Caiharr wants to keep "obscene" material out of children's hands, does she? She going to go to war against adults reading the bible to children? That book is filled with obscenity.
So Criminal Trump has read the BUYBULL. He’s taken it on himself.
a la … God declares His absolute sovereignty over all creation, stating in traditional translations that He creates both peace and "evil," which modern translations clarify as "calamity" or "disaster".
"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses"
I do believe this today is the first line I’ve ever read from the Bible. If there’s plenty more like this, then I might purchase a copy from Criminal Trump. I wonder if dumbest kid in the class TRUMP understands the sentence.
Nope, I wont look it up. I read the babble, all of it (in Norwegian) some 20 ya. There are many fiction, fantacy and SF stories that are better written and more interresting to read.
Apparently some world leaders understand the concept of "Trump flattery" better than others....
"PA reports that among the gifts Donald Trump received from Irish president Catherine Connolly was a St Brigid’s Cross, traditionally associated with peace, along with a collection of poetry that included Michael Longley’s sonnet Ceasefire."
I should think the irony would be lost on the man himself.
I have trouble imagining him reading the book (it doesn't have his name on every page), and even more trouble imagining him understanding it were he to somehow accidentally read it.
I'd give a $20 bill right now to have seen the look on his face when he received a BOOK, instead of some sold gold medal for being, "Trumpest of all Trumps", or some dumB shit.....
Evidently, Republicans, and their natural allies the evangelicals, are the only people in America entitled to an opinion, and everything they disagree with is Communism. The Bill of Rights wouldn't last fifteen minutes left up to these people.
Sent to Ms Caiharr with the subject line Shame on you:
Ms Caiharr:
Back in March, a staffer at Edwardsville Elementary school was fired for exercising her Free Speech rights. She spoke directly to you while you were visiting the school and stated that trans rights are human rights and that taxpayer money should not be diverted away from public schools and into private schools. According to her, you did not respond directly. An hour later, she was dismissed from her position. I cannot help but to assume that you pressured the principal to fire her for what she said. Shame on you for that.
If you had any integrity at all, you would contact the school district and urge them to settle the 42 USC 1983 Civil Rights lawsuit for more than Ms Williams (the staffer in question) is demanding. A public statement would be a good thing as well, one that acknowledges the right of anyone the freedom to publicly disagree with their government officials to their faces.
As a Republican in Kansas with a voting record as evidence, I know that you would prefer to strip the rights of trans people and would like to eliminate public education in favor of religiously based private schools. The fact that one of your constituents expressed an opinion opposite of yours should not be seen as a threat to be eliminated, as you have done, but as the proper functioning of our democratic republic.
Republicans don't do town halls anymore. That would mean hearing opposing views, and they can't have that. Case in point: the last town hall in TN-01 was where Kristi Burke got thrown out for asking Harshbarger if intersex people exist. Kristi Burke is now the Democratic nominee to take down Harshbarger, who is refusing to debate.
When an affirmation of someone else's humanity constitutes a breach of protocol severe enough to cost a person their job, we are in seriously deep shít as a society. I see people making arguments based on free speech, or what the appropriate venue is to bring up certain topics... look, anyone getting into the weeds in that direction is missing the point a bit, here. This should not be a First Amendment issue (*edit- pertaining to 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 speech, that is). It should not be a "what can government employees do or not do in government buildings" issue. All of that is a distraction, and the reason why is simple:
𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘔𝘴. 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 be 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘤𝘩.
It 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 be a simple statement of fact. Trans rights 𝘢𝘳𝘦 human rights. Trans people are human. Humans have rights. Trans people, therefore, have human rights. Statement of fact.
That 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵 is only regarded as 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 speech because people like Rep. Caiharr have devoted themselves to politicizing- and, ultimately, criminalizing- an entire demographic's 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.
Stating a fact as a fact is not something anyone, in any context, should be losing their job over. 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 not because a bigot got bütthurt over that simple statement of fact and leaned on the speaker's boss for revenge. Would you punish a student for upsetting another student by stating a simple fact in the hallway? That's ridiculous. It's equally ridiculous to punish a teacher for it. It'd be ridiculous to punish the 𝘫𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘳 for it.
Accepting the "there are limits on the First Amendment in government buildings" argument is ceding ground to the culture warriors which they have not made a convincing case for ownership of. Don't let them set the terms of engagement. Forget what is or is not protected 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 speech. Boil it down to the basics: ask yourself whether it should be unacceptable for one person merely to speak to another while passing them in the hall- remember that no insults were thrown, no one was followed or harassed, and no lies were told.
What Ms. Williams did was the moral and ethical equivalent of telling someone what the weather is like outside, unprompted. If she'd told Rep. Caiharr that it was raining, and Rep. Caiharr was upset by the fact that it was raining, would it be acceptable for her to get Ms. Williams fired for telling her it was raining?
No?
Not even if Rep. Caiharr didn't ask about the weather?
Then it should not be acceptable for Rep. Caiharr to get Ms. Williams fired for telling her that trans people deserve equal rights. That's not political speech, except to a bigot, and we should not be letting bigots categorize things they don't like in ways that enable them to be censorious fückwads.
