And Lauren asked me to note this video about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
I hope you had a good weekend. I did not. I got violently sick late Friday evening. I did not stop throwing up until two or three in the morning. Then I just slept for eight hours, woke up, looked around, and got my mail and then went back to sleep. I did not wake back up until Sunday and I was still tired and a little dizzy.
Betty, Ann, Cedric, and Wally did a joint-post tonight:
Monday, November 28, 2022. The horror trinity of Tulsi, Tucker and
Turley continue to try to destroy lives, Iraqi Amir Ashour is awarded
an honor, Christians in Iraq continue to struggle and much more.
Chasten Buttigieg hit back at Tucker Carlson after the Fox News host
bizarrely chastised his husband, out Transportation Secretary Pete
Buttigieg, for “lying” about his sexuality.
Pete Buttigieg “always wants to talk about identity!”
Carlson squawked last week on his show as the chyron blared, “PETE:
ANTI-GAY VICTIMHOOD NARRATIVE? COUNT ME IN.”
“And the funny, ironic thing is, until just a few years ago, Buttigieg wouldn’t even admit that he was gay!”
“He hid that! And then lied about it for reasons he has never been
asked to explain,” Carlson said excitedly, as if he had never heard of
the concept of coming out. Pete Buttigieg came out as gay in 2015 when
he was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. “Why not?”
While talking to CNN’s Don Lemon, Chasten Buttigieg explained using
small words that “my husband served under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” the
policy that banned gay and bisexual servicemembers from serving in the
military openly.
“This kind of rhetoric is easy,” he said. “It’s so easy to attack
people and to go on your talk show and fire people up about something
that’s not actually happening.”
“I love my husband deeply. I know he’s a committed public servant, and he has everyone’s best interests at heart.”
“I just think these people, again, with these megaphones… they have
to have a big platform and rather than focusing on real issues, people’s
lives, making them better, they’ve decided to focus on hate.”
That's
trashy Tucker. Glenn Greenwald's friend. Glenn let's him hide because
what else can a useless man like Glenn do. He pretends he's a proud
father but a proud father wouldn't go on a show like Tucker's. He's
teaching to cower and whore. What a sad dad.
Tucker and Tulsi, the trash from FOX NEWS.
REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT addressed these liars.
Tulsi? I know she's a freak and a member of a cult but why is she saying "Our children"?
Bitch
don't have kids. She's on marriage number two and there are no
children. There's guru Chris, the leader of her cult. But there are no
children.
You have to wonder how FOX plans to
sell Tulsi to its viewers. They're not too fond of most traditional
religions so Hindu will be difficult to sell and that's before you add
on her cult.
With Tulsi, a few flaunt stupidity. Tulsi, they insisted is anti-war.
No, she's not.
She
campaigned on that. She went on Joe Rogan and other shows talking a
big game. She should be president, she insisted, because she was
anti-war. She should be president, not a War Hawk and certainly not a
War Hawk like Joe Biden.
Recently, Tulsi's
announced she's left the Democratic Party (believe she was kicked to the
curb first) and began comparing Joe Biden to Hitler.
Does Tulsi think he's Hitler? Then who put 'Hitler' in the White House?
We've
explained this reality over and over -- including in real time. And we
could redo it again but I'm still feeling sick so we'll just swipe from
the last time we covered it in full -- back in March:
Wednesay, July 31st, she was finally on stage with Joe Biden. And
big talking Tulsi, whose big issue was the war, was on stage with Joe
Biden who voted for the IRaq, War, who did a pre-war hearing that was
stakced with war supporters though Joe tried to pretend it was fair and
balanced, the man who voted over and over to keep funding the war, the
man whod efended it over and over (despite his 2019 lie that he had
turned on the wr the minute bombs started ropping). Here was Tulsi's
chance to finally take the fight to Joe.
It was going to be an epic throwdown, right?
Wrong.
We recounted it at lenght and repeatedly over and over. For example, see the next day's snapshot.
Joe
Biden was on the ropes. He was struggling and he could have been
eliminated that night. If Tulsi had done the job she should have, he
could have been out of the primary.
But
instead, she decided to take out Kamala Harris. Jimmy Dore rightly
points out that Kamala ended up without any support at all. Throughout
the entire thing, the long process, no one was flacking to her. He's
right. But he is someone who has some allegience to Tulsi that is
greater than his allegiance to the truth. Now I'll overlook that on
Jimmy. He speaks out on many important topics. And I'll defend her
from the lunatic attacks from WHoopi Goldberg and others.
But I'm not going to pretend that we saw Tulsi was a whore at the debates.
Read
the transcript -- or read the snapshot -- because Tulsi went after
Kamala and Kamala was no threat. She was never going to get the
nomination. She had no large base of support. Most women did not rally
to her. African-Americans in the south did not relate to her.
But Tulsi used her time and her ammo on Kamala. Not on Joe.
Her
defenders -- and, sadly, that included BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- would
make excuses for her. There was no excuse. Joe Biden was the choice of
the establishment and he was being carried by the corporate meid and
covered and pimped by them.
She should have taken out Joe.
Sher refused to do so.
If
you missed that debate, you may join the liars and insist that she was
making statements and -- B.S. That's a damn lie. Jake Tapper was a
moderator. He specifically called on her regarding Joe Biden and he was
puzzled -- watch his face -- by her remarks which were rescuing Joe and
excusing his actions.
He looks like he's
wondering if she understood the question. SO he then goes back to her
for a second time and is more specific. And Tulsi again takes a pass.
That
night, the next day and through the weekend, Tulsi shows up where ever
she could on TV and repeatedly insisted that Joe said his vote was wrong
and that was good enough for her.
His actions
wnet far beyond just his initial vote but Tulsi buried that in hre
comments and buried Joe's Iraq issues for the press. When the
self-promoted anti-war candidate told the American people and the press
that Joe had nothing to apologize for or make amends for that everything
was fine? There was no longer a story there. The media wants
conflict. And it wants conflict is can hide behind to pretend to be
objective. Had Tulsi held Joe accountable on the stage, the issue of
the Iraq War would have been forced itno the conversation by the
national press.
My allegiance is not to any politician.
Tulsi
is one of the reasons Joe Biden is in the White House. She had the
chance to tak ehim out and instead aimed her fire at Kamala. People
like pig Michael Tracey were overjoyed.
What
they refuse to admit now is that Tulsi gave the nomination to Joe on
that night in July of 2019. They refuse to also admit that the woman
Tulsi 'destroyed' on stage is now Vice President of the United States.
So exactly how badly did Tulsi destroy Kamala?
It was pure fake assery.
I
don't even feel like bolding that but, yeah, we covered it in real
time, we covered over and over since, including everything above which
ran in March.
She's a fake ass
liar. She talked a big talk about bad Joe Biden but in July of 2020,
she was finally onstage with him for a debate -- the first time. And,
turns out, the only time. Jake Tapper set her up to call Joe out for
the Iraq War. And she gave him a pass. She lied for him. If you
watched, you might have been as surprised as Jake was. After others
spoke, he teed her up again. Again, she chose to defend Joe Biden on
the Iraq War.
She proved who she really was
that night. Barack Obama, seeking the 2008 nomination, hit people over
their heads with their support for that war and Barack wasn't anti-war.
Weak ass Tulsi couldn't even stand by her comments made on podcasts.
She's
a liar and fake and anyone claiming she's anti-war at this point is
just deluding themselves. When push came to shove, spineless Tulsi
collapsed onstage.
Now she makes bucks by attacking LGBTQs.
"Grooming."
As Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Real Groomers"
pointed out, the real groomers are people like Lauren Boebert and her
husband Jayson. When not beating Lauren (it's true, she had to file for
a protective order at one point), Jasyon liked to drag Lauren to a bar
to watch as he exposed himself to young women. She lied in a book that
he didn't do it. A book somebody else probably wrote for her, remember,
she dropped out of school and then failed the GED multiple times. But
Jayson admitted it in court and was put on probation.
Those are groomers.
They're
trying to say that the LGBTQs are groomers. This is not new, know your
history. The argument is that they are grooming children -- it's the
one Anita Bryant made all those years ago. She called it recruitment
and argued, as the hate mob does today, that they had to recruit (or
groom) because they couldn't reproduce.
They couldn't reproduce? Like Tulsi?
The community doesn't have to reproduce. It's always been with us and that's what the liars want to deny.
What's worse is they want to harm children. That's the reality: Tulsi, Tucker and others want to harm children.
Jonathan Turley, noted homophobe, defends them.
Who defends the children?
In Florida, they have the 'Don't say gay' legislation which Tulsi supports. She tells you this is about parental choice.
Yet, she's raging in the video REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT video about parental choices, you grasp that right?
If you are transgender and under 18, most cases you're not getting surgery without the consent of your parent or legal guardian.
Do we not grasp that?
So in other words, anyone surgically transitioning under 18 would be doing so with parental consent.
Tulsi doesn't trust parents with that decision apparently.
But when it's banning discussions of same-sex relations or transgendered people or non-binary persons, Tulsi all for that.
School
is supposed to prepare you for life. A second grader needs to know
that there are all kinds of families and, yes, that does include
children with same-sex parents.
Tulsi and Tucker can't grasp reality: Some children are gay.
There are little boys and girls who already know that they are gay.
Some people take longer to figure it out. Tucker will probably be 62, before he figures it out.
But there are kids right now, in second grade, who know they're gay.
And how are they helped or even recognized by the don't say gay nonsense?
They're not.
Bobby (Billy Eichner's character in BROS) makes that point.
Do their rights not matter? Do their feeling recognized in their schools not matter?
Free
speech (fake) champion Jonathan Turley doesn't care about their free
speech rights. He doesn't care that a gay child has a higher likelihood
of attempting suicide.
He won't defend their rights at all.
By
addressing reality early on -- and I'm not talking sex education, I'm
talking the reality of the world we live in -- there's a good chance
that certain little boys and girls will not be targeted and harassed in
their schools.
But that doesn't matter to Turley, Tulsi or Tucker.
It's
a good thing that at least Tulsi was smart enough to reproduce (unless
she's frozen her eggs, her chances at pregnancy are winding down).
Grasp that Jonathan Turley -- who pretends he's for free speech -- has not once called out the harassment of trans speakers.
I
don't know Alex Jones and I don't want to know him. If his people and
what they did in Denton, Texas recently is truly representative of him
then has has no redeeming value.
