It is OK and great to stop the video at the 8:30 mark. After that it gets seriously stupid. But before that it has a lot to say that is true and said in a semi comedic way. Hugs
Category: Political / Governments / Nations / Countries /
FBI: Text Messages Target LGBTQs For “Re-Education”
Via press release from the FBI:
The FBI is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to African American and Black communities around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.
The reports are not identical and vary in their specific language, but many say the recipient has been selected to pick cotton on a plantation.
The text message recipients have now expanded to high school students, as well as both the Hispanic and LGBTQIA+ communities.
Some recipients reported being told they were selected for deportation or to report to a re-education camp. The messages have also been reported as being received via email communication.
Although we have not received reports of violent acts stemming from these offensive messages, we are evaluating all reported incidents and engaging with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
We are also sharing information with our law enforcement partners and community, academia, and faith leaders.
Read the full press release. Re-education = ex-gay torture.
Service Member Flagged Hegseth As “Insider Threat”
The Associated Press reports:
Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense, was flagged as a possible “Insider Threat” by a fellow service member due to a tattoo on his bicep that’s associated with white supremacist groups.
Hegseth, who has downplayed the role of military members and veterans in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and railed against the Pentagon’s subsequent efforts to address extremism in the ranks, has said he was pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. He’s said he was unfairly identified as an extremist due to a cross tattoo on his chest.
This week, however, a fellow Guard member who was the unit’s security manager and on an anti-terrorism team at the time, shared with The Associated Press an email he sent to the unit’s leadership flagging a different tattoo reading “Deus Vult” that’s been used by white supremacists, concerned it was an indication of an “Insider Threat.”
Read the full article. Last month Hegseth sat for an interview with anti-LGBTQ Christian nationalist Kirk Cameron.
New Focus On Gabbard’s Ties To Anti-LGBTQ Cult
The Daily Beast reports:
In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint ex-Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as his Director of National Intelligence, reports have resurfaced of her ties to a religious sect described as a “cult”—a connection that has the potential to throw her nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, into jeopardy. She reportedly met her husband, Abraham Williams, when he volunteered to shoot a video for her 2012 House campaign.
In addition to bonding over a love of surfing, The Daily Mail reported that the couple also was mutually connected to the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), a group with a history of antagonism toward LGBTQ people, women and Muslims. The group’s leader, Chris Butler, is heralded by members as a deity in his own right. The SIF, described as an alt-right branch of Hare Krishna, has reportedly developed thousands of followers.
Newsweek reports:
Former members who don’t speak so fondly of the Foundation and others close to Gabbard have said the group’s influence could be affecting her political motives, according to the report.
People have said the Science of Identity Foundation forbids people to speak publicly about the group, requires people to lie face down when Butler enters a room and even sometimes eat his nail clippings or “spoonfuls” of the sand he walked on, The New Yorker reported.
“I know what an abusive, misogynistic, homophobic, germophobic, narcissistic nightmare Chris Butler is. And I know what kind of relationship he has with Tulsi,” Lalita, a self-described cult survivor, wrote on Medium in 2017.
There’s more at both links.
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
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?
Peace & Justice History for 11/18:
| November 18, 1910 Hundreds of suffragists marched on the House of Commons in London, England, with reinforcements arriving to replace the “fallen” and arrested. Protesting government inaction on the Conciliation Bill, which would have enfranchised about a million women, they were brutally forced back by London police, leading to a public outcry. Read more |
November 18, 1964 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover publicly characterized Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. as “the most notorious liar in the country.” King replied that Hoover “has apparently faltered under the awesome burden, complexities, and responsibilities of his office.”  The FBI vs. Martin Luther King Democracy Now |
| November 18, 1970 President Richard Nixon asked Congress for supplemental appropriations for the Cambodian government of Premier Lon Nol. Nixon requested $155 million in new funds for Cambodia — $85 million of which would be for military assistance, mainly in the form of ammunition. |
November 18, 1989 More than 50,000 people took to the streets of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, demanding political reform. In the biggest demonstration in the country’s post-war history, protesters held up banners and chanted: “We want democracy now.” Read more |
November 18, 1993 South Africa’s ruling National Party, and leaders of 20 other parties representing both blacks and whites, approved a new national constitution that provided fundamental rights to blacks and other non-whites, ending the apartheid system. South Africa held its first democratic multi-racial election on April 26, 1994.From the preamble: “WHEREAS there is a need to create a new order in which all South Africans will be entitled to a common South African citizenship in a sovereign and democratic constitutional state in which there is equality between men and women and people of all races so that all citizens shall be able to enjoy and exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms….”  South African citizens in line to vote. Constitutional history of South Africa (2 separate pages) |
| November 18, 2001 In London, 100,000 marched against the U.S. and British attacks against Afghanistan.  |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november18
A Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions kills 11 people and injures 84 in Ukraine’s north
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-missile-attack-sumy-5cd4f9fe2cee1ae8aed67d63c22b0703
Russia has been doing this, dealing out pain to the people of Ukraine while Biden refused to let him use the weapons to hit Russia making them feel the same pain. Biden now says OK when it looks like in three months there will be no choice but to give Russia what it wants or fight to the last person and lose anyway. It is sick, but tRump is a Russian / Putin toady. We failed to live up to a promise we made to Ukraine because of Biden’s out of touch fears from the 1950s. Hugs
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of a northern Ukraine city, killing 11 people including two children and injuring 84 others, officials said Monday.
The two children killed in the strike on Sumy late Sunday were a 9-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, the regional prosecutor’s office said. Six injured children are in critical condition, it said.
The attack damaged 15 buildings, including two educational facilities, the prosecutor’s office said. A search and rescue operation continued Monday, on the eve of the war’s 1,000-day milestone.
Sumy lies 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the Russian border.
Also Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden authorized for the first time the use of U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles by Ukraine to strike inside Russia, after extensive lobbying by Ukrainian officials.
The weapons are likely to be used in response to North Korea’s decision to send thousands of troops to support Russia in the Kursk region where Ukraine mounted a military incursion over the summer.
It is the second time the U.S. has permitted the use of Western weapons inside Russian territory within limits after permitting the use of HIMARS systems, a shorter-range weapon, to stem Russia’s advance in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in May.
The first reaction from Ukraine to the long-awaited decision from the U.S. was notably restrained.
“Today, much is being said in the media about us receiving permission for the relevant actions. But strikes are not made with words. Such things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
Earlier, Zelenskyy said that Russia had launched a total of 120 missiles and 90 drones in a large-scale attack across Ukraine, including Sumy. Russia deployed various types of drones, he said, including Iranian-made Shaheds, as well as cruise, ballistic and aircraft-launched ballistic missiles.
The attack, which targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, came as fears are mounting about Moscow’s intentions to devastate Ukraine’s power generation capacity ahead of the winter.
Ukrainian defenses shot down 144 out of a total of 210 air targets, Ukraine’s air force reported.
“The enemy’s target was our energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine. Unfortunately, there is damage to objects from hits and falling debris. In Mykolaiv, as a result of a drone attack, two people were killed and six others were injured, including two children,” Zelenskyy said.
Two more people were killed in the Odesa region, where the attack damaged energy infrastructure and disrupted power and water supplies, said local Gov. Oleh Kiper. Both victims were employees of Ukraine’s state-owned power grid operator, Ukrenergo, the company said hours later.
The combined drone and missile attack was the most powerful in three months, according to the head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, Serhii Popko.
One person was injured after the roof of a five-story residential building caught fire in Kyiv’s historic center, according to Popko.
A thermal power plant operated by private energy company DTEK was “seriously damaged,” the company said.
Russian strikes have hammered Ukraine’s power infrastructure since Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, prompting repeated emergency power shutdowns and nationwide rolling blackouts. Ukrainian officials have routinely urged Western allies to bolster the country’s air defenses to counter assaults and allow for repairs.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday acknowledged carrying out a “mass” missile and drone attack on “critical energy infrastructure” in Ukraine, but claimed all targeted facilities were tied to Kyiv’s military industry.
Although Ukraine’s nuclear plants were not directly impacted, several electrical substations on which they depend suffered further damage, the U.N.’s nuclear energy watchdog said in a statement Sunday. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, only two of Ukraine’s nine operational reactors continue to generate power at full capacity.
The Russian military said Monday it intercepted and destroyed 59 Ukrainian drones overnight over several Russian regions. Two were downed over the Moscow region that surrounds the Russian capital, and three others over the neighboring Tula region. A total of 54 drones were destroyed over the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions on the border with Ukraine, according to a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the drones shot down outside of Moscow were heading toward the capital.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Kullab is an Associated Press reporter covering Ukraine since June 2023. Before that, she covered Iraq and the wider Middle East from her base in Baghdad since joining the AP in 2019.
Peace & Justice History 11/16, 17:
| November 16, 1928 An obscenity trial began for Radclyffe Hall’s novel, “The Well of Loneliness.” Great Britain banned it for its treatment of lesbianism, though it contained no explicit sexual references.  A U.S. court in 1929 ruled similarly, for its sympathetic portrait of homosexuality, and because it “pleads for tolerance on the part of society.”  Radclyffe Hall Read more |
| November 16, 1989 Six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were brutally murdered by U.S.-trained and -supported death squads in El Salvador.In 1995 the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador linked the slayings to 19 members of the armed forces who were graduates of the School of the Americas (SOA, now known as Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), a facility run by the U.S. Army at Fort Benning, Georgia. Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. The graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people.  Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. The Truth Commission’s report More on the School of the Americas |
| November 16, 1990 President George H. W. Bush issued Executive Order 12735 which found the spread of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) to constitute an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” He declared a state of national emergency to deal with this threat. The order reiterated U.S. policy to lead and seek multilaterally coordinated efforts to control the spread of CW and BW and directed the secretaries of State and Commerce to adopt a variety of export controls. |
| November 16, 1994 After receiving assurances from the United States, Britain, and France, the Ukrainian Parliament approved Ukraine’s agreement to follow the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapons state. |
November 17, 1973  President Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, that “people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.” Read more  |
November 17, 1980 Hundreds were arrested at the Women’s Pentagon Action protest of patriarchy and its war-making. Read more |
| November 17, 1989 Riot police in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, arrested hundreds of people demanding the resignation of the leader of the Communist-led government. More than 15,000 people, mostly students, took part in the demonstration demanding democratic rights. [see November 18, 1989 below] |
| November 17, 2000 The Florida Supreme Court froze the tallying of the state’s presidential election returns, forbidding Secretary of State Katherine Harris to certify results of the vote count in the presidential race between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november16
Shoot got so busy I forgot to post this one yesterday.
President Bartlett kicks the bible thumpers butt!