I mean, at the end of the day there 𝘪𝘴 still a First Amendment issue at play- but it's of the same category as defending oneself against a defamation, slander, or libel suit by proving that whatever you said that made the other party sue you was true. The speech here isn't protected because viewpoint discrimination is illegal; it's protected because it's factual, and factual statements enjoy special protection even over and above viewpoint-based political speech (which can sometimes be understood as a provocation, depending on context- or simply be an outright lie).
If Ms. Williams had made her statement during a meeting, when it was not her turn to speak, then there'd be an argument for disciplinary action- but the disruption would be the problem, not the statement. There was no disruption here, though. Rep. Caiharr wasn't in the middle of a presentation, she was there to gladhand and look at 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘴- and in any event, the school hallway is a space in which there is no expectation of privacy or quiet (at least, not unless classes are in session, which they weren't). It's a place where 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 expects to be bumped into, shouted at, shouted over, and generally be subjected to the pandemonium of activity that is a school hallway before, after, and in between classes. Even if Ms. Williams specifically sought out Rep. Caiharr to make this particular statement, she didn't cross any professional or legal boundaries to do it.
The shítty thing is, though, that I don't expect the case to just be open-and-shut. It very much depends on the 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 of whichever judge it lands in front of, facts be damned. If the judge doesn't see trans people as valid, the case is probably going to get tossed, and the firing upheld. If by some chance this winds up in front of the Supreme Court, I won't be holding my breath for a good outcome, and what happens in between very much depends on the makeup of the appeals court (Kansas is in the 10th Circuit, which hasn't been in the news as much so I don't know how they've been leaning as well as I do some of the others).
I will note, however, that the points you raised in your post could very well be entirely valid; Ms. Williams' 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 statement 𝘪𝘴 political in nature. It's a values-based statement rather than an assertion of something factual: "diverting taxpayer money to private schools is not 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵" (emphasis mine)- but we all know that's not what got Rep. Caiharr steamed enough to pitch a tantrum over. It might be something the administration points to when they argue the matter in court, though. I missed that second statement, the first time reading through.
Damned well put. Ms. Williams should have been able to express what amounts to a benign opinion without untoward consequences. That Caiharr decided to react as she did only shows off her blatant bias and immature attitude.
Yeah, it was never the 'appropriate time' to deal with civil rights, either. If folks like King, Stanton, and Gittings waited for the 'appropriate time', we wouldn't know their names today.
My guess is that the principal likely votes Republican and that Caiharr definitely pressured him to fire Williams. It is hard to say which statement pissed off Caiharr more: acknowledging the existence of trans people as people, or suggesting that private schools should stop taking funding from the very school she was visiting.
The lawsuit will be difficult to win without a lawyer. Does Ms Williams have a GoFundMe? I would donate to get her one.
This whole incident has more problems than I could hope to count. First of all, Williams statement to Ms Caiharr was an expression of free speech, and if Caiharr had any integrity at all, she would have taken it for that value. Apparently, her choice was to get all butthurt about it, and her response was as juvenile as it was improper.
Here's hoping Williams' lawsuit is successful, and maybe just maybe Ms Caiharr can be bothered to learn a lesson from it, though personally, I wouldn't bet on it.
I would still call her as a material witness. She's a part of this whole magilla, and I think her input would be extremely enlightening, if not exactly complimentary to her!
True enough. Still, I doubt that Stahl, Whitaker and Wertheim will be willing to drop their standards in the slightest measure. They may school the newcomers a bit, too.
I think cis-women who get off on hurting trans people (specifically trans women) might be the biggest morons alive. Internalized misogyny is one HELL of a drug. It must be miserable inside there.
Well, not firing Barbara Williams would have violated Caiharr's right not to have her world views questioned in the slightest. And it would have interfered with Caiharr's right to enforce her beliefs on others and compromised her right to feel morally superior to others. And it might have infringed on Caiharr's the greatest right of all, to be willfully blind to the consequences of her actions and beliefs. And the case is clearer when you remember that the having a job, is a.previlage and not a right.
O/T: 25 years ago, I woke up in the morning right after 10am, turned on a local contemporary Christian radio station where Steven Curtis Chapman, the son of a popular Christian artists duo, Steve and Annie Chapman, was talking about adopting a young girl who was tragically killed in a SUV accident 5 years later, when suddenly the announcer was praying "God, please be with the people inside the second WTC tower building that was rammed through by a second air plane several minutes after the first plane crashed into the first tower." I instantly turned on the TV in my bedroom and there it was, the World Trade Center towers were on fire. I raced downstairs, told my late older brother about it. He said go and turn on the big TV set and I did. Me, my brothers, and my late mother all saw the towers fall on TV. One tower fell, the other did the same minutes afterwords. Just like everyone else, we thought the first crash was an accident. Then we saw the 2nd plane crashed into the second building and realized that we were under attacked by a mad terrorist by the name of Osama bin Laden who was killed 10 years later to avenge the deaths of nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attack which he, himself, orchestrated.
