transgender

neglected 11 primary on colo mass shoot

target

see drag three

SEE HITLER THOM 3

MERRI OK

last bastion of gay bashing? cantral to vice signaling/ own the libs

moral panic

see censorship, coming for your kids, groomer, pedo...

SEE CHILDRENS HOSPITALS

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CA sanctuary state b/c health care crime texas?

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NO LNX

The first victims of Trump's hit list

Thom Hartmann January 17, 2025

It may seem counter-intuitive, given that most people think of dictators as bad guys themselves, but the simple reality is that without proclaiming enemies — larger than life enemies — dictators have a hard time hanging onto power and accomplishing the things they want to do.

Hitler had Jews. Mussolini had the Italian Socialist Party. For Duterte it was drug dealers. Stalin vilified the “Kulaks” (wealthy peasants) as a threat to the Soviet Union. Mao blamed the bourgeoisie. Pol Pot said intellectuals were the enemy and so ordered everybody who could read killed. Idi Amin blamed Indians and Asians for the problems of Uganda. Robert Mugabe said white farmers were destroying Zimbabwe. Slobodan Milošević pointed to the Kosovo Albanians. Pinochet blamed the trade unions for Chile’s struggles.

Trump has flirted with condemning several different groups over the years, primarily using brown-skinned immigrants as his bogeymen, although the GOP has also vilified queer people, Black people, academics, journalists, teachers, and liberals to motivate the hatred of their base.

I learned about the importance of a good enemy when taking a creative writing class from the late Robert B. Parker in the 1970s. At the time, he was working on his third Spenser novel and hadn’t yet really hit it big, so a few of us who signed up for his weekend seminar were able to sit at his feet and learn from the man who became one of America’s great masters of fiction.

While the hero of the story is important, Parker told us, it’s the antihero — the bad guy or antagonist — who makes real for the reader the goodness of the hero.

He said that Superman, for example, would have just been a boring guy who stopped bank robberies if it weren’t for Lex Luthor. Batman would only be a rich guy with a fancy car and a weird outfit if it weren’t for the Joker. Without Moby Dick, Captain Ahab was merely another whaler. Sherlock Holmes would have been a weird but boring private eye were it not for Professor Moriarty, “the Napoleon of Crime.”

You get the idea. The hero can only be as good as the bad guy is bad. Every superhero requires a super-antihero. A larger-than-life bad guy. Genuine evil.

Even beginning novelists and screenwriters know this. And so does every dictator, including wannabe dictator Trump. It was a lesson George W. Bush learned and used after 9/11 to lie us into two unnecessary wars, make billions for Cheney’s near-bankrupt Halliburton, and destroy our reputation around the world.

Today, it’s why the GOP is making such a big deal about Laken Riley, the white woman killed by an Hispanic “illegal” immigrant, going so far as to name legislation after her. See how terrible these “invaders” are? They try to rape white women and when they don’t get their way, they kill them!

It’s why Trump, when he first announced his candidacy in 2015, characterized Latino immigrants as rapists and murderers. Its why Nancy Mace is constantly talking about “predators with penises” being in women’s restrooms. It’s why rightwingers claim books in our schools are “indoctrinating” our children. It’s why Trump still claims the Central Park Five should have been executed.

When a dictator wants to rally the people — particularly so they’ll support him in doing something dreadful — he must first convince them that the common enemy he’s identified is super evil.

To successfully claim to fight evil, he must first identify that evil in terms everybody understands. And it can’t be ordinary evil; his opponents must be super-evil incarnate: Monstrous. Depraved. Malefic. Diabolical. Satanic.

When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 the first group he and his Nazis went after weren’t the Jews or even the communists. There were supporters of both groups across the country at the time, and he needed a genuinely “other” minority group to attack first, one that only a small handful of people would ever rise to defend.

So, he went after trans people. The famous book-burning picture is from in front of the Berlin Institute of Sexology, where Magnus Hirschfield was supporting trans people undergoing the first sexual reassignment surgeries in the modern world.

Fascists always start by declaring themselves the victims of evil “others.” Victimhood is essential to the fascist worldview; it’s at its core. And it’s their excuse for destroying other people’s lives.

They then cast the weakest and least popular minorities in a society as the victimizers of the fascists. Fascism is never directed against the rich or powerful, but always against those least able to defend themselves. It’s bullying turned into a political movement.

Trump has gone after multiple groups during his political career, including trans people, Black Haitian immigrants, Central- and South American immigrants, teachers, librarians, Muslims, Black Lives Matter protestors, the media, and Democrats generally.

To really turn America into a hotbed of violence and retribution, though, he’s going to need to infamize groups one at a time.

Where will he begin? Who will he turn into the first super-villains?

Will it be members of the press, dragged before congressional committees and subject to millions in lawsuits? Will he join Nancy Mace in demonizing queer people? Will he join Putin in calling Ukrainians Nazis? Can he convince enough people that Democrats are a danger to America that elected officials will shut up and hide the way so many did in 1930s Germany?

Trump and his bully boys have big plans for America, and getting people behind more tax cuts for billionaires, mass deportations, killing Obamacare and Medicaid, imprisoning the press, and gutting our civil and human rights will be a big lift. He’s going to have to identify his enemies in terms that are so stark that few Americans will dare speak up.

So, where do you think he’ll begin? Who will be his first victims, justifying his going beyond the law and the Constitution?

Post your thoughts below in our comments section.

NOW READ: A new ugly streak in American politics

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https://www.mediamatters.org/**matt-walsh/**daily-wire-host-says-trans-people-commit-:(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}::{violence-using-bathroom-:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}::{their-very-presence

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https://www.mediamatters.org/steven-:(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}::{crowder/:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}::{youtuber-steven-crowder-publishes-new-anti-trans-book-kids

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an ah 12 22

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top White House medical adviser to President Joe Biden and long-time director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has been serving in the United States’ federal government since the late 1960s. Fauci, who will be celebrating his 82nd birthday on December 24, 2022, has been in the United States’ federal government since the late 1960s. And he has never had a problem serving under conservative Republican presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

The younger President Bush, in fact, had nothing but praise for Fauci when he presented him with the 2008 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci became a major target of the MAGA movement. Countless MAGA culture warriors, consumed with identity politics, have turned hating Fauci into a popular pastime. Tesla CEO and new Twitter own Elon Musk, who supported President Joe Biden in 2020 but often sounds very MAGA in his rhetoric, bashed the retiring NIAID director when, on December 11, he tweeted, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” [// desantis BS]

Many Twitter users have been calling Musk out for that tweet. But liberal Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent, in his December 13 column, stresses that Musk is unfazed by such critics because his motivation is appealing to the “right-wing information ecosystem.”

