Shh! Silence Helps Homophobia – LGBT Youth Scotland

This has been a bad week.  Here it is Thursday and this has been cues for days.  Sorry I have a few of these to catch up on and post. Even though this was done back in 2014, it is also relevant and something we need to understand for today.   Don’t shrink back, push forward.  The few times I have corrected someone after telling them my spouse was a he when they assumed she, I received wonderful reactions of inclusion and acceptance.   Hugs

Shh! Silence Helps Homophobia asks people to stand up and speak out against homophobia! This campaign ran during 2014-15.

We are Scotland’s national charity for LGBTI young people, working with 13–25 year olds across the country. We also deliver the LGBT Charter programme to schools, organizations and businesses. Our goal is to make Scotland the best place to grow up for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex young people.

We play a leading role in the provision of quality youth work to LGBTI young people that promotes their health and wellbeing, and are a valued and influential partner in LGBTI equality and human rights.

Two Bits of Good News

In Major Win For Trans Students, New Jersey Court Rules Against Forced Outing Policies by Erin Reed

The pair of rulings came in an environment where Trump and red states are pushing anti-trans policy across the United States. Read on Substack

Yesterday, the New Jersey Superior Court’s Appellate Division issued two unanimous rulings blocking forced outing policies in school districts across Morris and Monmouth counties. In mid-2023, Hanover Township Public Schools in Morris County, Marlboro Township Public Schools in Monmouth County, Middletown Public Schools in Monmouth County, and Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District in Monmouth County implemented policies mandating the disclosure of a student’s transgender status to their parents. The policies varied in scope—some required notification only if a student formally changed their gender identity at school, while others mandated disclosure if a student merely mentioned being transgender in counseling sessions. Shortly after the policies were enacted, they were challenged in court and met with preliminary injunctions, preventing their enforcement. The appellate court upheld these injunctions yesterday.

The plaintiffs in both cases are New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and Sundeep Iyer, Director of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights. The Attorney General’s office represented them in both cases. However, in Platkin et al. v. Middletown Township Board of Education et al., the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ+ rights organization Garden State Equality filed amicus briefs in support of the plaintiffs. In Platkin et al. v. Hanover Township Board of Education et al., no amicus briefs were submitted. The cases were overseen by Judges Robert J. Gilson, Avis Bishop-Thompson, and Lorraine M. Augostini. Gilson was appointed by Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, while Bishop-Thompson and Augostini were appointed by Republican Governor Chris Christie. (snip-MORE)

Corewell, Largest Michigan Provider, Resumes Trans Youth Care Despite Illegal Trump EO by Erin Reed

On Wednesday, the hospital system announced that it was resuming gender affirming care after a brief pause due to Trump’s executive order attempting to ban it for those under 19. Read on Substack

In an announcement on Wednesday, Corewell Health, the largest healthcare provider in Michigan, stated that it would resume gender-affirming care for transgender youth under the age of 19. The decision follows a temporary halt in services to new patients after President Trump issued an executive order unlawfully claiming the authority to withhold federal funding from hospitals providing such care. Corewell Health is the first—and the largest—hospital system to reverse course after initially pausing treatment, a move that sparked nationwide protests against other healthcare providers that have yet to reinstate care.

The hospital, in a statement released Wednesday, said that its decision was always meant to be temporary, and that decisions around transgender healthcare best belong to patients and their doctors.

See the statement here:

“We are lifting our pause on new hormone therapies for pediatric patients seeking gender affirming care. Care decisions are best made between physicians and their patients and families.

We briefly paused beginning these therapies to allow us time to assess the potential impact that recent policy changes might have on our patients and their health. Contrary to some inaccurate reports, we never suspended any gender affirming care for any of our patients.”

The decision to reinstate care is huge for Michigan transgender patients. The hospital system is the largest in the state, employing over 60,000 people. The LGBTQIA+ adolescent page for one of the member hospitals states, and stated through the closure, “The adolescent and young adult medicine team at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital takes a holistic, individualized approach to patient care. We guide Michigan patients and their families through comprehensive education and an evidence-based approach. We know this is a challenging time for many of our patients and their families. No matter what is happening around us, we will always remain committed to providing high-quality care for all of our patients.” (snip-MORE)

Good Clay Jones

Sith and Boogers by Clay Jones

Another bad pick in the Oval Office Read on Substack

Elon Musk visited Donald Trump in the Oval Office yesterday and was a total disgrace.

