I bet the next election will be well attended and these people will lose their seats and new progressive inclusive people will win. That is what has happened all over when the right bigots and haters snuck into school board seats, they go too far trying to erase the LGBTQ+ kids / people from existence, then they get kicked out. Sadly by then the damage is done. What they hell do they want people perving on kids in the bathrooms for? To make the kids scared to use them and to make sure the weird kids are not doing weird gay stuff in them, right? Hugs. Scottie.
By the way. We have a hurricane headed right at us. It will be here Wednesday at around noon, but we have three days of wind and rain beforehand. It will hit at a class three. It is projected to hit just above us but could hit us directly. We will be spending the next few days getting as much done as possible, stocking in cat food Ron forgot and getting more gas and propane for the generator. It is unlikely that pole of ours will survive another storm as it is already leaning hard. Repair crews are already stretched thin in other areas so won’t be able to come rescue us in our time of need. Going to be a very long few months. Hugs. Scottie
YORK DISPATCH EDITORIAL BOARD
York Dispatch
At the risk of stating the obvious, South Western’s elected school board is making some strange decisions.
For the last two years, they’ve fixated on which bathrooms LGBTQ+ kids use. In 2023, officials in this Hanover-area district played musical chairs with school bathrooms in a misguided attempt to appease the loudest bigots among them — ending up with five different types of bathrooms.
After a low-turnout school board election in which several far-right members joined their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin banning books and reopened the bathroom issue. Board President Matthew Gelazela, who was elevated to his post after previously serving as the board’s most vocal bomb-thrower, pointed to Red Lion’s discriminatory policiesas something to aspire to.
These adults want to make it easier for other people to watch your children while they’re in the bathroom. It’s absolutely mind-boggling.
Gelazela, who’s steadfastly refused to explain the logic here, said in a public meeting that the windows help “[add] privacy in the toilet facility” and that they “increase oversight of the wash area.”
There’s a reason public restrooms tend not to have windows — or, if they do, they have frosted glass.
No one wants to be spied on when they’re relieving themselves.
The parents who spoke to The York Dispatch about the latest bathroom renovations said their children no longer feel comfortable using these bathrooms. One of the parents went to the principal and asked for an exemption to allow her son to use a different bathroom further away from class.
Her 13-year-old doesn’t want to be spied on while he’s in the bathroom.
And we don’t blame him.
It’s creepy and weird.
And let’s not ignore the bigger picture: This is happening at a time when this and other York County school boards are pushing policies that would restrict what books students read, what sports teams they compete on and even which pronouns they use.
All of this is part of an attempt to erase LGBTQ+ people.
Cutting a window into these bathrooms is an intimidation tactic designed to make sure students who use the so-called “gender-identity” facilities — and, let’s be honest, any student who doesn’t fit neatly into the worldview of the school board’s far-right majority — know they’re being watched, controlled and judged.
In their quest to punish LGBTQ+ kids, however, the misguided “adults” on this South Western School Board are doing the things they accuse others of doing.
This is an invasion of privacy and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from a Denver Public Schools parent who sought to force the district to honor his request to display “straight pride” flags in his children’s classrooms.
Nathan Feldman brought suit on behalf of himself and his two children, alleging discrimination and a violation of the First Amendment stemming from DPS declining to add a straight pride flag in his children’s classrooms alongside displays of LGBTQ pride flags.
In a June 26 order, U.S. District Court Judge Regina M. Rodriguez determined the pride flags amounted to the government’s own speech, which the First Amendment does not regulate. Therefore, a decision by DPS not to display a flag did not violate Feldman’s rights.
“DPS policy reflects careful consideration about what views can be expressed and that any expressions must reflect DPS’s policy of equality and inclusion. Accordingly, the Court finds that DPS has maintained control over the flag displays,” wrote Rodriguez, an appointee of President Joe Biden.
Feldman filed suit after school administrators allegedly allowed “non-binary and non-cisgender students to have flags displayed that represent their genders but not allowing Plaintiffs to have flags displayed that represent their genders.” He asked for damages of at least $3 million and for an order allowing him to display the straight pride flag.
A “straight pride” flag. Source: Feldman et al. v. Denver Public Schools et al.
DPS, in moving to dismiss the lawsuit, noted Feldman’s allegations were contradictory, as he simultaneously asserted “each” classroom at Slavens School had a pride flag and that “not all teachers displayed these flags.” Nonetheless, the district argued the display of flags constituted government speech, as DPS policy endorsed the use of LGBTQ pride flags as “symbols consistent with the District’s equity-based curriculum.”
“Plaintiffs assert that passing a resolution recognizing LGBTQIA+ students or staff without providing equal recognition to those who don’t so identify is an actionable distinction. Not so,” wrote the district’s attorneys.
Feldman responded that individual teachers at his children’s school made the decision to display pride flags. Therefore, DPS was not in control of the displays and they did not constitute the government’s own speech.
In August, U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak recommended that Feldman’s claims be dismissed. He cited a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Boston’s practice of allowing private entities to fly flags outside city hall. The court did not find such circumstances amounted to speech by the government.
However, wrote then-Justice Stephen G. Breyer, “when the government speaks for itself, the First Amendment does not demand airtime for all views.”
