August 19, 1791 Benjamin Banneker, the first recognized African-American scientist, a son of former slaves, sent a copy of his just-published Almanac to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, along with an appeal about “the injustice of a state of slavery.” More about Benjamin Banneker, his achievements and his letter to the president |
August 19, 1953 Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed MosaddeqRoyalist troops surrounded, bombarded and burned the residence of the Mohammed Mosaddeq, the recently dismissed elected Iranian Prime Minister. After having briefly fled his country for Italy due to the rioting over his unconstitutional dismissal of Mosaddeq, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was returned to the Peacock throne with dictatorial power. All this was done with the planning, financing and assistance of the CIA and its British counterpart, MI6. Background on Mosaddeq Stephen Kinzer on the U.S.-Iran relationship in perspective |
| August 19, 1958 The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Youth Council in Oklahoma City, led by Clara Luper, a high school history teacher, began sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters, inspired by success in Wichita, Kansas. [see August 11, 1958].  Clara LuperTV interview with Clara Luper More about Clara |
| August 19, 1970 The U.S. deployed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles near Greeley, Colorado. It was the first missile with multiple (then three-170 kiloton) nuclear warheads known as MIRVs (Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicles).  The MIRV: each cone is a warhead All the details about this fearsome armament |
August 19, 1989 Anglican Bishop and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Desmond Tutu was among hundreds of black demonstrators, members of Mass Democratic Movement who were whipped and blasted with sand stirred up by helicopters as they attempted to picnic on a “whites-only” beach near Cape Town, South Africa. |
Tag: Bigotry
SCOTUS Upholds Block On LGTBQ Student Protections
Please note what these bigots say. The issue under rational-basis review is not whether Texas should be concerned about opposite-sex sodomy, but whether it is reasonable to believe that same-sex sodomy is a distinct public health problem. They claim it is OK for straight cis couples to do anal sex, but not for two guys. Why, because they hate gay people, they hate the idea of having sex between people with both having dicks. This is just an attempt to have a straight cis society enforced by a Christian Taliban. It is based in a desire for a society that only includes people like them, with the same feelings and ideas that they have. The rest of us can just fuck off and get out. It is simply bigotry and anti-LGBTQ+ hate. This is the idea that if they do something it is OK but if others they don’t like do it then they are wrong and evil. Also notice they do their best to push these bigotry ideas on other countries which are poorer and need the money these groups bring. All this bill does is say treat others including trans people with respect and dignity. Don’t try to keep looking into their pants to see what is between their legs. Hugs. Scottie
USA Today reports:
A divided Supreme Court on Friday left in place lower court orders blocking changes to sex discrimination rules for schools in many states while new protections for transgender students under Title IX are being challenged.
The Biden administration, in an emergency request, had argued the court orders were too sweeping and some of the updates should be allowed to take effect as scheduled on Aug. 1. But the GOP-led states and conservative groups challenging the new rules said the components can’t be easily separated.
“Schools would have to work out how the Rule functions without its key provisions, amend their policies, and train their staff accordingly—all by next week—and then do it all again after judicial review,” lawyers for Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents a Louisiana school board, told the court last month.
Read the full article.
As I’ve mentioned here many times, Alliance Defending Freedom once petitioned the US Supreme Court to keep homosexuality criminalized. Since then, they have provided free legal support to overseas groups seeking to maintain or institute such laws in their own countries.
Here’s what ADF Global executive director Benjamin Bull said in 2013 when India re-criminalized homosexuality:
“When given the same choice the Supreme Court of the United States had in Lawrence vs. Texas, the Indian Court did the right thing. India chose to protect society at large rather than give in to a vocal minority of homosexual advocates. America needs to take note that a country of 1.2 billion people has rejected the road towards same-sex marriage, and understood that these kinds of bad decisions in the long run will harm society.”
More from Media Matters:
In 2003, ADF president Alan Sears co-wrote a book titled The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing The Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, which warned that eliminating anti-sodomy laws would lead to the overturning of “laws against pedophilia, sex between close relatives, polygamy, bestiality and all other distortions and violations of God’s plan.”
And from the ADF’s 30-page Lawrence amicus brief:
Same-sex sodomy is far more effective in spreading STDs than opposite-sex sodomy. Multiple studies have estimated that 40 percent or more of men who practice anal sex acquire STDs. In fact, same-sex sodomy has resulted in the transformation of diseases previously transmitted only through fecally contaminated food and water into sexually causes diseases — primarily among those who practice same-sex sodomy. The issue under rational-basis review is not whether Texas should be concerned about opposite-sex sodomy, but whether it is reasonable to believe that same-sex sodomy is a distinct public health problem. It clearly is.
Alliance Defending Freedom was jointly founded in 1994 by the leaders of Coral Ridge Ministries, Focus On The Family, and the American Family Association.
Letters from An American for August 16, 2024
There is a lot in this one! I bolded a few areas; those are my own emphases, rather than Dr. Richardson’s.
Letters from An American for August 16, 2024
by Heather Cox Richardson
Read on Substack
The complaint of Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) last weekend on CNN that Democrats are bullying him by calling him weird has stuck with me. As I wrote at the time, Republicans have made punching down their stock in trade for decades, and Vance’s complaint suggests that the Democrats are finally pushing back. It strikes me that behind this shifting power dynamic is a huge story about American politics.
Since the 1950s, those determined to get rid of business regulation, social welfare programs, government infrastructure spending, and federal protection of civil rights have relied on a rhetorical structure that centers “real” Americans who allegedly want nothing from government and warns that un-American forces who want government handouts are undermining the country by bringing socialism or racial, gender, or religious equality.
In 2024, that rhetoric is all the MAGA Republicans have left to attract voters, as their actual policies are unpopular. Yesterday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told reporters at his Bedminster availability that to win the 2024 election: “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody that’s gonna destroy our country.”
But it is not just Trump. A MAGA pundit has called Vice President Harris “Hitler and Stalin combined but times 200,” and on Wednesday, Republicans in Minnesota nominated Royce White as their candidate for the U.S. Senate. “We face an enemy that intends to bastardize our citizenship through an idea called globalism,” White has said. “We must begin to understand how the global affects the local and take a stand for God, Family, and Country.” White has also said that “women have become too mouthy,” and that “Donald Trump could get up on stage, pull his pants down, take a sh*t up at the podium, and I still would never vote for you f*cking Democrats again.”
The rhetorical strategy setting up Republicans against a dangerous “other” was behind Trump’s demand that Republicans in Congress kill a bipartisan border bill so that Trump could continue to demonize immigrants. You could see that demonization of immigrants today in Vance’s straight-up lie that Vice President Kamala Harris “wants to give $25,000 to illegal aliens to buy American homes.” In fact, Harris today called for Congress to expand plans already in place in the Biden administration, and none of those plans call for giving money to undocumented migrants.
Also in that vein today was the announcement of Representative James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, that he is opening an investigation into Minnesota governor Tim Walz’s work in China. Walz is the Democratic vice presidential nominee. He went to China in 1989 as part of a teach-abroad program and went on to coordinate trips for students in China, becoming a vocal advocate for human rights in that country as leaders cracked down on opposition. But by suggesting this cultural exchange is nefarious, Comer can seed the idea that Walz is somehow operating against the interests of the United States.
This longstanding rhetoric that positions Republicans as true Americans defending the country against those who would destroy it has metastasized into the determination of MAGA Republicans to replace American democracy with a Christian nationalism that cements the power of white patriarchy. Vance has been in hot water for his derogatory remarks about “childless cat ladies”; interviews have resurfaced in the past few days in which he embraced the idea that the role of “the postmenopausal female” is to take care of grandchildren.
The New College of Florida is in the news today for illustrating the logical progression of the idea that Republicans must protect the nation from those who would destroy it. The New College of Florida was at the center of Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s program to get rid of traditional academic freedom. He stripped the New College of its independence and replaced officials with Christian loyalists who tried to build a school modeled after those that Viktor Orbán’s loyalists took over in Hungary. New College officials painted over student murals celebrating diversity, suppressed student support for civil rights, and voted to eliminate the diversity, equity, and inclusion office and the gender studies program. Faculty fled the New College, and more than a quarter of the students dropped out. To keep its numbers up, the school dropped its admission standards.
