I enjoyed the snapshot today (in full at the end of my
post). I hope you did as well. It reminded me of college and of THE
PELICAN BRIEF. C.I. could argue better than anyone when it came to the
law. If she was doing moot court, the place was packed for that
reason. Everyone wanted to see what she'd do. On that, she was
assigned the argument she'd have to make. So, for example, a freedom of
religion case, no one expected her to be able to do that. She did it
and she won. She knows the law.
THE
PELICAN BRIEF? C.I. and Alan J. Pakula were friends. The classroom
scene that's so important to establishing Darby was not working. That's
Julia Roberts' character. Alan asked C.I. about it and she said, let
her be right, let the audience realize she's right and let the law
disagree. That's what he did and Julia adlibbed a remark at the end of
the scene and it works.
I
share C.I.'s disgust over that ruling. She is 100% correct that it
sets up two-tier level of American citizenship. She grasps it before
others do because her brain works faster than the rest of our's do.
This is a very scary moment. The Court is arguing that it can deny
rights from some citizens. They start with gays and lesbians and they
move outward. That is how it works and you're kidding yourself if you
don't grasp that. That is why it is 100% necessary that we implement
court reform and do so immediately.
The Center for Constitutional Rights pointed out, "Together with yesterday’s decision
invalidating affirmative action, this ruling lays bare the values of
this Court. In six justices’ view, the Constitution says it is just fine
for a business to exclude someone on the basis of their protected status (LGBTQI+), but it is unconstitutional for a university to include
someone on the basis of their protected status (race). This is bigotry
masquerading as law. And, in so ruling again, this Court continues to
advance a Jim Crow jurisprudence in which the white, male, Christian
insider’s freedom is made meaningful only through the subjugation of
vulnerable populations. For this conservative movement, as for John
Calhoun or George Wallace, discrimination fuels their feelings of
freedom. These six individuals somehow retain the power to impose their
18th Century values on a democratic majority that believes in equality
and fairness. The Court has little legitimacy left."
It did a lot worse than that.
We
now, again, have two legal classes of citizenship. The Civil Rights
Movement did a great deal to end that system -- a system enshrined by a
racist Supreme Court in decisions such as 1896's PLESSY V FERGUSON --
which ruled barring equal access was not discriminating against Black
people as long as they had access to something similar -- it was
'separate but equal' -- a laughable concept then and now.
LGBTQ+
persons -- and this can be expanded out to other groups, grasp that,
this Court is just getting started -- are not full citizens anymore.
Full citizens have legal protections and rights. Period. No question
mark, no qualifier. A gay man now? He has legal protections and rights
as long as it doesn't offended some religious nut.
Clue
to the Court: Freedom of religion means the rest of us don't have to
suffer from your religious delusions that call for hatred and
discrimination.
When the ruling came down, we flashed on two things -- fetish porn and a NETFLIX documentary. Sadly, we aren't joking.
Benjamin Cantu's ELDORADO: EVERYTHING THE NAZIS HATE
is a documentary that started airing last week on NETFLIX. It deals
with the rise of Nazism in Germany and the way it rose by targeting
groups of people.
And it echoes in the US today because,
as one person points out, "Even now you can have these liberties and
they can be taken away from you."
As The Proud Boys --
little boys in mannish bodies -- have spent the last months showing up
at drag events -- obviously horny and envious -- with guns and threats,
bigots like Jonathan Turley have ignored this while freaking out over
ANTIFA repeatedly. He's a Nazi, Turley is. And his Proud Boys are the
SA in Nazi Germany. As historian Ben Miller explains in the
documentary, "The SA is the Nazis' paramilitary. They do the dirty
work. They destabilize democracy. They fight other people on the
street. They beat people up outside events."
Yeah, that's The Proud Boys.
Miller
also explains, "The SA is a really huge part of the Nazi's plan to take
control of Germany and to establish a racially pure empire, free of
Jews, free of Communists, free of disabled people, free of Roma and
Sinti people, and free of queers."
Are you getting what's happening right now?
These are not isolated incidents. This a path that certain people want to take this country down.
I
love their essay. They are right about everything and I love the way
they take on that awful ditz Katie Halper. It's bad enough when people
can't see what's going on but when they refuse to? That's even worse.
She's made her life purpose to be useless. Here they are on Katie Halper:
Katie has two platforms: THE KATIE HALPER SHOW and USEFUL IDIOTS.
She's made clear that abortion really isn't an issue to her on either.
She's made clear that the LGBTQ+ community does not exist in her eyes.
She's made clear that she doesn't want to talk to women. So what if
they make up 50.4% of the US population, she's only got time for them to
be on 3% of her episodes.
She was never a feminist.
Last Friday, she finally stepped out of her Phyllis Schlafly closet.
She needs to be her true self because she's got nothing else.
ROLLING
STONE isn't hiring her back. THE HILL fired her as well. JACOBIN
hasn't been interested in her since the whole explosion that saw Katie's
former co-host of THE KATIE HALPER SHOW abandon ship and stick with
JACOBIN RADIO, USEFUL IDIOTS is sinking in streams . . . Professionally, she's become the daughter her father can't marry off.
At last, some symmetry between her work life and her personal life.
Since the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision 13 months ago, which overturned Roe v. Wade and
deprived women of the constitutional right to access abortion, the
ultra-right majority on the court has engaged in a rampage against basic
democratic rights and the social rights of the working class.
This
culminated Friday in two decisions with the same 6-3 split among the
justices: to declare unconstitutional the Biden administration’s limited
reduction of student loan debt owed to the US government; and to
endorse the “right” of a commercial web designer to refuse to create
materials for the wedding of a gay couple.
The class character of
the first decision is obvious: an executive action by the federal
government to bail out wealthy bank depositors is constitutional, but
not a limited action to help debt-burdened students. The second decision
destroys a constitutional right to be free of discrimination, while
paying lip service to the First Amendment. The court declares that the
web designer can justify her bigotry on the basis of “freedom of
religion.”