“By now, it should be obvious that for large swaths of the right-wing media ecosystem, the Triggering of the Libs has become an end in itself,” Sargent explains. “In the brutal competition of the so-called attention economy, provoking large-scale outrage and loathing is not an incidental feature of making controversial arguments. It has become a key marker of success.”

Sargent continues, “Over the weekend, Elon Musk called for the prosecution of Anthony S. Fauci, the leading infectious-disease expert in the Biden Administration. 'My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,' Musk tweeted, mocking transgender people for good measure. Musk then endorsed a complicated right-wing conspiracy theory about Fauci’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats and other Musk critics reacted with an explosion of outrage.”

Twitter users who vigorously defended Fauci against Musk ranged from Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota to former CIA Director John O. Brennan. The latter told Musk, “Dr. Fauci is a national hero who will be remembered for generations to come for his innate goodness & many contributions to public health. Despite your business success, you will be remembered most for fueling public hate & divisions. You may have money, but you have no class.”

Sargent stresses, however, that while Brennan and Klobuchar’s defenses of Fauci are “reasonable,” they also “seem fundamentally out of touch with basic realities of how right-wing information warfare really works.”

“This sort of info-warring, at bottom, is what characterizes Musk’s transformation into the world’s richest right-wing troll,” Sargent explains. “Tons of pixels have been wasted on efforts to pin down Musk’s true beliefs, but whatever they are, we can say right now that he’s consciously exploiting fundamental features of the right-wing information ecosystem.”

Sargent adds that offending liberals is the whole point of an “info-warring” tweet like Musk’s December 11 attack on Fauci.

“It’s understandable that Musk’s critics are trying shaming and outrage, in that this could further drive advertisers away from Twitter,” Sargent writes. “But paradoxically, it might also help Musk…. In much of the right-wing info-ecosystem, liberal outrage is a sign of an attack’s effectiveness. It can be only confirmation that the Libs Were Owned. Shaming is useless in such an environment, and in some ways can backfire.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/jenna-ellis-club-q-victims/

burn in hell

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tim-pool/tim-pool-responds-club-q-shooting-using-groomer-slur-accusing-lgbtq-communities-harming

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jrnl fail

https://www.mediamatters.org/cnn/print-and-online-outlets-failed-connect-club-q-shooting-long-standing-anti-lgbtq-hate

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rww post clubQ

rww 11 22

a local chapter of the far-right Proud Boys plans to disrupt a Dec. 3 drag story event in Columbus, Ohio, just two weeks after the killings at a LGBTQ night clubin Colorado Springs.

The Columbus Proud Boys announced their plans to disrupt the kids story time event held at the First Unitarian Universalist Churchof Columbus on Telegram last Tuesday. Advance Democracy, Inc., a non-partisan, non-profit research organization, first flagged the post. The post read:

The Columbus Proud Boys would like to announce that we will be attending the Holi-drag Storytime being held at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus on December 3rd! We look forward to meeting all of the attendees and welcome Americans from all over to join us. It’s gonna be wild! Stand by for details…

The emphasis of a “wild” protest is likely a reference to Jan. 6. Former President Donald Trump had called on his supporters to attend a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, promising that it would “be wild!” Many of attendees of that rally, including members of the Proud Boys, later marched on the U.S. Capitol, attacking police officers and storming the building.

While the Proud Boys is probably best known for its role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol—for which several members face seditious conspiracy charges—the far-right, neo-fascist group is also known for its members’ presence at the 2017 white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one counterprotester was murdered. Since the failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Proud Boys members have focused their efforts locally, disrupting school board meetings over mask mandates and LGBTQ-inclusive policies, and harassing attendees of drag story events, fearmongering that trans people are “grooming” children.

[post]

already this year, the Proud Boys have disrupted drag events in Texas, Nevada, North Carolina, and California. In Idaho, the right-wing extremist group Patriot Front took it a step further; 31 people associated with the organization were arrested after they were found in a trailer full of weapons next to a Pride event.

The post by the Columbus Proud Boys announcing its plans to disrupt the Columbus event has been viewed more than 1,600 times. Just 45 minutes after posting, the post was further promoted by the Official Cape Fear Proud Boys, a North Carolina-based chapter that coordinated multiple efforts to disrupt drag events in the past six months. It was also shared by an Ohio Proud Boys channel and “the Infamous Legend Valley Proud Boys” channel, which shared an image the following day promising “Ohio Proud Boys Season Beatings.” On Monday, the Legend Valley Proud Boys shared a meme calling for violence against perceived perpetrators of pedophilia.

A meme posted on the Legend Valley Proud Boys channel. The image depicts a character in the “Walking Dead” who randomly choses a victim and kills him with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed-wire.

The Dec. 3 event is sponsored by Red Oak Community Schools, a school dedicated to fostering “students’ sense of their place and power in the natural world and in their communities.” A Facebook page promoting the event describes “Holi-drag Storytime” as “a new family-friendly, LGBTQ+ holiday tradition” in which local drag queens “will read stories for children of ALL ages and perform a few holiday numbers!”

Of course, the Proud Boys have alleged that the event amounts to “grooming”—the rhetoric at the heart of recent political attacks on LGBTQ people. A video posted the Columbus Proud Boys channel last Thursday called on members to “stand against grooming” and provided the address of the church. “All I want for Christmas is an end to child grooming. Help Saint Nicolas scold the Naughty groomers,” text in the video reads, calling on members to arrive before 10 a.m. Another image shows a picture of Santa Claus giving the middle fingers. “Its rally time boys!” a final message reads.

Right Wing Watch reached out to Red Oak Community Schools and the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus. We will update this story should either respond. The church’s website describes it as a place to “come together to grow in religious depth, valuing freedom, reason, tolerance, love.” Shortly after the Proud Boys’ announcement, Red Oak Community Schools said they meet hate with love and invited donations, posting on Facebook, “For every nasty comment, dislike, negative email, phone call, etc. we receive about our upcoming FABULOUS fundraiser, we’re collecting donation pledges for a local LGBTQ+ organization.”

The Proud Boys’ announced plan to disrupt the event came just days before a lone gunman targeted patrons of a gay night club in Colorado, killing five people and injuring 25 others. LGBTQ leaders have noted that this attack follows years of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and an increasing number of Republican politicians characterizing trans people as “groomers.” Religious-right groups have drafted anti-trans legislation, encouraged lawmakers to sponsor such legislation, and laid the groundwork for their passage through disinformation and pressure campaigns, a Right Wing Watch investigation found last year.

On the Sunday morning following the attack on Club Q, Democratic Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone said such rhetoric was to blame. “When politicians and pundits keep perpetuating tropes, insults, and misinformation about the trans and LGBTQ+ community, this is a result,” she wrote.

Tags: Anti-LGBTQ Columbus Proud Boys Proud Boys

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/fox-news-club-q/

mass shooting revert BS

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mma 10 22 paul pelosi?

Conspiracy theories about transhumanism profess that elites are attempting to turn human beings into partial machines that frequently has explicitly anti-transgender ideas. Former Trump aide Steve Bannon has frequently pushed this theory and praised Infowars’ Alex Jones for doing the same. (Progressive transhumanists reject the version of the ideology expressed by Bannon and Jones.)

oct 28 out#

EMILY COMPAGNO (FOX NEWS HOST): Not everyone in their homes is safe as Paul Pelosi's situation has now demonstrated, frighteningly, and Jackie, I wonder, you know, is it too late, is the climate of violence, politically motivated or otherwise, again we don't know in this particular situation, is it too far to go back? Have the elected officials not done a good enough job of not only condemning violence across the board, but also turning down the temperature rather than sort of increasing rhetoric all across the board that maybe has people sort of riled up and taking things into their own hands, those sort of unfettered criminals and otherwise?

JACKIE DEANGELIS (FOX BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT): I think that's a great question, and again, we're waiting to find out what the motivation was, but there are two things that we could have in our hands there. You know, a crime situation that just happened more randomly or with some motivation but wasn't really targeted at the Pelosis per se. That shines a light at what's happening not only in San Francisco but all these other cities.If we have a situation where this is politically motivated, you have to step back and say, why is our country so divided? President Biden, you got up to the podium and said you were going to bring us together, and that was one of the things you promised people. It's one of the reasons they voted for you and they backed away from Trump because they did think that he was divisive. So why is this happening and why are we so polarized? It's a huge question right now. [semi-fasc?]

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mma 1020

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): Parents already have to deal with high crime and inflation and now they have to worry about demonic teachers turning their classroom into a drag show? You would think Biden, who is almost 80, would know better. But he doesn't. Maybe that's why they call him creepy Joe. The president, who is already in over his head, wasted his day chatting with atranssexual activist Dillon in the Oval Office about why children should be getting sex changes without their parents' permission.

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/heritage-foundations-new-model-legislation-combines-attacks-on-trans-youth-and-public-education/

===

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10 22 rww

weeks before the Nov. 8 elections, a gaggle of far-right pundits are helping raise money for the 1776 Project PAC, one of the right-wing groups that is investing millions to take over school boards across the country.

The group, founded in May 2021 by activist Ryan Girdusky, has endorsed 300 candidates in November’s elections. While not all far-right school board candidates have been successful, the 1776 Project PAC claims to have won 75 percent of the races it has been involved in so far.

Ben Shapiro, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, and Donald Trump Jr. are all cited in recent fundraising emails from the 1776 Project PAC. Fox News personality Tucker Carlson has also helped the group raise money. Even discredited “Stop the Steal” lawyer Sidney Powell promoted the project in her “Defending the Republic” newsletter.

Like the many right-wing groups using dishonest and harmful attacks on teachers and school board members as a means to undermine public education and build political power, the 1776 Project PAC runs fearmongering campaigns against schools teaching about racism in American history and society. During a Girdusky appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show, the chyron text said the PAC “supports school board candidates who oppose anti-White curriculums.”

The 1776 Project PAC says it campaigns on behalf of school board candidates “that vow to overturn any teaching of the 1619 Project or critical race theoryin their school districts.” Visitors to the project’s website are greeted with a pop-up urging them to “Report a School Promoting Critical Race Theory.”The anti-critical race theory tactic has been embraced widely by right-wing groups and candidates after it was seen as helping Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin win his 2021 election.

The 1776 Project PAC pushes a propaganda claim that has long been central to right-wing anti-public education campaigns: that public schools are infiltrated by anti-American Marxists who are indoctrinating students in left-wing ideology. “All over the country, teachers are brainwashing children to hate themselves and their country,” Girdusky claimed in a fundraising email earlier this year. The letter went on to warn that a generation taught to hate the United States will “surrender our country to Marxism” and destroy it.

“We will also support any type of education reform that promotes a patriotic vision of America and its history,” the group’s website declares.

Not surprisingly, the PAC also traffics in the anti-trans rhetoric that so many far-right candidates have put at the center of their campaigns this year. One fundraising email from March claimed that “what’s worse is that these radical school boards allow, hire, and encourage teachers who have been caught ACTIVELY recruiting children to become transgender.” Among the claims promoted by the group on social media is theludicrous false claim,popular on the far right, that schools are allowing students who identify as animals to use litter boxes to go to the bathroom.

In May, the group had success in Texas, where it bragged that “every single one” of the 15 school board candidates it endorsed had won. In August, the PAC bragged that it was “largely responsible for the massive sweeping wins in Florida,” in which 35 out of 49candidates endorsed by the PAC won their races and created conservative majorities in some major school districts, including Miami-Dade County.

“This is how you win back the country,” gushed Laura Ingraham during an interview with Girdusky, who gave a shout out to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the right-wing Moms for Liberty for their involvement in school board takeovers.

Among the right-wing groups backing the PAC is the American Principles Project, a project of anti-LGBTQ religious-right megafunderSean Fieler,whose contributions have supported an array of anti-equality groups.

Tags: Ben Shapiro Donald Trump Jr. Glenn Beck Laura Ingraham Ryan Girdusky Sidney Powell Anti-LGBTQ Anti-Trans Critical Race Theory Election 2022 School Boards 1776 Project PAC American Principles Project

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https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network**/ahead-midterms-oan-declares-fight-between-good-vs-evil-save-us-democrats

one America News Network is a known hub for extreme right-wing opinion, but the network has gone even further to fan the flames in recent weeks leading up to the midterm elections. OAN talent and guests have used increasingly apocalyptic rhetoric to describe the stakes of the country continuing under Democrats’ “progressive liberal woke agenda” to “tear down and destroy everything good about America.”

It is often a mix of “political correct woke” headlines or the simple existence of a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House that prompts an outburst of anger from OAN personalities directed at “true communism” and its “destruction of the greatest country this world has ever known.” For example, green energy policy is portrayed as a question of “whether or not America will be a sovereign nation.” Hospitals providing care to trans people are examples of the “evil in our midst” during “a spiritual battle.” And investigations of former President Donald Trump are part of “a long struggle” going back to those who “first settled this land.”

OAN’s overt partisanship and lack of journalistic standards are a perfect setup for the network to rhetorically increase the stakes of the midterm elections. The network has already shown a preference for candidates who deny the 2020 election, and expressed its hopes — if Republicans take control of Congress — for punitive investigations of the right’s political enemies and legislative attacks on trans people.

Taken together with dire warnings of national annihilation under Democratic rule, OAN’s coverage in the lead-up to midterms is arguing that “America First” candidates must win in November to pursue vindictive, extremist policies to save the country from the “woke agenda.”

In a nearly 11-minute monologue, OAN host Dan Ball introduced his September 26 interview with Trump by asking his audience a pointed question: “Where did my America go?” Ball continued, claiming that “the progressive liberal woke agenda” has been “creeping into our country for years now” and seeking to “destroy the very fabric of our nation.” Faced with this omnipresent threat, Ball warned that “we need millions of voices standing up and saying, ‘No more.’ No more of this destruction of the greatest country this world has ever known.” Declaring that the U.S. is “on the precipice” of falling to “true communism,” Ball told the audience, “This is a fight between good versus evil. So which side are you on?"
[vid]
judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman told OAN’s In Focus on September 20 that “the country needs to understand that we are at war.” He warned that “January 6 will look like a warm-up act. In fact, that wasn't violent. ... But next time it's going to be like the storming of the Bastille.”

OAN guest Lee Smith claimed that fighting the “corruption,” “criminality,” and “psychosis” of the Biden administration is part of “a long struggle that we’re involved in as Americans.” Smith, the conservative author of The Permanent Coup, claimed that in this generational conflict, “we are standing on the shoulders of our ancestors, the champions — American champions — who first settled this land, all the way down to our own parents. They're watching how we discipline ourselves. They're watching our resolve, our resilience, and determination. And our children will tell stories of it in the future.”
OAN guest Greg Price claimed that “we are up against truly evil people who will do anything for power and do anything to destroy our country. They’re decaying our culture every single day, and the bottom line is we need to do something to stop it.” Price, a former Daily Caller writer, added that “there is no limited-government solution to a lot of these problems,” and “when we take back power” in November, Republicans must begin “getting out of their comfort zone and … using power in ways that help your voters and deliver wins for your side.”
In Focus host Addison Smith said that “our nation is hanging by a thread” over the question of “whether or not America will be a sovereign nation.” “If we lose our sovereignty,” Smith worried, “we lose everything else along with it, including our economic system, including our culture and traditions and our religious underpinning.” After claiming that “nationalism necessarily builds societies — it has built this society, it has built the West,” Smith added that “while communism can certainly wreak untold havoc on it, globalism is the only thing that can thoroughly destroy it." [sept 19 vid]
former Fox Nation host Lara Logan told Ball that Democrats are “implementing a globalist policy” that is “completely in violation of the Constitution,” ultimately “infiltrating 100 million people into the United States as the basis for forming a regional government instead of a national government.” Ball agreed that “we’re not talking about the Great Reset” enough, or “how they’re changing the fabric of this nation and what they’re attempting to do.” Logan raised the stakes, adding that “this isn't just about the fall of America and the West. This is about the end of life as we have known it.”

Interviewing an anti-trans filmmaker and fearmongering about gender-affirming care for trans youth, OAN host Dan Ball announced, “This push on our kids is demonic and disgusting.” “There is a spiritual battle going on,” said Real America guest Frank Panico. “We’re made in God’s image, and the evil one wants to destroy that, whether it be through abortion, or suicide,” or health care for trans people, Panico said, followed by a litany of anti-trans comments.
Claiming the right needs to “go on offense” and “make stuff like this illegal,” OAN’s Smith said that health care for trans youth, “along with abortion, is the most evil thing that our country is doing to children.” Discussing another hospital targeted by right-wing media for providing gender-affirming care, Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer claimed that health care for trans youth is an example of “evil in our midst, and we shouldn’t hesitate to call it evil. … This ought to be the kind of thing to wake up our side in a real call-to-arms moment.”
OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp claimed the war in Ukraine “was manufactured from the beginning by the globalists and the tyrants in Washington, and designed specifically to cripple our economy and plunge the world into a massive depression.” Sharp asked OAN viewers: “Are you paying attention? They are trying to start World War III. They are trying to provoke Russia into starting armageddon. Why? Power. Power, and control." [oct 13 vid]
'this whole political correct woke movement in this country is going to get people killed,” Ball declared.“It's ruining our country, and some day, folks, mark my words, it will lead to the destruction of America as we know it.” Complaining about a report that Navy SEAL training may be abusive to recruits, Ball said, “You need brave, bad-ass men willing to pick up that rifle, head into harm's way, and keep us safe. And if we lose that, my fellow Americans, well, we're doomed.”

Fearmongering about polyamory, Tipping Point host Kara McKinney said: “Back when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage in Obergefell in 2015, anyone who wisely pointed out that destroying the natural, God-given reality of marriage being between one man and one woman would lead to man-made horrors beyond our wildest imaginations were laughed out of the room, even by some on the right. Yet each new day, we're vindicated."

Although life as we know it does face existential threats — perhaps most prominently from climate change — OAN saves its cataclysmic warnings for an America that remains under Democratic Party control after November.

OAN host blames the sexual revolution for “incel” mass shootings

10/19/22

OAN will repeatedly air the debunked 2000 Mules movie ahead of the midterms

10/11/22

OAN interview baselessly claims FBI planted child pornography on NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere during investigation

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10 22

"Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver focused his main story Sunday on "problems" that Republicans create so that they have something to solve.

Republicans are desperately trying to take over the House, Senate and a slew of offices that allow them to control elections in an effort to usher in restrictive election laws to put in more Republicans and eliminate any policy delivered by a Democrat for the past century.

Republicans pledged for almost ten years that Obamacare must be repealed and replaced, only to be outed for being unable to come up with the replacement. They have placed judges in top posts to eliminate the personal freedoms and medical privacy of women. They invented an idea that Kindergarteners are being taught they are evil for slavery and were convinced that any mention of LGBTQ should be banned from schools in Florida and other states that have followed.

Oliver focused on another top issue for the GOP: transgender sports. While there are many, many issues facing Americans, indeed the world, Republicans are concerned that one or two transgender people could bring down sports.

He began with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who ran a campaign ad claiming that she personally saved girls' sports in the state. There was one trans student about ten years ago in South Dakota, but Noem zeroed in on the possibility that one person ten years ago could one day be millions of trans students in the sparsely populated state.

Oliver pointed out that there were more girls playing sports in the Noem ad than there were trans kids in all of South Dakota sports. So, while Republicans like Noem complain about failures around inflation, healthcare and other problems they blame on Democrats, their solutions are focused on transgender sports.

