Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Kylie Minogue, Graham Elwood, the senile Dianne Feinstein

First up, Kylie Minogue's "Padam Padam."


My daughter loves that song and begged me to put it in a post.  So I did and I even made it the first thing in the post.  Now Graham Elwod.



That's too bad, that Joe Biden is happy to spend all of our money -- OUR money -- on Ukraine while we suffer here at home.

In other news, for some reason, Dianne Feinstein remains in the Senate.  Please read Betty's "Dianne Feinstein has no idea what she's voting on" as well as the joint-post that she, Ann, Cedric and Wally did tonight:

  • Cedric's Big Mix
    Who's got dementia?
  • Ann's Mega Dub
    Nancy won't let it happen!
  • The Daily Jot
    THIS JUST IN! DI-FI AND PELOSI REACT!

  • Thomas Friedman is a Great Man
    Dianne Feinstein remembers Wonder Woman 


    • YAHOO NEWS notes:


    At 89, Feinstein is the oldest member of Congress. The senior senator from California has a long list of accomplishments — but also a growing roster of detractors who say she is no longer able to properly serve her constituents.

    Feinstein returned to Washington on May 9, following a bout with shingles that led to a debilitating case of encephalitis. She had been absent for two and a half months, a period during which frustrations mounted.

    Reticent during her illness, her staff has continued to shield Feinstein from public scrutiny since her return to Capitol Hill. During her wheelchair-bound forays to the U.S. Capitol, Feinstein is ringed by aides who form a kind of human barrier around her.

    Those aides also appear to be doing the vast majority of her work, according to The New York Times: “They push her wheelchair, remind her how and when she should vote and step in to explain what is happening when she grows confused. They stay with her in the cloak room just off the Senate floor, where Feinstein has taken to waiting her turn to vote, then appearing in the doorway to register her ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ from the outer edge of the chamber.”


    She needs to go.  Now.

    Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


    May 30, 2023.  Julian Assange remains imprisoned.  Many are working to free him and end the persecution.  One supporter says he wants Julian free but is too busy attacking to actually help Julian.


    Yesterday, the following was broadcast by Q+A (Australia's ABC):


    Jen Robinson is the blond woman in the orange dress in the video above.  She's one of Julian Assange's attorneys. 

    Jen Robinson: We addressed a briefing room of MPs.  It was packed to standing room only.  And all of them said the importance of being in that room was not only because he's an Australian citizen and a the free speech implications of this case but because their constituents are on the phone calling for this to happen.  And so I think we now have unity in Australia but the question is what the US government does with it.  And the right thing to do with it is to drop the prosecution because what the United States is doing is prosecuting journalism.  It is criminalizing journalism practices.  It diminishes the moral authority of the United States to raise free speech concerns with any other government.  We've not got Russia using the US precedent, charging a WALL STREET [JOURNAL] journalist, Even Gershkovich, with espionage -- for the first time since 1987 -- off the back of what the US is doing to Julian Assange -- Chinese officials saying 'well don't raise Cheng Lei or other people imprisoned here because you guys are imprisoning Julian Assange.  It diminishes our ability to raise free speech concerns internationally.  But, at the core of it, this is an Australian citizen who is imprisoned for award-winning publications and it is wrong.  And history will look back on this.  And the question is how long we will allow this to go on?  It's already been long enough.

    Julian Assange remains imprisoned and remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden who, as vice president, once called him "a high tech terrorist."  Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian.  WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.  And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.  For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs.  Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:



    A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
    Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

    The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
    The new logs detail how:
    • US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

    • A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
    • More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

    The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat



    The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

    The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

    But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.

    Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.

    Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.









    I'm seeing someone who is completely not helping Julian right now.  He considers himself a journalsit -- he's connected to the sewer that Max Blumenthal now resides in.  Someone who cares abou tthis piece of garbage should pull him aside and say, "Stop."  Because he's not helping Julian with what he's done in the last 24 hours.  

    There's a detail about the case that came out in a hearing that we covered years ago.  And we covered the detail in real time.  We continued to mention it afterwards.  And then Michael Ratner asked me a few months later, what's the point of covering it now when Julian's a prisoner?

    Michael was right.

