The US and other democracies had better wake up and pay attention. All across the world fascist authoritarian governments sponsored by US billionaires along with countries like Russia and those they support like Steve Bannon are spreading anti-democratic fascist bull all around the world. There are well monied groups that want white supremacy and Christian religious dominance all across the globe. When you look into it the facts become really scary.
French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen warned today against sending any more weapons to Ukraine, and called for a rapprochement between NATO and Russia once Moscow’s war in Ukraine winds down.
Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist who has long ties to Russia, also confirmed that if she unseats President Emmanuel Macron in France’s April 24 presidential runoff, she will pull France out of NATO’s military command and dial back French support for the whole European Union.
Macron, a pro-EU centrist, is facing a harder-than-expected fight to stay in power, in part because the economic impact of the war is hitting poor households the hardest.
Local school districts in Missouri would be able to call elections on whether to ban transgender athletes from youth sports under a bill given initial approval by the House on Wednesday evening. A bill originally designed to audit the state’s voter rolls and tweak elections laws was amended by Rep. Chuck Basye, a Rocheport Republican, to include the language.
The chamber approved the amendment by an 89-40 vote after almost three hours of fierce and emotional debate. Democrats called the measure discriminatory and designed to invoke fear. “I was afraid of people like you growing up and I grew up in Hickory County, Missouri,” Rep. Ian Mackey, a St. Louis Democrat who is openly gay, said to Basye. “I grew up in a school district that would vote tomorrow to put this in place.”
“Your brother wanted to tell you he was gay, didn’t he?” Mackey asked him. Basye said he did and his brother thought their family would hold it against him. “Why would he think that?” Mackey asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Basye. The GOP representative said, “that was never going to happen.”
Mackey said, “I would have been afraid to tell you too. I would have been afraid to tell you to because of stuff like this because this is what you’re focused on. This is the legislation you want to put forward.”
The exchange has gone wildly viral on TikTok.
Watch and enjoy the smoke.
Meanwhile, in Missouri, State Representative @IanMack03007724 gives one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard.
It did the same to me. I remember all my growing up years and into my early twenties living with that fear that generated such shame within me. I still hear, especially from religious bigots and know-nothings, that we are all born heterosexual like God wants us to be. However, some of us turn away from God and follow Satan into choosing to be homosexual. The fact that I would hear repeatedly that God hated me along with the world around me, was a horrible fear inducing and shame producing thing. I carried that around for so many years until I grew up to the point that I told myself to fuck it all. To this day, I still feel a bit of that well entrenched fear when I decide to tell some friend that I’m gay. Funny thing, at least to me, is that most have already figured that out and remained my friends.
Because we know that straight people do not get sexually transmitted diseases. We know that denying kids / young adults with sexual educations including the use of condoms means kids won’t sexually transmitted diseases. We know keeping sexual information about their body and how to ease their desires themselves with masturbation won’t prevent STDs. It is all those gays’ fault because of the icky stuff they do with each other. Just think of everything wrong in the world and put it on the LGBTQ+ especially them gays with same sex marriage. Boy does that make their god angry.
Via email from hate group leader Tony Perkins:
If the CDC took COVID seriously, they’re doing the opposite for STDs. America’s public health agencies responded to COVID by quickly identifying how the disease was transmitted and recommending countermeasures. Oh, it’s an airborne virus? Let’s everybody cover their nose and mouth and stand a bit further apart.
If only we could figure out how sexually transmitted diseases were spread! Maybe we could use such information to ground our public health response. “If everybody did monogamous sex only,” Dr. Scott Field of the American College of Pediatricians said, “there would not be any STDs.”
STDs require much closer human contact than an airborne virus, but we’re still waiting for the CDC to recommend “social distancing” as a countermeasure to limit the spread of STDs.
As alarming as the rise in STDs may be, it isn’t the least bit surprising, especially among young people. Field attributed it to “policies, and the emphasis away from sexual fidelity.”
This is the natural outgrowth of the Left’s attempts to sexualize children and encourage sexual promiscuity throughout the education system.
To prevent this sexualized indoctrination, states have resorted to legislation. Earlier this year, Florida passed into law the Parental Rights in Education Act, which protects children in kindergarten through third grade from sexual indoctrination.
The bill attempted to give children at least a few years to learn — to read, write, add, tie their shoes — before dousing their imaginations in moral filth.
Instead, the Left wants to subject children to a radically opposite worldview, teaching them that only they can determine their identity, that they must do so according to their internal sexual feelings of the moment, and that, in fact, those sexual desires are their identity. How deceptive! How demonic!
As you may recall, the American College of Pediatricians is a tiny, far-right Christianist group that chose its name so that the public will confuse their pronouncements as coming from the highly regarded and pro-LGBTQ American Academy of Pediatrics.
The principal of Magic City Acceptance Academy is fighting back against what he calls a “disgusting” television advertisement by Tim James, a Republican candidate for Alabama governor.
Michael Wilson, the founding principal of Magic City Acceptance Academy, said he was shocked when he saw the ad, which uses images from a school fundraiser showing the faces of staff and students. The photos were likely lifted from the school’s social media site, he said.
“And now, right here in Alabama, millions of your tax dollars are paying for the first transgender public school in the South,” James said in the ad. “Enough of this foolishness.”
The initial advertisement, titled “Genesis,” shows images of the school and of a drag show fundraiser as James’ voice denounces the institution.
The public charter school, which labels itself as an LGBTQ-affirming learning environment, opened last year and serves students from all backgrounds. Transgender students make up less than 10% of the school’s student population, Wilson said, and the majority of pupils at MCAA are not members of the LGBTQ community.
“I just could not believe that someone would use a school and misrepresent it,” Wilson said.
After the advertisement was released, the school immediately increased security to protect its student population. The decision turned out to be a prudent one.
The first week the ad ran, Wilson said someone drove by the school and yelled slurs at students standing outside. In another incident, a woman attempted to approach and film students on the school’s campus before being stopped by staff.
The ad has had negative impacts on students, Wilson said. The school has partnered with the Magic City Wellness Center to provide counseling for those who need it.
He said he has also spoken directly to some of the individuals pictured in the advertisement.
“They’re angry,” Wilson said. “They’re angry, and they have a right to be. What he’s doing and what others are doing in the way they’re campaigning is pushing voters away instead of bringing them in. It’s absolutely disgusting the angry nature of nearly every candidate’s commercials.”
Wilson said he believes that ads like James’ fuel hatred in the community and could, in some case, inspire violence.
“Ads like that one and the one against our immigrant populations — all of those ads — they empower and embolden people who still have a lot of hate and bigotry in their hearts to take action sometimes,” he said.
A parent of one of the students pictured in James’ ad sent the campaign a cease-and-desist letter, Wilson said. The campaign edited the photo to exclude only the child in question, Wilson claimed, leaving others visible.
The James campaign said they did not receive a letter, only an e-mail from a parent. The campaign “obscured the student from the ad” in response but has continued to air it, Elizabeth Jordan, communications director for the campaign, said in a statement. If the parent were “truly concerned about her child,” the campaign said, “she would remove her from the Magic City Acceptance Academy period.”
In a statement released to media outlets regarding the original ad, Tim James’ campaign doubled down on its claims.
“The principal said that the TV ad scared the children,” the statement said. “What should scare mothers and fathers of these children is what the faculty is doing by presenting this ungodly display through the drag show to which the children were subjected.”
Wilson said no students were “subjected” to the drag show, but that it was their idea.
No matter the political climate, Wilson said that Magic City Acceptance Academy will stand by its mission.
“We’re an educational space for all students,” he said. “We’re built on pillars of trauma-informed care because most of our kids have faced marginalization of some kind — because they’re LGBTQ, because of color, because of the level of poverty… We’re the space where we hopefully break down barriers so that kids can continue to learn and continue to grow and eventually become the adults that they want to be.”
Alabama Students At LGBTQ-Friendly School Called Slurs After Ad By GOP Gov Candidate Shows Their Faces
The principal of Magic City Acceptance Academy is fighting back against what he calls a “disgusting” television advertisement by Tim James, a Republican candidate for Alabama governor.
Michael Wilson, the founding principal of Magic City Acceptance Academy, said he was shocked when he saw the ad, which uses images from a school fundraiser showing the faces of staff and students. The photos were likely lifted from the school’s social media site, he said.
The initial advertisement, titled “Genesis,” shows images of the school and of a drag show fundraiser as James’ voice denounces the institution. “And now, right here in Alabama, millions of your tax dollars are paying for the first transgender public school in the South,” James said in the ad. “Enough of this foolishness.”
