Category Archives: Culture

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Whenever there is a truth you cannot tell that is a truth you must tell!

Rational people want rational explanations for everything. The worst mass murder event in the United States was on October 1, 2017, as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on a music festival crowd from the Mandalay Hotel, killing 60 people and wounding 413 others. Coupled with the ensuing panic, a total of 867 people were injured. Unlike other mass murder events, the killer did not leave any explanation or ‘manifesto,’ and even years later, there has been no ‘official’ explanation.

And so it is with the latest mass murder attempt, the shooting by disturbed man male who thought he was a girl. From The New York Times:

What Motivated the Minneapolis Church Shooter? We May Never Know.

Investigators combing through piles of evidence from an attack on a Minneapolis church cautioned that these kinds of shooters often leave more questions than answers.

by Ernesto Londoño | Sunday, August 31, 2025 | 5:02 AM EDT

It has become a hauntingly routine paradox in the aftermath of horrific shootings.

An assailant leaves piles of evidence that investigators scrutinize. But law enforcement officials are often left with more questions than answers as they seek to determine a motive.

Officials in Minneapolis were bracing for that outcome as they examined the writings and social media posts of the person they say opened fire through the window of a church packed with schoolchildren on Wednesday, killing two.

“We will follow all of the evidence to its logical conclusion,” Brian O’Hara, the Minneapolis police chief, told reporters on Thursday. “This may not ultimately provide the answers that our public is looking for.”

We were told the same thing following the killing of six people at the Covenant School outside of Nashville, Tennessee, by Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old white woman who was so mentally ill that she thought she was a male named ‘Aiden.’ The authorities scrutinized Miss Hale’s writings, and then kept them hidden away. When conservative — the media called him “right-wing” — podcaster Stephen Crowder managed to obtain photocopies of three pages from her notebook, and published them, the authorities were far angrier that the information was leaked than they were about the killings.

Robin Westman, 23, carried out the attack and died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the authorities said. The attacker left behind a lengthy suicide note, journal entries and scribbling on the weapons used in the ambush at the Church of the Annunciation, which is affiliated with an adjacent Catholic school.

Note here that the Times used the killer’s fake name, rather than his real name of Robert, and the feminine pronouns to refer to him. The credentialed media do that pretty consistently, because they want to at least tacitly support the notion that girls can be boys and boys can be girls. Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer is right along with that, with an opinion piece in support of transgenderism, just a few days after a ‘transgender woman’ killed two kids, and wanted to kill more.

The content includes disparaging messages about President Trump, Christians, Black people, Hispanic people, Jews and Israel.

“The shooter expressed hate toward every group imaginable,” said Joseph H. Thompson, the acting United States attorney in Minnesota. “The shooter’s heart was full of hate.”

The sprawling nature of the assailant’s rantings and grievances led government officials and other observers to zero in on single pieces of information in the immediate aftermath of the attack, which also injured 15 children and three adult parishioners.

I cannot (legitimately) publish the entire Times article, but please, feel free to click on the title and read the rest yourself. The author points out that Mr Westman and Miss Hale were ‘transgender,’ but also tries to focus on other things, along with noting that some mass shooters taken alive and talk about their actions are often unable to provide coherent reasons.

But one thing I have noticed is that, while these shootings usually generate considerable talk about stricter gun control laws, that has been mostly missing in this case, because every proposal I have ever seen includes banning the mentally ill from purchasing firearms, and the last thing the left want to do is concede the obvious point, that the ‘transgendered’ are, by definition, mentally ill.

Colbert King of The Washington Post did raise that question .  .  . sort of:

Suppose Westman had undergone mental health screening to qualify for acquiring a lethal weapon. Would disqualifying mental health conditions have been identified? Would she have passed go?

Some psychological and psychiatric disorders render people ineligible for certain roles in life due to safety risks. Ought not the ability to own deadly weapons also be subjected to tests? And should that decision, with all due respect, be left to pawnbrokers?