I'm stuck here. These are
appalling decisions that need to be called out and they are part of many
others including MARCUS DEANGELO JONES V DEWAYNE HENDRIX from the week
before last. At THIRD, we didn't do "truest" statements this week --
where we quote from an article, report or video segment or speech. I'm
glad. Because I know one of the nominees would have been a Friday piece
at WSWS. And I didn't agree that it deserved a truest. WSWS published
an article covering the student loan debt decisions. A bad decision by
the Court that will have real consequences. WSWS then published an
article about the bad decision where the Court overturns Affirmative
Action -- a monumental injustice. And it tried to fold into that
article what Patrick Martin calls above 'refuse to create materials for
the wedding of a gay couple.'
That is the worst
decision from a legal stand point and I get that most people do not
grasp the law in this country. But if you want to destroy a community,
that's the decision to use.
They can build on it, they can expand to include other groups.
It is a decision out of Nazi Germany.
The Court no longer believe in equaltiy.
Any
legal scholar should look at the decision and tell you what happened is
there is now a two-tier system of American citizenship. There is a
system where straights (and assumed straights) have full rights and
gays and lesbians do not. There is no pretense of equal in the eyes of
the law.
That should frighten the hell out of everyone.
This is not minor. We are supposed to be built on a system where the law is fair and the law is equal.
You have the right to this, I have the right to this.
We have to go back to the 1800s to find something similar.
Discrimination is okay -- legally okay -- and we're pretending this is something minor.
Again,
don't think, "Well I'm never going to have a same-sex wedding." This
can be expanded. This is something out of A HANDMAID'S TALE and the
fact that so many people do not appear to grasp that goes to how easy it
is for rights and liberties to be stolen from all of us.
If
you're not getting this, you are part of the problem. You need to
grasp what the law now says and what a huge shift this is.
And on the right, those who are openly on the right-wing, are celebrating. They grasp what just happened.
The
ones who are hiding their right-wing nature? Well I don't see a word
on this from RFK Junior. I see Junior Tweeted repeatedly on Sunday
about releasing the records on his uncle's death. Because that is the
most important thing right? Oh, and he made time to apologetically call
out the case overturning affirmative action -- apologetically and
pathetically because if he doesn't hold onto his right-wing base, he has
nothing.
The last name means very little
when, many, many weeks later, you still can't pull together a campaign.
You're still trying to hang out with Moms For Liberty and you're too
much a boy to stand up. RFK -- Senior -- was not a saint by any means
-- as many women could have attested -- but at the end he did find a
voice. I'd say, "Took him along enough," but he was only 42. Junior
is 69 and can't find his voice.
RFK, at the end, spoke for the people in need, the migrant workers, the people under assault.
Having to wear a mask during the height of COVID was not an assault.
And I'm getting tired of all the freaks on this issue.
It
was a pandemic. We never told you what to do here. We didn't shame
Eric Clapton or try to -- I even noted that he would probably come out
of the pandemic looking good. We didn't worship at Fauci. He was lousy
at his job and he should have been fired.
But
we also grasped that it was a pandemic and that many people were just
trying to survive it, not to hurt anyone and not to hurt themselves.
That reality is lost in RFK Jr.'s campaign of crazy.
You didn't want the vaccine, you really didn't have to get it.
I
didn't get it until the end. I was on chemo and a hundred other things
and my doctors wouldn't let me -- a fact that I made known here
repeatedly.
I don't know of anyone who went to prison for refusing the vaccine.
But it's a big issue to Crowd Crazy to this day.
Because they felt so damn impotent.
Guess
what, butt hurt, so did the rest of the world. It's what happens when
something no one is expecting sweeps up the planet.
But that's all he and Naomi Wolf and other increasingly unhinged people have to offer.
Did Fauci lie?
He
lied repeatedly. We noted it repeatedly. It's why he should have been
fired. He certainly should have been fired when Joe Biden was sworn
in. He had repeatedly contradicted himself and lost the trust of too
much of the public.
COVID continues. The COVID
measures are gone. We have real problems to deal with. That doesn't
mean journalists shouldn't look into what took place or how consensus
was formed or forced behind closed doors. It does mean it's not really a
campaign issue.
Unless you're some right-wing
crazy who can't deal with the fact that COVID actually scared you. As
it should have. A world-wide pandemic is scary. But you can't deal
with your own fear, so you're scared and pissed off and looking for the
craziest fool who'll speak to that and you run to Junior.
Ava and I wrote about the two-tiered citizenship that now exists in the US in "Media: Corrupt Court, Corrupt YOUTUBE" on Sunday at THIRD and here I posted multiple interviews and commentaries and statements.
An e-mail asked why I didn't include the ACLU?
This is their statement:
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court this morning issued its ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis. David Cole, Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union, offered the following response:
“The
Supreme Court held today for the first time that a business offering
customized expressive services has the right to violate state laws
prohibiting such businesses from discrimination in sales. The Court’s
decision opens the door to any business that claims to provide
customized services to discriminate against historically-marginalized
groups. The decision is fundamentally misguided. We will continue to
fight to defend laws against discrimination from those who seek a
license to discriminate.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Colorado filed an amicus brief
urging the Supreme Court to reject the First Amendment challenge to a
Colorado civil rights law requiring businesses open to the public to
treat customers equally.
Yeah, I took a hard pass on that weak ass statement from a group made of attorneys. Instead, we offered the Center for Constitutional Rights:
June 30, 2023 - In response to the
Supreme Court ruling that businesses may deny services to LGBTQI+
people, the Center for Constitutional Rights released the following
statement:
Today,
in its latest display of its political activism, the Supreme Court
sanctioned discrimination by giving businesses that engage in
"expressive conduct" a license to deny services to LGBTQI+ people. We
have known for a long time that in the eyes of the Court, there are only
two Constitutional rights that matter: the First Amendment right to
religious expression and the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
Nonetheless, today’s decision was crushing. It deals another blow to a
community already under attack in legislatures across the country, by
the very same movement that claims the allegiance of six justices on the
Supreme Court.
Public
accommodations laws regulate what businesses must do, not what they must
think, if they seek the public benefit of accessing the public
marketplace. Such nondiscrimination laws, like the one in Colorado, are
designed to ensure that LGBTQI+ people can freely shop for services like
everyone else, rather than being required to shop for businesses that
don’t discriminate against them. The right-wing justices have once again
signaled that their mission is to dismantle laws that protect
marginalized communities and to use the law to back punitive and
exclusionary social hierarchies. As Justice Sotomayor lays out in the
dissent, “[t]hose who would subordinate LGBT[QI+] people have often done
so with the backing of law.”
In
this case, the Court was so determined to carry out its mission that it
bypassed Constitutional requirements of standing by weighing in on an
imaginary dispute concocted by conservative legal activists and issuing
an advisory opinion, so that they could legislate policy.
The
Religious Liberty Clauses of the First Amendment have been historically
used to protect minority religions against discrimination by
majoritarian orthodoxy and to advance a pluralistic, egalitarian
democracy. It is thus especially perverse that this Court would delight
in producing the exact opposite, anti-democratic result: granting
orthodox Christianity an imagined constitutional freedom to discriminate
against the minority LGBTQI+ community. And, as Justice Sotomayor
emphasized, the decision is not limited; it could give license for
businesses to discriminate against interracial couples because of the
(pervasive) extremist-evangelicalist commitment to segregation.
Together
with yesterday’s decision invalidating affirmative action, this ruling
lays bare the values of this Court. In six justices’ view, the
Constitution says it is just fine for a business to exclude someone on the basis of their protected status (LGBTQI+), but it is unconstitutional for a university to include
someone on the basis of their protected status (race). This is bigotry
masquerading as law. And, in so ruling again, this Court continues to
advance a Jim Crow jurisprudence in which the white, male, Christian
insider’s freedom is made meaningful only through the subjugation of
vulnerable populations. For this conservative movement, as for John
Calhoun or George Wallace, discrimination fuels their feelings of
freedom. These six individuals somehow retain the power to impose their
18th Century values on a democratic majority that believes in equality
and fairness. The Court has little legitimacy left.
We
reject these cruel and unlawful decisions, and the cowardly attempts by
a right-wing movement to wield the Constitution to protect white power
and deny the human rights of the multitude. But human rights cannot be
suspended by reactionaries in robes. And they cannot be secured by even
enlightened court rulings. If there is solace to be found today, it is
in the knowledge that that task before us is the same as it was
yesterday: to resist, organize, and unite. Our potential collective
power, and only that, offers hope of liberation and full human dignity
for LGBTQI+ people and other marginalized communities.
I
cannot believe how many people are missing the point on this. I have
nothing against a gay but I own a bed and breakfast and I just can't
allow a gay into my home with another gay because my Bible tells me it
is wrong. Or: I own a small hotel in New Hampshire and I rent rooms out
by the hour but not to a gay because of my Bible. You have no idea how
this can expand out. The Court knew. They knew what they were doing.
They are a corrupt Court and there needs to be change immediately.
Condemning the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court as corrupt and "heavily politicized," U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna
and Don Beyer on Friday reintroduced legislation to impose term limits
for the nine justices in order to "restore judicial independence."
Hours after the court ruled that businesses can refuse services to LGBTQ+ people and struck down
President Joe Biden's student loan debt relief program, Khanna
(D-Calif.) said that the framers of the Constitution established
lifetime appointments for justices on the nation's highest court in
order "to ensure impartiality," but recent rulings by the six right-wing
members of the panel's supermajority have not held up that standard.
"The Supreme Court's decision to block student debt relief will put many hardworking Americans at risk of default and will be a disaster for our economy," said
Rep. Ro Khanna. "Our Founding Fathers intended for lifetime
appointments to ensure impartiality. The decision today demonstrates how
justices have become partisan and out of step with the American public.
I'm proud to reintroduce the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular
Appointments Act to implement term limits to rebalance the court and
stop extreme partisanship."
The legislation would create an
18-year term limit for justices appointed after the law was enacted.
Justices would be permitted to serve on lower courts after their term
was up.
Beyer (D-Va.) said the time has come to impose term
limits following numerous partisan decisions by the Supreme Court,
including its overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, and revelations about undisclosed financial ties that right-wing Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch have had to Republican megadonors and operatives who have had business before the court.
"For
many Americans, the Supreme Court is a distant, secretive, unelected
body that can make drastic changes in their lives without any
accountability," said Beyer. "Recent partisan decisions by the Supreme
Court that destroyed historic protections for reproductive rights,
voting rights, and more have undermined public trust in the Court—even
as inappropriate financial relationships between justices and
conservative donors raised new questions about its integrity."
Currently, said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), "six extremist, unelected activists" are doing "the bidding of billionaire Republican donors from the bench."
"This
illegitimate Supreme Court has become a cesspool of corruption and is
in urgent need of reform," she said. "It's time to end lifetime
appointments to the Supreme Court."
A poll by Marist College in April found
that 68% of Americans back term limits for Supreme Court justices while
just 37% of respondents said they had confidence in the high court.
The judicial watchdog group Fix the Court endorsed Khanna and Beyer's proposal, noting that from the nation's founding until 1970, Supreme Court justices served 15 years on average.
"That
number has nearly doubled in the last few decades, as the power the
court has abrogated to itself has also increased exponentially," said the group.
The current system has allowed Supreme Court justices to "possess unchecked power for life," said
Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court. "Luckily, there's a
popular, apolitical way to fix this: by requiring future justices to
take 'senior status' after 18 years, at which point they'd fill in at
SCOTUS when needed, rotate down to a lower court, or retire."
"This
idea forms the basis of Rep. Khanna's bill," he said, "and I'm pleased
to support his work to establish fundamental guardrails for the most
powerful, least accountable part of our government."
Affirmative
action is a needed program. Programs can be ended and they can be
restarted. Congress, for example, can (and should) pass a new program.
But
when we're dealing with the highest court in the land stripping rights
from citizens? Do you know how hard that is to come back from?
