Kristin M. Kingrey of the West Virginia Air National Guard says a threat her career would be jeopardized if she didn’t look “more feminine” came true when she lost out on two jobs.
Tim Teeman
Senior Editor And Writer
Courtesy of Kristin M. Kingrey
For nearly 14 years, Tech. Sgt. Kristin M. Kingrey has served her country as a member of the West Virginia Air National Guard. Now Kingrey, a 37-year-old lesbian, is suing the Army and Air Force, claiming a senior male leader said she should grow her hair, wear makeup, “and ultimately appear more feminine,” or prepare to face the negative professional consequences.
Kingrey told The Daily Beast that after the remarks were made a job she had successfully applied for was suddenly withdrawn, and the Guard also refused to hire her for a position she was qualified for, “despite her satisfactory performance as a federal employee,” as her lawsuit, filed in a federal court, states.
When the comment was allegedly made, it was not the first time. “From 2016 to 2018, I was constantly being pulled into my seniors’ offices being told my hair was out of regs (non-regulation),” Kingrey told The Daily Beast. “It crossed a line into harassment, and I carried on my person a copy of our regulations in regards to female hair length because I was not breaking any rules.”
Kingrey, from Charleston, West Virginia, believes that sexism and homophobia are key parts of her case—she was singled out as a woman, and a lesbian woman specifically. Hers comports to a stereotypical lesbian appearance, she says, and her boss wanted her appearance to be more conventionally “feminine.”
The lawsuit, filed on Nov. 23last year, claims Kingrey was subject to “continued harassment, discrimination, and retaliation based upon her sex—including her sexual orientation and perceived gender nonconformity.”
The incident that sparked the lawsuit occurred after Kingrey’s senior leader, Vice Wing Commander Col. Michael Cadle, called a female lieutenant colonel and asked her to go to lunch.
Kingrey said Col. Cadle had told the female lieutenant colonel to encourage Kingrey “to grow my hair out and start wearing makeup because if I didn’t it would be detrimental to my career in the West Virginia Air National Guard. I had heard of other females with short hair having issues with people saying things, but I don’t know that progressed to the extent mine did. My hair length has nothing do with my work ethic or job performance. I should be judged on my merit. But my seniors clearly think females should not have short hair. I do not conform to what they think a female should look like. I wish I had an answer as to why this comment was made, or why this is so important to Col. Cadle.”
The female lieutenant who was tasked with talking to Kingrey was “completely appalled and angered” by the comments, Kingrey told The Daily Beast. “She knew I was within regulations and did not understand why this was so important. When I found out about the comment, I was truly disheartened and disturbed,” Kingrey said. “I’ve been in the military for a little over 14 years. They’ve become my family. I see my military family more than my own family. Initially I was embarrassed. I could not believe that not fitting their mold of how I should look would truly impact my career. It was devastating.”
The lawsuit states, “Other instances of discrimination and harassment include colleagues and superiors perpetuating the rumor that Plaintiff Kingrey was ‘transitioning’ from female to male.” Kingrey was also allegedly forced to try on a woman’s Honor Guard jacket in front of others to “confirm that none of the women’s sizes would fit,” the lawsuit states.
“This is about what they think a lesbian female should look like,” Kingrey told The Daily Beast. “It leaves me in such disbelief. They have made this my life. Whenever I discuss it I am at a loss for words. It was a completely unacceptable comment, and a completely unacceptable situation. I am fighting this case not just because what happened to me was blatantly wrong, but, most importantly, I truly hope positive change comes from my case and it prevents another individual having to walk this path, because it is a very long and dark path to walk.”
When she initially heard of Col. Cadle’s alleged remark, “for a very brief moment, literally a moment,” Kingrey thought she should take Cadle’s words to heart. If she didn’t, “I thought it would really devastate my career. Then I thought, ‘I’m within the guidance. This is a personal belief on their part. I am who I am. I am being myself. I am not the one in the wrong. I am not the one who crossed the line. Why should I have to change because of someone else’s belief?’”
Kingrey says that after the comment was made the job that had been verbally offered to her was suddenly longer no longer available because of an alleged funding cut. The role was then re-advertised. “I want the job back that was taken from me,” said Kingrey. “I started connecting the dots and realized his threat had come true. That’s when I decided enough was enough.”
“What does having short hair and not wearing makeup have to do with my work performance?”
The lawsuit, filed on Nov. 23, is using the precedent by the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling of June 2020, which enshrined that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act sex discrimination extends to anti-LGBTQ and gender identity discrimination. The lawsuit charges that the Army and Air Force “discriminated against Plaintiff Kingrey on the basis of her sex—including her sexual orientation and perceived gender nonconformity—by eliminating a position which Plaintiff Kingrey had already been selected—and hired—nearly 18 months after her initial acceptance.”
Kingrey told The Daily Beast that since bringing the case she has been subject to “retaliation,” with her and some female colleagues presently being investigated for “fraternization,” which she says is the socializing of those from different ranks. “In all my time in the military, no one has blinked when men do it—hunting, going fishing, playing golf, families vacationing together—but here we are, three women, under investigation for the same. I find it very odd that shortly after I filed my Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint complaint [EEOC] I find myself under investigation.”
Col. Cadle, while not her immediate boss, remains in Kingrey’s chain of command while the case continues, which is “very stressful. It’s a very heavy burden, very taxing mentally, and for me there is no getting out from under it,” she told The Daily Beast. “The workplace is uncomfortable, although nothing has been said about the case. We can all save that for the courtroom.”