“Here, DPS selected the Pride Flag, and not Plaintiffs’ Flag, as representing the message that DPS wished to convey,” Varholak wrote in deeming the flag displays governmental expression. “Conversely, there is no allegation that DPS had a history of accepting for display other flags submitted by the public.”
In this 2018 file photo, a supporters of the LGBTQ community fly a Pride flag in the Colorado Springs PrideFest Parade.
(Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette, File)
As for Feldman’s sex discrimination and equal protection claims, Varholak noted that unless there are allegations of unequal treatment, there is no legal claim based on the absence of a flag representing cisgender, heterosexual students.
“Plaintiffs plainly disagree with DPS’s selected messaging, and phrase this disagreement in constitutional terms,” he concluded, “but ultimately fail to allege any injury except exposure to a flag that they do not feel represented by.”
Feldman objected to portions of Varholak’s analysis, but Rodriguez, the district judge, concluded Feldman was either raising new arguments for the first time or had failed to show why Varholak was mistaken.
To the claim that displaying a flag is discriminatory when it repesents a different group’s sexual orientation or gender identity, “Plaintiffs offer no legal support for their argument,” she wrote, “and the Court finds none.”
Attorneys for both parties did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is Feldman et al. v. Denver Public Schools et al.
Full confession; this is an article from Sojourners Magazine. I subscribe, and I brought the whole piece here, for those who may wish to read it but don’t want to go on a Christian site. I did not see anything besides that to warn about; there is discussion of church but not of bad happenings. However, if I missed something, I am so sorry; if you would be able to let me know in comments, that helps me learn what I should look for. This article struck me as something that should be at Scottie’s Playtime.
This interview is part of The Reconstruct, a weekly newsletter from Sojourners. In a world where so much needs to change, Mitchell Atencio and Josiah R. Daniels interview people who have faith in a new future and are working toward repair. Subscribe here.
Flamy Grant called in to her morning interview after participating in a day-long silent retreat. Well, not a silent retreat exactly — it was a vocal rest.
After spending the last year touring the U.S. off the success of her album, Grant, who prefers to use her stage name in interviews, needed to rest her voice. Since her rise to Christian music stardom — or infamy, depending on how one feels about a drag queen topping the Christian charts — she has performed in bars, clubs, and churches spreading the good news in glitter.
Since then, Grant has collaborated with artists like Semler, Derek Webb, and Jennifer Knapp. And she has spoken out for LGBTQ+ rights, joining a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee in 2023.
A few weeks before the release of her second album, CHURCH, Grant and I spoke about her time touring the country, writing songs in drag, leaving the church but still going to churches weekly, and more.
Coincidentally, as the interview ended, Amy Grant’s “Lucky One” began playing over the hotel lobby’s speakers.
[Editor’s note: This interview was performed before Hurricane Helene devastated many regions in the South, including Flamy Grant’s hometown of Asheville, N.C. Grant and her team canceled shows in North Carolina, but continue touring in Georgia and Nashville this week before touring the West Coast.]
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Mitchell Atencio: How is touring? What have you heard from folks while on the road?
Flamy Grant: I feel like I’ve been on tour pretty much nonstop for the past year. A year ago I quit my day job and moved back to Asheville, N.C., where I was born and raised. And honestly, this is not even an exaggeration, I’ve spent more time on the road than I have in my bedroom at home.
This [tour], though, is very different. I’m on a tour with two other acts and a full band. Mostly, I’ve just been solo on the road, which I love in a lot of ways because I’m actually very much an introvert.
We’re only in our second week right now of the “No More Trauma” tour, and the response has been amazing so far. Now that I’m a year in, there have been people who’ve come up to me to say hello afterwards, and [they say], “This is our third or fourth time seeing you!” And I’m like, I’ve really only been doing this full-time for a year. What do you mean the third or fourth time? It is really cool to know that there’s this community and fan loyalty.
My favorite moment on tour so far was in St. Louis. We were getting ready, there was no green room at the venue, so I was literally just painting my face in front of the windows, right outside where the line was forming to get in. There was this family — a mother and a little girl, around 7-9 years old. She had a sign, painted in full rainbow lettering, that said, “This is my first concert!” And she was just holding it up to the window. So I popped out to say hello, and they had driven two hours to St. Louis to come to this show. Her name was Claire, and I’m her favorite artist, and I’m her first concert.
That was wild because it just threw me back to when I was that age and excited about music and wanting to go to concerts for the first time. Everybody always asks that question, “What was your first concert?” throughout your entire life. And now Claire is always going to say, “I saw a drag queen in St. Louis.”
Now I’m curious what your first concert was.
Clay Crosse. He had quite a big hit with that song “I Surrender All” in the ’90s. I just loved him. I probably had a crush on him, if we’re being honest. He had that classic jawline, that beautiful blonde hair, and yeah, I was obsessed with him. My parents couldn’t take me, so I roped one of my friends from church and got his dad to drive us down to this show. What I remember most about it was that Jaci Velasquez opened and she was so good. She was phenomenal.
Mine, for fairness, was the Newsboys back when Peter Furler was still leading them. Speaking of touring, I noticed you have a different booking process for churches and for “traditional venues” like bars and clubs. Why is that?
