Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to back a bipartisan manufacturing deal if the democrats try to lower drug prices in the United States and tax the rich. Cenk Uygur, Jayar Jackson, and Caroline Johnson discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
Read more HERE: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitch-… “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t support a bipartisan domestic manufacturing bill if Democrats try to lower prescription drug prices and tax the rich, the Kentucky Republican announced Thursday.
Bipartisan negotiators from the House and Senate have been hammering out a compromise of a bill boosting the semiconductor chip industry after each chamber passed its own version.
The Senate’s bill was called the United States Innovation and Competitiveness Act, or USICA. “Let me be perfectly clear: there will be no bipartisan USICA as long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation bill,” McConnell tweeted on Thursday.
McConnell’s threat comes just as Democrats have made progress on a new budget reconciliation bill to replace the stalled Big Back Better Act. The centerpiece of the legislation would be a provision giving Medicare more power to negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers for lower prescription drug prices.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have nearly finalized a prescription drug agreement, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. NBC News first reported the details of the plan on Thursday.” *
Please notice that the board goes above the requirements of the law and that the maga rabid right is wanting them to go even farther. They are equating LGBTQ+ students with sexual predators and also as one person said the straight kids are pushing heteerosuality in their dess and actions. The idea that teachers can not use the students prefered pronouns even if the parents want them to show just how much bigotry and attempt to erase the LGBTQ+ in Florida school has become. LGBTQ+ kids are in schools and these laws are making them hide, making them targets, making the religious doctrines have more rights and authority than these kids do. How this is legal I have no idea, but we live in a religious theocracy these days. The Christian Taliban has taken over Florida, they are a minority but they seem to have all the power in the state. Hugs
After three hours of fiery public debate, the Leon County School Board unanimously approved its “LGBTQ Inclusive School Guide” Tuesday night.
The policy, which the board is calling a “guide” and a “living document” that can be quickly updated, comes after weeks of deliberation from the district’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Committee.
The document is intended to create guidelines for teachers and administrators to help students who need it and to outline state laws for employees, Assistant Superintendent Alan Cox told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Most of the 60 or so public speakers leveled harsh criticism of the guide and effort, with some saying it could harm LGBTQ students and others saying it didn’t go far enough to protect parental rights.
“Normally when we have something on the agenda, we have a group that’s for, and a group that’s against,” board Vice Chair Alva Striplin said. “Well, tonight we had everyone against.”
Parental notification draws fire
What drew the most debate was a provision that a school will notify parents — by form — if a student who is “open about their gender identity” is in a physical education class or on an overnight trip.
Some teachers and students during the Tuesday night meeting said the policy will “out” LGBTQ+ students — revealing their sexual orientation or gender identity without their permission.
The policy language does explicitly say a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression “should not be shared with others without their input and permission.”
“The notification to all the parents can create a very stressful and unwanted situation to trans and LGBTQ students,” said Kailey Sandell, a Leon High School student who spoke at the meeting. “A lot of times kids assume that kids are gay or trans; they will easily be able to hurt them.”
In the backdrop of the debate over LGBTQ rights is the Parental Rights in Education bill, HB 1557, passed earlier this year, which states that parents must be notified if there is a change in their child’s “mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.”
The meeting lasted more than four hours and multiple speakers cited the Bible in their comments. Some parents said discussions about sexual orientation have no place in schools and that the guide was overstepping the role of education officials.
Other parents who spoke at the meeting argued if they are not notified in such circumstances, it’s a violation of their parental rights.
“Any attempt to withhold information from a parent or try to influence a child in a knowing way is against Florida law,” said Sharyn Kerwin, head of the Leon County chapter of Moms for Liberty and a member of the committee the advisory committee.
The Moms for Liberty group, based in Brevard County, rose to power during the mask mandate debates. The conservative organization aims to make a big mark on the 2022 elections and position itself as a juggernaut on education issues with the clout to reshape school policies in Tallahassee and throughout the nation.
Critics of the notification policy say the district’s language is equating “gender identity” with LGBTQ sexuality. They note that even someone who is “straight” expresses themselves via their clothing choices or appearance and can be “open about their gender identity.”
