Category: MAGA / Republican

I’m Posting This for Fun.

Kirk Cameron Bringing The God Back To ‘Goddamn, This Is A Weird Children’s TV Show’ by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Next stop: anyplace but the Emmys. Read on Substack

Just the weirdest-looking creature. Also there’s a puppet.

Good news for all you people still disappointed that “Growing Pains” went off the air: Kirk Cameron is coming back to TV!

Sort of. By TV we mean more likely streaming services, and by streaming services we mean probably Christian-themed services like Minno and YippeeTV. But if you are someone still reeling from Cameron being denied his rightful Oscar nod for one of the “Left Behind” movies, here is your chance to ease some of your pain.

Cameron is teaming up with Brave Books, presumably to do to children’s television what they have tried to do to children’s literature and book fairs. Namely, they want to make it suck.

Cameron stars in and produces a new show called “Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk,” which had its premiere in Nashville recently. He promises the show will “bring God into the forefront of children’s entertainment,” and will be a “tool” that can be used to “reach millions of children across America and spread the Gospel.” Just as soon as it finds distribution.

“Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk” is set in a treehouse inhabited by Mr. Kirk and Iggy the Iguana, where they do stuff like read the anti-abortion book “Little Lives Matter” (subtle!) and listen to Kirk explain that Iggy is perfect the way God made him. No cross-dressing iguanas in this treehouse!

Possibly not coincidentally, Iggy looks like a cross between Pepe the Frog and the alien-human hybrid baby from the original “V” miniseries. Seriously, look at this thing. What is this abomination? Did they Island of Dr. Moreau him out of discarded Muppets?

We mean the one on the right, in case there’s any confusion.

Right Wing Watch captured a clip of Cameron explaining himself to “FlashPoint,” a right-wing themed show on the Victory Channel:

“For a couple of years I’ve been reading wholesome Christian children’s books, contra the drag queen story hours, and hearing from parents that they don’t want woke indoctrination for their kids. They don’t want gay dinosaurs and trans ducks teaching their children morality.”

Trans ducks? We haven’t been forced by a tiny person to watch “Daniel the Tiger” in a while but it sounds as if its makers might have been busy introducing some cool new characters.

“They want kids books and TV shows that are going to reinforce the stuff that parents are trying to teach their kids at home about the sanctity of life, about forgiveness, about family, about the dangers of socialism.”

Our experience is that most parents would like kids’ shows they can sit through without wanting to claw out their eyeballs and pour molten lead into their ears. They wouldn’t give a shit if Peppa Pig showed up dressed like Mao and hollering about the good of the collective so long as it shuts their kids up for half an hour.

Cameron and Iggy are joined on their adventures by a mailman, a vulture named Culture (again, subtle!), and Leigh-Allyn Baker, an actress with a legit career who became one of those anti-vax right-wingers who stands up at school board meetings to scream her opposition to mask mandates because … well, we’ll let her tell you:

“I would never put them in a mask because their brain needs oxygen to grow, which the neurologists can confirm.”

We’re not neurologists, but we’re pretty sure that’s … what’s the term? … batshit stupid.

The trailer makes “Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk” sound like some sort of Bizarro Mr. Rogers that teaches about “wholesome values,” but Christianly. Cameron prefers to call it a “modernized Mr. Rogers,” which we take exception to. Mr. Rogers in this or any other era would preach tolerance and respect for everyone. He would reject demonizing anyone. Yes, even drag queens and liberals.

But what would Mr. Rogers know about Christianity, he was only an ordained Presbyterian minister.

The show is based off of Brave Books’ Freedom Island series. Like the company’s main catalogue, the Freedom Island books are written by such conservative luminaries as Ashley St. Clair, Dana Loesch, and Nazi Jack Posobiec. Loesch’s book is titled “Paws Off My Cannon,” and it not surprisingly preaches that everyone has the right to shoot things:

[F]ollow Bongo, a daring and hungry gorilla, who loves eating food, especially mushroom-shaped cupcakes. But one day, a villainous hyena shoots a coconut at Bongo and his friend Bonnie. Bonnie is so upset at this misuse of coconut cannons that she suggests the village ban all coconut cannons. Bongo thinks that the hyenas are the problem, not the coconut cannons.

We will very much look forward to the Very Special Episode of “Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk” in which Iggy kills Culture the Vulture with a coconut cannon and Mr. Kirk explains that God wrote the Second Amendment to give all iguanas the right to self-defense.

Enjoy the show!

I dare somebody to watch, but I haven’t watched it. The bit above looks as if it’s just creepy. To me. – A

Peace & Justice History for 11/23

November 23, 1170 BCE
 
The first recorded strike took place in Egypt when necropolis workers who had not been paid for their work in more than two months sat down and refused to work until they were paid and able to eat.
More about this 1st strike 
November 23, 1887
Black Louisiana sugarcane workers, in cooperation with the racially integrated Knights of Labor, had gone on strike at the beginning of the month over their meager pay issued in script (not cash). The script was redeemable only at the company store where excessive prices were charged. When the first freeze of the season arrived and damaged the crop, the plantation owners were angered. The Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of “prominent citizens,” shot and killed at least 35 unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage, and lynched two strike leaders in what became known as the Thibodaux Massacre.
More on the Thibodaux Massacre
November 23, 1981
President Ronald Reagan signed off on a top secret document, National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), which gave the Central Intelligence Agency a budget of $19 million to recruit and support a 500-man force of Nicaraguan insurgents to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista elected government. This marked the beginning of official U.S. support for the so-called contras in their war against the Nicaraguans.

Read (most of) the memo 
More on the Reagan policy 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november23

Peace & Justice History for 11/21:

November 21, 1945
200,000 members of the United Auto Workers went on strike against General Motors, the first major strike following World War II. The UAW’s demand for a 30% wage increase was based on the increase in the cost of living during the war (28% according to the Department of Labor), the wartime freeze on wages, and the cut in the average workweek with the disappearance of overtime pay in manufacturing.

But the UAW also considered profits and prices a subject for negotiation, a position rejected by GM. The union did not merely say that labor was entitled to enough wages to live on. It also said that labor was entitled to share in the wealth produced by industry. “… Unless we get a more realistic distribution of America’s wealth, we won’t get enough to keep this machine going.”–Walter Reuther, UAW President
More about the strike 
November 21, 1973
President Richard Nixon’s attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, revealed the existence of an 18 1/2-minute gap in one of the subpoenaed White House tape recordings of Watergate conversations made by President Richard Nixon in the days after the Watergate break-in.The erasure was blamed on an accident by Nixon’s private secretary, Rose Mary Woods, but scientific analysis determined the erasures to be deliberate. White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig later attributed the gap to “sinister forces.”

Rose Mary Woods, demonstrating how she might have created the Watergate tape gap
More about Rose Mary Woods 
November 21, 1974
Both Houses of Congress voted to override President Gerald Ford’s veto of updates to the Freedom of Information Act. Originally passed in 1966, it required federal agencies to release information upon request to citizens and journalists.The amendments put an end to governmental resistance to compliance, including excessive fees, bureaucratic delays, and the need to sometimes resort to expensive litigation to force the government to share copies of documents.
Ford advisors Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Dick Cheney, and government lawyer Antonin Scalia advised him to veto it.

Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld, President Gerald Ford
and Deputy Chief of Staff Richard Cheney April 28, 1975
What was the dispute? 
November 21, 1975
The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, led by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), issued a report charging U.S. government officials were behind assassination plots against two foreign leaders – Fidel Castro (Cuba) and Patrice Lumumba (Congo), and were heavily involved in at least three other plots: Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Ngo Dinh Diem (Vietnam), Rene Schneider (Chile).

Senator Frank Church, left, chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee,
displays a poison dart gun as co-chairman Senator John Tower (R-TX) watches.

The committee, a precursor to the Senate Intelligence Committee, was established to look into misuse of and abuse by intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI, some of which had been revealed by the Watergate investigations.
  
Fidel Castro / Patrice Lumumba / Rafael Trujillo / Ngo Dinh Diem / Rene Schneider
Read more  
November 21, 1981
More than 350,000 demonstrated in Amsterdam against U.S. nuclear-armed cruise missiles on European soil.
November 21, 1985
A full-scale summit conference, the first of five between the President Ronald Reagan of the U.S. and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union concluded. There was optimism over beginning a more productive and cooperative relationship between the two countries, each of which had thousands of nuclear warheads targeted at the other.The U.S. had proposed building a space-based anti-ballistic missile system, commonly known as “Star Wars,” which the Soviets had strongly opposed as an escalation of the nuclear arms race.In an unofficial meeting the previous evening, President Reagan had noted that he and Gorbachev were meeting for the first time at this level and had little practice. Nevertheless, having read the history of previous summit meetings, he had concluded that those earlier leaders had not accomplished very much. Therefore, he suggested that he and Gorbachev say, “To hell with the past, we’ll do it our way and get something done.” Gorbachev concurred.
Reagan and Gorbachev at their first summit
November 21, 1986
National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, began shredding documents that would have exposed their participation in a range of illegal activities regarding the sale of arms to Iran in an attempt to free hostages, and the diversion of the proceeds to an insurgent Nicaraguan group known as the contras.
Fawn Hall
Oliver North
More on Fawn Hall 
November 21, 1995
China officially charged well-known human rights activist and political dissident Wei Jingsheng with trying to “overthrow the government.” Wei had not been seen for a year and a half after disappearing into police custody after meeting with a U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs.“If the people allow the power holders, in the peoples’ name, to violate and ignore the rights of some of the people then, at the same time, they are giving the power holders the power to violate the rights of all the people.”
“ Most people wait until others are standing to make their move, very few are willing to stand up first or to stand alone. That’s why my friends call me a fool! But I don’t have any regrets.” – Wei Jingsheng

Wei Jingsheng
He had been imprisoned previously for his involvement with the Democracy Wall movement, including years in solitary confinement. He had also spoken out on behalf of the Tibetans.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november21

Double-Dip Monday Poetry

Seeing things in Pictures

While Elon Musk is channeling Fonzi, 

The withered husk of Trump

is a played out Ponzi. 

His expression wry, 

his head seems bare

as if worry at last has

worn off his hair.

Behold the stylite, who would eschew

the seed oil, the highly-processed,

the inferior fuel. 

He is taking communion 

in the body of Trump. 

See this face now kissing 

such poisonous rump. 

Here’s Moses Mike, barely in the frame.

Happy to be here, a man without shame.

No weaker speaker would ever rest on such laurels,

Enabling, dissembling, religious, with no morals. 

Dominionist, insurrectionist–

How in this mixture?

A key cog, not insignificant,

not the focus of the picture. 

And poor Don. Jr. the first born second place

will wonder when he was erased,

But I think younger sibling Barron

is the heir to all this wayward carrion. 

The pictures tell a tale most bizarre–

Is this how future folk will see who we are? 

at November 18, 2024 

CBPP Statement: November 14, 2024 – For Immediate Release

Republican Economic Proposals Would Harm the People Trump Promised to Help

Statement of Sharon Parrott, CBPP President, on key priorities for the 2025 policy agenda

While the new President and new Congress will not take office until early next year, they have already put forward an agenda — through Project 2025, Republican budget plans, and campaign proposals — that would increase poverty and diminish opportunity. Their proposals would raise costs for basics like housing, food, and health care and take health coverage away from people; slash funding for schools where our children learn, roads and bridges we use to get to work, and scientific and medical research that improve our health and strengthen our economy; double down on tax giveaways for wealthy households and corporations while imposing tariffs that fuel inflation; and further widen already glaring differences in people’s well-being and opportunity across income, race, and ethnicity.

These policymakers campaigned on promises to make the economy work better for people without big bank accounts who are trying to get ahead. But their proposals to date seldom match those promises.

Instead, a policy agenda designed to advance economic opportunity and racial justice and help families make ends meet would:

  • Make it easier for people to afford housing, food, health care, and prescription drugs.
  • Support children and families with an expanded Child Tax Credit, especially for children who don’t get the full credit today because their families’ incomes are too low; more affordable child care; and investment in our schools so that all of our nation’s children get what they need to thrive.
  • Invest in the things that will keep the economy strong and growing, including basic building blocks like roads, bridges, and research, as well as protections that keep our communities’ food, air, water, and workplaces safe.
  • Support these investments with a fairer federal tax system that requires wealthy households and corporations to pay their fair share and strengthens our fiscal outlook.
  • Create an immigration system that recognizes the critical role that immigrants and their families play in our communities and the economy, eschewing harsh deportation regimes that separate families and embracing reforms that provide people with a workable opportunity to gain legal status and a pathway to citizenship.

This kind of policy agenda would build toward a nation where everyone — regardless of their income or their background — can get the health care they need, afford to put groceries on the table, live in safe homes and strong communities, and have the income, education, and child and home care they need throughout their lives. And it would reflect the truth that our nation succeeds only when all of us succeed.

We are eager to work with policymakers who put forward policies that advance this agenda and we — together with our partners — will work hard against policies that make people less economically secure, less healthy, and have less access to opportunity.

Got our vaccines and tRump’s admin plan to put migrants in for profit prisons

We got our vaccines and tRump’s plan for mass for profit prison detention camps for migrants.

There are some distortions because I moved a lot due to pain in my hips and back. But it looks OK but if you want just listen to the audio.  I put a lot of effort into the video.  Hugs

 

tRump’s new Sec of Defense 11 15 2024

I talk about tRump’s new Sec Of Defense being a Christian nationalist fundamentalist fanatic, a white supremacist, and a hater of the LGBTQ+. I talk about how he wants to purge the ones he doesn’t like from the military and how tRump hopes to use him to purge the military of anyone not cis straight white Christian and totally loyalist to tRump, the Dear Leader.

Beetleboob Vows To Expose Underwater Space Aliens

Beetleboob Vows To Expose Underwater Space Aliens

November 14, 2024 Republicans, Trump cultists

 

“There are rumors that have come up to the Hill of a secretive project within the Department of Defense involving the manipulation of human genetics with what is described as non-human genetic material for the enhancement of human capabilities, hybrids.

“Are any of you familiar with that? Yes, or no?  Are there any accounts of UAPs emerging from or submerging into our waters which could indicate a base or presence between the ocean’s surface?

“Are there any technological capabilities that have been observed in these oceanic UAPs to defy our current understanding of physics or human engineering capabilities? I will not relent until we get those answers to the American people.” – Rep. Lauren Boebert, during yesterday’s House hearing on UFOs.

Watch the LOL report from ace reporter Kyle Clark.

You really need to listen to the short videos where she claimed the earth is flat, birds are government drones, there was no moon landing, and she thinks there is a government project to create hybrid humans at an alien base under the ocean.   This is the government in the US 2024.   Hugs

I am so tired of the lies about immigrants to please the maga bastards.

OK this is me just ranting before bed.  Sorry.  See I was an abused kid.  Most of you who come here already know and don’t need any extra help in that to show you how badly I was abused.  So I don’t need to show you more than my occasionally over the top ranting about my childhood abuse or the republicans claiming the republicans are stealing kids at the border … which is really what the republicans did.  They separated parents from children and then gave the children to Christian adoption agencies to sell for profit.  I wonder how their god feels about that.  But please let’s keep talking about how Biden lost all these kids … who were never lost.  Does any one else mind they are doing this?????   Because as a human trafficked sexually abused and traded person … I fucking sure DO!   Hugs.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-migrant-children-missing-7ab0cea2fd2238346197429e952baa8b

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2024-10-02/fact-focus-claims-that-more-than-300-000-migrant-children-are-missing-lack-context

I am so very very tired and sorry if I hurt anyone tonight.  It just hurts what the republicans are doing and keep doing.   They hurt adults … They hurt kids.  They care for no one.

I wrote this post days ago and fell asleep before I could publish it.  Hugs

Fact Check: Did Kamala Harris Lose More Than 325,000 Migrant Children?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/fact-check-did-kamala-harris-lose-more-than-325-000-migrant-children/ar-AA1rcC4F

I am so tired of this stupid lie.  The right  / republicans keep using it because the children they stole from parents at the border back during tRump’s term have never been found and returned to their parents.   That is what this asshole false claim is about.  Here are the facts. And also notice that the time frame includes tRump’s first term!  Want to know why this pisses me off so much !!!  Because as an abused kid I could have been saved if people had cared enough to do it.  Instead the republicans do this shit that helps no child, helps no kid.  Hugs

Kamala Harris is expected to visit the U.S.-Mexico border during a trip to Arizona this week as the Vice President attempts to win over voters on immigration policy ahead of the November election

Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted Harris over the number of border crossings during the Biden administration, highlighting the role handed to her by the president to investigate the root causes of migration in the Northern Triangle of Central America.