So they bully and mob to try to stop Transgender Storytime.
And that was this month. And yet 'free speech' Jonathan Turley didn't defend them.
That's only surprising if you don't grasp that his history is one of refusing to recognize the LGBTQ community.
Unlike Jonathan, I actually support free speech.
I have a record of doing so.
Jonathan grabs his pearls and gets all nervous if someone heckles or boos.
That's
free speech as well. And I've been on the receiving end many times.
And will continue to be on it. And that's fine. In the '00s, near the
end, a veteran was somewhere, I believe NYC, speaking on a forum and he
was the pro-war voice. He got booed. Some were offended in print and
how awful.
No.
It's not awful.
It's free speech.
I
wrote about that here. I also noted that I was sympathetic to him
because it hurt his feelings but that he needed to grasp that the worst
had happened and that any future speaking would include the knowledge
that he would live through being booed.
I support free speech.
Jonathan Turley pees his pants because a Supreme Court opinion is leaked. It's so offensive!!!
It's free speech. Turley's become a joke in his old age and a damn hypocrite.
'Children' were not going to the Denton coffeehouse unless they were taken by their parents.
There
was a bullying effort by INFOWAR followers to silence and suppress a
transgender storyteller and Jonathan wasn't concerned. It's only free
speech for him these days if the person whose free speech rights are
threatened is a conservative.
That might be confusing until you grasp that he's now paid by FOX NEWS.
The LGBTQ community includes children and they have rights.
Tulsi,
who's never raised a child, wants to speak of "our children" but
apparently she just means straight children. She knows nothing about
the LGBTQ community -- a community she has spent years trashing -- and
she wants to decide what children can hear and what they can't.
She has NO children. She's raised NO children. She's NOT an educator and has NO background in childhood education.
So FOX sees her as the perfect person to put on to talk about children's rights.
Children
have the right to be smarter than Tulsi Gabbard. That requires actual
education. Otherwise, like Tulsi, they end up cult members doing
whatever Guru Chris tells them to do.
Lauren
voted to overturn the Violence Against Women Act. Like Tulsi, she needs
education. Desperately. I hope she gets it before Jayson beats her to
death.
But in the meantime, let's be really
clear that the US doesn't need to hear from a woman married to a man who
beats her. Too many people are passing themselves off as experts.
Lauren,
like Tulsi, wants to be an expert on children but most American
families -- right, left or what have you -- don't want their children
being beaten by a spouse or their children beating their spouse.
Spousal abuse is not a value anyone supports unless they're deeply stupid.
That's
what happens when you're uninformed and uneducated. Like Tulsi. Home
schooled and two years in her cult's school, she tried community college
but couldn't grasp it. Basic classes were beyond her because she's
just not capable of learning.
Instead of recognizing her deficiency, she wants to make all of America as uneducated as her.
The
country's children need to be educated. In reality. That especially
means a greater emphasis on science. It also means an awareness of the
world around us and, sorry, Tucker, Tulsi and Turley, that world around
us includes gay males, lesbians, bi-sexuals and transgenders as well as
non-binary.
They have a right to representation as well.
They exist and their rights matter to.
They don't need to grow up being bullied. They don't need to grow up being rendered invisible.
Stop pretending you care about children when you're actually working to increase the rates of suicide with your actions.
FOX NEWS is garbage because of what they're doing and how they're harming children.
Idiots like Tulsi will watch those programs and, in the pretense of 'saving' their children, will do great harm.
A
trueism throughout the last century and today: Those objecting the
loudest to basic recognition and human decency are usually the ones
hiding something.
When Ellen DeGeneres came
out, a friend who had loved her comedy, even to the point of begging me
to get her into a taping of the sitcom ELLEN (I got her in multiple
times) turned on Ellen when she came out. Refused to even admit that
she'd ever been a fan. Last decade? The actress came out. I'll be
kind and not name her.
But that's who I think
of when I think of these idiots like Tucker, Tulsi and Turley who are
so determined to limit our society instead of expanding it, who would
rather throw stones than embrace.
These
people need to be called out. They're not silly idiots that we can just
laugh at, they are people dedicating their lives to destroying
others.
Since founding IraQueer, an
organisation which has fought for LGBTQ+ rights in Iraq for the last
seven years, Amir has worked tirelessly to help queer people facing
persecution in the country.
“I’m grateful that the team continues
to dedicate themselves to the organisation and the queer community,”
Amir explained to GAY TIMES Magazine in the December 2022 issue. “But my
hope for the organisation is that it will just not need to exist one
day. I want to live in a world where we don’t have to advocate for queer
people. Where we just exist as people and have our rights because we’re
humans.”
Sadly, things have not improved for
LGBTQ+ people in Iraq since the inception of IraQueer and members of the
community continue to face discrimination in the country.
The work Amir started is therefore as
important as ever and functions across education, advocacy and direct
services by sharing multilingual resources, providing safe housing and
engaging with international bodies to advance LGBTQ+ rights.
GAY TIMES Honours sponsored by Meta
Quest celebrates the individuals and organisations who have had a
profound effect on the lives of LGBTQ+ people over the past 12 months.
To follow all of the action from GAY TIMES Honours sponsored by Meta Quest, check out our Instagram @GAYTIMES. For the latest winners, performances and special moments from the night click here.
Meanwhile, it's been called 'the heist of the century' -- the robbery of Iraq's public monies carried out by officials. Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:
Iraq has recovered less than 5 per cent of $2.5 billion embezzled from its tax authority, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani said late on Sunday.
“The
competent authorities have been able to retrieve a first tranche
amounting to 182.6 billion Iraqi dinars,” Mr Al Sudani said in a
televised speech, surrounded by piles of Iraqi and US banknotes.
He called on those responsible to hand themselves in.
The
scandal — revealed last month and labelled the “heist of the century” —
involved 3.7 trillion Iraqi dinars ($2.5 billion) fraudulently paid to
five companies by the General Commission of Taxes.
The
money was paid through 247 cheques between September 9, 2021, and
August 11 from the commission's account at the state-run Rafidain Bank.
Since
then, an investigation has been under way. A number of government
officials and two businessmen have been arrested and some of the money
recovered, although no senior politicians have faced official
accusations.
Will they get even half
the money back? Probably not. They don't seem willing to pursue the
corruption up to the top. They continue to look the other way for
various officials. That's not how you recover the money and it's now
how you end corruption.
Iraq
also refuses to defend its religious minorities. The Jewish community
is no more. The Yazidis remain persecuted and victimized. And the
Christians? LA CROIX INTERNATIONAL reports:
The
Chaldean Catholic patriarch in Iraq has criticized the government for
its failure to build a real democratic and civil state to keep
Christians safe in the Muslim majority country.
"I
find it unavoidable to emphasize once again that religion is for God
and the homeland is for the nation. Migration is nothing but uprooting
us from our land," said Iraqi Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the patriarch
of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
Christians,
living mainly in the cities of the Nineveh Plains and other areas of
northern Iraq, continue to leave the country. This is happening at a
rate of around 20 families a month," said Cardinal Sako in a statement
released by the Chaldean Patriarchate. The cardinal spoke of how more
than half of Iraqi Christians have emigrated in the last five years and
many others are "on the waiting list".
"The
tendency to emigrate has increased in the last two decades due to
instability. Furthermore, the "bleeding" of emigration to the West still
exists due to the following: loss of confidence and future uncertainty;
unemployment; poverty; deterioration of basic services;
desertification; and the failure of governments to build a real
democratic and civil state," he said.
Syriac Christianity was first established in Mesopotamia, and certain subsets of that tradition (namely the Church of the East
and its successor churches) were established in northern and
central-southern Iraq, and would eventually spread to becoming one of
the most popular Christian churches in the Middle East and Fertile Crescent Region, and would spread as far as India and China.
Iraq plays a rich and vital contribution to Christian history, and after Israel, Iraq has the most biblical history of any other country in the world.[2] The patriarch Abraham was from Uruk, in southern Iraq, modern day Nasiriya, and Rebecca was from northwestern Iraq, in Assyria. Additionally, Daniel lived in Iraq most of his life. The prophet Ezekiel was from southern Iraq and his shrine is located there. Shrines of the prophet Jonah and Saint George are also located there, and various other biblical prophets and saints are said to have been originally from there as well. Adam and Eve are also widely thought to have hailed from Iraq, as the biblical Garden of Eden is largely attributed to have been located in southern Iraq.[2][3]
Prior to the Gulf War in 1991, Christians numbered one million in Iraq.[4] This may be an undercount by half as seen in the 1987 census numbers. The Ba’athist rule under Saddam Hussein kept anti-Christian violence under control but subjected some to "relocation programmes".[4] Under this regime, the predominantly ethnically and linguistically distinct Assyrian people were pressured to identify as Arabs. The Christian population fell to an estimated 800,000 during the 2003 Iraq War.[4]
During the 2013–2017 Iraq War, with ISIS rapidly sweeping through Iraq's western lands, Christian Assyrians and Armenians fled as they feared persecution by the terrorist organisation, as they were to ‘execute’ any person who did not believe in their Sunni sect. Thousands of Iraqi Christians fled to the nation's capital
where they found refuge and adequate housing, some of whom have chosen
to make Baghdad their new permanent home following the full defeat of
ISIS in Iraq.[5] Thousands have also fled to other parts of southern Iraq, such as the Shia-majority city of Najaf which housed thousands of Christians in holy Islamic shrines once they fled from ISIS, which sought to exterminate them.[6]
A large population have also returned to their homes en masse following
the defeat of ISIS and were able to celebrate Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter in safety with the protection of the Assyrian Nineveh Plain Protection Units and its allies.[7][8]
The current number of Christians of Iraq is said to be at around 500,000, according to the EU Research Services on minorities in Iraq,[9]
although numbers vary from source to source due to the last Iraqi
census having taken place more than 30 years ago. A census is scheduled
to take place in 2020 in which the numbers of Christians in Iraq will be
clarified.[10][9]
President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Al-Sudani on Monday
completely agreed and reiterated that no threat or military action will
be allowed from within the borders of Iraq to foreign countries.
"They continue to offer support to refugees and asylum seekers, but
no armed groups will be allowed to operate in the Kurdistan Region," the
Presidency of the Kurdistan Region said in a statement.
Moreover, Erbil and Baghdad agreed to "work together to protect the
security of the borders, and they will also coordinate with neighboring
countries and take necessary measures."