That’s been interesting to navigate. I feel like I’m definitely straddling two worlds. I very much want to be taken seriously as a musician and songwriter. The drag can sometimes be a little bit of a barrier to that, because people tend to see drag and think it’s a gimmick or, they just immediately associate it with Sunday drag brunch or weekend clubs.
I have done a fair bit of that, especially early on, but I’m a singer-songwriter and I write my own original music, and I happen to perform in drag. It’s been a challenge to convey that as we’re booking and marketing shows. My booking agent is fantastic, and she’s been really good at helping people understand that they’re booking a singer-songwriter who needs an extra hour in the green room to get ready.
What happened last year, with “Good Day” hitting number one, so many churches reached out and the first question was, “Can we do ‘Good Day’ in Sunday worship?” And I’m like, of course you can, just make sure they know it’s written by a drag queen. The next question was, “How do we get you to come?” Either on a Sunday morning or to do a special concert on an evening.
Because I know the church world and was a worship leader for 22 years, it just makes more sense for me to book those myself. I don’t generally go out seeking church bookings, those really do come to me, and that’s a gift in so many ways.
I’ve played in over 50 churches in the last year. Some want to integrate me into their Sunday morning service, I’ll be part of the service planning, and we’ll have a song during communion or the offertory. Others want to bring me in on a Saturday night and have me come sing to their congregation and community.
I have officially left the church myself. The last church I was involved in was in San Diego, I was a worship leader there for 8-and-a-half years and it closed down after the pandemic. I have not sought out a new church home since then, but I’m still in churches a lot.
You’re in churches about once a week — that’s more than many church members. What makes writing music as Flamy Grant feel different? How does one write songs in drag?
In some ways, there’s no difference at all. At the end of the day, I’m just writing about my experiences. Derek Webb says the artist’s role is just to look at the world and speak about it. That’s so much of what I’ve done since I was 9 years old when I wrote my first song. That process of songwriting doesn’t necessarily feel all that different.
And yet, there is this shift in the tone and subject matter of what I write about, because my life has changed so dramatically. And drag is a huge part of that change.
Flamy Grant poses for a photo. Photo by Ash Perlberg/Courtesy Flamy Grant
It’s been really fun to feel like I’m excavating parts of myself that have been dormant or suppressed for so long. [Drag] definitely changes the subject matter of what I’m writing about.
And it’s been there all along, I just haven’t allowed myself the pleasure and joy of exploring the range of my own gender identity, even the range of my physical voice. Being able to play with how I sing a song or a lyric, it’s opened up a world of songwriting to me. There are times now, when I’m writing, where I do think about what this is going to look and feel like on stage, in drag, in a big wig with sequins and glitter on my face and all of this.
I still love to write a gut-punch ballad; that’s one of my specialties. And I love doing that because that’s not really a thing you tend to associate with drag too much. That tends to be a more surprising moment for people in my concerts, when I get serious. People expect the fierceness and sass and qualities of drag that they’re used to.
Mostly it’s just a lot of fun. I really enjoy the opportunity to play with music in new ways.
It sounds like part of what you’re saying is that it offers an added element of creativity to a songwriting process, even in the “constraint” of writing as Flamy Grant.
That’s absolutely right, there is a constraining piece to it. Whatever music I put out, it’s going to be out under that name, Flamy Grant, and I know it’s going to be associated with drag.
In some ways it’s obviously pushing the boundaries of Christian music, but it’s also pushing the boundaries of what people might consider drag to be.
What has the response been like from the drag community?
I just got a message from a drag queen back in San Diego. Her drag name is Nadya Symone. I love this queen. She’s just one of the people I look up to. She’s a Southern queen who lives in San Diego now. She was there at my very first drag show; I was nervous, and she could tell. And she just said, “Baby, whatever happens, the show goes on. You make a mistake, you forget a lyric, you forget a line, your wig falls off, whatever — the show goes on.”
I just felt so taken in, included, and welcomed. And that’s never changed. The people who get [Flamy] the quickest are other drag performers. I don’t have to explain much to them. They’re like, “Oh you’re just bringing yourself to drag, which is what we all do.”
Anyway, the message that Symone sent me just yesterday was just, “I’m so proud of you, baby.” I don’t know what she had seen, but she’s still there and cheering me on. I had a lot of anxiety coming into this and a lot of imposter syndrome. Am I a real drag queen? Do I really belong in this community if what I want to do is write my own folk songs and sing them? And that has all been laid to rest by interacting with other performers.
Is there anything that you wanted to do differently between your first album, Bible Belt Baby, and your second album, CHURCH?
I’m so proud of Bible Belt Baby, but it did come together circumstantially and without a lot of intention. My initial conversation with my producer, Ben, who was my housemate in San Diego at the time, was, I think I want to sing in drag. And we were going to put together a five-song EP. I ran a Kickstarter, and we raised more than I expected. And it just continued to blossom and grow until it was a full album.
And in order to make it a full album, I was pulling from songs that predated Flamy. What was really cool about that was discovering that Flamy has been there all along, right?
But with CHURCH, I had the opportunity to really, for the first time, think about crafting a complete narrative. Thinking about themes that would all be contained on one record and writing, for the first time, a full album in Flamy’s voice intentionally.