That's where I was when the Twin Towers got hit.
I also remembered where I was when Michael Jackson died in 2009 years later, afterwords, which is at the now defunct Anthony's Dairy Delight ice cream shop enjoying lunch when one of the workers came from the kitchen and told everyone that Michael Jackson died. I left the shop and went to a now-defunct hamburger bar and saw on TV the news about Michael Jackson's sudden death from a major drug overdose administered to him by his personal doctor who killed him to steal his wealth. That overshadowed the death of another celebrity, Farret Fawcet, on that same day.
I was trying not to doze off in high school. Don't remember which class. I do remember a staff member rushing in, whispering something to the teacher, and then escorting one of my classmates out of the room. We watched things unfold on the tiny little classroom TV starting from a short while before the second plane hit; that's when the whole room went quiet. A little while after that, the principal dismissed everyone for the day. When my classmate came back to the room to get her stuff, she was crying... I found out later she had lost someone in the towers. My dad was on the phone when I got home- he spent all that day with his ear welded to the receiver, first to try to find out whether a friend at the Pentagon had made it out or not (she did- many of her colleagues didn't), then to find out if he was going to be called up for active duty (he wasn't, in the end; they needed his skillset more stateside).
And then, of course, the PATRIOT act came along in all its awful authoritarian glory, before the rubble had even been cleared. 25 years later, DHS- founded by that awful piece of legislative shortsightedness- has become a more dire threat to this country than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamed of being. The terrorists won. They didn't have to destroy us. They just planted a seed of fear, and let us destroy ourselves.
I was supposed to be leaving the hotel in the tower at that time on that day. Could have looked up and seen it happen right above my head. Was pissed off that my meeting, and the trip, was cancelled a few days earlier. I watched everything on TV in the office just outside Brussels. Needed several stiff coffees before I went back to my desk.
I was in the second day of a Maintenance Training Course I was teaching to two students. We took a break around 10 AM, and I took that time to go online to see what was going on with friends of mine. Almost immediately, someone DM'ed me: "It's horrible! Someone flew an airplane into the World Trade Center!" That shook me up sufficiently that, while I was able to finish the course material for that day, my head was probably not in it as well as it could have been. Later that afternoon, I told an associate, "I guess we're at war. Question is, with whom?"
The “Michael Jackson drug” (forget the name) he used to sleep each night is the same drug they use for endoscopies and I believe colonoscopies as well. Best damn rest I’ve ever had! Magical ✨
My father drove me home after my first colonoscopy and on the way I asked him why I didn't get to see the doctor after the procedure. He told me I did see the doctor and had a 5 minute conversation with him. I remembered nothing.
I get the same reaction from Percocet. They had me on Percocet for several days after fixing my ruptured bowel back in 2017. My wife and daughter would visit me and have entire conversations with me thinking I was completely lucid at the time. I wouldn't remember the conversations at all when the Percocet wore off.
I had my first colonoscopy shortly after he died. In a conversation the night before with the anesthesiologist, I said "not at Michael Jackson levels" and he dryly replied, "No."
I had an endoscopy a few years ago and my anesthesiologist said, “Boy, you are going to love this! It’s the Michael Jackson drug!”. They are some of the kookiest and I love them. I think I looked too nervous.
I was at my side job doing IT work for a small boutique travel booking company. The bar downstairs told us, and we went down to watch for a bit before I went home to jump on IRC (remember Internet relay chat?) to get as much info as quickly as possible before I had to go to my regular job.
I walked into the garage at school on 9/11 and they had a tv in the middle of the garage. I also watched the towers fall as we all sat in shock, realizing the world had just changed for all Americans.
I was asleep when it happened (west coast) but my husband was awake, getting ready to go to work. He called in to take the day off and woke me up.
The thing is, I was originally scheduled to be on a flight that afternoon, coming back from visiting my parents. Tuesdays were often the cheapest day to fly, but for some reason I had such a strong urge to come home late Monday night. Only time that's ever happened. Mom said they'd have bought me a train ticket to spend a couple days getting home but was glad I'd flown the night before. After endless hours of seeing it over and over, we and our BFFs went to TGI Fridays in the mall, made them turn off all the TVs, and had cheap steaks and big fruity drinks, which was just what we needed. I think the hubster worked from home the rest of the week.
I was working an afternoon-evening shift at (large home improvement store), so I slept in and didn't turn on any news. The first inkling I got that anything was up was while clocking in in the employee breakroom at, I dunno, 2pm central or suchlike.
When told a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, my initial thought was "What, like when that bomber hit the Empire State in the 40's?"
So I was in the odd position of it all being a done deal by the time I heard about it.
One does wonder why, with all the power these conservative officials have, they react like this to even the slightest criticism. Seriously, snowflakes in lit furnaces are sturdier.
I am a little surprised that Ms. Williams doesn't have an attorney at this point, I would think she'd be able to get someone to take this either pro bono or at a very reduced rate. Maybe she'll set up a Go Fund Me or similar at some point.
