In the crucial swing state of Arizona, Republican nominees up and down the ballot continue to push lies that the 2020 election was stolen. CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan speaks with a Maricopa County Board of Supervisors chairman who fears what voters’ unsubstantiated election concerns mean for democracy. O’Sullivan and Arizona Republican House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers both discuss this further with CNN’s Erin Burnett.
They’re inspired by lies and baseless claims of election fraud. Now, just days before the midterms, there are new concerns about self-proclaimed poll watchers and fears they could intimidate voters.
Clean Elections USA has been slapped with a restraining order after releasing plans to intimidate people at election boxes. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
“Days before the U.S. government issued a chilling memo about the threat domestic extremists pose to next week’s elections, a member of the far-right message board known as The Donald threatened voters in Arizona with a message that eerily echoed much of the government’s warning.
“We will post up at every single drop box,” the user wrote. “If you try to drop off more than one ballot, you will be beaten without question. Better tell your gramma to drop off her own vote cause no games are being played this time. You will see violence if caught stuffing ballots in a drop box.”*
A rare win for the good side. Notice the animosity and hate for gay people. This is not about sexualizing kids, stories about gay kids / people don’t make kids sexual anymore than stories of straight kids / people do. Why is it OK in the minds of straight white conservatives that kids read about straight dating, see straight couples, read about straight parents, see straight people kiss, and that doesn’t sexualize or promote sexuality to them. That is what they want the kids to see because it enforces that it is good and “normal” that they should act that way. But you change the word straight with the word gay and their heads explode with the myth that they have to protect the kids from sex? Get real, that just shows how bigoted and hateful they feel towards gay people. It is a faked concern for the children when in truth it is about forcing LGBTQ+ kids to hide and being able to hurt them. Hugs
Impassioned pleas were made from people on both sides of the debate, but LGBTQ equality won the day.
After a heated public debate, the Greenville County Council in South Carolina voted to keep LGBTQ books accessible to children at the public library.
A resolution from city Councilor Joe Dill – who recently lost the Republican primary and will not be maintaining his seat – proposed requiring the 12-location library system in the area to remove books “promoting sexuality” from all children’s sections.
The resolution claimed it was seeking to “protect the innocence of children” and also would have required libraries to submit a report to the County Council detailing “how such books ever found their way into the Children’s Sections…and what measures have been put into place to ensure such oversights do not occur in the future.”
Controversy over LGBTQ books in the county began in September when the Greenville County GOP unanimously passed a resolution in favor of banning them from the children’s section of libraries.
The State reported at the time that the Greenville County GOP chair, Jeff Davis, said it was important to prevent kids from being “indoctrinated” by the books.
“Kids can’t buy a beer until they are 21. Should they be able to access these books before a certain age without parental consent? I think not and that should be reasonable,” he said.
The GOP became especially concerned in June when the library displayed LGBTQ books in honor of Pride Month.
Among the books they reportedly worried about was a book about a girl and her dads called Daddy & Dada; Teo’s Tutu, about a boy who does ballet; Pride Puppy, about a puppy who goes to a Pride Parade; and Sex is a Funny Word, a sex education book designed for kids that also teaches about different types of families.
During the recent county council debate, the council members did not mention any specific books, and impassioned pleas were made from people on both sides during the public comment period.
“I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. Of course we shouldn’t have any sexual material in our children’s library,” said parent Barbara Evans, as reported by The State.
Susan Ward, the parent of a gay son, emphasized how important it is for her son to be able to see himself in books.
“All of us worry about our children. I worry because my child has been subjected to hate and discrimination,” she said.
The conversation reportedly got heated, with the vice chair of the library board – who supported keeping the books away from kids – even saying “barf” when someone said they were gay.
Ashley Snelgrove, a children’s librarian against banning the books, also spoke at the meeting and explained that the library already thinks very hard about what books are available to kids. Beyond that, Snelgrove said kids under 11 are always supervised at the library.
And in a 3-9 vote, LGBTQ equality won the day and the council voted to keep the books available to kids.
Is there any wonder why the current republican party loves Putin! He is doing what they want to do. Outlaw the LGBTQ+. Florida has already outlawed the LGBTQ+ in Florida schools using the same reasoning as Russia has, protect the children from a made up boogieman. These people live to hate. These laws are designed to stop any positive portrayals of the LGBTQ+ while still allowing the negative hate mongering free reign. Hugs
Russia’s Parliament is set to pass a legislative package that would ban all “gay propaganda,” signaling an even more difficult period ahead for a stigmatized segment of society. The laws would prohibit representation of L.G.B.T.Q. relationships in any media — streaming services, social platforms, books, music, posters, billboards and films — and, activists fear, in any public space as well. That’s a daunting prospect for queer people searching for community, validation or an audience.