Mike Hissam, Kingrey’s attorney, told The Daily Beast that while the military typically could not be sued in federal court, in Kingrey’s case it was possible to do so because the job in question was a civilian position within the military. The Army and Air Force are being sued together because Kingrey works on a joint forces’ base. Kingrey is suing her employer as a civilian.
Her complaint states, “As a dual status technician, Plaintiff Kingrey serves as a federal employee in a civilian position with the National Guard, Department of the Army and/or Department of the Air Force. As a dual status technician, Plaintiff Kingrey is employed with the Department of the Air Force as an Air Transportation Craftsman and as an HRO Benefits Specialist—a position funded by the Department of the Army and/or Department of the Air Force.”
The case could last from 18 months to 2 years, Hissam said. The defendants in the case are named as Defendant Frank Kendall, the secretary of the Department of the Air Force and Defendant Christine Wormuth, secretary of the Department of the Army.
The Army and Air Force have yet to respond legally to the complaint. The Air Force did not respond to requests for comment by The Daily Beast. A U.S. Army spokesperson told The Daily Beast, “As a matter of policy, the Army does not comment on ongoing litigation.”
In a statement at the end of December, the West Virginia National Guard said: “The West Virginia National Guard (WVNG) is fully committed to an inclusive and diverse workforce free from harassment. As a matter of policy, the WVNG does not comment on matters that are currently pending in litigation. But generally, the WVNG advised an outside agency who is charged with conducting investigations that are prompt, fair, and impartial in matters like this one. They produced a report with the factual record, and it was determined that no discrimination and/or harassment occurred. As such, we are continuing the process to present the facts to fully resolve this matter in the court system.”
“I think even without the Bostock ruling, this is a viable case,” Hissam told The Daily Beast. “Issues around gender conformity and hair and makeup would come under gender discrimination before sexual orientation was added under Title VII. It’s discrimination on the basis of sex regardless of her sexual orientation. There’s a loaded history around sexual orientation that goes back a long time.
“We will be arguing that this was discrimination on the basis of sex, and discrimination on the basis of Kristin not conforming to the gender norms that the leadership of the organization thought she should conform to. We know that from some of the correspondence so far that they will argue that they cannot discriminate against lesbians because other lesbian women within the organization have thrived. What is clear is that those other lesbian women don’t have the same issues that Kristin has faced.”
“No one should have to go through the kind of harassment and discrimination Technical Sergeant Kingrey faced over the years,” Andrew Schneider, executive director of Fairness West Virginia, said in a statement. “This is someone who has devoted her life to serving her country and her state, and this is how she’s treated? We’re better than this. For all of the lawmakers who say discrimination isn’t a problem anymore—here’s proof it is.”
Kingrey told The Daily Beast she would accept an apology from Col. Cadle, “but what I would really like to convey to him is that just because you have a personal disagreement with official guidance does not give you the latitude to impact an individual’s career. There are many things I personally don’t agree with, but that doesn’t give me the right to treat a person differently, without basic human or professional respect. What does having short hair and not wearing makeup have to do with my work performance? I would love an answer to that.”
Kingrey says that an assistant to the adjutant general reached out to her, to offer his support, and then when she responded seeking that, she was informed that he had been told to stand down and not engage with her and could now not help her. “I felt extremely ostracized,” said Kingrey.
“The whole thing has made me feel that I don’t belong, and that my career will be hindered,” said Kingrey. “But I have not considered quitting. I will not be defeated. They are not going to make me leave something that I truly love, and I truly love putting on the uniform every single day. I love my country, and I love my state, and I have served them both honorably for over 14 years.”
Kingrey said she has received support at work, with some colleagues telling her they appreciate her standing up for herself, while other colleagues are “afraid, because they have their own careers and lives which I understand.”
The ghost of the notorious “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy still lingers in the military, Kingrey told The Daily Beast. “Early in my career it was very prominent, and even today my personal life is not workplace talk. I’m not embarrassed of who I am. The workplace is just not somewhere where I talk openly about my personal life.
“People have said other things about me over the years. Once I wore earrings, again within regulations, to work, and a male leader asked me when the Air Force had allowed men to start wearing earrings. It was a very hurtful joke, again based on stereotypes of what women, and lesbian women, look like. I like to remain professional at all times. I corrected him, and he was apologetic. A lot of such comments are not said directly to me but get back to me. I know who the people are and what they have said. People talk, it happens. In the past I brushed it off and pressed forward.”
In Kingrey’s estimation, the National Guard has remained more entrenched in anti-LGBTQ attitudes than other branches of the military.
“There is some homophobia, some ignorance, some people just don’t understand. Within the past three years the National Guard has come out heavily on inclusion and diversity. We get all this training. I am hearing the conversation and not seeing the action. The storefront is there, and it’s great, but there’s nothing really behind it. If all of the fine words are true, why am I where I am with what I am dealing with? A true victory would see the Air Force or National Guard come to the table and be honest and open about diversity and inclusion. Show the action. I win if nobody else has to go through anything like this again.”
Kingrey is presently working at the same base where the comment was made, with all her same colleagues and bosses. “I get up and go to work every day. I give 100 percent while I am at work, and at the end of the day I come home.”
She has a partner of three years, and the situation at work has been “challenging” for the relationship, she told The Daily Beast. “When I come home I am working on the case. I’m constantly researching something. A lot of this takes time away from our relationship, unfortunately. It’s also very comforting to know I have someone supporting me who is non-military, to be able to come home and be with someone outside that environment. I can somewhat detach from it for brief periods of time.”
Kingrey says she has been very depressed. “I have felt completely lost. I have felt less of a valuable asset and member because of this. It’s very hard mentally, emotionally, and physically. There have been many, many sleepless nights because my mind goes over so many different scenarios. I am in such a heightened state of vigilance, only once I get home can I turn that off. It’s like a vicious cycle. There’s no break from it.”
Within the last couple of months Kingrey has begun therapy, “because I realized my depression was getting to a point where I realized I needed it. But it’s a lot of work, because I am still living in this situation every day.”
“It’s truly a privilege every day to put that uniform on and serve my country”
Growing up, Kingrey was inspired by the example of her uncle who was in the Air Force and Air National Guard in West Virginia. “I watched him throughout his career. I saw the pride he had putting on his uniform and performing his military duties. I knew at an early age the military was something I definitely wanted to be part of, and my way of giving back to my community, my state, and my country.”
When she joined up at 23, it was “one of the best decisions I ever made. It offered me the opportunity to do things and go to places I have never been to. I have met some of the greatest people, and have friends all over the world. It’s truly a privilege every day to put that uniform on and serve my country.”
Coming out was “a very long and difficult period” of Kingrey’s life. “I come from a family that has disagreements towards homosexuality, but at the end of the day they told me they loved me and that they accepted and loved me for who I was.”
Being gay was never an issue earlier in her career when she was deployed on active duty. “Nobody was focused on who was LGBTQ. There was no stereotyping stigma. My hair and makeup was never an issue. When I was deployed in the Middle East where it was 130 degrees during the day, profusely sweating while having short hair and not wearing makeup was a plus. It was a totally different environment. Everybody was there to do a job. At the end of your shift you’re exhausted and just ready go to back to your bunk, take a shower, go to bed, and get ready for the next day.”
“It is unfortunate, the way it has happened,” Kingrey said of the case. “But it needed to happen. It needed to come out. The problem needs to be addressed, and changes made where necessary, so another individual never has to experience the anxiety and fear of being discriminated against, or put up with derogatory comments that have nothing to do with regulations but someone else’s personal beliefs.”
Hissam said he was confident of victory. “If we have to go all the way we will go all the way, even if that means trial,” he said.
“We would want reinstatement and back pay,” Hissam said of what a successful resolution would look like. “Kristin should get the position she applied for and would have gotten had it not been for the unlawful discrimination she suffered. That’s the outcome she wants.”
Kingrey told The Daily Beast she “definitely wants to stay and finish out a 20-plus year career in the military. I am committed to the military. I just want to go through my career on a fair basis. I’ve never asked for favoritism just because I am from the LGBTQ community. I just want to be allowed to continue my military career based on my own merits and off my work ethic. Judge me on that.”
A Florida judge said the teen’s B average means she lacks the maturity to have an abortion.
When a 17-year-old girl in Florida, called “Jane Doe,” sought judicial bypass to have an abortion without the involvement of her parents, as state law requires, the judge presiding over her case deemed her GPA too low. The judge denied Doe the legal permission to have an abortion without her parents’ knowledge, presumably because having poor grades means a teenager should definitely be required to become a parent.
Hillsborough County Circuit Court Judge Jared E. Smith took particular issue with Doe testifying that she had a “B” average, despite records showing a lower GPA, and wrote in his decision that her “testimony evinces either a lack of intelligence or credibility, either of which weigh against a finding of maturity pursuant to the statute.” A district court later overruled that decision by a 2-1 margin, noting that Doe’s GPA “demonstrate[d] average intelligence for a high school student”—as if grades, academic achievement, or really any factor, let alone one so arbitrary, should dictate a minor’s human rights.
In the 38 states that require some form of parental involvement for minors seeking abortion care, reasoning like Smith’s could and often does deny teens judicial bypass. In 2014, Mother Jones analyzed 40 cases of teens seeking judicial bypass, and in three cases, their reporting found judges denied petitions because they deemed a teen who got pregnant by accident too immature to have an abortion. Paradoxically, this thinking implies someone who supposedly isn’t mature enough to have an abortion should be forced to give birth and possibly become a parent. In a similar vein, if Judge Smith was so concerned with Doe’s grades, I somehow doubt the physical and mental duress of forced pregnancy and birth would improve her GPA.
Last year, a 21-year-old woman named Anna told me about her experience seeking judicial bypass to get an abortion in Texas when she was 17, shortly after she was denied emergency contraception at her local pharmacy. In the process, she said she had to “memorize [her] whole abortion procedure, describe to them how it works, describe the actual medical insurance that you use, and what parts of the body and what kind of drugs” are involved in an abortion. Anna called it a “dehumanizing process” that subjected her to “judgment and shaming for being sexually active and female.” She recalled her judge, who ultimately granted her judicial bypass, telling her “girls don’t even feel good when they have sex.”
The experiences of Jane Doe in Florida and Anna in Texas reflect that even when teens are ultimately granted judicial bypass, it’s not without an exhausting, dehumanizing process that requires them to know more about abortion and the medical system than most adults do.
Still, Judge John Stargel, the dissenting judge in the Florida district court ruling that offered Doe judicial bypass last week, wrote that “the majority discounts most of the trial court’s concerns regarding Doe’s overall intelligence, emotional development and stability, and ability to accept responsibility.” Stargel’s concerns about her “ability to accept responsibility” equate pregnancy and parenthood with punishment, and it’s this line of thinking that stigmatizes and denies teen parents basic resources and supports to care for themselves and their children.
All parental involvement laws for abortion are ultimately about punishing supposedly careless teens, and exemplify how precarious the human rights and bodily autonomy of young people, especially those of color and those with disabilities, are in the US. These laws often ignore how many minors have abusive parents who would physically harm them if they knew of their pregnancies, or how many may even be estranged from their parents. Young people—and especially young people of color—also face concerning rates of sexual abuse from parents or caretakers, and research has shown they face greater risk of reproductive coercion or birth control tampering from partners.
