Again the haters spewed their bigotry non-stop for years, over shooting any other voice, we have to raise our voice just as loud. We were stomping this shit out until the cult of tRump maga made being a low intellect gang thug the in thing. This is driven by those who insist on controlling the lives of others, to make others live as the haters are comfortable with. Hugs. Scottie
Emboldened by the mainstreaming of hard-right politics ahead of a presidential election cycle, white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ+ groups increased to record levels in the United States last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest annual report on hate and extremism. The SPLC, which has published the annual report since 1990, documented 835 active anti-government groups, up 133 from 2022’s count, and 595 hate groups, an increase of 72 over the previous year’s figure.
Accounting for a large portion of the increase was a 50% surge in white supremacy hate groups in 2023, the highest jump ever recorded by the SPLC, growing to 165 over 109 in 2022. White power and neo-Nazi rallies across the U.S. totaled 143 in 2023, down from 191 in 2022. SPLC saw a 33% rise in anti-LGBTQ+ organizations over last year, bringing the total to 86. The group said the growth was largely attributable to the anti-trans movement on the far-right.
The annual report from the SPLC raises the specter of far-right groups. Also: Pro-migrant groups are being harassed for their work. https://t.co/uoz31bQOdg
Trump emboldened them. These folks were always racist and sexist but they knew to disguise it. Now they are proud of it. It’s no surprise that they want to belong to groups of like-minded groups. The Klan used to hide. Now some similar groups wear masks but many do not. They don’t hide their identities because they don’t feel they need to. We have to prove them wrong.
Fear of the “other” has animated Republican politics since forever. If it isn’t LGBT people, it’s immigrants. In his weekly screed, Andrew Sullivan blames Biden for “losing” the election to Trump over immigration, all without ever mentioning the fact that Republicans, on marching orders from Trump, squashed bipartisan legislation to secure the southern border. Funny how that rather important element is simply ignored. Block Javascript to read:
The hubby and I got a couple of guns (locked away for safekeeping) but if push comes to shove, we’re not going down quietly. Hate to have to think that way now.
Kids are not born haters, they are taught to hate by adults and older kids around them. Every maga republican and fundamentalist religious leader is spreading this hate like an infectious disease. Hugs. Scottie
A juvenile suspect has been arrested in connection to an incident at the Newberg Public Library in which a window that displayed an LGBTQIA+ Pride flag was shattered by a BB gun.
According to the Newberg-Dundee Police Department in a post on Facebook, police were originally dispatched to investigate the incident on Wednesday at 7:15 p.m. No one was injured and it was initially investigated as a vandalism complaint.
It’s unclear what charges may brought to the juvenile, including whether or not they may include bias crime charges. However, police said the case is being “referred to the Yamhill County Juvenile Department for prosecution.
"A pride flag displayed at a library in Newberg, Oregon, was shot at with a pellet gun this week, according to police, who are investigating it as a possible hate crime. … similar attacks across the country within days of the start of Pride Month."https://t.co/PHYWJu9H9o
A report in the New York Times, verified by documents and Israeli government officials, confirms that Israel has been using fake social media accounts and websites in an attempt to sway U.S. policy.
Reality means nothing to him and his cult. He says three different contradictory things before breakfast and his cult buys into each one. When it is said about him though … no way … and they scream violence and hate on everyone. They are a cult. The republican party is no more. It is the cult of tRump party, and his people control all the party apparatus. They are in charge of the most important thing in that former party, the money and the base. So the rest bow down, do what is demanded / needed kiss what he tells them too, and they get to stay in their office. Why is that so important. Don’t the public realize, a seat in federal, and even some what to a smaller degree, a seat in federal congress is the the golden ticket to wealth and fame. Republicans don’t give a shit about governing, most of them hate it and don’t know how to do it. To them it is the way to riches and power. That is their turn on, their goal in life. As it is their god they follow, the Dear Leader tRump. Hugs. Scottie
I just posted a video by Jon Stewart talking about this subject. The next comment I read was by Susan, her link below, who reminded me of a post she made on this same subject. I am going to repost it because I think it will help all of us dealing with the tRump supporters, the Covid deniers, the people who simply can not accept or see reality. Hugs. Scottie
A theory regarding the continued disconnect between Trump objectors and Trump supporters: the divide occurs between those who believe words have meaning and those who do not.
