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WATCH: This Brave Teen From Kokomo, Indiana, Just Shredded the Transgender Bathroom Myth

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City Council Votes 5-4 to Approve LGBT Protections on First Reading

His name is Aleczander Dean, and he’s a student at Kokomo High School in Kokomo, Indiana. 

On Monday night, Dean addressed the City Council (video below) prior to its initial vote on an LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance. 

And with his powerful one-minute speech, Dean may have done more to counter the transgender bathroom myth than the entire $3 million campaign in support of Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) last year. 

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“In regards to people saying that transgender people will be predators … I just want to know why you guys think we’re going to be predators, seeing as how the bathroom is our worst nightmare?” Dean told council members. “We go in there feeling as if we’ll be attacked, and we know that people don’t want us there. Why do you guys want us to be hurt more? It’s not right for you to be denying us. I go to sports competitions. I go and change with the guys, because the girls would think that it was weird for a guy to be in there. Why would you want the girls to be freaked out by having a guy in the changing room?”

The council eventually approved the ordinance, 5-4, on first reading, with a final vote set for next week. 

More than 30 people addressed the council, with opponents of the ordinance outnumbering supporters two-to-one. And many of them repeated the familiar argument that LGBT protections would somehow lead to sexual predators entering women’s bathrooms to prey on victims.

This fear-mongering claim is provably false, as no such incident has been reported in any of the more than 200 cities with similar laws. In recent months, however, it has befuddled LGBT advocates, who’ve struggled to devise an effective response. This failure was most notable in Houston, where a TV ad depicting a man following a young girl into a bathroom stall led to voters overwhelmingly repealing HERO in November. 

“I have a little girl who is 6 years old, and my job as a mother is to guide her moral compass, and I feel if you pass this, you are stripping me as a parent [of the ability] to guide her moral compass, with fear that we will walk into a locker room, and that she may see a body part that she should not see at her age,” one woman told Kokomo council members. 

“Don’t tell me the sexual predators are not drooling over this opportunity to go into the women’s restroom,” one man said. 

Kokomo City Councilman Steve Whikehart, who authored the ordinance, pre-emptively addressed restroom safety concerns in introducing the measure. 

Deploying a powerful but underused weapon against the trans bathroom myth, Whikehart pointed to June 2015 recommendations from the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration, which state that “all employees, including transgender employees should have access to restrooms that correspond to their gender identity.”  

“As for the use of bathrooms, this doesn’t change anything about the safety of children,” Whikehart said. “OSHA’s goal is to ensure that employers provide a safe and healthful working environment.” 

One speaker in support of the ordinance also noted similarities between the trans bathroom myth and arguments in favor of racial segregation. 

“They didn’t want Black people in their bathroom because something bad might happen,” she said. 

Dean’s mother also spoke, noting the extremely high rates of violence against trans people. She said she fears that discrimination based on her son’s gender identity will prevent him from pursuing his dream of becoming a gender-specific psychologist. 

“I’ve got a very smart son. He’s not afraid to get up and speak his mind, and I thank God for that every day,” Dean’s mother said. “I want my son to have the same rights that I have.” 

Watch Dean’s remarks in the video below. 

 

Image: Screenshot via YouTube 

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‘There Were Witnesses’: Attorney for Minor Urges Release of Gaetz Ethics Report

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10 hours ago

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November 14, 2024

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An attorney representing a woman who claims Matt Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17 is urging the House Ethics Committee to release its report on the former Florida Republican lawmaker who just became President Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General.

Gaetz, who suddenly resigned Wednesday, immediately after Trump announced his intention to nominate him to become the nation’s top law enforcement officer, had been under investigation for years by the House Ethics Committee for allegations that he “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”

The sexual misconduct claim is widely believed to be the allegation of sex with a minor, which the U.S. Dept. of Justice had been investigating, but no charges were ever filed. DOJ reportedly also had been investigating Gaetz for the possibility of sex trafficking of underaged girls, according to The Associated Press.

“Among those who have given testimony to the House Ethics Committee is a woman who says she had sex with Gaetz at a 2017 party shortly after he was elected to Congress. The woman was 17 at the time,” CBS News reports.

READ MORE: Trump’s Defense Nominee Admits He Was ‘Deemed an Extremist’ by the Military

Attorney John Clune, who represents that woman, wrote: “Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.”

The Ethics Committee was scheduled to vote Friday on whether to release its completed report, as Punchbowl News first reported.

