If the @HouseGOP took away earmarks from the NAACP or the Urban League because they serve the Black community, they'd rightfully be called racist bigots.
Stripping funding from LGBTQI+ groups, however, is just another day in Congress for these extremists.
On the chopping block is funding for housing for queer seniors and homeless youth. Not even $2M in total but that's still too much for the avowed Christians. https://t.co/TZqHqKyFhY
WTF. These people are not coming to hurt anyone, they are not coming to destroy the US, but to share the dream of a wonderful country. Abbott is proving to be the destroyer and despicable person, as is anyone who would follow these orders. Hey think how we look at the guards at concentration camps, Texas will be thought of in the same way. Scottie
This week Rep. Angie King and I introduced a bill that would ban adult performances that are obscene from public parks, parades and other places children are present. When this bill becomes law it will be unlawful, and potentially a felony. Protect OHIO.🇺🇸 https://t.co/NPHbV6UAVg
— JoshWilliamsForOhio (@Williams4ohio) July 18, 2023
— Northwest Ohio Trans Advocacy (@OHTransAdvocacy) June 25, 2023
Drag performances in Ohio could be banned from public parks, parades and other places children might be if a bill introduced by House Republicans becomes law. House Bill 245 expands the definition of adult cabaret performers from strippers and topless dancers to include “entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s gender assigned at birth.”
Diversity or diversity and inclusion programs are just words for let others than white males have a seat at the table. Seriously, this is what the republicans and MG are fighting. Why would they want to block others than whites / at one time only white males, from having a chance to be included? Racism and misogyny.
NEW: Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch is demanding access to information about Mississippi residents who obtain abortions or gender-affirming care in other states.
She and 18 other GOP AGs say investigators need it to enforce their states' laws.https://t.co/r31ix6rnjr
The decision comes less than a week after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed new abortion restrictions during a special session.https://t.co/gcSyMJuyyL
Dear Media: There's no such thing as a fetal heartbeat at six weeks. Fetuses don't have hearts at 6 weeks.
Stop calling it a "fetal heartbeat bill." Stop spreading their narrative. Stop calling pols who who fight against the *actual* teachings of Jesus "Christian."
Prison rights advocates and lawmakers urge Gov. Abbott to call a special session to install air conditioning in Texas prisons amid a deadly heatwave. https://t.co/6XEZDBNJ0D
Texans are being cooked alive in our prisons! They were NOT sentenced to death & should not be subject to #Cruel&UnusualPunishment. Staff and incarcerated individuals are dying and suffering daily. It is not about comfort, but life or death. #TXPrisons#TXLegepic.twitter.com/bfLtOCg6G2
— Representative Ana-Maria Ramos (@Ramos4Texas) July 18, 2023
This time tomorrow, I will be stepping into a mock prison cell on the Capitol grounds to experience just a fraction of what the people living and working in Texas jails and prisons go through daily. Join me on the grounds or watch online at 12 noon! #txlege#85tostayalivepic.twitter.com/m1Kh7mvlXA
"In Texas, the Republican-controlled House this year proposed spending $545 million to install air-conditioning in the majority of state prisons that do not have it…The bill died in the [Republican-controlled State Senate]." https://t.co/pyjdZLKSwH
A recent wave of book bans and curbs to educational free speech, led in part by Florida governor Ron DeSantis is hurting our children and allowing a vocal radical minority of parents and lawmakers control the narrative.
Florida’s new slavery curriculum sparks outrage as the state’s war on accurate Black history ramps up with a plan to teach that there were benefits to slavery for enslaved descendants of Africans in America. Florida St. Sen. Shevrin Jones joins Joy Reid to discuss saying, “I want to make it clear to everyone… there were no benefits to being a slave… All of this is disingenuous.”
The latest educational repercussions of Ron DeSantis’s campaign against “woke” is a set of new guidelines that will have Florida middle school students learning false, racist tropes about the benefits of slavery to slaves and casting racist violence against Black people in a more “both sides” context. Jelani Cobb, dean of the Columbia Journalism School discusses with Alex Wagner.
The MR crew looks at horrifying reports coming out of Texas that show Republican governor Greg Abbott ordered border agents to begin drowning and dehydrating migrant children.
A woman who is undergoing hormone treatments calls in to dispel the myths that transgendered individuals are dominating women’s sports and then gives a powerful story of her own transition.
Jeff Sharlet, professor of English at Dartmouth College, joins to discuss his recent book The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War.
Ben Shapiro reacts to a piece in the New York Times about a recent fashion trend that is seeing men wearing crop tops. Shapiro says: “Just as a fashion matter, no one wants to see the midriff of another man. Just as a general-i’m not going to speak for gay men. women, i don’t think, are interested. Neither are straight men.”