Kremlin critics see the proposals as an attempt to create an internal enemy to divert attention from battlefield setbacks and an unpopular draft of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. “It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘Look, we have this special operation. If we lose, your kids will have their gender changed, they’ll take your kids away, it’ll be the stuff of nightmares,’” said Dr. Nikolai Lunchenkov, a physician who focuses on L.G.B.T.Q. health.
Russia’s Parliament is set to pass a legislative package that would ban all "gay propaganda," signaling an even more difficult period ahead for a stigmatized segment of society.
"The purpose is to make LGBTQ people invisible in Russia," one lawyer said. https://t.co/iKeqcGwTh0
Without convenient scapegoats, no authoritarian would ever been able to hoodwink the masses into believing that the real source of their misery isn’t the authoritarian himself. Putin needs the gays as much as Hitler needed the Jews.
“It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘Look, we have this special operation. If we lose, your kids will have their gender changed, they’ll take your kids away, it’ll be the stuff of nightmares,’”
Russian government telling people not to ask questions about the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who just appeared in the Russian adoption system since February?
We have always known Putin is a fascist dictator beloved by Trump. It makes their bromance all the more instructive of the four years of Trump’s treachery. Trump tried the same bromance shit with Kim.
It won’t really stop a racist bigoted school board but it will give allied teachers and the LGBTQ+ students some cover and breathing room. Notice they knew they needed more sensitivity training after a teacher came to work in black face. Plus there was this from the students. Earlier this month, the Newberg Graphic discovered that at least one student at Newberg High School was involved in a Snapchat group called “Slave Trade,” where teenagers from across the country share racist, homophobic and violent messages, sometimes specifically targeting Black students.
They knew they had an issue with racism and attacks on gay, lesbian, and trans kids. But they still wanted to take away any training or discussions to promote tolerance, acceptance, and diversity. This is the republican party today. This is the maga cult trying their best to roll back all the civil rights gains. If you go to the link on the superintendent you will see that the board want only cis white Christian symbols and accepted speech. … (T)he conservative board members fired Morelock because he didn’t aggressively implement their ban on controversial symbols, … is from that link. These people can not accept the changes in society and refuse to accept the advancing better understanding of biology and psychology than was known in the 1950s. Hugs
Police are investigating after a masked person approached the home of Newberg School District employee, lit the employee’s Pride flag on fire and performed a Nazi salute on Monday, Oct. 31, 2022. File photo
Just weeks after a Yamhill County judge ruled a controversial ban on the display of Pride flags in Newberg schools was unconstitutional, a masked person approached the home of school district employee, lit the employee’s Pride flag on fire and performed a Nazi salute.
A home security camera captured the flag burning on film, and a 14-second video clip posted to Twitter Monday had 123,000 views by Thursday morning.
The family filed a police report with the Newberg-Dundee Police Department, telling investigators their Pride flag had previously been stolen. Monday’s flames left black soot damage to the brick siding of the home, police said.
No arrests have yet been made, according to Newberg police.
In a statement Tuesday, the Newberg School District referred to the flag-burning as a hate crime.
“We are shocked and saddened to hear that such a horrendous act took place in our community,” the statement said. “The act of invading someone’s private property to burn a flag is abhorrent and alarming.”
The video shows a person walking up a driveway toward a house with their face fully covered, except for their eyes. After lighting the flag on fire, the person is shown facing the security camera and performing a Nazi salute before walking out of sight.
According to the Twitter account that shared the video, the flag-burning occurred at 3:15 a.m. Flames had spread onto leaves around the flag by the time the homeowner went outside, the account said.
The flag-burning arrives a little over a year after a controversial policy banning the display of Pride and Black Lives Matter flags in district schools threw Newberg into the national spotlight.
Newberg’s school board voted in September 2021 to adopt a policy barring educators from displaying symbols considered “political, quasi-political or controversial.” The 4-3 vote followed a pair of racist incidents in district schools and drew fierce criticism from state lawmakers and members of the Newberg teacher’s union. After enacting the policy, board members abruptly fired former superintendent Joe Morelock.
Dundee Elementary School teacher Chelsea Shotts sued the school district and four of its board members in December 2021 after a rainbow flag she kept in her classroom window was the subject of a complaint under the policy.
A Yamhill County judge ruled on Sept. 22 that the policy banning the display of certain symbols in schools was unconstitutional and forbade the district from enforcing it.
