This is the most critical thing in Utah for the elected officials to get to. What are there, 10 or 15 trans people in the state? So rather than fix kids going hungry in the summer when school is out, rather than fix medical care for poor people, rather than tackle homelessness, they are worried about who is peeing in what bathroom. Something that doesn’t matter. When you go into a public restroom it is not for a social gathering! If you are trying to see or determine what is someone else’s pants, you are a pervert and you are wrong. If you buy into the garbage that a trans person in a bathroom is just there to attack a cis female, weird they never seem concerned about trans boys attacking cis boys in bathrooms, but if that is your worry, don’t. It doesn’t happen! Facts are pesky things, the people being assaulted in bathrooms are trans people and cis women accused of being trans people. The ones doing the attacking … yes bigots, vigilante cis people thinking they have a right to police who gets to use the bathroom. This is a created panic issue by right wing religious haters who can not stand that trans people, people who are different, exist. This is all about enforcing homogeneous, forcing people to fit the right mold, to have only the correct people in society / public. About rejecting the modern age to force everyone to return to what was acceptable in the distant past. It is no different than the Amish demanding that everyone act just like them. Hugs. Scottie
The Senate spent days deciding just how anti-trans they wanted the law to be.
Utah’s Republican-dominated Senate approved a revised version of an anti-trans bathroom bill Thursday, following days of flip-flopping over just how anti-trans they wanted it to be. The state House must now sign the revised version before heading to the governor’s desk to become law.
The initial version of H.B. 257, passed by the Utah State House last week, included a provision banning transgender people from entering bathrooms and other “sex-designated privacy spaces” that align with their gender identity in “publicly funded and publicly owned” buildings unless they have updated their birth certificates and can prove that they have undergone gender confirmation surgery. Violations of the law would have been punishable by up to six months in jail.
The dangerous measure fits with the state’s long history of policing private matters.
As journalist Erin Reed noted, that version of the law would have applied to airports, convention centers, park buildings, recreational centers, public administration buildings, colleges, universities, and public schools.
On Wednesday, Utah state Sen. Dan McCay (R) introduced an amended version of the bill in the state Senate. As KUER reported, that version only applied to “government-owned and operated” buildings, like public schools, universities, and government buildings.
McCay’s version retained the original bill’s ban on transgender locker and changing room access as well as the ban on bathroom access in K–12 schools, but did away with restrictions on who can enter sex-designated bathrooms in other government buildings. McCay said the amended bill focused instead on “the actions of those who commit lewd and offensive behavior in a privacy space” and was “no longer related to gender or identity.”
But McCay reversed course on Thursday, introducing a new draft of the bill minutes before the Senate began its final discussion of HB 257, KSL.com reported.
The latest version restores the original’s prohibition on trans people entering bathrooms that align with their gender identity in government-owned buildings, while also narrowly defining “male” and “female” in state code according to biological sex assigned at birth.
While the bill does not include any enforcement mechanism or criminal penalties for violations of the bathroom ban, it does include enhanced criminal penalties for anyone who commits multiple crimes in a restroom as well as additional criminal penalties for anyone who commits crimes in a bathroom that does not align with their biological sex.
“Instead of making this about enforcement, we define what bathrooms are and we define who belongs in what bathroom and how to, I guess, qualify to be in one bathroom or another,” McCay said. “And I think that definition makes it very clear.”
The Senate approved H.B. 257 Thursday by a 21–8 vote, with only two Republicans joining Democrats in voting against it.
As the Senate voted, around 100 people gathered on the Utah Capitol steps to voice their opposition to the bill, urging Gov. Spencer Cox (R) to veto it.
H.B. 257 will return to the House for approval before reaching Cox’s desk. But as KSL.com noted, both critics and supporters expect the bill to face legal challenges.
Wow, the rush to the past is not slowing down even as Florida reaches the edge of the cliff. Anything that threatens right wing fundamentalist Christian world view must be banned, removed, buried along with the regressive indoctrination taught. What is the republican idea of real history? That slaves benefited by being slaves? Rapes and beatings were free for them, I guess? How did we get here, to this point?