If
you work for THE NATION, you clearly don't because they have nothing on
their main page about this decision. They've got the student debt
decision, they've got affirmative action, nothing on this.
And
yet a group of Americans have been given less-than citizenship by a
corrupt Court. They are no longer full citizens worthy of full
equality. They are less-than.
And that should leave everyone outraged and apalled.
But
some idiots don't grasp how it starts and how, if it's not called out,
it builds. The Bible was a justification for slavery, for example. The
Bible's not a manual for no-fault divorce. You want to see where the
Court builds next as they go through the list of denying full rights to
American citizens?
You didn't read history? You didn't Margaret Atwood? You can't catch a documentary on Nazi Germany?
All
the decisions handed down were awful and unfair. Only one, however,
gives the Court the power and the way forward to remove rights from
citizens.
The Court needs to change and it needs to change now.
The
Democrats need to come up with a plan for Court reform that includes
term limits and includes an ethics code and includes accountability.
Now.
Gina asked me to note this from Marianne's campaign.
The crazy never ends. Let's look at the illegitimate
Supreme Court which is packed with operatives who work behind the scenes
with operatives (such as Jonathan Turley) and try to destroy
democracy. Lorie Smith is trash and garbage. May she forever be the
face of hate and intolerance in the US. If you do business with her,
shame on you. THE HILL reports:
Justice
Sonia Sotomayor blasted the Supreme Court’s decision to back a
Christian wedding website designer’s choice not to provide services to
gay couples, calling the decision “profoundly wrong” in a scathing
dissenting argument read from the bench.
“Today,
the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to
the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a
protected class,” Sotomayor wrote.
The
associate justice harkened back to the civil rights and women’s rights
movements in her dissent, suggesting that in recent years, gender and
sexual orientation minority groups have faced “backlash to the movement
for liberty and equality.”
“New
forms of inclusion have been met with reactionary exclusion. This is
heartbreaking. Sadly, it is also familiar,” she wrote. “When the civil
rights and women’s rights movements sought equality in public life, some
public establishments refused. Some even claimed, based on sincere
religious beliefs, constitutional rights to discriminate. The brave
Justices who once sat on this Court decisively rejected those claims.”
Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Sotomayor’s dissenting argument.
It
is disgusting and it is offensive. It is also undemocratic. We need
Court reform and we need it now. DOBBS, the verdict that legal
innocence doesn't matter (see Betty's "") and the attack on affirmative
action. Now this?
We
have a Court that refuses to follow the law, that disregards precedents
and that is making it up as it goes along. That is not how the law
works.
Smith
and her attorneys from the right-wing Christian group Alliance
Defending Freedom identified a prospective client named Stewart who
inquired about a website for his same-sex wedding, but a man claiming to
be that individual came forward and claimed he is, in fact, a straight, married father who never made that request.
“I’m married, I have a child — I’m not really sure where that came from?" the man told the New Republic. "But somebody’s using false information in a Supreme Court filing document."
Legal experts were appalled that a ruling of such importance to LGBTQ rights could be based on such flimsy evidence.
"Please
recall that no same-sex couple has ever sought to engage Lorie Smith's
business to create a wedding for their website; this case is built
entirely on hypotheticals; there are essentially no facts," tweeted Mark Joseph Stern, a legal writer for Slate. "The decision's scope is ambiguous and uncertain."
"It’s
not clear what happened, and it’s not clear the claim makes a
difference in the case — the issue wasn’t in the 10th Cir opinion and
didn’t come up at oral arguments, in fact, a recurring point has been
that there are no same-sex couples involved — but it’s certainly
weird," added legal writer Chris Geidner.
"Just so you know, the Supreme Court just sanctioned discrimination against LGBTQ people based on a fake case," tweeted Imani
Gandy, senior editor for law and policy for Rewire News. "Lorie Smith
and ADF invented a gay couple to discriminate against and the Supreme
Court said sure why not. On the last goddamn day of Pride."
"For Gorsuch to question the dissent’s handling of the facts in 303 Creative after his lies in Kennedy is nuclear hypocrisy," said Georgia
State law professor Eric Segall. "'The dissent gets so turned around
about the facts that it opens fire on its own position.'"
"The web designer in 303 Creative is an artisan doing work for hire," said Indiana
University law professor Steve Sanders. "She is creating products
ordered by customers, not selling her own artistic productions or
following her own muse. All the Court's citations to the contrary are
distinguishable. The 1st Am does not apply."
"Those of you writing up 303 Creative will want to be sure to note that the alleged request was made up," said legal writer Marcy Wheeler. "SCOTUS just ruled on something makebelieve."
"Let's
be clear: nothing happened to the plaintiff in 303 Creative, the whole
'case' was a hypothetical exercise, and the GOP Justices used it as a
vehicle to undermine every single federal, state, county, and city
anti-discrimination law in the country," added trial lawyer Max Kennerly.
"This isn't a complicated first amendment case," tweeted Elie
Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation. "You can be as bigoted as
you want to be on your own, hateful time. But when you put up a sign
'open for business' you have to SERVE THE CUSTOMERS who walk through
your door. It isn't hard. Though I know bigots think it so."
Lastly, do not forget that Katie Halper has made the decision to glorify sex offenders. Today, she and professional cuck Aaron Mate brought pedophile Scott Ritter onto USEFUL IDIOTS to have fun and chat. He is a convicted pedophile. He is a registered sex offender. But he's also Katie's new buddy. She's pathetic and she's disgusting. May she rot in hell.
Friday, June 29, 2023. Marianne Williamson emerges with an
authentic voice and a purpose, BLACK POWER MEDIA sits down with Conel
West, DeSantis versus DISNEY continues to go DISNEY's way, and much
more.
We're starting again with Marianne Williamson who is seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
From the discussion above, picking up from yesterday:
@Maebe_A_Girl: Also, when you were talking about this idea that gay people are trying to 'groom' children, that is very offensive.
Marianne Williamson: Yeah.
