tRump has never purchased anything personally like normal people. He doesn’t go to stores and shop. He has always been a pampered rich boy even in bankruptcy. I don’t know about anyone else but Ron and I have to stretch our first half of the month income to be able to afford groceries and medications. We ended last month with $30 in the checking account. This month is always bad for us. So I want to know where this lowering of costs are. Ron wears me and the car outgoing from store to store to get the best deals. We suffer in too cold or too warm a house to keep the electric bill down. But yes Florida is a high cost of living state, would love to move, but … yup we can’t afford it. Hugs.
Donald Trump’s claims about bringing down prices comes just weeks after he told families to limit the number of presents that they buy for their children
When not finding dependable news, and all the other things that make up your days? I just finished Judy Blume’s “Smart Women,” and am now reading a Courtney Milan M/M romance set during the US’s very early days; the protagonists are a white British absconder, and a freed Black US soldier, and they’re making their way to Rhode Island to the Black soldier’s family who they hope will be safe at home. I’m not very far into it, but they’ve self-acknowledged that they’re having feelings for each other, and had tacitly acknowledged they know, to each other. Tonight over supper, I will read on. It’s got a lot of humor, from the British guy.
OK, so I ran across this list from The Root, and thought a snippet could be of interest here I’m also leaving in the related-or-not links because those stories are also of interest. Enjoy!
From a Kenan Thompson picture book to a memoir from the CEO of The Honey Pot, the first month of 2026 is full of great Black books for lovers of every genre.
A new year is here, and if one of your resolutions is to cut down on your screen time, you’re in luck…because with a new year comes great new books by Black authors for every kind of reader, so make room on your bookshelf!
SNL star Kenan Thompson’s hilarious picture book, The Honey Pot CEO Beatrice Dixon’s story of her road to success and Dr. LaNail R. Plummer’s guide to counseling Black women are just a few of the books by Black authors we can’t wait to read this month.
“Unfunny Bunny” by Kenan Thompson with Bryan Tucker (Jan. 13)
SNL star Kenan Thompson can add children’s book author to his already amazing resume. “Unfunny Bunny” is a picture book that centers around Bunny, who wants to be the funniest kid in his class, but worries when his jokes don’t land with his classmates.
“With Love, From Harlem” by ReShonda Tate (Jan. 27)
Amazon.com
Set in Harlem in 1943, ReShonda Tate’s novel, “With Love, From Harlem,” is inspired by the life of jazz performer Hazel Scott and her relationship with pastor-politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and how they balance their relationship with their personal ambitions.
You’ll love the references to Harlem legends, like Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin.
“The Soul Instinct” by Beatrice Dixon (Jan. 27)
Amazon.com
“The Soul Instinct” is an inspiring memoir from The Honey Pot CEO Beatrice Dixon. In the book, she writes about a dream of her grandmother that led her on a journey to create a successful line of feminine care products now available in more than 30,000 stores across the United States, and how she had to learn to trust herself along the way.
“Sweet, Sweet Memory” by Jaqueline Woodson (Jan. 20)
Amazon.com
“Sweet, Sweet Memory” is a beautiful children’s book by Jaqueline Woodson about a young girl who learns about the power of community and our connection to our ancestors after the death of her beloved grandfather.
“Behind These Four Walls” by Yasmin Angoe (Jan. 1)
Amazon.com
“Behind These Four Walls” is a thrilling new novel from Yasmin Angoe. At the center of the story is Isla Thorne, who met her best friend, Eden Galloway, while the two were growing up in a group home. The two planned to run away to Los Angeles when they turned 16, but Eden never made it. Now, ten years later, Isla is determined to solve the mystery of her friend’s disappearance.
“The Book of Alice: Poems” by Diamond Forde (Jan. 20)
Amazon.com
Winner of the 2025 James Laughlin Award from The Academy of American Poets,“The Book of Alice” is a collection of poetry inspired by the life of Diamond Forde’s grandmother Alice, who found her way to New York City during the Great Migration. Using stories from the King James Bible, Forde draws parallels to the Black experience.
