pedophile child molestor
belated and squishy category; both actual abuse of kids (usually by men they know), also trafficking, but also wacko conspiracy
and now 3rd meaning, just devil term // putin Nazi
merri ok
PINK PILL 1020 someone said it's the red pill for women, drawing them into qanon rabbit hole
see moral panic
see groomer
see sex trafficker
see transgender drag story hour
SEE EPSTEIN HU TRAFFIC HYPOCRISY FAIL
conflation of terms by rightwingers wackos?
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RWW 11 26
- Rebecca Hopkins @ The Roys Report: Ohio megachurch leader Tom Keesee found guilty of 27 child sex abuse charges
After a dramatic trial just outside of Columbus, Ohio, former megachurch leader Gary “Tom” Keesee Jr. was found guilty today of 27 counts of child sex abuse.
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AP News
Prosecutors say Republican SC lawmaker used 'joebidennnn69' to send ...
Jun 13, 2025COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Republican member of the South Carolina House who prosecutors say used the screen name "joebidennnn69" has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children. RJ May was arrested at his Lexington County home after a lengthy investigation and was ordered Thursday by a federal judge to remain jailed until his trial. The ...
South Carolina Public Radio
SC Republican Rep. RJ May arrested in Lexington County
Jun 11, 2025South Carolina Republican lawmaker RJ May was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Lexington County Detention Center, jail records show. May was first elected to the S.C. House in 2020 and represents part of Lexington County. He is a co-founder of the hardline House Freedom
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RWW
10/06/2025
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- Josh Kovensky @ Talking Points Memo: The Trump Admin’s Mostly Unnoticed Move to Crack Down on the Opposition
Last month, the White House issued two executive orders that direct federal law enforcement to start cracking down on the political opposition. One of the two memos prompted some confusion and mockery for its attempt to designate “antifa” a terrorist organization. But the second has gone largely unnoticed in the mainstream press.
- Ann Marie Shambaugh @ The Roys Report: Son of Covenant Eyes Co-Founder Arrested after Planning Sexual Encounter with 14-Year-Old
Back in 2000, a Michigan entrepreneur named Ron DeHaas co-founded Covenant Eyes, an anti-porn internet accountability software program that has since grown to more than 2 million users. The idea, he said at the time, was to protect his teenage stepsons from sexual temptation online. Its effectiveness has been lauded by many, including Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson. But this past Aug. 13, one of those stepsons was arrested at a meeting spot in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he thought he would find a 14-year-old girl interested in having sex with him.
- Andrew Perez, Asawin Suebsaeng @ Rolling Stone: ‘They Need to Suffer’: Inside Trump’s War on Dissent
After Charlie Kirk’s murder, Trump expanded his war on free speech, the left, and ordinary Americans. It’s going to get worse.
- Jonathan Chait @ The Atlantic: Stephen Miller Is Going for Broke
The White House aide equates opposition to Trump’s agenda with terrorism—and pushes for the use of state power to suppress it.
- John Fea @ ARC: The Christian Nationalist Rewriting American History
Douglas Wilson’s rising influence shows how the past is at the center of today’s culture wars.
- Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Supreme Court Tells Laura Loomer to Shut Up Already
The Supreme Court refused to hear the far-right commentator’s censorship case.
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AN 7 25
The Trump Justice Department recently threw its weight behind Washington’s Catholic bishops, filing a legal motion to invalidate SB 5375, siding with clergy arguing the law unconstitutionally targets religious practice.
U.S. District Chief Judge David G. Estudillo issued a preliminary injunction Friday, preventing Washington state from enforcing SB 5375’s mandatory reporting rule “as to the Sacrament of Confession” in the dioceses of Seattle, Yakima, and Spokane — just days before the law’s July 27 effective date.
Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ), led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, officially intervened in the lawsuit Etienne v. Ferguson, backing the Archdiocese of Seattle, Yakima, and Spokane. In its filing, the DOJ labeled Washington’s new child-abuse reporting statute — Senate Bill 5375, which requires clergy to report all suspected child abuse, even if disclosed during confession — as “anti‑Catholic” and likely in violation of First Amendment protections.
READ MORE:'Like an open fire hose': Trump ripped as cracks show in MAGA media
Estudillo emphasized that the law, unlike similar statutes in around 25 other states, included no exceptions for confession, and held that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on First Amendment grounds.
The judge's ruling comes amid the controversy related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of a coverup.
A Rolling Stone article by journalist Alex Ashley published Sunday highlighted the administration's efforts to defend organized religion.
Under the new state law — SB 5375—all clergy, regardless of faith, are required to report suspected child abuse to authorities within 48 hours, even if the information is obtained during confession. They are not required to testify in court, hand over notes, or breach attorney‑client privilege. The obligation is narrow but significant, the author noted.
The article noted that that lone obligation effectively closes a confessional loophole that remains open in most states. While all 50 states (and D.C., Guam) list clergy as mandatory reporters, 33 states exempt what’s disclosed in confession, making SB 5375 a bold exception.
READ MORE:Why Republicans worship Trump as their sick and twisted role model
The law places Washington in the minority — alongside only six other states (New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, West Virginia) — that have eliminated confessional exemptions entirely. Yet enforcement remains problematic: 36 states have religious‑freedom protections (RFRAs or constitutional), making prosecution for confession‑based reporting virtually impossible. Washington has no state RFRA but does apply strict scrutiny to religious‑freedom cases.
The Catholic Church argues the confessional seal isn’t just private counseling — it’s a sacrament essential to faith.
Ashley argued that this marks one of the most forceful federal efforts to defend organized religion against a state law in recent memory — DOJ isn’t asking for a narrow carve‑out, but pushing to overturn the law entirely and remind courts of the centrality of religious liberty.
According to the author, the "Trump-era DOJ and the Catholic Church have found common cause in attacking Washington state, even if they don’t agree on where the line should be drawn, forming a rare alliance against one of the first laws in decades to strip away clergy’s confessional shield in child abuse cases."
He added: "It has turned into a national flashpoint, a constitutional test case watched across the country, poised to redefine the boundary between church and state."
"Together, the two lawsuits, along with the DOJ’s involvement, have made Washington’s law a high-stakes legal test. Whether its promise of ending clergy secrecy in abuse reporting holds, or collapses under constitutional challenge, now rests with the courts," the piece said.
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fox digital not tv?
South Carolina state representative and co-founder of the Freedom Caucus was indicted on federal charges after allegedly using a Biden-themed account on a messaging app to share child sexual abuse material.
A federal grand jury in Greenville, South Carolina, recently returned a 10-count indictment against Rep. Robert John "RJ" May III, a Republican from Lexington, for distributing child sexual abuse material, according U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina.
In April 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a cyber-tip from the social messaging app Kik, flagging several videos with the username "joebidennnn69" containing child sexual abuse, according to court documents.
South Carolina Rep. Robert John May, R-Lexington, is accused of having devices containing child pornography. (Jeffrey Collins, File (Associated Press)
205 ARRESTED IN FBI CHILD SEX OPERATION, PATEL AND BONDI ANNOUNCE
Investigators reportedly connected the account to May's West Columbia home IP address and mobile device, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina.
Authorities found at least 10 videos depicting child sexual abuse that were shared from the account, officials said.
May was allegedly arrested at his home on Wednesday, according to a report from The State.
LOUISIANA CHILD KILLER SPARED BY BIDEN FACES DEATH PENALTY AGAIN AFTER ‘OUTRAGEOUS’ COMMUTATION: DA
The 38-year-old faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison with a minimum of five years, a fine of $250,000, and a term of at least five years of supervised release to follow any term of imprisonment.
May, a father of two young children, is assigned to the Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Committee.
The S.C. Freedom Caucus, where May previously served as vice chair, called for his resignation from the House.
Read the statement below(App users click here)
"The South Carolina Freedom Caucus stands firmly for the rule of law and the protection of children," according to the statement. "Although formal charges have not been made public yet, all indications are that these indictments will be for child sex abuse materials. These crimes are heinous and we expect that they will be fully investigated. We pray justice is served."
The group said May has not been involved in the operations of the caucus since August 2024, when he was expelled from the group. FOR WHAT?
NIGERIAN MAN EXTRADITED TO US FOR ALLEGED SEXTORTION SCHEME THAT LED TO SC TEEN’S SUICIDE
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
All charges in the indictment are merely accusations and defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, authorities noted.
Dayne Phillips, who is reportedly representing May, did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Alexandra Koch is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Prior to joining Fox News, Alexandra covered breaking news, crime, religion, and the military in the southeast.
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duck 6 25
[
New York Post
GOP Rep. RJ May distributed hundreds of child porn files under username ...
3 days agoRobert "RJ" May, a hardline conservative, allegedly distributed 220 child porn files on Kik under the username "joebidennnn69." AP The married father of two used "joebidennnn69" and ...
independent.co.uk
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The Independent
South Carolina state Rep RJ May accused of distributing child sexual ...
4 days agoSouth Carolina Republican Congressman RJ May has been charged with 10 counts of distributing child sexual abuse material using the Kik social media platform (Youtube)
foxnews.com
Fox News
State rep used Biden-themed username to distribute child porn, feds say
4 days agoState Freedom Caucus co-founder Robert May faces 10-count federal indictment for sharing child sexual abuse videos, with the South Carolina Freedom Caucus calling for his resignation.
msn.com
MSN
Prosecutors say Republican South Carolina lawmaker used ... - MSN
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Republican member of the South Carolina House who prosecutors say used the screen name "joebidennnn69" has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing ...
lawandcrime.com
state-lawmaker-used-online-name-referencing-joe-biden-to-exchange-child-sex-abuse-material-feds-say
Law & Crime
Lawmaker sent child porn under name referencing Biden: Feds
3 days agoA state lawmaker has been arrested and accused of distributing hundreds of messages of child pornography under the screen name "joebidennnn69."
lgbtqnation.com
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LGBTQ Nation
Moms for Liberty honored this GOP Rep. He was just arrested for kiddie ...
4 days agoIn 2024, May, who was the co-chair of the state's ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus until they kicked him out over the kiddie porn charges, compared Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care to ...
huffpost.com
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HuffPost
Former GOP Official Accused Of Distributing Child Sexual ... - HuffPost
Mar 8, 2024A high-ranking former Maryland state official who served under Republican Gov. Larry Hogan made his first appearance in federal court on Thursday after he was charged last week with distributing child sexual abuse images. Luis Borunda, a former deputy secretary of state under Hogan,
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RWW
02/14/2025
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- Charisma Madarang @ Rolling Stone: Trump Appointee Quits Instead of Dropping Eric Adams Charges, Alleges Quid Pro Quo
After New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted on federal criminal charges in September, the man soon embraced Donald Trump in an overt attempt to get the president to overturn his case. As Manhattan federal prosecutors readied to bring the bombshell indictment charging the mayor with destroying evidence and instructing people to lie to the FBI, Trump’s Justice Department issued an order to drop the case, a letter obtained by The New York Times reveals.
- Edith Olmsted @ The New Republic: Trump’s Border Czar Openly Threatens Eric Adams Over Dropped Charges
The Department of Justice allegedly dropped the charges against Adams in exchange for his cooperation in Donald Trump’s immigration plans.
- Amanda Marcotte @ Salon: "What the Lord established": Elon Musk is camouflaging a Christian nationalist takeover
Project 2025 was clear: First, purge federal workers. Then replace them with theocrats and fanatics.
- Alec MacGillis @ ProPublica: Memory-Holing Jan. 6: What Happens When You Try to Make History Vanish?
The Trump administration’s decision to delete a DOJ database of cases against Capitol riot defendants places those who seek to preserve the historical record in direct opposition to their own government.
- Alex Griffing @ Mediaite: Pete Hegseth Reportedly Invited Conspiracy Theorist Who Vowed to ‘Overthrow’ Democracy On First Overseas Trip
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec to travel with him on his first overseas trip this week to visit European allies, scooped the Washington Post on Thursday.
- Dean Narciso @ The Columbus Dispatch: Ex-members decry New Albany's Faith Life Church's fundraising focus amid sex abuse case
Faith Life Church began as a small basement Bible study 30 years ago led by founders Gary and Drenda Keesee. It opened its New Albany megachurch in 2008, according to the Faith Life website. It is now part of a criminal investigation into accusations of sexual abuse.
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rww
02/04/2025
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- Dan Friedman @ Mother Jones: It Sure Looks Like Kash Patel Lied to Congress
Patel appeared to mislead senators about the “J6 Prison Choir.” Republicans don’t care.
- Diana Falzone @ Mediaite: RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vaxx Group Paid Nearly $1 Million to Woman Who Accused Him of Sexual Misconduct
A woman who worked with the anti-vaccine nonprofit run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused him of sexual misconduct and was paid a nearly $1 million settlement as part of a nondisclosure agreement in late 2020, multiple sources told Mediaite.
- William Vaillancourt @ The Daily Beast: Pete Hegseth’s New Press Sec Has His Own Alarming Backstory
A Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, [Sean] Parnell dropped out of that race in late 2021 after it became known that his estranged wife, Laurie Snell, had accused him of spousal and child abuse.
- Mikael Thalen @ Daily Dot: ‘Proud Boys’ no longer allowed to be ‘Proud Boys’ after name rights given to Black church
The Proud Boys lost the rights to their name on Monday after a judge ruled that it now belongs to a Black church in Washington, D.C.
- Rebecca Hopkins @ The Roys Report: IHOPKC Founder Mike Bickle Sexually Abused 17 Women, Investigation Finds
Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC) groomed and sexually abused 17 women, some of whom were minors, according to an independent investigation released tonight. In some cases, the abuse constituted rape, the investigation found.
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an alternet-lno lnx
Not all former 'Trump pastors' appear to support his 2024 campaign
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Franklin Graham, President of Samaritan's Purse, shake hands at an event about the damage caused by Hurricane Helene, in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S., September 30, 2024. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Franklin Graham, President of Samaritan's Purse, shake hands at an event about the damage caused by Hurricane Helene, in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S., September 30, 2024. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
Alexandria JacobsonOctober 30, 2024
With Election Day one week away, the campaign for Republican nominee former President Donald Trump organized a self-titled “11th hour” meeting for faith leaders last Monday in Concord, N.C.
The event, featuring Trump, his son Eric Trump, retired neurosurgeon and former Trump administration Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, and other religious leaders, aimed to “mobilize the Christian vote, which is the largest vote in America,” Jackson Lahmeyer, founder of Pastors for Trump, told Raw Story.
“Our aim is to send all of these pastors back to their churches encouraged and willing to say to their congregation, now you gotta get out and vote in this election,” Lahmeyer said.
The Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University predicts that Christians, who make up two-thirds of Americans, may have an outsized influence in next month’s election. Of voters who frequently attend religious services, 59 percent of them cast their ballot for Trump in 2020, according to Pew Research Center.
ALSO READ: 'Chosen by God': A new kind of convert is making the pilgrimage to see Trump
During the event, Trump said his presidential run was the result of “God leading me to where I am today,” and he emphasized that “Americans of faith are not a threat to our country. Americans of faith are the soul of our country.”
As the election nears its final days, both Trump and his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, have increased their campaign stops targeted at religious voters — with Trump’s campaign even painting the election as "spiritual warfare."
Harris attended church services and spoke at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta a week ago. Trump criticized Harris as “very disrespectful to our Catholic community,” for not attending the Al Smith dinner in New York City, a high-profile fundraiser for Catholic charities, last week, NBC reported.
Trump has enlisted the support of pastors across the country—as many as 10,000, according to Lahmeyer—naming some to roles such as spiritual advisers and others to his various coalitions, boards and groups.
Raw Story compiled a list of Trump-affiliated faith leaders who’ve advised or supported his campaign over the years — some showing varying levels of public support, others stepping away.
Paula White
White is a televangelist and former senior pastor of City of Destiny church in Apopka, Fla., a historically Black congregation that transitioned to a mostly elderly white congregation under her leadership.
White has been a spiritual adviser to Trump for years. She delivered an invocation for Trump’s 2017 inauguration and advised his administration’s Faith and Opportunity initiative. White delivered prayers on Jan. 6, 2021 at a “Save America” rally in Washington, D.C., and she led his national faith advisory board starting in September 2021.
“As a friend, pastor, and faith adviser to President Trump for over 20 years, I've been able to witness President Trump's deep commitment to faith. And never more than after surviving the violent attack on his very life on July 13th,” White said in a press release in July announcing the campaign’s “Believers for Trump” coalition. “As president, he championed people of faith of every denomination and defended our religious freedoms with the belief that we worship God, not government."
White has appeared less in the public eye this election cycle, especially since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden stepping away in July, Religion News Service reported in September.
Yet, Trump shouted her out at last Monday’s event, looking for her in the audience but said she was likely in the back “making phone calls, getting more people lined up for the vote.”
White also spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in June, sharing that Trump asked her about what God thought of his presidential candidacy.
“I said, ‘Sir … you’re going to be president one day,’” White allegedly said, but added, “I hate the price that you’re going to pay.
Mark Walker
A former U.S. representative, Walker, was facing a Republican primary runoff election in March against Trump-backed Addison McDowell in a race to represent North Carolina's 6th District.
Then Trump offered Walker a job directing the campaign’s outreach to faith groups and minority communities, prompting him to drop out of the race.
Walker, a former Baptist pastor, has made barely any public appearances since taking the job in March. He did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.
Jackson Lahmeyer
Lahmeyer, the founder of Pastors for Trump, said the group was supporting the campaign with last Monday’s event by inviting pastors to attend. While not officially affiliated with the Trump campaign, the group does outreach to pastors in all 50 states.
“Every pastor, whether they pastor a church of 70 people, 700 people or 7,000 people, they have influence,”Lahmayer told Raw Story. “If a pastor tells their congregation you should vote, odds are those members are going to listen to their pastor. That's the simple strategy, but it's very effective.”
Lahmeyer is the pastor of Sheridan Church in Tulsa, Okla, and lost his Republican Senate primary race to now-Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). He has participated in the ReAwaken America tour, founded by entrepreneur Clay Clark and former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn, which has been known to push conspiracy theories, misinformation and election denialism.
Lahmeyer has been a vocal advocate of Christian nationalism, and his social media posts have supported conspiracy theorists and demonized Democrats, according to Rolling Stone.
“I will embrace Christian Nationalism because… we are at war in this country; it is a spiritual war between good and evil,” Laymeyer told Rolling Stone.
His posts have ranged from “Alex Jones did nothing wrong” to “Speaker Pelosi is a DEMON.”
Laymeyer also called members of the LGBTQ+ community demonic in June, LGBTQ Nation reported.
“The LGBTQXYZ+3 movement is a demonic-inspired movement. It’s totally demonic," Lahmeyere said.
Lahmeyer spoke out in July after the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pa.
"What is our response?" Laymeyer told Fox 23 in Tulsa. "This is key. What's our response? Do we lash back? Try to get vengeance?"
Franklin Graham
Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, spoke at last Monday’s event, leading the group in praying for Trump to win the election.
Graham said “dark forces” were at work against Trump and “encouraged President Trump that when he wakes up in the morning, that the first thing he does is to ask God for help, and if he does, God will hear and God will answer his prayer.”
Graham, president and CEO of Christian humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, spoke with Axios in 2018 about why he supported Trump , despite the former president's alleged sexual misconduct and extramarital affairs.
"Trump has admitted his faults and has apologized to his wife and his daughter for things he has done and said. And he has to stand before God for those things,” Graham said.
Graham has recently taken issue with an ad from Evangelicals for Harris that used a clip of his late father, Newsweek reported.
“They are trying to mislead people. Maybe they don't know that my father appreciated the conservative values and policies of President @realDonaldTrump in 2016, and if he were alive today, my father's views and opinions would not have changed." Graham died in 2018 at the age of 99,” Graham posted.
Robert Morris
Morris, founding pastor of Texas megachurch Gateway Church, stepped down from the church in June after admitting to The Christian Post that he repeatedly sexually abused a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.
Morris was a member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board for the 2016 election.
“When I was in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying. It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong. This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years,” Morris said in a statement to The Christian Post.
Morris continued, “In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of. I submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the young lady’s father. They asked me to step out of ministry and receive counseling and freedom ministry, which I did. Since that time, I have walked in purity and accountability in this area.”
Morris’ accuser Cindy Clemishire, told The Christian Post she was “appalled” that Morris said she was a “young lady” when he abused her.
“I was 12 years old. I was a little girl. A very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home. He and his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh, and trusted and preached at the church that my dad helped start and then began grooming all of us to do this, which took me decades to wrap my brain around as an adult,” Clemishire said.
Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to Raw Story's request for comment.
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ali alex 5 24 texas colo invest
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an 1 24
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) served up wild accusations against President Joe Biden and his administration on Monday during a House Republicans’ press conference on the border. After making demands of the Biden Administration to send an ultra-conservative bill that includes funding and stringent policies for the U.S. border, and funding to support fighting in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Republicans are now rejecting what they requested after decrees from Donald Trump.
Back in October, after far-right House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy and were struggling to find a new Speaker, President Joe Biden requested a $105 billion aid package for the U.S. southern border, Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Of the $105 billion, $50 billion would go to U.S. defense industry manufacturers to “expand production lines, strengthen the American economy, keep us safe, and create new American jobs,” Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young said, CNBC reported at the time.
“Additionally,” CNBC explained, “the White House is seeking $6.4 billion for border operations, pushing back against Republicans who have criticized it for not doing enough to contend with migration from Latin America. The request also includes about $1.2 billion for efforts aimed at countering fentanyl, which has driven a wave of deadly overdoses in the United States.”
“Some in Congress have said a lot about doing something on border security while refusing to take up the $4 billion request we sent in August to Congress,” Young said. “We will not be lectured by those who refuse to act. As we’ve said repeatedly, Congress needs to take action to provide sufficient resources for the border.”
READ MORE: Tuberville Delivers Startling Military Analysis: ‘I Don’t Know Who’s Running Our Country’
Three months later, House Republicans under direction of Donald Trump have decided to reject any legislation that is not “perfect.” Just as he did when he launched his xenophobic presidential campaign in 2015, and throughout his 2016 campaign, Trump aims to use immigration as a wedge issue to win the White House in November.
But now, Trump has the support and influence of the Republican Party, and many – especially House Republicans – willing to obey him via often-angry rants he posts on his Truth Social platform.
Congresswoman Van Duyne, a Texas backbencher who failed at her attempt to be elevated into House leadership when Mike Johnson was made Speaker, on Monday in a little-noticed speech served up allegations of “traitorous acts,” “usher[ing] in a new era of slave trade,” and promoting the “endless rapes” of women and children and a “lifetime of sex trafficking enslavement,” against President Biden and his administration.
“Joe Biden and the extremists in his administration are arsonists,” Congresswoman Van Duyne declared. “From day one they have burned down every shred of strong, effective, Trump-era border security policy that was protecting America.”
“Their purposeful and persistent actions, the arsonists of the Biden administration have created a national security and humanitarian nightmare. By turning over control of our southern border to the Mexican cartels, Biden, the Democrats, have ushered in a new massive era of slave trade here in America that is cursing the lives of illegal immigrant women, little girls and little boys. But Biden, [DHS Secretary] Mayorkas, and the Democrats couldn’t care less about the lives of these small children. They’re condemning them to endless rapes in a lifetime of sex trafficking enslavement.”
READ MORE: Local Reporter Hammers House Republican Taking Credit for Biden’s Bills After Voting ‘No’
“And rather than using the power that they already have in existing law, to this end is utter catastrophe,” she continued. “Biden is salivating at the prospect of some staggeringly horrible Senate compromise bill to enshrine that this ongoing disaster continues.”
The Senate bill was drafted by hard-core conservative U.S. Senator Jim Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, and it is far more extreme than Democrats would ordinarily support, yet has the approval of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“I’ve got news for the Senate: You don’t reward arsonists by handing them gasoline. Instead, you do what Texas is doing: you dig in, you fight, you hold the line and you never give in when our national security is constantly being threatened by the traitorous actions of the executive branch. Stand with Texas. Hold the line and never back down.”
Watch Van Duyne’s remarks below or at this link.
twt
“From day one, they have burned down every shred of strong, effective Trump-era border security policy that was protecting America.” -
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https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/right-wing-medias-shameful-history-defending-pedophilia-and-sexualizing
mma 6 23
Over the past year, the far right’s obsession with accusing its opponents of pedophilia has become a staple of the modern Republican playbook. Conservative media stars and GOP elected officials have used baseless accusations of sexual abuse and child “grooming” to attack Democrats and demonize the LGBTQ rights movement across the nation.
A review of the right’s hypocrisy on pedophilia and abuse found that conservative media personalities have repeatedly made comments promoting the sexualization of children, while others have defended figures who have been accused of abuse or pedophilia — and several reported abusers have even worked in right-wing media themselves.
The right-wing fixation with pedophilia dates back decades and has been a central facet in dangerous right-wing conspiracy theories including Pizzagate and QAnon, both of which have led to real-world violence. Baseless pedophilia accusations have been used by the right to discredit and attack the LGBTQ rights movement and any figure or symbol that they disagree with — from Elmo and public libraries to a plethora of businesses and organizations.
The moral panic behind these accusations puts the real lives of LGBTQ people at risk. These groundless allegations have led to neo-Nazi encroachment at Pride events and calls for violence against pro-LGBTQ people and organizations, including children’s hospitals.
As we enter Pride Month — a time of the year that has invigorated right-wing extremists in their attacks against LGBTQ people — allies, political leaders, and businesses must not succumb to bad-faith actors making groundless accusations against these underrepresented communities.
Here is a non-comprehensive breakdown of right-wing media figures and organizations who have either made comments that promote or mock the sexualization of minors, or supported or defended figures who have been accused of abuse or pedophilia:
many lnx vid twt
Promoting the sexualization of children and teens
In unearthed audio, Media Matters found that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson made numerous perverted comments about underage girls on the Bubba the Love Sponge Show between 2006-11.In appearances on the shock jock’s radio program, Carlson minimized and defended statutory rape,said he “would love” the idea of young girls experimenting with their sexuality at boarding school, laughed about violence against women, and described a Miss Teen USA contestant as “appealing” and said she would be “probably a pretty good wife.”
Nazi-sympathizer Milo Yiannopoulos resigned from his position as an editor at Breitbart in 2017 after making comments condoning pedophilia.
Former president and reality TV star Donald Trump reportedly walked into a Miss Teen USA 1997 changing room where girls as young as 15 years old were changing and allegedly said, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.” (Trump has been accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women dating back to the 1970s, and a federal jury recently found him liable for sexually assaulting journalist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.)
Child pornography was reportedly found in Infowars head Alex Jones’ personal documentsthat were sent to lawyers during his Sandy Hook defamation case in 2019.
Right-wing outlet The Daily Caller has repeatedly mocked survivors of childhood sexual abuse,including a whole category of tags on its website for stories of teachers having sexual contact with their underage students.
White nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes has promoted teen pregnancies. Fuentes recently said that he wanted a “16-year-old wife, probably when I turn 30,” claimed he was “not against grooming” children as long as they are being “groomed” for marriage, and tweeted “17 years old? What is even the big deal”.
Neo-Nazi blogger Andrew Anglin defended Fuentes’ comments, saying it’s “normal” to want a 16-year-old bride and men should “shoot lower than that. I don’t think you need to wait until the girl is 16.” Anglin said that he supports “forced child marriage” but denied supporting pedophilia, which he dismissed as a term “that gets thrown around at people who talk about so-called underage girls.”
Right-wing influencer and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander reportedly sent sexual text messages to teenage boys.
Right-wing misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate has teamed up to promote an anime-obsessed content creator and misanthrope who promotes the hyper-sexualization of underage girls. Tate and his brother have also bragged about having intercourse with teenagers. Tristan Tate is featured in a video about how to “take a girl’s virginity.” The Tates are currently under investigation in Romania for organized crime, rape, and sex trafficking.
Radio host and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was caught on camera during the filming of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm attempting to seduce an “underage” girl. Additionally, Giuliani defended a priest accused of sexual abuse and a former Giuliani employee is reportedly suing him for sexual harassment.
Former radio host and Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) was forced to resign from Congress after it was revealed that he was sending sexual messages to teenage male congressional pages.
Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) pleaded guilty in 2015 to paying off victims to keep quiet about his history of sexual abuse toward high school wrestlers that he coached decades earlier.
In 2009, Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren, and Bill O’Reilly displayed footage of bikini-clad women on spring break while discussing crime in Mexico. Hannity repeated the spring break segments again in 2014, 2017, and 2021.
In now-deleted tweets, right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong argued that the age of consent should be lowered.
Working with or defending alleged pedophiles and abusers
Daily Wire host and anti-LGBTQ bigot Matt Walsh has attempted to normalize pregnancy and marriage for teenage girls and defended former Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was forced to resign after decades of reported sexual abuse. Walsh has also defended other abusers in the Catholic Church and minimized former reality TV star Josh Duggar’s multiple reports of child molestation (Duggar was later convicted and sentenced to over 12 years for downloading child pornography).
Right-wing host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee repeatedly defended Duggar and argued that he should be forgiven for his crimes.
Right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA has employed or partnered with multiple sex offenders and drawn criticism from other conservatives for failing to handle allegations of sexual assault against underage students at its events. Kirk has also weaponized the sexual assault of a minor to attack trans people.
Tucker Carlson has defended statutory rape and described reporting it as “whiny,” claimed that underage boys being sexually harassed by a female teacher is “the greatest thing that ever happened,” suggested that it is “the dream of 15-year-old boys” to be sexually harassed by female teachers, and has shamed rape survivors and pushed general misogyny.
Video
CitationFrom the June 5, 2014, edition of Fox News' Outnumbered
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld recently applauded a 38-year-old high school teacher who was charged with engaging in sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old student. Gutfeld exclaimed: “16 years old — I would have died for that!”
Video
CitationFrom the May 22, 2023, edition of Fox News' Gutfeld!
Former Trump White House chief strategist and podcaster Steve Bannon spearheaded former Alabama state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore’s 2017 special election campaign for Senate, even after reports that Moore groped, forcibly kissed, and made nonconsensual advances toward various women. Moore was also accused of twice sexually assaulting a then-14-year-old girl by taking her to his home in the woods and forcibly touching her. Moore was 32-years-old at the time of the incident.
Multiple right-wing media figures and outlets defended Moore’s Senate run, downplayed the report that he molested a child, and attacked his accusers. Then-Infowars host David Knight even pushed for Moore to run for Senate again in 2020.
Several right-wing figures defended Hastert prior to being “sentenced for his part in an elaborate hush money scheme to cover up his years long molestation of teenage boys.”
In 2014, Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested that statutory rape of a 16-year-old boy by an older woman is not as bad if the rapist is attractive.
Video
CitationFrom the June 11, 2014, edition of Fox News' Outnumbered
Frequent Fox News guest Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was reportedly aware of sexual assaults occurring at Ohio State University while he was a wrestling coach in the 1990s and “chose to turn a blind eye.” Then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), now a Fox Corp. board member, defended Jordan and dismissed the need for the House Ethics Committee to investigate members for “things that happened a couple of decades ago when they weren’t in Congress.”
Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow attempted to turn Yiannopoulos into a martyr following his comments defending the sexual assault of minors.
More examples of members of the far right falling into these categories appear to pop up all the time.
The right-wing media’s hypocrisy on the topic is overwhelming, but it will likely not stop them from continuing to make baseless accusations about the LGBTQ community and putting real lives in danger.
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an 3 23
the Houston Chronicle's editorial board is offering a brief history lesson for QAnon supporters who believe in pushing conspiracy theories about Democratic leaders and lawmakers being at the center of child sex trafficking rings.
According to the board, an actual child sex ring was reportedly discovered in Texas but when it came to making sure criminals suffered consequences for their actions, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is said to have dropped the ball.
"So where’s QAnon when you need them? We’re talking about the secretive cult of conspiracy-mongering crazies who believe that Democrats are pedophiles prone to making meals of their victims at the behest of evil Hillary Clinton and who worship Donald Trump," the editorial board wrote.
READ MORE: Venue nixes Trump-inspired event following warning of possible influx of white supremacists
The board went on to raise questions about the irony of former President Donald Trump's support of the movement while Paxton and QAnon supporters ignore a problem in their own backyard.
"We’ve noticed that the former president has taken to wearing a Q pin on his lapel, but in the interest of truth, justice, and the American way, we ask, how can these folks stay anon when an actual elected official in the great state of Texas has, by his rank incompetence, abetted what would appear to be actual cases of child sex-trafficking?"
Recounting the disturbing situation that unfolded in Waco, Texas, the board wrote: "Last year, the AG’s office proudly announced that the Human Trafficking Unit of the Criminal Investigations Division had arrested a group of people involved in a scheme in Coryell County, a rural county west of Waco, to ship teenage girls to Dallas and other Texas cities, where they were forced to 'exchange sexual contact for crystal methamphetamine.'
"Paxton’s office dubbed its sex-trafficking investigation 'Operation Fallen Angel,'” the board added.
READ MORE: Maryland’s GOP AG nominee called 9/11 an 'inside job': report
Now, unfortunately, the board is reporting that the investigation fell flat. "Now, thanks to a blockbuster investigative report by the Associated Press, we learn that Operation Fallen Angel has quietly fallen apart because of the AG’s bungling.
"Six of the people indicted are now free. One is being held in the Coryell County jail on other charges, while an eighth died in jail. The AP reports that Paxton’s attorneys were recently forced to drop four of the human trafficking and sexual assault cases — because they misplaced one of the victims."
The issue in Texas appears to underscore a bigger issue that was uncovered by the Associated Press.
Per the Houston Chronicle: "The AP investigation found that, as of August, the number of assistant attorneys general in the division that handles human trafficking cases was down by 40 percent. The number of assistant attorneys general in the criminal prosecutions division was down more than 25 percent from two years ago. The group that deals with financial and white-collar cases had been cut by more than half and has merged with another division."
The board concluded with a blistering assessment of Paxton's leadership and posed a compelling question to voters. "Paxton’s buffoonish adventures may read like a comic strip, but the harm he’s doing to this state is real," the board wrote. "How long will his supporters stand by and let it happen?"
READ MORE: Election conspiracy theorists are rallying behind these far-right MAGA Republicans in Michigan
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huh? vote ~ bill prot
https://www.alternet.org/28-house-republicans-abuse-victims/
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mma
11/22/22
11/22/22
11/22/22
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an 10 22
'Buffoonish adventures': Houston Chronicle editorial board gives QAnon a history lesson on the real child sex ring
Meaghan Ellis October 08, 2022
The Houston Chronicle's editorial board is offering a brief history lesson for QAnon supporters who believe in pushing conspiracy theories about Democratic leaders and lawmakers being at the center of child sex trafficking rings.
:{:{}:
}:
According to the board, an actual child sex ring was reportedly discovered in Texas but when it came to making sure criminals suffered consequences for their actions, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is said to have dropped the ball.
"So where’s QAnon when you need them? We’re talking about the secretive cult of conspiracy-mongering crazies who believe that Democrats are pedophiles prone to making meals of their victims at the behest of evil Hillary Clinton and who worship Donald Trump," the editorial board wrote.
READ MORE: Venue nixes Trump-inspired event following warning of possible influx of white supremacists
The board went on to raise questions about the irony of former President Donald Trump's support of the movement while Paxton and QAnon supporters ignore a problem in their own backyard.
"We’ve noticed that the former president has taken to wearing a Q pin on his lapel, but in the interest of truth, justice, and the American way, we ask, how can these folks stay anon when an actual elected official in the great state of Texas has, by his rank incompetence, abetted what would appear to be actual cases of child sex-trafficking?"
Recounting the disturbing situation that unfolded in Waco, Texas, the board wrote: "Last year, the AG’s office proudly announced that the Human Trafficking Unit of the Criminal Investigations Division had arrested a group of people involved in a scheme in Coryell County, a rural county west of Waco, to ship teenage girls to Dallas and other Texas cities, where they were forced to 'exchange sexual contact for crystal methamphetamine.'
:{:{}:
}:
"Paxton’s office dubbed its sex-trafficking investigation 'Operation Fallen Angel,'” the board added.
:{:{}:
}:
Now, unfortunately, the board is reporting that the investigation fell flat. "Now, thanks to a blockbuster investigative report by the Associated Press, we learn that Operation Fallen Angel has quietly fallen apart because of the AG’s bungling.
:{:{}:
}:
"Six of the people indicted are now free. One is being held in the Coryell County jail on other charges, while an eighth died in jail. The AP reports that Paxton’s attorneys were recently forced to drop four of the human trafficking and sexual assault cases — because they misplaced one of the victims."
The issue in Texas appears to underscore a bigger issue that was uncovered by the Associated Press.
:{:{}:
}:
Per the Houston Chronicle: "The AP investigation found that, as of August, the number of assistant attorneys general in the division that handles human trafficking cases was down by 40 percent. The number of assistant attorneys general in the criminal prosecutions division was down more than 25 percent from two years ago. The group that deals with financial and white-collar cases had been cut by more than half and has merged with another division."
The board concluded with a blistering assessment of Paxton's leadership and posed a compelling question to voters. "Paxton’s buffoonish adventures may read like a comic strip, but the harm he’s doing to this state is real," the board wrote. "How long will his supporters stand by and let it happen?"
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an 7 22 ME
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, a new op-ed is shedding light on the evolution of Republicans' seemingly contradictory stance on the sexual assault of minors.
According to The Daily Beast, Republicans have gone from wanting to protect children from a fabricated pedophilia ring they accused Democratic leaders of running to forcing children to suffer consequences that might be imposed on them as a result of sexual assault.
The Beast's Eleanor Clift noted the belief of conservatives and their ultimate goal for pregnancies. "Anti-abortion extremists are adamant about seeing every pregnancy through to term, however horrific the circumstances, be it rape or incest," Clift wrote. "At the same time, the GOP is all worked up over elementary school teachers 'grooming' children."
READ MORE: Republicans labeling political enemies 'pedophiles' 'crosses the line into stochastic terrorism'
Clift went on to raise questions about the reason for conservatives' adamant dismissal of young rape victims. She wrote, "How can conservatives be so dismissive of a young rape victim unless, of course, this is more about raw politics than health care or education?"
Speaking to The Daily Beast, Kristen Mark a sexual education professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, weighed in on the definition of the word grooming and how it has been used in a social context. “That word ‘grooming’ has been used as a tool to create hysteria and to create a social panic,” said Mark. “It’s a loaded term, and to be used in that context, it’s frankly inaccurate.”
She went on to discuss how sexual information has been politicized. “There’s a lot of fear around kids learning (sexual) information,” says Mark. “Kids and adolescents have always been kept away, but today they have the internet, and they’re getting information. It’s medically accurate information that’s become a political issue.”
Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), also weighed in on the grounds of child abortion.
“No child should ever go through such tragic abuse as was reportedly perpetrated on this girl by a criminal in this country illegally. Those who commit such crimes should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Tobias said in a statement. "Not only has a child been abused in one of the worst ways imaginable, this has also cost another child their life.”
William Galston, a Brookings Institution senior fellow of governance studies, also discussed the connection between grooming and child abortion.
“Republicans are being pushed by their activists to dramatically overshoot the center of gravity,” with ongoing calls for federal and statewide abortion bans, Galston told the news outlet. "If you make that point in a reasonable way, you get attention. But pedophiliac grooming really jumps the shark.”
David Finkelour, a University of New Hampshire sociology professor and the director of Crimes against Children Research Center, also weighed in with his take on the idea of a strict ban on abortion rights.
"Removing all abortion from consideration feels like a way to return to a time when fear of pregnancy stifled sexual license. Wild accusations of pedophilia and grooming feel like a way to scare anyone from talking with children about sex except to say that it is evil and corrupting," Finkelour wrote. "So they are in some ways both trying to restore a condition of imagined sexual innocence to children with some very crude tools.”
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A 27-year-old right-wing youth pastor from Arlington, Washington has been charged with two counts of third-degree child rape for allegedly sexually abusing a girl who at the time was just 15 years old.
The Everett Herald reports that prosecutors are alleging that Kendal Kippen met a 15-year-old girl at a youth group in 2017, when Kippen was at the time 22 years old.
The two became friends and exchanged contact information, which the girl told prosecutors flattered her at the time. The girl also said that she felt comfortable exchanging her information with Kippen because he was a church leader, which she figured meant he would not take advantage of his position.
The pair's relationship eventually grew to be sexual in nature, however, and prosecutors allege that Kippen repeatedly urged her to not tell anyone about their relationship until she turned 16 years old, which is the legal age of consent in Washington.
Additionally, it appears that the 15-year-old girl wasn't the only member of the church who drew Kippen's attentions, as an anonymous tipster called police in 2020 to report that he had been having "inappropriate relations" with multiple young congregants.
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7 22 an
Republican candidate in the state of Maryland has been apprehended for concocting an erroneous report riddled with false child trafficking accusations.
On Friday, July 15, Ryan Dark White was taken into custody at the Harford County Detention Center after being arrested, according to a statement released by the sheriff's office.
Per HuffPost: "The Harford County Sherriff’s Office said White, an employee at an adult bookstore in Edgewood, Maryland, falsely reported in April that a girl aged 10 to 12 was being trafficked by a man at the bookstore and forced to perform sex acts on male customers. The sheriff’s office identified both the male and the young girl, and said investigators found no evidence supporting White’s allegations."
Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey R. Gahler weighed in with a response to White's false report saying, “It is shameful that a candidate for public office would make up such a story and use it to further his own political agenda."
Gahler also criticized an unnamed candidate who isn't facing criminal charges as part of the investigation. “It is even more appalling that another individual, who is running for a law enforcement position, would embrace such an obviously false narrative in an effort to gain political traction — nothing more,” Gahler said.
White's arrest follows multiple appearances he reportedly made with Andy Kuhl, who is a Baltimore Count Republican candidate for sheriff. Kuhl's campaign website issued warnings about a so-called "multistate child trafficking operation," per HuffPost.
The website says, “Jon McGreevey and I go undercover to expose these sick and heinous crimes against children. We must bring these criminals to Justice.”
READ MORE: QAnon 'nut jobs' are 'intercepting' migrant children at the border to indoctrinate them: report
White also went on record saying he took a job at a bookstore in hopes of uncovering an alleged drug distribution operation as he insisted drugs were being sold out of the location.
“They started exploiting children,” White said in a clip uploaded to Kuhl’s campaign website in June. “There’s a child trafficking ring being run through there as well.”
Gahler applauded his office and the resources exhausted to for the false reporting investigation.
“I am beyond grateful this young girl is safe, but extremely disappointed someone would attempt to discredit and disparage the work of the dedicated men and women of the Harford County Sheriff’s Office and Child Advocacy Center,” Gahler said. “Fearmongering and antagonism caused wasted time and energy by our personnel, whose time would have been better served protecting the citizens of Harford County, instead of investigating lies.”
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an 6 22 badash
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has hired a far right-wing agitator and activist who appeared to support sexual “relationships” between boys as young as 13 and older men.
In 2016 Milo Yiannopoulos said, “I think in the gay world some of the most important, enriching and incredibly life-affirming, important shaping relationships very often between younger boys and older men.”
Those remarks were part of a video in which “Yiannopoulos discussed romantic relationships between teenage boys and adult men while being interviewed for the Drunken Peasants podcast in early 2016,” NBC News had reported in 2017. “Asked whether he was advocating for ‘cross-generational relationships,’ Yiannopoulos said: ‘Yeah, I don’t mind admitting that.'”
At that time, Heavy also reported: “In the video, Yiannopoulos describes how he feels sexual relationships between boys and older men can be positive. He denies he was defending pedophilia in the video, saying that term refers to younger children, not ‘someone who is 13-year-old, who is sexually mature.’ He also says, ‘We get hung up on this sort of child abuse stuff to the point where we are heavily policing consensual adults.'”
Yiannopoulos said in an apology, “I do not advocate for illegal behavior,” and, “I do not support child abuse. It’s a disgusting crime of which I have been a victim.”
Monday afternoon The Hill reported: “Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos is working as an unpaid intern in the Congressional office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).”
“Yiannopoulos, 37, announced the job on his Telegram account Monday with a photo of his official intern congressional badge,” The Hill added, noting “Greene’s office confirmed to The Hill that Yiannopoulos is indeed their intern.”
“At the end of April,” The Daily Beast also reports, “the hate-spewing ideologue—once a ubiquitous MAGA figure until he appeared to defend pedophilia in a YouTube video—attended a Greene press conference and, after it wrapped, was escorted with the congresswoman into the Capitol building through a ‘members only’ entrance.”
Rep. Greene has repeatedly attacked the LGBTQ community, and expanded her attacks to the larger liberal voting bloc, suggesting Democrats and anyone who supports LGBTQ people is a pedophile or supports pedophilia. Earlier Monday she posted this, one of several of her tweets calling people “groomer” or using the term “grooming.”
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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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no lnx vid twt
https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/fox-news/
Fox News dangerously declares war on teachers: Calls for violence, accusations of 'inclination' to pedophilia
David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement April 11, 2022
From Tucker Carlson to Laura Ingraham to Mark Levin, Fox News propagandists have declared war on public school teachers. The dangerous attacks follow the right’s misleading claims – fueled by Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” legislation – about children inappropriately being taught about sex, homosexuality, bisexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity starting as early as kindergarten.
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Last month, just days after Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ spokesperson Christina Pushaw charged that anyone who opposed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was “probably” a “groomer” – essentially, a pedophile, pedophile enabler, or pedophile supporter, Fox News propagandist Laura Ingraham jumped into action.
“When did ourpublic schools,any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals?” Ingraham asked, as Media Matters reported. The chyron was less ambiguous: “Liberals are sexually grooming elementary students.”
In fact, on Monday Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz wrote, “With Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, Republicans have weaponized their Fox News base against teachers.”
Sunday night Fox News’ far-right “fringe” host Mark Levin hosted award-winning playwright David Mamet, who has no degree in childhood development, education, or sexual studies, to discuss public schools. He declared that teachers, especially male teachers, are “sexual predators.”
“Teachers are inclined, particularly men because men are predators, to pedophilia,” Mamet charged, pointing to no study that proves his claim.
That claim came just days after Fox News’ top propagandist, Tucker Carlson, called for men to engage in verbal or physical abuse of school teachers, as Media Matters reported.
:{:{}:
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“I don’t understand where the men are. Like where are the dads? You know, some teachers pushing sex values on your third grader why don’t you go in and thrash the teacher? Like this is an agent of the government pushing someone else’s values on your kid about sex, like where’s the pushback?
But Insider reports that Carlson was “repeating calls for violence he has made previously.” And The Daily Beast apparently agreed: “The Fox News host yet again suggested that violence against educators is called for.”
Rather than apologize for its hosts and guests, Fox News is doubling down.Monday morning the conservative outlet published an article claiming: “CNN, Washington Post, Vice and more fret that Republicans are worried about child grooming, pedophilia.”
On Twitter, Media Matters Matthew Gertz adds to points he made in his article.
“Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law effectively deputizes the most Fox-News-and-Facebook-addicted members of the GOP base to act on frenzied smears that LGBTQ teachers are ‘grooming’ children,” he writes.
“This vague law is then enforced by parents suing their school districts. Suits will inevitably come from the most anti-LGBTQ parents, and school districts will chill discussion of a wide range of topics to try to avoid getting mired in lawsuits,” Gertz adds.
“These baseless accusations that the right’s political opponents are actually pedophiles overlap with – and at times become indistinguishable from – the QAnon conspiracy theory,” he concludes, “which is moving ever closer to the GOP mainstream.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/groomer-speech/
edit bd
Something I’ve been meaning to tell you. My dad is a pedophile. I’m not the victim. As always, though, there’s never just one. The ties that bound my family have largely come undone. Pain is now a feature, not a bug, of our lives. It’s a story without ending, nevermind a happy one.
So you can imagine what it felt like to see Republicans in the United States Senate using the word “pedophile” (as well as “child-predator”) during the confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Their use of it was loose, irrelevant, warped and worse. The purpose was advancing conspiracy theories already spreading. The goal was smearing the new Supreme Court justice with the smell of evil.
Worst of all, by overusing it, they watered down the word. They hollowed out its primary moral essence. They created conditions in which my dad and other pedophiles can now plausible say their crimes aren’t as bad as they say. Just look at what the Democrats are doing.
Child abuse, predation, child molestation and rape – these are real problems responsible citizens much find humane ways of addressing while serving the often conflicting needs for rehabilitaton and justice.
These are real social, political and criminal problems.
By belittling them, the Republicans insult us.
They piss into the wounds of real victims, too.
That’s what you’d expect from a political party operating on the edge of political violence. Justice Jackson’s confirmation hearings were a case in point, according to Gabriel Rosenberg, a professor of gender, sexuality and feminist studies at Duke. During our interview, Professor Rosenberg walked me through the four stages of “groomer speech.”
“You're seeing a way in which partisan interests are pursued through the figure of the pedophile, not because any of these people give a damn about the sexual well-being of children, but because it's an incredibly charged and politically potent thing they can hurl.”
On Twitter, you offered an analysis of the rhetoric surrounding Florida’s new Don’t Say Gay legislation. That rhetoric seems to weaponize words like “pedophile” and “child predator” and other things beyond the pale. You outlined four items. Can you explain?
The basic thesis of what I'm calling the “groomer panic,” which I think is coherently understood as a moral panic, or sex panic, is that has the capacity to be significantly more dangerous than comparable sex panics in the past in which similar sorts of rhetorical weaponization of the terms “pedophile” or “child predator” had been deployed.
It has the possibility of spilling into actual political violence.
I made four points.
First, “groomer speech” is using the metaphor of child sexual abuse to describe educational content that rightwing forces disapprove of.
This metaphor of violent physical harm is being used to describe a disagreement over educational content and the underlying speech acts constituting that content. There is a confusion about different kinds of harm and a confusion about the difference between speech and act.
Second, this confusion means concrete evidence of child sex abuse is no longer necessary. Instead, the evidence is the speech act itself.
It becomes the case then that anyone can be credibly accused of being a “groomer,” not because there's evidence of grooming, but because such person has dissented from a preferred framework among conservatives for the understanding of Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law.
“Groomer” describes dissent from conservatism writ large.
There is specificity to the claim about “pedophile” that is itself unique and dramatic. I describe it as having an eliminationist intention.
Third, “groomer speech” is distinguishable from “subjugating speech.”
“Subjugating speech” might incite violence. It's possible. It has before. But broadly, it’s intended to justify social and political inequalities.
“Pedophile” is a specific term, however. It carries, at least in rightwing communities, a claim that the individual in question is pathologically invested in harming the most vulnerable members of society.
