GOP Congressman tells Uganda leaders to “stand firm” in support of LGBTQ death penalty

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/12/gop-congressman-tells-uganda-leaders-to-stand-firm-in-support-of-lgbtq-death-penalty/

I read on a different post that Christian nationalist feel entitled to force everyone to view their religious material.   And only their religious matter.  See they know that this country is a Christian nation and atheist have stolen it from them.  Just like the 2020 election was stolen, and just like they know it is their country which to them means the maga right wing conservative minority.   You just can not argue with these people, they are so convinced of their belief in a formerly religious country just as they are sure their god exists, and only their god.   But it is not good enough to force their church doctrines on the public in our country.  They need to force their god all over the world.  Hugs.  Scottie


GOP Congressman tells Uganda leaders to “stand firm” in support of LGBTQ death penalty
Photo: Ike Hayman

Every once in a while, the right in the U.S. can’t help but look longingly at countries where repression of LGBTQ is a matter of law. But Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, went one step further. He actually took a trip to Uganda to meet with leaders there and urge them to “stand firm” in support of their draconian anti-LGBTQ law, which includes the death penalty for gay people.

The law is so horrific that even Sen. Ted Cruz has condemned it.

Walberg took the trip last October, but it escaped notice until Salon revealed it this week. Walberg was the keynote speaker at the Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast. Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law in May, was among those present for Walberg’s speech. Museveni said that Walberg’s presence proved that there were Museveni later said that Walberg’s speech showed that some Americans “think like us.”

In the speech, Walberg called upon Ugandan leaders to defy efforts to force the African nation to roll back the vicious law, which makes “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by the death penalty.” The U.S. has dropped Uganda from a trade pact and issued visa sanctions against some Ugandan officials. The World Bank has halted all loans to Uganda in response to the measure.

“Though the rest of the world is pushing back on you, though there are other major countries that are trying to get into you and ultimately change you, stand firm. Stand firm,” Walberg counseled the attendees.

Walberg cited the Bible as justification for a law to kill people.  “Worthless is the thought of the world,” Walberg said. “[W]orthless, for instance, is the thought of the World Bank, or the World Health Organization, or the United Nations, or, sadly, some in our administration in America who say, ‘You are wrong for standing for values that God created,’ for saying there are male and female and God created them.’”

“Whose side do we want to be on?” Walberg continued. “God’s side. Not the World Bank, not the United States of America, necessarily, not the U.N. God’s side.”

Walberg explicitly aligned himself with Museveni and the Ugandan legislators who overwhelmingly passed the “Kill the Gays” bill. Referring to the Ugandan president, Walberg said, “He knows that he has a Parliament, and … even congressmen like me who will say, ‘We stand with you.’”

A former Bible salesman, Walberg has always been a standard issue religious conservative in Congress. HRC designated him a member of its Hall of Shame in 2014. This year he was the author of a provision he called the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their (PROTECT) Kids Act, part of a larger GOP bill that went nowhere. Under Walberg’s provision, schools would be required to get parental consent before changing a student’s pronouns or preferred names.

His trip to Uganda was sponsored by the U.S. National Prayer Breakfast, a formerly bipartisan group that has recently taken a hard-right turn. The new head of the group is Caroline Aderholt, a former leader Concerned Women of America, a long-time anti-LGBTQ group. Aderholt’s husband is Rep. Robert Aderholt, a Republican from Alabama who once tried to stop adoption agencies from allowing gay people to adopt.

While Walberg has gotten blowback for his comments, don’t expect his fellow Republicans to condemn him. If anything, Walberg is saying what at least a few other Christian nationalist types in the ranks are thinking as well. He’s just another reminder that when it comes to today’s Republican party, nothing is considered entirely beyond the pale, even killing LGBTQ people.

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It is exciting, I am opening up to the world again.

So I am excited, let me explain.  Even before Covid, I had started not wanting to be “out in the world”.  But after Covid hit, we stopped going out at all.  But Randy came to visit from far away and we all went out to eat.   I had a good time, but it was outside on the water and I got cold.  So Randy and his folks are coming up and we are going back again.  I love it.  Ron went into his closet and found a heavy coat / jacket for me.  It is only 67 outside.  To me, that is call out the national guard weather.  So I am excited to see Randy and his folks again. Last time we ate there, I got just the quesadillas and I could only eat two of them.  I gave the other two to Randy.  I really want to try the chili, so I am not sure what I will order.   So at some time I will stop responding / blogging and you will know we went out to eat.   Hugs.    Scottie

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Let’s talk about a New Year’s resolution, a message, and change….