The second thing was having the resources to go to Nashville and make a Nashville record with Nashville players. That was a really exciting prospect for me.
We sent them all the demos in advance. I, [pauses] I don’t know that they listened to them, but they didn’t need to. They heard the song one time, took a couple notes, went to their instruments, and five, six, seven takes later we had what we needed. It was wild to watch how, at the skill level of those musicians, they brought the songs to life in ways I could have only hoped for.
I really wanted a sound that was in this Nashville vein, but we also talked about how to make it still a drag record. How do we pull in some of this country disco feel? How do we make sure it stands on par with anything coming out of Nashville, but also uniquely Flamy. They did a phenomenal job.
[Lastly], with Bible Belt Baby, I didn’t know, up until a couple months before releasing it, whether I would even put it out as a Christian record. It wasn’t until we finished it that I was like, yeah, this absolutely belongs in the Christian genre.
Now, Christian music is largely worship music, which I personally don’t care for. I like music that tells someone’s story. I want to hear what an individual person has gone through in their life and how they got to where they are.
And that’s why I loved artists like Margaret Becker, or Jennifer Knapp, Caedmon’s Call, and folks famous for writing really personal. What’s that thing people say? We find the universal in the specific — that’s what I love about singer songwriters. I don’t know if I’ll continue to make Christian music forever or what the next album will look like yet, but for this album, I [wanted] to be really intentional with the messaging. I think the tagline for the Kickstarter was “Flamy Grant’s Big Gay Christian Record.”
He feels entitled to take anything he wants without paying for it. He also believes it is better to just due and ignore anyone else’s rights. He is the great cult leader. Hugs. Scottie
Walters has ordered daily bible lessons for Oklahoma’s public school students in all grades. Several dozen school districts are currently defying that edict.
Earlier this month, local outlets exposed Walters for spending state money to fund a national tour of far-right events to “promote himself on the national stage.”
Walters is widely expected to run for governor. Current governor and fellow Christian nationalist Kevin Stitt is term-limited.
Last month around two dozen GOP state lawmakers signed a letter calling for an impeachment probe into Walters for refusing to disclose his spending.
Walters has hired a raft of far-right figures, including Chaya Rachik and Dennis Prager, to help him “turn students to Jesus.” Raichik is reportedly helping overhaul public school libraries.
Imagine all the good that those millions of dollars could be used for. It could be used to pay Oklahoma’s hardworking teachers or provide additional supplies and resources for its struggling schools.
Instead, it’s being used to promote Walters’ Christian nationalist agenda. https://t.co/DE20Pw1846
Please remember the people who first led Israel in the beginning were also terrorist. Many in the Israeli government in the early decades of Israel’s existence were also labeled terrorist. One person’s terrorist is another person’s avowed wonderful member of government. It has been leaked that members of Israel’s government wants to annex another sovereign country’s land and make it Israel’s property. Just like they have in the West bank, and Gaza. In fact some have talked about trying to take part of Egypt. This is because religious fanatics are running the country now and they claim their god gave them the entire area so they simply have the right to take it. And no one can stop them as long as Biden stays in the mind set of the 1950 / 60s/ 70s, because Biden won’t let anyone else strike Israel back to show them their god did not give them permission to take others lands. Bibi has given the middle finger to every US president and he is desperate to get tRump to win by dragging the US into a war in the Middle East. That is his plan to help tRump and hurt Harris. And they bombed an entire area of occupied apartments in Beirut, which is another war crime they committed. Hugs. Scottie
A marketing director of a well-known Swiss brand, said, “When you look at all of them, they scream Chinese-made watch. None of them is worth the asking price. Those blue screws on the tourbillon cage are a dead giveaway that it was partly made in China. You won’t find blue screws on a tourbillon made in Switzerland. And you can pick up a Chinese tourbillon for $100.”
Trump's "Vastly Overpriced" $100,000 "Swiss Watch" Is Probably Made in China, Experts Say https://t.co/neyxxt5J0U
Milei has cut support for welfare programs, soup kitchens, and other efforts to aid the needy.
Milei’s biggest cheerleader is Elon Musk, who has vowed to bring similar policies as the leader of Trump’s supposed “Department Of Government Efficiency.”
Of note, the planned department’s acronym just happens to be the same as a cryptocurrency often promoted by Musk.
Earlier this year Musk posted the below porn-adjacent image in celebration of Milei.
Not only did Hawley vote against the project, the report below notes that in 2019 Trump defunded all such military projects to divert the money to his border wall.
“We can VERIFY: No, Hawley did not secure $100 million for Fort Leonard Wood's military housing.”
Lying about supporting military families? While even voting AGAINST supporting them? That amounts to nothing more than stolen valor.https://t.co/jWt78m2qd4
The party who has people arrested, charged, and found guilty of voter fraud is the Republican Party. Every accusation from them is a confession of their own actions. They are setting it up to challenge the voters will and overturn the vote in that state. Hugs. Scottie
Hancock said that he learned during the trial that Rittenhouse had allegedly used racial slurs in messages sent to his friends and appeared to be looking for an opportunity to use a weapon. “There was a history of things he was doing prior to Kenosha, specifically patrolling the street for months with guns and borrowing people’s security uniforms, doing whatever he could to try to get into some kind of a gunfight,” Hancock claimed.
