April 23, 2019

McCormick Jr. High Gay Straight Alliance students told no more rainbows, LGBTQ paraphernalia

McCormick Junior High Gay Straight Alliance students were given this notice Wednesday afternoon. They were then told they wouldn't be allowed to to have or wear any LGBTQ paraphernalia on school grounds. Courtesy.


CHEYENNE – Students in McCormick Junior High’s Gay Straight Alliance club were told Wednesday afternoon they were no longer allowed to have or wear any LGBTQ paraphernalia on school grounds, including flags, shirts, pins and bracelets.

Students were told they would not even be allowed to wear rainbow colors to school, according to a student and several parents.

This is the latest response to racist and anti-gay flyers found in the school last month that read “it’s great to be straight it’s not OK to be gay,” “black lives only matter because if it weren’t for them who would pick our cotton,” and “Join the KKK,” with “the confederate kid club” in parentheses beneath it.

Around 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, roughly 20-25 students from the GSA club were called out of class and sent to a room where three faculty awaited them, Ashlynn Kercher, an eighth-grade member of McCormick’s GSA said.

Read more: https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/mccormick-gsa-students-told-no-more-rainbows-lgbtq-paraphernalia/article_78fe29a4-a309-5322-bc5f-910b03e85461.html

Cross-posted in the Wyoming Group.


Photo: http://www.towleroad.com/2019/04/school-bans-rainbows/

April 23, 2019

McCormick Jr. High Gay Straight Alliance students told no more rainbows, LGBTQ paraphernalia

McCormick Junior High Gay Straight Alliance students were given this notice Wednesday afternoon. They were then told they wouldn't be allowed to to have or wear any LGBTQ paraphernalia on school grounds. Courtesy.


CHEYENNE – Students in McCormick Junior High’s Gay Straight Alliance club were told Wednesday afternoon they were no longer allowed to have or wear any LGBTQ paraphernalia on school grounds, including flags, shirts, pins and bracelets.

Students were told they would not even be allowed to wear rainbow colors to school, according to a student and several parents.

This is the latest response to racist and anti-gay flyers found in the school last month that read “it’s great to be straight it’s not OK to be gay,” “black lives only matter because if it weren’t for them who would pick our cotton,” and “Join the KKK,” with “the confederate kid club” in parentheses beneath it.

Around 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, roughly 20-25 students from the GSA club were called out of class and sent to a room where three faculty awaited them, Ashlynn Kercher, an eighth-grade member of McCormick’s GSA said.

Read more: https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/mccormick-gsa-students-told-no-more-rainbows-lgbtq-paraphernalia/article_78fe29a4-a309-5322-bc5f-910b03e85461.html

Cross-posted in the LGBT Group.


Photo: http://www.towleroad.com/2019/04/school-bans-rainbows/

April 23, 2019

Texas Mayors warn of legislative 'assault'

Decrying proposals that would restrict the ability of cities to prevent some trees from being felled on private property, regulate payday lenders and strip clubs, oversee short-term home rentals, or raise revenue through property taxes, a group of Texas mayors, including Austin’s Steve Adler, released a list on Monday of what they consider the most harmful bills.

The Legislature is “more focused on attacking cities than any session I can remember,” Adler said at a news conference. “Certainly we have a history of being at odds with the Legislature. ... This assault is being waged against all cities, not just one or two.”

Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League, which put together the list, said: “We’re opposing more than 150 bad ideas for Texas cities at this point.”

The jousting by city officials and lawmakers at the Capitol is the latest round in a saga that has grown in intensity over the last few years. In 2015, shortly before being sworn in as governor, Greg Abbott called for doing away with local bans on plastic bags, fracking and tree-cutting that he says amount to a “patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas model.”

Read more: https://www.statesman.com/news/20190422/texas-mayors-warn-of-legislative-assault

April 23, 2019

Kansas' new governor vetoes mandate on abortion 'reversal'

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas' new Democratic governor on Monday vetoed a measure that would require clinics and doctors to tell their patients about a disputed treatment to stop a medication abortion after a woman has taken the first of two pills.

The action by Gov. Laura Kelly, an abortion-rights supporter, sets up a confrontation with a Republican-controlled Legislature that has had solid anti-abortion majorities for more than two decades. Supporters of the abortion "reversal" bill appeared to have the two-thirds majorities needed in both chambers to override Kelly's veto once lawmakers return on May 1 from a weekslong break.

Abortion opponents contend the bill ensures that women who harbor doubts about ending their pregnancies will learn that they can stop a medication abortion by taking the hormone progesterone. Abortion-rights supporters say the proposal would force doctors to provide dubious information to their patients.

Kelly said such a requirement would interfere with the relationship between patients and their physicians.

Read more: https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Kansas-new-governor-vetoes-mandate-on-abortion-13786153.php

April 23, 2019

Pete Buttigieg makes fundraising inroads in Connecticut for his presidential campaign

Don’t look now, but Pete Buttigieg has more contributors in Connecticut than Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Kirsten Gillibrand.

