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Middle school student allegedly sent home for refusing to change shirt that said ‘There are only two genders’

Views: 14

Middle school student allegedly sent home for refusing to change shirt that said ‘There are only two genders’ Liam Morrison addressed school board about his concerns on April 13.

A 12-year-old student was allegedly sent home from school after he refused to change his T-shirt that said, “There are only two genders.”

Liam Morrison, a seventh-grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, said he was taken out of gym class on March 21 and met with school staff who told him people were complaining about the statement on his shirt and that it made them feel “unsafe.” His comments were picked up by popular Twitter account LibsofTikTok.

“Yes, words on a shirt made people feel unsafe. They told me that I wasn’t in trouble, but it sure felt like I was. I was told that I would need to remove my shirt before I could return to class. When I nicely told them that I didn’t want to do that, they called my father,” he explained during a Middleborough School Committee meeting on April 13.

“Thankfully, my dad, supportive of my decisions, came to pick me up. What did my shirt say? Five simple words: There are only two genders. Nothing harmful. Nothing threatening. Just a statement I believe to be a fact,” he said.

 

Morrison added that he was told his shirt was “targeting a protected class” and was a “disruption to learning.” “Who is this protected class? Are their feelings more important than my rights?” he asked. “I don’t complain when I see Pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school. Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs, just as I do,” he said.

“I was told that the shirt was a disruption to learning. No one got up and stormed out of class. No one burst into tears. I’m sure I would have noticed if they had. I experience disruptions to my learning every day. Kids acting out in class are a disruption, yet nothing is done. Why do the rules apply to one yet not another?”

Liam Morrison, 12, reads a statement during a Middleborough School Committee meeting on April 13. (YouTube / Middleborough Educational Television)

The student said “not one person” directly told him they were bothered by the words on his shirt and that other students had told him they supported his actions.

 

Morrison told the committee he felt like the school was telling him it wasn’t OK for him to have an opposing point of view and that he didn’t go to school that day to “hurt feelings or cause trouble.”

“I have learned a lot from this experience. I learned that a lot of other students share my view. I learned that adults don’t always do the right thing or make the right decisions. I know that I have a right to wear a shirt with those five words. Even at 12 years old, I have my own political opinions and I have a right to express those opinions. Even at school. This right is called the First Amendment to the Constitution,” he stated.

Middleborough School Committee members hear concerns from 12-year-old Liam Morrison after he was allegedly sent home for refusing to change his shirt. (YouTube / Middleborough Educational Television)

“My hope in being here tonight is to bring the School Committee’s attention to this issue. I hope that you will speak up for the rest of us, so we can express ourselves without being pulled out of class. Next time, it may not only be me. There might be more soon that decide to speak out.”

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Oh My! Didn’t see this coming. Spielberg blasts revising old films for modern audiences, admits ‘mistake’ in editing guns from ‘E.T.’

Views: 38

Gabriel Hays is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. 

Didn’t see this coming. Spielberg blasts revising old films for modern audiences, admits ‘mistake’ in editing guns from ‘E.T.’

Legendary director Steven Spielberg recently blasted the idea of revising old films for modern audiences and their sensitivities.

During an interview with TIME Magazine, the “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park” director claimed that old films should not be updated for the modern lens and claimed that directors who do so are committing “censorship.”

Spielberg also expressed his regret for editing guns out of a recent release of his classic sci-fi adventure film, “E.T.,” claiming it was a “mistake.”

Spielberg at event

Director Steven Spielberg speaks to TIME Magazine about censorship. (Screenshot/Mediaite)

The director spoke with the outlet’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal during TIME’s “100 Summit” on Tuesday. The two discussed filmography, with Felsenthal eventually asking the filmmaker whether there are any films he would have like to have done differently or go back and change based on where he is now.

“Looking back at your body of work… are there films you would edit, that looking back at them, something you would’ve done differently? As an editor, I feel that way about some TIME covers – Not yours!” the journalist asked.

“But is there a sense of – I know at one point you took some guns out of ‘E.T.’ and then regretted it,” he continued.

Spielberg cut in, admitting that revising the beloved film was wrong.

“That was a mistake. That was a mistake,” he said, adding, “I never should have done that because ‘E.T.’ was a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily or being forced to peer through.”

Steven Spielberg at Oscars

Stephen Spielberg attends the 95th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on March 12, 2023 in Hollywood, California.  (Getty Images)

He noted why he initially revised it, telling Felsenthal, “’E.T.’ was a film that I was sensitive to the fact that the federal agents were approaching a bunch a kids with their firearms exposed. And I thought I would change the guns into walkie-talkies.”