    It's a fact and it's a pertinent fact.  And we can debate it all we want when Julian's free.  But Julian is not free.  If you're trying to help Julian, the fact that someone has changed their mind -- for whatever reason -- and is saying Julian should be free?  Celebrate that.  Amplify that.  Don't get all bitchy and high and mighty.  That's not helping Julian. 


    In fact, why not grasp that one member of the press changing their mind about Julian right now, if publicized and put out there, gives cover for others who maybe just went along with the pack mentality and who could now say, "Well like so and so, I've changed my mind.  Julian needs to be free!"


    I know logic and rationality don't thrive in the sewer Max now resides in but someone has to have a modicum of sense -- even there -- and that's who needs to tell the person attacking a member of the press for changing their mind that this is not helping Julian.

    Again, I've bit my tongue for years now on one thing.  And it's not a critique.  It's a legal point.  When Julian's free, I'll return to discussing it.  But right now is not the time.

    That message will probably fly over Max's buddy's head.  There's no real hope for him.  Like too many of Max's associates these days, the man is a transphobe and is having a meltdown that The Museum of Jewish History noted that trans people were targeted by Hitler.  He's got a Tweet with the 'offensive' over this statement.  Here's what was issued by The Museum that so triggered Maxi's little friend:


    Before 1933, Germany was a center of LGBT+ community and culture, with several renowned organizations serving and supporting trans and gender non-conforming people. Hitler’s Nazi government, however, brutally targeted the trans community, deporting many trans people to concentration camps and wiping out vibrant community structures. As transgender people are now increasingly targets of discriminatory legislation and hate, join the Museum for a program exploring these stories and experiences prior to and during the Holocaust.

    This panel conversation features Dr. Anna Hájková, Associate Professor of Modern European Continental History at the University of Warwick; Dr. Katie Sutton, Associate Professor of German and Gender Studies, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at Australian National University; and Dr. Bodie A. Ashton, a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at Universität Erfurt, with moderator Rabbi Marisa Elana James, Director of Social Justice Programming at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York.

    Watch the program below.

    MJH recommends

    Recommended Resources
    During the program, a number of resources were mentioned for further research. One of these was the book Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature by Max K. Strassfeld. Another was the magazine The Third Sex which was printed in Weimar Germany from 1930-1932. We also recommend historian Jake Newsome’s series LGBTQ+ Stories from the Holocaust, where he shares the true stories of LGBTQ+ people in Nazi Germany.

    Learn More About the LGBTQ+ Community in Pre-War Germany
    Before WWII, Berlin was a center of life for the LGBTQ+ community. Robert Beachy’s book Gay Berlin chronicles the milieu that gave rise to the international gay rights movement, with key strides made for scientific research, advocacy, and visibility. Learn more in this conversation between Beachy and Eric Marcus, creator of the podcast Making Gay History.

    Discover the Life of Eve Adams
    Eve Adams was a rebel. Born to a Jewish family in Poland, Adams emigrated to the United States in 1912. She befriended anarchists, sold radical publications, and ran lesbian and gay-friendly speakeasies in Chicago and Greenwich Village. Then, in 1925, Adams risked all to write and publish a book titled Lesbian Love. In a repressive era, when American women had just gained the right to vote, Adams’ association with anarchists caught the attention of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation, leading to her deportation into the Nazis’ reign of terror, where she was sent to Auschwitz and killed. Learn more about Adams’ life in this Museum program.



    If you're wondering, that is a year old.  But Max's buddies are slow readers -- whose lips move when they read just as their knuckles drag on the floor when they walk -- and they've only just now discovered The Museum's announcement.


    The Museum is addressing events that actually happened.  You don't want to admit that it happened?  I guess that makes you a denier but, hey, you fondle the extreme right-wing with your writing, so you're in denial about a lot of things.  Here are some facts from Holocaust Memorial Day Trust:


    By the 1920s, Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code, which criminalised homosexual acts, was being applied less frequently. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science led the world in its scientific approach to sexual diversity and acted as an important public centre for Berlin lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender life. In 1929 the process towards complete decriminalisation had been initiated within the German legislature.

    Nazi conceptions of race, gender and eugenics dictated the Nazi regime’s hostile policy on homosexuality. Repression against gay men, lesbians and trans people commenced within days of Hitler becoming Chancellor. On 6 May 1933, the Nazis violently looted and closed The Institute for Sexual Science, burning its extensive collection on the streets. Unknown numbers of German gay men, lesbians and trans people fled abroad, and others entered into marriages in order to appear to conform to Nazi ideological norms, experiencing severe psychological trauma. The thriving gay culture in Berlin was lost.

