Houstonians voiced outrage Monday after authorities
took six hours to issue a boil water advisory to more than 2.2 million
residents of Texas' largest city—and the nation's fourth-biggest—in the
wake of a power outage at a purification plant.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said that a power outage
occurred at East Water Purification Plant in Galena Park at 10:30 am on
Sunday, causing water pressure to drop below the minimum required
pressure of 20 PSI.
Six hours later, the city issued the advisory and posted
on social media: "A boil water notice has been issued for the city of
Houston. Everyone should boil the water before drinking, cooking,
bathing, and brushing their teeth."
Monday, November 28, 2022. The horror trinity of Tulsi, Tucker and
Turley continue to try to destroy lives, Iraqi Amir Ashour is awarded
an honor, Christians in Iraq continue to struggle and much more.
Chasten Buttigieg hit back at Tucker Carlson after the Fox News host
bizarrely chastised his husband, out Transportation Secretary Pete
Buttigieg, for “lying” about his sexuality.
Pete Buttigieg “always wants to talk about identity!”
Carlson squawked last week on his show as the chyron blared, “PETE:
ANTI-GAY VICTIMHOOD NARRATIVE? COUNT ME IN.”
“And the funny, ironic thing is, until just a few years ago, Buttigieg wouldn’t even admit that he was gay!”
“He hid that! And then lied about it for reasons he has never been
asked to explain,” Carlson said excitedly, as if he had never heard of
the concept of coming out. Pete Buttigieg came out as gay in 2015 when
he was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. “Why not?”
While talking to CNN’s Don Lemon, Chasten Buttigieg explained using
small words that “my husband served under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” the
policy that banned gay and bisexual servicemembers from serving in the
military openly.
“This kind of rhetoric is easy,” he said. “It’s so easy to attack
people and to go on your talk show and fire people up about something
that’s not actually happening.”
“I love my husband deeply. I know he’s a committed public servant, and he has everyone’s best interests at heart.”
“I just think these people, again, with these megaphones… they have
to have a big platform and rather than focusing on real issues, people’s
lives, making them better, they’ve decided to focus on hate.”
That's
trashy Tucker. Glenn Greenwald's friend. Glenn let's him hide because
what else can a useless man like Glenn do. He pretends he's a proud
father but a proud father wouldn't go on a show like Tucker's. He's
teaching to cower and whore. What a sad dad.
Tucker and Tulsi, the trash from FOX NEWS.
REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT addressed these liars.
Tulsi? I know she's a freak and a member of a cult but why is she saying "Our children"?
Bitch
don't have kids. She's on marriage number two and there are no
children. There's guru Chris, the leader of her cult. But there are no
children.
You have to wonder how FOX plans to
sell Tulsi to its viewers. They're not too fond of most traditional
religions so Hindu will be difficult to sell and that's before you add
on her cult.
With Tulsi, a few flaunt stupidity. Tulsi, they insisted is anti-war.
No, she's not.
She
campaigned on that. She went on Joe Rogan and other shows talking a
big game. She should be president, she insisted, because she was
anti-war. She should be president, not a War Hawk and certainly not a
War Hawk like Joe Biden.
Recently, Tulsi's
announced she's left the Democratic Party (believe she was kicked to the
curb first) and began comparing Joe Biden to Hitler.
Does Tulsi think he's Hitler? Then who put 'Hitler' in the White House?
We've
explained this reality over and over -- including in real time. And we
could redo it again but I'm still feeling sick so we'll just swipe from
the last time we covered it in full -- back in March:
Wednesay, July 31st, she was finally on stage with Joe Biden. And
big talking Tulsi, whose big issue was the war, was on stage with Joe
Biden who voted for the IRaq, War, who did a pre-war hearing that was
stakced with war supporters though Joe tried to pretend it was fair and
balanced, the man who voted over and over to keep funding the war, the
man whod efended it over and over (despite his 2019 lie that he had
turned on the wr the minute bombs started ropping). Here was Tulsi's
chance to finally take the fight to Joe.
It was going to be an epic throwdown, right?
Wrong.
We recounted it at lenght and repeatedly over and over. For example, see the next day's snapshot.
Joe
Biden was on the ropes. He was struggling and he could have been
eliminated that night. If Tulsi had done the job she should have, he
could have been out of the primary.
But
instead, she decided to take out Kamala Harris. Jimmy Dore rightly
points out that Kamala ended up without any support at all. Throughout
the entire thing, the long process, no one was flacking to her. He's
right. But he is someone who has some allegience to Tulsi that is
greater than his allegiance to the truth. Now I'll overlook that on
Jimmy. He speaks out on many important topics. And I'll defend her
from the lunatic attacks from WHoopi Goldberg and others.
But I'm not going to pretend that we saw Tulsi was a whore at the debates.
Read
the transcript -- or read the snapshot -- because Tulsi went after
Kamala and Kamala was no threat. She was never going to get the
nomination. She had no large base of support. Most women did not rally
to her. African-Americans in the south did not relate to her.
But Tulsi used her time and her ammo on Kamala. Not on Joe.
Her
defenders -- and, sadly, that included BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- would
make excuses for her. There was no excuse. Joe Biden was the choice of
the establishment and he was being carried by the corporate meid and
covered and pimped by them.
She should have taken out Joe.
Sher refused to do so.
If
you missed that debate, you may join the liars and insist that she was
making statements and -- B.S. That's a damn lie. Jake Tapper was a
moderator. He specifically called on her regarding Joe Biden and he was
puzzled -- watch his face -- by her remarks which were rescuing Joe and
excusing his actions.