“Black Founder: The Hidden Power of Being an Outsider” by Stacy Spikes (Jan. 24)
Amazon.com
In “Black Founder,” MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes writes about his journey to becoming a successful tech entrepreneur and how he found power in his position as an outsider to fuel his success and disrupt the status quo.
“Fire Sword and Sea” by Vanessa Riley (Jan. 13)
Amazon.com
“Fire Sword and Sea.” is a page-turner based on the story of real-life female pirate Jacquotte Delahay, Set in 1675, Delahay is the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy tavern owner on Tortuga who hides her identity for the chance to explore life at sea.
“A High Price For Freedom” by Clyde W. Ford (Jan. 13)
Amazon.com
“A High Price For Freedom” is a new book by historian Clyde W. Ford. In the book, Ford explores some of the most fascinating moments in Black history and sheds new light on the stories we thought we knew.
“Just Right” by Torrey Maldonado (Jan. 20)
Amazon.com
“Just Right” is the first picture book by well-known middle grade author Torrey Maldonado. The story, which deals with the special relationship between a little boy and his uncle, emphasizes the power of positive adult role models.
“Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past” by Dorothy A. Brown (Jan. 20)
Amazon.com
“Getting to Reparations” is a new book by Dorothy A. Brown, which explores the idea of reparations for Black Americans through the lens of other communities that have been compensated by the government for past wrongs throughout history.
“The Essential Guide for Counseling Black Women” by Dr. LaNail R. Plummer (Jan. 27)
Amazon.com
In “The Essential Guide for Counseling Black Women,” mental health expert Dr. LaNail R. Plummer shares a guide on how mental health professionals can best support Black women on their healing journey.
“The Ex Dilemma” by Elle Wright (Jan. 27)
Amazon.com
“The Ex Dilemma” is a fun romantic novel that tells the story of nepo baby Wesley Batchelor, whose dating life is put on blast by a mysterious social media influencer. Things get even more complicated when a private investigator, who just so happens to be Wesley’s ex, is hired to find out who is working against him. (snip)
Annie at the link above has some grand information that we all should be aware of. She even included things people can do even if they can’t or are frightened to go to a protest. Please give the site a read, at this point we all need to do anything we can to stop the Stephen Miller’s out of control unrestrained untrained Gestapo gang thugs from terrorizing the public while demanding complete unquestioned obedience. Hugs
I would like to thank https://personnelente.wordpress.com/2026/01/08/causing-problems-on-purpose/ for the link to the story. I am listening to congressional republicans drown on about the US being the apex predator so our country has the right to do what ever we wish to on the world stage. Our country has the right to take what we want because Nazi Stephen Miller who seems to be running the country because that might makes right and the US has the military might. Every time I listen to Miller punch his words out like a poor imitation of Hitler and his entire mocking of anyone in the media or that disagrees with his stance I get a sick horrible feeling in my core being. He is unhinged and the most powerful person next to tRump. Hugs
Protesters clash with law enforcement outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on January 8, 2026. (Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)
More than 2,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are on the ground in Minnesota in what President Donald Trump’s administration officials have called the “largest immigration operation ever.” Deployed just days ago by Trump, one agent has already shot and killed a person and federal law enforcement has deployed tear gas and pepper spray against protesters.
The massive operation and subsequent violence in Minneapolis comes against the backdrop of Trump’s announcement Tuesday that he’s freezing $10 billion in federal funds approved by Congress for child welfare programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, foster care, and childcare subsidies in Minnesota and four other blue states.
This sharp escalation in action has its roots in a yearslong law enforcement investigation into widespread fraud and misuse of federal funds in Minnesota that in late 2025 was seized upon by the right-wing misinformation machine and, this week, reached a screeching fever pitch. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced Monday he would not be running for reelection, in part so he could devote his time to addressing the crisis.