Of course, Mr King didn’t write, probably didn’t dare write, that ‘gender dysphoria’ should be number one on the list of “psychological and psychiatric disorders render people ineligible for certain roles in life due to safety risks,” because acceptance of the delusions of the ‘transgendered’ is practically a cause célèbre among our friends on the left, and even a very liberal person on other things, like author J K Rowling is hated by those who support ‘transgenderism.’

Whether the editors of the Post would have spiked such an addition to Mr King’s column is unknown.

We previously reported, noting Robert Stacy McCain’s story on the Tennessee Star, one of those evil, reich-wing news and commentary sites, doing the actual journalism — not journolism — in investigating the parts of the story the FBI and Nashville authorities tried to keep secret concerning Miss Hale:

Thanks to The Tennessee Star, this week we learned a whole lot more about Audrey Hale, the deranged 28-year-old woman who wanted to be a man named “Aiden” and who killed six people at Covenant School in Nashville before being shot dead by police. Among the revelations this week, we learned that Hale had been a “patient of mental health professionals at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC)” since she was six years old! Heck of a job, “mental health professionals.”

At the time she perpetrated the Covenant School massacre, Hale was under treatment by both a psychiatrist and a therapist. The distinction is important — a psychiatrist is an M.D., who can write prescriptions, whereas a therapist is basically a counselor, someone with a degree in psychology, to whom the patient talks about their problems. So medication and conversation are, in such a case, handled by two separate “mental health professionals” who, we suppose, consult with each other.

The fact that Audrey/“Aiden” Hale was not healed by this treatment — to the contrary, she became a worst-case scenario of therapeutic effectiveness — is not unusual. Most people who are subjected to treatment by “mental health professionals” never really become healthy. With the assistance of anti-depressants or other medications, they may be able to get through life OK, but how can you say turning someone into a drug addict is “success”? Excuse me for speaking so bluntly, but if the goal is “mental health” and you require Prozac (Zoloft, Paxil, etc.) just to make it through the day? No, you haven’t achieved “mental health.”

Mr McCain is, of course, one of those evil Republicans, so you’re not supposed to pay attention to him either, but he noted that the Star actually did the journalistic legwork. I’m not going to go over the part in which he documented that Miss Hale was just plain crazy; you can read his original, which is not behind any kind of paywall.

Mr McCain went into the efforts by the federal Department of Justice, specifically the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to keep the evidence about Miss Hale suppressed. It wasn’t as though evidence needed to be protected for her trial, since she was killed by the police when they responded to the attack.

It’s hardly a surprise, because the Biden Administration specifically and the left in general are all in on normalizing ‘transgenderism,’ and the last thing they want is documentary evidence that a transgender school shooter and mass murderer not only was crazy, but knew she was crazy, and was taking a drug store’s worth of medication to suppress the crazy, and it still didn’t work. They most certainly don’t want people associating ‘transgenderism’ with people being just plain nuts. And in the Minneapolis case, though we now have a sensible regime in the Department of Justice, you can bet your last euro that Minnesota officials will do whatever they can to keep this quiet. The New York Post, our nation’s second oldest continuously published newspaper, has a conservative editorial policy, and has been reporting on this case all along, reported that one of the Minneapolis killer’s former teachers revealed that he had been a troubled student all along.

Did being crazy make the school shooters transgender, or were the feelings of ‘gender dysphoria’ what led to them being crazy in other ways? Who can say, but we do know that most of the credentialed media have been soft-peddling the ‘transgender’ part about the killers, because they do not want the public believing that the ‘transgendered’ are just plain nuts. That is a truth that must be told.

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Now this pisses me off!

We noted, in December of 2021, that my wife and I bought a house. No, we didn’t buy it for ourselves, but for my wife’s sister, as she was retiring back to the Bluegrass State, and couldn’t really afford to do it herself. When we croak, it’ll be inherited by our two daughters, and my sister-in-law’s son.

