Marjorie Taylor GreenePhoto: ScreenshotRep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) held an anti-trans rally at the Capitol this week. A whopping 12 or so people attended and no major media outlets covered it.
The rally was a veritable who’s who of contemporary transphobic trolls, including members of the book-banning “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty; members of the anti-LGBTQ conservative think tank Heritage Foundation; de-transitioned young adult right-wing media darling Chloe Cole; J.K. Rowling fanboy Chris Elston; conspiracy theorist James Lindsay; sexually harassing “comedian” Alex Stein; and of course, Greene herself.
The protestors held signs proclaiming, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers,” “Gender ideology does not belong in schools,” and signs that defined the words “mom” and “dad” as “a human parent who protects kids from gender ideology.”
Greene brought the transphobic sign that she hangs in front of her congressional office which says, “There are two genders: male and female. ‘Trust the science.’” In reality, biology has proven the existence of numerous animals that can change gender and that gender and sex are both more complicated than binaries.
The protestors spent their time taking pictures of each other and then re-tweeting one another’s posts about the protest.
In a tweet tagging many of the protestors, the Heritage Foundation wrote that the demonstrators were “calling out policies that push for minors to have access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-reassignment surgeries.”
This is a lie, of course. No policies are “pushing” minors to undergo gender-affirming treatment, and surgeries aren’t conducted on minors either. The policies the protestors oppose include acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ+ people in schools and ensuring that trans youth have access to life-saving care as well as an equal education.
Right-wing transphobes imagine that LGBTQ+ people and allies, drag queens, and medical professionals all use “gender ideology” to “indoctrinate” and “groom” impressionable young kids into states of “gender confusion” and “rapid onset gender dysphoria” in order to “mutilate” their bodies in profitable surgeries.
However, every major medical and psychological association recognizes that trans youth self-identify consistently, insistently, and persistently from young ages. They also have deemed access to gender-affirming care as necessary for ensuring the emotional and physical well-being of trans youth.
The rhetoric used by these protestors has helped encourage others to issue death threats against gender-affirming medical professionals and educators alike.
Category: MAGA / Republican
School board meeting descends into chaos during debate about rights for LGBTQ+ students
Why? My dogs that love gravy why would an adult want kids bullied and hurt? Damn why are republicans and the right so hateful? This is to respect and protect students making the classroom a place they can learn without fear. Their push to have a homogenous society where everyone is just the same as them and fit into the mold they insist everyone must be with no diversity or difference from them? They see no beauty in others if they are not clones of themselves. These people are so spiteful they would see kids harmed rather than allow them to be protected. There is a video at the linked site that my security / cookie settings won’t show. Hugs
Idaho State Senator Chris Trakel (R) Speaks out against a proposed policy protecting LGBTQ+ studentsPhoto: ScreenshotAn Idaho school board meeting devolved into chaos on Monday night while a Republican state senator was virulently speaking out against a proposed policy to protect LGBTQ+ students in the district.
The proposed Caldwell School Board policy seeks to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ students by, among other things, allowing them to use the locker rooms and bathrooms that align with their lived gender, requiring teachers and other staff to use their preferred names and pronouns, and allowing same-sex couples to attend dances and other activities.
The room was reportedly filled to capacity that night, with several others standing up to speak about the policy before state Sen. Chris Trakel (R) took the podium.
According to KTVB, most speakers were there to advocate against implementing the policy, but three students spoke out in favor of it.
Before Trakel got up to speak, the meeting was almost recessed and adjourned several times as people continued to get rowdy during the public comment period.
Trakel’s speech is immediately hostile. Video of the meeting shows him lambasting the board for allegedly violating Idaho state law based on other proposed curriculum policies and for violating the meeting attendees’ First Amendment rights by not allowing them to criticize school district employees.
“Now, to get on to the exciting part,” he said before attacking the proposed LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination policy and saying he was there under his official position as a state senator.
“You, under Idaho law, are required to maintain the morals and health of all the students… You are going to put all of their moral health and safety at risk, and like I told you before you will face litigation. You call that a threat, I’m telling you that is what will happen. It has already happened in several states and there’s already been rulings on it.”
“Before you waste taxpayer money, before you put a kid in harm’s way, you better throw this policy out and not even consider it.”
At that point, the board chair, Marisela Pesina, turned to a fellow board member and whispered something. Trakel snapped, “I’ve got the floor. Ms. Pesina will you please listen to me.”
