Updated: May. 23, 2023, 8:36 a.m.|Published: May. 23, 2023, 8:35 a.m.



By Jemma StephensonAlabama Reflector
Alabama may be a conservative state. But conservative activists still insist the textbooks here are too left-wing.

Earlier this year, the State Board of Education approved English Language Arts textbooks for kindergarten through third grade after a public hearing where critics suggested the books had too much Black history and multicultural stories.

These books had already been delayed after they were originally meant to be adopted in 2022.
Melissa Gates, who had identified herself as a member of Eagle Forum, said the books, called the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts, would “indoctrinate our children with DEI [Diversity Equity and Inclusion], SEL [Social Emotional Learning], woke agenda and grooming our little ones.”
https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/some-alabama-conservatives-say-textbooks-indoctrinate-students-there-was-too-much-black-history.html


( No comment necessary. )

https://twitter.com/egavactip/status/1661751442586353665












( Always in the Twilight Zone...at least for now. )

https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/1661415554450587661












( Do what you can everyone. )

Martin Pengelly

Tue 23 May 2023 16.34 EDT

Lawyers for Harlan Crow, the rightwing billionaire whose friendship with and gifts to the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas are the focus of swirling scandal, have rejected Senate Democrats’ request for answers about the relationship.

In a letter first reported by Bloomberg News on Tuesday, lawyers for Crow rejected a request from Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, for a list of gifts to Thomas.

Durbin’s committee, the letter said, had not “identified a valid legislative purpose for its investigation and is not authorised to conduct an ethics investigation of a supreme court justice”.

Excerpt:

Crow said he never discussed politics or business before the court with Thomas or his wife, the far-right activist Ginni Thomas. ( lol )

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/23/clarence-thomas-gifts-harlan-crow-senate-democrats?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other


( Scum of the earth. )

Mothers wanted to watch horrific footage of their children escaping the Robb Elementary massacre. Here’s why we showed them. And why they want others to see


By: CNN
Posted: May 21, 2023 11:09 AM CDT
Updated: May 21, 2023 10:20 PM CDT

By Shimon Prokupecz, Matthew J. Friedman and Rachel Clarke, CNN

(CNN) -- Uvalde, Texas (CNN) — Editor’s note: This story contains graphic images and descriptions of the Uvalde school massacre. The children pictured all survived and their parents asked CNN to show the images for people to see what their sons and daughters had to endure and understand what this kind of violence does.

The mothers called and they texted. They wanted to see the videos that showed their children in some of the worst moments of their young lives: The footage from body cameras as the boys and girls were brought out, bloodied and traumatized after being left with a murderous gunman for 77 minutes in the classrooms of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

It was nearly a year since their children had survived the massacre of 19 of their fourth-grade classmates and two teachers. But they still had so many questions, and no one in authority seemed prepared to answer.
https://www.cbs58.com/news/mothers-wanted-to-watch-horrific-footage-of-their-children-escaping-the-robb-elementary-massacre-here-s-why-we-showed-them-and-why-they-want-others



( For all the Mom's and their children, they so desperately want this to end. )

Gov. Greg Abbott said late Tuesday night that all Texas flags across the state to be lowered to half-staff all day Wednesday in memory of the Uvalde school shooting victims.

The call comes after one year ago, 19 students and two teachers were killed by a gunman who entered Robb Elementary School.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2023/05/24/gov-abbott-orders-all-texas-flags-lowered-to-half-staff-in-memory-of-uvalde/




376 law enforcement officers across 20 agencies waited for 77 minutes before breaching the classroom door.



(The ONLY thing Gov. Abbott will ever do is lower the American flag....that's it. )

https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1660488368411619329


Excerpt:

There seems to be an unwritten rule which equates beauty with youngness. In an interview, Martha Stewart told the reporter she credits her organic, home-grown, farm-to-table eating, yoga, and actively healthy lifestyle to her youthfulness. While that’s an admirable journey for her, let’s not forget the amount of privilege that kind of lifestyle requires.