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Crap, it is 4:45 pm and I did not get to comments again.

So I woke up at 2 am and I got up at 3 am this morning just to get through a lot of stuff I have been putting off.  But all day other things came up, I did read and post news articles, and I have a 3:12 hour video from a trans YouTube creator I like who was unfairly attacked and mistreated, and now that everything has come out in her favor she is taking a victory lap by going over every aspect of the case.  Yes she is a bit of a drama queen but her attacker spearheading the abuse directed against her is a total lying massive drama queen who seeks attention by stoking the idea she is being harmed or attacked.  

So on and off I had to take rest breaks, and I did the dishes which took up most of my morning because I can not just stand at the counter to do them, but have to do some, go sit or lay down, get back up and do some more.  When I talk about how hard I work, it is within my own limitations.   I think normally able folk could run circles around what I do every day.  Anyway.  

I am very tired.  I was going to have one half of the leftover thick pork chops with stuffing on top that Ron made last night.  I had the first half last night and it was great, so I planned to have the second half with a salad instead of the potatoes he served with them last night.  But Ron forgot the plan and made me a very large salad and I struggled to eat it all, stopping twice to take the rest to him.   But salad with dressing is not good after being in a refrigerator, and I know Ron gets upset if I don’t eat a certain amount at night.  All week I have gone without any insulin as my blood sugars are so low.  Not the fast acting at meal times nor the long acting at night at 10 pm.  Remember recently my blood sugar levels were in the dangerously low territory due to me taking the insulin.  I still take a metformin pill twice daily that is to regulate my blood sugar.  The only reason they put me on insulin is because of my monthly steroids, which the pills won’t help with.   So Ron is very insistent I eat before bed, no matter what time I go to bed.  He also has me now take my blood sugar around 10 pm when he comes to bed because he wants to make sure I don’t take the insulin if my BS is already low.  My hubby should have been a doctor or at least a PA.  

Because it is early, but I am so tired, and I don’t want to lose comments of other bloggers posts I am going to start a 6th tab with the last few days of stuff, so I don’t lose them.  I hope to get through them soon.  But tomorrow I plan to go grocery shopping with Ron, we find it so much easier if we do it together, so I might not get to many of the saved ones.   Hugs.  Scottie.  

Ex-GOP student leader’s links to Jan. 6 Capitol riot and a neo-Nazi web site

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/12/28/oliver-krvaric-jan-6-capitol-riot/71971697007/

By my dogs that love gravy, how far entrenched and deep is this fascist racist bigoted stain go in the US?  WTF.   A bit long, but the first half is riveting in the way these people think.   They all want to act out, to harm others, to do what ever they feel they should have the right against anyone else … but they fight hard not to be held accountable for what they have done.  They love to shout their racist bigoted misogynistic shit as loud as possible and when they get the chance to act on it, but they know it is not acceptable so when called out on it they hide.   Hugs.  Scottie


Will Carless

There are a lot of photos and stuff at the website I don’t want to take the time to individually copy over.  To see the “chilling images from Jan 6th …” please go to the link above.   
 

The young man is seen running with the crowd of Trump supporters toward the U.S. Capitol early in the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021. He wears a thigh-length dark blue coat, his face almost fully covered with a mask. The bill of an off-white baseball cap pokes out of the hood of his gray sweatshirt. 

At 2:35 p.m. and 20 seconds, a security camera inside the Capitol captures the man as he steps across the threshold of the west door of the upper west terrace, holding up his phone, apparently capturing the moment himself. Immediately behind him is the far-right internet personality “Baked Alaska.” 

For a few seconds, his distinctive pink Adidas Continental 80 sneakers are visible.

The security footage is among videos released during the trial of another Jan. 6 participant, a member of the Proud Boys prosecuted for seditious conspiracy. In it, and in other photos from the day, his face remains partly concealed behind the mask.

But all signs point to Oliver Krvaric, a young Republican star and scion of a powerful GOP family from San Diego. Krvaric is most notable for his job at the time of the riot.

A USA TODAY review of arrests concluded Krvaric would be the first full-time employee of the Trump administration identified entering the Capitol in the insurrection. On Jan. 6, 2021, Krvaric was working for the Office of Personnel Management on a short-lived Trump executive order that sought to rid federal agencies of certain diversity and inclusion training.  

By then, the 22-year-old had built a public persona as an up-and-coming student GOP leader. Even earlier than that, his name had been used to create an identity on a site for white supremacists.  

Asked whether he was at the Jan. 6 riot, Krvaric initially told USA TODAY he was not. Pressed about the photos that online researchers say show him that day, Krvaric acknowledged he attended former President Donald Trump’s speech, but said he didn’t go inside the Capitol. Asked about images that appear to show him inside the Capitol, he then said he didn’t remember whether he went inside. Sent copies and links to the footage, he stopped responding. 

As for the online persona, an email address in Krvaric’s first and middle names was used in 2016 to create a profile on a neo-Nazi website. That user praised Adolf Hitler, backed deportation of non-white people and expressed disgust of the LGBTQ+ population. 

Kvaric said he did not recall the posts. He did not deny making them, and said he did “not particularly” recognize the email address behind them.

“I don’t know if that’s long in the past, or — I wouldn’t recognize anything,” Krvaric said about the posts, which appeared on the now-defunct white supremacist forum “Iron March.” “I just don’t have a recollection.”  

Oliver Krvaric, as president of his university's College Republicans, penned a letter to President Trump asking him to cancel all temporary worker visas for foreign nationals. The publicity led to interviews including with then-Fox host Tucker Carlson.
 

Krvaric led the College Republicans while at San Diego State University. In a 2020 opinion column in the San Diego Union Tribune, he penned a portentous message:“The temporary upheaval that consumed the Republican Party up through the early months of the new administration is nothing like what’s coming should President Trump lose re-election in November.”

The following January brought the insurrection. Since then, more than 1,000 people have been charged for crimes ranging from simply entering the building to seditious conspiracy. But as the third anniversary approaches, hundreds of other participants who may be identifiable in photos and videos remain free.

Online sleuths used high-tech facial recognition software to try matching photos of Krvaric to photos from Jan. 6. That technology pointed toward the man in the blue coat. 

But other evidence also places Krvaric on the streets of the capital that day. 

Krvaric was working in D.C. at the time, and acknowledges being at Trump’s rally on Jan 6. Others close to him had also heard he was involved in the insurrection, including two former colleagues who told USA TODAY they heard Krvaric’s younger brother bragging about Krvaric storming the Capitol. One of the former colleagues reviewed the photos from the day for USA TODAY and identified the man in the mask as Krvaric. 

The man in the blue coat was also photographed waving a flag connected to a far-right group Krvaric has been photographed with in the past.  

And then there are the distinctive shoes. A year and a half before the Jan. 6 insurrection, Krvaric appeared in photographs from a San Diego Republican Party event. On his feet in those photos: Adidas Continental 80s. Color: pink. 

At the insurrection

A spokesman for the Office of Personnel Management, which serves as a sort of human resources department for federal agencies, confirmed that Oliver Krvaric was employed by the department as a “confidential assistant” from November 2020 to January 2021.

Krvaric also lists his work for the Trump administration on his LinkedIn page. He now works for a security firm, and his LinkedIn page says he’s looking for political work.

In his interview with USA TODAY, where he acknowledged being in Washington on Jan. 6, he initially said he was at work that day, not at the Capitol. 

Only after being asked about the photographs of the man in the blue coat in the crowd, holding a Trump flag and a blue “America First” flag connected to the far-right extremist “Groyper” movement, did Krvaric acknowledge he was on the streets of the capital that day. He said he attended Trump’s now-infamous speech at the Ellipse, where the former President called on protestors to march to where the votes from the 2020 election were being certified. 

“I was not in the Capitol. I did not go into any offices, I didn’t wander the halls,” he said. “I was not in the premises.” 

Then asked if that meant he truly never crossed the threshold of the building, he said, “What do you mean by ‘the threshold’?”  

Told of the surveillance video from inside the Capitol, Krvaric said: “I don’t know about that, I’d have to see it.” USA TODAY sent him a text message with a link to that footage in early December. He has not responded.

Security footage from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 shows a man in a blue coat and hooded sweatshirt entering the building at the same time as a high-profile livestreamer.
 

In the footage, the man in the blue coat walks down a corridor toward a second door, looks inside and nods his head enthusiastically, before retracing his steps. As he heads toward an exterior door, a camera catches him in full frame: ball cap, blue coat and pink Adidas shoes.  

It’s unknown whether he went elsewhere in the Capitol. Mere presence inside the building has been enough for a charge in other cases. Among the 1,000-plus people charged for events that day, one of the most common charges is “entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds.”

Capitol security footage from Jan. 6. This angle shows the man in the blue coat, who is also wearing pink shoes, turn around and walk back down the corridor.
 

Anthime Gionet, the far-right extremist influencer known as “Baked Alaska,” who livestreamed video online as he walked into the Capitol at the same time, was charged with knowingly entering and remaining on restricted grounds, violent entry and disorderly conduct. In January he was sentenced to two months in prison and ordered to pay $2,500. Other rioters who committed vandalism and violence have been sentenced to harsher sentences.

The idea that Krvaric participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol raid has circulated in political circles in his hometown.

Two former colleagues of Oliver Krvaric told USA TODAY Krvaric’s younger brother, Victor, bragged to them that Oliver had entered the Capitol on Jan. 6. Two other former colleagues said they heard this rumor from people Victor told. All four sources asked not to be identified because they still work in local politics.  

Victor Krvaric declined comment for this story.

One of Oliver Krvaric’s former colleagues said she was concerned enough to alert the FBI in late 2021. She’s the one who was shown the footage of the man in the blue coat and commented that  it showed Krvaric’s “very distinctive face” – which is long, with close-set eyes. 

“Oh yes that’s him,” she wrote in a message. 

The FBI, asked whether it had received a tip or was investigating Krvaric, declined to comment.  

The man in the security footage is not apparently included on current FBI “wanted” lists. However, as USA TODAY reported earlier this year, even among those whose faces have been published on FBI lists, many have yet to be charged. A USA TODAY report in March identified two such people; the FBI arrested them in August and November – nearly three years after the insurrection. 

House speaker Mike Johnson has promised to release tens of thousands of hours of security footage from the Capitol in the coming months.

Research about Krvaric was first provided to USA TODAY by a member of the Sedition Hunters, a group of volunteer sleuths who have used facial recognition and other research to identify hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

Kevin Bowyer, a computer science professor and expert on facial recognition, said because the man in the blue coat’s full face isn’t seen in footage and photographs, any facial recognition match is a starting point for further research.

USA TODAY reviewed the surveillance videos, photos from outside the Capitol, social media photos identifying Krvaric, and the leaked online data and public records that linked him to the email address for the profile that made the white-supremacist online posts. 

Working for the federal government

The list of people already charged or convicted for activity inside the Capitol that day includes numerous active-duty military members, and at least one political appointee, but does not so far appear to include regular federal employees.  

The details of Krvaric’s work as a federal employee aren’t clear. The spokesman wouldn’t discuss his work at the federal agency beyond confirming dates of employment. Krvavic’s LinkedIn page says he was hired by the OPM “for immediate assistance with enforcement and implementation of Executive Order 13950.”

That order, signed by Trump on Sept. 22, 2020, purports to “promote unity in the Federal workforce, and to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating.”

At the time, a national debate was raging over the teaching of so-called “Critical Race Theory” in schools, colleges and places of work, and this order was widely seen as Trump’s contribution to the pushback. President Joe Biden revoked the order the day he was inaugurated.

For Krvaric, the brief stint working in Washington perhaps couldn’t have been a better fit with his own worldview. It also aligned with a profile that had been created, years earlier, on the notorious neo-Nazi forum “Iron March.” 

Posts on a neo-Nazi forum

On Sept. 12, 2016, a new user posted on Iron March. The newcomer used the handle “NeoSvensk.” “Svensk” means “Swedish” in the Swedish language. Tony Krvaric, Oliver’s father, emigrated to the United States from Sweden.

Three years after the post appeared, Iron March was hacked and the site’s data was posted online for all to see. The data reveals that the NeoSvensk account was created by someone using an email address that begins “OllyIvan.” Ivan is Oliver Krvaric’s middle name. The IP address connected to the account was geo-located in San Diego.

The username NeoSvensk was also used to create an account on the instant messaging app Kik. That account’s profile picture is a stylized photograph resembling Krvaric.

In Iron March posts obtained by USA TODAY, NeoSvensk – applying to join the forum and meet like-minded white supremacists – bragged of his Swedish ancestry. He talked openly of his admiration for Hitler and fascism and his disdain for multiculturalism, and used a derisive term for gay men, whom he described as “utterly revolting.” 

Other details from those accounts all show alignment between Oliver Krvaric and the person writing as NeoSvensk: The poster said he was 18 — Krvaric’s age in September 2016; that he was attending university and living in California — Krvaric lived in San Diego at the time and graduated from high school that spring; and that he has a grandmother in Malmö, Sweden — where Krvaric’s father grew up.   

“I understand working from within the current system is frowned upon but it’s the only way I know,” the NeoSvensk account wrote. 

Five years later, Oliver Krvaric was working inside the federal government.

Asked about the posts on Iron March, Krvaric said he didn’t recall making them. But when he was asked directly if he recognized the “OllyIvan” email address used to create the online accounts, Krvaric said, “Not particularly.” 

At San Diego State University, where he was the president of the College Republicans, Krvaric was instrumental in pushing the group to become more conservative.

“In order to mobilize and win the trust of their voters, Republican candidates must increasingly demonstrate their commitment to ‘MAGA,’” he wrote in a July 2020 opinion column in the San Diego Union Tribune.

The same year, Krvaric’s SDSU College Republicans penned a letter to President Trump asking him to cancel all temporary worker visas for foreign nationals. The controversial letter earned Krvaric an interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight and on a local news station.

When Carlson asked Krvaric what he thought about the H1-B visa program, which allows foreign nationals to work in the United States, Krvaric responded: 

“Personally, I think it’s unconscionable … American patriots, going back to the 1990s and even further on, have repeatedly sounded the alarm on the guest worker abuse that’s displacing American workers.”

On Iron March, NeoSvensk had discussed immigration in other terms, expressing a particular admiration for the British fascist Oswald Mosley.

“[T]he accomplishments of white Europeans and their frequency vastly and significantly outweighs anything ever produced or built by those of any other race or continent,” a typical post reads. “I have no qualms with forcibly deporting and repatriating all non-whites from Sweden,” adds another post.

In interviews with USA TODAY, Krvaric stressed his conservative values and doubled down on his support for former president Trump. He disputed the categorization of his politics as “extremist.”

“The left will consider any conservative platform not entirely focused on lukewarm fiscal policy to be extreme,” he wrote by email. “They would prefer the GOP to be a defanged party.”

A family history

Tony Krvaric, patriarch of the Krvaric family, has been well-known in political circles in California for decades. While he no longer heads the local GOP, the elder Krvaric retains political power behind-the-scenes, said Larry Remer, a political consultant based in San Diego. 

“He’s still a player in Republican politics,” Remer said. “He’s one of the local wise men of the Republican party.”

In 2020, an old animated video surfaced of the then-chairman of the San Diego Republican Party. The video, produced decades earlier, features photographs of Hitler doing a Nazi salute and swastikas, interspersed with photos of a young Tony Krvaric wearing dark sunglasses. It also depicts one man with a swastika drawn on his neck.

The elder Krvaric did not respond to phone calls and text messages from USA TODAY requesting an interview, but he condemned the video in an August 2020 interview with the San Diego Union Tribune, and said it was created as part of a smear campaign against him.

“Of course it’s in bad taste and it’s offensive,” he told the newspaper. “All those things go without saying.”

Last year, Victor Krvaric, Oliver’s younger brother who was a Marine reservist and now works for the family investment business, was investigated by the Marine Corps for alleged ties to white supremacist groups including the extremist Texas-based group Patriot Front. 

Krvaric was separated from the Corps in May 2022, a Corps spokesman told USA TODAY.  

According to copies of Patriot Front’s online chats, which were leaked online by the journalism collective Unicorn Riot, Victor Krvaric allegedly told a recruiter for the group that he was introduced to right-wing literature by his older brother.

On one topic, however, Oliver and Victor’s father, Tony Krvaric, has made a public comment: On Jan. 7, 2021, he retweeted a tweet from USA TODAY calling for help identifying people who broke into the Capitol the day before. He added a caption:

“I’m 100% on board with prosecuting everyone who broke the law yesterday.”