We can trace the beginning of this divide to the moment Trump first announced his candidacy when he famously said of immigrants, “They’re rapists, they’re murderers, and some, I assume, are good people.” Those of us who believe words have meaning interpreted that to mean “They’re rapists, they’re murderers, and some, I assume, and good people.”
Those who would go on to support Trump heard those words differently. They heard some version of “immigrants are bad.” The distinction is important because it highlights the problem with covering this candidate. When somebody deploys weapons with the carelessness and frequency of Donald Trump, it makes it impossible to analyze his every bizarre utterance. How does one separate the bull from the shit?
The Tower of Babel by Peter Bruegel
But the Trump supporter listens to the diarrhetic stream-of-conscious ramblings of their champion and hears soaring rhetoric. The lies, the exaggerations, the threats, the cruelty. They don’t hear any of it. They hear notions: strength, greatness, power. For them, every time he walks out onto a stage double-dick-sucking to the strains of YMCA, it’s Lincoln at Gettysburg. Only better, because Lincoln only spoke for a few minutes, whereas Trump rambles on for ninety minutes at a go.
I really think we’re hearing two different speeches. His supporters are taking in one set of cogent, well-prepared remarks and we’re hearing, well, we’re hearing what he’s actually saying, in all of its crackpot lunacy.
If words have meaning, and Trump’s speaks his words truthfully, then Trump is the greatest president in American history, done more for American Black people than Abraham Lincoln, is a genius – and a stable one at that, his inauguration was the most highly watched inauguration in history, he won California in 2016, as well as the national popular vote, and he won the entire election in 2020. But that’s only if words have meaning.
If words don’t have meaning, we could interpret those same remarks any way we want. We can take him literally or seriously, or literally but not seriously, or seriously but not literally, or we can just assign any random meaning to his words the way the government assigns meaningless code words when naming secret operations so that anybody who hears those words would have no idea what they’re supposed to mean. If words have no meaning, why should anybody get upset when you call their nation a “shithole country” or you call one of The Apprentice contestants “a n—”? Why should anybody disbelieve anything you say when you haven’t said anything to begin with?
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Michael Cohen was probably both correct and incorrect when he discussed the way Trump talks “in code,” but that people close to him understand what he’s saying. No doubt Trump talks in mob-influenced patois: “Our friend David is taking care of it,” because that sort of vaguery relieves Trump of responsibility from a misinterpretation of his intentions. When somebody screws up, it’s never Trump’s fault. How could it be? If they had only listened to what he said, they would have done the job right the first time. Of course, they had listened to what he said but didn’t understand what he meant because it’s unlikely Trump knew what he meant.
Because – and this is the key point – Donald Trump is dumb.
We know this because people who both know the man and believe that words have meaning have said he’s dumb. One of his professors at Wharton, William Kelly, called Trump “the dumbest goddamned student I ever had.” His first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, called Trump a “fucking moron.” General John Hyten said about Trump, “the president is an idiot.” His first Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, said Trump is “like a fifth of sixth grader.” I’m sure he didn’t mean it as an insult to fifth or sixth graders.
Dumb people don’t read. They don’t speak with precision. They don’t understand nuance. They have no sense of humor. They often an exaggerated sense of self. They possess unearned confidence. Does this sound like anybody you know?
Which isn’t to say Trump isn’t also a genius. He is. That’s what makes him a unique American figure. Trump understands the dark side of human nature better than most. He understands fear and greed, and mines his own fear and greed to inspire others to feel as bleakly about humanity as he feels about himself. The words don’t matter because the sentiment is so powerful.
Rhetoric fails in his firehose of emotion. It’s the great gift of the autocrat, to inject words with the same shit they put under the skin of supermarket rotisserie chickens to make them so delicious. We know it’s bad for us, but we choose to ignore it because it tastes so good. Trump knows he’s injecting poison into the bloodstream of the American body politic but doesn’t care. Worse, he celebrates it because bile is his mother’s milk.