‘Patrolling the streets for months’: Kyle Rittenhouse confidants reveal new details the jury never knew https://t.co/zDg2esDw0t
The party maybe have evolved into the kind of anti-migrant, anti-Islam populist force that has taken hold across much of Europe, but it began as a political refuge for former Nazis. Not only has the FPÖ not disavowed that past, it embraces it — at least in private — with the leading party figures regularly getting to trouble for paying quiet tribute to their Nazi forebears.
Abrasive and provocative, far-right leader Herbert Kickl has one of the lowest approval ratings among Austria's top politicians, yet he is the frontrunner in Sunday’s parliamentary election, which has at times felt like a referendum on him https://t.co/NAPLJKizYypic.twitter.com/IUoS0CaQoV
As I often remind the haters, almost all of the children in the foster care and adoption system are there due to abuse and abandonment by the heterosexual parents.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the federal government over its requirement that states provide LGBTQ+ affirming placement for foster care youth. https://t.co/Al87Q9y6L7
The SDA church through the farmer I talked about before rescued me from a childhood of abuse. I loved most of the people I met. I bought Christian music, I went all in to the faith but still kept my belief in science. I felt somehow as a 17 year old both could coexist if everyone cared for others. But then I noticed groups in the church community I was in, those who were looked down on, the behind the scenes gossip, the in people who were much better off and the other in group who had skills the church needed, and the last group. I realized that I did not buy into the stuff preached about Ellen G White. I found her legend to be built up by the church, but not backed by fact. The strict adherence that teen boys not masturbate and wait until their wedding night for their first release struck me an abuse victim as absurd, and after living in a church boarding school for over a summer and school year quickly realized every other boy there did also. Just some of them felt shame for doing it. I even started to despite all that I had endured and sometimes being made to do it in front of people. Indoctrination on a daily scale is powerful, but in this case it did not break through my prior abuse. But I loved the somewhat community I found. The first time in 17 years I felt accepted by both adults and kids. Oh but I quickly learned it was superficial and all teens deal with the same issues regardless of being abused, and I know of at least two others in the school I went to that were.
Why I left the church even though the farmer and his wife promised to pay for me to go through the seminary to be a pastor in their church, which was sincere on their part. I had already accepted by then I was gay. I even had other boys wanting to experiment in the boarding school … but sadly I stopped them because if found out I would have had to return to the hell I just had been patrol from. I needed to reach 18 so I could leave their control. I feel bad for the innocent gay feeling boys but I had to think of my own safety. The beating I took that made me hide at the farm was very severe and I knew from experience if I returned after someone intervened I could be beaten to death. Not a future I looked forward to. I was gay, their church to this day is anti-gay. I knew I couldn’t be part of it. I left on the best terms I could.
I joined the military the next week. I tried to keep contact with my boyhood friend I spent so much time with who was their son, but after I turned down their offer to send me to the ministry he turned against me and the last time he spoke to me, he told me he wanted nothing to do with me ever again. I had just come home from the military and this was a huge kick in the balls. He became a pastor in their church. I wonder if he regrets telling me that? This video means something to me, I hope you watch it. Hugs. Scottie
Over 10,000 books have been banned across the entire United States over the past school year. The trend has seen a particularly strong increase in states with a strong Republican presence, according to the free-speech nonprofit PEN America.
This is a major increase compared to the 2022-2023 year, which saw a total of 3,362 books banned across the country.
The books were accused of having “obscene” material. One of them was a children’s picture book about gay penguins.
Florida and Iowa are leading in the total number of bans, with over 8,000 recorded between the two states. This number is largely due to the increasingly strict laws on book bans.
The banned books include Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie; the famous work on anti-Black racism Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B. DuBois; Alex Haley’s book about the lived experience of slaves, Roots: The Saga of an American Family; and James Baldwin’s autobiography Go Tell It On the Mountain.
Iowa’s bans stem from Senate File 496, a law restricting LGBTQ+ books from grade seven and below along with total bans on books deemed to contain sexual content. Florida’s House Bill 1069, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), resulted in a similar ban, albeit a much more strict one.
PEN America cites other laws from Utah, Tennessee, and South Carolina as contributing to these increase in banned books as well.
Individual school districts have also had a hand in banning many books. The Elkhorn Area School District in Wisconsin, for example, banned over 300 books over a several month period.
PEN America says that the types of books banned “includes books featuring romance, books about women’s sexual experiences, and books about rape or sexual abuse as well as continued attacks on books with LGBTQ+ characters or themes, or books about race or racism and featuring characters of color.”
The organization also emphasizes that these numbers are an undercount of the actual amount of banned books since many book bans go unreported. Additionally, the organization says schools have also implemented “soft” book bans, including policies that cause greater hesitancy to check out books from libraries, restrictions on who can check out restricted books out, book fair cancellations, and the removal of classroom collections.
Six major book publishers are currently suing the Floridian government after hundreds of their books were pulled from libraries, cutting severely into their profits and discriminating against their authors.
A Florida school district recently agreed to re-shelve 36 books to settle a lawsuit concerning multiple banned books, including And Tango Makes Three, an often banned children’s book about a gay penguin couple raising a chick.
Iowa’s book ban was recently brought back into law when a permanent injunction against the ban was overturned by an appeals court.