Noem isn't the only one. A whopping 18 U.S. states have spent the past few years passing legislation to regulate who can urinate in a stall next to each other. While most people simply enter a bathroom, do their business and get out, in the mind of Republicans, restrooms are nefarious places where liberals are ushering in a plot to bring down society. They have yet to find any evidence of it, but they can't stop their minds from turning to anarchy as a result of a kid using the restroom.

The positive piece of Oliver's report is that he first reported on transgender rights nearly a decade ago and things have gotten a lot better. The crisis for the right-wing is that the American public has decided that they are accepting of same-sex marriage, eliminating a key issue that they have desperately clung to for years. Trans rights have now taken over that same desperate attempt to create a villain, make people afraid of him and then pass laws to protect children from him.

See Oliver's full segment in the video below:

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https://www.mediamatters.org/matt-walsh/daily-wire-host-likens-doctors-providing-gender-affirming-care-nazis

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mma 9 22

While children’s hospitals were facing a deluge of violent threats in August from an online campaign of intimidation and misinformation fueled by anti-LGBTQ trolls, Fox News repeatedly provided a platform for the individuals responsible for the harassment to amplify their attacks. Over the course of two weeks, Fox News — the most-watched cable network in the country — spent more time and ran more segments targeting three different children’s hospitals over false claims about gender-affirming care than CNN or MSNBC combined spent discussing the attacks.

Led by conservative social media figures including Chaya Raichik and Matt Walsh, an online campaign began by targeting Boston Children’s Hospital and Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., with false claims that they were providing hysterectomies for trans youth. The unsubstantiated claims were debunked by independent fact-checking websites and refuted by the hospitals, which did not stop right-wing media figures from taking up the attacks to malign all gender-affirming care for trans youth as “mutilation.”

In reality, these hospitals do not provide genital surgery to trans youth. Rather, they follow the standards of care established by national medical organizations, offering medically necessary care that is supported by every major medical organization in America.

Fox News amplified the architects of the harassment campaign that resulted in threats of violence against at least three different children’s hospitals

Amid the influx of threats against children’s hospitals, Fox News adopted the attacks as part of its ongoing effort to demonize trans health care for political points and at the expense of trans children.

Between August 18, when the network’s first segment attacking Boston Children’s Hospital aired, and August 31, when Fox aired its most recent segment, attacking Chicago’s Lurie Children’s Hospital, the network aired 7 segments and spent more than 20 minutes vilifying the hospitals. Notably, three of the Fox prime-time shows featuring the attacks are in the top 10 most-watched cable news programs in the country — Tucker Carlson Tonight, The Ingraham Angle, and Jesse Watters Primetime.

And while other Fox News prime-time shows similarly repeated anti-trans attacks on the children’s hospitals, Tucker Carlson’s program has been the most responsible for amplifying the misinformation campaign and the figures behind it.

On August 18, the day after Vice News reported that far-right extremists were threatening to execute doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital over lies told about their gender-affirming care program, Carlson invited Chris Elston onto his show. Elston, a Canadian anti-trans extremist whose tweet kicked off the attacks on Boston Children’s Hospital, erroneously claimed gender-affirming care was “the biggest child abuse scandal in modern medicine history,” while Carlson called the care “sexual mutilation of children."

[vid]

a week later, Fox News ran 5 segments attacking D.C.’s Children’s National Hospital after it was targeted with a similar smear campaign prompted by Raichik, whose Twitter account “Libs of TikTok” has been instrumental in fueling Fox News’ anti-LGBTQ messaging. After the hospital reported its staff had received threats of violence, Carlson invited Raichik onto the August 30 edition of his show.

During the segment, Carlson falsely claimed Children’s National Hospital was “castrating young people, minors for no legitimate purpose whatsoever” and asserted that Raichik was “committing actual journalism."

[vid]

the night Carlson’s interview with Raichik aired, Boston Children’s Hospital was targeted with a bomb threat.

The next night, propagandist Chris Rufo earned a spot on Carlson’s show after falsely claiming that Lurie Children’s Hospital was promoting “‘trans-friendly’ sex toys for children” based on a resource document provided exclusively to teachers.

Carlson opened the segment by saying, “Most people trust children's hospitals implicitly. They just didn't know the details — but thanks to the internet, we now do.” He went on to claim that “some of these hospitals are performing horrifying experiments on children,” including “things you think would be crimes but that apparently aren't and that are going on in children's hospitals in the United States." [vid]

fox News’ attacks on children’s hospitals have outpaced mainstream cable network’s coverage of the threats

Coverage of the targeted harassment and threats against multiple major children’s hospitals from CNN and MSNBC lagged behind Fox News’ attacks against the same facilities. Not only did Fox spend more time (over 20 minutes) attacking and spreading misinformation on children’s hospitals over gender-affirming care than the other two networks spent covering the attacks (less than 19 minutes), but no show on either mainstream network has aired more than one segment on the attacks. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson Tonight alone has aired 3 segments attacking the hospitals. In fact, Carlson’s show spent more time (just under 12 minutes) attacking children’s hospitals than CNN spent discussing the attacks across all programming (just over 5 minutes). MSNBC spent just over 13 minutes discussing the story.

While Carlson repeatedly hosted guests pushing anti-trans misinformation against gender-affirming care, only one show segment on either CNN or MSNBC interviewed a medical professional. The August 18 edition of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhles**poke with a doctor about the struggle of providing essential health care for trans youth while facing a barrage of threats.

Methodology

...

---

omfg

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-accuses-childrens-national-hospital-castrating-young-people-minors-no

no lnx

TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): We brought you this saga of Libs of TikTok -- one of the most informative accounts on Twitter. And because it is so informative, it keeps getting banned. Libs of TikTok just proved that physicians are, in fact, castrating young people, minors for no legitimate purpose whatsoever. Libs of TikTok reported -- recorded this call with Children's National Hospital, for example, in Washington, D.C.

[...]

Yeah, castrating kids. They admitted it, flat out. Now Children's Hospital is denying it, pretending it's not true.

Today, Vice.com, which rides to the rescue of anyone in power who's been embarrassed -- whether it's the CIA or the State Department or the Biden administration or Google or in this case, the medical establishment -- went after Libs of TikTok, one person. Vice, like a billion dollars in venture funding, they're claiming that Libs of TikTok is, quote, "helping the Kremlin" -- Kremlin -- "boost anti-LGBT disinformation." And then the Washington Post, owned by the richest man in the world, accused Libs of TikTok of lying. And then NPR, which is funded by your tax dollars and spends all of its time attacking you and your family for whom they have pure contempt, is pushing to ban Libs of TikTok. And then shortly after that, not surprisingly, Twitter obeyed and suspended Libs of TikTok, alleging hateful conduct.