Yesterday, Steven Walker of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that the school cleared out the Gender and Diversity Center, throwing the books it had accumulated into a dumpster. Officials said the books are no longer serving the needs of the college: “gender studies has been discontinued as an area of concentration at New College and the books are not part of any official college collection or inventory.”
The image of piles of books in a dumpster in the United States of America is not easily forgettable.
But the dominance rhetoric of the MAGA Republicans was never just about political power. Political power always went hand in hand with corruption. A new book by Joe Conason called The Longest Con notes that the modern right-wing movement has its roots in the promise of grifters after World War II to protect America against the communists they insisted were infiltrating the country. Their promises to defend true Americans against an enemy was always about getting cash out of the deal.
Conason emphasizes how drumming up fears of an “other” was a deliberate grift to put money into the pockets of those who told small donors that their dollars were vital for defending the United States. The biggest prize for the extremists, though, was the control of government purse strings that allowed them to turn federal and state largesse toward their own cronies. Conason notes that under President Ronald Reagan, Republicans’ cuts to government oversight and reliance on the private sector to regulate itself, along with their belief that unfettered capitalism was a form of resistance to communism, led to a boom in corruption.
That corruption has continued in the Republican Party, largely unaddressed as politicians insisted that those calling it out were simply un-American malcontents engaging in political hits against good, patriotic Americans. In contrast, as any corruption on the Democratic side can be expected to be sliced and diced in public, the Democrats have stayed relatively clean.
And this is why Vance’s comment about Democrats bullying him jumped out at me. Republican dominance is cracking as Trump struggles and Vance offends people, and as that dominance falls away, the many things it covered are starting to get attention—among them, stories of Republican corruption. And they’re doozies.
On Sunday, for example, Garrett Shanley of the Independent Florida Alligator, the student newspaper of the University of Florida, reported that when former senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) took over the presidency of the University of Florida, he “channeled millions” to his Republican allies and to secretive contracts. In 17 months he more than tripled spending from his office, with most of the money going to his former aides and political friends, most of whom continued to live and work outside the state. Sasse was appointed in November 2022 in an opaque hiring process and stepped down unexpectedly in July, citing family issues, although Vivienne Serret of The Independent Alligator reported that DeSantis allies on the Board of Trustees forced him out.
One of the biggest stories in the country these days is the corruption scandal in Ohio, in which dark money groups led by the FirstEnergy utility company worked with former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder to put into office politicians who, thanks to about $61 million in bribes, backed a $1.3 billion bailout for FirstEnergy paid for with tax dollars.
On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost agreed to settle the scandal. FirstEnergy will pay a $20 million fine, an amount that Marty Schladen of the Ohio Capital Journal notes is less than one-third the amount FirstEnergy spent to bribe legislators, and a fraction of the money ratepayers have had to pay because of the corrupt legislation the bribes paid for.
Nothing better illustrates the grift at the center of today’s MAGA Republicans than Donald Trump’s Big Lie that he actually won the 2020 election and that it was stolen from him by those dangerous “others,” the Democrats. The Big Lie enabled the Trump team to continue soliciting donations in order to fight for the White House. According to Conason, Trump and his fellow election deniers pocketed $255.4 million between the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Democratic candidate Joe Biden president.
On Monday, jurors found former Colorado election clerk Tina Peters guilty on seven counts in relation to her compromising of her county’s election system. Peters was determined to get voter information to My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a key Trump ally, in order to prove the Big Lie. She is facing more than 22 years in prison.
—
Notes:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8xqy0jv24o
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/16/tim-walz-james-comer-china-00174403
https://people.com/j-d-vance-post-menopausal-female-podcast-interview-8696246
https://newrepublic.com/post/184926/florida-new-college-ron-desantis-book-ban
Joe Conason, The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism (St. Martins: 2024).
https://www.comicsands.com/royce-white-resurfaced-women-mouthy-2668973149.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/royce-white-republican-nomination-us-senate/
https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/08/reason-behind-sasse-departure
https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2024/08/12/tina-peters-election-tampering-colorado-jury-verdict
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kamala-harris-maga-jezebel-apocalypse-rcna164922
X:
atrupar/status/1824201300029936100
RonFilipkowski/status/1824457815269769685
patriottakes/status/1823742686228336772
J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk Named in Cyberbullying Lawsuit Filed by Algerian Boxer Imane Khelif After Olympic Win (EXCLUSIVE)
(The arc bends toward justice, though slowly.)
