Prager is a paid by the right wing normally by the Mercer family to the tune of 36 million dollars to push on YouTube the conservative whatever Republican party wants push is. Sometimes it is very painful to see the positions they push to forward to advance the republican points. The bad part is the republicans are funding this. Yet there is no left democratic alternative paid for by left wing billionaires. The right wing has been doing this for decades. The Mercers are White power white Christian supremacy’s who have founded and pay for many right-wing media outlets. Including Steve Bannon. The left seriously need to up their game on this. The point is these people want to change the world to have only their accepted ones in charge of everything and the left wants everyone to have a say in how everything is run. But our side either doesn’t have the money or won’t spend it on these issues. Hugs
Dennis Prager: “Many Slaveholders Were Nice People”
“One of the confusing things about life is how many nice people help destroy societies. This is not meant at all facetiously. It is meant literally.
“We think that people who do bad things, either think they’re doing bad and so they’re truly evil or they will be obviously bad in interpersonal relations, but it doesn’t work that way.
“Nice people can support vicious things. The human being is a macro and a micro being among the many, many differences within each of us. There were undoubtedly many nice slaveholders in the South. This is not meant facetiously again, it’s meant literally.
“If you had been invited to one of their homes, you would have been treated beautifully, but they supported a vicious system. The left is a vicious system. It’s not slavery.
“Although the end result of all leftism is the enslavement of populations, not as in transatlantic slave trade or chattel slavery, but in the diminution of human rights and liberties, which is a form of enslavement.” – Dennis Prager.
Dennis Prager: "There were undoubtedly many nice slaveholders in the South. This is not meant facetiously, again, it's meant literally. If you had been invited to one of their homes, you would've been treated beautifully. But they supported a vicious system" pic.twitter.com/1nDmVJUToQ
PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Prager declares he’d tell grieving parents that that they’re “wrong” to oppose gun control. Prager claims Trump “has never made any bigoted remarks.” Prager says most gay people “cannot think as a person.” Prager claims that if the US were to split, “the Christian side would prosper.” Prager declares the Capitol riot to be a “Reichstag fire.” Prager defends anti-vaxxers by claiming that gay men were not “pariahs” during the 80s height of the AIDS epidemic. Prager declares that doctors “know nothing” about COVID and that everybody should stock up on horse paste. Prager declares that President Obama has “zero masculinity.” Prager rages that if the left really cared about black people, they’d tell them to “elevate their moral standards.” Prager laments that nobody says “Negro” anymore and that he can’t use the N-word.
Every Catholic priest ever is a nice person until he gets caught with his hands down the cookie jars pants. Hitler was a vegetarian who love dogs and children, but didn’t like Jews at all.
Slavery had nothing to do with left and right. It had only to do with right and wrong
‘Slaveholder’ is a term which vastly understates the vicious brutality of human enslavement.
The practice of enslaving someone always included torture and dehumanization. There was quite literally a profession known as “slave breakers”—men who would travel the slave states offering services to ensure that children or newly enslaved adults were physically and psychologically broken.
When Dennis here talks about visitors being treated kindly and generously by slave owners, he’s referring only to white people. But y’all already knew that.
No, they weren’t nice. They enslaved other human beings. That’s not nice. Many of them (like Thomas Jefferson) were well aware that it was immoral but kept doing it because it was so financially advantageous. (Too many obvious parallels to our own times to bother with specific examples here.) No, they weren’t nice.
Now were some better to the people they were enslaving? Obviously. But if there were that many “nice” slave owners why did so many risk death and torture to escape? I’ve had some shitty jobs but none so bad I’d have risk death or flogging to escape! Not even close to that. Were some so beat down from a lifetime of abuse that they didn’t try to escape? Sure. That’s a whole field of psychology. but there lives were still horror shows.
Many thanks to the scholars who are researching and writing about this topic. I’ve been reading a lot of their work over the past five years or so and I have learned so much, all of it horrifying. The fact that we have white people trying to minimize 250 years of horrors (longer on other continents) is infuriating. (I can only imagine how much that angers the descendants of enslaved people. I’m white and I’m livid.) There’s no reason to excuse slavery. It should never have happened and it’s disrespectful to the people abused in that system to pretend that it wasn’t that bad.
Republicans aren’t afraid of “Critical Race Theory,” they are afraid of critical thinking. They know the biggest threat facing their party is a new multi-racial generation of young people unafraid to speak truth to power. That’s why they are waging a war on America’s teachers. Watch more: The Real Motive Behind the GOP’s “Culture War” ►► https://youtu.be/_-nO8cBD79k
Donald Trump’s deranged rally in Pennsylvania devolved into a fascist circus of lies, hate, and division. Francis Maxwell shows how you fact-check a liar.
The transcript from the September 1 hearing before Judge Aileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida has been made public relating to the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago on August 8. The bizarre transcript shows Judge Cannon has very little understanding of the law about search warrants or even that she lacks jurisdiction to hear this case.
Another person who chose a job serving the public who demands the right to discriminate against a segment of the public due to religious privilege. If you think this sounds OK, replace the LGBTQ+ with Jews or Blacks. If she were suing to have the right to not serve black couples or Jewish couples would that sound reasonable? Think of this, what these religious people want is to roll back all civil rights laws against discrimination for them. They want special privileges. Remember when they said gays wanted special privileges just because we wanted to be treated equally? Well now they insist they be above anti-discrimination laws, because god demands the right to hate, the right to treat others as less than the good people. They feel that their hate is good, their hate is righteous. But the day they get the right to not give a marriage license to gay couples how long until they demand the right to not give one to a mixed-race couple? An adoption agency got the right to discriminate against gay people and still receive taxpayer money by the supreme court, they then promptly denied service to a Jewish couple. They were the only adoption agency in that region that could certify homes, basically denying adoption to both couples. That is the goal of these Christian groups, to elevate Christianity to above any laws regulating them to not discriminate or to treat people equally. The goal is to elevate Christianity to above every law or requirement making them above the laws. I wonder if my sincerely held belief lets me violate the speed limits? Hugs
She said her “sincerely held religious beliefs” would be violated if she had to treat LGBTQ customers equally.
Federal district court Judge Benjamin Beaton has ruled in favor of a Louisville, Kentucky wedding photographer who said her religious beliefs should allow her to refuse service to same-sex couples, even though her refusal would violate the city’s non-discrimination ordinance. The Trump administration had supported the photographer in the case, and the judge was appointed by Donald Trump.
The city has said it will likely appeal the judge’s ruling.
The case in question involves Chelsey Nelson, a photographer who said that shooting a same-sex marriage would violate her sincerely held religious beliefs and her First Amendment rights.
Nelson preemptively sued the city over its non-discrimination “fairness ordinance” in 2019. The ordinance requires all businesses to treat customers equally, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Before filing her lawsuit, no same-sex couple had even asked her to work at their wedding.
Nelson herself said that her belief that “God created marriage to be an exclusive covenant between one man and one woman [affects] every aspect of her life… her business, her art, and her creativity.” She added that she’d “decline any request” to work for “a same-sex wedding, polygamous wedding, or an open marriage wedding because creating artwork promoting these events would violate Chelsey’s religious and artistic beliefs.”
Beaton granted Nelson’s request to issue an injunction against the ordinance. His injunction order said that the city couldn’t use its ordinance to compel her to photograph same-sex weddings or “otherwise express messages inconsistent with Nelson’s beliefs,” U.S. News reports.
“We’re pleased the court agreed that the city violated Chelsey’s First Amendment rights,” said Bryan Neihart, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the SPLC-designated hate group that served as Nelson’s legal counsel and the legal counsel in numerous cases seeking to erode LGBTQ civil rights.
“The court’s decision sends a clear and necessary message to every Kentuckian — and American — that each of us is free to speak and work according to our deeply held beliefs,” Neihart said.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer (D) disagreed with Beaton’s ruling and said that city attorneys would likely appeal.
“We are a city of compassion and we appreciate the many ways our LGBTQ+ family contributes to our diverse community,” Fischer said. “Louisville Metro Government will continue to enforce to the fullest extent possible its ordinance prohibiting anti-discriminatory practices and will fight against discrimination in any form.”
