What this guy is spouting is gaining traction all across the nation, not because more people are getting religious but because these type of assholes are pushing their Christian Taliban ideas backed up by the Republican political party and the violent maga brownshirt enforcers now enforcing a minority view on the public with little pushback from law enforcement. Hugs
Dalton Clodfelter accused The Satanic Temple’s Lucien Greaves of indoctrinating kids… by teaching them compassion
Dalton Clodfelter rants about Lucien Greaves (screenshot via Rumble)
If white nationalist Dalton Clodfelter has his way, the United States will become a Christian theocracy and The Satanic Temple’s co-founder Lucien Greaves will be imprisoned for life for his act of “terrorism” by… offering kids an After School Satan program to counter Bible clubs.
During his show Tuesday night, Clodfelter, for some reason, rehashed a story from January about an After School Satan club at an elementary school in Moline, Illinois. In short, the club was an alternative to a Christian club the district had already approved. Parents were furious because they assumed something evil was taking place (which is not true), and several of them protested outside the school, but administrators had no legal right to refuse the Satanists’ offer and said as much to the press.
Clodfelter didn’t mention any of those legal details. Instead, he just played a four-minute segment from KWQC before launching into his beliefs about how we ought to live in a Christian nation. He said Christianity should be the “national religion” and that the religion should be taught (presumably as fact) in every school. He claimed, with a straight face, that the ASS club represented “indoctrination of children.”
Then he launched into a broader attack on religious pluralism… before literally threatening Greaves:
After rehashing an old story about After School Satan clubs, white nationalist Dalton Clodfelter said non-Christians shouldn't be allowed to hold elected office… and that The Satanic Temple's Lucien Greaves should be charged with treason.
You see, I don’t believe that all religions are equal. I don’t necessarily believe that you should be able to serve public office if you are not Christian. I think if you are a Satan worshipper, if you are an atheist, if you are a Jew, if you are a Muslim, your interests do not equate the interests of the American people. You do not represent this country. This country was built on the backs of hard working Christian men, and what you are doing is simply an attack on faith.
…
I believe that we are going to take this country back and I believe that we are going to win. And when we do win, we will lock up The Satanic Temple guy, Lucien Greaves or whatever his name is, we will lock him up for attempting to indoctrinate children, because his plan is to destroy this nation’s morality. That is an act of terrorism and an act of treason.
Anyone who decided to indoctrinate a child into their false religion should be locked away forever for treason and domestic terrorism because they are destroying this nation from the inside.
Clodfelter’s arguments boil down to:
Non-Christians shouldn’t be in public office… violating the Establishment Clause and “No Religious Test” part of the Constitution.
Non-Christians “don’t represent” this country… when, by definition, they literally do.
The Founders were Christians… which is wildly inaccurate.
The mere existence of Satanists is an “attack on faith”… which is bizarre when you consider what the Satanists in question are attempting to teach.
Teaching kids compassion and empathy and humility and honesty and respect would “destroy this nation’s morality.”
Offering an explicitly non-Christian alternative to an after school Bible club is an “act of terrorism and an act of treason” and should be punished with a life-long prison sentence. (Technically, treason is punishable by execution, though he didn’t say that.)
It’s just Christian extremism, full of lies and threats, with no discernible pushback because he’s speaking in a right-wing bubble.
Despite that, Lucien Greaves laughed off the threat in an email to me:
I’m not familiar with this little Dalton fellow in the video, and I suppose that my immediate concern should be whether or not he’s attached to violent radicals, as he’s calling for me to be tried for treason. But, to be honest, it looks too much like a campaign video made by a kid running for middle school class president to be intimidating.
Poor Dalton tries to strike a commanding presence, but it is all too obvious that there is nothing that he doesn’t fear, as he fears what he doesn’t understand. But who knows? Maybe he’ll grow up and start experimenting—reading novels, eating “exotic” foods—and Dalton will start to appreciate, rather than fear, the unfamiliar world around him.
If not, I’m sure that when he and his friends come to arrest me for treason they’ll be wearing adorable little matching hats.
