I have read rumors about this guy for a long time. But I was always hopeful he played for the straight team because of how hateful he is. He is an all out racist. But they claim to have checked it out and it is true. There clearly is some excitement in Ryan’s pants.
When I was a 20 year old who was being abused by a female in my unit I ran naked through the enlisted upper ranks housing unit to where my sergeant / friend’s room. He opened the door to see me nude carrying my clothing crying my eyes out. Long story short as I have told it on this blog before he took care of everything. The abusive woman left the unit and I became his boyfriend. He protected me from other abusers. But he also did something I never had before, he educated me. He took me to museums and to places of historical interest. He taught me to try new foods and things I never knew / seen / experienced before. In the years we were together I saw a totally different life and I loved every minute of it. He taught me to drive a motorcycle and to feel loved. Sadly he loved me, but I did not feel that same affection for him. Once Ron came into my life he quietly back out of it realizing what he wanted couldn’t happen. But I do miss him and I appreciate what he did for young me. Hugs
I saw a few headlines about it on Monday, and meant to post it but didn’t get it done, then Tuesday was what it was. So, it’s been a week, but here it is: there is universal childcare in New Mexico, and they are heroes for getting that done. -A
New Mexico will be the first state to make child care free
In an unprecedented move, New Mexico is making child care free.
Beginning in November, it will be the first state in the nation to provide child care to all residents regardless of income, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced this week.
The state has been working to lower child care care costs since 2019, when it created the Early Childhood Education and Care Department and started to expand eligibility for universal child care. This latest change removes income eligibility requirements from the state’s child care assistance program altogether and waives all family copayments.
The initiative is expected to save families $12,000 per child annually.
“Child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation and New Mexico’s future prosperity,” Lujan Grisham said in her announcement. “By investing in universal child care, we are giving families financial relief, supporting our economy, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow and thrive.”
The United States allocates some federal funding to states to lower the cost of child care for low-income kids, but eligibility for that funding is very limited and by and large, most families are paying an average of $13,000 on child care annually. It’s much higher in many states.
In the absence of a federal universal child care system, some states have worked to build their own systems, and New Mexico has been a leader in that effort over the past several years.
The state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department got a budget increase of $113 million in the most recent legislative session, taking its total operating budget to nearly $1 billion. Half of that money goes specifically to child care payment support.
The state also established a fund in 2020 with money earmarked for early childhood education. Thanks to tax collections from the oil and gas industries, the fund has grown from $320 million to $10 billion. Latinas in New Mexico led the charge in 2022 to help pass a constitutional amendment in 2022 that ensured a portion of that fund went specifically to universal child care. Funding for the new initiative will come at least in part from there, and Lujan Grisham will also be requesting an additional $120 million in state funding next year, a spokesperson for the governor said.
The news also comes with improvements for child care facilities and, potentially, raises for their staff. As part of the rollout, the state will establish a $13 million loan fund to construct and expand facilities, launch a recruitment campaign for home-based providers and incentivize programs to pay staff a minimum of $18 an hour.
The state hopes the initiative will lead to the creation of 55 new child care centers and 1,120 home-based child care options.
Still, response to the initiative so far has been mixed. Republican state Rep. Rebecca Dow told the Albuquerque Journal that she believes child care vouchers should be reserved for children most at risk for child abuse and neglect. Since the state’s child care assistance program expanded eligibility over the past five years, fewer low-income families have participated in the program, the Journal reported.
But Thora Walsh Padilla, the president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, praised the initiative, saying during a press conference Monday that it addresses various challenges the tribe has struggled with, including raising wages for providers. There are only three child care facilities on the 463,000 acre reservation.
“It is so timely and it answers so many needs,” she said. “A building? Oh my goodness, we’ll be one of the first to apply.”
You’re not going to get a new cartoon from me until Sunday. Say what? I’m ahead of schedule with last night’s Charlie Kirk cartoon, dated for September 19. But you will get new content here daily.
I’m in North Bethesda, Maryland for my cartoonist association’s annual convention today, and that’s why I got ahead with work. But I’m going to post stuff about the convention while I’m there. I plan to do at least one Zoom conversation with another cartoonist while at the convention. And today, you’re getting a blog of roughs.
