And this scammer con artist who has been accused of falsifying the results of a “vaccine injury risk” study along with being debunked by the large medical organizations, is taking the political way forward rather than protect the children by telling parents the best thing they can do is get their child vaccinated. If you are anti-vaccine think about this, the only children at risk are the unvaccinated! What does that tell you! Hugs. Scottie
While measles cases are popping up across the country, nowhere has been hit as hard as Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston, just west of Fort Lauderdale. There, a single case reported Thursday spiraled into a half-dozen infected students by Tuesday evening. John J. Sullivan, a spokesperson for Broward County Public Schools, said the school underwent a deep cleaning and was safe for vaccinated students to continue going to class this week.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo wrote a letter Tuesday that urged the parents of unvaccinated students to keep them home until the school is confirmed to be rid of measles entirely. He said the infectious period would likely be over by March 7, and that the district would provide materials to keep the students learning while they’re physically away from school.
Read the full article. According to school officials, around 11% of the students have not gotten the traditional childhood vaccinations. Ladapo, as most of you surely know, is infamously anti-vax and has been accused of falsifying the results of a “vaccine injury risk” study.
FL Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo issues deeply irresponsible guidance to community hit with measles outbreak: notes "high likelihood of infection" for unvaxxed kids but leaves it to parents to decide what to do. Reminder: ~1 in 5 who get measles will be hospitalized. pic.twitter.com/QRzKTRgLFu
FL surgeon gen says unvaccinated kids can continue to go to school.
This is *unprecedented* Unvaccinated kids need to stay home for 21 days during an outbreak. Why? A very real chance of infection, hospitalization, death or serious damage to the immune system.
Florida demon sperm "Surgeon" general who helped turn state into a petri dish of pestilence & ignorance defers to parents on if kids should return to school as measles outbreak hits a 6th unvaxxed child at school where 11% are unvaxxed. Read more at: https://t.co/7uQQlhZyUG
Measles is mainly airborne – a “deep cleaning” is theater, not protection. A sane state would forbid unvaxxed kids at school, but of course a sane state would have no unvaxxed kids except for the very rare ones who can’t tolerate or respond to vaccinations.
Not only is Ladapo’s letter to parents full of very bad advice (like deferring to parents to decide whether or not to expose their unvaccinated children to a virus that can be deadly, or allow those children who may already be infected to spread it to others at school), it’s appalling that nowhere in his letter does he urge the parents of unvaccinated students to get them vaccinated. How does this guy still have a medical license?
“until the school is confirmed to be rid of measles entirely”
I’m curious, since he doesn’t trust scientists to say what will help fight measles, who does he trust to say the school is confirmed to be rid of it? An exorcist?
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Sunday, February 18, 2024 at 11:46:51p EST
The patriarch of a right-wing Canadian family of 11 had had just about enough of gay people in his country. “We didn’t feel safe for our children there in the future anymore,” father Arend Feenstra told Russian media. “There’s a lot of left-wing ideology, LGBTQ, trans, just a lot of things that we don’t agree with that they teach there now, and we wanted to get away from that for our children.”
Yeah, if there’s one place that’s just not safe for kids, it’s Canada. Russia would be soooo much safer.
So Arend (and wife Anneesa) sold everything they had to move to sunny Russia and raise eight of their nine kids with “orthodox” values. They also gladly took donations on their social media platform from fellow right-wingers, all so they could live in Vladimir Putin’s wonderland. Russian officials assured them that they would work with them to get them established, and even help them get a farm. They did all of this just three weeks ago; long story short, they lived happily ever after.
Except they didn’t.
First, according to the family, the Russian bank where they moved the proceeds from selling their farm and belongings? It immediately froze their assets. The amount of money seemed suspicious, Arend states in a Feb. 9 video. I guess it would, since so many Russians outside of Putin’s circle are dirt poor. As a result, the family didn’t have money to live on—apparently those nice Russian officials offering to help them had disappeared.
Since no one in the family speaks Russian, they’ve also had a bear of a time trying to argue for their money—because Russia doesn’t require any bank, or any business, to hire English translators. In the meantime, they discovered that Russia is a pretty damn miserable place to be right now.
TikTok user Ukrainian.Networking translated a Russian Federation Reported Media story in a snarky post.
The Russian reporter noted that Anneesa spoke her mind in a since-deleted video on the family’s “Countryside Acres” YouTube channel.
“I’m very disappointed in this country at this point. I’m ready to jump on a plane and get out of here. We’ve hit the first snag where you have to engage logic in this country and it’s very, very frustrating.”