“Sending out a parent notification could be seen as placing a target on a student’s back,” said Lauren Kelly-Manders, a Tallahassee resident.
Kelly-Manders, 34, is a staunch LGBTQ advocate and “came out” when she was 14 at Leon High School. She also sits on the city’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Council.
“I have concerns and trouble envisioning that type of notice in practice,” she said.
Benjamin Burn, another LCS student who spoke at the meeting, said, rather, making restrooms in schools gender-neutral would help, especially with bullying situations.
“Trans kids want privacy,” Benjamin said. “That’s what I want, that’s what everyone wants. And trans kids honestly deserve it.”
Board members at odds but find common ground
Board Chair Darryl Jones said initially that he was against the guide and favored delaying a vote.
“One of the things I don’t want this guide to do is, for lack of a better description, weaponize bigotry,” Jones said.
Vice Chair Alva Striplin took the opposing view.
“I feel like parents are not protected enough in this,” she said. “But I’m trying to meet in the middle and give our teachers something.”
Ultimately, the board and superintendent concluded that teachers desperately needed a guide soon and agreed to move forward.
Board member Joy Bowen, the longest-serving member of the board, attended the meeting via Zoom as she tested positive for COVID-19. Board member Rosanne Wood, previously a principal of SAIL High School, said the policy would help create direction for teachers and schools.
“I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about this and we are trying to help our teachers and our administrators know what to do with students who need our help,” Wood said.
The board voted to approve the guide unanimously 4-0. It will revisit the guide in six months to adjust it if needed.
Casey Chapter is a reporter for the Florida Student News Watch and a Tallahassee Democrat contributor. Follow her on Twitter @CaseyChapter.
I imagine there will be a new business model popping up in floriduh: camps designed to fix the broken kids. That was the implied threat used by the madrasa that I was forced to attend. Man up or you’re family will have to send you away.
Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as otherwise provided herein. This section shall not be construed to limit the public’s right of access to public records and meetings as provided by law. That’s from the Florida Constitution and I believe this amendment will throw a spanner into a lot of the fascist culture war in this state.
I pretty much brought myself up. I was not groomed either way. I didn’t even kiss anyone until I was 18. There were no books, movies or anything to help me understand that I was gay. I just knew that I was different. Gym class was hell for me. I just kept to myself. This was in the 50s and 60s when it was illegal to be homosexual. As if that would stop us.
And when one of the bullied kids strikes back by beating up the bully the bullies parents will be “oh! Just look at how vicious those transgender/lgbtq+ kids are!” They’re ALWAYS pulling that bullshit.
If you are a teacher with a conscience in FL, I urge you to quit. I’m sorry for the kids but there will be nothing you can do to help them. Time for a brain drain from red to blue states.
Who will organize this support and protect teachers from the trumpanzee cultists? They will be subject to the same treatment poll workers in GA received: death threats, people stalking them and camping outside their homes.
If you are a teacher working for low pay (FL) and now you will be attacked by the cult, then you will probably make the decision to leave. The election worker in GA, Shaye Mos, recounted how a mob went to her grandmother’s house and intimidated her grandmother. Some may be able to deal with the cult but when they threaten your family, that’s usually the breaking point. We know the cult will do this.
This is a no win situation here for the students and the teachers. I expect that over the next couple of years we will start to see a population shift in the country. If I were in a red state right now I could be planning on getting the fuck out of there to a blue state. It I had a gay or transgender kid, I would for sure be moving to a blue state. To be sure, blue states are not all rainbows and lollipops but they beat the fuck out of any of the red states now! Blue states need teachers and we should be promoting them moving and providing assistance and good pay for those here and those wanting to come here.
After three hours of fiery public debate, the Leon County School Board unanimously approved its “Jewish Inclusive School Guide” Tuesday night. What drew the most debate was a provision that a school will notify parents — by form — if a student who is “open about their Jewish identity”
This from the party of limited government and freedom. Soon they’re be giving evangelical children special outfits to wear for when the roam the halls looking for “undesirables” to beat up.
