Oh lord.

Scott Adams. Wikipedia Commons.

Scott Adams. Wikipedia Commons.

I’m, uh, short on words here. I’m sure Mr. Adams feels he is relevant, and other people must feel that way too, but relevant to political discourse? I was unaware that he mattered when it came to politics. Except as a voter, of course. I don’t know if this clever, assholism, or possibly a mental issue of some sort.

…“This past week we saw Clinton pair the idea of President Trump with nuclear disaster, racism, Hitler, the Holocaust, and whatever else makes you tremble in fear,” Adams wrote on his personal blog.

Adams, who last week said he realized Donald Trump was no “crazy clown” but was actually a master of persuasion, said Clinton’s new line of attack would personally, specifically and certainly imperil him in a racist eruption against white people.

“The only downside I can see to the new approach is that it is likely to trigger a race war in the United States,” Adams said. “And I would be a top-ten assassination target in that scenario because once you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms.”

[…]

“So I’ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, for my personal safety,” Adams said. “Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I’m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.”

Via Raw Story.

Look Past Pink And Blue Campaign.

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New York City Commission on Human Rights

“Use the restroom consistent with who you are,” say the ads, sponsored by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. They will appear in subway cars, bus shelters, phone booths, newspapers, and more. The ads will also run in ethnic newspapers in Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Russian, and Bengali.

“In NYC, it’s the law,” the ads say. “No questions asked.”

The campaign, which will cost $265,000, comes after transgender people filed complaints with the city about being barred from restrooms and facing other types of discrimination in places of public accommodation.

Seth Hoy, spokesperson for the Commission on Human Rights, told BuzzFeed News in a statement that the agency “has investigated such cases in the past and continues to receive and investigate complaints where individuals are harassed or denied entry to restrooms because of their actual or perceived gender identity.”

That sort of discrimination is illegal in New York City.

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New York City Commission on Human Rights

In December, the commission released enforcement guidance on gender identity protections under the city’s 2002 nondiscrimination law, making clear that transgender people are entitled to access restrooms consistent with their gender.

Mayor Bill de Blasio followed up in March with an executive order directing agencies to provide access to single­-sex facilities without requiring people to show identification or other documents that verify their gender.

The ads feature trans New Yorkers, including Alisha King and Charles Solidum.

“Bathroom discrimination is a regular occurrence for the transgender community,” King said in a statement. “So much so that many of us avoid even using public restrooms to begin with. I sincerely hope these ads help people understand that transgender people are just people just like you. We just want to use the restroom safely and be treated with respect.”

Via Buzzfeed.

McCrory: I’ll Stand Firm.

Andrew Dye/Journal.

Andrew Dye/Journal.

Gov. Pat McCrory said he will continue to fight for a “respect for privacy” in the face of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over the state’s controversial “bathroom bill.”

McCrory was speaking at North Carolinians for Home Education’s annual conference, being held this week at the Benton Convention Center.

McCrory praised the several hundred families in the crowd for their choice to home school their children. He said it’s important for families to have choices about educating their children and for leaders to respect all of those choices.

[…]

“One other advantage of home schooling is you aren’t going to have the president, the attorney general or the mayor of Charlotte telling you what bathroom (to use),” he said, to a standing ovation.

[…]

McCrory said he would support unisex bathrooms for transgender students, saying that we should give kids with “special needs and unique needs” an option.

“But don’t change the norms that have been working for generations,” he said.

“Special needs and unique needs”? FFS, how dense can McCrory get here? This is as simple as it gets: transgender woman = woman. Transgender man = man. Transgender girl = girl. Transgender boy = boy. It’s quite interesting how McCrory thinks that unisex lavs are great…for those weird people. Not so great for actual people, eh, Pat? I have a question about these wonderful, unisex, transgender persons only lavs, Pat – who is going to police them to keep all the cis people out? Perhaps all cis people should be made to go through years of red tape to get a special identification, and absolutely must be karyotyped!