Vid shows a masked Nazi that walks up to the house and lights a barely visible flag on fire, which bursts into flames, then sieg heils the camera before walking off to the right of the frame. pic.twitter.com/tx7Fh21WrJ
— SchoolBoardBloc Protect Trans Kids (@SchoolBoardBloc) October 31, 2022
Why is it all the verified election fraud is done by republicans. I guess this is why they know it is happening, their people are the ones doing it. Hugs
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson announced Thursday, Nov. 3 that Milwaukee’s Election Commission deputy director Kimberly Zapata has been fired. This, after he says she fraudulently requested military absentee ballots and sent them to Republican state lawmaker Rep. Janel Brandtjen.
“This has every appearance of being an egregious and blatant violation of trust,” Mayor Johnson said. “I was stunned, absolutely stunned, to hear the very serious allegations against her.”
As a member of the military you don’t have to register or show an ID to vote. The city believes Zapata was trying to prove a loophole in the elections process. Last week, Rep. Janel Brandtjen shared the photo below of military ballots delivered to her home with apparently fake names.
Read the full article. Democrats are calling for criminal charges against Zapata and Brandtjen, the latter of whom appeared here in July when she called for decertifying Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election result.
The deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission fraudulently requested military absentee ballots and sent them to Republican State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a promoter of election lies.
If this was a stunt to show fraud could be committed, her stunt needs to stay the course and experience the consequences of that fraud. Not a slap on the wrist or a “Oh this was just a stunt, so no charges.” No, it needs to be felony charges and jail time with penalties at maximum level to show others how the system works, which seems to be what she was after.
They want to demonstrate how “easy” it is to game the system. The ONLY appropriate response is (1) show that safeguards exist and that those who try it will be caught, and (2) show that people who try to game the system will spend serious time behind bars.
” I have been attacked by the liberal media, democrats who benefit from the system, and republicans who don’t have the backbone to take on the issues,” -State Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R ) Translation : THE LIBS MADE ME CHEAT! POOOOR ME!
Republican Bo Hines wants victims of rape and incest to go through “a community-level review process outside the jurisdiction of the federal government” to determine if they can get an abortion.
Hines advocated for this “death panel”-esque review process for women seeking an abortion in an interview with local TV station WRAL.
Hines has long advocated for extreme restrictions on abortion – he told the Raleigh News & Observer that “Abortion should be made illegal throughout the United States. No exceptions.”
In April, Hines called abortion the “greatest moral atrocity” and said it was a “mass genocide that occurred in our country.”
“Bo Hines would make women and girls who have already experienced horrific trauma beg for their right to get an abortion from a panel of complete strangers,” said DCCC spokesperson Monica Robinson.
“Bo Hines has demonstrated a disgusting lack of empathy for women this entire campaign. He doesn’t deserve the power to make health care decisions for us in Congress.”
How about a new public doctrine regarding abortions and all matters to do with sex, health and reproductive functions and decisions: New Rule: Mind your own fucking business.
Let’s have men appear before a community board and explain why they need Viagra. And they must show up with their wife and inquire as to if she is still fertile or not, because only married men should be having sex, and only for procreative purposes. They should also have to do a demonstration that they actually can’t get it up, to ensure that the medicine is for them and not for someone else.
Imagine a rape/incest victim having to tell total strangers what happened, and them questioning her. I wonder if this guy has a daughter and would present her before a committee where they question her about her rape and sexual history. No, he would send her off to her ‘aunt’s house” in NY or CA.
“I stand before this committee, requesting community approval of boner pills because….my wife got my massively jacked up pickup truck in the divorce & due to some unfortunate private discourse, I’m not eligible to own guns. So, with no other available penis extenders, I really need my boner pills. I need ’em right away, we got us a big family reunion coming up, if ya know what I mean.”
Thank you Ali for sending me the link in a comment. Great article. Hugs
John Daniel Davidson
The conservative “news” outlet, The Federalist, published a screed against transgender people that echoes rhetoric that German Nazis used against Jewish people in the 1930s.
The attack came in a piece entitled “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives,” written by John Daniel Davidson. Davidson is also the political editor for The Federalist.
Davidson’s piece refers to “the transgender question” and says, “On the transgender question, conservatives will have to repudiate utterly the cowardly position of people like David French, in whose malformed worldview Drag Queen Story Hour at a taxpayer-funded library is a ‘blessing of liberty.’”
Davidson makes a call to arms for conservatives to oppose transgender rights: “that parents who take their kids to drag shows should be arrested and charged with child abuse; that doctors who perform so-called “gender-affirming” interventions should be thrown in prison and have their medical licenses revoked; and that teachers who expose their students to sexually explicit material should not just be fired but be criminally prosecuted.”
Nazi Display On The Jewish Question In 1930s Germany
His argument is a mirror image of the Nazi world view that Jews had to be the subject of persecution, to be regarded as non-people, and ultimately to be mass murdered in a Holocaust that killed over 6 million innocent men, women, and children.