Trump went after Harris again earlier this week during a rally in Pennsylvania when he accused her of losing hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children who had entered the country.

 
Kamala Harris speaks during a press conference at El Paso International Airport, on June 25, 2021 in El Paso, Texas. Donald Trump has claimed the Vice President is responsible for the disappearance of 325,000 migrant children. PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images© PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

The Claim

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At a speech in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on September 23, 2024, Donald Trump claimed that Kamala Harris had lost more than 325,000 migrant children.

“She [Kamala Harris] lost more than 325,000 migrant children,” Trump said.

“They’re gone, nobody knows where they are. Many of them are dead, many of them are in sex trade, many of them, but many of them are dead, they’ve been trafficked, they’ve been raped. Three hundred and twenty-five thousand children are missing.”

 

The Facts

Donald Trump’s claim is wrong with some caveats.

It appears his claim is based on an

August 2024 audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) that uncovered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) statistics on unaccompanied migrant children (UCs).

Between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, ICE transferred over 448,000 unaccompanied children to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). After apprehension by the Department of Homeland Security, children are transferred by ICE to ORR.

ORR handles the care and custody of these children awaiting immigration hearings. Care and custody include placing children in shelters or with a sponsor. ICE is responsible for managing immigration cases, and the audit showed the agency struggled to monitor the whereabouts of many of these children after their release from ORR custody.

 

ICE reported that more than 32,000 children had failed to appear for scheduled immigration court hearings between 2019 and 2023. ICE also failed to serve Notices to Appear (NTAs) on 291,000 children, leaving them without scheduled court dates and outside the formal immigration process.

The “more than 325,000” figure appears to be a combination of the 291,000 children who had not been issued a court date and the 32,000 who did not appear for scheduled dates, off by a couple of thousand.

Crucially, the main figure to focus on is the 32,000 children who missed their court date, the audit noting that ICE “was not able to account for the location of all UCs who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court.”

The audit also said that failure to send an NTA could limit the chances of maintaining contact when children are released from ORR custody, adding ICE did not always inform ORR about the failure to appear in court.

 

“Similarly, when ICE does not share information with HHS regarding UCs who did not appear for hearings, HHS personnel are unable to determine if UCs need wellness checks or post-release services for individuals at an increased risk of being trafficked,” the report stated.

“Without an ability to monitor the location and status of UCs, ICE has no assurance UCs are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”

However, Trump combined the figures even though the audit did not say that the 291,000 who had not been issued an NTA were lost.

The report also does not say that ICE could not find all 32,000 children who had not appeared in court. ICE is not a child welfare authority either; as explained here and in previous Newsweek fact checks, unaccompanied minors are placed into the care of sponsors if available which ORR is meant to monitor. Although there have been concerns regarding the risk of exploitation in this system, the context of who carries responsibility here is important.

 

Furthermore, the OIG audit covered cases between fiscal years 2019 and 2023. Although more children were transferred into ORR custody between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, Trump’s administration oversaw transfers during the 2019 and 2020 periods and part of 2021.

Newsweek has contacted media representatives for ICE, Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and the White House via email for comment.

Trump also claimed during his speech that “many” of the children were “dead”, “in sex trade”, and “raped.” The report does not make that conclusion. While the OIG report mentions exploitation vulnerability, it does not support Trump’s claim.

The Ruling

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False.

Trump’s claim is based on an audit that showed between fiscal years 2019-2023 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had reported that more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children had not appeared in court for immigration proceedings. The audit found that ICE “was not able to account for the location” of all these children.

 

The audit also said ICE had not issued orders for 291,000 children to appear in court.

Trump appears to have combined these two figures to try to make 325,000. The audit did not state that the 291,000 without court orders were missing, nor did it say that all 32,000 children could not be located. ICE is not a child welfare authority and unaccompanied migrant children are placed in shelters or with a sponsor by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is meant to monitor placements.

The audit monitored reporting under the Trump and Biden administrations.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team