Federal Court Rules N. Carolina’s Anti-Trans “Bathroom Bill” Unconstitutional

In a huge blow to anti-LGBT conservatives across the country, a federal court has just ruled that North Carolina’s discriminatory anti-transgender “bathroom” law, HB 2, is unconstitutional on the grounds that it violates Title IX of the Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act.

HB 2 “directs all public schools, government agencies and public college campuses to require that multiple-occupancy bathrooms and changing facilities, such as locker rooms, be designated for use only by people based on their “biological sex” stated on their birth certificate,” specifically targeting transgender Americans from not using bathrooms that don’t correspond to their “biological sex,” thus mounting an existential refutation of the idea of gender fluidity and helping to propagate a dangerous myth that transgender Americans are simply pretending to have different genders in order to sexually assault women and children.

US District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder noted, “Ultimately, the record reflects what counsel for Governor [Pat] McCrory candidly speculates was the status quo ante in North Carolina in recent years: some transgender individuals have been quietly using bathrooms and other facilities that match their gender identity, without public awareness or incident. Accordingly, the court will enjoin UNC from enforcing Part I against the individual transgender Plaintiffs until the court reaches a final decision on the merits in this case.”

HB 2 has triggered a firestorm of condemnation around the country, prompting the NBA to move it’s All-Star game out of the state and a host of other business to pull their dollars from the state. Governor Pat McCrory has stubbornly stuck by his discriminatory laws, to the point where he’s in real danger of losing his seat – and many voters say it’s this hateful bills that’s hurting him. If this injunction stands, it will be a huge blow to right-wing religious anti-gay extremism and a decisive win for tolerance in the United States.

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http://occupydemocrats.com/2016/08/26/just-federal-court-rules-n-carolinas-anti-trans-bathroom-bill-unconstitutional/

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Federal Judge Blocks Portions of North Carolina’s Anti-LGBTQ Law

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Schroeder ruled on the legality of North Carolina’s HB2, a wide-reaching anti-LGBTQ law. The result is a partial success for HB2’s critics—especially with regard to HB2’s requirement that universities discriminate against transgender students and employees. But the ruling also suggests that Schroeder, a George W. Bush appointee, is skeptical of the plaintiffs’ broader claims about HB2’s unconstitutionality. The upshot is that HB2’s legal opponents have a fair amount to celebrate—and a lot more work to do.

Schroeder rendered a judgment on two central challenges to the North Carolina law: First, that it violates federal law; and second, that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Department of Education currently interprets Title IX’s ban on “sex discrimination” to encompass anti-trans discrimination, including the exclusion of trans people from the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. Through this interpretation, the DOE has found that federally funded schools may not prevent trans people from using their preferred bathroom. Yet HB2 explicitly prevented trans people from using the bathroom at school unless they altered their birth certificate, which is impossible in some states.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has affirmed the legitimacy of the DOE’s interpretation of Title IX. As a district court judge within the 4th Circuit, Schroeder is bound by that determination. Thus, he adhered to it in his ruling, holding that HB2 cannot be used to prevent trans university students from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. This judgment is, in itself, a considerable victory against HB2. The law applied only to government buildings, and a huge proportion of government buildings are located on university campuses. Schroeder’s decision further solidifies the widespread sentiment that HB2 represented an unjustifiable interference into higher education.

But Schroeder’s ruling on the equal protection challenge was vastly more favorable to the state. Schroeder found, correctly, that HB2—which categorizes citizens based on their “biological sex”—constitutes sex discrimination, requiring intermediate scrutiny. He explains that this standard requires HB2 to be “substantially related to an important government interest,” or it violates the Equal Protection Clause. Schroeder concludes that “protection of bodily privacy is an important government interest,” satisfying the test’s first prong. He then writes that the question of whether HB2 is “substantially related” to that interest requires him to decide whether “sex” means “physiological differences between men and women” or “differences in gender identity.”

more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/08/26/federal_judge_blocks_portions_of_hb2.html

WaPo Editorial: Jill Stein’s fairy-tale candidacy

By Editorial Board August 25 at 7:31 PM

GREEN PARTY presidential nominee Jill Stein argues that Americans should not vote for the lesser of two evils. Instead of voting out of fear, they should vote for the most deserving candidate. Unfortunately for Ms. Stein, even if you accepted the logic, it would not lead this year to a vote for her.

Ms. Stein sat down with our editorial board Thursday, as Republican Donald Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson have done previously. She stressed some important issues, especially climate change. As an activist in her home state of Massachusetts, she worked to shut down polluting, coal-fired power plants, and she says she would bring that activist’s sensibility to the Oval Office. But Ms. Stein’s policy ideas are poorly formed and wildly impractical. Her “activist” approach, she said, involves building “broad coalitions,” but she criticized Hillary Clinton for reaching out to Republicans. She proposes to end all use of coal, oil, gasoline and nuclear power by 2030, guaranteeing a federal job to anyone who wants one along the way, and says she can accomplish this revolution for $500 billion — less than the cost of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus. Even this trifle would be recouped in health savings, she said, as her “Green New Deal” reduced the incidence of asthma, diabetes and other illnesses.

There would no doubt be health benefits. But Ms. Stein is nevertheless spinning up a fairy tale — an appealing fairy tale to some, but still a fairy tale. To support the feasibility of her plan, Ms. Stein cited experts whose models in fact envision an energy transition taking decades longer than she posits. To support her health prognostication, she improbably cited Cuba’s experience losing access to Russian oil after the fall of the Soviet Union, after which, she pointed out, Cubans became healthier. In fact, they became healthier because they could no longer afford to smoke or drink alcohol and because so many involuntarily lost weight. “Cubans survived drinking sugared water, and eating anything they could get their hands on, including domestic pets and the animals in the Havana Zoo,” Richard Schiffman recounted in the Atlantic. “They became virtual vegans overnight.”

On foreign policy, Ms. Stein expressed general accord with her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, who has decried the “unimaginable atrocities fomented by a demented and dying U.S. empire .?.?. and the gangster states of NATO,” though she said she might choose different language. Ms. Stein would “take a good hard look at NATO” and radically reduce U.S. military activity, preferring diplomacy to respond, for example, to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. But when we asked what would make her diplomacy more successful than the Minsk process that has failed to end the fighting in Ukraine, there was not much of a response.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jill-steins-fairy-tale-candidacy/2016/08/25/3bf8ba1a-6b08-11e6-99bf-f0cf3a6449a6_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.27c4b9137904

Read the transcript of Jill Stein’s interview with The Post editorial board

Teamsters endorse Clinton

Source: The Hill


August 26, 2016, 04:17 pm
Teamsters endorse Clinton
By Tim Devaney


Hillary Clinton picked up a major union endorsement Friday from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The Teamsters’ executive board voted unanimously to support the Democrat for president, the union said. “We are proud to endorse Hillary Clinton for President of the United States,” Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa said in a statement. “She is the right candidate for the middle class and working men and women across the country.”

“The Oval Office needs to be occupied by a serious candidate who understands what it means to govern responsibly,” Hoffa added before criticizing Clinton's Republican opponent.

“Donald Trump supports national right-to-work laws that are proven to weaken the middle class and has a long track record of shipping jobs out of the country as a businessman. He is no friend to working Americans.”

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Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/293493-teamsters-endorse-clinton

Palin cracks the whip on ‘wishy washy’ Trump — and warns against going ‘soft’ on immigration

Fox host floored as Trump fan claims Hispanics are lining up to board the ‘Trump train’

Sandy Hook truther charged with plotting mass shooting to protect 2nd Amendment from ‘f*ggots’

Source: RawStory

26 AUG 2016 AT 13:15 ET

A Las Vegas conspiracy theorist has been taken into custody and charged with making terrorist threats after posting a disturbing YouTube video threatening to slaughter “gays, faggots, lesbians and satanists,” reports KTNV.

Bryce Cuellar, 24, was arrested by Las Vegas police after they were notified by Interpol in July about Cuellar’s video. In the video, Cuellar stated that he is tired of the government trying to take away his First and Second Amendment rights and planned to go on a killing spree. Calling himself a “Christian warrior,” Cuellar bragged that he would use his weapons as the Founding Fathers intended, killing,” gays, faggots, lesbians and satanists.”

According to Las Vegas police, Cuellar reportedly beat his wife hours after posting the video on YouTube, where he displayed his weapons while wearing a Kevlar vest and sporting night-vision goggles.

A review of Cuellar’s YouTube page reveal a collection of conspiracy-minded videos including ones that question what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary, support for the Bundy family’s war on the government, the threat of the Illuminati and proof that angels and demons are real. Investigators say the timeline of his videos suggest that he has sunk deeper in the world of conspiracy mongering over the past three years.