So it begins. Females are the only ones required to let another use the resources of their body against their will. For at least nine months in half the country women will lose all rights to control their own body, including what they wish to eat or drink because of the effect it may have on a fetus. Hugs
Hours after the Supreme Court action, the Buckeye state had outlawed any abortion after six weeks. Now this doctor had a 10-year-old patient in the office who was six weeks and three days pregnant.
But for now, the procedure still is legal in Indiana. And so the girl soon was on her way to Indiana to Bernard’s care.
Indiana abortion laws unchanged, but effect still felt across state
While Indiana law did not change last week when the Supreme Court issued its groundbreaking Dobbs decision, abortion providers here have felt an effect, experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of patients coming to their clinics from neighboring states with more restrictive policies.
Since Friday, the abortion clinics where Dr. Katie McHugh, an independent obstetrician-gynecologists works have seen “an insane amount of requests” from pregnant people in Kentucky and Ohio, where it is far more difficult to get an abortion.
A ban on abortions after six weeks took effect on last week in Ohio. Last Friday the two abortion providers in Kentucky shut their doors after that state’s trigger law banning abortions went into effect.
Indiana soon could have similar restrictions.
That pains doctors like Bernard.
“It’s hard to imagine that in just a few short weeks we will have no ability to provide that care,” Bernard said.
For now, Indiana abortion providers have been fielding more calls from neighboring states. Typically about five to eight patients a day might hail from out of state, said McHugh, who works at multiple clinics in central and southern Indiana. Now, the clinics are seeing about 20 such patients a day.
Kentucky patients have been coming to Indiana in higher numbers since earlier this spring when more restrictive laws took effect there, McHugh said.
Indianapolis abortion clinics seeing surge in patients from Ohio, Kentucky
A similar dynamic is at play at Women’s Med, a medical center that performs abortions in Indianapolis that has a sister center in Dayton, Ohio. In the past week, they have doubled the number of patients they treat for a complete procedure, accepting many referrals from their Ohio counterpart.
More than 100 patients in Dayton had to be scheduled at the Indianapolis facility, a representative for Women’s Med, wrote in an email to IndyStar.
Women and pregnant people are “crying, distraught, desperate, thankful and appreciative,” the representative wrote.
The two centers are working together to route patients to Indianapolis for a termination after a pre-op appointment in Dayton. In recent months, they have also had people from southern states, like Texas, come north for a procedure.
Many patients, particularly from Ohio and Kentucky, are seeking care through Women’s Med while also making multiple appointments in other states so if one state closes down, they will still have some options, the representative wrote.
The center is advising pregnant people with a positive pregnancy test to book an appointment even though prior to the Supreme Court ruling they asked people to wait until their six-week mark to do so.
For years people have traversed state lines for abortions, particularly if a clinic across the border is closer to their home than the nearest in-state facility.
In 2021, 465, or about 5.5% of the more than 8,400 abortions performed, were done on out-of-state residents, according to the Indiana Department of Health’s most recent terminated pregnancy report. More than half, 264, lived in Kentucky and 40 in Ohio.
Midwestern residents can also travel to Illinois, where abortion is likely to remain legal even in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling but for many Indiana is closer and until the lawmakers pass any measure to the contrary, abortion will be legal here.
Still, it remains murky what the future holds.
Thursday a lower court ruled that abortions could resume, at least for now, in Kentucky. On Wednesday abortion clinics in Ohio filed suit, saying that state’s new ban was unconstitutional.
In Indiana lawmakers have declined to provide specifics of what measures any abortion legislation considered here might contain.
For now, then, abortion providers are doing their best to accommodate all Hoosier patients as well those from neighboring states.
“We are doing the best we can to increase availability and access as long as we can, knowing that this will be a temporary time frame that we can offer that assistance,” McHugh said.
A raped 10 year old Ohio girl arrived at a doctor, six weeks and three days pregnant. Abortion is prohibited in Ohio after 6 weeks, so she must seek referral out of state. For now, it's not a crime to refer and treat her. That could change soon. https://t.co/Uvr82PZAVk
Well some have lied under oath, others have cited obscure medieval judicial philosophy, and another has a wife who worked diligently to overthrow a peaceful transfer of power probably with his help…and it seems for the six rogues the Constitution be damned…yes, I’d say they’re corrupt.