The problem with extremists like Clodfelter isn’t usually the guy himself, but rather what his followers may do. Here’s hoping no one’s listening.
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.
I posted a great video clip from TYT where Cenk and Ana talk about how Tucker Carlson talks that it has been proven that the hospitals all over the country … are chopping up kids into to body parts. We know that for a fact he said. Well it is like when Bill O’Rielly called the abortion doctor Tiller the baby killer night after night. Someone killed him to stop the baby killing. So now the rabid right wing maga are threatening to bomb hospitals to save the kids. All because of lies. If you are part of spreading those lies, you need to understand first your lying and second you are inciting violence against both the LGBTQ+ and those that help them with medical best practices. Do you know there is genital mutilations done on babies that all these groups sanction including the government? Yes the cutting off of part of the penis that makes the gland less sensitive and deadens pleasure. It is called circumcision. Routinely done on baby boys. Go after that and leave the trans kids alone as they are not having surgery as kids. Hugs
The hospital has been the target of an online misinformation campaign because it helps transgender youth.
Following a weeks-long harassment campaign from anti-LGBTQ groups, police are investigating an anonymous bomb threat that was called in to Boston Children’s Hospital Tuesday night.
According to NBC News, the Boston Police Department sent its bomb squad to the hospital at around 8:14 p.m. on Tuesday, but found no explosive devices or suspicious items. On Wednesday morning, Detective John Boyle said that the investigation was still active.
“We are relieved no bomb was found and that employees and patients are safe,” the hospital said in a statement. “We remain vigilant in our efforts to battle the spread of false information about the hospital and our caregivers. We are committed to ensuring the hospital is a safe and secure place for all who work here and come here. We will provide additional information as we are able.”
In recent weeks, Boston Children’s Hospital, which ranks among the best pediatric medical facilities in the country, has been the target of what it has described as “hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff.” The harassment campaign is the result of misinformation that has proliferated on right-wing social media about the hospital’s Gender Multispecialty Service program, which treats children experiencing gender dysphoria.
On August 11, Chaya Raichik, who runs the anti-LGBTQ Twitter account “Libs of TikTok,” reposted an “expose” by Christina Buttons for the right-wing site Post Millennial, sponsored by conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow. The “special report” consisted of videos publicly available on Boston Children’s website along with commentary insinuating that children as young as two or three were receiving gender-affirming surgery at the hospital.
Fact-checking site PolitiFact later debunked the claims. Patients qualifying for gender-reaffirming surgery must be at least 18-years-old and have a “persistent, well-documented, gender dysphoria,” according to the hospital’s website. “All genital surgeries are only performed on patients age 18 and older.”
After the initial post went viral, Raichik posted an additional 13 tweets peddling misinformation about the hospital and Gender Multispecialty Service program.
In the weeks since Raichik’s tweets, Boston Children’s Hospital physicians have been inundated with death threats and harassing calls and emails. The hospital has also increased its security.
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.
Tucker Carlson is regurgitating conspiracy theories about children’s hospitals performing illegal experiments on minors. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.
“TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): In recent weeks, we’ve learned a lot about what is actually happening inside children’s hospitals around the country. Most people trust children’s hospitals implicitly. They just didn’t know the details but thanks to the internet we now do. It turns out some of these hospitals are performing horrifying experiments on children: elective hysterectomies on minors, physical and chemical castration, things you think would be crimes but that apparently aren’t and that are going on in children’s hospitals in the United States.”