@Maebe_A_Girl: My
daughter was born -- She has three gay men who are her godfathers and
it never would have occurred to me in a million years that they would be
anything other than fantastic godfathers to her. And they absolutely
were. One has now passed and the other two are very close to her and
they couldn't have been better. And they couldn't be better now as
godfather figures in her life -- in her life and important. What you
said is so true and I've had a lot of involvement with the gay community
-- mainly because of the AIDS crisis -- I've never felt that there was a
'reaching out.' This is not a proselytizing group, it's kind of like,
you do you.
Marianne Williamson:
And so why don't we do something and blame somebody? Say, "Hey, let's
actually look over there and let's talk about how these people are
trying to infiltrate our way of life and try to attack our children."
It's such an easy, easy way to get people riled up -- is when you bring
children into the matter because, of course, everyone wants to protect
children. LGBTQIA people want to protect children. And that's why we
are so outspoken about these issues -- because we, LGBTQIA adults, were
once LGBTQIA children and we remember what it was like to be ostracized,
to be othered and to be made to feel that we are not worthy because our
of our internal identities. And so I think the whole thing is a huge
distraction and there are so many things that we could talk about. And
the fact of the matter is what the GOP is saying that queer people are
trying to do to kids is simply false. You know, there are studies.
There are no -- LGBTQIA people in general are no more likely than cis
gender -- heterosexual people -- to be pedophiles, to be sexual
assaulters. But because of the fact that LGBTQIA people, a lot of it
[what we are] revolves around our sexual identities and our gender
identities, the GOP just easily distorts that into this idea of: "Oh,
this is all about sex. Why are you teaching our kids about sex?" And
the thing is, I don't want to teach your kids about sex. I don't even
want to talk to your kids. I just want your kids to know that they are
safe and they are loved regardless of whether they are straight, gay,
cisgender or transgender, whatever. We want to create a society where
everybody is welcomed and there is not this hierarchy of "Well I'm
better than you because I'm straight, I'm better than you because I'm
cis-gender." And that has historically been the battle that queer
people have had to fight. And so it's remarkable in many ways and I
think that now is the time that we really have to be outspoken about
these things in order to create a better life for the kids that are
growing up right now. I -- Again, I can't imagine what it's like to be a
middle-schooler or a high-schooler right now, seeing that there are
over half-a-thousand anti-LGBTQIA bills moving across the United
States. I don't know what that would do to my self-esteem as a
teenager. And it makes me really worried about -- about these kids.
I've never particularly thought of myself as a young person going into
politics. I got into politics out of necessity. And I started to look
around and I started to realize things are changing and not necessarily
for the better for particular communities and, in particular, the
LGBTQIA community. And my sort of a-ha moment, if you will, was the
Trump election in late 2016. When the Trump administration started in
early 2017, I felt that I needed to -- I felt that I needed to use my
platform as a drag performer and as a community figure to promote
LGBTQIA rights and to promote our inclusion. And so I started doing a
lot of parodies of folks in the Trump administration. I did a number of
parodies -- you know, Betsy DeVos, Kellyanne Conway, Malania Trump.
And part of the reason that I continue to do this throughout the Trump
administration was because I would do these performances which -- in my
mind -- they were satirical performances but they were also educational
to let you know what was happening. You're being entertained but also
you're learning that the administration is not necessarily -- Actually
not even not necessarily but just flat out not on our side. And I felt
that it was really important to draw people in. I think a lot of people
are turned off by -- just by the idea of politics. It can seem really
intimidating -- especially if you don't feel like you know everything
about politics. But here's the thing, everybody knows what they feel
inside is right or wrong.
Marianne Williamson: Right.
@Maebe_A_Girl: And
this is absolutely in my mind what politics is all about. I'm here,
you know, standing before you having this conversation and I'm running
for Congress because I need to let everybody know that I feel this is
what I think is right or wrong and if you agree with me vote for me, if
you don't agree with me, vote for somebody else. But I want to live in a
world where folks accept and tolerate everybody. Tolerance? I'm
really starting to really dislike that word because I don't want to just
be tolerated, I want to be fully integrated and celebrated, you know?
Marianne Williamson: It still implies judgement.
@Maebe_A_Girl: Like
"Well, okay, alright, we'll let you in the room. We'll let you in the
room but we're not going to let you have the microphone for very long."
And, here's the thing, Marianne, I host drag shows every single week. I
am best on the microphone. Give me the microphone because I will tell
you what I have to say. And what I have to say is that we deserve -- we
deserve equity and inclusion. And unfortunately, most of the parents
that actually were in the room had kids in the Glendale school district
and are in support of LGBTQIA inclusion. The school board is in support
of LGBTQIA inclusion. And again, this is all age appropriate. You
know, the way that you talk to second graders.
Marianne
Williamson: In a democracy, these are considered moderate positions.
What you were saying, though, I agree so much. If people -- People are
living so much on the edge. People are living just to survive. 70% of
Americans now report living with economic stress. So I agree with
everything you just said.
And we're stopping there. Yesterday,
we noted the first half of the video and the plan was to note the
rest. I had some "[. . .]" in yesterday's and that wasn't me editing
anyone, it was skipping. I thought it might have been the connection
but I've streamed it again and it's edits. Which is fine, but it throws
off the last two minutes of the video because there are jump cuts and
it's harder to follow.
The full segment is now up at Marianne's YOUTUBE channel and we'll note that video.
So let's talk about what took place with that video: Marianne found her voice and found a reason to argue vote for her.
So
many claims that this person (man usually -- Marianne and Republican
Nikki Hayley are the only two women currently competing for a political
party's presidential nomination) or that is strong.
But
strength isn't being a bully which rules out all the GOP hopefuls
except for Chris Christie. Strength also isn't staying silent. Robert
F. Kennedy Jr. is not exhibiting strength when he refuses to stand up
for an attacked segment of our country.
It's a
segment, yes. And some can whine, "Such a small one!" It really
doesn't matter the size -- unless you're a size queen -- the issue is
are you going to defend those wrongly attacked?