Speaking of the Charlie Kirk cartoon, I got a death threat today. First, it was a death wish, as in, “I hope you and your family get what Charlie Kirk got,” and then it turned into, “you’re easy to find.” I consider that a death threat. And why is he threatening my family? They’re innocent, and in fact, two of them posted on the cartoon on Facebook to tell me I’m disgusting and an asshole. Anyhoos….
DING-DONG! Roughs are here!
I drew this on August 27 and made it a real cartoon a few days later.
I liked it so much that I nearly roughed it out twice.
This was my first idea, and I roughed it out on August 28. By the way, I’m writing this on a train. Let’s blame today’s typos on that.
Here’s another I roughed out twice. This was drawn on August 28.
I even lettered this version. It grew up to become a real cartoon.
this was drawn on August 29 and became a real cartoon. It got comments.
I roughed this out on August 29, and became a real cartoon for the FXBG Advance.
I drew this on September 2, and I might like it more than the version I went with.
I was just goofing around with this on September 9. Why do I keep hearing about pickleball?
I roughed this out for the FXBG Advance on September 5. It became a real cartoon.
I liked naming some of my colleagues here, but I thought it was too many words. I roughed this up on September 9.
This was also drawn on September 9, but I went with something else.
I drew this on September 9, it became a real cartoon, and it got a lot of comments. A LOT of comments. I can’t wait for it to land on GoComics, which will be tomorrow.
I just got my idea for the FXBG Advance’s Sunday cartoon approved, but it wasn’t my first idea.
For context, we have some new public schools in this area. I got this idea and emailed it to my editor early this morning (September 11) with the subject line: “How brave are you feeling this morning?” (snip-MORE, both roughs and commentary)
September 10, 1897 Nineteen unarmed striking coal miners were killed and 36 more wounded in Lattimer (near Hazleton), Pennsylvania, for refusing to disperse, by a posse organized by the Luzerne County sheriff. The strikers, most of whom were shot in the back, were originally brought in as strike-breakers, but later created their own union. The background and details
September 10, 1963 Twenty black students entered public schools in Birmingham, Tuskegee and Mobile, Alabama. The Governor George C. Wallace had ordered Alabama state troopers to stop the federal court-ordered integration of Alabama’s elementary and high schools. President John Kennedy responded by calling out the Alabama National Guard to protect the students and to see the order enforced. President Kennedy spoke that day at American University’s commencement, saying, “Peace need not be impractical, war not inevitable . . . There is not peace in many of our cities because there is not freedom.”
September 10, 1996 Sheryl Crow’s second album was banned from Wal-Mart stores because the song she co-wrote with Tad Wadhams, “Love Is A Good Thing” opens with “Watch out sister, watch out brother, Watch our children while they kill each other With a gun they bought at Wal-Mart discount stores….” Read more about this eventand an update
Hey if these people can outright lie about the LGBTQ+ community, willing to let LGBTQ+ kids die or be pushed via violence into the closet hiding who they really were, what is faking your expertise. I already posted about a sexologist who had no experience with trans kids testifying to red state legislatures enabling his bigotry to further the harm to trans kids by giving an excuse for theirs. These people are on a mission that is far from pure but one driven by hate and bigotry to make all kids pretend to be straight and cis in the hope that they can force all adults to pretend to be straight and cis also. If they can’t force the adults to pretend to be straight or cis at least they can stop the trans adults from looking like the gender they identify with in hopes of stopping those that are passing as the gender they identify as. This they hope will mark those people in ways that make their life harder. Again their lies are OK for them because either they think their god approves or their hate is that great so nothing but the mission matters. Hugs
Pippin testifying in favor of book bans at a school board meeting in 2023 (screenshot / YouTube).
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Jennifer Pippin has repeatedly claimed to be an operating room nurse. USA TODAY, the New York Times, TC Palm and other publications have cited her as such. In 2020, Pippin argued that wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 was unnecessary, citing her professional expertise.
“As a registered nurse, I’ve learned a bit. I’ve learned a whole lot more though that they won’t tell you in nursing school,” she wrote in a 2020 Facebook post. “Not wearing a mask is NOT A RISK. Not to me and not to anyone else.”