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/sandy-hook-truther-charged-with-plotting-mass-shooting-to-protect-2nd-amendment-from-fggots/

Eric Trump Claims Dad Running Because Of Nonexistent National 'Holiday' Tree

The War on Christmas is back, and it's more strained than ever!

While listing the reasons why his father ran for president in an interview published Thursday, Eric Trump pointed to the tree on the White House lawn and claimed it was renamed the "Holiday tree." However, in his attempt to explain his father's commitment to combating political correctness and the "War on Christmas," Eric Trump incorrectly accused the White House of renaming the Christmas tree.

"He opens up the paper each morning and sees our nation’s leaders giving a hundred billion dollars to Iran, or he opens the paper and some new school district has just eliminated the ability for its students to say the pledge of allegiance, or some fire department in some town is ordered by the mayor to no longer fly the American flag on the back of a fire truck," Eric Trump told The Stream's James Robinson. "Or, he sees the tree on the White House lawn has been renamed 'Holiday tree' instead of 'Christmas tree.' I could go on and on for hours. Those are the very things that made my father run, and those are the very things he cares about."

The tree that stands near the White House (on the Ellipse) each winter is still called the National Christmas Tree and has never been renamed, as Buzzfeed News noted. And the White House blog also referred to the tree kept inside the residence as a Christmas tree just last year.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/eric-trump-holiday-tree-white-house

Reports: Trump Camp Hires Ex-Christie Aide Caught Up In Bridgegate

Source: Talking Points Memo

Donald Trump has hired a former top aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) who'd been caught up in the so-called Bridgegate scandal to serve as his campaign’s national field director, according to multiple reports.

GOP operative Bill Stepien is expected to help Trump coordinate voter turnout in the run-up to the Nov. 8 election, NBC News reported.

Stepien twice served as campaign manager for the New Jersey governor, who is currently advising Trump's campaign. He also served as deputy chief of staff for intergovernmental affairs during Christie’s first term.

Though Christie is serving as the chief of Trump’s transition team, the New York Times reported that the governor was not involved in the hiring decision and is no longer close with Stepien. According to the Times, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was behind the push to bring Stepien onboard.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-campaign-hires-bill-stepien-field-director

Joe Conason: Pay For Play? The Scandal Is Judicial Watch Misleading Gullible Media

Listening to the national media over the past few weeks, many Americans may now believe that the Clinton Foundation was set up as a “pay-to-play” scheme for Hillary Clinton to squeeze wealthy foreigners and rich Americans for millions of dollars. According to this theory, popularized by a lavishly funded right-wing organization called Judicial Watch, the Secretary of State would only deal with people and governments that had donated big money to her husband’s foundation. But that story is itself a scam and a fraud, perpetrated by Judicial Watch with misleading information fed to gullible and lazy Washington journalists.

Consider the tale of the Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain, head of state of one of America’s primary allies in the Persian Gulf. Rummaging through thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails, Judicial Watch discovered that the prince had requested a meeting with the Secretary of State on a specific day in 2010, via an email from Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band to Hillary’s aide Huma Abedin.

In a hysterical press release, Judicial Watch denounced this request as an outrageous example of unethical and possibly illegal behavior, because “by 2010, (the crown prince) had contributed $32 million” to CGI (the Clinton Global Initiative).”

That damning narrative, usually condensed into “Bahraini prince gave $32 million to Clinton Foundation,” appeared in news outlets across the country. By leaving out the most important facts — which show there was no unethical conduct — Judicial Watch could confidently assume that gullible (or malicious) journalists would omit that crucial information as well. And of course, they did.

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http://www.nationalmemo.com/pay-for-play-the-scandal-is-judicial-watch-misleading-gullible-media/

EpiPen’s Bresch: I got my first job at Mylan because of my dad — didn’t know what they did

Source: RawStory

25 AUG 2016 AT 18:40 ET

Mylan CEO Heather Bresch would never have been hired at the company had it not been for her father, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, NBC News reported.

Bresch herself admitted as much in a 2012 interview published in WV Living magazine. “I don’t deny that I got my first job at Mylan because of my dad,” she said at the time, adding, “I couldn’t have told you what Mylan did. I vaguely knew it had something to do with science.”

The magazine reported that Manchin mentioned to the company’s co-founder, Mike Puskar, that she was looking for a job. The senator then urged her to apply at the company for a data entry position 20 years ago.

“You should absolutely take it. Give it a year,” she recalled him saying.

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/epipens-bresch-i-got-my-first-job-at-mylan-because-of-my-dad-didnt-know-what-they-did/