    The police established lists of homosexually active persons. Significant numbers of gay men were arrested, of whom an estimated 50,000 received severe jail sentences in brutal conditions. Most homosexuals were sent to police prisons, rather than concentration camps, where they were exposed to inhumane treatment. There they could be subjected to hard labour and torture, or they were experimented upon or executed.

    An estimated 10-15,000 men who were accused of homosexuality were deported to concentration camps. Most died in the camps, often from exhaustion. Many were castrated and some subjected to gruesome medical experiments. Collective murder actions were undertaken against gay detainees, exterminating hundreds at a time.

    During the 1935 redrafting of Paragraph 175 in Germany, there was much debate about whether to include lesbianism, which had not been recognised in the earlier version. Ultimately lesbians and trans people were not included in the legislation and they were subsequently not targeted in the same way as gay men. In Austria, after Anschluss (the annexation of Austria into greater Germany under the Nazi regime), a similar debate led to the inclusion of lesbianism in the penal code. Lesbians suffered the same destruction of community networks as gay men. They were not allowed to play any role in public life and therefore they often experienced a double economic disadvantage.

    After World War Two

    After the war, the Allies chose not to remove the Nazi-amended Paragraph 175. Neither they, nor the new German states, nor Austria would recognise homosexual prisoners as victims of the Nazis – a status essential to qualify for reparations. Indeed, many gay men continued to serve their prison sentences.

    People who had been persecuted by the Nazis for homosexuality had a hard choice: either to bury their experience and pretend it never happened, with all the personal consequences of such an action, or to try to campaign for recognition in an environment where the same neighbours, the same law, same police and same judges prevailed.

    Unsurprisingly very few victims came forward. Those who did, even those who had survived death camps, were thwarted at every turn. Few known victims are still alive but research is beginning to reveal the hidden history of Nazi homophobia and post-war discrimination.




    I guess that's uncomfortable because it won't help the extreme right-wing -- that group that Max and his buddies try to flirt with these days.  But it is what happened.  And what happened then has resulted in a lot of people being alarmed by what's happening right now.  But if Max Blumenthal called out attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, he couldn't grift to the extreme right-wing for money, now could he?

    No, Maxi Pads needs his dollars.  Certainly more than he needs dignity, right?  Or self-respect?  


    So following the end of WWII, LGBTQ+ people remained persecuted because of who they were which was too much for the delicate sensibiliteis of the US.  That's outrageous.  It's outrageous that reality was denied and it's outrageous that Max's roll-dog wants to lie about this community today.

    But most of all it's outrageous that someone is so damn stupid that they'd rather rag on a reporter for coming around to supporting Julian then try to build support for Julian.  

    That is what's needed.  I find Jen's words very encouraging but at present?  All they are right now: Words.  Julian remains imprisoned.  Max and his buddies do get that, right?


     

    OVER THE PAST MONTH, there has been a significant increase in Australian pressure on the Biden Administration to drop the charges against Julian Assange.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – who has been at the forefront of this call – earned the gratitude of Assange's father, John Shipton.

    On May 4, Prime Minister Albanese made his strongest statement yet on the Assange issue, declaring:

    "The U.S. Administration is certainly very aware of what the Australian government's position is. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration."



    I'm sure Aaron Mate's busy trying to figure out how to again attack Amy Goodman but she did host a discussion on Julian yesterday on DEMOCRACY NOW!




    Here for the transcript, and we'll not attorney Margaret Kunstler:

    MARGARET KUNSTLER: Well, I’m not only deeply involved in this lawsuit as a witness, but I am deeply involved in this lawsuit as a plaintiff. And there are many people who — perhaps who are not with us today who would be very happy to hear that the name of the lawsuit was Kunstler against Pompeo.

    This is a lawsuit that we hope will, in fact, be one of the major ingredients about why the United States cannot try Julian in this country. They cannot try Julian in this country because they’ve overdone their misconduct. They’ve engaged in the level of misconduct in interfering in the defense of Julian Assange that cannot be tolerated.