If
you want our votes, we need to feel we can trust you, we need to feel
if we were wrongly attacked, you would stand up for us. That's how you
show true strength. You don't just chase a poll, you stand up and speak
out for freedoms and democracy.
If you can't do that, really what can you do?
Marianne
also gets that this segment issue is nonsense. We're not in the atomic
age. We've moved on. But did we learn anything? The atomic age was
about discovering via splitting things and breaking them up and
destroying them.
I see a lot of those types speaking right now and trying to convince you to support them.
Marianne
is getting at the reality that it's not the end. That is not the end.
If that's the end, everything is a broken toy. The point of addressing
the issues in this country is not to divide but to synthesize. And we
need to be able to address issues such as transphobia, such as racism . .
. The Mrs. Max Blumenthals don't get that you have to put it together,
you have to pull it together to address any issue. The Mrs. Max
Blumenthals think addressing the war on LGBTQ+ Americans is pulling the
focus -- honestly, what focus is there in the United States? -- and
detracting from other issues. No, it's not. These are interrelated
issues. How we look at one another is directly related to how we look
at others. When we let hate merchants divides us as Americans through
othering, we set the trap for them doing the same with foreign
countries.
Marianne is turning her campaign around. She's showing that she understands how complex and interrelated this all is.
That's bravery and that's inspiring.
Applause for Marianne.
Normally that's where we stop in the discussion. Not this time.
Now
we're going to talk about the fake asses and how they try to deceive
and pretend and all their fakery. On Twitter, this is the most
streamed video that Marianne has posted to Twitter. It also has
reactions. A lot. Many are positive and that's great. But we're going
to focus on the negative reactions because I
don't like liars and liars have been using the internet for hate
campaigns and getting away with it. Let's review the 'people' leaving
negative feedback to Marianne's discussion.
Serious Joint Avatar is just a transphobe and that's all we need to know there.
@ladywhateve
will not support Marianne now because of this video, she insists.
Liar. You were never
supporting her. You support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and have done so for
weeks. It's not that hard to find out what you've been writing about
online. You're a liar who left a comment trying to make it appear that
you were with Marianne or on the fence but then this video! Liar, you
have Robert as your
background on Twitter. Lying trash. You're trying to Bud-Light
Marianne.
vic
proulx takes time out from his conspiracy theories to insist Marianne
is wasting time with this issue. Well don't waste your time, vic, I'm
sure there's some solar flare somewhere turning people into transmutants
with super powers and we all so need your expertise on that. P.S.
you're a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supporter and never planned on voting for
Marianne -- go away, liar.
HLY
SPRT took time away from doing racist Tweets to lament that this isn't a
"kitchen table issue." Clearly, judging by other Tweets, you're
another
Robert supporter and I hope you are joking with your fears that the
government will chemically castrate White people, I hope you're not that
racist and that much of a KKK freak. It may be time for
the media to start reporting on the mindset of Robert's supporters.
zombywoof
is a Tim Pool freak (right-winger) who is bothered that only a small
percent of the population in the US is trans. And only a small portion
is on death row. The most recent estimate is 2750. So I guess that
means we stop working on that issue as well? Idiot.
Emma
M Tenorio tells Marianne that she just lost her vote -- she's got to
protect her children. Hope Emma plans to protect them from lies
because, turns out, Marianne didn't lose Emma's vote, she didn't have
it. Emma's another crazy for Robert and the crazies do him no good.
KanefireX,
community members may remember, was a racist in the '00s and has now
resurfaced on Twitter where he still is but is a racist but also now a Michael Tracey
fan. He wants Marianne to know that transgender is all a Marxist
ploy. Thanks for taking time away from bleaching your white sheets to
share that, Kanefire X.
PoppingWeasels
wants a refund on his 2020 donation. For what she did this week.
Doesn't work that way but good thing you got behind RFK Jr, right? Three weeks
ago, wassn't it? Not planning to vote for her but wants people to think
this interview sent him reeling. Liar.
Please
grasp, this is what these con artists do. They pretend they're
customers of Target, for example, and are never ever going to Target
again because of a Pride display. They're liars. By the way, Emma
above also wants everyone to go to Target and f**k things up because of the
Pride display. She loves Robert. Robert, I'm seriously worried about
the sick f**ks you are attracting.
DoNotDivideUs
is anti-trans as his account listed makes clear and so does the other account from which
he posted another outcry Tweet about Marianne interviewing a
transgender person.
Again,
we focused on the crazies. They've been around for sometime. Liars
online who are part of an organized attack machine. They didn't always
attack. The first time the media ever encountered them was in 2008 when
THE NEW YORK TIMES took forever to grasp that the "thousands" of Barack
Obama supporters were actually about 150. It took the paper that long
to notice it -- we noticed it right away. Several of the multiple
posters had trouble keeping their identities straight and would get
confused as to what they had posted under which name. (To their credit,
a TIMES political reporter did e-mail to say "you were right" when they
figured out what was going on.) It's astroturf and it pretends to be a
movement. They're doing it online right now with the attacks on THE
LITTLE MERMAID and DISNEY+ (on those attacks, please read Stan's "Erin Johnson is a racist who writes for SCREEN RANT" and "THE LITTLE MERMAID has brought in twice as much money as what?").
They're trying to create the impression of a wave that's really not
there for them. It's a result of saps like Dana Milbank who saw the
2004 election as his own world of popularity and didn't grasp that he
was on a mailing list that was being worked. How dumb do you have to
be?
In
Norristown, Kennedy condemned the “toxic polarization that is really
destroying our country.” Like his father in the 1960s, he lauds a
similar crusade, but is instead campaigning on his belief that leaders
in the Democratic Party today amplify division and push lies.
The junior Kennedy has his family's name but
lacks his ancestors' popularity and is perceived differently in the
public eye −in part for pushing anti-vaccine views that are at odds with
what government agencies and prominent public health experts say. More
diseases, like measles, can occur in communities with pockets of
unvaccinated people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I've
seen you buddy up to Tucker Carlson, Glenneth Greenwald and Matt Taibbi
-- transphobes one and all. Your niece telling me you're not a
transphobe and that you do not hate LGBTQ+ people isn't enough. You
need to find your voice. You've been more than willing to meet with any
crazy in the world. It's time for you to find the voice to defend the
most targeted in the community. You're the one invoking your father --
and you should -- but he wouldn't be silent when a minority population
was targeted.
