Watch: Rachel Maddox interviews the State Senator willing to tie the NE Unicameral into knots if LB574, an anti-trans bill, is not tabled. "Take your names off that piece of poop"

Machaela Cavanaugh, if you are not from Nebraska, is the daughter of former Nebraska state legislator and U.S. Representative John Joseph Cavanaugh III. 

     What radicalized Cavanaugh was LB574, an anti trans bill introduced by Sen. Kathleen Kauth, who enlisted one of the most revolting gay grifters ever to sit in a Unicameral hearing room to testify in its behalf.

    Cavanaugh is willing to take every single pending bill to cloture, which would tie the Unicameral into knots if Senators do not, as she put it, "Take your names off that piece of poop."

 

Gay 1/6 insurrectionist Brandon Straka 'brutalized and destroyed' by ban from five Omaha hair salons

Gay insurrectionist Brandon Straka (Can we call him a "coupier"?), who is now on federal probation well into 2025 for his role in the 1/6 DC coup attempt, is now whining on YouTube about being banned from all five Omaha area locations of Garbo's, a hair salon, despite the fact that he is a "big tipper." From his video:

It’s considered socially acceptable to ban me, to cancel me or to prevent me from being able to receive goods and services like a normal member of society.

NE02 Rep. Don Bacon and Omaha Mayor
Jean Stothert at Straka Walkaway rally in 2021

Straka is a Trumper and the founder of Walkaway, a social media campaign to con Democrats into becoming Republicans, kind of like those Jews for Jesus salesmen. Walkaway had more than 500,000 followers before Facebook got rid of it. From Wiki: 

In 2019, Straka said WalkAway does not receive major donations and that "everything is grassroots support from Americans who send us $5 or $100." In May 2020, OpenSecrets reported that of the $20,104 donated to WalkAway in 2020, a total of $7,521 was contributed by nine donors who gave $200 or more.

Brandon is performatively upset because no far right mucky mucks are yet yelling about his crucifixion by Omaha hair stylists.

'...most of them will never talk about this because they’re too afraid despite all of their platitudes about fighting the left, they’re too afraid to stand up for somebody who is being brutalized and destroyed by the left.'

We at AKSARBENT are not privy to the innermost machinations of the far right, thank goodness, but we have a perfectly reasonable theory: although Straka repeatedly pointed out in the video below that he was only convicted of a disturbing-the-peace misdemeanor, what he didn't say is that he dropped a roll of dimes on a bunch of people to get out from under a federal felony charge. Perhaps some of his right wing fellow travelers now consider him a rat fink, ya think?

As for the persecution politics of purportedly left-wing Garbo's, we're not completely convinced. Maybe they aren't left wing at all. Maybe they just don't like cutting the hair of big time snitches.

(Hat tip: @cynicalgirl)

What happened when we told ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence program, to write a gay comedy scene

AKSARBENT tried to trick the artificial intelligence program, chatgpt, but wasn't able to.
     However we learned that although the program has a truly lousy sense of humor, it is capable of coming up with a surprisingly edgy line (second from last). 

The request: Write comedy scene in which Tom mistakes Rick, the straight twin brother of Tom’s gay boyfriend Jeff, for Jeff

The result:

[Setting: A busy coffee shop. Tom is sitting at a table, scrolling through his phone. Rick, Jeff's straight twin brother, enters and spots Tom.]

Rick: [Waves] Hey, Tom!

Tom: [Looks up and smiles] Hey, Jeff! [Stands up to give him a hug]

Rick: [Looking confused] Uh, I'm not Jeff, I'm Rick, his twin brother.

Tom: [Embarrassed] Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I thought you were Jeff.

Rick: [Laughs] Don't worry about it, man. Happens all the time.

Tom: [Sits back down, looking mortified] I can't believe I just did that. I mean, you guys look so alike.

Rick: [Sits down across from Tom] Yeah, we get that a lot. But I'm the straight one, so you're safe.

Tom: [Nervously] Oh, right. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's just that Jeff and I have been dating for a few months now, and I guess I'm just used to seeing his face.

Rick: [Smirks] Well, I'm flattered, but I think you're more into my brother than me.

Tom: [Blushes] No, no, it's not like that. I mean, Jeff and I are happy together, and I would never want to do anything to mess that up.

Rick: [Pats Tom on the back] I know, man, I'm just messing with you. Jeff talks about you all the time, and he's really into you too.

Tom: [Smiles] He is?

Rick: [Laughs] Yeah, he is. So don't worry about mistaking me for him. Just make sure you never mistake me for his boyfriend.

Tom: [Laughs] I won't, I promise.

[They both laugh and continue chatting, while Tom glances over at the door every few minutes to make sure Jeff isn't walking in.]

The real problem about George Santos...

Meet Mario Presents (or Mario Estrada) the bizarre gay, anti-trans activist Senator Kauth invited to testify for LB574

Meet Mario Estrada, a Gays Against Groomers gadfly who swooped into Lincoln February 8th to testify for LB574, Kathleen Kauth's bill to stop physicians from performing gender alteration procedures on anyone under 19 or even referring patients to someone who will, under penalty of a review by Nebraska's medical licensing board.

     The bill also allows a parent or guardian to bring civil action against any such doctor and prohibits state funds for any hospital that performs transgender care.

     Estrada did not identify himself as Estrada in his testimony, but as "Mario Presents."

     Estrada, of Chilean extraction, likes to wear a T-shirt depicting people executed by being thrown out of a helicopter, a favorite means of dispatching argumentative Chileans by dictator Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile between 1973 and 1990, when an estimated 3,200 people were murdered and another 28,000 tortured by the state.

     In a video, wearing said shirt, Estrada disingenuously declared, "Pinochet, if you didn't know, was in Chile and he protected people from an overreaching government. Yes, he didn't like homosexuals"

Below: Estrada crowing about how easily he thinks it is to trigger liberals in Nebraska.

From Wikipedia:

Gays Against Groomers (GAG) is a far-right anti-LGBTQ organization that started as a Twitter account created by Jaimee Michell known for posting anti-trans rhetoric. The collective has harassed school board meetings and hospitals, attended and held anti-LGBTQ rallies alongside far-right organizations, and has been banned from multiple platforms for hate speech. They are known for their use of the slur "groomer" to portray their critics and parents and supporters of LGBTQ youth as pedophiles and have been compared to Libs of TikTok. The organization refers to transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual people as "infiltrators" and opposes gender-affirming care and Drag Queen Story Hour Events. It is widely promoted by right-wing media such as One America News Network (OANN) and Fox News. GAG has been accused of fueling stochastic terrorism, the public condemnation of a group that leads to violent acts against the group.

Left to right: Mario flashing White Power gesture with companion,
defending a murderous Chilean dictator, and posing with Sen. Kauth

     Twitter has suspended the account four times, some of which were supposed to be permanent, but kept reinstating it. Before Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, the website's rules prohibited the use of "groomer" as an insult based on gender identity or expression under their hate speech policy. GAG responded by using code terms such as "broomer" and "gr__mer" and changing its screen name to "Gays Against Grewmers". Some hypothesized that someone at Twitter was manually and repeatedly overriding the suspensions.

 
   When Elon Musk bought Twitter, GAG reverted to its old name, tweeted "OK GROOMER", and purchased a verified badge. In October 2022, the account directly thanked Musk for helping them further their agenda. Before Musk's purchase, tweets using hate terms averaged at most 84 per hour over a week. After the purchase, users tweeted hate speech 4,778 times from midnight to noon. A report from the Human Rights Campaign found that the GAG Twitter account had seen an increase of nearly 300% in their use of the slur "groomer" when comparing the two months before and after Musk's purchase.

     Venmo, PayPal, and Google have banned the group from raising funds on their platforms due to their policies prohibiting hate speech. As a result, GAG began to use the fundraising platform Donorbox.

     Gays Against Groomers may not need much fundraising. Imara Jones hypothesized that The Heritage Foundation was funding them, noting they have a budget of close to a million dollars and stating it could not have come organically from the community. Founder Jaimee Michell has denied that anyone is funding the account and claims the organization is a non-profit, though its application has not been approved. In September 2022, the group filed as a corporation. 

Above: The LB584 hearing, brought to you by the Nebraska Progressive Legislative Study Group and Nebraska Public Media.

Such a cavalcade of amazing facts from the LB574 proponents!

First up was Kathleen Kauth (in red), introducing her bill to the Unicameral's politically lopsided  Human and Health Services at the hearing. She represents district 31 (Millard and South Omaha).

• "These novel and irreversible procedures lack sufficient long-term research...
• One of the most disturbing aspects of the current trend with gender dysphoric youth is the risk of suicide. Parents and children are being told that a young person experiencing gender dysphoria is more likely to commit suicide. The studies that are cited are rife with flaws and weaknesses in study design. A new analysis shows rather than solving the problem, medical interventions make the risk of suicide worse, once all the surgeries are completed. A 30-year study out of Sweden documents how individuals who have complete gender altering surgery are 19 times more likely to kill themselves...
• YOU WILL HEAR THAT THE VAST MAJORITY--MORE THAN 85%!--OF KIDS WITH GENDER DYSPHORIA WILL DESIST IF LEFT ALONE IN A PROCESS CALLED WATCHFUL WAITING...
• I called on every group I could think of. I called on the Nebraska Family Alliance [virulently homophobic], the Nebraska Catholic Conference [guess what their position might be]..."

Next up was Scott Newgent, a dissatisfied former lesbian and current trans male who also describes himself as a mother.

• "I'm here today to put an end to the idea that medically transitioning children is about human rights. It is not. It's about money... THE LEADING COUNTRY [SIC] IN SWEDEN HAS SHUT DOWN ALL MEDICAL TRANSITIONING...
• I still have infections. These infections will shorten my life because these procedures are experimental... I'VE TALKED TO HUNDREDS OF TRANSGENDER PEOPLE. Don't do this to kids!
• ...I went to a therapist. A transgender woman therapist... Within 5 minutes she looked at me and said "How long have you been wearing male clothing? I was a business sales executive. I looked like Jillian Anderson. Nobody would think that I was a man. But that sentence, at 42 absolutely changed my life. I won't get to meet my grandkids... These infections will kill me. That one sentence changed the whole trajectory of my LIFE!

     Most trans people aren't changed by a sentence and don't want to wait until they are 42 to escape the life of a sex that their brains are genetically wired to reject. They almost always know this before they enter kindergarten—not in middle age via Evil Transgender Therapists.

     Third at bat was the non-frivolous version of fascist-friendly, white power gesturing Mario Whatever, reading a script that sounded like it certainly could have been written for him by the Heritage Foundation.

     One wag has suggested that instead of hawking Gays Against Groomers merch, Mario might more honestly sell tees which say Roaches For Raid.

Arrested black gay reporter at DeWine presser intended to "do harm to me" — Ohio National Guard chief John Harris

Lambert, right

The presser, following a nearby train derailment, was supposed to start at 3 pm but NewsNation reporter Evan Lambert was reporting live at 5 by the time Ohio Governor Dewine started speaking.

     The man in charge of Ohio’s National Guard, Maj. Gen. John Harris, decided that Lambert, at the back of the gym, was too loud. Lambert objected.

     Shortly thereafter, Lambert was yanked out of the gym and tackled to the floor, away from others in the press conference gymnasium venue.

     WKBN reporter Gerry Ricciuti published Harris's account, which AKSARBENT thinks is 80% bullshit.

 “During Gov. DeWine’s press conference on Feb. 8, 2023, I heard very loud voices coming from the back of the gymnasium. Since most of the people in my immediate area were involved in the press conference as Public Information Officers or Subject Matters Experts, I decided I was the best person to notify the source of the disruption that the press conference had begun. 

Upon reaching the back of the gym, I saw a cameraman and reporter making what I assumed was a recorded message. Upon telling the reporter that the press conference had begun and that they were disrupting it, they appeared to become agitated and informed me that they were broadcasting live. After stepping out of the shot and appealing to them to be quiet down, I waited for them to finish their work. As I began to offer the assistance of my PIO team to find a more suitable location, the cameraman demanded, HEY, COME OVER HERE!   

Confused, I told him I would not come over there. I went back to conversing with the reporter who grew more agitated. He then became enraged. His eyes opened wide, he stared at me while very aggressively lurching at me. He screamed YOU GUYS ARE THE ONES WHO STRUNG THIS THING OUT! (I assumed he was referring to the 2-hour delay for the press conference).  

He is a much larger person than I am. At that point I was convinced he was prepared to do harm to me. I instinctively put my hands on his chest to keep him from bumping into me, which I felt was inevitable if I had not protected myself. I immediately removed my hands when there was space between us – we were in contact for less than a second.  

At that time he immediately began yelling statements such as: ASSAULT! DID YOU SEE THAT, HE ASSAULTED ME! That was witnessed by several law enforcement officers. The officers attempted to persuade him to stop being disruptive. Now convinced that I was involved in a contrived event, I removed myself from the immediate area and walked back to the press conference.  As I walked away I heard his voice continue to get louder and more hostile and the commotion at the rear of the gym continued. At the point I was no longer in a position to see what was happening.”

KTLA has released body cam video of Evan Lambert's takedown which effectively gives the lie to John Harris's preposterous claim of feeling threatened into shoving reporter Lambert.