Lets not lay this ALL on catholic doctrine, we lived years with catholic doctrine and allowed abortions. It was after protestants, mainly southern baptist got involved in controlling our government that we arrived here.
But those two clown groups ride in the very same car, drunk with power, the pedal to the fucking metal, driving backwards into traffic on a one-way freeway. What can’t happen?
When Ireland banned abortion we had these same issues. They led to repeal of the ban and a referendum allowing abortion. A ban on abortion throws up all kinds of problems and issues. A ban on abortion is just a doctrinaire piece of religious bullshit by zealots.
See? If Indiana doesn’t outlaw abortion, pretty soon all of the 10 year-olds will be showing up for abortions there from everywhere. Why not teach the little sluts to take advantage of the opportunities that life hands them? /s
Furthermore, according to various Republicans: – If she really didn’t want the sex, then her body would have shut down the pregnancy. – Was she dressed in a provocative manner? – She should view the pregnancy as a blessing and as God’s will. – And the latest: if she goes through with the abortion, she is a murderer and should be put to death.
2016 shattered whatever hope I had in my fellow citizens. I think they’ll think “well isn’t that awful” and then go on doing whatever they were doing before. Maybe it will wake up enough to swing an election, but probably not more than just that.
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” Thomas Jefferson
State Rep. Jean Schmidt, a Clermont County Republican, speaks during a session of the Ohio House of Representatives. (Ohio House of Representatives)
State Rep. Jean Schmidt, a Clermont County Republican, said during a radio interview this week that she would entertain a debate about outlawing birth control in the wake of the United States Supreme Court overturning constitutional protections for abortion.
Schmidt made the comments during a Wednesday interview with 700WLW’s Bill Cunningham in which she also said companies that provide travel expenses for employees to get abortion care could face legal consequences. Schmidt is the sponsor of a bill in the state legislature that would eliminate abortion from the time of conception, effectively outlawing it in the state.
“When we get back into session, we’ll probably have one or two more hearings on it and then it will go before our body and the Senate for a concurrent vote,” Schmidt said. “I do believe we have the votes in both chambers, and we have the full support of the governor on this bill.”
Schmidt, who previously called a pregnancy caused by rape an “opportunity” for women, said there would be no carveout for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
“You know, rape and incest is an ugly, ugly, ugly act of violence and that woman is truly harmed and scarred. Those wounds will never go away,” she said. “We need to make sure she has all of the love and help and support. But to end the pregnancy of the child is not going to erase the wounds or those scars. That child still has the right to life.”
Opponents of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion nationwide, have argued that the same legal principles could be applied to outlaw things like birth control and same-sex marriage, which are not specifically outlined in federal law or the constitution.
When asked about banning birth control, Schmidt said she would consider it.
“That’s another issue for another day and I’m going to have to listen to both sides of the debate,” she said. “Right now, what I’m concerned about right now is the life of the child and the fact that we have the opportunity in Ohio to protect it from its conception until its natural death.”
She gave a similar non-committal response to a question about same-sex marriage, saying it was “another decision for another day.”
Schmidt also said companies that operate in Ohio that have pledged to provide travel expenses for women who seek abortion care to do so in another state may run afoul of the full abortion ban Republicans plan on passing this fall.
“If those companies want to do that, they better make sure they are complying with the laws of the states that allow them to do that,” Schmidt said. “Because in House Bill 598, it says anybody that promotes an abortion will be under the issues of criminal activity. They might have a problem with sending somebody outside the state with a paycheck in hand, because that would be, in some legal eyes, promoting abortion.
There are statistics that show that violent crime dropped15 to 20 years after abortions became legal because there were fewer unwanted children born to women who could not take care of them.
This witch needs to find a gingerbread house in a forest.
Call these fascist motherfuckers what they really are here: Forced pregnancy advocates.
Do they care about girl’s or women’s health? No. Do they care whether the pregnant person is healthy, safe, and has the necessities of life? No. Do they give a fuck at all about the risks of both pregnancy and the birth process itself? No. Do they care at all about the mother and child after the birth? No. Will they provide any help whatsoever? No. Do they care when it’s a 10-12yo girl whose life is about to be ruined and could very well be lost because she was raped and made pregnant? No. Do they care when it’s an ectopic or fatally defective pregnancy that, if left untreated will almost certainly kill the woman? No. Do they care at all that thousands of girls and women will now be murdered every year by husbands, boyfriends, or even rapists who don’t want to be fathers? No. Do they care at all that the majority of abortions are actually received by women who are already mothers and just know they’re not in a position to have more children and/or could lose their lives with more pregnancies? No.