In 2020, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a “statement of interest” supporting Nelson’s stance. The DOJ’s filing was unsurprising seeing that, in July 2018, the DOJ announced the formation of the Religious Liberty Task Force to allow religious discrimination in national civil rights cases. The Task Force was the brainchild of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.
In June 2018, the DOJ also filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court siding with the anti-gay baker in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In its brief, the DOJ said wedding services are basically forms of “art” and that the government has no compelling interest to stop societal homophobia.
The problem with defining publicly offered business services as “artistic acts of self-expression” and “free speech” is that numerous other businesses and employees could say that their own professions — such as medicine, training, or child care — are all “arts” that shouldn’t be extended to individuals whose lives contradict their own religious beliefs.
Seeing as six of the current nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court are current or former members of the Federalist Society, they have the majority power to uphold the Society’s belief in religious-based discrimination. The Justice may do so if a case like this ever reaches the nation’s highest court.
Trigger warning for kidnapping kids, religious bigotry, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, many laws broken to steal a teenager from a safe home and take him to a Christian prison until his father could rescue him, but it doesn’t tell how long the teen was there and what the dad had to do to rescue him. Hugs.
We have a serious problem with the Christian nationalist that feel only their church doctrines and made-up rules have to be followed and the laws of the nation are unimportant. Plus add to that the idea that children at all ages but even more troubling in their later teens are still the property of the parents or guardians. Property to do what you wish with them. Which when it comes to religions is scary as can be and opens the child up to abuse. Yes this is a story I should not have read. It set me back. Once I realized what it was before I continued, I took steps to protect myself and placed three video tabs on the other computer / monitor. All three are distracting and I can instantly switch to them and lose myself in them as needed. I have done that. If anyone noticed the delay in my morning posting it is because of this story and my need to walk away from it. But having read it I think it is really important other people know of this and we do all we can to stop it. Think of the lifelong damage this boy will have due to his mistreatment and abuse because some people see him not as a person but as property to be controlled. I am not going to color or highlight anything. I am just too shaky. I read it once to decide if I should post it. I read it a second time to copy and paste it. I am sick to my stomach and eyes are watering, and I just cannot deal with this anymore today. Hugs
The longtime former dean of Agape Boarding School in Missouri, Julio Sandoval, faces up to five years in prison
The former dean of Agape Boarding School in Missouri conspired with a California woman to have her son handcuffed and transported over 24 hours to that school, according to a recently unsealed federal indictment. The two people now charged with crimes face up to five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine.
On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced that the man and woman in question had been arrested for the alleged crime.
The woman is 35-year-old Shana Gaviola. About two years ago, her son began living with a different family and demanded emancipation. He wanted a legal separation from his parents. He accused Gaviola of domestic abuse and obtained an order of protection to keep her away from him. She was legally forbidden from interacting with him or from taking away his phone.
The man is 41-year-old Julio Sandoval. He used to be the dean of Agape Boarding School in Missouri but has since transferred to Lighthouse Christian Academy in the same state. He also manages a business called Safe, Sound Secure Youth Ministries, which is essentially a service that takes kids against their will to Christian schools or treatment centers with the approval of their parents. (“The transport is the first phase of this amazing journey called ‘change’,” Sandoval writes on the website.)
Last year, the two of them worked on a plan to send her son to Lighthouse Christian Academy. But how could she do that when she wasn’t allowed to interact with him? Simple. They hired outsiders to do the job for them.
Despite the protection order, Gaviola and Sandoval made plans for Gaviola’s son to be forcibly transported from California to Missouri. On Aug. 21, 2021, individuals acting on behalf of Gaviola and Sandoval found the minor at a business in Fresno, handcuffed him, and forced him into a car. He remained in handcuffs for over 24 hours while they drove to Stockton, Missouri. He was then held at the boarding school until his father was able to free him.
The story is even worse in the actual indictment. Gaviola was also said to have forged a court document that said he had the right to do this.
All of that is awful enough. But it’s deeply troubling that Agape Boarding School, Gaviola’s former employer, is involved in all of this, because that school has been a hotbed of abuse in its own right.
