And so it begins...

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Sue U
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Sue U »

Lord Jim wrote: And this bit of mean-spirited pettiness seems particularly boneheaded as well, since anyone who comes over here as the unmarried partner of someone in diplomatic service (gay or straight) isn't going to be taking a job away from anybody, certainly won't be using any social services money, and are probably the least likely to illegally over-stay a visa...(since presumably the vast majority return home when their partner does)

On the other hand, they're probably very likely to be pumping a fair amount of money into the local economy...

:loon
It's all of a piece with the over-arching theme of this Administration, which is policy choices based on vindictiveness. Whatever is the meanest, most spiteful thing, that's the ticket.
GAH!

rubato
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Re: And so it begins...

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his base voters are of the basest sort and he knows how to make them happy.


yrs,
rubato

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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

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Punishing women with the death penalty would cut abortions, Idaho candidate says

A Republican lieutenant governor candidate on Tuesday softened his stance that women who get an abortion should be punished if it is ever criminalized in Idaho, a day after saying the punishment should include the death penalty.

“Prosecutions have always been focused on the abortionist,” said Bob Nonini in a statement. “There is no way a woman would go to jail let alone face the death penalty. The statute alone, the threat of prosecution, would dramatically reduce abortion. That is my goal.”

Nonini first raised eyebrows on the divisive social issue during a Monday candidate forum in Moscow hosted by the conservative Christian podcast CrossPolitic.

“There should be no abortion and anyone who has an abortion should pay,” Nonini said.

Pressed by moderators on the nature of the punishment, Nonini nodded in agreement when asked if he supported the death penalty as a possible outcome for abortion.

Nonini, a three term state senator from Coeur d’Alene, confirmed that position in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

However, several hours later, Nonini issued a statement seeking to take back his strict stance.

“I strongly support the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Nonini said. “That would allow states like Idaho to re-criminalize abortion as a deterrent. However, it is my understanding that in the history of the United States, long before Roe was foisted upon this country; no woman has ever been prosecuted for undergoing abortion. That is for practical reasons, as well as for reasons of compassion”

Nonini added that his wife, Cathyanne, does not share his endorsement of the death penalty even though both are devout Catholics.

It’s common for Republican candidates to express their anti-abortion positions in GOP-dominant Idaho. Typically, many stress the importance of educating women on alternative options to an unplanned pregnancy or making access to abortion clinics more difficult rather than focus on possible punishment for the woman.

A handful of anti-abortion advocates have begun increasing their call for stricter penalties for women and providers.

Last year, Abolish Abortion Idaho launched a ballot initiative seeking to charge both abortion providers and women with first-degree murder – but it is unclear if the group will have enough signatures to make it on the ballot in November.

Meanwhile, Republican state Sen. Dan Foreman attempted to introduce legislation that would also classify abortion as first-degree murder for mothers and doctors, but the proposal never received a hearing.

Nonini was joined at Monday’s forum by two other Republican candidates: Idaho Falls businesswoman Janice McGeachin and former Idaho Republican Party Chairman Steve Yates.

Five Republicans are running in the May primary election after incumbent GOP Lt. Gov. Brad Little announced he would run for governor, but only Nonini, McGeachin and Yates were invited to attend the forum.

Both McGeachin and Yates say abortion is murder, but stopped short of supporting charging women with first-degree murder for undergoing the procedure.

“No, I cannot support a woman facing the death penalty for having an abortion,” said McGeachin. “What we should do is prevent that.”

Yates downplayed that criminalizing abortion would result in fewer women seeking the procedure.

“In terms of criminalizing things, I have no problem with that except that doesn’t always solve the problem,” Yates said.

Nonini’s comments echo similar rhetoric said by Donald Trump during the presidential campaign. In 2016, Trump came out in support of “some sort of punishment” for women who get abortions, but the campaign later backtracked that he believes abortion providers should be the ones punished.
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RayThom
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And so it will end...

Post by RayThom »

RELIGION... it's going to kill us all.
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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

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Re: And so it begins...

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US votes against UN resolution condemning gay sex death penalty, joining Iraq and Saudi Arabia

America one of 13 countries on Human Rights Council to oppose historic vote

Tuesday 3 October 2017 16:52
The US is one of just 13 countries to have voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty for having gay sex.

Although the vote passed, America joined countries such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in opposing the move.

The Human Rights Council resolution condemned the “imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations”.

It attacked the use of execution against persons with “mental or intellectual disabilities, persons below 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the crime, and pregnant women”.

It also expressed “serious concern that the application of the death penalty for adultery is disproportionately imposed on women”.

The US supported two failed amendments put forward by Russia, which stated the death penalty was not necessarily “a human rights violation” and that it is not a form of torture, but can lead to it “in some cases”.

And it abstained on a “sovereignty amendment” put forward by Saudi Arabia, that stated “the right of all countries to develop their own laws and penalties”.

Boris Johnson urges EU to go soft on Turkey's plan to reintroduce the death penalty
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) branded the amendments an attempt to “dilute its impact”.

Despite America’s opposition, the vote in Geneva passed with 27 of the 47-member Human Rights Council in favour.

There are currently six countries where the death penalty is used for people in same-sex relationships: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia. This number rises to eight if the Isis-occupied territories of Iraq and Syria are included.

There are another five countries where it is technically allowed, but not actually used in reality.

Activists protest the death penalty in Texas

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Renato Sabbadini, ILGA Executive Director, said. “It is unconscionable to think that there are hundreds of millions of people living in states where somebody may be executed simply because of whom they love.

“This is a monumental moment where the international community has publicly highlighted that these horrific laws simply must end.”

Heather Nauert, State Department spokesperson, told The Independent: "The headlines, reporting and press releases on this issue are misleading. As our representative to the Human Rights Council in Geneva said on Friday, the United States is disappointed to have to vote against this resolution. We had hoped for a balanced and inclusive resolution that would better reflect the positions of states that continue to apply the death penalty lawfully, as the United States does.

"The United States voted against this resolution because of broader concerns with the resolution’s approach in condemning the death penalty in all circumstances and calling for its abolition.

"The United States unequivocally condemns the application of the death penalty for conduct such as homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery and apostasy. We do not consider such conduct appropriate for criminalisation and certainly not crimes for which the death penalty would be lawfully available as a matter of international law."

The 13 states to oppose the resolution were Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the US and the United Arab Emirates.

The vote was introduced by eight countries - Belgium, Benin, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia and Switzerland – and supported by countries around the world including the UK, Congo, Kyrgyzstan and Bolivia.
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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

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Mike Pence’s wife is backing a candidate who wants to jail gay people

Vice President Mike Pence’s wife Karen Pence travelled to North Carolina to campaign for a GOP candidate who thinks things were better when gay sex was a crime.

On Monday, the Second Lady of the United States travelled to the state to stump for GOP candidate Mark Harris, an evangelical pastor with extreme anti-LGBT views.


Harris, who is running for the US House of Representatives in North Carolina’s 9th District, has lamented the “moral decay” of the United States going from the criminalisation of homosexuality to the so-called “criminalisation of Christianity.”

Speaking in 2015, he claimed: “We have watched in one generation where homosexuality was once criminalised to now we see the criminalisation of Christianity. And I could go on and on with the entertainment, with the education, with the life issue.”

Right Wing Watch reports that the candidate is a member of the Family Research Council’s Watchmen on the Wall network. The Family Research Council is a listed anti-LGBT hate group whose leader has been condemned for comparing gay people to Nazis.

But despite Harris’ extreme anti-LGBT beliefs, Karen Pence spoke at a Women for Mark Harris rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Monday.

Pence told the rally: “Mike and I support Mark Harris for Congress. I’m here because this race is so important.

“He’s the kind of strong, principled conservative leader who will stand with this administration to deliver results. He’s a husband, a father, a pastor, a leader. He has devoted his life to his service to others… a devoted servant of God.”

At the event she gave an interview to internet evangelical pundit Elizabeth Johnston, known as the ‘Activist Mommy.’

Pence said: “Every single vote in every single race is going to count in this election. Women need to vote in this election.

“It’s very important that we keep the majority in the House, or the president’s agenda is going to be stopped short.”

Speaking about the White House’s views on abortion, she said: “This resident is promises made and promises kept, and if we don’t elect Mark Harris, we’re going to stop that agenda. It’s going to be stopped dead in its tracks.”

“I’m here because this race is so important. The road to the majority leads right through North Carolina. This seat, this race, it is critical to keeping the majority in Congress.”

A report recently exposed Pence’s role in a string of quiet anti-LGBT actions by the Trump administration.

The Human Rights Campaign report looked in-depth at Pence’s record on LGBT rights as a candidate, as Governor of Indiana, and as vice president and found he has demonstrated a “consistent” approach to dismantling discrimination protections.

