Understand this is about indoctrination and preventing social acceptance. Where do kids encounter their most diverse and accepting environment, yes watching social media influencers who are openly different, LGBTQIA / or supporting of, and display rainbow flags and talk about how grand diversity and inclusion is? That leads kids to understand the truth, it is OK to be different. Young people’s programming on media starts with cartoons, and animated shows, and moves online. Why do you think the right / DeathSantis went after Disney so hard also why the hard rabid right Daily Wire started all their own kids programming with hard right indoctrination? It is why states like Florida approved using Prager U YouTube videos in public schools. It is all about getting to the kids when they are young and developing so they can be indoctrinated in a regressive fundamentalist Christian right wing philosophy. Also to prevent the Taylor Swift phenomenon from happening. Hugs. Scottie.
Ever wonder why left leaning stars are so popular they can sway large majorities of the public, but the right wing stars are so much less able to do it, especially individually? Because the idea, policies, and goals of the repressive right are unpopular with the majority. They want minority rule.
“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”
The Florida House of Representatives has passed two bills banning social media for minors under age 16 and requiring age verification for pornographic sites, just two weeks into their 2024 legislative session.
With House approval, the bills will now head to the state Senate before making its way to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s desk. If the governor signs both bills, they will likely go into effect in July, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
The measure does not include which social media platforms will be banned for users under 16. State House Speaker Paul Renner, R, said the bill doesn’t focus on content, but on “addictive technologies” and “the courts will decide” what those are.
Read the full article. As I reported earlier this month, the social media ban is authored by freshman Rep. Fiona McFarland. Republicans hold supermajorities in both Florida chambers and can therefore force pretty much anything they want into law.
RELATED: McFarland’s mother, K.T. McFarland, served as Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor under Michael Flynn and she was accused by Robert Mueller of complicity in Flynn’s lies to the FBI. The accusations scuttled the elder McFarland’s nomination by Trump to be US ambassador to Singapore.
ONE STEP CLOSER: Florida bill meant to ban minors from having social media accounts has passed. What it could mean for teens across the state 📱 https://t.co/yQWLF7oSPR
The measure does not include which social media platforms will be banned for users under 16. State House Speaker Paul Renner, R, said the bill doesn’t focus on content, but on “addictive technologies” and “the courts will decide” what those are.
I thought the exact same thing. Then I was going to say it sounds like they’d probably put the onus on Social Media sites to follow the law, but the point would remain the same: Enforcement is going to be a bitch.
I hope social media co.s do what pornhub did and just make their sites unavailable in that state (although I could see how that could have a negative impact on the kids who count on it for social support and stuff).
Between Nikki Haley enthusiastically supporting a national abortion ban, to Donald Trump’s rape case, to the GOP’s entire personality, the Republican Party has declared war on women, and we just can’t be ok with it.
What the fuck!!! This culture war against the LGBTQIA and the attempt to drive the country hard back to the 1950s has got to stop. We have had these fights, these arguments, and society has progressed into acceptance. They found one exposed nipple? Have any of you been to a redneck bar in the deep south? I went to a bar in Georgia when I was 19 and in the US Army. Man what I saw there made what I saw working in a gay bar in the 1990s look like a church picnic. One booth was reserved for giving blow jobs by the local bar sluts. I had to be very worried because they loved to get them some young army boys fresh from boot camp in training schools. They about do you on the bar stool. But that is OK to the haters because it is cis straight sex in the open, not an exposed nipple in a gay bar. Wait, I am confused, I thought only female boobs were sexy and to be hidden. Men boobs are fine to see everywhere. There are different kinds of bars for different likes. I bet you some of the high-end places are offering sex also, but those are upper society, so the police won’t bother them. The republican Christian Taliban won’t be happy until everyone is as repressed and unhappy as they are. Hugs. Scottie
Marching into a gay bar to issue citations feels a bit vintage in 2024. Nevertheless, over the weekend, the Joint Enforcement Team (JET), which is a coalition of Seattle Police, Fire, the state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB), and others, entered two gay bars, The Cuff Complex and The Seattle Eagle, and started looking around.
And what did they find? A bartender’s exposed nipple and a few people wearing jockstraps, offenses that law enforcement can cite you for in Washington if you’re also selling alcohol.
At 12:30 on Saturday morning, a 10-member JET crew filed into Cuff, according to owner Joey Burgess. They came in with flashlights, scaring some patrons who left in a hurry. Inside, they saw the offending nipple, a violation of state law the JET may penalize in some way.
A group of Capitol Hill gay bars and clubs are teaming up with neighborhood queer community leaders Dan Savage and Terry Miller in calling for the state’s liquor control board and Seattle Police officials to explain what they say was a weekend crackdown reminiscent of historical harassment of Seattle’s LGBTQ friendly venues.
Ownership at the bars including The Cuff, Queer/Bar, Massive, and The Eagle along with Savage and Miller say that citations issued over weekend over clothing and decency violations at a handful of clubs recorded by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board and so-called Joint Enforcement Team inspectors were targeted.
The group is asking for the community to demand the liquor control board explain its actions.
A coalition of law enforcement officials raided two Seattle gay bars and found nipples and jockstraps in close proximity to booze. Bar owners at Cuff and the Eagle say they may face citations.
I used to have a lot of respect for the police. In the past 12-15 years, that has really eroded away. When I see the times they have shot people because they felt threatened by somebody sitting in a car or reading that the person was shot 56 times, I question them. It’s become worse when they show up dressed like tactical assault troops for simple things. They are getting away with murder. I am not sure how much that I trust them anymore.
And if Trump assumes his dictatorship, cops will have his blessing to be non-compliant with laws and free of any accountability. That’s exactly what he said.
For me, watching the old man get shoved down nonchalantly in Buffalo was the tipping point. First time I used a porcine term to describe them, just after an expletive.
I’ve distrusted cops ever since I shared a house for a while with, among others, a police cadet. The stories I heard about what cops allow other cops to get away with!
And this was just run-of-the-mill police dishonesty and corruption. At the time, I wasn’t aware of how aggressively violent many of them are, as well.
Dude, you and I have a very similar take on this shit and I applaud you for the spot on comment. Being SWM I sometimes have to edit what I say but can always count on you to “send it”.
Even if there is a god/gods (I’m agnostic), I doubt that He/She/It/They would care about people seeing each other’s nipples and various body parts. He/She/It/They made them that way, after all, even if through evolution.
Being that this was open knowledge for many years. I mean, it’s the cuff and the Eagle and all they found was an open nipple and jock strap. Lol I too am wondering who’s behind this. At the liquor board. You know damn well that there’s some religious nut or right-wing POS behind it.
This follows closely upon the attempt to shut down one of the city’s two traditionally gay nude beaches (by building a children’s playground next door). Thankfully, that was nipped in the bud by an overwhelmingly oppositional public protest. Hopefully this will be too.
Brattleboro, Vermont built West River Park next to the traditionally nude (optional) beach on West River for that exact reason. No nudity within 500 feet of a park.
Remember when some liquor control guy took a snap shot of the Eagle balcony and caught some penises in the picture? They said they were going to close it until Dan Savage went around town taking pictures of himself in City Hall, etc with his dick out (public nudity is NOT illegal in Seattle) asking if they were going to close them down too and they backed off.
I know that they can only show ‘beefcake’ pictures on the monitors in bars, a bit amazing down in CA where they have full on porn movies going in some of the bars…
Ya, the last time I was in an Eagle there was someone locked in a cage in the center of the room performing oral sex and being urinated on by strangers. A nipple and jockstrap seem almost wholesome in comparison.
Seattle has a reputation for being a liberal haven, but in fact the SPD is virulently bigoted. Remember that they were under a consent decree for 11 years, effectively under federal supervision until they changed a racist culture that had led to the murder of a First Nations man. Parts of that decree are STILL in effect.
Nipples, jockstraps and alcohol? You can see more flesh, alcohol, and lewd conduct on a public beach in any Summer. Yeah, the originators of that raid on gay bars has some ‘splainin’ to do, and an apology to make. Seattle, you’re better than this!
2016, Americans elected a rapist to the White House. 2024 that rapist is running for the Republican nomination. Rapists gonna rape.