On the left is Apo Whang-Od, who is a 106-year-old tribal tattooist in the Philippines. The wisdom she carries in every forehead wrinkle and frown line is stunning. Her eyes are glass, reflecting back all that she’s witnessed over a century of lived experiences. Her tattoos a reminder of the ancestors she seeks to honor.

Both women are beautiful in their own right. But I wish we as women didn’t play into this idea that we have to look younger—and thinner—in order to fit some unrealistic beauty standard which will grant us acceptance and relevance in the world around us.

I’m writing this for any woman who, like me, may have had a punched-gut reaction to seeing an octogenarian in a swimsuit on the cover of a magazine looking more like a woman in her forties or fifties: Anti-aging is not a beauty standard.

There IS beauty in wrinkles, and saggy skin, and drooping breasts. These are markers of a life hard fought for and well lived. It seems odd to try and erase these battle scars.

So while I applaud Martha for her fortunate body, carefully curated procedures, and pristinely styled makeup, I also applaud Whang-Od for what others may perceive as imperfections.

Anti-aging is not a beauty standard.
Authenticity is.

@ FeministNews













( This speaks to the heart of the issue for me, and why I believe it is important to recognize external pressures from society at large.)

Btw, if the group leaders don't approve of twitter posts in general, just let me know and I'll remove it.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1659651986944303118












( It's good to shove reality in McCarthy's face. +1. )

By Miriam Berger
May 15, 2023 at 3:13 p.m. EDT


Excerpt:

Brown University researchers, in a report released Monday, draw on U.N. data and expert analyses to attempt to calculate the minimum number of excess deaths attributable to the war on terrorism, across conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — impacts “so vast and complex that” ultimately, “they are unquantifiable,” the researchers acknowledge.

The accounting, so far as it can be measured, puts the toll at 4.5 million to 4.6 million — a figure that continues to mount as the effects of conflict reverberate. Of those fatalities, the report estimates, some 3.6 million to 3.7 million were “‘indirect deaths” caused by the deterioration of economic, environmental, psychological and health conditions.


Excerpt:

Since 2010, a team of 50 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners and physicians participating in the Costs of War project have kept their own calculations. According to their latest assessment, more than 906,000 people, including 387,000 civilians, died directly from post-9/11 wars. Another 38 million people have been displaced or made refugees. The U.S. federal government, meanwhile, has spent over $8 trillion on these wars, the research suggests.

But Savell said the research indicates that exponentially more people, especially children and the most impoverished and marginalized populations, have been killed by the effects of war — mounting poverty, food insecurity, environmental contamination, the ongoing trauma of violence, and the destruction of health and public infrastructure, along with private property and means of livelihood.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/


( The War on Terror, brought to you by Bush/Cheney American style. )

A claim that veterans were ousted from Hudson Valley lodging as a result of NYC's migrant surge was a tall tale


May 18, 2023
Updated: May 19, 2023 11:56 a.m.

NEWBURGH — Over the past week, a sensational story has torn through local and national media: A local nonprofit said homeless veterans under its care had been kicked out of upstate hotels to make room for migrants bused from New York City. But the story has fallen apart over the past 48 hours, culminating Thursday evening with state Assemblyman Brian Maher, R-Walden, who had been advocating for the veterans in national media and in the state Legislature, denouncing it as false in a call with the Times Union.

Maher said he was “devastated and disheartened” after a conversation with the CEO of the nonprofit earlier in the day revealed that the story wasn’t true. He is calling for the organization to be investigated by the state attorney general’s office and the Orange County district attorney.


Excerpt: According to Maher’s account, he was taken for a ride. Sharon Toney-Finch, the CEO of the nonprofit, is a respected person in the community with a track record of helping veterans, he said. At a Wingate hotel in Fishkill, Maher spoke with two people claiming to be veterans who were displaced from the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, which has received 110 migrants sent by New York City; he spoke to a purported driver who transported the displaced vets; and he assembled care packages and solicited donations after the nonprofit asked for his help.

Maher shared the names and phone numbers of the purported veterans and the driver with the Times Union. On Friday, one of the purported veterans told a reporter that he had been recruited to take part in a scheme designed to perpetuate Toney-Finch’s story.

https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/news/article/unhoused-veterans-displaced-migrants-fake-18107182.php