Fogbow

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt Wants to Kill PBS
Kevin Stitt vetoed all state funding for Oklahoma's PBS station, claiming the channel is engaged in LGBTQ "indoctrination."

Kevin Stitt, the Republican Governor of Oklahoma, has defended his decision to veto funding for his state’s public television network. He claims the station is attempting to indoctrinate children by exposing them to LGBTQ-themed content.

Stitt halted a bill that would have funded the operations of the state’s PBS station, Oklahoma Educational Television Authority through 2026.

He argued that taxpayer dollars should not fund educational television programming.

Unless the legislature overrides Stitt’s veto, the station — which provides programming like Sesame Street, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Curious George, and Arthur — will cease operations this year.

Republican City Council member Matthew Reilly of Cranston, RI was arrested after he was found behind the wheel passed out holding a crack pipe with crack and fentanyl in the car.

@RepClayHiggins
pushing an activist for asking tough questions is supposed to be normal?

Kendra wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 11:12 am

Republican City Council member Matthew Reilly of Cranston, RI was arrested after he was found behind the wheel passed out holding a crack pipe with crack and fentanyl in the car.

@RepClayHiggins
pushing an activist for asking tough questions is supposed to be normal?

The question that set Clay off is the guy asked Boebert about her divorce.

How Republicans are embracing the accused subway killer Daniel Penny
White former marine accused of killing Black street performer has raised more than $2m for his legal defense fund

Victoria Bekiempis
Fri 19 May 2023 11.00 BST

When New York City authorities charged Daniel Penny with second-degree manslaughter after placing fellow subway rider Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold, his case quickly became a flashpoint in rightwing discourse on crime and vigilantism – and the broader culture war playing out in the US in advance of the 2024 election.

Penny, a white former Marine, soon raised more than $1m for his legal defense in the killing of Neely, an unhoused Black man. The sum now exceeds $2.5m.

Showing how his support largely comes from the US right, the financial drive is posted on GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising website which has also hosted efforts for rightwing vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse and far-right groups and individuals, among them January 6 insurrectionists.

Numerous senior Republican politicians have joined the chorus of Penny’s defenders. Among them is Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, who touted Penny as a “Good Samaritan” who merited support in a Twitter post that also managed to invoke George Soros – a Holocaust survivor and funder of liberal causes whose name has become an antisemitic dog whistle.

“We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens,” DeSantis, a likely Republican primary contender, ranted in his tweet. “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine … America’s got his back.” DeSantis’s tweet also included a link to Penny’s fundraiser.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman seeking the Republican presidential nomination, donated $10,000 to the Penny fundraiser. He retweeted his likely primary rival DeSantis, saying: “I agree with this. Just donated. More of us should. We must restore the rule of law in America.”

Ramaswamy, listing some of Neely’s past criminal offenses, said that he “never faced real justice for terrorizing New Yorkers” and blamed Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... undraising

unhoused

► Show Spoiler

I was unhoused on three separate occasions for several weeks at a time, in the throes of my, umm ... genetic disposition. It wasn't easy, being an alcoholic/addict, but I can't blame my mom, because she's not around anymore. She drank herself to death in 2005, when she was just three years older than I am today.

On the bright side, she was never unhoused. She was housed very well almost her entire life, except when we lived in Navy barracks.

2022 Texas Poet Laureate Lupe Mendez's Book "Why I Am Like Tequila" banned in North Texas. - podcast

Tony Diaz
May 19, 2023

As book bans become fashionable and favorable vs just outright discrimination, one of our own Librotraficantes has been deemed too controversial for K-12.

Lupe Mendez, 2022 Texas Poet laureate and award winning author, has had his book "Why I Am Like Tequila?" banned at a Texas Panhandle school along with other BIPOC and LGBTQi+ books.

Tony Diaz speaks with our hermano about why this happened, what this means, and what the next move is in the Librotraficante movement.

Originally from Galveston, TX, Lupe Mendez (Writer // Educator // Activist) is the author WHY I AM LIKE TEQUILA (Willow Books, 2019), winner of the 2019 John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. He is the founder of Tintero Projects which works with emerging Latinx writers and other writers of color within the Texas Gulf Coast Region, with Houston as its hub. Lupe earned his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Texas @ El Paso. Mendez’s work can been seen in print and online formats including the Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast Journal, the Texas Review, the L.A. Review of Books, Split This Rock, Poetry Magazine and Poem-A-Day from the Academy of American Poets. Mendez is the 2022 Texas Poet Laureate. Follow Lupe on Twitter, at @thepoetmendez and on Instagram, at @ellupis.


https://m.soundcloud.com/tony-diaz-7272 ... orth-texas

A federal judge on Monday extended his order that temporarily stops the Mississippi Supreme Court chief justice from appointing judges in the capital city of Jackson and the county where it’s located, both of which are majority-Black.

U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate’s new order could last until June 9, giving attorneys time to further develop arguments about citizens’ right to elect judges.

Wingate heard hours of testimony Monday in a lawsuit filed by the national, state and local chapters of the NAACP, which challenges a state law that Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed in April.