Fortunately, we bought it in a small town without the ridiculous prices in larger cities — it would probably have cost $100,000 more in Lexington — and before Bidenflation hit interest rates. Alas! we couldn’t just pay for it in cash, as we did for our present home, but had to get a mortgage. And during the negotiations for the mortgage loan, when I mentioned that it was a rental house, I was informed that the mortgage rate for a non-primary residence would be one percentage point higher, while I might have thought ‘darn’ and ‘heck’ and even ‘shoot!’ we nevertheless didn’t try to list it as a primary residence, because that would have been a lie.

Lisa Cook is a well-connected former academic who currently serves on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors — currently serves perhaps being outdated, in that President Donald Trump is trying to fire her — with a guesstimated net worth if $1.1 million to $2.7 million. Dr Cook apparently declared both of her homes as her primary residence, supposedly to get the interest rate down. If Mrs Pico and I, who have a net worth of much less than Dr Cook and her husband, can tell the truth and bite the bullet on the higher interest rate, why can’t wealthier people?

But this is the part which really pisses me off. From The New York Times:

Trump Is Claiming Mortgage Fraud to Attack Enemies. Is Your Information Public?

After President Trump accused a Federal Reserve governor of mortgage fraud, everyday citizens are waking up to just how much information is out there.

by Ron Lieber and Tara Siegel Bernard | Thursday, August 28, 2025 | 10:00 AM EDT

Politicians are using mortgage data against their enemies, so it’s time to figure out how much of it is available and what law-abiding citizens can do to shield it from prying eyes.

On Monday, President Trump said he was removing Lisa Cook from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. He has accused her of declaring both of her homes as her primary residence, which can be a form of mortgage fraud given that interest rates are often higher for vacation homes or investment properties. . . . .

Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who asked the Department of Justice last week to investigate Ms. Cook, suggested this week that she wouldn’t be the last person to face such charges.

“There is too much mortgage fraud in Chicago,” he said on social media, calling out the city where Mr. Trump has threatened to send troops. Mr. Pulte also asked for tips on fraud from the public.

Ms. Cook also wasn’t the first public figure to come in for this scrutiny. Other Trump adversaries, including Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, and Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, are facing similar inquiries. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, a Republican, has also had to answer for his housing records.

Dr Cook is, of course, suing the President over her firing, saying that he’s a big meanie-hoonie, and it’s “illegal and unprecedented” for him to fire her “for cause“. Dr Cook listed two separate residences as her primary residence in 2021, before President Joe Biden appointed her to the Board of Governors in 2022.

Someone who looks a lot like me starting the bathroom renovation at the rental house.

The five quoted paragraphs, if the reader got only that far, leads the reader to believe that this is all political, all Mr Trump using the law to attack his political enemies. Given the multitude of ways that Democrats attempted to attack and even imprison him at the end of his first term, I don’t blame him one bit for returning the favor.

But if you read further, you’ll see that the meat of the article is telling people what information is publicly available at the county clerk’s office, in the property deed of trust or filed mortgage, and that it is public information; anyone can look it up.

The article notes things like primary residences, whether the home is a rental or second home, of, in my case, whether it has a property-tax-saving “homestead exemption”, something we have on our real residence but which we did not claim for the rental house, because that would also be illegal.

The thrust of the article is informing readers what they can do to restrict the publicly available information, or, simply put, how to better commit mortgage fraud.

My wife and I are retired, and we were working-class throughout our careers. A lot of working-class people have bought more than one home, primarily to use as rental income sources, which my wife and I are doing, though the entirety of the rental payments are used for paying off the mortgage; we’re not making a profit off of this. [1]Full disclosure: we bought our current home in 2014, as our retirement home, three years before we moved here, and we rented it out, making a small profit, but we didn’t have to make any … Continue reading

But the people like Dr Cook, who have two residences they use themselves? The people with the money for vacation homes or the hoitiest and the toitiest of summer homes aren’t working-class people. They are the people who have connections in government and can afford the extra interest percentage point, and I admit that I have very little sympathy for those committing fraud to save what, for them, are a few bucks. And that The New York Times is trying to help some of their readers commit mortgage fraud is just plain wrong.

