New Mexico man and QAnon believer recently pleaded guilty to threatening
to kill a Texas congresswoman because he believed that she was
transgender.
Earlier this month, Michael David Fox entered
a guilty plea for interstate transmission of threatening communications
after he was arrested by federal agents in May for a call he made to a
Texas representative, threatening to kill her. Fox said his belief in
the QAnon conspiracy theory prompted the call.
According to a criminal complaint reviewed by Newsweek, Fox
made a call on May 18 to "the office of a congresswoman for the District
of Texas, United States House of Representatives ('V1"), who is from
Houston, Texas." The congresswoman was not identified in the complaint.
In the call, Fox accused the representative of being transgender saying
"Hey [V1], you're a man. It's official. You're literally a tranny and a
pedophile, and I'm going to put a bullet in your f****** face. You
mother f****** satanic c*** sucking son of a w****. You understand me
you f*****?"
The crazies are so influenced by speech. They are already in need of
help and then some hate merchant starts spewing and it registers and
they run off to kill someone. There is no excuse for the hate that is
being spewed to begin with; however, for people to refuse to see the
consequences is appalling. We have some very vile people in Congress
and in the media who have nothing but hate to spew at people.
We live in a very stormy time period and need to be using our voices to call out the hate merchants.
They need to be charged -- people like Lauren Boebert -- with incitement.
Wednesday, September 27, 2023. Over a hundred dead in Iraq from a fire
at a wedding, Joe Biden takes to the picket line, Moms For Bigotry
continue their attempt to destroy the country, education and democracy,
and much more.
Last week, as Iraq's Prime
Minister addressed the United Nations General Assembly and as he he met
with various leaders, the press largely ignored him and Iraq. This
morning? Iraq's all they seem able to talk about.
A fire at a wedding in northern Iraq has killed at least 100
people and injured 150 others, according to the Iraqi state news agency
INA citing local authorities.
The disaster in the Hamdaniya district of northeast Nineveh
governorate, was set off by fireworks, candles, and other materials used
during the wedding celebration, the Iraqi Civil Defense said.
Nineveh governor Najm Al-Jubouri told the Iraqi state news agency
INA that the injured were transferred to hospitals in Nineveh and the
Kurdistan region.
Kathyn Armstrong (BBC NEWS) notes,
"Footage posted online showed the couple on the dance floor before
flaming chunks begin falling onto the dance floor. Firefighters could
be seen climbing over the wreckage of the building in search of
survivors on Wednesday morning." Farid Abdul Wahed (AP) addds, "Authorities said that flammable building materials also contributed to the latest disaster to hit Iraq’s dwindling Christian minority.
In the fire’s chaotic aftermath, officials offered conflicting death
tolls and security officials said they had detained staff at the wedding
hall as part of their investigation." Holly Johnston, Mina Aldroubi and Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) put the death toll currently at 115 with another 150 injured and Omar Abdulkader (CBS NEWS) notes, "Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the
blaze and asked the country's interior and health ministries to provide
assistance, his office said in a statement posted online."
Biden,
visiting a General Motor redistribution center, said workers deserve
more of a share of the profits from Ford Motor Co., General Motors and
Stellantis. It marked the first time a sitting president has joined a
picket line of workers on strike in the middle of a labor dispute.
Do
you get it? Nope? Let's again note Joni Mitchell, a song I like to retitle "The Last Time I Saw Barack."
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you All those pretty lies, pretty lies When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies? Only pretty lies, just pretty lies"
-- "The Last Time I Saw Richard," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album BLUE.
"All those pretty lies, pretty lies, when you gonna realize they're only pretty lies?"
From
Senator Barack Obama's November 3, 2007 speech in South Carolina while
he was on the campaign trail was full of lies, "just pretty lies." For
example:
One
year from now, we can stop sending hundreds of millions of dollars to
dictators for their oil while we melt the polar ice caps in the bargain.
