Can’t air anything that might upset the dear cult leader right? All broadcast corporate media must please the dictator to make a profit, or pay the dictator tribute. What a waste. Again if a democrat had tried this republicans would have howled every few minutes on their paid media arms of their party. Not a peep out of the democratic party about it? Hugs
60 Minutes postponed a segment on the maximum security prison in El Salvador that President Donald Trump sent suspected gangsters and illegal immigrants to, only a few hours before the report was set to air on Sunday.
The CBS program had been planning to air the segment titled “Inside CECOT,” referring to El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo.
Here is the brief editor’s note that 60 Minutes posted to X about the report getting bumped:
“The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated. Our report ‘Inside CECOT’ will air in a future broadcast.”
The CBS News website also yanked its teaser clip of the report down from its website. Here is what that page looks like now:
A CBS News spokesperson toldPuck reporter Dylan Byers that its editorial team “determined it needed additional reporting.”
The segment was being reported by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi and produced by Oriana Zill de Granados.
Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS, shared the following teaser for the report on Friday:
Earlier this year, the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, a country most had no ties to, claiming they were terrorists. This move sparked an ongoing legal battle, and nine months later the U.S. government still has not released the names of all those deported and placed in CECOT, one of El Salvador’s harshest prisons.
It added Alfonsi would be speaking to “some of the now released deportees, who describe the brutal and torturous conditions they endured inside CECOT.”
CECOT has been described by outlets like ABC News as a “mega-prison.” It opened in 2023 as part of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s push to arrest and imprison more gang members. Inmates taunted a handful of Democratic and Republican lawmakers when they toured CECOT in May.
Is tRump a controlled asset or just a useful old idiot, does it matter. He is giving Putin everything he every wanted. The fact is he has decided to be Putin in the west while he lets Russia and China divide up Europe and the Asia. Hugs
The White House in Washington DC, USA. Illustrative image via Wikimedia Commons.
The United States has removed sanctions from several foreign companies previously accused of supplying equipment to Russia, including items linked to its defense and military-industrial sectors.
The changes were published on the US Treasury Department’s website on December 18, without any explanation for the move.
Cyprus-based investment firm and its owner delisted
Among the firms removed is Cyprus-based Veles International Limited and its owner, Dmytro Buhaienko. While the company is tied to an investment group based in Moscow, US sanctions remain in place against its Russian legal entities.
Veles was originally sanctioned in 2023 for operating in Russia’s financial sector and working with wealthy Russian private individuals.
Dubai and Turkish firms linked to military exports also dropped
Other companies taken off the sanctions list include Dubai-based 365 Days Freight Services FZCO and Türkiye’s Etasis, both of which had been linked to exports of restricted equipment used for military purposes in Russia.
When 365 Days was originally sanctioned in November 2023, the Treasury said the company “specializes in moving high-value goods and computer components” and “has shipped high-priority goods, including machines for the reception, conversion, and transmission of data, to Russia.”
Finnish supplier of optoelectronic equipment removed
The Treasury also lifted restrictions on Finland’s Hi-Tech Koneisto and its director, Yevheniia Dremova. The company had supplied optoelectronic and laboratory equipment to Russian firms already under sanctions.
CPS Proses Kontrol Urunleri, a Turkish company, had previously been sanctioned for sending German- and US-made machine tools to a Russian defense contractor. While the company itself is no longer under US sanctions, the Russian contractor it supplied remains restricted.
US authorities did not indicate whether the removals reflect changes in compliance, enforcement priorities, or broader sanctions policy toward Russia.
The delistings come as White House negotiators have met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to push a US deal to end the war in Ukraine, and days after the Treasury extended authorization for Lukoil-branded gas stations outside Russia to continue operating.
Leonardo Garcia Venegas was detained by immigration agents while filming a raid on his worksite, despite having a REAL ID on him and telling the officers he was a citizen.
Reporting Highlights
Americans Detained: The government doesn’t track how many citizens are held by immigration agents. We found more than 170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests.
Held Incommunicado: More than 20 citizens have reported being held for over a day without being able to call their loved ones or a lawyer. In some cases their families couldn’t find them.
Cases Wilted: Agents have arrested about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, for allegedly interfering with or assaulting officers, yet those cases were often dropped.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
When the Supreme Court recently allowed immigration agents in the Los Angeles area to take race into consideration during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned.
“If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.”
About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones.
Videos of U.S. citizens being mistreated by immigration agents have filled social media feeds, but there is little clarity on the overall picture. The government does not track how often immigration agents hold Americans.
So ProPublica created its own count.
We compiled and reviewed every case we could find of agents holding citizens against their will, whether during immigration raids or protests. While the tally is almost certainly incomplete, we found more than 170 such incidents during the first nine months of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
Among the citizens detained are nearly 20 children, including two with cancer. That includes four who were held for weeks with their undocumented mother and without access to the family’s attorney until a congresswoman intervened.
Immigration agents do have authority to detain Americans in limited circumstances. Agents can hold people whom they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally. We found more than 50 Americans who were held after agents questioned their citizenship. They were almost all Latino.
Immigration agents also can arrest citizens who allegedly interfered with or assaulted officers. We compiled cases of about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, accused of assaulting or impeding officers.
These cases have often wilted under scrutiny. In nearly 50 instances that we have identified so far, charges have never been filed or the cases were dismissed. Our count found a handful of citizens have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors.