Pippin, now the chair of one of Moms for Liberty’s (M4L) first chapters in Indian River County, Florida, has also mentioned having “medical licenses” while speaking about the group’s accomplishments at a school board meeting. And in an email chain with Florida’s Department of Education, she wrote that she couldn’t make it to a meeting because she was “operating on a doctors wife.”
(Screenshot received from The Florida Fruit Loop, highlight added).
However, allegations have surfaced that these statements might not be true, and the community is growing frustrated. On Facebook, one user decried “the utter misinformation that has spewed out of [Pippin’s] mouth any time she’s shared her thoughts about public health issues.” Another sarcastically wrote that they were “shocked … to find out Jenny is a liar!!”
“We reported this years ago, but because [M4L] were so powerful politically here in Florida with Ron DeSantis, we had no voice, nobody cared,” Cindy Gibbs, a local parent and former school board candidate, told Uncloseted Media.
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Is She Really a Nurse?
Despite Pippin’s claims of being a nurse, there is a stack of evidence suggesting otherwise. One individual shared screenshots of emails they received from a Florida Department of Health (DOH) official in 2024 after they filed a complaint against Pippin when they noticed her license wasn’t turning up in database searches. In one email, the DOH official states that Pippin had been under investigation since April 1, 2024, for potentially misrepresenting herself as a nurse and that no license had been found.
Uncloseted Media also filed a public records request with the DOH for the license. In an email, they said they were “unable to find anyone licensed by the department matching the information … provided.” The department did not respond to a request for further comment.
In addition, Uncloseted Media was unable to find any license associated with Pippin in the Florida Department of Health’s medical license database or the NURSYS database, which records multi-state licensees. We also checked the certification database for the Competency and Credentialing Institute, which certifies certain specialized nurses including operating room specialists, and found nothing.
While records do exist for Jennifer Hughes Pippin, a nutritionist and dietician at Florida State College in Jacksonville, her listed address and social media profiles do not match the Pippin from Indian River County.
The Florida Nurses Association also did not find any record of Pippin’s membership.
Multiple sources and news articles say Pippin was formerly employed by the Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital. Despite this, Uncloseted Media was unable to confirm she held a position there. The hospital declined to comment on the status of current or former employees as a matter of policy.
The only employment information we found listed for Pippin later than 2021 was in a Sebastian City Council meeting agenda from 2023, where she says she is “self employed” working for Organize Me!, a gig-based home cleaning service.
Why It Matters
Falsely presenting as a nurse is a phenomenon that has been on the rise since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pippin’s case, though, is of particular interest because she is often cited as an influential figure in Florida politics. In her role with M4L, Pippin has filed hundreds of requests to ban books—many of which include LGBTQ or racial justice themes—from school libraries. Some of the books she’s requested to ban include a graphic novel adaptation of “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir about growing up Black and queer.
In 2022, Pippin was also appointed by the Florida Department of Education to a workgroup of parents tasked with developing a training for state educators to comply with the classroom censorship laws signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, who has spoken at a M4L summit. One of these laws is the notorious “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits educators from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity.
And earlier this summer, she filed a complaint against a Vero Beach wine bar for hosting an all-
ages drag event, which she alleges contained performances with sexual themes. The bar’s owner, who is also a city official, denies the allegations.
This is not M4L’s first brush with controversy. The group’s co-founder, Bridget Ziegler, allegedly assisted her husband in sexually assaulting another woman. An Indiana chapter came under fire for quoting Adolf Hitler in a 2023 newsletter. And the group has hosted speakers who’ve spread medical misinformation on multiple occasions, claiming that doctors are “sterilizing and mutilating [trans] children” and that gender-affirming health care is “snake oil.”
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Pippin’s Response
When presented with these allegations, Pippin did not provide any evidence of a nursing license. In an email, she told Uncloseted Media that she was “surprised to see these allegations being raised again — especially considering they were addressed over a year ago.” She pointed to a prior case involving stalking and said the answers about whether she is a licensed nurse can be found via that case. However, the case and its associated documents are not available online.
Pippin testifying before the Indian River County School Board (screenshot/YouTube).
Pippin has previously stated that the reason her license is not publicly accessible is because she was ordered to “hide [it] from the public for five years” after filing a fraud suit in 2020 against someone who she says had used her license to file for unemployment. In emails with Uncloseted Media, she reaffirmed this story.