“Multiple sources [in June] told CBS News that four women had informed the House Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties that included sex and drugs, and that Gaetz had also attended. The committee has Gaetz’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women,” CBS adds.

The Ethics Committee’s practice generally is to close any investigations once the subject of an investigation is no longer a member of Congress.

However, this is not always the case.

READ MORE: Trump NatSec Nominees Are ‘Worse Than Worst Case,’ ‘Functional Foreign Agents’: Experts

“There is precedent in Congress on the Senate side for an ethics committee report to become public after a member resigns from Congress, however. In 2011, this happened when Sen. John Ensign of Nevada resigned amid allegations that he tried to hide an extramarital affair,” CBS noted.

There is a bipartisan call on the Senate side to see the Gaetz report.

“Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, called on the House Ethics panel to preserve and share the report, as well as ‘all relevant documentation’ on Gaetz with his committee.”

“The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report,” Durbin said in a statement Thursday. “We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people. Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next attorney general of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.”

U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) “told reporters Thursday morning he ‘absolutely’ wants to see the House Ethics Committee’s report on Gaetz.”

“I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated,” Cornyn said.

Last year, ABC News reported, “Gaetz’s former close friend Joel Greenberg, who sources said agreed to cooperate in the federal probe into Gaetz, was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to crimes including sex trafficking of a minor and introducing her to other ‘adult men’ who also had sex with her when she was underage. Greenberg agreed to provide ‘substantial assistance’ to prosecutors as part of their ongoing investigation.”

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Trump’s Defense Nominee Admits He Was ‘Deemed an Extremist’ by the Military

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11 hours ago

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November 14, 2024

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Pete Hegseth, the host of the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends,” is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense—one of the most powerful positions not only in the country but also in the world. Critics, and even some Republican U.S. Senators, are shocked by the choice, with some pointing to what they see as his lack of qualifications and his apparent far-right Christian nationalist ties, as causes for concern.

The London-based nonprofit, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), issued a statement on “Hegseth’s associations with Christian nationalist movements,” and warned of his “ties to extreme Christian theologies … [that] have raised alarms about the direction of Trump’s potential administration.”

The current U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, is a retired four-star U.S. Army General. He has served as commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Army Vice Chief of Staff, Commander of United States Forces – Iraq, and Director of the Joint Staff. He is a decorated soldier, awarded for valor and distinguished service. Austin graduated from West Point in 1975 and served in the U.S. Armed Forces until his retirement in 2016.

Hegseth has served in the Minnesota Army National Guard since 2003. He holds the rank of Major, has received several awards, and has served at Guantánamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

READ MORE: Trump NatSec Nominees Are ‘Worse Than Worst Case,’ ‘Functional Foreign Agents’: Experts

One day before Joe Biden was sworn into office as America’s 46th President, The Associated Press reported, “Twelve U.S. National Guard members have been removed from securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration after vetting by the FBI, including two who made extremist statements in posts or texts about the … event, Pentagon officials said.”

“Two other U.S. officials told The Associated Press that all 12 were found to have ties with right-wing militia groups or posted extremist views online,” the report noted. “The officials told the AP they had all been removed because of ‘security liabilities.’”

Jim LaPorta, an award-winning journalist who shared the byline on the AP story, is now a verification producer with CBS News Confirmed. He served two tours in Afghanistan and often writes about the U.S. Military and military veterans.

Last week, well before the SecDef nomination, LaPorta posted video of Hegseth to the social media site X and wrote: “Interesting. Couple of years ago, I had a scoop which the Pentagon later confirmed that Twelve U.S. National Guard members were removed from securing then President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration after vetting. Turns out one of them was @PeteHegseth.”

In the video, Hegseth at least partially confirms why he was removed from Biden’s inauguration duty.

“I was deemed an extremist because of a tattoo, by my National Guard unit in Washington, D.C. And my orders were revoked to guard the Biden inauguration,” Hegseth says in the video. “Jerusalem Cross tattoo, which is just a Christian symbol … got me disinvited.”

Religion scholar Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies, says Hegseth’s tattoo is not just a Christian symbol.

“Hegseth’s a prominent Fox News personality & veterans advocate, but he also has strong ties to the Christian far right,” Taylor writes at the start of a lengthy thread, posting a photo of Hegseth with his tattoos exposed — and he notes that there are not one but two` Christian tattoos.

