2026-02-25
[In the SOTU, the Orange Overlord endorsed forced school outing of trans kids.]
What still seems so tragic to me that is I can recall from a good number of years ago PSAs on TV (okay, maybe it was radio; the words are what I remember) telling children that if there were problems at home and they needed help, to tell an adult, including, I remember this specifically, “a trusted teacher.”
Now, that’s simply no longer true. If you’re trans and home feels like a hostile environment, a teacher is someone you dare not trust. Not just because they might expose you to your parents but because they might have no choice in the matter, so you remain silent, feeling trapped and isolated and alone - and potentially suicidal.
Ignorance leads to fear (transphobia). Fear leads to hate (transmisia). Hate leads to inflicting suffering. And the infliction of suffering will be described as doing good - because the alternative is facing the reality of what it is being done and that is too much to bear.
[Footnote: “Tell a trusted adult” is still standard guidance. The issue is, if you’re a trans child, who could such a person be?]
==
2026-02-26
[H.R. 7661, introduced hours after the SOTU, would prohibit schools from “promoting” or “facilitating” anything involving “gender dysphoria” or “transgenderism” and codify the idea that anything to do with trans people is “sexually explicit.” The only thing other than being trans designated “sexually explicit” is depictions of sexual intercourse as defined in 18 USC §2256.]
This just goes to confirm what I’ve been saying for a long time: These are mentally disturbed, ethically warped people driven nearly mad by their obsession with sex such that they can’t conceive of being transgender as a matter of who a person is but only in terms of how they “do it” and “what’s in their pants” and all their attempts at disappearing trans folks are really attempts to repress their hidden, lurid, guilty fantasies.
==
2026-02-27
A simple question I have not seen asked regarding impending war on Iran:
WHAT THE FLAMING HELL IS “COMMERCIAL-GRADE ENRICHED WEAPONS MATERIAL??”
I have to assume the “enriched weapons material” refers to enriched uranium or plutonium. The only sense I can make of “commercial grade” is that it’s enriched to a degree useful for commercial applications - specifically, running a nuclear reactor.
That’s an enrichment level of 3-5% (i.e. 3-5% of the fuel is actual U-235 or Pu-239). Weapons-grade is >90% enriched.
So unless there is some explanation of which I am unaware, the administration of The Orange Overlord and his coterie of clowns and lickspittle liars is threatening to go to war because Iran is “a week away” from being able to operate a nuclear reactor.
[I made essentially the same comment just in a shorter form on another site on March 1 in reply to the observation that “they’ve been saying Iran is days away from producing nuclear weapons for decades. They’re probably hoping we don’t remember that so they can justify what he wants to do.]
==
2026-02-27
[In the Orange Overlord’s SOTU he said “The first duty of government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” The same day, a nearly-blind, non-English-speaking Burmese refugee was found dead after being dumped by CPB at night, in a Buffalo winter, five miles from his home.]
“If he’s going to die, the better he do it sooner, so to reduce the illegal population!”
Seems to me I heard that or something like it sometime in I think it was December.
==
2026-02-28
So Secretary of “War is Peace” Pete “Manly Man” Hogsbreath says the Pentagon has made a deal with Scouting America to eliminate DEI programs and end tolerance of transgender scouts.
To the relief of some, the group declared it would still “have transgender people in our program going forward.”
For my part, I’ll hold my applause until I hear more details. The statement says that yes, trans kids are still welcome - but it does not say that they will not be programmatically segregated by birth sex nor does it say anything about the cutting back on or elimination of DEI programs.
Suppose some state said “Of course trans people are welcome to use our bathrooms or compete in sports - as long as they do it according to their sex assigned at birth.” Would that satisfy? Because it shouldn’t.
This may turn out better than I think it sounds, but I’ll need to be convinced it isn’t just a smokescreen over what is essentially a surrender.
In any event and personally, I think Scouting America should tell the Pentagon to, as I used to put it, “remove thyself to an alternate location, there to engage in autoerotic activities” - i.e., GFY. Crafts, outdoor camping, and sports should not be pipelines to the military.
==
2026-02-28
[In response to the same announcement, someone noted the Scouts are significantly dependent on the DOD, e.g., the Corps of Engineers maintains a lot of Summer Camp infrastructure.]
Yes, and why do they do it? Civic duty? Contribution to the public good?
Nah. It’s because Scouting America acts - whether consciously or by default - as recruitment for the military. The group will even brag about how many of its participants wind up in the military.
==
2026-03-01
[Robert Reich referred again to how offended he was by Randy Newman’s song “Short People.”]
Randy Newman’s song “Short “People” was intended as a satire about prejudice. Apparently he was unaware of the prejudice based on height, saying later he couldn’t see why people would think that anyone “was as crazy as that character” or something to that effect. It was not his only satirical song about bigotry where he spoke in the voice of the bigot, it was just the one that became well known. If you still wonder, you should read the lyrics to see that it is deliberately way over the top.
Just remember, Newman also wrote “Political Science” in which he said we should “drop the big one” on everybody because everybody hates us - except on Australia because we “don’t wanna hurt no kangaroo.” Failing to recognize obvious satire is a rookie mistake.
==
2026-03-01
So I see people saying “Iran is just another distraction from Epstein.”
NOT EVERYTHING IS A DISTRACTION, DAMMIT!