THE LATEST

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Apple should follow Google’s lead and refuse to carry the Truth Social app on its store

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The right will accuse DOJ of partisanship whether or not it indicts Trump

09/01/22 1:03 PM EDT

Tucker Carlson accuses Children's National Hospital of “castrating young people, minors for no legitimate purpose whatsoever”

Tucker Carlson says children’s hospitals all over the country “are performing horrifying experiments on children”

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Jeanine Pirro says the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago was “a blatantly political move” meant to influence the midterm election

08/31/22 7:59 PM EDT

---

BIG GENDER?!

jon s salon an 7 22

A right-wing group in Missouri has launched a "woke heat map" documenting instances of "wokeness" in an attempt to fight back against "critical race theory" and alleged "grooming" in schools across the state.

The group, dubbed "Liberty Alliance," says it is "committed to fighting back against the Woke agenda that is permeating all across Missouri."

"The first step in fighting back is uncovering their crazy ideas – from Critical Race Theory to grooming toddlers with sexually explicit books," the organization states on its website. "That is why we have officially launched the Woke Heat Map – an interactive tool designed to expose the insane actions of the radical Left. This map will alert Missourians of craziness happening in their own communities."

"‘Liberty Alliance’ has launched a ‘Woke Interactive Map’ to warn MAGA about instances of woke behavior in a particular community. The site will alert people if either: 1. CRT, 2. Woke Extremism, or 3. ‘Action by a Crazy Leftist’ has taken place," Ron Filipkowski tweeted.

"This is the “Genderbread Person” & the latest example of the insanity that’s in Missouri schools," Eric Schmitt tweeted. "We launched The Students First Initiative to empower parents & bring transparency back to Missouri schools. This was submitted by a Fox C-6 parent We’ll keep exposing the extremism."

Another Twitter user added, "A reminder that on college campuses, anyone that doesn’t fall in line with the left are censored Where are you at @SLU_Official? These actions continued into the night and no one has been punished for vandalizing a peaceful #prolife @SLUSFL display #FreeSpeech [Students for Life]"

Liberty Alliance's map isn't the first of its kind. Over the years, numerous right-wing groups have created rankings, watchlists, and cluster maps to keep track of the left's alleged influence in healthcare and education as well as Corporate America.

Last October, Salon reported on a custom Google map created by trans activist Erin Reed that provides those seeking hormone replacement therapy with the names and locations of nearly 800 informed consent clinics throughout the country.By February of that year, Reed told Salon, her map was repurposed by anti-trans activist Alix Aharon as a resource for organizing protests against doctorswho provide gender-affirming care. That new map, called "The Gender Mapper," was quickly taken down over apparent copyright infringement. However, a new one has since appeared in its place, cataloging roughly 200 clinics in total.

On its website, The Gender Mapper accuses "Big Gender" of testing "experimental medication" on "confused and vulnerable children."

"GenderMapper volunteers work in secret, around the world to collate evidence and document what is occurring," the site adds. "Gendermapper volunteers are unsung [sic] heros- and data is our truth."

Right-wing groups have also sought to crack down on left-wing "indoctrination" on college campuses.

Notable among them isTurning Point USA, a conservative youth advocacy group, which runs a "Professor Watchlist" designed to keep right-wing students abreast of "college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."

"The project," its website says, "is comprised of published news stories detailing instances of bias, propaganda, or speech infringement on college campuses."

The site allows users to submit tips and search for professors by name or university. Some professors on the list include activist Angela Davis, linguist Noam Chomsky, author Ibram X. Kendi, and former FBI Director James Comey.As of 2016, there were roughly 200 academics on the list.

In the private sector, conservative are similarly hounding companies that engage in "woke" actions, arguing that Corporate America is prioritizing political correctness over profit.

Alliance Defending Freedom has its "Viewpoint Diversity Score," a 50-company index that "evaluates corporate policies, practices, and activities to determine whether companies respect their stakeholders' freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as a standard part of doing business." The list specifically breaks down each company's support of free speech in the market, the workplace, and the public square, analyzing everything from political giving to DE&I (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies.

On the index, companies like Facebook and Meta – which face baseless accusations of anti-conservative bias – have notably lower scores than most.None of the firms included on the list score higher than a 35 out of 100.

"The results of our inaugural Business Index reveal that there is much work to be done. Company scores ranged between 2% and 35%, with the average overall score an abysmal 12%," wrote Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement for ADF, in The Wall Street Journal. "The poor showing confirms that there is an alarming trend among major corporations to favor virtue-signaling even at the expense of fundamental American freedoms."

Corporations have no legal obligation to promote free speech, a constitutional right designed to protect Americans from governorship censorship and coercion.

---

GLAAD

Ginni Thomas

Activist

Wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas

—Aggressively pushed propaganda defending North Carolina’s anti-trans “bathroom bill.”

—Promoted viciously anti-trans activist Stella Morabito, with both insisting that transgender rights are part of a politically correct propaganda tool that is manipulating the masses.

—Used her Daily Callercolumn to promote an author who claims trans rights are part of an agenda to transform America: “To [author Dr. Kim Holmes], the transgender issue uses a small number of ‘victims’ to demonstrate who can make laws. By expanding an administrative interpretation of ‘civil rights,’ without Congress, the federal state solidifies its capacity to dictate American law – even if it’s public school bathroom policies. Most Republicans fail to step up and fight, he says, because they fear a popular culture that is against them and are exceedingly shallow.”

—Included “the emergence of transgender rights” as one of the host of horribles that left-wing activists are supposedly imposing on America: “So help people connect the dots in America. There’s so much going on. Whether it’s suddenly the emergence of transgender rights, or the downing of statues or ESPN suddenly becoming left wing commentators instead of sports people, or the closing down of free speech on college campuses, or the censorship that’s happening by media providers to conservative or pro-American voices.”

—Promoted Sam Sorbo, an anti-trans activist who claims that trans-inclusive public school policies “bully” other students.

—Founding member of secretive far-right group Groundswell, which lobbies against LGBTQ rights.

—Worked as White House liaison for the anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation.

---

yikes, proud boys etc post trump look for new leader/target

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/patriot-front-2657499955/

no lnx pix twt

on Saturday, June 11, 31 members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for allegedly planning to attack a local gay pride event. Historian Thomas Lecaque, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on May 13, stresses that this alleged plot shouldn’t be viewed as an isolated incident, but as one example of the far right’s campaign for “overturning democracy.”