Elon, who was in all black, wearing a black T-shirt and a black MAGA hat, said he was “open” and “honest” in his work finding waste and fraud in federal spending.

When asked about his lie that $50 million was spent on condoms for Gaza, Elon said, “Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. Nobody’s going to bat 1.000.” A good example of “some” of the things he says that are incorrect is his statement that DOGE was “open” and “honest.”

Before you tell a lie, like Elon’s condom bullshit, you can easily look up the facts, like when Elon lied about the last budget and claimed it included $300 billion for a football stadium in Washington DC, Congress would get a 40 percent pay increase, or that it funded bioweapons labs. Elon could have looked all this shit up before posting about it on his platform X/Twitter…over 100 times within 24 hours.

Unfortunately, we can’t fact-check Elon’s claims that the federal bureaucracy had been corrupted by cheats and officials who had approved money for “fraudsters.”

We can’t fact-check his claim that officials at USAID were taking “kickbacks.”

We can’t fact-check his claim that some officials “managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position.”

We can’t fact-check his claim that some people were receiving Social Security benefits at the age of 150.

We can’t fact-check his statement, “There are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position.”

The reason we can’t fact-check any of that is because Elon didn’t provide any proof of his claims and DOGE is operating in secret. There is no transparency with DOGE. None, nada, zip, zip, zippity-doo-dah, none.

Here’s a case of irony: The employee Musk claims made millions off the government had to file a financial disclosure form. Elon does not because Trump designated him a “special employee.” So just as we can’t see Trump’s tax returns, we can’t see Elon’s either.

When asked about the conflict of interest of him scouring billion-dollar contracts while his company Space X has billion-dollar contracts with the government, he said, “First of all, I’m not the one filing the contract. It’s the people at SpaceX or something.” As Sarah Marshall said in the great film Forgetting Sarah Marshall, “bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.” It’s still a conflict of interest, even if he’s not lying.

Elon said, “I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization. He also said, “We are actually trying to be as transparent as possible,” and then some more crap came out of his mouth when he said, “So all of our actions are maximally transparent.”

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Without exhibiting any self-awareness, Elon said the bureaucracy is an “unelected, fourth, unconstitutional branch of government, which has, in a lot of ways, currently, more power than any elected representative. That might be the only thing Elon said that is true other than when he said, “There are boogers in my ears.” We’ll get to that.

Elon also lacked self-awareness when he said this bureaucracy “does not match the will of the people.” That’s true because nobody voted for Elon.

A lot of Elon/Trump defenders say we did vote for Elon because Trump said Elon was going to find government waste if he won the election. What Trump did NOT say was that Elon would fire people himself, cut government spending himself, gain access to all our financial information, or hire Nazis to help (which he has rehired after momentarily firing him).

Elon also really really really really really lacked all fucking self-awareness when he said, “The goal is to “restore democracy. If the bureaucracy’s in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?”

People like Musk and Trump don’t know the meaning of words like “democracy.” When they say “democracy,” they mean fascism. When they say “patriot,” they mean traitor beholden to Vladimir Putin, whom Trump surprised with a phone call today because it’s two days before Valentine’s. And when Trump says “vegetable,” he means ketchup.

Every MAGAt who defends Elon’s claims is too stupid to realize they don’t see any evidence of his claims. A few days ago, an Elon-defending MAGAt asked me, “What do you have against transparency?”. Again, total lack of awareness. People who defend Elon and Trump take them at their word, which is bizarre because they’re both huge sack-of-shit liars.

Trump and Elon talk about fraud and theft in the federal government while taxpayers are paying millions for Trump to sleep in his own bed at his bedbug-ridden golf resorts. Remember when Trump tried to host an international summit at one of his golf clubs? If you believe that was the best venue in the nation for a G7 summit, then let me sell you some golf club memberships and some bridges.

The only person who didn’t lie to the press in the Oval Office yesterday was Elon’s booger-mining kid, named X. At one point, X, who is Elon’s 11th child, stuck his fingers in his father’s ears…the same fingers he was picking his nose with. Trump seemed very uncomfortable with the kid in the room, probably because he’s jealous that X has at least outgrown his diapers. X can probably also hold a water bottle with one hand.