Charlie Kirk responds to reporting from MSNBC that far Right-Wing extremists have used at-home workout trends to expand their reach into mixed martial arts spaces. Kirk says that reporting like this shows that liberals only want men to be weak, depressed, and have low testosterone.
CNN’S Kaitlan Collins asks Senator Tommy Tuberville about the comments he made regarding White Nationalists serving in the military. Collins asks if he’d want to clarify that he wouldn’t want racists to be serving in the military. Tuberville reiterates his belief that he doesn’t see White Nationalists as necessarily racist, and that it’s people’s opinions that they’re racist. He says, however, that if there are White Nationalists who are racist, he wouldn’t support them serving in the military.
Later Tuberville was asked by reporters on Capitol Hill About why he continued to double down on his stance on White Nationalists. Tuberville attempted to amend his response: “I’m totally against racism. If the Democrats want to say that White Nationalists are racists, i’m totally against that, too.”
For those that kept telling me these drag bans were not outlawing cross dressing or trans people you need to read this. They changed the law to include people dressing as a gender different from that assigned at birth. No more wearing pants women! The bill is totally driven by fundamentalist ideas of morality in that they include wearing clothing stereotypical for a gender the wearer is not assigned to in the same category as strippers and topless dancers. In their minds, a man in a dress or a woman in a tux is the same as showing boobies / tits to children. Yes a man in a skirt is the same as a man being nude? This is how regressive these people are and where they want to force the country to be. To these people the Handmaid’s Tale is a user manual. Hugs
House Bill 245 expands the definition of adult cabaret performers from strippers and topless dancers to include “entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s gender assigned at birth.”
Ohio Republicans introduce bill to ban public drag performances
Drag performances in Ohio could be banned from public parks, parades and other places children might be if a bill introduced by House Republicans becomes law.
House Bill 245 expands the definition of adult cabaret performers from strippers and topless dancers to include “entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s gender assigned at birth.”
A change that would restrict certain drag events to bars and other spaces where minors are prohibited.
“It doesn’t mean all performances,” Reps. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania, said. “A man dressed as a woman reading a book is constitutionally protected speech…But I’ve seen videos of performances here in the state of Ohio and across the nation that are improper to be done in the presence of minors.”
Drag queens and kings would face charges if local prosecutors decided their performances were obscene or harmful to juveniles as defined by Ohio law.
Williams said that delineation strikes a balance between free speech and protecting Ohio’s children, but opponents say current obscenity laws already cover his concerns and singling out LGBTQ performers in this way perpetuates stereotypes about gay people being inherently dangerous to children.
“I live in a mostly red area and people’s beliefs drive their decisions and hate,” said Kody Boggs, who performs as Redd Velvet. “It’s going to be a problem.”
Performing in drag was popular during the Shakespearean era (late 1500s) when women weren’t allowed to act on stage. A handful of drag queens like Dame Edna Everage achieved notoriety in the centuries since, but it wasn’t until the Emmy Award-winning show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” launched in 2009 that drag culture really entered the modern mainstream .
Drag queen story hour was created in 2015 , and the backlash against the concept soon followed.
Conservative writers and pundits called these events inappropriate at best, claiming their not-so-hidden purpose is to sexually groom children. And while Williams was clear that not all drag is inherently obscene, he believes there are performers who behave inappropriately.
That’s why he and 42 other Republicans think HB 245 is necessary. Williams said it will “put the power and the discretion in the hands of law enforcement officials” to decide whether individual shows or events were ” harmful to juveniles .”
A charge that can have serious consequences.
Ohio Revised Code defines that harm as “any material or performance describing or representing nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse” where the following conditions are met:
Appeals to the “prurient” or excessive interest of juveniles in sex.
Offensive to “prevailing standards in the adult community” about what is suitable for children.
Lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value for children.
Obscene performances are defined as those where the show’s “dominant” or primary purpose is to arouse lust by depicting sexual activity, sexual excitement or nudity. And if a drag queen or king was convicted under HB 245, they would be facing a first-degree misdemeanor at minimum.
If a minor saw their show, they could face a first-degree misdemeanor. If the performance was deemed obscene, the charge would be a fifth-degree felony.
If a minor younger than 13 was at an obscene performance, that charge would climb to a fourth-degree felony, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 18 months.
“You’re talking about the potential for actual jail time,” said Gary Daniels, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. “Does this apply to someone walking down the street or waiting for a bus? I don’t read it that way. But it does beg the question of let’s say you are walking as part of a gay pride parade. It can be said you are performing there.”
Daniels worried that enforcement of HB 245 might depend on where the event took place.
For example, Small Town Pride hosts an annual event in Celina, a small town in western Ohio. Its drag show has come under fire from locals who say some of the dance moves and costumes are inappropriate for children.
Boggs, who organizes the drag queens for that Celina show, told the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau the performer in question is a gymnast with a background in dance and opponents were “twisting it to make it seem worse than what it was.”
