Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Crazy Lauren and Crazy Marjorie



Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert shut down rumors that she was ever romantically involved with Christian country singer Sean Feucht on the heels of her sudden divorce filing, RadarOnline.com has learned.

Rumors have been swirling that Boebert had been in a fling with the guitar-strumming preacher, who previously made headlines for protesting COVID-19 and praising DonaldTrump, after tweets surfaced showing the two posing alongside each other at various events.



Do you believe it?

I don't.  To be clear, I don't believe the rumor that she was having an affair with Feucht.  I have two reasons for that.  First, it's a shock that she ever attracted a man in the first place.  Foundation does not hide that rugged skin.  Second, if she wanted to have an affair with Melissa Etheridge, why go after a look alike?  That is who Sean Feucht looks like, Melissa Etheridge.  Now I'm sure Melissa would have turned her down had Boe-Boe propositioned her.  But unless Boe-Boe is latent, there's no reason for her to have relations with Sean Feucht. 

Where there is stupid, there is Boe-Boe and there is also Marjorie Taylor Greene.  The latest on MTG:

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene attempted to downplay an unearthed video of her boyfriend dressed in drag, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The outspoken Georgia representative was given a taste of her own medicine by internet trolls who spread the video online, labeling her a hypocrite for pushing anti-drag legislation that targeted the LGBT+ community. However, Greene casually dismissed the stunt as "so stupid."
While Marjorie is probably an expert on stupid -- having logged so many hours polishing up on ignorance -- the fact remains that her current boyfriend wore drag. I guess that explains his attraction to Marjie, right?  She looks like a Teamster in drag -- no offense to Teamsters.  It must be hard for her to realize that the only reason he was with her was because she so closely resembled a man.


Left-wing Twitter account PatriotTakes posted a video clip of MTG's newscaster beau Brian Glenn. The video featured Glenn donning a blonde wig, pink dress, white gloves and matching handbag for a local news segment.

During his sign-off, Glenn joked with his colleagues back at the station that he was "kicking these shoes off, but I may keep the pantyhose on. It does feel kind of good actually."


By the way, Marjorie, if Brian's related to Amy from that same area, let me be the first to tell you: You and Brian really deserve each other -- karmically.  Be sure to check on that Marjorie -- or suffer the consequences. 

 

"TV: The four stories of LOVE TO LOVE YOU, DONNA SUMMER" (Ava and C.I., THE THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW):

Donna found religion in October 1979.  Apparently, it had been the devil giving her all of those hits in the 70s. It's amazing that someone who ripped off Laura Nyro could avoid all of Laura's songs about the devil and the drama.   


Donna was basically the female Little Richard in that she had a great career and people loved her but apparently God was calling her back, to hear her tell it.  Drugs, she insisted as the 70s wound down, had led her astray.  She was repenting, she was reborn. And she planned to give up pop music for gospel but couldn't find a label to sign her for that in 1980.


Artistically speaking, she was now boring as hell.  So boring, that NBC cancelled the deal that they had with her to do a special in the fall of 1981. Her longtime producer and songwriting partner Giorgio Moroder told SPIN magazine about a decade ago that Donna was always a homophobe.  That may be true.

 

But once she was born-again, she felt the need to 'testify' at her concerts.  No one needed that.  Later in her life, in the documentary, she makes a joke about that.  They paid to hear songs and have some fun and there's Donna trying to save their souls.  And on those concerts, also not noted in the documentary, Donna wasn't performing "Love To Love You Baby" -- she's announced as she entered her born-again phase that she was done with that sinful song.

 

It's in that world that she makes her statement about AIDS being God's punishment for gay men.  

 

Fierce and defensive Donna fans who can't handle the truth -- check out any DATALOUNGE post on Donna, if you doubt us -- will to this day show up and insist that Donna never made homophobic remarks.  They will insist that not only did she not make the AIDS remark, she never made any homophobic remarks at all. They'll type that there's no evidence.  They'll say it would be on film.  They'll hiss that gay men made up her audience and she wouldn't turn on them.