The US was not always a backwards country. We started out with a radical idea, a representative democracy. Let the people have a say in how things are run. Other countries took this idea and made it great for the public. The future US kind of tried to pull it together, had a major set back with entrenched racism, which we are still dealing with today. Then a period of growth for some, oppression for others. Then the Enlightenment of the New Deal where again the people, the public welfare mattered. Yes we struggled as each generation challenged the generation before them to expand and grow, open up society so more people could share in it equally. Then we had a pivotal moment. A black man was voted in to the highest office in our country, the Presidency. The right / those that couldn’t accept equality lost their collective minds. And overnight racism became vogue again, became acceptable to be publicly voiced by some people. Leaders of political groups on the right, and religious leaders also on the right rallied their followers to push the idea that racism is not wrong as was held true for 40+ years and these people pushed back on the gains in equality of the blacks.
Well that worked so well for them that racism was extended back to mean anyone not white. Yes all brown people were deficient and inferior along with basically born bad, especially brown people at the southern border who wanted only to come to the US to work and share the “American dream”. Well that got a mob boss thug wannabe elected president who gave his followers permission to throw all decency away and revert back to the lowest common denominator they could be. Racism was joined by bigotry against anyone different, openly being crude, rude, and thuggish became OK for them. As long as it was towards others, not them. They demanded they and only them be given back the celebrated highest position in society / the country with everyone else being made lessor with many fewer rights. They want a return to a distant past before enlightenment, and with the added boost of recreating a fictitious history that never was, which is that the US was founded as a Christian country. With a racist bigoted moron leading the way, the right surged into office propelled by the idea of taking back the country to something worse for most people but great for a minority. The minority that was to be given a higher station loved it, and with the majority not paying much attention, managed to get into positions of authority over schools.
Now they used that authority to attack all areas with the full force of racism, bigotry, and forced religious indoctrination. Christianity only though, no other religion was acceptable. They removed books or media that had any member of society they disliked, they did the same for any ideas expressed they disagreed with. Freedom became only for them, white cis straight Christians, all others had no freedom. Parent’s rights were twisted to mean only the rights of white cis straight Christian racist bigots, and those rights included forcing every child to be indoctrinated with the right wing racist bigoted Christian teachings regardless of the child’s parents wishes. A complete authoritarian take over was what they tried.
It was noticed because like all bigots they were not quiet about the damage they were doing once they got the authority to do it. They aggressively rammed their backwards oppression on everyone. History has shown when they tried this same shit in the past, it was quickly stopped so they tried to create laws cementing their ideas in place. But the public which was still a progressive majority woke up, and started fighting back. They took back a lot of the school boards, they took back as many positions as came up for vote. The only ones they couldn’t fix were the ones not yet up for vote, like Governor and state officials. Which brings us to now, today in Florida where educational classes on subjects long thought important for the growth of students is being removed to further the forced indoctrination of right wing political racism, bigotry, and Christianity along with a made up fictional history. Hugs. Scottie
Two quotes from the article.
“Sociology is the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers,” the association said in a statement to the New York Times.
“Failure to prioritize the scientific study of the causes and consequences of human behavior is a failure of Florida’s commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness,” it added.
Students should be focused on learning the ‘truth,’ rather than be ‘radicalized by woke ideologies in the college classrooms,’ said education commissioner
Published 01/26/24 10:05 PM ET|Updated 01/26/24 10:05 PM ET
Ron DeSantis: On a mission to reshape education.Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ so-called “anti-woke” crusade has now removed sociology as a core class from all 12 of the state’s public universities.
The Board of Governors voted to make the change on Wednesday. A core sociology course was also removed earlier this month from all 28 Florida public colleges, meaning that Florida students will no longer be able to chose sociology to fulfill their core class requirements.
What the board refers to as a “factual history course” is replacing Principles of Sociology in the universities in what is widely seen as the start of a general rout of sociology classes.
When discussing sociology late last year, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. said that “students should be focused on learning the truth about our country instead of being radicalized by woke ideologies in the college classrooms.” He also said the subject had been “hijacked by left-wing activists.”
The Board of Education has promised the history curriculum will include an examination of the “horrors” of slavery, even though the same board pressed lower schools to teach that slaves — who lost their freedom, were beaten, raped and forced to labor for their masters — benefited from slavery because they learned work “skills”
Florida has one of the country’s largest public university systems, with more than 430,000 students.
The latest change is part of a sweeping reorganization of education in Florida from top to bottom. Under DeSantis’ sweeping book censorship, at least one district has banned dictionaries from their schools’ libraries because they contain the word “sex.”
The American Sociological Association called the decision to dump the core sociology class “outrageous,” and one informed by a “gross misunderstanding” of sociology as somehow “radical.”
“Sociology is the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior, which are at the core of civic literacy and are essential to a broad range of careers,” the association said in a statement to the New York Times.
“Failure to prioritize the scientific study of the causes and consequences of human behavior is a failure of Florida’s commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness,” it added.
"The decision to remove sociology from Florida's core curriculum is a tragic blow to students’ intellectual freedom. It will prevent generations of students from being introduced to subject matter that is uniquely suited to address complex challenges."https://t.co/JxhDw5B9Sg
— American Association of University Professors (@AAUP) January 25, 2024
Florida will no longer allow a sociology course to count toward students’ graduation requirements at state universities, replacing it with a class officials say will teach “factual history” in a decision critics say was fueled by political motivations. https://t.co/FyEhQt9CVv
Well, it’s done. Now all state colleges AND universities will be removing #sociology from the gen ed curriculum. Summer intro courses are now on hold anticipating tanking enrollments & grad student instructors are the first to be axed. Thanks #Florida. https://t.co/DmuIxOTXud
The American Sociological Association condemns the State University System of Florida board's decision to cut sociology from core course requirements as "a failure of Florida's commitment to providing high-quality civics education and workforce readiness." https://t.co/DHRdeGt7CF
FOOLS…my sociology course in school required us to float theories in class, while using statistical databases to prove them. It was like two courses in one, and highly illuminating for dispelling old assumptions.
I refuse to believe in a book that SUPPOSEDLY has all the answers to life that was written by a bunch of people who didn’t know where the sun went at nigh…
I like the chapter in the “factual history” textbook where Jesus and George Washington free all the babies in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, lock up Hillary Clinton and then travel to Kentucky to comfort the citizens of Bowling Green in the wake of Al Sharpton’s horrific massacre.
The helicopter was in the shop so they needed an airstrip. There were some wooden teeth smashed into the air intake valve and the repair parts were still on order at the time of the attack. Everyone knows this is the reason helicopters didn’t get used again until after WW2.
Welcome to the white fundamentalist maga paradise, Florida. The purge is well on the way. Again the goal is to remove / wipe out all representation of LGBTQIA from public society. Also part of the goal is to return black / brown people to a lower stature and keep them there. To stop any integration or upward movement of the minority groups. These people demand a return to the time whenwhite males were automatically in charge, Christianity was the assumed only real religion and all things Christian were good, women were subservient to males and functioned to do for men in the home / public / bedroom, blacks knew their place and stayed there, and the LGBTQIA were not seen or heard of terrified of being found out. That is the world these people are fighting to have. Florida is well on the way. They have basically outlawed the teaching of acceptance or inclusion of any group not dedicated to white people or Christianity. They have removed any representation of LGBTQIA or racism from schools. They have rewritten history, legislated being cis, being straight until adult, legislated having a small groups of bigoted racist parents over ruling all other parents on what school age kids can do, read, see, say, and do medically. They call anything not right wing fundamentalist maga is indoctrination. Welcome to Florida, a state run by Christian Taliban with help from the moral police. Hugs. Scottie
The Florida Board of Governors voted to prohibit using state funding for public university programs or activities that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
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Students at the University of North Florida protested the imminent closing of the school’s four diversity centers, including the campus LGBTQ center, on Wednesday.
The protest took place the day the Florida Board of Governors, the governing body of the State University System of Florida, voted to prohibit funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and activities at the state’s public universities. The vote comes several months after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure into law banning all of the state’s public higher education institutions from using state or federal funding for diversity programs.
UNF, in Jacksonville, will close its Office of Diversity and Inclusion — and, with it, its interfaith, intercultural, women’s and LGBTQ centers — to comply with the new law, President Moaz Limayem said in a letter to the university community Wednesday night.
Limayem said the four university centers will be “phased out” immediately but added that registered student organizations that aim to promote diversity will remain active on the university’s campus and that no staffers will lose their jobs. He did not weigh in on student protests or on his views about the state policy.
“We want UNF to be a place where all people feel safe and welcome, and where there is no place for hate,” Limayem said. “This semester, we will begin seeking ways to reinforce UNF’s values in everything we do, and we will review and expand resources as necessary to ensure success for all members of our campus community.”
Cassandra Edwards, a spokesperson for the university system, said in an email Thursday that Florida “will remain focused on high-quality education for our students and not allow indoctrination.”
UNF student Lissie Morales was among the protesters, many of whom were waving rainbow Pride flags and shouting: “What do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
“The center provided me friends; it provided me education to learn more about my gender and sexual orientation,” Morales told NBC affiliate WTLV of Jacksonville. “In regard to the turnout, it warms my heart to see people care about something as much as I do, especially when it comes to the LGBT center, because it was one of the reasons why I came to UNF in the first place.”
In 2022, UNF was among 40 institutions on Campus Pride’s list of best universities for LGBTQ students.
Carlos Guillermo Smith, a former Florida House Democrat who is a policy adviser at the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida, called the new state law “a rubber stamp for Ron DeSantis’s agenda of censorship and surveillance.”
“The Board of Governors had the opportunity to hit the brakes, but instead, shamefully followed their censorship agenda off a cliff in service to DeSantis’s failed political ambitions,” Smith said in a statement Wednesday.
A representative for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The regulation comes as Florida continues to build on its reputation for enacting anti-LGBTQ laws and legislation aimed at limiting diversity initiatives.
Dozens of UNF students attend a rally in support of the school’s LGBTQ center. WTLV
Florida made national headlines when it enacted what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law in 2022, which limited the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools in kindergarten through third grade. DeSantis signed a bill last year that expanded the law to apply to students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Last year, Florida lawmakers prompted outcry for blocking an Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools.
Since the start of the year, Florida lawmakers have introduced roughly a dozen anti-LGBTQ bills. They include a sweeping measure that would force Floridians to sign an affidavit when they apply for new driver’s licenses and state IDs to certify that the gender markers on their birth certificates will match their new IDs. Another bill would allow some published accusations of homophobia and transphobia to be considered “defamation per se.”
Student protests over Florida’s policies about LGBTQ issues have also become common. In November, students at a high school in Coconut Creek, about 15 miles north of Fort Lauderdale, staged a walkout after their principal and other school staffers were reprimanded for letting a transgender girl compete on the school’s girls volleyball team.
Students at the University of North Florida protested the imminent closing of the school’s four diversity centers, including the campus LGBTQ center. https://t.co/gt8e8q3kS4
Exactly! My whole youth was steeped in the straight world, I knew not one gay person and had zero history of the gay movement, yet I still turned out gay.
Same for the rest of us. This is how we can tell that the evangelicals are completely, utterly delusional; and why they’re a minority now in the US. Dems need to vote them out. If they refuse the evangelicals will begin their new Spanish Inquisition.
The War on Women’s Rights The War on LGBT Rights The War on Voting Rights The War on Oversight The War on Accountability The War on the Elderly The War on The Arts
From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling cast, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.
They forget about that whole pesky “separation of church and state”. If the Roberts court is a “traditionalist” court, more states should be challenging the unconstitutional legislation passed in many States (esp the Federal Gov as this is setting up a State vs Federal legal battle), otherwise the Supreme Court will have to justify their reason for overturning Roe and much more. Not that it matters but it’s important for the public to understand.
If the maga right wing have their way, any and all protections from students bullied because of being different or LGBTQIA. New laws in red states like Florida remove not only the anti-bulling campaigns but also prevent teachers from stepping to defend the LGBTQIA attacked kid because that would be seen as promoting sexual orientation or gender identification. All positive posters, safe space stickers, and rainbow acceptance stuff removed. No more books or movies saying it is OK to be gay or different. These laws take us back to a time when children were terrified to be outed as not straight or cis, and leave schools with no legal way to help these kids or prevent their abuse. This is what the moms of TikTok and mom’s of liberty want. This is what the maga Christian Republican Party want, to drive the kids who are different back into hiding who they are, push them violently back into the closet so that they will feel shame and fear over who they are. Are we as a nation going to turn our backs on decades of work to promote tolerance and acceptance of those who are different? Are we going to again return to a time when kids were terrified to learn or even be in school? Will we let the maga thug mentality win as the way people in the US should act or be? Hugs. Scottie
These videos took me over a week to watch and then place here. While some are out of date, I chose them instead of newer ones because this is the school world the maga Christians are fighting to return to. Kids being different are singled out and collectively punished. While watching these the ever helpful YouTube algorithm, or the push stay on our site what these next suggestion lists filled up with abuse videos. So be careful if that bothers you as much as I, I finally took to watching them off-line. Hugs. Scottie
Michael Kuch, the father of 14-year-old Adriana, says his daughter was assaulted by other students and two days later, she took her own life. NBC New York’s Brian Thompson reports.
160,000 children stay home from school out of fear of being bullied.
Newly released video showed Gabriel, 8, being assaulted by another student in a school bathroom two days before the young boy took his own life.
An investigation is underway after a video showing a boy punched in the face multiple times in a boys’ bathroom is getting a lot of attention on social media.
As part of our continuing series “Assignment America,” Steve Hartman takes a look at bullying in America, and speaks to a victim of bullying – and the bullier, who has had a change of heart.
Shocking and emotional documentary about the pain and desperation of four young teenagers facing lives overshadowed by bullying.
This is the most important issue the republicans think they have to deal with. Trans and gay people / kids. Not kids being hungry, not schools shootings, not educations test scores or financing. Nope what bathroom a person can use and what medical treatment is available.
The republicans think they have a winning issue with their base because these are hate bills, socially regressive bills. But these are a driven minority fueled either by hate or driven by religious beliefs, possibly both. The majority rejects that hate, that bigotry, that demand to control how others live. These anti-trans bills mirror the anti-gay bills of the 1970s, and that mirrored the anti-race integration. It is all about resisting changes in society and inclusion of those who are different. It is about not progressing, instead wanting things to never change. But look at history, every generation advances society in some way, with causing more friction with the older generations, that forget they changed society of their elders also. Think of the bathroom bills and then think how white people did not want to share bathrooms or any place with black people. The bathroom bills trying to keep trans kids from public bathrooms and out of locker rooms is the same bullshit that I faced as a gay man, these same people wanted to keep me from using bathrooms, using locker rooms claiming gay men would sexually attack straight men. Sounds just like trans women would attack cis women. The bills about keep trans people out of sports are very like the racial segregated sports teams in the 1950, claiming first black people were inferior then also saying that black men would take over the sports winning over the whites. Does it all sound so familiar. It is the same hate, same bigotry, just repackaged to use against a new group for these people to hate.
Also these people just refuse to accept well known documented medical science / studies that show people are not made gay or trans, but born that way. You cannot force a straight person to be gay, and you can not force a gay person to be straight. Also while these bills forbid any mention of a non-cisgender or non-straight orientation, that requires the forced reinforcement of cis heterosexuality. Hugs. Scottie
The state is considering 41 other bills attacking transgender rights this year.
An opponent of one of several anti-trans bills testifies before the Missouri House Emerging Issues Committee.Photo: Screenshot
Lawmakers in both the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate debated a total of eight anti-transgender bills in a single day this week.
The measures, affecting trans people’s ability to access healthcare, bathrooms, and other facilities, and legal recognition of their gender identity, represent just a fraction of the 49 anti-trans bills Missouri Republicans have already introduced this month. Trans journalist Erin Reed described the latest wave of proposed laws as “a firehose of legislation that touches every aspect of trans people’s lives.”
State law allows the university to provide gender-affirming care, but it still refuses to do so.
On Wednesday, Missouri’s Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee heard testimony on S.B. 728, one of two bills, which would establish a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” in the state. Among other provisions affecting school curriculum, S.B. 728 “prohibits public school officials from encouraging a student under the age of eighteen years old to adopt a gender identity or sexual orientation.” It also requires school officials to “inform a student’s parent within twenty-four hours if the student expresses confusion about their documented identity or requests to use personal pronouns that differ from their documented identity” and to “obtain written parental consent before allowing a student to use a name other than the name provided by the parent when registering the student for school and before encouraging a student to wear certain items of clothing.”
Effectively, the bill requires schools to out suspected trans and nonbinary students to their parents.
The committee was also scheduled to hear S.B. 770, another “Parents’ Bill of Rights” measure that included a ban on transgender girls participating in school-sponsored girls’ athletic teams. The hearing on S.B. 770 was canceled, however.
Meanwhile, in a nine-hour hearing, the state’s House Emerging Issues Committee took up seven separate anti-trans measures.
Two bills sponsored by Missouri state Rep. Brad Hudson (R) target access to gender-affirming healthcare. H.B. 1519 would allow healthcare professionals—including, as Reed noted, pharmacists, desk workers, and nurses—to refuse to treat trans people receiving gender-affirming care. During public testimony, opponents of the bill noted that it would not only legalize discrimination but could also result in cisgender, nonbinary, and intersex people being denied medication by providers who mistakenly assume they are trying to access gender-affirming treatment.
This witness talks about how the same medications given to them (they didn't give pronouns, genderfluid) for their transition are the same ones given to cis men for hair loss, talks about the hatred the laws create. pic.twitter.com/3EH1eS9MLm
Hudson’s H.B. 1520, meanwhile, aims to strengthen and extend Missouri’s “Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act.” Signed by Gov. Mike Parson (R) last June, the law banned all gender-affirming care for minors but included an exception for trans young people who are already receiving such care, as well as a sunset provision, causing the law to expire in August 2027. H.B. 1520 would remove those provisions, forcing trans minors who are currently receiving gender-affirming care to detransition and extending the law beyond the 2027 expiration date.
State Rep. Ashley Aune (D) noted that the sunset provision was included in the SAFE Act so that lawmakers could assess the law’s “unintended consequences.” Hudson responded that there is already “enough evidence out there” and that he knows “these drugs are not good for kids.”
In fact, every major American medical association has acknowledged that gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, is evidence-based, safe, and effective for the treatment of gender dysphoria.
The committee also heard testimony on four bills aimed at banning transgender Missourians from using bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity. Proponents of such laws almost universally focus, without evidence, on the supposed threat transgender women pose to cis women in public restrooms. But during Wednesday’s hearing, opponents noted that, far from alleviating any discomfort, the bills would force masculine-presenting trans men to use women’s restrooms and also endanger trans women forced to use men’s facilities while doing nothing to prevent actual predators from accessing women’s bathrooms.
"Did you get this language from the Heritage foundation?"
Also, if you force trans men into women's bathrooms, you force people like this into women's bathrooms. A person could just as easily, if they want to use the "Wrong bathroom," claim they are a trans man if this bill passes. pic.twitter.com/sMBhYtFXg9
Rep Aune: "In a situation where you are in public, if a law went into place that required you to use the restroom as defined in this bill, would that leave you using women's restrooms?"
Additionally, one of the bathroom bills introduced by state Rep. Adam Schnelting (R), H.B. 2308, would legally define the terms “male” and “female” according to a person’s reproductive biology.
Similarly, H.B. 2309, also introduced by Schnelting, aims to legally redefine “gender” as synonymous with biological sex. According to Reed, the bill would end any legal recognition of transgender people in the state and would likely affect the gender markers on their birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and other forms of ID.
Schnelting testified that his bills would affect “bathrooms, dorms, shelters, everything” and might even “nullify sex-specific scholarships” given to trans individuals.
Democrats on the committee blasted their Republican colleagues’ seemingly single-minded focus on limiting the rights of transgender Missourians. State Rep. David Tyson Smith (D), who noted that Republicans make up 40 percent of his constituents, argued that people want lawmakers to address “inflation, grocery store prices.”
“People are wondering why we are spending time on this,” Smith said.
State Rep. Doug Mann (D) sounded an even more urgent alarm. “When it became no longer acceptable to be anti-gay in public, people moved to being anti-trans,” he said. “When you start to attack an already vulnerable group of people, you do not stop with that already vulnerable group of people.”
“I’m going to be honest, I do not trust that this is the end,” Mann said of the anti-trans bills. “Everything I have seen as a student of history, as a student from politics, as a student of government, tells me that it is going to go farther. Things are going to get worse, not better.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just said the quiet part out loud, in complete rejection of what the Biden administration has been trying to accomplish while at the same time taking all the money & aid the U.S. has been providing.
By my dogs that love gravy … damn, damn, damn, fucking bastards, goddamn swear word swear word. I can not even think of enough vile words to say about this. This is a sickening example of how the Israeli government see the Palestinians, including children. I watched a video this morning of an Israeli government official justifying this mass slaughter and genocide saying they were not causing it, Hamas was. They hit us (why because we were mistreating their people) hurting / killing 1,200 hundred of our so we can kill over 23,000 of them 10,000 of them confirmed children, and force the others to live in worse conditions than abandon animals. Oh, and Israel took over a university / school system in Gaza, used it as their headquarters, “interrogated” Palestinians there, then proudly blew it all up, so no Palestinian could come back and someday be educated there. That is a war crime. All of this is.
13 year old children trying to be the parents of 7 siblings because their parents are dead, with only other refuges to help. They have nothing, and Israel gloats over this. I am angry. Hugs. Scottie
As Israel presses on against Hamas in Gaza, children there are facing growing misery. Richard Engel reports on a 13-year-old who is now raising his seven siblings after his parents were likely killed.
Photo: Shutterstock
Scottie's Playtime 