Romans 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
‘Pride marches across the United States took on new gravity Sunday as progressives worried that the conservative justices on the Supreme Court who voted to reverse Roe v. Wade could now overrule protections for other rights, including same-sex marriage and same-sex intimacy.
The annual parades and rallies in major cities such as New York and San Francisco came two days after Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion to the court’s ruling that tossed out Roe, called on the court to overturn the landmark decisions that established those very rights.
Sunday’s events also took place as the LGBTQ movement reels from recent legislative setbacks, including laws that curb classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, for example, turned into a national flashpoint.
Planned Parenthood, one of the leading providers of reproductive health care in the country, kicked off this year’s New York City Pride march. People clad in rainbow colors and waving Planned Parenthood flags lined Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, cheering as the first wave of marchers made their way down the street.
“Today feels monumental, especially considering what happened over Roe v. Wade,” said Jonathan Dago, who attended New York City Pride with a friend. “We’re seeing a lot of signs. Women’s rights are at risk, and it’s going to be a trickle down to LGBT people.’https://www.aol.com/news/supreme-court-abortion-decision-casts-170354899.html
While many have bought into the simplistic idea that availability of firearms is the cause of mass shootings, a number of experts have pointed out a more uncomfortable truth, which is that mass shootings are far more likely the result of how we’ve been mistreating mental illness, depression and behavioral problems
Gun control legislation has shown that law-abiding Americans who own guns are not the problem, because the more gun control laws that have been passed, the more mass shootings have occurred
97.8 percent of mass shootings occur in “gun-free zones,” as the perpetrators know legally armed citizens won’t be there to stop them
Depression per se rarely results in violence. Only after antidepressants became commonplace did mass shootings really take off, and many mass shooters have been shown to be on antidepressants
Attacks on police officers around the country are on the rise as the result of the anti-cop rhetoric, and radical left-wing prosecutors that refuse to prosecute violent criminals which only emboldens police attackers. pic.twitter.com/sy5kVgdl8D
Khatereh Ahmadi a TV anchor wears a face covering as she reads the news on TOLO NEWS, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, May 22, 2022. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have begun enforcing an order requiring all female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on-air. The move Sunday is part of a hard-line shift drawing condemnation from rights activists. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
‘ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Sunday began enforcing an order requiring all female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on-air. The move is part of a hard-line shift drawing condemnation from rights activists.
After the order was announced Thursday, only a handful of news outlets complied. But on Sunday, most female anchors were seen with their faces covered after the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry began enforcing the decree.
The Information and Culture Ministry previously announced that the policy was “final and non-negotiable.”
“It is just an outside culture imposed on us forcing us to wear a mask and that can create a problem for us while presenting our programs,” said Sonia Niazi, a TV anchor with TOLOnews. In an act of solidarity with female colleagues, the channel’s male personnel covered their faces with masks, including the main evening news reader.
A local media official confirmed his station had received the order last week but on Sunday it was forced to implement it after being told it was not up for discussion. He spoke on condition he and his station remain anonymous for fear of retribution from Taliban authorities.
During the Taliban’s last time in power in Afghanistan from 1996-2001, they imposed overwhelming restrictions on women, requiring them to wear the all-encompassing burqa and barring them from public life and education.
After they seized power again in August, the Taliban initially appeared to have moderated somewhat their restrictions, announcing no dress code for women. But in recent weeks, they have made a sharp, hard-line pivot that has confirmed the worst fears of rights activists and further complicated Taliban dealings with an already distrustful international community.
Earlier this month, the Taliban ordered all women in public to wear head-to-toe clothing that leaves only their eyes visible. The decree said women should leave the home only when necessary and that male relatives would face punishment for women’s dress code violations, starting with a summons and escalating to court hearings and jail time.
As a born again Bible believing Christian I see our political system here in Australia and the USA being controlled by that old Serpent, the Devil, which is according to Ephesians 2:2 …the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Many of the laws and rules formulated by these politicians in Australia and the USA are anti-God and anti-citizen. Here is one example.