There's no interest in governing such individuals.
It's not about establishing them as second-class citizens.
It's about putting them to death.
That separates it from a general class of what I’m calling “subjugating speech” intended to degrade or lessen a person but isn't necessarily a suggestion that they and all people like them ought to be eliminated.
Fourth, “groomer speech” is not being directed at minorities.
At various points in American history, conservatives have accused gay people and other sexual (and sometimes racial) minorities of intending to prey on kids – they behave in a predatory fashion toward children.
What's interesting about “groomer speech” and what's most alarming about its use by the right is the charge being directed at powerful people who cannot by any measure be identified with a minority.
When Marjorie Taylor Greene said Mitt Romney is “pro-pedophile,” she's talking about the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee.
When James Lindsay called Nate Hochman, a writer for National Review, a “groomer,” he's talking about a conservative in good standing, or was. He's saying this individual also wants to abuse children.
This is radically different.
It's now about disciplining ingroup versus outgroup identity within conservatism writ large. It’s about reformatting and hardening the line between people who are conservative and people who are not.
In the end, conservatives are the good ones. They're anti-pedophile. Anyone who dissents from the conservative framework is therefore pro-pedophile. They constitute individuals who must be eliminated.
Ted Cruz used to talk about “San Francisco values.” Others talked about “the gay agenda.” Those are more abstract than “pedophile.” You’re saying we’ve arrived at a new and more explicit point in the evolution of conservative rhetoric. Is that accurate?
That's generally correct.
I would add that on the right, they're open to the idea of people who prey on children deserving the most extreme forms of violence.
I don't think anybody on the far right is trying to hide that.
That’s fundamentally important.
“Groomer speech” is deployed to advance virtually anything that fits within the broader political program of the conservative movement.
Right now, it's about targeting people who dissent from a particular kind of orthodoxy around interpretation of educational content.
But then we saw it coming into play in specious arguments about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's sentencing record – that she was “pro-pedophile.” Therefore Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski [“moderate” Republican senators who voted for her confirmation to the Supreme Court] were also “pro-pedophile.”
It's spilling into confirmations of Supreme Court nominees.
That's a break from the past.
That speaks to the flexibility and centrality of the charge eventually becoming the basis of things like criminal policy, militarization, policing, tax policy and labor policy. It can become a basic rhetorical strategy the far right uses to justify whatever they want to justify.
You're with us and the children.
Or you're on the other side with the pedophiles.
I’m thinking of eugenics. The antipathy toward LGBTQ people comes from the idea that LGBTQ-ness infects white people. As a result, they don't have enough babies. With too few white babies, white people risk becoming a minority. How would you understand that?
During the early human eugenics movement, there was a great deal of enthusiasm in the United States for coercive sterilization of anyone who exhibited homosexual tendencies or who desired sex with men.
There was this idea that homosexuality constituted a dangerous social contagion that needed to be eliminated from society regardless of whether it could be passed on as a congenital defect. It was that grave.
Immediately after World War II, there was something the Lavender Scare period in which heightened concern about male homosexuality resulted in the creation of a lot of criminal psychopathology laws.
These law created legal justification for jailing and sterilizing gay people under the auspices of gay people preying on innocent children.
So the far right isn’t punching down. It's punching sideways – or even up in the case of senators. Is there a link historically between that and a leap into political violence? Do they go hand in hand?
I think Judge Jackson's confirmation hearings clearly illustrate how this works. The Republican Party did not want to see anyone vote for her. Various Republican senators fixated on a specious charge that she'd been light on sentencing people who possessed child pornography.
It was so specious that Andrew McCarthy, who is a notable and extremely right wing figure with National Review, basically labeled it “demagoguery.” He said there were better reasons to oppose her.
The right mobilized after labeling her “pro-pedophile.” From there, they disciplined GOP apostates by labeling them “pro-pedophile,” too. They wanted to show as much opposition as they could.
Actual sexual harm to children had nothing to do with it.
But once it got invoked, it became a disciplinary tool.
You're seeing a way in which partisan interests are pursued through the figure of the pedophile, not because any of these people give a damn about the sexual well-being of children, but because it's an incredibly charged and politically potent thing they can hurl.
That kind of irresponsibility, with no bottom, carries with it its own momentum. It can become more and more difficult to control.
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/republicans-enemies-pedophiles-stochastic-terrorism/
beyerstein
Supporters of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law have dusted off the vintage lie that gay men, trans folks, and their allies are child molesters.
The word of the day is “grooming.”
Much has been written about how dangerous this rhetoric is to LGBTQ communities(see John Stoehr’s interview with Gabriel Rosenberg), but the threat extends further. Republicans have opened a new front against political opponents, insinuating or downright alleging that all Democrats and even dissenting Republicans are pedophiles.
This rhetoric crosses the line from spirited debate to eliminationist rhetoric.Falsely labeling one’s political enemies as pedophiles is a tacit incitement to harassment and even to violence. If the campaign is waged from huge media platforms over a sustained period of time, as we’re seeing now, it crosses the line into stochastic terrorism.
Actual grooming is a form of manipulation.
Abusers ingratiate themselves into the victim’s life and wear down their defenses so they submit to sexual abuse. Proponents of these anti-gay bills claim that teaching kids about sex and gender is the same as grooming them for abuse, if not child abuse in itself. That’s preposterous, as are allegations that supporting a trans child’s identity or providing gender-affirming medical care is child abuse.
The rightwing is cynically collapsing the distinction between sexually abusing children, teaching ideas they falsely claim make children vulnerable and supporting the teaching of these ideas, thus exposing a large segment of the population to reprisals for alleged pedophilia.
“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of four 8-year-old children,” wrote Ron DeSantis’s press secretary Christina Pushaw on Twitter.
US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene proclaimed “the Democrats are the party of pedophiles,” adding that "either you are pro-pedophile and pro-transgender biological men or you defend children and women.”
Greene’s comments might be the ravings of a crank if not for the rightwing uniting behind her. The moral panic over child porn extends from the lowliest 8chan poster to the halls of the United States Senate.
A bizarre conspiracy theory alleging that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was soft on child porn became the centerpiece of GOP objections to her confirmation. Greene accused three senators of her own party of being “pro-pedophile” for voting to confirm Judge Jackson.
Not to be outdone, Tucker Carlson told viewers the Walt Disney Corporation was behaving like a sex offender by including gay characters in its movies and for belatedly opposing “Don’t Say Gay.”
This strategy of equating political opponents with child molesters and pedophiles in order to legitimize violence against them may be more recognizable when seen in a totalitarian regime overseas.
When protests erupted against the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state media responded by branding the organizers of the demonstrations as “political pedophiles,” whom they baselessly allege to be sexually exploiting young activists who joined their cause.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin famously equates homosexuality and pedophilia with the west. In his speech outlining his motives for invading Ukraine, Putin claimed he was invading in part to stop the west from imposing values “contrary to human nature” on Ukraine.
The term eliminationism was coined by political scientist Daniel Goldhagen in his 1996 book Hitler’s Willing Executioners to describe the kinds of rhetoric used to utterly dehumanize a segment of society and mark them for forcible exclusion, expulsion or even elimination.
More recently, journalist and scholar Dave Neiwert has written extensively on eliminationist themes in US right-wing rhetoric.
Eliminationist rhetoric asserts that a group of people is so depraved and debased that coexistence is impossible. The group is thought to be a menace that must be crushed, expelled or otherwise eliminated.
At its core, eliminationist rhetoric is tacit permission for violence. That is exactly what branding your political opponents as pedophiles does.
“Pedo” is eliminationist rhetoric. It’s the logical bridge that explains why people who claim to be the biggest proponents of democracy and freedom don’t want democracy or freedom for Democrats.
Allegedly, we’re too depraved to engage in normal politics.
We must be crushed, literally.
These spurious allegations can also be viewed as a form of stochastic terrorism that involves a group with a big media platform picking a target, blaming them for a social ill and flooding the zone with inflammatory rhetoric until the target is inundated with harassment.
A stochastic terrorist need not intend their demagoguery to end in violence. It is enough for such violence to be reasonably foreseeable.
Who can say whether disgraced former Fox host Bill O’Reilly wanted someone to shoot Dr. George Tiller by he incessantly calling the Wichita, Kansas, abortion provider a “baby killer”? Maybe O’Reilly’s intent was simply to scare Tiller or drive him out of the abortion business, but the fact remains that someone did assassinate him.
Stochastic terrorism unfolds in predictable phases:
demonization,
dehumanization,
desensitization and
denial.
A group with a mass communication platform sets out to demonize a person or a group of people as the cause of a major social ill whether it’s child sexual abuse, a global pandemic or an electoral defeat.
The target is repeatedly and falsely labeled as deviant, criminal, diseased and dangerous. The target may be called pedophiles, psychotics, drug addicts, Nazis, communists and murderers.
The despised group is frequently described as dirty, diseased or even as vermin that must be exterminated for the health of the body politic.
The audience comes to think of the target as subhuman. At this point, it becomes easier to imagine violence as acceptable and necessary.
If these messages are disseminated widely enough, it’s virtually guaranteed the target will be harassed and threatened. And, in a country awash with guns and angry people, there’s a non-trivial chance that someone will eventually attack the target.
The certainty of harassment and the possibility of violence can easily drive the target out of public life, ruin political careers and terrorize families. When the target complains or law enforcement begins asking questions, the stochastic terrorist can deny all responsibility.
After all, they didn’t tell their followers to harass abortion providers, Jews, trans kids, public health officials or female tech journalists.
After all, they just blamed these groups for major social ills and implied that they are too debased and dangerous to be engaged with politically, and normalized violent rhetoric about them.
Legally, they have a point.
Morally, we all know the score.
Moral panics over pedophilia can escalate into real-world harassment and violence. In 2016, an assailant fired a gun into the Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor, a beloved family restaurant in Washington, DC. He believed the restaurant was the center of a child sex trafficking plot.
This so-called Pizzagate conspiracy, a forerunner of QAnon, grew out of baseless online speculation about Hillary Clinton campaign emails hacked by Russian spies and dumped onto the internet.
As a result of the conspiracy, the owner of Comet Ping Pong was deluged with death threats even before the shooting incident.
Extremists protest outside his restaurant to this day.
The concerted Republican attempt to label enemies as pedophiles is a disgusting and dangerous display of homophobia and transphobia, but the threat extends to all of their political enemies.
They are trying to construe anyone opposing their agenda, whether by supporting gay kids, voting for the wrong Supreme Court nominee or even watching a Disney movie with their family, as a pedophile.
This is stochastic terrorism by a major political party.
---
pink pill hype fear conspiracy qanon
https://www.mediamatters.org/laura-ingraham/fox-news-chyron-liberals-are-sexually-grooming-elementary-students
3 22
fox News propagandist Laura Ingraham has been called a “monster” by her own brother, who is gay.
“Our father was a Nazi sympathizer, racist, anti-Semite and homophobe,” Curtis Ingraham wrote, as NBC News reported in 2018. “Like father like daughter?”
Last year the highest-ranking Republican elected official in North Carolina came under fire for declaring LGBTQ people are “filth.” Not only was it vile and anti-American, but it was also done by dredging up an old trope, a disgusting lie, suggesting that gay people are pedophiles.
Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, a Christian nationalist, said: “there’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”
Last week the taxpayer-paid press secretary to Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis went all-in on the pedophilia lie, defending the anti-LGBTQ legislation her boss is expected to soon sign.
“The bill that liberals inaccurately call ‘Don’t Say Gay’ would be more accurately described as an Anti-Grooming Bill,” Christina Pushaw announced.“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of four eight-year-old children. Silence is complicity. This is how it works, Democrats, and I didn’t make the rules.”
The anti-LGBTQ and anti-left lies are back, being promulgated now by some of the most powerful propagandists in the country. Things are getting dangerously worse for LGBTQ people across America.
Freedom for All Americans, a “bipartisan campaign to secure full nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people nationwide,” lists dozens of anti-LGBTQ bills currently in state legislatures across the country. Their passage becomes increasingly assured when propagandists like Laura Ingraham promote vile, hateful tropes about LGBTQ people, even when they mask them by extending it to “liberals.”
Wednesday night Ingraham once again proved her brother right.
“LIBERALS ARE SEXUALLY GROOMING ELEMENTARY STUDENTS” read the chyron on an “Ingraham Angle” segment.
Watch:
Ingraham began by airing clips of two people who viewers likely were expected to believe are school teachers, even though they apparently aren’t. One is just someone on a streaming service who never says she’s a teacher. The other says she’s “in pre-school,” so not a public elementary school teacher.
Those facts don’t matter to propagandists, like Ingraham, who ran those clips then immediately says:
“When did our public schools, any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals?” Ingraham asks (video below), as Media Matters reports. “As a mom, I think it’s appalling, it’s frightening, it’s disgusting, it’s despicable. Florida just passed a bill to keep this type ofsexual brainwashing out of schools. Democrats, though, claim the bill is bigoted, branding it as the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill.’ Well, nice try. The real controversy, though, isn’t this bill. It’s that schools are peddling gender ideology when our international rankings in math, science, and reading are down across the board.”
As she introduces her guest, the chyron changes to read: “DEMS HAPPY TO RUN ON PRO-GROOMING PLATFORM.”
No facts, nothing to back up those claims, just outrageous, dangerous defamation.
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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.”
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https://www.mediamatters.org/laura-ingraham/fox-news-chyron-liberals-are-sexually-grooming-elementary-students
3 22
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aha-ish: losing track of gop dudes with underage girls, need skinny sex dolls vs strong grown woman?
gaetz did stunt in her district, stefanic apostate --> trumpista harvard
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/sen-anthony-bouchard/
cheney GOP challenger says girl he impregnated at 18 when she was 14 was 'like the Romeo and Juliet story’
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pedophile was stick to beat gays with since forever, but realization seeping in (aside from cath ch boy scout] it's often strict? dad male relative? can't get/deal with/control a goown-ass woman, so use kids for gratification/pwr? // pink pill tucker and vaxxers call masks child abuse?!
gotta go hard right for trumpistas? primary flanker? i thot it was pre-emptive [self-] mockery RCS? 2.0 blog AI solves Jew Q spavce laswer cmd or somesuch or just mirror/cryptic reversal: we are the true VICTIMS and you are the true racists/bully/oppressor/tyrant but now i think they just pick up random devil terms and see if they can be made to stick like spaghetti
https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/matt-gaetz/
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., suggested on Wednesday that his office is open to hiring Kyle Rittenhouse as a congressional intern if the accused gunman is acquitted, arguing that the 18-year-old is "not guilty" for the killing of two men during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin last summer.
"You know what, Kyle Rittenhouse would probably make a good congressional intern," Gaetz said Wednesday during an appearance on Newsmax. "We may reach out to him and see if he'd be interested in helping the country in additional ways."
The Florida lawmaker continued: "He is not guilty. He deserves a not guilty verdict and I sure hope he gets it."
Thursday marks the third day of jury deliberations for Rittenhouse's trial, which began on November 1. In August of 2020, Rittenhouse drove from his home of Antioch, Illinois to Kenosha, where he apparently sought to defend a car dealership from the threat of looting in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. During an armed confrontation – the details of which were litigated at trial – Rittenhouse fatally shot two men and injured another with an AR-15-stylerifle.[barrrell short thus got off one slam dunk charge, ok to carry if hunting? POC?]
Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty, claiming that he acted in self-defense, while prosecutors argue that the then-17-year-old acted like a vigilante. "I defended myself,"[[proudly, manly?] Rittenhouse said during the trial last week. The teen faces life imprisonment if convicted.
Over the last several weeks, the televised trial has been closely followed by politicians, pundits, and activists, who have weighed in the proceedings as they relate to racial justice, white privilege, Black Lives Matter, and gun violence.
In a Fox News interview this week, conservative author J.D. Vance, currently vying to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy for Ohio, called Rittenhouse's trial a "farce," adding that "it's child abuse masquerading as justice in this country."
"The kind of people who thought O.J Simpson was innocent are the same people who believe that Kyle Rittenhouse is guilty," echoed right-wing commentator Candace Owenslast week. "Facts don't matter to emotionally-indoctrinated zombies. Only feelings do."
But those on the left have sung a markedly different tune.
Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at the Georgetown University Law Center, said that Rittenhouse's trial reflects "white privilege on steroids."
"It is literally impossible to imagine a 17-year-old Black kid traveling to a different state … who shoots three people, kills two – who, right now, isn't in prison," Butler told POLITICO.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., spoke about the case with marked candidness for a federal lawmaker, tweeting on Wednesday: "Lock up Kyle Rittenhouse and throw away the key."
Rittenhouse's defense team has already filed a motion for a mistrial with prejudice, according to CNN, meaning that Rittenhouse would be protected from any state bid to retry the case going forward.
For his part,Gaetz also railed against the recent sentencing of 34-year-old Jacob Chansley, the "QAnon Shaman" notorious for breaching the U.S. Senate floor on January 6 while donning a horned fur headdress. On Wednesday, Chansley was sentenced to three years in prison on a single count of felony obstruction of an official proceeding.
"This QAnon Shaman is a relatively harmless,nonviolent veganand the notion that he has to be in prison for three and a half years to settle some sort of political score defies justice,"[eternal victims, shocked shocked playing politics, we never do that] Gaetz continued.
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interesting evil perversion so to spk on a YA? novel coming out coming of age bk not on any curric but avail in some schools fuelling CRT school bd BS
they call it child porn when it clearly ain't; eternal bad faith question
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doh pizzagate/qanon
oddly // voter fraud, the gop decry it but only ones doing it.
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see evans behind bastard 1020 on blood libel roots
satanic panic 80's mcmartin daycare
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yikes note merge satan, anti-sem...
https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/qanon-satanic/
In front of a TV audience on Oct. 15, President Donald Trump declared that he knew “nothing about" QAnon, before correcting himself to say: “I do know they are very much against pedophilia."
What he didn't do was disavow what has been referred to as a “collective delusion." Part of that could be down to QAnon followers holding up Trump as some sort of savior – someone playing four-dimensional chess against shadowy political insiders and power players known as the “Deep State."
But that is only part of what Anons – followers of QAnon – believe. What Trump didn't mention is the atrocious claims that underlie this supposed chess match, and the demonic imagery and language that are used in the course of the conspiracy.
As a professor of religion who teaches courses on the cultural significance of monsters, I see many similarities between Anon claims and prior rumor panics that employed satanic rhetoric. Moreover, given the growing popularity of the QAnon conspiracy – and its encroachment into mainstream politics – I believe that ignoring this rhetoric risks harm to those targeted by the conspiracy.
Accusations of evil
The QAnon conspiracy theory started with an anonymous 4chan post in October 2017. The author, who later signed his or her posts as “Q", remains unknown. Since then Q has posted anonymous messages, known as Qdrops, on 8chan and now 8kun – on both online message and image boards.
The conspiracy claims that deep-state politicians and the “Hollywood elite" are involved in a large child abduction network that harvests the chemical compound adrenochrome — which is obtained from the oxidation of adrenaline — from sexually abused children subjected to satanic rituals.
Anons say that adrenochrome is consumed by some Democratic politicians and Hollywood elites for its psychedelic and anti-aging effects and is more potent when harvested from a frightened victim. Trump, they believe, is planning a day of reckoning that will see the arrest, conviction and even execution of dozens of current and former government officials for their involvement in child sex trafficking.
In analyzing the Qdrops, I have noted a discourse of evil woven throughout Q's nearly 5,000 messages. Peppering the Qdrops are claims like “many in our government worship Satan." According to Anons, Trump is engaged in a battle of cosmic significance between the “children of light" and the “children of darkness" and is working to dismantle pedophile networks that are abducting children for satanic rites.
In using such language and imagery, Q does not portray perceived political adversaries as merely having a difference of opinion, but as being downright evil.
For example, in an Aug. 10, 2018, Qdrop titled “Many in Power Worship the Devil," Q states: “PURE EVIL. HOW MANY IN WASHINGTON AND THOSE AROUND THEWORLD (IN POWER) WORSHIP THE DEVIL?"
On Aug. 26, 2020, Q posted an image suggesting that the 2020 Democratic National Convention logo resembled a Satanic Baphomet pentagram, which incorporates a goat's head and a five-pointed star.Accompanying text asserts that one party – Republicans – discusses God while the other party – Democrats – discusses darkness.
Such dialogue rises beyond the level of us versus them. Instead, for Q and Anons it elevates the conspiracy to a matter of cosmic good versus monstrous evil.
This, I believe, is of grave concern. Presenting opponents as monstrously evil dehumanizes them. Through that process, Anons may see themselves as would-be monster-killers ready to use violence to remove the evil.
Remembering the past
This process of using the language of evil to dehumanize a perceived enemy is nothing new. It was seen in conspiracies such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols, a fictional document first published in Russia in the early 1900s, link a satanic Jewish cabal to the Antichrist.
Examining past rhetoric targeting Jews reveals how such a discourse lubricates the machinery of violence – Hitler called the Protocols “immensely instructive."
Jewish communities faced the blood libel — the idea that Jews kidnapped children for blood sacrifices — for centuries before it resurfaced in the Protocols. In the Middle Ages this was driven by afear of Jewish magicians kidnapping and stabbing children for evil rituals. The blood produced from these rites was rumored to be ritually consumed as drink or mixed into matzo. It was a demonic fantasy not based in any reality.
It is noteworthy that Anon claims about child abduction and blood consumption are linked to prominent Jewish figures such as billionaire philanthropist George Soros and the Rothschild family.
Joel Finkelstein, of the anti-hate watchdog the Network Contagion Research Institute has noted that the QAnon conspiracy is becoming increasingly anti-Semitic. Indeed, renowned genocide scholar Gregory Stanton warned in an article in September that QAnon's demonic fantasy was “a rebranded version of the Protocols" and noted that the conspiracy was gaining traction in neo-Nazi circles.
'Satanic Panic'
For those who remember the “satanic panic" of the 1980s, these Anon narratives will sound hauntingly familiar. The satanic panic was based on a series of rumors spread by concerned parents and authority figures, ranging from therapists to law enforcement agencies, convinced that a demonic cabal had infiltrated society to its highest levels. Organizations set up to counter this perceived threat, like Believe the Children, argued that children were most at risk in day care centers run by secret satanists. Prosecutors accepted, with apparent earnest seriousness, the claims being made about child sexual abuse, secret tunnels, and satanic rituals at theMcMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach,California. Similar sensational charges were brought against the Fells Acres Day School and the Wee Care Nursery School. Charges were eventually dropped or reversed in many of these cases.
As the unjust prosecutions demonstrate, the satanic panic damaged the reputations and livelihoods of innocent people.
QAnon is poised to cause similar disruptions in the lives of innocent people. Already there have been incidents including the apparent QAnon-inspired shooting of a mob boss and a live-streamed effort to “take out" Joe Biden. Anons are beginning to show a willingness to take matters into their own hands.
Why it matters now
It is tempting to dismiss QAnon as too small and fringe to lead to the violence associated with prior satanic panics. However, the emerging influence of Q is evident. It is seen not only in the growing number of supporters – QAnon Facebook pages alone boast 3 million followers – but also in Washington with a president who declines to disavow the conspiracy and a Republican QAnon supporter, Marjorie Taylor Greene, looking set to head to Congress in November.
The size of the QAnon community is difficult to estimate. It is, by no means, mainstream. But past experience has shown us that when a minority drapes its cause in a cosmic discourse of good versus evil, atrocities can follow.
Paul Thomas, Chair and Professor of Religious Studies, Radford University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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wackjob, note same rhet as wolverine. pence luciferian traitor, proto-Qanon?
https://timothycharlesholmseth.com/must-view-by-what-authority-are-they-acting-on-murdering-their-own-people-ammon-bundy/
MUST VIEW! By What Authority are they Acting On? (murdering their own people)- Ammon Bundy
August 3, 2020 Timothy Holmseth FRAUD, GOVERNMENT, HEALTH 1
by Timothy Charles Holmseth on August 3, 2020 at 2:05 P.M.
Ammon Bundy, the third son of Cliven Bundy, articulates how the Unites States has been taken over by criminals.
Bundy explains and shows, for instance, that the federal government has no constitutional authority to involve itself with "education" or "health".
:{:{}:
}:
"These agencies have found a way to create their own laws, without the people's elected representatives. Over the past several decades they have been organizing their own law enforcement regiments, building their own prison systems, and appointing their own judges," Ammon Bundy said.
Timothy Holmseth
https://timothycharlesholmseth.com
Timothy Charles Holmseth is an award winning news reporter and investigative journalist. He is an FBI witness in a national profile kidnapping case. He captured rogue CIA and FBI child traffickers on tape discussing their operations. He has been targeted for a decade. In 2019 Timothy Charles Holmseth became part of the Pentagon Pedophile Task Force. Timothy Holmseth is the only reporter authorized to report original content for the PPTF. There is ONE MAN between Timothy Holmseth and President Trump.
