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Tennessee Parents Wage War On Gay-Straight Alliance, Compare Club To ISIS

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Hate Speech, Bible-Based Attacks From Anti-LGBT Parents Underscore Need For GSAs

Opponents of a Gay-Straight Alliance at a rural Tennessee high school are comparing the club to the terror group ISIS and calling on school officials to resign for allowing it.  

The GSA met for the first time this week at Franklin County High School in Winchester, Tennessee, a town of 8,500 about 70 miles northwest of Chattanooga. 

On its web site, the school explains that under the federal Equal Access Act and long-established court precedent, it is required to allow the GSA if it allows other extracurricular clubs. 

“The FCHS GSA will foster a safe environment for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) students and their allies,” a description of the club states. “The FCHS GSA will offer a space where LGBT students and their allies can speak freely and honestly with their peers about issues specific to LGBT students without fear of rejection or harassment.” 

In response to news that the GSA had formed, Winchester parent and business owner John Wimley launched a Facebook page calling for people to attend the next Franklin County school board meeting and “protect traditional marriage” by standing against the GSA. 

“OK F.C. [Franklin County] if we do not ban [SIC] together and stop this B.S. the next thing you know they will have a F.I.M.A. (Future ISIS Members of America) #PutGodInSchoolsPlease,” Wimley wrote.  

wimley.jpg

Wimley’s Facebook profile picture consists of a graphic featuring a cross that reads, “Jesus died for you. Allah wants you to kill innocent people and die for him.”

Posted by John Wimley on Friday, December 25, 2015

But his call for putting God in schools seems to contradict what he told WBRC-TV for a story about the GSA.

“I don’t believe there should be religion or sexual preference taught in any school,” Wimley told the station. “I don’t understand where they’re coming from, and I want answers,” he said. “Everybody wants answers.”

In response to Wimley’s hate-fueled ignorance, supporters of the GSA launched a Facebook page calling for a boycott of his business, the Tennessee Car Care Center. But Wimley wasn’t the only person who compared the GSA to ISIS. 

Martin Jonathan, who apparently attended Franklin County High School but now lives in San Antonio, according to his Facebook page, called the GSA “ungodly” and “wrong.”

“The more we conform to this ever changing society the more weak we become as a Christian nation,” Johnathan wrote. “What would be your opinion on a group initiating an ISIS club @ FCHS? Allow it so they don’t become the next suicide bombers?”

“Unbelievable how times have changed,” Johnathan added. “What a disgrace. Not the FCHS I was raised in nor the one for my children. … [Principal Greg] Mantooth should be forced to resign. The parents and taxpayers in FC shall be heard.” 

Others argued that because some teachers have posted rainbow flags in their classrooms indicating that they’re LGBT allies, people should also be allowed to display rebel flags, Christian flags, “Panther club” flags, white pride flags and gang symbols. 

The photo above is one of the “flags” teachers who are allies have posted, indicating a safe space.

“I’m gonna start this by saying, I don’t [give] a damn who likes me or what I think!” wrote parent Candice Candy Maxwell. “But, what I do [give] a damn about is when something is thrown in my backyard and is pushed in my kids’ face by students of different lifestyles [and] faculty that support it! … Keep your shit in your backyard and I’ll do the same. Throw it around and push it in my kids’ face just because, and by God I’ll be the first to come unglued!” 

Christian Bullington, a student who co-founded the GSA, wrote below a post about the club from news outlet Franklin County Buzz that he was “astonished how much hate I see on here and everywhere.” Bullington also responded to allegations that GSA organizers threatened to sue school officials if they didn’t allow the club. 

“We did not threaten anyone,” Bullington wrote. “I have wanted this group since I started at Franklin County High School. I have pushed and pushed but Mantooth and the board said no, no, no, no, no — until we found out that we are federally protected and that we are allowed to start the group. Now I’m sorry that a lot of you don’t agree with the group, but find it in your heart for acceptance and peace.” 

The other co-founder of the GSA, Josh Dailey, elaborated on the need for the club. 

“LGBT students in our school especially are bullied on a daily basis, and to be honest, I’m tired of seeing it as well as receiving it, so we have a club called GSA, which is a federally protected program, to give these students a safe place to go so we can stop bullying at the source as well as being there to support each other,” Dailey wrote. 

To support the GSA, like the club’s Facebook page. 

Watch WBRC’s report above. 

 

Image via Facebook

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News

‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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April 23, 2024

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Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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OPINION

Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

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16 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

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At the end of another short courtroom day that required barely three hours of Donald Trump’s time, the ex-president spoke to reporters inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building to complain about a wide variety of perceived and alleged wrongs he is suffering, including, not being “allowed to talk.”

The ex-president’s presence was required only from 11 AM until just 2 PM. Judge Juan Merchan is overseeing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the ex-president in a case that has already drawn a straight line through the “hush money” headlines to correct them to alleged criminal conspiracy and election interference.

Judge Merchan, for nearly two hours Tuesday morning, heard prosecutors’ allegations that Trump has violated his gag order ten times, and heard defense counsel’s claims that he had not.

It did not go well for the Trump legal team, with Judge Merchan toward the end of the hearing, during which no jurors were allowed, telling Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche, “You’re losing all credibility.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

During the day’s hearing, jurors heard prosecutors’ lead witness, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer tabloid, David Pecker, explain how he was working to help the Trump campaign.

“David Pecker testifies that, following his 2015 meeting with Trump and [Michael] Cohen, he met with former National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard,” MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reports. “Pecker outlined the arrangement and described it as ‘highly private and confidential.’ Pecker asked Howard to notify the tabloid’s West Coast and East Coast bureau chiefs that any stories that came in about Trump or the 2016 election must be vetted and brought straight to Pecker — and ‘they’ll have to be brought to Cohen.’ Pecker told Howard the arrangement needed to stay a secret because it was being carried out to help Trump’s campaign.”

Trump did not discuss any evidence against him with reporters, but he did complain about the gag order. And President Joe Biden. And the temperature in the courtroom. And his apparent attempt to stay awake, which has been a problem for him almost every day in court.

“We have a gag order, which to me is totally unconstitutional, I’m not allowed to talk but people are allowed to talk about me,” Trump told reporters, emphasizing the last word in that sentence.

“So they can talk about me, they can say whatever they want, they can lie. But I’m not allowed to say anything, I just have to sit back and look at why a conflicted judge has ordered me to have a gag order.”

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

“I don’t think anybody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump claimed, falsely implying no criminal defendant has ever had a gag order imposed on them previously. “I’d love to talk to you people, I’d love to say everything that’s on my mind, but I’m restricted because I have a gag order, and I’m not sure that anybody’s ever seen anything like this before.”

Trump then started to discuss the “articles” in his hand, what appeared to be dozens of articles he said had “all good headlines,” while implying they claimed “the case is a sham.”

Trump oversimplified the legal arguments attached to his gag order, as discussed with Judge Merchan Tuesday morning. The judge has yet to rule on prosecutors’ request to hold Trump in contempt.

“So I put an article in and then somebody’s name is mentioned somewhere deep in the article and I end up in violation of a gag order,” he told reporters, apparently referring to his posts on Truth Social with persecutes say violated his gag order. “I think it’s a disgrace. It’s totally unconstitutional. I don’t believe it’s ever – not to this extent – ever happened before. I’m not allowed to defend myself and yet other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me. Very, very unfair.”

“Having to do with the schools and the closings – that’s Biden’s fault,” Trump said, strangely, as if the COVID pandemic were still officially in process. “And by the way, this trial is all Biden, this is all Biden just in case anybody has any question. And they’re keeping me, in a courtroom that’s freezing by the way, all day long while he’s out campaigning, that’s probably an advantage because he can’t campaign.”

“Nobody knows what he’s doing. he can’t put two sentences together. But he’s out campaigning. He’s campaigning and I’m here and I’m sitting here sitting up as straight as I can all day long because you know, it’s a very unfair situation,” Trump lamented. “So we’re locked up in a courtroom and this guy’s out there campaigning, if you call it a campaign, every time he opens his mouth he gets himself into trouble.”

Watch below or at this link.

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News

Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

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19 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

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Four years ago today then-President Donald Trump, on live national television during what would be known as merely the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested an injection of a household “disinfectant” could cure the deadly coronavirus.

The Biden campaign on Tuesday has already posted five times on social media about Trump’s 2020 remarks, including by saying, “Four years ago today, Dr. Birx reacted in horror as Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television.”

Less than 24 hours after Trump’s remarks calls to the New York City Poison Control Center more than doubled, including people complaining of Lysol and bleach exposure. Across the country, the CDC reported, calls to state and local poison control centers jumped 20 percent.

“It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history,” Politico reported on the one-year anniversary of Trump’s beach debacle. “It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic.”

How did it happen?

“The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press,” Politico added.

READ MORE: ‘Cutting Him to Shreds’: ‘Pissed’ Judge Tells Trump’s Attorney ‘You’re Losing All Credibility’

“’A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,’ said one former senior Trump White House official. ‘I actually argued that President Trump wouldn’t have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.'”

The manufacturer of Lysol issued a strong statement saying, “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” with “under no circumstance” in bold type.

Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks were part of a much larger crisis during the pandemic: misinformation and disinformation. In 2021, a Cornell University study found the President was the “single largest driver” of COVID misinformation.

What did Trump actually say?

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out, in a minute,” Trump said from the podium at the White House press briefing room, as Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx looked on without speaking up. “Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, inside, or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. You’re going to have to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me.”

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

Within hours comedian Sarah Cooper, who had a good run mocking Donald Trump, released a video based on his remarks that went viral:

The Biden campaign at least 12 times on the social media platform X has mentioned Trump’s infamous and dangerous remarks about injecting “disinfectant,” although, like many, they have substituted the word “bleach” for “disinfectant.”

Hours after Trump’s remarks, from his personal account, Joe Biden posted this tweet:

Tuesday morning the Biden campaign released this video marking the four-year anniversary of Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks.

See the social media posts and videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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