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GetEQUAL To Tony Perkins: Where Were You When Our People Got Shot, Bullied, Beat Up?

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GetEQUAL last night released a statement condemning Wednesday’s shooting of a guard/building manager at the Family Research Council (FRC), but, unlike most other responses, GetEQUAL didn’t put on kid gloves when writing it. The GetEQUAL statement balances their condemnation of violence with a strong message holding FRC president Tony Perkins accountable for decades of his organization’s anti-gay rhetoric and actions.

GetEQUAL’s “mission is to empower the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community and our allies to take bold action to demand full legal and social equality, and to hold accountable those who stand in the way.” Their statement fulfills that mission, as they ask Tony Perkins:

Where was Tony Perkins when two members of our community were left for dead in the bushes of Violet Andrews Park in Portland, Texas? Where is Tony Perkins’ condemnation of the thousands of LGBT youth being bullied, beat up and laughed at in the halls of our schools? Where was Tony Perkins when North Carolina pastor Charles Worley declared that all gays and lesbians should be rounded up and put in camps surrounded by electric fences, and left to die?

Here, in full, is GetEQUAL’s Statement on FRC Shooting:

Wednesday’s shooting at the Family Research Council’s (FRC) headquarters is a stark reminder of the fragility of life. GetEQUAL condemns the shooting and wishes the officer a speedy recovery.

In the aftermath of Wednesday’s events, it would benefit us all to consider the impact of the continued discrimination that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans face on a daily basis. For decades, LGBT Americans have endured ridicule, stigmatization, demonization, physical abuse — often at the hands of our own families, classmates, co-workers and neighbors — and blame for countless natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina…all in the name of “family values.”

At a Thursday afternoon press conference, and despite no evidence to substantiate his claim, FRC president Tony Perkins laid the blame for Wednesday’s shooting at the feet of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), stating that by labeling the FRC a “hate group,” the SPLC had contributed to this horrible and violent tragedy. To be clear, the SPLC has worked for decades to track incidents of violence and intolerance in an effort to prevent just such an attack, laboring tirelessly to provide reliable information on hundreds of groups across the country that demonize groups of people simply for who they are — whether that’s based on race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation and gender identity.

We stand side-by-side with the Southern Poverty Law Center — a group born out of the civil rights movement over four decades ago — and support their work to track incidents of hatred and intolerance directed toward the LGBT community and other marginalized communities across the country. Despite Mr. Perkins’ attempts to paint himself and the FRC as victims, it is groups like the Family Research Council that regularly and routinely use deceptive practices and intolerant rhetoric to create a dangerous environment for LGBT Americans. It is for this very reason that the SPLC has, accurately, labeled the FRC as a hate group.

While Tony Perkins places the blame for Wednesday’s shooting at the feet of the SPLC, we must ask: Where was Tony Perkins when two members of our community were left for dead in the bushes of Violet Andrews Park in Portland, Texas? Where is Tony Perkins’ condemnation of the thousands of LGBT youth being bullied, beat up and laughed at in the halls of our schools? Where was Tony Perkins when North Carolina pastor Charles Worley declared that all gays and lesbians should be rounded up and put in camps surrounded by electric fences, and left to die?

We all know the answer — Tony Perkins is and has been silent. Mr. Perkins has time and again advocated against the humane treatment of LGBT Americans and against any legislation that would protect LGBT people from discrimination or attack. Decades of paid work focused on marginalizing and demonizing LGBT Americans has resulted in tacit endorsement of violent acts and the spread of false information about LGBT Americans. Through his ongoing campaign of discrimination and insistence on pursuing a radical right-wing agenda, Mr. Perkins has advocated for the reinstatement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” an amendment to the Constitution that would forever outlaw marriage equality, and state laws that would continue to keep LGBT Americans as second-class citizens.

As GetEQUAL is committed to fighting against injustice and for equality by using non-violent civil disobedience, we condemn Wednesday’s shooting even as we also ask the Family Research Council (and organizations that share its views) to think about the environment they have created by marginalizing a minority group and making family members, neighbors, and friends into scapegoats for society’s challenges. GetEQUAL never condones or advocates for violence, and believes wholeheartedly that when violence is used we all lose. There is no power in violence; our power comes by coming together as a community, standing shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters and refusing to be moved under the weight of discrimination, prejudice, and intolerance. Even as we hope for the recovery of the security guard who suffered violence on Wednesday, we also hope for an end to the Family Research Council’s tactics of division and fear-mongering that have created such a toxic environment within our homes, neighborhoods, schools, places of worship, and workplaces.

Telling the truth about a group’s hateful message is not the same as advocating violence. We pray, with all people of good will, for an end to violence as a means of expression.

(For highlights from Tony Perkins’ anti-LGBT record, visit: http://www.glaad.org/cap/tony-perkins.)

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News

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

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12 hours ago

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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.”

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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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14 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.”

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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.”

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“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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17 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.

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“’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.”

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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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