Retribution Execution, Con't

After reducing women to second-class citizens with limited rights to their own bodies, facing felony-level criminal penalties for non-compliance, Republicans (as I have been warning you about for months) are now going after LGBTQ+ folks with the intent of criminalizing their existence.

Days after the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion, Michigan’s Republican candidates for governor were asked if it was also time to roll back constitutional protections for gay rights.

None of the five candidates came to the defense of same-sex marriage.

“They need to revisit it all,” one candidate, Garrett Soldano, said at the debate, in Warren, Mich.

“Michigan’s constitution,” said another candidate, Ralph Rebandt, “says that for the betterment of society, marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Since the Supreme Court decision last month overturning Roe v. Wade, anti-gay rhetoric and calls to roll back established L.G.B.T.Q. protections have grown bolder. And while Republicans in Congress appear deeply divided about same-sex marriage — nearly 50 House Republicans on Tuesday joined Democrats in supporting a bill that would recognize same-sex marriages at the federal level — many Republican officials and candidates across the country have made attacking gay and transgender rights a party norm this midterm season.

In Utah, the Republican president of the State Senate, Stuart Adams, said he would support his state’s joining with others to press the Supreme Court to reverse the right of same-sex couples to wed. In Arizona, Kari Lake, a candidate for governor endorsed by Donald J. Trump, affirmed in a June 29 debate her support for a bill barring children from drag shows — the latest target of supercharged rhetoric on the right.

In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton said after the Roe reversal that he would be “willing and able” to defend at the Supreme Court any law criminalizing sodomy enacted by the Legislature. Before that, the Republican Party of Texas adopted a platform that calls homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice.”

And in Michigan’s governor’s race, Mr. Soldano released an ad belittling the use of specific pronouns by those who do not conform to traditional gender roles (“My pronouns: Conservative/Patriot”) and accusing “the woke groomer mafia” of wanting to indoctrinate children.

Some Democrats and advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. communities say the Republican attacks have deepened their concerns that the overturning of Roe could undermine other cases built on the same legal foundation — the right to privacy provided in the Fourteenth Amendment — and lead to increases in hate crimes as well as suicides of L.G.B.T.Q. youth.

“The dominoes have started to fall, and they won’t just stop at one,” said Attorney General Dana Nessel of Michigan, a Democrat who was the first openly gay person elected to statewide office there. “People should see the connection between reproductive rights, L.G.B.T.Q. rights, women’s rights, interracial marriage — these things are all connected legally.”

 

In the House, Democrats have passed a number of bills shoring up nationwide rights to abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception access, with the vast majority of Republicans voting against it. The same-sex marriage bill may actually have a change at passage, the rest, not so much.

 

Don't expect any protections from Republicans.  Their answer t everything is literally "Well Go Buy a Gun".

 

 

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BREAKING: Bannon Convicted Of Contempt Of Congress

Took all of a couple of hours for a jury to convict former Trump adviser Steve Bannon of contempt of Congress for his failure to appear before the January 6th Committee. 

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress Friday, following a swift trial featuring just two government witnesses who detailed the longtime Donald Trump aide’s defiance of a House committee’s demand for records and testimony in its investigation of the Capitol attack.

The federal court jury deliberated less than three hours before delivering the verdict, dealing victories to the special House committee which initiated the contempt proceedings and the Justice Department’s prosecution.

Sentencing is set for Oct. 21.

In closing arguments, prosecutors urged conviction, asserting that Bannon "chose allegiance to Donald Trump" over an obligation to comply with Congress.

"The defendant made a deliberate decision not to comply," Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston told jurors. "That, ladies and gentleman, is contempt. We are here because the defendant has contempt for the Congress.

"He has contempt for our system of government and does not believe he has to abide by the rules. Find him guilty."

So they did. 

The reality is that Bannon will appeal and probably not spend a day in prison until next year by the earliest, but then again if Republicans get control of the House, they'll drop the charges anyway.

Might want to keep that in mind when voting in November.

We Don't Need No Education, Con't

Miami-Dade County Schools will no longer teach sex education after right-wing idiots using GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis's "Don't Say Gay" law bullied the school board into reversing a decision to approve health textbooks for middle and high school students.

In a narrowly divided vote, the Miami-Dade School Board Wednesday reversed its decision to adopt a new sex education textbook for the 2022-23 school year — a move that leaves the district with no sexual education curriculum for at least four to eight months. 

The 5-4 vote followed an emotionally charged public comment period that included community members being escorted out of the building and a multi-hour board discussion that strongly paralleled the discussion it previously had in April, when members initially adopted the material in a 5-3 vote. 

At the time, Chairwoman Perla Tabares Hantman, Marta Perez and Mari Tere Rojas voted against the curriculum. Board member Lubby Navarro was absent from the initial vote.

On Wednesday, Tabares Hantman, Perez and Rojas were joined by Navarro and Christi Fraga in voting against the measure. Vice Chair Steve Gallon, along with Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall, Lucia Baez-Geller and Luisa Santos voted to adopt the book.

The book, “Comprehensive Health Skills,” which comes with a version for middle school and one for high school classes and offers research-based health education with topics such as nutrition, physical activity and sexually transmitted diseases, would have addressed the district’s units of study for Human Reproduction and Disease Education for grades six through 12. 

But the materials soon came under fire from some parents and community members who argued the lessons were not age appropriate and violated the state’s parental rights law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in March and which critics have dubbed the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill. They also argued the district’s process lacked transparency.

The pushback included the filing of 278 petitions objecting to the materials and resulted in Miami-Dade Superintendent José Dotres selecting a hearing officer to conduct a public hearing to review the concerns and the materials in question.

That hearing, which was conducted on June 8, resulted in the hearing officer recommending the board “deny the petitions and proceed with the adoption process,” according to the district.

This is not the first time school textbooks have been questioned. Earlier this year, the Florida Department of Education announced it was rejecting 54 math textbooks in the state’s public schools, claiming the books contained “prohibited topics,’’ including critical race theory. 

“I’m deeply disappointed by today’s decision. I hoped that Miami’s School Board would step up to protect youth in times of crisis,” said Kat Duesterhaus, a board member of Florida NOW and Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity. 

Not only does providing comprehensive sexual education help prevent sexually transmitted diseases, sexually transmitted infections and unwanted teen pregnancy, it’s also important to “building bodily autonomy,” which is important for teens to prevent and identify instances of sexual assault, Duesterhaus said.

DeSantis's horrible law is working as intended, allowing a tiny minority of parents to bully school boards into canceling textbook after textbook, activity after activity, and educational experience after educational experience.

Republicans don't want kids to question, to learn, and to think. They want stupid kids to grow up ignorant in order to exploit them as stupid voters and stupid workers.

Most of all, they want scared, pliable fools who don't challenge the status quo of permanent Republican rule, and the outliers kept in line by fear and threats.

It starts with math textbooks having "critical race theory" and sex ed textbooks being removed. 

It ends in fascism.