“Sir,” Pesina responded tersely. And that is when the chaos began.
Trakel started yelling, “You claim you want people to follow the rules, but you break the rules left and right.”
As his rant continued, Pesina called a recess, at which point more meeting attendees began yelling along with Trakel. The board then voted to adjourn the meeting early, which only caused more anger in the audience.
People began screaming “cowards” and “unethical.” Many could be heard threatening to recall board members.
“Boo on all of you! This is absurd!” one person shouts.
“It was disappointing that some attending refused to follow the rules, which prevented others from sharing their thoughts with the Board,” Caldwell School District communications director Jessica Watts told Idaho EdNews. “Caldwell School District welcomes and encourages feedback on its work. What we do not welcome are those who refuse to follow the steps necessary for a civil, courteous, and respectful environment for that feedback to occur.”
There is a video at the link.
Policy 3281 Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation v4 01062023
The goal is to erase gay and trans people and return society to a straights only time these people enjoyed. It also is about regulating what other people can see or read.
GOP proposes anti-drag bill that classifies gender non-conforming performers as “adult oriented”
Clothing is scary for republicans it seems. Pants on women, dresses on men, I wonder they don’t freak out about ear rings on men or long hair. Stupid, pure stupidity, rather than work on real issues they want to worry about what other people wear. Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockArkansas state Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R) has filed a bill that would classify drag queens as employees of an “adult-oriented business,” similar to nude models, porn actors, and sex workers.
The bill would put restrictions on transgender and non-binary people singing and dancing in public. It would also require bars, restaurants, shops, and theaters to relocate if they allow such behavior from people of those identities or anything resembling drag.
The bill, S.B. 43, defines a drag performance as one in which a performer “exhibits a gender identity that is different from the performer’s gender assigned at birth using clothing, makeup, or other accessories that are traditionally worn by members of… the performer’s opposite sex,” and performs a song or dance “intended to appeal to the prurient interest” in front of an audience of two or more people.
By this broad definition, a transgender or non-binary person singing a song about lovemaking, reciting a sexual story, or gyrating while dancing would be legally considered the same as a sex worker or someone having sex on camera. In fact, the law would consider any person doing these things as someone who works for an “adult-oriented business” if they wore anything not associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
The law would also redefine an adult-oriented business as any place where such a performance occurs. This would include bars, restaurants, and any places that allow gender non-conforming individuals to sing, dance, or otherwise perform.
The state’s zoning laws would require such businesses to be relocated outside of areas where children can easily view them.
Legislators from at least seven states — Arizona, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas — have proposed anti-drag laws in recent months, according to Bloomberg Law. Republican legislators in these states claim that drag shows “sexualize children” even though such performances rarely ever feature sexual content.
The proposed legislation would almost certainly be challenged in court soon after being signed into law since it violates constitutional protections for free speech. But the real aims of such laws are to silence LGBTQ+ allies and generate outrage against the LGBTQ+ community.
Their proposed legislation has also emboldened neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, white supremacists, and other anti-LGBTQ+ activists to issue death threats against businesses and public libraries that hold all-ages drag events. At least 124 incidents targeting drag events were reported in 2022 far this year across 47 U.S. states, according to the LGBTQ+ media watchdog group GLAAD.
Seriously??? There really are men that think this way?
NE Bill Would Criminalize Taking Kids To Drag Shows
News Channel Nebraska reports:
A bill proposed in the unicameral would place limitations on who can watch drag shows in Nebraska. The bill would ban anyone under 19 from watching a drag show, and it would prohibit anyone under 21 from watching drag shows where alcohol is present.
LB371 was introduced by Republican State Sen. Dave Murman and is already stirring debate in the Legislature. Democratic State Sen. Megan Hunt has filed a motion to postpone the bill indefinitely, a decision that is still pending.
Anyone who knowingly brings someone underage to a show would be subject to a misdemeanor. The entities themselves would be subject to a $10,000 fine per violation. The bill would also make it illegal to use state funds to host a drag show.
Read the full article.
Looking for the silver lining, this means parents can’t take kids to church anymore, right?
liondon#traitor-ex-president7 hours ago
Guns kill thousands pf kids yearly and pedophile clergy prey on thousands more… so eff these mofo’s.
Strolling In, Softly Whistling7 hours ago
I bet they’re not banning child beauty pageants, though.
Uncle Mark Strolling In, Softly Whistling7 hours ago
charemor Uncle Mark3 hours ago
I wonder what these kids think about this as they grow older and mature.