The civil rights organization argues that the law passed by the majority-white and Republican-controlled state Legislature creates unequal treatment for residents of Jackson and Hinds County compared to residents of the rest of the state. The capital city and Hinds County are both majority-Black and governed by Democrats.

* * *

The law would expand state policing inside the city of Jackson and create a new court inside part of Jackson with a judge who would be appointed by the Mississippi chief justice. It would also allow the chief justice to appoint four judges to work alongside the four elected circuit court judges in Hinds County through 2026.

* * *

On May 15, a state court judge dismissed a similar lawsuit, writing that the appointment of judges does not violate the state constitution. Plaintiffs have appealed that decision to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

A Trump spokeswoman mocked Pete Buttigieg's military service in a Memorial Day weekend spat with Ron DeSantis

Sarah Al-Arshani
Sun, May 28, 2023 at 7:21 PM GMT+2

• The presidential campaign between Trump and DeSantis has been heated.
  On Saturday, a Trump spokeswoman took jabs at DeSantis for his political ambitions.
  She also dragged Pete Buttigieg into the crosshairs while using a photo of his military service.

A spokeswoman for former President Donald Trump appeared to mock Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg's military service during a spat against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

On Saturday, Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington tweeted a clip of her criticizing DeSantis' political ambitions.

"Ron 'Dee-Santis' has run for 4 different offices in the past 7 years. That's not someone who's in it for the country, it's someone who's in it for himself," Harrington said in a tweet.




https://news.yahoo.com/trump-spokeswoma ... 22304.html

“Due to recent statements by him promoting racial stereotypes, white nationalism and other various controversial topics, I feel compelled to distance myself from his ignorant, hateful rants,” Charles Tuberville, brother of U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, said.

Prince Harry’s US immigration records should be unsealed in the light of revelations about drug-taking in his recent book, a conservative think tank will argue in a federal court next week.

The Heritage Foundation is suing the US government to find out if it acted according to procedure when it granted the Duke of Sussex a US visa. Under US immigration law, evidence of past drug use can be grounds to reject an application.

The case will be held in front of a federal judge on June 6 at the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The Heritage Foundation filed a complaint under the Freedom of Information Act, attempting to compel the government to release Harry’s immigration file. “The requested information is of immense public interest,” reads an amended complaint filed on May 5.

“Widespread and continuous media coverage has surfaced the question of whether DHS [Department of Homeland Security] properly admitted the Duke of Sussex in light of the fact that he has publicly admitted to the essential elements of a number of drug offenses in both the United States and abroad,” it continues.

The original request for Harry’s records was rejected because Harry had not indicated that he “consented to his information being released,” the US Justice Department said in court papers.

Kristi Noem on Fox & Friends says she's boycotting Target because "that store is fundamentally tearing down this country"

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Republican delegates in North Carolina voted Saturday at their annual convention to censure Thom Tillis, the state’s senior U.S. senator, for backing LGBTQ+ rights, immigration and gun violence policies.

As Sen. Tillis has gained influence in Congress for his willingness to work across the aisle, his record of supporting some key policies has raised concerns among some state Republicans that the senator has strayed from conservative values.

Several delegates in Greensboro criticized Tillis, who has held his seat in the Senate since 2015, for his work last year on the Respect For Marriage Act, which enshrined protections for same-sex and interracial marriages in federal law.

Both the state and national GOP platforms oppose same-sex marriage. But Tillis, who had opposed it earlier in his political career, was among the early supporters of the law who lobbied his GOP colleagues in Congress to vote in favor of it.

Republican official appears to have moved $1.3m from non-profit to own law firm
RNC committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon takes $120,000 salary from non-profit Center for American Liberty for two-hour week

Jason Wilson
@jason_a_w
Mon 12 Jun 2023 15.00 BST

The San Francisco lawyer Harmeet Dhillon is a fixture on Fox News who has garnered support from the likes of Matt Gaetz, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham; she also helms a non-profit that appears to have directed more than $1m into her law firm, Dhillon Law Group.

Dhillon most recently made headlines when she signed on to represent Carlson in a gender discrimination lawsuit he and Fox News face from former producer Abby Grossberg. She also acted as an attorney for Donald Trump and former Project Veritas head James O’Keefe, who in 2021 sued Twitter for banning him.

Last November, Dhillon was able to mount a serious challenge to Ronna McDaniel for chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Archived snapshots of her campaign’s official website touted endorsements from elected officials such as Gaetz and conservative media figures such as Carlson, Ingraham and Jack Posobiec.

Her growing profile proved a huge advantage. Since becoming an RNC committeewoman for California in 2016, she made hundreds of appearances in conservative media, predominantly Fox News. From 2019, these appearances were often based on lawsuits sponsored by that non-profit she helms, the Center for American Liberty (CAL), and aimed at rightwing bugbears like Covid restrictions, leftist street protesters and gender-affirming healthcare.

The Guardian has found that at least $1.32m has been transferred from the CAL to her law firm, Dhillon Law Group, in a move one charity expert described as “problematic”. Additionally, state and federal filings show Dhillon takes a $120,000 salary from CAL for a two-hour work week.

Meanwhile, the non-profit has entered into a close relationship with a well-heeled rightwing foundation whose financial generosity has been matched by a seat on the non-profit’s board.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... c-fox-news