Tucker Carlson spent the other night spreading baseless conspiracies on his show about the CIA and Twitter colluding to take down Right wing individuals. Meidas Contributor Texas Paul reacts.
Radical Right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was caught on Camera declaring that if she and Steve Bannon were in charge of January 6th, rioters would’ve been armed and would have won. Meidas Contributor Texas Paul reacts.
The right needs to keep the rage going against the people they have made the enemy and to do that they now need to make up even more wild accusations. They have to feed the rage machine to keep them in power and attention. So they made up a lie, doctored a video to back it up, and students got targeted by a right wing hater thug who feels entitled to force his views on others by violence. Hugs
Libs of TikTok posted a video to make it seem like drag queens were getting naked in front of kids. But that’s not what happened at all.
An LGBTQ+ student group in South Dakota received a bomb threat after they hosted a drag show on campus.
“I didn’t find out from [the University Police Department],” Lindsay Tull told The Daily Beast. She’s a member of the Gender and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) at South Dakota State University (SDSU) that was threatened with a bomb. “I found out from the Discord that we have for our board members.”
“I was freaking out because I didn’t know how serious it was and if we were in danger. I was afraid for my friends and if something was going to happen to them.”
The show occurred on November 16 and was advertised as “kid-friendly,” drawing the ire of right-wing activists. The performers said that they made sure that the show was appropriate for all ages – they even bleeped out words from the pop songs they lip synced to – but that didn’t stop anti-LGBTQ+ activist Chaya Raichik from doctoring a video to make the event seem like performers were naked in front of children.
Raichik – who goes by “Libs of TikTok” online – posted video from last year’s event to Twitter on November 18. She used video of a drag queen last year dressed in a nude illusion – layers of clothing designed to look like a naked person – even though last year’s show wasn’t advertised as family-friendly. The drag queen she used in her video didn’t even perform at this year’s show.
“What they did was they spliced together some content from this year with last year’s drag show, which was not advertised in any way as family-friendly,” said another GSA member. “They tried to pass it off as it being part of the same show.”
Then she claimed that the video was from this year’s show to anger her anti-LGBTQ+ followers. Raichik is known for calling out targets on social media so that her followers can send death and bomb threats or call them slurs.
A week later, the school said on its website that it received an email that said, “An explosive device or devices were placed on the campus of South Dakota State University.”
“The email also threatened harm to potential survivors of the detonation,” the site said. “At the time of this warning, no devices have been located. The department will continue investigating the threat and pursing [sic] all leads.”
Faculty advisors for the GSA were told by university officials that their group was the target of the threat, but GSA members say that it took university police two weeks to say something to LGBTQ+ students about the threat.
The GSA had already been facing harassment since they announced the drag show in November. Several conservative Christian organizations – including the Concerned Women of America (CWA) and the Family Heritage Alliance (FHA) – drew attention to the drag event. The CWA called it an “outright assault on our children.”
“Children’s innocence is under attack like never before in our country,” the FHA’s website said. “They are constantly being bombarded with sexually explicit material and radical gender ideology, even through so-called ‘family-friendly’ events like an upcoming drag show in South Dakota.”
The controversy attracted the attention of conservative elected officials. State Rep. Scott Odenbach (R) called it “unbelievable and unacceptable.” State Rep. Chris Karr (R) wrote to SDSU asking them “not to allow children to attend this event.” State Rep. John Hansen (D) said, “Use of taxpayer funds or resources for this event is not appropriate.”
The drag show was not funded by the university.
This led to death threats against the performers in the show, and security was increased. One performer said that everyone just “wanted out” by the end of the show.
The GSA said that around 300 people attended the drag event, more than had ever attended in the past.
This isn’t the first time the right has used this tactic – manipulating images of drag shows to make them seem inappropriate for children. Earlier this year, another rightwing blogger posted a blurred picture of a drag queen’s groin to make it seem like she had exposed herself to children. The drag performer later sued.
Again Christians trying hard to force their religious views on everyone else. They claim that just telling people those options exist is against the religious freedom of the doctors. Just like simply existing gays and trans people sexualize kids in schools. Just like providing a cake, flowers, photos, or a website of a same sex marriage somehow not only means you are a part of the wedding but it also means you support same sex marriage. But doing those things for divorced people getting married doesn’t mean you support divorce or doing those things for a wedding of a murderer doesn’t mean you support murder. But you know, it is about forcing selected morality on everyone. Hugs
A doctor and a Christian medical group have filed a lawsuit against New Mexico over an assisted suicide law passed last year they say violates their sincerely-held religious objections to the controversial practice.