Zorba Strolling In, Softly Whistling7 hours ago
I’ve always thought that these child beauty pageants were pedophiles’ dreams.
{Sigh}
Wife Of Iowa Republican 2020 US House Candidate Charged With Over 50 Felony Counts Of Voter Fraud
The Des Moines Register reports:
Federal prosecutors say a Woodbury County woman committed widespread voter fraud to support her husband in two 2020 electoral races. The U.S. Department of Justice announced charges Thursday against Kim Phuong Taylor, 49, of Sioux City.
According to a DOJ press release, Phuong Taylor faces more than 50 felony charges, including 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting.
Phuong Taylor is married to Jeremy Taylor, a former Iowa House member and current Woodbury County supervisor. Taylor ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination to replace Rep. Steve King in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District.
Read the full article. Taylor finished third in the 2020 GOP primary with 7.8% of the vote.
Moms for Liberty say they’d like to see Parental Rights in Education law expanded
And so the haters / republicans / right wing pushes it further. Really it is turning the clock back. It is regressive. It is denying every advance in society and in medical science since the 1950s. Ask your self why that age / time stamp is so attractive to republican males? Because everyone but them were oppressed and they had unfettered control. Hug
Advocates want the bill to forbid discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity to 8th grade.The Florida chapter of Moms for Liberty, the conservative nonprofit that advocates for parental rights in schools, would like state lawmakers to expand the state law that restricts classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation for children from kindergarten through the third grade.
The Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics, ignited a firestorm of criticism among Democrats and LGBTQ advocates and received national attention after it was introduced and later signed into law last year.
“We are advocating to increase that as far as ages and grades to have it be K-8,” said Angela Dubach, the Pinellas County chapter chair of the organization, speaking to the members of the Pinellas County legislative delegation as they met as a group on Wednesday morning at the Clearwater branch campus of St. Petersburg College.
A group of students, parents, and teachers filed a lawsuit last year to block the measure from being implemented, alleging it is unconstitutional in part because it “chills speech and expression that have any connection, however remote, to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Brandon Wolf, press secretary for Equality Florida, slammed the idea.
“At every step of the way, right-wing extremists have gaslit the community about its insatiable desire for censorship and erasure of LGBTQ people,” he told the Phoenix in an email.
“They insisted that the Don’t Say LGBTQ law would be narrow in scope and limited to K-3, despite knowing that the law’s impacts would be far broader and more sweeping. Already, we’ve seen books with LGBTQ characters banned, ‘Safe Space’ stickers peeled from classroom windows, the contributions of LGBTQ people in history censored, and LGBTQ History Month itself rejected in districts across Florida,” he continued.
“The desire of right-wing groups like Moms for Liberty to wield more government censorship over more students is shameful and at odds with the bogus rationalization for this harmful policy they were peddling throughout 2022. LGBTQ people are a part of society’s fabric. We are your neighbors, family members, and friends. And our state should be a place committed to protecting all students and respecting all families.”
Four asks
The expansion of that law was one of four proposals that Dubach called on lawmakers to consider going into the 2023 legislative session. Dubach said that she’d also like legislators to “take a look” at expanding the timeline on legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021 that bans private employers and government entities from implementing COVID-19 vaccine mandates and school districts from requiring face masks. The measure is slated to expire on June 1.
Another measure that the Florida chapter of Moms for Liberty supports relates to school board races.
“Myself and our organization supports partisan school board elections,” Dubach said. “That’s something that we are asking you to take a look at. I was originally told that we’d have to change the Florida Constitution so we wouldn’t be able to do that, so if you could advise me on that that’d be wonderful.”
Measures have been filed in both the House and Senate this year calling for a constitutional amendment to require members of a district school board to be chosen in partisan elections. If approved, it would go into effect in 2026.
Florida voters voted overwhelmingly in 1998 to make school board races nonpartisan, and efforts to put such an amendment on the ballot have failed in recent legislative sessions. But that was before Gov. DeSantis weighed in on the topic last summer and endorsed 30 candidates in school board races, the majority of whom won either in their Primary or General Election contests last year.
The last item Dubach mentioned was “some type of legislation” around the amount of mental health funding that public schools in Florida receive.
“Right now, Pinellas County schools have $140 million allocated for mental health, and I talk to teacher after teacher after teacher and they say, ‘We are not mental health counselors. We want to educate these children and get them ready for the next grade,’” Dubach told the group of legislators. “They don’t want anything to do with mental health. That is up to the parents, their doctors, and all of that stuff is at home.”
