Texas school kids to receive DNA and fingerprinting kits in case of emergencies, but critics claim kits are meant to help ID remains in case of another Uvalde-like shooting



So-called "child identification" kits will soon be distributed to all Texas public school and open-enrollment charter school students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The law states that the purpose of the kits is to help local and federal law enforcement locate "missing or trafficked" children, but critics believe that the kits are instead intended to help investigators identify human remains in the event of another school shooting.

The kits provide a means for parents or guardians to collect DNA samples and fingerprints from their children. The kit also calls for a current photo. Those parents and guardians wishing to utilize the free kit may then keep it in their possession in case an emergency arises.

The same kits cost $9.95 at the National Child Identification Program website, and participation in the program is entirely voluntary. Kits are sent home in accordance with a law passed in 2021, though similar kits were also distributed in fall 2000 and 2006/2007 with little public backlash.

Now in 2022, some concerned parents have speculated that schools are sending the kits home once again after two horrific school shootings occurred within the state in recent years. In 2018, a school shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, about an hour south of Houston, left eight students and two teachers dead. Then just five months ago, a maniac managed to murder 19 fourth graders and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, before a Border Patrol agent breached the door and shot him to death.

"It was almost like the state just throwing their hands up and saying, 'We can't do anything about the guns. We're not going to change any of the laws. So, therefore, the next best thing is to make sure that we can identify your K through eighth grader if they are killed in any type of school incident,'" Clear Creek Independent School District parent Anthony Crutch said. "When I receive them, we're going to complete the kit and store it in the cabinet and pray to God nothing happens."

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, appeared to agree, tweeting, "Texas Gov Greg Abbott is choosing to send DNA kits to schools that parents can use to identify their children’s bodies AFTER they’ve been murdered rather than pass gun safety laws to proactively protect their lives."

\u201cTexas Gov Greg Abbott is choosing to send DNA kits to schools that parents can use to identify their children\u2019s bodies AFTER they\u2019ve been murdered rather than pass gun safety laws to proactively protect their lives.\n\nVote @BetoORourke #txgov #txlege \nhttps://t.co/lnZQcUoNlt\u201d
— Shannon Watts (@Shannon Watts) 1666015405

Fox News reported that approximately 4 million students are expected to receive the kits, which will be issued through the Texas Education Agency.

Chief Justice John Roberts confirms authenticity of bombshell SCOTUS leak



Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday confirmed the authenticity of a draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that would overturn court precedent on abortion rights established in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The draft opinion was first reported by Politico Monday night.

"Yesterday, a news organization published a copy of a draft opinion in a pending case. Justices circulate draft opinions internally as a routine and essential part of the Court's confidential deliberative work. Although the document described in yesterday's report is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case," the Supreme Court said in a statement.

BREAKING - Chief Justice on #SCOTUS leak:pic.twitter.com/a346EUHjoD
— Shannon Bream (@Shannon Bream) 1651590965

Roberts called the unprecedented leak a "betrayal" and announced that he has ordered an investigation to find the source .

"To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way," Roberts said.

"We at the Court are blessed to have a workforce — permanent employees and law clerks alike — intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law. Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court. This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here," the chief justice continued.

"I have directed the Marshal of the Supreme Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak," he said.

On Monday night, Politico shocked the political world by publishing a draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito for the case concerning Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban.

Alito's draft is a no-holds-barred takedown of the court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade and the subsequent 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which affirmed a constitutional right for a woman to seek an abortion.

"Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," Alito writes.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the draft opinion declares. "It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives."

Politico reported that this draft opinion was circulated among the justices in February and is not the final opinion the court is expected to release sometime in the next two months. Reporters Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward wrote that they "received a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document."

Horowitz: Attack on Colleyville synagogue: The next FBI memory-holed terrorist attack



In the eyes of the FBI, the only potential terrorists in this country are those who disagree with the political views of the left – not actual terrorists with ties to foreign terror groups. Which is why any true terrorist attack immediately gets memory-holed by the FBI and the media. The Islamic attack on a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, is just the latest example.

On Saturday afternoon, 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram allegedly barged into services at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville and took four people hostage for about 10 hours. Late Saturday night, the hostages were freed and the suspect was shot dead by the SWAT team, which stormed the building when some of the hostages ran out with the suspect in pursuit. The Associated Press reported that the suspect had demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist imprisoned on charges of trying to kill American service members in Afghanistan.

Following the resolution of the hostage crisis, the FBI agent in charge immediately stated that the suspect was “singularly focused on one issue” that was not “specifically related to the Jewish community.” Sure, it just happens to be that the man decides to pick the one Jewish synagogue in an area with few Jews. Remember, this is the same FBI that still has no motive for the Vegas shooting, the Nashville Christmas bombing, the April 2021 Capitol attack, and more recently a case of a black nationalist mowing down six people at a Waukesha parade two days after the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict.

Joe Biden chimed in with an awkward and bizarre statement too: "I don't think there is sufficient information to know why he targeted that synagogue, why he insisted on the release of someone who's been in prison for over 10 years ... why he was using anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments," said the president on Sunday.

According to British authorities, the suspect was a national of the U.K. He hailed from Blackburn, a city which has radical mosques with ties to Islamists.

\u201cBlackburn Muslim Community\u201d Facebook page reportedly calls for Allah to \u201cbless\u201d dead Texas synagogue attacker \u201cwith the highest ranks of Paradise\u201dhttps://antisemitism.org/blackburn-muslim-community-facebook-page-reportedly-calls-for-allah-to-bless-dead-texas-synagogue-attacker-with-the-highest-ranks-of-paradise/\u00a0\u2026
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@Campaign Against Antisemitism) 1642368788

Akram apparently arrived in the U.S. just five weeks ago, which makes the concern of ties to international terror even more alarming, especially since police in Manchester, England, arrested two teenagers in connection with Akram.

After these details were disclosed and the British media began reporting on it, then the FBI had to concede the obvious:

Newest FBI statement on Colleyville just in - per Fox\u2019s @JakeBGibson: \u201cThis is a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted, and is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.\u201d
— Shannon Bream (@Shannon Bream) 1642395044

Who is Aafia Siddiqui, the person allegedly at the center of the hostage-taker’s demands? An American-educated Pakistani neuroscientist, Siddiqui was captured in Afghanistan in 2008 and put on trial in 2010 for attacking soldiers. She was accused of grabbing a rifle and firing on soldiers during an interrogation, injuring an FBI agent and a U.S. Army officer. She was sentenced to 86 years in prison after the jury found that "Siddiqui attempted to murder Americans serving in Afghanistan, as well as their Afghan colleagues." She is residing in a Texas prison. Known as “Lady Al-Qaeda,” Siddiqui demanded during the trial that Jews be excluded from the jury, claiming the entire prosecution had been orchestrated by unnamed "Jews."

Just two months ago, the Council on American Islamic Relations, which is the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, demanded that she be released. So here we have a Texas synagogue attacked by a supporter of an international terrorist who has support from an organization that works together with the DHS and the subject of the matter was a known Jew-hater, yet the FBI can’t connect any dots?

In a Facebook post on November 15, CAIR of DFW wrote, “We’ll be meeting with Congressional offices to educate them about Dr Aafia and call for her release. Special thanks to CAIR for being a pillar and letting utilize the office, which is walking distance from Congress, as our primary staging and organizing area.” Will those congressmen be forced to denounce their supporters the same way allied congressmen of some of the Jan. 6 protesters are being subpoenaed by a special congressional committee? Prominent mosques in America have recently held rallies to free Lady Al-Qaeda. Do you think any of the resources of the DHS and FBI will be focused on those people?

Instead, the entire purview of the FBI is now focused on conservative political groups whom they refer to as white supremacists. Last week, an FBI official told the U.S. Senate that “anti-government extremists,” meaning detractors of the Biden regime, are the nation’s top security threat. In other words, the newly created anti-domestic terrorism unit within the FBI will not be focused on groups with ties to Siddiqui sympathizers, but political opponents of the regime. "We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies," stated Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. You better believe he doesn’t mean Islamic terrorist sympathizers; he means grandmothers with MAGA hats.

The U.K. Daily Mail is reporting that Akram was given a rare Exclusion Order at Blackburn's magistrates' court in the U.K. for his rantings about 9/11. How was a man like this able to fly to the U.S.? Well, evidently our homeland security and counterterrorism agencies are more focused on fighting domestic political opponents than foreign terrorists.

FBI backtracks, now says Jewish community was targeted in synagogue hostage situation



The Federal Bureau of Investigation has changed its story and now says that Saturday's synagogue 11-hour hostage situation in Colleyville, Texas, was an intended targeting of the Jewish community.

The FBI initially said that the incident — which left the hostage-taker dead — was not "specifically related to the Jewish community."

What are the details?

On Monday, CNN reported that the suspect, 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram, "spoke repeatedly about a convicted terrorist who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in the United States."

Fox News host Shannon Bream tweeted the FBI's newest statement, which read, "This is a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted, and is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force."

Newest FBI statement on Colleyville just in - per Fox\u2019s @JakeBGibson: \u201cThis is a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted, and is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.\u201d
— Shannon Bream (@Shannon Bream) 1642395044

Following the incident, FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said, "We do believe from our engagement with this subject that he was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community. But we’re continuing to work to find motive and we will continue on that path. In terms of the resolution of the incident, the hostage taker is deceased.”

Law enforcement on Saturday reported that at least four people — a Jewish rabbi and three synagogue congregants — were taken hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville.

Previous reporting stated that the suspect claimed to be the brother of Aafia Siddiqui, a terrorist who is incarcerated at Fort Worth's Carswell Air Force Base. A judge in 2010 sentenced Siddiqui to 86 years in federal prison for conspiring to kill U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan.

Akram during the hostage situation reportedly demanded Siddiqui's freedom in exchange for the four lives.

One hostage was released shortly before 5 p.m. local time, while the other three hostages were freed as the FBI executed a strike on Akram, killing him.

CNN reported that British authorities arrested two Manchester, England, teenagers in connection with the Texas incident.

The unnamed teenagers are being held for questioning at the time of this reporting, and it is unknown what role they may have played in planning the attack.

What else is there to know about this?

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who was one of the hostages, said that the synagogue underwent "multiple security courses" in training to survive such incidents.

"In the last hour of our hostage crisis, the gunman became increasingly belligerent and threatening," Cytron-Walker said in a statement. "Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself."

'Conservative Review' podcast host Daniel Horowitz is one strike away from a permanent Twitter ban



Blaze podcast host Daniel Horowitz of "Conservative Review" said Monday that his Twitter account has been temporarily locked after he tweeted about patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who were fully vaccinated.

In an op-ed, Horowitz wrote that a tweet he sent "around 3 p.m. Eastern on Friday afternoon" was flagged as "misleading" by Twitter and taken down.

The offending tweet discussed how a family told Horowitz that one of their own who has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 has nevertheless been hospitalized with a coronavirus infection and is "getting crappy treatment" at the hospital.

"[Gov. Larry Hogan] stop lying about the statistics. 72% of covid deaths in the UK were vaccinated from weeks 49-52," Horowitz tweeted.

Twitter is OUT OF CONTROL. Just threw Daniel Horowitz in the Gulag for posting verifiably FACTUAL DATA. \nHe\u2019s in the clink for 7 days for THIS?\n@Twitter @RMConservativepic.twitter.com/KpZneU6AL9
— Shannon Joy (@Shannon Joy) 1641740165

Horowitz explained to TheBlaze that his tweet was responding to a claim made by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who said last week that a small minority of his state's unvaccinated population is "overwhelming hospitals."

Twitter labeled the tweet "Misleading" and prevented other users from replying to, sharing, or liking the tweet.

Horowitz wrote that his account was temporarily suspended "without warning or notice for cause" shortly after the tweet was flagged and taken down.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The social media platform has strict rules prohibiting users from sharing "false or misleading information about COVID-19 which may lead to harm."

"When Tweets include misleading information about COVID-19, we may place a label on those Tweets that includes corrective information about that claim," Twitter's Help Center states. "In cases where we determine there is potential for harm associated with the misleading claim, we will disable the ability for others to Retweet, Quote Tweet, or engage in other ways to prevent the spread of the misleading information." Such tweets will cause one strike against a user's account.

According to Twitter, tweets that will earn a label include, "False or misleading information that misrepresent the protective effect of vaccines, to make claims contrary to health authorities. Claims that misrepresent research or statistical findings pertaining to the severity of the disease, prevalence of the virus, or effectiveness of widely accepted preventative measures, treatments, or vaccines."

In his op-ed, Horowitz elaborated on his tweet and argued that Maryland's governor is wrong to solely blame the unvaccinated for a surge in coronavirus hospitalizations while data suggests that even people who are fully vaccinated can still be infected and hospitalized with COVID-19.

The notion that everyone in the hospital with COVID is unvaccinated was always an illogical proposition. Take Maryland, for example. According to Maryland’s COVID dashboard, nearly every senior alive has at least one shot, and over 92.5% of all those above 18 have at least one shot. Even if the unvaccinated still compose a relatively disproportionate share of the hospitalizations, there are simply not enough of them to go around to “flood the hospitals.” You can still say there is a degree of efficacy for some people for serious illness (pre-Omicron) without fully lying to people and exaggerating to the point that they believe almost nobody with the shots gets clinically ill.

The data cited in his deleted tweet included raw data from the latest U.K. Health Security Agency vaccine surveillance report that shows during weeks 49-52 of 2021 (December), a significant number of COVID-19 positive people who died had received at least one vaccine dose.

"If you add up all of the unvaccinated deaths reported following 60 days from a positive COVID test within that window (928) and divide it by all the total deaths (3,718), you get 24.95% of the deaths being unvaccinated. In other words, 75% of the deaths recorded during that period were indeed vaccinated, nearly all of them double-vaccinated," Horowitz wrote. "So, if anything, I do apologize for the misinformation in the tweet where I said the vaccinated accounted for 72% of the deaths. It was actually slightly higher.

"Obviously, given the age-stratified vaccination rates, this still shows some degree of efficacy against mortality for the shots," he argued. "For example, 83% of all deaths among those ages 80+ were vaccinated, but almost everyone in that age cohort is vaccinated. None of us discount that fact. But that is a very different story from saying that the overwhelming majority of deaths in raw numbers are among the unvaccinated."

Horowitz told TheBlaze his account has been locked for seven days. According to Twitter's Help Center, that means there are at least four strikes against his account. A fifth strike levied for violating Twitter's COVID-19 misinformation policy will result in a permanent suspension.

Justice Sotomayor stuns court observers with dubious COVID-19 claims



Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor astonished critics during oral arguments on Friday by making numerous dubious claims about COVID-19.

Court observers watching arguments for and against the Biden administration's employer vaccine mandate expressed shock when the justice, who attended arguments virtually, falsely claimed that 100,000 children are hospitalized and in "serious condition" from COVID-19 in the United States.

“We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators,” Sotomayor claimed.

Here is Justice Sotomayor saying that "hospitals are almost all full capacity" and there are "over 100,000 children" hospitalized with covid "many on ventilators.\n\nNone of those things are true. Not even close.pic.twitter.com/MqWEL2UvJg
— Greg Price (@Greg Price) 1641572971

Critics were quick to point out Sotomayor's numbers were incorrect. According to data from the Department of Health and Human Services, there are 3,342 pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday that the average number of children admitted to the hospital per day with COVID-19 was 776.

The total number of children hospitalized with COVID between Aug. 2020 and Jan. 4, 2022, is 81,923, according to the CDC.

This is just absolutely astonishing. "100,000 children in serious condition," per Sotomayor. Where do these people obtain their misinformation? The current national pediatric COVID census per HHS is 3,342. Many/most incidental.
— Phil Kerpen (@Phil Kerpen) 1641570918
Justice Sotomayor\u2019s comment on 100,000 children in serious condition with covid is such a flagrantly untrue statement she should have to correct it after the argument. It\u2019s embarrassing for the Supreme Court to allow that factual inaccuracy to occur in an oral argument.https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1479481779643895816\u00a0\u2026
— Clay Travis (@Clay Travis) 1641572790

While there has been a spike in children who have been hospitalized with COVID-19, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci explained last week that many children are being admitted to the hospital for unrelated ailments and then are testing positive for the virus.

“First of all, quantitatively, you’re having so many more people, including children, who are getting infected. And even though hospitalization among children is much, much lower on a percentage basis than hospitalizations for adults, particularly elderly individuals,” Fauci said on MSNBC on Dec. 30. “When you have such a large volume of infections among children, even with a low level of rate of infection, you’re going to still see a lot more children who get hospitalized."

"But the other important thing is that if you look at the children who are hospitalized, many of them are hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID," Fauci explained. "And what we mean by that — if a child goes in the hospital, they automatically get tested for COVID. And they get counted as a COVID-hospitalized individual. When in fact, they may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that. So it’s overcounting the number of children who are, quote, 'hospitalized with COVID,' as opposed to because of COVID."

Sotomayor made several other unfounded claims about the virus. At one point, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Businesses — the group challenging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's mandate — noted that the OSHA mandate was implemented when the Delta variant was the most prevalent variant in the U.S. and that the now-dominant Omicron variant causes less severe disease.

Sotomayor interrupted, claiming, "Counsel, those numbers show that Omicron is as deadly and causes as much serious disease in the unvaccinated as Delta did."

J. Sotomayor says over 100K children in serious condition, "many on ventilators" #SCOTUS
— Shannon Bream (@Shannon Bream) 1641570700

On the contrary, research suggests that Omicron causes less severe disease than previous variants of the virus. The New York Times reported on Dec. 31 that animal studies found Omicron is mainly an upper respiratory disease that produced less damaging infections to the lungs. Those findings followed early studies of human patients with Omicron that suggested the virus causes less severe disease, especially in vaccinated people.

Justice Sotomayor also claimed that hospitals are nearing capacity.\n\nShe also asked "Why is a human spewing a virus not like a machine spewing sparks?" \n\nIncredible performance all around.
— Greg Price (@Greg Price) 1641575738

Other justices appointed by Democrat presidents made equally extraordinary and incorrect statements about COVID-19.

Justice Stephen Breyer claimed there were "750 million new cases yesterday, or close to that." The actual number was 727,863, and the daily average cases reported for Jan. 6 was 610,989, according to the New York Times.

Justice Breyer says that there were "750 million new covid cases yesterday"\n\nThere are 330 million people who live in America which means everyone apparently got covid twice in the last 24 hours.pic.twitter.com/rzMf8OzAlj
— Greg Price (@Greg Price) 1641572607

Breyer also wrongly suggested that hospitals in the U.S. are nearly over capacity because of COVID-19 patients, which is not true.

Breyer: "Hospitals are full almost to the point of the maximum."\n\nThese people know absolutely nothing. Zero.pic.twitter.com/F5z3Hzz6IR
— Phil Kerpen (@Phil Kerpen) 1641568600

Justice Elena Kagan piled on with a statement about how COVID-19 vaccination is the best way for people to prevent the spread of the virus. While the COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. have been found to prevent severe disease and death in most cases, the CDC warns that "anyone with Omicron infection can spread the virus to others."

Kagan: "We know the best way to prevent spread is for people to get vaccinated."\n\nKakistocracy.\n\nThere is literally zero evidence that these vaccines prevent Omicron infections.
— Phil Kerpen (@Phil Kerpen) 1641568391

Additionally, the CDC says that fully vaccinated people who contract a Delta variant breakthrough infection "can spread the virus to others," albeit for a reportedly shorter time than unvaccinated people.

The Supreme Court will decide whether to issue a stay preventing the Biden administration from enforcing an OSHA temporary emergency standard, which mandates that businesses with 100 or more employees must require their workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to involuntary weekly virus testing. Challengers contest that the Labor Department does not have the constitutional authority to both create and enforce the mandate.

Sotomayor tipped her hand on this issue, repeatedly arguing that the term "vaccine mandate" was inaccurate because the OSHA standard includes the testing option.

"There's no requirement here. It's not a vaccine mandate. It's something totally different," Sotomayor said.

JK Rowling points out the obvious truth about trans rapists — and the left trashes her as a transphobe



Famous author J.K. Rowling is under fire from transgender activists and Twitter leftists again — this time for simply pointing out an obvious truth about transgender rapists.

What are the details?

The "Harry Potter" creator was hit with swift backlash over the weekend after she responded to news that police in Scotland plan to record individuals accused of rape as the gender by which they self-identify and not their biological sex.

The reported policy means Scottish police will log rapes as carried out by a woman so long as the offender "identifies as a female" — even if the offender has male genitalia.

On Sunday, Rowling pointed out the absurdity of the policy's upside-down logic in a tweet, saying, "War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman," putting her own spin on a famous quote from George Orwell's novel, "1984."

War is Peace.\nFreedom is Slavery.\nIgnorance is Strength.\nThe Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman.https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/absurdity-police-logging-rapists-women-s6576v825\u00a0\u2026
— J.K. Rowling (@J.K. Rowling) 1639332414

Rowling wasn't the only one to criticize the measure as absurd.

"As a lawyer for 20 years and Justice Secretary for almost eight, I’ve seen some legal absurdities," former Holyrood Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said, according to the Scottish Sun. "But this tops it all and is dangerous. It’s physically impossible and is about dogma overriding common sense.”

But as a prominent global figure who has been branded an anti-transgender activist, Rowling caught the majority of the flak on social media.

What was the reaction?

Transgender activists blasted the author with online missives, characterizing her once again as a transphobe who can't stop attacking the trans community.

VICE News complained that Rowling "just won't stop attacking trans people online."

"Queer Eye" star Jonathan Van Ness slammed Rowling's tweet as "transphobic cherry picked vitriol," adding, "As trans women are assaulted, deprived of work, killed, and raped JK is safe in her mansion."

The biggest threats of violence against women has always been cis gender men. Not trans women, unless Jk\u2019s constant transphobic cherry picked vitriol convinces you otherwise. But as trans women are assaulted, deprived of work, killed, and raped JK is safe in her mansion.https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1470092815506063365\u00a0\u2026
— Jonathan Van Ness (@Jonathan Van Ness) 1639407931

"I’m just not sure why you keep talking about it. Your entire point now is hating a community of people? We don’t need to hear from you and your little stories anymore. Enough," Akila Hughes added.

I\u2019m just not sure why you keep talking about it. Your entire point now is hating a community of people? We don\u2019t need to hear from you and your little stories anymore. Enough.
— Akilah Hughes (@Akilah Hughes) 1639372888

Trans activist Nicole Maines asked, "Why does it sound like you’re more upset about trans people than rapists? Feels like your priorities are wrong here, babe."

Why does it sound like you\u2019re more upset about trans people than rapists? Feels like your priorities are wrong here, babe.
— Nicole Maines (@Nicole Maines) 1639420335

New York Times best-selling author Shannon Hale claimed Rowling's comments put transgender women at risk and argued "amplifying bigotry helps no one."

All women should be safe. This includes transgender women, who are far more likely to be a target of assault than a perpetrator. If a woman commits rape, that is still a crime and reprehensible. Calling a woman a woman won't change that. But amplifying bigotry helps no one.
— Shannon Hale (@Shannon Hale) 1639409203

Activist Amy Siskind exclaimed: "Why do you insist on erasing and hurting people, seemingly for sport? Grow up already!"

Why do you insist on erasing and hurting people, seemingly for sport? Grow up already!
— Amy Siskind \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08 (@Amy Siskind \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08) 1639426976

London artist Daniel Lismore twisted Orwell's quote to take a shot at Rowling.

Love is peace.\nFreedom is acceptance.\nUnderstanding is strength.\nTrans women are not a danger to society. J.K Rowling loves to fuel hate towards a whole group of innocent beautiful people.
— Daniel Lismore (@Daniel Lismore) 1639388927

It should be noted that despite the overwhelming vitriol leveled at Rowling, many on social media commended the author for her courage to speak the truth.

'How mighty white of him': Tom Brady exudes 'height of white privilege' for not discussing past Trump support, sportswriter says



As Super Bowl weekend kicks off, one USA Today sportswriter doesn't want anyone to miss that the game's star attraction — Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 43-year-old quarterback Tom Brady — exudes the "height of white privilege."

What are the details?

In her op-ed for the paper, Nancy Armour explains that her big problem with the six-time Super Bowl champ is his past support for former President Donald Trump — and his "ability" to not talk about it when he doesn't want to. Or something.

Armour pointed out Brady's "Make America Great Again hat in his locker, the flippant endorsement of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. Only when those ties became inconvenient did Brady decide he wanted to 'stick to sports,' and that he preferred to be a beacon of positivity rather than delve into society's thorny ills."

"How mighty white of him," she added.

More from Armour's op-ed:

Brady's ability to enter and exit the debate at his choosing, to shield himself from accountability, is the height of white privilege. As this country grapples with the far reaches of systemic racism, look no further than Brady, for whom the expectations, and allowances granted, will always be different.

"Whiteness is the benefit of the doubt," said David Leonard, author of "Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field." "When Tom Brady says, 'I was just given the hat,' or 'He's just a friend of mine,' or when he skips the White House and says, 'I had a different engagement,' he gets the benefit of the doubt. He gets to be an individual. He reaps the benefits that we as white Americans reap each and every day in different contexts."

It's been five years since a MAGA hat had prime placement in Brady's locker and he replied "I hope so, that would be great" when asked if his old golfing buddy had what it took to be president. But with Brady playing in his 10th Super Bowl on Sunday, when his Tampa Bay Buccaneers will face the Kansas City Chiefs, the topic was raised anew by Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe, who said last week that no Black athlete would have gotten the pass Brady has.

On "Undisputed," Sharpe said Brady "put that hat in there for a reason: Letting you know that I support my friend Donald Trump, and no matter what he says, I support him. ... Let's just say for the sake of argument that LeBron James says, 'My friend, Minister [Louis] Farrakhan.' How would America react? You see, blacks have always had to be very, very quiet about who our friends are. They made [former] President [Barack] Obama disavow Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright! ... LeBron James can never say, a prominent black athlete can never say, 'Minister Farrakhan is just my friend.' They'd try to cancel anybody with the just mere mention of Mister Farrakhan's name — because we like Tom Brady."

How would America react? https://t.co/35uJlmQn4G
— shannon sharpe (@shannon sharpe)1611756961.0

Armour concurred, saying "Sharpe is right."

More from her op-ed:

In theory, it should not matter whether Brady supports Trump, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or someone somewhere in between on the political spectrum. He has a right to his private views.

But it was Brady himself who chose to make those private views public. If you think that MAGA hat just happened to wind up in his locker – at camera level, not buried at the bottom beneath a pile of cleats and clothes – I have a case of TB12 supplements to sell you. Brady has carefully cultivated his image over his 21-year career, whether it be his style or his social media posts, and he knew just what kind of reaction he would get.

Now, he might not have thought it would matter, since Trump's candidacy at that point was still seen as something of a stunt. But Brady has had the chance – several, in fact – to clarify or walk back his comments and has chosen not to. At the Super Bowl in 2017, three days after Trump's Muslim ban took effect. On Howard Stern's show last spring, when Trump was already beginning to sow lies about the election.

And yet again this week, less than a month after a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that was incited by Trump.

Instead, Brady has been allowed to divorce himself from it while Black athletes are made to own their views in perpetuity.

Armour then went on to bemoan former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's "blackballing" following his kneeling in protest of police brutality and racial inequality. Although she failed to mention Kaepernick's subsequent deal with Nike — infused with social justice themes — which Money said could be worth "millions of dollars per year." Or his $1 million book deal. Or that fact that Brady "liked" Kaepernick's controversial Nike ad that led others to burn their tennis shoes and boycott the brand.

But anyway, Armour went on to say that "even Brady's aversion to talking about politics or current events is itself a form of privilege" and accused him of "moral cowardice."

"Playing While White" author Leonard offered a parting shot: "The follow-up question of, 'I'm here just to play football,' is 'Well, who's afforded that luxury? Who's allowed to see sports as this apolitical space of distraction, of pleasure, of fun?' Seeing sports and living sports as an uncontested space is the privilege of whiteness. It's the privilege of being a man. It's the privilege of being a heterosexual athlete.That is a luxury that Black athletes and other marginalized and disempowered athletes have never been afforded, inside and outside of sports."

What was the reaction?

After Armour tweeted out her op-ed, she appeared to receive her share of kudos — but a number of folks were none too pleased with her take on Brady:

  • "You lose me and all credibility when 'white privilege' and 'systemic racism' are mentioned," one commenter wrote. "If black players choose to make it about politics, that's their choice and the privilege of working for the NFL. I couldn't protest at my place of work. I'd be warned and then fired."
  • "Nobody is required to participate in your BS game of identity politics," another user said. "SJW's are not the arbiters of good in a free society. Brady's actions as a father, an athlete, and a leader put him in a place most of the people who bow down to this idiocy can never dream to attain."
  • "Another idiot savant heard from! Do us all a favor and STFUP! You are a joke," another commenter declared. "Brady never entered the political 'debate,' saying a guy you played golf with a friend is not entering the debate!! And I despise Trumpers!"

And finally, this:

Image source: Twitter