Dr. Mark Lacy and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations filed a lawsuit against New Mexico on Wednesday in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. At issue was the Elizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Options Act, a law passed last year that legalized assisted suicide for terminally ill residents.
Lacy and the Christian organization are being represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, which has argued religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court.
The ADF claims that the New Mexico law “forces” Christian physicians to “facilitate” assisted suicide merely by telling patients that the option is available and legal. Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in eleven states.
Fuck them!! I just returned from 6 weeks in Canada where my 93 yr old mother was dying of pancreatic cancer. There was no treatment for her. She’d been in the hospital 5 weeks before she started experiencing pain and was put on morphine. 3 days after that she anounced she wanted medical assistance in death (MAID) in Canada. I was there when the doctor came to make sure she understood what would happen. She did completely and did not hesitate to sign the consent form. And I was there when the doctor came several days later to perform the procedure. She was surrounded by family, we drank shots of peach shnapps with her, had a few laughs at memories, and she was content to be having it over. I left the room when the doctor arrived but my dad said it was very peaceful and quick. Keeping her alive would have been absolute torture for her, and for who know how long. Her ashes were taken to the local priest who was happy to bless them. Fuck these people and their religious objections. If you object then don’t do it, but don’t deny others the right.
These Religious Fascists just never stop trying to control others. One day it would be nice to hear a story about them selflessly helping people. The only thing that seems to motivate them is controlling others and hate.
The conservative mindset has always been “This is America! Nobody can tell me what to do! Freedom! However, I can tell everybody else what to do and I am above reproach.”
I saw it everywhere growing up in the South (Tennessee). They think they’re living their godly life, so nobody can critique them…but they’ll be more than happy to look down on you and condemn you for not following their own “rules”
Louie Gohmert speakers on the floor of the House (screenshot via YouTube)
On Monday, Congressman Louie Gohmert, one of the most conservative members of the Republican Party, gave a general speech on the floor of the House and recited a sermon written for him by Pastor Tommy Nelson.
Gohmert explained that Nelson, a friend who runs Denton Bible Church in Texas, sometimes joked about how he would one day give a sermon “when I get to speak to Congress.” Since Tommy Nelson wouldn’t actually get that opportunity, Gohmert decided to serve as the middleman by asking Nelson what he’d want to say to Congress and delivering a nearly-25-minute Christian address on his behalf.
A lot of the speech was what we’ve come to expect from Gohmert: Full-throated Christian Nationalism, bigotry, and a belief that converting everyone to Christianity would solve all of society’s problems. Gohmert explained that, “Without God and His word to guide man, his fallen nature is unleashed, and unlike nature, man has become more and more immoral, violent, ignorant, and cruel.”
That sort of sermon has no business on the floor of the House. But that’s not even the biggest problem with it. Gohmert neglected to mention that his buddy Tommy Nelson and Denton Bible Church have been in the news quite a bit this year for reasons that shouldn’t be ignored.
Gohmert didn’t mention that Rob Shiflet, a former youth pastor at Denton Bible Church, had been repeatedly accused of sexual abuse and was sentenced to 33 months in prison in 2021 for sexually assaulting two girls on church trips.
Gohmert didn’t mention that his buddy Tommy Nelson commissioned a third-party investigation into that matter, which found that Shiflet had actually abused 14 girls, including 11 at Denton Bible. The report also found that church leaders knew about the allegations but never took them seriously. (In one instance, they asked him to write an apology letter to a child… which he didn’t do.)
Gohmert didn’t mention that Tommy Nelson’s church refused to give Shiflet a job as high school pastor in 2001 “because of his pattern of being alone with girls”… yet never made that public or shared that information with other churches.
Gohmert didn’t mention that Shiflet later got a job as a youth pastor in Arkansas, thanks in part to a recommendation made by Tommy Nelson. Shiflet’s abuse of children continued after that.
Gohmert did say, however, that Tommy Nelson was full of “profound truth” that comes from a higher power.
