This is the hyper Fundamentalist Christian who is radically against trans people and the entire LGBTQ+. He has made it his mission in political life to push bigotry and hate to anything he thinks the Christian god hates while trying to promote Christianity as a state religion at every turn. So here he is trying to shut down a homeless shelter. Really what Jesus would ask his followers to do, right? No this is not based on religion or faith, this is about profit and who gives him money. He pushes religious stuff because his main benefactor and political protector is a billionaire fundamentalist Christian preacher who thinks the government should force every person to be a Christian with his views. And what about the homeless shelter … Well local business don’t like the look or the congestion so more donations to remove them … Get the point. The point is the wealthy people who support this … Ultra Christian simply don’t like the poor around. They want them to go away and never be seen. Hugs.
In this June 22, 2017, file photo, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a news conference in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to shut down an Austin, Texas, homeless center, calling the charity a public nuisance.
The Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center says it’s the largest provider of homeless services in Travis County. According to its website, the center provides a number of services, including physical and mental health care, substance abuse care, harm reduction, housing interventions and benefits enrollment. The center has received over a $1 million from the city of Austin, according to Paxton’s complaint.
“In South Austin, a once peaceful neighborhood has been transformed by homeless drug addicts, convicted criminals, and registered sex offenders,” Paxton says in the complaint, filed in Travis County District Court. “These people do drugs in sight of children, publicly fornicate next to an elementary school, menace residents with machetes, urinate and defecate on public grounds, and generally terrorize the surrounding community.”
In his complaint, Paxton notes the center’s location across the street from an elementary school. The Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on the lawsuit that the school has been forced into lockdown repeatedly due to violent behavior from people receiving services at the center.
Paxton also takes issue with the center allowing a clean syringe distribution program on its property, which he says amounts to facilitating drug use. Part of a “harm reduction” philosophy, clean syringe programs aim to help people who are already using intravenous drugs do so more safely. In Texas, such programs operate in a legal grey area, as they are not authorized by the state and Texas law criminalizes the possession of drug paraphernalia.
“Drug activity and criminal behavior facilitated by this organization have hijacked an entire neighborhood,” Paxton said in a statement. “By operating a taxpayer-funded drug paraphernalia giveaway next to an elementary school, this organization is threatening students’ health and safety and unjustly worsening daily life for every single resident of the neighborhood. We will shut this unlawful nuisance behavior down.”
Paxton seeks an injunction requiring the center to close for a year and prohibiting it from conducting operations within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or youth center. But in a statement, the center’s executive director Mark Hilbelink said the services will continue.
“It is regrettable that Attorney General Paxton took this route, especially during the week of Thanksgiving, but Sunrise intends to keep offering services to people in our community who need them,” Hilbelink said in a statement. “We are committed to being a good neighbor. We will continue to work, every day, to support Joslin Elementary School, our neighborhood, and our entire community.”
He also noted the center is a ministry of Sunrise Community Church and is therefore protected by the First Amendment, the U.S. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“These laws have been tested in court on multiple occasions, always with the same result: churches are protected to do work that is an expression of their religious practice,” Hilbelink said.
The Texas committee that examines all pregnancy-related deaths in the state will not review cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after Texas’s near-total abortion ban took effect, leaving any potential deaths related to abortion bans during those years uninvestigated by the 23 doctors, medical professionals and other specialists who make up the group.
Leaders of the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee said the change was made to “be more contemporary” — allowing them to skip over a backlog of older cases and review deaths closer to the date when they occurred, and therefore offer more relevant recommendations to policymakers. At least three women have died in Texas because of delays in care related to the abortion bans, according to reporting from ProPublica.
Ten Bears has made me Jealous. I wish I had found this first. But to give credit I think he can do more with it. If you don’t know ask him his work out regiment. If anyone who claims to be male thinks their bigotry can out male his actual being … I hope they never tell that to him face to face. I was in the military and even in my best fitness I don’t think I could have kept up with his regimen. Hugs
Again this crusade is marketed as protecting the children from sexualized content. What do they call sexualized content? Chest binders for teenage girls and drag queens! Neither are sexualizing for children. Drag queens can run the gambit from guys dressed as grandmothers to guys dressed as sexy sex workers. It depends on the venue, and minors are not allowed in adult entertainment events. That is already the laws. But to the fundamentalist any guy dressed in anything thought of as women’s attire is sexualizing and a threat to children. Why? Kids don’t care if a man wears pants or a dress. And chest binders are not sexualizing nor confusing. They are a medical assistance tool. If a girl identifies as a boy and hates her body, he needs to hide or remove the sign or his boob development. Would these people be so outraged at binders if it was a boy with gynecomastia, which is when boys grow breasts, uses a bind to feel better about themselves? No it is because the person transitioning is trans that outrages them. We are losing the discussion on this topic because we are let the vocal outraged right set the narrative such as all drag is sexual and confusing kids, and anything trans is forced on kids sexualizing them so it also confuses them. Remember when they said gays recruit boys by molesting them so they would turn gay? That was easily shown to be ridiculous. We went on the offense then and won. We need to go back on the offense and show the haters are repressively backwards in their thinking who don’t understand the changing evolving society. Hugs
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of major corporations that have done the same after coming under attack by conservative activists.