Elon wants to cut funding to feed children living in poverty, but his little trust-fund baby has so much White privilege that he gets to pick his nose in the Oval Office because his dad has so much White Privilege that he’s not required to wear a suit and tie in the Oval and instead can come dressed as a Bond villain.

Now there will have to be DNA experts to figure out which boogers under the Resolute Desk belong to Little X…and which belong to Trump.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go watch)

Peace & Justice History for 12/13

February 13, 1912
Labor leader Mary Harris “Mother” Jones was placed under house arrest at Pratt (Kanawha Co.), West Virginia, for inciting to riot. An organizer for the United Mine Workers, she had come to the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek mines where a long and nasty struggle had escalated.

Jones was known for her fiery (and often obscene) verbal attacks on coal operators and politicians. A native of Ireland, she had been organizing for more than 15 years.The coal operators had hired mine guards to intimidate the workers and discourage formation of a union. Besides asking to be paid what other area miners were making, the union demanded
• the right to organize
• recognition of their rights to free speech and assembly
• an end to blacklisting of union organizers
• alternatives to company stores
• an end to the practice of using mine guards
• prohibition of cribbing
• installation of scales at all mines for accurately weighing coal
unions be allowed to hire their own checkweighmen to make sure the companies’ checkweighmen were not cheating the miners who were not paid hourly, but by the ton.
68 years old (though claiming to be over 80) and suffering from pneumonia, Jones was never charged with a crime (martial law had been declared). A few weeks later, the new governor, Henry Hatfield, was sworn in and examined Mother Jones (he was also a doctor) but refused to release her from house arrest for two months.

Mother Jones biography 
Mother Jones magazine  (They have a great free newsletter!)
February 13, 1960
France became the world’s fourth nuclear power, conducting its first plutonium bomb test at the Reggane base in the Sahara Desert in what was then French Algeria. “Gerboise Bleue” was detonated from a 330-foot tower and had a yield of 60-70 kilotons (equivalent to nearly 70,000 tons of TNT).
February 13, 1967
Carrying huge photos of Vietnamese children who had been victims of Napalm (a flammable defoliant used extensively in the war there), 2,500 members of the group Women Strike for Peace stormed the Pentagon, demanding to see “the generals who send our sons to Vietnam.” When Pentagon guards locked the main entrance doors, the women took off their shoes and banged on the doors with their heels.

They were eventually allowed inside, but Defense Secretary Robert McNamara would not meet with them.
Senator Jacob Javits (R-New York) agreed to meet a few hundred of the women, but he was booed by the women when he denied the U.S. was using toxic gas in Vietnam.
February 13, 1968
Five soldiers were arrested at a pray-in for peace in Vietnam at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Two were court-martialed for refusing to stop praying. The pray-in was repeated a year later.
February 13, 1991
Two precision-guided missiles destroyed the Amiriyah subterranean bunker in Baghdad while being used as an air-raid shelter by 408 Iraqi civilians during the first Gulf War. The resulting deaths of all inside made it the single most lethal incident for non-combatants in modern air warfare. The U.S. had detected signals coming from the bunker and considered it a military command and control center.
There was an antenna atop the bunker but it was connected by cable to the actual command center 300 yards away, which was not hit by the 2000 lb. bombs which landed precisely on their intended target, penetrating ten feet of hardened concrete. Only 3% of the 250,000 bombs and missiles fired during that conflict were considered such “smart bombs.”

Visitors tour the Amiriyah Bunker.
The Iraqi government has preserved the bunker as a public memorial.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryfebruary.htm#february13

White House thinks judges doesn’t have power over tRump

https://apnews.com/article/trump-judges-rulings-constitutional-crisis-presidential-power-a9c593cf3f9faec23a03f4a5123fefdb
White House says judges balking at Trump’s actions are provoking a ‘constitutional crisis’

Best Wishes and Hugs,
Scottie

DAILY MAIL: Trump says he and Putin have started talks to END war in Ukraine

Notice that felon tRump and Putin talked about the terms even before tRump talked to The Ukrainian president Zelenskyy. Then tRump announce that Zelenskyy was supportive to end the war but I don’t trust anything said by the convicted felon president. Felon tRump said his terms which was basically what Putin has demanded. That the Russia keeps the land they took, that Ukraine gives back to Russia the Russian lands that they took, and that Ukraine doesn’t get to join NATO. Trump also said he has decided to stop supporting Ukraine with weapons and aid money. Says it is Europes job to handle. Again Felon Trump talked tough about Putin and yet gave him everything he wanted. Trump is not only a felon but a craving coward who has no honor, no sense of reality, and no care for anything but himself along with money. Hugs

Trump says he and Putin have started talks to END war in Ukraine
President Donald Trump has revealed he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and lay the groundwork for historic summits in the U.S. and Moscow.