The Holocaust Encyclopedia published by the United States Holocaust Museum notes, “Once in power, the Nazi Party began taking measures to solve the ‘Jewish Question’ in Germany. First, they initiated policies and laws that transformed German Jews into second-class citizens. Then, they expelled Jews from Germany or forced them to emigrate. During World War II, Nazi Germany and its collaborators expanded this goal. They aimed to cleanse all of Europe of Jews through their forced “resettlement” in occupied Poland, the French island of Madagascar, or later occupied Soviet territory.”
Over the last few years, the conservative movement has been involved in a heated attack on the rights of transgender people in the United States.
Most recently, congressional Republicans have introduced legislation entitled “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022” that is designed to smear transgender people and undermine their rights to a peaceful life.
The Federalist was co-founded by Ben Domenech, a conservative activist who was removed from the Washington Post for plagiarism. He is married to Meghan McCain, former co-host of The View, a columnist for the right-wing Daily Mail, and the daughter of the deceased Sen. John McCain.
A government witness in the seditious conspiracy trial of Stewart Rhodes claims the Oath Keepers leader asked him to deliver a message telling then-President Donald Trump to seize power by force.
“You must use the insurrection act and use the power of the Presidency to stop him,” Rhodes allegedly told Trump in a typewritten message entered into evidence. “And all us veterans will support you and so will the vast majority of military.”
According to the testimony, Rhodes personally entered that message into the phone of government witness Jason Alpers, a military veteran with combat and special ops experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He testified that Rhodes passed on the message during his meeting with the Oath Keepers leader in the parking lot of a Fry’s electronics store in Texas on Jan. 10, 2021.
Rhodes, he claims, wanted him to pass the message to Trump, knowing that Alpers had a line to the 45th president.
“Not directly but indirectly,” Alpers testified.
Alpers said that he furtively taped the meeting with a recording device — which he said resembled a thumb drive — in case he needed to pass on the message to Trump.
“I was really using it for my protection, making sure that I had an accurate account of it,” he said.
That recording, which Alpers turned over to the FBI months later, was entered into evidence and played in court. It features a lengthy discussion of the Insurrection Act, which Oath Keepers members believed would allow Trump to militarize groups like them to keep him in power.
“I mean we heard he dropped the Insurrection Act, now we’re hearing he didn’t drop it,” Rhodes said.
But Alpers apparently disagreed.
“I’m hearing he did not,” he replied.
“Okay,” Rhodes said. “So what are you hearing?”
“Uh, that he hasn’t dropped it,” Alpers continued.
After some further discussion, Alpers predicted that the Trump would not ultimately invoke it.
“I don’t think the Insurrection Act’s gonna get signed, me personally,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna take what we’re talking about and provide it to the right place, ok?”
By that, Alpers continued in the tape, he meant the “head guy.”
Asked by the prosecutor who the “head guy” was, Alpers clarified: “I meant providing the message to President Trump.”
That message, allegedly relayed by Rhodes to give to Trump, was grim.
“You and your children will die in prison, and us veterans will die in combat fighting against traitors who YOU turned over all the powers of the Presidency to,” Rhodes allegedly wrote for Trump’s consumption. The message also asked the former president to arrest members of Congress.
After first invoking imagery from the Civil War, Rhodes in the message turned toward the spector of World War II: “Be a Churchill, not a Chamberlain.”
Alpers testified that he did not pass on the message because he did not agree with it.
As a veteran, Alpers said, he’s seen combat, and the recording seems to show Alpers discouraging Rhodes from pursuing that course.
“I can tell you right now I don’t wish civil war on anyone,” Alpers said on the tape.
“We’re gonna have it bud,” Rhodes replied, according to the transcript.
Asked why he pushed back against Rhodes on that point, Alpers told the prosecutor: “Asking for Civil War to be on American ground […] that means blood is going to be shed on the streets where your family’s on.”
After Alpers finished his testimony, FBI agent Jennifer Banks returned to the witness stand to analyze cell phone tower data. According to the witness, that data placed Rhodes, SoRelle and Oath Keepers member Joshua James in the Dallas area, the location of the meeting, at the time.
A former Oath Keepers member now cooperating with the government previously testified that Rhodes spoke as if he had a “direct line” to Trump. Another ex-Oath Keepers member said that Rhodes placed a call in a hotel on speaker phone after Jan. 6, asking to be connected to Trump.
[Image of Rhodes from DOJ, via Ford Fischer / News2Share; Image of Trump by Sean Rayford/Getty Images]
Photo: Shutterstock
John Daniel Davidson
Scottie's Playtime 