    And it’s brought in this country so that people can understand just the tip of the iceberg about what has been done to Julian Assange, the actions that have been taken against him. Here, lawyers, doctors and other professionals who visited Julian Assange were — their conversations were recorded. But more than that, their equipment was taken — their telephones and their computers — and they were gone through.

    Now, this started happening in 2017. Before that, we had thought that the surveillance of the embassy was to protect Julian. But we found out, through a lawsuit that was brought in Spain, that starting in 2017, the lawsuit had completely — the type of surveillance that was going on had completely changed. And now the surveillance was on a level that has been unheard of in this country and unheard of anywhere in the world, that you would record and take information about conversations, about what plans were being drawn up, about — specifically about the health of Julian and about what was going to be the defense at trial. Now, you’re not allowed to do this. This absolutely violates the concept of justice in this country.

    And what caused this? How did we reach this level of hatred, of disobeyance of law when it comes to Julian Assange? Well, it’s significant that it began in 2017, because that was the year that Pompeo came into authority. And Pompeo’s very first speech was that he considered Julian and WikiLeaks a nonstate hostile intelligence agency. Now, to say that was an explanation that Julian had no rights left to him, that they could go in, they could kill him, anything they wanted to do was fair game. And that is something that is so astounding to our level of understanding of justice in this country, that that was the cause of this lawsuit.


    And that's how far we got 30 minutes or so ago before the whole thing was lost, so we're going to go ahead and end there to get this up on the website.

    The following sites






    Posted by at

    Sunday, May 28, 2023

    Graham Elwood, WJ Astore, and . . . Idiot of the Week

    Starting off with Graham Elwood.



    How much longer before austerity is imposed -- further imposed? -- on Americans in the US?  It's amazing what they'll find money for -- what destructive plans and weapons they'll find money for -- but there's nothing to spend when it comes to our actual needs.


    Okay, idiot of the week?  Ron DeSantis.  Poor Ron, Ron.  It was supposed to be his big weeks in the news.  It would appear he was right to be scared of CRT -- Critical Race Theory -- scared out of his tiny, scared (White) fragility.  Because?  All it took was the death of one African-American woman and the country forgot all about hate merchant Ron.


    That's right, Tina Turner upstated him.  And Tina's still in the headlines as I type.  On Sunday morning.  And his 'big' announcement is about as interesting as a reality TV show from three years ago.


    Poor Ron Ron.  He just knew this was going to be his week.


    I love Tina Turner's music.  But I especially love that she wiped the floor with him last week.  :D


    This is from WJ Astore's column at THE BLACK COMMENTATOR:


    When I was teaching college in Pennsylvania, I had a colleague whose car sported a telling bumper sticker: “Our national health care plan: Don’t get sick.” As true as that is, I think America’s real health care plan can be summed up by a corporate motto of my own coining: You can make a lot of money off sick people.

    This came to mind today as my wife returned from a routine medical appointment. She overheard a lady complaining to a clerk that she didn’t understand her health insurance and why her latest procedure hadn’t been covered. Meanwhile, my wife noticed a sign about Medicare at the office, something about a new requirement that medical professionals were apologizing for in advance. And so it goes in the land of the free …

    If you’re an American and 100% pleased with your medical care, you are a rare bird indeed. It’s an incredibly complex “system” with its own logic driven by the need to make money, whether off drugs or surgical procedures or whatever. I’ve talked to doctors and they tell me they’re typically allotted fifteen minutes per patient. They have to see a certain number of patients per hour, creating billable actions in the computer tablets they increasingly carry around with them, to fulfill quotas and to stay in business.

    A heart specialist I was seeing, a truly sympathetic and knowledgable doctor, got fed up with all the emphasis on billing and money and took another position at a different hospital where he could do more research. At his practice, I noted new computer monitors in the examination rooms featuring videos that advertised drugs to lower cholesterol, improve blood pressure, and the like, along with pamphlets featuring shiny happy people taking various drugs related to heart and blood care. Honestly, I felt good for my doctor that he was going to a better job for him even as I felt bad for all his patients, myself included.


    Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


    Friday, May 26, 2023.  The American Taliban continues their war on democracy and on the United States, a royal visits Iraq, and much more.

    The American Taliban is out to destroy democracy and freedom.  They lie and pretend they're "doing it for the kids" but they're no Robbie and Kylie.