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia’ Al-Sudani reportedly on Monday will visit Iran to discuss mutual relations.
President Nechirvan Barzani ensured that the Kurdistan Region will
remain a factor of peace and stability for Iraq, neighboring countries
and the region.
That's the President of Kurdistan and the Prime Minister of Iraq.
t Tucker was one of her boys and he's brought over to FOX so that she can return to spewing her homophobia.
Recently, Iran has joined Turkey in bombing, droning and attacking northern Iraq (The Kurdistan). Julian Bechona (RUDAW) notes that
last week Iraq decided "to increase the deployment of troops on its
borders with Iran and Turkey in an effort to curb further violations of
its sovereignty as attacks by Tehran and Ankara have greatly surged in
recent months.'' Last week, Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) explained:
The
president of the Kurdistan Region on Tuesday met with the Iraqi prime
minister in Baghdad, during which both sides emphasized the importance
of cooperation in facing repeated violations on Iraq’s sovereignty.
According
to a joint statement from Iraqi PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s and
President Nechirvan Barzani, one of the topics of the meeting focused on
discussing security on the Iraqi border areas.
“They emphasized
cooperation to protect Iraq's sovereignty, reject repeated violations,
and work to prevent using Iraqi territory as a platform for attacking
any neighboring country,” the statement read.
The meeting comes
as the Kurdistan Region’s borders have become an arena of instability
with Turkish bombardment in the north and Iranian drone and missile
attacks coming from the east.
That is Mort Sahl. He was an incredible comedian. By refusing to accept the lies of The Warren Commission, his career was ended. 59 years ago, President John F. Kennedy was murdered. We still do not have all the records. The cover up continues.
Cancelled? Mort Sahl was among the first to be cancelled.
On comedians, in the snapshot below, C.I. has included Matteo Lane's new comedy special. It is very funny. Please stream it. It is already up to 300,000 streams.
At a Monday press conference the victims were identified: Kelly
Loving, who just turned 40 and was "like a trans mom" to friends;
Ashley Paugh, a straight 35-year-old mother who worked to find homes for
foster children; Raymond Green Vance, 22, who was at the club for the
first time to celebrate a birthday with his girlfriend and her family;
Derrick Rump, 38, a "lively, loving" bartender and performer at the club
who "made it what it was"; and Daniel Davis Aston, 28, a trans
bartender and performer who'd just completed his medical transition and
was, said his mother Sabrina, "the happiest he had ever been." Growing up, she recalled,
Daniel told her at age four he was a boy and wouldn't wear girls'
clothes: "Those are our children - we don't care how they dress or what
they identify as. It doesn't harm anybody." After he began living as a
trans man in such hateful political times, she "always worried" about
him. "It's just unbelievable. He had so much more life to give," she
said. "I didn't want to be part of this, the losing a child club." In a
dark twist, he and the others were murdered minutes before Transgender
Day of Remembrance, which honors the memory of trans people killed in anti-transgender violence." Club Q had planned to mark it; instead, people gathered at inter-faith events to denounce "theologies of hate" and ensure "our arms could be as wide as possible to embrace a community that's hurting."
Eerily
echoing other massacres, from Columbine to Pulse to Uvalde, a makeshift
memorial went up Sunday outside Club Q - flowers, candles, a plaintive
sign for "Love Over Hate." (Maybe.) Police who'd arrived
the night before praised the "incredible act of heroism" that ended a
shooting that could have been even worse. For that, they can thank
Richard Fierro, a 45-year-old brewery owner and veteran of four Army
deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan who was there celebrating a birthday
with his wife and daughter; when he saw the flash of gunfire, he
instinctively "went into combat mode." Charging through
the panicked crowd, he tackled the gunman, who he said weighed over 300
pounds, yanked a handgun away from him, and started beating him with
his own gun while yelling for other patrons to help. A man shoved the
shooter's AR-15 - another one! - away, a drag performer stomped on
the gunman with her high heels, and Fierro kept pummeling as he and the
gunman screamed curses at each other; he was so bloody police at first
arrested him. Fierro was a major with two Bronze Stars when he left the
Army in 2013: "I was done with war." He "never thought I'd have to deal
with that kind of violence at home, (but) everybody in that building
experienced combat that night...they were forced to." His wife's two
best friends were shot; his daughter, who broke her knee running for cover, lost her longtime boyfriend, Raymond Green Vance.
The
gunman, identified as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, remains
hospitalized; he has been charged with five counts of first-degree
murder and five counts of a bias-motivated crime. He is the grandson of former mayor and outgoing
California GOP state assembly Randy Voepel, who was almost expelled by
colleagues after he praised the Jan. 6 attack with, "This is Lexington
and Concord. First shots fired against tyranny." Aldrich's mother Laura
Voepel praised her father online: "You work hard to improve our lives." In 2021, she also called police to report
her son was threatening her with a homemade bomb and multiple weapons;
after he refused to surrender, a tactical support unit evacuated nearby
homes, a crisis negotiator was called in, and a standoff ensued. Aldrich was eventually arrested and charged with
five felonies, including felony menacing and kidnapping, but charges
were inexplicably never filed, thus allowing him to evade Colorado's Red
Flag law and buy a shiny new AR-15, because America. Aldrich was living
with his grandparents at the time, said a former landlady who recalled
his "aggressive side," but he'd visit his mother to watch movies with
her when not threatening to bomb her. She in turn often went online asking church
members for help for her son: Does anyone have a fan to donate to him?