“This is the problem with bills that impact freedom of speech,” Daniels said. “When they are broad when they are open interpretation. you have people afraid to speak.”
What’s happening in other states?
Ohio isn’t the first state to consider a ban on public drag performances. Lawmakers in at least eight other states have introduced similar legislation.
Tennessee Republicans banned public drag performances in March, but a U.S. district judge overturned it in June saying the law violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
Williams, who is an attorney himself, said he crafted his legislation with that in mind, “This is the most narrowly tailored bill on this subject matter in the nation.”
LGBTQ groups don’t see it that way, saying HB 245 is “censorship over safety.”
“There have been multiple documented incidents of self-identified Nazis showing up to performances in Ohio in the past nine months. The Department of Homeland Security has sent out multiple alerts indicating the growing threat of hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people,” Equality Ohio policy director Maria Bruno said in a statement. “Yet instead of addressing guns, targeted intimidation, or any of the escalations of violence that we are seeing in our communities, Ohio’s statehouse politicians instead have chosen to broadly criminalize performing arts.”
Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
Migrants cool themselves in the waters of the Rio Grande after crossing to the U.S. from Mexico near a site where the state is installing large buoys to be used as a border barrier along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, July 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)Eric Gay/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Officers working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat, according to an email from a Department of Public Safety trooper who described the actions as “inhumane.”
The July 3 account, reviewed by Hearst Newspapers, discloses several previously unreported incidents the trooper witnessed in Eagle Pass, where the state of Texas has strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande.
According to the email, a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.
The email, which the trooper sent to a superior, suggests that Texas has set “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility. And it says the wire has increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.
The trooper called for a series of rigorous policy changes to improve safety for migrants, including removing the barrels and revoking the directive on withholding water.
“Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well,” the trooper wrote, later adding: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”
Migrants walk along concertina wire blocking their entrance to the U.S. in Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, July 10, 2023.Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News
Department of Public Safety spokesman Travis Considine did not comment on all the contents of the trooper’s email, but said there is no policy against giving water to migrants.
Considine also provided an email from DPS Director Steven McCraw on Saturday calling for an audit to determine if more can be done to minimize the risk to migrants. McCraw wrote troopers should warn migrants not to cross the wire, redirect them to ports of entry and to closely watch for anyone who needs medical attention.
In another email, McCraw acknowledged that there has been an increase in injuries from the wire, including seven incidents reported by Border Patrol where migrants needed “elevated medical attention” from July 4 to July 13. Those were in addition to the incidents detailed by the trooper.
“The purpose of the wire is to deter smuggling between the ports of entry and not to injure migrants,” McCraw wrote. “The smugglers care not if the migrants are injured, but we do, and we must take all necessary measures to mitigate the risk to them including injuries from trying to cross over the concertina wire, drownings and dehydration.”
Texas Department of Public Safety personnel are seen in a closed off area of a public park by the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, July 10, 2023.Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News
The incidents detailed in the email come as Abbott has stepped up efforts in recent weeks to physically bar migrants from entering the country through his Operation Lone Star initiative, escalating tensions between state and federal officials and drawing increased scrutiny from humanitarian groups who say the state is endangering asylum seekers. The most aggressive initiatives have been targeted at Eagle Pass.
Federal Border Patrol officials have issued internal warnings that the razor wire is preventing their agents from reaching at-risk migrants and increasing the risk of drownings in the Rio Grande, Hearst Newspapers reported last week.
The DPS trooper expressed similar concerns, writing that the placement of the wire along the river “forces people to cross in other areas that are deeper and not as safe for people carrying kids and bags.”
The trooper’s email sheds new light on a series of previously reported drownings in the river during a one-week stretch earlier this month, including a mother and at least one of her two children, who federal Border Patrol agents spotted struggling to cross the Rio Grande on July 1.
According to the email, a DPS boat found the mother and one of the children, who went under the water for a minute. They were pulled from the river and given medical care before being transferred to EMS, but were later declared deceased at the hospital. The second child was never found, the email said.
The governor has said he is taking necessary steps to secure the border and accused federal officials of refusing to do so.
“Texas is deploying every tool and strategy to deter and repel illegal crossings between ports of entry as President Biden’s dangerous open border policies entice migrants from over 150 countries to risk their lives entering the country illegally,” said Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary. “President Biden has unleashed a chaos on the border that’s unsustainable, and we have a constitutional duty to respond to this unprecedented crisis.”
Migrants cross the Rio Grande as state troopers guard workers installing buoys on the Rio Grande south of Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, July 10, 2023.Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News
The DPS trooper’s email details four incidents in just one day in which migrants were caught in the wire or injured trying to get around it.
On June 30, troopers found a group of people along the wire, including a 4-year-old girl who tried to cross the wire and was pressed back by Texas Guard soldiers “due to the orders given to them,” the email says. The DPS trooper wrote that the temperature was “well over 100 degrees” and the girl passed out from exhaustion.
