Lemdro.id

The Republican former congressman Matt Gaetz has been accused of participating in the sex trafficking of two young women in a civil lawsuit filed on Thursday in district court in Florida.

The allegations, which Gaetz denied in a statement to the Guardian, are the latest developments in a long-running sexual abuse scandal involving the politician who resigned from Congress in November 2024.

In the 38-page lawsuit, filed in US district court for the middle district of Florida, the women identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 claim Gaetz and two others “coordinated the recruitment, payments, drugs, and travel to obtain commercial sexual acts” from them “during 2017 through January 2019”.

“The defendants collectively used their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability of Plaintiffs to commit the acts,” according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit contends that the alleged victims “were recent high school graduates” at the time of the alleged misconduct.

One of the defendants, Joel Micah Greenberg, a close associate of Gaetz, and the former tax collector of Seminole county, pleaded guilty in May 2021 to six federal offenses: sex trafficking of a child, illegally producing a false identification document, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, stalking, and conspiracy. Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.

Gaetz rejected the new lawsuit’s allegations in a statement to the Guardian.

"This is somehow a co-conspiracy from the deep state and transgender people."

-Matt Gaetz, any day now.

Proton is working on a beta for Drive on Linux:

We are working towards releasing a beta of the official Proton Drive app for Linux. The initial launch will likely consist of our headless daemon mode only, meaning you’ll have a sync engine running that keeps a configurable list of directories up to date the same way it does on Mac and Windows.

cross posted from: https://programming.dev/post/58028970

I was originally going to ask how many legal genders there should be, but I fail to see a compelling argument against 0.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/us_politics@piefed.blahaj.zone/p/1031536/frustrated-with-trump-voters-overwhelmingly-want-change-in-washington-an-ap-norc-p

A strong majority of voters believe that President Donald Trump is falling short at home and abroad, and they want major change in the upcoming midterm elections, according to a new AP-NORC poll that raises serious warning signs for the Republican Party at a critical moment.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted less than four weeks before Election Day, finds that registered voters who identify as Democrats are more enthusiastic than Republican voters about casting a ballot. More voters want Democrats to win control of Congress and have a more negative view of Republicans.

The Democratic advantage is small in some cases, but, taken together, the findings paint a challenging picture for Republicans, who are clinging to control of Congress under the weight of an unpopular war with Iran and surging prices at home.

About 8 in 10 voters overall say the economy or the cost of living is among their top issues for the upcoming election, while about two-thirds say this about healthcare and the war in Iran. Other issues that are stronger for Trump — like immigration or crime — are lower priorities.

Much more in the article.

Jarts were a brand of lawn dart toy first sold around 1950 per some sources, or 1940s per others. You would toss them, trying to land inside a circular target. They had a weighted metal tip so they would stick upright into a lawn.

This was not a very good idea.

The metal tip was heavy and could fall with enough energy to penetrate a skull. At least three children were killed, with many thousands of injuries from mild to severe. Over 6100 in the US alone were sent to emergency rooms.

Attempts to ban the toy started around 1969. The US took them off the market in 1987, and Canada in 1988.

Similar toys are sold today, minus the deadly weapon part, with nerf or blunt tips designed to avoid penetration injuries.

Here are some actual jarts.

Pedro Arizpe | Bluesky

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/12486557

Link: daggerfalljs.dev/play/

Amelia Schafer
ICT

The state of California filed a federal lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration Oct. 14 seeking to keep open a facility whose closure was abruptly announced with no tribal, state or local consultation.

In late September, the records administration announced the closing of two locations, the San Francisco and Chicago National Archives. Tribal governments depend on the National Archives for records relating to the Bureau of Indian Affairs including enrollment records, land records and deeds, federal boarding school records and more.

“Closing the National Archives at San Francisco … would irreparably harm California and its interests,” the lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, reads. “Indeed, transferring the records … would not only take them away from the communities that rely on them most, but also would risk damage and loss of the items altogether, given their age and fragility. At the very least, transferring the records means they would be inaccessible for an unknown period of time, which could last years, during transit and processing.”

California is home to 109 federally recognized tribes.

California’s lawsuit asks the court to force the archives to halt the San Francisco facility closure. It was filed the same day as major national Native advocacy organizations slammed the planned closures in a letter sent to Ed Forst, the acting archivist of the archive administration.

“Decisions concerning the location, accessibility, and stewardship of federal Indian records should not be made without direct communication and meaningful consultation with affected Tribal Nations and Native communities,” the letter states. It was drafted on behalf of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, Native Organizers Alliance, the National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund.

‘These records are priceless’: 3 National Archives locations set to close without tribal consultation

Both the San Francisco Archives, which is located in neighboring San Bruno, and Chicago National Archives locations are slated to close at an unspecified date, though records could begin to move to other locations as early as next week, said California Attorney General Rob Bonta during a press conference Wednesday.

The National Archives and Records Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Tribal leaders and historic preservation officers said they’ve been continuously left in the dark regarding the closures and that they were not consulted on the plans. Since the announced closures, however, the archive administration held two virtual “consultations,” one on Oct. 13 and one on Oct. 15.

The virtual tribal consultations were structured more like a “listening session,” said Sokaogon Chippewa Community Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Michael LaRonge, who added that a consultation is an important first step, and shouldn’t be substituted with a listening session.

LaRonge and others in attendance said they felt that the closure decisions were already finalized.

“I’m getting a lot of non-answers,” Fallon Carey, digital archives director for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition to ICT. “It feels a lot like lip service.”

Carey, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, attended the virtual meeting on Thursday, Oct. 15.

“I think there’s a transparency issue here and there’s a lack of trust, from what I gather,” Carey said. “Tribal leaders and community members are really concerned.”

For communities looking to heal from the trauma of the Federal Indian Boarding School era, losing access to these records is a major concern, Carey said. Many survivors are elders who don’t have the time to wait for the records to become available again or the resources to travel and see them in person before they’re inaccessible, she said.

“I have seen it with my own eyes, I’ve experienced it in my own life. Having access to these records can be deeply healing, having access to your own histories,” Carey said.

National Archives schedules virtual tribal consultation meetings

Both LaRonge and Carey said National Archives leaders agreed to move the Bureau of Indian Affairs records last, but LaRonge said that doesn’t change the fact that it is moving.

“[That’s] great if you work for a tribe who has funds to send people down there, but we don’t,” LaRonge said. “They just kept dangling that carrot, like ‘Oh, well, if you can just come to the reading room, the research room is open, you can just make an appointment.’ But no, I can’t… It doesn’t feel like a good victory.”

Additionally, leaders were told the BIA records are not a priority for digitization as they contain private information, LaRonge said.

“You have a responsibility to digitize these records – it’s part of your fiduciary responsibility to tribes under treaty law, a right to make those things available to us if we need them, and you’re telling us that it’s not a priority for you,” LaRonge said. “How many times do the tribes have to be told this isn’t a priority for us.”

LaRonge said the Sokaogon Band submitted a letter to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office to express its concern over the closure. Unlike California, there are no federally recognized tribes within Illinois. The state of Illinois has not filed any lawsuit against the National Archives.

“For Illinois, it feels like the tribes have been kind of left behind,” LaRonge said.

Both affected archives locations contain records that could be crucial to federally terminated tribes seeking restoration or unrecognized tribes seeking recognition. In one case, the Chicago National Archives contains documents from the former Green Bay Agency which may be crucial in the ongoing fight to restore the Brothertown Nation of Wisconsin’s federal recognition status, Chairwoman Phylis Tousey told ICT. The tribe was federally terminated by an act of Congress in 1839.

The post California sues National Archives over pending closure appeared first on ICT.

From ICT via This RSS Feed.

Putin's favorite soldier posts a link to an interview in an attempt to prove that the people "behind Euromaidan" were fascists/"banderites", I point out that the article says the opposite. My comment gets removed, and I get banned. In other news, water is wet.

Beavis and Butt-Head did it first, as always

i already drew a face on it with a fine point magic marker so we're at least 50% of the way there

Photo by Rob Laughter on Unsplash

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

Ana Mota is a senior at South Grand Prairie High School, which sits in the suburbs between Dallas and Fort Worth. She felt excited when she was cast as the lead, Seymour, in her school’s upcoming production of “Little Shop of Horrors,” which is about an anthropomorphic plant that kills and eats people. The problem: Seymour is traditionally a man’s role, and Mota lives in Texas.

Days after the cast list was announced, school officials stepped in and demanded Mota be removed from the role, citing Texas SB12. They claimed, falsely, that Mota playing a male character opposite a female love interest would violate state and federal law surrounding LGBTQ+ content. Instead, they would give her role to a boy and force her to share the role of Audrey, his love interest.

She refused, and so the district cancelled the show the next day.

“On Tuesday October 6th, I was informed that I will no longer be allowed to portray this role due to a decision made by the district and its legal team concerning Senate Bill 12,” Mota wrote in an Instagram post earlier this week. It has over 10,000 likes as of this writing.

“The district was afraid they were teetering on the line of the laws stated in SB12 and decided to take extreme caution, removing me from the role,” Mota wrote. “In turn, they violated Title 9, I was excluded from participation in an education program receiving Federal financial assistance because I am a female.”

Mota said in the statement that the school cited SB 12 (2023), an anti-drag law which has been struck down twice already, but a spokesperson for the district told Erin in the Morning that it was because of SB 12 (2025), an entirely separate law despite the overlap in name over the years. The latter bill is a “Don’t Say LGBTQ” law, and the ACLU called it “one of the most extreme education bans in the country.”

Mota did not respond to a request for comment from Erin in the Morning.

The Grand Prairie ISD said it was simply trying to comply with state and federal law. However, there is no federal law that bans drag performances, nor any law that restricts LGBT content in classrooms, and it seems any key anti-LGBT provisions of state laws have been halted by a preliminary injunction in other districts.

“Recently, a casting decision was made to place a female student in the role of a male character in the school musical,” a spokesperson told Erin in the Morning in a statement. “In the musical, a romantic relationship develops between the two main characters.”

“When District leadership learned of this issue and in consideration of themes in the musical involving an abusive relationship, a decision was made to pull that production and find something more appropriate,” it continued. “This decision was made in light of the District’s ongoing effort to ensure its programs remain consistent with Senate Bill 12 and all applicable law.” They further clarified they were referencing SB 12 (2025), which was the “Don’t Say LGBTQ” law, as opposed to the 2023 drag ban.

The arts have been especially under attack due to conservatives’ militant enforcement of the gender binary, both on and off the stage. Picture books about penguins and unicorns, rainbow stickers, and Shakespearean theatre have also been targeted by anti-trans animus.

“I do not want a new musical; I want the part I auditioned for, in the musical I expected to do my senior year,” her post continued. “I do not believe it is a fair compromise to take everyone’s parts away instead of just giving what is rightfully mine back.”

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

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I have also seen this song's title spelled as "Naa Hoos Iid". I can only assume it would be something like nááʼhoosʼįįd or even nááhoosʼįįd in standard orthography, and would mean something like "Dawn Again" or "The Sun Has Risen Again", however I don't speak Navajo so don't take my word for it.

You should watch SPARKLE ON RAVEN: The Life of DrillGirl; it is a very good show. {Cēterum|Furthermore} {cēnseō|I think} {iūs auctōris|copyright} {esse dēlendum|must be destroyed}.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/9790871

No one stays young forever, especially not in the conditions Israel has created in Gaza. For the past three years, I have been doing everything I can to help my family and neighbors survive in our displacement camp. But at this point in my life, I realized that the greatest way I can truly support them in the long run is to finish my studies, build a career, and provide a stable future for us all.

Because you can’t stay young forever, especially not in the conditions Israel has created in Gaza, Sulaiman wants to pick up his studies, which he was forced to leave in 2023. In order to achieve this, he is planning to leave Gaza for Egypt.

The plan is to pick up his studies in Cairo, and fortunately he has been nominated for admission! In order to get things up and running, he will need to pay the entry fee as well as purchase the materials and equipment to make sure he is set up properly for the task ahead. And this is where you can help out.

The total costs of the entry fee and the school material amount to about €7500, which, considering the current donations, is not a stretch of the imagination by any standard. So, if you want to help a brother out, and make sure he has a solid basis for supporting his family in the long run, please consider making a donation to this noble cause!

Yours truly,

If you find yourself thinking something along the lines of, “Wait a minute… survive a siege? A real, actual, live siege-in this day and age? That sounds completely absurd!”—well, you wouldn't be wrong. In fact, you'd be absolutely right to feel that way.

The idea that sieges still exist in our modern, supposedly civilized world does sound ridiculous. It feels like something ripped from the pages of a medieval history book, not something unfolding in real time as you read this. And yet, shockingly, tragically, this isn't a historical re-enactment or an exaggerated metaphor. This is the very real situation being endured by countless people right now, including my friend Sulaiman in Gaza.

The true absurdity here isn't in questioning the possibility of a siege; it's in the reality that this barbaric, cruel, and outdated tactic is being used today. That in the 21st century, families like Sulaiman's are being starved of food, clean water, medical aid, and even hope. Cut off from the most basic of human needs simply because of where they live.

And that's exactly why I'm reaching out to you today. Because Sulaiman needs help, and we have a way to get it to him.

Thanks to GoFundMe, and with me (Gerrit Elbrink) personally overseeing the process, every single cent of your donation will go directly to Sulaiman and his family. There are zero transfer fees, no hidden charges, no organizations skimming money off the top. Nothing gets lost in transit. This is a direct, person-to-person act of support.

What's more, unlike many physical aid shipments that are blocked, delayed, or turned back due to severe import restrictions. Yes, let's call it what it is: this brutal, real-life siege. But your financial support will make it through. I will personally ensure that your donation reaches Sulaiman swiftly and safely, in the form that helps him most immediately.

So please—don't be discouraged by the size of the crisis, or feel like your help won't make a difference. It will. Every contribution, no matter how small, is a lifeline. You have the power to help someone survive the unthinkable and maybe even find a moment of peace and dignity in the chaos.

Let's show what solidarity really looks like. Help a brother out. Help make this world just a little kinder, a little fairer, and a little more human. For all of us.

Financial Requirements:

 Entry Fees & School Materials (Cairo): ~€7,500 (Covering entry fees, essential books, and equipment)

How You Can Support:

 📌 GoFundMe Campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/surviving-an-onslaught

 🪙 Bitcoin (BTC) Address: ⁠15hhENX79tZy7MSxSJekewhdSN8jh92kRr⁠

 🪙 TRON (TRC20) Address: ⁠TBjNGTPXxC93wHvj8zyPpyfRciEy2Qykf3⁠

Every donation, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to education, stability, and dignity. If you are unable to donate, please consider sharing this story. One share could reach someone who can make a difference.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story and for giving us hope when hope feels so far away.

With gratitude,

Soliman

A Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil refinery inside Russia on Thursday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he was “done” with an energy ceasefire that was announced by President Trump on Sunday. While there was never any real truce agreement between the two sides, Ukraine did appear to refrain from hitting Russian refineries […]

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