Can anyone show me where in the bible Jesus said don’t be respectful or don’t be kind to others and never use the name / pronouns they prefer. Where in the bible did their god write only use male pronouns for beings with swing penises, something I highly doubt God the father he himself has? Really the supreme being in your religion who is super magical, has a penis? If not then you are using a preferred pronoun! Did god ever write be an asshole over changing someone’s name, or did he himself command it several times? This is just hate packaged as religion to get permission from the government to be an asshole and a jerk. How much more superior that teacher must feel after treating a kid so crudely. I hope everyone learns that they do not want to ever be like her. Somehow for the good of the students we must get teachers like her out of teaching. When did the rules of a job just not apply to those who claim religion? Are we a theocracy or a democracy? Again what is the big issue religiously with calling someone by a name they prefer, we use nick names for people all the time. I think this is part of the stereotype gender role that must be enforced by the fanatically religious. Woman’s clothes, men’s clothes, woman’s job, men’s job, woman’s names, men’s names, and so on. I don’t think clothing, jobs, names and so on really need to have a gender assignment. Is Kim a male or female name? Depends where you are. What about Sandy? Hugs
She insisted that calling a trans boy “Miss” was a “compromise” between respecting him and following her religious beliefs.
A teacher in Kansas was awarded $95,000 Wednesday to settle a lawsuit after she misgendered a student but claimed that she should be allowed to because of her religious beliefs.
The former math teacher at Fort Riley Middle School, Pamela Ricard, claimed it was a violation of her religious beliefs to use the preferred pronouns of a trans boy student and insisted on addressing him as “miss.”
She was reprimanded and suspended for three days for violating the bullying, diversity, and inclusion policies. She sued the school district.
The lawsuit alleged the Geary County School District denied Ricard’s request for a religious exemption to its policy that school staff use students’ preferred pronouns. The district also directed teachers to use a student’s legal name when communicating with parents, concealing the student’s pronoun preference, according to the suit.
“No school district should ever force teachers to willfully deceive parents or engage in any speech that violates their deeply held religious beliefs,” Tyson Langhofer, Ricard’s lawyer, told the AP.
The anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Kriegshauser Ney Law Group filed the case on Ricard’s behalf.
Addressing the student as “miss” was Ricard’s attempted workaround to the school’s insistence she address him by his preferred name.
According to the lawsuit, Ricard believed using “Miss (legal/enrolled last name)” respected the student while also upholding Ricard’s religious convictions, despite the fact that that was deliberately misgendering the boy and also singling him out for differing treatment from his classmates.
Ricard said she believes God assigns gender at birth, according to the lawsuit. The school’s policy requiring her to use language that doesn’t conform to a student’s biological sex “actively violates Ms. Ricard’s religious beliefs.”
The settlement came about after a federal judge ruled the lawsuit could proceed, citing its likely success based on her free exercise of religion claim. The judge also granted Ricard’s motion to halt the district’s parental communication policy. Soon after, the district school board formally revoked the guidance.
The judge also ruled, incongruously, that Picard could avoid using students’ preferred pronouns but should address them by their preferred names.
Picard retired in May. Along with the $95,000 award, she won a statement from the school district that she was in good standing without any disciplinary actions against her.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks to the media before the 2016 Republican National Committee debate. Photo: Shutterstock
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has helped destroy his state’s child abuse agency by forcing its workers to investigate the parents of transgender children. Its workers are now speaking out about the unethical secrecy, internal strife, and staff resignations caused by his order — and how it has interfered with the department’s ability to help victims of actual abuse.
In February, Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate for child abuse any parents who allow their trans children to access gender-affirming medical care prescribed by their doctors. Abbott’s order was based on a non-binding opinion issued by the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton earlier in the month calling gender-affirming health care a form of child abuse.
Paxton’s opinions and Abbott’s order both went against the best practices of pediatrics outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association. These organizations consider gender-affirming medical care as necessary in many cases, noting it reduces mental anguish and suicide risk among trans youth.
Soon after issuing his order, several DFPS employees quit and some state attorneys refused to enforce it. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that neither Abbott nor Paxton had the authority to issue the order. Several families with trans children also filed a lawsuit against Abbott. The presiding district judge in the lawsuit issued a temporary restraining order, effectively stopping DFPS’s investigations while the court prepares to consider the order’s legality in December.
Department officials were told to hide their transphobic investigations from the public
In an August 25 amicus brief, 16 current and former DFPS workers spoke against Abbott’s order and in support of the suing parents.
The employees said that Abbott’s order represented a “radical departure” from the state’s legal definition of abuse, forcing DFPS employees to interfere with family medical decisions. In the past, DFPS workers had been taught to trust that medical professionals’ advised care — when given in good faith with fully informed consent — was in “the best interest of the child.” Not anymore.