“We provided treatment to the unresponsive patient and transferred care to EMS,” the trooper wrote. A spokesperson for the Texas National Guard did not respond to a request for comment.
In another instance, troopers found a 19-year-old woman “in obvious pain” stuck in the wire. She was cut free and given a medical assessment, which determined she was pregnant and having a miscarriage. She was then transferred to EMS.
The trooper also treated a man with a “significant laceration” in his left leg, who said he had cut it while trying to free his child who was “stuck on a trap in the water,” describing a barrel with razor wire “all over it.” And the trooper treated a 15-year-old boy who broke his right leg walking in the river because the razor wire was “laid out in a manner that it forced him into the river where it is unsafe to travel.”
In another instance, on June 25, troopers came across a group of 120 people camped out along a fence set up along the river. The group included several small children and babies who were nursing, the trooper wrote. The entire group was exhausted, hungry and tired, the trooper wrote. The shift officer in command ordered the troopers to “push the people back into the water to go to Mexico,” the email says.
The trooper wrote that the troopers decided it was not the right thing to do “with the very real potential of exhausted people drowning.” They called command again and expressed their concerns and were given the order to “tell them to go to Mexico and get into our vehicle and leave,” the trooper wrote. After they left, other troopers worked with Border Patrol to provide care to the migrants, the email said.
Migrants trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico approach the site where workers are assembling large buoys to be used as a border barrier along the banks of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, Tuesday, July 11, 2023.Eric Gay/AP
The trooper did not respond to a request for comment Monday. His email was shared by a confidential source with knowledge of border operations. It was unclear whether the trooper received a response from the sergeant he’d messaged.
Considine acknowledged that DPS was aware of the email and provided the additional agency emails in response. Those emails detail seven other incidents reported by federal border agents in which migrants were injured on the wires, including a child who was taken to the hospital on Thursday with cuts on his left arm, a mother and child who were taken to the hospital on Wednesday with “minor lacerations” on their “lower extremities,” and another migrant taken to San Antonio on July 4 to receive treatment for “several lacerations” that required staples.
Victor Escalon, a DPS director who oversees South Texas, wrote in an email Friday to other agency officials that troopers “may need to open the wire to aid individuals in medical distress, maintain the peace, and/or to make an arrest for criminal trespass, criminal mischief, acts of violence, or other State crimes.
“Our DPS medical unit is assigned to this operation to address medical concerns for everyone involved,” Escalon wrote. “As we enforce State law, we may need to aid those in medical distress and provide water as necessary.”
Benjamin Wermund is the Washington correspondent for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. He covers the Texas delegation and the many ways the state and its leaders shape national politics and policy. He’s a Texas native and a diehard Spurs fan.VIEW COMMENTS
U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell on Wednesday denied a motion asking that his injunction blocking the law apply only to the plaintiff in the case, the Hamburger Mary’s restaurant in downtown Orlando.
“This injunction protects Plaintiff’s interests, but because the statute is facially unconstitutional, the injunction necessarily must extend to protect all Floridians,” Presnell wrote in his order.
At issue is a new Florida law that contains penalties for any venue allowing children into a sexually explicit “adult live performance.” The law includes potential first-degree misdemeanor charges for violators.
Hamburger Mary’s filed a lawsuit in May against Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state, and Melanie Griffin, secretary of Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation. DeSantis, who signed the measure into law, and the state have since been dropped as defendants, with Griffin remaining.
The downtown Orlando restaurant, which opened in 2008, has held drag performances that include bingo, trivia and comedy.
Presnell in June issued an order preventing Griffin’s agency from enforcing the law pending the outcome of a trial. He also denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
In that ruling, Presnell, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, questioned what the line in the law about “prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts” would mean for cancer survivors.
“It is this vague language — dangerously susceptible to standardless, overbroad enforcement which could sweep up substantial protected speech — which distinguishes [the new Florida law] and renders Plaintiff’s claim likely to succeed on the merits,” Presnell wrote.
State attorneys representing Griffin then requested a stay to Presnell’s order for parties other than Hamburger Mary’s. The state also has filed an appeal to Presnell’s ruling.
“The Court’s injunction also sweeps beyond Plaintiff to nonparties who may wish to expose children to live obscene performances in violation of the statute,” lawyers for the state agency argued in requesting the stay. “The portion of the injunction that applies to nonparties threatens Florida, and the children Florida enacted the law to protect, with irreparable harm, and is beyond the Court’s remedial authority.”
But Presnell on Wednesday denied that request, writing: “By her motion, Defendant seeks to neuter the Court’s injunction, restricting her enforcement only as to Plaintiff and leaving every other Floridian exposed to the chilling effect of this facially unconstitutional statute.”
Scottie's Playtime 