 

Like the documentary, they apparently have no idea that Donna cited drug use as leading her away from God and letting her record music that she was now ashamed of.  She had already announced as the 80s began that she would not be performing "Love To Love You Baby" in concert anymore.  She would tell CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN MUSIC in 1981 that she hoped to drop "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls" next.  That's why she hated "The Queen of Disco" label.  She identified it with sin.  And she was rejecting that past -- that acclaim -- and the audience that gave it to her.  

 

In the documentary, one of her sisters talks about how Donna got on stage and made her God didn't create "Adam and Steve" remarks.  That was part of her 'testifying' and it was part of her 'retribution' for her own sinful past.  She said it.  She said it in Atlanta and elsewhere.

 

We'll give the documentary credit for copping to that.  We honestly didn't think it would before we watched.  

 

However, the documentary then wants to quibble over whether she made the AIDS comment as well.  No, she didn't, the documentary insists. Yes, she did.  She said that in Florida and, publicly, stated to the Canadian press two years afterwards that she thought AIDS was like herpes and, if she'd known people were dying from it, she never would have said it.  In 1989, she gave a variation on that in an interview with THE ADVOCATE declaring, "At the time, I thought AIDS was a herpes pimple, like you get on your mouth.  I certainly didn't have any idea what it really was, and certainly if I had, in my heart I would not wish AIDS on anyone." So her defense was both homophobia and stupidity?

 

"Adam and Steve" leads right into that comment about AIDS, first of all.  So let's all grasp that and grasp that she had become a public homophobe (again, according to Moroder, she was always one in private). 


The documentary wants to focus on Donna's 1989 letter (to ACT UP and THE VILLAGE VOICE) and play the lie that Donna put in that letter -- she's only recently learned about the rumors, her staff and her family had hidden them from her to avoid her being hurt and she was busy giving birth to two daughters and . . .


1982 and 1981 -- that's when Amanda and Brooklyn were born. (Mimi was born in 1973.)  Clay Cane typed at THE ADVOCATE, in 2012, that after the comments "[s]he soon released a statement."  He then rushes to quote from that 1989 letter.  But Donna responded -- in writing and in interviews -- many times prior to 1989 and those earlier responses make claims that 1989 letter questionable.    She made the homophobic comments throughout 1983 and on into 1984, at one concert after another.  Donna did respond in 1985 -- in a letter WARNER BROTHERS -- owner of GEFFEN RECORDS -- sent to THE ADVOCATE and to THE VILLAGE VOICE.  Donna wanted to claim in 1989 that she didn't know about it at first, people kept it from her and that's why she was slow to respond. 

 

Reality: She knew about the problem.  After her initial remarks in Atlanta, she got confronted on it by fans.  In addition, in 1985, Geffen tried to put her in an AIDS benefit that Lorne Michaels was organizing and Lorne made clear that no one would go for that because of her remarks.  David Geffen told her that she had been turned down for the benefit and why.   The homophobic remarks were noted in ROLLING STONE in a 1984 article on Bronski Beat (which had covered "I Feel Love").


She was okay with all that.


Read the whole thing, it's really something.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, May 23, 2023.  Joe Biden again claims Beau Biden died in Iraq, Marianne Williamson's campaign continues to self-implode, an American is convicted of torture (sadly, it's not Bully Boy Bush who got convicted), and much more.


US President Joe Biden has once again come under fire for claiming that his late son Beau "lost his life in Iraq" -- a statement that alludes to the president's long-held view that poisonous burn pits were to blame for the younger Biden's brain cancer death at the age of 46. After making similar remarks at least twice earlier in the year, the president made his most recent ones to US troops stationed in Japan during his visit to the nation.


Yes, we're back to that again.  

Joe Biden recently told Marines stationed in Japan that his son Beau died in the Iraq war—an incorrect statement that the president has puzzlingly made several times in the past. “My son was a major in the U.S. Army. We lost him in Iraq,” Biden told the troops in Iwakuni on Thursday, according to a video obtained by the New York Post. Despite his son actually dying of brain cancer at the Walter Reed military hospital in Maryland, Biden has made the same claim about Beau’s death at least twice before. Last October, Biden told an audience in Colorado that Beau “lost his life in Iraq.” Just weeks later, he said “I’m thinking about Iraq because that’s where my son died,” during a speech in Florida. In reality, Beau died in 2015 after battling stage four glioblastoma—a diagnosis that the president has previously attributed to the “burn pits” in Iraq, which the military used to destroy trash while Beau was deployed from 2008 to 2009.