“The arrest of dozens of members of extremist group Patriot Front over the weekend shines a light on the new agenda for the militant factions of the far right,” Lecaque explains. “Their energies are now being focused on another goal: prosecuting a renewed culture war against sexual minorities. Packed tightly into the back of a rented U-Haul truck with their flags and weapons, members of the accelerationist fascist groupwere en route to the Coeur d’Alene Pride rally when they were pulled over and arrested.”

:{:{}:

The historian adds, “Police made the stop on the basis of a tip from local residents. Images of the men, kneeling and zip tied in a field next to their truck, spread quickly on social media.”

Lecaque, a professor at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, describes Patriot Front as part of the openly violent wing of the far right; other examples include the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

“As has been the case at other times in history when political instability has drawn extremist groups into open street-fighting — a Proud Boys calling card — these groups represent the sharp end of the ax that the far right is driving into American society,” Lecaque warns. “On January 6, 2021, their goal was to overturn the results of the recent presidential election. In June 2022, however, their goals have shifted.”

:{:{}:

Lecaque notes thatPatriot Front was founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau, who is among the members charged with conspiracy to riot. Rousseau had been a member of Vanguard America, one of the white supremacist and white nationalist groups that was part of the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that year. But after that event, where activist Heather Heyer was murdered, Rousseau left Vanguard America to start his own group.

“Patriot Front members believe themselves to be the ruling heirs to the continent by dint of their racial connection to its European colonizers and consider their racial identity essential to American identity more broadly,” Lecaque observes. “Of course, this is just the sort of blood genealogy nonsense one expects from Nazis…. What makes them significant, however, is their media savvy.”

Lecaque stresses that Patriot Front should be viewed as part of a broader far-right anti-democracy movement.

“Patriot Front is just one distinctive group of many,” Lecaque warns. “Other extremist groups gathered in Coeur d’Alene to watch and harass the pride march, including Three Percenters, Ammon’s Army, PDX Liberation, Proud Boys, and Atomwaffen. These groups have their own ideologies, own brands of violence, and many of them — Atomwaffen being an incredibly clear example — are much readier to engage in violence first, foremost, and often.”

Lecaque adds, “The Coeur d’Alene pride event was not the only target. Christian fascists in Dallas protested at an LGBTQ bar at the beginning of the month as part of a coordinated far-right assault on Pride Month. American Nationalist Initiative, a neo-fascist group, planned to link up with Proud Boys to flash mob outside of a Planned Parenthood in Plano, Texas this weekend, while other planned to harass a Pride Drag event in Arlington.”

The push for anti-gay violence, according to Lecaque, “goes beyond the White supremacists and militias” — and he cites far-right evangelical pastor Dillon Awes as an example. During a June 5 sermon, Awes called for murdering gays.

“Violent fantasies about murdering marginalized communities and overturning democracy are not new,” Lecaque writes. “We have seen them before.”

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note ali alex xian nat'l all suddenly? 4/22 they are coming to tear your kids away, cut off genitals?!

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https://www.mediamatters.org/candace-owens/candace-owens-there-are-freaks-predators-and-pedophiles-are-all-hiding-under-lbgt

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quite a lot of conflation

an 3 22

Robert Foster, a Republican former Mississippi state representative and failed gubernatorial candidate Friday night launched an unhinged assault on transgender allies, calling for their death by firing squad. After online outrage, he doubled down Saturday morning.

The Mississippi Free Press reports Foster is “using his social-media platform to call for the execution of political foes who support the rights of transgender people.”

Friday night Foster tweeted: “Some of y’all still want to try and find political compromise with those that want to groom our school aged children and pretend men are women, etc. I think they need to be lined up against wall [sic] before a firing squad to be sent to an early judgment.”

Saturday morning Foster, a farmer who runs an agritourism business and calls himself a “Man of Faith,” and a “Constitutional Conservative,” doubled down, attacking his foes and defending his hate-filled remarks while trying to claim he was not referring to transgender people.

“I see this really set some of the wackos off, let me elaborate for you. First, that tweet says nothing about shooting or killing transgendered people. It clearly says groomers,” he wrote. “Groomers” is a commonly-used word to describe pedophiles or those who establish relationships with children in service of pedophiles, but has been used increasingly by conservatives to demean LGBTQ people with a false claim that equates them with pedophiles. And in writing, “pretend men are women,” Foster clearly was referring to, at minimum, supporters of transgender people.

He did not stop there.

“To those adults that groom children into dressing like the opposite sex, telling them they can be a different sex, encouraging them to take hormone treatments to ‘transition’ and ultimately have surgery to remove their sex organs, I propose they be given the death penalty,” Foster added.

Foster, like many Republicans who attack transgender children and adults, clearly has not done his homework, but he did release a statement to the Mississippi Free Press:

“I said what I said,” he wrote, adding to what he had tweeted. “The law should be changed so that anyone trying to sexually groom children and/or advocating to put men pretending to be women in locker rooms and bathrooms with young women should receive the death penalty by firing squad.”

And he tweeted:

“Adult groomers of transgendered children are all pedophiles. Pedophiles deserve the death penalty.”

At around 11:00 AM ET Foster’s original tweet was removed and Twitter stated: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules.” So far his remaining tweets have not been deleted.

Foster, the Mississippi Free Press notes, “authored the state’s current death penalty law in 2017, allowing for executions by gas chamber, electrocution and firing squad.”

For those who think Foster’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, coupled with his electoral loss have hamstrung his political power, Mississippi Free Press adds:

“Despite winning less than 18% of the GOP primary vote, Foster’s farm venue has become a prime destination for Republicans since 2019, with GOP officials like U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, U.S. House Rep. Trent Kelly and House Speaker Philip Gunn attending fundraisers and other events on the property.”

---

rt qanon loses mind b/c last bastion of binary thinking B/W rt/wrong good/evil ~ sec hum moral relativism postmod?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-2657046068/

tells mayor pete and boyfriend to stay out of girls bathroom

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/blackburn/

word salad rant transphobe

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note trans teens have high suicide rates

an 3 22

no lnx no twt

Texas librarian fired for refusing to remove books that had been banned: ‘That was censorship’

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaking at the WTTC Global Summit 2016]

Alex Henderson March 23, 2022

Far-right culture warriors in Texas have been declaring war against books that offend them not only in public schools, but also, in public libraries. And in Llano County, Texas, librarian Suzette Baker has been fired from her position as head librarian for the Kingsland Branch Library for refusing to remove some books that had been banned.

Baker told KXAN-TV, an NBC affiliate in Austin, “The books in my library in Kingsland were not taken off the shelves. We did not move them. I told my boss that was censorship.”