It summarised his alleged support for gay ‘cure’ therapy, his unwillingness to condemn businesses who fire people for being gay, and his signing of a controversial Indiana law that gave businesses the right to discriminate against gay people on the grounds of religion.
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BoSoxGal
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Re: And so it begins...

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‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration
Oct. 21, 2018

Protesting the Trump administration’s policies toward gender in New York last year.Yana Paskova for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.

A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.

The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.

“This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients — what people understand about themselves — is irrelevant because the government disagrees,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the Obama administration and helped write transgender guidance that is being undone.

The move would be the most significant of a series of maneuvers, large and small, to exclude the population from civil rights protections and roll back the Obama administration’s more fluid recognition of gender identity. The Trump administration has sought to bar transgender people from serving in the military and has legally challenged civil rights protections for the group embedded in the nation’s health care law.

Several agencies have withdrawn Obama-era policies that recognized gender identity in schools, prisons and homeless shelters. The administration even tried to remove questions about gender identity from a 2020 census survey and a national survey of elderly citizens.

For the last year, the Department of Health and Human Services has privately argued that the term “sex” was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to wrongfully extend civil rights protections to people who should not have them.

Roger Severino, now at the Department of Health and Human Services, was among the conservatives who blanched at the Obama administration’s expansion of sex to include gender identity.Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
Roger Severino, the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the department, declined to answer detailed questions about the memo or his role in interagency discussions about how to revise the definition of sex under Title IX.

But officials at the department confirmed that their push to limit the definition of sex for the purpose of federal civil rights laws resulted from their own reading of the laws and from a court decision.

Mr. Severino, while serving as the head of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, was among the conservatives who blanched at the Obama administration’s expansion of sex to include gender identity, which he called “radical gender ideology.”

In one commentary piece, he called the policies a “culmination of a series of unilateral, and frequently lawless, administration attempts to impose a new definition of what it means to be a man or a woman on the entire nation.”

“Transgender people are frightened,” said Sarah Warbelow, the legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, which presses for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “At every step where the administration has had the choice, they’ve opted to turn their back on transgender people.” After this article was published, transgender people took to social media to post photographs of themselves with the hashtag #WontBeErased.

The Department of Health and Human Services has called on the “Big Four” agencies that enforce some part of Title IX — the Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Labor — to adopt its definition in regulations that will establish uniformity in the government and increase the likelihood that courts will accept it.

The definition is integral to two proposed rules currently under review at the White House: One from the Education Department deals with complaints of sex discrimination at schools and colleges receiving federal financial assistance; the other, from health and human services, deals with health programs and activities that receive federal funds or subsidies. Both regulations are expected to be released this fall, and would then be open for public comment, typically for 60 days. The agencies would consider the comments before issuing final rules with the force of law — both of which could include the new gender definition.

Civil rights groups have been meeting with federal officials in recent weeks to argue against the proposed definition, which has divided career and political appointees across the administration. Some officials hope that health and human services will at least rein in the most extreme parts, such as the call for genetic testing to determine sex.

After more than a year of discussions, health and human services is preparing to formally present the new definition to the Justice Department before the end of the year, Trump administration officials say. If the Justice Department decides that the change is legal, the new definition can be approved and enforced in Title IX statutes, and across government agencies.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the draft health and human services proposal. The Justice Department has not yet been asked to render a formal legal opinion, according to an official there who was not authorized to speak about the process.

But Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s previous decisions on transgender protections have given civil rights advocates little hope that the department will prevent the new definition from being enforced. The proposal appears consistent with the position he took in an October 2017 memo sent to agencies clarifying that the civil rights law that prohibits job discrimination does not cover “gender identity, per se.”

Harper Jean Tobin, the policy director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, an advocacy group, called the maneuvering “an extremely aggressive legal position that is inconsistent with dozens of federal court decisions.”

A transgender flag outside a bar in Brooklyn. The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with.Annie Tritt for The New York Times
Health and human services officials said they were only abiding by court orders, referring to the rulings of Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth, Tex., a George W. Bush appointee who has held that “Congress did not understand ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity.’”

A 2016 ruling by Judge O’Connor concerned a rule that was adopted to carry out a civil rights statute embedded in the Affordable Care Act. The provision prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in “any health program or activity” that receives federal financial assistance.

But in recent discussions with the administration, civil rights groups, including Lambda Legal, have pointed to other court cases. In a legal memo presented to the administration, a coalition of civil rights groups wrote, “The overwhelming majority of courts to address the question since the most relevant Supreme Court precedent in 1998 have held that antitransgender bias constitutes sex discrimination under federal laws like Title IX.”