Which means a sitting Republican member of Congress praised a Christian pastor for being a paragon of moral excellence… while completely ignoring the fact that the same pastor allowed a sexual predator at his church to abuse children.
If there’s any silver lining here, it’s that Gohmert will no longer be in Congress come January. He announced his retirement last year in order to run for Attorney General of Texas, only to get crushed in the GOP primary.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday asked his state’s Supreme Court to green-light an investigation of “any and all wrongdoing in Florida with respect to Covid-19 vaccines,” his latest move to cast doubt on the vaccines’ effectiveness and amplify fears about side effects.
In the petition filed with the Florida Supreme Court, the Republican governor requests the empaneling of a grand jury to investigate a broad group of entities associated with the development, distribution and promotion of the vaccines, including pharmaceutical manufacturers and their executive officers, as well as medical associations.
DeSantis also said Tuesday he was launching a public health integrity committee – a panel that would counter the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which DeSantis said “is not serving a useful function; it’s really serving to advance narratives rather than do evidence-based medicine.”
The panel would assess guidance and actions from federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, US Food and Drug Administration and the CDC.”*
So the law accomplished what they wanted, the LGBTQI+ students are not protected, they are free to be targeted for being preyed on, and they will now be afraid to be out or themselves but instead will stay in the closet hidden from the rest of the kids. Is this the society of an entire state in 2022, the default position of 1950? How did we in Florida regress so far so fast. The entire LGBTQI+ population of Florida just lost legal standing in schools. The students with two same sex parents are the same as bastard child had out of wedlock in the 1950. They are not allowed to mention their families or do family events. How is this protecting the children? I am worried that this drive my sweep the country in the red states. DeathSantis is so driven to become president he will hurt anyone and everyone to get there. Ron and I disagree if DeathSantis is a true Christian Nationalist of just pandering to them, but either way the result is the same. Hugs
OT: Tomorrow I will write a post about what happened this week starting with Wednesday. But today my pain levels will barely let me sit at my desk. I have spent most of my day on the bed trying to get my spine to stop sending pain signals to my brain that something is tearring my body apart. Hugs
Ten county school districts were put on notice last month that some of their policies and procedures “may not comport with Florida law.”
On Wednesday, Florida’s State Board of Education got an update on progress among school district’s flagged for noncompliance with the state’s Don’t Say Gay law.
Ten county school districts were put on notice last month that some of their policies and procedures “may not comport with Florida law” and were directed to bring their districts into compliance.
The board learned several districts among the ten pulled LGBTQ+ support guides, two passed new regulations banning trans kids from using the restrooms and locker rooms of their gender, and one threw out half of its equity statement addressing racism.
With those rollbacks, board members — all appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — were satisfied.
“Ultimately we found that these districts are in compliance with the law,” said board chair Tom Grady.
The Parental Rights in Education Act, passed in March, went into effect in September. The law prohibits instruction and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and restricts those discussions in higher grades.
It’s had a chilling effect on LGBTQ+ teachers, students, and speech of all kinds.
The school districts flagged for non-compliance were Alachua, Broward, Brevard, Duval, Hillsborough, Indian River, Leon, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, plus the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind.
In the hearing, Grady warned superintendents they could still be subject to lawsuits by parents as they instituted changes. Broward County reported it would take until March 31, 2023 to roll back policies to bring the district into compliance.
“I think it’s clear to me that not only Broward, but other districts have a pretty significant incentive to move as quickly as possible, certainly prior to March 31, in order to revise those procedures to avoid that type of a challenge,” Grady said.
Chairman Grady also took the opportunity at Wednesday’s meeting to congratulate the DeSantis-appointed board for an award by the right-leaning Center for Education Reform, which endorsed and lobbied for the Don’t Say Gay legislation at the center of their agenda.
“I think this is a good time to just very quickly note, Florida has ranked Number 1 in the nation for parents’ involvement in education,” Grady said, “and that’s really what this item is about.”
Last week, the author of the Don’t Say Gay law, Republican state Rep. Joseph Harding, was indicted on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements, and resigned his seat in the Florida legislature.
An atheist group wants the Greenville Public Schools to stop giving pastors veto power over books (screenshot via YouTube)
Reading Time: 4MINUTES
The Board of Trustees for the Greenville County Schools in South Carolina wants clergy members to be able to review what books are appropriate for public school students, and they may face a legal challenge if they go through with it.