He looks like he's
wondering if she understood the question. SO he then goes back to her
for a second time and is more specific. And Tulsi again takes a pass.
That
night, the next day and through the weekend, Tulsi shows up where ever
she could on TV and repeatedly insisted that Joe said his vote was wrong
and that was good enough for her.
His actions
wnet far beyond just his initial vote but Tulsi buried that in hre
comments and buried Joe's Iraq issues for the press. When the
self-promoted anti-war candidate told the American people and the press
that Joe had nothing to apologize for or make amends for that everything
was fine? There was no longer a story there. The media wants
conflict. And it wants conflict is can hide behind to pretend to be
objective. Had Tulsi held Joe accountable on the stage, the issue of
the Iraq War would have been forced itno the conversation by the
national press.
My allegiance is not to any politician.
Tulsi
is one of the reasons Joe Biden is in the White House. She had the
chance to tak ehim out and instead aimed her fire at Kamala. People
like pig Michael Tracey were overjoyed.
What
they refuse to admit now is that Tulsi gave the nomination to Joe on
that night in July of 2019. They refuse to also admit that the woman
Tulsi 'destroyed' on stage is now Vice President of the United States.
So exactly how badly did Tulsi destroy Kamala?
It was pure fake assery.
I
don't even feel like bolding that but, yeah, we covered it in real
time, we covered over and over since, including everything above which
ran in March.
She's a fake ass
liar. She talked a big talk about bad Joe Biden but in July of 2020,
she was finally onstage with him for a debate -- the first time. And,
turns out, the only time. Jake Tapper set her up to call Joe out for
the Iraq War. And she gave him a pass. She lied for him. If you
watched, you might have been as surprised as Jake was. After others
spoke, he teed her up again. Again, she chose to defend Joe Biden on
the Iraq War.
She proved who she really was
that night. Barack Obama, seeking the 2008 nomination, hit people over
their heads with their support for that war and Barack wasn't anti-war.
Weak ass Tulsi couldn't even stand by her comments made on podcasts.
She's
a liar and fake and anyone claiming she's anti-war at this point is
just deluding themselves. When push came to shove, spineless Tulsi
collapsed onstage.
Now she makes bucks by attacking LGBTQs.
"Grooming."
As Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Real Groomers"
pointed out, the real groomers are people like Lauren Boebert and her
husband Jayson. When not beating Lauren (it's true, she had to file for
a protective order at one point), Jasyon liked to drag Lauren to a bar
to watch as he exposed himself to young women. She lied in a book that
he didn't do it. A book somebody else probably wrote for her, remember,
she dropped out of school and then failed the GED multiple times. But
Jayson admitted it in court and was put on probation.
Those are groomers.
They're
trying to say that the LGBTQs are groomers. This is not new, know your
history. The argument is that they are grooming children -- it's the
one Anita Bryant made all those years ago. She called it recruitment
and argued, as the hate mob does today, that they had to recruit (or
groom) because they couldn't reproduce.
They couldn't reproduce? Like Tulsi?
The community doesn't have to reproduce. It's always been with us and that's what the liars want to deny.
What's worse is they want to harm children. That's the reality: Tulsi, Tucker and others want to harm children.
Jonathan Turley, noted homophobe, defends them.
Who defends the children?
In Florida, they have the 'Don't say gay' legislation which Tulsi supports. She tells you this is about parental choice.
Yet, she's raging in the video REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT video about parental choices, you grasp that right?
If you are transgender and under 18, most cases you're not getting surgery without the consent of your parent or legal guardian.
Do we not grasp that?
So in other words, anyone surgically transitioning under 18 would be doing so with parental consent.
Tulsi doesn't trust parents with that decision apparently.
But when it's banning discussions of same-sex relations or transgendered people or non-binary persons, Tulsi all for that.
School
is supposed to prepare you for life. A second grader needs to know
that there are all kinds of families and, yes, that does include
children with same-sex parents.
Tulsi and Tucker can't grasp reality: Some children are gay.
There are little boys and girls who already know that they are gay.
Some people take longer to figure it out. Tucker will probably be 62, before he figures it out.
But there are kids right now, in second grade, who know they're gay.
And how are they helped or even recognized by the don't say gay nonsense?
They're not.
Bobby (Billy Eichner's character in BROS) makes that point.
Do their rights not matter? Do their feeling recognized in their schools not matter?
Free
speech (fake) champion Jonathan Turley doesn't care about their free
speech rights. He doesn't care that a gay child has a higher likelihood
of attempting suicide.
He won't defend their rights at all.
By
addressing reality early on -- and I'm not talking sex education, I'm
talking the reality of the world we live in -- there's a good chance
that certain little boys and girls will not be targeted and harassed in
their schools.
But that doesn't matter to Turley, Tulsi or Tucker.
It's
a good thing that at least Tulsi was smart enough to reproduce (unless
she's frozen her eggs, her chances at pregnancy are winding down).
Grasp that Jonathan Turley -- who pretends he's for free speech -- has not once called out the harassment of trans speakers.
I
don't know Alex Jones and I don't want to know him. If his people and
what they did in Denton, Texas recently is truly representative of him
then has has no redeeming value.
So they bully and mob to try to stop Transgender Storytime.
And that was this month. And yet 'free speech' Jonathan Turley didn't defend them.
That's only surprising if you don't grasp that his history is one of refusing to recognize the LGBTQ community.
Unlike Jonathan, I actually support free speech.
I have a record of doing so.