This is a real war with real people really dying, not a damn sideshow and I guarantee you it’s not a “distraction” to the people doing the suffering and dying.
Do you really think that there would be no war, no attacks on immigrants, no undermining of science and public health, no stripping of LGBTQ+, particularly trans, rights, no voter suppression, no pushing of white Christian nationalism, no assertions of near-dictatorial powers, no threats about Greenland or Canada, no the list just goes on and on and on, if it wasn’t for Epstein?
Get a flaming grip!
[This resulted in my being accused of being unconcerned with child rape so I’ll add this addendum, something I apparently should have included but didn’t because I thought it was apparent: When you label something as “a distraction,” you are saying it is unimportant, irrelevant, not worthy of attention and can be safely ignored; in fact it should be ignored so as to keep all focus on whatever is claimed in the particular case to be the singular “real” issue.
As horrific as the facts and the further implications surrounding the Epstein files are, I find myself incapable of letting pass without resistance all the other examples of heinousness coming from the court of the Orange Overlord. I will make no apologies for that and I reject the underlying suggestion that those actions would not have been undertaken, that is, were done only to serve as distractions, were it not for Epstein.]
==
2026-03-03
[Hemant Mehta wrote about his doubts about a story that a combat-lever commander told officers under their command that Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon,” leading to the Second Coming.]
I come to this as, if you will, a virgin, as while I had seen the headline on [Jonathan] Larsen’s story, I hadn’t read it. I still haven’t.
That said, I was put off by your “just asking questions” approach, one that despite your disclaimers came across much more as debunking the story than as expressing healthy skepticism.
For example, you took a couple of personal shots at [Mikey] Weinstein[, President and Founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the source of the story] - “he brags about being repeatedly nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize,” “every email publicized by MRFF reads more like an internal fundraising email,” the group “takes in a lot of donations on the backs of stories like these,” he personally gets paid about $375,000, about half the group’s total income - while insisting they’re not relevant or “not accusations, just observations.” Then why bring them up?
What’s more, some of your “red flags” aren’t even flags, much less red ones. So the theology expressed by this commander isn’t the same as that of Pete Hegseth? Okay, now that is irrelevant not only to the truth of the story but to the central issue of such “last days” theology being expressed in the military and how far it is being spread, if it is.
You also said “If they’re actively editing the emails, then they need to admit that” just a few paragraphs before stating that he did precisely that when you asked for an original.
So do I think that some commander could have expressed that sort of “final days” theology to those under their command? Yes. Considering the number of examples of right-wing pastors declaring Trump was “anointed of God” to be president and “Jesus is returning,” I have no doubt.
Beyond that, I suspect that a lot of the reports were repeating scuttlebutt and that they didn’t “call a reporter” because beyond concern about being outed - seriously, how many reporters would be willing to deal with a report from someone who wouldn’t ID themselves, leaving no way know the source - they didn’t have additional info to offer and it was more a case of “I heard about this and I thought you should know.”
The question of how widespread the particular form of religious extremism involved is in the military and if it’s being promoted by higher-ups are important ones and wholly worthy of investigation. But neither was the question at hand; the reliability of the story and therefore the trustworthiness of the MRFF was.
Bottom line: At this point, do I have cause to doubt that basic story? No. And bluntly, neither do you.
==
2026-03-04
[In this case, literally “said.” A local Board of Education was considering revoking its guidance on dealing with transgender students, that is, stripping away their protections. Several folks spoke against it at the meeting; this is from what I prepared (which likely makes it seem more polished than it was as delivered). In the end, the motion lost on a tie vote of 4-4.]
Good evening.
I come before the Board tonight to urge you to continue to support and indeed where possible to strengthen the Transgender Student Guidance.
I say this despite the fact that I am not trans, no one in my family is trans, and in fact as far as I know I do not personally know a single transgender person.
The point is, you don’t need to have a personal connection to be to be aware, to understand, to have empathy.
I was bullied growing up. A lot. I was a fat, shy, bookish kid, the kind who becomes a natural target for bullying, for mockery, being picked on, teasing, and “jokes.” The result was that I never felt connected, never felt I belonged.
It was bad enough that in my teen years I seriously considered suicide and a few years later I attempted it.
Looking back on that time, I can understand to some degree what it’s like to be trans, indeed how much harder to be trans than it was for me. Because if you’re trans, you’re not just made to feel apart, you’re actively set apart, tagged, marked as the “other,” as the “not us” by the society around you - increasingly, even legally so.
Transgender children deserve support, protection, and encouragement sufficient to thrive of the sort that any child should be able expect in any public school.
I’m not an expert, but as a layperson I’m fairly conversant with the science involved here. But you don’t have to be an expert to know the difference between what is right and what is wrong, between fair and unfair, just and unjust, between what is kindness and what is cruelty, to recognize the difference between performative concern and concealed contempt.
So I want to again, call on the Board of Education to continue, and where possible deepen, the support. the protection, the inclusion for trans students in this school system.
What’s more, I call on you to not be deterred or stampeded by the fears, fables, and fairy tales likely to be thrown at you in the course of considering this issue but rather to adopt just some portion of the courage it takes to be transgender and embrace the right, the fair, the just, and the kind.
I want to thank the members of the Board for taking on this civic responsibility of being on the BOE and I thank you for your time.
Posts