Indeed, the health and human services proposal was prompted, in part, by pro-transgender court decisions in the last year that upheld the Obama administration’s position.

In their memo, health and human services officials wrote that “courts and plaintiffs are racing to get decisions” ahead of any rule-making, because of the lack of a stand-alone definition.

“Courts and the previous administration took advantage of this circumstance to include gender identity and sexual orientation in a multitude of agencies, and under a multitude of laws,” the memo states. Doing so “led to confusion and negative policy consequences in health care, education and other federal contexts.”

The narrower definition would be acutely felt in schools and their most visible battlegrounds: locker rooms and bathrooms.

One of the Trump administration’s first decisive policy acts was the rescission by the Education and Justice Departments of Obama-era guidelines that protected transgender students who wanted to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

Since the guidance was rescinded, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has halted and dismissed discrimination cases filed by transgender students over access to school facilities. A restrictive governmentwide definition would cement the Education Department’s current approach.

But it would also raise new questions.

The department would have to decide what documentation schools would be required to collect to determine or codify gender. Title IX applies to a number of educational experiences, such as sports and single-sex classes or programs where gender identity has come into play. The department has said it will continue to open cases where transgender students face discrimination, bullying and harassment, and investigate gender-based harassment as “unwelcome conduct based on a student’s sex” or “harassing conduct based on a student’s failure to conform to sex stereotypes.”

The Education Department did not respond to an inquiry about the health and human services proposal.

Ms. Lhamon of the Obama Education Department said the proposed definition “quite simply negates the humanity of people.”
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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

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Florida Yoga Studio Gunman Had History of Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism

The gunman who killed two women and wounded five others at a Florida yoga studio before killing himself had a history of posting homophobic, racist, and misogynistic videos, including one with a song called “Who Let the Fags Out,” several media outlets are reporting.

Police identified Scott Beierle, 40, as the man who opened fire inside Hot Yoga Tallahassee Friday evening. Those who died were Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, a faculty member at Florida State University’s College of Medicine, and FSU student Maura Binkley, 21. Beierle also wounded four other women and a man.

The incendiary videos, mostly posted in 2014, were first reported by BuzzFeed today. In addition to the “Who Let the Fags” out video, they included one calling women “sluts” and “whores,” and saying women in interracial relationships had betrayed “their blood.” He also railed against racial diversity, made anti-immigrant remarks, and said the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate enabled “the casual sex lives of slutty girls.” The videos have now been removed from YouTube.

Beierle identified as an “incel,” or involuntary celibate, and in his videos lamented the fact that some men can’t get sex. In one he expressed sympathy for Elliot Rodger, who in 2014 killed six people and injured 14 others in a stabbing and shooting attack in Isla Vista, Calif. Rodger subsequently killed himself.

“I’d like to send a message now to the adolescent males ... that are in the position, the situation, the disposition of Elliot Rodger, of not getting any, no love, no nothing,” Beierle said, according to BuzzFeed. “This endless wasteland that breeds this longing and this frustration. That was me, certainly, as an adolescent.” The man accused of driving his van into a crowd in Toronto earlier this year, killing 10 people, had also invoked Rodger’s name.

Those who knew Beierle remembered him as “odd and obnoxious,” often making inappropriate comments to women, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. He was arrested twice for grabbing women by the buttocks without their consent, but the charges were ultimately dropped.

Tallahassee police officer Damon Miller told BuzzFeed he could not yet say if Beierle specifically set out to shoot women at the yoga studio or to what extent the videos would be considered in the investigation. “Everything that he has a connection to we’re investigating right now,” Miller said.
I'm sure that wes will be around to explain to us (1) that this guy is a hero, and (2) that it's all Hillary Clinton's fault.
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Bicycle Bill
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Bicycle Bill »

I have a problem with this "incel" or "involuntary celibate" concept.  Just because some horndog wants to get laid does not mean that the first woman he meets is expected to spread her legs and give up the goodies for him.  But that what it seems this guy's rant implies.  He's not 'looking for love in all the wrong places'; he's advocating legalized rape.

And let me just say that if he were to try that with my sister, or mother, or niece, he would not be an "incel" much longer, because I'd do my damnedest to turn him into an "incad" — involuntary cadaver.
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Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

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Protesters Rally for Trans Boys Booted from 'Boys Only' Skate Session

Protesters came out to support trans rights on Saturday after Super Skate roller rink in Cedar Rapids, Iowa booted two trans boys from a “boys only” skate session recently, according to KCRG.

"I've been going to Super Skate my whole life so I was just really disappointed and sad," one of the trans boys said.

The young teens, who wish to remain anonymous, said that the DJ told them people had complained about their presence but added that they did not see anyone approach the DJ.

The protest was organized in order to demand an apology from the venue but also to send a message that LGBTQ people deserve equal treatment, according to Tommi Karma, a Cedar Rapids resident who organized the event.

"We are all part of this community and we all want to participate and we should all be treated with respect and dignity," Karma said. "The community will be here for these young men and anybody else who faces discrimination."

The move to force the boys out of Super Skate came after the revelation that the Trump administration plans to define gender strictly as male or female and determined by the genitals with which a person is born, thereby attempting to erase trans people out of existence.

A parent of one of the boys said she was "Upset. Hurt. Shocked." by Super Skate’s discriminatory move.

"I don't even know how to describe it. I cried when I rolled into the parking lot,” she said.

Super Skate has declined to comment on the incident, according to KCRG.
Tattoos and extermination camps are next. wes will be one of the first in line for a job firing up the ovens.
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Re: And so it begins...

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A gay couple was brutally attacked for holding hands in public. They’re lucky to be alive.

A gay couple that was attacked for holding hands said that they feel lucky to be alive.

Spencer Deehring and Tristan Perry said that they had gone to a few bars in downtown Austin, including a gay bar called Rain, late Friday night and were walking together before they planned to drive home.

Deehring said that a man passing by called them “faggots” under his breath, and so he responded, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

That’s when the man called over four others.

“They started following behind us pretty closely yelling every expletive you can think of,” Deehring said.

“The last thing I said to one of the guys before they attacked both of us was like, ‘I don’t have anything more to say to you guys, we’re just going home, leave us alone.'”

One of the men then punched Perry in the face. He fell down, and two other men hit him. Yet another man kicked Perry in the back of the head, according to Deehring.

He said that Perry was knocked unconscious.

“The last blow he took was an extremely long kick to the back of his head, so, at that point, I thought he was dead,” Deehring said.

“I thought that that kick alone had killed him and so, when he was just lying there, my first instinct kicked in to kind of just charge at the guy that kicked him because I wanted to create some kind of diversion.”

He said that he tried to tackle one of the men and the men started punching him until he was knocked unconscious.

A bystander called 911 and the attackers fled.

Perry’s nose was broken in the attack, lacerations on his lip and head, chipped teeth, and a swollen face. He said that he has back and neck pain now and suffers from memory lapses.

In fact, he told KXAN that he doesn’t remember the attack at all due to brain trauma.

Deehring has a swollen mouth and jaw, bruising on his head and neck, and he received lacerations to the head that required skin glue.

Perry was scheduled to take a state licensing exam this week, but he fears that he will have to postpone it due to the attack.

And that’s not the only financial problem they say the attack caused. They started a GoFundMe page to raise money for medical expenses incurred by being taken to the emergency room in an ambulance.

They have already raised much more than their original goal of $4000.

The couple recently moved to Austin from Corpus Christi, saying that they were looking for a more accepting environment.

Austin ranks #2 in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes in Texas, after Dallas, in 2017.

“I think that we would both like it to be [investigated] as a hate crime, as well as bringing awareness back to this issue, that it’s still happening in 2019, and, even as far as we’ve come in the past couple of years, that this is still a relevant problem, obviously,” Tristan said.

But they said that they don’t plan to stop holding hands in public.
wes will be along any time now to claim it was all a hoax, they must have beat the crap out of each other and claimed someone else did it.
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Re: And so it begins...

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The Supreme Court Just Ended My Military Career [size=125]The justices chose not to p ... s like me.[/size]

By Brynn Tannehill
Ms. Tannehill is a former naval aviator and a defense analyst.


On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the Trump administration could reinstate its policy barring most transgender people from serving in the military while several cases challenging the policy are being decided. The decision was both a devastating blow to me personally, and a disturbing sign of what is to come for transgender people in the United States.

I graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1997, and was on active duty for over a decade. When I began transitioning in 2010, I transferred from the Naval Reserves, which I had joined in 2008, to the Individual Ready Reserves, an administrative status that allows service members to deal with medical issues before returning to full duty. By spring 2012, I had resolved the “issues” at my own expense, and was ready to return to full duty — in my case, as a Navy helicopter pilot.

The problem was that at the time, the military’s medical regulations prohibited transgender people from serving. I then set off on years of volunteer work on my own time researching transgender military issues. This included educational outreach, research, policy development and coordinating with the Pentagon to build an evidence-based standard for transgender service, based on the lessons learned from the other 18 countries that allow transgender people to serve.