‘The Biden administration announced in May that K-12 schools must allow boys into girls’ bathrooms in order to qualify for federal funds used to pay for school lunches.
The move, which was made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service, was made based on the interpretation of the prohibition on discrimination based on sex, as detailed in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as well as the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008.
As detailed by the USDA, the action is “in line with President Biden’s Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation, and is consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Court held that the prohibition on sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 extends to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”
In other words, unless schools allow transgender-identifying students to enter the bathrooms of their choosing, schools will be cut off entirely from federal funds and be unable to pay for food served in the cafeteria.
Speaking to the Federalist, a U.S. Department of Education spokesman said that the Biden administration intends to follow the announcement with formal rulemaking in June.
The move has sparked a backlash among conservative organizations, who have condemned the Biden administration for weaponizing progressive politics at the cost of feeding hungry kids.
“It seems to be playing politics with feeding poor kids, which is really unfortunate,” said John Elcesser, executive director of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association in an interview with the Federalist. “Because if a school feels like they cannot participate because it’s in conflict with their mission or values, if a religious exemption is not granted, you’re taking away a program that’s feeding low-income kids.”
As detailed by the publication, the National School Lunch Program fed nearly 30 million kids every school day in around 100,000 public and private schools, and residential care facilities.
Following the implementation of this new policy, establishments that accept food stamps or other federal food funding are required to allow men into women’s private spaces, including showers and sleeping areas.
Additionally, these organizations are to provide training for employees and staff to not “misgender” anyone and use the pronouns of their choice. These organizations are also required to allow male staff to dress as women while working.
The Federalist reported:
“Government schools can receive no exemption. At best, parents and taxpayers can urge school districts to not comply while inevitable lawsuits over the Biden administration’s interpretation work through courts for years.”
‘When the Supreme Court justices met Thursday for the first time since the leak, life looked anything but normal. Now they head into the city from secret locations, leaving their homes in the care of entire swat teams. By this point, they’ve heard about the waves of violence against pro-lifers and the vote on the most radical abortion bill in America’s history. They pull into the Court, surrounded by eight-foot barricades, knowing that in just nine days, the entire country has been turned upside down.
While the justices talk next steps, church leaders will be scrubbing walls and filing police reports. Egged on by Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), pro-abortion activists have carried out more attacks — this time in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, where vandals spraypainted “Pro-choice is pro-life” on the entrance of one church and “You don’t have the right to decide how others live” on another. In some parishes, church property was outright desecrated. Even so, Father Peter Harris says, “This won’t stop us.” If anything, he told reporters, it only “propels us to continue to be witnesses for Christ and the world.”
Meanwhile, the same Justice Department that couldn’t wait to pounce on “terrorist” parents at school board meetings has done nothing to stop the wave of actual violence against pro-lifers. The silence is so deafening that House Republicans like Michael Cloud (R-Texas) have had to resort to formal letters, demanding that the attorney general wake up and do his job. At least two pro-life organizations have been firebombed, several others have been graffitied or harassed, and still Merrick Garland’s DOJ is MIA.’https://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20220512/dems-abortion
‘The Online Safety Bill, the most far-reaching online censorship law to ever be proposed in the UK, has been presented to Parliament.
UK Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) Secretary of State Nadine Dorries, said her aim with the bill was to “make the internet, in the UK, the safest place in the world for children and vulnerable young people to go online.”
However, as with many bills that are positioned as a way to keep children safe, this Online Safety Bill contains sweeping speech restrictions that will affect all UK internet users.
The bill requires Big Tech companies to take action against “priority legal but harmful” content which will be decided by the government. The DCMS Secretary of State has the power to add more categories of priority legal but harmful content via secondary legislation in the future.
According to the Financial Times, this secondary legislation “requires less scrutiny from MPs [Members of Parliament] than the original bill.”