Some
of that, I would say, involves some private conversations. I think if
you appear on some public platforms with them, you offer them critiques
-- and again I think you're capacity to do this is greater than folks
like ours because of who you are. But you can engage people in what you
were term "loving critiques" on public platforms so that folks can be
clear about what your position is as you try to show people and win
people over to new positions without necessarily having a huge fight
that's good for television but doesn't move people over to certain
political positions. [. . .] But if you go to an event that's an event
to boost them and you only praise them then of course they're your
friend but again I think it diminishes your stature and who you are
because it looks like to the rest of us who are seeing it that you're
not offering critical love as you stated earlier about some of the
organizations and people that you care for but instead it feels as if
you're endorsing their platforms and who they are and their ideals
That's
Kamau Franklin offering some wise words to Cornel West (we'll include
the video in a moment) that equally apply to Robert.
Marianne's
running a real campaign. At present, Robert's not. That is reality.
And. Robert, if your scared that all the crazies will fall away if you defend
those in need of defending? You really aren't your father's son.
At
least the crazies are in front of Robert -- not inside him. Cornel's
got crazies all around him as well as inside him. A number of people
have rightly called Cornel a womanizer and expressed serious concerns
regarding what he will and won't do with regards to women. Keesha and I
are tracking his statements as a result. For example, since 'brother'
Cornel got into the race? His Tweets have noted "brothers" 13 times and
sisters only 5. And none together. There's a reason women are wary of
Cornel. He chooses his own words and this is on him. He's a wordsmith so his words especially matter.
We'll
come back to Twitter in a second. BLACK POWER MEDIA interviewed Cornel
this week -- their second interview since he announced he was running
to win the Green Party's presidential nomination -- which the Green
Party will decided in the summer of next year. Kamou's quote earlier is
from the video below.
The interview is noted at the top of yesterday's morning's THE REMIX MORNING SHOW below.
No
problem streaming THE REMIX MORNING SHOW, but I've only gotten through
parts of the episode with the interview in it. I have the same aversion
that I had when Bully Boy Bush would be on TV.
And
for those convinced Cornel is running a great campaign -- what world
are you living in -- let's note the Tweet that Cornel has pinned to the
top of his Twitter feed.
He's
not even The People's Party nominee now. In yesterday's REMIX (above)
it's rightly noted by Renee Johnston that his campaign website is out of
date and needs to be updated. Yes, and so does his Twitter feed.
Transgender
people have always existed. Some Native American tribes saw them as
healers. In terms of non-native Americans, it shouldn't be that
difficult for people to grasp the term "intersex" -- when people are
born with both sets of sex organs. We've noted this before and that,
for decades, parents would then choose whether or not a child would be a
boy or a girl. Julie Cohen is the director of EVERY BODY -- a
documentary we've noted here and in the community newsletters which
deals with intersex persons. David Oliver (USA TODAY) reports on the documentary (opens this Friday) and notes:
This early surgical intervention is still happening to kids, hence the need for more education. While the documentary certainly covers this trauma, it offers hope through the eyes of activists.
Everyone's
story is different. Some people's parents discover they are intersex
when they're born but others do not know until puberty or beyond. Roth
Weigel, for example, had internal testes and a vagina at birth. The
protocol was to remove the testes – effectively castrating her.
Intersex people are often told to keep quiet about their identities which
can make living their lives tricky, especially when it comes to dating
and sex. It's ultimately up to individuals whether they want to come out
and feel safe to do so.
Even
among progressive circles the word "intersex" leave many scratching
their heads. Cohen says: "I was a little floored by how many people just
in the dinner party conversations that you have ... including people
that are in the therapy world are like, 'Oh, yeah, intersex? What's that
again? Is that like trans or kind of like trans?' Come on people. Get it together!" (Granted, LGBTQ+ terminology has only become very mainstream the last decade or so.)
"There's a huge lack of information," Wall adds, "and there is ignorance, and there's also willful ignorance."
While the community is fighting for legislative change to protect intersex kids, they're also figuring out what intersex culture really looks like.
"There's enough time where trans people have been in community where there's trans culture.
You can talk in a similar language. Intersex people haven't been
together and healed enough to be able to understand what it means to be
in joyful community with each other," Gallo says.
It is past time for people to grow up and grasp the world we live in.
And
for the American Taliban to grasp how crazy they are and how crazy
people around the world are just like them. ALJAZEERA notes that there
was a rage in Baghdad yesterday with crazies running around screaming
(over a holy book burned in Sweden) which resulted in Moqtada's cult
screaming and burning LGBTQ flags. Crazy, sick people. First, they
can't mind their own business. They don't live in Sweden, it's nothing
to rage over. But that's the Taliban, even if you live in another
country, you must do what they say. Second, blame the LGBTQ+ because
you have to have a scapegoat apparently.
Chanell
Perez Ortiz, a 29-year-old Afro-Latina trans woman, was shot and killed
in Carolina, Puerto Rico over the weekend. She is at least the 13th
trans or gender-nonconforming person to be reported killed in the U.S.
this year, according to Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents.
Also
known as Uvita, Ortiz was a cosmetologist who loved fashion, makeup,
and hair, according to her social media and an interview with her
stepmother by WAPA TV.
According to Telemundo Puerto Rico,
Ortiz was shot to death early Sunday morning on the highway behind a
university in Carolina, just east of the capital city of San Juan, where
seven to eight bullet casings were identified at the scene. Although
media reports have misgendered and deadnamed her, Police Commissioner
Antonio López Figueroa said the murder was being investigated as a
transfemicide in a statement to Telemundo Puerto Rico.
“The
agents are working on the investigation process that will lead to
determining the true motive for death,” Figueroa told Telemundo. “As our
duty dictates in all cases of violent deaths, we will not stop working
until we clarify this death.”