The Phoenix reached out to the Pinellas County School District to confirm those financial figures but did not immediately receive a response. State lawmakers have five more weeks of committee meetings scheduled between now and the official beginning of the legislative session on March 7.
Republicans Lift Ban On Smoking In Capitol Offices
Republicans cannot seem to care how their smoking hurts others around them who don’t smoke. Sad that in 2023 with all the information around about how bad tobacco both smoked or chewed is for both those that do it and those around them. But again republicans have a real issue trying to care about anyone other than themselves. Hugs
Mediaite reports:
“Smoke ’em if you got ’em.” That’s not just the name of a 2004 Cypress Hill EP but also apparently the new rule in the GOP-controlled House. Republican members are lighting up their cigars in Congressional offices — and driving members of the press corps “insane in the brain” with the smell.
An executive order signed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 banned smoking in many federal buildings, but only those under the control of the Executive Branch. The laws in Washington, D.C. similarly ban smoking in indoor spaces, but again, that does not apply to congressional offices.
Read the full article.
Welcome back to the 1950s, courtesy of the Republican Party.
The pettiness has just begun.
(Okay, I know Boss Tweed wasn’t a congressman.)
Yuck, cigarette and cigar smoke stinks. Inside buildings it spreads through the HVAC system and permeates everything, everyone’s clothing. It becomes in escapable. People who smoke reek of it; you can smell the stench when they walk into a room.
Republicans have been making life worse for everyone since 1968.
This is just one of many many samples of stupidity that the GQP will do with their new power.
small dick energy
What ever became if the national law banning smoking inside public buildings?
Joann Prinzivalli Tomcatan hour ago
It literally does not apply to Congress – perhaps we need a constitutional amendment requiring members of Congress to be held to the same legal standards as other Americans – and perhaps their salaries should be tied to median incomes in their districts, and they should not have any better medical coverage or retirement benefits than ordinary Americans.
Next up: It will be legal, and even encouraged, to grope your female secretaries.
worstcultever Randy5033 hours ago
pshaw, groping is so yesterday – impregnation and forced childbirth is the new hot thing
why don’t we totally go back to the 1950s – old white guys smoking cigars in the back offices making deals. how progressive. i’m surprised if they do not allow drinking on the House floor – it’ll be just like bowling!
Uncle Mark Brooklyn Joe3 hours ago
The GOP oft reminisce about the “good old days” of the 50s…a white man’s world, where the US dominated the world economy, while much of the world was still recovering from WWII.
They do conveniently forget the 90% tax rate on the wealthy & corporations…which helped the middle class to grow & prosper.
Why be surprised? They don’t care for anyone’s good health — not even their own.
Absolute idiocy!!!
I keep reminding myself that these people are getting elected, and am trying to wrap my head around how to stop that at the source.
This is what the GOP calls adulting.
Can the Democrats retaliate by “hotboxing” one of their offices with weed? Since it is apparently legal for recreational use.
See how much the Republicans throw a fit about that smell.
Everything with these totally-secure, super-heterosexual, manly-man pukes is about needing to wave their dicks in other people’s faces all day
If such phallic “power” displays (cheroots, guns) can harm others’s health too, so much the better
How does this fix the border? Inflation? They are acting like little kids.
It seems republicans are intent on exerting their right to be rude assholes no matter the cost to themselves or others. Please keep it up until you have turned public opinion solidly against your party.
Because why should they just destroy their health when they can destroy others’ as well?
It’s all fun and games until one of their toupees catches on file.
Sadly there are staff that don’t smoke or for health reason avoids smokers. Now they will be forced to work in a toxic environment.
And think of any pregnant staffers. Not good.
The only thing the GOP think of pregnant staffers is “you’d better have that baby or you’ll be going to jail for murder. And don’t expect any handouts or time off”
Jenna Hope ❤(●’◡’●) 20235 hours ago edited
When the new Resucklicans said they need to tear down the establishment, that’s the establishment they’re talking about: considering other’s welfare. They want to be obnoxious assholes again! Make me King of Assholes again! Trump is our Assholiness!
Dreaming Vertebrate5 hours ago
I would refuse to work in a smoke-filled office.
Hopefully many of the junior staff will quit (or sue) rather than elect to get cancer form secondhand smoke.
.
Assholery is the entire point now.
