Christian fundamentalist group storm Pride event in New Zealand

https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/02/17/auckland-pride-event-disrupted-by-christian-group/

Ah no love like Christian love!  Every time these loving Christian gang thugs break the laws to stop legal expression they don’t agree with because they demand everyone follow their church doctrine.   The complete arrogance of these gang thugs who believe their religious views give them the right to disregard any laws they want while threatening families and terrorizing little kids.   Sure a good way to make Christian recruits and spread the love of god screaming at little kids who want a story from a person in a costume.  This is not protecting children nor evangelizing, their is terrorism and out of control hate.  If anyone has an update to theis story please share it with us. Best wishes or Hugs

The event, which was taking place as part of Auckland’s annual Pride festival, was cancelled after 50 protestors pushed their way through the library and refused to leave.

Around 30 toddlers, young children and adults were forced to barricade themselves inside the library as the protestors continued, according to local outlets.

During the commotion, a 16-year-old girl attending a sports event alleges she was assaulted by Destiny Church members, suffering a concussion.

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Members of Destiny Church in Auckland.

CBS NEWS: DOGE team’s “wall of receipts” shows errors in tallying billions in savings

So many errors by inexperienced people who do not understand the language of government. Simple math errors. And all of it bragged about with the confined nice of people who do not believe they can be wrong or make mistakes and if they do they are correct because no one dares challenge them anymore. The US had better wake up soon. The city is burning and Nero Trump is letting his rainiest Musk keep lighting fires while cutting the budget of the fire fighters. Hugs

DOGE team’s “wall of receipts” shows errors in tallying billions in savings
The initial accounting by DOGE of its estimated savings was overstated by billions of dollars, a review by CBS News found.

Read in CBS News: https://apple.news/AV8X75zkZQBW6BlLQ2FdRAA

Shared from Apple News

Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie

THE GUARDIAN: Revealed: US firm running Guantánamo migrant jail accused over rights abuses

Revealed: US firm running Guantánamo migrant jail accused over rights abuses
Corporate conglomerate Akima subject of critical audits and complaints over detainee treatment at facilities in US

Read in The Guardian: https://apple.news/AeayFGj8xQKa3-OeL5o-NzQ

Shared from Apple News

Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie

ABC NEWS: 3 migrants beat the Trump administration in court. They got deported the next day.

3 migrants beat the Trump administration in court. They got deported the next day.
The scars of their year-long incarceration remain.

Read in ABC News: https://apple.news/AqV5mMj-gTyGgsNPxGbrAVQ

Shared from Apple News

Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie

Trump Administration Is Now Providing PrEP Abroad, But Not for LGBTQ+ People

The goal is to erase gay people because super Christian Rubio agrees with the hateful that LGBTQ+ need to die or go away.  They are not human people like good straight cis people are.   So lets protect the straight people and hope the icky gays get the aids virus.  That is their view, not mine, yours, or real Christians who follow Jesus’s command to love and care for people.   Hugs

But Rubio’s waiver itself stated that “gender or DEI ideology programs” and “transgender surgeries” — e.g., any overseas programs or organizations that support trans people — should not receive aid during the “pause,” and that any programs not specifically named in the waiver “may not be resumed without express approval.”

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The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is still barred from providing PrEP to LGBTQ+ people around the world, according to recent State Department documents, placing millions of people at elevated risk of HIV exposure.

Shortly after President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign aid in January, Rubio issued an additional “emergency humanitarian waiver” on February 6 which appeared to allow HIV medications to be distributed abroad during that time. That waiver ostensibly meant that pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP — the antiretroviral drug that prevents the transmission of HIV — would be distributed through PEPFAR. But Rubio’s waiver itself stated that “gender or DEI ideology programs” and “transgender surgeries” — e.g., any overseas programs or organizations that support trans people — should not receive aid during the “pause,” and that any programs not specifically named in the waiver “may not be resumed without express approval.”

Now, a new State Department document, dated February 6 and published online by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) confirms that PrEP “should be offered only to pregnant and breastfeeding women,” whereas anyone else “who may be at high risk of HIV infection or were previously initiated on a PrEP option can not be offered PEPFAR-funded PrEP” (emphases in original) during the aid freeze.