References

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↑1 Full disclosure: we bought our current home in 2014, as our retirement home, three years before we moved here, and we rented it out, making a small profit, but we didn’t have to make any “homestead exemption”, because we were a bit too young to qualify for it at the time, or “primary residence” claims, because we bought it for cash, and had no mortgage on it.
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From where will all of this money come?

The biggest issue in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia at the moment is more state funding for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, the mass transit agency which run buses, trains, trollies, and subways in the metropolitan area. SEPTA has a projected $213 million deficit, and has instituted significant service cuts to try to keep the operating expenses in line with projected revenues without the aid from Harrisburg for which they’ve been begging. My good friend Daniel Pearson and the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer have been adamant that the Commonwealth must come through with money, or utter disaster will strike. Note how the elevated train comes to destroyed tracks in a tweet from the newspaper!

We noted here that the solution is actually simple: a 75¢ fare hike completely closes SEPTA’s projected deficit.[1]Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the … Continue reading The newspaper in general, and Mr Pearson specifically, are opposed to further fare increases, pointing out that the base fare has jumped from $2.00 to just under $3.00 since 2018.

But, as the city is desperately looking for money from SEPTA, what else is the Inquirer presenting to readers?

Everywhere you look in the newspaper you’ll find stories of more and more money being spent, and more and more money being demanded, and no one seems willing to ask: from where will all of this money come?

The Transportation Workers Union Local 234 approved a new contract in November of 2024, which included “a 5% pay raise and safety improvements including bulletproof enclosures on buses to protect Bus Operators, upgrades to radios, and fixes to allow uninterrupted communication in tunnels.” That contract expires on November 7th of this year, which means the union will be going back to ask for more money again. From where will this money come?

I get it: the inflation of the Biden economy hit everyone hard, and though inflation started coming down during Mr Biden’s final year in office, the inflated prices never went away. As much as President Trump tries, inflation could come under control, but prices almost never go back down. Everyone is still trying to catch up, but when it’s government spending that is trying to catch up, the taxpayers are the ones who have to shell out. Pennsylvania’s state income tax rate is fairly low, just 3.07%, but the Commonwealth and the localities make up for that by trying to nickel-and-dime people to death on everything else.

Would you believe that the Borough of Jim Thorpe actually requires people to buy a permit, for the price of $5.00, to move into or out of any place in the borough, and that no public or private moving company shall enable such without verifying the moving permit? Violation of such can bring a fine of $600 and possible jail time. $5.00 might not seem like much, but this is an example of the petty ways in which the governments keep trying to stick their grubby hands into people’s pockets.

Philadelphia doesn’t require a move in permit, but charges $25.00 — $50.00 in Center City and University City — for a permit to occupy two street parking spaces for your moving truck.

Someone who looks a lot like me snowblowing in my old neighborhood, December 29, 2012. Does my neighborhood look wealthy to you? Click to enlarge.

Is it any wonder that the Republicans who control the state Senate are reticent to just give and give and give the taxpayers’ dollars to SEPTA and to Philly? Every dollar they give just means the more dollars that will be demanded in the next budget, and while Republicans are reasonably strong throughout the Commonwealth, Philly is as close to a “No Republican” zone as it can get. Do my former neighbors in relatively low-cost, conservative Jim Thorpe[2]Voters in Carbon County gave 66.90% of their votes to Donald Trump, while the voters in Philadelphia and Delaware counties gave 78.57% and 61.15% of their votes, respectively, to Kamala Harris … Continue reading really want to send more of their hard-earned tax dollars to subsidize wealthy inhabitants of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Lower Merion to take the train to Center City?