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This was a school damn it. Fuck Israel all to hell. I am done with the Israeli government and the nation. Look at the young kids trying to help, they should have been learning in that school, not picking up the pieces and looking for dead bodies of friends. But Israel doesn’t want schools in Gaza, at least not Palestinian schools. If the world has not figured out yet that this is an attempt at genocide, to kill or drive an entire people from the land so Israeli Jews can take it over. I have posted of people camped out ready to move it. There is no justification for this slaughter. Look they just managed to pull off a covert operation in Lebanon that was sneaky and also killed indiscriminately innocent by standers and killed at least two kids, but Israel doesn’t care as they are not Jewish kids or people. But the point was they did not need to drop missiles and 2000 pound bombs on the people who live there to do the job. In Gaza the people have no way to fight back, most are living in tents that Israel hits with large power bombs. Hugs. Scottie
An Israeli strike on a school in northern Gaza on Saturday killed at least 22 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, while the Israeli army said that it targeted a Hamas command center in what used to be a school. (Production by Wafaa Shurafa) Read more here: http://apne.ws/ClCkCeK
This is one hypocritcal full of hate person. The web page linked to has many videos and animations. Hugs. Scottie
Mark Robinson, the controversial and socially conservative Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressed support for reinstating slavery, a CNN KFile investigation found.
Despite a recent history of anti-transgender rhetoric, Robinson said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, a review of archived messages found in which he also referred to himself as a “perv.”
The comments, which Robinson denies making, predate his entry into politics and current stint as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor. They were made under a username that CNN was able to identify as Robinson by matching a litany of biographical details and a shared email address between the two.
Many of Robinson’s comments were gratuitously sexual and lewd in nature. They were made between 2008 and 2012 on “Nude Africa,” a pornographic website that includes a message board. The comments were made under the username minisoldr, a moniker Robinson used frequently online.
Robinson listed his full name on his profile for Nude Africa, as well as an email address he used on numerous websites across the internet for decades.
CNN is reporting only a small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.
Many of Robinson’s comments on Nude Africa stand in contrast to his public stances on issues such as abortion and transgender rights.
Publicly, Robinson has fiercely argued that people should use bathrooms only that correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth. He’s also said transgender women should be arrested for using women’s restrooms.
“If you’re a man on Friday night, and all the sudden Saturday, you feel like a woman, and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested, or whatever we gotta do to you,” Robinson said at a campaign rally in February 2024. “We’re going to protect our women.”
Yet privately under the username minisoldr on Nude Africa, Robinson graphically described his own sexual arousal as an adult from the memory of secretly “peeping” on women in public gym showers as a 14-year-old. Robinson recounted the story as a memory he said he still fantasized about.
“I came to a spot that was a dead end but had two big vent covers over it! It just so happened it overlooked the showers! I sat there for about an hour and watched as several girls came in and showered,” Robinson wrote on Nude Africa.
CNN is not publishing the graphic sexual details of Robinson’s story.
“I went peeping again the next morning,” Robinson wrote. “but after that I went back the ladder was locked! So those two times where [sic] the only times I got to do it! Ahhhhh memories!!!!”
In other comments on Nude Africa, Robinson discussed his affinity for transgender pornography.
“I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Robinson repeatedly denied that he made the comments on Nude Africa.
“This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me,” Robinson said. Presented with the litany of evidence connecting him with the minisoldr user name on Nude Africa, Robinson said, “I’m not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies.”
CNN first reached out to Robinson Tuesday morning with evidence connecting him to the comments on Nude Africa. It took his campaign two days to respond and issue a denial.
During his interview with CNN, Robinson repeatedly said the issues that faced North Carolinians were more important than what he called “tabloid trash,” and he steered the conversation toward attacking his opponent in the race, Democrat Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general.
“We are not getting out of this race. There are people who are counting on us to win this race,” Robinson said.
A history of controversial statements
Campaigning for lieutenant governor in 2020, Robinson advocated for a complete abortion ban without exceptions. He later expressed regret in 2022 for paying for his now-wife to have an abortion in the 1980s.
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Rising GOP star running for NC governor mocked Parkland shooting survivors
Now campaigning for governor, he says he supports a so-called “heartbeat” bill that would ban abortion when a heartbeat is detected – approximately six weeks – with exceptions for rape, incest and health of the mother.
But writing as minisoldr on Nude Africa in December 2010, Robinson said he did not care about a celebrity having an abortion.
“I don’t care. I just wanna see the sex tape!” Robinson wrote.
In another thread, commenters considered whether to believe the story of a woman who said she was raped by her taxi driver while intoxicated. In response, Robinson wrote, “and the moral of this story….. Don’t f**k a white b*tch!”
Robinson, who would become North Carolina’s first Black governor if elected, also repeatedly maligned civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., attacking him in such intense terms that a user accused him of being a white supremacist.
“Get that f*cking commie bastard off the National Mall!,” Robinson wrote about the dedication of the memorial to King in Washington, DC, by then-President Barack Obama.
“I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!” Robinson responded.
CNN’s reporting on Robinson’s comments comes a few weeks after The Assembly, a North Carolina digital publication, reported that Robinson frequented local video pornography shops in the 1990s and 2000s. The story cited six people who interacted and saw him frequent the stores in Greensboro, North Carolina. A spokesperson for Robinson called the story false and a “complete fiction.”