Jonathan grabs his pearls and gets all nervous if someone heckles or boos.
That's
free speech as well. And I've been on the receiving end many times.
And will continue to be on it. And that's fine. In the '00s, near the
end, a veteran was somewhere, I believe NYC, speaking on a forum and he
was the pro-war voice. He got booed. Some were offended in print and
how awful.
No.
It's not awful.
It's free speech.
I
wrote about that here. I also noted that I was sympathetic to him
because it hurt his feelings but that he needed to grasp that the worst
had happened and that any future speaking would include the knowledge
that he would live through being booed.
I support free speech.
Jonathan Turley pees his pants because a Supreme Court opinion is leaked. It's so offensive!!!
It's free speech. Turley's become a joke in his old age and a damn hypocrite.
'Children' were not going to the Denton coffeehouse unless they were taken by their parents.
There
was a bullying effort by INFOWAR followers to silence and suppress a
transgender storyteller and Jonathan wasn't concerned. It's only free
speech for him these days if the person whose free speech rights are
threatened is a conservative.
That might be confusing until you grasp that he's now paid by FOX NEWS.
The LGBTQ community includes children and they have rights.
Tulsi,
who's never raised a child, wants to speak of "our children" but
apparently she just means straight children. She knows nothing about
the LGBTQ community -- a community she has spent years trashing -- and
she wants to decide what children can hear and what they can't.
She has NO children. She's raised NO children. She's NOT an educator and has NO background in childhood education.
So FOX sees her as the perfect person to put on to talk about children's rights.
Children
have the right to be smarter than Tulsi Gabbard. That requires actual
education. Otherwise, like Tulsi, they end up cult members doing
whatever Guru Chris tells them to do.
Lauren
voted to overturn the Violence Against Women Act. Like Tulsi, she needs
education. Desperately. I hope she gets it before Jayson beats her to
death.
But in the meantime, let's be really
clear that the US doesn't need to hear from a woman married to a man who
beats her. Too many people are passing themselves off as experts.
Lauren,
like Tulsi, wants to be an expert on children but most American
families -- right, left or what have you -- don't want their children
being beaten by a spouse or their children beating their spouse.
Spousal abuse is not a value anyone supports unless they're deeply stupid.
That's
what happens when you're uninformed and uneducated. Like Tulsi. Home
schooled and two years in her cult's school, she tried community college
but couldn't grasp it. Basic classes were beyond her because she's
just not capable of learning.
Instead of recognizing her deficiency, she wants to make all of America as uneducated as her.
The
country's children need to be educated. In reality. That especially
means a greater emphasis on science. It also means an awareness of the
world around us and, sorry, Tucker, Tulsi and Turley, that world around
us includes gay males, lesbians, bi-sexuals and transgenders as well as
non-binary.
They have a right to representation as well.
They exist and their rights matter to.
They don't need to grow up being bullied. They don't need to grow up being rendered invisible.
Stop pretending you care about children when you're actually working to increase the rates of suicide with your actions.
FOX NEWS is garbage because of what they're doing and how they're harming children.
Idiots like Tulsi will watch those programs and, in the pretense of 'saving' their children, will do great harm.
A
trueism throughout the last century and today: Those objecting the
loudest to basic recognition and human decency are usually the ones
hiding something.
When Ellen DeGeneres came
out, a friend who had loved her comedy, even to the point of begging me
to get her into a taping of the sitcom ELLEN (I got her in multiple
times) turned on Ellen when she came out. Refused to even admit that
she'd ever been a fan. Last decade? The actress came out. I'll be
kind and not name her.
But that's who I think
of when I think of these idiots like Tucker, Tulsi and Turley who are
so determined to limit our society instead of expanding it, who would
rather throw stones than embrace.
These
people need to be called out. They're not silly idiots that we can just
laugh at, they are people dedicating their lives to destroying
others.
Since founding IraQueer, an
organisation which has fought for LGBTQ+ rights in Iraq for the last
seven years, Amir has worked tirelessly to help queer people facing
persecution in the country.
“I’m grateful that the team continues
to dedicate themselves to the organisation and the queer community,”
Amir explained to GAY TIMES Magazine in the December 2022 issue. “But my
hope for the organisation is that it will just not need to exist one
day. I want to live in a world where we don’t have to advocate for queer
people. Where we just exist as people and have our rights because we’re
humans.”
Sadly, things have not improved for
LGBTQ+ people in Iraq since the inception of IraQueer and members of the
community continue to face discrimination in the country.
The work Amir started is therefore as
important as ever and functions across education, advocacy and direct
services by sharing multilingual resources, providing safe housing and
engaging with international bodies to advance LGBTQ+ rights.
GAY TIMES Honours sponsored by Meta
Quest celebrates the individuals and organisations who have had a
profound effect on the lives of LGBTQ+ people over the past 12 months.
To follow all of the action from GAY TIMES Honours sponsored by Meta Quest, check out our Instagram @GAYTIMES. For the latest winners, performances and special moments from the night click here.
Meanwhile, it's been called 'the heist of the century' -- the robbery of Iraq's public monies carried out by officials. Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:
Iraq has recovered less than 5 per cent of $2.5 billion embezzled from its tax authority, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani said late on Sunday.
“The
competent authorities have been able to retrieve a first tranche
amounting to 182.6 billion Iraqi dinars,” Mr Al Sudani said in a
televised speech, surrounded by piles of Iraqi and US banknotes.
He called on those responsible to hand themselves in.