Spielberg claimed he made the changes due to his evolving views, but ultimately realized he should have left the movie alone.

“I should never have missed with the archive of my own work, and I don’t recommend anybody really do that,” he said.

He then voiced the importance of leaving the films as they are, saying, “All our movies are a kind of measuring – a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like, and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there. So I really regret having that out there.”

The Time editor-in-chief asked if Spielberg’s standard applies to other forms of artistic media. Felsenthal specifically mentioned publisher Puffin UK updating an edition of Roald Dahl’s “Charlie & The Chocolate Factory” to feature fewer offensive words found in the original text.

After mentioning it, Speilberg declared, “Nobody should ever attempt to take the chocolate out of Willy Wonka! Ever! And they shouldn’t take the chocolate or the vanilla, or any other flavor out of anything that has been written.”

He added, “For me, it is sacrosanct. It’s our history, it’s our cultural heritage.” Felsenthal asked, “Warts and all?” to which Spielberg replied, “I do not believe in censorship in that way.”

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl, the author of several popular works, including Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (Tony Evans, E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service)

Spielberg blasts revising old films for modern audiences, admits ‘mistake’ in editing guns from ‘E.T.’ | https://www.foxnews.com/video/6326205137112

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Winning. Woke Bud Light Executive Behind Transgender Dylan Mulvaney Marketing Campaign Takes Leave of Absence

Views: 24

Woke Bud Light Executive Behind Transgender Dylan Mulvaney Marketing Campaign Takes Leave of Absence.

Winning. Anheuser-Busch InBev has changed its marketing leadership after a disastrous marketing decision, Ad Age reported.

Woke Bud Light Vice-President of Marketing Alissa Heinerscheid has taken a leave of absence weeks after the company was criticized for its partnership with a transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Todd Allen, VP of global marketing for Budweiser, will replace Alissa Heinerscheid as vice president of marketing for the brand, Ad Age reported.

Winning once again.

Complete article is here.at GP.

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Food History Leftist Virtue(!) Media Woke Progressive Racism WOKE

Gimme a break: Cracker Barrel Is Under Fire for Its “Racist” Name

Views: 62

Story by Gina Vaynshteyn

The comfort food-style restaurant chain Cracker Barrel, known for its overwhelming amount of ornamental knick-knacks and vintage signs plastered on the walls, is in some social media trouble today. Folks on the internet are claiming Cracker Barrel is racist.

What’s the meaning behind Cracker Barrel?

According to Southern Living, “cracker-barrel” was coined in 1916 because of barrels containing soda crackers — a popular item for sale at country stores. Customers at said country stores would hang around the barrels as a kind of ritual (kind of like the trope of employees gossiping near the water cooler). The first Cracker Barrel location opened in 1969 in Lebanon, Tenn., and it derived its name from the cracker-barrel community experience back in the day.

According to Dictionary.com, “cracker-barrel” means “of or suggesting the simple rustic informality and directness thought to be characteristic of life in and around the country store.”

But some Twitter users have also pointed out that the term “cracker” might have another, more racist connotation. According to NPR, the term “cracker” was used in the mid-18th century to refer to poor white people in states like Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia.

“It is suspected that it was a shortened version of ‘whip-cracker,’ since the manual labor they did involved driving livestock with a whip,” historian Jelani Cobb told the outlet.

But in the late 1800s, writers from the northern USA region referred to some southerners as “crackers.”

Oh, Please!

“[Those writers] decided that they were called that because of the cracking of the whip when they drove slaves,” historian Dana Ste. Claire told the outlet, though he noted those the term would be applied to weren’t typically wealthy enough to own slaves.

Users on Twitter also claimed that a “cracker barrel” was the barrel used to hold whips, though there is currently no historical evidence to back up that claim. [See the above screenshot from a Twitter post.]

Back in 2015, someone named Ryan Koch, who lived in Iowa, started a petition to change its name because he believed Cracker Barrel to be “racist” toward white folks. Per the Change.org petition, Koch wrote, “I say all European Americans start protesting C****er Barrel. It uses an offensive slur, and it is deeply offensive and mocks our long and proud heritage.” He later clarified the post was “satire.” Ummmmm, OK.

In a tweet, one user claimed you can even see a whip in the logo, going from the first R in “barrel” to the K in “cracker.”

While it’s currently unclear whether or not there is any historical evidence to that claim, the company has since removed the connecting line from the R to the K in the logo.

Cracker Barrel’s PR team reportedly told Pop Icon that the logo was meant to “invoke nostalgia,” and was inspired by “an older gentleman who sat on the front porch during the summer.”

Has Cracker Barrel ever been racist?

So, while it seems like the name of Cracker Barrel isn’t inherently racist, it sounds like a lot of Black customers have experienced racism at the restaurant locations, which is horrifying.

In 2004, there was a filing and settlement of a racial discrimination lawsuit against Cracker Barrel after finding evidence of racist behavior and discrimination in at least 50 locations across the U.S. According to CBS News, 21 people filed a $100 million federal lawsuit against the chain. At the time, a spokesperson for Cracker Barrel stated, “ Our mission is pleasing people, and that means all people. We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”However, evidence suggests that Cracker Barrel definitely knew what was happening and wasn’t doing anything about it. Attorney David Sanford stated, “It can’t be the case that Cracker Barrel doesn’t know about it. We have enough evidence right now to suggest that Cracker Barrel, to the very highest level, is responsible.”

According to CBS News, the lawsuit includes statements from Black customers who stated they were forced to wait while white customers were seated right away. One specific person said that she arrived at Cracker Barrel at 9:48 p.m. and was told that she couldn’t be served because the restaurant was about to close. However, she then saw four white men were allowed in. “We had hungry children, and he still refused to serve us,” the person said.

“There are perhaps thousands more African-Americans who have been denied service, treated rudely by servers and hosts, and subjected to racial slurs at Cracker Barrel restaurants,” attorney Grant Morris said.

Hopefully, the chain learned from their (sic) mistakes and has implemented a zero-tolerance policy among their (sic) staff. Nobody deserves to go to a restaurant and be discriminated against — period.

If you are looking for ways to donate your time or money to Black Lives Matter and other antiracist organizations, we have created a list of resources to get you started. [bolded in original]


Well, that last paragraph lets you know where this clueless white woman who posted this on DISTRACTIFY stands on the political spectrum.

It would seem she is so far gone that she doesn’t proofread her articles before submitting them. A number of commas are missing and misusing their for its. I left those in with the notation hat they are in the original.

Chapman is located 30 miles from LA. A private Liberal Arts school.

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Politics Racism Sports WOKE

LSU’S Reece and Iowa’s Clark played a good game. Jill Biden played a game of racism.

Views: 12

LSU’S Reece and Iowa’s Clark played a good game. Jill Biden played a game of racism. Jill Biden took a great basketball game and made it about race. Now I see where Joe gets it from.

There was no racism. Reece took it to Clark and the better team won. But Jill who felt the LSU team and Reece needed to have a white superstar along side the black girl. Signs of Jill showing her inner White Plantationist side.

And those folks who said Reece showed racism and disrespect towards Clark? Bull Reece did what Clark has done in the past.

Iowa lost so they do not go to the White House. To the victor belongs the spoils.

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Reprints from others. The Law WOKE

Horowitz Seeks Authority to Investigate DOJ Lawyers

Views: 21

Alvin Bragg needs to do his real job: KT McFarland | John Bachman Now

Alvin Bragg needs to do his real job: KT McFarland | John Bachman Now

By Sandy Fitzgerald    

Thanks to Breitbart for this article.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz asked members of Congress Thursday to upgrade his authority and allow him to investigate allegations of professional misconduct involving government lawyers who are involved in official investigations, providing legal advice, and conducting litigation.

He told members of the House Appropriation Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies that the IG has the jurisdiction to review allegations of misconduct by non-attorneys in the DOJ, but not the ability to investigate misconduct by department attorneys, including federal prosecutors, when they are acting as lawyers, reported The Epoch Times.

Instead, the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) must assess allegations against department lawyers, including any claims made against the most senior department lawyers, even those in leadership.

“The DOJ’s IG has long questioned this distinction between the treatment of misconduct by attorneys acting in their legal capacity and misconduct by others, a distinction not made in other federal agencies and a limitation not imposed on any other IG,” he said.

But, he said there is no “principled reason” to send such cases to the OPR, which is overseen by the attorney general or the deputy attorney general, “whose leader is appointed by them and can be removed by them,” Horowitz said. “I would venture to say that I doubt any member of Congress has ever been seen before you [the appointed head of OPR] to testify publicly.” This means there is a lack of transparency, he added.

 

“I know from speaking with prosecutors across the country, defense lawyers across the country, and various nongovernmental organizations, that their confidence in that oversight ability has been challenged over the years,” said Horowitz.