McCrory blamed the kerfuffle on Democrats, saying there were no issues with bathroom rules until the Charlotte City Council passed a nondiscrimination ordinance to provide legal protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people that included language would allow transgender individuals to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender with which they identify. HB2 was passed in a one-day special session to reverse Charlotte’s ordinance.

Tsk. You’d think those ‘norms’ that had been working great for generations wouldn’t have gotten knocked down by a bit of non-discrimination. Also, this is a “kerfuffle”? People’s lives. Legislation of hatred, fear, and bigotry. Inciting hatred and harm. Kerfuffle. Fuck you, McCrory. I hope you go down in a blaze of shame, a sad footnote on the rigid, atrophied thinking of a conservative bigot.

Via Winston-Salem Journal.

Finding Middle Ground For Bigotry and Fear.

Maya Dillard Smith.

Maya Dillard Smith.

Maya Dillard Smith, the interim director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, has resigned from her position because she does not support the organization’s fight for the right of transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.

Smith reportedly said the ACLU is advocating for trans rights at the expense of safety for women and children.

[…]

Smith claimed that transgender rights have “intersectionality with other competing rights, particularly the implications for women’s rights.” She said that when her young daughters shared a bathroom with transgender women, it made her worry the children would be harmed. “I have shared my personal experience of having taken my elementary school age daughters into a women’s restroom when shortly after three transgender young adults over six feet with deep voices entered,” she wrote in the statement.

So, if three young adults, over six feet tall, with deep voices, who were afab entered, that would be okey dokey? This couldn’t possibly be about your own perceptions and prejudices, right?

She went on to say that her “children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer.”

So, you’re ill-prepared. What you should have done from there was to embark on an education, learn, go out and meet a few transgender people, listen. Share that education with your children. Oh, but no, can’t have that! Instead, your lack of learning must be enshrined, and your willful ignorance paraded about, spreading fear and lies.

“Despite additional learning I still have to do, I believe there are solutions that provide can provide accommodations for transgender people and balance the need to ensure women and girls are safe from those who might have malicious intent.”

Because transgender people might be people, but they can’t be women! You just can’t take the chance of allowing a woman in a womens’ lav, too dangerous.

In an interview with Atlanta TV station WXIA, Smith argued that cisgender (nontrans) women should not have to share bathrooms with trans women because it could be”traumatic.” “If we have all-gender restrooms which will accommodate trans folks, what do we do about women who are the survivors of rape, for whom it would be traumatic to share a public restroom where you take down your underwear, and there’d be men in the bathroom,” she said.

Auuugh, no, no, no. You do not get to hold up rape survivors as free PR, claiming to care about us, while having the nerve to speak for all of us. By the way, Ms. Smith, a lot of transgender people, including trans women, have been raped. Are you speaking for them, too?

Smith has launched a website called Finding Middle Ground that features a video of a young girl talking about “boys in the girls’ bathroom.” “There’s some boys who feel like they’re girls on the inside and there’s some boys that are just perverts,” says the young girl in the ad. A caption appears on the screen after she speaks that reads “How do we keep ourl ittle girls safe and prevent transgender discrimination?”

This is the same exact shite Ted Cruz was putting out, with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

Full Story Here.

We Will Line Up For Crucifixion to Defend Our Bigotry.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Well, Misssissippi Governor Phil Bryant must be bursting with pride – he’s made Right Wing Watch. ‘Over the top’, melodramatic, dramatic, glurgetastic, none of these is an adequate descriptor anymore. A brand new word is needed.

At least week’s Watchmen on the Wall conference, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins presented Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant with the first ever “Samuel Adams Religious Freedom Award” for having signed a radical anti-LGBT bill into law earlier this year that will allow businesses to deny service to gay people.

While introducing the governor, Perkins said that America’s elected leaders should be “ministers of God,” while Bryant praised the hate group leader as something of a modern-day David.

[…]

Later, Bryant recalled how “all of the secular progressive world had decided that they were going to pour their anger” out on him for pledging to sign the legislation, wrongly thinking that he could be pressured into backing down because they were unaware that Christians like him would line up to be crucified before turning their backs on Jesus.

“They don’t know us very well, do they?” he asked. “They don’t know that Christians have been persecuted throughout the ages. They don’t know that if it takes crucifixion, we will stand in line before abandoning our faith and our belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So if we are going to stand, now is the time and this is the place.”

Gee, Phil, did you ask all the other Christians if they are good with being crucified?

 

Trump’s Last Stand.

Photo courtesy of Rep. Kevin Cramer via Facebook.

Photo courtesy of Rep. Kevin Cramer via Facebook.

Ruth Hopkins at ICTMN has a scathing column about Trump’s recent visit to Bismarck, ND., and his happy little follower, the nightmare known as Kevin Cramer.

On Thursday, Donald Trump, flanked by enthusiastic brown noser Congressman Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who pushed for legislation that makes it more difficult for Natives to vote and threatened to “wring Tribal council’s necks” while making Native women cry at a state gathering on domestic violence a few years ago, appeared in Bismarck, North Dakota.

During a press conference, he couldn’t resist tearing into Senator Elizabeth Warren, once again referring to her as “Pocahontas.”

[…]

Let’s be clear: Donald Trump isn’t calling Senator Warren “Pocahontas” to honor her. He is using it in a derogatory manner, to belittle and insult her. This is what he thinks of Native people and women in general. Such statements are not only arrogant, they’re misogynistic and racially charged.

[…]

Trump shows us time and again that he has no respect for women, and by continuing to use the term “Pocahontas” as a racial slur, he is showing us his particular distain for Native people and women, especially. Because of stereotypes like the Pocahottie that fetishize and hypersexualize Native women, we continue to be preyed upon by non-Natives who see us as exotic objects meant purely for sexual gratification. There is a 1 in 3 likelihood that a Native woman will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Through Native provisions in the Violence Against Women Act, tribes are working to close loopholes that allow non-Native men to escape legal prosecution for beating and raping Native women on tribal lands. Canada’s First Nations are in the midst of an epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, a systemic problem that is finally getting the long overdue attention it deserves.

In spite of all of this, Donald Trump came to North Dakota, the homelands of Sitting Bull, where Native people are the largest minority in the state, and spat in our faces. He owes us all a sincere apology, but I’m not holding my breath. Trump has spent his campaign insulting everybody, including veterans and the disabled.

[…]

While in North Dakota, Trump secured 1,237 delegates, enough to garner the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Let that sink in. Donald Trump is so racist, that like flies to buffalo dung, white supremacists and the KKK flock to endorse him. This man, who doesn’t have enough self-control to hold his tongue for two seconds, could be in charge of nuclear weapons. Donald Trump, who never explains how or why on anything, has promised to use eminent domain to force pipelines like Keystone XL through tribal lands. He has said he would eliminate minimum wage. Native communities are already impoverished. You can bet that tribal funding will be cut under a Trump administration and trust responsibility will fall by the wayside as well. Not to mention, he talks out of both sides of his mouth and flips on a dime. The litany of disastrous policies he would put forth goes on and on. Do we really want the country to be another bullet on Donald’s list of failures? I’m Rez born and raised and I know a con when I see one. We’ve seen his kind before. Those who come to kill and destroy. Weaklings and cowards who fight with women. Trump is just another incarnation of George Armstrong Custer, and we got your Crazy Horse.

Full column here.

Trans Rights Will Provoke Last Judgment of God.

Youtube Screenshot. Carl Gallups at Trump Rally.

Youtube Screenshot. Carl Gallups at Trump Rally.

Carl Gallups, a far-right pastor who has been embraced by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, spoke with Charlottesville, Virginia, radio host Rob Schilling on Friday about the Obama administration’s recent directive on transgender rights in public schools, which he said was the sign of the impending End Times and a possible clue about something wrong in Obama’s “personal life.”

“For years I’ve been saying, ‘Look, look, we’re living in very prophetic times,’” Gallups said. “Israel is back in the land, Russia and China are in the Middle East, ISIS has exploded, Christianity is being exterminated, on and on down the list you can go … And so, now, we turn to what Jesus said in Luke 17. He said, ‘Look, in the very last days before my return, it’s going to be just like it was in the days of Lot, Sodom and Gomorrah, the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah will sweep the planet.’ And we’re watching that happen before our eyes.”

He said that “it’s not just Christians” who are upset about policies allowing transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity because even “ultra-liberal people … don’t want their little six-year-old girl molested in the bathroom because some hairy guy decides he feels like a girl that day and follows their little pretty little girl into the bathroom under federal decree.”

[…]

Earlier in the interview, Gallups speculated that there is “something” in Obama’s “personal life that would cause him to be absolutely fixated upon this sexual deviancy and this danger to our children and this perversion and insanity and this whole fixation upon this radical transgender movement.”

He hinted that this “something” might have to do with pornography, noting that the president’s official Twitter account, which is run by staffers at the Organizing for Action organization, has been found to follow some porn stars among the more than 636,000 accounts it follows.

“So, it’s demonic,” Gallups said, “and there obviously is a fixation upon this with the man in the White House now.

22.

When Grover Cleveland, an assimilation supporter, started his first term, an estimated 260,000 American Indians lived on 171 reservations comprising 134 million acres of land in 21 states. Whitehouse.gov

When Grover Cleveland, an assimilation supporter, started his first term, an estimated 260,000 American Indians lived on 171 reservations comprising 134 million acres of land in 21 states. Whitehouse.gov

The day before Grover Cleveland took office as the 22nd president of the United States, Congress passed the Major Crimes Act of 1885, providing for federal jurisdiction over seven major crimes committed by Indians on their own land.

The act came in response to Ex Parte Crow Dog, an 1883 Supreme Court decision that upheld tribal sovereignty over criminal matters. The case, which marked the first time in history an Indian was tried for the murder of another Indian, began in 1881 when Crow Dog, a member of the Brule band of the Lakota Sioux, shot and killed Spotted Tail, a chief on the Rosebud Sioux reservation.

In a unanimous and condescending decision, the Supreme Court found that federal courts lacked jurisdiction over Indian-on-Indian crimes on reservation land and that Brule law—not federal—governed the reservation. Subjecting Indians to federal law, the court ruled, would “impose upon them the restraints of an external and unknown code” that Indians lacked the ability to understand.

“It tries them not by their peers, nor by the customs of their people, nor the law of their land, but by superiors of a different race,” the justices wrote in their opinion. Doing so would amount to “measur(ing) the red man’s revenge by the maxims of the white man’s morality.”

Congress reacted to the ruling with the Major Crimes Act, claiming the high court undercut federal efforts to assimilate Indians into mainstream America. The act placed under federal jurisdiction the crimes of murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, maiming, rape, incest and assault with intent to commit murder.

The act was one of three devastating measures enacted during Cleveland’s first term in office that undermined tribal sovereignty and robbed Indians of land. Cleveland in 1887 signed the Dawes Act, which authorized the President to divide Indian land into individual allotments. Two years later, he signed the Indian Appropriations Act, officially opening “unassigned lands” to white settlers.

The Full Article is Here.

Photographing the Real Barack Obama.

Hat tip to Opus. Amazing, wonderful photos of our president, taken by Pete Souza.

Feb 2016 – Obama touches the face of three-year-old Clark Reynolds, in one of Souza’s most moving photographs.

Feb 2016 – Obama touches the face of three-year-old Clark Reynolds, in one of Souza’s most moving photographs.

 

Oct 2009 – The president jostles with congressmen during a basketball game at the White House.

Oct 2009 – The president jostles with congressmen during a basketball game at the White House.

More photos and full article here.

The Libertarian Presidential Nominee is…

Gary Johnson.

Gary Johnson.

ORLANDO, FLA. — Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson won the Libertarian presidential nomination on second ballot at the Libertarian National Convention today, and while he expects socially liberal voters will gravitate toward his candidacy, particular constituencies like LGBT activists will need to come to him rather than the other way around.

“It’s never been my tactic to reach out to anybody,” Johnson told The Advocate after securing his party’s nomination. “The message that I have is the same message no matter whom I’m addressing, and the most effective reach-out is just saying the things that should be said. In that context, the LBGT [sic] community should embrace what it is that we’re saying.”

Late in the afternoon, the party also nominated former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, Johnson’s hand-picked running mate, as the vice presidential nominee. That came a day after Weld made a direct appeal to LGBT voters, noting his history of nominating the first state Supreme Court justice to hold marriage equality as a constitutional right.

Normally, I’d say doesn’t have a snowball’s chance, but with Trump splitting voters all over the place, nothing is certain anymore.

The Advocate has the full story.

Make that Twelve. Again.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin speaks during the 145th NRA Convention inside Freedom Hall on Friday afternoon. May 20, 2016(Photo: Alton Strupp/The Courier-Journal)

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin speaks during the 145th NRA Convention inside Freedom Hall on Friday afternoon. May 20, 2016(Photo: Alton Strupp/The Courier-Journal)

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Kentucky is joining 11 other states in their lawsuit against the federal government over its transgender bathroom guidelines.

“The federal government has no authority to dictate local school districts’ bathroom and locker room policies,” Gov. Matt Bevin said in a statement Friday announcing Kentucky will join the case. “The Obama administration’s transgender policy ‘guidelines’ are an absurd federal overreach into a local issue.”

Also in his news release, the Republican governor took a swipe at Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear.

“Unfortunately, Attorney General Andy Beshear is unwilling to protect Kentucky’s control over local issues,” he said. “Therefore, my administration will do so by joining this lawsuit. We are committed to protecting the 10th Amendment and fighting federal overreach into state and local issues.”

Beshear responded that Bevin’s statement “is not truthful.”

Beshear’s statement said, The Office of the Attorney General has been closely reviewing this matter. On the day the federal government issued its guidance, the governor stated he was researching legal options. I expected to be consulted on those options, but my office has not received a single phone call from the governor or his attorneys on this matter … Sadly, this is another example of the governor’s office playing politics instead of trying to work with us.”

The Full Story Here.

Back to Eleven.

Attorney General Jim Hood. AP Photo.

Attorney General Jim Hood. AP Photo.

Yesterday, Gov. Phil Bryant hollered “Twelve!”, referring to his state joining up with eleven others to sue the government over transgender rights. Today, it seems the Governor is on his own:

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood says the state will not be joining a lawsuit against the federal government, despite Gov. Phil Bryant’s plan to be involved.

“Gov. Bryant has now joined the suit on behalf of his office, but not the state,” Hood said Thursday in an online statement, referring to the governor’s plan to bypass his authority. “Only the attorney general can represent our state in such lawsuits, which includes all branches of government and, more important, all of the people of our state. I cannot lend the name of the state of Mississippi to this lawsuit.”

Clay Chandler, a spokesman for the governor, told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., that the  Democratic attorney general refused to join in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by Texas and 10 other states. The 11 states are suing the Obama administration over the guidance it issued May 13 that suggests public schools respect the gender identity of transgender students. Chandler told the paper that the governor had plans to use one of his own staff attorneys in the suit.

[…]

Hood wrote in his online statement that transgender people have been using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity for many decades. “This activity by a small percentage of people has gone virtually unnoticed by our society for probably a century,” he continued.

Since there has been no “enforcement action brought by the federal government against a Mississippi school” because of the guidance, Hood says he will not be taking steps toward joining the lawsuit at this time.

I’d feel better if Hood hadn’t tacked on an “at this time”, but at least it is a sensible reaction, a rare commodity these days. Full Story Here.