Down Goes Kremer (and nASS)!

By Jeff Simpson


In Lieu of the recent hate filled so called "bathroom bill" recently passed in North Carolina, and talked about in WI.  Attorney General of the United States Loretta Lynch had this to say

While our bumbling WI AG, Republican party hack, Brad Schimel is busy making sure GOP donors can pollute our water, AG Lynch is busy standing up for the American Dream and understanding exactly what the Declaration of Independence said.   .  

The buck does not just stop with AG Lynch, she has the full backing of President Obama.  President Obama plans on sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

Courts have not settled the question of whether the nation’s sex discrimination laws apply in matters of gender identity. But administration officials, emboldened by a federal appeals court ruling in Virginia last month, think they have the upper hand. This week, the Justice Department and North Carolina sued each other over a state law that restricts access to bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms. The letter to school districts had been in the works for months, Justice Department officials said.

“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so,” according to the letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times.

A school’s obligation under federal law “to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns,” the letter states. “As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

As soon as a child’s parent or legal guardian asserts a gender identity for the student that “differs from previous representations or records,” the letter says, the child is to be treated accordingly — without any requirement for a medical diagnosis or birth certificate to be produced. It says that schools may — but are not required to — provide other restroom and locker room options to students who seek “additional privacy” for whatever reason.

But Wait there is more(this time it is actually good)!  

Attached to the letter, the Obama administration will include a 25-page document describing “emerging practices” that are in place in many schools around the country. Those included installing privacy curtains or allowing students to change in bathroom stalls.

In a blog post accompanying the letter, senior officials at the Justice and Education Departments said they issued it in response to a growing chorus of inquiries from educators, parents and students across the country, including from the National Association of Secondary School Principals, to clarify their obligations and “best practices” for the treatment of transgender students.

“Schools want to do right by all of their students and have looked to us to provide clarity on steps they can take to ensure that every student is comfortable at their school, is in an environment free of discrimination, and has an opportunity to thrive,” wrote Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, and Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Continue reading the main story

 

Maybe now, the President can stop dealing with domestic terrorists and start working on improving our trade deals!   

The Republicans Are In The Can

By Jeff Simpson 

On 4/20 it is fitting to bring back an old comedy bit from Cheech & Chong.  It is also fitting that the character in the bit's last name is elephant.

The Transgender bathroom debate has been ramped up lately.   North Carolina has recently passed an Anti-LGBQT law and it has cost the state Millions of dollars of commerce.

 Everyone from PayPal, to Ringo Starr to Lionsgate films to Bruce Springsteen, to numerous municipalities banning non essential travel to NC.  

North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law is already costing the state’s tourism industry millions of dollars.The bill, signed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R) last month, prevents local municipalities from passing anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. The bill also requires transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate.

Why would they pass a law that specifically targets a group of people who need our help and this could never happen in Wisconsin right?  

The answers are simple, the GOP is the part of big government and want to make sure that everyone in America behaves the way they tell you to.  

Not the way they act of course, as more GOP politicians have been arrested in bathrooms for sexual misconduct than trans people.  They did not even include "Bathroom" Bob Donovan who had his own run ins in public bathrooms of Milwaukee.     Many supporters of these anti- LGBQT laws rushed to the polls to vote for Bathroom Bob for Mayor of Milwaukee.  Luckily for all involved he lost.

As for could this happen here?  If the Republicans keep control of all three branches of Government after the November elections(they have adjourned for the year weeks ago) count on it.  See they have already proposed such a bill(except a little more extreme) that is currently sitting in committee.  Not only will they bully all transgender people in Wisconsin but they also will force the Justice Department to spend countless dollars defending all lawsuits will inevitably come.    

Transgender students would be barred from using school bathrooms or locker rooms assigned to the gender with which they identify, under a bill being proposed by two Republican lawmakers.Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, and Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, are proposing to require school boards to designate bathrooms and locker rooms as being for one gender exclusively, and to require the state Department of Justice to defend  school districts in lawsuits alleging the policy is discriminatory.

Hard to be open for business when you pass bills that cost your state hundreds of millions of dollars of commerce.   Even Chris Abele gets it.

Abele says protecting transgender rights goes beyond moral responsibility.
"If people care about economic development, the largest demographic in the United States in U.S. history is millennials," he says. "And this issue is settled for millennials. What do we talk about all the time? How do we attract the best and brightest, young, creative talent? Well, you know how you don't do it? You show that you're a closed-minded, intolerant state."

Of course his support of Anti-LGBQT politicians says a different story but thats another blog.    

Now that we see Republican policies in action and working to destroy North Carolina, when asked for comments on if they still plan on pushing their anti commerce, anti business bully law, the authors Rep Kremer and Sen. nASS did exactly what you would think they would do.

Hide.

 We reached out to the Wisconsin lawmakers who introduced the bill regulating the use of school bathrooms, and other state leaders who said they'd support it. All were unable to do an interview.

Maybe next session we could introduce a bill that says GOP lawmakers are not allowed to be in a public restroom and we would all be a little safer!  

In the end, all our LGBQT friends want to so is "go to the can, man" so they will no longer be so afraid to use the bathroom.  

Until then, we need the electorate this November to

WWWWAAAAKKKKKKKEEEEEE UUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPPPPP


 Editor Note;  If all of the hate preached by the GOP these days is getting to to you, check out this article and you can restore your faith in humanity.  

4) If said straight men could be trusted not to do bad things to women, we wouldn’t be having any of these conversations. As a Christian I’m disappointed that we aren’t talking about that in our churches and on campaign trails, or making bold public statements about that. I’m profoundly saddened that high-profile evangelists and pastors aren’t facing this real monster with the same sustained ferocity they attack an imagined one with.

Women are in exponentially higher danger of being sexually assaulted by a boyfriend or a classmate than a stranger in a bathroom and it isn’t even close.

Walker Dynasty

By Jeff Simpson

Scott Walker spent many Wisconsin tax dollars and man hours fighting the legalization of gay marriage equality.  Now that the Supreme Court has finally made it legal, Scott Walker is to intimidated to tell us how he really feels about marriage equality! 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) seemed to bend over backward during a Thursday news conference to avoid articulating a position on same-sex marriage.

"It really doesn't matter what I think now," Walker said, as quoted by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "It's in the constitution."
 "No," he said, as quoted by the Journal-Sentinel. "I'm just not stating one at all."

Mr. Walker does not want to lose any of the LGBTQ vote in a close election so he wisely chooses not to articulate his far right extremist views.  However, as May Angelou told us "when people tell us who they are, we should listen".

It was his Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch who said:

“This is a slippery slope,” Kleefisch said. “In addition to that at what point are we going to be okay marrying inanimate objects? Can I marry this table or this, you know, clock? Can we marry dogs?
“This is ridiculous,” continued Kleefisch. “And biblically, again, I’m going to go right back to my fundamental Christian beliefs marriage is between one man and one woman.”

And it was republican Role Model  ducky Phil Robertson, who said this:

What, in your mind, is sinful?
“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”
During Phil’s darkest days, in the early 1970s, he had to flee the state of Arkansas after he badly beat up a bar owner and the guy’s wife. Kay Robertson persuaded the bar owner not to press charges in exchange for most of the Robertsons’ life savings. (“A hefty price,” he notes in his memoir.) I ask Phil if he ever repented for that, as he wants America to repent—if he ever tracked down the bar owner and his wife to apologize for the assault. He shakes his head.
“I didn’t dredge anything back up. I just put it behind me.”

 Ducky even speaks this silliness from the pulpit:





Scott Walker:

Asked how voters might judge governors who bid for the presidency, the Wisconsinite replied, “Governors should be defined not just by what they do and say, but who they surround themselves with, making sure to have the smartest person for a particular task or to head a specific agency. They should be judged on that basis and who they take advice from.”

I agree!