Can anyone recommend a trauma/PTSD therapist? And in May, saying "he's
made huge life changes," did anyone know a private boxing coach? "He's
6'6" tall," she wrote, "and hits like a freight train."
Nervously
careful law enforcement officials have said the mass shooting at a gay
nighclub is being investigated "through the lens of a hate crime." Ya
think? You mean it might be connected to a right wing that
deems every queer person and half the country's Democrats "groomers," or
to a rise in rabid anti-gay, trans and drag show rhetoric, or to
hundreds of state bills curbing the rights of "others," or to emboldened
fascists proclaiming who should or should not exist? Or to bellicose
Proud Boys disrupting
peaceful Drag Story Hours in t-shirts that say, "Kill Your Local
Pedophile"? Or to a Florida GOPer proposing to charge with a felony and
terminate the parental rights of any adult who "brings a child to these
perverted sex shows"? Or to the hate-mongering
and bomb threats against hospitals offering health care - aka
"castration" - to trans kids? Or to Herschel Walker, a day or so after
the shooting, still running a trans-phobic ad with a young Aryan college swimmer whining
"a man won a title that belonged to a woman, and Sen. Warnock voted to
let it happen." Or to, let's not forget, Tucker Carlson, who accuses
trans-supportive schools of "sex crimes," declares "no parent should
put up with this for one second," and tells viewers their "moral duty"
is to dole out "instant justice...no matter what the law says. "This is
an attack on your children," he intones, "and you should fight back." On
Twitter: "This language will get people killed." And so it has.
Finally,
there's Colorado's gun-toting, queer-bashing, deeply hateful Lauren
Boebert, who had "the f**king audacity" to fake-grieve the "absolutely
awful" shooting and declare, "The victims & their families are in my
prayers." Wait. Is this the same Boebert who's ceaselessly trafficked
in anti-LGBTQ hysteria? Who's attacked the left as pedophiles and "sick, demented groomers," warned drag
queens to "stay away from our children," equated LGBTQ-inclusive flash
cards with "indoctrination," charged a kid-friendly drag show was
guarded by masked Antifa guards with AR-15s - "Remember, they only want
YOUR guns. They want to use theirs to protect their depravity" - and
urged, "Take your children to CHURCH not drag bars," though God knows
how many children have been molested in church; in drag bars, evidently
zero. The furious response:"This is on you...You are to blame...LGBTQ
people like me are less safe in this country because (of) people like
you...Conservative identiy politics puts homicidal jerkoffs into
motion...You are the hate that leads to violence." And from one woman,
when Boebert tried to make it about generic crime - "This lawless
violence needs to end" - "Good gosh she's an awful thing." Ditto, said
AOC, who called out the hypocrisy: "You don’t get to 'thoughts and prayers' your way out of this. Look inward and change." And change your grotesque Christmas cards - same to the other MAGA freaks -with your four spawn clutching AR-15s. Fred Guttenberg: "This is what grooming looks like."
When
Lauren Boebert starts using the term "grooming,'' press outlets need to
note in every story that her husband Jayson is a groomer who was
arrested for exposing himself to young females and who entered a plea of
guilty.
These are facts.
Her
lunatic assessment that drag queens, transgender persons or gay people
are grooming anyone need to be confronted because the only known groomer
in Colorado Springs is her husband Jayson Boebert. So if she wants to
talk about groomers, the media should help her out by pointing to
Jayson.
She lives with a groomer. That's why it's always on her mind.
And
when she lies that he's innocent, the press needs to note that he
entered a plea of guilty, that he was convicted and that he had to serve
two years probation. Again, these are facts.
She married a groomer.
Stop
letting her smear innocent people while she lies to cover up her
groomer husband and insists that his arrest never happened and he was
innocent and blah blah. Shove the truth down her hypocritical throat.
Alastair and Zachary Patton-Garcia broadcast on their YOUTUBE channel and cover a variety of topics.
At
the end of the video above, Alastair and Zachary touch on the Colorado
Springs attack. They make many solid points. Alastair notes that this
grooming nonsense is an attempt to other the community. And he is
correct and I want to make two points here.
Whether
you choose to recognize it or not, there is a war in this country
against the LGBTQ+ community. It is an ongoing war that's lasted
decades. In the 70s, the freak show was Anita Bryant. Lauren
apparently wants to be the 21st century Anita Bryant.
Not only is silence not an option in this war, inaction isn't an option either.
There
are members of the LGBTQ+ community who wanted to see BROS and didn't
go to the theater because they were frightened of what might happen.
They waited for digital (BLURAY in stores now). That's why straight
allies needed to step up.
Comedy isn't for
everyone. And no one has to see a movie. But if you had the money to
go to the movies when BROS was in theaters and you saw something else,
you weren't a good straight ally. If when Billy Eichner was getting
attacked, you didn't defend him, you weren't a good straight ally.
A
group of homophobes hated the film before it came out because of a
statement one character made in the trailer (and they didn't even get
her line right). Oh, it's making fun of straight people!!!!