Among the “high risk” populations currently blocked from receiving PrEP through PEPFAR is LGBTQ+ people — particularly men who have sex with men (MSM) and trans people, two demographics with an increased risk of exposure to HIV. UNAIDS estimated this week that more than 3,000 new HIV infections have occurred worldwide as a result of the Trump administration’s aid freeze.

Founded in 2003 to combat the international spread of HIV, PEPFAR reported distributing antiretroviral treatments to over 20 million people worldwide in 2024, including 2.5 million new PrEP users. In 2022, PEPFAR spent 8.9% of its budget, or approximately $20.1 million, on services for MSM and trans people, according to an analysis by the health policy research organization KFF. A further $28 million went to provide HIV prevention and treatment services for sex workers.

Trump and Rubio’s aid freeze has also already resulted in PEPFAR-assisted programs shutting their doors. The Kenyan “Fahari ya Jamii” initiative, a five-year HIV prevention project founded in 2022, shut down more than 150 clinics and placed more than 700 workers on unpaid leave following the freeze last month, as the Washington Blade reported February 5.

The freeze is part of Trump’s larger war against the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal agency which distributes civilian foreign aid and partially funds PEPFAR. Amid the administration’s purge of “woke” terminology — including the terms “gender” and “LGBTQ” — from government websites, the USAID site was still entirely offline at time of writing. The agency was also the subject of a House committee hearing on February 5, during which Rep. Nancy Mace repeatedly used a transphobic slur to denigrate U.S. support for LGBTQ+ programs abroad.

Global health organizations have condemned the Trump aid freeze particularly as it relates to HIV prevention, warning of dire consequences already taking place. The international watchdog group Human Rights Watch wrote this week that even a temporary pause on PEPFAR programs “could be devastating” for countless people around the world. The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) and Journalism Development Network, Inc. filed a joint lawsuit against Trump, Rubio, and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought on February 10, alleging the administration’s aid freeze is illegal and unconstitutional. On February 11, a group of USAID contractors and non-governmental organizations filed another such lawsuit, alleging that the freeze had already caused “irreparable damage.” The administration is already fighting a third lawsuit brought by a group of USAID employees last week, which led a federal judge to issue an injunction against the furloughing of USAID workers on February 7.

“[W]ith this new guidance, the Trump Administration is choosing politics over science, discrimination over compassion, and ultimately, death over life,” AVAC representatives wrote in a statement last week. “The February 6th guidance […] is not only a dangerous deviation from sound public health policy — it is a death sentence for thousands of people at risk of HIV globally,” the organization wrote, adding, “This decision appears to be less about public health and more about an ideological agenda that seeks to police morality rather than protect lives.”

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Thailand’s Public Health Ministry Will Allocate More Than $4 Million for Trans Health Care

https://www.them.us/story/thailand-gender-affirming-care-funding-government

Even as right wing media is desperately trying to erase the gains made by the LGBTQ+ communities here and in the UK, worldwide we see more and more acceptance for LGBTQ+ people.   Maybe there are no rabid Christians trying to force the entire country to worship their version of god based on their church doctrine.    Those people do what we first did, they got out among the people, they stood up to be counted, they were vocal on social media.  We better get back out there.  Send the best speakers to these places to correct and spewed misinformation / lies.  They wore shirts with their pride on them.  I am going to buy a few as soon as I get paid.  I need new shirts anyway.  Hugs 

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According to the The Bangkok Post these health services are expected to provide care for around 200,000 trans people.

January 28, 2025

Image may contain Parade Person Accessories Bracelet Jewelry and Pride Parade

SOPA Images/Getty Images

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On the heels of legalizing same-sex marriage, Thailand’s Public Health Ministry is now allocating 145.63 million baht (roughly $4.3 million) toward funding health services, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT), for transgender citizens.

 

The Southeast Asian country’s National Health Security Board approved the funding during its 2025 budget planning. The Bangkok Post reports that these health services are expected to provide care for around 200,000 trans people out of the country’s estimated trans population of 314,808. Deputy government spokesman Anukool Pruksanusak said in a statement that the Public Health Ministry’s coverage of gender-affirming healthcare aims to reduce national health disparities by emphasizing both physical and mental healthcare for “sexually diverse individuals,” per the Bangkok Post.

article image
 

Earlier this week, thousands of queer Thai couples tied the knot as Thailand officially began recognizing marriage equality on January 22, making it the first Southeast Asian country and the third Asian country overall to do so. Under the legislation, same-sex couples are entitled to the same legal, financial, and medical rights afforded to married heterosexual couples, including inheritance and adoption rights.

