good morning, it's 25 february 2017

hoo boy.

ICE raid at a Seattle tech company. Jay Inslee says "fuck you, no help from Washington State" via a series of executive orders. Kenmore, Washington leads a league of smaller King County, Washington towns in declaring themselves "welcoming" cities - meaning they won't help ICE and are making sure they don't collect data that could be used to help ICE. Not incidentally, DHS concluded that citizenship is an unreliable indicator of terrorism threat; so the report was suppressed, then leaked. It's also suppressing housing sales in our area, as (legal, again) immigrants get scared.

Twitter is locking down accounts (shadowbanning) if you swear at blue-checkbox people. They say the blue-check is not actually a factor? But it is. Three longer-term studies say voucher schools are _much worse_ than the schools they replace, across most to all axes.

Republicans are trying to crack down on protest nationally, but at the state level. 17 states have had bills introduced. Washington State's was dead on arrival, but that didn't stop it from being introduced. (And the sponsor from being publicly shamed, which was great.) The NRA is declaring protesters to be paid terrorists, "dedicated to destroying not just America but Western Civilization;" that won't lead to violence, now will it? And Montana's GOP chair opposes making voting easier, not because of supposed vote fraud, but because it hurts Republicans, and he actually said so in those words.

Lots of articles on Trump's attacks upon and exclusion of critical press. Key to note is that all of the news organisations excluded on Friday are leaders in the Russia-Trump stories. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Remember that effort in Iowa to force political hiring of professors at universities? It's shown up now in North Carolina, too. I'm sure that's just a coincidence too.

Two fundamentalist groups filing amicus briefs to the Supreme Court regarding access to washrooms by transgendered students misgendered Gavin Grimm (the plaintiff) intentionally. (Very intentionally; pointedly so. And said so when asked.) So they both got reprimands FROM THE COURT ITSELF, for not following court procedure and for generally being dickbags.

And a number of abuse stories, as well - extensive interrogations of native-born Muslim citizens at customs, and so on. It's ugly. And more. It's another big day.

( It's February 25, 2017; this is the news )

good morning, it's 26 february 2017

[Posting this a little early to get it done]

White supremacist Steve Bannon brought in Sebastian Gorka to the White House staff. Gorka has extensive ties to anti-Semetic groups back in Hungary. Also in Breitbart alumni, we have a pro-Trump megadonor who is part owner of Breitbart News empire. And Bannon promises daily war against the press and everybody not part of the Trumpian movement.

Fox News has been holding up a convicted felon as some sort of Swedish government security official. He's not. But I doubt that'll sink in - as another story shows, people still mad (at CPAC) over alleged Obama holidays and spending refuse to believe the numbers incurred by Mr. Trump. They just flatly reject the data.

Churches are putting together immigrant protection cells - safe houses, transport networks, etc. A few other immigrant stories, too, including another legal Visa holder ejected at the border.

The White House told DHS to justify Trump's travel ban - their report did the opposite. So it was suppressed, then leaked.

Where is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? He's been invisible. Particularly to the press.

Kansas is having an intra-Republican fight over the fiscal implosion caused by the polices Trump and Ryan intend to implement nationally. It's blown the budget and job growth fell and is below national averages. Governor Brownback doesn't care and is fighting the hardliner side; they fell three votes short of overriding his veto.

Trump is reportedly going to throw out more anti-environment EOs this coming week; targeting clean water rules, in particular.

This is what passes for a quiet day these days.

( It's February 26, 2017; this is the news )

The organisation actually behind I-1552 in Washington State

Okay, so the front-line names on Initiative 1552 (the anti-LGBT initiative that puts bounties on the heads of trans students) are three women nobody's heard of being particularly active in politics before: Kaeley Triller, Kristi Meritt, and Cassandra Nelson.

But! Guess what: their domain (justwantprivacy dot org) has a non-concealed owner! And that owner is Joseph Backholm of Lynnwood.

Joseph Backholm of Lynnwood is president of the Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW), a long-time right-wing fundamentalist evangelical political group, and a legally-distinct but nonetheless listed affiliate of the Family Research Council, a decades-old anti-LGBT hate group spun off of Focus on the Family for specifically political actions. (You can find FPIW on FRC's state affiliates page here: http://www.frc.org/state-policy-organizations )

FPIW were previously behind Referendum 74, which asked voters to reject our then-recently-passed marriage equality laws.

Joseph Backholm himself used to be with the similarly anti-queer and anti-woman's-rights ADF ("Alliance Defending Freedom," formerly "Alliance Defence Fund"), of Scottsdale, Arizona, which may be best known to larger audiences as supporting law making LGBT people illegal.

They also have ties to anti-LGBT/fundamentalist political groups such as the Pacific Justice Institute, the Thomas More Law Center, the Heritage Foundation, and the (dead?) "ex-gay" group Exodus International. The Heritage Foundation also supports states' rights to make LGBT people illegal.

So if, you know, you thought this was anything other than an attempt to peel off layers of the alliance to weaken the entire coalition so they can pick all of us off one layer at a time? It's not. That's exactly what it is.

Registry Registrant ID: CR212357711
Registrant Name: Joseph Backholm
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: 16108 Ash Way
Registrant City: Lynnwood
Registrant State/Province: Washington
Registrant Postal Code: 98036
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.4256080242
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: info@fpiw.org
Registry Admin ID: CR212357713

(If you go to Google Maps streetview, you'll find their office, facing the parking lot in back, suite 113.)