The
scandal — revealed last month and labelled the “heist of the century” —
involved 3.7 trillion Iraqi dinars ($2.5 billion) fraudulently paid to
five companies by the General Commission of Taxes.
The
money was paid through 247 cheques between September 9, 2021, and
August 11 from the commission's account at the state-run Rafidain Bank.
Since
then, an investigation has been under way. A number of government
officials and two businessmen have been arrested and some of the money
recovered, although no senior politicians have faced official
accusations.
Will they get even half
the money back? Probably not. They don't seem willing to pursue the
corruption up to the top. They continue to look the other way for
various officials. That's not how you recover the money and it's now
how you end corruption.
Iraq
also refuses to defend its religious minorities. The Jewish community
is no more. The Yazidis remain persecuted and victimized. And the
Christians? LA CROIX INTERNATIONAL reports:
The
Chaldean Catholic patriarch in Iraq has criticized the government for
its failure to build a real democratic and civil state to keep
Christians safe in the Muslim majority country.
"I
find it unavoidable to emphasize once again that religion is for God
and the homeland is for the nation. Migration is nothing but uprooting
us from our land," said Iraqi Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the patriarch
of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
Christians,
living mainly in the cities of the Nineveh Plains and other areas of
northern Iraq, continue to leave the country. This is happening at a
rate of around 20 families a month," said Cardinal Sako in a statement
released by the Chaldean Patriarchate. The cardinal spoke of how more
than half of Iraqi Christians have emigrated in the last five years and
many others are "on the waiting list".
"The
tendency to emigrate has increased in the last two decades due to
instability. Furthermore, the "bleeding" of emigration to the West still
exists due to the following: loss of confidence and future uncertainty;
unemployment; poverty; deterioration of basic services;
desertification; and the failure of governments to build a real
democratic and civil state," he said.
Syriac Christianity was first established in Mesopotamia, and certain subsets of that tradition (namely the Church of the East
and its successor churches) were established in northern and
central-southern Iraq, and would eventually spread to becoming one of
the most popular Christian churches in the Middle East and Fertile Crescent Region, and would spread as far as India and China.
Iraq plays a rich and vital contribution to Christian history, and after Israel, Iraq has the most biblical history of any other country in the world.[2] The patriarch Abraham was from Uruk, in southern Iraq, modern day Nasiriya, and Rebecca was from northwestern Iraq, in Assyria. Additionally, Daniel lived in Iraq most of his life. The prophet Ezekiel was from southern Iraq and his shrine is located there. Shrines of the prophet Jonah and Saint George are also located there, and various other biblical prophets and saints are said to have been originally from there as well. Adam and Eve are also widely thought to have hailed from Iraq, as the biblical Garden of Eden is largely attributed to have been located in southern Iraq.[2][3]
Prior to the Gulf War in 1991, Christians numbered one million in Iraq.[4] This may be an undercount by half as seen in the 1987 census numbers. The Ba’athist rule under Saddam Hussein kept anti-Christian violence under control but subjected some to "relocation programmes".[4] Under this regime, the predominantly ethnically and linguistically distinct Assyrian people were pressured to identify as Arabs. The Christian population fell to an estimated 800,000 during the 2003 Iraq War.[4]
During the 2013–2017 Iraq War, with ISIS rapidly sweeping through Iraq's western lands, Christian Assyrians and Armenians fled as they feared persecution by the terrorist organisation, as they were to ‘execute’ any person who did not believe in their Sunni sect. Thousands of Iraqi Christians fled to the nation's capital
where they found refuge and adequate housing, some of whom have chosen
to make Baghdad their new permanent home following the full defeat of
ISIS in Iraq.[5] Thousands have also fled to other parts of southern Iraq, such as the Shia-majority city of Najaf which housed thousands of Christians in holy Islamic shrines once they fled from ISIS, which sought to exterminate them.[6]
A large population have also returned to their homes en masse following
the defeat of ISIS and were able to celebrate Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter in safety with the protection of the Assyrian Nineveh Plain Protection Units and its allies.[7][8]
The current number of Christians of Iraq is said to be at around 500,000, according to the EU Research Services on minorities in Iraq,[9]
although numbers vary from source to source due to the last Iraqi
census having taken place more than 30 years ago. A census is scheduled
to take place in 2020 in which the numbers of Christians in Iraq will be
clarified.[10][9]
President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Al-Sudani on Monday
completely agreed and reiterated that no threat or military action will
be allowed from within the borders of Iraq to foreign countries.
"They continue to offer support to refugees and asylum seekers, but
no armed groups will be allowed to operate in the Kurdistan Region," the
Presidency of the Kurdistan Region said in a statement.
Moreover, Erbil and Baghdad agreed to "work together to protect the
security of the borders, and they will also coordinate with neighboring
countries and take necessary measures."
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia’ Al-Sudani reportedly on Monday will visit Iran to discuss mutual relations.
President Nechirvan Barzani ensured that the Kurdistan Region will
remain a factor of peace and stability for Iraq, neighboring countries
and the region.
That's the President of Kurdistan and the Prime Minister of Iraq.
t Tucker was one of her boys and he's brought over to FOX so that she can return to spewing her homophobia.
Recently, Iran has joined Turkey in bombing, droning and attacking northern Iraq (The Kurdistan). Julian Bechona (RUDAW) notes that
last week Iraq decided "to increase the deployment of troops on its
borders with Iran and Turkey in an effort to curb further violations of
its sovereignty as attacks by Tehran and Ankara have greatly surged in
recent months.'' Last week, Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) explained:
The
president of the Kurdistan Region on Tuesday met with the Iraqi prime
minister in Baghdad, during which both sides emphasized the importance
of cooperation in facing repeated violations on Iraq’s sovereignty.
According
to a joint statement from Iraqi PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s and
President Nechirvan Barzani, one of the topics of the meeting focused on
discussing security on the Iraqi border areas.
“They emphasized
cooperation to protect Iraq's sovereignty, reject repeated violations,
and work to prevent using Iraqi territory as a platform for attacking
any neighboring country,” the statement read.
The meeting comes
as the Kurdistan Region’s borders have become an arena of instability
with Turkish bombardment in the north and Iranian drone and missile
attacks coming from the east.
The ruling by a federal judge dismissing the lawsuit of United Auto
Workers presidential candidate Will Lehman on Wednesday means that the
UAW elections will conclude in two days, on Monday, November 28. This is
the deadline for mail-in ballots to be received, before counting begins
on November 29.
Lehman’s lawsuit requested that the US District
Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, which oversees the UAW and
the Monitor running the election, deliver an emergency injunction to 1)
delay the deadlines by 30 days, and 2) require the Monitor and the UAW
take serious steps to inform all workers about the election and ensure
that they can vote.
The lawsuit noted that, on the eve of the
deadline, only a small minority of workers have voted. Of the one
million UAW members (active workers and retirees), 900,000 have not
voted according to the latest figures posted on the Monitor’s website.
As Lehman’s lawsuit explained and documented, the UAW did everything it
could to prevent workers from even knowing that there is an election
taking place, and thousands of workers did not receive a ballot.
The
UAW apparatus opposed the 30 day extension of the deadline because it
assumed, correctly, that it would result in a substantial increase in
the opposition vote, and that many of those votes would be for the
socialist candidate, Will Lehman. Indeed, this is the principal reason
why they sought to suppress voter turnout in the first place.
The
UAW’s lawyers devised an absurd argument based on legal technicalities
rather than the substance of the case. Lehman, they insisted, has no
“standing” to bring the suit because he himself received a ballot and
was not “harmed” by any problems with the election process. As Lehman’s
attorney argued, the individual worker’s receipt of a ballot form does
not mean, in and of itself, that his democratic rights have been
satisfied. Every worker has the right to participate in a “meaningful”
election, i.e., one that is properly and fairly held and expresses the
will of the voters. This right, to which workers are individually and
collectively entitled, is violated when the vast majority of workers
don’t vote because they are not even informed that an election is taking
place.
The court sided with the UAW, however, establishing an
impossible Catch-22 situation: Only workers who were not able to obtain a
ballot because they did not know an election was taking place could
file a lawsuit. But, of course, these workers would not file a lawsuit
to challenge the conduct of an election that they did not know about.
For
good measure, the court also ruled that a challenge to the election
process could only be made after the election is complete, and that it
had to be directed to the Secretary of Labor—that is, to Marty Walsh,
who at the UAW convention in July explicitly praised one of the
candidates, UAW President Ray Curry, thanking him for his “friendship”
and “support.”
One
important fact that did emerge during the hearings on the lawsuit is
that the UAW and the Monitor relied on a communication system, known as
the Local Union Information System (LUIS), which was established as a
means of transmitting information between the local unions and the
Solidarity House bureaucracy. The judge in the case himself noted that
“that kind of cuts out the membership.”
This proves what the World Socialist Web Site
has explained throughout: Solidarity House, which did not want direct
elections in the first place, attempted to carry it out as a beauty
contest within the apparatus, excluding as much as possible the rank and
file.
Friday, November 25, 2022. Ask yourself what kind of a left we are
when we will set a place at the table for right-wing men but won't for
people of color, women and LGBTQ+s?
Their claims continue a years-long campaign of stochastic
terrorism in which they’ve accused queer people and their allies of
grooming children for sexual abuse through LGBTQ school content and drag
shows, and also of mutilating children’s genitals through
gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth.
While genital surgeries aren’t conducted on minors and no kids have ever
been molested during a drag show, none of these figures have spoken as
passionately against forced genital surgeries for intersex kids or the
literal thousands of child rape cases that have occurred in U.S.
churches, nor have they promoted organizations that actually work
against child sex abuse and trafficking.
[. . .]
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, —host of the network’s most-watched program
and a man who celebrated the murder of gay politician Harvey Milk and
once bragged about beating up a gay man — mocked those who said the
shooting was caused by people complaining about “the sexualizing of
kids… people mutilating the genitals of children, [and] … ads on
Instagram promoting kiddie porn.”
But then he said the connection between LGBTQ activism and the above
things is “a very specific religious ideology that’s true, is happening
and is “absolutely real.”
He then said the shooting has become “a pretext for yet more censorship of [conservative public] speech.”
“You are responsible for this, they told you, because you said the
wrong things,” Carlson told his viewers. “You are guilty of stochastic
terrorism, inspiring violence by your beliefs. Anderson Lee Aldrich [the
Club Q shooter] committed mass murder because you complained about the
sexualizing of children. Every time you object to drag time story hour
for fifth graders or point out that genital mutilation is being
committed on minors — which it is — every time you say that, you are
putting people’s lives at risk.”
He added, “The truth is that some adults in this country, apparently a
growing number, have a deeply unhealthy fixation on the sexuality of
children — when you say that out loud, you get people killed.”
In response, Twitter user Kat Abu published a thread that included
the numerous broadcasts in which Carlson has talked at length about
children’s sexuality and their genitals.
Florida political operative Jaimee Michell, founder of the controversial anti-trans group "Gays Against Groomers," told Fox News host Tucker Carlson
that the mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs "was
expected and predictable" and to be blamed on the LGBTQ "evil agenda" of
gender-affirming care.
Talking to Carlson about the mass
shooting, Michell claimed that what's really hurting the LGBTQ community
is labelling "groomers"—a term that falsely equates non-heterosexual
sexualities and non-cisgender identities with pedophilia—an anti-LGBTQ
slur, and said that tragedies like the one at Club Q will keep happening
"until we end this evil agenda."
Anderson Lee Aldrich is accused of opening fire at Club Q just before midnight on Saturday, killing five people and injuring 18 others.
Activists have denounced "Gays Against Groomers" as an anti-trans
hate group that stokes anti-LGBTQ hate by regularly calling gay people
"groomers" and accusing the LGBTQ community of sexualizing children. A
couple of months ago, "Gays Against Groomers'" Twitter account was banned from Google, Venmo and Paypal after the group was accused of anti-trans hate.
Michell,
the group's cisgender gay founder, frequently appears on Tucker
Carlson's show on Fox News, repeating and amplifying conservatives'
moral panic over the alleged "grooming" of children blamed on liberals
and queer people.
I don't know how your
Thanksgiving worked out -- hopefully it was pleasant and fun -- but
'Aunty GiGi' was denounced loudly by several gay activists at my home.
'Aunty GiGi' is how some are now deriding Glenn Greenwald for his
idiotic support of Tucker Carlson and others who spread this crap.
Yeah, people who had to stand up against this s**t in the 70s when Anita
Bryant was spewing it aren't in the mood for precious GiGi to give his
tacit support for it.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) defended her anti-LGBTQ rhetoric after she
was widely denounced online in the wake of the Club Q shooting for
stoking violence against LGBTQ people.
“That is completely false,” she told Ross Kaminsky on KOA,
an AM radio station. “I have never had bad rhetoric towards anyone and
their personal preference as an adult.”
Sexual orientation is not a “personal preference” and minors can have
sexual orientations. In fact, Boebert herself got pregnant for the first
time when she was in high school.
This past Saturday, a shooter entered the LGBTQ bar Club Q in
Colorado Springs, Colorado, killed five people, and injured 18 with an
AR-15-style weapon before being subdued.
Boebert released a statement saying that “the victims & their
families are in my prayers” and was immediately slammed online after
spreading hateful rhetoric against LGBTQ people for years, something
people said may have contributed to anti-LGBTQ violence.
“You encourage this type of hatred,” Chasten Buttigieg – the husband of out Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – responded. “Get off Twitter and start looking inward.”
It didn’t take long in the radio interview for Boebert to go back to bashing LGBTQ people.
“What I’ve criticized is the sexualization of our children,” she
said, an expression conservatives use to refer to a wide range of
actions, including teaching kids that some families have two mothers or
two fathers and allowing LGBTQ clubs to form in high schools. It’s
unclear exactly what she was referring to.
“And I’ve criticized men dressing up as caricatures of women,” she
continued. Drag is an art form with deep roots in LGBTQ culture, and the
idea is to play with gender, often to express one’s own femininity,
masculinity, or androgyny.
Lauren is disgusting but, sadly, so much is and that includes on our side -- the left.
Have you noticed the silence? I'm looking at e-mails. Garcia notes
that Margaret Kimberley has Tweeted repeatedly over the last days but
never managed to note the tragedy in Colorado Springs -- nor did BLACK
AGENDA REPORT. Good catch, Garcia.
Equally true, I counted over 200 Tweets from Tara Reade this week and she never bothered to Tweet about it.
Tara.
I believe her ex explained it best when he said she only cares about
what happens to her. That is why, in the Tweets this week, she can
reTweet convicted pedophile, registered sex offender Scott Ritter. Tara
loves her some Scotty. Any man who harms others is Tara's buddy.
That's
the truth. Tara thinks she deserves sympathy but -- as her ex
explained in a roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin -- she
doesn't have sympathy for others.
We've now seen that
with all of her actions long before she started using her Twitter feed
to pimp registered sex offender Scott Ritter -- who went to prison.
She
won't do anything to help others because she's never cared about others
her whole life. That's why she bailed on her bills and her loans from
friends. She's a self-centered bitch.
And she won't help other women but she'll constantly demand attention.
A
deadly attack took place in Colorado Springs and Tara couldn't be
bothered with it because it's a gay thing and, please grasp this
reality, gay things don't matter to the ultra left.
You'd think they would. But you'd be wrong. You'd be wrong today and you'd be wrong historically.
Tara Reade is the poster girl for obesity and for hatred.
Thanks,
Tara, for showing your true self. I should disclose that for pointing
out here what a whore she is to promote a registered sex offender, Tara
banned me. I laughed then and I laugh now.
Reality,
Tara was assaulted by Joe Biden. Didn't make her a nice person. Didn't
make her a saint. Didn't make her anyone who could be considered an
ally. Six days where she has Tweeted and reTWeeted and she couldn't
once be bothered with an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.
That's who Tara is.
She'll
never, ever help another person. Her narcissistic nature is what it
is. She's also a deeply stupid person. Someone should have told her
long ago to sue Joe Biden for her employment records. Someone should
have pointed out to her that when Joe declared the pandemic over, there
was no excuse to hide behind it regarding access to his records at the
university.
But she's a deeply stupid person so let's not be surprised that she's so incompetent she can't even help herself.
I'd love to say she gives the left a bad name. She's part of the reason we have a bad name though.
The
left is huge. It includes the group that votes blindly for the
Democratic Party and think partisanship is being political. It's not.
Parroting is not political. Then you have Democrats who can
self-criticize but can't see too much beyond domestic issues. You've
then got Socialists, Communists, Socialist-Democrats and then you're
moving into the hard left which probably takes you all the way to
anarchist which wraps around to the right wing because politics is
circular and not linear.
Historically, on the left, we
have not supported gay rights. The Communists in certain eras
especially did not want to support gay rights. Occasionally, an
individual would get support but that support was always tentative.
Look at Walter Jenkins, embraced by the partisans and seen as a genius
in certain ways. So they all pretended he wasn't gay. But then he gets
arrested in 1964 and they're afraid that it could harm LBJ's
re-election chances so they turn on him and sacrifice him while LBJ lies
and pretends like he never knew Walter was gay (he knew, the FBI knew,
the 1959 previous arrest was not a secret) and starts trying to save his
own ass by lying and suggesting that mean Republicans must have drugged
Walter's drink and that, as a result of being drugged, Walter found his
mouth watering for dick and, due to the drugs, ended up at a YMCA
bathroom where he was busted with his mouth around a cock.
Now
back then, and this is an important point to grasp, oral sex wasn't
thought to be as common as it is today. Marlon Brando infamously posed
with Wally Cox's penis in his mouth and people act like it didn't
happen even when writing Brando's obituaries. Marlon was one of our
finest actors. His affairs with men didn't make him any less great.
And that Wally Cox photo is a striking image.
But in
the 50s and 60s, for many, anything beyond missionary-position
male-female sex was time to clutch the pearls. (Though, traditionally,
look at the studies, anal sex has always been popular among Catholics in
the US as a way to prevent pregnancy.)
These days, straight couples peg. These days oral sex is common and noted as such. Tossing someone's salad, etc, etc.
So
when an idiot starts talking about orifices and their 'true'
intentions -- as many did on message boards this week in light of the
shooting -- they look like idiots and defeat themselves. We've come far
enough to be honest about sex and how sex can take place and those
trying to police what they pretend is morality lose any argument right
at the get go because this isn't the 1950s. We know what our bodies are
capable of and we know about enjoying our bodies.
Nancy Friday, Dr. Ruth, Audre Lorde, Dan Savage and many others have done their part to allow us to be grown ups.
And
this has impacted politics -- as it should. Awareness and education in
any area has impact on other areas. You can go into a whole spheres of
justice argument off that -- though I wouldn't because Michael Walzer
ripped off the Torah for his argument and didn't even grasp the
importance of the sphere of din -- telling -- and proof of the points
we're making because din, of course, can be associated with the feminine
and the feminine and LGBTQ+ issues have traditionally been dismissed in
this country -- especially in this country's political maneuvering.
If
you know the left's history, you know that Sly's "Everyday People"
wasn't just a popular song, it was a portrait of our history:
There is a blue one who can't accept the green one
For living with a fat one trying to be a skinny one And different strokes for different folks And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo
Oh sha sha we got to live together
I am no better and neither are you We are the same whatever we do You love me you hate me you know me and then You can't figure out the bag I'm in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah
There is a long hair that doesn't like the short hair For bein' such a rich one that will not help the poor one And different strokes for different folks And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo
-- "Everyday People," written by Sly Stone, first appears on Sly & The Family Stone's STAND!
We hear the Jimmy Dore's insist that identity politics are destroying the left.
No,
identity politics are what made the left. It's what forced the
Communist Party to move beyond their limited White world and to give
support to efforts to end lynchings in the US. It's what brings us
together when we can get over our own pig headedness. When we can
embrace the blue one and the long hair and the poor one and everyone.
It's how we build a society and it's how we've always built a movement.
The
Jimmy Dores don't understand that because they're unintelligent. They
don't understand how things work, they haven't studied anything and
they're victims of the atomistic age -- an age where we, as a people,
were taught how to tear apart but not how to put back together. The
synthesis is the missing step and people like Jimmy (who is not a bad
person and who I would note still were it not for his promoting Scott
Ritter -- a sex offender; I'm sorry, Jimmy, I can't big tent convicted
offenders) don't even grasp it because they can regurgitate but they
can't think.
If you want a powerful left, you're going
to have to stand up for rights and that's not just your own rights.
Don't be a Tara Reade offended by your own assault but caring so little
of others that you'll promote a registered sex offender.
You've
got to look beyond your own interests. You've got to support others.
If you don't do that, the left goes no where. And that's been the case
throughout history though those who short cut it -- due to ignorance or
personal interest -- never pass that lesson on.
Here's Dove Cameron on Sunday saying what a lot of others need to be saying.
Instead? Instead our left outlets on YOUTUBE gave us silence. Our left voices on Twitter gave us silence.
As Keesha noted last night in the roundtable, Betty was right when she wrote "Hard truths."
Everybody
wants sympathy and attention when it is them or their primary group but
they don't seem to want to build bridges for other communities.
You
can't even get women on half the YOUTUBE programs for the left so it's
not a surprise that the LGBTQ+ is rendered invisible on so many of these
same programs or that African-Americans are largely ignored by White
hosts on these same YOUTUBE programs. For the left, understand, made
for the left and by the left.
We need to do a much
better job. Lives are at stake. If we can't offer inclusion and we
can't share the spotlight, we might as well be Republicans.
Oh,
excuse me. The Jimmy Dores and Glenn Greenwalds will feature
Republicans -- it's women, LGBTQ+ and people of color that have to fight
to be on left YOUTUBE shows and get left Twitter attention.