Among the detentions in which allegations have not stuck, masked agents pointed a gun at, pepper sprayed and punched a young man who had filmed them searching for his relative. In another, agents knocked over and then tackled a 79-year-old car wash owner, pressing their knees into his neck and back. His lawyer said he was held for 12 hours and wasn’t given medical attention despite having broken ribs in the incident and having recently had heart surgery. In a third case, agents grabbed and handcuffed a woman on her way to work who was caught up in a chaotic raid on street vendors. In a complaint filed against the government, she described being held for more than two days, without being allowed to contact the outside world for much of that time. (The Supreme Court has ruled that two days is generally the longest federal officials can hold Americans without charges.)
George Retes, an American combat veteran, at the site of his arrest by immigration agents on California’s Central Coast. Retes was detained for three days without access to a lawyer and missed his daughter’s third birthday.
In response to questions from ProPublica, the Department of Homeland Security said agents do not racially profile or target Americans. “We don’t arrest US citizens for immigration enforcement,” wrote spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
A top immigration official recently acknowledged agents do consider someone’s looks. “How do they look compared to, say, you?” Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino said to a white reporter in Chicago.
The White House told ProPublica that anyone who assaults federal immigration agents would be prosecuted. “Interfering with law enforcement and assaulting law enforcement is a crime and anyone, regardless of immigration status, will be held accountable,” said the Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson. “Officers act heroically to enforce the law, arrest criminal illegal aliens, and protect American communities with the utmost professionalism.”
A spokesperson for Kavanaugh did not return an emailed request for comment.
An immigration raid on 79-year-old Rafie Ollah Shouhed’s car wash left him with broken ribs.Courtesy of Rafie Ollah Shouhed. Compiled by ProPublica.
Tallying the number of Americans detained by immigration agents is inherently messy and incomplete. The government has long ignored recommendations for it to track such cases, even as the U.S. has a history of detaining and even deporting citizens, including during the Obama administration and Trump’s first term.
We compiled cases by sifting through both English- and Spanish-language social media, lawsuits, court records and local media reports. We did not include arrests of protesters by local police or the National Guard. Nor did we count cases in which arrests were made at a later date after a judicial process. That included cases of some people charged with serious crimes, like throwing rocks or tossing a flare to start a fire.
Experts say that Americans appear to be getting picked up more now as a result of the government doing something that it hasn’t for decades: large-scale immigration sweeps across the country, often in communities that do not want them.
In earlier administrations, deportation agents used intelligence to target specific individuals, said Scott Shuchart, a top immigration official in the Biden, Obama and first Trump administrations. “The new idea is to use those resources unintelligently” — with officers targeting communities or workplaces where undocumented immigrants may be.
When federal officers roll through communities in the way the Supreme Court permitted, the constitutional rights of both citizens and noncitizens are inevitably violated, argued David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. He recently analyzed how sweeps in Los Angeles have led to racial profiling. “If the government can grab someone because he’s a certain demographic group that’s correlated with some offense category, then they can do that in any context.”
Cody Wofsy, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, put it even more starkly. “Any one of us could be next.”
The video Garcia Venegas made of an immigration raid on a construction site shows him walking away from the officer while trying to film and then stating that he’s a citizen before being detained.Courtesy of Garcia Venega
When Kavanaugh issued his opinion that immigration agents can consider race and other factors, the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices strongly dissented. They warned that citizens risked being “grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor.”
Leonardo Garcia Venegas appears to have been just such a case. He was working at a construction site in coastal Alabama when he saw masked immigration agents from Homeland Security Investigations hop a fence and run by a “No trespassing” sign. Garcia Venegas recalled that they moved toward the Latino workers, ignoring the white and Black workers.
Garcia Venegas began filming after his undocumented brother asked agents for a warrant. In response, the footage shows, agents yanked his brother to the ground, shoving his face into wet concrete. Garcia Venegas kept filming until officers grabbed him too and knocked his phone to the ground.
Other co-workers filmed what happened next, as immigration agents twisted the 25-year-old’s arms. They repeatedly tried to take him to the ground while he yelled, “I’m a citizen!”
Officers pulled out his REAL ID, which Alabama only issues to those legally in the U.S. But the agents dismissed it as fake. Officers held Garcia Venegas handcuffed for more than an hour. His brother was later deported.
Leonardo Garcia Venegas told agents he was a citizen both times he was detained. His REAL ID was dismissed as a fake.
Garcia Venegas was so shaken that he took two weeks off of work. Soon after he returned, he was working alone inside a nearly built house listening to music on his headphones when he sensed someone watching him. A masked immigration agent was standing in the bedroom doorway.
This time, agents didn’t tackle him. But they again dismissed his REAL ID. And then they held him to check his citizenship. Garcia Venegas says agents also held two other workers who had legal status.
DHS did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about Garcia Venegas’ detentions, or to a federal lawsuit he filed last month. The agency has previously defended the agents’ conduct, saying he “physically got in between agents and the subject” during the first incident. The footage does not show that, and Garcia Venegas was never charged with obstruction or any other crime.
Garcia Venegas’ lawyers at the nonprofit Institute for Justice hope others may join his suit. After all, the reverberations of the immigration sweeps are being felt widely. Garcia Venegas said he knows of 15 more raids on nearby construction sites, and the industry along his portion of the Gulf Coast is struggling for lack of workers.
Kavanaugh’s assurances hold little weight for Garcia Venegas. He’s a U.S. citizen of Mexican descent, who speaks little English and works in construction. Even with his REAL ID and Social Security card in his wallet, Garcia Venegas worries that immigration agents will keep harassing him.
“If they decide they want to detain you,” he said. “You’re not going to get out of it.”
Men building a home in rural Baldwin County, Alabama. Garcia Venegas was detained by immigration agents twice while working on homes in the area.
George Retes was among the citizens arrested despite immigration agents appearing to know his legal status. He also disappeared into the system for days without being able to contact anyone on the outside.