While Uncloseted Media was unable to verify the existence of this fraud case, experts say that such a decision from the court would be “unusual.”
“We have fought to make nurses licenses private and have been unable to do so even in at-risk areas,” says Willa Fuller, executive director of the Florida Nurses Association.
Multiple people in Indian River County say that Pippin’s questionable nursing status has been an open secret for years, but the issue didn’t start attracting wider attention until it was covered by The Florida Fruit Loop, a local Facebook page that promises to provide “a daily dose of MAGA butthurt.” Last weekend, Pippin left a note in the page’s comments titled “CEASE AND DESIST LETTER,” where she called multiple statements made by the page defamatory. However, the notice does not mention or dispute any allegations made about her nursing license.
The intro to Pippin’s comment (screenshot received from The Florida Fruit Loop).
The Implications
Falsely presenting as a nurse is a crime in Florida under certain circumstances, with one woman being arrested in the state for this just last month. However, in emails reviewed by Uncloseted Media, a DOH official cautioned that the laws only apply in specific cases.
“For those statutes where an unlicensed person is allegedly holding themselves out as a licensed healthcare provider to apply, the Subject would need to hold themselves out / lead the public to believe they are a current and active licensee,” the official wrote.
While the full results of Pippin’s investigation have not yet been released, the individual who corresponded with the DOH says the department later informed them that their complaint “lacked … a criminal finding.”
The DOH official did note, though, that the video of Pippin’s testimony before the school district could be considered a violation. Pippin has also publicly used the formal title “registered nurse” on multiple occasions, including in a rant against masking posted to the Republican Club of Indian River’s Facebook page in 2020; in a Department of Education report; and in Vero News.
“She has been out here presenting herself as an authority on things in the world of health care and education,” says Cindy Gibbs. “And the groups of people that she associates herself with … just keep generating and regenerating the same stuff: ‘oh, Jennifer knows things because she’s a registered nurse.’”
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a pedophile golf coach/Schools Superintendent as well as pedophile enabling officials, I guess. I hope these parents not only protect their kids, but learn from this: normalizing pedophilia, abuse, and bullying is bad. Two stories here, so the post is a bit long. The Newscow is my area’s local news site; the coverage is due to the accused being a local high school graduate. The Reflector story has more background and detail than alluded in the Newscow story, and is best read in whole, on site, for continuity. Again, normalizing pedophilia, abuse, and bullying is bad. As we here know. There is official description of what is alleged. I don’t think it’s triggering, but wanted to state that for everyone.
COLDWATER — After the father of a small-town, southwest Kansas high school junior reported his daughter was the victim of sexual harassment and unwanted touching by her golf coach, he met with the coach and principal to lay out the teenager’s concerns and disgust.
By the end of that meeting in May, the father said, the three men seemed to have an understanding that the coach violated policy — if not the law — when he made a stunning comment to the girl during golf practice: He told her to grip a club like it was a penis.
At the meeting, the coach signed a document affirming he directed lurid comments at the girl, according to a copy of the document obtained by Kansas Reflector. The student confirmed the accusations in a report with law enforcement and in an interview with Kansas Reflector.
The document said the coach on multiple occasions grabbed the student’s hips, waist and shoulders while standing behind her. She also said that he held the back of her thigh, purportedly to improve her golf posture.
Ty Theurer eventually resigned as the South Central High School golf coach, which was his part-time assignment in the Comanche County School District. He didn’t surrender a much more influential position in the district: Superintendent.
Kansas Reflector interviews with students, parents, educators and elected officials tied to Comanche County schools revealed a concerted effort by insiders to shield the district’s top administrator, despite ongoing law enforcement and Title IX investigations. People with knowledge of Theurer’s past said the golf practice incident wasn’t the only example of inappropriate behavior by the superintendent, who for years personally controlled how the district responded to alleged sexual harassment.
Kansas Reflector reporting shows the Comanche County school board president and vice president along with the high school principal collaborated to minimize disciplinary action against Theurer. It indicated the president sought to tamp down scrutiny of the superintendent as word of the student’s allegation made its way through the sparsely populated district.
In a brief interview with Kansas Reflector, Theurer declined to respond to questions about the complaint.