Hoooo boy. They just arrived and already she’s insulted Russia. Now, I’m not saying Russia doesn’t have freedom of the press, but it’s really just freedom to praise Putin and the country he controls. Anything that resembles criticism in Russia is NOT taken as kindly as it is in our godless Western dystopias. I’m also not suggesting that Russian officials paid the family a visit to remind them of where they are, but I will point out that Arendquickly posted an apology video to the Countryside Acres channel, saying that his wife misspoke and they’d deleted the video.
In that video, he reiterated that no, Russia is really, really great (subtext: “Please don’t push me out of a window”) and he spoke of his hope to resolve the issue with the bank. Commenters weren’t so sure, or kind. They pointed out that the bank will likely never release their funds and it is more likely that he will be recognized as a foreign agent.
At this point, I’m not sure the Countryside Acres farming gig is going to work out. Patriarch Arend should have agreed to be used as a tool for Russian state media. I mean, if you are going to be a Russian Asset, might as well go all-in.
I’m willing to bet that living in a country that grants gay people basic civil rights might not be looking so bad now. I was wondering if the family is desperately trying to split, so I looked up how difficult it is to leave Russia. According to the BBC, you can leave “as long as you have money and have not been called up to the army.”
Even if only for his kids’ sakes, let’s hope Arend’s only lost his money.
Comment Award goes to Laughing Gravy: “I’ll bet back home they used to whine about immigrants who don’t know the language, who have no money, who expect the government to hand them a house and a job, and who complain when they don’t get everything they want.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Feenstra family has six children; they have nine. That version also said that Anneesa voiced discontent with Russia in an interview with a Russian reporter. Her statements were made in a since-deleted Countryside Acres YouTube video, which was cited by the Russian reporter.
If there are any smart kids they’ll realize their parents aren’t role model but rather cautionary tales. Whatever dad would do, I need to do the opposite.
I see Trump’s young supporters — 20 year olds — and think to myself, “What total and utter child-abuse those poor things must have suffered growing up — for them to harbor so much hate and bigotry in their young hearts.”
You’re witnessing it. Christians in this nation are hostage takers. Those kids will then become just like their parents or they risk their lives trying to become who they should be.
OH yes. It wasn’t just child abuse, but an upbringing of loneliness, an unloving family, material wealth valued over real values, and so much more. The root of Trumpism is sad state of childhood in America the past several decades.
Being gay or bi runs in families. The polygenic influence on basic traits like that is strong, so maybe most of the kids are gay or bi, maybe none are, depending on what genetic gifts they get from their parents.
But – given the dad’s paranoia about gay people, it’s likely he’s fighting his own sexuality. So, yeah, maybe 10 of them are bi.
That was my first thought. And it reminds me of nitwit Mel Gibson’s homophobic rants in the ’90s; considering his huge number of siblings, you know they ain’t all str8!
That, and the fear that if our society violates ‘god’s laws’ he will get really really angry and smite everyone, even the righteous who failed to stop it.
That’s what I was going to say. Fuck the parents, they made their straw bed, let them lie on it. But the kids are innocent victims of their patents’ bigotry and stupidity.
But there is bread in the stores! Also, what are the chances that out of 9 kids a couple of them will fall somewhere under our rainbow. 2S, they call it in Canada, which is how I have felt my entire life.
And that child would be disowned more likely then not. Way too many people out there who think bigots stop being them if someone in their family comes out. Not the case.
A study some years ago, finding that children of same-sex parents were as healthy and well-adjusted as children of mixed-gender couples, also found that they were indeed more empathetic, less tied to traditional gender roles, and more likely to come out if they were LGBTQ+ themselves.
To be fair, conservatives view those last three as negatives.
But seriously, the study I remember is that children of same-sex parents actually had *better* upbringings than children of same-sex parents. Did better in school, etc.
Quick, suppress this evidence and start posting videos about how wonderful things are there for anti-wokies! This is an emigrant pipeline we need to encourage.
It is a cult, the party of tRump, the maga thugs. This guy is a white supremacist Christian nationalist who wants to turn public schools into church right wing indoctrination camps, force everyone to live by his church doctrines, and teach racist stereotypes are real facts to children. Slavery was good, blacks are violent, bringing them to the US to learn Jesus was a good thing for them, type shit. The problem is the governor who got elected is the same and proclaimed the state a Christian state dedicated to Jesus, meaning anyone of a different faith or atheist don’t matter and can just leave or go to hell. He sees nothing wrong with the idea of the governor pushing his god / church doctrine on everyone. So this is who hired the trash above, and tried to give him two high level state jobs to push Christianity. Hugs. Scottie
“Guess who’s last? President Trump. This is a great example of the radical woke college professors and what they’re trying to teach our kids. They want to tell our kids that every conservative president was terrible and every left wing president was amazing. In Oklahoma, we’re going to make sure that our kids understand that presidential greatness is based on how the country performed while presidents were in office. And not based on what a leftist, woke college professor says makes a great president.” – Oklahoma education superintendent and avowed Christian nationalist Ryan Walters.