    And their not "doing it for the kids."  Their actions and their remarks make clear that's not the case.  

    What they are doing is damaging children.  Beth Hawkins (THE 74) reports:

    In the opening weeks of the 2023 legislative season alone, more than 400 pieces of legislation aimed at LGBTQ people— most of them targeting schools — were introduced throughout the country. 
    It’s no surprise that queer students in Republican-dominated states where these laws have passed are profoundly impacted. But less visible is the dramatic effect the steady drumbeat of headlines has had on youth in places with even strong anti-discrimination laws. Newly released data from the advocacy groups GLSEN and The Trevor Project show increases in hostility, victimization and discrimination experienced by students in blue states as well as red.

    The effects are devastating. Nearly half of LGBTQ 13- to 17-year-olds considered suicide last year, as opposed to some 19% of high school students overall, according to The Trevor Project. Eighteen percent actually attempted it. Seventy percent report anxiety, and 57% experienced depression.

    Strong in-school relationships are a well-known protective factor. LGBTQ students who say their teachers care a lot about them are 37% less likely to consider suicide and 43% less likely to be depressed than those who don’t feel cared for, according to The Trevor Project. 

    Rates of self-harm are much lower among students who feel affirmed in school, and acceptance of LGBTQ students had risen steadily — if unevenly — following legal recognition of same-sex marriage. But the number of youth who see their schools as affirming has fallen dramatically over the last four years. 

    In California — where the first gay couples married in 2008 and schools began teaching LGBTQ history a decade ago — a statewide survey of students found that the number who reported hearing homophobic remarks from adults in school rose from 12% in 2019 to 49% in 2021. That’s an increase of 408%.

    In Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage has been recognized for almost 20 years, the number of youth exposed to anti-LGBT remarks is up 686% over the same time frame.





    Yeah, but, hate merchants, keep pretending that your concern is for the kids.  Scarface Tulsi Gabbard might try having kids -- before it's too late, she's 42 -- since she's so obsessed with other people's children.  Or is Tulsi too manly for pregnancy?    The report notes:


    A new data analysis by The 74 shows how this political wedge issue, aimed at a relatively small population of students, is having an outsize effect. The number of youth who identify as something other than cisgender is growing, but it’s still a tiny number of children. 

    Of the approximately 16 million high school students in the United States, an estimated 1.8 million, or 11.6%, identify as LGBTQ. Just 300,000 are gender-nonconforming. 

    Ten years after same-sex marriage became widely recognized, a sizeable majority of Americans are comfortable with gay, lesbian and bisexual co-workers and neighbors. Experts say it’s harder to attempt to undo LGBT rights overall than to capitalize on confusion about the experiences of a very small subset of people.     

    And unlike past campaigns to vilify LGBTQ people, this time, the rhetoric targets kids, not adults. Even though some of the new policies take aim at bathrooms and gymnasiums, the impact spills over to classrooms, hallways and libraries, affecting a much larger number of children.

    They are bullied and assaulted; subjected to increasingly negative remarks even from teachers who are supposed to protect them; silenced from raising LGBTQ topics — even talking about their families during class discussions; discouraged from participating in sports or other activities; forbidden from wearing clothing with supportive messages or forming gay-straight alliances or other affirming student clubs; disciplined for identifying as LGBTQ and for wearing clothes deemed “inappropriate” for their gender.


    It's like the 70s all over again. As I've noted before, not long ago, a group of gay adult malea at one group we were speaking to in the last 12 months, brought up what life was really like for them in high school and middle school.  Teachers and principals mocked them and made fun of them, publicly ridiculed them.  My response was sue.  I don't care if it gets kicked out for whatever reason.  Get on the record so that these failures do not get to enjoy their retirement but instead everyone grasps that these failures weren't just intolerant, they were actively betraying their legal obligations.  

    I would recommend the same to the families of any children currently in school and experiencing this.  File immediately.  Let's identify these people who think they can abuse their jobs and harass students.  

    That's the only way this will stop.  

    The American Taliban is brave when egged on by a bunch of hate merchants but when they find out it's not Tulsi Gabbard that's having to pay for the actions, but themselves, they'll learn to conduct themselves as educators are supposed to.     




    Rowan Johnson learned what it meant to be transgender not from a parent or a teacher, but from Jerry Springer.