Despite earning the full endorsement of former President Donald Trump and the North Carolina Republican Party, Robinson faces an uphill battle in the race for governor against Stein.
On the Nude Africa website in both comments and his profile, minisoldr offered numerous details that align precisely with Robinson’s personal history.
In his profile, minisoldr listed his full name as “mark robinson” and disclosed a private email address Robinson used elsewhere online. In 2012, a user responded to a comment by calling minisoldr “Mark.”
Minisoldr mentioned in 2008 being married for 18 years, which corresponds with Robinson’s marriage to Yolanda Hill in 1990. In 2011, minisoldr wrote he had been married 21 years. Minisoldr wrote in a 2011 post that he lived in Greensboro, North Carolina, the same town where Robinson lived at the time and currently lives.
In a post in 2012, minisoldr said he served in the Army in the 1980s, during the same time period as Robinson. In his sexually graphic comments detailing watching women in the showers in 2011, minisoldr wrote that his mother worked at an Historically Black College and University (HBCU). Robinson’s mother worked as a custodian at North Carolina A&T State University, an HBCU located in Greensboro.
Both minisoldr and Robinson often posted about the same topics online, including reviews for remote-controlled helicopters, their attraction to specific celebrities and their favorite “Twilight Zone” episode.
The email address associated with minisoldr on Nude Africa was also used by Robinson elsewhere online and social media. On the commenting platform Disqus, a user who joined in April 2011 features Mark Robinson’s photo under the username minisoldr.
Usernames and email addresses from Disqus were publicly leaked online in 2017, according to the company. CNN confirmed that Robinson’s username minisoldr on Disqus shared the same email address as the one used on Nude Africa.
Robinson’s Disqus page is also linked to the Black social networking site Black Planet. The Web Archive shows a user named “minisoldr” described themselves as 40 years old in February 2009 – the same age as Robinson at the time – and living in Greensboro, North Carolina – Robinson’s hometown.
A username often used by Robinson
Robinson has frequently used the username “minisoldr” elsewhere on the internet. On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Robinson once used the minisoldr username, according to a screenshot he shared on Facebook in 2018 and data in Robinson’s old tweets.
A YouTube playlist for a user named “minisoldr” features exclusively videos of Robinson. On Pinterest, a user “minisoldr” lists his name as “Mark Robinson.”
The “minisoldr” username has also posted reviews of products and places Robinson has also publicly recommended. On Amazon, a user named “minisoldr” reviewed products frequently shared by Robinson on Facebook, including remote-controlled helicopters. And the same email address and username used on Nude Africa also left reviews on Google for two local businesses Robinson later posted on Facebook that he used.
Robinson’s unique choice of language further links him to the “minisoldr” alias on the pornographic forums. Uncommon phrases such as “gag a maggot,” “dunder head,” “I don’t give a frogs a**,” and “I don’t give two shakes of it” were used both by minisoldr on Nude Africa and by Robinson on his personal Facebook page.
Robinson as minisoldr ‘Slavery is not bad’
In the pornographic forums, Robinson revealed his unvarnished thoughts on issues such as race, gender and abortion.
Writing in a forum discussing Black Republicans in October 2010, Robinson stated unprovoked: “I’m a black NAZI!”
That same month, Robinson wrote in another post that he supported the return of slavery.
“Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few,” he wrote.
In March 2012, Robinson wrote that he preferred the former leader of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler over the leadership in Washington during the administration of Barack Obama.
“I’d take Hitler over any of the sh*t that’s in Washington right now!” he wrote.
Robinson’s comments on Nude Africa often frequently contained derogatory and racial slurs directed at Black, Jewish and Muslim people.
In a series of seven posts in October 2011, Robinson disparaged Martin Luther King in such intense terms, calling him a “commie bastard,” “worse than a maggot,” a “ho f**king, phony,” and a “huckster,” that a user in the thread accused him of being in the KKK. Robinson responded by directing a slur at King.
In October 2010, Robinson used the antisemitic slur “hebe” when discussing how he liked the show “Good Times” developed by Norman Lear, saying “the show itself was a bunch of heb [sic] written liberal bullshit!”
While discussing the Taliban, he referred to Muslims as “little rag-headed bastards” and said that “if Muslims took over liberals would be the 1st ones to be beheaded!”
Robinson also used homophobic slurs frequently, calling other users f*gs.
In a largely positive forum discussion featuring a photo of two men kissing after one returned from a military deployment, Robinson wrote the sole negative comment.
“That’s sum ole sick a** f*ggot bullsh*t!” he wrote.
Springfield, Ohio's city hall was evacuated this morning due to a bomb threat.
This comes two days after former President Donald Trump boosted the baseless rumor that Haitian immigrants there were “eating the pets of the people that live there.” pic.twitter.com/VnCwYE5Zpy
Springfield Police confirmed to me that "multiple facilities" including at least city hall and Fulton Elementary have been evacuated due to a bomb threat received around 8:20 this morning https://t.co/MyOVu2bgze
Wittenberg University is currently taking precautions following a possible threat to campus tomorrow, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. All events and activities tomorrow are canceled. See alert website at https://t.co/q8SBqL88p1 for more information, safety tips, and resources. pic.twitter.com/w7GcwjIlWC
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine defends Haitian immigrants, telling @MarthaRaddatz that while there are “legitimate” problems at the border, “What’s going on in Springfield is just fundamentally different.”
