Meme Dump

Vote As Though Your Life Depended On It, Because Some Lives Do

If you’re one of those people who doesn’t vote, thinks it doesn’t matter, feels like your vote doesn’t count, think about the disaster of 2016, and think about these things, and then Cast a Goddamned Vote:

Republicans in Congress are lining up behind legislation that would roll back protections for transgender Americans. The GOP has introduced a bill to block federal funding to colleges that allows transgender women to participate in sports with cisgender women, while a second bill would block funding to schools that disobey state laws regarding “materials harmful to minors,” mimicking state laws that have been used to remove books discussing history around race and LGBTQ themes; it’s a national Don’t Say Gay bill.

And though the bills have no chance of becoming law this year, since Democrats narrowly control both Houses of Congress, they signal the GOP’s efforts to demonize and criminalize our trans brothers and sisters. And Republicans would be in a position to advance those bills next year if they win control of the House or the Senate in the midterm elections, so now is the time to fight, by your vote, for our community because if the GOP wins this battle, the war against all LGBTQ+ Americans will be on.

And while the GOP seeks to discriminate trans Americans it also seeks to protect white supremacist Americans and Nazis in both our police force and military.

Last week the House approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to compel government officials to prepare a report on combating white supremacists and neo-Nazi activity in the police and military.

The amendment Passed despite every single Republican voting against it. The GOP is coming for trans people but not Nazis and white supremacists?

Also last week, when Democrats in the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, passed two bills to protect women’s access to abortion and reproductive healthcare services, every single ‘No’ vote except one came from a Republican.

The second bill, the Right To Travel For Abortion Services, protecting the right to travel across state lines to obtain healthcare, including abortion, passed 223-205, with all 205 “No” votes coming from the GOP.

While both bills face extreme odds in the Senate, where Republicans have dubbed it “Abortion Tourism,” it does tell Americans where the GOP stands, and how far the GOP will go to make access to abortion completely illegal in the entire country.

And then we have Senate Democrats working on legislation to make contraception rights, same-sex marriage and parenting, and interracial marriage, the law of the land, but all but one of the Senate Republicans have refused to say they would vote for them.

Let all of this sink in: trans Americans are under attack, but Nazis are given a pass. Abortion rights, and the right of women to make their own choices about their own bodies, might become a criminal offense in America; contraception could become illegal; your same-sex marriage, my same-sex marriage, might be nullified; and interracial marriages, even Clarence and Ginni—which perhaps is Clarence’s plan all along—might be outlawed.

If you think your vote doesn’t count, or you think we don’t need your help defeating these racist, transphobic, homophobic, anti-women Republicans, then you aren’t thinking.

November is coming, CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE, or wait for the GOP to come after you, because they will.

NBC News  Newsweek   NCRM   NCRM

The Bad and The Good ... Monday June 13, 2022

These really are the easiest posts to compile because there are dumb people everywhere, though for some odd reason there are fewer this week. And so we have a few more   bright spots, and given this is Pride Month, it’s especially nice that there are positive LGBTQ+ stories … so here goes:

BAD

PENNSYLVANIA

Two GOP lawmakers, State Senators Scott Martin and Ryan Aument, plan to introduce a bill “to address discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in Pennsylvania schools.”

In other words, Pennsylvania is going ‘Don’t Say Gay.’

This new bill would pertain to age-inappropriate conversations in elementary schools by prohibiting classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students and require public schools to develop a policy for notifying parents when there is a change to a student’s services or monitoring.

Scott Martin, who dropped his bid for governor in March, is also the author of the state Senate bill against transgender student athletes. That bill passed this week but has zero chance of being signed by Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.

FLORIDA

State GOP Representative Anthony Sabatini said he intends to draft legislation that would charge adults with a felony and “terminate the parental rights of any adult who brings a child to these perverted sex shows,” adding:

“When will the sexualization of children stop?”

I guess he has no problem, though, with parents taking pictures of their children holding guns because guns are good and gay is bad.

GOOD

NORTH CAROLINA

The state Senate passed its own ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill after Republicans introduced it on the first day of Pride Month. The bill is expected to pass the GOP-led House but get vetoed by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

And the bill has one local resident fighting back. Matt Bumpas, owner of Sweet Bumpas Cakes, is not a  fan of Hate Laws:

“All this hate mongering really has me angry. It’s hard to talk about. I’m really in disbelief and I really wanted to do something that spoke back to them.”

Bumpas went into the kitchen and created the Please Say Gay Cake. He posted a photo to Instagram and the orders started coming in.

Please Say Gay.

UTAH

Democratic state Senator Derek Kitchen has introduced legislation to codify marriage equality in Utah. Kitchen was joined by Jim Obergefell, plaintiff in the 2015 landmark Supreme Court decision that recognized same-sex marriage nationwide.

Kitchen, Utah’s only out gay legislator, was one of the plaintiffs in the case that brought marriage equality to Utah in 2014. Utah was the first state to ban same-sex unions, passing a law banning marriage equality in 1977, a statute that federal courts stopped the state from enforcing. In statute, however, Utah still recognizes marriage only between different sexes and Kitchen wants that changed:

“We will not go back. We have come too far to go back. We must defend our progress. We must be proactive by removing this exclusionary language from Utah code. We are legislating with our eyes wide open because our history tells us that we have to.”

The march goes on …

TEXAS

The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] and Lambda Legal have filed a lawsuit challenging GOP Governor Greg Abbott’s directive to investigate parents who provide gender-affirming care to their transgender children.

According to the lawsuit, a 16-year-old transgender boy tried to kill himself the same day Abbott issued the child abuse directive. He survived, but was admitted to an outpatient psychiatric facility, where staff learned that he was undergoing hormone therapy and reported the family for child abuse. A week after he was discharged, a Department of Family and Protective Services [DFPS] investigator visited the family’s home; they remain under investigation.

Punishing families because they have a trans child; punishing trans children because they want to live an authentic life.

That’s Texas and the GOP.

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.

Not to mention the NRA lapdogs and asshats.

CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!

The Bad and Some Good ... Monday May 16, 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 were a couple of semi-bright spots … so here goes:

KENTUCKY

A homework assignment given to several middle-schoolers at Christian Academy of Louisville [CAL] encouraged them to persuade an imaginary friend to reject homosexuality.

Not so much as Don’t Say Gay, as Don’t Be Gay. Screenshots show the assignment required students to write a letter to a hypothetical friend "struggling with homosexuality" and persuade them "God's design for them is good”:

"Assume that you have known this friend since kindergarten, that you go to the same church and that you have been pretty good friends over the years until now … The aim of your letter should be to lovingly and compassionately speak truth to the person you’re talking to in a way that does not approve of any sin. Instead, TRY TO PERSUADE THEM OF THE GOODNESS OF GOD’S DESIGN for them."

CAL School System Superintendent Darin Long said the assignment had been given as “part of a unit of study which discusses 'What are humans and where is their identity, and how a person could discuss homosexuality with a friend from a biblical perspective with compassion and love.

You’re sinning; you’re wrong: that doesn’t reek of compassion and love. Judgement. Not so Christ-like, CAL.

KANSAS

It seems the GOP’s newest strategy to win votes it to trot out that old ‘Gay Is Bad’ mantra that helped George W Bush take the White House in 2000. And Kansas’ junior senator, Republican Roger Marshall, is taking his culture war fight to Hollywood and cartoons.

Marshall sent a letter to the board of the TV Parental Guidelines asking it to update its criteria for the warnings it puts on children’s programming citing “parents raising legitimate concerns on sexual orientation and gender identity content on children’s TV shows.” When asked for a list of the offensive LGBTQ+ programming, Marshall spoke of Netflix’s “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power” and Nickelodeon’s “Danger Force” and the idea that normalizing these cartoons will turn kids gay.

I used to watch Bugs Bunny slap on a wig and squeeze into a pencil skirt to pull one over on Elmer Fudd and it didn’t turn me trans.

I also watched plenty of cartoons that were decidedly straight and they didn’t turn me hetero.

As Popeye said, 'I yam what I yam,' and it ain’t no cartoon’s fault..

TEXAS

Governor Greg Abbott and other GOP state lawmakers shifted about $1 billion in federal Coronavirus aid to help pay for their campaign to arrest migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

We just passed a million COVID deaths in this country and the GOP is using money that could have helped a COVID patient in a publicity stunt.

But, hey, immigrants bad.

AMERICA

Retired Army Lieutenant General, disgraced ex-National Security Advisor and QAnon High Priest Loon Michael Flynn is now spouting another ridiculous lie … that COVID vaccines contain “dormant pathogens” that will be triggered into action when 5G towers issue an 18 gigahertz signal for one minute causing the IP36 gene deletion among the vaccinated to be activated and turning them into zombies.

Looks like Flynn’s brain has already been eaten by the undead.

GOOD

TEXAS

The state Supreme Court has ruled that neither GOP Governor Greg Abbott nor GOP Attorney General Kern Paxton had the authority to order child abuse investigations of families that provide certain medical treatment for their transgender children.

The downside is that the court did not go so far as to order a blanket ban on all such investigations, saying that decision was up to the Department for Family and Protective Services [DFPS].

Still, it’s a step …

FLORIDA

Lyman High School students were upset after school officials announced that they would cover up any yearbook photos that displayed any part of a “Don’t Say Gay” student-led walkout last March, causing a delay in yearbook production so the book could fit in with homophobic school board policies.