Last year, five staffers at Agape were charged with over a dozen felony assault counts… and yet the state’s attorney general had originally recommended prosecutors go after 22 employees on 65 total counts. One of the victims said he was “beaten, assaulted, starved,” and that other kids had been “slammed on tile, concrete and asphalt.” The decision not to go after all those other adults infuriated the attorney general so much that he asked to be taken off the case.
In addition to all that, the school’s in-house doctor, David Earl Smock, was charged in December with—wait for it—”second-degree statutory sodomy, third-degree child molestation of a child less than 14 years of age and enticement or attempted enticement of a child less than 15 years of age.” The school’s doctor was accused of a slew of sex crimes! Smock has since pleaded not guilty. (A different child sued Smock for sexual abusethis week.)
All of this was so horrible that Republicans in Missouri’s legislature eventually considered and passed a bill requiring some oversight of these schools. Until recently, faith-based schools in Missouri had been exempt from any statewide regulations. Now they must meet some basic health and safety guidelines, conduct background checks on employees, provide students with basic necessities like food and health care, and give parents access to their kids at all times.
The federal indictment this week says the teenager was sent to a boarding school in Stockton, Missouri… which, as it turns out, is also the home of Agape.
For the mother’s part, her lawyer told The Daily Beast there’s more to the story,
Anthony Capozzi, the attorney defending Gaviola in court, told The Daily Beast, “What’s in the indictment is not totally accurate to what happened. It only presents one side of the story. If Shana Gaviola had known there was a valid restraining order, this wouldn’t have happened. That’s all I can say at this point.”
Gaviola “will be fighting this case, and will take it to trial,” Capozzi added, saying that there “is a reason she did what she did. To protect her son. And to protect others. There’s so much more than what’s in this indictment. So much more.”
Whatever happened with these people and at that school, there seems to be blame to spread around. The amount of torture and trauma is off the charts. The scary thing is that there seems to be no end in sight to the depths of the horrors. Each week brings with it a new revelation of how Christianity gave these people cover to inflict all sorts of pain upon children.
As the GOP lurches toward authoritarianism, one of its key tactics is to suppress free thinking. What better place to start that effort than in the schools (and by extension school libraries)? It’s no surprise that schools have emerged as one of the key battlegrounds in the culture war.
But what’s less noticed is that in branding itself the education party, the GOP is actually the ignorance party. Republicans’ constant attacks on bogus controversies like critical race theory are just an excuse to dumb down the school curriculum. That’s because Republicans believe that schools are where children should be taught how to become Republicans if they are taught anything at all.
Two things are happening as Republicans go after schools. One is to focus on public schools and make sure that students learn a right-wing version of history. That involves eliminating groups that the right doesn’t like, like LGBTQ people. Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill is an obvious example of erasing the visibility of non-approved groups from schools.
Then there are the bills that protect the tender emotions of white students. These so-called “divisive concepts” laws prohibit any discussion of race in the classroom that could cause students to feel “anguish, guilt or any other form of discomfort or stress.” In short, the bills are meant to denature history so that the ongoing quest for civil rights in the U.S. effectively ends with the Civil War.
Not content to remove current events and history from schools, Republicans have gone after other subjects as well. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) called for the removal of 54 math books because he claimed that they somehow slipped critical race theory into the multiplication tables.
Absent from any of this discussion is anything about academic standards or, you know, actually making students smarter. There’s a good reason for that. What Republicans are interested in isn’t making students smarter, it’s making them more Republican. Apparently, the way to do that is to keep them as ignorant as possible.
That’s where the second part of the plan comes in. Republicans have been pushing hard for “school choice,” which would use taxpayer money to fund private schools. This effort got a big boost from–you guessed it–the Supreme Court, which ruled in its last session that two anti-LGBTQ Christian schools in Maine were entitled to receive state funding.
As those schools proved, the curricula are not designed to educate but to indoctrinate. School choice options, like religious schools and, worse still, home schools, can be as political as they want. Indeed, a leading figure on the right–Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA–has started a chain of “anti-woke” academies based on “bedrock principles” that sound a lot like Trumpism.
Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock
