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TX Lawmaker Wants To Force Schools To Out LGBT Students To Parents

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Teachers Would Face Discipline For Failing To Disclose Info About Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity

Texas tea party state Sen. Konni Burton (pictured with Sen. Ted Cruz) has filed legislation that would effectively require public school employees to out LGBT students to their parents. 

Under Burton’s Senate Bill 242, teachers and other school employees who fail to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents could face discipline, even if the student requests that the information be withheld. 

If passed, SB 242 would place LGBT youth in the conservative state at risk for abuse, neglect or suicide if their parents aren’t accepting. It could even expose them to the dangerous, discredited practice of “reparative therapy,” which happens to be endorsed in the Texas GOP platform. 

Burton, a Republican from Fort Worth, said on her website Thursday that she drafted SB 242 in response to transgender guidelines adopted by the Fort Worth school district earlier this year. As originally written, the Fort Worth guidelines barred faculty and staff from disclosing a student’s transgender status to parents. However, following a hateful campaign by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the school district revised the guidelines, eliminating the prohibition on parental notification. 

Burton, a Patrick ally who also opposed the guidelines, said in response to the Fort Worth controversy, she decided to review state law governing parents’ access to information from public schools.

“We found these provisions in desperate need of clarity and expansion,” Burton wrote. “That is why I am planning to file a bill that rewrites these provisions to make it unequivocally clear that a parent has a right to full and total information on their child’s academic performance, physical, mental and emotional health, and more. Further, my legislation will make it expressly against state law for a district to adopt policies designed to undermine a parent’s right to know. No parent in Texas should ever have to fight for the basic right to matter in their child’s life again.” 

Burton couldn’t immediately be reached for further comment. 

Under SB 242, parents would be entitled to “any general knowledge regarding the parent’s child possessed by an employee of the district.” Parents would also have access to all written records “relating to the child’s general physical, psychological or emotional well-being.” 

Burton’s bill is among dozens of anti-LGBT measures expected to be considered by the Texas Legislature when it convenes in January. On Monday, Sen. Bob Hall filed a bill that would nullify nondiscrimination ordinances covering roughly 9 million Texans, or one-third of the state’s population. 

Image via Facebook

 

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‘Hell Isn’t Hot Enough’: Fury at Trump as More School Evacuations Follow ‘Pet-Eating’ Lies

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For the second day in a row, elementary school children in Springfield, Ohio, were forced to be evacuated due to threats: a bomb threat on Thursday and an unspecified threat on Friday. The threats come after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance, have repeatedly spread lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield this week, including that they are stealing residents’ cats and dogs and eating them.

Thursday’s bomb threat specifically mentioned the false claims about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets, USA Today reported.

“Three schools in Springfield were evacuated or closed Friday, based on guidance from police, school officials said,” local NBC affiliate WLWT reports. “Officials with the Springfield City School District said that based on information they got from the Springfield Police Division, students at Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary were evacuated and moved to another district location.”

A Springfield middle school was also ordered closed Friday morning, before classes began, and “at least one Springfield location of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is closed.”

On Thursday, a bomb threat targeting Springfield city hall and an elementary school forced evacuations of those buildings.

“Police Chief Allison Elliott said that due to the seriousness of the threat, officials evacuated multiple buildings in addition to City Hall, including BMV Springfield Driver’s Exam Station, Ohio License Bureau Southside, Springfield Academy of Excellence and Fulton Elementary School.”

Despite the reports of the bomb threat on Thursday, hours later Donald Trump used his Truth Social platform to promote the Republican nominee working to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, by spreading more anti-Haitian immigrant racism.

“Bernie Moreno has a very good chance of winning Ohio against a Radical Left Democrat, Sherrod Brown, with what is happening in Springfield, and other parts of the State,” Trump declared Thursday afternoon, referring to the far-right extremist Republican who is currently leading in the polls by low single digits.

Trump then invoked his racist Haitian immigrant lies.

“Ohio is being inundated with Illegal Migrants, mostly from Haiti, who are taking over Towns and Villages at a level and rate never seen before.”

On Truth Social, Trump on Thursday also posted memes of cats, including one with them holding a sign that says, “Don’t let them eat us, vote for Trump.”

During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Trump had falsely claimed, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

USA Today also reported that the “false rumor that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets began to circulate in the days leading up to the debate and was further popularized through posts from running mate J.D. Vance about his own state and AI-generated images shared by Trump, Elon Musk and the Republican House Judiciary Committee.”

J.J. Abbott, former press secretary to then-Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, responded to ABC News immigration reporter Armando Tonatiuh Torres-García’s viral social media post reporting Friday’s threat and evacuations:

“In 2018, the GOP and Trump’s anti-immigrant conspiracies led to the deadliest mass shooting in recent PA history at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The gunman took him seriously and literally. There’s nothing funny or intriguing about this dangerous racism.”

Many others responded to that reporter’s post.

“No sanitizing this. @jdvance and @realDonaldTrump bear full responsibility. They’re promoters of terrorism; and they did it intentionally,” wrote columnist, reporter, and former editor in chief of Crooked Media Brian Beutler.

“Ohio should look at this insanity and vote accordingly. Conspiracy peddling has real consequences. You can’t unring that bell. Donald Trump and JD Vance don’t care,” noted constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis.

“Donald Trump and JD Vance are terrorizing schoolchildren. They are unfit for any public office, let alone the highest,” responded attorney Andrew L. Seidel.

“JD Vance and MAGA influencers whipped up a blood libel panic and now children in Springfield are being traumatized by their lies. Hell isn’t hot enough,” commented the co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, Leah Greenberg.

“There’s a line from Charlottesville to Jan 6 to this. Trump speaks, his supporters act,” wrote political analyst and researcher Arieh Kovler.

“Trump could stop this but he won’t because he believes it serves his interests. It’s the same J6 behavior of spreading false conspiracy theories to inflame his supporters and then sitting back and watching instead of stopping it,” noted political science professor Michael McDonald.

 

 

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‘Screaming About Eating Cats Is Not a Solution’: Walz Rallies Michigan Crowd, Slams Trump

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Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz took aim at Donald Trump Thursday night at a rally in the battleground state of Michigan, where the Harris campaign is leading the ex-president by an average of less than two points.

The Detroit News’ Craig Mauger posted a photo of the overflow crowd at the Grand Rapids Public Museum:

Gov. Walz’s speech (full video here) was decidedly down-home and neighborly, but he had no trouble going on the attack as well.

He told the audience that their friends and neighbors had watched Tuesday night’s presidential debate, during which Trump had lied that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Walz did not denigrate Trump supporters. Instead, he said that after the debate, “I don’t hear them out there much. I don’t see them out there much. They’re a little bit – because they’re good people. They’re our neighbors. They’re like, ‘that didn’t look very presidential.’ Screaming about eating cats is not a solution. It’s not a solution.”

RELATED: Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets

“Well,” Walz continued, “what Kamala Harris was talking about is things that you actually care about. They might not be sitting down at the bar talking about banning books, but they might down there be talking about, ‘how can I afford a house? I’m working hard. I’m working hard. I want to have a house,’ and because that house becomes a home to some of these folks. Your real estate mogul, venture capitalist, whatever, that’s just an asset to be traded and sold to whoever you want. For us, it’s a place we gather around the kitchen table to talk to our kids about what happened in school. That’s what Kamala Harris wants for you. That’s what she wants for you.”

The 60-year old governor who is the only one of the four candidates on either ticket with a positive net approval rating (Harris comes in second), focused on midwestern values.

“What I am most proud of is because of all the things Donald Trump has stolen and all the things he did, what is unforgivable, is him stealing our joy. So here’s the thing, Kamala Harris is bringing not only solutions that focus on you. She’s doing it with a smile and joy on her face.”

“This guy, this guy on purpose, and make no mistake, it’s on purpose. He broke our political system. He tried to break our faith in one another. He tried to break the thing that makes Midwesterners stick together. We’re positive people, for God’s sakes. We walk on water half the year, we have to be it’s cold as hell,” Walz said. “We don’t care. We dig our neighbors out. This guy is trying to tell you your neighbors the enemy. This guy’s trying to tell you that he knows best about what folks in Grand Rapids need. Well, trust me, nothing could be further from the truth.”

“So here’s the deal, we’re nice folks. We’ll dig you out after a snow storm. We’ll say ‘hi’ at the store. Some of us might even let you merge on the highway. Not all of us,” he joked. “We have a saying for that. It’s Minnesota Nice, is what we call it. I’m sure you have it too. But the one thing I’ll tell you about Midwesterners that stretches across that beautiful blue wall of Northern America here, the one thing about us is, don’t ever mistake our kindness for weakness.”

READ MORE: Multiple-Location Bomb Threat Follows Trump and Vance’s False Dog-Eating Immigrants Claims

Walz also went after school shootings while reassuring supporters Democrats support the Second Amendment.

“Leaves are changing,” Walz said, as The Detroit News reported. “Friday night football’s back. Our kids have a new start and they’re going in. It’s a time of excitement and hope. Everything we want. That’s what we want for our kids.”

“But too many of our kids, these first days of school, are a time of sheer terror. A time that is going to stick with them forever,” he said, referencing school shootings.

“I know guns, you know guns,” he said. “Kamala Harris is a gun owner, by the way, which you found out. I’m not going to take any crap (from Republicans) about the Second Amendment. We support the Second Amendment.”

“But our first responsibility,” Walz continued, “is keeping our children safe. And you can have both.”

He also referred to shootings as “that crap,” and reminded the crowd that it “does not happen in other places in the world.”

Walz, a former U.S. Congressman who served for 24 years in the U.S. Armed Forces, called Donald Trump a “criminal.” Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York for business fraud in an attempt to subvert the 2016 election.

He told the crowd Vice President Harris’s debate performance should have not been a surprise.

“She took on the predators. She took on the fraudsters,” Walz said. “She took down career criminals and powerful corporate interests, which, by the way, was on the stage the other night, all those things so, so this time, just to be clear, that criminal being on the stage got put in his place.”

“And this is what true leadership looks like. And she says this time and time again, and I love it. A mark of true leadership is not who beats people down, it’s who lifts people up, who lifts them up. So so when it’s a bully, and there’s a time she proved she can beat some people down if they need it.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Faces Increasing Calls to Participate in Second Debate

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Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets

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For almost a year Donald Trump inexplicably has been injecting the fictional character Hannibal Lecter into his re-election rallies. Now, far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who has promoted white nationalism and appears to be influencing the ex-president, has introduced the serial killing cannibal into the latest, dangerous Trump controversy.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump falsely claimed during Tuesday’s debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, referring to Haitian immigrants. “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”

Despite multiple fact checks proving Trump (and his running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance, who has also promoted those pet-eating lies) wrong, the Republican presidential nominee doubled down – even after the debate moderator, ABC News’ David Muir, live on-air debunked his claims.

The City of Springfield, Ohio was forced to evacuate its city hall and an elementary school Thursday morning after a multiple-location bomb threat was received, but that did not stop Trump from promoting his false claims on his Truth Social social media platform hours later.

READ MORE: Trump Faces Increasing Calls to Participate in Second Debate

“Bernie Moreno has a very good chance of winning Ohio against a Radical Left Democrat, Sherrod Brown, with what is happening in Springfield, and other parts of the State,” Trump declared Thursday afternoon, referring to the far-right extremist Republican running to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, who is leading in the polls by low single digits.

Trump then invoked his racist Haitian immigrant rhetoric.

“Ohio is being inundated with Illegal Migrants, mostly from Haiti, who are taking over Towns and Villages at a level and rate never seen before.”

That too is false.

Legal immigrants from Haiti have come to Springfield, and have been a boon to the city’s businesses. Some city officials have complained that the number of immigrants ramped up too quickly, as the local government struggles to provide services due to the increase in population.

On Truth Social, Trump is also posting memes of cats, including one with them holding a sign that says, “Don’t let them eat us, vote for Trump.”

While Laura Loomer denies she is advising Trump, and she has been traveling with him this week, including to the presidential debate on Tuesday and to 9/11 ceremonies on Wednesday despite being a 9/11 truther. Some suggest she appears to have replaced U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as a Trump favorite. Loomer, according to NPR, has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe” and “pro-white nationalism.”

READ MORE: JD Vance Dismisses Taylor Swift’s Harris Endorsement: Voters Won’t Be Influenced by ‘Disconnected Billionaire’

Semafor reports, “After a debate in which Trump shouted about false viral rumors of pet-eating Haitians in an Ohio town, her potential influence is drawing more scrutiny from both parties.”

Now she too is going all-in on the racist and false pet-eating Haitian claims.

“Haitian immigrants aren’t just eating cats and dogs. They eat HUMANS,” Loomer baselessly claimed Thursday. “Remember their leader? Known as ‘Barbeque’? Only Hannibal Lecter himself would want to bring more of them to the United States!”

“Don’t let the media say that concerns about illegal immigration are ‘conspiracy theories’. These aren’t rumors. It’s a FACT. When you import the third world, you become the third world, and we won’t allow it here in America. Donald Trump will stop our country from further becoming a third world nation. The media is obsessing over the Haitian migrants because even the most liberal voters are horrified over the animal abuse committed by so many of Kamala’s invaders.”

Just days earlier, Trump claimed in a rally that “Dr. Hannibal Lecter” is “a representative of the people who are coming into our country.”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: Liz Cheney Predicts Many Republicans Will Secretly Vote For Kamala Harris

 

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