A day after a Springfield school and other public buildings were evacuated and closed due to bomb threats, and the same day that two other Springfield elementary schools were evacuated and one middle school closed due to a new, separate bomb threat, Husted posted a photo of two geese on X Friday morning with the comment, “Most Americans agree that these migrants should be deported.”Husted’s spox has refused to comment. He first appeared here in 2012 when as Ohio secretary of state he eliminated extended hours for early voting.
NEW: Fraudulent petition signatures cited by the DeSantis administration to justify its probe of Amendment 4 had already been rejected by a local supervisor of elections.
They were never counted toward the total that got the initiative on the ballot. https://t.co/f0sXetVwUW
Ron DeSantis has mobilized the Florida state government to spend taxpayer resources on the political process. He's now waging a multi-front war against Amendment 4, which would restore abortion rights pic.twitter.com/QreyQAi7Kn
This kind of propaganda issued by the state, using taxpayer money and operating outside of the political process sets a dangerous precedent.https://t.co/dJbVj8A6kK
After sending police to knock on doors of voters who signed petitions to get the FL abortion rights amendment on the ballot, now Ron Desantis is using taxpayer funds to illegally have a state agency & website campaign against the amendment. Story.https://t.co/2ywnO6kALR
BREAKING: In a 2022 tirade against reproductive health care, Mark Robinson repeatedly waves his hand by his groin, says young women just need to “get this under control." #NCGovpic.twitter.com/QXuUtZuBAL
“When people ask me…What’s gonna happen if the Flip – Flopping, Laughing Hyena Wins?? I say…write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards! Sooo…when the Illegal human ‘Locust’ (which she supports!) Need places to live…We’ll already have the addresses of the their New families…who supported their arrival!” Zuchowski wrote.
Read the full article. Replies to his post are turned off. Zuchowski made news several years ago for a rant about the name change for the Cleveland Indians, which he claimed was “erasing our heritage.”
Ryan Routh voted for Trump in 16’, then supported Gabbard, and then moved on to Hailey. He’s no liberal. He’s a Republican who is disillusioned with Trump’s foreign policy and Putin-phelia. pic.twitter.com/PaEkWoPcqX
Suspect Ryan Wesley Routh is a Democrat. He was allegedly hiding in the bushes with an AK-47 with a scope, two backpacks, and a GoPro and was spotted by the Secret Service before he could take action on President Trump #shootingpic.twitter.com/3xkbB7EU19
Elon/X has allowed someone to create a fake account under the alleged shooter’s name (Ryan Wesley Routh), and it’s now being used to spread vile anti-Semitic content including quotes from a Hitler account that X is also allowing on the platform. pic.twitter.com/reqGUcmynS
“I’ve seen the guns myself and all, and, yeah, they had a lot of guns and stuff over there, and, yeah, a lot of people were afraid of him back in the day,” she said.
The State Attorney for Palm Beach County is an elected Democrat, so Desantis is doing what Desantis does.
Maybe Desantis should investigate himself for making it so easy to acquire and walk around with an assault rifle in FL even with an extensive criminal history. pic.twitter.com/DwAWAE928L
“These are people that want to destroy our country. It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat. They do it with a combination of rhetoric and lawsuits they wrap me up in.
September 17, 1924 Mohandas Gandhi began a purifying 21-day fast for Hindu-Muslim tolerance and unity following communal riots in Kohat on India’s northwest border in what is now Pakistan. A Hindu, Gandhi spent his fast at the home of Mahomed Ali.
September 17, 1961 Bertrand Russell at anti nuclear weapons March, 1961 1,314 anti-nuclear protesters were arrested during a sit-down in London’s Trafalgar Square by 12,000 (authorities had denied a permit). Philosopher and peace activist Bertrand Russell, aged 89, and 32 others were already in jail, having been arrested the previous month during a demonstration on Hiroshima Day in Hyde Park. Russell’s Committee of 100 had organized the sit-down and other actions to resist nuclear weapons, challenging the authorities to ‘fill the jails’, with the intention of causing prison overload and large-scale disorder. On arrest members would go limp so as to create maximum disruption without conflict. History gallery: The Committee of 100
September 17, 1988 Haiti’s military government was overthrown by a group of non-commissioned officers who installed Lieutenant General Prosper Avril as the new head of state. The leaders of the coup were outraged by the attack the previous Sunday on St. Jean Bosco Church during which 13 parishioners were killed and nearly 80 injured. Fr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a persistent critic of the military regime, had been celebrating mass when the attack occurred. From the report of the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, issued on September 7, 1988: “ The Commission has come to the conclusion that the current military government in Haiti has perpetuated itself in power as a result of violence instigated by elements of the Haitian Armed forces resulting in the massacre of Haitian voters on November 29, 1987, the manipulation of the elections held on January 17, 1988, and the ouster of President Leslie Manigat on June 20, 1988.”
Bertrand Russell at anti nuclear weapons March, 1961