See author's posts
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aha: anti-semitism is root of conspiracy (right behind masons and the Bavarian Illuinati see idiot Am bk), blood libel xian babies drink blood; 60 min ripoff To Catch a Predator basically sting, proto Reality TV? also Internet new scary thing; child molesters routinely killed in prison by murderers and rapists? Maybe since the list of RW and televangelists crimes and sins so long, they have to prove THEY enemy Dems/infidels are worse. lack of proof is proof [meadows on voter fraud]
Roman catholic fail; pedophiles attracted to kids b/c they can't handle/have gown-ass women, can't control them;
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"gym" jordan
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/president-trump-is-the-child-trafficker-in-chief/
President Donald Trump thinks of himself as a champion against human trafficking. He addressed a White House Summit on the issue in January claiming there was a “humanitarian crisis” at the border fomented by criminal organizations and that “traffickers victimize countless women and children.” He signed an executive order and diverted $400 million in funding to combat the issue, boasting in his usual manner that “we have signed more legislation on human trafficking than any other administration has ever even thought about.” But in recent months, the administration has been found to be flouting the United States’ own anti-trafficking laws by deporting thousands of children and families seeking asylum, practically delivering them into the hands of traffickers across the border in Mexico.
Dr. Amy Cohen, executive director of Every Last One, explained to me in an interview that under the Trump administration’s so-called “Remain in Mexico” program, “the United States has been essentially feeding vulnerable migrant children and families to cartel traffickers in Mexico continuously.” The program, officially known by the Orwellian-sounding title of “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP), sends immigrants seeking entry into the United States across the border to Mexico to await the adjudication of their cases. While the Department of Homeland Security claimed that MPP would “decrease the… ability of smugglers and traffickers to prey on vulnerable populations,” in fact it does the opposite.
Cohen elaborated on this horrific phenomenon, saying, “migrants are dropped off with nothing on the other side of the border, with no shelter, with no protection, with no food, with no money. And within minutes, they are picked up by cartel gangs that are waiting.” As a child and family psychiatrist who works closely with traumatized migrant children, she did not mince words, saying that families are, “kidnapped and used for extortion, which is a form of trafficking. Sometimes they are tortured. Sometimes they are raped. Children are compelled to watch. Sometimes children themselves are raped.”
The only way to view the outcome of this policy is that the United States is actively participating in a trafficking operation. The Trump administration cannot claim ignorance of the outcome of MPP. According to Cohen, “This is happening in cities literally all along the border. This is not a secret; this is widespread.” So extensive is the abuse that according to her, “The vast majority of asylum seekers who we’ve placed into the MPP program have at one time or another experienced at least one, sometimes multiple, episodes of what I would consider trafficking, of kidnapping, and some form of psychological or physical torture."
because of the extreme danger that the Trump administration has put families in, according to Cohen it has “forced many parents into a decision” about whether to keep their children with them or send them unaccompanied across the U.S. border.
But under cover of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has accelerated the expulsion of even unaccompanied children to Mexico and Central America—in violation of federal law. The Associated Press explained that “More than 2,000 unaccompanied children have been expelled since March under an emergency declaration enacted by the Trump administration, which has cited the coronavirus in refusing to provide them protections under federal anti-trafficking and asylum laws.”
Now reports have emerged of the government hiring a private security and transportation firm to move immigrant families and children into hotels in the United States before expelling them. According to the New York Times, which broke the story, the Trump administration has created “a largely unregulated shadow system of detention and swift expulsions without the safeguards that are intended to protect the most vulnerable migrants.” Children, some as young as one year old, are being cared for in hotels like Best Western and Hampton Inn by private security personnel who have no childcare training.
Cohen says advocates like her believe that “this has been a way for the United States to try to hide a number of these children who they are deporting.” Those children held in government facilities have to be registered as having entered the United States, which then triggers legal protections for them. But by holding children in hotels, effectively off the books and out of public view, “government attorneys are denying that they are actually in the custody” of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, says Cohen. Bizarrely, they are claiming that the children are in the custody of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over concerns of COVID-19, and thereby flouting the legal mandate known as the Flores Settlement to maintain the safety, care, and oversight of the children.
Where the children end up once they are removed from the U.S. is not known, and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency will not say. According to Reuters, “Between April and June, U.S. officials arrested more than 3,300 unaccompanied children on the southwest border, but CBP has declined to say how many have been expelled under the new process or give a breakdown of arrests by nationality for that time period.” During that same time frame, out of the thousands of children apprehended, only about 160 remain in U.S. custody.
It is ironic, to say the least, that some of Trump’s most loyal followers are conspiracy theorists who label themselves QAnon claiming that the president is facing off against a “cabal of Democratic pedophiles.” So mainstream is this movement that one of its followers just won a GOP congressional primary in Georgia. QAnon is now appropriating the social media hashtag #SaveTheChildren and promoting fantastical claims of a widespread child sex trafficking ring. Its followers have even joined the anti-trafficking movement in the United States. But they have entirely ignored the very real trafficking and exploitation of children at the U.S. border that their president has unleashed.
More than two years ago, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed that the government cared about children when he officially announced Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, saying, “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law.” It was a thinly veiled attempt to punish those fleeing poverty and violence for a better life in America. And while mass public outrage forced Trump to back off (he signed an executive order in June 2018 to end what his own discretionary policy initiated), in truth the torture and trauma facing immigrant families did not end. It was simply moved out of our view across the border into even more dangerous conditions.
As America hurtles toward November 3 with a desperation unlike any we’ve felt for previous presidential elections, the issue of how President Trump has treated immigrant families and children has been largely off the radar. But if we care about children and about protecting them from horrific torture and abuse, Trump’s role as Child-Trafficker-in-Chief ought to be central to our election discourse.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-happens-when-ex-navy-seals-go-full-qanon?ref=home
no lnx many
a man filmed leaving the area of an attempted pipe bomb attack on protesters in Portland, Oregon, was a former Navy SEAL who writes conspiracy theory-heavy social media posts decrying the left, Portland activists and news media recently reported.
But the man is just one of an eclectic mix of former SEALs apparently taken in by conspiracy theories online or citing those theories in violent writings. If acted on by highly trained ex-military elite, those paranoias have deadly potential.
Witnesses in Portland say two men threw three homemade explosives at protesters early on the morning of Aug. 8. Although no one was harmed and the men do not appear to have been filmed, citizen journalist Scott Keeler pursued a man spotted in the area and filmed his face. Activists and Oregon Public Broadcasting identified the man asLouis Garrick Fernbaugh, a former SEAL and CIA contractor. Fernbaugh, 52, has been named by police as a person of interest, but not charged with a crime.
Online, Fernbaugh has an extensive history of writing about conspiracy theories, particularly where they implicated the left. In this respect, he is part of a broader pattern of ex-SEALs, many of them with large digital followings, espousing conspiratorial ideas. They’re armed, suspicious, and in some cases, write in detail about potential plans to kill people they view as evildoers.
“People who are ex-military say, ‘I’m going to go liberate the kids.’ Is it bravado or is it a legitimate call to action?”
— Marc-André Argentino]
In particular, some ex-SEALs are promoting belief in QAnon or related theories that falsely accuse many of President Donald Trump’s opponents of being involved in Satanic pedophilia and cannibalism.
Marc-André Argentino, an associate fellow at the Global Network on Extremism & Technology,who monitors the QAnon conspiracy theory, said that theory—which has become one of the foremost in U.S. politics—has inspired an uptick in criminal acts by believers. (The Navy did not return a request for comment.)
“The violence we’ve seen has been by people without acumen and physical training,” Argentino told The Daily Beast. “Where it could get scary is with people who do have training.”
[QAnon Pushes Pedo-Ring Plots. Now They’re Stealing Kids.
RAMPING UP THE CRAZY
Will Sommer]
SEALs like Fernbaugh, who could not be reached for comment for this story, have extensive military training, and might be better equipped than the average person to build an explosive device or take up weapons. A grizzled ex-special operative with a graying beard, Fernbaugh has spent years dabbling in false conspiracy theories, some of them anti-Semitic and many targeting anti-fascists, who have been highly visible at Portland protests. (The Daily Beast did not review any posts in which he expressed affinity for QAnon.)
“George Soros is known to have paid ANTIFA to instigate rioting and create chaos that has caused millions in damage across numerous cities, but especially Portland, OR,” he wrote on Facebook in 2018, citing a conspiracy theory that falsely accuses a Jewish philanthropist of paying off protesters.
In the caption of a video on the same topic, Fernbaugh mused that “I’m surprised no one has slaughtered these sheep that have grown horns (ANTIFA),” and recent posts boasted of “infiltrating” groups of Portland anti-fascists during ongoing racial justice protests.
Fernbaugh appears to wear the same jacket in one of the videos as the man identified as him did in the footage from the aftermath of the Portland attack.He currently works selling shooting targets, including one made to look like a person dressed as a Portland anti-fascist.
Multiple people who know Fernbaugh, including a former colleague, told OPB that he was the man featured in Keeler’s video from near the scene of the explosive devices. A former law enforcement official told the publication that, based on the voice of the man in the video, they were comfortable enough in his identity that they were calling the FBI.
Meanwhile, the larger online conspiracy community is sprawling—the top QAnon groups on Facebook, alone, count more than 3 million combined members, according to an internal Facebook investigation, NBC News reported last week. These theories sometimes overlap in membership, and encompass millions of other people, spanning a range of false claims like that vaccines cause autism to the idea that the world is flat. In a group that large, some will almost inevitably be military or veterans.
But QAnon and related conspiracy theories like Pizzagate (both of which baselessly accuse Democrats of child abuse) seem to have an unusually high incidence among ex-SEALs. And some retired SEALs have been vocal in more explicit support for QAnon in particular, even if they have not been tied to the scene of alleged protest-related violence.
“If these people aren’t brought to justice, there’s gonna be some fuckin’ street justice doled out.”
— Stephen Ralston, ex-Navy SEAL
Stephen Ralston is a veteran who served on SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One from 1990 to 1994, and SEAL Team Three from 1994 to 1998. Currently, he works as a private military contractor, according to his online bio, and has a podcast about special operations forces. On the Instagram for that podcast, and on his own Instagram feed, Ralston frequently uses QAnon hashtags, promotes Q videos, and posts about his interest in killing pedophiles. (Although opposition to pedophilia is an overwhelmingly popular sentiment across political parties, QAnon turns the concern into a bogus call to arms against Trump’s foes.)
Some of the Instagram memes specifically frame elite military as a force for “Q,” the anonymous forum poster behind the conspiracy theory. One typical example, a picture that calls special operatives “the teeth of the light,” promises that thousands of specially trained veterans are willing to use their skills if QAnon’s claims are validated. “If any of the claims prove accurate, justice will be served one way or the other,” the caption reads, in part. “We don’t forgive. We don’t forget.”
Ralston’s special forces podcast has also devoted at least one recent episode to QAnon.
“If these people aren’t brought to justice, there’s gonna be some fuckin’ street justice doled out,” he says while petting a dachshund in a teaser trailer for the episode, uploaded to Instagram.
Ralston, who has not been accused of any conspiracy-related violence, told The Daily Beast he was unsure of QAnon’s popularity with former SEALs or any other group, and declined to otherwise comment for this story.
Attacks by conspiratorial veterans have long been lethal. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people, was carried out by veteran Tim McVeigh, who was steeped in anti-government theories and reportedly told people the Army had implanted him with a microchip. McVeigh’s own failure to join the Army’s special ops forces was reportedly a major factor in his anger, and he viewed himself as a kind of one-man operator. (“In his mind, much of his life has been one of thinking that he is in a kind of Special Forces of his own,” a law enforcement source told The Washington Post after the attack.)
Several recent violent plots associated with the anti-government Boogaloo movement have also allegedly been carried out by veterans or active service members. In May, two veterans and a current Army Reserve soldier were arrested in an alleged plot to throw explosives at a Black Lives Matter rally. That same month, a current Air Force staff sergeant was arrested for allegedly killing a federal security officer and attempting to kill another, in an apparent plot to kick off a new civil war that Boogaloo adherents believe is imminent.
QAnon has inspired its own wave of crimes, with the FBI labeling the movement as a terror threat. Some prominent QAnon personalities are not veterans, but pose as elite Defense Department operatives, including one man linked to several recent Q-inspired kidnappings, who poses as the head of the fictional Pentagon Pedophile Task Force, The Daily Beast reported.
QAnon support extends to at least one SEAL-founded company.Project Warpath is a clothing line owned by Tej Gill, a former member of SEAL Team Five who made headlines for selling “Hillary Clinton Killed My Friends” T-shirts after the deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. Project Warpath also posts QAnon content to Instagram, including a recent post falsely linking the debunked Wayfair conspiracy (a QAnon-adjacent theory that falsely claimed children were being sold inside furniture on the home decor site) to Soros and the Clintons. Gill, who has not been accused of any conspiracy-related violence, could not be reached for comment for this story.
Argentino said QAnon’s popularity with special ops veterans might initially seem perplexing. Believers claim Q is a high-level military official. But as veterans of military intelligence circles should know, Q’s muddled posts do not operate anything like military work. (One former QAnon believer whose father had worked for the CIA previously told The Daily Beast she’d abandoned the theory when she realized Q was artlessly aping military language, in a way no service member would.)
