I can not believe how stupid this woman is yet she managed to parley her hate in to fame. Woke “is the destruction of normality and anti-American” according to Chaya Raichik. Yes she is trying to wipe out equality, tolerance, and acceptance because it is the destruction of normality and anti-American. Really I would think acceptance and tolerance would be the essence of America. What she means is she doesn’t like the acceptance of LGBTQ+ and she is racist. She wants a nice 1950s Leave it to Beaver society. She talks about DEI with claims like you see it everywhere, you see it in the shops, in stores, you see it in companies, it hurts you, it hurts children. Yet she doesn’t ever say how it hurts children, she never says how you see it in stores, unless she means blacks in places white people are? She finally says “DEI is code for less whites”! She is a racist bigot. Hugs. Scottie
Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik was asked to define “woke” during an event at Indiana University, and to put it simply, she had her very own Bethany Mandel moment. It wasn’t the only instance at the event where she was mocked and laughed at for making a fool of herself. In this video we’ll look at some highlights and discuss Chaya’s inability to articulate her own values.
The case of Donald Trump makes a forceful ethical argument against the Twenty-second Amendment and for its repeal: If a man who once was president returns, after a series of years, to stand again for the office and proves so popular as to earn a second nonconsecutive term—as Trump seems bound to do—to deny him the right to run for a second consecutive term cuts against basic fair play.
If, by 2028, voters feel Trump has done a poor job, they can pick another candidate; but if they feel he has delivered on his promises, why should they be denied the freedom to choose him once more?
Don’t let questions of Trump’s age in four years fool you. Besides the glaringly obvious differences between the men in their brain power, physical strength, and ability to walk in a straight line, Trump and Biden are about four years apart, making this issue something of a wash. As with Prohibition, it is simply a matter of finding the will to get rid of a bad idea that needlessly limits Americans’ freedom. Trump in 2028!
The American Conservative is a partner of Project 2025, the conservative movement’s comprehensive transition plan for the next Republican presidency. Project 2025 — organized and led by The Heritage Foundation, a leading right-wing think tank — is a policy and staffing initiative that threatens to weaken democracy, significantly roll back civil rights, and exacerbate climate change, among other issues.
Project 2025 is backed by a coalition of over 100 organizations and individuals, at least two-thirds of which receive funding from the Koch network or conservative philanthropist Leonard Leo. The project has also been heavily promoted by MAGA-connected media figures such as Steve Bannon, who has called it the “blueprint” for Trump’s second term on his War Room podcast.
NEW from me: Project 2025 partner floats repealing the 22nd Amendment and allowing Trump to serve a third term
The American Conservative published a blog with the headline "Trump 2028" https://t.co/NrUlpooBkx
Yes let’s put the LGBTQ+ hater who demands control over everyone’s children in charge of what books should be removed from libraries. That is like putting a fundamentalist religious extremist in charge of women’s rights. Hugs. Scottie
Some of Florida’s loudest advocates for public school book removals make up half of a state government-sponsored group to advise school districts on how to select titles and when to pull them off shelves.
Moms for Liberty members made up three of six members of a Department of Education workgroup that met Thursday in Tallahassee to redevelop an online training program for school librarians and media specialists following a 2023 state law focused on book challenges.
It’s a demonstration of the state’s willingness to cater to the conservative group, which has long supported Gov. Ron DeSantis and, along with its local chapters, has become the leading voice against books in schools that it considers inappropriate.
“It’s evident that the Florida Department of Education is not ready to turn a corner and start tamping down on the gross censorship we’re seeing across the state,” said Stephana Ferrell, co-founder and director of research and insight for the Florida Freedom to Read Project, a book access advocacy organization.
Ferrell had applied to be a part of the workgroup. So did more than 20 others, according to resumes her group received through a public records request. Most, like Ferrell herself, weren’t picked.
Instead, the department selected Priscilla West, chair of Moms For Liberty-Leon County, Moms for Liberty Indian River County Chapter Chair Jennifer Pippin and Jamie Merchant, Florida legislative chair for the national parents’ group.