If you think that your liberties are protected by case law, – the Supreme Court, let me introduce you to the strict constructionists, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Any Barrett, Kavanaugh. Raids on gay bars, – you ain’t seen nuttin yet
Are we worried yet about marriage equality, about gay health clinics, about PDAs, about flags or drags, about our freedoms of association in or out of gay bars……….. Are we worried yet about camps, about quarantines, about being ostracised ? Are we worried yet about what the Evangelicals want to do to us?
Please notice the date. Two years ago. These were children, 50% being held in pre-trial detention, but already convicted and serving harsh sentences. Even though the boys were 17 at the time of the interview they were younger when picked up, and we have seen younger kids in each video I have shared. Every single thing the Israeli soldiers did to these kids was to induce pain and fear. It is the shit interrogators at Gitmo did to adults, and that was called a war crime then. They are doing this to hurt, be cruel, to break these kids, and terrorize both them and their parents. All because they are Palestinian. This is the government the US has supported unequivocally, and this is why the attacks on Israel happen. In the US some states have made it illegal to protest Israel, to support the BDS movement. What is BDS? Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. The republicans in congress are trying to equate the protesting what Israel is doing with antisemitism. That is stupid. Don’t fall for it. This is a short clip, all the words are in big print on the screen. Please watch, and then spread the word. Help these kids. Hugs. Scottie
Palestinian teenagers Ahmad, and Abdulkareem, both 17, describe their harrowing experiences being interrogated and ill-treated by Israeli forces in the Huwwara Interrogation and Detention Center near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
The acceptance, tolerance, and anti-bullying programs have helped LGBTQIA kids be comfortable enough to come out, be themselves, live without hiding. This is the very thing the fundamentalist maga Christians are horrified about, what they are desperate to stop, the modern age of not having to hid being different. That is what the maga / white supremacist nationalist are all about, a hegemony society of all white cis straight people who think alike. That is why they love Russia so much, the people and country are basically the same, in color, ideas, religion, basically a US 1950s public / society. Is that the country you want to live in? It won’t work. The genie is out of the bottle and enjoying life. Modern young people know friends and family that are LGBTQIA, and they see they are normal people. Modern young people are not going to be frightened or scared about the made up boogieman of fearmongering about LGBTQIA. Some quick facts from the source article. Hugs. Scottie
Gen Z — which includes those born between 1997 and 2012 — is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history, and an estimated 40.8 million Gen Zers will be eligible to vote in 2024.
Gen Z adults — who now make up about 1 in 6 of the Americans eligible to vote — are more politically left than older Americans, with 43% of them identifying as liberal, the survey found.
About 28% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, compared with 16% of millennials, 7% of Generation X (born 1965-1980), 4% of baby boomers (1946-1964) and 4% of the Silent Generation (1928-1945).
Generation Z adults are less likely than older generations to join an established religion, far more likely to identify as LGBTQ and generally are less likely to be Republican, a new survey shows. Gen Z adults — who now make up about 1 in 6 of the Americans eligible to vote — are more politically left than older Americans, with 43% of them identifying as liberal, the survey found.
Gen Z adults are notably less likely to identify as white Christians (27%) compared to baby boomers (54%), and more likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated (33%) than every generation except millennials. About 28% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, compared with 16% of millennials, 7% of Generation X (born 1965-1980), 4% of baby boomers (1946-1964) and 4% of the Silent Generation (1928-1945).
Gen Z adults — who now make up about 1 in 6 of the Americans eligible to vote — are more politically left than older Americans. They also appear to be accelerating Americans' move away from Christianity and toward being unaffiliated with any religion. https://t.co/poMkmTN5WQpic.twitter.com/umQXeycoPc
My entire adult life I’ve believed that there are far more LGBTQ people than are willing to step forward, own it and live it. Don’t underestimate our determination to live our lives freely and openly on helping younger generations to break free of the old taboos. And organized religion, particularly Christianity, is doomed. The shine is off the apple 🍎 and everyone with clarity can see it’s rotten to the core.
Most people are at least a little bit bi. A younger generation is willing to admit that to themselves and to pollsters. The only thing new here is the honesty. There aren’t MORE lgbt people. There are just more people willing to say that they are mostly straight but might mess around with another dude from time to time. Of course this will be played in the MSM as if suddenly young people are turning gay which will lead to more “grooming” accusations.