“Hegseth has 2 Crusader tattoos: a Jerusalem Cross, the symbol of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem on his chest,” which he showed in the video, “& ‘Deus Vult’ the Crusaders’ theological cri de coeur (‘God wills it’) on his bicep. ‘Deus Vult’ means God mandated Crusaders’ violence,” Taylor writes.

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He also points to a Newsweek article focusing on Hegseth being removed from the Biden inauguration. It also delves into his cross tattoo.

“In recent years some right-wing nationalist groups have adopted Crusader imagery, including depictions of Templar Knights and the Crusader slogan Deus vult, Latin for ‘God wills it.'”

At The Bulwark, Annika Brockschmidt and Thomas Lecaque on Thursday report: “Donald Trump’s potential secretary of defense hasn’t been straightforward about the violent symbolism of his ink.”

They explain there are many tattoos, which they say are “a veritable checklist of today’s Christian nationalist folklore.”

Brockschmidt and Lecaque write from experience. Brockschmidt’s bio reads: “Journalist, author and trained historian writing about right-wing reactionary movements in the US and Europe, with a focus on the Religious Right and White Christian nationalism.” And Lecaque’s says he is “an associate professor of history at Grand View University, studies religious violence and apocalypticism.”

“Hegseth insinuates that he was discriminated against for having this ‘religious’ image on his body,” they write. “But the symbol is not only religious: It has always carried a political valence. The Jerusalem Cross was used as the emblem of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the late thirteenth century onwards. You may have seen it in Ridley Scott’s The Kingdom of Heaven (2005). It has made its way into a variety of contemporary far-right Templar myths. All this is left unmentioned by Hegseth.”

“And it’s far from the only ideologically charged tattoo on Trump’s SecDef nominee,” they add. “Hegseth’s right arm is covered from top to bottom, and most of the images draw from Revolution-era propaganda primarily associated nowadays with the ‘Patriot’ rhetoric of militia movements and QAnon. Three of these are clearly visible in the cover photo for one of his books, American Crusade: (1) the year 1775 in Roman numerals, (2) ‘We the People’ in a stylized colonial script, and (3) an American flag with a modified M-4 superimposed over the lower bars.”

“He also has Ben Franklin’s famous ‘Join or Die’ cartoon—the chopped-up snake representing the fate of the non-unified colonies—on the underside of his forearm. On his shoulder he has the insignia of the 187th Infantry Regiment in which he served; his elbow is decorated with a circle of stars and the crook of his arm features a pair of crossed muskets.”

They add that Hegseth also has “tattoos that have made the work of historians of the Crusades depressingly relevant to contemporary politics again: a sword embedded in a cross on Hegseth’s inner forearm—it represents Matthew 10:34, the verse wherein Christ says, ‘I have not come to bring peace, but a sword’—and, most disturbing of all, a gothic inscription on his bicep: ‘Deus Vult.'”

They offer a deeper explanation of the “Deus Vultures” tattoo.

“‘Deus Vult’ has never been interpreted as a call for spiritual combat—for reflection and prayer. It has always been understood as a call for violent action, for blood. This interpretation remains consistent in its widespread adoption by the Christian far right around the world, including by some who marched on the Capitol on January 6th, and one who perpetrated shocking white supremacist violence against Muslims in New Zealand.”

They say Hegseth’s tattoos provide “a veritable checklist of today’s Christian nationalist folklore. Among many who espouse a union of church and state, gun tattoos such as Hegseth’s amount to a kind of spiritual kitsch, a younger and more radical generation’s version of putting a framed print of Albrecht Dürer’s study of praying hands on the dining room wall. The iconography of weaponry is ubiquitous: Hegseth has used his Instagram profile to advertise silencers, ammunition, and soaps shaped like grenades.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

 

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Trump NatSec Nominees Are ‘Worse Than Worst Case,’ ‘Functional Foreign Agents’: Experts

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1 day ago

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November 13, 2024

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National security and political experts are sounding the alarm over several of Donald Trump’s nominations to top Cabinet-level positions, saying they are not only “totally absurd and appalling,” but a threat to the nation’s—and the world’s—security.

Here’s the current list of all of Trump’s Cabinet-level nominations (Politico is keeping track):

• White House Chief of Staff – Susie Wiles

•Secretary of State – Marco Rubio

•Secretary of Defense – Pete Hegseth

•Attorney General – Matt Gaetz

•Secretary of Homeland Security – Kristi Noem

•Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency – Lee Zeldin

•Director of National Intelligence – Tulsi Gabbard

•Ambassador to the United Nations – Elise Stefanik

•Director of the CIA – John Ratcliffe

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“Good lord,” remarked Phillips O’Brien, a historian, professor of strategic studies, and author of books on World War II, “an outright Putin apologist is named to be head of US national intelligence.”