The changes, confirmed by Walmart on Monday, are sweeping and include everything from not renewing a five-year commitment for an equity racial center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, to pulling out of a prominent gay rights index. And when it comes to race or gender, Walmart won’t be giving priority treatment to suppliers.
Walmart’s moves underscore the increasing pressure faced by corporate America as it continues to navigate the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2023 ending affirmative action in college admissions. Emboldened by that decision, conservative groups have filed lawsuits making similar arguments about corporations, targeting workplace initiatives such as diversity programs and hiring practices that prioritize historically marginalized groups.
Separately, conservative political commentator and activist Robby Starbuck has been going after corporate DEI policies, calling out individual companies on the social media platform X. Several of those companies have subsequently announced that they are pulling back their initiatives, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s and Tractor Supply.
But Walmart, which employs 1.6 million workers in the U.S., is the largest one to do so.
“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America,” Starbuck wrote on X, adding that he had been in conversation with Walmart.
Walmart confirmed to The Associated Press that it will better monitor its third-party marketplace items to make sure they don’t feature sexual and transgender products aimed at minors. That would include chest binders intended for youth who are going through a gender change, the company said.
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer will also be reviewing grants to Pride events to make sure it is not financially supporting sexualized content that may be unsuitable for kids. For example, the company wants to makes sure a family pavilion is not next to a drag show at a Pride event, the company said.
Additionally, Walmart will no longer consider race and gender as a litmus test to improve diversity when it offers supplier contracts. The company said it didn’t have quotas and will not do so going forward. It won’t be gathering demographic data when determining financing eligibility for those grants.
Walmart also said it wouldn’t renew a racial equity center that was established through a five-year, $100 million philanthropic commitment from the company with a mandate to, according to its website, “address the root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by Black and African American people in education, health, finance and criminal justice systems.”
And it would stop participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual benchmark index that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.
“We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone,” the company said in a statement.
The changes come soon after an election win by former President Donald Trump, who has criticized DEI initiatives and surrounded himself with conservatives who hold similar views, including his former adviser Stephen Miller, who leads a group called America First Legal that has challenged corporate DEI policies. Trump named Miller to be the deputy chief of policy in his new administration.
A Walmart spokesperson said some of its policy changes have been in progress for a while. For example, it has been moving away from using the word DEI in job titles and communications and started to use the word “belonging.” It also started making changes to its supplier program in the aftermath of the Supreme Court affirmative action ruling.
Some have been urging companies to stick with their DEI policies. Last month, a group of Democrats in Congress appealed to the leaders of the Fortune 1000, saying that DEI efforts give everyone a fair chance at achieving the American dream.
The bible lessons were pushed by Jonathan Covey [photo], head of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Texas Values, which has appeared here multiple times in the past. In February 2015, on the tenth anniversary of the Texas state ban on same-sex marriage, Texas Values held a “banniversary” celebration complete with a cake-cutting ceremony. The actual tenth “banniversary” wasn’t until November 2015, but Texas Values held their little party months early because they rightly feared what the Supreme Court would ultimately rule in June of that year.
I had a classmate tell me that Dems would do better if we dropped the “whole bathroom thing.” I educated him that this was not a fight we chose and that trans people have been around for decades using the bathrooms they fit in best. It was Republicans that made it a “thing.”
All of the “hot button social issues” are issues created and kept alive by Republicans. People are just trying to live their lives, and the GQP decides they’re doing it wrong.
Look, I genuinely don’t care who is in the bathroom with me, but the law you’re proposing says the person on the left should use the women’s bathroom and the person on the right should use the men’s bathroom https://t.co/isL1hCofbIpic.twitter.com/drWWVnSyIL
A Trump supporting, anti-trans, anti-gay Republican was elected commissioner of the county where I grew up. He won despite being in jail on election night for a sexual assault in Vegas. It’s now come out that the woman he assaulted was his daughter. fox59.com/news/indycri…
Three wives, adultery with an employee, and an alleged sexual assault is what Jesus would want.