Read in Daily Mail: https://apple.news/Auup0IUD-Tqi-CM7GFqCB-g

Shared from Apple News

Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie

Time to find memes for Wednesday. Wow sick as I am I found a few. Hugs

The only education any American needs is how to load their guns!

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“Everything Perfect at DOD! Secretary Not Hardly Drunk!”

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“He’s just an ordinary patriot with a fervent hobby.”

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This is “The Boardroom” from Donald Trump’s “reality” show “The Apprentice.” Look at the top and you can see where the wall ends because it wasn’t a real boardroom. It was a set built on a soundstage because Trump’s real offices were small and shoddy. The show created an *illusion* of Trump success.

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BIGGLIEST JOKE OF THE DAY: “Latino Evangelicals”:

“Although many Latino evangelicals believed that the Trump administration would only target people with criminal records for deportation, they’ve been surprised to learn that even some of their own pastors are now in the crosshairs.

Agustin Quiles, a spokesperson for the Florida Fellowship of Hispanic Councils and Evangelical Institutions, tells the AP that he’s disturbed that the “messaging appears to be that anyone who is undocumented is a criminal” and he said that “we want to ask the president to reconsider because these actions are causing pain and trauma to so many families in and beyond our churches.”

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-evangelicals-2671116416/

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Yeah… the good ol’ days when “Dog Bites Man” was the most scandalous headline of the month…

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Affluenza strikes D.C.
Why “ruin a kid’s life”?

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Um,
1) History of theft of secrets.
2) Antisemitism
3) Racist
4) Inexperience

But sure, don’t “ruin the kid’s life”…
As that “KID” ruins ours.

Jason Leopold
‪@jasonleopold.bsky.social‬
https://bsky.app/profile/jasonleopold.bsky.social/post/3lhmeek6bjs2o

🚨BIG SCOOP: Musk’s DOGE Teen Was Fired By Cybersecurity Firm for Leaking Company Secrets

Edward Coristine posted online that he had retained access to the firm’s servers. Now he has access to sensitive government information.

Musk’s DOGE Teen Was Fired By Cybersecurity Firm for Leaking Company Secrets
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-07/musk-s-doge-teen-was-fired-by-cybersecurity-firm-for-leaking-company-secrets?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTczODk1NzQyNCwiZXhwIjoxNzM5NTYyMjI0LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTUkJXMTlUMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIyQjE3NzFFOTlEODc0QzRDOTY1Njg1RTZBQkJGM0QwRCJ9.vxGv4ncXEbIrUGmUYpTUdxLmCVDwzmEWp-VRWV9otME&leadSource=uverify%20wall

 

 

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Trump Talked to Putin By Phone Wednesday, the First Official Contact of Presidency

Trump Talked to Putin By Phone Wednesday, the First Official Contact of Presidency
U.S. president says the two leaders have agreed to visit each other’s countries and will open immediate talks on Ukraine war

Read in The Wall Street Journal: https://apple.news/ACZ9nby1BTVa22XIn2jNR9w

Shared from Apple News

Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie

Hegseth Bows To Putin, Rules Out Ukraine Joining NATO – Joe.My.God.

I am trying to work from my bed at home I am so ill. It is not working. Ron wanted to take me to emergency room this morning. I wouldn’t go. Hugs
https://www.joemygod.com/2025/02/hegset-bows-to-putin-rules-out-ukraine-joining-nato/

Best Wishes and Hugs,
Scottie

CBS NEWS: U.S. sending “low-risk” migrants to Guantanamo, despite vow to send “the worst”

U.S. sending “low-risk” migrants to Guantanamo, despite vow to send “the worst”
While the Trump administration has highlighted transfers of dangerous criminals to Guantanamo Bay, it is also sending nonviolent, “low-risk” migrants.

Read in CBS News: https://apple.news/ANZThedYJQwO1B7toQPFG-A

Shared from Apple News

Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie