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Erie, Illinois Mayor Marcia Smith Suggests Children Raised by Same-Sex Couples Not Welcome In Town

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The Erie, Illinois public school system recently banned from its elementary schools all materials stating that same-sex couples raising children exist.

Illinois offers civil unions to same-sex couples.

Conspicuously banned was Todd Parr’s The Family Book, which simply mentions that some families have two dads, and some, two mothers.

Theocratic officials of the Erie Christian Church placed gay-bashing demands on Superintendent Bradley Cox, who caved to the Christofascists’ demands, though he is by law required to uphold the constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state. Cox’s action in banning The Family Book sends the message that he believes that gay-bashing Evangelicals are morally superior to all non-gay-bashers, and that elementary school-aged children being raised by same-sex parents in his district deserve to be stigmatized.

Aaron Sweeney, the Youth Minister for Erie Christian Church, spearheaded the theocratic, anti-gay propaganda attack on the public school, leading “prayer vigils,” praying for Parr’s The Family Book — and all GLSEN related materials — to be banned from the elementary school. One result of the GLSEN ban is the discontinuance of “No Name-Calling Week.” Sweeney has led young persons on proselytizing missions abroad.

Superintendent Cox appeared to be talking out both sides of his mouth when he told his local CBS4QC that tolerance and diversity will still be taught in the school, but that no mention whatsoever will ever be made of gay-parent-led households. In that, Cox appears to be violating the “Goals, Standards and Descriptors” for “Social Emotional Learning” of the Illinois State Board of Education’s Learning Standards. Section 2B of the Standards, for instance, treats of this: “Recognize individual and group similarities and differences.” That Section includes, among other things, descriptions of how Illinois public school educators shall teach students to: “Identify negative depictions of differences among people (e.g., gender or sexual orientation stereotyping, discrimination in readings completed for coursework)” and “Explain how a lack of understanding of social and cultural differences can contribute to intolerance” as well as “Evaluate ways of overcoming a lack of understanding of those who are different.”

The Christofascist theocratic corruption of Illinois’s required teaching of good, strong acceptance values, and Superintendent Cox’s apparently unconstitutional, craven caving-in to the theocrats’ demands, cast into sharp relief the story of Jordan Pisey Windle, a Cambodian orphan adopted at two by a gay American, and now at 13, practicing in Indiana for Olympic diving trials this summer.

Superintendent Cox says that the school board joined in his decision to carry out the theocracy-fueled, anti-gay, books and materials ban. The Erie School Board includes two farmers and a businessman. So two farmers and a businessman think that they know better than legislators and Ph.D. education professionals, which Social Emotional Learning skills should be taught in the schools. Joe Weaver, one of two Board members who voted in favor of continuing to use the GLSEN materials, told CBS4QC “The materials were reviewed and implemented by our educators. To me, they’re the ones that are supposed to be experts of what should be taught in the schools.” Weaver went on to say, apropos of the GLSEN materials, that “there was nothing wrong with them, and they were appropriate.”

This reporter called Erie, Illinois Mayor Marcia Smith, to ask “Are elementary school-aged children being raised by gay parents welcome in Erie?” The line went dead, so I called again, to be sure the disconnection was not inadvertent. Mayor Smith said “I know they had some committee meeting, but I don’t really know anything about that.” The story has been all over Mayor Smith’s local news, so I said, “Then let me report to you about what is going on in your town.” She laughed, as though this were a laughing matter. I again stated my question “Are elementary school-aged children being raised by gay parents welcome in Erie?” and Mayor Smith hung up without responding.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IwNqCkDwZPs%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US

New York City– based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT– interest by– line has appeared on Advocate .com, PoliticusUSA .com, The New York Blade, Queerty .com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide” is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.

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‘Disgraceful’: ICE Slammed After Allegedly Pepper-Spraying US Congresswoman

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U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) is accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of pepper-spraying her in her face while she was at a local Tucson, Arizona restaurant.

Rep. Grijalva in a video on social media said she saw about 40 mostly-masked ICE agents at a restaurant she frequents weekly.

The agents were “in several vehicles that the community had stopped right here, right in the middle of the street, because they were afraid that they were taking people without due process, without any kind of notice.”

READ MORE: Warning Signs Flash as Trump Slump Raises Fears of 2018 Blue Wave Rerun: Conservative

She said that the community was “protecting their people” when she was “sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent,” and “pushed around by others when I literally was not being aggressive.”

“I was asking for clarification, which is my right as a member of Congress,” she continued. “So, once I introduced myself, once I did, I assumed that it would be a little calmer, but there was literally only one person that was trying to speak to me in any kind of civil tone, and everyone else was being rude and disrespectful, and I just can only imagine if they’re going to treat me like that, how they’re treating everybody else.”

Congresswoman Grijalva said she saw “people directly sprayed,” including “members of our press” and staff members.

She blasted President Donald Trump, saying that he “has no regard for any due process, the rule of law, the Constitution — they’re literally disappearing people from the streets.”

Critics slammed the agents’ action.

READ MORE: Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court

U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) wrote that Rep. Grijalva “was doing her job, standing up for her community.”

“Pepper-spraying a sitting member of Congress is disgraceful, unacceptable, and absolutely not what we voted for. Period,” he added.

“This is unacceptable and outrageous,” observed Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. “Enforcing the rule [of] law does not mean pepper spraying a member of Congress for simply asking questions. Effective law enforcement requires restraint and accountability, not unchecked aggression.”

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted, “quite the beginning for Grijalva, who wasn’t seated for weeks, [cast] the decisive vote to get the Epstein files, and now has apparently been pepper sprayed in the face by immigration agents.”

Also calling the action “outrageous,” U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote: “We are Members of Congress with oversight authority of ICE. Rep Grijalva was completely within her rights to stand up for her constituents. ICE is completely lawless.”

“First they tackle a sitting Senator,” noted U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY). “Now they’re pepper spraying a Representative. It’s clear ICE is spinning out of control. We will hold the agency accountable.”

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

 

Image via Reuters 

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Warning Signs Flash as Trump Slump Raises Fears of 2018 Blue Wave Rerun: Conservative

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A well-known conservative commentator has a warning for the Republican Party: take action now or face a repeat of the 2018 midterms when the GOP lost 41 House seats in a landslide. And this time, he says, the Senate could go to the Democrats as well.

Award-winning writer and journalist Bernard Goldberg reminded readers at The Hill that in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term, “Republicans got walloped … and a good chunk of that had President Trump’s name written all over it.”

Trump’s “approval ratings were in the low 40s, and independents — the folks who usually decide elections — had seen enough. They broke hard for the Democrats,” Goldberg noted. “Now here we are, staring down 2026, and you can almost hear history clearing its throat, getting ready to repeat itself.”

READ MORE: Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court

Goldberg noted that Trump’s approval rating is currently the lowest it’s been this term.

“Among Republicans, his support dropped from 91 percent right after the 2024 election to 84 percent last month. Among independents, it cratered — from 42 percent to just 25 percent.”

“If the trend continues,” he warned, “Republicans could be headed for another blue wave — and this time, it could wash away not just the House majority, but control of the Senate too.”

Why?

“It’s the economy — still,” he wrote.

“Trump is out there saying the economy is humming. Biden said the same thing before him. But voters didn’t buy it then, and they’re not buying it now. Why? Because it’s not GDP numbers that matter. It’s affordability,” Goldberg noted.

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

That’s a word that President Trump continues to call a “con job,” while his own administration tries to claim he is focused on.

He pointed to a Karl Rove Wall Street Journal column and wrote: “The Republicans may have ‘avoided disaster’ in Tennessee, but the result should be a wake-up call for Republicans. He’s right.”

Goldberg asked: “will anyone in the Republican Party actually pick up the phone?”

“Because if Republicans don’t wake up — and fast — they’re going to find out the hard way what happens when you keep rerunning the same movie and expecting a different ending. To lose in 2026, all they have to do is nothing. And right now, that’s pretty much what they’re doing.”

READ MORE: Trump Urges Judge Aileen Cannon to Keep Jack Smith Report Secret

 

 

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Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court

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President Donald Trump is claiming that the top priority of Democrats is the “total obliteration” of the U.S. Supreme Court. His remarks came just hours after SCOTUS gave Republicans a 6-3 win along partisan lines, in the form of approving Texas’s redrawn mid-decade congressional maps that could help add five GOP-held seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. A lower court had ruled the redrawn Texas maps were likely racially biased.

Although there are different ways to measure, one study by Court Accountability this fall found that the Supreme Court has ruled in Trump’s favor 90% of the time.

“Most of these wins for the president came from the court’s ‘shadow docket’ slate of opinions — where the court has typically, in the past, only ruled on administrative measures,” according to Truthout. “However, in recent years, the Supreme Court has been making announcements on cases, issuing injunctions or allowances of actions to remain in place, that have the same effect, essentially, as a final decision.”

READ MORE: White House Touts Trump’s ‘Track Record’ on Affordability

On Friday, the president declared that the “Democrats number one policy push is the complete and total OBLITERATION of our great United States Supreme Court.”

“They will do this on their very first day in office, through the simple Termination of the Filibuster, SHOULD THEY WIN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS,” he wrote.

Trump has strongly advocated for Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster.

“The Radical Left Democrats are looking at 21 Justices, with immediate ascension,” he wrote, claiming that Democrats would more than double the current size of the court.

“This would be terrible for our Country. Fear not, however, Republicans will not let it, or any of their other catastrophic policies, happen. Our Country is now in very good hands. MAGA!!!”

Some court reform advocates have suggested the Supreme Court be expanded to 13 justices, one for each of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals.

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

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