West and Pippin, in an interview after the meeting in the state Department of Education building, emphasized their role as parents, not just Moms for Liberty representatives.
“Organizations aside, at the end of the day, we’re parents, we’re moms and we’re concerned with what we’re finding in the schools,” Pippin said.
And they were also concerned with the meeting itself, which lasted approximately only an hour. Advocates on both sides of the book debate said it didn’t do enough to clarify the expectations for schools.
Meet the Moms for Liberty on the librarian training workgroup
As previously reported by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida, West’s group is working to remove a number of books from school libraries.
“Good Evening, Joyful Warriors!” she wrote in an email to members last year. “We are rockin’ and rollin’ with these book challenges!”
In the lead-up to Thursday’s meeting, the Facebook page for West’s chapter made a multitude of posts soliciting parents to challenge various titles with sexual and LGBTQ material.
When a commenter responded that transgender students deserve to see themselves represented in books, the account ridiculed gender transitions.
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Pippin, meanwhile, made many headlines for her school book challenges. One of them was about a children’s book, called “Unicorns Are The Worst,” that showed the bare behind of a goblin. As a result of her challenge, clothes were drawn over the goblin.
She also got “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” pulled from a Indian River County high school.
Merchant, the Moms for Liberty Florida legislative chair, was previously reported as a “Mamas for DeSantis” participant, a pro-DeSantis initiative launched during his gubernatorial reelection campaign in 2022. The conservative education reform-focused Florida Citizens Alliance lists her on its website as a member of its advisory council.
In an emailed statement, Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said, “We are glad that our members are taking an interest in public schools and public policy in education.”
The other three members were made up of media specialists from Republican-dominated Marion, Manatee and Wakulla counties.
‘We shoud err on the side of freedom’: Meeting leaves all sides disappointed
Both Pippin and Merchant had been in the original workgroup, which was formed after DeSantis signed the Republican-backed Curriculum Transparency Act in 2022, which he touted as a way to increase parental involvement in education and prevent “indoctrination.”
The law requires districts to catalog every book they offer and put a formal review process in place for complaints.
The original online training program, which came out at the beginning of 2023, contained a slide that warned educators to “err on the side of caution” with their book choices. Another slide pointed out that school officials could be charged with a third-degree felony if materials are found harmful to minors under an older state law.
School districts interpreted the guidance in wildly varying ways, leading some to pull hundreds of titles out of fear of potential penalties, and others to pull none. A national free speech advocacy group recently ranked Florida No.1 in “book bans,” a much-debated term to describe the books pulled from public schools.
The workgroup didn’t alter that original presentation wording, much to the disappointment of a Florida Education Association representative who spoke during the public comment period of the meeting.
“We should err on the side of freedom. We should err on the side of education, not on the side of caution,” said Luke Flynt, communication specialist for the teachers union.
Instead, the group discussed the incorporation of yet another book challenge law into the training. The measure makes it easier to get a challenged book removed for “sexual conduct.”
Much of the meeting, which was not broadcast virtually, was dominated by the complexities of the new law.
Members agreed on adding a new slide about the new objection criteria, which includes requiring that a book be removed within five days of a challenge because it includes pornography or “sexual conduct” and until the complaint is resolved. They also OK’d adding audio to a slide about book selection criteria explaining that people can file sexual conduct objections.
Despite having an agenda predicting the meeting would last much of the day, it started and ended in about an hour.
Pippin and West said they would have liked more time. The meeting, they said, could have been a virtual meeting or email.
“My anticipation was to do the work and discuss other things,” said Pippin, who added that she had woken up at 3 a.m. to make it to the meeting, which was attended by and steered by Department of Education employees. “I probably had five or 10 more questions I could have asked, but I saw they kept redirecting to (the new state law).”