But the yearbook controversy has ended and Lyman High School students will receive a complete yearbook, without covered photos and captions, after the Seminole County Public Schools board voted unanimously to put disclaimer stickers in the yearbook instead of covering three … three … photos from that student walkout.

The photos in question? Students holding Rainbow flags and a “Love is Love” sign, along with quotes from students sharing their views on the legislation and why they participated in the protest.

A small win, but I’ll take it.

As I said, not a lot of good this week but that means 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 in their quest to take this country backwards.,

CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!

The Bad and The Good ... Monday May, 2, 2022

These really are the easiest posts to compile because there are dumb people everywhere ... but that’s what makes it so frightening. So this week, I decided to include some Good News as sort of a palette cleanser for the crazies …

BAD

TENNESSEE

GOP Governor Bill Lee has signed a new bill to allow Ivermectin, AKA horse paste, to be available for the treatment of COVID-19 without a prescription in Tennessee. Horse.Paste.

Of note is that in 2019 Governor Lee declared that God would stop school shootings and opioid overdoses if enough people would just pray for it to happen. In 2020 he asked people to pray away the COVID.

How’s that workin’ for you, Governor? Looks like your god doesn’t care about school shootings, opioid deaths, or COVID.

OKLAHOMA

The state Senate approved a GOP bill to outlaw abortion, putting the state on track to be the first in the nation to enact a total abortion ban once the GOP governor signs the measure into law.

Raped and pregnant? Too bad. Victim of incest? Too bad. Not viable for mother or child to survive a pregnancy? Too fucking bad.

GEORGIA

GOP Governor Brian Kemp signed several education bills into law last week: one empowers the state school athletic association to exclude transgender athletes, one allows for the banning books, and one makes it wrong to teach history, well, real, true, history.

The world is going to hell in a  handbasket and Kemp is worried about books and history and transgender athletes.

OKLAHOMA

GOP Governor Kevin Stitt has signed a bill prohibiting the use of nonbinary gender markers on state birth certificates.

The bill followed a flap last year over the Department of Health’s agreement in a civil case allowing a nonbinary option. The birth certificate in that case was issued to an Oklahoma-born Oregon resident who sued after the agency initially refused the request. The GOP and Stitt were incensed and Stitt issued an executive order prohibiting any changes to a person’s gender on birth certificates.

FLORIDA

Jeremy Baldwin teaches social studies at Booker High School in Florida and has flown a rainbow colored Coexist flag in his classroom for four years without any problem, but shortly after the Don’t Say Gay law was signed he was forced to take it down because it’s “political” in nature.

Now, I get the rainbow part cuz, you know, gay is illegal and all, but the idea of asking people to coexist, regardless of their religious beliefs, is too hot a topic?

Oh Flori-duh.

GOOD

GEORGIA

About 200 members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans gathered at Stone Mountain over the weekend for an observation of Confederate Memorial Day, but they were met with roughly 100 counter protesters shouting and jeering, forcing the SCV speakers to struggle to be heard over the din. SCV member Kenneth Buggay said:

“These protesters are against our Christian faith. They are anti-Christ. We have been fighting this war since 1861. We will be victorious.”

You’ve been fighting for 161 years and you are nowhere near victorious, asshat.

KANSAS

The GOP-controlled House failed to override Democrat Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a transgender sports ban, blocking the measure from becoming a law.

Kelly is the fourth governor this year to veto a transgender sports ban, though two of the others—Utah GOP Governor Spencer Cox and Kentucky Democrat Governor Andy Beshear—had their vetoes overridden by their state’s legislatures; the Indiana legislature has not yet tried to override GOP Governor Eric Holcomb’s veto.

FLORIDA

The Human Rights Campaign is welcoming people to Florida with new billboards:

“Governor Ron DeSantis welcomes you to Florida, the ‘Don’t say gay or trans’ State.”

The “Don’t say gay or trans” part is written over “Sunshine”—Florida’s official nickname.

UTAH

Jillian Orr recently graduated from Brigham Young University— a private university in Utah sponsored by the Mormon Church—but she may be in trouble with the university for her graduation stunt.

Orr, who is bisexual, sewed a rainbow flag into her graduation gown and showed it off at the ceremony, and then shared it to social media where it went viral.

Stand out. Speak out. Live out.

And CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE.

The Funny Papers

Clay Bennett, John Cole, David Horsey, JD Crowe, Matt Wuerker, Steve Sack, Dave Whamond, Jack Ohman, Ted Littleford, Benjamin Slyngstad, Nick Anderson, Bill Bramhall, Ann Telnaes, Michael de Adder,

The Funny Papers

Bill Day, Drew Sheneman, Ted Littleford, Kevin Siers, Matt Wuerker, Dave Whamond, JD Crowe, Benjamin Slyngstad, AnnTelnaes, Ed Hall, David Horsey, Marc Murphy, RJ Matson, Michael de Adder, Lalo Alcarez,

They're Everywhere ... March 21, 2022

These really are the easiest posts to compile, because, literally, they're everywhere ... but that's what makes it so frightening.

ALABAMA

The Alabama House of Representatives has approved a bill that would ban the teaching of “divisive concepts” in K-12 history after a debate in which Democrats accused Republicans of trying to erase history. The bill passed 65 to 32, on a mostly party-line vote, with … wait for it, no one saw it coming … four Republicans joining the Democrats in voting against the bill.

The bill, by GOP Representative Ed Oliver has been one of the most controversial this year. Oliver was asked if there was any indication that is happening in Alabama, Oliver said there is but did not provide any specifics.

He said the bill was intended to be preventive meaning he’s trying to prevent something from happening even though he has no proof it’s happening or going to happen.

Look let’s call this what it is: A White Fragility Bill for white people who can’t handle the truth.

SOUTH CAROLINA

As if lethal injection wasn’t bad enough, South Carolina is now prepared to conduct executions by firing squad once it’s approved by the state Supreme Court. The murder of South Carolina’s 35 death-row inmates can follow.

Even more vile, is that, under a law passed in May 2021, the electric chair is the state’s primary means of execution though inmates can also choose lethal injection and now firing squad, too.

LOUISIANA

Don’t Say Gay comes to Louisiana in a new bill, submitted by GOP  Representative Dodie Horton, that would “prohibit discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in K-8 classes and keep instructors from discussing their own sexual orientation or gender identity with students in grades K-12.

Dodie decided the state needs a Don’t Say Gay bill after looking at Twitter and Facebook and then … wait for it … praying about it.

I long for the day there’s a Don’t Say God bill that affects Congress.

CALIFORNIA

Rachel Hamm is running for Secretary of State and has been endorsed by Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn, which should be warning enough, but then Hamm speaks:

 “I’ve been a prophetic dreamer so I had spent a lot of 2019 and 20 having a lot of political dreams that I was in office. And because our youngest son Ezekiel is a seer ... I said, ‘Hey, can you look around and see what you’re seeing?’ … And then he goes into the closet—which is where I had been when I was praying—and he said, ‘Whoa ... You’ve got a really big guy in your closet, and his power is pushing me to the ground,’ and he had never had that reaction ever, to an angel … And he said, ‘Immanuel,’ That wasn’t an angel. It wasn’t an angel that was Jesus himself. And so that’s why I’m running for secretary of state.”

Cuz Jesus came to her in her son’s closet.

This is the same Rachel Hamm who claimed in 2021 that she had repelled a home intruder in the name of Jesus and sent him to murder the witch living next door.

Huh.

 UNITED STATES

If you ever needed proof that you can’t be too rich and too stupid at the same time, look at Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “single combat” for Ukraine via Twitter:

“I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat. Stakes are Ukraine. Do you agree to this fight?”

Seriously, if you thought Putin was a tiny little man with a microdick who longs to prove his manhood, take a look at Elon Musk.

MISSISSIPPI

GOP Governor Tate Reeves declared a victory as he signed a bill into law the state GOP falsely claim would ban the teaching of “critical race theory” in the state’s public schools and community colleges. Reeves lied when he said:

“Children are dragged to the front of the classroom and are coerced to declare themselves as oppressors, that that they should feel guilty because of the color of their skin, or that they are inherently a victim because of their race.”

That has never happened because, if it had, you just know Reeves would have trotted those poor victimized white children before the cameras.

 TEXAS

More than 27,000 mail-in ballots were flagged for rejection in the first test of new voting restrictions enacted across the country. It puts the rate of rejected mail ballots in Texas on track to significantly surpass previous elections.

Rejected mail ballots are uncommon in a typical election but surprisingly enough this batch represents 17% across 120 counties.

They’re trying to make sure only the right white person votes.

OHIO

GOP Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill into law that does away with the permitting restrictions to carrying a concealed firearm in the state.

Ohio law previously required eight hours of training, including live-fire practice, to obtain a concealed carry permit, and a background check was required, but not anymore.

The new law also eliminates the requirement that people inform a police officer if they are carrying a weapon. An officer can still ask and lying to the officer about carrying a weapon is a misdemeanor.

That’s the GOP, less education and more guns.

TENNESSE

Last week Tennessee House Republicans advanced legislation to ban public schools from using textbooks or materials that “promote, normalize, support or address LGBT issues or lifestyles.” While similar to Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which would forbid instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, the Tennessee version would apply to all K-12 public schools. GOP Representative Republican Bruce Griffey, the bill’s sponsor, says the sexuality of children should be left to their parents.

What the what?

Get educated and save yourselves from The Stupids.

And CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!