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School Board President Defends Order to Remove LGBTQ Pride Flags by Comparing Them to Ones ‘Supporting White Supremacy’

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An Indiana school board of trustees president is under fire after defending the board’s order to have LGBTQ pride flags removed from three high school classrooms at Pendleton Heights High School. Last week the school district ordered the flags removed from French, Spanish, and art classrooms, claiming they violated a policy forbidding “political paraphernalia,” The Herald Bulletin reports.

After an uproar, South Madison Board of Trustees President Bill Hutton sent a district-wide email to students, families, and school staff, comparing the LGBTQ pride flag with flags promoting “other groups,” including those “supporting white supremacy.”

“The issue with displaying the flag in a school is a double-edged sword. If an LGBTQ+ flag is allowed to be displayed, then any other group would have the same ability,” Hutton claimed. “That could include such flags as supporting white supremacy, which is in direct conflict with LGBTQ+. I hope we can model equality and support through our actions.”

But as many noted, comparing being LGBTQ to holding white supremacist beliefs is not supporting equality.

The board’s order and Hutton’s defense appears to expose what at least one student says is a lack of support for LGBTQ equality.

“LGBT students, including Tai Wills, disagree that the flags are political,” The Herald Bulletin reports.

“Why would you compare a racist flag?” Wills, a 16-year old sophomore at Pendleton Heights High School, said. “Those two have nothing to do with each other.”

“One is about inclusiveness and the other is about hate and exclusion, and I don’t think that’s the same thing at all,” she observed. “It’s already hard dealing with bullying and judgmental kids, and now you can’t even have a flag saying, ‘We support you in the classroom.’”

The Herald Bulletin adds that “Wills said she worries about the mental health and educational success of her classmates. South Madison’s schools during the 2018-19 school year had a rash of suicides and suicide attempts at all grade levels, some of which did involve LGBT students.”

In reality, Wills said, Pendleton Heights has not been supportive of its LGBT students. For instance, last year she started the Gay-Straight Alliance but was told they could not post fliers and raise money like the other clubs.

“Their only excuse was, ‘It’s a sensitive topic,’” Wills adds. “It didn’t really feel like we were a club because we weren’t allowed to do much.”

Pendleton Heights High School junior Bryce Axel-Adams, “started an online petition to allow the flags to be displayed again. He had hoped for several dozen supporters — he had received nearly 3,000 signatures as of Thursday morning,” The Indy Star reports.

That number is now over 4300.

“As a freshman, I remember walking by (a teacher’s) classroom,” Bryce said. “She had it right on the wall so when you were passing by and looking into her room you could see it.”

“I remember walking by her classroom, glancing at it and just being happy. I knew we had an ally here at the school.”

The flags, which had been up for over a year, remain removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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AYKM?

Trump Says He ‘Saved’ Iranian Ayatollah From ‘Very Ugly Death’

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3 months ago

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June 27, 2025

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President Donald Trump took umbrage at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declaring victory in the war with Israel. Trump said he knew where the Ayatollah was hiding and stopped Israel from killing him.

On Thursday, Khamenei posted to X, formerly Twitter, declaring victory over both Israel and the United States in the war that started on June 13, ending with a ceasefire agreement brokered by Trump on June 24. During the war, Israel’s attacks killed at least 610 people, compared to 28 Israelis killed by Iran’s attacks.

“With all that commotion and all those claims, the Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic,” Khamenei posted.

READ MORE: Trump Says News Media ‘Caught Cheating Again’ For Questioning Iran Claims

“My congratulations on our dear Iran’s victory over the US regime. The US regime entered the war directly because it felt that if it didn’t, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed. It entered the war in an effort to save that regime but achieved nothing,” he added in another post.

Trump took offense in a Friday Truth Social post at how the Ayatollah framed things .

“Why would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war torn Country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the War with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie, it is not so. As a man of great faith, he is not supposed to lie. His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life. I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!'” Trump wrote.

Trump then said that the Israel strike that happened shortly after the ceasefire was announced would have been “the final knockout” had he not demanded Israel “bring back a very large group of planes.” He also said that until he heard Khamenei’s statement, Trump was considering lifting sanctions on Iran “which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery.”

“They have no hope, and it will only get worse! I wish the leadership of Iran would realize that you often get more with HONEY than you do with VINEGAR. PEACE!!!” Trump added.

The brief war started when Israel made a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear sites including scientists and military figures like the Iran’s chief of staff of the armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri; commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Hossein Salami; and the head of the IRGC Air Force, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz confirmed that the country had wanted to kill Ayatollah Khamenei as well. Though reporting suggested that the United States had talked Israel out of this, Katz said permission wasn’t needed. Rather, he said, Khamenei survived because there was “no operational opportunity,” according to Al Jazeera.

On June 22, the U.S. attacked three of Iran’s nuclear sites in Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan. There were no casualties. Nor were there any casualties when Iran retaliated with a strike on a U.S. base in Qatar.

Trump made the order to attack Iran without informing Congress beforehand. The U.S. strike was controversial, with Rep. Al Green filing an article of impeachment alleging Trump violated the War Powers Act, but the article was quickly tabled.

Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. attacks had “obliterated” the Iranian sites. Early intelligence reporting seen by CNN and the New York Times said that the destruction had been overstated. Later reports from the CIA said the sites were “severely damaged.” However, it is still unknown whether Iran’s supply of enriched uranium was destroyed as Trump says, or moved before the strike.

Image via Reuters

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‘Well Peter, There Was a Global Pandemic’: Psaki Socks Doocy for Not Grasping How World Events Affect Inflation

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4 years ago

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March 10, 2022

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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is no longer holding back her frustration to chaos agents and propagandists in her briefing room.

Fox News propagandist Peter Doocy on Thursday continued his false framing and intentional disregard of how world events affect economic conditions and inflation.

Psaki was forced to inform Doocy that there’s “no question that when a foreign dictator invades a foreign country, and when that foreign dictator is the head of a country that is the third-largest supplier of oil in the world, that that is going to have an impact.”

Ignoring that basic fact, Doocy continued, this time grossly politicizing world events.

“The President’s statement blames the ‘Putin price hike.’ Are you guys just gonna start blaming Putin for everything until the midterms?”

“Well, we’ve seen the price of gas go up at least 75 cents since President Putin lined up troops on the border of Ukraine,” Psaki replied.

Doocy continued to put his inability to understand on full display.

“Last month, the statement didn’t mention the ‘Putin price hike.’ It mentioned inflation because of the pandemic. Why is that?” Doocy asked.

“Well, Peter last year, last two years, there was a global pandemic. Everyone who’s a – global economists have all agreed that this has been the biggest contributor to date of inflation because of the impact on the supply chain. Obviously, global events impact the economy, the global economy, as well as global inflation and the price hikes as a result that have escalated over the course of time of President Putin’s further invasion of the impact on the global oil markets are of course having an impact.”

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‘Whole Case Is a Mess’: Internet Stunned as Judge Lets Rittenhouse Choose Final Jurors in Raffle System

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4 years ago

on

November 16, 2021

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Controversial Judge Bruce Schroeder allowed Kyle Rittenhouse, on trial for shooting three people and killing two of them with an AR-15 assault weapon he had illegally obtained and carried across state lines, with literally having a hand in choosing the twelve jurors who will now decide his fate.

Judge Schroder has been under fire for what many see as extraordinary deference to Rittenhouse, some even say support of Rittenhouse. Others have noted his cell phone ring tone is the same song as Donald Trump’s campaign theme song, and others still were offended by at least one offhand “joke” Schroder made. Trial watchers were also stunned when Schroder falsely claimed zooming in on a photo as millions of people do daily to enlarge it is “so-called scientific evidence.” And others were disturbed by Schroeder’s very public attacks on the prosecutor.

18 jurors sat through the entire trial, but only 12, as is customary, will decide the case.

“At the direction of Circuit Judge Bruce Schroder,” the Associated Press reports Tuesday afternoon, “Rittenhouse’s attorney placed slips of paper into a raffle drum with the numbers of each of the 18 jurors on it who sat through the two-week trial. The drum had been sitting on a window ledge throughout the trial but was placed in front of Rittenhouse at the defense table Tuesday.”

“Rittenhouse then selected six pieces of paper from the drum, who a court official then read aloud to be dismissed: 11, 58, 14, 45, 9 and 52.”

The remaining 12 will deliberate the case.

“I’ve never heard of a defendant pulling the names,” Portage County Assistant District Attorney Robert Jambois told the AP. “That’s done by a member of the court.”

Not in this case, which has deviated from general norms repeatedly.

Former Milwaukee County assistant district attorney Julius Kim told the AP, “I’ve never seen a judge allow a defendant to draw those names. That might be a little unconventional but there’s nothing wrong with it that I could really see.”

On social media many were stunned.

 

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