When Mr Pearson wrote “Harrisburg can’t let regional factionalism keep them from finding common ground on SEPTA: The stalemate over the state budget has entered a new, fractious phase, pitting lawmakers who represent predominantly rural areas against their counterparts from the commonwealth’s larger cities,” he was noting just how different Philly is from the “predominantly rural areas,” as though that’s a surprise, but his goal was a victory for SEPTA and the “commonwealth’s larger cities” over the rural areas. The people of those predominantly rural areas have expressed their differences at the voting booth, and they expect their elected representatives to vote their interests, not Philadelphia’s, yet the stories listed above show us, show the people of those predominantly rural areas how the commonwealth’s larger cities want to spend and spend and spend. Is it really any surprise that the Republican-controlled state Senate is reluctant to throw more and more and more money to Philly?

References

References
↑1 Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total. With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.
↑2 Voters in Carbon County gave 66.90% of their votes to Donald Trump, while the voters in Philadelphia and Delaware counties gave 78.57% and 61.15% of their votes, respectively, to Kamala Harris Emhoff. Both the state Representative, Doyle Heffley, and state Senator, David Argall, for Jim Thorpe, are Republicans.
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Every time you think the left can’t possibly get more stupid, they say, “Hold my beer!”

I will admit it: when I first saw this tweet from Greg Price, I had trouble believing it. No one, and I mean no one, could possibly be this stupid.

Total Chaos at Arlington School Board Meeting, and You Won’t Believe What Left-Wingers Were Defending

By Bonchie | Friday, August 22, 2025 9:45 AM EDT

What started with a racist sign outside an Arlington school board meeting devolved into total chaos on Thursday night, as left-wing activists went wild.

The meeting first drew attention when a left-winger of the Boomer generation was pictured holding a sign that read, “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain.” That was an insanely racist shot at Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears (R-VA), who is now running for governor. She showed up at the meeting to stand in solidarity with normal parents against the school district’s policy of allowing boys and men to use female restrooms and locker rooms.

Little did we know that a racist sign was just the beginning.

Once the meeting started, things went from bad to worse, with parents being heckled by rainbow-clad activists. Why? Because said parents had the audacity to object to a registered sex offender being allowed to use a girls’ locker room by claiming to be “transgender.”

Who is Richard Cox? He’s a man that the school district let use the aforementioned girls’ locker room, at which point he allegedly exposed himself to children. Innocent girls were actually forced to change next to him. That’s apparently something worth defending if you’re a deranged left-wing lunatic from Arlington, VA.

There’s more at the original.

As much as I like Bonchie and RedState, I will admit that they can get a bit strident, and not everyone will accept RedState as a legitimate news source, so I searched for credentialed media sources as well, and yup, Mr Cox was arrested for indecent exposure:

Transgender sex offender to appear in court for alleged exposure at Virginia schools, gyms

by WJLA Staff | Monday, March 3rd 2025 | 8:02 AM

ARLINGTON, Va. (WJLA) — Richard Cox, a registered child sex offender who identifies as transgender, will appear in court Monday for a hearing on alleged indecent exposure at a fitness center and two Virginia schools.

Cox, 58, is facing more than 20 charges in Arlington County, where he is accused of exposing himself to women and girls in female locker rooms. Continue reading →

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That thing that never happens has happened again

Even the Swarthmore College student newspaper, The Phoenix, acknowledged that the institution “is overwhelmingly liberal and regarded to be a politically active campus.” In her 2015 article, “Life as a Conservative at a Liberal College“, Gloria Kim wrote:

What I expected, really, was discourse of ideas. Yes, Swarthmore is a liberal school, but I imagined the Quaker tradition would allow a peaceful exchange of ideas and an open environment for opposing opinions to coexist. What I found was a bit different.

From my first semester, I found Swarthmore’s vaunted tradition of civil discourse had become a rigid and inflexible radicalism.