“This marriage equality law marks the beginning of Thai society’s greater awareness of gender diversity, and our embrace of everyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, or religion — our affirmation that everyone is entitled to equal rights and dignity,” Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said in a recorded statement played at a mass wedding in the Thai capital city of Bangkok on January 22, according to CNN.

The Russian nothingburger is back on the menu, by Ann Telnaes

If you ever had doubt Trump is in the pocket of Putin. Read on Substack

Peace & Justice History for 2/20

The Republican President has been in office one month today, and we’ve seen some of today’s history repeat itself already. Republicans are working very rapidly.

February 20, 1942
The vast majority of teachers in German-occupied Norway refused to comply with the forced Nazification of the school system. The government had ordered display of the portrait of German-installed Minister President Vidkun Quisling (formerly head of Nasjonal Samling, the Norwegian fascist party) in all classrooms, revision of the curriculum and textbooks to reflect Nazi ideology, and teaching of German to replace English as their second language.The teachers organized and 12,000 of 14,000 nationwide wrote the same letter on this day to the education department refusing membership in the newly formed Nazi teachers’ association. Two days later clergy throughout the country read a manifesto against Nazi control of the schools.

Vidkun Quisling (on right), Germany’s puppet leader in Norway,
allowed Germany to invade his country and declared himself Prime Minister. In Norway his name has become synonymous with traitor.
How the teachers pushed back 
Norwegian teachers prevent the Nazification of education 
February 20, 1956
The U.S. rejected a Soviet proposal to ban nuclear weapons tests and deployment. The U.S. continued atmospheric nuclear testing in the South Pacific and Nevada until 1963.
February 20, 2011
Nearly 40,000 pro-Democracy Moroccans demonstrated peacefully in
57 towns and cities across the country. Though there was sporadic
violence later that night, Interior minister Taeib Cherqaoui called the earlier efforts “the healthy practice of the freedom of expression.”

Donkey and Minions and Flowers, Oh, My!

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow, And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low, Algernon Charles Swinburne – “March: An Ode”

by Worriedman Read on Substack

I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure yet what that poem is trying to say – I just know that ”-satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow,” is just a badass phrase. The kind of phrase I hope I’m smart enough to understand someday!

Today is going to be really good pictures of flowers and really good pictures of a mule and some donkeys. What can I say? It’s what I’m good at and I’m lucky to have found my calling.

It was cold when I took these pictures yesterday. 14° with a dozen mile an hour wind. The wind chill was somewhere around “cold as hell” verging on “What the F*#k?!” I couldn’t wear gloves and still work the camera so I took pictures until my fingers hurt.

I’m going to have to work until I die so I have an inexhaustible source of amaryllis.

That’s all I got room for – Thanks for dropping by! (snip)

Gotta have more memes. Wednesday’s memes are going out today as I was flat out busy yesterday.

A news headline under the "Economic Policy" section reads: "Musk’s DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS." Below the headline, a subheading states: "The unusual request would put sensitive data about millions of American taxpayers in the hands of Trump political appointees." A timestamp indicates the article was posted 21 minutes ago. At the bottom, there is an icon showing an estimated reading time of "4 min." The background is black, and the text is white.

A screenshot of a Twitter/X exchange between 60 Minutes and Elon Musk. The 60 Minutes post, made 2 hours ago, discusses former USAID administrator Andrew Natsios refuting claims by Donald Trump that USAID is rife with fraud. Natsios is quoted as saying, "The most accountable aid agency in the world is USAID. I have written actually widely on this subject." The post includes an image of Natsios sitting in a dimly lit room, wearing glasses, a suit, and a sweater, with a red overlay highlighting the quote. The 60 Minutes tweet has 360 replies, 428 retweets, 899 likes, and 53K views.

Below, Elon Musk responds an hour later, stating:
"60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. They deserve a long prison sentence." His tweet appears in the standard X interface, with his profile picture showing him speaking on stage with an American flag in the background.

It is a cult