DFPS employees were told that they had to investigate any trans-related cases, whether they thought there was reason to or not. Workers were also instructed not to comment on Abbott’s order on social media in order to appear neutral, the Texas Tribune reported.
“Everyone you need to stay off social media with any opinions,” one worker instructed employees. “We will be investigating these cases. This will get messy.”
Abbott issued his order without following the requirements for creating new departmental rules, as outlined in the state’s Administrative Procedure Act, the brief added. If allowed to go into effect, the order would “irreparably harm morale and effectiveness at DFPS, which are already in crisis,” the brief said.
Furthermore, DFPS employees were instructed “not to discuss these cases in emails, text messages, or any other form of writing that could provide a record of the investigation or ‘be pulled by media if requested,’” the brief added. This order essentially directed the DFPS to hide any paper trail of their persecution of trans-supportive families. As a result, the press, other government agencies, and even the families being investigated couldn’t examine the department’s work.
According to Randa Mulanax, an investigations supervisor who resigned over Abbott’s order, the instructions were an “unprecedented level of secrecy” that she’d never seen in her six years of working there. The instructions were particularly bizarre because department investigators regularly depend on other such documented notes to aid in their work.
The secrecy “shows consciousness of guilt by DFPS leadership that their actions are controversial, political, and based on a tenuous and novel interpretation of the law,” the brief stated.
Experienced DFPS workers quit over Abbott’s directive
In response to Abbott’s order, DFPS employee Emma Menchaca, expressed her disbelief in an email, writing, “This is Texas now? Because this is BS. Sorry not sorry. Really???”
Shaun Santiago, another DFPS employee, expressed outrage that workers would be forced to follow Abbott’s order. “We have trans workers here at DFPS, what kind of message are we sending to them?” he wrote in one email. In other emails, he said he’d resign rather than ever investigate a family over gender-affirming care, the Tribune reported.
The amicus brief also noted that nearly 2,300 DFPS employees have left the department this year alone, including ones who have departed over their disagreement with Abbott’s order. The departures have included a transgender investigator of child abuse as well as other “passionate workers who carry decades of experience and knowledge,” the Houston Chronicle noted. These resignations have made it hard for DFPS to perform its basic functions.
DFPS already had a high turnover rate with employees quitting over “safety concerns, lack of communication, low pay, problems with their bosses,” the Chronicle added. Many employees are required to oversee unhoused foster children despite having no training to do so. Others are assigned too many cases and pressured to close them before they’re properly investigated.
Shelby McCowen, a former DFPS child abuse investigator, said Abbott’s order was the “last straw” for many employees.
“There are a ton of social workers who do already identify with the LGBTQ community, me being one myself,” McCowen told the Chronicle. “It kind of feels like we’re turning on family members at this point.”
Child abuse in Texas is getting harder to investigate, thanks to Abbott
In the amicus brief, DFPS workers condemned Abbott’s order, saying, “[We] did not enter the child protection profession to remove children from loving homes with parents or guardians merely because they follow medical advice and a doctor’s care, only to place them in a foster care system that is riddled with actual abuse, sexual assault, and even sex trafficking.”
“The public statements of the Governor’s staff have made clear that the February 22 Directive was not motivated by any concern for the welfare of Texas’s vulnerable children but by the desire to create a political ‘wedge issue’ for electoral purposes,” the brief continued.
“DFPS [is] an agency that is already ‘failing children,’” the brief concluded. “[The department] cannot withstand the division, attrition, and harm to children and families wrought [by Abbott’s order].”
When they tell you who they are believe them the first time! We need to understand how anti-democracy these republicans are. We need to understand how badly they crave the power to rule over everyone to force their Christian doctrine on to the public at large. We must defeat them at all costs if we want to have civil rights, a secular society, and a democracy of the people for the people. Hugs
The donations to anti-LGBTQ churches provide a preview of how Michels may handle LGBTQ issues as governor.