In a 2021 report, Human Rights Watch notes that the majority of people who seek judicial bypass are Black, Indigenous and other young people of color who routinely face discrimination and mistreatment in the legal system. Advocates have also pointed out that youth of color are more likely than to be raised by or have closer relationships with members of their extended family, and parental involvement requirements center the experiences of minors from white, traditional, nuclear families. Parental involvement laws are just part of a rapidly growing web of abortion restrictions that systematically targets and strips low-income people and people of color of basic reproductive freedoms.
Both the district judge that denied Jane Doe the 17 year old the right of an abortion and the dissenting appellant judge sited her lack of income despite a job and paid up credit cards, and that they felt she was too immature to make the decision to get an abortion due to she did not have the grades she once did. They discounted her well thought out plans for a future education and career. So here is the question I want to ask. If she is immature, unstable, has no financial security and insufficient income how is that going to improve by forcing her to have a baby and what the hell kind of mother do you think an immature unstable poor person with no income is going to be? I don’t get that reasoning, let’s force a child on a child we don’t think is doing well and make her a mother. That should work out great. The fact is this is simply the judges wanting to punish her for having sex. She had sex lowering her value to her future hubby, the male who is in charge of her body / sexual / reproductive organs. I hate that thinking these people have but they have the authority and position of power. For now.
Tucker Carlson brutally mocked Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg as an unqualified “kid” who “breastfeeds,” and has no business running the agency. The crack was part of a broader monologue the ridiculed the idea that social and racial equity has a critical role to play in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.
After presenting the sorry state of public infrastructure in the United States, the Fox News host explained that Joe Biden should have appointed a “competent” person to be transportation secretary.
“But that’s not with the Biden administration did. They had a more progressive idea. Joe Biden hired a kid, by contrast, who had never had a real job outside McKinsey and no grounding of any kind in physical reality,” he said, referring to the consulting megafirm.
Carlson said as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg had a poor track record when it came to infrastructure.
“When Pete Buttigieg was mayor, the city had, and we’re quoting now, the worst pothole situation in the state according to the local paper. Huge potholes. So big that Mayor Pete – not a tall man – could’ve disappeared into one. You can picture his little legs up in the air. Eight years as mayor, and he was never able to fix it.”
He added, cackling, “This guy, who literally couldn’t fix the potholes in South Bend, Indiana, is now the transportation secretary. But he breastfeeds so it’s equity! It’s unbelievable!”
In October, Carlson chided Buttigieg for taking paternity leave.
“Pete Buttigieg has been on leave from his job since August after adopting a child – paternity leave, they call it – trying to figure out how to breastfeed,” he said at the time. “No word on how that went.”
“This is a guy who wouldn’t know a car transmission from a bridge abutment,” the host went on. “What are the chances he can run his own espresso machine?
“The mindset is the problem here. And it’s not just Mayor Pete. He’s easy to mock because he’s a ludicrous figure. But it’s all the people like him who believe that our economy and is based on social media apps and HR departments.”
Watch above via Fox News.
Remember who we are talking about. Secretary Buttigieg is a combat veteran Army officer who speaks several languages and Buttigieg was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford. In 2007, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree with first-class honors in philosophy, politics, and economics after studying at Pembroke College, Oxford. Tucker is a wealthy man from a wealthy family who seems to have trouble staying at media companies until he hit Fox.
GDP growth dramatically outpaced forecasts made a year ago. Most forecasters expected the economy to grow 3 to 4 percent this year. Instead it has grown 5.5 percent. That is more than a percentage point faster than even the most optimistic forecast was expecting. pic.twitter.com/ocZ3S41sWW
5.7 according to the WH chart. I should post that here. And I did
We've always been told that corporations keep prices as low as they reasonably can to stay competitive. But what happens when corporations don't HAVE competition, or when their competition agrees to jack up prices too? New from @RBReich 👇 https://t.co/XG0UovMPsKpic.twitter.com/ghNeqyJflG
If you think a Democrat is wrong for something but the same something done by a Republican is okay to you it is not the policy that bothers you. You are just tribal and hate the others not in your group simply because they are not in your group. That doesn’t work for running a country and shows how immature the person is.
There is far too much tribalism and emotionalism when having a discussion about many subjects these days. The idea that adults can not have civil discussions even when they are passionate and disagree with each other is a sad testament on the people in this country. People have forgotten that the goal is sharing information and hoping that information brings others to your view. A discussion is not to force the other person to agree with you against their will. Insulting or threats don’t add anything valuable to a conversation. Trolling shows how childish you are, not how informed or correct about a subject.
Are these two Gorsuch and Barrett? Or is the guy the I love beer Kavanaugh? Mitch McConnell is warning … warning Biden to to not but a lefty on the court, not to listen to the progressive wing, even though he pushed three every extreme right members on the court. The misleading right wing is pushing the narrative that if Biden appoints someone who cares about how the law effect people vs how it is now favoring business interest that the court will be destroyed. More fear tactics on the right.
Justice Breyer has an extraordinary record of public service. I’m very happy that President Biden will fill this seat by naming the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. And we ought to #ExpandTheCourt to give her at least four more new colleagues & rebalance this institution.
Leadership, by definition, does not cater to the center. If it did, there would be no need to lead.
America's visionary leaders have always understood that the “center” is a fictitious place lying somewhere south of thoughtless adherence to the status quo.https://t.co/dvGGfcmrkG
Granted the person is retiring, but even Republicans admit they are cheating.