O’Brien was referring to Trump’s nomination of former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Economist Anders Åslund, a former economic advisor to Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, said: “Tulsi Gabbard appears a pure Russian asset. How can she become Director of US National Intelligence? How could she possibly pass a normal security clearance?”

“If Tulsi Gabbard becomes Director of National Intelligence,” Åslund added, “it would be better for US national security to close down all intelligence.”

The Washington Spectator’s Dave Troy, an investigative journalist with expertise on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, explained: “This is the reality. This can’t happen. The other Five Eyes countries will cut us off. This is a decapitation strike.”

“Five Eyes” is the joint intelligence-sharing alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Dr Ruth Deyermond, a Senior Lecturer in Post-Soviet Security at King’s College London’s Dept. of War Studies writes: “Even by Trump standards, this an extraordinary demonstration of the extent to which Russia-aligned interests have captured the incoming US executive. What NATO partner (Hungary aside) will trust the US with any intelligence now?”

Journalist Craig Unger is a New York Times best-selling author of books about 9/11, the Bush family, and Trump, including: “House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia.”

He writes: “As of now, NATO is effectively over. Why would any of our allies share intelligence with us when the head of National Intelligence is effectively in bed with Putin.”

Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa, an attorney and legal contributor to ABC News, issued this warning: “I very much hope that the USIC [U.S. Intelligence Community] takes measures to protect sources (or hand them off to allied intelligence services) pronto because Pooty [Vladimir Putin] is about to learn EVERYTHING we know about them and Ukraine.”

The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr, who exposed the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, posted the video below by Tulsi Gabbard and wrote: “Trump has just appointed this woman Director of National Intelligence. A pro-Russian, pro-Putin mouthpiece. To remind you the UK shares intelligence with the US. Worse than worst case scenario.”

Christopher Miller is the Financial Times’ award-winning chief Ukraine correspondent whose “reporting has focused on Ukrainian politics and various aspects of Russia’s war against Ukraine, exposing war crimes and revealing the plight of people forced to live under brutal occupation,” according to his bio.

He weighed in on the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard to ODNI:

The Atlantic’s David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter who recently renounced his membership to the Republican Party, declared Congressman Gaetz’s nomination is the “most absurd,” and former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s is “the most sinister.”

READ MORE: MAGA Congressman Vows Loyalty: ‘If Trump Says Jump 3 Feet High We Jump 3 Feet High’

The Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens, author of “The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy,” warned:

“A prediction: assuming we get through this period as a functioning democracy, there will be the first treason trials in America since 1949. Trump is giving functional foreign agents access to America’s security.”

Trump’s latest announcement, that he is nominating U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to lead the U.S. Dept. of Justice as Attorney General, drew consternation, with critics noting that the Florida Republican lawmaker is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, and had been under federal investigation for a litany of possible offenses, including illicit drug use, sex trafficking, and having sexual relations with a minor. He also reportedly had asked outgoing President Donald Trump for a “blanket pardon,” to cover any number of possible crimes, including his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“Evidence suggested that he had spent time with a number of young women who advertised on a Web site that seemed to be a thinly veiled venue for prostitution,” The New Yorker reported in February. “Gaetz, then a three-term congressman with a reputation for a freewheeling private life, appeared to have the impulse control of a teen-age boy.”

O’Brien also weighed in on Gaetz: “Good lord 2, Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. The GOP seems hellbent on turning the US Government over to Russia.” And he warned that “all of us who have been saying that Europe needs to take care of its own security without the USA…need to scream it louder.”

Gaetz has suggested Russia be admitted to NATO, instead of Ukraine.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former Trump White House director of strategic communications and a co-host on “The View,” suggested there may be a “strategy” in play.

“Perhaps there’s some strategy to the more *bonkers* Cabinet picks? Trump may be signaling to the Senate to be thoughtful in what nominees it considers blocking -Kristi Noem, for example, suddenly looks immensely qualified for DHS compared to say Gaetz as AG or Tulsi as ODNI.”

Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz observes, “Matt Gaetz pick is so crazy people have forgotten the Tulsi Gabbard pick which was so crazy people had forgotten about the Pete Hegseth pick. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

 

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