbelly in a national campaign.
Scottie's Playtime 