The forces undermining our democracy are counting on you to give up. Cynicism is how they win. Do not, under any circumstances, give up on voting rights. Here are 8 ways we can still protect them. pic.twitter.com/SrQW7ZSlJl
Let’s be clear: educating our children about the full terror of the Holocaust is not “promoting” it.
If we don’t accurately teach this history to future generations, we're doomed to repeat it. Remember: the Holocaust started with Nazis banning books and cracking down on speech. https://t.co/CDkh2PFWz0
Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must fight back against the GOP’s authoritarian agenda by committing to educating ourselves, and our children, about the full horrors of the Holocaust.
Curriculum is about preparing minds to think and reason, it’s not about parental control and subordination. Banning books is small-minded.
Night is a 1960 memoir by Elie Wiesel based on his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, toward the end of the Second World War in Europe.
White people think they are the victims of racism. Then ban people from talking about how racism works in America.
House Dems are fast-tracking a massive defense spending bill for Ukraine as tensions with Russia escalate, leaving no opportunity for debate.
Where is the CBO score? The cries about inflation? Concerns about the deficit?
Hello? Why does none of that matter when it comes to war?
Will escalating tensions w/ Russia put the final nail in the coffin on Build Back Better? History says yes, but it’s not too late. It’s up to all of us to fight against the military-industrial complex & hold this administration accountable for its promises to the American people.
Biden is held to a totally different set of standards than Trump/traitors.
Lock them up.
Modern day trolls
Tucker Carlson is yet another conservative pawn for Putin.
We are dealing with emotional and intellectual three year-olds. #WearAMask
“Just do what they say” and “follow the rules” are bad faith suggestions from conservatives.
I… don't really care?
She's a semi-famous actress, not a policy analysis. There are hundreds (thousands) of B-level celebrities; it would be weird if there weren't some who had opinions I disagree with or even find stupid. https://t.co/GVBYS9DJ0V
What I think is much more disturbing, and important, is when public officials are anti-vax, or think it's wrong for health care workers to have to be vaccinated to work, or are climate change denialists, etc etc..
Yes smart people understand the professionals have evaluated the data that shows the vaccines effective and safe which makes it good public policy to get vaccinated. People who have no higher education claiming they did their own research really are not smart enough to know how silly that is, so are not ready for higher education.
The Senate advises and consents. It did neither. Obama should have put him on and dared it turn him down. It’s been done before; in fact, Washington put a nominated chief justice on the Court, and then the Senate turned him down. Eisenhower didn’t wait to put Earl Warren on the Court. The Senate later approved him. If the Senate won’t have a hearing, then it consented.
tRump was an asset for Putin either willingly or just easily manipulated because he wanted to do big money business in Moscow. tRump openly took Putin’s word over the evidence of Russia’s interference in 2016 election and continuing attempts to destabilize the US in social media. These are facts and are demonstrable. At every turn tRump tried to ingratiate himself with Putin. For example when both California and Siberia were having wild fires tRump denied federal assistance to California and offered the US help to Putin fighting the fires in Siberia. Again a fact. Also at the start of the pandemic tRump authorized a shipment of PPE to Russia when supplies were short in the US. So he either was an asset willingly or just easy for Putin to control, but none of that can be said of Biden. Biden has not take Putin’s side over US intelligence or other cabinet level departments. Biden has not granted Putin favors to gain a favor back. Even while Tucker Carlson advocates abandoning Ukraine to please Putin Biden has stood defending the fledgling democracy. So the cartoon is correct about the old puppet, but wrong that there is a new one in Biden.
Republicans in Congress and their enablers at Fox News actually want to see Putin invade Ukraine for a myriad of reasons. Tucker Carlson has openly stated that he favors Putin over Biden. The invasion will put Biden in a tough spot, which Republicans hope will make Biden look weak. This is all part of their scheme to retake the majority in Congress and bring trump back to power.
Republicans are all giddy about the conflict. The stock market has taken huge hits because of these tensions and likely invasion. Again, Republicans hope that a sinking stock market will make Biden look weak. It is driving them nuts that in just the first year of Biden as President, we now have the lowest employment rate in decades, the fastest growing GDP in decades, and all-time highs in the stock market. But oh no, Republicans will not stand for this. They will not stand for America to succeed, and certainly not with Joe Biden as President.
And I want to know if the Republican members of Congress who serve on the Intelligence Committee have made stock trades after they received their briefings. Maybe that’s why they all opposed Elizabeth Warren’s proposed bill to prevent insider traitors in Congress from engaging in insider trading.
It is a fact different presidents have promised to name the first … what ever to the SCOTUS. They do the same with cabinet nominations. In fact candidate Ronald Reagan promised to appoint a woman to the SCOTUS if he won, and he did so. Nothing new and nothing shocking. It is just the right wants to make it an issue. The demographic make up of the courts do not match the demographics of the country.
As of August 2019, 80% of federal judges were white, while just 10% were Black and 6.6% Hispanic. Moreover, as of 2015, nearly 83% of all federal law clerks were white — an extension of the fact that most law schools are also severely lacking in racial diversity. And despite efforts at many of those top universities to admit more law students of color, in 2019, only 12.7% of law students were Hispanic and just 7.8% were Black. Trying to fix that equality by appointing a black women is not racist it is a good start to making the court look like the people of the country they serve.
A photo id to prick up a child? Well yes, and be on the approved list for safety sake. The number of child abductions in the US is higher by far than the number of proven cases of voter fraud. And nobody ever died because a vote was fraudulently cast in their name. If the person registered to vote, THEY ALREADY SHOWED THEIR ID, and they will need to sign the ballot, which will be matched to the signature on file.
Votes are NOT CONTAGEOUS! Right wing idiocy, on the other hand, is more contagious than pink eye, as demonstrated by Al.
You already registered to vote, and provided credentials to do so, and voter fraud is so minuscule to be almost nonexistent. Passing around diseases in school happens to a much greater degree.
“At the federal level, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires a voter ID for all new voters in federal elections who registered by mail and who did not provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number that was matched against government records.1 Though state laws requiring some sort of identification at voting polls go back to 1950, no state required a voter to produce a government-issued photo ID as a condition for voting before the 2006 elections.” – Wikipedia (Coincidentally 2006 election Democrats won both houses)
Learning and exposure make you more Democratic. Conversely, no one who banned books was ever the good guy.
BREAKING: Over the last three weeks, 71 educational gag orders (aka "anti-CRT bills") have been introduced or prefiled. That's more than half of 122 proposed since January 2021. And they're getting worse.https://t.co/j9lYuvk69xpic.twitter.com/RRqKiyXA2F
Some parents don’t see the actual stress they allow/put on their kids.
They would rather try to score political points with book bans and vaccine disinformation.
A Tennessee school board voted to drop the Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel MAUS, which tells the story of the Holocaust with cartoon mice, because it contained inappropriate words and imagery. I wish them luck in their quest for wholesome, family-friendly Holocaust content. https://t.co/cNcz6ocmJB
I will match this. DMs are temporarily open, send me your McMinn County mailing address and I’ll have a copy of THE COMPLETE MAUS shipped to you. Trolls = block. Please RT. https://t.co/DexfURBVWU
re both sides and partisanship around the pandemic. yes, pandemic measures have become markers of partisan identity on both sides. but one side is saying the pandemic is killing thousands a week and that's bad, and the other is saying we shouldn't care. one side is right!
Equating masks with the holocaust shows you how white people [who have never suffered] have no similar experience. They steal and try to pass themselves off as victims. It’s disgusting.
Hey, look: there it is, reverse racism. The worst take of the day.
Not today, satan. We’re too busy celebrating the fact that SCOTUS is going to look a little bit more like America soon. https://t.co/QXalTSid0w
Imagine telling your grandfather that the communists we fought in the Cold War for fifty years are now your best friends because they are equally corrupt and equally hateful of non-white citizens.
It amazes me how left Twitter gets more exercised by rightist intellectuals voicing support for Orbán than it is by the American government's routine transfer of arms to repressive regimes across the world. One more example of the left's indifference to the materiality of power. https://t.co/1LGbgPvPBp
South Africa’s Caster Semenya can run 800 meters faster than any woman on the planet. But the two-time Olympic gold medalist won’t defend her title in Tokyo because her testosterone levels exceed a 2018 limit imposed by track’s governing body on female athletes competing in distances between 400 meters and 1500 meters.
It is an article of faith among the radical right that young men are lining up to get their testicles removed and taking hormone shots for the sole reason of competing with women athletes.
Of all the insane things I’ve ever heard, that’s pretty much a topper.
I was just reading the right wing media about the swimmer Thomas who competed as a male and then transitioned and after waiting for her testosterone to be at the accepted levels again joined the university team. The right likes to mention how she is beating the times of other women. Oh the horror. Except they fail to mention she has been beaten by women also.
Three things: There isn’t a sport I am aware of that utilizes the Penis.Using Kelly’s transphobic logic, if strength and endurance is a determining factor, athletes like the Williams sisters would have been required to play as men.If people (like Kelly) who attempt to argue against Transgender accept that man came from a handful of dust and woman from a rib, they have no valid opinion on Transgender.
I find it very disturbing that for decades conservatives have ignored and underfunded women’s sports…even mocked them openly. And now all of the sudden they claim the role of protector from a threat that they made up solely for the purpose of uniting hateful ignorant people under their banner and get their votes.
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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
This cartoonist is not normally in the misleading right wing group. How ever in this case he is. Biden has stated that there will be no active fighting troops from the US in the Ukraine. I think that is because the Ukrainian military will do the Afghanistan model of warfare. Hit and run, hard to spot enemy that wears the attacking army out trying to conquer the territory. It wouldn’t make sense for the US to add unformed troops to that situation. There will more likely be special forces trainers and CIA agents. Along with mercenaries of course. The US will need to use a lot of non-traditional methods to fight the Russians if they invade Ukraine. In this case we are not forcing our will on the Ukrainians, we are standing beside them as best we can to protect their democracy.
Same as above except this cartoonist is a proud member of the misleading right wing media.
And again same as above notes.
Bull. Breyer is retiring on his own recognizance, though he has already said that one of the considerations was to give Biden time to replace him before midterm elections. Breyer has been talking about retirement for a while. He merely chose the best time so that Moscow-Mitch would have a hard time tanking the nomination of his replacement like he did with Obama’s nomination of Garland. here was no problem when Kennedy resigned to give McConnell the same opportunity. I know Trump claimed he was the one to appoint the new one, but all he did was sign where McConnell told him to.
The CDC has the expertise to evaluate the medical data and make the needed public health guidance. Something their critics lack with abundance.
There is a huge difference between muttering something under your breath that is picked up by a hot mic and have staff members shout insults at those they did not think properly honor their cult leader like the staff of the former guy. One is excusable and understandable, the other should be grounds for HR involvement and evaluating if the person should have that job. You do not hear the regular staff harassment and mistreatment in Biden’s administration that we did in tRump’s.
Doocy tries to frame questions that can be used on Fox news as a sound bite, normally with out the answer given to the question because that shows how stupid the question was. So Doocy asked a really dumb question and the president noted that out loud. He did not go on a personal attack to Doocy like the former guy did, Biden did not call Doocy the enemy of the people like the former guy kept calling the press. Seems to me a lot of hype over nothing. But then again the right has very little to attack Biden over so they cling to anything they can.
The US southern border is secure despite the misleading right wing media trying to hype that the border is wide open and there are hoard of marauding brown people storming over it. There is no storming force coming over the southern border but there is an armed military threatening to cross the border between Ukraine and Russia. The Russian army is poised to invade and wipe out the new democracy in that country. The US was once known for defending democracy, are we still? I do not understand why so many on the right want to defend Putin and Russia when the St. Ronnie the Reagan called evil and Republicans had the slogan “Better dead than red”. Besides the cartoon is misleading because Biden has ruled out combat troops fighting in Ukraine.
This is cute, but sanctions beat tanks over the medium and long term. IF they can be deployed in sufficient number and on time. Keep in mind New York City has a larger economy than all of Russia.
The diplomats have warned Putin that the added pending sanctions will be heavier and the oligarchs including Putin will feel it. Putin either believes it’s a U.S./NATO bluff or he wants an escalation so the tail can wag the dog and distract the common Russian.
Some believe that P’s strategy will backfire if the Ukrainian resistance can send enough body bags back. The Ukrainians have already lost territory and thousands of lives so they may decide to go “all medieval (Afghanistan) on their ass”.
We will not send in troops but surreptitiously probably “advisors”. The profiting war machine will love the commitment to increased armaments.
The propaganda Putin / Russia is pushing. That they have overwhelming force and the will to use it. Truth is their economy is not able to handle a war over 6 weeks. They need to roll in and have it over quickly so they can take money out of Ukraine. It will be much worse if Biden is able to force really tough sanctions on the Russian oligarchs themselves.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson argued against government efforts to make child care cheaper for parents during a visit on Tuesday to Kwik Trip’s headquarters in La Crosse.
“People decide to have families and become parents. That’s something they need to consider when they make that choice,” Johnson told local Wisconsin TV station WKBT. “I’ve never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”
Speaking to WKBT, Johnson said that he did not support moves by the government to help families find child care options. Instead, Johnson told the news station that he would support slashing unemployment benefits to get more people back to work and alleviate the ongoing labor shortage.
He told WKBT that he would back more efforts to help people get jobs that would allow them to support their own families.
Johnson has historically not been a supporter of childcare-related legislation.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told a local news channel this week that he “never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”Samuel Corum/Getty Images
In May 2021, Johnson remarked on WKOW-TV that he supported slashing Wisconsin’s $300 per week federal unemployment subsidy. During the interview, Johnson pushed back on a suggestion from WKOW-TV host A. J. Bayatpour that many women cannot re-enter the workforce because their wages do not cover the cost of childcare.
“Unemployment benefits are not meant to provide replacement wages. That was provided during COVID when it was nobody’s fault that they were losing their job or they were being encouraged to stay home so they wouldn’t spread the disease,” Johnson said.
“Wages are set in the marketplace. Businesses pay what wages they can afford based on the competitive situation, whether it’s in a restaurant, whether it’s in manufacturing, where they’re competing against foreign manufacturers versus domestic suppliers,” Johnson added. “I just have greater faith in the marketplace setting appropriate wage rates.”
Johnson also admitted he was “not a real fan” of the child tax credit which offers parents up to $3,600 per child.
“In general, I don’t like to use the tax code for either economic or social engineering. I think we do a terrible job. I prefer a tax code that was simple, that was rational, that treated all income equally,” Johnson said in response to a question about the child tax credit.
Build Back Better is now stalled while Democratic lawmakers try to negotiate with Manchin, one of the lone holdouts against the plan, whose support is essential for them to get the bill over the finish line in the 50-50 Senate.
Remember in the Republican universe the people decide to have children doesn’t include abortion, sexual education, masturbation to reduce need to marry for sex, female control over their own sexual / reproductive parts because she is subservient to her husband or other adult male in charge of her.
On the wage front remember that Johnson is a millionaire who is / was the CEO of the plastics company that was started by his wife’s brother with money from their father. Think of that. They were wealthy enough to start a company because dad gave them the money. But this wealthy man wants to cut all assistance and government help to force people to do shit jobs at a shit wage so he and his friends make more profit. To hell with the people’s needs, they can suffer and starve to be made to work so wealthy people make more money, more profit.
Johnson does not want the government providing assistance for child care, yet had no qualms about voting for tax cuts for himself and his fellow multimillionaires. 🙃https://t.co/y8VTdRWtEl
Elected leaders should be advocating to set our children up for success, not against it. This is shameful behavior from Senator Ron Johnson.https://t.co/WKQIa92Ivc
Not only does Ron Johnson want to cut unemployment benefits, but he wants to make it harder for working people to get child care so they CAN work. Your RT and small donation will help us defeat him. https://t.co/Olk5ISfdzP
Sen. Ron Johnson asked about reducing child care costs: "Well, people decide to have families and become parents. That's something they need to consider when they make that choice. I've never really felt it was society's responsibility to take care of other people's children." pic.twitter.com/HyJr4iTwUG
None of these abortion laws are written by people who become pregnant. They have no medical background. They have no family planning background.
They have have one goal: force women into submission.
Employers prefer to have everyone on a gig economy. They want workers to work any hours they provide gratefully so the workers have to have multiple jobs and no social lives. Scottie
Geee I don’t know, have we..?
“They [the press] are truly THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” -Donald J. Trump https://t.co/F612DfZOp3
At a time where even Trump is trying to get people vaccinated, they keep letting these idiots on television to cast doubt on the vaccines.
There’s literally no question about vaccine efficacy anymore. They do exactly what they’re supposed to do: keep you alive and out of the ER. https://t.co/0mUzLQeZir
How interesting that this comes to light after I receive a survey concerning workplace gender relations. As someone who has short hair and never wears makeup, I thankfully have never had this issue, but I hope she's able to sue the pants off them https://t.co/iLNMqiKF6L
Regarding that Florida teen who petitioned for an abortion:
The legal question is if the girl has sufficient maturity to make this decision. If anything, she seems significantly *more* mature and responsible than many her age. https://t.co/gYUeBJiLUQpic.twitter.com/TBy2RGonGy
It's also obvious that the no doubt pro-life judges who turned her down (and were later overturned) were reaching desperately, and dishonestly, for excuses to turn down her petition. pic.twitter.com/urDPPQb35Q
I love the reasoning that a teenager "lacks the maturity to have an abortion" but is apparently mature enough to raise a human child. https://t.co/SNV3v1fsbS
So far Biden is doing as well as possible on Ukraine. The problem is right wing media hosts like Tucker Carlson are openly pushing for the US to let Putin do what ever he wants. Just let Russia take Ukraine, who cares, why should we, just let it be they say. Really it stuns me the better dead than red party is now openly Russian supporters. I guess tRump was a great asset for Putin. Well here is why we need to defend Ukraine, it is a democracy, a real one, trying to hold off an authoritarian strongman near dictatorship government run by Putin for his own enrichment. Maybe that is why the Republicans love him. Scottie
Afghanistan was not Biden’s fault, the military did the best they could with what tRump negotiated. Inflation is world wide from a pandemic and the world being shut down. Immigration is fine, we need more not less so no problem. Covid is not Biden’s fault, tRump was president when it hit, Biden got vaccines out to the people, he got the economy going in record time. The US is the only nation to have bounced back so far with a positive growth GDP. The only ones you can lay at Biden’s feet is Voting rights and Build Back Better. Scottie
Are there actually any cities doing this, or is it just another Republican terror meme because there is space that needs to be filled?
What white right wingers miss, and I think it might be so ingrained that they simply CANNOT see it, is that in some places the cops are more dangerous to regular (black) people than any other gang, Thus making “defund the police” a perfectly apt catch-phrase… IN THOSE PLACES.
The other thing they miss, and I’m a little less sure it’s not on purpose, is that we are asking cops, who are trained at confrontation, to do all kinds of things that they’re not trained for, and in fact may be trained against. In cities where there are social/medical teams who are available to the community WHO ARE NOT COPS, the outcomes are BOTH less expensive AND better than they are in “copy primary” locations.
Police budgets have actually been going up nationwide, even as crime rates have also been going up, and there are numerous bi-partisan bills further increasing police budgets and tactics. So WTF is Lisa doing? Oh yeah. Injecting partisan politics into it, and blaming “progressives”, as usual.
Ukraine is a democracy and there was a time when the US proudly stood up to help and protect democracies. That was back when Republicans also felt it was better to be dead than Russian red. I do not want US military to die uselessly in battle that is not for the safety of the US, but also I do not want the US to ignore a Russian take over of other sovereign countries. If the US wants to be a world leader we need to act like we are one and do the hard work. However for those demanding that the US make the first moves that would be the US attacking a country that has not done an illegal action yet. Can not punish a country that has not done the action they need to be punished for. If Putin orders military action on Ukraine then it will be time for the US to respond.
This is what passes for an editorial cartoon from right wing media cartoonist Mike Shelton. Need I even comment?
A misleading right wing attempt to convince people that the Democrats want to let votes be counted long after the election if it would help them. Not true at all. Several states say if the ballot is marked posted by the Postal Service on or before the election day then that ballot will count if received at the elections office after election day. That is common practice, especially with military ballots from over seas. Scottie
Republicans don’t fear injections; they fear the loss of power to ANY majority, as they will never have more than minorities ever again. For the last few decades Republican Party has been basing its appeal and power on The Four Horsemen: Ignorance, Fear, Anger, and Hatred. Just look. The one thing you won’t find is a positive vision for America.
Lots of jobs, lots of growth, companies making record profits. All the stuff Qubs brag about when they’re in office.
GOP congressmen standing in front of their voters and taking credit for the infrastructure plan that’s now starting even if they voted against it. So typical. Let the Dems do the work and wait and see how the public reacts. If the reaction is positive then stand up and take credit. Suddenly it’s we instead of them.
Scottie's Playtime 
Republicans in Congress and their enablers at Fox News actually want to see Putin invade Ukraine for a myriad of reasons. Tucker Carlson has openly stated that he favors Putin over Biden. The invasion will put Biden in a tough spot, which Republicans hope will make Biden look weak. This is all part of their scheme to retake the majority in Congress and bring trump back to power.
Republicans are all giddy about the conflict. The stock market has taken huge hits because of these tensions and likely invasion. Again, Republicans hope that a sinking stock market will make Biden look weak. It is driving them nuts that in just the first year of Biden as President, we now have the lowest employment rate in decades, the fastest growing GDP in decades, and all-time highs in the stock market. But oh no, Republicans will not stand for this. They will not stand for America to succeed, and certainly not with Joe Biden as President.
And I want to know if the Republican members of Congress who serve on the Intelligence Committee have made stock trades after they received their briefings. Maybe that’s why they all opposed Elizabeth Warren’s proposed bill to prevent insider traitors in Congress from engaging in insider trading.