She pointed out a recent press conference from DeSantis where, citing frivolous objections, he called for limits to how many books the public can challenge in schools. The Legislature passed a bill this past session, which the governor has not yet signed, that states a “resident of the county who is not the parent or guardian of a student with access to school district materials may not object to more than one material per month.”
Ferrell also said the group should have done more, such as including information about the settlement from earlier in the week between the state and LGBTQ groups over the critic-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, which restricts classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. Some school districts had pulled books citing the law.
But the settlement, in part, comes with a statement from the state that the law does not affect library books (something that had already been said by Attorney General Ashley Moody in legal filings).
Ferrell said she doesn’t believe the training properly explains the new law and only adds to the confusion: “They will encourage more removals,” she warned.
It’s unclear if the group will convene again.
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA TODAY Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com.
Priscilla West, chair of Moms For Liberty-Leon County, is in the group.
“Good Evening, Joyful Warriors!” wrote West in an email to members last year. “We are rockin' and rollin' with these book challenges!”https://t.co/y5CXRMopFc
Moms for Liberty members make up half of a group to advise Florida school districts on how to select titles and when to pull them off of shelves. https://t.co/TGjxvih9DC
I do not understand why people like this guy claims that they speak for real Americans, That everyone but them is destroying their country, that they are losing their country, that everyone knows … when it is not true, or my favorite they use, they push the idea that they are the majority when they are not. That is a tactic maga uses, the maga person claims to be representing the country or the people when in fact they are a minority. Lib’s of TikTok use it, as does Mom’s for Liberty. These kinds of people act like they and the ones like them are the only ones in the country that matter or count, that no one else has rights or the right to think differently. That is because these people are a minority that want to rule others. Also why are these people so terrified of sex and body parts? They spend more time thinking about different people having sex than porn watchers. I want to tell these people to just get laid, have sex and enjoy it, or don’t if you don’t want to. Just stop trying to force others to live as you do. Hugs. Scottie
Pastor Alex McFarland writes for the Moonie Times:
Remember the San Fransisco Gay Men’s Choir and their 2021 video singing, “We’re coming for your children?” Remember that? At the time, as many conservatives and “traditional morality” voices expressed concern, with equal conviction many voices essentially retorted, “Chill out! Can’t you people take a joke?”
But for the “Gay Nationalists” working to groom America’s youth for a thoroughly woke, hyper-sexualized tomorrow, all of this is no joke. Gay, trans and critical race theory activists take their work of deconstructing America with religious fervor. Because deviancy and license are their religion.
With contempt for God and His followers, traditional Americans are slammed as “Christian nationalists.” But let’s call the woke zealots what they are: Gay Nationalists. Live gay, live straight, live chaste, live promiscuously – each of us will answer to Almighty God for how we responded to the truth we really did know. But the abandonment of known moral truth to placate the sexual deviants who are after our children; this is paving the way for the loss of America.
Read the full article. McFarland hosts a daily show on the American Family Association’s nearly 200 radio stations.
He last appeared here in January 2024 when he declared that “all human rights progress for the last 2000 years has been due to Jesus.”
McFarland first appeared here in 2015 when he blamed a mass shooting in California on God’s anger over the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage.
Gay and trans activists take their work of deconstructing America with religious fervor. Deviancy and license are their religion. https://t.co/D5sBAUBAgP
— Washington Times Opinion (@WashTimesOpEd) March 14, 2024
US accused of failing to act on reports of abuse by Israeli forces
Panel urged denial of Israel funds because of serious human rights violations but state department has not yet acted, report says
All of these attacks exemplify pushback against inclusion and welcome for ‘the other’: “The first and most fundamental way in which white Christian nationalism threatens American liberal democracy is that it defines ‘the people’ in a way that excludes many Americans. White Christian nationalism is a form of what is often called ‘ethno-nationalism.’ Liberal democracy rests on what is usually called ‘civic nationalism’ It defines the nation in terms of values, laws, and institutions.’” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 114)
Throughout the book the authors explore and re-explore the meaning of the deep story of white Christian nationalism: “White Christian nationalism is our term for the ethno-traditionalism among many white Americans that conflates racial, religious, and national identity (the deep story) and pines for cultural and political power that demographic and cultural shifts have increasingly threatened…. (T)he term Christian in white Christian nationalism is often far more akin to a dog whistle that calls out to an aggrieved tribe than a description of the content of one’s faith.” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 44)
Alexander Smirnov was paid $600,000 in 2020 – the same year he allegedly began lying to FBI about Bidens’ role in Ukraine business
A sketch of defendant Alexander Smirnov in federal court in Los Angeles on 26 February 2024. Photograph: William T Robles/AP
An American company that paid the now indicted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov in 2020 is connected to a UK company owned by Trump business associates in Dubai, according to business filings and court documents.
Smirnov is now accused of lying to the FBI about Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden, alleging that they engaged in a bribery scheme with executives at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Smirnov’s accounts to the FBI, beginning in 2020, that federal prosecutors now say are fabrications, served as a major justification of the House impeachment investigation into the Bidens.
Republican lawmakers have repeatedly touted Smirnov as a reliable informant, and the chairman of the House oversight committee, James Comer, even threatened to hold the FBI director, Christopher Wray, in contempt unless he “handed over” a June 2020 FBI form with Smirnov’s claims to the committee.
Back in 2020, Smirnov was paid $600,000 by a company called Economic Transformation Technologies (ETT), prosecutors said. That same year, Smirnov began lying to the FBI about the Bidens, according to the indictment. There is no suggestion the payment was linked to Smirnov’s alleged fabrications.
ETT’s CEO is the American Christopher Condon, who was also one of three shareholders in ETT Investment Holding Limited in London. Other shareholders in the UK company, now dissolved, included the Pakistani American investor Shahal Khan and Farooq Arjomand, a former chairman and current board member of Damac Properties in Dubai who is also listed as an adviser on ETT’s American website.
Last month, Smirnov was charged with lying to the FBI, and is being held without bail. Prosecutors argued he posed a flight risk because of his contacts with Russian officials in the Middle East and access to millions of dollars.
Smirnov’s indictment alleged that the assertions in a document, known as a 1023, and other statements made to his FBI handler beginning in 2020 and continuing until December 2023, were factually impossible.
The exact business model of Texas-based ETT is murky. Its mission statement reads in part: “ETT set up the chess board to bring in top notch executives from those sectors to help implement its vision of love and social impact to improve the quality of human existence through the application of ‘new age’ technologies.”
The current CEO, Condon, is a California man who has been involved in several civil lawsuits, including a civil Rico case in 2010 that he won on appeal. Condon’s official biography says he is “a former professional tennis player, financial advisor, and currently is an entrepreneur focused on social-impact projects, public-private partnerships, and creating smart communities that benefit both individuals and governments”.
Condon, Arjomand and Khan registered ETT Investment Holding Limited in the UK on 6 March 2020. Khan, an investor who purchased the Plaza hotel in 2018, and Arjomand have ties to Donald Trump through Trump associates and Damac, a major Middle East developer that has partnered with Trump for a decade. Arjomand, Khan and Condon owned 34%, 33% and 33% of ETT Investment Holding Limited respectively, according to UK business filings. No other information on the UK company is readily available.
The former Damac chairman Hussain Sajwani is also close to Trump and has been described as his friend in multiple news reports. Trump has called the billionaire a “friend” and a “great man”, and his family “the most beautiful people”.
Hussain Sajwani, far right, with Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in February 2017. Photograph: AP
Sajwani attended Trump’s 2016 inauguration, and Trump’s sons Donald Jr and Eric Trump attended the 2017 ribbon-cutting of the Trump International golf club in Dubai, licensed by Damac in 2014. Sajwani and his family also attended a party in 2017 at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s sons would go on to attend Sajwani’s daughter’s wedding in 2018.
In 2017 FEC filings, Trump disclosed making up to $5m from the Damac licensing deal, but said he would no longer do personal business deals when he became president. The two continued at least talking business into his presidency, however, according to multiple reports.
“Hussein, Damac, a friend of mine, a great guy. I was offered $2bn to do a deal in Dubai, a number of deals, and I turned it down,” Trump said in 2017.
Arjomand was the vice-chairman of Damac when the Trump International golf club, along with adjoining Trump-branded luxury homes, opened, and he replaced Sajwani as chair in 2021 when Sajwani stepped down to privatize the company.
Khan, who owns Dubai-based Trinity White City Ventures, is a New York native who partnered with New York City developer Kamran Hakim to buy the Plaza hotel in 2018 for $600m. He was a board member of ETT from 2019 to June 2020, according to his LinkedIn page, appearing in event photographs with Condon in Miami that year.
Khan is involved in a range of business from AI to mining to cybersecurity, according to his official biographies. In 2019, he was one of a dozen Pakistani American business owners invited to meet the then Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, the day before Imran met with Trump and Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, in Washington DC. The group was there to discuss the expansion of business in Pakistan.
In 2017, Khan reportedly approached Brad Zackson, dubbed Paul Manafort’s “real-estate fixer”, to help him broker a deal to buy the Roosevelt hotel in Manhattan, owned by the Pakistani government via its national airline, for $500m, according to the Real Deal. When the real-estate publication asked Khan about the reports, he denied that Zackson and Manafort, a former Trump campaign chairman, were involved. Khan purchased the Pakistani embassy building in DC in 2022 for $6.8m.
Khan is also CEO of BurTech Acquisition Group, a “blank check company”, or public shell company. Patrick Orlando, listed as a “special adviser” and shareholder of BurTech in 2021, was the CEO and chair of Digital World, another blank check company, from September 2021 to March 2023. When it began a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group in 2021, it was held up by an SEC investigation until given the green light last month.
The finalization of the merger may garner Trump as much as $4bn in shares, and help bolster his finances after his recent civil litigation losses. Orlando has known Trump since at least 2021, according to news reports.
Arjomand and Khan’s relationship is unclear. Arjomand, a former HSBC banker from the United Arab Emirates, also invests in hospitality businesses, including the celebrity Wahlberg brothers’ restaurant chain Wahlburgers, and owns a coffee company called Reborn Coffee.
ETT Investment Holding Limited was dissolved in 2021. Condon and Arjomand also registered a company called Atlas UK Group Limited the same day they registered the UK ETT, now dissolved.
The American ETT, then called Pandora Venture Capital Corp, was first registered in Florida in 2014 by a Wisconsin resident, Boris Nayflish, according to Florida business filings. Ukrainian American Nayflish is the ex-husband of Smirnov’s current partner, according to a Wall Street Journal report, which also claimed Nayflish stayed close to his ex, Diana Lavrenyuk, and Smirnov after the divorce.
Smirnov, born in Ukraine, lived in Israel before coming to the US in 2006.
Pandora changed its name to Skylab in 2017, then in 2018 Skylab seemed to split from what is now ETT, according to a lawsuit, when Condon first registered ETT websites and appeared on ETT’s Florida filings.
An unnamed former business associate told the Wall Street Journal that the $600,000 payment from ETT to Smirnov was “in exchange for a stake in an Israel-based crypto trading platform, called Bitoftrade, [that] Smirnov was working on launching”.
Calls and emails to Condon, Arjomand, Sajwani and Smirnov’s lawyer, and to Trump’s team, were not returned.
Khan told the Guardian: “I was on the board for a very short period, [and] there was no connection on my part.”
ETT responded after publication saying the company had “no involvement with Alexander Smirnov” and that “his association with ETT was a direct result of a merger with another company, making him a shareholder”.
“His introduction to ETT was strictly professional,” the company said, “and any money sent to a corporation called Avalon Group Inc., a Delaware corporation, related to ETT’s investment in a cryptocurrency platform, Bitoftrade”.
“This investment, like all ETT’s investments, was made following standard due diligence processes” and was “a straightforward business investment in the technology sector and had no connections to any political figures … ETT has never had any ties to President Biden or President Trump or their associates, or any political campaigns,” it said, adding that Christopher Condon has never met Biden or Trump or members of their families.
Smirnov is scheduled for a jury trial in April, according to court filings.
Did you know that governments and courts don’t make laws? Yes according to Christian Nationalist trying to turn our democracy into their church doctrine theocracy. These are the people running that state. The state where Nex Benedict was bullied to death. Hugs. Scottie
“The government doesn’t make the law. The people rise up, power rises up from the people and the people make the law. And that law should be in accordance with God’s word and the conscience. And these federal laws are restricting both of those things. So when this authority – namely the federal government – commands what God has forbidden or has not required, second – whenever it forbids what God commands or has not forbidden, third – whenever it oversteps its constitutional jurisdiction, or fourth – binds the conscience that God alone has jurisdiction, we – those who are their authority – we are the authority for the federal government in this situation, we are not to obey them whenever they take tyrannical action.” – Rabidly Christian nationalist Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers.
OK State Sen. Deevers (R) says federal permit requirements are against God's will:
"So, when [the federal government] commands what God forbids … whenever it forbids what God commands … [or] binds the conscience that God alone has jurisdiction … we are not to obey them." pic.twitter.com/86B7XJyXUS
Dusty Deevers is a Christian nationalist pastor running for a seat in the Oklahoma state Senate in order to apply "the word of God to every issue" by abolishing abortion, pornography, no-fault divorce, and even instituting the public shaming of adulterers. https://t.co/5vIvsVfnbUpic.twitter.com/TbsvKUNEUz
We can't really come up with a better example of Christian nationalism than Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers explaining that he wants to change a law just so that its punishment aligns with various Bible verses. https://t.co/a00MHR3B1wpic.twitter.com/YYoznTrKQe
Christian nationalist Dusty Deevers, a state senator in Oklahoma, takes exception to those who accuse him of wanting to take this nation back to the 1800s. He actually wants to go *much further back* than that, like to the 1600s. https://t.co/FD3hMpK3Sfpic.twitter.com/7JSjfeHres
The problem with this extremist is that he doesn’t understand Scripture. The Bible is a set of rules for the person reading it. In other words, it tells ME how I should behave. It’s not meant to be something you force on everyone else. And this is what the theo-fascists don’t understand.
It goes beyond not understanding scripture. They haven’t read the Bible. Many of them seldom attend church. Their familiarity with scripture begins and ends with a few key clobber passages they use to hurt other people. They don’t really believe in the teachings of Jesus. How could they? They don’t even know what he said. For them, Christianity is a weapon they wield to force their will onto other people.
Even if God complains directly, she gets one vote, like the rest of us.
There’s an old Jewish joke about four rabbis who’d regularly get together to debate various religious points. Without fail, the same three would end up agreeing against the fourth, who’d shrug and say, “Three to one, majority rules.”
One day, the fourth rabbi wasn’t willing to accept his opinion being wrong, and prayed for a sign from God that he was right. Out of a clear sunny day, black clouds suddenly gathered above the four of them, then dispersed. “You see! You see? It’s a sign! I’m right!” The other three dismissed it as a chance weather occurence.
Again he prayed for a sign, a bigger sign that would convince the other three that he was right. Again clouds gathered out of nowhere, darkening the sky and raining all around, but not on, the rabbis. After a minute they dispersed and the bright sunshine returned. Once again the other three dismissed it as a random weather happening.
So a third time he prayed for a sign, an unmistakable sign that the other three couldn’t deny. No sooner did he finish than thunderclouds gathered, rained around but not on them, multicolored lightning flashed around them, the ground shook, and a voice boomed from the heavens, “HE’S RIGHT!”
After the sun returned, the vindicated rabbi asked the others, “Nu?” “Well?”
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Douglas Soule
Scottie's Playtime 