The only clue Retes’ family had at first was a brief call he managed to make on his Apple Watch with his hands handcuffed behind his back. He quickly told his wife that “ICE” had arrested him during a massive raid and protest on the marijuana farm where he worked as a security guard.
Still, Retes’ family couldn’t find him. They called every law enforcement agency they could think of. No one gave them any answers.
Eventually, they spotted a TikTok video showing Retes driving to work and slowly trying to back up as he’s caught between agents and protestors. Through the tear gas and dust, his family recognized Retes’ car and the veteran decal on his window. The full video shows a man — Retes — splayed on the ground surrounded by agents.
George Retes’ family noticed his car in a compiled video posted to TikTok. This clip from that longer video shows his white vehicle surrounded by tear gas. Immigration agents later pinned him on the ground.nota.sra/TikTok
Retes’ family went to the farm, where local TV reporters were interviewing families who couldn’t find their loved ones.
“They broke his window, they pepper sprayed him, they grabbed him, threw him on the floor,” his sister told a reporter between sobs. “We don’t know what to do. We’re just asking to let my brother go. He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a veteran, disabled citizen. It says it on his car.”
Retes was held for three days without being given an opportunity to make a call. His family only learned where he had been after his release. His leg had been cut from the broken glass, Retes told ProPublica, and lingering pepper spray burned his hands. He tried to soothe them by filling sandwich bags with water.
Retes recalled that agents knew he was a citizen. “They didn’t care.” He said one DHS official laughed at him, saying he shouldn’t have come to work that day. “They still sent me away to jail.” He added that cases like his show Kavanaugh was “wrong completely.”
DHS did not answer our questions about Retes. It did respond on X after Retes wrote an op-ed last month in the San Francisco Chronicle. An agency post asserted he was arrested for assault after he “became violent and refused to comply with law enforcement.” Yet Retes had been released without any charges. Indeed, he says he was never told why he was arrested.
Retes said that agents knew he was a citizen. “They didn’t care.”
The Department of Justice has encouraged agents to arrest anyone interfering with immigration operations, twiceordering law enforcement to prioritize cases of those suspected of obstructing, interfering with or assaulting immigration officials.
But the government’s claims in those cases have often not been borne out.
Daniel Montenegro was filming a raid at a Van Nuys, California, Home Depot with other day-laborer advocates this summer when, he told ProPublica, he was tackled by several officers who injured his back.
Bovino, the Border Patrol chief who oversaw the LA raids and has since taken similar operations to cities like Sacramento and Chicago, tweeted out the names and photos of Montenegro and three others, accusing them of using homemade tire spikes to disable vehicles.
“I had no idea where that story came from,” Montenegro told ProPublica. “I didn’t find out until we were released. People were like, ‘We saw you on Twitter and the news and you guys are terrorists, you were planning to slash tires.’ I never saw those spike tire-popper things.”
Officials have not charged Montenegro or the others with any crimes. (Bovino did not respond to a request for comment, while DHS defended him in a statement to ProPublica: “Chief Bovino’s success in getting the worst of the worst out of the country speaks for itself.”)
The government’s cases are sometimes so muddied that it’s unclear why agents actually arrested a citizen.
Andrea Velez was charged with assaulting an officer after she was accidentally dropped off for work during a raid on street vendors in downtown Los Angeles. She said in a federal complaint that officers repeatedly assumed she did not speak English. Federal officers later requested access to her phone in an attempt to prove she was colluding with another citizen arrested that day, who was charged with assault. She was one of the Americans held for more than two days.
DHS did not respond to our questions about Velez, but it has previously accused her of assaulting an officer. A federal judge has dismissed the charges.
Other citizens also said officers accused them of crimes and suddenly questioned their citizenship — including a man arrested after filming Border Patrol agents break a truck window, and a pregnant woman who tried to stop officers from taking her boyfriend.
“The often-inadequate guardrails that we have for state and local government — even those guardrails are nonexistent when you’re talking about federal overreach,” said Joanna Schwartz, a professor at UCLA School of Law.
More than 50 members of Congress have also written to the administration, demanding details about Americans who’ve been detained. One is Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat. After trying to question Noem about detained citizens, federal agents grabbed Padilla, pulled him to the ground and handcuffed him. The department later defended the agents, saying they “acted appropriately.”
I can’t understand living just to hate and harm others who are not doing anything that harms you. To carry that bitterness and to work so hard to deny to others what you demand for yourself seems like poisoning one’s self. With so much to enjoy in diversity and inclusion why work so hard to create a homogeny of everyone being the same. Hugs
As the M4L annual summit kicks off this weekend, here’s how one of the group’s original chapters is sowing chaos and pushing anti-LGBTQ policies in Indian River County.
Mink Tyner says some people call her a “helicopter parent” because of how protective she is over her kids. Despite this, she wasn’t concerned about bringing her daughter, then 14, to the Indian River County, Florida, school board meeting in August 2023, where they were discussing changes to the state’s curriculum relating to race and slavery.
That’s why she was shocked when she saw community members at the podium reading excerpts of sexual content from books.
“I hate lights out now because my D has a mind of its own,” one woman read. Then a man came up and read, “When Doris had just turned 11, her current stepfather started having sex with her.” And a third person read, “He took a long long time peeling off my jeans and T-shirt, pink bra and panties, and a longer time stroking and kissing me.”
The meeting had turned into more of a stunt led by protestors affiliated with the local chapter of Moms for Liberty (M4L), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated far-right extremist group.
“I’m not gonna have my kid in here listening to these adults doing this shit,” Tyner remembers thinking.