I will raise our fuel standards, and put a cap on carbon emissions to
reduce then 80% by 2050. We'll tell polluters that they have to pay for
their pollution, because they don't own the skies, the American people
own the skies. And we'll use the money to invest in the clean, renewable
fuels that are our future. That's the change we can offer in 2008.
No,
he did not put a cap on carbon emissions to reduce them by 80% by
2050. Didn't happen. Change you can believe in if you're really
foolish.
When
I am President, I will end this war in Iraq. I will bring our troops
home within sixteen months. I'll finish the fight against al Qaeda in
Afghanistan. And I will lead the world against the common threats of the
21st century - nuclear weapons and terrorism; climate change and
poverty; genocide and disease.
He
killed more people with drones than anyone before him. He never
withdrew all troops from Iraq -- not in 16 months, not in his first
term, not in his second term. US troops remain on the ground in Iraq.
He didn't finish the fight in Afghanistan and it was Joe Biden, as
president who brought US troops hom.
I
don't want to see that the oceans rose another few inches and the
planet has reached the point of no return because we couldn't find a way
to stop ourselves from buying oil from dictators. I don't want to see
that.
Well
that wasn't a broken promise. He didn't promise to make sure the
oceans didn't rise "another few inches," he just said he didn't want to
see it. By the way, it's risen about three inches since Barack gave
that speech.
"I
don't want to see homeless veterans on the street." Again, not a broken
promise. He just didn't want to see it. It was 2009, after being
elected president, that Barack made the promise to end homelessness.
Spoiler alert: Didn't happen. From the editorial board of THE NEW YORK
TIMES, August 5, 2016, "Broken Promises to Homeless Vets:"
Speaking to disabled veterans on Monday in
Atlanta, President Obama discussed his administration’s efforts to end
“the tragedy, the travesty” of veteran homelessness. He proudly declared
the glass half full. “We have now reduced the number of homeless
veterans by 47 percent,” he said. The number of homeless veterans is now under 40,000.
What
Mr. Obama did not say, in an address that also boasted about the
success of the Department of Veterans Affairs in expanding disability
benefits, cutting health care backlogs and improving mental health care,
was that the upbeat statistic actually reflects shrunken ambition and
mission failure. Mr. Obama’s V.A. has been promising to vanquish the
problem since 2009, the year Eric Shinseki, then the secretary of
veterans affairs, announced a plan to end veteran homelessness by the
end of 2014.
Mr.
Shinseki resigned in 2014, undone by health care scandals on his watch,
but the administration, undaunted, announced another campaign that
year, called the Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness. New
name, new strategic emphasis -- enlisting state and local governments and
philanthropies -- but the same promise: a home for all down-and-out
veterans in all 50 states by 2015.
There
is no excuse for that failure. No one twisted his arm for that
promise. Having made it, he should have ensured the issue was
resolved. Instead, he broke a promise to veterans. To be clear, I
don't think veterans are any better than the rest of the population.
And I do believe we should be addressing homelessness throughout the
country -- not just veterans. But the reason I advocate for them with
regards to, for example, healthcare is because the government made a
promise and then it refused to live up to it. It's the same thing with
homeless veterans. They didn't sign up thinking, "I won't be
homeless." If they did, some were mistaken. But in 2009, Barack
promised that veterans homelessness would be ended by 2014. That was a
promise from the sitting president of the United States. He made it and
it's now a debt owed.
The VA claims that, today, there are 67,495 homeless veterans -- that's most likely an undercount.
There
is no excuse for that after Barack's 'promise.' This could have been
dealt with. 68,000 homes being built would have strengthened the
economy -- due to the costs for labor and materials. And who was going
to argue against it? Lauren Boebert or some other idiot. Most
Americans would have said, "Build the damn homes." Because a promise
was made and the government needs to keep it's promises.
But
it was always just pretty words, just pretty words for Barack which is
why we called him "Mr Pretty Words" and why we repeatedly cited "The
Last Time I Saw Richard" when Barack was in the White Hose. From the
November 3, 2007 speech, let's note one more part:
When
I am President, I will end the tax giveaways to companies that ship our
jobs overseas, and I will put the money in the pockets of working
Americans, and seniors, and homeowners who deserve a break. I won't wait
ten years to raise the minimum wage - I'll raise it to keep pace every
single year. And if American workers are being denied their right to
organize when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair
of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of
the United States.
So
many lies -- minimum wage was raised only once -- July of 2009. Hasn't
been raised since. "I'll raise it to keep pace every single year."
Just pretty lies, only pretty lies.
And he never put on his shoes and walked a picket line.
Yesterday, Joe Biden walked a picket line and, again, "It marked the first time a sitting president has joined a picket line of workers on strike in the middle of a labor dispute."
One more time from USA TODAY's report:
The
visit followed a public invitation from UAW President Shawn Fain to
Biden last Friday, as UAW expanded its strike to 38 sites across 20
states. Fain greeted Biden at the Detroit airport and rode with Biden in
the president's limousine to greet striking auto workers.
"Our
president chose to stand up with workers in our fight for economic and
social justice," Fain said, thanking Biden. "It’s a historic day, a
historic moment in time.”
It's
no accident that Nazis are growing in numbers in Florida. Many
Republicans here talk the same language and hate the same people.
DeSantis is at war with the LGBTQ community, Black people, and immigrants, and so are they. The same can be said for the most infamous resident of Mar-a-Lago, who put like-minded people like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller in the White House.
On
Nazis, in 1988, Lindsay Wagner
made the TV movie EVIL IN CLEAR RIVER. I
thought she gave a praise-worthy performance. But the movie? Well
written but I just didn't see it as realistic. Her character's son is
spouting some fake 'facts' and she discovers the teacher -- a real
'coach' Tommy Tuberville type -- is lying to the students about the
Holocaust. It's realistic today.
Nazis are all over the place and we all have to be Lindsay fighting
them. For example, Katharine Fung (NEWSWEEK) reported earlier this week:
A Holocaust denier is running for a school board election in Minnesota.
Vaughn
Klingenberg, who is a candidate for Roseville Area Schools board, has
made several comments discussing his beliefs that the Nazis did not want
the Holocaust and that they were actually trying to "save" Jewish people.
In
a July appearance on VT Radio's "Uncensored Alternative Foreign Policy
Talk" podcast, Klingenberg described the Holocaust being orchestrated by
"big Zionist Jews" to persecute "little Jews" and claimed that "the
Jewish religion is an ideology based on victimization."
The Holocaust has been recognized as the genocide of European Jews by
Nazi Germany and described by the National WWII Museum as the
"deliberate, organized, state-sponsored persecution and machinelike
murder of approximately six million European Jews and at least five
million Soviet prisoners of war, Romany, Jehovah's Witnesses,
homosexuals, and other victims."
The
hate merchants never give up selling the hate. It can be very
upsetting trying to make it through a day in this country lately. UNBRANDED ENTERTAINMENT notes:
On
a recent episode of Dax Shepard’s 'Armchair Expert' podcast, Jonathan
Van Ness burst into tears defending the transgender community. Shepard
and the hairstylist were discussing The New York Times and Van Ness
called out the publication for sharing anti-trans content. The podcast’s
host said, “Some people are very uncomfortable about teenagers
transitioning… the person’s not gonna change their mind?” He added, “To
even question it makes you an enemy. I don’t think that’s the way
forward." Van Ness said that it felt like they were talking to their
dad. "I’m not calling you a transphobe. You can not be transphobic and
still have thoughts that espouse trans misogyny and espouse transphobic
ideologies or beliefs and not be transphobic", responded Van Ness. Van
Ness began to cry, as they are “emotionally exhausted” from having to
constantly fight for kids who “just wanted to be included”.
It
is upsetting. The hate's made me cry many times out of frustration and
out of sadness for what some people -- who have harmed no one -- have
to live with and live through. But we can push back on the hate
merchants. And some people -- basic citizens as well as politicians --
are showing us how. AP reports:
California
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday to ban school boards from
rejecting textbooks based on their teachings about the contributions of
people from different racial backgrounds, sexual orientations and gender
identities.
Newsom called the measure “long overdue.”
“From
Temecula to Tallahassee, fringe ideologues across the country are
attempting to whitewash history and ban books from schools,” Newsom said
in a statement. “With this new law, we’re cementing California’s role
as the true freedom state: a place where families — not political
fanatics -- have the freedom to decide what’s right for them.”
The bill takes effect immediately.
As
part of the effort to spread their hate, Moms For Bigotry and other
hate groups have declared war on education. They ban books, they
rewrite history, they attack education. Katrina vanden Heuvel (THE NATION) notes:
They
don’t just air grievances. Their website offers free trainings for
parents to help them testify to school boards—or even get elected to
them. They advocate for bathroom bills and teacher restrictions and laws requiring school staff to out queer students to their parents. And of course, they’re pushing for book bans—though the organization’s executive director would have you believe these aren’t real bans, because you can still purchase the books in question “via booksellers or the Internet.”
Citizens Defending Freedom is even less subtle—their site boasts
endorsements from disgraced former Trump adviser Mike Flynn and
disgraced current MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. They successfully
campaigned for the Texas State Board of Education to dissociate from the
American Library Association (which they call a “woke organization”), and want other states to do the same. One chapter recently challenged over 100 books as “age-inappropriate” for Fort Worth’s school libraries, including The Handmaid’s Tale—even though banning The Handmaid’s Tale sounds like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Then
there’s Moms for Liberty. When it launched in 2021, the organization
was originally focused on fighting against Covid-19 protections—like
mask and vaccine mandates—in schools. Now they spend their time electing school board members who share their concerns, and flooding board meetings with parents who are outraged that their kids are reading books about interracial relationships, hurricanes, and male seahorses carrying eggs.
When
Moms for Liberty gets a book banned, not only does it deprive one
district of that specific text; it can set a dangerous standard. Earlier this year, the group successfully banned a graphic-novel version of The Diary of Anne Frank from
a Florida high school—which included passages about puberty that other
adaptations omitted. Flash-forward to last week in Texas: a teacher was fired for assigning the same book to her eighth grade reading class.
Never
mind that those eighth graders are the same age Frank was when she
wrote her diary, experiencing puberty themselves and asking similar
questions about their bodies—including, as Frank wrote, curiosities
about “the little hole underneath.” Parents are supposed to pretend that
exposure to that level of graphic detail will permanently warp the
minds of their 14-year-olds.
Meanwhile, in February, a South Carolina high school teacher assigned her AP English students Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me.
Two students objected to the book’s discussion of Blackness in America,
and reported their teacher to a school board member who was endorsed by
Moms for Liberty. Because a state proviso explicitly prohibits lessons
that make students “feel discomfort” about their race, the curriculum
was immediately abandoned, and the books taken away.
You're
supposed to want more for the next generation -- for them to do better,
for them to be smarter and more educated. Not the hate groups. No,
Moms For Bigotry want the US to fall behind every other nation in the
world when it comes to education. They've declared war on the truth and
they throw lies at facts. They'll run this nation into the ground if
they aren't confronted and called out. The sad thing is, they don't
even grasp how ridiculous they look to the children they pretend they're
trying to 'protect.' The kids are starving for knowledge and grasp
that this world has some serious problems to address.
Yet research suggests the learning materials students are consuming in school have in some cases muted their
coverage of climate change. Students told USA TODAY treatment of the
issue has remained limited in schools even as their demands for such
education have grown.
“Everything
I learned about climate change was self-taught,” said Amara Ifeji, 21,
now a senior at Northeastern University in Boston and an environmental
justice advocate. Her low-income high school in Maine didn’t require
climate change instruction for students in her particular science,
technology, engineering and math program, let alone instruction that
addressed the uneven impacts on people of color.
While
a number of states have changed their standards and curricula to
address climate change, she worries about all the students at schools
that lack the resources or the political will to make it a formal and
interdisciplinary part of the learning experience. Polls have found a
majority of teachers still don’t talk about the topic in class, usually saying it's outside their wheelhouse.