The journey from legitimate local and federal investigations into fraud to the so-called largest ICE operation in history, the pausing of federal funds to blue states and the end of Walz’s gubernatorial tenure is a long and tangled one. As has become common in the Trump era, a serious situation was dispersed throughout the unserious realm of right-wing media and content creation, catching the attention of the president and yielding very real consequences.
Here’s the backstory you need to understand these events.
How the Scandals Started
Amid the right-wing uproar, there are elements of truth: Minnesota has grappled with Medicaid fraud for more than a decade, which has been the focus of federal and state investigations and local news reporting. The schemes were further fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which an influx of federal funding for social programs came with relaxed vetting standards in an effort to allow speedy access for vulnerable populations.
Republican furor over widespread fraud has also flared up periodically over the years. But it reached new heights in recent months after a wave of new claims — ranging from the well-founded to the baseless to the entirely histrionic — caught the attention of the president.
Some of the first claims of fraud arose in 2015, and focused on day care centers that local authorities accused of overbilling state welfare agencies. This gave rise to an early instance of right-wing outrage, when a local Fox affiliate in 2018 speculated that hundreds of millions of dollars were being stolen from the program and sent to terrorists in Africa. State officials found that claim to be baseless.
In 2021, feds began investigating fraud claims connected to a child nutrition program. By early 2022, the FBI seized property from a nonprofit called “Feeding Our Future.” The revelation of the investigation prompted bipartisan outrage toward the fraudsters; Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), for example, questioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture about the misuse of funds, asking about the investigation and steps that could be taken to prevent “fraudulent misuse of federal funding meant to feed hungry children” in the future.
In September 2022, the Department of Justice announced federal criminal charges against a network of people connected to Feeding Our Future, alleging they defrauded the government of $250 million in federal child nutrition funding, using the funds instead for mansions, cars and other lavish personal expenses. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland said the indictments represented “the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme” to date. At the time, 47 people were indicted, many, but not all of whom, were members of the Minnesota Somali community. State Republicans began pointing a finger at the governor.
The scandal continued to unfold. Even the ensuing criminal proceedings were rife with corruption, with one juror dismissed after fraud defendants tried to bribe the juror with a literal bag of cash. The Feeding Our Future scheme has proven vast and deep. Between 2023 and 2025, more indictments came down connected to the case, with the 78th person indicted this past November. It has become the poster child for Minnesota’s tangled fraud network that has so far extended to autism services, Medicaid fraud, addiction services and housing..
The state has also investigated the network. In August 2023, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison charged 18 people with defrauding Medicaid of $9.5 million with fake home health care businesses. Ellison in December 2023 announced charges in what his office called the largest Medicaid fraud case it had investigated. Three people were charged in an $11 million prosecution. A June 2024 state audit found the Minnesota Department of Education had received dozens of complaints about the nonprofit and failed to oversee the distribution of the $250 million at the heart of the case.
The Politics of the Scandals
State Republicans continued to use the fraud investigations and indictments as evidence of Walz’s unfit leadership. When Walz became Kamala Harris’s vice presidential candidate in August 2024, the governor became a punching bag for Republicans in the state running for local and national office. On the Hill, House Republicans subpoenaed Walz for information about his actions and responsibilities related to the Feeding Our Future scheme.
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA – JANUARY 5: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a press conference at the State Capitol building on January 5, 2026 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Walz announced today that he is abandoning his re-election campaign for governor, blaming scrutiny from President Donald Trump for his decision. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
In September 2025, eight people were charged in a multi-million dollar housing fraud scheme for a state program that used Medicaid funds for certain housing services. Then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joseph Thompson called the indictments “the first wave of charges in a massive fraud” program. The abused housing program was dissolved in late October.
In addition to the political advantages of blaming the Democratic governor, some conservatives exploited the fact that most of the people implicated in each of the fraud investigations were members of Minnesota’s Somali community. That became paramount when Trump and prominent members of the MAGA-sphere got involved.
Trump Grabs the Story
On Nov. 19, City Journal, a publication produced by the conservative New York think tank The Manhattan Institute published a post co-authored by Chris Rufo, the notorious anti-woke crusader who is also a fellow at the think tank. The report alleged Minnesota fraudsters were wiring their spoils to a Somalia-based terrorism organization called Al-Shabaab, citing “federal counterterrorism sources.” Two days later, news website and television station The National News Desk — owned by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast group — covered the City Journal report. Those posts may have been what caught the president’s eye. Two hours after The National News Desk report was published, Trump posted about the Minnesota fraud investigations on Truth Social. “Minnesota, under Governor Waltz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” Trump wrote, misspelling the governor’s name. In the same post, he said he was removing a special immigration status that covers about 700 Somalian people in the U.S., and introduced the idea that “Somali gangs are terrorizing” Minnesotans.
The Truth Social posts marked the beginning of a far-right frenzy that has seen the president and extremist influencers feed off of one another, spinning narratives and pushing policies pulsating with outrage, xenophobia and Islamophobia. On Nov. 29, the New York Times echoed Republican talking points blaming the Somali community for federal funds theft, saying that the “fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes.” On Dec. 1, the White House issued a one-pager about the Minnesota situation, repeatedly highlighting the ethnicity of most of the people who had been federally charged and blaming Walz.
Trump on Dec. 2 deployed a first round of ICE agents — about 100 — to Minneapolis and St. Paul to target the Somali community, an official told the New York Times. All the while, legitimate federal investigations continued to play out.
Prosecutor Thompson is now the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota. Appointed by Trump, Thompson has served as a longtime prosecutor. On Dec. 18, he charged five new people in the housing program Medicaid fraud scheme. Thompson said more than $9 billion in federal funds may have been stolen from Minnesota.
“The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
Following this announcement, the total number of people indicted in Minnesota fraud schemes reached 92. Eighty-two of those were of Somali descent, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota, PBS reported. While a significant share of the scammers are Somali, the number is less than 0.1% of the entire Somali population in Minnesota, where the majority are U.S. citizens, and just about 0.03% of the Somali population nationwide, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by PBS.
Six days later, a 23-year-old content creator dropped a 43-minute YouTube video that had the effect of planting dynamite in a minefield. In a vague Dec. 26 video, former prankster turned anti-immigrant influencer Nick Shirley visited Minnesota day care and health care centers, demanded people who appeared to work at the centers show him children, and accused the businesses of fraud. Shirley in the video is flanked by two masked men, whom he identifies as his security, and is following a man called David who purports to have papers showing evidence of fraud. The Intercept identified David as 65-year-old David Hoch, an eccentric, far-right political operative in the state.
It doesn’t matter that claims made in Shirley’s video remain unfounded, and that it documents nothing untoward.
It also doesn’t seem to matter that the initial, 2018 report linking fraud in Minnesota to a Somalia-based terrorist group was debunked by the state, or that the only named source for the article told the Minnesota Star Tribune he was misquoted. (City Journal told the Star Tribune it stands by its reporting.)
Trump has since early December used the fact that the majority of the defendants in each of these fraud cases were members of the Minnesota Somali community as ammunition, opening a dark new chapter in his signature anti-immigration crackdown.
Layla A. Jones is a reporter for TPM in Washington, D.C., with experience covering government and economic policy, race, culture, and history. She has written for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Billy Penn, WHYY, NPR, and the Philadelphia Tribune, and participated in the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship at Columbia University. She attended Temple University for undergrad.
Randy in a post asked the question I think many ask here. Why do I champion the trans community so forcefully? Nan asked me a few years ago if I was feeling like I was trans, and no I am a cis gay male and happy in it. Although if not for my past I would have liked to be free to explore a more feminine side of myself. Ron and I do have trans people in our family but I have never met them. The truth is in the page why I do this. I want to give a voice to those that have no voice and right now the most targeted unfairly groups are trans people / kids and brown skinned people ICE is going after. Why do I put so much effort in to giving them a voice? Because as an abused little boy people in my town knew I was being abuse but no one gave me a voice, no one spoke up for me. Hugs.
How Americans are manipulated by online misinformation and political rhetoric.
Joseph McConville’s first memory of being online was at 13 years old when he started playing Neopets, a virtual pet game, at his home in Boynton Beach, Fla. At the time, he had no clue that just months later, the internet would suck him into the alt-right.
As a young, white man, McConville says he was taught to believe that he’d have everything he wanted.
He started to realize this dream wouldn’t come to fruition when he was pulled out of private school as his parents struggled during the 2008 recession.
McConville quickly graduated from kids games to popular social media sites like Myspace and Facebook. But it was when he found FunnyJunk.com in ninth grade that he started being exposed to alt-right content.
The website gave users the ability to upload memes and upvote popular content. When McConville began using it, he was initially exposed to dark humor and edgy right-wing memes.
He then migrated to 4chan, a website known for hosting anonymous, fringe, right-wing communities, where he started engaging with content used to stoke extremist meaning —pushing us vs. them narratives that alienated McConville from his multicultural South Florida community.
“Everyone else is wrong. … These guys are right. These guys get it,” says McConville. The deeper he got, the more anger he felt—especially towards transgender people.
“It’s all a psyop … there’s a big trans psyop to destroy manhood,” McConville remembers believing for nearly a decade. “It’s all about making men hate themselves, to become women, to weaken the American hegemony.”
McConville, now 30, eventually found his way out of the alt-right world around 2018 when he was deradicalized by a friend who had previously been a part of the community.
But since then, the pervasiveness of this thinking has grown. What was once conspiratorial thinking on fringe websites has now become commonplace. “The [2016] Trump election changed a lot of things, it all became serious,” McConville told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “You feel like, ‘Wow, we’re actually being listened to—we’re changing the mainstream talking points.’”
Transgender Americans have been one of the biggest targets of this alt-right rhetoric, and it’s effective. Since 2022, Americans have increased their favorability towards laws limiting protections for trans people and have become less favorable towards policies safeguarding them.
The site of Charlie Kirk’s assassination after it took place. (KSL News Utah)
This change in public perception may be because of the growing claims that falsely link transgender people as perpetrators of mass violence and domestic terrorism. After Charlie Kirk’s death in September, these narratives reached a boiling point.
But how did Americans get taken to believe this anti-LGBTQ lie? And what does it say about how people can be brainwashed to hate?
Who’s Pushing the False Link Between Trans People and Domestic Terrorism?
One reason many Americans began to believe that trans people are more likely to be linked to terrorism is because trusted sources in mainstream conservative spaces are telling them it’s true. Even though the overwhelming majority of mass shooters are cisgender men, the Heritage Foundation, notably behind Project 2025, recommended the FBI create a category of domestic terrorism called Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism, which suggests transgender people pose an imminent threat.
“I think some people know that this is false, but push it,” Thekla Morgenroth, a professor of psychology at Purdue University, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “It’s worth giving false information if you get people on your side and support your opinion, and I think that is malicious.”
Unlike when McConville was in the alt-right, many of the people behind the rhetoric today hold powerful positions in the government. After a shooting in August at a Minnesota Catholic school perpetrated by a transgender person, Rep. Lauren Boebert falsely said there was a “pattern of transgender violence in our country.” Trump officials and other members of Congress used this as an excuse to attack gender-affirming care. And Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, has insisted that hormone replacement therapy played a role in the shooting, although officials do not believe the perpetrator was using hormones.
This narrative has bled into the mainstream media who are used to trusting government sources. Just a few hours after Kirk was pronounced dead, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets picked up claims from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the bullet case engravings pointed to a motive related to “transgender ideology,” a term coined by transphobic commentators. The bullet casings ultimately did not have any reference to transgender people.
Nevertheless, suspicions around this shooter being connected to the transgender community spread like wildfire.
Megyn Kelly in her video. (Megyn Kelly on YouTube)
Former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly posted a video titled “Megyn Kelly Reveals the Truth About the ‘Trans’ Phrases Found on Ammo of Gun Which Shot Charlie Kirk,” to YouTube on Sept. 11, 2025, where she falsely told over 4 million subscribers, “There’s a particularly high percentage [of transgender people] committing crimes these days and it is responsible and important to say so.” The video now has 2.1 million views and Kelly has not retracted these comments.
Her followers—who believed her false claims—began calling for extreme action in the video’s comment section. @WonkoTheDork wrote, “Trans insanity needs to end. I don’t care how, this has to stop.” And @kathleenbarton-m6c wrote, “As an American, I completely agree that this [Trans] movement needs to be completely eradicated.”
Referencing Kirk as a martyr, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took it a step further, writing in a press release that “corrupted ideologies like transgenderism and Antifa are a cancer on our culture and have unleashed their deranged and drugged-up foot soldiers on the American people.”
The Social Psychology of Transphobia
Morgenroth thinks many people who endorse rhetoric around transgender domestic terrorism are threatened or afraid of otherness and of the breaking of traditional gender norms.
“People are very attached to the way that they think about gender because it gives them a sense of certainty—it gives them a sense of who they are and who they’re not,” they say.
Morgenroth says people come up with justifications for their discomfort, even if they don’t make sense.
“‘Here’s an explanation for why I should be scared. I’m gonna endorse that and I’m gonna believe that regardless of whether that makes logical sense or not,’” they told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I think that’s what’s happening and why people are so willing to endorse these conspiracy beliefs or theories about trans people.”
Joseph Vandello, a psychology professor at the University of South Florida, says that when influential figures ramp up a threat, it triggers an emotional response of fear or anger, which leads to a desire to punish or exclude people.
“This is the same playbook that people were using against gay people going back to the 1970s or against other kinds of marginalized or minority groups like Jews,” Vandello told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES, referencing the gay panic of that era. “I think there’s this idea that if you frame the issue in terms of a threat, then it becomes an issue of moral protection of the community.”
Another One Down the Rabbit Hole
Vandello says many young men fall for anti-trans narratives because they confirm their place of privilege in the world and validate their insecurities. He coined the term “precarious manhood,” which is the idea that manhood is a social status that has to be won and can be lost. His research indicates that threats to one’s sense of manhood—like trans and queer identities—provoke not only insecurity, but aggression.
Jordan Peterson (right) being interviewed by Sean Hannity in 2025. (Fox News)
Ten years ago, Justin Brown-Ramsey became a case study of precarious manhood, lashing out when he began thinking that trans people were a threat. At 18 years old, and in search of an escape from his parents’ divorce, he started binge-watching YouTube lectures from Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist who’s best known as an outspoken anti-trans thought leader and has said that using someone’s preferred pronouns is the road to authoritarianism.
“He has a degree, he’s working at an institution, it seems like if that’s the kind of guy that has this opinion, I should probably also have that opinion,” Brown-Ramsey told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
This intellectualized version of transphobia appealed to the sense of insecurity Brown-Ramsey faced growing up in a household with strictly enforced gender roles.
Eventually, Brown-Ramsey became an active participant in anti-trans rhetoric. As an anonymous keyboard warrior, he’d fight in the YouTube comments against the #MeToo, feminist and trans rights movements.
Near the end of his senior year of high school, Brown-Ramsey brought this hatred into the real world against another classmate.
“They mentioned they were trans, and I recall always taking issue with that for seemingly no reason, and being just generally antagonistic about that,” says Brown-Ramsey, now 28.
He purposefully misgendered the student in class and started lashing out against friends, family and romantic partners until he was almost totally isolated.
“I think over time, the less acceptable my behavior was for people in person, the more it became acceptable to lean into the online version of that,” he says. “It went from those lecture videos to watching long rant videos about trans people and gay people, or seeking out stuff that was more 4chan-adjacent.”
Brown-Ramsey, who eventually left the alt-right after deeply engaging with U.S. history in college, believes he was manipulated to hate trans people because it helped him displace his anger about other elements of his life. “I think it was the fact that I was lower working class or lower middle class, and didn’t have an economic future ahead of me,” he says. “I was like, ‘Well if the world is that way then I just might as well be hateful and try to be more powerful than somebody.’”
Undercover in the Alt-Right
Anthony Siteman (Photo courtesy of Siteman, design by Sam Donndelinger)
This phenomenon of young men getting drawn in by alt-right algorithms fascinated 21-year-old Anthony Siteman, who started investigating online extremism ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“My main goal was to understand how and why people became radicalized,” Siteman, a senior at Quinnipiac University, told Uncloseted Media.
Siteman immersed himself on right-wing sites like Rumble and Gab as well as encrypted messaging apps like Telegram where he joined channels that included Proud Boys. He noticed trends that draw people in: all caps text, red alarm emojis and inflammatory language, which all trigger a sense of urgency and concern.
He saw constant racist, sexist and transphobic language, but also violent videos and memes created from the livestreamed footage of the 2019 mosque shootings in New Zealand that left 51 people dead.
Even though he entered this project to learn about indoctrination, sometimes he felt his own views slipping. “ I was really questioning myself and what I believed,” he says, adding that he had to turn to his professor to keep him grounded. “They make you really question all of reality.”
“Social media companies are feeding people more extreme content, more emotional content,” Vandello says. He explained that emotionality is what has made the online alt-right successful at manipulating users against transgender people.
Siteman agrees: “ It’s always framed about fear, anger, and just some sense of belonging.”
The Way Out
Siteman believes that to exit these spaces, people outside the alt-right should use empathetic communication to help those in their network who have been radicalized.
For Brown-Ramsey, it was a professor that pulled him out.
“Unlike online spaces, where I curated the information that I wanted to see, and the algorithm fed me more of the same bigoted, hateful content, college was perhaps the first time I was required to engage with media outside of my usual diet,” Brown-Ramsey published in an essay about his experience.
Brown-Ramsey had to read books aloud in class like “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” which detailed the abolitionist’s experience being born into slavery. “The narrative turned a mirror onto me and, in upsetting detail, showed me that my inclinations toward antagonizing those who looked, acted, or believed differently than myself [were the same beliefs that] led to Douglass’ dehumanization,” he wrote.
“That trajectory is really just me learning, ‘Why should I be at odds with a trans person if both of us work crappy jobs and can’t pay our bills?’ Obviously, that’s not who I should be angry at, but it took a while to get around to that,” Brown-Ramsey says.
If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button:
Full disclosure. Ron was working for tRump at Mar-a-largo as his nighttime butler and nighttime house supervisor. He knew all about this and told me of it. Sadly he couldn’t do anything about it other than give the doctor and staff comfort and support.
Meredith Kile is a Digital News Writer-Editor at PEOPLE. She has been an entertainment and political journalist for more than a decade, previously working for Entertainment Tonight, VICE and Al Jazeera America.
The report, which cites unnamed former Mar-a-Lago and Epstein employees, claims that Trump’s spa would send masseuses, manicurists and other spa workers to Epstein’s nearby residence.
“Epstein wasn’t a dues-paying member of the club, but Trump told staff to treat him like one, the employees said,” according to the report.
It also alleges that workers “warned each other about Epstein, who was known among staff for being sexually suggestive and exposing himself during the appointments.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to the Journal that the publication was “writing up fallacies and innuendo in order to smear President Trump.”
“No matter how many times this story is told and retold, the truth remains: President Trump did nothing wrong and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep,” Leavitt said in a text message.
Leavitt’s claim about Trump kicking Epstein out seems to align with the Journal’s reporting, which goes on to say that, in 2003, an 18-year-old worker returned to Mar-a-Lago from an Epstein house call and said the billionaire had “pressured her for sex.”
“A manager sent Trump a fax relaying the employee’s allegations and urged him to ban Epstein, some of the former employees said,” the report claims. “Trump told the manager it was a good letter and said to kick him out.”
The incident was not reported to police, according to WSJ. However, two years later, Epstein would be investigated after a parent alleged that he sexually abused her 14-year-old daughter. Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18.
That conviction preceded the 2019 charges of sex trafficking, for which Epstein was awaiting trial when he died in prison. The billionaire’s friendships with many high-profile celebrities and businessmen have been highly scrutinized in recent months as Trump’s Department of Justice — which was ordered to release all evidence in the Epstein case by Dec. 19 — has continued to release documents and photos one batch at a time.
One of the documents, dated Oct. 27, 2020, appeared to be an FBI intake report that featured the account of a former limo driver, who claimed to have met Trump in 1995, when he said he drove the real estate mogul to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
The document read, “[Driver] reported some of the things President Trump had spoken about during the ride while on his cell phone were very concerning. [Driver] reported he was ‘a few seconds from pulling the limousine over on the median and within a few seconds of pulling him out of the car and hurting him, due to some of the things he was saying.’ “
Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000.Davidoff Studios/Getty
While telling the story to an unnamed woman years later, the driver alleged that the woman went “stone cold.”
“[Woman] stated, ‘He raped me,'” the FBI intake report read. “[Driver] said, ‘What?’ as [Woman] replied ‘Donald J. Trump had raped her along with Jeffrey Epstein.’ “
The Department of Justice took proactive measures against the claims while releasing the new batch of documents. In a Tuesday, Dec. 23, statement on social media, they wrote, “The Department of Justice has officially released nearly 30,000 more pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election.”
“To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the statement continued. “Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims.”
Hi all. I hate to keep posting such negative awful stuff in the new year but what I always wanted to do with this blog is to give a voice to those that don’t have one. It is hard to read all these news articles but please remember while we sit comfortably in our homes there are others struggling to simply survive. The more we learn about these people the more we might be able to help. This shows how many of the Israeli population are complicit and simply don’t care about the suffering of the Palestinians. This is why I say it is not just the Israeli government but the countries media leading the population into compliance and hate for the Palestinian people. Remember they stormed the offices of the justice department of a judge trying to hold IDF soldiers to account for violently raping a Palestinian man causing life threatening injuries. Those IDF soldiers when on TV later to brag about what they did. Thanks for all who read / watch and add your voice to the conversation. Best wishes and hugs. Scottie
Israeli Influencer Uses Starving Gaza Children to Make Funny Video
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- An Israeli social media creator mocked Palestinian suffering by using footage of starving children lining up for a hot meal in Gaza during Israel’s blockade on aid in a funny video.
Morya Apple captioned the video: “Me on a normal day when I reach three in the afternoon without putting anything in my mouth” versus “Me on a fast day at 10 in the morning”.
Videos of Israeli content creators making fun of Palestinians suffering without water, food and electricity have gone viral over the past two years during the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza.
Last year, an Israeli Tiktok trend showed Israeli settlers prank-calling family members, pretending to seek donations for Palestinian children, to mock their suffering in Gaza.
Recently in a comment Roger sent me a poem. I am not much on poetry but this one is short and powerful and it expresses what I am feeling inside most days. Thank you very much Roger for believing in me and your support. Hugs
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/unnamed-5a4509546c9d4b8f90c4d383a353bc46.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(999x0:1001x2):format(webp)/Jeffrey-Epstein-Donald-Trump-072325-955f4eb4277f4c27956937b13e6c3f7c.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-4-071725-e21613d937dd4df7ab4a2c8d8f7fed70.jpg)
Scottie's Playtime 