She took her daughter out of the room and pleaded with security to intervene, but they refused. So she spoke up to disrupt the meeting herself, only for security from the Sheriff’s office—who told Uncloseted Media their deputies responded “appropriately and in accordance with established procedures”—to escort her out.
As she was leaving, conservative pastor John Amanchukwu, who had attended the meeting with M4L, confronted her while recording a video that he would later post to X calling her “demonic” and lashing out about her being pro-LGBTQ: “You’re okay with DEI. … You’re okay with Pride Month. You’re okay with the rainbow flag. You’re okay with all that junk,” he yelled. Tyner responded by calling him a “fucking weirdo” and walked out.
That video opened a floodgate of harassment that tormented Tyner and her family for years: She received insults, accusations of pedophilia, and persistent threats of violence from a Facebook account displaying the name CURTIS COUSINS who called her a “fent-using fat fucking dyke” and told her she deserved to have “a potato peeler peel her clit right off to the bone.”
“I never know if this week or 10 years from now somebody’s gonna show up [to my business] based on some kind of misinformation that Moms for Liberty started about me [or] want to harm me and my family,” Tyner, who owns a tattoo shop, told Uncloseted Media.
Indian River County is home to one of the first of M4L’s 320 chapters nationwide. The group’s annual summit is this weekend and will feature a variety of politicians with anti-LGBTQ track records, including Oklahoma’s former state superintendent Ryan Walters, who made headlines for making anti-trans comments after the death of 16-year-old trans teen Nex Benedict. Last year, conservative heavyweights spoke at the event, including President Trump, Tulsi Gabbard and Sebastian Gorka.
Over the last four years, M4L have built a reputation for chaos and controversy. Members have made the news for quoting Hitler, stripping at a school board meeting and offering bounties to report teachers who teach about “critical race theory.”
At one point in Indian River County, close allies of M4L made up a majority of the school board where they pressured the district to ban scores of books, many of which contain LGBTQ themes, and reverse a racial equity policy—all while harassing, doxing and defaming their adversaries.
Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor of political science from the University of Massachusetts, says what’s playing out in Indian River County is a microcosm for so many other chapters across the country.
“[The media are] falling like suckers for this story that they’re a grassroots moms organization. They are not, they are connected to … the far right establishment,” he says. “And that’s become … more and more apparent. So this whole grassroots thing is hogwash.”
Beginnings
Moms for Liberty was founded in Florida in 2021 by three current and former school board members: Tiffany Justice, Tina Descovich and Bridget Ziegler, the latter of whom has since left the group after being involved in a sex scandal wherein her husband allegedly prowled local bars to solicit women for threesomes.
Shortly after M4L launched, Justice tapped Jennifer Pippin, who had made a name for herself for leading activism against COVID-19 restrictions, to lead the chapter for her home county, Indian River.
While the anti-mask circles that would later be folded into M4L always had a conservative lean, multiple county residents told Uncloseted Media that the group’s discriminatory views were not initially apparent.
Tyner, a lesbian who identifies as politically independent, actually felt welcomed by the group when she worked with them on their anti-mask mandate advocacy. However, that changed as M4L’s focus turned towards opposing LGBTQ inclusion measures in schools.
“Once they organized and got the appearance of a grassroots start … and many people in the community that were siding with them, it’s like they took the steering wheel and they just steered another direction,” she says.
When Tyner began speaking up against this rhetoric, she says she was blocked from the group’s Facebook pages. But as she continued to oppose them publicly, Justice offered to meet with her to address her concerns.
Over breakfast at a local cafe, Tyner says Justice gave her a “scripted” response in the hopes of winning back her support. She even invited Tyner to an M4L chapter meeting. However, Tyner declined as the meeting was allegedly to be hosted by a community member who had made an online post suggesting necrophilia and pedophilia are part of the LGBTQ umbrella.
“I was like, ‘Alright, this is not a good or a safe movement,” says Tyner.
Justice did not respond to a request for comment. In an email, Pippin told Uncloseted Media that M4L have “members and members children that are LGB in [their] chapter and across the country.”
Another local parent, who requested anonymity due to concerns about his job security, says while he’d initially been on board with M4L’s parental rights advocacy, he ran into conflict with the group when they started opposing the school district’s racial equity policies and tried to ban books with antiracist themes, including Ibram X. Kendi’s “Antiracist Baby”and “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.” Like Tyner, he says he was approached by Justice and Pippin to win him over again but was ultimately unconvinced.
After he split from M4L, he began publicly criticizing the group’s book bans. In retaliation, some M4L members accused him of supporting pedophiles.
When he reached out to Pippin to ask for the people making such accusations against him to be held accountable, he says she waved him off—all while blocking him on social media and accusing him of “bullying.” He also says that she doxed him after another dispute—a major factor in his decision to remain anonymous.
“Her response to me basically was ‘free speech,’ ‘we don’t control what our members say.’ And I’m like, ‘But Jennifer, you know me, and you know I’m not a pedophile, and this is unacceptable,’” he told Uncloseted Media.
Building Political Power
The Indian River County School District’s J.A. Thompson Administrative Center. Photo by Kiran891.
Efforts to ban LGBTQ and racial justice-related books in schools are part of M4L’s national ammo that helped them quickly explode in popularity.
Cunningham says M4L were boosted by high-profile connections on the right. Ziegler and Descovich both served as presidents of the Florida Coalition of School Board Members, a group billed as a conservative alternative to the Florida School Board Association. Ziegler’s husband, Christian, was vice chairman of Florida’s Republican Party at the time and worked as a media surrogate for the Trump campaign in 2016.
Since their launch, M4L have had their conferences and events sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Leadership Institute; were directly advised by Leadership Institute founder Morton Blackwell; and were a part of Project 2025’s advisory board. And this summer, Justice was hired as executive vice president of Heritage Action.
In 2022, the Indian River County chapter leveraged this influence to carve out power in local government: They got two close allies, Jacqueline Rosario and Dr. Gene Posca, elected to the school board, and they developed closerelationships with the Ron DeSantis-backed county sheriff Eric Flowers. Pippin was even appointed by Florida’s Department of Education to a statewide workgroup to develop compliance training for Florida’s classroom censorship policies, including the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law.
As M4L became notorious for pushing exclusionary measures in schools, some officials—including school board member Peggy Jones—criticized the group. In retaliation, Jones reportedly received so many death threats that the district had to increase security detail at all school events where she was present.
In the midst of increasing chaos surrounding M4L, the group mounted a campaign of hundreds of requests to ban books containing “sexual content.”
While some librarians continued to hold the majority of books where bans were unsuccessful, M4L convinced Flowers to investigate one school library, alleging that keeping the books on the shelf could constitute a sex crime. While the investigation found that no crime had been committed, Flowers concluded that “we do not feel that this content is appropriate for young children,” putting even further pressure on local librarians.
Pippin at the school board meeting in August 2023. Photo via YouTube.
This kind of direct action proved very effective. Even the reading protest where Tyner was escorted out won them 34 additional book bans from a unanimous board vote.
“You can’t deny that the kind of tactics that they have have been useful,” Cunningham says. “Some of the places they’ve taken over, [including] Sarasota County, where Bridget Ziegler was on the board, became much more conservative over the past few years.”
Silencing Opposition
In addition to school board meetings, the group has a track record of trolling progressive events. Tyner and the anonymous parent remember an incident where a group of M4L members showed up to a local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meeting that had been organized to discuss plans for opposition against new state regulations that required classes to portray slavery in a more positive light.Tyner says white M4L members attempted to shout down NAACP speakers, with one member allegedly using the n-word. Thomas Kenny, a M4L member who was at the event, said this “did not happen” and that one of their members using the n-word is “an absolute lie.”
Cunningham says these disruptions are part of M4L’s playbook. He pointed to the example of Jennifer Jenkins, the liberal school board member who unseated Tina Descovich in neighboring Brevard County, who says protestors spurred by M4L have turned up outside her home calling her a pedophile and burning “FU” in her lawn.
“They [use the] same kind of tactics … over and over again,” says Cunningham.
Pippin
Chapter leader Jennifer Pippin has mastered those tactics, becoming widely known as one of the most influential book banners in the country. She’s also made headlines for filing a complaint against the Kilted Mermaid, a Vero Beach wine bar, alleging that they had hosted an all-ages drag event with sexual content, which the bar owner denies. M4L rallied against the bar online, spamming the posts of one of the bar’s drag performers, telling the queen to “stay away from children.” This stunt caught the attention of Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier, who launched an investigation and issued subpoenas for video recordings of the bar on the day of the event as well as identifying documents for employees and performers.
Pippin has also claimed to be a nurse, despite no public records showing that she has a license, and appeared on the antisemitic and homophobic far-right news website TruNews, where she claimed, without evidence, that anti-M4L activists have been killing pets and livestock owned by the group’s members.
Fear
Tyner and the other anonymous parent both say that they’ve had to take a step back from the school board and local activism because of the toxic environment M4L have created.
“It’s been turned into such a circus,” Tyner says.
In the meantime, things have gotten worse for the LGBTQ community in Indian River County, and in Florida overall, between the “Don’t Say Gay” law and anti-LGBTQ legislation that requires teachers to deadname trans students unless they have signed parental permission slips. The anonymous parent says he’s watched many of the LGBTQ people in his life, including one of his own children, who is a teacher, leave the state due to the hostile environment.
“It’s not safe for a lot of people,” he says.
Greener Pastures?
Despite all of this, a sea change may be on the horizon. A 2024 Brookings report found that the success rates of M4L-endorsed candidates were on the decline, and in Indian River County’s elections last year, both of M4L’s school board candidates lost. With the continued controversies of the Trump administration and the growing popularity of groups that oppose M4L’s ideology, Cunningham feels the tide may be turning for M4L’s influence in Indian River County and across America.
“In school board races, the Moms for Liberty label is toxic, so try to not get attached to that,” he says. “They’ve had quite an impact … I don’t wanna downplay that. But in terms of popular appeal and growth, I think it’s much more limited than it is portrayed.”
Editor’s Note: In an email, Jennifer Pippin responded to the allegations made about her in this story. You can read them here.
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He has additionally espoused a view of the United States as a white, Christian nation, claiming that white people are undergoing a “cultural genocide” and deliberate replacement.
Multiple Trump nominees have had histories of racist, violent, white supremacist, and even pro-Nazi tweets. But almost all of them still end up being confirmed by Senate Republicans.
NPR identified more than a dozen files released by the DOJ on Friday that are no longer available Saturday afternoon, including one that shows President Trump’s photo on a desk among several other photographs. The removed files also show various works of art, including those containing nudity.
A video posted to Instagram by the University of South Florida’s Muslim Student Association (MSA) shows three men interrupting students during their morning prayer, spitting and yelling at them, and waving strips of bacon at them. USF said that their police department is currently gathering evidence and anticipates asking the state attorney to bring criminal charges.
Last Tuesday morning, Nov. 18, several MSA members gathered on top of a parking garage on USF’s Tampa campus for Fajr, Islam’s morning prayer. A livestream by Warriors for Christ—an organization recognized by the SPLC as a hate group—shows Muslim students kneeling in prayer as one of the men, identified in the video only as Ricardo, approaches with a painted cardboard box that reads “KAABA 2.0 JESUS IS LORD.” The Kaaba is a stone building at the center of the holiest site in Islam. While praying, Muslims face the geographical direction of the Kaaba.