“I’m not going to answer any of those questions,” he said. “I am under investigation. I’m not allowed to speak about it.”
(snip)
In May, the student’s father reported the behavior to Andy Uhl, the Comanche County school board’s vice president. Uhl apparently passed the dad’s complaint up the chain of command. That resulted in the father’s meeting with Theurer and South Central High School principal Bud Valerius.
But instead of all seven members of the school board assuming a role in a personnel issue involving the person hired by the board to serve as superintendent, Valerius dealt with the student’s complaint as if it were a clash between coach and athlete, emails show. Valerius took that approach despite conflicts of interest, including his job as a direct subordinate of Theurer, his assignment as assistant golf coach and his friendship with Theurer.
School board president Kelly Herd said in an email to other board members that in her opinion, “There was nothing in the complaint that would warrant administrative leave” for superintendent Theurer. Instead, she told board members, coach Theurer had been given a “warning” to not offend again.
The school board replaced the superintendent as the district’s Title IX coordinator with oversight of sexual harassment or sex discrimination complaints because it would be improper for Theurer to investigate himself. Those duties were passed several months ago to the district’s elementary school principal, who would be expected to initiate an investigation of the superintendent.
In June, the student’s parents attended a regularly scheduled Comanche County school board meeting with the goal of sharing information about what their daughter said she endured while coached by Theurer.
Herd, the board president, called the mother before the meeting in an attempt to dissuade her from making public comments about the superintendent, the mother said.
The mother decided to go to the board meeting. She attempted to read from a written statement. Herd cut her off by adjourning the meeting. A video obtained by Kansas Reflector showed Herd and other board members walking out of the room with the mother still reading from her prepared remarks.
“How could this not be a priority? Not for my family alone, but for the school community?” the mother said in an interview. “The sudden adjournment and insistence that such an issue of import was literally worth walking out on is deeply troubling.”
She said the school board president’s attempt to bury the complaint was “completely unacceptable” and risked the health and safety of students in the district’s three schools. Failure of the school board to address the superintendent’s misconduct ran “the risk of appearing complicit in continuing toxic and dangerous situations,” the mother said.
“There is no result that can serve justice other than immediate termination,” she said.
Sumner Newscow report — A Wellington High School graduate has been placed on paid administrative leave as superintendent of the Comanche County School District.
Ty Theurer has been accused of sexually harassing a student. The story first appeared in the Kansas Reflector, in which a father of a small-town, southwest Kansas high school junior reported his daughter was the victim of sexual harassment and unwanted touching by her South Central High School golf coach.
The school district voted to place Theurer on administrative paid leave. According to the Reflector, the school board didn’t discuss publicly the reason for taking action against Theurer at this time. There was no board disclosure about who would temporarily lead the district or for how long.
The board adopted a vague motion to proceed with “next steps,” which the board president said had been discussed in an executive session. None of that information was shared with the audience, according to the Reflector report.
More than 100 residents of the rural southwest Kansas school district — including some displaying raw, intense emotion — descended on the high school Wednesday night to demand ouster or suspension of Theurer. He is accused of, while serving as golf coach, advising a female student to hold clubs like she were gripping a penis. The girl had also complained of unwanted touching by Theurer.
“How in the world did we get here?” said Zach Ellis, a county commissioner who has children in the district. “Does this board not have a responsibility to the kids of this district to do the right thing? Kids don’t feel safe in this building. You have created a hostile and toxic learning environment as well as a toxic working environment.”
School board president Kelly Herd, who became aware of the student’s harassment complaint four months ago, had resisted punishment of Theurer beyond the warning placed in his personnel file. She had told fellow board members no additional sanction was necessary in response to the allegations.
Theurer signed a summary of the student’s complaint months ago, which was viewed by the student’s parents as an admission of guilt.
Herd also sent emails to other board members saying Theurer “did not deny nor make excuses” and “has been written up.”
In front of an unusually large crowd, the seven-member board moved in and out of executive session several times before Herd sought a motion to relieve Theurer of administrative duties in the 300-student district. According to the Reflector, he wasn’t at work on Wednesday and didn’t attend the school board meeting after the Kansas Reflector article was published on Tuesday detailing allegations against the superintendent and the school board’s tepid response.
Scottie's Playtime 