    Home from school one day when they were about 8 years old, Johnson caught Springer’s often-raucous daytime talk show. “There are girls here to tell their parents they want to be boys,” Johnson recalls hearing at the top of the hour.

    That’s something a person can do? Johnson thought. They had sensed already that something was different about their own gender identity but didn’t know what. “I didn’t have the words for ‘transgender’ or ‘nonbinary’ or any of this.”

    Most trans adults went to school at a time when there was little or no discussion of gender identity. If the subject came up, it was on tabloid television or in schoolyard taunts rather than in conversation with caring adults. Now, as Americans debate policies that affect trans Americans, there’s disagreement over how — or whether — to broach these issues in schools.

    For transgender children, this question can be urgent. A Washington Post-KFF poll conducted in late 2022 found that about 1 in 3 transgender adults was 10 years old or younger when they began to understand that their gender was different from their sex assigned at birth. Forty-five percent of them said they felt unsafe at school, the place where they spent most of their time and where acceptance or rejection can make a deep impression. The isolation and discrimination that many trans people experience can lead to depression, substance abuse, self harm and suicide, experts say.


    [. . .]

    In other words, what trans Americans say is needed appears at odds with what many Americans appear comfortable providing. That’s unsettling to the trans community at a time when gender identity has taken center stage in the culture wars and Republican lawmakers have attacked the very existence of trans people.

    “If I had had the opportunity," said Johnson, "to learn that it’s normal and common to question your gender identity and to want to experiment and explore your gender identity, I think it would have saved a lot of emotional pain.”

    The poll found support for teaching these issues in high school, with more than 6 in 10 saying it was appropriate. Americans were divided when asked about middle school. But at the same time, nearly 7 in 10 Americans supported laws that would bar discrimination against trans people in K-12 schools.

    The American Taliban is in the minority -- just as they are on abortion.  But what the people want doesn't matter to these authoritarians.  They want to destroy the country and destroy democracy.  The right to privacy got shredded in DOBBS and they planned and conspired for years to get to that point.  They're coming after every right and you're insane -- or married to Max Blumenthal (which may be the same thing) -- if you can't see that.




    Target on Wednesday said it was removing some products that celebrate Pride Month after the company and its employes became the focus of a “volatile” anti-LGBTQ campaign.

    The company said threats against employees impacted their sense of safety and well-being, but Target did not specify which products it was removing, the nature of the threats, or where they occurred. Target said it removed from shelves “items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”

    For a decade, Target has celebrated Pride Month in and around June. The company runs advertisements to appeal to LGBTQ customers and employees, and it sells t-shirts, coffee mugs and merchandise with rainbow flags and other symbols of gay rights.

    “Pride Month at Target is a time of affirmation and solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community,” the company says on its website.


    A few things.  Openly homophobic people?  They can't afford Target and don't shop there regularly.  Threats against employees?  Those need to be reported to legal authorities and done so immediately.  Isn't it interesting that Jonathan Turley is no where to be found yet again.

    He's like FOX "NEWS" -- emphasizing everything that will scare the elderly but nothing that will enlighten or educate.  He's an old whore slinging it for FOX "NEWS." 


    The backward and inbred homophobes who study online with Professor Turley pretend to care about democracy.  But it's not really a democracy, is it, if you're threatening violence because you don't want people to have the option of buying clothing?  That's reality and it's not an angle Turley is going to share with his cult or, for that matter, that FOX "NEWS" plans to share.  Target clearly noted threats of violence to the staff.  But here's FOX BUSINESS "NEWS" 'covering' the topic and leaving that threat out.  CNN could -- and did -- note the threats.  USA TODAY did as well.  AP did as well.  BLOOMBERG NEWS did it.    But not FOX "NEWS."  This is how FOX "NEWS" lies -- they don't present most stories and when they do present a story they lie and they leave out significant details.  A half-wit could park themselves in front of the TV, watch six hours straight of FOX "NEWS" and still be a half-wit when they turned the TV off.



    A right-wing outlet (tiny and we're not promoting it) wants you to know that conservatives are "successfully" boycotting Target.  Homophobic conservatives don't shop there.  Try the Dollar General.  This is the same crowd -- small and vocal -- that Nancy Reagan sneered at (they were focused on ending abortion when she was First Lady) and this crowd buys beers and Fritos but, as demographics make very clear, they don't have the income to spend at Target.  Walmart is a big treat for them.  So, no, they're not "successfully" boycotting a store that they don't actually shop at.  If they did shop there, they would have noticed, years ago, that Target celebrates Pride every June.  Bad news for them, Walmart did last year too.  May have done so before last year but last year Walmart even offered a Pride ice cream. For this crowd, Dollar General and Dollar Tree and Dollar whatever are their go-tos. Again, that's demographics. This is the group that loved FOX "NEWS" but couldn't find it in their budget to pay for the streamer FOX NEWS NATION.  

    This is a war on freedom carried out by the American Taliban.  They are not patriotic and they do not believe in democracy.  They're for tyranny and oppression.  


    California Governor Gavin Newsom called out the war on the LBGTQ+ and hate merchant Marjorie Taylor thought her response was called for.



    Good for Gavin.  As for Marjorie?  Yes, she is the space laser person.  Let's again note Chelsea Handler on MTG. 

     




    Marjorie Taylor Greene: I have people come up to me and say crazy things to me out of the blue in public places that they believe because they read it on the internet.

    Chelsea Handler:  Well if that's not the pot calling the kettle QAnon.  This woman thought 9/11 was a hoax, that the Clintons killed JFK Jr. and that Jews are in charge of space lasers.  But please, don't come at her with some crazy ideas -- she might believe them. 



    Crazy Marjorie will continue attempting to destroy this country.   Paul Rudnick noted Crazy Marjorie this week.





    This is not about helping the kids.  It's not helping children, first of all, but that's just their cover story. 


    Amid recent, highly publicized conservative backlash to several corporations partnering with LGBTQ+ artists and activists, two far-right commentators are saying the quiet part loud: Their goal is to make support for the LGBTQ+ community “toxic” to brands.

    On Wednesday, Matt Walsh, a host for far-right media outlet The Daily Wire and one of the most virulently anti-trans voices in the country, kicked off a tweet storm about recent calls to boycott brands like Bud Light and Target by explicitly outlining what he says has been the goal from the start.

    “The goal is to make ‘pride’ toxic for brands,” Walsh tweeted. “If they decide to shove this garbage in our face, they should now that they’ll pay a price. It won’t be worth whatever they think they’ll gain. First Bud Light and now Target. Our campaign is making progress. Let’s keep going.”

    On his own Daily Wire show, host Michael Knowles reiterated Walsh’s point. “This has been the point that has been building for months now, which is we need to make that symbol toxic, the Pride flag symbol, we need to make that toxic,” Knowles said. “We need to have companies think twice about it.”

    “Everyone was talking about the Dylan Mulvaney incident as being harmful to the Bud Light brand,” he continued. “That’s true. But more importantly, it was harmful to the Dylan Mulvaney brand. Now, other companies are going to think twice before sponsoring Dylan Mulvaney because they don’t want to lose $6 billion in market cap in two days. That’s what we got to do. And then once we make these things culturally toxic or as we’re making these symbols culturally toxic, we’ve got to bring in the cavalry, we’ve got to come back in with more political force to ban some of this stuff and to say no.”

    The Bud Light debacle started in early April, when the beer brand partnered with Mulvaney, a trans influencer and popular target for anti-trans trolls, sending her a one-off commemorative beer can with an image of her face on it. Transphobes both online and in the media quickly called for a boycott of parent company Anheuser-Busch’s products. The corporation’s lackluster response to the backlash drew criticism from the LGBTQ+ community and led the Human Rights Campaign to downgrade Anheuser-Busch’s previous 100 percent rating on the organization’s corporate equality index.

    On Wednesday, Walsh also tweeted that, “The Bud Light boycott will prove to be one of the most significant conservative victories of this decade. It was never just about Bud Light. It was about sending a message.”


    This is a war declared by the American Taliban.  

    Acceptance of gays and lesbians has increased and most Americans grasp that.  So these hate merchants seized upon the "T" and worked overtime to lie and scare the easily frightened over transgender persons and pretend that there are all these five-year-olds having gender surgery.  

    They lied -- and they were helped by THE NEW YORK TIMES and other outlets -- and they've scared a country.  

    And on the left we get idiots like Max Blumenthal's wife offering smears on transgendered person because the left doesn't want to her February event which was putting a convicted pedophile on stage.  Grasp that Mrs. Blumenthal can't defend transgender people (and has a pinned Tweet attacking them at the top of her feed since February) but she will gladly share the stage with a convicted pedophile who was sent to prison.  

    And, of course, Marjorie had the pro-pedophile working for her.  These anti-Trans people are the ones hanging around with child molestors.  

    This war is doing great harm.  Applause for Gavin and everyone who is standing up right now.  Shame on those -- especially if you claim to be left -- who are silent or, even worse, encouraging this war.  Daniel Villareal (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

    A cisgender mother helping her cis disabled son use the restroom was prevented from entering a Kansas library’s women’s restroom with him, even though they’ve done that for years. The mother thinks that the state’s recently passed anti-transgender bathroom bill is to blame, but the library has called the incident “a mishandled customer service moment.”

    On May 20, Karen Wild entered a women’s bathroom in the Wichita Public Library’s central branch with her son, Ellis Dunville. She was assisting her son, who is on the autism spectrum, has a seizure disorder, and is nonverbal, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

    A male security guard told her that her son couldn’t enter the restroom. Wild said they had used the women’s restroom together for years without any issues. However, she also noted that another person in the women’s restroom objected to her son’s presence.

    Shortly after, a female library employee entered, said the library had policies regulating restroom use, and asked Wild if she and her son could use the building’s gender-neutral family restroom, which Wild never knew existed.

    Wild told the aforementioned publication that she suspected the incident might have occurred because the legislature recently passed S.B. 180, a law that bans trans people from using bathrooms and other facilities matching their gender identity.

    “There isn’t anything I can think of that has changed except that they heard about that law and decided they needed to be emboldened by it somehow,” she said. “I can’t explain it any other way.”



    Let's turn to Iraq.  BBC NEWS notes:

    The Duchess of Edinburgh has become the first UK royal to visit Baghdad - as part of her work to support survivors of sexual violence in conflict.

    Buckingham Palace said Sophie had spent two days in Iraq's capital to learn of the challenges women and girls face.

    She visited a girls' school to hear from pupils about their education.

    After meeting Iraq's women young and old, Sophie visited President Abdul Latif Rashid and prime minister Mohammad Shia Al Sudani.

    She was praised for being the first member of the Royal Family to visit Baghdad by the UK's ambassador to the country, Mark Bryson-Richardson, whom she spent most of the trip with.

    Sophie, who gained the title of Duchess of Edinburgh when her husband Prince Edward took on a new role in March after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, has said in the past that she is passionate about supporting women and gender equality around the world.  


    Really not sure what to say here.  First, Sophie's visit brings attention to Iraq and that is a good thing.

    But there's more than just that.

    Why are we supposed to be enthused?  The current king of England visited Basra in 2009.  

    More the point, England destroyed Iraq as much as the United States did.  Are we ignoring that as we rush to celebrate a ruling class figure visiting the country they destroyed?



    + As most readers of Roaming Charges know, I’ve been skeptical of Seymour Hersh’s reporting on the sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines. Some of his initial assertions were easily disproved and others seemed highly speculative and thinly, very thinly, sourced.  Hersh’s narrative was problematic and antiquated. One of the most glaring issues to me was: why use scuba divers, like something out of a 70s Bond movie, which require decompression tanks and conspicuous naval support, when you could deploy the weapon de jour: underwater drones controlled by a joystick and a laptop? Now comes James Bamford, an intelligence reporter whose credentials are at least as accomplished as Hersh’s (and somewhat less tarnished), with a detailed and persuasive account in The Nation that explains how it’s much more likely that Ukrainian intelligence operatives, trained in underwater demolition techniques by the Brits and the US, blew up the pipelines using submersible drones, with the probable assistance of Poland.  Where Hersh is vague, Bamford is specific. Where Hersh relies on a sole anonymous source, Bamford meticulously builds his piece from documents. Bamford explains in compelling detail how it was done, the kind of drones used and why both Ukraine and Poland wanted to take the pipelines out. Bamford also suggests that both Russian and US intelligence knew that a plot in was the works and that the US kept quiet because the sabotage had been committed by its allies. This is deeply informed journalism and also a terrific read.




    The following sites updated:






     

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