If
it had, after the years and years of jokes and 'jokes' about the LGBTQ+
community, fine. Handle one movie and pretend that gives you an idea
of all the TV episodes and all the films over the years that the
community had to deal with.
But that's not the film Billy co-wrote.
The
film he co-wrote made fun of everyone. It made fun of straight people,
it made fun of gay people, it made fun of trans people, it made fun of
bi-people, it made fun of ageists and this and that and it made fun of
celebrity (Debra Messing deserves so much praise for her scenes in the
movie). There was no sacred cow.
And all the
people whining about ''woke'' -- many of whom trashed BROS -- missed the
whole point that Billy's character Bobby has to live with that, has to
work with that, and it's one of the things he learns (tolerance) and
it's something all the ones griping about ''woke'' should have been able
to relate to.
The film is pro- humanity. It's
not anti-straight. It is the straight couple, two of Bobby's friends,
who are most supportive and encouraging that he date and then get back
together with Aaron.
We've covered it here --
and I'll get to that point in a moment -- and Ava and I've covered it
repeatedly at THIRD -- most recently with "BROS: An American Film Classic (Ava and C.I.)" -- and it seems like people are being willfully blind to what took place.
We
let up a little last week on BROS coverage because other things came up
(and I'm also recovering from another eye surgery) but we've covered
since the beginning and that means see what people are saying.
The homophobia has been off the charts.
I'm
bothered by it and it's not directed at me. It's directed at Billy
mainly and I have no criticism of him over how he's handled himself. I
don't think I could have been as reserved as he was.
It's disgusting when you read these homophobic rants on Twitter.
It's
even more hurtful when you see a certain group of uneducated Twinks on
Twitter who feel the need to trash BROS in order to praise the very sad
and very bad rip-off of Jane Austen that is FIRE ISLAND. Underfed of
body and of mind, these Twinks keep insisting that FIRE ISLAND is better
because it's more diverse. I'm not remembering an African-American
character. I know there's only one women in the cast. I think some
people look in the mirror, see only themselves and make that their
measure of diversity.
Equally hurtful is the
attacks on the film and Billy coming from gay conservatives -- but when
you're let in on a pass, you know you have to attack the designated
targets.
ADDED:
Drive-by
e-mails say, "The shooter's gay!" I've not seen that in anything but
e-mails since the snapshot went up. What I saw before the snapshot went
up? The shooter allegedly uses non-binary pronouns. If the shooter
does use those -- are they used for real? I have no idea.
But
as I noted about the gay conservatives on Twitter attacking BROS above,
buy a clue, in a climate of hate others will tag along.
That's
what's so frustrating about Glenn Greenwald -- have you never seen my
critique of him? I know his type. I am not shocked but I am offended
frequently when he mouths garbage like Clarence Thomas is a good
person. No, he's not. Good people do not try to destroy others. Good
people don't harass Anita Hill.
Glenn
is the gay conservative who hit the campuses at a time when he could
slowly ease out about being gay and his right-wing friends would sort of
accept him. Sort of -- ask David Brock what sort of acceptance is.
That's why David turned to the left.
So
Glenn learned to make all the meek comments that he makes and learned
to take any insult or hit because it proves (in his mind) he's tough and
sneers at everything. That's b.s. And he needs to lose that attitude
because it's not helping his husband or their children. He feels no
need to help the LGBTQ+ community -- which is how he ends up on TV,
after DOBBS, blathering on about how good Clarry Thomas allegedly is.
Good people do not work to overturn progress. Good people are not bigots.
So
the shooter may be non-binary. May not be. Shooter lives in a society
where bullies -- Marjorie Greene who can't keep a husband, Lauren Bo-bo
who married a groomer -- scapegoat others. Shooter most likely
internalizes that hatred.
Like
the gay conservatives on Twitter who make a point to attack Billy
Eichner and BROS. They think it makes them look tough and that by
attacking the 'soft,' they (like Glenn thinks) will be accepted.
Ask David Brock how that worked out because it never works out.
You
can try your best but you're never going to be who they want. You can
parrot every one of their talking points but you can't change who you
are and they don't accept who you are.
Clarry's concurring opinion in DOBBS should have made that clear to everyone.
Clarry's
as disgusting as Candace Cameron Bure. They act like they accept you
-- Candace even lies that she loves you -- but they don't. All along
Thomas has been waiting to gut due process. All along Candace has been
waiting for a homophobic outlet to open up.
Saager and Krystal had a segment this week. And it grated on me when Saager was presenting it.
I don't think we let the homophobes grab religion.
There
are many religious people in this country. There are many who are
LGBTQ+ and that can be hard on them because of historic discrimination
and historic violence. I don't think we make it harder on them by
identifying these homophobes as the religious -- which is how Saagar set
it up -- the religious against the gays.
He
did that because he was tying in some other issues and I grasped that.
But it just grated on me because this isn't abstract for me. It's not
like I'm watching WILL & GRACE (a great show) and saying, "There are
some gay people, that's what they look like!" I have many friends and,
again, when it comes to religion, the most common gay couple I know is
one where one is deeply religious and the other isn't (like many
straight couples).
People like Clarry are not good people.
Glenn
can pretend all he wants but he's never going to fit in with the crowd
because at the end of the day they are laughing about what he does in
bed behind his back.
