vclolelove

[bobyram]

one of my favourite things about the avs social media videos is that someone will always find a way to call landy hot whenever he’s brought into the conversation

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Monday, Protect Kids Colorado announced at a sparsely attended press conference that all its anti-transgender ballot initiatives failed to meet the signature requirements to appear on the 2024 ballot. The initiatives included a forced outing bill and a transgender sports ban, as well as previously failed measures such as banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. Colorado joins a series of states where anti-trans ballot initiatives have failed to meet the ballot signature requirements, indicating potential fatigue on the issue among conservative voters.

"We are striving to make Colorado a safer place to live for families and children. Despite falling short of the required signatures to make the 2024 ballot, we consider this ballot initiative effort a major success," the group announced to a handful of people carrying signs. The only video of the press conference appeared on a small YouTube account titled "1A Media," which briefly panned to show only two other people attending. The group was responsible for two ballot initiatives approved for signature collection. The first, titled “Parental Notification of Gender Incongruence,” would have required public school employees to notify parents of any observed gender incongruence among students, effectively instituting a "forced outing" policy. The second, titled “Public Athletics Programs For Minors,” aimed to bar transgender individuals from participating in sports according to their gender identity. Other initiatives, such as “Prohibit Certain Medical Procedures For Minors,” which sought to ban gender-affirming care in the state, had failed earlier in the process.

The initiatives were heavily promoted by SPLC-designated hate groups and anti-transgender activists. Riley Gaines, for instance, called on "parents, coaches, spiritual leaders" to support the initiative effort on the Protect Kids California channel. Chloe Cole, who had pushed a similar failed initiative in California, also boosted the organization on her Twitter account. Gays Against Groomers Colorado posted the most widely viewed announcement, stating, "Although we were not successful in this round to get these issues onto the ballot, we were successful in educating Colorado voters about what is happening to children and motivating parents to become involved." Anti-transgender ballot initiatives, once touted by influential activists as the next front in targeting transgender people, have faced significant setbacks in recent months. In Arizona, Republican Senator Ken Bennett cast the deciding vote against a ballot referendum that would have banned transgender youth from using bathrooms matching their gender identity. He expressed concerns about the constitutionality of the bill and mentioned in a separate hearing that he had family members who would be affected. Had he voted in favor of the bill, the question would have appeared on the 2024 ballot.

Good news: Anti-trans ballot measures fail to make the ballot in Colorado.

The two that were rejected were a forced outing and a ban on trans sports in genders matching their gender identity instead of gender assigned at birth.

A gender-affirming care ban was rejected at an earlier stage.

[stealth-science]

There was a nice looking tornado on the north side of town today.

[boxwinebaddie]

i am so sorry about this, but for iconic and comedic purposes, and because i think it is my only chance...i think because put jk in all the clean, sleek, minimalistic dark academia fits ( and made him the fkn scariest top dom motherfucker alive >.> ) and put rm!stan as raven in all the thotty gothy hot topic rockstar boy looks ( ilu tiny pants ) ...

i think it's only fair that...

my bitchy, ginger, picky snobby ricky bobby ken doll son, AKA, red hot tire siren, toxic orange pit viper and mean green newjay devil -- who wears more comme de garcons/moshino than prada, imo -- espn celebpretty sh(it) boy, twitter's favorite #cred#head, /my/ precious daytona 500 winning pookie ( dirtbag ) and the #supreme tmz trashed-and-slated nastyboy of nascar racing, the one, the only...

Kyle 'Break Check!' Broflovski <3

should get to wear all the dramatic af, xxxtreme sportyspice, ubergay nightmarish perish hilton, twinky talladega nights, white #trashion, vodka&redheadbull, apple bottom jeans boots w the fur club fits <3

( also just for shits and gigs, pls note: toolshed stan is a super casual, fashionably challenged but unbothered old carhartt beanie, oversized flannel n beat up work boot wearin king...so i'm laaugghingsdk )

like...i am sorry, but this is the right answer:

[stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu]

@annieqattheperipheral

Here are some of the scrapped logo designs for the team.

I can go into the story a little deeper if anyone wants, but the gist of it is that they were originally going to name the team Rocky Mountain Extreme, but when the public found out, there was such an outpouring of hate, that the owners did a hard 180 and instead did a poll of possible names.

In the fan poll, which included names such as Avalanche, Black Bears, Cougars, Outlaws, Rapids, Renegades, Storm, and Wranglers, the name Cougars ended up winning.