At this point, I really don't care if she was on the clock or not; she should not be fired for expressing herself in what appears to be a reasonable manner to an elected official. We all know that if she'd said something they liked - praise Jesus, for instance - she'd still be employed. What happened here is quite clearly that the people in charge didn't like the message and decided to take it out on someone they assumed couldn't, or wouldn't, fight back. Good luck to Ms. Williams, fighting the good fight is all to often thankless and a losing battle, but it's worth the effort every time.
So, the principal didn’t like to see a politician get a critique from their boss, so the principal criticized their employee. Is that right?
Let’s never forget that politicians work for the people. Caiharr was trying to avoid accountability to her employers and pressured the principal to silence dissent. Too bad there’s not enough people in certain places that understand the concept of a public servant and we have to fight so hard to get the public servants to actually serve the public and not their own interests. We need to make them all unemployed.
True, and yet she’s still a citizen and has a right to speak her mind to the politician. She is also speaking up for her students’ rights, not with the transgender issues and the public school funding issues. And as a paraprofessional in a school she is likely quite close with a number of students who are directly affected by the policies Caiharr is passing. It’s always the right time to fight for the students, especially while in the school. As a public servant, Williams is working for the people by pushing back on Caiharr.
Here’s my story for today: I moved to NYC in 2002 and the after effects of 9/11 were still everywhere and very present. The boards with missing loved ones still hanging on street corners. An unspoken sadness loomed in the air. Every time a plane flew above the city, massive crowds on busy streets just paused and looked up.
My very first job/project after graduating college was down by the WTC. I attended weekly meetings at Brookfield Properties which overlooked the massive hole and pile of debris. I just stared at it from the window for months which eventually became years. It slowly got smaller and smaller, but never really seemed to disappear.
I hope that in addition to mourning all the lives lost today, that people will also stop and reflect upon the death and destruction the USA has caused abroad. The imperial boomerang if you will. Be well ✨
Best story of national hypocrisy right here: The nation mourn the the loss of nearly 3,000 lives to terrorist attacks while spending years engaging in terrorist attacks of its own. Case in point: The Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed over 100,000 people in 1945 and the Cambodian Genocide.
Trump lies like a rug. Again. If people genuinely believe they'll ever see that money, they need to have their heads examined (a little hint to them: There isn't enough money in the Treasury for this to happen).
And besides, isn't it the GQP who falsely accuse George Soros and Bill Gates of trying to buy elections? Hypocrites.
I caught a YouTube Short this morning of Trump, boasting about how the GOP mini-convention was going to be packed, intercut with ... well, have a look:
Of course they did, but then, Fox News' relationship with reality has never been all that great. WADDAMINIT, what am I saying? WHAT "relationship with reality???" 🤪
Did anyone get a count of how many empty seats there were at the start and how many after Trump started talking? I know people who HAD come started walking out. :)
A similar tactic won an election in NZ a long time ago. But let's face it, Americans are still owed two grand from the tariffs right? Surely by now people know Trump never pays up.
Caiharr wants to keep "obscene" material out of children's hands, does she? She going to go to war against adults reading the bible to children? That book is filled with obscenity.
Yet she voted for child rapist and pedophile trump.
Isn't it always the way with "Won't somebody think of the children?" Rethuglikkkans?
At this point, I think we need to ask, "Exactly HOW and WHAT are they thinking about the children???"
They’re quite fervent to practice “the laying on of hands.”
And I would be just as fervent to smack their paddywhackers! 🤬
Ezekial 23: 20. Look it up.
And while they're at it, they can also look up the doings of Lot and his daughters.
Psalms 137:9 is a good one as well.
Isaiah 45:7 is pretty choice, too. 😝
Ha !
So Criminal Trump has read the BUYBULL. He’s taken it on himself.
a la … God declares His absolute sovereignty over all creation, stating in traditional translations that He creates both peace and "evil," which modern translations clarify as "calamity" or "disaster".
… 🦘🦘🦘
Wow !
"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses"
I do believe this today is the first line I’ve ever read from the Bible. If there’s plenty more like this, then I might purchase a copy from Criminal Trump. I wonder if dumbest kid in the class TRUMP understands the sentence.
… 🦘🦘🦘
Nope, I wont look it up. I read the babble, all of it (in Norwegian) some 20 ya. There are many fiction, fantacy and SF stories that are better written and more interresting to read.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d29b85490b167a61f1e68871bb768bf90be50c0de9df8ebbdcb76d3dea8dcf1.jpg
Just came in.
Apparently some world leaders understand the concept of "Trump flattery" better than others....
"PA reports that among the gifts Donald Trump received from Irish president Catherine Connolly was a St Brigid’s Cross, traditionally associated with peace, along with a collection of poetry that included Michael Longley’s sonnet Ceasefire."
A book. And not just ANY book...a book of poetry.
What a waste of a good book.
I should think the irony would be lost on the man himself.
I have trouble imagining him reading the book (it doesn't have his name on every page), and even more trouble imagining him understanding it were he to somehow accidentally read it.