I apologize for all the Trump stuff lately. As the election nears, it’ll probably continue. But maybe you like it, in which case, toss a little sub my way? As my hero once asked, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
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The Trump voter is unreachable because the words one would use to convince the Trump voter are words that voter has already rejected. Words like “election,” “flag,” “nation,” “citizen,” “immigrant.” These, and probably hundreds of other words, no longer mean the same thing to me as they do the Trump voter because Trump himself has twisted them into levers of governmental oppression. Even the word “guilty,” repeated 34 times this week, now means something other than what it means.
I worry we’ve lost America, not because of any single candidate, but because the language itself has been cleaved in two. The language itself has become so politicized that we can no longer even understand each other. We’ve made a Babel of America, and I don’t know how we learn to understand each other again.
Jon Stewart breaks down the response to Trump’s guilty verdict from Joe Biden and the media, as well as the GOP’s vow for revenge and hypocritical complaint about Democrats pursuing “political prosecutions.” Plus, Jon pleads with the media to act a little more like the court system and examine evidence and reach conclusions, instead of wildly speculating on future realities. #DailyShow#JonStewart#Trump
The good people are fighting back now. DeathSantis and his fundamentalist minority have pushed decent people too far. But look for a response from the right wing shock troops, the Proud Boys, the militias, the other right wing gang thugs. Hugs. Scottie
Several Tampa Bay area cities have raised the LGBTQ Pride flags over city buildings this weekend. But that would have been illegal if a bill that died in this year’s Florida Legislature had instead become law.
On Saturday morning the city of Gulfport in south Pinellas County raised the Pride flag over its public library. It came after a short ceremony of speeches honoring the city’s commitment to equality and before a day-long block party celebration of Pride.
The nearby City of St. Petersburg raised its LGBTQ Pride flag over City Hall on Friday. Meanwhile, the City of Clearwater will host Pride events but will not fly the Pride flag at a city building.
Also raising the Pride flag over their city halls this weekend were Tampa, Wilton Manors, Miami, and Orlando. If you know of any others, let us know in the comments.
The Republican bill to ban Pride flags at government buildings passed earlier this year in the Florida House, but died when the state Senate ran out of time to vote on the issue before the session ended for the year.
Of note, an amendment to the Senate version of the bill would have allowed the Confederate flag, something its sponsor later claimed was as “error.”
— Whitney Fox for Congress (FL-13) (@whitfox) June 2, 2024
The vibrant streets of Gulfport were illuminated in the colors of the rainbow on Saturday as neighbors, business owners and city leaders welcomed people from across Tampa Bay at their fourth annual Gulfport Pride Festival. https://t.co/GkSqEJhIN4
Happy Pride Month, Wilton Manors! No matter how you show up, we'll always celebrate that you've found your home here in the Island City. pic.twitter.com/51NouvUEj8
— WiltonManorsOfficial (@WiltonManorsCty) June 1, 2024
The colors of love and progress are flying high in Orlando as we raise the Progress Pride Flag at Orlando City Hall in celebration of our LGBTQ+ community and their ongoing fight for equality. https://t.co/XJTIK6GB10
Funny how the party that’s always going on about the First Amendment and free speech is always trying to ban speech they don’t like, in this case flying a flag.
This is vivid example of what I said yesterday about opposing a gay tourism boycott of Florida. Aside from the fact that countless of our people make their money that way, the major cities in Florida, most of which are run by Democrats, are overwhelmingly on our side.
AND you (and all of us) can be refused medical care. What if I get food poisoning, have car accident? And gay-bashed. I won’t want someone’s ‘sincere’ religious beliefs to interfere with my ‘sincere’ desire to stay alive and healthy.
I was just in a Tires Plus shop to replace a tire. I had to use the bathroom, so I asked where it was. The guy at the desk pointed to it, and said it was the door to the left. It was marked Ladies!!! The men’s bathroom was out of order, and the guy told me that it was “Uni-sex”!!!
I replied, that I am glad for the Democracy and Equaiity!!!
I was in the Eureka/Arcata/McKinleyvillle area of northern California last weekend and every restaurant bathroom I went into was M/F/Who Cares? As they should be.