This is
about people's lives. In ten years, when we're all the same page, I
don't want one of these jerks to be forgiven -- not on the right and
certainly not on the left. These jerks have mocked transgendered
people, they have fun of them. They have treated this as all a big
joke. And it's not a joke and it's not funny. I don't know which of
them is more worthy of our scorn -- the ones who are right wing hate
merchants and would have only found someone else to target if they
stepped back or the ones on the left who are mocking? And what do we
say about the 'great silent' on the left? YOUTUBERS and writers who
could be speaking out but stay silent -- because they're partners with a
YOUTUBER who makes fun of transgenders? Because they want to keep the
key to the clubhouse? The key to the clubhouse is especially motivating
the token women who got into the clubhouse and know that their
membership could be terminated at any point. So they stay silent and
support these toxic males and hope and pray that we don't catch to their
hypocrisy.
It’s
legislation that’s been closely watched by a self-described, life-long
conservative Republican and his transgender son, who said it’s not
external pressure, but an internal struggle.
“I
did it because I knew it was the right, next-best thing in my life and I
wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t fully something that my heart and my
mind and my spirit told me was the best thing for me,” said Ashton
Colby. “So absolutely no pressure. And I’m so happy I did transition.”
“Transgender
people, the folks that I’ve met, dear souls, young people trying to
figure it out, you know, deep crisis,” said Rick Colby, Ashton’s father.
“And a lot of times, it’s a spiritual crisis: ‘Who am I? Why am I
here?’ And they’re trying to figure it out, and to see this assault wave
of rhetoric against them…”
Rick
Colby has been a loyal Republican since Ronald Reagan was in the White
House, but he doesn’t recognize the party that’s expending so much time
and energy opposing trans rights.
Noted
transphobe and hate merchant Jonathan Turley, the bigot of GWU, has
lied repeatedly and has also commented on things he knows nothing
about. Why? He's a schill for Ron DeSantis and the right-wing,
American-Taliban section of the Republican Party. He really needs
DISNEY to fail due to his own personal obsessions. So he has lied and
lied again. He's ignored studios in real trouble -- PARAMOUNT+ -- in
his efforts to smear and attack DISNEY. How's that working out for him Shannon Power (NEWSWEEK) reports:
Despite DeSantis waging war on Disney however, the public appears to still have positive feelings toward the company.
In fact, nearly 50 percent of people surveyed in research for a Newsweek poll viewed Disney in a "favorable" or "very favorable" light.
In research conducted by Redfield and Wilton, 1,500 eligible U.S. voters were asked: "To what extent, if at all, do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Disney?"
A
total of 46 percent of those polled said they had positive feelings
about the company, with 20 percent saying they had a "very favorable"
view and 26 percent saying their view of Disney was "favorable."
That is in comparison to 13 percent who had an "unfavorable" view of the company.
The
poll which was carried out on June 25, found 11 percent of people had a
"very unfavorable" view of Disney while 24 percent were on the fence
with neither a "favorable nor unfavorable" opinion.
A further six percent of the respondents said they did not know what view they held of Disney.
The poll of popular opinion is not the only battle Disney is winning against DeSantis, its social media has also had a boost over the past month.
Disney gained 44,742 new Twitter followers
in the 30 days up to June 21, bringing its total to almost 10.3
million, according to the social media statistics website Social Blade.
It witnessed a further boost on Instagram,
where Disney gained 278,550 followers in the same amount of time.
Disney's official Instagram account now has 37,975,982 followers, making
it the 199th most followed account on the social media platform.
But
Disney claimed the second spot for the second year in a row — which
could be seen as somewhat surprising in light of the public clashes it
has had with Florida Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful Ron
DeSantis over its political views. Disney has opposed the state’s “Don’t
Say Gay” legislation, and DeSantis has responded with a number of oversight and other measures affecting Disney’s operations in Florida. This led Disney to sue DeSantis,
claiming the prospective Republican presidential candidate waged a
“relentless campaign to weaponize government power” against the company.
And Disney has also scrapped plans on a roughly $1 billion investment in a new corporate campus in Florida that would have relocated more than 2,000 employees.
We're going to wind down with a video.
Several
e-mails complaining about the above -- public e-mail, not the one for
community members. Are these drive-by e-mails or are people being
sincere?
I have no idea. But if you're expecting me to tsk-tsk Olayemi Olurin over the video, let me disappoint you.
First off, if I'd weighed in yesterday, my commentary might upset you more than her's did.
Secondly,
even if you don't agree with her, I hope you understand that she was
speaking honestly. We need to all listen to one another better.
Third, "It is not effective!" one person snaps in an e-mail. What is it supposed to be effecting?
It may just be an attempt to share and be received by others who feel the same.
This
is a serious topic and it has upset a lot of us. The Supreme Court is
out of control, precedents no longer matter, everything is on a whim and
the cabal works overtime to shred the rights of American people.
I'd say that's pretty good reason to be outraged.
If
you'll go back and listen and if you were sincerely someone who
supported Olayemi in the past, as eight of you insist, I hope you'll
understand what she's sharing and why.
And before we can ever move forward -- 'effective'ly -- we need to understand each other.
Again, I have no problem with what she said, sorry.
We
can all learn from it. Because no one owes you their vote. No one. A
vote belongs to an individual. The individual can use it however they
want. So it's wrong to assume that the Democratic Party is owed your
vote or any political party is owed your vote. It's also wrong to
assume that because, as women, some of us get this or that, that all
women -- or all White women -- get the same thing or feel the same way.
White women do not owe anyone their vote. Asian women do not owe
anyone their vote, etc, etc.
If you want to appeal to people you feel are missing the point, you need to make the case to them.
This was not the time for that. That's what we work on after we get off our chests what's bothering us.
You
can't get to that step without being honest about your reaction. Olay
was honest and I thank her for that and I celebrate her for that. The
anger she feels is echoed by so many of us, the Court becomes more
illegitimate with each passing day. The frustration is understandable.
I have no problem with what she said or with what she shared.