Companies are also required to report “emerging harms” to the UK’s communications regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom).
Additionally, the Online Safety Bill outlaws sending “knowingly false” communications that are sent “with the intention to cause non-trivial emotional, psychological or physical harm,” requires large social media companies to introduce identity verification tools, gives Ofcom the power to force companies to use “better and more effective” proactive content moderation technology, tasks Big Tech with determining which of its advertisers are pushing scams, mandates that any website hosting pornography put “robust checks in place to ensure that users are 18 years old or over,” and more.
UK citizens who are found guilty of offenses under the Online Safety Bill can be imprisoned or fined.
Not only does the Online Safety Bill contain numerous provisions that can be used to silence UK citizens and punish them for their online speech but powerful “recognised media outlets” are exempt from any regulation in the bill. Some of the outlets that will be getting special carveouts under this bill have even been praised by politicians for pushing for stronger “online safety” laws.
The punishments for companies that fail to censor enough under the Online Safety Bill include having their sites blocked and being hit with multi-billion dollar fines worth up to 10% of their annual turnover. Tech company executives can also be jailed if they fail to cooperate with Ofcom’s information requests.
Despite introducing strong punishments for tech companies that don’t remove enough harmful content, the Online Safety Bill has yet to reveal the categories of legal the harmful content that tech companies will have to target under this bill.
Earlier this week, Dorries said large platforms will be required to remove legal but harmful content “if it is already banned in their own terms and conditions.”
Yet today’s UK government press release for the Online Safety Bill says that the categories of legal but harmful content will be “set by the government and approved by Parliament.” The press release also lists “exposure to self-harm, harassment and eating disorders” as examples of harmful content that online platforms will be required to remove.
The introduction of the Online Safety Bill to Parliament is the first stage of its legislative journey.
Numerous UK rights groups have blasted the Online Safety Bill and warned that it will restrict free speech.
“The Online Safety Bill is set to rip up the rule book as far as traditional British free speech standards are concerned,” Mark Johnson, Legal and Policy Officer at civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, said. “This is a censor’s charter that will give state backing to big tech censorship on a scale that we have never seen before.”
Toby Young, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, warned that the bill will have a “chilling effect on free speech.”
“We are particularly concerned that the government has said it will force social media platforms to remove ‘legal but harmful’ content, including ‘harassment,’” Young added. “That will enable political activists and interest groups claiming to speak on behalf of disadvantaged groups to silence their opponents by branding any views they disagree with as ‘harassment.’”
Matthew Lesh, Head of Public Policy at the think tank Institute of Economic Affairs said: “The UK threatening tech executives with jail time is eerily similar to how Russia and other authoritarian countries are currently behaving. It is an attack on free speech and entrepreneurialism.”
Before the bill was presented to Parliament, the UK’s main opposition party, the Labour Party, suggested that it would offer little obstruction to the Online Safety Bill and complained that it hadn’t been introduced fast enough.
Last October, Labour Leader Keir Starmer lamented that it has been “three years since the government promised an Online Safety Bill. Starmer also claimed that “the damage caused by harmful content online is worse than ever” and promised to support the bill if its second reading was brought forward to the end of 2021.
More recently, Labour Member of Parliament (MP) and Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell said that Labour supports “the principles of the bill that is finally being published” and claimed that “delay up to this point has come with significant cost.”’https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-online-safety-bill-censorship-parliament/
Psalm 10:8 He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.
Illegitimate ‘President Biden says he opposes a high-profile Florida bill that would prohibit late-term abortions after 15 weeks and ban a procedure pro-lifers call “barbaric.”
The bill, HB 5, is modeled after a similar law in Mississippi and bans abortions “if the physician determines the gestational age of the fetus is more than 15 weeks.” It passed the Florida House and Senate and is headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who says he will sign it.
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a challenge to Mississippi’s law. A decision in that case is expected by July.
whatyareckon 