Surging in the Democratic presidential polls for 2020, the South Bend, Ind., mayor and Afghanistan war veteran also out-raised a number of more established Democrats from Jan. 1 to March 31 in Connecticut, which is often referred to as the ATM of politics.

Buttigieg, a Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar who is openly gay, is now second in a Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire of primary voters there.

He raised $28,016 from 76 contributors in Connecticut, according to the Federal Election Commission. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York raised $81,553 from 74 donors and $55,596 from 68 donors, respectively, during the first quarter.

Read more: https://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-pol-buttigieg-inroads-connecticut-20190422-xfcz4exoxfdwronlhvh5qxhmiq-story.html

April 23, 2019

Lawyer for Alex Jones faces possible censure for submitting false affidavit in Sandy Hook lawsuit

A Superior Court judge Monday accused Norm Pattis, the lawyer for Alex Jones, of submitting a false affidavit allegedly signed by the controversial radio show host, and took the unusual step of referring him for possible disciplinary action.

Jones is being sued by families of victims from the Sandy Hook school massacre, who charge that the host of the Infowars internet radio program spent years perpetrating the attack as a hoax.

The rare rebuke by Judge Barbara Bellis is just the latest skirmish between the court and Jones or his lawyers over discovery issues and other matters in a lawsuit filed by the Sandy Hook families.

The skirmish continued on Monday as lawyers for the families filed a new motion seeking to extend the deposition time for Alex Jones and also asked permission to depose his father David Jones because they don’t believe that documents about the company’s marketing and financial data has been produced.

Read more: https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-jones-lawsuit-discovery-20190422-d2vys6lulrcgvm6u3tkyiuhlha-story.html

April 23, 2019

Nader urges Connecticut governor to reject community college consolidation

Add Ralph Nader to the list of those who think consolidating the state’s 12 community colleges into one is a bad idea.

Nader, the quintessential consumer advocate, Connecticut native and sometimes presidential candidate, wrote a letter to Gov. Ned Lamont on Monday asking him to put the breaks on a plan that he calls dangerous, embarrassing and half-baked.

“Community based education is so essential for democracy in an age of relentless concentration of decision in even fewer hands,” wrote Nader.

Nader, in a telephone interview, said he believes he has the ear of the freshman governor.

Read more: https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Nader-urges-Connecticut-governor-to-reject-13786129.php

April 23, 2019

Democrats Propose Capital Gains Tax

HARTFORD, CT — The Democrat-controlled Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee is ignoring Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont and proposing a bill that would impose an additional 2% capital gains tax on Connecticut’s wealthiest residents.

The bill, which is scheduled for a public hearing next Friday, will impose the additional tax on income derived from capital gains on single filers who earn more than $500,000 and couples with income over $1 million. Currently capital gains are taxed for this income bracket at 6.99 %.

The proposal has support from the Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, but Lamont and Republican lawmakers are not in favor.

“I don’t think it’s good policy,” Lamont said Thursday in an interview at the Legislative Office Building. “For 25 years we’ve said we’re going to tax capital gains, dividends and interest income at the same rate. This would break sort of a 25-year tradition.”

Read more: https://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/20190418_dems_propose_capital_gains_tax/

April 23, 2019

Healthcare Experts Tell Panel That Gun Violence Should Be Treated Like An Epidemic

HARTFORD, CT — While Connecticut has passed legislation in recent years to strengthen laws on gun ownership, those who champion the issue concede there is only so much a law can do to stem gun violence.

A panel of advocates, legislators, and healthcare providers discussed that dilemma Monday at a roundtable on gun safety organized by House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford and Rep. Jillian Gilchrest, D-West Hartford.

Several healthcare experts stated that gun violence needs to be treated like an epidemic, like any other mental health or drug addiction issue.

One of those pushing that narrative was William Begg, the emergency medical services director at Danbury Hospital, which is located about 10 miles from where 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.

Read more: https://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/20190422_healthcare_experts_say_treat_gun_violence_as_epidemic/

April 23, 2019

Leaders of R.I. cities and towns protest union-backed 'lifetime contract bill'

PROVIDENCE — On the day before an anticipated House vote on a previously vetoed bill to extend expired municipal and teacher contracts indefinitely, Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena served warning: “If this passes, we may as well shut off the lights, give the unions the key and give them the checkbook.”

“This is a lifetime contract bill. That’s right. A lifetime contract bill,” said Polisena, one of the 10 mayors and town administrators standing, side by side, in the State House library on Monday in a unified display of opposition to this latest in a run of union-backed bills making headway this year in the state’s Democrat-dominated legislature.

“If this is allowed to become law, this will clearly put every city and town at a clear disadvantage when it comes to negotiations. This will absolutely — and I will say it again — absolutely raise property taxes.”

And “when I have to raise taxes,” Polisena vowed, he will put the name of every local legislator who voted for the bill “in clear view in the tax collectors’ office so the taxpayers [whom] they represent know who caused [the] tax increase.”

Read more: https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190422/leaders-of-ri-cities-and-towns-protest-union-backed-lifetime-contract-bill