Is the goal to turn girls and women permanently into second-class citizens in America, impoverished and dependent, with no choices or real freedom to choose how their lives will go? Absolutely.
As usual, the woman who wants to keep women barefoot, pregnant, uneducated, unemployable, impoverished, under the subjugation of men has a job, has self determination, is not subject to control by men, can make her own health decisions, She is the perfect example of “I’ve got mine, screw the rest of you.”. In other words, another Republican’t Qunt.
They do not care about women’s lives. Partial miscarriages are to be retained even when the amniotic membrane is ruptured. As long as there is cardiac activity, the fetus cannot be expelled by induced labor or D&C. Only after the mother shows signs of sepsis can these procedures happen even though there’s never gonna be a normal birth. And the mother has to get a septic pregnancy before anyone will do anything even though sepsis is inevitable and live birth impossible.
And the people making the laws know NOTHING. There are laws that require attempting to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy even though such a thing is impossible. “Ectopic” means embyronic membranes have already developed and attached outside the uterus. The embryo is beyond the stage when it can make membranes. It cannot be turned back in time to make new membranes or any kind of normal placenta. it’s already reaching out to make an abnormal placenta that will never happen. This is what creates the symptoms of ectopic pregnancy. An embryo is trying to do it’s thing where the thing is impossible. It cannot redo the thing
It’s evil and primitive that people who know nothing about women’s physiology are writing laws governing women’s physiology. I just read about a 10 year-old in Ohio who missed their Sicko Imposed deadline. A raped child, FFS. She was brought to Indiana to take care of it, but Indiana isn’t going to be an option for long. The point is, it never should even have come to this.
Are they going to double pay so families can live on one income? A lot of women work who’d rather be home at least until their children are a little older but they can’t afford it. (Some have a relative who can provide child care so they don’t have to pay for that.) I’m in favor of choice but it’s bullshit to talk about choice when people don’t have the means to access all options.
But I can’t believe they’d really do (force) this on their own daughters and granddaughters. Forced birth (maternal mortality, a plus!) is “For The %^%#% Others. THEM!”
Practically speaking, a Supreme Court decision outlawing contaception would be thwarted by 75 percent of the populace. It would have no more weight than the words of the retrogressive American archbishops.
I don’t think overturning Griswold (sending it back to the states) would have that much impact on access to most forms of birth control. We should be more concerned that they overturn Griswold and rule that Americans have no expectation of privacy or any right to it.
And it happened again. It is now clear that these groups are searching for drag events, which are totally legal and then attacking them shutting the down. And again the police stood by and let it happen. Thanks Republicans, the party of law and order, for returning the US to a time when marginalized groups can be targeted and harmed. Hugs
A drag show at a Woodland bar celebrating the end of Pride month was disrupted Thursday night after a group showed up yelling homophobic slurs and threatening safety.
The owner of Mojo’s Lounge and Bar had canceled the event earlier in the evening due to safety concerns. Threats toward the venue and performers scheduled to be at the event had been circulating on social media for several weeks after details were picked up by a hateful group on social media, according to the owner.
As the group yelled hateful language, patrons waited as police surrounded the bar. At some point, someone deployed pepper spray. Thursday night investigators are still working to figure out where it came from.
NOW | This is Woodland, CA. A drag show was canceled after safety concerns but after enough people turned out, organizers held a scaled down version. Then this group showed up. [Warning: There’s explicit language in this video] @kcranewspic.twitter.com/KA8B0ceg7z
— KCRA Lee Anne Denyer (@KCRALeeAnne) July 1, 2022
The group is still going, yelling expletives, calling out the owner of the restaurant by name. pic.twitter.com/XSGZhgsKWE
— KCRA Lee Anne Denyer (@KCRALeeAnne) July 1, 2022
— KCRA Lee Anne Denyer (@KCRALeeAnne) July 1, 2022
Alleged Proud Boys members attempt to get into The Mojo in Woodland, CA and are met with pepper spray. The bar had planned an all ages Drag Show tonight, which was postponed due to security concerns pic.twitter.com/7Boln64uJ6
In 1981 I was in a gay bar in a small red-neck California town- shouldn’t have been there as I was underage – but there I was. A group of straight guys came into the bar and started to stir up shit. Me being pretty much a kid, I was terrified.
