The corruption is automatic. Conservative businessmen see grifting and dishonesty as tools of their trade.
These two have absolutely no shame.
Wow! Nothing quite like the VA Secretary intentionally hurting the people he’s supposed to be helping.
Love the NewsMax graphics: ‘Dems panicked’ is the appropriate response. Sadly, MAGA are perfectly alright with veterans losing their jobs.
This is serious.
First Felon using tariffs is a tax. First Felon is creating the largest tax increases while having no idea how tariffs work.
Destroying the economic lives of the West and all the allying democracies is a gift to Putin.
Toure has a partial list of banned words.
You can not use these words in Federal agencies because ‘free speech’ MAGA are frightened.
If you can not handle these words in a report, you do not deserve to govern/work at any agency in our country.
Banning words is weakness. It’s pathetic.
Imagine telling your cult who were groomed to hate EV vehicles, Green New Deal, green energy, and regurgitate ‘government should not be picking winners and losers’, that they should buy a $120,000 Tesla so the world’s most selfish man does not get his ego hurt.
Republicans are regressive and reactionary.
They only know cuts. They can only take away.
Empathy is not a weakness. Empathy is a sign of human evolution. Empathy is intelligence.
How smart can you be if you do not understand other people can have different feelings?
First Felon doing promos for Tesla with Musk at the White House is CORRUPTION.
It is indefensible.
The entire administration is a scam.
The cult has no comment. They just abide.
First Felon has one objective: establish authority.
Dismantle all oversight. Destroy universities. Install loyalists.
Worst yet, removing social security and medicare/medicaid stability from our society will kill millions, increase suffering, and destabilize multiple generations of families.
First Felon is giving away every sacrifice made to advance our country for his own personal gain.
Divide and conquer.
MAGA is one big distraction for the worst people to grift and pillage.
Conservative constructs protect the abusers, punish the prosecutors.
I am getting my grove back making videos. This is the best I have done since I started again. I realize I have to speak from my heart on issues I know and understand. I enjoy doing them when they are stress free like this one. In the future I will edit stuff into them, I have the program to do that. But right now I like doing what I did a few years ago. Back then I did not bother with lighting and fussing over the camera, I simply started up the recording program and talked directly to the camera. Please take a look at the video and tell me both what you think of the content. Hugs
I talk about how some people want to throw trans people under the bus and stop supporting them. That is not how to change people’s hearts and minds. I describe how we managed to change public opinion on gay people. Hugs
Becka Robbins of Fabulosa Books packs up LGBTQ+ books to send to parts of the country where they are banned, on 27 June 2024 in San Francisco. Photograph: Haven Daley/AP
The majority of banned books in US public schools last year dealt with people of color, LGBTQ+ people and other demographics, according to a new study from PEN America.
The report also counteracts claims by conservative lawmakers that books being removed from classrooms are sexually explicit and that book bans are altogether a “hoax”, an assertion made by Donald Trump.
There were more than 10,000 instances of books being banned in the 2023-24 school year, PEN America reported, a sharp increase from the previous year, as Republican-led states implemented new censorship laws.
Out of 4,218 book titles that were banned, 1,534 – or 36% – featured people of color, the most censored identity group in book bans. Some removed titles included August Wilson’s Pulitzer-prize winning play Fences and Innosanto Nagara’s A is for Activist, a picture book for children about social issues.
Books featuring people of color were disproportionately targeted in all banned-book categories, the report found, especially in removed historical and biographical titles. Of such banned books, 44% included people of color; more than one-fourth, or 26%, of those books featured Black people.
Advocates with PEN America noted that at the same time as the onslaught of book bannings, more than 50% of young people in the US are children of color, according to 2021 data from the Children’s Defense Fund.
“This targeted censorship amounts to a harmful assault on historically marginalized and underrepresented populations – a dangerous effort to erase their stories, achievements, and history from schools,” said Sabrina Baêta, senior manager for PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, in a press release about the report. “When we strip library shelves of books about particular groups, we defeat the purpose of a library collection that is supposed to reflect the lives of all people. The damaging consequences to young people are real.”
Titles featuring LGBTQ+ characters also made up a sizable number of book bans: 1,066 books, or 25% of all banned titles, included LGBTQ+ people. Transgender or genderqueer characters were specifically targeted in such book bans, as 28% of removed books featuring LGBTQ+ characters included that demographic.
Beyond people of color and LGBTQ+ people, books including disabled people were also affected by nationwide bans. About 10% of all removed titles included characters with physical, learning or developmental disabilities or who were neurodivergent. Several affected books with disabled characters focused on “confidence, self esteem, or experiences with ableism”, PEN America reported.
Meanwhile, only 13% of removed titles included “on the page” instances of sexual experiences. Inferred or “off the page” instances of sexual encounters were included in 31% of banned books.
The vast majority of banned books (85%) were fiction, with 14% being non-fiction and 1% poetry. About 67% of removed books were for younger audiences, PEN America reported.
The ongoing banning of books comes as the Trump administration has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in US public schools and universities. In a memo last week, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from any schools that refused to eliminate diversity initiatives, such as scholarships for students of certain identity groups and school programming.
As anyone who follows me on this blog might or should know I love the content Ethel produces. I followed this young woman from when they were a teen struggling with their sexuality and their finally blossoming out and accepting herself as they are. How she feels inside themselves, and how they deal with that in the world around them. It is a hard struggle. I know I had to do it as a gay teen constantly surrounded and barraged by anti-gay propaganda, and that is what Ethel went through as a trans girl. It was complicated by her being autistic, which there is nothing wrong with being autistic, but it did mean a lot of people did not understand her and were unable to appreciate how detailed she can be. I know it is hard for her to cover these haters talking about abusers as she was abused as a child. However she stands up and gives grand videos supporting trans people and she includes her own strengths to the issue. Hugs
There is no meaningful difference between the claims made by gender ‘critical’ fascists when targeting trans people and those made by the Nazis of Nazi Germany. Said monster has been empowered by the press for too long and now threatens us all.
Hi, welcome to Essence of Thought with me, Ethel Thurston, as your host.
I know this is old but I worked hard on it. Now that I got the issues between computers worked out and I am in the process of reinstalling all the programs I need to make the computer do what I want, checking to make sure the issue that came up a week ago from reappearing. The issues of full acceptance and equality for the full LGBTQ+ community. Hugs
Please notice that the entire campaign to erase LGBTQ+ from society started with the false premise that the LGBTQ+, especially children need to be protected from trans people and drag queens. But the same people claim to be grand Christians yet they never address sexual abuse of children in churches or other organizations like foster homes / orphanages. These same people support a man for president that was credibly accused of violently raping a 13, how many more did not report the abuse? They support a man who bragged about barging into the changing rooms of teen girls as they were in different states of being undressed some of them nude during the teen pageants claiming it was his right as the owner. He is a child sex predator by his own words claiming he would date / have sex with his own young not adult daughter. They supported a man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman with the commonly understood phrase raped her. But they claim the real problem is women being raped in bathrooms if trans women are in there also. They support Pete Hegseth for Sec. Of Def. He also has been accused of sexually assaulting / raping a woman and assaulting other women. It was reported that he was often drunk and enjoyed going to places where women take off their clothing and at least one occasion needed to be restrained from going on stage with the nude women. Tell me where is the effort to removed white men from the social media and from the military? Sorry but when they say woke it means anything they dislike just as CRT did. When they say DEI it is them saying the “N” word and that females are inferior to males. Well let me get to separating the posts. Hugs.
Scottie's Playtime 