He also said, while answering a question from subcommittee Chair Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., that not having authority to investigate lawyers impedes his office’s ability to conduct oversight and creates several issues, including transparency and accountability.

“To my mind, transparency goes with accountability,” he said. “Where you have transparency … transparency is the best disinfectant. If the public knows, if the lawyers in the department know that their misconduct is going to be public, I think that helps reform behavior, and it deters other folks.”

The Inspectors General Act of 1978, signed into law by then-President Jimmy Carter, meant that the DOJ’s IG is the only one of 72 statutory IGs that cannot investigate allegations of professional misconduct.

The House has supported changes in the law, but the Senate has not, Horowitz said.

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Child Abuse Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. WOKE

How sick is this? Pentagon Doctors Claim 7-Year-Olds Can Consent to Puberty Blockers

Views: 14

How sick is this? Pentagon Doctors Claim 7-Year-Olds Can Consent to Puberty Blockers. So now the age of reasoning is 7? Thanks to the folks at Breitbart for this article.

Pentagon doctors claimed that seven-year-olds are capable of making decisions to be injected with puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones.

Healthcare providers connected with the Department of Defense (DoD) argued in favor of the so-called “gender-affirming” model of care for children with gender dysphoria, Fox News first reported.

The providers advocated for “gender-affirming health care, such as puberty suppression and affirming hormones,” in the March edition of the American Journal of Public Health, also going on to claim that “youths … have an inherent ability and right to consent to gender-affirming therapy.”

The authors — David A. Klein, Thomas Baxter, Noelle S. Larson, and clinical psychologist, Natasha A. Schvey, PhD — called for the military to train providers with the so-called “gender-affirming” model of care. They did, however, acknowledge that 53 percent of physicians associated with the military through the DoD health system have stated that they would refuse to provide hormones.

Larson, who is a pediatric endocrinologist, works for the Department of Pediatrics at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, while Klein Schvey and Baxter work at California’s Travis Air Force Base.

The entire article can be found here.

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Links from other news sources. Medicine Reprints from others. WOKE

Medi-Cal Bad Idea for Golden State from the Start

Views: 15

Medi-Cal Bad Idea for Golden State from the Start

 Sign for the California Department of Health Care Services and Public Health Building – Sacramento, California. (Matthew Corley/Dreamstime.com)

Sally PipesBy Sally Pipes

Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., is now learning fortunes can change quickly in the Golden State. Less than a year ago, Newsom was celebrating a projected $100 billion budget surplus — a fiscal boon that prompted the governor and legislature to craft a budget exceeding $300 billion.

Now, California faces a $22.5 billion deficit, leaving the governor scrambling for ways to tighten the state’s monetary belt.

He can start by calling off his plan to expand California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, to all undocumented immigrants.

The expansion was a bad idea when the state’s coffers were flush. Now that California is struggling to make ends meet, using taxpayer money to cover non-citizens is simply irresponsible.

Newsom has been working for years to usher more and more undocumented immigrants into Medi-Cal, which already covers roughly one-third of the state’s 39 million residents.

That process began in 2016, when Newsom’s predecessor Gov. Jerry Brown expanded Medi-Cal to cover undocumented children up to age 18.\

In 2020, Newsom went a step further, granting Medi-Cal coverage to undocumented immigrants under the age of 26. More recently, Newsom has allowed illegal immigrants age 50 and older to enroll in Medi-Cal.

The final leg of this expansion — which would offer Medi-Cal to 700,000 illegal immigrants ages 26 to 49 — is supposed to take effect next January. But the state’s current fiscal situation makes this massive taxpayer-funded giveaway impossible to justify.

This latest proposed expansion is projected to cost a whopping $2.6 billion a year. That might have been easier to swallow in the days of a $100 billion budget surplus. But those days are gone.

But there’s no reason to stop there. Rolling back the previous Medi-Cal expansions would bring California that much closer to eliminating the budget deficit. The state currently spends an estimated $1.3 billion a year providing Medi-Cal to unauthorized residents 50 and older — a cost borne entirely by Golden State taxpayers without any federal support.

Even those estimates likely understate the real cost of the expansions by a significant margin. A program that rewards those who come to California illegally by providing them taxpayer-financed health insurance will almost certainly lead to more undocumented immigrants making their way to the Golden State. How could it not? In the long term, Medi-Cal’s rolls will swell — and the cost of the program will exceed today’s projections.

California can ill afford to make open-ended spending commitments, given that the state’s tax take is quite volatile from year to year.