THE DAILY MAIL points out, "His death may have been linked to burn pits he encountered while serving in Iraq, although Beau did not die while fighting in the Middle East."  But Gustaf Kilander (INDEPENDENT) goes full on enabler in "Critics say Biden is lying about how his son Beau died – they are ignoring the full story:"


Right-wing media outlets have attempted to use Mr Biden’s comments on Beau’s death as a sign that the 80-year-old Democrat has memory issues, ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
[. . .]

In 2016, then the vice president, Mr Biden said his son’s cancer could have been caused by the toxic burn pits he was exposed to during his service in the Middle East.

The New York Times reported that Mr Biden said he was “stunned” when he read a chapter concerning the death of his son in the book The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers by Joseph Hickman.


First off, it's not a sign of 'cognitive decline.'  Or, if it is, it was evident before he was elected.  I'm not in the mood to spoonfeed lousy reporters who can't do their job.  But Joe made those remarks on the campaign trail.  We called it out in real time.  And a sign of just how sorry Gustaf is, 

Second, Gustaf and other lazies, there's no reason in the world to refer to some stupid NEW YORK TIMES article.  THE TIMES has 'reporting issues' to put it kindly.  If you want to go to Joe discussing burnpits and Beau, you go to that.

Which is right here, 'journalists.'






Biden also said that reading “The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers,” a book on the topic by Joseph Hickman, which included a chapter on his son Beau, opened his eyes to the possibility of a link to his son’s cancer.

“There’s a whole chapter on my son Beau in there, and that stunned me. I didn’t know that,” Biden said. He added, the author “went back and looked at Beau’s tenure as a civilian with the U.S. attorney’s office [in Kosovo] and then his year in Iraq. And he was co-located in both times near these burn pits.”


Joe's been making these statements forever.  If you're now appalled by it, my big question would be: Where were you when it started?

Because we've called it out all along, long before he became president.

Beau did not die in Iraq.  He came back to the US and died six years later.  

People shouldn't try to justify it or enable him on this. He needs to be held accountable.  But, again, this didn't happen this year or last year or in 2021 for the first time.  It may be a sign of something, but it's not a new cognitive decline because, again, he was making the statements that Beau died in Iraq while on the campaign trail.

Since we're discussing presidential campaigns, let me note how I love the liars.  Oh those Marianne Williamson freaks.  They lie and then they lie again.  We told you, before POLITICO ever published the story about Marianne's 'interacting difficulties,' that she was a nightmare to work with and that this went back decades.  Then POLITICO does their story about how Marianne terrorized campaign staff during her failed 2020 run fo the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.  And The Merry Mariannes rushed to tell you it was lies, all lies.  POLITICO did another report about how her current campaign is in shambles and The Merry Mariannes are back insisting it's a lie.

It's not a lie.

The departure came about when Marianne ranted and raved over how her polling was stagnant and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had passed her in the polling from the moment he announced his candidacy.  That was the fault, she insisted, of her campaign.

Because 'positive thinking' never allows Marianne to own up to her own failures.

As this very public battle took place -- with four other players present -- it was offered to Marianne that she was ignoring key issues and maybe addressing them would bring her more support.  She sneered at the issues (which including that she needed to call out the war on the LGBTQ+ community) and said she was a "big thinking" candidate and these little issues were "beneath" her.  

The campaign's not going off the rails, it is off the rails.

This may surprise but, despite her well known vanity,  Marianne remains incapable of self-examination.  Oh sure, she's always been her own favorite topic.  But she can't admit any wrong doing and her own 'introspection' plays out like gushing press releases.

She's killing her own campaign.  

More say they will be leaving soon.

The Merry Mariannes throw hissy fits online and have been doing that since day one.  Remember Krystal Ball screeching and screaming that everybody get on board with Marianne?

They're idiots.  Marianne is not happening and won't ever happen unless the candidate learns to listen.

It'll never happen because the professional 'speaker' doesn't believe listening is part of an exchange since she never got paid to listen.

The Merry Mariannes can lie and spin and even deceive themselves but, currently, the only one who appears to be a viable candidate to rival Joe is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.







In other news, WFMZ reports:

A Stroudsburg man has been convicted in federal court of torturing an Estonian citizen in 2015 in Iraq.

The U.S. Department of Justice says it was in connection with running an illegal weapons manufacturing plant in Kurdistan.

Ross Roggio, 54, was convicted of torturing an employee who raised concerns about what they were doing.


On the matter, the US Justice Dept issued the following:

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, May 22, 2023

Man Convicted of Torture and Exporting Weapons Parts and Related Services to Iraq

A federal jury convicted a Pennsylvania man on May 19 for numerous crimes, including the torture of an Estonian citizen in 2015 in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, in connection with the operation of an illegal weapons manufacturing plant in Kurdistan.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Ross Roggio, 54, of Stroudsburg, arranged for Kurdish soldiers to abduct and detain the victim at a Kurdish military compound where Roggio suffocated the victim with a belt, threatened to cut off one of his fingers, and directed Kurdish soldiers to repeatedly beat, tase, choke, and otherwise physically and mentally abuse the victim over a 39-day period. The victim was employed at a weapons factory that Roggio was developing in the Kurdistan region of Iraq that was intended to manufacture M4 automatic rifles and Glock 9mm pistols.

In connection with the weapons factory project, which included Roggio providing training to foreign persons in the operation, assembly, and manufacturing of the M4 automatic rifle, Roggio also illegally exported firearm parts that were controlled for export by the Departments of State and Commerce.

“Roggio brutally tortured another human being to prevent interference with his illegal activities,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Thanks to the courage of the victim and other witnesses, the hard work of U.S. law enforcement, and the assistance of Estonian authorities, he will now be held accountable for his cruelty.”

“Today’s guilty verdict demonstrates that Roggio’s brutal acts of directing and participating in the torture of an employee over the course of 39 days by Kurdish soldiers could not avoid justice,” said U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. “We thank all the prosecutors and law enforcement agents who worked tirelessly to address these acts that occurred in Iraq.”

“Today’s milestone conviction is the result of the extraordinary courage of the victim, who came forward after the defendant inflicted unspeakable pain on him for more than a month,” said Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “Torture is among the most heinous crimes the FBI investigates, and together with our partners at the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, we will relentlessly pursue justice.”

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is firmly dedicated to pursuing those who commit human rights violations, like Roggio, to ensure perpetrators face justice for their atrocities,” said Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director Tae D. Johnson of ICE. “Our investigators will continue to work tirelessly with government partners so these horrendous acts do not go without consequence.”

“The illegal export of firearms parts and tools from the United States often goes hand in hand with other criminal activities, such as the charge of torture on which the jury voted to convict the defendant,” said Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Carson of the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Office of Export Enforcement, New York Field Office. “I commend our law enforcement colleagues for their dedication to bringing justice in this case.”

Roggio was convicted of torture, conspiracy to commit torture, conspiring to commit an offense against the United States, exporting weapons parts and services to Iraq without the approval of the Department of State, exporting weapons tools to Iraq without the approval of the Department of Commerce, smuggling goods, wire fraud, and money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 23 and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Roggio is the second defendant to be convicted of torture since the federal torture statute went into effect in 1994.

The FBI and HSI investigated the torture and were joined in investigating the export control violations related to the firearms manufacturing equipment by the Department of Commerce’s BIS Office of Export Enforcement.

Trial Attorney Patrick Jasperse of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, Trial Attorney Scott A. Claffee of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd K. Hinkley for the Middle District of Pennsylvania are prosecuting the case. The Estonian Internal Security Service, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, and the Pennsylvania State Police also provided valuable assistance.

Members of the public who have information about human rights violators in the United States are urged to contact U.S. law enforcement through the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the HSI tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE, or complete the FBI online tip form or the ICE online tip form.




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    • Posted by at

    Tuesday, May 23, 2023

    White supremacists Marjorie Taylor Green and Anya Parampil

    Crazy Marjorie Taylor Greene?  Chauncey DeVaga (SALON) notes her:



    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a very tedious person. Even writing her name drains one's energy; she's like a fascist black hole.

    So what is the best way to respond to someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene? Should we ignore her, and those of her ilk, and hope that she will magically disappear? Are those of us with a public platform elevating Marjorie Taylor Greene by giving her too much attention and therefore giving her more power and influence than she merits?

    The answer is no.

    Marjorie Taylor Greeene is a very dangerous person, a leading member of the Republican Party and larger neofascist movement. Proving that to be true once again, last week Marjorie Taylor Greene summoned up the country's unique history of white on Black spectacular lynchings and other white supremacist violence in an attempt to gain political leverage, attention and more power.

    MTG claims that calling her a "white supremacist" is the same as calling a Black person the "N-word"

    On Wednesday, Greene and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., were involved in what was by all reasonable accounts an animated and somewhat heated, albeit playful, conversation on the steps of the Capitol after a procedural vote on expelling indicted felon Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., from office.

    On Thursday, Marjorie Taylor Greene held a press conference where she told bald-faced lies about Bowman's behavior and her interactions with him the previous day and in the past, as Salon's Tatyana Tandanpolie summarized:

    Greene at a Thursday news conference said that she is "very concerned" about the "history of aggression" she claimed Bowman has toward her and other members of Congress. She described her perspective of the altercation, saying that Bowman approached her "yelling, shouting, raising his voice," which led to the argument.

    "He has aggressive — his physical mannerisms are aggressive," she said, adding, "I think there's a lot of concern about Jamaal Bowman, and I am concerned about it. I feel threatened by him."

    Greene claimed on Thursday that Bowman accosted her with a "mob" when she traveled to New York to protest Trump's indictment on felony charges of falsifying business records. She said that Bowman cursed at her, "shouted at the top of his lungs" and called her a "white supremacist," a remark that deeply offended her….




    Greene added that she felt "swarmed" and feared for her life.

    Greene's statements are not true. Her life was not threatened or in any way endangered by Rep. Bowman either on Wednesday or during her publicity stunt in New York in support of the traitor and now indicted and arrested former president and alleged felon Donald Trump.

    I also think we need to note hate merchant Anya Parampil.  She is a transphobe.  We knew that already.  She's also a very smug person who has no reason to be (especially not with that unsightly bulge below her navel).  She's now attacking birth control which is bad enough; however, she's using right winger Jack Posobice to do it.

    Who?





    Posobiec is known for his pro-Donald Trump comments on Twitter, as well as using white supremacist and antisemitic symbols and talking points, including the white genocide conspiracy theory.[15][16][17][18] He has repeatedly planted false and derogatory claims about political figures in an effort to damage his opponents. He has promoted fake news, including the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory claiming high-ranking Democratic Party officials were involved in a child sex ring.[19][20] He was also a promoter of the Stop the Steal movement.[2]

    From 2018 to 2021, Posobiec was employed by One America News Network (OANN), a far-right cable news television channel, as a political correspondent and on-air presenter.[9] He left OANN in May 2021 to begin hosting a show for the conservative student organization Turning Point USA, and to join conservative news site Human Events as a senior editor.[21]


     In November 2017, Posobiec encouraged his Twitter followers to target a woman at her workplace after she came forward with allegations that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore had attempted to have sex with her when she was 14 years old.[40][citation needed] In Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district special election in March 2018, Posobiec supported Democrat Conor Lamb over Republican Rick Saccone. Posobiec described Lamb as a "Pro-Trump Dem veteran".[41]

    Posobiec's social media and political activities are linked to white supremacist movements. He has published multiple posts containing the white supremacist code "1488", or the Fourteen Words, and supports the use of the slogan.[17][18][42][43] The 88 stands for HH, or Heil Hitler.[44][45] In October 2016, Posobiec posted a tweet that included triple parentheses, an antisemitic symbol.[16] In response to a 2017 Anti-Defamation League report on the alt-right, which included Posobiec, he tweeted a selfie of his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial in Poland: "The @ADL_National would be wise to remember what happened the last time people made lists of undesirables".[42]

    In August 2017, following the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to violent clashes between white nationalists and anti-protesters, Posobiec said that the rally had become "massive propaganda" for the left and that the mainstream media was "fanning the flames of this violence." He said that Trump should have disavowed Black Lives Matter. Posobiec later tweeted that he had consistently disavowed white nationalism and violence.[30] He also tweeted that he was "done with trolling" and that it was "time to do the right thing." Posobiec has frequently tweeted about the white supremacist white genocide conspiracy theory.[15][46]

    In June 2020, in Washington, D.C.'s Lincoln Park, Posobiec was shoved and chased for several minutes by a dozen protesters at the Emancipation Memorial. The protesters called Posobiec, who was filming speakers, a Nazi and forced him from the park. Police arrived in a van and, after trying to quell the fracas, helped Posobiec into the van before driving away. Posobiec tweeted later that he was "totally fine" but "filing an assault report with DC police".[47][48]

    On June 9, 2022, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed Posobiec as an extremist, citing his links to hate groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, as well as his links to white nationalists, neo-Nazis, anti-government extremists, and the Polish far-right.[2][49]




    So there you have it, Anya Paramil is a White supremist.  Somehow I'm not surprised.  Are you?  


    "Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

    Monday, May 22, 2023.  As US dollars fly to the Ukraine, the American Taliban works to destroy democracy while, in Australia, Stella Assange calls for the release of her husband Julian.



    The American way?  I think all the dollars that could have supported that have instead been sent to Ukraine.  Barry Grey (WSWS) reports:

    At a press conference Sunday following the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, President Joe Biden called on Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to meet face to face to revive talks on a bipartisan plan to slash social spending in return for raising the nation’s debt ceiling and averting a default.

    Biden spoke after talks between a team of White House advisers and negotiators named by McCarthy broke off on Saturday. The entire debt limit and budget negotiation process has from the start been heavily stage-managed in an attempt to stampede public opinion.

    On Sunday, Biden repeatedly pointed to his proposal to cut more than $1 trillion in discretionary spending as part of a budget deal, making clear that his government is committed to imposing a new wave of austerity measures that will further undermine education, health care, housing, home heating assistance and other vital programs relied upon by millions of working class families.

    Biden announced that he would be calling McCarthy from Air Force One while flying back to Washington. Later on Sunday, McCarthy dropped his accusatory tone toward Biden, called the telephone call “productive” and said the two would meet face to face at the White House on Monday. He also said the negotiating teams for each side would resume their talks later on Sunday.

    What neither he nor the Republicans nor the corporate media point out is the direct connection between the new austerity drive and the ever-expanding cost of the US-led war against Russia in Ukraine. While Biden was in Japan, the US government announced that it had allotted another $375 million to arm Ukraine, part of a feverish escalation that includes providing the right-wing nationalist government in Kiev with F-16 nuclear-capable jets.

    In the barrage of propaganda over the supposed necessity to slash social programs to avert the nation’s first-ever default on its debt obligations—which, according to Treasury Secretary and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, could come as early as June 1—nothing is said about the role of military spending in driving up the debt.

    In fact, social spending as a percentage of GDP has declined sharply since 2011, when the last Democratic administration, headed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, followed its multitrillion-dollar bailout of the banks after the financial crash of 2008 with the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011. That measure imposed a decade-long cap on discretionary spending, sharply reducing in real terms government outlays for education, health care and other vital social needs.

    Military spending, however, has exploded. Last year, the Biden administration allocated $113 billion for the war in Ukraine and enacted a record $1 trillion defense budget.


    How far in do you think the Soviet Union was on Afghanistan before the people realized that the sink hole was going to cost them their country?  From Boston University's GUIDED HISTORY:

    During the 1970’s, Soviet-American relations underwent a thawing period, known as the Detente. This period witnessed the cooperation of the two nations in space, strategic arms limitation talks (otherwise known as SALT), and multiple summits and discussions. This period was abruptly ended in 1979 when the Soviet Union, under the orders of its leader Leonid Brezhnev, led an invasion of Afghanistan after internal political tensions between the Afghan Communists and the Mujahideen rebels threatened the stability of the region.

    The historical significance of this event is mainly embodied in the collapse of the Soviet Union twelve years after the invasion of Afghanistan.  The war put immense stresses on the faulty, centralized economic system of the nation, and along with the radical social reforms set by Mikhail Gorbachev, led to the collapse of the nation. This war would be known as the equivalent to the Vietnam War for the United States, both in economic stresses brought upon by the war, and by the social discontent that it caused.


    Meanwhile, the American Taliban works in this country to destroy rights and democracy.  The Dodgers won't allow a drag group, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, to participate at a Pride event.  Why?  A right-wing group -- yes, it is right-wing, look at its board of advisors  --   The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is having a fit that this drag group dresses up as nuns -- and has done that for years,  Grasp that.  We tend to look amazed when, in other countries, people have hissy fits over cartoons or artistic renderings that send their religious idiots into states of violence.  But what's the real difference between that and attempting to disinvite this group to a Pride event?  There is none.  They are the American Taliban and they and their board of advisors -- Brent Bozell, Linda Chavez, Mary Ann Glendon, Alan Keyes, Tom Monaghan, and George Weigel -- pretend to want to protect children.  But they do nothing to protect them from priests.  

    The American Taliban is destroying the country.  

    Florida is the most obvious spot.  It's where the goon Ron DeSantis just cost the state 2,000 high paying jobs due to his never ending war on DISNEY.  On Saturday, The NAACP issued the following travel alert:

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

    May 20, 2023

    Contact: Chyna Fields cfields@naacpnet.org

    WASHINGTON – Today, the NAACP Board of Directors issued a formal travel advisory for the state of Florida. The travel advisory comes in direct response to Governor Ron DeSantis' aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools. 

    The formal travel notice states, "Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color." 

    "Let me be clear - failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all," said NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson. "Under the leadership of Governor Desantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon. He should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to stand up and fight. We're not backing down, and we encourage our allies to join us in the battle for the soul of our nation."

    The travel advisory was initially proposed to the Board of Directors by NAACP's Florida State Conference. NAACP's collective consideration of this advisory is a result from unrelenting attacks on fundamental freedoms from the Governor and his legislative body. 

    "Once again, hate-inspired state leaders have chosen to put politics over people. Governor Ron DeSantis and the state of Florida have engaged in a blatant war against principles of diversity and inclusion and rejected our shared identities to appeal to a dangerous, extremist minority," said Chair of the NAACP Board of Directors, Leon Russell. "We will not not allow our rights and history to be held hostage for political grandstanding. The NAACP proudly fights against the malicious attacks in Florida, against Black Americans. I encourage my fellow Floridians to join in this fight to protect ourselves and our democracy."

    Following Gov. DeSantis' so-called leadership in driving the state to reject students' access to AP African American studies course in March, the NAACP distributed 10,000 books to 25 predominantly Black communities across the state in collaboration with the American Federation of Teachers's Reading Opens the World program. The majority of the books donated were titles banned under the state's increasingly restrictive laws. The NAACP continues to encourage local branches and youth councils to start community libraries to ensure access to representative literature.

    The NAACP encourages Florida residents to join this effort to defeat the regressive policies of this Governor and this state legislature. Interested residents and supporters can visit www.naacp.org for additional information and updates. 

    ###


    The American Taliban is carrying out a war on democracy.  At THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, attorney Michael F. Roessler writes:


    Republicans in North Carolina and across the nation are using drag as the leading edge of their campaign to roll back decades of progress for queer people. As lawmakers file anti-drag legislation — like House Bill 673, which would make drag a crime if performed on public property or in the presence of anyone under the age of 18 — Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson calls queer people “filth” and compares us unfavorably to cow excrement. Meanwhile, the GOP’s state and national platforms continue to characterize us as corrosive to civil society and seek to strip us of our marriage rights.

    Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article275590336.html#storylink=cpy

    And now, thanks to Rep. Tricia Cotham’s decision to join the Republicans, the party enjoys super-majorities in both houses of the legislature. Given this political reality, getting too cozy with the LGBTQ community by sponsoring a drag event would mean “our Bar Association-backed legislative agenda will be negatively affected,” Morgan told SOGI members. So he canceled the event: Abandoning queer people and endorsing homophobia were costs the NCBA was willing to pay to preserve its political clout in Raleigh. Its pledge to us was conditional. We were expendable.

    Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article275590336.html#storylink=cpy

    Not that selling us out was easy. Morgan said the decision to cancel the drag event pained him. Maybe he felt real pain. Maybe, if it were up to him, he would gladly welcome his queer colleagues into full political, social and cultural equality. Maybe his heart is as good as he says. But his heart doesn’t matter nearly as much as his actions, and the ethical conflict he experienced while contemplating the drag event’s cancellation — along with the choice he made about which side of that moral struggle to endorse — brings to mind Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s letter from Birmingham Jail. As he sat incarcerated for working to dismantle racial segregation, King’s letter targeted not the virulent racists who put him behind bars, but the well-meaning moderates who considered themselves allies of the civil rights movement, even as they expressed disapproval of King’s methods. These purported friends of “lukewarm acceptance” and “shallow understanding,” King wrote, will often leave us “gravely disappointed” because they “prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” And so it is today in the fight for LGBTQ equality.

     

    A trespasser who has since been identified as Charles Jake Messimer is facing the internet’s heat after verbally attacking a Rogue River, Oregon homeowner for their LGBTQ flag. The former walked up to a stranger’s house and questioned them as to why they had the flag hoisted. A video of the same was then uploaded online leading to many hoping to find more information about him. He has since been accused of being against Antifa and Black Lives Matter along with being against the Pride community.

    The video in question garnered immense traction online once posted by popular TikTok figure TizzyEnt. In the video, the homeowner can be seen asking Charles Jake Messimer if she can help him. He goes on to say- “what makes you guys think it’s right to fly that flag.” He was referring to the resident’s Pride flag.

    The videographer responded by saying:

    “I mean my right as a community member. Can you please get off my property before I call the police?”

    Messimer responds by saying- “call them all you want. It’s not acceptable anymore.”

    The trespasser then accused the homeowner of spreading a “disgusting agenda.” He then shouted at her to “get out of Rogue River.”

    At the time of writing this article, the video which was uploaded to TizzyEnt’s Twitter page had amassed over 400K views and counting.


    In other news, Stella Assange is Julian's wife. She spoke to The National Press Club of Australia.



    Stella Assange: I think we need to recognise that we are in a much worse situation in terms of press freedom, the public’s right to know, citizens right, than we were in 2010 when WikiLeaks published about the Iraqi and Afghan wars and the publications that Julian is now being prosecuted for.  Those publications, that moment in time, represented probably press freedom at its strongest, internet freedom at its strongest.  And since then we have seen a series of legislative moves across the Five Eyes and elsewhere as well to stop that kind of thing in different ways and also to limit citizens freedoms in different areas.  I think the publication – it was right for the time and Julian was not prosecuted, he was not indicted until 2017.  So, we’re in a much worse position now than we used to be and that is why it is so important to reverse course because it is not just Julian, the implications of this case mean that we are diverging from this protection that used to exist and unless we are just going deeper and deeper into a far removed [place] from where we used to be, from press freedom at its strongest, from our citizens freedom at their strongest and at the same time, it is not just our freedoms that are being limited – it is that the state has become enormously more powerful through surveillance tools and so on.  Our rights as citizens, our rights as the public, we need to defend those because that’s all we have and then of course the ability to speak the truth, to publish the truth is central to that.


    THE GUARDIAN quotes her stating:


    Australia is the United States most important ally, that is clear. Maybe this was not the case 10 years ago.

    It is important to recognise that Australia plays an important role and can secure Julian’s release.

    Julian’s life is in the hands of the Australian government. It is not my place to tell this government how to do it, but it must be done.

    Julian has to be released.

    I place hope in Anthony Albanese’s will to make it happen. I have to. This is the closest we have ever been to securing Julian’s release. I want to encourage and do everything in my power to help that happen.



    Julian Assange remains imprisoned and remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden who, as vice president, once called him "a high tech terrorist."  Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian.  WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.  And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.  For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs.  Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:



    A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
    Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

    The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
    The new logs detail how:
    • US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

    • A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
    • More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

    The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat



    The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

    The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

    But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.

    Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.

    Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.








    The following sites updated:


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