solarbird | Apr. 27th, 2023

If you missed it, Wednesday morning’s big trending topic on Twitter was a thread – promoted by Twitter’s algorithm, of course – about mass killings of people who aid trans people, particularly youth. Teachers, doctors, things like that. Massive numbers of public killings being called for and cheered on by blue-check fascists and other authoritarians. It got taken down, eventually. Go read at the link. Parker Malloy saw it getting promoted and may finally be done with Twitter; may others follow in her path.

The big news out of Republican Florida is that the Republican Senate has confirmed SB 254, the bill that will allow the state to take children from parents if those parents are supportive of trans youth. This clears the bill through reconciliation, sending it to the governor’s desk. Republican governor DeSantis has said he supports the bill, so we’re expecting a signature soon.

I remind readers again that the systematic seizing of children to be raised by others is definitionally genocide, and that there’s a thread of GoFundMe posts on Mastodon to help threatened low-income people get out of the state.

Disney is suing Florida and Republican Ron DeSantis personally for using the power of government to bludgeon them for saying they disagreed with his then-new anti-LGBT laws. He says he’s in the clear because all the bludgeoning has nothing to do with Disney’s political positions, except for the part where he bragged about it in his own book saying in print that it very specifically is.

Wrapping up Florida news, DeSantis’s Republican board at The New College in Florida “deferred” tenure for five women and people of colour today in a functionally unprecedented move at the college, at the ‘request’ of DeSantis’s College President.

The newest attempt to force Democrats out of opposition positions is in Nebraska, wherein David Begley – an attorney – is going after State Senator Megan Hunt because of her opposition to their anti-trans bill. They are claiming conflict of interest violations because she has a trans child. She’s now under formal investigation. Another statement from Senator Hunt.

The legislature is officially nonpartisan but two Republicans have spoken for her, so there’s that. Story 1. Story 2.

Indiana lawyers say they’re too busy to address all of the lawsuit challenging the new Republican anti-trans law and are asking the court to let it go ahead into effect because of that, despite the ACLU and ACLU Indiana lawsuits. I’m sure any sane judge would be just fine with that, by which I mean I look forward to seeing a sane judge rip Indiana another new asshole.

In the UK, the Tories are moving forward with guidelines forcing trans students to use the wrong restroom and changing-room facilities at schools. The guidelines will also discourage use of new names and appropriate pronouns. This is unsurprising, but horrible, as UK’s “conservatives” move into more tight alignment with American fundamentalist authoritarians in the US Republican party.

If you’re thinking about Bluesky as a Twitter alternative, don’t. Bluesky doesn’t have any way to actually block people. You can only mute them, but only for yourself. So now that they have their first avowed Nazi and no plan to deal with that, well, good luck I guess. You can’t keep them out of groups either, reportedly, which reminds me of how on Google+ men would come into videochat groups with women and start masturbating at us on camera and we had no way to stop that for months.

In addition to allowing nazis, they’re also planning on allowing torture and self-harm video and images, so that’s just going to be a great fucking service, isn’t it? DON’T get onto BlueSky.

Vice has a pretty good article up on the cultlike “Moms for Liberty,” a far-right women’s group that specialises in anti-LGBT harassment campaigns. They’ve been in these updates before, though probably not often enough. Here’s a sample:

In Pennsylvania, the leader of a local Moms for Liberty chapter allegedly hijacked a dead woman’s Facebook page to harass her enemies, including using the N-word and saying they should hang from a noose. In Arkansas, the head of communications of the Lonoke County chapter said that librarians should be “plowed down with a freaking gun.” In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a member of a local Moms for Liberty chapter harassed an opposing group, threatened to report them for child abuse, and called them “pedophile sympathizers.” In Wauwatosa County, Wisconsin, police had to be called to a school board meeting after members of Moms for Liberty accused attendees of being “groomers” and wanting to show explicit pictures to children. In Charleston, South Carolina, a Moms for Liberty-affiliated member of the local school board publicly stated he would show up at his son’s teacher’s doorstep with a gun if the teacher came out as transgender.
Vice News

Fox News has an “oppo file” on Fucker Carlson and is holding it over his head to keep him from going at them. Reportedly, this is pretty common at Fox. NBC News has a decent story about fascists and other far-right authoritarians mourning him losing his seat, particularly fascists and racists who loved how he disseminated their evil beliefs so effectively. For his part, Fucker dropped a statement not saying one word about Fox but functionally declaring himself a martyr and that he’d be back.

Finally, is Peter Thiel having an “oh shit, the leopards I funded are going to eat my face” moment? It’s questionable but the question is out there. Let’s hope so.

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