Walters recently hired Chaya Raichik of Libs Of TikTok infamy to help oversee Oklahoma’s public school libraries. He is widely expected to run for governor when Gov. Kevin Stitt is term-limited out of office.
OK Schools Chief Ryan Walters is fuming that 154 presidential historians rated Trump dead last of all presidents. He says he will make sure the children of OK know how wrong those historians are about Trump. pic.twitter.com/7nJRjpMidf
“In Oklahoma, we’re going to make sure that our kids understand that presidential greatness is based on how the country performed while presidents were in office.”
Because how well the country’s doing was a sign of God’s favor of our president? Dipshit believes there are no business cycles, no outside factors, so transition time or costs.
“In Oklahoma, we’re going to make sure that our kids understand that presidential greatness is based on how the country performed while presidents were in office.”
That’s funny. In his MAGAt circles, I thought that presidential greatness is based on how many pussies you grab ’cause you’re a star and they let ya.
“What the hell do a bunch of elitist libtard historians know? I only read one book…the Bible, and it tells me all I need to know. We’ll have much better historians in the future, after we finish burning down all the libraries.” 🙄
How many people died because he was too lazy to lift a finger to tackle a pandemic? Not like he even needed to do any work to that end since there is a whole bureaucracy of government to follow any directives given to them. Just say “do this” and it’ll be done, but even that is too much for him.
How many people died because he had already said “It’ll be gone by spring” and stuck his stupid-ass flag in it like a land claim? Wouldn’t want to admit he was wrong about something, thus you all have to die horribly.
How many people died because the areas first affected by the pandemic voted more for Hillary in 2016? Urban areas like New York, may as well have been independent countries given the absolute lack of aid provided by the federal government. Likewise when Puerto Rico was struck by a hurricane and they were more or less left to fend for themselves. How many died there waiting for relief that was never even sent?
This is why Trump is the worst. An ugly bastard child of malice and incompetence. Where past presidents could be defined as one or the other, he alone is both.
Conservative historians also ranked Trump in the bottom five so go ahead and teach OK kids another lie. You’re already teaching them that the Tulsa massacre had nothing to do with race.
BTW, Ryan Walters has the blood of that non binary 16 year old kid on his hands. The one that was killed a few weeks ago at the high school in the Tulsa suburb of Owasso. Apparently just for being Trans.
All that inflammatory anti Trans garbage that spews out of his mouth egged on all the hated of anyone different.
Texas is building a new military base for National Guard members deployed to the southern border in Eagle Pass, Texas — where state and federal authorities have been in a tense conflict over dealing with immigration — Gov. Greg Abbott said.
At a news conference on Friday, Abbott announced the construction of what he said would a new “base camp” that could house up to 2,300 soldiers.
“As opposed to being scattered around many different places across this region, they will be operating out of one place. It will amass a large army in a very strategic area. It will increase the speed and flexibility of the Texas National Guard to be able to respond to crossings,” Abbott said.
Officials expect that by mid-April they’ll have a 300-bed capacity and will add another 300 each month until completion, Texas Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer, Abbott’s top military adviser, said at the Friday press conference. The camp will include several features like large dining halls, individual rooms for soldiers and medical care facilities.
The move may also deepen the tension between the state and federal governments as Abbott continues to implement his own strategies to deter migrants from crossing in between ports of entry at the southern border.
Members of Texas National Guard sit inside the fence at Shelby Park on February 3, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas.
It has been the epicenter of state and federal government showdown as Abbott continues to restrict Border Patrol’s access to the area, preventing them from apprehending migrants crossing in one of the region’s major hotspots.
The Biden administration has sued the state of Texas over a law that would give new authority to local police to crack down on those suspected of entering the country illegally.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in the state-federal dispute and issued an order allowing federal authorities to cut down the razor wire installed by Texas in areas where it was otherwise difficult to help migrants in distress.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been critical of the Texas governor, calling Abbott’s unilateral actions on the border “unconscionable.”
Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, during a news conference at Shelby Park along the Rio Grande River i…Show more
Sergio Flores/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“It is unconscionable for a public official, to deliberately refuse to communicate, coordinate, collaborate with other public officials in the service of our nation’s interests, and to refuse to do so with the hope of creating disorder for others,” Mayorkas said in a recent interview with the Associated Press.
At the Friday press conference, Texas Maj. Gen. Suelzer said that in the coming weeks the Texas National Guard will be expanding operations and installing new barriers north and south of Eagle Pass, an indication that the state continues to build barriers despite the Supreme Court ruling last month that Border Patrol agents are allowed to remove or destroy razor wire fencing to apprehend migrants attempting to enter the United States. Suelzer did not specify if the expansion of those efforts means they will also restrict access to federal agents in those areas.