That the college is ‘transgender’ friendly is not in any doubt, but even Swarthmore can’t change President Trump’s executive orders or the NCAA’s policies, and that, of course, gets yet another lawsuit from a man male claiming to be female:

Trans athlete sues Swarthmore College, alleging it violated Title IX by not letting her race with women

Continue reading →

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Philly's gang-bangers are just plain stupid!

In the 1997 cult classic Paul Verhoeven film Starship Troopers, Johnny Rico, played by Casper Van Dien, who had kept some of his personal life private, is asked why he joined the Mobile Infantry, but refuses to answer. Then, in the famous shower scene, Dizzy Flores, played by Dina Meyer, who knew Mr Rico at home in Buenos Ares, is asked, and she responds that “He’s here because of a girl.”

And so it is that Zaakir McClendon is now looking at spending the rest of his miserable life in prison because of a girl. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

The sixth, long-sought suspect in the Roxborough High shooting is finally in custody, police say

Zaakir McClendon was charged in the shooting that killed Nicolas Elizalde and wounded four other teens outside Roxborough High School.

by Ellie Rushing | Friday, August 15, 2025 | 11:45 AM EDT | Updated: 2:33 PM EDT

The sixth and final person involved in the Roxborough High School shooting that killed Nicolas Elizalde and wounded four other teens is in custody, police said — a significant development in a case that law enforcement has spent the last three years working to fully solve. Continue reading →

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Killadelphia: I check Bluesky so you don’t have to! The last thing the criminal-loving and police-hating Larry Krasner wants is more law enforcement

According to the Census Bureau, the population of Philadelphia was 1,573,916 as of July 1, 2024, while the Philadelphia Police Department reported that there had been 269 homicides in the city during all of 2024. According to my precise calculations[1]269 ÷ 15.73916 = 17.091128116112931058582541889148, that meant the City of Brotherly Love had a homicide rate of 17.09 per 100,000 population. Apparently, District Attorney Larry Krasner thinks that’s just hunky-dory, a perfectly acceptable figure.

In a skeet on Bluesky, the city’s George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police-hating District Attorney, Larry Krasner, posted a bit from an interview with CNN, saying:

The 10th Amendment says he cannot take over the Philadelphia Police Department as he is doing in D.C. D.C. is different. It’s not a state. Pennsylvania is a state, and Philadelphia is its biggest city. Our police department is controlled by the mayor. And oh, trust me, this mayor does not work for Donald Trump, and neither do we.

So, we will stand on this constitutional right that has been there forever. We will stand on the reality that you cannot claim, It is an emergency, when Philadelphia, as of today, has the lowest number of homicides in over 50 years. We may set the record, the record, for lowest crime overall in Philadelphia for more than 50 years, and at the same time we have some of the lowest incarceration. That’s not an emergency. Continue reading →

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↑1 269 ÷ 15.73916 = 17.091128116112931058582541889148
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That thing that never happens has happened again.

Males who ‘identify’ as females participating in girls’ and women’s sports is a nothingburger, a completely negligible occurrence, something that virtually never happens, we were told, and you are an evil reich-wing bigot and transphobe if you even think anything different.

Yet, oddly enough, that thing which virtually never happens is happening again.

Trans athlete sues college, league and national association over her revoked scholarship

Continue reading →

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What could possibly go wrong?

For our good friends on the left, accepting transgenderism seems like almost a requirement. The left have mostly — there have been a few exceptions — decided that, when it comes to anything even remotely related to sex, they must take the furthest left position possible, or they will somehow be legitimizing the positions of us wicked reich-wing conservatives, and, of course, the totally evil Donald Trump. The Nation even called anything less the Rise of a New Confederacy!

From The Washington Post:

Loudoun schools to maintain gender policies despite Education Dept. order

Loudoun County schools voted to maintain their gender policy, allowing transgender students to use facilities matching their identity, despite Education Department demands for change.

Continue reading →