Bonus Tweet of the Day

Tweet of the Day

Texas Republicans to address schools shooting by buying more police shields.

TEXAS, USA — Texas leaders announced Tuesday that they have agreed to dedicate more than $100 million in state funds to boost school safety and mental health services following the Uvalde massacre.

Nearly half the money — $50 million — is going toward bullet-resistant shields for school police officers, a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. The second-largest expenditure — $17.1 million — is for school districts to buy silent panic alert technology, which allows them to alert law enforcement during emergencies.

The $105.5 million total in funding will support the initiatives through August 2023. Almost all of the money is coming out of a budget surplus inside the Texas Education Agency, which oversees public K-12 education.

“The State of Texas is acting swiftly to ensure our schools are secure and that children, teachers, and families across Texas have the support and resources they need to be safe as we work to prevent future tragedies like the heinous crime committed in Uvalde,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.

The state’s Republican leaders have largely championed mental health and school safety as the policy response to the May shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, resisting gun-control measures. The massacre left 19 students and two teachers dead, as well as 17 others wounded.



https://www.khou.com/article/news/special-reports/uvalde-school-shooting/texas-spending-millions-after-uvalde-massacre/285-087e1b9c-4a1c-4f77-a662-fa0f500b0c0a

Bonus Tweet of the Day

An Angry-Looking Melania Trump Heckled as She Leaves Trump Tower in NYC

Oh, how I love seeing this!!! You reap what you sow people. Never forget it.

Former First Lady Melania Trump was snapped looking quite uncomfortable and angry as she was heckled while leaving Trump Tower in Manhattan on Saturday.

Melania was photographed leaving her husband’s Fifth Avenue building as she headed back to their Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, where the Trump family spends their summers…as the humidity in Palm Beach is just too much for the billionaire (maybe?) family....

Melania could be seen in a maroon and white striped button-down dress and brown sunglasses as she got into her waiting Secret Service vehicle. I’m sure her outfit could pay my rent for a few months but ugh, I digress.

Tourists stopped to gawk as they saw the activity outside Trump Tower and quite a few heckled and booed the woman who made “I Really Don’t Care, Do U” a household saying.

Melania, who has kept a very low profile since her husband left office in January 2021, appeared to look tense as she got into one of the waiting SUVs. Some people yelled abusive comments toward her as she walked past the crowd to get into her car.



https://www.politicalflare.com/2022/07/an-angry-looking-melania-trump-heckled-as-she-leaves-trump-tower-in-nyc/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Texas is one of the most dangerous states in the nation to have a baby.

Texas is one of the most dangerous states in the nation to have a baby. The state’s maternal mortality rate is one of the worst in the country, with Black women making up a disproportionate share of deaths. The state’s infant mortality rate, at more than five deaths per thousand births in 2020, translates into nearly 2,000 infant deaths annually.

Texas opted not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which helped lead to hospital closures and the formation of rural health care “deserts,” where obstetricians are scarce and prenatal care scarcer still. More than a quarter of women of childbearing age are uninsured, the highest rate in the nation. Medicaid covers low-income women through pregnancy and for two months postpartum, compared with 12 months in most states.

A proposal in the Texas House to expand postpartum coverage to 12 months was cut to six months by the State Senate. Tens of thousands of children born to low-income parents languish on the waiting list for subsidized child care.

In September of last year Texas passed Senate Bill 8, banning abortions for patients with detectable embryonic cardiac activity, which generally begins at about six weeks. A recent Times analysis suggests that Texas’ abortion rate declined by only 10 percent after the bill passed, as more women traveled out of state or ordered medication abortions by mail. But poor patients often lack those options.




https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/us/politics/texas-abortion-roe-wade.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Tweet of the Day

MS house speaker connected to Southern Baptist Convention sexual abuse scandal

A Mississippi case involving a decades-long coverup and high-ranking Baptist officials defending an abuser was highlighted in the report. Though Gunn is not named in the report, his involvement as an attorney in the case was scrutinized broadly by the state and national press and even Southern Baptist-focused and other religious news outlets.

John Langworthy, a former music minister at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, resigned from the church in 2011 after admitting that he sexually abused young boys when he worked at two Mississippi Baptist churches in the 1980s and then in a Texas Baptist church.

Gunn, who has served in leadership roles at Morrison Heights, was the church’s attorney as Langworthy’s case played out in the courts and in the public sphere. The speaker was unable to be reached for comment regarding this article.

Langworthy was first accused of abusing a teenage boy at a Texas Baptist megachurch in 1989. But that church’s pastor Jack Graham, who once served a stint as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, allowed Langworthy to be dismissed quietly and did not report the abuse to police at the time, the report said.

Langworthy immediately moved back to Mississippi, where he landed a job in 1990 as music minister at Morrison Heights and later as a choir teacher at Clinton High School. Langworthy held those jobs until 2011, when details of his abuse were first made public.





https://mississippitoday.org/2022/05/24/philip-gunn-southern-baptist-convention-scandal/

Florida school district adopts new policy to out LGBTQ students in PE classes.

After three hours of fiery public debate, the Leon County School Board unanimously approved its "LGBTQ Inclusive School Guide" Tuesday night.

The policy, which the board is calling a “guide” and a "living document" that can be quickly updated, comes after weeks of deliberation from the district’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Committee.

The document is intended to create guidelines for teachers and administrators to help students who need it and to outline state laws for employees, Assistant Superintendent Alan Cox told the Tallahassee Democrat.

The advisory committee was created to review the district's longstanding LGBTQ guide, which was pulled last summer after the parents of a middle school child complained that it overstepped their parental rights.

What drew the most debate was a provision that a school will notify parents — by form — if a student who is "open about their gender identity" is in a physical education class or on an overnight trip.

Some teachers and students during the Tuesday night meeting said the policy will “out” LGBTQ+ students — revealing their sexual orientation or gender identity without their permission.

The policy language does explicitly say a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression “should not be shared with others without their input and permission.”

"The notification to all the parents can create a very stressful and unwanted situation to trans and LGBTQ students," said Kailey Sandell, a Leon High School student who spoke at the meeting. "A lot of times kids assume that kids are gay or trans; they will easily be able to hurt them."





https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/education/2022/06/29/leon-county-school-board-approves-lgbtq-guide-dont-say-gay-moms-for-liberty-parental-rights/7765205001/

Extra Bonus Tweet of the Day