Jenna Hope ❤(●’◡’●) 20234 hours ago edited
OT. Lawyer said we need to prosecute Donald Trump immediately. Sitting next to his Passport? Sounds like he’s going to turn them into big $$$fortune by selling us to Putin when he needs to escape justice to Putin his protector.
Gross. I’d be pissed if I was a staffer who had to go home every day with my clothes reeking of smoke. Dry cleaning ain’t free. That’s minuscule to the effects that kind of enclosed environment can have on people with asthma and other respiratory ailments.
Plus, that nasty, greasy residue will be settling all over inside the Capitol. I guess lathering the place with that residue isn’t too unexpected from the party that smeared their own feces around the building.
*shakes head* If Biden was really as awful as the Republicans say he is, they sure have some bizarre priorities now that they control the House.
I don’t care what people do with their own lives, and it gives me some comfort knowing these assholes are opening themselves up to an old age of sickness and likely a miserable death (both my parents died of smoking-related illnesses, not pretty) but I feel sorry for the reporters and staffers who are subjected to their secondhand smoke
A bunch of Joe My God news posts I wanted to share. Hugs
Yet still not a drag queen or trans person. There were other ones posted in the days I got these from but I felt one was enough. You can see the tally that Joe has been keeping. Hugs
The handmaids tale gets closer and closer as the republican run states fight to return the society to a much more regressive time when women were under more control of men. Hugs
The republicans know there is voter fraud because they are the ones doing it. I wonder if this guy will get five years in prison like the poor black woman who was told she could vote and did so but she did not qualify. Texas threw the maximum punishment at her. Hugs
Notice that he never thinks of women pilots. To him all piolets must be male and the ones in dresses or skirts are cross dressing men to his mind. What a bigoted piece of shit. Hugs
Drag queens are the newest boogieman of the right, easy targets to rile up their base that hopes for either the return to the 1950s or the 1850s depending how they feel about women and black people. Hugs
Notice it is only indoctrination and wrong when it is about acceptance / tolerance of diversity and minorities. Push hard right wing ideology is just reality for these republicans. Pushing an outdated 1950s style of society to them is normal but in truth that is the indoctrination they accuse the left of. They are trying hard to regress society and the acceptance of others who are different from them. They cannot live and let live. They must force everyone to fit the mold they demand they live in. The want a society where straight Christian males are assumed to be in charge, women are subservient to white straight men, blacks know their place and stay in it, and the gay and trans people are not seen or acknowledged in society staying firmly hidden in their closets. Hugs
As the article points out once born it is a child, living child and to kill it is already murder. By definition abortion is not being born. The bill is just grandstanding. Plus they don’t seem to learn, restricting abortion is not popular so they are doubling down and this time claiming that abortion is the killing of already born babies. Hugs
We must not admit that discrimination is real and happening even now. Afterall they don’t seem concerned about the discomfort the minority children of color and the LGBTQ+ kids experience every day, but we must never make the white kids uncomfortable. Actually it is not the kids’ comfort they care about, but the white republican parents. Hugs
If you read the comments you will see that several admissions directors commented that the persons scores were not that great and they look at social media along with other factors. They clearly seen something all of the schools disliked. Considering his complaint is non-whites are getting into the school while white males such as himself are waiting for a spot seems that he is a racist misogynist who they don’t want in their student body.
Because letting kids know that even in nature with animals there are gay couples will rot their teeth curve their spines and cause them to suddenly become gay or trans. What stupidity. Gay couples exist and are legal. Land of the free remember. They don’t want to hide straight couples from kids. They don’t think kids seeing straight couples is sexualizing the children or teaching them sex. It is simply bigotry, and they are not really hiding it. They want to erase the gays and trans from society and they are using the kids as the excuse. Hugs
The right wing doesn’t even want to be on their own platform because there is no one for them to fight with, these site ban liberals which takes the fun away from the trolls. Hugs
This was an attack on minority people of color and totally racist. It was a set of laws designed to let the state stop any protest for equality or the killing of unarmed black people by the police. They also passed a law saying that if protestors such as the George Floyd killing protestors got into the street they could legally be run over and arrested even when they had a permit. Yet when the Cubans who normally vote republicans protested in the street the government did not allow them to be run over nor did they arrest them. Strange it seems the law only applies to the left or democrats. Hugs
Notice he doesn’t admit Nixon broke the laws and did things that were illegal. Nope it is the fault of the people who caught him, and they are the bad guys. Hugs