A gray-bearded SEAL Team Five veteran, [Clark] Impastato served until recently as a police officer in Phoenix, Arizona, where he fatally shot a 15-year-old accused of making a drug deal.]
Yet elements of QAnon might be alluring to veterans, Argentino noted.
“QAnon is rooted in this war narrative, in the sense that they’re in an information war against the ‘Deep State,’” he said. “Information wars are typically combined with a more physical element ... [Veterans] may want to be called upon to free the children from the pedophiles.”
Some conspiratorial ex-SEAL content is compatible with QAnon, but it’s unclear whether those former SEALs are aware of its full connotations.
One former member of the elite SEAL Team Six recently shared a post falsely linking Black Lives Matter to the Palestinian militant movement Hamas. The ex-SEAL appears to have copy-pasted the post’s caption, which was full of Q hashtags, although he did not write them himself. “Thoughts on this? I am only sharing, so don’t start throwing a tantrum,” he asked his followers.
[The Disturbing Appeal of Boogaloo Violence to Military Men
OUTSIDE AGITATORS
Kelly Weill]
Mitch Aguiar, another former member of SEAL Team Five, has since left the military and gone on to build a name for himself as an MMA fighter and a salesman of military-themed apparel. Like some of his fellow brothers-in-arms,he’s also shared conspiratorial content on his 133,000-follower Instagram, including a post about the death of a QAnon supporter, but used a “PizzaGate” hashtag.(The Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed prominent Democrats were engaging in sex trafficking in a D.C. pizzeria, was a predecessor to QAnon, but fell out of favor after a Pizzagater shot up the restaurant. Another man set fire to the restaurant two years later, in January 2019.)
Aguiar also commented “he’s a pedo” on a fellow ex-SEAL’s meme that falsely claimed actorTom Hanks was wearing an ankle monitor, presumably because a secret court had found him guilty of child sex-trafficking. (This did not happen.)
The fellow ex-SEAL, podcaster Clark Impastato, regularly shares QAnon-flavored conspiracy memes on his Instagram, where he has more than 87,000 followers. A gray-bearded SEAL Team Five veteran, Impastato served until recently as a police officer in Phoenix, Arizona, where he fatally shot a 15-year-old accused of making a drug deal. Although the teen was unarmed, Impastato’s use of force was found to be justified, because the teen rushed Impastato, “pulling his previously concealed hand from his waistband and forming it into a fist with a single, hooked finger extended,” as if to imply holding a gun, according to court records.
Impastato voluntarily relinquished his police certification in January 2016, after racking up multiple misconduct complaints, state records show. Among them are two civil rights misconduct complaints, which state records describe as excessive force, one of them for allegedly punching a suspect. Another misconduct complaint against Impastato is for alleged “dishonesty/false statements” during the hiring process because he “did not disclose past sales of marijuana.” It was not immediately apparent from police records whether the complaints had been substantiated by police, and Phoenix Police did not return multiple requests for comment. In an interview with a military-themed energy drink company, Impastato said he left the force to become an entrepreneur on his own beard-care line.
As protests broke out over the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis in late May, Impastato posted a picture of himself carrying a gun with the caption, “The current chaos makes me wish I was still in to help out. ???????? I’m with you in spirit BROTHERS and SISTERS..” He also posted several memes about killing anti-fascists, including one about the movement coming to the suburbs “so I can get a stateside kill.”
Neither Aguiar nor Impastato have been accused of conspiracy-related violence, and neither returned requests for comment for this story.
The extent of these ex-SEALs’ commitment to the QAnon cause, even when they flirt with it, isn’t always clear.
Increasingly, QAnon belief exists on a spectrum. Where once the theory appealed mostly to a core group of diehards who waited for the next “Q drop” (posts on a forum by an anonymous person claiming to be military intelligence), a diluted version of the conspiracy has reached a broader audience with less absurd claims about pedophilia.
As The New York Times noted last week, QAnon content has recently surged in popularity with a broader crowd, including those who are unaware of its core claims, because it attached itself to a campaign to “save the children.”
Well-intentioned fears can have counterproductive results. Sensationalized fears about Wayfair can obscure the reality that many (nearly half, per one study) of trafficked children are exploited by relatives. And the sudden popularity of sex-trafficking conspiracy theories has overwhelmed legitimate anti-trafficking organizations with bogus complaints. In late July, the National Human Trafficking Hotline released a statement saying “the extreme volume of these contacts has made it more difficult for the Trafficking Hotline to provide support and attention to others who are in need of help.”
Some ex-SEALs operate in the murky area of Q-ish talk about sex-trafficking, conflating real cases with bogus statistics and linking their theories to high-profile celebrities and politicians, usually on the left.
Craig Sawyer, a Texas-based former SEAL Team Six member, runs an anti-trafficking group, and produced a documentary about child sex-trafficking. The group is distinct from theories like QAnon. Some QAnon believers, including the person pretending to be a member of the fictional Pentagon Pedophile Task Force, have targeted Sawyer, falsely accusing him of trafficking. Sawyer has even been openly critical of Q on Twitter, although not of all its claims.
“I’m not big on q, mainly due to how scary some of the followers are in their cult follower tendencies of an entity they can’t vet,” he tweeted in June. “But as long as the q narrative is ‘Do your own research’ & the info is accurate, that’s a good thing.”
Nevertheless, Sawyer frequently interacts with pro-Q personalities, and shares a wealth of Q-adjacent material, including a conspiracy meme about figures like Bill Gates and George Soros pursuing a number of fantastical aims like population control and “one world government.” (He shared the meme, asking followers’ opinion on it, without explicitly endorsing it.) Sawyer, who has not been accused of conspiracy-related violence and declined to comment, shared a picture last Tuesday night of Sen. Kamala Harris posing with Soros’s son.
[Navy SEAL Promoted After Choking Green Beret to Death
WTFO
Kevin Maurer]
The post, about Harris being named Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick, referred to a sexist conspiracy theory about her. “We now know who’s on team New World Order / Global Marxism,” Sawyer wrote. “Literally GOOD vs EVIL.”
Argentino, who recently authored a scholarly article about QAnon’s potential as a national security threat, said while most violent incidents carried out in the theory’s name were done so by people in a state of crisis, calls by military types are acting as a steady drumbeat.
“People who are ex-military say, ‘I’m going to go liberate the kids,’” he said. “Is it bravado or is it a legitimate call to action?”
For his part, Garrick Fernbaugh’s primary preoccupation has appeared to be theories about anti-fascists. But after years of posting about his interest in hurting them, someone appears to have attempted just that in Portland—while Fernbaugh was very nearby.
Approximately three weeks before the pipe bomb incident, Fernbaugh contacted Sawyer about his interest in anti-fascists. On LinkedIn, Sawyer had authored a post defending the federal agents who notoriously pulled Portland protesters into unmarked vans earlier this summer.
“I think this is actually a very calm & gracious response in the face of such destructive terrorism funded by our nation’s subversive enemies,” Sawyer wrote. “Law & order must prevail??”
Fernbaugh replied in the comments. “I infiltrated ANTIFA in downtown PDX 3 nights ago,” he wrote. “(Dudes in camo) Hit me up, I’ll throw on my Cryes [a brand of combat apparel] and give you a hand restoring law and order, then we’ll go grab a well deserved beer!”
With reporting by Adam Rawnsley
Kelly Weill
Reporter
kelly.weill@thedailybeast.com
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west wing: ~ pension plan only way to end career in in DC is a live boy or a dead woman; [don't lick the pages]
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Epstein showed off 14-year-old victim to Trump at Mar-a-Lago: lawsuit
Brad Reed / Raw StoryAugust 17, 2020
A new lawsuit claims that late alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein brought one of his victims to see President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort when she was just 14 years…[el moz pref 12 yo]
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7/20? trump wishes female enabler well
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/rachel-maddow-details-the-disturbing-new-ruling-against-trumps-labor-secretary-in-the-case-of-an-alleged-billionaire-child-molester/
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https://www.newsweek.com/jim-jordan-dennis-hastert-ohio-state-alleged-sexual-abuse-bill-maher-1472204
no lnx [ix
U.S.
Bill Maher Compares GOP Congressman Jim Jordan to Dennis Hastert Amid Sex Abuse allegations
BY BENJAMIN FEARNOW ON 11/16/19
Bill Maher ridiculed Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan's alleged role in allowing dozens of teenage boys to be raped or sexually abused by a team doctor during Jordan's previous tenure as Ohio State University assistant wrestling coach.
The Real Time with Bill Maher host on Friday compared Jordan, whom he described as the "Republican impeachment star," to former GOP Congressman and fellow wrestling coach, Dennis Hastert. In a scathing monologue using blunt sexual description, Maher questioned why two "creepy wrestling coaches" went on to become top Republican Party members of Congress. Jordan is accused in lawsuits of allowing the now-deceased team doctor to sexually abuse young boys and male students as he worked alongside him for more than eight years.
"Yeah, yeah, we know," Jordan and the then-OSU wrestling head coach, Russ Hellickson, allegedly replied to one plaintiff who said the team doctor sexually abused him after a 1994 match.
As reported by WKYC, Jordan has adamantly denied the allegations and claimed they are politically motivated. But on Friday, Maher compared the accusations to the 2016 conviction of Hastert, whom a federal judge sentenced to 15 months in prison for pay-off crimes tied to being a "serial child molester," according to The New York Times.
"Jim Jordan, he's a former wrestling coach, who the players say knew that the team doctor was sexually abusing a lot of the players-and he did nothing about it," Maher said. "Now to be fair to Jim Jordan, he is not accused of abusing any of the players himself, he just stood by and did nothing while horrible things happened: so good practice for the hearing."
"This is all 'alleged,' but you know, a million people say it," Maher added.
Maher used his typical twist of comedy and political punditry to blast Jordan, who has become one of the top defenders of President Donald Trump during House impeachment hearings.
"Have you seen the Republican impeachment star, Jim Jordan, of Ohio?" Maher continued. "He always looks like a guy who's about to get in a bar fight and tells somebody, 'hold my jacket.' I believe Republicans keep him in a cage and they feed him Red Bull and crystal meth, they shoot his ass with steroids and then they unleash him on the hearing room."
Maher compared Jordan to Hastert, who in 2016 became the highest-ranking elected official in U.S. history to serve a prison sentence after he was convicted of trying to pay "hush money" to boys he later admitted sexually abusing while he was a Yorkville, Illinois wrestling coach.
Hastert is the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House in U.S. history, and was released from federal prison in July 2017.
"Jim Jordan is the second wrestling coach turned Republican congressman who has had a sex scandal having to do with the wrestling children," Maher said. "Dennis Hastert anybody?...He was also a creepy wrestling coach. What are the odds?"
A federal lawsuit with hundreds of plaintiffs alleges Ohio State University officials, including Jordan, were aware that now-deceased doctor Richard Strauss was sexually abusing boys as young as 14-15 years old for years and did nothing about the alleged heinous acts. One plaintiff, identified as John Doe 42, said he told Jordan and Hellickson that Strauss masturbated on him in the shower after a match, which the two shrugged off.
"Yeah, that's Strauss," Jordan and Hellickson replied, according to the latest lawsuit. John Doe 42 is the second plaintiff to accuse Jordan of being explicitly aware of sexual abuse and taking no action. Former Ohio State wrestler Dunyasha Yetts was the first to accuse of Jordan of being complicit in the team doctor's alleged crimes.
"It's good that people are starting to come forward and say the truth, which is that Jordan and the other coaches knew what was going on and they blew it off," Yetts told NBC News last week.
"It was common knowledge what Strauss was doing, so the attitude was it is what it is," he said. "I wish Jim, and Russ, too, would stand up and do the right thing and admit they knew what Strauss was doing, because everybody knew what he was doing to the wrestlers. What was a shock to me is that Strauss tried to do that to me. He was breaking new ground by going after a ref."
bill maher jim jordan hastert
Bill Maher compared Jim Jordan to former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, both of whom are tied to sexual abuse allegations of boys in wrestling programs while they were coaches.
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metoo mirror
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/07/27/In-their-own-words-the-online-far-rights-motive-to-dig-up-liberal-figures-old-tweets-reven/
...Over the past week, a number of far-right trolls, led by the provocateur and propagandist Mike Cernovich, have been on the warpath against prominent liberal figures in what they see as revenge for the scrutiny instances of explicitly racist, misogynist, and bigoted speech receives on social media.
Their principal tactic? Digging up tweets from up to 10 years ago and weaponizing them against their authors in efforts to, at best, discredit outspoken liberal actors, directors and comedians, and at worst, get them fired.
Last week, Cernovich publicized director James Gunn's offensive Twitter jokes about pedophilia and other topics, leading Disney to fire him on Friday from his role as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.From Cernovich’s perspective, it was a staggering victory -- and one he cast as borne of earnest concern for children in Hollywood.
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