Again,
The Three Hags of Apocalypse were happy to pretend to be David's friend
but they weren't. I have many negative critiques of David Brock but,
to his credit, he didn't play a fool for life, he was able to learn.
Whatever Shooter is, the targets were marked by the bullies and the shooter played along with what was declared acceptable.
The right attacked BROS and ran with the attack.
Before
the film came out, I stated it was not going to make the box office
prediction and I explained why -- it wasn't playing enough. Opening
weekend, some theaters were only showing it once or twice a day. It was
the same length as SMILE but, around the country, you had SMILE being
shown in a theater six times a day and BROS twice. It was never going
to be able to make the same amount of money.
And
when it didn't make that same amount of money, the right wing started
using it as proof that the country was sick of LGBTQ+.
That's part of the attack that took place, the physical attack in Colorado Springs.
That
idiot Josiah and others on YOUTUBE and their preaching that BROS had
gone too far and that it was time for the straight people to rise up.
I'm sorry, I'm not here to make you feel better.
These attacks on the film are part of larger attacks and that's why it was important for straight allies to turn out for BROS.
We largely didn't.
And Billy was right in his initial comment that was treated like a herasy.
We
need to support one another. As I've noted over and over, the LGBTQ+
community has decried the overturning of ROE, they have spoken against
it, they have shown support.
We need to start
showing more support for them. It can't just be our wiping away a few
tears at the next tragedy. We need to be true allies.
Second
point, this a private conversation in a public square. We already
built this online community. So it's surprising when outsiders think
they can dictate or intimate.
A number of
drive-bys have been bothered by the coverage of BROS here. One of the
e-mails that made Shirley laugh (Martha and Shirley read the bulk of the
e-mails to the public e-mail account) was the one that insisted we'd
gone "gay, gay, gay!" A three-gay rating in fact. And the e-mailer
wanted it known that there were other issues.
There
are other issues. And there are over 100 posts that go up here each
week. If all you're seeing is gay that might go to your own bias and
discomfort.
This site is pro-choice. And we
came into it that way and shortly after we started the Democratic Party
tried to sell about abortion -- and we got attacked by various bloggers
for not going along -- bloggers supposedly on the left.
That didn't make me change our stance.
Your discomfort with the LGBTQ+ won't make me change our stance.
I do get it though.
As I see what REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT and BREAKING POINTS and THE HILL and Jimmy Dore and others cover, I get it.
You
could watch six months of those programs and never once know a gay
person existed in the US. I get it. It must, by contrast, be very in
your face to come to this site. Good. That's why we're still here.
We posted Matteo Lane's new comedy special yesterday but I also want to include it in a snapshot.
We
can't go back in time. But if you like comedy, you can stream the
above comedy special Matteo's done and you can show some support and
it's not even going to cost you the way a ticket would. We need to be
better allies.
Abbas Hashem fixed
his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still,
there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when
his animals don’t come back from roaming the marshes of this part of
Iraq, they must be dead.
The
dry earth is cracked beneath his feet and thick layers of salt coat
shriveled reeds in the Chibayish wetlands amid this year’s dire
shortages in fresh water flows from the Tigris River.
Hashem
already lost five buffaloes from his herd of 20 since May, weakened
with hunger and poisoned by the salty water seeping into the low-lying
marshes. Other buffalo herders in the area say their animals have died
too, or produce milk that’s unfit to sell.
“This place used to be full of life,” he said. “Now it’s a desert, a graveyard.”
Iraq is battling several years of drought, the governments of both Iran
and Turkey are blocking the flow of the two big rivers running through
Iraq (the Tigris and the Eurphates), everyone is expected to be effected
by climate change; however, Iraq has been named the fifth most
vulnerable country in the world. Dust storms are increasing in
frequency and in force. Speaking to the United Nations at the start of October, the
US Deputy Rep to the UN, Ambassador Richard Mills, noted that climate
change was one of the challenges Iraq is facing, "Complicated challenges
face the next government – including passing a
budget, developing oil and gas legislation that is acceptable to the
Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government, improving the
provision of electricity, combatting climate change, promoting private
sector development and job growth, and increasing women’s participation
in the workforce." Last month, the International Organization for Migration pointed out, "Displaced families are likely to be among the most vulnerable to
climatic and environmental changes that can impact livelihoods, food
security and social cohesion. Sustainable return and rein-tegration can
be determined by many factors but the role of climatic change and
environmental degradation in return dynamics is insufficiently
understood."
Iraq
must take quick action to combat climate change as its affects would
make it one of the most water scarce countries in the world, the UK’s
ambassador to the country told The National.
Iraq
is the fifth most vulnerable country to climate breakdown, impacted by
high temperatures, droughts and frequent dust storms, presenting a
serious threat to the public’s livelihood, according to the UN.
“There
are a range of challenges for Iraq, reduced rainfall, desertification
and increased droughts. There’s a wider list of things that needs to
happen for Iraq to curb climate change,” Mark Bryson-Richardson told The National.
He
said the new government in Baghdad must focus on water management as a
“real priority” to improve its usage and prepare for and manage
droughts.
“It’s
going to be a challenging journey, Iraq will be one of the most water
scarce countries in the world in the coming years,” Mr Richardson said
during a visit to the UAE this week,
The diplomat’s comments come as world leaders gather for the UN climate summit in Egypt this week.