I agree. It’s something I’ve always believed and I’m old. My personal life experiences have shown me that most people’s sexuality is somewhat fluid. Not a few self identified straight women I’ve known were more than interested in my sexualty. Life teaches a lot of unexpected lessons
I have a rather long list of straight men that have happily chosen to take a walk on the wild side with me. If I was a young man today, I might dare to declare myself as bi.
Mike Johnson thinks these numbers are a sign of increased depravity, when the opposite is the case. I’m thrilled to see younger people don’t live in the same terror so many in my generation suffered through.
Closet cases are always terrified by people who are living their lives without shame. I’ve met way too many of those in my life (especially in the corporate world).
I agree, however, I’d also say gen Z are probably more open to discovering whether they’re bi or ace or gender queer than were previous generations, who may never have explored what may be hidden even to them (us).
Sometimes I get a bit confused about the variations, but I’m glad people are able to live their best lives , enjoying their sexuality and FINALLY understanding that sex isn’t just about procreation. Sling the doors wide open, they’ve been closed for far too long.
I suspect we’d be seeing fewer toxic relationships if people were more open about what they wanted or needed, and more open to listening and understanding the wants and needs of others, whether that’s in bed or at work!
Oh, I get it. When my nephew decided to put his heels on to go to Home Depot with me, I was thrilled that he felt comfortable with that. And tried to deal with my own internalized homophobia while we were there.
This will tell you how old I am, my great granddaughter who’s 16 declared herself as a lesbian and dated a Trans girl for 6 months. That was a bit confusing to me
I have a grand niece that’s declared she’s a boy, so I guess I have a grand nephew now! My granddaughter claims to be bi. In both cases, I’m glad they’re exploring their options and I talked with them about the possibility they may shift again or not. They’re 13 and 14 and both claim they haven’t had any sex yet. I also told them that at some point, they’ll know for sure and not to worry. They’re both awesome kids.
I’m so glad they have acceptance and someone they can talk to who gets it. I have a great grandson who’s also 16 who’s gay and a grandson who is 16 who is bi. I love their generations fearlessness. They’re all great kids.
I don’t remember who said this several years ago, but he heard someone say, “I guess being a gay man isn’t too bad, but I wouldn’t want my brother to marry one.” To which the someone whose name I can’t remember responded, “Better your brother than your sister.”
I miss the comradery and concentration we had with gay bars, but I don’t miss the possibility of getting beaten in an alley when I leave one. Well, at least that possibility is reduced. 🙂
If voting were everything. Gerrymandering needs to be abolished so that everyone’s voice can be heard. Then comes term limits for the Supreme Court justices. And get rid of the Electoral College. So, there’s a few steps beyond voting. But voting blue is a good start.
Yes and no. If you live in a gerrymandered district, your vote might not count. If the point of view of the Supreme Court colors their judgement, then any policy can be changed. At the same time, all the issues cannot be solved at once and so voting is a great place to start…as long as you understand it’s just the beginning of a long, may years struggle.
That means getting them to want them to vote for your candidate. Every attempt at browbeating will backfire completely, the smart play is to inspire them to vote.
The GOP has no majority in any age group. And yet theyve gerrymandered themselves into power sine 2000. I blame Renquist & Alito setting the stage for corrupting SCOTUS
“All social progress is made, not by convincing conservatives that they’re wrong–this is impossible–but by waiting for them to die off. Then the next generation grows up wondering what all the fuss was about.”
I think people who are 100% straight or 100% gay over their lifetimes are relatively rare. I think of it as a dial: 0 – 100% straight, and everybody’s needle points to a different location. I also think — in both directions — that there are a lot of people whose experience is wholly one or the other who really should answer the question, “Well… I haven’t been tempted, yet, anyway.”
As we frequently tell the heteros, just because you can’t understand or fathom my sexuality doesn’t mean you can dismiss it. Saying I don’t get how someone could not experience same sex and opposite attraction is no different than a straight bro saying he doesn’t get how guys can not be turned on by women.
Scottie's Playtime 