According to Baker, a local group wanted to remove books they called “pornographic,” including one about a transgender teen — and Baker maintained that there was nothing wrong with that book.

Baker told KXAN, “It is her biography of her life growing up as a transgendered teenager, and obviously, this group thought that was too much for their children to read…. No one is forcing their kids to read anything.”

Leila Green Little, described by KXAN reporter Nabil Remadna as a “patron of the Llano County libraries,” speaks highly of Baker — telling the station, “I always thought she was extremely professional, very knowledgeable, has a strong character, and did her job well to the best of my knowledge.”

Little has set up a GoFundMe page for Baker, raising more than $17,000 as of March 23. And she has a problem with the way in which books are being removed from the Llano County Library.

Little told KXAN, “I have now counted 12 books that I know have been removed from Llano County Library, and I can’t get clarification from the library system on why…. There are very clear rules that should be followed with regards to censorship to books in the public library. Those rules were not followed.”

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Beck suggests that “the Prince of Darkness” created the trans movement to “destroy people”

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an 220

gOP Missouri state rep proposes bill criminalizing public libraries’ drag queen story hours

Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

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surgery on minors is child abuse? drs can be prosecuted?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/project-blitz-is-producing-model-legislation-for-christian-nationalists

no lnx

Project Blitz is producing model legislation for Christian Nationalists

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly January 24, 2020

You may have heard about legislation passed recently in Tennessee and other states which allows adoption agencies to discriminate against gay couples or families with whom they have religious objections. The fact that bills like that are being considered and passed by red states is no coincidence. They are the product of an organized effort being led by Project Blitz.

The first thing to know about Project Blitz is that it was launched in 2015 by the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, the National Legal Foundation, and Wallbuilders. The latter is an organization founded by David Barton, the Republican operative and discredited historian who rejects the separation of church and state, claiming that the United States was founded as a Christian nation.

This project seems to have maintained a low profile until Fred Clarkson, who has been studying the Christian right for decades, came across their 116-page manual of model legislation in early 2018. As Clarkson explains, Project Blitz is to Christian nationalists what the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was to big business.

Many of the bills on [the Christian right] agenda are making news; some have passed key legislative committees or whole state legislative chambers, and some have already been signed into law. But what reporters, activists, and most legislators don’t realize is that many of these bills draw from an unusual package of 20 model bills included in a report assembled by a coalition of Christian Right groups for an initiative they call “Project Blitz.”

The bills are seemingly unrelated and range widely in content—from requiring public schools to display the national motto, “In God We Trust” (IGWT); to legalizing discrimination against LGBTQ people; to religious exemptions regarding women’s reproductive health. The model bills, the legislative strategy and the talking points reflect the theocratic vision that’s animated a meaningful portion of the Christian Right for some time. In the context of Project Blitz’s 116-page playbook, however, they also reveal a sophisticated level of coordination and strategizing that echoes the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which infamously networks probusiness state legislators, drafts sample legislation, and shares legislative ideas and strategies.

According to an analysis by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, state legislatures considered 74 bills that echoed model legislation from the Project Blitz handbook in 2018.

The strategy for this effort is built on dividing model legislation into three categories, depending on how much opposition each bill is expected to receive.

The first category, intended to appear the most innocuous, included bills to promote “In God We Trust” license plates (now offered in at least 20 states) and the display of the “In God We Trust” motto in public schools. (Some version of the display legislation has passed in at least 10 states.) The next batch of bills centered on emphasizing “Christian heritage” and “the importance of the Bible in history” to promote the notion that the U.S. is a Christian nation. The third category, which organizers noted might be “the most hotly contested,” sought to empower licensed professionals to deny health care and other services based on religious beliefs and to enable adoption agencies to reject adoptive families on religious grounds. (At least 10 states have laws that allow discrimination by child welfare agencies, most of which have been passed since Project Blitz launched in 2015.)

That is a veritable “slippery slope” approach to undermining the separation of church and state. Most people wouldn’t find it terribly objectionable to display the national motto in public schools—even though it wasn’t adopted until 1956 in response to the “red scare” of “godless communism.” But doing so opens the door to promoting religion in public institutions and paving the way for legislation in the second category.

Of course, the ultimate aim of these efforts is to arrive at legislation in the third category. Knowing that the courts will reject arguments based on “biblical principles,” Project Blitz advises a strategy that is even more offensive.

To this end, they claim that their model public policy resolutions “rely heavily on the research that demonstrates the deleterious physical and mental health effects of same-sex intercourse and gender identity ‘transformation’.”… In support of this, Project Blitz offers data they suggest shows that LGBTQ people tend to be diseased, dysfunctional or both—and that they pose a threat to children and to society.

Given that any so-called “data” they present is bogus, we need to name that kind of thing for what it is: unadulterated homophobia.

As we saw with ALEC, the best disinfectant against an initiative like this is to shine a spotlight on what is happening. Unfortunately, there still 12 states with GOP trifectas—where the Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the governorship. That is where this initiative is likely to be the most effective.

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/terfs-claimed-they-were-being-censored-they-found-safe-space-right-wing-media-2019

...

Right-wing media widely covered Murphy’s lawsuit after she posted a YouTube video about the ban, with pieces in Quillette, The Federalist, National Review, The Daily Wire, Townhall, Spectator, LifeSiteNews, the Washington Examiner, and The Daily Caller.

Fox News gives TERFs a large cable platform to espouse anti-trans rhetoric

Fox News is a safe space for TERFs and elevates their anti-trans rhetoric to a large audience. In 2019, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson hosted TERFs at least four times to discuss trans people. He even offered Dansky an open invitation to his program, saying, “Boy, you’re always welcome on this show.”

Some notable appearances by TERFs on Carlson’s program in 2019 include the following:

Beck appeared on February 12 and pushed the thoroughly debunked myth that trans-inclusive policies will allow “predatory men … to gain access to women's single-sex spaces” and threaten the safety of women.

...

Sebastian Gorka: "I think that whole trans thing started with Teletubbies"

July 22, 2019 6:34 PM EDT

trump tweet policy

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PBS Newshour, Anti-Violence Project's Beverly Tillery highlights the epidemic of deadly violence against trans women of color

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https://crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-america/

:{[:{ ### “The world’s assignment editor.”}:

](https://crooked.com/podcast/the-worlds-assignment-editor/)}:

MAY.28.19

The President sides with a murderous tyrant over advisors and allies, the Attorney General targets Trump’s political enemies, and the Democratic candidates fight for media attention in a crowded field. Then ACLU attorney Chase Strangio talks to Jon L. about the Trump administration’s most recent attempt to roll back civil rights for transgender Americans.

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