I Ain't One To Gossip But ...

Khloé Kardashian appeared on the latest episode of the podcast Not Skinny But Not Fat and say some nice things about her constantly-cheating ex, Tristan Thompson. Khloé insists Thompson has “so many good sides” not just his need to stick his dick into any women willing to let him do it, even if he already has another girl pregnant, and a couple of baby mama’s hanging around.

And speaking of low self-esteem Khloé also discussed her constantly-changing face, saying it used to offend her when people said she had “12 face transplants,” because the only thing she’d had done was “one nose job.” A nose job that ballooned up her lips and plumped up her cheek bones and changed her eye color and forehead.

That is one magical nose job. You’d think it could have made Tristan keep his dick in his pants.

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Shakira is in some tax trouble, y’all, after she ALLEGEDLY skipped out on paying some $15.5 million in taxes in Spain from 2012 to 2014.

Shakira claims she’s innocent, saying that Spain wasn’t her official residence during that time and she appealed the case, but a judge took one look and said, “Denied.”

Now the case goes to trial, and the prosecutors have called their first witness … Shakira’s hips ... cuz y’all know they don’t lie.

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From the moment Harry Styles went solo he has been compared to everyone from Elton John, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and Mick Jagger. It doesn’t appear that the comparison bothers Elton, and with Freddie and Bowie gone, we only have Jagger’s thoughts … and he ain’t happy.

The topic of Harry Styles was brought up during a recent interview between The Rolling Stones and The Times of London, and while Mick said he likes Harry, he says he was way more androgynous back in the day and that Harry is a “superficial resemblance” to his younger self and doesn’t “move on stage” like him.

Well, I’m sure he doesn’t move like Jagger … gag me with as Maroon 5 reference and Adam Levine squawking out a lyric … because Harry probably still has his original hips.

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I guess when you divorce the world’s best-known Church of $cientology cult member, they really do erase you from his past. Am I right, Tommy?

Apparently there was a video of Tom Cruise’s illustrious career that played at Cannes before the premiere of Tom’s latest remake-reboot-rehash of a Tom Cruise film—let’s be clear, Cruise doesn’t make movies, he remakes movies—and there was one glaring omission.

Nicole Kidman—who was married to Tiny Tom  for 11 years and starred in three movies with him—was the only leading lady not included in the 10-minute montage that played at Cannes.

All of Cruise’s other co-stars—including Kirsten Dunst, Renée Zellweger and Penelope Cruz, whom he dated for three years—were featured in clips, but apparently, Tom’s love interest in “Days of Thunder,” “Far and Away” and “Eyes Wide Shut” wasn’t Nicki Kidman but was Tom Cruise himself.

Sounds about right.

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I Didn't Say It

President Biden, on those dead children, victims of yet another mass shooting in America:

"I had hoped when I became president I would not have to do this—again. Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third and fourth graders. And how many scores of little children who witnessed what happened—see their friends die, as if they're in a battlefield, for God's sake. They'll live with it the rest of their lives. What struck me on that 17-hour flight [Biden was returning from Asia] what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why? They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost, but these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America. Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? As a nation, we have to ask, when in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God's name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?”

When all of you in Washington finally stand up; when those of you who want comprehensive, rational gun control call out the other side for offering no solutions.

When you decide to do something.

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Jimmy Kimmel, forgoing his usual monologue to speak about another mass shooting in The United States of Guns:

"Here we are again, on another day of mourning in this country. Once again, we grieve for the little boys and girls whose lives have been ended and whose families have been destroyed. While our leaders on the right—the Americans in Congress and at Fox News and these other outlets—warn us not to politicize this, they immediately criticize our President for even speaking about doing something to stop it, because they don't want to speak about it. Because they know what they've done and they know what they haven't done, and they know that it's indefensible. So they'd rather sweep this under the rug. [They] aren't listening to us. They're listening to the NRA. They're listening to the people who write them checks, who keep them in power because that's the way politics work. That's the idea we settle on, that's what we tell ourselves, but it doesn't have to be that way. Not for this. This is a time to be loud—and to stay loud—and not stop until we fix this. Some people say this is a mental health problem. Others say it's a gun problem. It is both, and it can be both. So let's work on both of those. So if you care about this—and we all do, doesn't matter what party we vote for, we all care about this—we need to make sure that we do everything we can ... to make sure that unless they do something drastic that let's make sure that not one of any of these politicians ever holds office again."

Anyone in public offers who expresses their grief and offers their prayers and then does not one thing about guns, needs to be voted out of office permanently.

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Greg Abbott, Republican governor of Texas, saying the Uvalde school murderer had a "mental health challenge":

"We as a state, we as a society, need to do a better job with mental health."

Just last month Greg Abbott slashed $211 million from the department that oversees mental health programs. Texas now ranks dead last—pun intended—out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia for overall access to mental health care.

Greg Abbott was scheduled to speak at an upcoming NRA event but pulled out at the last minute in an effort to make it seem like he gives a flying fuck about dead kids; let’s be clear, he does not.

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Chris Murphy, Democrat Senator from Connecticut, speaking on the Senate floor begging the Republicans to act against gun violence:

"I’m here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues. Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely. This only happens in this country and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day. Nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids as I have had to do about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet for five minutes just in case a bad man entered that building. Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America. And it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue."

The GOP talks about being pro-family, pro-children, but when it comes to children being murdered in schools, their offer the solutions of arming teachers, having more active shooter drills, or locking the kids inside the building.

Nothing about the guns.

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Ted Cruz, Republican Senator from Texas and NRA bitchboy, on the shootings, which have left his hands and soul covered in the blood of children:

“Heidi and I are fervently lifting up in prayer the children and families in the horrific shooting in Uvalde. We are in close contact with local officials, but the precise details are still unfolding. Thank you to the heroic law enforcement and first responders for acting so swiftly.”

Cruz said, the next day:

"When there's a murderer of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it, you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. We are seeing way too many of these horrific mass murders. And we need to devote far more law enforcement resources to stopping violent criminals preventing these kinds of absolute acts of evil."

First off, Rafael, your prayers are hollow when you take money from the very people who flood our streets with guns.

Your prayers mean nothing when you block even the discussion of gun control.

You don’t care about dead children; you care about political office.

Fuck completely off.

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Steve Kerr, coach for the Warriors basketball team, refused to talk about basketball before the team’s playoff game against the Mavericks, but instead spoke of murdered children in the United Sates of Guns:

“Since we left shoot-around, 14 children were killed 400 miles from here and a teacher [now 19 children and 2 teachers dead]. And in the last 10 days, we’ve had elderly Black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, we’ve had Asian churchgoers killed in southern California, and now we have children murdered at school. When are we going to do something? I’m tired, I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. I’m tired of the moments of silence.”

Moments of silence, thoughts and prayers, lifting people up in prayer, will not save the life of one American.

Gun control, and better access to mental health care, together, can start to solve the problem.

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Barack Obama, former President, speaking out about the shooting:

“Michelle and I grieve with the families in Uvalde, who are experiencing pain no one should have to bear. We’re also angry for them. Nearly ten years after Sandy Hook—and ten days after Buffalo—our country is paralyzed, not by fear, but by a gun lobby and a political party that have shown no willingness to act in any way that might help prevent these tragedies. It’s long past time for action, any kind of action. And it’s another tragedy—a quieter but no less tragic one—for families to wait another day. Across the country, parents are putting their children to bed, reading stories, singing lullabies—and in the back of their minds, they’re worried about what might happen tomorrow after they drop their kids off at school, or take them to a grocery store or any other public space. May God bless the memory of the victims, and in the words of Scripture, heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds.”

My president; remember he was the one that the GOP and the NRA said was coming for your guns, and yet he confiscated not one weapon. The Democrats don’t want your guns, we want gun safety, gun responsibility, guns not in the hands of the mentally ill or the morally outraged.

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Bobservation: We Don't Care

It’s happened again … and again … and again, who cares?

In the past week we’ve seen a lunatic open fire in a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood, murdering people; then we saw another lunatic shoot up a Taiwanese church in California; and now, more schoolchildren dead, and families destroyed, again, in Texas.

We don‘t care though. We don’t care. There are so many other things to grab our attention … Kim Kardastrophe wore Marilyn’s dress to the Met Gala; Amber Heard and  Johnny Depp, two self-entitled, self-involved celebrities are battling again in court; because there’s something new to stream on Netflix or a new iPhone to stand in line to buy.

We don’t care. We stopped caring ten years ago after Sandy Hook.

Oh, sure, we get pissed and we stomp our feet and we yell, but what else do we do? Do we demand, DEMAND, that out elected officials do something about the ease with which nearly anyone can get a gun? Do we require that gun owners be licensed and trained in the use of firearms? Do we say No to anyone who wants a gun without a background check? Do we even ask the question about requiring gun owners to carry insurance?

You need to be trained and tested and licensed and insured to buy  and operate a car in this country, but all you need to get a gun and carry it wherever you want is a credit card and a trigger finger.

And we still don’t care. We whine and cry and stomp our feet and then turn back to our devices. When will we learn?

Well, learn this: Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz, who doesn’t think gun control, gun licensing, gun registration, a full ban on assault weapons will stop these mass shootings was paid $442,000.00 from the NRA; that’s a lot of money to keep getting you reelected while children are gunned down.

Louisiana GOP Congressman Steve Scalise has $396,000.00 reasons to not vote for stricter gun laws, thanks to the NRA.

Senator GOP John Cornyn of Texas earned some $340,000.00 while kids in his state are murdered. GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina, pocketed  $284,000.00 from the NRA to look the other way, while GOP Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky took in $247,000.00 in blood money. GOP Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, GOP Congressman Kevin McCarthy of California, GOP Congress man Pete Sessions of Texas, and GOP Senator Steve Daines of Montana, also padded their election coffers with nearly a quarter of a million dollars each from the NRA.

Notice that the politicians raking in the most money from the NRA, and the ones most adamant about having no need for gun control, sensible, responsible gun control, are all Republicans.

Money talks, children die; we don’t care.

And those in the GOP who don’t work in politics and don’t cash NRA checks offer up their own solutions … Maureen O’Connell, a former FBI agent, says schools should invest in “ballistic blankets” and in obscuring windows, to keep shooter at bay. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton thinks teachers should be armed. Not a single word about stopping the flood of guns  into murderers’ hands, just ways to sell more guns.

Don’t stop the shooter; don’t stop the lunatic with the gun.

The hypocrisy of Texas’ GOP Governor Greg Abbott waging a war against face masks in schools during a pandemic, but who cares nothing about keeping guns out of the hands of madmen who shoot schoolchildren isn’t lost on me.

The hypocrisy of GOP and their war against abortion this week, talking about fetal heartbeats, when they don’t care at all about the dead 19 school children, each of whom had … had … a heartbeat isn’t lost on me.

The hypocrisy of the GOP who have traded out their ridiculous “thoughts and prayers” responses of for a new message about “lifting up in prayer” the survivors and the families of those whose children and loved ones were murdered isn’t lost on me.

How about lifting up your fucking voices and demanding this madness stop? How about lifting up your fucking hand and voting Yes to responsible, sane, gun control?

The hypocrisy of the GOP offering condolences to the families of murdered school children at the same time they are saying there’s nothing that can be done isn’t lost on me.

The hypocrisy of the GOP banning books about slavery, books about trans kids, books about racism, books about LGBTQ+ Americans, while allowing anyone to own a gun and carry it wherever they choose and open fire at will isn’t lost on me.

Books are killing students, but by god keep them out of our schools.

The hypocrisy of the GOP saying deaths of schoolchildren, of People of Color, of church goers, movie goers, shoppers should be used to justify the Second Amendment isn’t lost on me.

But again, we don’t care because those on the right think gun control means the government is coming for your guns. Remember they screamed that, while Obama was president, he was coming to take their guns away. And how many guns did Obama confiscate? I’ll wait until you count to “zero.”

I know people who have guns; I know a guy here in Camden who operates a gun club and operates gun shoots about once a month; those men, and women, aren’t shooting up schools and churches and such. Those are the ones who understand the power of guns, how to handle them.

They aren’t fighting background checks and licenses and registrations. Those are the gun nuts, who have twisted the Second Amendment from having a “well-regulated militia” to fight against an attack on this country by a foreign nation, to mean that y’all can have guns and carry them into the Piggly Wiggly, and throw ‘em over your shoulders in Starbucks, and buy as many as you want at guns shows, and purchase as many assault weapons—a gun with just one use: to kill—as they want.

Those  people shouldn’t have guns, and the people collecting money from the NRA to protect their terror group, the ones like Cruz and Rubio and Graham and McCarthy and McConnell, who have the blood of schoolchildren on their hands, should not be allowed in public office again.

Each and everyone in the GOP who stands with and for the NRA is complicit in the murders of schoolchildren and teachers and rabbis and pastors and concertgoers and worshippers.

But we don’t care. And I say that because in the ten years since Sandy Hook we’ve seen thousands of Americans killed by guns and we’ve done nothing.

I say we don’t care because something shiny will come along to catch our eye, or a new TikTok will need a million views, and so we’ll stop and look.

I say that because we get complacent and look the other way and don’t demand that our elected officials stop the killing.

I still say we don’t care. Prove me wrong.

Architecture Wednesday: Morrish Road Loft

This one is for Carlos, because it’s in London, and Carlos  is nothing short of a full-fledged anglophile. It’s also for him because it’s the converted upper level of  a bakery. And as everyone who reads this blog knows, Carlos loves to bake. He considers himself a sort of MasterBaker™, and, if he could, he’d be MasterBaking™ morning noon and night. I hope you like it, baby, because it’s for sale for only $3.6 million USD!!!

This former bakery is large, with over 3,600 square feet with four bedrooms and a grand open plan great room with white tiled walls and original beamed ceiling retrofitted with skylights.

The loft is accessed via a communal staircase that leads to a private vestibule that opens to a bedroom to the left—an en suite space with access to a roof terrace via a set of “paddle steps”—or right, through a large timber sliding door to the living space. This great room extends over 40 feet long, with soaring timber-clad cathedral ceilings, exposed trusses with plywood floors and original cast-iron radiators set against walls of glazed Victorian tiles. Light pours in from a row of seven steel-framed Crittall windows and a series of skylights overhead. A mezzanine level bedroom with a dressing room is up a flight of open-tread timber stairs and is set behind a glazed wall. A shower room occupies one corner of the room.

The kitchen is on the north side of the home, semi-open to the main room, and is a full-on chef’s kitchen with high-end appliances, stainless steel cabinets and surfaces, and a marble floor.

There are two further bedrooms to the east of the plan, one with a large en suite double shower room with double sinks and slate tiling. The fourth bedroom has access to a second staircase that heads down to a street level exit.

The home, which sits on Morrish Road—a residential street—is a short walk from Brixton, a lively area known for its food and bar scene, the nearby Brixton Village, Market Row and Acre Lane are all highly recommended as is the newly opened is The Department Store, a grand renovated 1876 Bon Marche building that now houses collaborative workspaces, a Pure Vinyl record shop, a community Post Office and Canova Hall restaurant and bar. The green spaces of Rush Common and Brockwell Park are also nearby, with Brockwell Park featuring a lido with a 50-metre pool, an art deco pavilion, café, tennis courts and a walled garden.

And again, all yours for $3.6M; the perfect MasterBaker™ home.

As always, click to emBIGGERate ...

Dwell

Is Hate Here To Stay?

It seems like it was just yesterday—because it was—that we talked about the students at Belfast High School in Belfast, Maine, rallying together to get their Pride festival started again after two years of a COVID shutdown. I thought they were the future, and then I read these two stories, and realize these students are, sadly, the future, too.

Students at Colerain High School in Cincinnati thought it might be cool to tape “Blacks only" and "Whites only" signs over water fountains and then sharing the pictures across social media because … racism is funny?

The Northwest Local School District announced after the incident was aired by a local news station earlier this month that they would start an investigation.

The learned that the signs over the water fountains were posted for about 30 seconds, while the students responsible took photos, then took the signs down, and posted photos of their handiwork online.

Oh, so it was just a short burst of racism by a bunch of ignorant children, who then blasted their ignorance around the world on the internet. The district released a statement:

"Those who participated in this tasteless and hurtful act have been issued significant disciplinary actions. Any student, including those who are found to have taken part in sharing the post online will also be subject to disciplinary action. The actions that were displayed do not reflect the values and culture of Colerain High School or the Northwest Local School District."

I don’t know if I’d call it “tasteless” and “hurtful,” because what it’s actually Hate Speech.

Meanwhile in Florida, the Martin County School District has launched their own investigation after a photo showing six middle school students spelling out the N-word was posted on social media. The photo was arranged, photographed, and posted to social media by students at Hidden Oaks Middle School in Palm City.

Each student in the photo is holding a letter spelling out a common racial slur aimed at the Black community which the students made in an art class.

In class? Where was the teacher? Did that person know what was planned and do nothing?

The school board was scheduled to hold its regular meetings that day, just hours after the photo was posted and while the photo was not set as a topic that night people still packed the room to voice their opinions to the board.

“It’s racism.”

“I am appalled.” said another woman.

“What is happening is not OK.”

Jimmy Smith, president of the Martin County chapter of the NAACP, was at the meeting:

“I was very heartbroken. We all have made mistakes, but when you get to that degree and that depth to come up with an idea like that, there’s something else going on.”

Many people at the board meeting also noted that it was just a small step from posting that picture racially motivated shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo over the weekend.

District officials said there is no question the students in the photo will be punished but said the exact punishment would be determined by the outcome of their investigation.

How about kicking them out of school? Or better yet, since this was Florida where the governor doesn’t want white kids feeling bad about racism and slavery and the way this country has treated people of color for hundreds of years, maybe the school should start teaching history … slavery … Jim Crow … lynchings … Civil Rights … and then maybe these dumbass kids won’t think they’re so cute.

And then their parents should gather together and vote out of office every single Republican from the fascist in charge on down out of office, because this is laid directly at the feet of Ron DeSantis.

He doesn’t want white people being made to feel bad by our racist past but he has said nothing about Black people continuing to be hurt by it.

NBC News: Colerain High School

WPBF: Hidden Oaks Middle School 

The Bad and The Good ... Monday May 23, 2022

These really are the easiest posts to compile because there are dumb people everywhere and it seems they are all trying to out-dumb one another with fear and loathing, but there are some bright spots … so here goes:

BAD

MICHIGAN

Republican Jacky Eubanks, Thing 45’s pick for a state Senate seat. is promising to ban all birth control if elected:

“I guess we have to ask ourselves, would that ever come to a vote in the Michigan state legislature? And if it should, I would have to side with it should not be legal. People believe that birth control—it’s better because then you won’t get pregnant and you won’t need to have an abortion, but I think it gives people the false sense of security that they can have consequence-free sex, and that’s not true and that’s not correct. Sex ought to be between one man and one woman in the confines of marriage.”

Welcome to the 1950s and, please, one reporter, just one, please ask Jacky if she’s ever had sex outside marriage.

WASHINGTON DC

Catherine Glenn Foster, president of the Americans United for Life campaign group, was summoned by the GOP  as an expert witness during a House judiciary committee meeting on access to abortion and said this:

“In places like Washington D.C. [fetuses] are burned to power the lights of the city’s homes and streets. The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators.”

She was not questioned about where she gets her facts by any one ion the GOP because … ignorance and fear are the talking points.

VIRGINIA 

GOP Delegate Tim Anderson is threatening to file a restraining order against Barnes and Noble and Virginia Beach Schools to enjoin them from selling or loaning the books Gender Queer and a Court of Mist and Fury because he says they are obscene though neither book fits that definition, and neither book is pornography.

Barnes & Noble has yet to respond to the legal action but, as a private business, they are allowed to sell what they wish to sell and are under no obligation by anyone to move materials out of their facilities.

Still, to the GOP, Gay is Bad.

OKLAHOMA

The state Legislature gave final approval to a bill that prohibits nearly all abortions starting at fertilization, which would make it the nation’s strictest abortion law.

The bill is modeled on one that took effect in Texas, which has relied on civilian instead of criminal enforcement to work around court challenges, but it goes further than the Texas law because it also subjects abortion providers and anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion to civil suits from private individuals.

The GOP will force women to have babies, but not give a damn about the child once its born.

KENTUCKY

The state’s GOP Representative Thomas Massie cast the only vote against a House resolution honoring Jewish Americans’ heritage and denouncing a rise in violence motivated by antisemitism. The resolution passed the House with 420 votes with Massie’s ‘No’ and either Republicans abstaining from voting.

He voted No to simply denounce a rise in Hate Crimes, and ‘No’ against honoring Jewish American’s heritage.

Let that sink in.

NEW JERSEY

GOP State Senator Edward Durr has introduced legislation that would prohibit teachers from bringing LGBTQ-related instruction into classrooms from kindergarten through sixth grade, while students in seventh through 12th grade can “only” be exposed to LGBTQ topics if a parent gives consent.

If the bill is passed, parents would be allowed to sue schools that employ educators who violate the law by incorporating topics such sexual orientation or gender identity into the curriculum without a parent’s consent.

They will freely teach Hate, though.

GOOD

MAINE

When no adults would revive the community Pride parade in Belfast, Maine, a group of motivated Belfast Area High School students stepped up to make sure that the event—which has been on a pandemic hiatus—happens this year.

The city’s first-ever Pride parade and festival took place in 2016, and became an annual tradition, but no adult organizers had come forward this year to keep the tradition going after being canceled for the last two years due to COVID.

So, twenty high school students secured a permit from the city of Belfast, found sponsors, raised money for banners, flags and other expenses and grappled with the procuring of liability insurance.

That’s the future, y’all.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

GOP Governor Chris Sununu announced he would veto a piece of legislation, the “Parental Bill of Rights,” that critics say could require New Hampshire schools to out LGBTQ+ children to their parents.

A Republican with common sense? Who knew?

AMERICA

About two-thirds of Americans say they do not support overturning Roe v. Wade, and also shows that two-thirds of Democrats say the contents of the SCOTUS leak make them more likely to vote in November, as compared to just 40% of Republicans who said so.

This survey showed that voters would cast their ballot in favor of a Democrat in their local congressional district if the election were held today.

Vote Blue!

WYOMING

GOP Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican representing Wyoming in the U.S. Senate, speaking at commencements of several schools, including the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Education, and said that “the existence of two sexes, male and female” was a “fundamental scientific truth.”

She was roundly booed by the students, the educated students.

That is also the future, y’all.

Remember, We The People have to make the Good News happen by speaking up and standing up and shouting out and voting to remove those people from office who are out to harm women, People of Color, and the LGBTQ+ community in their quest to take this country backwards.

CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!