Magic City is a pro-LGBTQ public charter school. Since the ad ran, someone drove by the school shouting slurs and a woman attempted to film students.
James’ campaign says if the students’ parents are upset about his ad, they should remove their children from the “ungodly” school. There’s much more at the link.
Last week Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a raft of anti-trans bills and a version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. James is obviously trying to outdo her.
Tim James called MCAA the first "transgender public school in the South." After the ad ran, someone drove by the school and yelled slurs at kids outside. In another incident, a woman tried to film students on the school’s campus, @lee_hedgepeth reports. https://t.co/XlFGsiDfpP
The principal of Magic City Acceptance Academy is fighting back against what he calls a “disgusting” television advertisement by Tim James, a Republican candidate for Alabama governor. https://t.co/jvyQKtvHJ0
NASHVILLE, Tenn.–A Tennessee lawmaker who voted in favor of a bill to cut down on homeless camps spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday, referencing Adolph Hitler as an example of how there is still hope for the homeless.
On Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill making it a Class “C” Misdemeanor for soliciting or camping along highways and exit ramps. It also makes it illegal to camp on public and state property.
State Senator Frank S. Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains-D8) took to the floor on Wednesday to voice his support for the bill and to give fellow lawmakers a “history lesson.” Speaking on the floor, Sen. Niceley stated “I haven’t given y’all a history lesson in a while and I wanted to give a little history on homelessness.”
“In 1910 Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while,” Niceley said. “So for two years Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory and his body language and how to connect with the masses. And then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books. So, a lot of these people its not a dead end. They can come out of these homeless camps and have a productive life, or in Hitler’s case a very unproductive life.”
While debating a bill that would criminalize homeless campus on public property, GOP Tennessee State Sen. Frank Niceley said Hitler was homeless for a while too but he “went on to lead a life that got him in the history books.”https://t.co/HLQgRLRGxS
I have a doctors appointment this morning that may take most of the morning. When I get back, I will be doing some more reading and posting on the Sweden / puberty blockers issue. It has been hyped by the right as proving their point. I guess that makes sense if you think the red states passing fetal heart beat bills means that there is a heart in a 6 week old fetus. There is not, but the Republican led states keep claiming there is. So are they correct. The anti-abortion folks think so. Same bias is working on the Sweden issue. More later.
(Anatoliy Cherkasov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty)
Puberty blockers can be “life-saving” drugs for trans teenagers, according to a landmark study that is the first to examine access to puberty blockers and suicide risk.
The study, published in medical journal Pediatrics, found that if trans teenagers have access to the medication their chance of suicide and mental health problems significantly declines.
Access to puberty blockers for a trans teen who wants them reduces their likelihood of trying to die by suicide in both the short and long term, the study found, as well as significantly reducing their likelihood of experiencing mental-health problems.
Multiple medical associations, including the Endocrine Society, have guidelines recommending doctors offer trans teens pubertal suppression therapy, also known as puberty blockers, which has been a treatment option in the US since 1998.
Puberty blockers delay puberty until a trans teenager is old enough to make decisions about having gender-affirming medical treatment.
“Historically we have known the puberty blockers are safe and effective and this is totally reversible, so the benefits far outweigh any risk. It is sort of a no-brainer to make these available in these circumstances,” said Dr Michelle Forcier, an associate professor of paediatrics at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who was not part of the study.
These bills include barring doctors from providing certain gender-related medical treatment to young trans people, including puberty blockers, and banning young trans people from playing school sports.
Forcier added that nobody would deny a child with asthma their inhaler, or refuse cancer treatment for a child with cancer, yet some parents still express reservations about puberty blockers.
She wants to remind these parents that pausing puberty is a “life-saving option”, she said.
“By not allowing their child to use these drugs, that is not a neutral option,” said Forcier. “This is why this paper is so important. This access is associative into adulthood and is important for safety. We know that access can offer protective effects. This is something that will help a parent keep their child safe.”
Dr Rachel Levine, a practising paediatrician in Pennsylvania, said this new study is important because it’s the first to specifically show the link between access to puberty blockers and a decrease in suicidality.
“It is very important for medical professionals to understand scientific studies like this,” Levine said.
“It is also critically important as far as policy,” she said, “that policy makers do not get in the way of medical standards of care.”