In 2015, the Department of Defense stopped discharging people for being transgender and began the open and transparent process of researching how to institute an inclusive policy. This included an assessment of the costs, in terms of both money and readiness, of integrating transgender troops. Researchers found both impacts to be negligible.

By 2016, a policy was in place for transgender people already serving. Two years later, the military put in place a process for new recruits, officer candidates and people on inactive status like myself. The day after that, I contacted my recruiter to begin the process of rejoining the military.

Over the past year, I’ve had countless medical and psychological exams in my quest to return to the job I was trained to do: flying Blackhawk helicopters. This involved a lot of time off work and considerable travel, all at my own expense. At every turn, the people examining me reached the same conclusion: I was “aeromedically adapted” — fit to fly — and able to return to the service. There was, finally, a chance that I might be able finish my career after 16 good years of service.

I was hoping against hope, throughout this process, that I’d be able to join my friends who had fought alongside me for the right to serve openly. Nearly every week I would see pictures of them in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. It gave me a thrill in December to see a picture of four of them together at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. One was an airborne ranger, and one was Special Forces.

All of this makes the administration’s dogged attempt to undo everything achieved over the last few years even more baffling. The ban was developed in secret, without the sort of careful study that went into the policy it reversed. It does not reflect any current medical understanding of transgender people, and it has been denounced by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

No one, including the lawyers for the Trump administration, has been able to show that inclusion of transgender service members or providing care to them has had any measurable negative impact on morale, readiness or unit cohesion. The chiefs of staff of all four service branches of the military have testified to Congress that there have been no issues.


The Supreme Court decision isn’t about me, though. It isn’t even about the dozens of people I advised to follow a path back to service similar to mine. It is about what this means for transgender people in the United States as a whole.

While it is true that the high court’s decision is not final — and that, in fact, it may have had more to do with lower court injunctions against Mr. Trump’s policy, rather than the policy itself — the signal it sends is clear. The cruel pointlessness of the president’s policy, which had led to the injunctions, was not pressing enough to move the court’s five conservative justices.

Their decision signals a weakening of any shelter transgender people might find under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The court is saying that government discrimination based not on evidence, but solely on animus against transgender people, is permissible.

For me, however, it probably marks the end of almost 10 years of trying to find a way to serve my country in uniform again. The court also rejected the administration's request for a quick hearing on the ban itself, which means at least another year of waiting. By then I will have likely aged out of my eligibility.

If this were through some failing of mine, I could accept it. But it speaks volumes about where we are as a country that the opportunity for many to serve should be denied by the prejudices of a few.
The camps are coming. wes can get a job firing up the ovens, and his wife and daughter can take their places doing the tattooing and turning on the gas flow into the showers.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Scooter »

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"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I take some comfort, and maybe I shouldn't, that this case was decided not so much on the merits (is it or is it not a good thing for transgendered folk to serve in the military?) but on the narrow grounds as to whether the president has the constitutional right to make that decision. I think he probably does have that right - which does not make it the right decision, so much as it illustrates a problem with a process which apparently vests so much power in one person. I actually don't think that it does - according to my reading of the document, the President's job is to administer the laws created by congress with some latitude, in the areas of military and foreign relations, to make quick decisions as necessary. But the big lesson from all this is that my senator, McConnell, stole the SCOTUS seat from Obama and those of us who support democracy should have been rioting in the streets. I think that I assumed that it was really only posturing because there was no way that Trump was going to be president, so it was a matter of delay and not really all that important. How come Democrats have won 6 out of 7 of the last presidential popular votes but we could have a conservative Supreme Court for a generation? All pray for RBG. Please.

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RayThom
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And So It Begins...

Post by RayThom »

According to FUXNews:

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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

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Crackpot
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Crackpot »

It was a mistake. Mind you at this point giving Trump another Supreme Court appointment would probably lead me to standing in the street wearing a sandwich board
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: And So It Begins...

Post by BoSoxGal »

RayThom wrote:According to FUXNews:

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Such a despicable thing for them to do - I doubt very much it wasn’t intentional. :arg
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Joe Guy
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Joe Guy »

Regarding the transgenders in the military issue, wasn't the reason for the ruling "against" transgenders in the military only applicable to those undergoing the transformation while serving? I haven't really followed the issue very closely but that would actually make sense to me.

Pardon me while I prepare for Scooter's response...
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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Scooter »

No, the ban was not limited in that way.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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