The man sets up the box in front of the crowd while two other men, identifiable via their social medias (where they posted the video along with many other similar videos at other locations) as Richard Penkoski of Oklahoma and Christopher Svochak of Illinois, start to “insult” the Muslim prophet, Muhammad, in obscene and sexual ways. One of the men calls them all terrorists. “Go back to Mecca,” he shouts.
At one point, Penkoski brings out a small Wawa container with bacon in it and waves it around while snacking from it.
“We do care about you, so we brought you some bacon,” Penkoski says. “It’s really good. Bacon? Bacon? Anybody?”
Like all pork products, bacon is considered haram, meaning Islam’s rules forbid eating it. All of the students remain kneeling and continue on with their prayer.
“I spit on the grave of Muhammad,” the man identified as Ricardo says before spitting on the ground within a few feet of the students, who are still praying on the ground.
“Take that towel off of your head,” he says, pointing to a woman in the back wearing a religious head covering. At this point, after several minutes of the men shouting at the largely silent students, Ricardo lunges towards a student and points his finger in his face, prompting the student to briefly grab his wrist. Immediately, all three Christian men say this is evidence that Islam is a violent religion.
“This is not how you preach,” one of the students can be heard saying. “Brother, you’re harassing us,” he says to Penkoski.
“You’re not my brother,” Penkoski responds. “This isn’t harassment; this is free speech. But thank you for doing what you did to give us more ammo to prove you’re a bunch of violent psychopaths.”
The video continues like this until the students leave and the Christian content creators do the same. “That was awesome. That was fun,” one of the men can be heard saying as they walk away.
“By the way, don’t ever spit on the ground. It’s actually illegal,” one of the Christians says to the man identified as Ricardo. “What? Spitting on the ground?” “Yes, it’s illegal.” “Well, uh, I didn’t know that.”
Penkoski later posted a screenshot from the MSA group chat, in which one member gives an update on legal proceedings with the state attorney’s office.
“It’s not a hate crime,” Penkoski writes in the caption. “For a ‘hate crime’ to exist, there has to be an actual crime first.”
Florida Statute 871.01, which makes disrupting religious assembly a crime, reads: “Whoever willfully and maliciously interrupts or disturbs any school or any assembly of people met for the worship of God, … commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.” In Florida, a first-degree misdemeanor is punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and one year in prison.
Florida Statute 775.085 contains rules for hate crime enhancement when there is evidenced prejudice against “race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, or advanced age of the victim.” This bumps first-degree misdemeanors up to third-degree felonies. Third-degree felonies are punishable by up to $5,000 in fines and five years in prison.
Florida Statute 784.0493 deals with harassment based on religious or ethnic heritage. It makes it illegal (first-degree misdemeanor) to “willfully and maliciously harass or intimidate another person based on the person’s wearing or displaying of any indicia relating to any religious or ethnic heritage.”
The man, identified as Ricardo repeatedly told two women with religious head coverings to “get that towel off your head,” and called one a “wicked woman” and a “Jezebel dog.”
As the men left the parking garage, Svochak spoke to the camera, saying Jesus helped him and Penkoski beat drug addiction.
“What did he save you from?” Penkoski asks Ricardo. “I used to be a heathen,” Ricardo replies.
The state attorney typically decides what initial charges to bring. The 13th Circuit State Attorney’s Office has plans to speak with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay this morning, but as a policy it waits to start a case until police send investigative information along.
A statement issued by USF says that campus police are still trying to identify the men in the video. USF also said that it has reached out to the affected students, and will issue trespass warnings to the men who interrupted the prayer. They anticipate referring the perpetrators to the state attorney for criminal charges.
This wouldn’t be the first time Penkoski found himself in court over a stunt. The Christian content creator takes videos of himself and others “street preaching,” often insulting and demeaning nearby targets. Penkoski uploads the videos to his social media accounts and makes other targeted posts and includes a donation link through a Venmo account under his wife’s name.
In 2022, Penkoski was accused of targeting two leaders of Oklahoma for Equality, who later filed for a protective order against him. They were granted the protective order, but it was overturned on appeal by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision, since Penkoski was targeting organizations rather than individuals.
Penkoski has also been the plaintiff in several legal battles, including an attempt to overturn federal marriage equality for gay couples, a suit against the mayor of Washington D.C. for allowing a “Black Lives Matter” mural, and a lawsuit against a school district that sent his daughter home for wearing a shirt that said “homosexuality is a sin.”
Svochak gave this reporter a statement about his religious beliefs over Instagram DM, but would not answer specific questions. Svochak, who is affiliated with the recognized hate group Warriors for Christ, said that he is trying to spread Jesus’ message of love.
DEARBORN, MI — A pair of dueling demonstrations unfolded along Schaefer Road and Michigan Avenue on Tuesday, Nov. 18, as anti-Islam activists and pro-Muslim counter-protesters clashed in front of a heavy police presence before moving toward Dearborn City Hall for the evening council meeting.
The city, home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States, has recently become a repeated target for out-of-state activists who falsely claim it operates under “Sharia law.”
The tensions began when Jake Lang, a Jan. 6 rioter who has described himself as a political prisoner, arrived on Michigan Avenue attempting to burn a Quran.
Lang tried several times to ignite the book, holding it up with a lighter, but counter-protesters repeatedly knocked it from his hands.
At one point, Lang stepped into the center of Michigan Avenue and tapped the Quran with a slab of bacon before a Muslim counter-protester snatched the book and ran off with it.
Lang’s group later marched toward City Hall ahead of the 7 p.m. meeting.
Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, released the following statement.
“Attempting to burn a religious document is an unacceptable act of hate,” Hertel said. “Dearborn is a beloved, multicultural city with tens of thousands of people who are cherished friends, family members, and neighbors.”
A pro-Muslim and pro-Palestinian supporter holds a sign reading “Defeat Trump’s Fascist Movement” during a counterprotest in Dearborn on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
A Dearborn police officer told MLive there were about seven police cars stationed nearby to help keep the situation calm.
At the same time this was happening, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Anthony Hudson, who had previously organized a separate protest without affiliation to Lang, walked with supporters along the sidewalk.
Hudson’s and Lang’s demonstrations were unrelated but appeared in the city on the same afternoon, drawing a mix of residents, activists, and counter-protesters on both sides of Michigan Avenue.
Yet after visiting three mosques in the area, Hudson declared “that there are many false and misleading narratives about Dearborn being spread and that all he found from Muslims in Dearborn was hospitality.” He further stated that he was opposed to outsiders coming to Dearborn with plans to burn the Quran.
As a result, Lang spray-painted the word “cuck” on what appeared to be Hudson’s campaign bus in Dearborn, accusing the Republican candidate of “selling out” for visiting mosques and expressing sympathy toward Muslims.
Hudson later denied the bus belonged to him.
Michigan gubernatorial candidate Anthony Hudson walks with supporters during a protest on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
One Hudson supporter, Kelly Elias, said she drove several hours from Northern Michigan because she wanted to see the situation firsthand.
“I just wanted to come and see what the mainstream media (is reporting) — if they’re lying to us. I’m Arabic too. I’m from the God of love. I don’t want to hurt anybody. If we’re in danger or if there’s any problem, I want to know. But if not, let’s be peaceful with each other and solve this problem. We need to work together and be just. Love each other. We don’t need any problems. Anybody with hate.”
Elias described herself as culturally mixed.
“I’m Lebanese, I’m Syrian, Italian,” she said. “I’m a mix.”
She said she has long viewed Dearborn positively.
“I’ve always thought it was a wonderful area. I’ve had friends here. I worked in Detroit. I lived in Detroit,” Elias said.
On the other side of the street, Muslim and pro-Palestinian counter-protesters rallied in response to Lang’s actions and the broader anti-Islam messaging.
Dearborn resident Karrar Haidar explained why he attended the protest.
“To show the American people that we are a religion of peace and we can coexist as the Abrahamic religions have coexisted in previous times,” Haidar said. “Some people are a little bit more extreme in their ideology, but we’re here to show them that we also have a voice and this is our country, too.
“Everybody comes from some sort of immigration, and we’re all happy to be here. We all pay our taxes, we go to work and try to provide for our family.”
Haidar also addressed claims that Dearborn is governed by Sharia law.
“If they really do believe Sharia is the jurisdiction here in Dearborn, when you walk in, you see a monument in regards of Maryam and Prophet Jesus,” he said.
He said protesters coming to Dearborn misunderstand the community.
“I think they lost their core beliefs with Christianity,” Haidar said. “I feel like there’s a form of Christianity that exists in this country that is more toward spreading hate. Because if you go towards Ford Road, you’ll see a mosque and two churches side by side, standing strong in solidarity. So, I don’t know what their ideology is. I think it’s more of a political extremist view rather than a religious one.”
Muslim demonstrators pray outside Dearborn City Hall during protests on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
As both sides continued chanting and walking toward City Hall, police kept a perimeter on the sidewalks and along Michigan Avenue, intervening briefly when tensions escalated over Lang’s attempted Quran burning.
One person was seen arrested at the Dearborn City Hall. No injuries were immediately reported.
Fuad Shalhout
Fuad Shalhout is the business and community reporter at MLive.com-The Flint Journal. He joined MLive in July 2022 and covers a range of topics from new business openings, property sales and human interest…
Department of Defense “contractors” landed on a Mexican beach and accidentally declared it United States territory in a bizarre incident on Monday.
A group of unidentified men hammered six signs into a beach near Playa Bagdad in Northeast Mexico on Nov. 17. The signs declared that the area was “Department of Defense property” and had been classified as a “restricted area” by “the commander.” The area is roughly twelve miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Heavily armed Mexican Navy personnel came to investigate the scene and discovered that the men had landed in Mexico by mistake and intended to plant the signs in South Texas. The situation was resolved without violence, and the Mexican Navy removed the signs. Pictures and videos of the incident circulated on social media over the following days.
The sign U.S. contractors were placing on Mexican soil.X / @MORRIS80766176
The accidental annexers were later identified by the Pentagon as “contractors” hired by the Department of Defense to plant the signs on the Texas side of the border to mark “National Defense Area III.” The Pentagon has been installing a series of “National Defense Areas” in 2025 to tighten control of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Changes in water depth and topography altered the perception of the international boundary’s location,” said the Pentagon in a statement. “Government of Mexico personnel removed six signs based on their perception of the international boundary’s location.”
The statement added that the contractors will “coordinate with appropriate agencies to avoid confusion in the future.”
The Mexican government has begun investigating the incident.
“The Mexican Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (CILA) will begin technical consultations to fully clarify the incident and will review the maps and instruments that mark the border between both countries, as established by existing boundary and water treaties.”
Armed members of the Mexican Navy arrived to investigate the U.S.’s accidental invasion of Mexico.X /MORRIS80766176
“Would I want strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” he said in an appearance alongside FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected that notion at her Tuesday press briefing, saying it’s “not going to happen.” She also addressed the accidental invasion, saying the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), a binational agency overseeing the U.S.-Mexico border, would get involved in the dispute.
“The river changes its course, it breaks loose, and according to the treaty, you have to clearly demarcate the national border,” she said.
Sheinbaum was referring to the Rio Grande River, which marks the U.S.-Mexican border, per the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The IBWC has had to negotiate additional treaties to mark the border in the years since, as the river has naturally shifted over nearly two centuries. The latest treaty on record was signed in 1970.
U.S. troops’ declaration of a Mexican beach property of the Department of Defense violated that treaty.
The Pentagon, IBWC, and U.S. Embassy in Mexico did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Uthmeier focused on how he’s working to ensure that concerned parents can continue their “movement … based on faith, based on family, ensuring that we have the freedom to raise our kids in God’s image.”
“I’m about eight months on the job now as Attorney General, and as I tell my team every day, our No. 1 priority is, and will always be, protecting our kids. There’s a lot of evil out there. There’s a lot of evil, a lot of danger. There will always be crime, no matter how much we fight it. But our first priority must always be protecting our kids,” he said to applause.
Uthmeier went on to describe his Office’s legal actions against Target for its “transgender children’s clothing line” with “bras for little boys, some tuckable underwear.”
“Gross. Absolutely disgusting,” he said. “We’re going to hit them in their wallets.”
“Predators are all over that app, all the apps, but that one in particular. It’s their preferred vehicle to go after kids,” Uthmeier said.
“And they’re crafty, they’re smart, they’re patient. They’ll use fake pictures. They’ll talk in a dialect. They’ll get your kids to, you know, drop their guard. They’ll tap into their insecurities, and they’re willing to spend weeks or months to develop a relationship before they start soliciting information, soliciting photos, soliciting locations. And since we’ve sued them, we’ve made dozens of arrests of child predators that have gone after kids through this app.”
Uthmeier also described how his Office is able to enforce the law, including by serving as a “law firm for parents out there” who might be concerned by what school districts do.
“If you’re identifying one of these wrongs that’s violating your rights and that’s subjecting our kids to danger and evil, then we want to know about it, and we’re going to bring the heat in court to shut it down.”
The AG also quipped about a recent call to people to report their exes for immigration violations, noting one gender predominantly was dropping the dime on the other.
“Y’all ladies are savage, I’ve got to tell you. These calls come in and these ladies, I mean, they’ve got date of birth, nickname, frequented bars. I mean, all the details. So to the handful of men out there, treat your women right or they will absolutely get you.”
What amazes me is how frightened straight cis hegemony is over anything that is different from how they live / perceive the world. They can’t seem to be able to live in a society with people who are different from them or how they live. It scares them to their core and makes them think the world is ending. They reject anything that moves from their past comfort zones. The idea of coexistence with others is emotionally shattering to them. They are so fragile. So small in their thinking. They need to make sure anything different is not seen as if removing all evidence of it makes it not exist anymore. That is so stupid I shouldn’t have to address it. But OK let me explain, in the 1950s the only representation of homosexuality was negative and strongly biased toward hating, yet gay kids were born to straight parents, the entire LGBTQ+ had no representation yet all existed. Hugs
Lawmakers in Kazakhstan are following the lead of Russian President Vladimir Putin with a bill to ban so-called “LGBTQ propaganda” in the former Soviet republic.
The lower house of Kazakhstan’s parliament on Wednesday approved the measure outlawing “LGBT propaganda” online and in the media, with fines mandated for violators, and up to 10 days in jail for repeat offenders, Reuters reports.
The legislation now moves to the Kazakh senate, where it’s likely to pass.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has expressed support for the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which, like similar laws passed in Russia, Georgia and, Hungary, has been promoted as a bulwark against “degenerate” values imported from the West.
“Children and teenagers are exposed to information online every day that can negatively impact their ideas about family, morality, and the future,” Kazakh Education Minister Gani Beisembayev told lawmakers before the vote.
Deputy Irina Smirnova cited library books and cartoons featuring same-sex relationships as examples of the “propaganda” addressed by the bill.
“I saw books in the library that promote LGBT, where a prince falls in love with a prince, two boys,” she told lawmakers. “There are cartoons that allow this to be shown, there are magazines and comics where all this is promoted.”
For months, President Tokayev has lobbied hard for passage of the bill — which is essentially copycat legislation of Russia’s own “anti-LGBTQ propaganda” measure — stressing the need to uphold what he and Putin call their countries’ “traditional values”.
Parties loyal to Tokayev dominate the lower house and voted unanimously in favor of the ban.
With the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Kazakhstan legalized homosexuality as it drew politically closer to Europe and the West.
But while the Muslim-majority nation is officially secular, it remains deeply conservative when it comes to social issues. With Putin‘s prodding, far-right politicians have exploited those social fissures to push the country back into Russia’s sphere of influence.
“We live in an independent and sovereign republic. Or are we already a colony of the Russian Federation?” Zhanar Sekerbayeva, co-founder of the feminist initiative, Feminita, asked at a recent LGBTQ+ rights roundtable in the country.
Arj Tursynkan, an activist with the NGO Education Community, explained that language in the legislation was sweeping.
“Because of these amendments, people can be punished for anything – jokes, drawings, hugs,” he said.
The activist argued that the legislation is not just a legal text, but a test of Kazakhstan’s commitment to international norms of dignity and freedom.
Ahead of the vote, Belgium-based group International Partnership for Human Rights condemned the measure, saying it would “blatantly violate Kazakhstan’s international human rights commitments.”
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USF logo. By Seán Kinane/WMNF News (Aug. 2015).
(L-R) Richard Penkoski, Christopher Svochak, and Ricardo.Credit: 
Russian President Vladimir Putin | Shutterstock
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