Without providing any evidence, Abbott claimed his efforts at Shelby Park and in other parts of the border are responsible for the number of crossings in the area dropping in recent weeks and increasing in Arizona and other parts of the border. The state’s operations at Shelby Park cover roughly 1% of the entire southern border. But the governor did acknowledge that the number of migrant encounters in the region might once again climb in the coming months.
“As we all know, come springtime, there’s going to be additional caravans that are making their way through the southern and central part of Mexico deciding where they are going to be going,” Abbott said. “We want to make sure that when they come to the crossroad about, ‘Are they going to go to Texas? Are they going to go elsewhere?’ They will know the wrong place to go is the state of Texas.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) floats building a wall between Texas and Oklahoma because of the "radical woke left agenda … crisscrossing the United States." pic.twitter.com/i9vbjiZ55B
First thought from the headline: The American Nazi Party is already testing the waters with interstate travel restrictions for women and LGBT+ people, going so far as to legislate the presumption of guilt on the part of those making travel arrangements… The Federalist Society Inquisition has so far been somewhere between ignoring it and nodding their approval. So it only makes sense they’d try and enforce a ban on interstate travel with physical barriers and goon squads.
However, per the text of the article: Putting all his private army thugs in one place right next to where he wants to start a fight with the federal government… I can only say fucking go for it! The US air force will no doubt program the coordinates into their missiles in order to knock it all off the moment shots are fired.
West Virginia GOP Passes Deranged Bill That Could Put Librarians in Jail
State Republicans are taking the war on books to the next level.
JOSHUA LOTT/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES
The Republican-controlled West Virginia House of Delegates has passed a bill that could see librarians facing jail time.
House Bill 4654 passed the chamber Friday by a vote of 85–12, along party lines. The bill would remove criminal exemptions for schools, public libraries, and museums that distribute or display “obscene matter” to a minor, even if the minor’s parent or guardian is present. Any employees of those institutions found guilty of giving minors obscene matter can face fines of up to $25,000, up to five years in prison, or both.
The incredibly short piece of legislation gives no indication of how the new rules would affect paintings or sculptures that feature nude figures, or books that include descriptions or definitions of sexual conduct. Obscenity laws are incredibly hard to enforce, because definitions of obscenity still largely come down to individual interpretation.
As a result, there will likely be more reports of obscenity, made by people who are either more conservative or just nervous about accidentally breaking the law. And since libraries and public schools often operate on very tight budgets, they are unlikely to have the budget to fight a surge in lawsuits.
“It is going to cost our counties and our librarians when these matters go to the court system,” House Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle told The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. “Because this is still vague, I’m scared.”
“This is a very dangerous bill.”
House Minority Whip Shawn Fluharty warned that the legislation could inspire many lawsuits over books that staff members don’t even realize are problematic. “The librarians on staff might not know if a book has obscene matter in it or may or may not have shown it to someone, but because it was in the facility and it was sitting on a shelf, it could still be prosecuted,” he said.
The bill has now been sent to the state Senate, which the GOP also controls (along with the governor’s office).
Republicans across the country have increasingly sought to ban books, claiming they are protecting minors from seeing inappropriately sexual content. But most of the books being pulled from shelves tend to discuss race, gender, and sexuality.
Seemingly innocuous texts have also gotten caught up in the fray. School districts in Florida have pulled the dictionary from library shelves for including definitions of sexual conduct and have drawn over children’s picture books.
There’s also the inclusion of museums in there, and “obscene matter” could encompass, say, the entire Italian Renaissance in paintings and statuary — never mind Mapplethorpe. Even the religious stuff has full nudal frontity, and that includes the madonna-and-child school.
Read the full article. My first report on the bill is here. The bill’s author, state Sen. Mark Pody, has appeared here many times for his attacks on same-sex marriage. In 2016, he sought to “nullify” the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling. In 2017, he sponsored a bill calling for Tennessee to defy Obergefell entirely, and literally fled protesters at his press conference. In 2019, he filed the “Tennessee Natural Marriage Bill” that would void same-sex marriages, something he says God told him to do. In 2020, he filed a fourth attempt to make the bible the official book of Tennessee. In 2021, he filed a bill that would allow fathers to block abortions by their partners.
If you are a notary, government official, or religious figure in the state of Tennessee, you should refuse to solemnize ANY marriages between heterosexual couples as a violation of your conscience until Bill Lee's ghastly and unconstitutional law is put where it belongs. pic.twitter.com/VxGTFeZxtC
🚨New: Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee has signed a bill allowing public officials to refuse to perform same-sex marriages. pic.twitter.com/R1QmPAlvyz
JOSHUA LOTT/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES
