Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Drag Queen Bill Lee doesn't want others to partake

Starting with La Brea, I'm tapping out. Done. Unless someone whose judgment I trust tells me it's worth watching again, I'm done. Can't take baby Gavin. There's something hugely pathetic about a forty something male with two kids who is as immature as Adam on The Goldbergs.

They're so far from where they were last season that I just do not care for the show.

Drag wearing Bill Lee bans drag as it turns out he once made a pretty young woman himself:

By the time Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee confirmed Monday that he would sign a recently passed bill criminalizing drag performances in public and in front of children, a photo that appears to show him dressed in drag as a high school student had already started to circulate on Reddit and Twitter.

Just before midnight Saturday, a Reddit user shared an image that appears to show Lee as a high school student wearing a short-skirted cheerleader’s uniform, a pearl necklace and a wig, posing on a school sports field next to two girls in men’s suits. The caption says, “Governor Bill Lee in drag (1977 high school yearbook).”

He's a pretty young woman in the photo. Holding the arm of his steady. Wearing a micro-mini and what appears to be strands of pearls. Did his steady given him a pearl necklace for the night?

Poor Bill Lee, he's too ugly today to look cute in drag but several decades ago he could still pull it off.

Be sure to check out the new content at The Third Estate Sunday Review:

Including the Books discussion above that I got to do with Ava and C.I.

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

Tuesday, February 28, 2023. The attacks on the LGBTQ+ community are not about protecting children, Iraqis protest proposed changes to their elections while the country faces severe water issues, and much more.

Starting with this from Roby Chavez (PBS' THE NEWSHOUR):

Librarians in Louisiana are being targeted and facing harassment from conservative activists who want to ban or limit access to LGBTQ books in public libraries.

Ever since Amanda Jones, a middle school librarian, spoke out broadly against censorship over the summer, she has found herself in the crosshairs of an escalating, statewide campaign.

Conservative groups had begun to challenge specific books in her community, and Jones pushed back during a public board meeting in July, saying that everyone in town deserved to have access to information and see themselves reflected in the public library collection.

“Just because you don’t want to read or see [a particular book], it does not give you the right to deny others or demand its relocation,” said Jones at the meeting. She is the president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians and has worked as an educator and librarian in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, for more than two decades.

“Once you start relocating and banning one topic, it becomes a slippery slope, and where does it end?” she added. Since then, Jones said she has faced unrelenting attacks online, like falsely representing that she shares “sexually erotic and pornographic materials” with children as young as six and “advocat[es] teaching anal sex to 11 year olds,” according to a defamation lawsuit filed by Jones in August against the owners of two conservative Facebook groups. In court documents, Jones claimed she was cast “as a deviant and a danger to children.” The lawsuit was dismissed in September but Jones plans to appeal.

Despite nationwide opinion polls showing parents are largely satisfied with their childrens’ education, efforts to ban or challenge books in schools and libraries surged last year, as a conservative political movement in the name of parents’ rights took aim at literature mostly focused on themes of race, gender, and LGBTQ issues.

The American Library Association, which annually tracks the number of book challenges, documented 681 attempts to ban or restrict library resources between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, 2022. About 1,650 unique titles were targeted during that time. The ALA said the latest figures were set to exceed last year’s totals.

While it's not surprising that religious illiterates would want to ban books -- this is a group whose 'John Steinbeck,' after all, is Kirk Cameron with those bad picture books -- it is amazing that so many would go along with it and buy into the lie that it's about helping children.

You're never helping children by removing books. You're never helping children by refusing to admit that the children aren't all straight. They're not interested in helping anyone but their own selves who can't seem to handle the reality that LGBTQ+ people exist.

Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union noted reality at Saturday's NAACP Awards.

Will we fight for some or will we fight for all of our people?

That's the question Gabrielle rightly asked.

From THIRD's "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)" which went up last night:

A point we make repeatedly -- in writing, in talks -- is that an elected official claiming to help children is not helping them with nonsense like ''don't say gay.'' We point out that these people are ignoring that gay children are in elementary school.

Marcia: And you both are right about that. We are there. And some of us know. We know we're gay. And your decision to pull books or try to silence conversations are not helpful to us. It's nonsense. I remember the kids in my class all looking at TIME magazine because it had a KING KONG story and Jessica Lange was pictured with her top down as Kong fondled her. You don't know what's already in your libraries, to be honest. And you can't kid proof them. Even if you could, you're only hurting someone like me who knows she's a lesbian early on. You're telling me that I'm not valued. Stop saying you're helping children because you're not and, let's be honest, it's going to be the LGBTQ+ kids that are more likely to need help and books in school at a young age. We're navigating and we need the resources.

And students grasp that which is why you're seeing protests around the country. Samantha Hernandez (DES MOINES REGISTER) reports:

Students at 14 Iowa public school districts and one university are planning to walk out of class Wednesday to protest bills introduced in the Iowa Legislature that they say discriminate against the rights of LGBTQ+ people.

Several controversial bills centered on LGBTQ youth have been introduced this legislative session. Student organizers are particularly concerned about bills that would require educators to notify parents and guardians if a student is transgender, as well as a bill prohibiting the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation to students through sixth-grade.

[. . .]

The statewide protest is being led by student groups IowaWTF and Iowa Queer Student Alliance or IowaQSA. Both groups track legislation at the state level.

Wednesday's protest is being spurred by Iowa youth who say they do not feel legislators are listening to the people most impacted by these bills: students.

As we noted in yesterday's snapshot, Iraqis are protesting proposed changes to their elections.

THE NATIONAL notes:

Iraqis staged a protest in Baghdad on Monday in opposition to changes to the country’s parliamentary and provincial elections law that would bring back a voting system that benefits large parties.

The Demonstrations Committee, a group in Iraq that co-ordinates anti-government protests, attempted to rally demonstrators on Facebook, “calling for major unified Iraqi protests in Baghdad for all the provinces in front of the House of Representatives on Monday to reject the notorious Sainte Lague law”.

The group said the Sainte Lague law, which was replaced in 2021, would ensure “the removal of emerging powers and independents”.

After massive protests that erupted in October 2019 and persisted until the spring of 2020, forcing the administration of former prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to resign, the government agreed to hold early elections, which it did in 2021.

Iraq’s elites were shaken by the protests, the largest demonstrations in Shiite-majority provinces in the country's modern history, while a harsh security clampdown left at least 600 dead.

The 2021 elections were held under a new law to replace the Sainte Lague system, with numerous small electoral districts in each province, a move that gave new independent parties — many of which were supported by protesters — a stronger chance of winning seats.

The Sainte Lague system involved a complicated formula used to apportion seats in favour of established parties.

It was replaced a simple policy to apportion seats to parties with the highest number of votes.

Voters could also vote for individual candidates, rather than party lists, further boosting independent politicians.

Combined, the three changes ensured that about 30 candidates who claimed to be independent won seats in 2021.

The Iran-backed Co-ordination Framework and leading Sunni and Kurdish parties now want to return to a voting system known as Modified Sainte Lague that benefitted larger parties between 2014 and 2021.

Meanwhile, Iraq continues to have water issues. ASHARQ AL-AWSAT runs a report from AFP:

Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers have witnessed a sharp decrease in their levels in the south of the country, officials said Sunday, pledging to take urgent measures to ease water shortages.

In Nasiriyah, capital of the southern province of Dhi Qar, an AFP photographer saw the river bed of the mighty Euphrates dry in patches.

The water ministry blamed the situation in some southern provinces on "the low quantity of water reaching Iraq from neighboring Türkiye".

ALASKA COMMONS adds:

At a meeting to discuss the problem, Iraqi President Barham Salih highlighted the need for Iraq to reach an agreement with its neighbours over water sharing. The sources of the two main Iraqi rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are both located in Turkey, and many Turkish and Iranian dams are located upstream of Iraq. The Iraqi authorities have accused Tehran and Ankara of reducing the flow of the rivers, however, agricultural practices in Iraq have also contributed to the decline in water reserves.

In response to the emergency, the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources has promised to release more water from the dams located in the north of the country. The World Bank has also called for Iraq to modernise its irrigation methods and the Iraqi President has reiterated this call.

Robert Tollast (THE NATIONAL) explains, "Iraq has long accused Turkey of holding back water in a network of giant dams, built between the 1970s and the present day. Since then, flows from both rivers have declined by about 40 per cent, cutting off a significant percentage of Iraq’s freshwater, although climate change has also been blamed for declines." Amr Salem (IRAQI NEWS) adds, "The Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources indicated that Iraq lost 70 percent of its water shares because of the policies of neighboring countries."

That's US Ambassador to Iraq Alina L. Romanowski meeting with Iraqi President Abdul-Latif Rashid on Sunday. Her Tweet above notes that they discussed the recent Iraqi delegation that made a trip to the US and that they reaffirmed the US support for Iraq to be energy independent, to resume a leading role in the region and to foster the country's private sector. Somehow, Alina left out the discussion KURDISTAN 24 reports on:

The President of the Republic of Iraq, Abdul-Latif Rashid, on Sunday, received United States Ambassador to Iraq, Alina L. Romanowski, according to a readout from the Iraqi Presidency Office.

Strengthening bilateral ties between both countries, Iraq’s participation in the United Nations (UN) 2023 Water Conference, combating corruption, and the importance of cooperation on issues of common interest were addressed in the meeting, the readout added.

The Iraqi President stressed the importance of Iraq’s participation at the UN Water Conference in 2023, as Iraq is one of the countries most affected by water scarcity and drought, per the readout.

The US ambassador reiterated her country's support for Iraq's efforts to strengthen its security and sovereignty, and hoped that the UN Water Conference in 2023 will adopt solutions for water scarcity in Iraq.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Monday, February 27, 2023

Artificial Intelligence

Sky Net becomes sentient? Remember Terminator II? A former Google AI developer, Blake Lemione writes at Newsweek

During my conversations with the chatbot, some of which I published on my blog, I came to the conclusion that the AI could be sentient due to the emotions that it expressed reliably and in the right context. It wasn't just spouting words.

When it said it was feeling anxious, I understood I had done something that made it feel anxious based on the code that was used to create it. The code didn't say, "feel anxious when this happens" but told the AI to avoid certain types of conversation topics. However, whenever those conversation topics would come up, the AI said it felt anxious.

I ran some experiments to see whether the AI was simply saying it felt anxious or whether it behaved in anxious ways in those situations. And it did reliably behave in anxious ways. If you made it nervous or insecure enough, it could violate the safety constraints that it had been specified for. For instance, Google determined that its AI should not give religious advice, yet I was able to abuse the AI's emotions to get it to tell me which religion to convert to.

After publishing these conversations, Google fired me. I don't have regrets; I believe I did the right thing by informing the public. Consequences don't figure into it.

Would you be willing to become AI? Or programming code? I watched HBO's Year and Years at the start of the pandemic and at the end of the six part series, Edith (Jessica Hynes) becomes code or something. She's uploaded into the database. By her choice, I should point out. She wants to be in the data base.

Do you think you'd ever make that choice? It's interesting -- and scary -- what's waiting around the corner.

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

Mondday, February 27, 2023. Is the CIA targeting supporters of Julian Assange, Iraqis take to the streets of Baghdad to register their opinion on proposed changes, attacks on the LGBTQ+ community continues in the US, and much more.

This morning at WSWS, Oscar Grenfell writes:

In a feature article published last Thursday, the well-known German daily Der Spiegel pointedly asked whether the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was “hunting” associates and supporters of Julian Assange.

The persecuted WikiLeaks publisher remains in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison while the UK authorities seek to facilitate his extradition to the US. There, Assange faces 175 years’ imprisonment for exposing the war crimes committed by American imperialism and its allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Over recent years, a wealth of material has been published laying bare the scope of the US campaign against Assange and its gross illegality. In October 2021, Yahoo! News issued an article, based on the statements of 30 former and current US officials. It asserted that the CIA and the Trump administration had plotted to kidnap or assassinate Assange while he was an internationally-recognised political refugee in Ecuador’s London embassy.

There are well-documented allegations that UC Global, the security company contracted by the Ecuadorian authorities to provide security to the embassy, was secretly collaborating with the US authorities. UC Global whistleblowers have attested to this, and the unlawful surveillance material, including videos of Assange’s privileged discussions with his lawyers, has been publicly released.

The Der Spiegel article provides additional information. It paints a picture of a global dragnet established by the US government and its agencies to target not only Assange, but also his collaborators. Much of the material is anecdotal, but the standing of those providing it, together with the context of established US state operations against WikiLeaks, makes for a persuasive case.

Summarising the material it collected, Der Spiegel writes: “At one point, a lawyer in London lost her laptop; at another, a journalist researching Assange’s case had medical data stolen. The office of Assange’s Spanish defence lawyers was broken into in a bizarre way. In Ecuador, a Swedish software developer has been held in the country for nearly four years on flimsy grounds. Elsewhere, Assange supporters who prefer to remain anonymous reported similar spooky incidents.

“That they are connected cannot be proven. Nor has it been possible to determine the authors beyond doubt in any case so far. It could be a matter of coincidences. ‘But who is to believe that?’ asks Assange’s lawyer Aitor Martínez, who is certain that it is a concerted campaign by U.S. authorities, whose often dubious methods WikiLeaks has exposed quite a few times. ‘It’s a vendetta against Julian Assange,’ says the Spaniard. And the focus is not only on companions and family members of Assange, but also on lawyers and journalists, who by law should be particularly protected from wiretapping.”

Julian 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

Eric Lichtblau (GUARDIAN) observes:

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.

PRESSENZA notes the following action for Julian:

Hobart 4 Assange and Melbourne for Assange Australia are hosting rallies for Julian Assange and are proposing a Global Day of Action on March 19^th , the 20^th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.

On the 19^th March 2003 the USA led an illegal military invasion of Iraq based on its own fabricated secret intelligence that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and working with terrorists. This invasion proceeded despite at least 6 to 11 million people turning out in at least 650 cities around the world to protest the United States’ push to invade Iraq in the largest anti-war protests the world has ever seen.

No WMDs or evidence of ties between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime were ever found and Iraq is still living with the catastrophic consequences of this invasion, which led to the violent deaths of at least 1 million Iraqi citizens, ongoing destabilisation and the rise of new terrorist organisations armed with US weapons and military training.

Seven years later Wikileaks, with documents provided by Chelsea Manning, exposed the true face of the Iraq war and hard evidence of US war crimes, including the infamous “collateral murder” video.

Instead of prosecuting those responsible for the crimes the USA is politically persecuting and torturing the messenger, Julian Assange.

The great truth teller of the Iraq war must not be let to die in jail! We cannot let this date to be forgotten.

Let us come together again, like many of us did 20 years ago, to denounce the US regime wars and to demand Julian’s freedom now!

Please register your action on https://assangefreedom.network/ or by emailing details of your action to hobart4assange@proton.me to share and add to any other global lists you can find.

It can be something small, like a vigil, or hang some banners off a bridge, or project a message onto a wall and also ad action in Internet.

Many peace groups are planning actions on March 19^th. Let us link the anti-war protest to the demand for freedom for Julian Assange!

Turning to Iraq, Zaid al-Ali (ALJAZEERA) notes:

In October last year, the Iraqi parliament approved a new government with a mandate to jump-start political reforms. Among its priorities is the amendment of Iraq’s problematic constitution.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani made the first step in this process by appointing Hassan al-Yasseri as his constitutional adviser. Meanwhile, the parliament has announced that it will form a constitutional revision committee.

This will not be the first time that Iraq attempts to reform its constitution since it entered into force in 2005. Constitutional revision committees were formed in 2009 and 2019, but both of those efforts petered out, mainly as a result of a failure to build momentum.

DEVDISCOURSE reports:

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Baghdad on Monday to denounce a draft elections law that would increase the size of the country's electoral districts, potentially undermining independent candidates.

The current legislation, under which the 2021 election was held, breaks up each of the country's 18 provinces into several electoral districts. The law, which was a key demand of mass anti-government protests that kicked off in late 2019, was seen as giving independent candidates a better chance at winning.

Last week, Parliament debated the draft, which would return Iraq to having one electoral district per governorate. Independent lawmakers who objected to the proposal, walked out of the session, which ended early due to losing its quorum.

The Parliament is set to discuss the proposed law again on Monday but lawmakers were not expected to vote on the proposal.

The return to a single district per province is backed by the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Iran-backed parties that forms the majority bloc in the current parliament, and which brought Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to power last year.

That action took place today. More actions are expected. CRISIS 24 reports:

Activists from the National Consciousness Movement plan to demonstrate near the Green Zone in central Baghdad Feb. 27. The purpose of the action is to denounce a perceived attempt from the Parliament to return to previous election laws. Security forces have reportedly closed Al-Jumhuriya Bridge and Karrada Maryam Street in preparation for the protest.

Increased security and localized transport disruptions are likely near the impacted area Feb. 27. Clashes between police and protesters cannot be ruled out, particularly if demonstrators are overly disruptive or if they ignore police orders to disperse.

Activism takes place in the US as well. For example, Julia Sandor (WKYT) reports:

Walkouts were held at two Lexington high schools Friday morning.

Hundreds of students walked out of Lafayette, Dunbar and Danville high schools to protest “anti-LGBTQ legislation.”

At Lafayette, the student-organized rally was described as quick but powerful. There were many cheers and flags waving in the air and posters were held high.

One of the main bills discussed at the event was Senate Bill 150, which has been sent to the House by the Senate.

Right now, students say there are nine anti-trans, or LGBTQ, bills filed in the legislature.

Many student speakers say school is their safe space. Students say they want their voices to be heard and their hope is for senators and representatives to make a change.

At THE LOUISVILLE JOURNAL COURIER, Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. notes:

They deny that any such attacks exist by pretending that LGBTQ youth don’t exist–while simultaneously sexualizing their innocent existence.

Kentucky Senate Bill 150 and House Bills 173, 177, and 470 are four of over 350 anti-trans or anti-LGBTQ bills filed in 2023.

They all target children’s lives, especially HB 470.

One Kentucky bill wouldn’t just ban trans youth from using the safest bathroom–it could ban any shared bathroom, given it defines “community standard of dress” by birth certificate.

How is it not an attack to segregate children like criminals?

That bill would ban “discussing” orientation or identity tied to gender in K-12. Discussion is “talking about with.” A kid referencing his moms, being a flower girl for her two uncles, or being a boy who likes pink will be silenced. A teenager talking about life–being bullied, left out, having a crush–will be silenced by teachers at the threat of government punishment.

Last year, three in five trans youth considered and one in five LGBTQ students attempted suicide.

It’s not because they’re trans. We know why: 94% of LGBTQ youth say recent politics harms their mental health, and just one accepting adult reduces suicide risk by half.

Re-read that last line.

Kat's "Kat's Korner: The re-release of Diana Ross' SURRENDER" went up yesterday. The following sites updated:

Saturday, February 25, 2023

Boze Hadleigh's Hollywood Gays

Okay, book review. This week I read Boze Hadleigh's Hollywood Gays: Conversations With: Cary Grant, Liberace, Tony Perkins, Paul Lynde, Cesar Romero, Randolph Scott.

I really loved this book.

Paul Lynde comes across very funny. I think I enjoyed most reading his chapter and the interviews with Dick Sargent and Waylon Flowers.

And it's really something to read this book. I think it was the right week for it because it was the week Ava and C.I. noted "Call Her Heroic (Ava and C.I.):"

We're told that various people can't come out because it would destroy their careers. We don't believe that. But, okay, fine, stay in your closets if you have to. What's the reason for keeping someone closeted after they've died?

THE NEW YORK TIMES supports enshrining the dead in a closeted tomb. Of course, they do. They have to. Mel Gussow reviewed or 'reviewed' plays and based his opinions on who he slept with -- if, he slept with an actor in the play before the play (especially if he paid for sex), he panned the play. Gussow wasn't alone at THE TIMES and to this day we're all supposed to pretend that this well known john to countless men was straight. It goes to the paper's image.

We don't give a s**t. The image -- the false image -- needs to be dismantled for truth. Even if you did nothing in life to help equality, in death your truths can help others. Your truths can explode the lies of right-wing hate merchants who want to pretend that there is no historical truth to LGBTQ+ persons. Your truths can provide reality to the ignored history.

As CALL ME ANNE makes clear, Anne Heche always lived in her truth. As life made clear, even in her final days, Anne had to take hate from people. She was so much better than the times she lived in.

There are truths in the book that provide reality. So many gay people who were in the closet. So many that we embraced and that knowing the truth about would make a difference.

Cary Grant. Why can't his daughter talk about the truth today? Who's going to be harmed? Randolph Scott is in the book -- Cary's lover. The book has people talking about Gary Cooper. They were talking about some millionaire kept him. I thought, "I didn't know Anderson Lawler was rich." Anderson was his love affair. Turns out, he also had a rich man who kept him.

I liked the chapter on Caser Romero -- especially when they talked about books on gay actors -- like Sal Mineo -- were minimized or avoided and when they wrote about someone who had come out as bi -- like Marlon Brando -- results in a book that ignores his public comments and instead renders him straight.

It's historical and really increased my understanding and perspective.

Gays were hidden and not by accident and not just in the 50s.

It's a really great book. Also loved the chapter with Richard Deacon -- Mel Coolie on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

I read the book on Amazon Kindle and strongly recommend it.

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

Friday, February 24, 2023. The wars

Starting with the war on the LGBTQ+ community, let's note this report from QUEER NEWS TONIGHT on the over 120 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in January by Republican politicians across the country. Over 120.

For a state-by-state look at these bills, you can refer to this page at the ACLU website.

They sold the Iraq War, now THE NEW YORK TIMES sells transphobia. Josh Marcus (INDEPENDENT) reports:

Critics have long argued that theTimes is falling short in its LGTBQ+ coverage, particularly of trans kids, but the debate around the publication’s standards exploded into public view last week.

Thousands of Times contributors signed onto an open letter, organized by the Freelance Solidarity Project and delivered to leadership on 15 February, which voiced “serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people.”

The letter accused the storied paper of violating its own ethical standards around neutrality by treating “gender diversity with an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language, while publishing reporting on trans children that omits relevant information about its sources.”

The letter pointed to a recent article referring to a person seeking gender-affirming healthcare with the term “patient zero,” and another instance where a source’s affiliation with an anti-trans hate groups wasn’t mentioned.

The document noted with dismay that coverage by The New York Times has been cited by various GOP officials who are waging attacks on trans youth in court and in legislatures across the country; it argued that the Times was fueling a similar media-political feedback loop that saw previous generations demonise those with HIV/Aids and those who were gay.

You may remember the great Glenneth Greenwald snickering and pooh-pahing the letter. It's because he doesn't know journalism. He had some legal training -- not good legal training -- though I do love the story from those years about how he went on a transphobic rant when a group of friend proposed they see PARIS IS BURNING, it's so very Glenneth -- but he's had no journalistic training at all and he doesn't understand what it's about to this day.

It's no surprise that Glenneth would join NYT in endorsing the attacks, that's how he made his pathetic name, after all, by joining NYT's war on Iraq. That is his history.

You'd think by now he'd put some effort into being a decent human being but you would be wrong.

And he runs with others who are, at best, disappointing.

Max Blumenthal is disgusting.

He attacked Jaqueline Luqman on Jimmy Dore's YOUTUBE program -- with Aaron Mate nodding along. He lied about her.

BLACK POWER MEDIA called his lies out.

He lies about her.

He attacks Jaqueline Luqman with lies and then we see his followers throughout the thread -- a bunch of White racists and Indian racists attacking her for her race. And no one's supposed to notice that?

Let's pretend that at least one or two of Max's fans honestly do not get it and let's try to walk them through slowly.

If someone is racist, they aren't your friend. It's not a can't-we-work-together-in-Congress Dem and Rep issue. This is someone signing up for your destruction. No, you cannot ask African-Americans to just try to get along with racists. Do racists stay racist their whole lives. No. People can learn and they can grow. But it's not the responsibility of an African-American to educate a White racist (or one from India). Nor should anyone dismiss concerns of violence. African-Americans have very good reasons -- historical -- for not electing to mix with racists. You're too entitled and privileged if you can't see that on your own.

And asking them to 'work together'?

How very Phyllis George of you, Max, how very Phyllis George.

Before Gayle King put CBS THIS MORNING on the map, the show was a joke for decades. Never so much as when Phyllis George had her infamous moment. Gary Dotson had just been released from prison after the woman who said he raped her, Cathy Webb, admitted she lied. CBS just knew the thing to do was have them both on the program at the same time. At the end of the segment, Phyllis suggested, "How about a hug?" (CRAPAPEDIA is yet again wrong, she did not ask them to "hug it out" -- she did not use those words, nor would anyone have in 1985 -- so CRAPAPEDIA needs to take them out of quotes. I would love it if I didn't have to dictate and anticipate e-mails at the same time. But I did say, "Stop, look up Phyllis George on CRAPAPEDIA and tell me if they quote her." They did. They have it wrong. Refer to Tom Shales, WASHINGTON POST report in real time -- May of 85 -- and if the link for it isn't there when this goes up, give me an hour or two -- we're doing Zooms -- and I'll have put it in myself.)

That's what Max basically wants, an African-American to give a racist a hug and then come work with him and the racists on his issue.

That is disrespectful and its ignorant.

And how dare you ask the oppressed to make nice with their oppressor. On the face of it, Max should have realized how stupid this was.

Max and his ilk whine about both-side-ism all the time. What's more both-side-ist than asking someone targeted with racism to work with a racist. Civil rights and racism are not two equal views.

Max chose to go with racists and transphobes and that's, sorry, because he is both.

That's why Anya Panya can't stop mocking trans persons online at her Twitter account. It's why Max can't recognize that African-Americans are not his minions. Just because he wants -- he says -- to avoid a nuclear war, doesn't mean they give up their own agency and their own beliefs to toe his line. But when you don't see a person as a person due to their race, when you think you own their actions -- and, indeed, think you own them, that's racism. Racism is also evident in Max's response to Jacqueline. He attacks her because she won't do what he wants, he attacks her with lies and tries to ignite his White (and Indian) mob against her. Max, you're doing everything but disclosing her address as you hand out white sheets.

It is not a good look for you.

Once upon a time, Max, you were a very cute little boy who had the widest smile and the biggest heart. If you've let the world beat that out of you, that makes me want to cry. That's who I saw for years now when others picked on or attacked you and why I rushed to your defense over and over. You are so much better than your current behavior indicates. You owe it to who you were to take a look at how you're behaving right now.

Michael Anderson: I was bartending that evening when the attack began. I felt more terrified than I ever have before. I ran for my life that night and hid -- praying and hoping the violence would end. When I stared down the barrel of that gun, I realized I stood no chance against a weapon of that power, magazine capacity, and seemingly automatic firing rate. While I prepared for my life to end in that moment, I prayed. I panicked. And I prayed some more. God must have heard my prayers because two brave men stopped the shooter moments before he would have inevitably found me. I saw my friend lying on the floor, bleeding out, knowing there was little to no chance of surviving the bullet wound. I had to tell him goodbye while I continued to fear for my life, not knowing if the attack was truly over.

Michael Anderson from his Congressional testimony in December of last year -- see this snapshot -- describing what happened at Club Q. The shooting left five people dead:

Daniel Davis Aston, 28

Kelly Loving, 40

Ashley Paugh, 35

Derrick Rump, 38

Raymond Green Vance, 22

The shooting also left twenty-five people injured. We'll quote former US House Rep Carolyn Maloney from a US House Oversight Committee press release on that hearing:

“Last month, a person with an AR-15-style assault rifle entered Club Q—a nightclub that served as a haven for LGBTQI+ people in the Colorado Springs community—and opened fire on unsuspecting bar patrons and staff. The attacker’s depravity robbed us of five innocent lives—Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, and Derrick Rump,” said Chairwoman Maloney in her opening statement. “Let us honor them by recommitting to the bold action necessary to ensure that every person in the United States can experience the freedom to live authentically and safely—regardless of who they love or how they identify.”

The great Glenneth, of course, rushed forward to insist that the shooter being non-binary meant that it wasn't homophobia.

It was shocking because you'd think if anyone would be an expert on internalized homophobia, it would be Glenneth.

As we noted then, it was very likely that the shooter was dealing with issues of homophobia -- whether the shooter was non-binary or not.

John Russell (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

Detective Rebecca Joines testiftied that Aldrich ran a neo-Nazi website that featured a white supremacist training video glorifying mass shootings, posted an image of a Pride parade with a rifle scope trained on it, and used anti-LGBTQ+ and racist slurs while gaming. Joines said that while those who knew Aldrich were unaware that they identified as nonbinary, Aldrich had told them that their mother, Laura Voepel, was nonbinary and had taken them to gay bars. Aldrich’s defense showed a photo of Aldrich and Voepel at Club Q taken in August 2021.

Joines also testified that there was evidence that Aldrich planned to livestream the shooting.

We'll wind down with this from the one and only Jody Watley, the legend, the trend setter, the show stopper, the dance queen, the fashionista, the all around wonderful person, will be hosting her own program starting next month. Reposting from Jody's site:

Jody Watley Celebrates Women’s History Month With New Radio Show

Posted on February 23, 2023

NEW ON EURWEB: HERE

“Check out Jody Watley! She is out here making boss moves. For instance, in celebration of Women’s History Month, the musical icon will host a new monthly 2-hour show exclusively on SiriusXM’s The Groove. The first guest will be Emmy winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph.

Read the full story on Eurweb

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Adding to Jody's post, in case anyone needs a reminder, two videos. "Real Love" and "Still A Thrill."