It's
really telling that they will set a place for neocons and others at a
left table but not for women, LGBTQ+ and people of color.
The shooting this week at Club Q in Colorado Springs was as
horrendous as it was unsurprising. Though the city has changed a lot
since 1992, when local, anti-queer activists championed the passage of a
statewide, constitutional amendment prohibiting municipal
anti-discrimination ordinances, the area retains pockets
of deep reaction. Colorado Springs representative Doug Lamborn, like
fellow Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, this year supported federal
anti-trans legislation in Congress. Since at least 2016, Lamborn has attacked what he calls the “madness,” and “politically correct absurdity” of federal protection for transgender students. Boebert
has described trans people as “depraved” and their defenders as
“groomers” bent on turning innocent children into trans people
themselves.
Their statements
condemning the recent violence were strictly pro forma, condemning
“senseless violence,” praising first responders for “their rapid
response,” and calling for prayers for “the victims and their families.”
Neither mentioned that the victims were at a queer nightclub or that fatal attacks
upon LGBTQ folks have reached a record high. And first responders
failed both to prevent the attack and had no role in stopping it. Police
handcuffed and detained the good Samaritan who stopped the shooting
spree, retired U.S. Army major Richard Fierro, and kept him confined for an hour in a police car while his family and friends were left to struggle with injuries and death.
Some Americans were probably surprised to read that Fierro went to
Club Q with his family to celebrate a birthday. In the United States,
it’s still rare for families to visit gay bars together or watch live
drag performances. (On TV, RuPaul’s Drag Race
has been a fixture for more than a decade.) The night of the shooting,
the club featured a drag show titled “Delusions” hosted by a local drag
queen with the stage name Del Lusional.
The audience for that event was limited to guests 18 y.o. and older,
but a drag-brunch open to all ages was scheduled for the following day.
Fierro was having a great time when the shooting began, he told a NYTimes
reporter: “These kids want to live that way, want to have a good time,
have at it….that is what I fought for, so they can do whatever the hell
they want.” It’s not yet clear what were the precise motivations of the
shooter, Anderson Lee Aldrich, but he faces murder and hate crimes
charges. His lawyers claim that he is non-binary himself and prefers to
be addressed using they/them pronouns and the honorific Mx. in front of
his name. The assertion may be a subterfuge to undercut the hate crimes
charges and establish mitigation.
Family attendance at drag shows has risen in recent years, so much so that it has attracted literally delusional reactions from the Republican-right. In June, Florida governor Ron DeSantis
threatened to order the state’s department of protective services to
investigate parents who take their kids to drag shows: “We have child
protective statutes on the books,” he said. “We have laws against child
endangerment.” State legislators in Florida, Arizona, and Texas have proposed laws to criminalize drag entertainment, and armed militia groups
have threatened the lives of drag performers across the country. It
remains to be seen if the recent massacre will cause any retreat in the
legal and vigilante onslaught.
The proposed laws against drag are patently unconstitutional
infringements of free speech and would likely be struck down in court –
even by conservative justices. Apart from first amendment
considerations, such laws would be largely unenforceable because of the
multitude of liminal cases. Drag performances have long been a staple of
theatre, film, and television, from Twelfth Night to Some Like it Hot to Kinky Boots. Would
they all be banned? And the fashion industry is predicated upon playful
subversion and compliance with gender norms – men in skirts and heels,
women in trousers and work boots. Corporate America profits from trans.
Gender itself is a form of performance, the philosopher Judith Butler
long ago noted, though one that by its repetition, shapes our identity.
On that basis, almost any theatrical entertainment could be described
as a “drag show” and its sponsors and performers trundled into court.
But the point of the proposed laws is not to legislate costume,
comportment, or performance, much less identity – it is to supercharge
hatred and promote violence, thereby creating an atmosphere of crisis
that can be exploited for reactionary (fascist) ends.
Online propaganda campaigns that targeted Middle Eastern countries
including Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria were linked to US
military, technology firm Meta has claimed.
In its latest adversarial threat report, the company said the network
that coordinated the campaigns used fake social media accounts to
promote pro-Western narratives and was taken down in August after an
independent research group flagged the profiles to Facebook’s parent
company.
The findings of the report said: “The US network — linked to individuals
associated with the US military — operated across many internet
services and focused on Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.”
The social media giant said 39 Facebook accounts, 16 Facebook pages, two
groups, and 26 Instagram accounts had been removed for violating its
policy on “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” a term used to describe
the coordination of accounts and adoption of techniques to publish,
promote, and spread false content.
The campaigns, believed to be the first of their kind, were designed to
discredit Russia, China, Iran, and other countries, while promoting
American views and values.
The tactics adopted by the US network were similar to those used in
anti-Western campaigns, such as the use of fake people and the
dissemination of artificially generated photos across multiple
platforms.
“The people behind this activity posted primarily in Arabic, Farsi, and
Russian about news and current events, including terrorism concerns and
praise of the US military, as well as content about the COVID-19
(coronavirus) pandemic — some of which we removed for violating our
misinformation policy,” the report added.
Although experts believe the campaigns were largely ineffective and
their reach was very limited, Meta argued that the operations ran across
many internet services, including Twitter, YouTube, Telegram,
VKontakte, and Odnoklassniki.
“Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their
identities and coordination, our investigation found links to
individuals associated with the US military,” Meta said in the report,
adding that, “the majority of this operation’s posts had little to no
engagement from authentic communities.”