Tim Michels, the Republican candidate running for Wisconsin governor, donated $250,000 in 2020 to groups opposing abortion and all forms of contraception, and to anti-LGBTQ churches. The donations, made along with Michels’s wife Barbara through their foundation, The Timothy and Barbara Michels Family Foundation, represent 15 percent of the candidate’s total donations in 2020, according to a report by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Along with donations totaling $175,000 to radical anti-abortion organizations in Wisconsin and New York, the Michels gave $10,000 to Miami’s Christ Fellowship, whose parishioners include former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. Christ Fellowship’s pastor, Omar Giritli, delivered an anti-transgender sermon in May, in which he attacked Caitlyn Jenner and preached that God believes transgender people are an “abomination” and a “rebellion to their creator.” A 2015 Huffington Post report detailed the church’s consistent anti-LGBTQ message.
Spring Creek Church in Pewaukee, Wisconsin also received a $50,000 donation from the couple. The church’s pastor, Chip Bernhard, has reportedly suggested that allowing transgender children to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity is “awful.”
“While the media is desperate to find lines of attack, their generosity helps support causes they believe in and funds cancer research and other Christian causes,” Michels’s campaign spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Michels, meanwhile, has tried to downplay social issues on the campaign trail. “The people who feel the Democratic party has left them for social issues, you are now going to have a governor that’s going to stand up for the hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens of Wisconsin,” he said early last month after winning the Republican primary.
Michels is running to unseat incumbent Governor Tony Evers (D).
“Tim Michels will stop at nothing to push his radical agenda in order to limit the rights of LGBTQ Wisconsinites and those seeking an abortion,” Democratic Party spokesperson Hannah Menchhoff said. “If elected, Tim Michels will implement radical policies that are out of touch with the majority of Wisconsinites.”
See how easy it could be. Tax the wealthy as they have all the money and use that tax to let the government help the public who need it. Do this here. Tax the wealthy and channel the taxes raised into anti-poverty efforts, free public universities and other social welfare programs. Everything written in this article about Colombia is the same in the US. All of it is happening here as it is there. If they can do we can do it. We need to do it. Hugs
President Gustavo Petro’s proposed legislation could raise $11.5bn a year with measures including wealth tax and levy on oil exports
President Gustavo Petro aims to channel the taxes raised in anti-poverty efforts, free public university and other social welfare programs. Photograph: Luisa González/Reuters
Colombia’s new leftist government has proposed an ambitious plan to tax the rich in an effort to combat poverty in one of the most unequal countries in the Americas.
If implemented, the Piketty-esque legislation proposed by President Gustavo Petro could raise more than $11.5bn annually to fund anti-poverty efforts, free public university and other social welfare programs.
If passed, the plan would raise taxes on the country’s highest earners – approximately 2% of Colombia’s population – cut tax benefits for the richest and fight tax evasion.
The tax hikes would progressively increase as income increases. It would add an annual wealth tax on savings and property above $630,000, and would add a 10% tax on some of Colombia’s biggest exports – oil, coal and gold – after prices rise above a certain threshold.
“This should not be viewed as a punishment or a sacrifice,” said Petro. “It is simply a solidarity payment that someone fortunate makes to a society that has enabled them to generate wealth.”
The wealth tax was among Petro’s chief promises during his campaign and would mark a significant step toward achieving his bold policy agenda, which has inspired hope in some and skepticism in others.
It is also part of a larger debate playing out around the world at a time of deepening global inequalities.
“This is not just Colombia,” said economist Álvaro Pardo. “This is a large conversation in any country – the ideas of equity and progress, the idea that those who have the most have to pay more. These are universal concepts we’re drawing upon.”
Petro’s proposal has prompted alarm in the country’s private sector and political elite who argue the tax will dampen investment, push job creators out of the country and – according to the arch-conservative former president Álvaro Uribe – potentially deepen poverty.
“We support all these efforts for the country to overcome poverty,” Uribe said following a meeting with Petro this summer. “But not at the cost of withering away the private sector.”
But at the height of the country’s decades-long armed conflict, Uribe imposed a similar temporary tax in order to fund his war with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group.
“It was sort of a perfect storm from political opposition to the government, post-pandemic economic hardship and the government’s response,” said Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis. “Under this government, things are different.”
A supporter displays a banner saying ‘Don’t let us down’ at the inauguration of President Gustavo Petro in Bogotá on 7 August. Photograph: Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda/EPA
This bill, he said, “is more progressive in nature”, doing away with key exemptions that he and economists say have allowed richer individuals to pay lower taxes than the average Colombian.
It’s also more permanent than other wealth taxes. The measure will now have to go through congress, where it is likely to pass.
The proposal was a welcome move for many Colombians who have felt like they have been on the outside looking in.
“The poor got poorer, and the rich got richer,” he said.
He went from having an office and a home in the city of Cartagena to returning to the unpaved streets of his town of birth on the outskirts of the city, struggling paycheck to paycheck.
Some observers warn that the tax plan will only address the tip of the iceberg.
Pardo said: “The challenge is gigantic because it means breaking a structure that has been in place for decades, a structure that favors rich sectors and big companies. It’s going to be very difficult.”
But it’s that painful growth that needs to happen, says Mendoza.
“This is a new idea. Human beings, not just Colombians, we’ve gotten used to the status quo. Down the line, if that thing is hurting us, it’s hard to branch away from what we’re used to.” he said. “But if we don’t do that, there will never be change.”
Need I repeat again that the constant hate preached by the right against the LGBTQ+ and that includes trans people. This kind of anger and hate doesn’t spring up naturally, it has to be taught and reenforced. You want to save LGBTQ+ lives, correct any hate speech you feel safe to do so, including online. Don’t spread the lies, and where you do see them leave the truth which will clearly debunk the lies. The lives of LGBTQ+ people trying to just live their lives are lives you could be saving. Hugs
A flag was laid out at a vigil for the young trans man attacked during Pride celebrations. (Twitter/ TransgenderGER)
A 25-year-old trans man remains in an induced coma after he was attacked at the Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations in Münster, Germany.
On Saturday (27 August), more than 10,000 people gathered in Münster city centre to speak out against discrimination and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
When one attendee, intent on spreading hate, began hurling homophobic abuse at two women, Malte, a young trans man, stepped in to defend them, reports German publication Männer Media.
In response, the attacker began punching Malte in the face, knocking him to the ground and beating him until he was unconscious.
According to the local trans support group Trans-Inter-Münster, of which Malte was a member, he was rushed to hospital where he underwent several operations and was put into an induced coma because of a brain haemorrhage.
“He’s had it hard enough in his life so far, and now this,” the group posted to Facebook.
“We are thinking of him and really hope that he does not have any lasting damage, but hopefully this trauma will not bring him down either. We hope the person who committed the crime gets his just punishment.
“According to the latest information, he remains in a critical condition and is so seriously injured that if he were to survive, there is a high probability of serious [neurological] damage.”
According to German reports, police have not yet identified a suspect and are appealing for witnesses.
‘A politically motivated crime’
A police spokesperson said witnesses described the attacker as being aged 18 and 20 years old, wearing wide-cut jeans and a bucket hat. After beating Malte, he fled with another man of a similar age.
The Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organisation, said in a statement: “The Münster police and the police state security must quickly clarify this transphobic act of violence and classify it as what it is: a politically motivated crime.
“When our community isn’t safe even on Christopher Street Day, it shows how much anti-LGBTIQ* hate crime restricts our freedom.
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, non-binary and queer people have a fundamental right to live freely and safely. It is the duty of the state to guarantee and protect these fundamental freedoms.”
(Die Partei und Die Grünen) und sogar der WDR Münster der einen kleinen Beitrag dazu drehte und so auf das Verbrechen aufmerksam machte. Wir haben an einen kleinen Ort, der nicht der Tatort ist, eine Fahne ausgelegt und kleine Steine als Zeichen das jemand an ihn denkt gelegt. pic.twitter.com/vXum6DEm5F
SEPTEMBER 1, 2022
Scottie's Playtime 