Then something happened that has stayed with me ever since. We followed in the footsteps of our elders at Stonewall and fought back. There really was nothing left to do but that…. those assholes got chased out of the bar and many blocks down the street , getting beat with fists and pool cue sticks.
I don’t like to have to say it, but I think it’s time we as a community go back to when we were willing to physically fight if need be. Having come so far, it’s horrible to have to take so many steps back, but that’s the reality of today.
I’m not prescient, but you don’t need to be to realize things are about to get a lot worse again before they get better.
“I’m not prescient, but you don’t need to be to realize things are about to get a lot worse again before they get better.”
I agree. The Proud Boys are just the loudest but there are many, many more groups just like them. And every time a Republican politician spouts anti-LGBT+ rhetoric they get emboldened. Everything that Proud Boy said was taken straight from the GOP’s rising ‘stars’ of politicians.
If QMaga gets into power, groups like The Proud Boys will only get stronger. And if nothing is done about it they will, eventually, be given official political legitimacy. Queer folk are criminalized and hunted down across the Middle East, Russia, Poland, in countries across Africa and elsewhere.
Do not think for a second it can’t happen in the US.
I don’t know your age, however you might not be old enough to remember the advance and decline of progress over the course of the last century. There are definitely objective indicators that we are entering a period when civil society is under attack, not just for us but also the other usual targets.
You’re right. Almost exactly 100 years ago and again in the 1980s there was dramatic improvement in personal freedoms. We are now at the next stage where bigotry becomes more prevalent.
The Reich Wing in US, UK, CAN, FRANCE is following the same script as the last time Fascism reared up. The parallels with the Nazis (and others) is very clear. Then, as now, one of the first targets was LGBT culture and people while amplifying existing religious intolerance.
This time we have the advantage of knowing the history of Fascism and can oppose it, if we remain aware.
Proud Boys was launched in 2016 and has only gotten more brazen with their violent confrontations. They are modern day brown shirts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Well they aren’t unarmed black men so the cops won’t do anything. But even I was surprised at how gentle the police were with those scumbags. They didn’t try to grab them or anything. It was just “Hey stay away from that door” without moving in to stop him from banging on it. Face it, the cops love the Proud Boys.
“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he’s willing to defend Texas’ law banning “sodomy” which was overturned by the landmark Lawrence v. Texas case if the Supreme Court rules that the states should be able to regulate issues such as sex, birth control, and same-sex marriage.
After the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health overturned the landmark Roe decision, ending the national right to an abortion, Paxton ordered his office closed for a holiday “as a memorial to the millions of lives lost due to abortion.”
Paxton is also a virulently anti-gay politician who provided the legal underpinning for Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order to investigate parents of transgender children for child abuse, and taken the city of Houston to court over benefits for same-sex couples.”*
In Orange County, Florida, the school district has pushed restrictions on LGBT teachers, preventing them from displaying pictures of their spouses, wearing rainbow articles of clothing, or discussing their lifestyle with students. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“WOW: Gay teachers in Orange County, Florida must remove all photos of their spouses from their classrooms following the passage of the Don’t Say Gay law. All rainbow items of clothing or other memorabilia are banned.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity interviewed Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg regarding his state’s stance on abortion laws in the aftermath of the Supreme court overturning Roe v. Wade. While Hannity seemed absolutely certain that state would never ban the procedure even though Michigan imposed a trigger law in 1931 that banned abortions and curbed reproductive rights, exposing the right wing’s plan to ban abortion at the federal level.
“SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Hey, congressman, they’re also lying to everybody —
TIM WALBERG (R-MI): Yeah.
HANNITY: — Because abortion is not illegal. It’s not going to be illegal in your state of Michigan. I’d bet my last dollar that’s not gonna be the case. Am I wrong?
WALBERG: No, it is illegal in the state right now. In 1931, Michigan passed one of the first anti-abortion laws. It says that there is no abortion —
HANNITY: So, they have to have a trigger provision, but wouldn’t you expect with Governor Whitmer and the legislature as it’s currently configured, what do you expect that the likelihood of them changing that is going to be pretty swift?
WALBERG: Well, they’re gonna take action and, in fact, our attorney general, our lawless attorney general like Merrick Garland, is saying she will not enforce the law if Roe v Wade goes away. That’s the challenge we have, but we’re gonna fight it in the legislature. We have a pro-life legislature in the House and the Senate in Michigan. They have to get through that legislature if they’re gonna do it constitutionally, and we will battle back. But again Sean, that’s where —”
Mississippi State Speaker of the House Phillip Gunn is refusing to budge on making an exception to the state’s total abortion ban, even for 12-year-old girls who are victims of incest. When confronted with this specific scenario, Gunn asserted that he believes life “begins at conception” while his party refuses to do anything to combat child poverty in the state. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“The Mississippi Republican Speaker of the House says there should be no exception to the state’s ban on abortion now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the five-decade-old Roe v Wade ruling.
Asked specifically about 12-year-old girls who are victims of incest, Speaker Philip Gunn repeatedly stated his “personal belief” is “life begins at conception.” “What about the case of a 12-year-old girl who was molested by her father or uncle?” an Associated Press reporter, Emily Wagster Pettus, asked the Speaker on Friday, as the Mississippi Free Press reports.”
This is the second post just this morning fighting to overturn a law based on Alito’s wording in the Roe ruling that laws that are not historically long term in the laws of the US then it is not a right. Basically if the founders did not make it a right then it is not a right. Which means that every right bassicy has to be an amendment to the constitutionbecause even if congress passes a law it is not historically a law so not constructional if the 6 religious zeloate on the Supreme Court want to get rid of it or make it so. That is why codifying Roe into federal law won’t work right now, the six people ruling only on their view of what god wishes will simply say their god doesn’t want that so it has to go, they will rule it unconstitutional. Alito wrote that ruling to clearly say that his interpretation of his gods wishes was paramount of what the law should read. He wants to make his god happy, and so he will force you to make his god happy. Make no mistake these 6 have decided that pushing their religion on the public is acceptable and desirable in the US. Look at how they let that clearly illegal Texas bounty law on abortion stand simply because they wanted abortion to be illegal. It had nothing to do with the law, just their wishes. Hugs
D.C.’s many restrictions on where people can carry concealed handguns may face legal challenges in the wake of a pro-gun Supreme Court ruling.
Three D.C. residents and one Virginia resident are suing D.C. over its prohibition on carrying concealed handguns on Metrorail and Metrobuses within the city, kicking off a legal battle spurred by last week’s Supreme Court ruling that raised constitutional questions about an array of limits on carrying guns outside the home.
In the lawsuit, the four plaintiffs say that many of the existing restrictions in D.C. on where concealed handguns can be carried — they include schools, universities, government buildings, stadiums, bars and restaurants, and more — are likely justifiable and constitutional, but the ban on carrying while on public transportation is not.
“There is not a tradition or history of prohibitions of carrying firearms on public transportation vehicles,” reads the lawsuit, which was filed by George Lyon, a D.C.-based lawyer with Arsenal Attorneys who has filed multiple lawsuits in the past over the city’s restrictive gun laws. “Public transportation systems did not exist as they do today at the founding of the nation. However, there was plainly a tradition of firearms carry when citizens traveled from their homes. In modern parlance, Americans carried arms to prevent their gatherings from becoming soft targets.”
The nod to American history is linked to last week’s 6-3 Supreme Court decision that overturned New York state’s strict limitations on who can carry a gun outside their home. In the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas broadly implicated many other limits on carrying guns, saying that governments will now have to show that their restrictions are rooted in the country’s historic traditions, and are not simply justified by a significant government interest.
That, Lyon told DCist/WAMU earlier this week, opened up new avenues to legal challenges to D.C.’s restrictive gun laws. “I think that there is definitely some room there for litigation,” he said, hinting that some of it would come from him.
In his opinion for the conservative majority, Thomas wrote that jurisdictions would still be able to prohibit the carrying of guns in certain “sensitive places,” including government buildings, polling places, and courthouses. But he also opened the door to legal challenges to carrying a gun in other places, writing that “expanding the category of ‘sensitive places’ simply to all places of public congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the category of ‘sensitive places’ far too broadly.”
D.C., for one, prohibits open carrying of handguns and restricts where people with concealed-carry permits can go. Currently, someone carrying a concealed handgun cannot enter government buildings; schools or universities; polling places; libraries; hospitals; public transportation; stadiums or arenas; any business the serves alcohol; the National Mall, U.S. Capitol, and around the White House; or within 1,000 feet of a protest or dignitary who receives police protection. (There are roughly 4,000 people in D.C. with concealed-carry permits, split evenly between D.C. residents and non-residents.)
But in the lawsuit Lyon and his four clients argue that public transportation should not be considered a sensitive place where the carrying of guns can be prohibited.
“The broad consensus of states regulate schools, courthouses, and most government buildings as sensitive locations” where guns cannot be carried, says the lawsuit. “Hospitals, polling stations, colleges and universities, sports stadia and events, and certain outdoor recreational locations are often treated as sensitive locations as well. But there does not appear a tradition to treat public transportation facilities as sensitive.”
Lyon is asking a federal judge to overturn D.C.’s ban on carrying handguns on public transportation.
Litigation of this sort — some of it filed by Lyon — has largely shaped D.C.’s existing gun laws, as well as the legal landscape nationally. Most prominently, the city’s longstanding ban on handguns led to the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision, which declared an individual right to own a handgun and pushed the city to allow handgun ownership. Six years later, a federal judge overturned the city’s ban on carrying handguns outside the home, and a subsequent ruling declared that D.C. couldn’t require residents to show a good reason to carry a concealed handgun. D.C. officials opted not to appeal that ruling, fearing a Supreme Court ruling just like the one handed down last week in response to New York’s restrictive good-reason law.
The ruling authored by Thomas has again reshaped the legal debate over gun restrictions, with advocates on both sides of the debate conceding they do not know what the future holds in terms of litigation and court rulings.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the ruling doesn’t target the legal standing of existing requirements that states and cities may impose for letting someone carry a gun, like requiring payment of fees, training, and background checks — all of which D.C. has on the books. But the conservative majority’s ruling also said that some requirements could be challenged.
“[B]ecause any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry,” it reads. (In the Heller II case in 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed out certain portions of the city’s registration requirements, while keeping others.)
“Maybe the D.C. regulatory regime is vulnerable after all,” mused Randy Barnett, a Georgetown University law professor who has a concealed-carry permit in D.C., in an analysis published on SCOTUSblog this week.
Lyon also told DCist/WAMU there may be interest in challenging D.C.’s prohibition on assault weapons and extended magazines. In the past, courts have upheld the city’s ban on assault weapons, but Thomas’s new requirement that gun restrictions comport with the nation’s historical traditions could change the calculus. And on Thursday afternoon, Lyon filed a separate lawsuit challenging D.C.’s law that limits how much ammunition people can have when they carry a concealed handgun; one of the plaintiffs is Dick Heller, namesake of the 2008 Supreme Court ruling.
Gun control advocates have broadly decried the court’s ruling and the impacts it may have. “The court has chosen to obstruct Americans from obtaining the common sense laws they want and need to protect their families and communities, a decision that defies centuries of gun regulation,” said Brady United in a statement last week.
D.C. officials have been similarly critical of the decision, saying it could hamper the city’s efforts to combat gun violence. Attorney General Karl Racine’s office declined to discuss any possible repercussions on the city’s gun laws from the court’s ruling, but said in a statement that it would fight any pro-gun litigation in court.
“OAG will continue to defend the District’s common-sense gun regulations and keep District residents safe,” it said. “As the Supreme Court said, the Second Amendment is not a license to keep and carry any weapon in any manner for any purpose.”
This post has been extensively updated to include the lawsuit filed against D.C. over its ban on carrying guns on public transportation.