Appearing on a Christian nationalist podcast last night, Pete Hegseth said he's creating a system of "classical Christian schools" to provide recruits for an underground army that will eventually launch an "educational insurgency" across the nation. https://t.co/OnW3oNXoDfpic.twitter.com/dSb0RB8Y5Q
Failure to provide anything close to real, immediate funding for Helene recovery is appalling. Instead, the GOP legislature used financial crumbs to cover for massive power grabs.https://t.co/dsAwcASthH
I spent today with local leaders, business owners, and volunteers in western North Carolina. Many people and communities are hurting and need our help. But instead of stepping up, the Republicans in the General Assembly are grabbing power and exacting political retribution. How…
Notice the similarity to US politicians? See how he lied to gin up outrage over the idea of woke left taking away a right of prayer from the people. It was a lie that he repeated to stir anger and win votes. Hugs
House Democrats are brushing off Republican attacks on Rep.-elect Sarah McBride after some GOP members made clear they would attempt to keep McBride from using the women’s restrooms in the Capitol. That’s because McBride told them to.
By Tuesday morning, Democrats had a clear message: Republican attacks on trans people were a distraction from other issues. Sources told NOTUS that McBride had made obvious in meetings that she wanted her colleagues to talk about policy — and what Republicans weren’t doing — instead.
The congresswoman-elect, one lawmaker said, reiterated that Republicans’ messaging was a “distraction” and that this isn’t “her first rodeo” dealing with anti-trans rhetoric. Another House Democrat said they’ve personally talked “extensively” with McBride and “she doesn’t want to be seen as a victim.”
Our incoming president elect remains butthurt over a Vanity Fair article (small hands) from over 30 years ago.
McBride brushes off direct personal attacks and wants us to focus on policy. Our incoming president wants SNL taken off the air because they told jokes.
In 2018 Virginia’s Danica Roem was the first out trans person elected to any state legislature, as a Delegate. Last year she was elected as a state Senator, and when that happened she became the second in the US to be elected to a state Senate, after Sarah McBride’s election in 2020. Interesting both mid-Atlantic, soon everywhere hopefully.
Greene and her ilk are beyond pathetic. As it happens, I’ve worked with and written about more than a usual share of trans people.
Their journeys and, in some cases, what they’ve endured to live their lives authentically and with joy are far greater than this.
McBride can let them spin in the sewer of their ignorance, immaturity, and hatred while McBride focuses on being a grownup. I applaud her response, and I have to say I’m not the least bit surprised.
The problem is that Democrats can’t avoid talking about trans people because Republicans won’t let us. We aren’t bringing it up. I don’t think it’s a big issue. Yes, it affects trans people but no one else is harmed by a small percentage of our population being treated fairly and decently.
Texas is a good example. Ted Cruz made trans girls playing sports a core issue in the campaign. Allred tried to avoid that topic but had to address it. And it didn’t matter. Never mind that Cruz used images of cis-gendered girls from Oregon in his ad because this is just not a problem in Texas. Nope. That’s not scary enough for the knuckle-dragging redneck assholes that show up to vote in Texas.
I agree we shouldn’t bring it up, but it’s naive to think that it’s an issue we can just ignore because Republicans are not going to shut up about it because they think it helped them in this year. Look for several more rounds of this shit. Trans girls in sports is the new gay marriage.
Please listen to the audio as the written part doesn’t fully capture what she said and why she said it. This is also in a post Ali made from friend Janet at her blog which I will link below. Janet is an amazing woman and I enjoy reading her blog. But AOC mentioned what this is about is targeting people who do not fit the people on the right view of who looks like a man to them or who looks like a woman to them.
Also Johnson said this was not a hardship for McBride as she could use all the public bathrooms or I guess they have private bathrooms in their offices? Well why couldn’t Mace also do the same or use her own bathroom rather than making the spectacle and forcing all trans people to be targeted with suspicion from people. She was the only one complaining? Well if he told her that they couldn’t make a big deal of it, Johnson wouldn’t be able to push his Christian cred and Mace wouldn’t be able to carry on for a week on a crusade against someone not harming her in any way. Hard to fund raise off a threat that doesn’t exist unless they can make it seem like one. Hugs.
AOC comes out swinging against a Nancy Mace for targeting Sarah McBride."They're doing this so that Nancy Mace can … fundraise off an email. They're not doing this to protect people. They're endangering women, they're endangering girls of all kinds. And everybody should reject it. It's gross."
Another great video from Rev. Trevors supporting trans rights. He tells the story of a family in a waiting room talking about someone who transitioned. The mother says she is doing well and the daughter says “Don’t you mean it”? The Reverend explains which one in his opinion by the teaching of the bible stepped out of being human. Spoilers … It was not the trans person. Hugs.
Scottie's Playtime 