Gift link:
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An illustrated children’s book about siblings who build a dog house together was errantly placed on a watch list of books to be potentially removed from the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library (HCPL) system in Alabama simply because its author’s last name was “Gay.”
AL.com reports that “Read Me a Story, Stella” by author Marie-Louise Gay was put on a list of potentially “sexually explicit” books despite the fact that it contains absolutely nothing about sex.
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Yup, that’s what’s happening in the “Smartest City in Alabama” (laugh/cry). Moms For Liberty has started their bullshit here.
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to be fair, most - dare i say even all? - children’s books including gay people also have absolutely nothing to do with sex.
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She was referring to her “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would ban transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care and make it harder for trans adults to get such care by banning government insurance programs from paying for it and banning medical schools from teaching about it.
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Classic.
Absolutely classic.
Gotta hand it to ol’ Paxton there, he’s completely beyond the griftastic pale in a shameless, unimaginative way.
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He just can’t let it go, can he? Even though he and the Texas GOP would best serve themselves by trying to get voters to forget about the impeachment and the bribery that resulted in Paxton getting away with it.
But he can’t do the smart thing. It was a personal insult to bring attention to his corruption and now he’s going to try everything he can to hurt the people who brought it to light. Even though it just reminds everyone of exactly how corrupt he is and how broken the state GOP is. The rifts keep getting deeper
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Though this part is heartening a little bit.
In an open letter posted Wednesday, 21 past and present BGCT leaders railed against Abbott’s so-called “School Choice Sunday" initiative, which asked Texas faith leaders to tell their partitioners to support school vouchers. The Republican governor’s request violates the separation of church and state, the leaders argue.
“It is out of bounds for any representative of the government to co-opt a Sunday morning time of worship,” states the letter, whose signers include BGCT President Ronny Marriott and Executive Director-Elect Julio Guarneri. “A government’s request for churches to join a legislative agenda violates the conscience concerning religious liberty and the separation of church and state. Churches that too closely entwine with political affairs hamper both their Christian witness and citizenship responsibilities.”
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possibly something to do with understanding their parishioners as well
https://text.npr.org/1204286645
In Texas, like in many red states, the opposition comes in part from Republicans themselves, particularly those representing rural areas. Just to put that in perspective, there are about 1,200 school districts in Texas, and about 730 of them are rural or nonmetropolitan. And school districts tend to be the biggest employer in those communities, and everything revolves around that.
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Jumping into her striped pink pajamas, Juliet, a 7-year-old transgender girl, snuggles next to her mom on her bed as they talk about everything from video games, to transition, to life in their Eastside apartment. Above them, Juliet’s twin brother, Keegan, holds tightly onto his father on the top bunk of the bunk beds in their shared room.
The twins’ room has a large framed Super Mario Bros. poster; dinosaur toys and action figures are scattered on the floor. They also share a walk-in closet partly filled with some of Juliet’s strawberry-themed dresses and accessories.
Around this time last year, the twins and their parents Susan and Brian were fleeing Austin, Texas, to protect Juliet from a wave of anti-trans laws and policies in the state. To protect their privacy, the parents asked that the family’s last name be withheld, and that pseudonyms be used for their children to avoid transphobia and harassment.
A year later, the family feels safer living in a state with strong protections for LGBTQ+ people. In the Pacific Northwest, Susan and Brian say they’ve found freedom and joy, safety for Juliet and Keegan and even some room for Brian to explore his own gender identity.
But they’re still adjusting to the life they’re building in Washington after leaving Texas, their home for over two decades. They’re now living on a single income, in a state more expensive than the one they moved from, and rebuilding their lives while far away from loved ones, including Susan’s twin sister.
Yet, despite the difficulties the move has presented, it was all worth it, the family says. For Susan and Brian especially, it’s worth the emotional security that comes with knowing that Juliet and Keegan can’t be taken away from them just because one of the twins is trans.
“I was just haunted by it and still am,” Susan said. “I get tears in my throat just talking about it even though I know we’re safe.”
The family is not alone.
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…
What shocked her was the way Trump interacted with the crowd. “He said something about how his supporters should knock the crap out of hecklers,” she recalls, “and that if they did, he would pay their legal bills.”His belligerent behavior meant more to Lee than it might to a casual viewer. As part of her clinical work in prison settings, she had evaluated and treated hundreds of violent offenders, including leaders of prison gangs. A native New Yorker, she had assumed that Trump “was just a shady businessman,” Lee told me, but “I suddenly realized that he had a lot in common” with those patients. “Trump was engaging in the predatory manipulation of his vulnerable followers.” In some cases, gang leaders might “ask their members to engage in violence and then issue bogus promises of protection. Like Trump, these leaders also often project extreme self-confidence, and that appeals to their followers, who tend to feel a deep emotional need for protection, connection, and identity.”
…
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Lovely little gem spotted on Fark this morning. Pretty obvious where that link eventually lead to 
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I wonder if it ever occurred to those Republicans that Mexico would have at least as much reason for declaring war against the United States due to all the freaking guns that are constantly being smuggled from our country into the hands of violent criminals south of the border.
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blaming mexico for a problem entirely created here (looking at you sacklers and perdue pharma, as well as the myriad influences of our own government over the decades-long “war on drugs”), is so fucking blind it defies any reality.of the cause.
this is not the fault of mexico or mexican people.
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