California’s budget is largely financed through income taxes. Tax revenues are highly sensitive to the performance of the stock market and of industries like film and tech that dominate the state economy.

In other words, this current budget crisis won’t be the last one for California.

The argument in favor of expanding Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants gets even weaker after considering the questionable quality of care the program provides.

Consider evidence from Oregon.

A landmark study of the Medicaid program in California’s northern neighbor compared health outcomes between patients who gained access to Medicaid through a random lottery and similar patients who remained uninsured.

According to that analysis, after two years, there were “no significant improvements in measured physical health outcomes” for patients covered by Medicaid compared to the uninsured control group.

How can California justify spending billions of scarce taxpayer dollars providing coverage that delivers little benefit to people in the country illegally?

Gov. Newsom has some tough decisions to make to eliminate California’s budget deficit this year. But rolling back Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented workers shouldn’t be one of them.

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and the Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is “False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All,”

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Just my own thoughts Links from other news sources. Politics Progressive Racism Uncategorized WOKE

What happens when Liberal Journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger are testifying under oath to what happened with the weaponization of Tweeter? Hate from Progressives.

Views: 25

What happens when Liberal Journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger are testifying under oath to what happened with the weaponization of Tweeter? Hate from Progressives.

For those who don’t know, Taibbi and Shellenberger are Liberals. But also Journalists who write the truth sometimes giving us the facts. But the far left didn’t care cause it didn’t fit their warped narrative.

Shellenberger a environmentalist who ran for governor in California as a Democrat. Taibbi well you can find him on the AP and the NY Times best sellers list. Both voted for Biden and Obama.

But the extremists on the committee attacked their credentials. Now when Trump was President and information was leaked, never was there a call from the left to find out the source. Same when Twitter would allow those leaks to be posted.

But now that Musk owns Twitter, the left is demanding to know the Journalists give up their source. What changed?

 

 

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Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. WOKE

Eating one of their own? Did Norfolk Southern neglect safety protocols in pursuit of DEI and ESG initiatives? NTSB report seems to pin blame on Norfolk train car.

Views: 9

Did Norfolk Southern neglect safety protocols in pursuit of DEI and ESG initiatives?

On February 3rd, dozens of Norfolk Southern train cars derailed while traveling through East Palestine, Ohio, with 11 of those cars carrying ultra hazardous chemical agents. Some three days later, those chemicals were burned off into the air, after officials expressed concerns that the materials could explode and ignite an even greater catastrophe. Could all of this have been avoided?

On Thursday, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) determined in a preliminary report that an overheated wheel bearing on a Norfolk Southern train car could be responsible for the derailment that occurred.

The report listed multiple operational concerns, adding that “surveillance video … showed what appeared to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment.” This seems to indicate that this was a disaster that could’ve been avoided with proper safety protocols in place.

We are offered clues of possible neglect in Norfolk Southern’s 2022 ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) report, which showcases how the railway corporation has completely embraced the modern “stakeholder capitalism” agenda that inundates seemingly every major American corporation.

The report, published in late 2022, highlights how Norfolk is pursuing wokeness and the climate agenda over safety and merit-based hiring.

It contains a message from Alan Shaw, the rail company’s CEO, who has been in the news lately for all of the wrong reasons. In a letter to readers, Shaw proudly announced that they would continue “reducing our carbon footprint” while expanding their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives.

Shaw, by the way, failed to show up for the latest community meeting on the railway disaster on Thursday.

Image

As for the DEI page, it touts how Shaw signed the “CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion pledge,” a product of the ultra woke consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The pledge commits employers to pursue “racial equity” in their hiring processes and “implement and expand unconscious bias education and training.” In short, follow the agenda and you will be rewarded by The System.

In its DEI page, Jason Pettway, the company’s Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (a role created by the company in 2021) cheers the fact that more than half of all new hires belong to a racial minority.

The DEI page makes clear to readers that Norfolk is committed to hiring its workforce on the basis of gender and skin color, and not merit.

Forget about the mushroom cloud and toxic gasses they helped to launch over East Palestine. In its ESG section, Norfolk Southern has won plenty of awards recently for “delivering the low-carbon economy.”

Did all of this “climate leadership” mean Norfolk Southern was cutting corners on safety standards? The report was surely celebrated by Norfolk’s multi-trillion dollar asset management behemoth stakeholders.

As for the people of East Palestine, Ohio, they are left with the wreckage in their physical backyards, and with a series of questions that remain unanswered from Norfolk Southern officials, who have largely refused to hold themselves accountable for the consequences of their failures.

 

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