I'd give a $20 bill right now to have seen the look on his face when he received a BOOK, instead of some sold gold medal for being, "Trumpest of all Trumps", or some dumB shit.....
Evidently, Republicans, and their natural allies the evangelicals, are the only people in America entitled to an opinion, and everything they disagree with is Communism. The Bill of Rights wouldn't last fifteen minutes left up to these people.
The bill of rights didn’t apply to slaves or indigenous people
These people were about the only ones it applied to
The Constitution in its original form and interpretation respresented what was possible at the time.
At the time it would have been possible for Washington to free his slaves, yet he chose not to
The constitution was much the same
I would say you are wrong. They actively chose to use your constitution as a way to take away the freedom to people they didn't like.
Sent to Ms Caiharr with the subject line Shame on you:
Ms Caiharr:
Back in March, a staffer at Edwardsville Elementary school was fired for exercising her Free Speech rights. She spoke directly to you while you were visiting the school and stated that trans rights are human rights and that taxpayer money should not be diverted away from public schools and into private schools. According to her, you did not respond directly. An hour later, she was dismissed from her position. I cannot help but to assume that you pressured the principal to fire her for what she said. Shame on you for that.
If you had any integrity at all, you would contact the school district and urge them to settle the 42 USC 1983 Civil Rights lawsuit for more than Ms Williams (the staffer in question) is demanding. A public statement would be a good thing as well, one that acknowledges the right of anyone the freedom to publicly disagree with their government officials to their faces.
As a Republican in Kansas with a voting record as evidence, I know that you would prefer to strip the rights of trans people and would like to eliminate public education in favor of religiously based private schools. The fact that one of your constituents expressed an opinion opposite of yours should not be seen as a threat to be eliminated, as you have done, but as the proper functioning of our democratic republic.
Shame on you.
Joseph King
Hear-freaking-HEAR!!! 👍👍👍
Will she even see it? Doubtful. But at the very least she will be made aware that the disapproving eyes of the world are on her.
If she ever holds a town hall meeting, that would be a great time for a proper confrontation!
Republicans don't do town halls anymore. That would mean hearing opposing views, and they can't have that. Case in point: the last town hall in TN-01 was where Kristi Burke got thrown out for asking Harshbarger if intersex people exist. Kristi Burke is now the Democratic nominee to take down Harshbarger, who is refusing to debate.
Wouldn't it be lovely if we could turn a Tennessee district blue!
Bravo
I suspect that you landed on his nasty list. Are you not concerned that she may try to get you fired?
When an affirmation of someone else's humanity constitutes a breach of protocol severe enough to cost a person their job, we are in seriously deep shít as a society. I see people making arguments based on free speech, or what the appropriate venue is to bring up certain topics... look, anyone getting into the weeds in that direction is missing the point a bit, here. This should not be a First Amendment issue (*edit- pertaining to 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 speech, that is). It should not be a "what can government employees do or not do in government buildings" issue. All of that is a distraction, and the reason why is simple:
𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘔𝘴. 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 be 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘤𝘩.
It 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 be a simple statement of fact. Trans rights 𝘢𝘳𝘦 human rights. Trans people are human. Humans have rights. Trans people, therefore, have human rights. Statement of fact.
That 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵 is only regarded as 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 speech because people like Rep. Caiharr have devoted themselves to politicizing- and, ultimately, criminalizing- an entire demographic's 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.
Stating a fact as a fact is not something anyone, in any context, should be losing their job over. 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 not because a bigot got bütthurt over that simple statement of fact and leaned on the speaker's boss for revenge. Would you punish a student for upsetting another student by stating a simple fact in the hallway? That's ridiculous. It's equally ridiculous to punish a teacher for it. It'd be ridiculous to punish the 𝘫𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘳 for it.
Accepting the "there are limits on the First Amendment in government buildings" argument is ceding ground to the culture warriors which they have not made a convincing case for ownership of. Don't let them set the terms of engagement. Forget what is or is not protected 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 speech. Boil it down to the basics: ask yourself whether it should be unacceptable for one person merely to speak to another while passing them in the hall- remember that no insults were thrown, no one was followed or harassed, and no lies were told.
What Ms. Williams did was the moral and ethical equivalent of telling someone what the weather is like outside, unprompted. If she'd told Rep. Caiharr that it was raining, and Rep. Caiharr was upset by the fact that it was raining, would it be acceptable for her to get Ms. Williams fired for telling her it was raining?
No?
Not even if Rep. Caiharr didn't ask about the weather?
Then it should not be acceptable for Rep. Caiharr to get Ms. Williams fired for telling her that trans people deserve equal rights. That's not political speech, except to a bigot, and we should not be letting bigots categorize things they don't like in ways that enable them to be censorious fückwads.
Darn it, Joan. You and your excellent points. I'm going to have to rethink this.
I mean, at the end of the day there 𝘪𝘴 still a First Amendment issue at play- but it's of the same category as defending oneself against a defamation, slander, or libel suit by proving that whatever you said that made the other party sue you was true. The speech here isn't protected because viewpoint discrimination is illegal; it's protected because it's factual, and factual statements enjoy special protection even over and above viewpoint-based political speech (which can sometimes be understood as a provocation, depending on context- or simply be an outright lie).
If Ms. Williams had made her statement during a meeting, when it was not her turn to speak, then there'd be an argument for disciplinary action- but the disruption would be the problem, not the statement. There was no disruption here, though. Rep. Caiharr wasn't in the middle of a presentation, she was there to gladhand and look at 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘴- and in any event, the school hallway is a space in which there is no expectation of privacy or quiet (at least, not unless classes are in session, which they weren't). It's a place where 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 expects to be bumped into, shouted at, shouted over, and generally be subjected to the pandemonium of activity that is a school hallway before, after, and in between classes. Even if Ms. Williams specifically sought out Rep. Caiharr to make this particular statement, she didn't cross any professional or legal boundaries to do it.
The shítty thing is, though, that I don't expect the case to just be open-and-shut. It very much depends on the 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 of whichever judge it lands in front of, facts be damned. If the judge doesn't see trans people as valid, the case is probably going to get tossed, and the firing upheld. If by some chance this winds up in front of the Supreme Court, I won't be holding my breath for a good outcome, and what happens in between very much depends on the makeup of the appeals court (Kansas is in the 10th Circuit, which hasn't been in the news as much so I don't know how they've been leaning as well as I do some of the others).
I will note, however, that the points you raised in your post could very well be entirely valid; Ms. Williams' 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 statement 𝘪𝘴 political in nature. It's a values-based statement rather than an assertion of something factual: "diverting taxpayer money to private schools is not 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵" (emphasis mine)- but we all know that's not what got Rep. Caiharr steamed enough to pitch a tantrum over. It might be something the administration points to when they argue the matter in court, though. I missed that second statement, the first time reading through.
Yes, but it's normal people facts versus Trump people facts, and we all know how that plays out.
Damned well put. Ms. Williams should have been able to express what amounts to a benign opinion without untoward consequences. That Caiharr decided to react as she did only shows off her blatant bias and immature attitude.
She should be kicked out of office on her ear.
When you can be fired for standing up to bullies, we’re are already in deep, deep DEEP shit.
Funny how it's never the "appropriate time" to call out the powerful for their abuse of the innocent.
Yeah, it was never the 'appropriate time' to deal with civil rights, either. If folks like King, Stanton, and Gittings waited for the 'appropriate time', we wouldn't know their names today.
Lines like that are the exclusive purview of those who'd rather not expend the effort of lifting their boots off other people's necks.
When anyone who opposes this regime is considered a “domestic terrorist” we have VERY big problems.
𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑚𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑢𝑝 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 “𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠” 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 “𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑎𝑥𝑝𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟 [𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦] 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡.”
My guess is that the principal likely votes Republican and that Caiharr definitely pressured him to fire Williams. It is hard to say which statement pissed off Caiharr more: acknowledging the existence of trans people as people, or suggesting that private schools should stop taking funding from the very school she was visiting.
The lawsuit will be difficult to win without a lawyer. Does Ms Williams have a GoFundMe? I would donate to get her one.
Same!
If you’re not free to express your gender how you want to then you’re not free
This whole incident has more problems than I could hope to count. First of all, Williams statement to Ms Caiharr was an expression of free speech, and if Caiharr had any integrity at all, she would have taken it for that value. Apparently, her choice was to get all butthurt about it, and her response was as juvenile as it was improper.
Here's hoping Williams' lawsuit is successful, and maybe just maybe Ms Caiharr can be bothered to learn a lesson from it, though personally, I wouldn't bet on it.
Unfortunately, Caiharr can't be part of the lawsuit, even though the firing was almost certainly her doing.
I would still call her as a material witness. She's a part of this whole magilla, and I think her input would be extremely enlightening, if not exactly complimentary to her!
I would really like to see her squirm while being deposed.
Another situation where I would love to see her reaction to the words, "Ms Caiharr? 60 Minutes is here to see you!"
[I just hope 60 Minutes can keep their reputation up!]
The lapdog running CBS needs to go first.
True enough. Still, I doubt that Stahl, Whitaker and Wertheim will be willing to drop their standards in the slightest measure. They may school the newcomers a bit, too.
I think cis-women who get off on hurting trans people (specifically trans women) might be the biggest morons alive. Internalized misogyny is one HELL of a drug. It must be miserable inside there.
And an utter lack of empathy on the part of too many Republicans was tiresome 10 squares back.
Never mind that
https://www.propublica.org/article/ectopic-pregnancy-deaths-doubled-analysis
Well, not firing Barbara Williams would have violated Caiharr's right not to have her world views questioned in the slightest. And it would have interfered with Caiharr's right to enforce her beliefs on others and compromised her right to feel morally superior to others. And it might have infringed on Caiharr's the greatest right of all, to be willfully blind to the consequences of her actions and beliefs. And the case is clearer when you remember that the having a job, is a.previlage and not a right.
O/T: 25 years ago, I woke up in the morning right after 10am, turned on a local contemporary Christian radio station where Steven Curtis Chapman, the son of a popular Christian artists duo, Steve and Annie Chapman, was talking about adopting a young girl who was tragically killed in a SUV accident 5 years later, when suddenly the announcer was praying "God, please be with the people inside the second WTC tower building that was rammed through by a second air plane several minutes after the first plane crashed into the first tower." I instantly turned on the TV in my bedroom and there it was, the World Trade Center towers were on fire. I raced downstairs, told my late older brother about it. He said go and turn on the big TV set and I did. Me, my brothers, and my late mother all saw the towers fall on TV. One tower fell, the other did the same minutes afterwords. Just like everyone else, we thought the first crash was an accident. Then we saw the 2nd plane crashed into the second building and realized that we were under attacked by a mad terrorist by the name of Osama bin Laden who was killed 10 years later to avenge the deaths of nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attack which he, himself, orchestrated.
That's where I was when the Twin Towers got hit.
I also remembered where I was when Michael Jackson died in 2009 years later, afterwords, which is at the now defunct Anthony's Dairy Delight ice cream shop enjoying lunch when one of the workers came from the kitchen and told everyone that Michael Jackson died. I left the shop and went to a now-defunct hamburger bar and saw on TV the news about Michael Jackson's sudden death from a major drug overdose administered to him by his personal doctor who killed him to steal his wealth. That overshadowed the death of another celebrity, Farret Fawcet, on that same day.
I was homeless the day the Towers got hit so I missed everything initially.
I cannot begin to imagine the horror of 9/11 for the people of NYC that day.
Why were you homeless? Did your family kicked you out because of your atheism?
Nope. Fell on hard times when I lost my job (thanks, Bush).
I was trying not to doze off in high school. Don't remember which class. I do remember a staff member rushing in, whispering something to the teacher, and then escorting one of my classmates out of the room. We watched things unfold on the tiny little classroom TV starting from a short while before the second plane hit; that's when the whole room went quiet. A little while after that, the principal dismissed everyone for the day. When my classmate came back to the room to get her stuff, she was crying... I found out later she had lost someone in the towers. My dad was on the phone when I got home- he spent all that day with his ear welded to the receiver, first to try to find out whether a friend at the Pentagon had made it out or not (she did- many of her colleagues didn't), then to find out if he was going to be called up for active duty (he wasn't, in the end; they needed his skillset more stateside).
And then, of course, the PATRIOT act came along in all its awful authoritarian glory, before the rubble had even been cleared. 25 years later, DHS- founded by that awful piece of legislative shortsightedness- has become a more dire threat to this country than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamed of being. The terrorists won. They didn't have to destroy us. They just planted a seed of fear, and let us destroy ourselves.
💯
I was supposed to be leaving the hotel in the tower at that time on that day. Could have looked up and seen it happen right above my head. Was pissed off that my meeting, and the trip, was cancelled a few days earlier. I watched everything on TV in the office just outside Brussels. Needed several stiff coffees before I went back to my desk.
I was in the second day of a Maintenance Training Course I was teaching to two students. We took a break around 10 AM, and I took that time to go online to see what was going on with friends of mine. Almost immediately, someone DM'ed me: "It's horrible! Someone flew an airplane into the World Trade Center!" That shook me up sufficiently that, while I was able to finish the course material for that day, my head was probably not in it as well as it could have been. Later that afternoon, I told an associate, "I guess we're at war. Question is, with whom?"
We'd find out soon enough.
The “Michael Jackson drug” (forget the name) he used to sleep each night is the same drug they use for endoscopies and I believe colonoscopies as well. Best damn rest I’ve ever had! Magical ✨
I believe it was Propofol.
My father drove me home after my first colonoscopy and on the way I asked him why I didn't get to see the doctor after the procedure. He told me I did see the doctor and had a 5 minute conversation with him. I remembered nothing.
I get the same reaction from Percocet. They had me on Percocet for several days after fixing my ruptured bowel back in 2017. My wife and daughter would visit me and have entire conversations with me thinking I was completely lucid at the time. I wouldn't remember the conversations at all when the Percocet wore off.
That’s it! 😂
I had my first colonoscopy shortly after he died. In a conversation the night before with the anesthesiologist, I said "not at Michael Jackson levels" and he dryly replied, "No."
😂
I had an endoscopy a few years ago and my anesthesiologist said, “Boy, you are going to love this! It’s the Michael Jackson drug!”. They are some of the kookiest and I love them. I think I looked too nervous.
I was at my side job doing IT work for a small boutique travel booking company. The bar downstairs told us, and we went down to watch for a bit before I went home to jump on IRC (remember Internet relay chat?) to get as much info as quickly as possible before I had to go to my regular job.
I walked into the garage at school on 9/11 and they had a tv in the middle of the garage. I also watched the towers fall as we all sat in shock, realizing the world had just changed for all Americans.
I was asleep when it happened (west coast) but my husband was awake, getting ready to go to work. He called in to take the day off and woke me up.
The thing is, I was originally scheduled to be on a flight that afternoon, coming back from visiting my parents. Tuesdays were often the cheapest day to fly, but for some reason I had such a strong urge to come home late Monday night. Only time that's ever happened. Mom said they'd have bought me a train ticket to spend a couple days getting home but was glad I'd flown the night before. After endless hours of seeing it over and over, we and our BFFs went to TGI Fridays in the mall, made them turn off all the TVs, and had cheap steaks and big fruity drinks, which was just what we needed. I think the hubster worked from home the rest of the week.
I was working an afternoon-evening shift at (large home improvement store), so I slept in and didn't turn on any news. The first inkling I got that anything was up was while clocking in in the employee breakroom at, I dunno, 2pm central or suchlike.
When told a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, my initial thought was "What, like when that bomber hit the Empire State in the 40's?"
So I was in the odd position of it all being a done deal by the time I heard about it.
One does wonder why, with all the power these conservative officials have, they react like this to even the slightest criticism. Seriously, snowflakes in lit furnaces are sturdier.
I am a little surprised that Ms. Williams doesn't have an attorney at this point, I would think she'd be able to get someone to take this either pro bono or at a very reduced rate. Maybe she'll set up a Go Fund Me or similar at some point.
At this point, I really don't care if she was on the clock or not; she should not be fired for expressing herself in what appears to be a reasonable manner to an elected official. We all know that if she'd said something they liked - praise Jesus, for instance - she'd still be employed. What happened here is quite clearly that the people in charge didn't like the message and decided to take it out on someone they assumed couldn't, or wouldn't, fight back. Good luck to Ms. Williams, fighting the good fight is all to often thankless and a losing battle, but it's worth the effort every time.
So, the principal didn’t like to see a politician get a critique from their boss, so the principal criticized their employee. Is that right?
Let’s never forget that politicians work for the people. Caiharr was trying to avoid accountability to her employers and pressured the principal to silence dissent. Too bad there’s not enough people in certain places that understand the concept of a public servant and we have to fight so hard to get the public servants to actually serve the public and not their own interests. We need to make them all unemployed.
Wilson is a public servant too.
True, and yet she’s still a citizen and has a right to speak her mind to the politician. She is also speaking up for her students’ rights, not with the transgender issues and the public school funding issues. And as a paraprofessional in a school she is likely quite close with a number of students who are directly affected by the policies Caiharr is passing. It’s always the right time to fight for the students, especially while in the school. As a public servant, Williams is working for the people by pushing back on Caiharr.
Here’s my story for today: I moved to NYC in 2002 and the after effects of 9/11 were still everywhere and very present. The boards with missing loved ones still hanging on street corners. An unspoken sadness loomed in the air. Every time a plane flew above the city, massive crowds on busy streets just paused and looked up.
My very first job/project after graduating college was down by the WTC. I attended weekly meetings at Brookfield Properties which overlooked the massive hole and pile of debris. I just stared at it from the window for months which eventually became years. It slowly got smaller and smaller, but never really seemed to disappear.
I hope that in addition to mourning all the lives lost today, that people will also stop and reflect upon the death and destruction the USA has caused abroad. The imperial boomerang if you will. Be well ✨
Best story of national hypocrisy right here: The nation mourn the the loss of nearly 3,000 lives to terrorist attacks while spending years engaging in terrorist attacks of its own. Case in point: The Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed over 100,000 people in 1945 and the Cambodian Genocide.
OT-Good news everyone:
https://ibb.co/zT7gHCDv
A little bit of pushback from the fascist Christian right... I am shocked
https://washingtonstand.com/article/trump-promises-voters-5000-each-if-republicans-win-election
Trump lies like a rug. Again. If people genuinely believe they'll ever see that money, they need to have their heads examined (a little hint to them: There isn't enough money in the Treasury for this to happen).
And besides, isn't it the GQP who falsely accuse George Soros and Bill Gates of trying to buy elections? Hypocrites.
When aren't they hypocrites? When they're silent?
When they're worm food.
I caught a YouTube Short this morning of Trump, boasting about how the GOP mini-convention was going to be packed, intercut with ... well, have a look:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/y_FwMUxjkMg
That's funny, every Fox news talking head said it was "packed".
Of course they did, but then, Fox News' relationship with reality has never been all that great. WADDAMINIT, what am I saying? WHAT "relationship with reality???" 🤪
Packed like a shrinkflation cereal box.
They really packed those empty seats in there!
My god, it's full of ninjas!
An audience well-studied and practiced in the fine art of How Not To Be Seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-M2hs3sXGo
Did anyone get a count of how many empty seats there were at the start and how many after Trump started talking? I know people who HAD come started walking out. :)
A lot more empty seats than filled seats!
What do you call an empty seat filled by an empty suit? 🤔
A placeholder? Warm body? Token appointment?
The empty suit is pretty obvious. Doesn't take much to figure out. The chair just got caught in the mess.
His cult morons are so gullible.
Sure, you'll get your $5000, after your DOGE check and tariff refund.
🤣
A similar tactic won an election in NZ a long time ago. But let's face it, Americans are still owed two grand from the tariffs right? Surely by now people know Trump never pays up.
Trumpanzees never learn.