But the owners had the last say, and Avalanche ended being the golden name. It was a very unique name at the time since it was in reference to the dangerous snow slides that can happen in the mountainous area of Colorado.

And that’s how the Colorado Avalanche as we know them came to be.

Though it’s quite a shame that the Quebec Nordiques got sold since they were about to have a kind of sick rebrand.

[aurademortt]

[c-suvroc]

I-70 to Idaho Springs, Colorado.

March 2024

[jensorensen]

Predictable Pattern

I think it's safe to say that if the GOP had not launched an aggressive demonization campaign against drag performers in recent months, falsely linking them to child abuse, those people at Club Q in Colorado Springs would still be alive today. The same applies for threats of violence against trans people and the medical professionals who provide care for them. The party now thrives on barely-veiled threats of violence and intimidation.

Support these comics by joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.

[alister312]

friendship beach vacation :)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

Colorado officials, including the state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, who is gay, are countering a claim by Gays Against Groomers, an extremist group, that Polis supports their mission. The group, known for spreading harmful disinformation about the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender people, falsely claimed on social media that the governor had publicly recognized their work to “protect children” from the so-called “grooming” they accuse LGBTQ+ people of perpetrating.

On Monday evening, Gays Against Groomers posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Gays Against Groomers would like to thank Colorado Governor @jaredpolis for his public recognition for our hard work in protecting children across the state. It means so much to us. We are just getting started!” Accompanying the post was an image of what appeared to be an official state document bearing the Colorado seal and claiming that Polis had flown a flag over the Capitol in their honor. The document read, “This accompanying Colorado State Flag was flown at the Colorado State Capitol Building on October 1st, 2024, by authorization of Governor Jared Polis in honor of Gays Against Groomers. The people of Colorado present this flag to Gays Against Groomers with thanks and recognition for all their work to protect children.”

Jaimee Michell, the group’s founder, further amplified the false claim by writing, “So amazing. And Governor Polis is a Democrat, no less! To everyone who says we are far right, you are sorely mistaken. Protecting children is not a partisan issue. It is a moral one.”

The claim is entirely false, according to Colorado officials. The controversy stems from Gays Against Groomers’ use of Colorado’s Ceremonial Flag program. This program allows individuals and organizations to request that flags be flown over the State Capitol. However, the Department of Personnel and Administration, which oversees the program, did not vet the request appropriately. Within 90 minutes of The Advocate reaching out to the DPA for comment Tuesday morning, the Ceremonial Flag request program webpage was taken down, with a notice saying the form was “temporarily down.”

[...]

LGBTQ+ advocates and organizations denounced the extremist group’s deception. One Colorado, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ+ rights, called the group out in a statement sent to The Advocate.

"One Colorado strongly condemns the deceptive actions of Gays Against Groomers (GAG), who continue to misrepresent themselves as a supportive LGBTQIA+ group. This behavior reveals a profound lack of integrity and undermines the values of honesty and transparency that we uphold," the statement read. "It is crucial to recognize that Gays Against Groomers is an extremist group that seeks to invalidate and erase transgender individuals through harmful tactics. Their statements should not be taken seriously." One Colorado emphasized that GAG consistently spreads misinformation about gender-expansive people and gender-affirming care, putting youth at risk. "The true threat to children comes from groups that claim to protect them while actively working to dismantle decades of progress achieved by the LGBTQIA+ community," the statement continued. The organization also highlighted Gov. Polis’s longstanding support for the transgender community, including his issuance of a proclamation for Transgender Day of Visibility in March 2024. “We have reached out to the Governor’s office for clarity on this situation,” One Colorado added.

Gays Against Groomers, founded in 2022, has gained notoriety for promoting dangerous and false reports about the LGBTQ+ community. The group has equated gender-affirming care with pedophilia and repeatedly targeted LGBTQ+ people, including educators, healthcare providers, and drag performers, labeling them “groomers.” Following the 2022 mass shooting at Colorado Springs’ Club Q, Michell claimed such tragedies would continue “until we end this evil agenda” of gender-affirming care. Both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have designated Gays Against Groomers as an extremist group. According to the ADL, GAG spreads “dangerous and misleading narratives” about the LGBTQ+ community and engages in harassment campaigns that fuel real-world violence. The SPLC further notes that GAG’s rhetoric aligns with far-right extremist ideologies and has helped incite violent actions, including attacks on LGBTQ+ spaces and events.

Anti-LGBTQ+ far-right hate group Gays Against Groomers falsely claims that gay Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis supports their agenda.

[ivorysorrows]

I absolutely need to make the woods around my cottage even more sinister

[thechembow]

From Rain to Snow in SoCal Mountains

Feb. 6, 2024

We're expecting snow for the next few days. We've hardly had a break from precipitation in Cailfornia and we are now seeing the biggest results of the Denver gifting trip three months later. The point of that trip was to enhance the winter precipitation and it worked. I was expecting more snow than rain, but gridding Albuquerque and Tucson following Denver has brought more moisture from the south.

We have had a lot more rain in the mountains that we've seen in eight years here, even at normally dry times, like January. There has been a lot of snow too, but temperatures have been hovering around freezing, so we've had a mix lately and not much accumulation below 6000 feet. That is changing tonight. Last night's snow melted off, but for the next few days, temperatures should be cold enough at lower elevations for several inches of accumulation. We have a Winter Storm Warning in effect in northern Ventura and Kern County mountains.

I expect that when we tackle a northern city again, we will see more snow returning. Our eyes on on Idaho, a western state we have not gifted yet. Gridding Boise will have a major impact as just about everything to the west of it has already been done. Reno still needs a grid, having only been gifted along freeways. Our work in California is almost complete, with only a little filling in here and there. We have been gridding California, including all the cities, for eight years. Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico are thoroughly gridded, but we will still do more. Our first west of the Rockies gifting (and through the Rockies gifting) other than Santa Fe in 2018 was Denver in October 2023.

Precipitation for the next seven days. Everyone is getting some!

[commiepinkofag]

not that we need statistics to feel the hate & effects of violence/violent rhetoric… i need to see politicians and media held accountable for their active roles and implicit support of terrorism against the queer community. 

Escalating Right-Wing Attacks on the LGBTQ+ Community

Posted by Jay Ulfelder, September 30, 2022 Statistics: Crowd Counting Consortium

In 2022, the American right has sharply escalated its attacks on gay and transgender people and the broader queer community. This escalation shows up in the Crowd Counting Consortium’s data as a steep and sustained increase in the rate of right-wing demonstrations pushing anti-LGBTQ+ claims.

These anti-LGBTQ+ actions represent a still-modest but growing fraction of all right-wing protests and demonstrations in the U.S. In CCC’s data, the monthly share of right-wing events with anti-LGBTQ+ claims stayed at or close to zero from the start of collection in 2017 until mid-2022. By September of this year, however, it had increased to about 16 percent.

A substantial share of these recent anti-LGBTQ+ events have explicitly targeted transgender people.

[id: charts illustrate the sharp rise in monthly counts of anti-lgbtq+ demonstrations in the US from 2017 to 2022]

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Colorado Springs shooting, in which a gunman killed five people and wounded more than a dozen at a queer nightclub on November 19, has already been framed as a failure of red flag laws, policies designed to allow law enforcement to disarm people considered a clear risk to themselves or others.

But in this case, it appears a red flag order could have been used against the suspect — and local officials may have chosen not to.

Of 64 counties in the state, El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs, is one of at least 37 counties that have declared themselves a “Second Amendment sanctuary” and openly defied the state’s gun laws. El Paso County’s commissioners did so in response to the state’s proposed red flag law in 2019.

“We’re not going to pursue these on our own,” El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder said as the law was being debated in the state Legislature, “meaning the Sheriff’s Office is not going to run over and try to get a court order.” Elder has said that the Sheriff’s Office would enforce court orders, but that it wouldn’t pursue petitions on its own, except in some extreme circumstances.

Data suggests that Elder has been true to his word. In Colorado, red flag petitions can be filed by law enforcement, or a family or household member. An analysis of court records by 9News found that, between January 2020, when the law went into effect, and November 2021, just 39 risk protection order petitions were filed in El Paso County, the most populous county in the state, with more than 737,000 residents. Only eight of those petitions — or 21% — were granted.

None of the approved petitions were filed by law enforcement, the 9News analysis shows. Unlike most counties in the state, they were all initiated by family and household members.

“Oftentimes, law enforcement are the people who are coming into contact with individuals who pose a danger to themselves or others,” said Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “If they’re not using them, they’re going to be less effective.”

In the case of the Club Q shooting, the suspect — who was charged Monday with multiple murder and hate crimes charges — allegedly threatened in June 2021 to detonate a bomb and harm his mother with “multiple weapons.” He was arrested and charged with multiple felonies, although the charges were later dropped.

The suspect’s history made him an ideal candidate for a gun removal order under a red flag law. Yet he was never subject to one, and legally purchased the two guns he allegedly used in the shooting.

Colorado’s Extreme Risk Protection Orders law is not an automatic process and requires cooperation from local law enforcement and from the community members it aims to protect. Unlike other states that have removed guns from thousands of people deemed dangerous, as in Florida, Colorado’s state courts have issued relatively few risk protection orders.

Under Colorado law, for an order to be granted barring someone from possessing or purchasing firearms, a law enforcement official or agency, or a family or household member, must file a petition in court and show that a person is a risk to themselves or others. A judge can then grant a temporary risk protection order lasting up to 14 days, after which point they can grant a final extreme risk protection order lasting up to one year, though the order can be extended further if warranted.

But, according to its website the El Paso Sheriff’s Office will not petition for a red flag order except in some “exigent circumstances,” or if there is probable cause that a crime has been or will be committed. Elder has said that he believes the law violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

“It is the policy of the Sheriff’s Office to respect and protect the constitutional rights of all those we serve,” reads a post on its website. “The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office will ensure that the rights of people to be free from unreasonable search and seizures, and to receive due process of law, are safeguarded and maintained.”

By contrast, in less populous Denver County to the north, law enforcement and family filed some 63 petitions, and judges issued a risk protection order in 79% of those cases. Of the 50 orders approved, 47 were filed by law enforcement.

Denver County’s statistics, unlike El Paso County’s, reflect a national trend, according to Anderman: Law enforcement officers and agencies are more likely to file and be granted a red flag petition, she said, in part because family members are often intimidated by the process of going to court, and in at least seven states, only law enforcement officials are allowed to petition for a red flag order.

But leaving the implementation of red flag laws to local, elected law enforcement officials like sheriffs allows politics to interfere. Unlike city or state police, county sheriffs are elected and, according to a national survey, many of them believe that gun laws go too far and, in several cases, have refused to implement them.

“There is a pattern of sheriffs trying to step in and proclaim their authority to both set policy, as well as enforce policy,” said Emily Farris, an associate professor of political science at Texas Christian University. Along with Mirya Holman, of Tulane University and the Marshall Project, Farris surveyed more than 500 sheriffs about their views of their authority. “They themselves feel that they get to interpret whether or not something is constitutional, and what their office is or is not going to do.”

Some states have taken steps to train law enforcement officials and residents on how to file red flag petitions. In New York, where a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo prompted questions about the state’s red flag law, Governor Kathy Hochul ordered State Police to file for red flag orders whenever they have probable cause. The directive, along with a new law passed by the state Legislature requiring all law enforcement agencies to increase their use of red flag orders, led to a substantial increase in red flag petitions.

While Hochul’s order appears to have increased red flag applications among the agencies she can control, it may not affect county sheriffs. Governors can control state police, and city councils can control city police, but sheriffs offices lack that same oversight.

“Sheriffs have really been overlooked in their role in gun control because it’s these kinds of laws, like red flag laws, that either involve law enforcement doing the petition, or rely on law enforcement’s right to enforce the petition,” Farris said. “So you can have this uneven enforcement even within one state because sheriffs are individually asserting themselves. It underscores the importance of paying attention to who your sheriff is. If they choose not to [enforce red flag laws], if they just disagree, there’s very little oversight mechanisms to make them.”

The sheriff in El Paso County is not the only local official who opposed the red flag law. Republican District Attorney Michael Hall, who assumed office in January 2021, took an even tougher stance against the law when campaigning for the office in 2020. “This law is a poor excuse to take people’s guns and is not designed in any way to address real concrete mental health concerns,” he wrote on Facebook in January of that year.

A month later, he went even further, writing that those living in his judicial district “can rest easy” knowing that the District Attorney’s Office “will not participate in ‘red flag’ confiscation.”

[aurademortt]

🩸 My Instagram is Cardaver Art 🩸 go and give me some support!

[quaranmine]

watching adventure archive's most recent video, right after watching their yellowstone video, and i'm starting to piece together in my head that perhaps a years worth of watching their videos and Yearning has also contributed greatly to me writing firewatch au