Recently, there’s been a push by conservative school boards to ban books deemed inappropriate for kids; their idea of what’s inappropriate boils down to books that mention LGBTQ people or sex unless fire and brimstone are included as a consequence.
Last May, for example, the Greenville County Schools Board of Trustees voted to ban a book called Melissa, about a trans girl, from all elementary schools in the district. Middle school students would need parental permission to check it out.
The people who make those kinds of suggestions to the board sit on a “Materials Review Committee.” The group judges the appropriateness of material across the curriculum, but the books are where all the action is at these days.
In August, the Board announced that it was accepting applications from anyone interested in joining that committee for a three-year term. But their announcement raised eyebrows because they specifically said clergy members would be included in the mix:
At the elementary school level, the committee will be comprised of three parents with children enrolled in Greenville county elementary schools, four district elementary school teachers from different grade levels, one district elementary school media specialist, one member of the clergy and two non-employees of the school district.
At the middle school level, the committee will be comprised of three parents with children enrolled in Greenville County middle schools, three district middle school teachers from different subject areas, one district middle school media specialist, one member of the clergy, and two non-employees of the school district.
At the high school level, the committee will be comprised of three parents with children enrolled in Greenville County high schools, three district high school teachers from different subject areas; one high school media specialist, one member of the clergy, and two non-employees of the school district.
What the hell would a clergy member add to the discussion? Who cares what pastors think about a particular book? Why is leading a church a prerequisite for a seat on this committee but not leading a non-profit that helps kids struggling with mental health?
“It’s a very clear violation of the establishment clause,” said Marcus Corder, parent of a student at Lake Forest Elementary. “It makes me wonder what type of clergy have had the power over the decision of taxpayers’ money over the years.”
Corder, who said he also attended Lake Forest as a child, wants clergy removed from the committees.
“It’s a further erosion of the separation of church and state,” Corder said.
According to the Greenville News, though, the inclusion of clergy members for these committees is mandated by the state:
Requirement of clergy on the advisory committees comes from the state’s Comprehensive Health Education Act of 1988, which was passed to assist in selecting curriculum components and materials, according to [executive director of academic innovation and technology Charlotte] McDavid. Every school district in South Carolina uses such a committee, McDavid said.
If that’s the case, then this isn’t a problem with the school board. It would be a problem with state law. But it turns out that’s not actually true.
In a letter the Freedom From Religion Foundation just sent to the Greenville County Schools, their decision to put clergy members on the Materials Review Committee is their choice, not a state law, because the law restricts the inclusion of clergy members to committees reviewing “reproductive health education, family life education, and pregnancy prevention education.”
So… not books. Certainly not books by or about LGBTQ people. To be clear, clergy members should not have a say in health education either. It’s an awful, potentially illegal, law as well. But it’s a separate issue that’s not currently up for debate.
The bottom line is that FFRF says this is the school board’s problem to fix if they want to avoid a lawsuit.
According to a local news source, the District claims the inclusion of clergy on the committees is required by South Carolina’s Comprehensive Health Education Act of 1988 (“CHEA”). However, the CHEA provides that material review committees “assist in the selection of components and curriculum materials” for “instructional materials addressing the subjects of reproductive health education, family life education, and pregnancy prevention education.” In contrast, the District’s committees are not assisting in the initial selection of curriculum materials nor are the committees focused on subjects related to reproductive health education, family life education, or pregnancy prevention education. Instead, the District’s Materials Review Committees address complaints, and these complaints may be about any and all District materials, not just materials regarding health education.
Since the law is specific regarding what materials they can cover, FFRF says the clergy members have to go in this particular case.
The District must eliminate the clergy member positions from each Materials Review Committee. It is inappropriate and unconstitutional for a public school district to create special positions for religious leaders.
The Greenville County Schools should take this seriously given that this isn’t their first run-in with the church/state separation crowd. In 2020, after a six-year legal battle over Christian prayers at their graduation ceremonies, the same school district lost the case and had to pay the American Humanist Association $187,000 in legal fees.
That’s going to be the outcome here as well. Clergy members, in and of themselves, have nothing of value to offer public schools when it comes to what books should be available to kids. If they have some kind of special knowledge in that arena, then that should be what they emphasize. That’s all that matters.
Photo: Shutterstock
112
Photo: Shutterstock
Scottie's Playtime 