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/jk-rowling-elon-musk-imane-khelif-lawsuit-1236105185/
J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have both been named in a criminal complaint filed to French authorities over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Algerian boxer and newl crowned Olympic champion Imane Khelif.
Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney of Khelif, confirmed to Variety that both figures were mentioned in the body of the complaint, posted to the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday.
The lawsuit was filed against X, which under French law means that it was filed against unknown persons. That “ensure[s] that the ‘prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who may have written hateful messages under pseudonyms, said Boudi. The complaint nevertheless mentions famously controversial figures. (snip)
Boudi said that although the complaint mentions names, “What we’re asking is that the prosecution investigates not only these people but whoever it feels necessary. If the case goes to court, they will stand trial.”
Boudi also claimed that while the lawsuit was filed in France, “it could target personalities overseas,” pointing out that “the prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech has the possibility to make requests for mutual legal assistance with other countries.” He added that there were agreements with the U.S. equivalent of the French office for combating online hate speech. (snip-More)
A reality check on the ‘Tampon Tim’ meme
https://www.startribune.com/a-reality-check-on-the-tampon-tim-meme/600965646
Here is why the right / republicans are panicking. It is an attack on trans boys. This who line of they are putting them in the boy’s bathroom is really a way to say Walz supports trans kids. The truth is the bill doesn’t require the products be in any bathroom, just they be available to menstruating students and that includes trans boys. Ron and I off the top of our head thought of dozens of places in a school that they could be put instead of the bathrooms. Just a few, nurses stations, main offices, teachers could keep them in their rooms, a storage closet open to students, dispensers on doors or in hallways, student activity rooms, the rooms used for the gay straight clubs, so on. But even if they were in the boy’s bathrooms, what is the problem with that, other than the made up issue the right has with trans boys? That boys will see tampons and pads. Do these boys not have mothers or sisters? Have they never been in a store? Do they help unpack grocery bags? If boys do not know what these items are for, then they should be taught. It need not be a deep mystery and a shame for girls and women. It won’t turn them gay or trans, it won’t cause their spines to break. Below I post the important quote then the article. Hugs. Scottie
But the law’s actual language provides considerable flexibility for school districts to implement it, according to Deb Henton, the executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.
That might mean making these products available for free in various locations for all who need them, such as unisex bathrooms, girls’ bathrooms, the school nurse or the front office, but not necessarily in boys’ bathrooms. Henton, in an interview, lauded the “local control” the law provides for implementation, and said she’s fielded no concerns about its rollout.
At Anoka-Hennepin, the state’s largest school district, the free products are not found in traditional male-only bathrooms, a spokesman said. But they are provided for free to all in “nongendered bathrooms,” girls’ bathrooms or from health staffers.
A smart, compassionate new state law is spurring misinformed attacks on Minnesota’s latest vice presidential contender: Gov. Tim Walz.
Star Tribune
AUGUST 8, 2024 AT 8:14PMOpinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
•••
On Tuesday, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. By Wednesday, the opposition had mobilized with lightning speed for its one of its first political attacks, dubbing Walz “Tampon Tim” in reference to a new state law providing free menstrual products to school students.
The nickname was trending nationally this week on Twitter, an indicator of its political currency. Chaya Raichik, whose scurrilous “Libs of TikTok” account on X (formerly Twitter) has more than 3 million followers, was one of the first to amplify it. Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly added to the momentum, endorsing the nickname via tweet. Former First Lady Hillary Clinton weighed in from a different angle, with a tweet supporting the Minnesota measure.
Social-media users swiftly took sides as well, and as usual, facts and context were missing, especially from those who see the new law as evidence of a radical Minnesota under Walz’s leadership. But a closer, more informed look at the issue should yield a different conclusion. This is good and necessary policy. Providing free menstrual products is a practical, compassionate remedy to address an under-the-radar reason for student absenteeism. Some families can’t afford menstrual products, and when that happens students stay home instead of going to class, falling behind as they do.
There’s a lot of talk about closing educational achievement gaps in Minnesota and elsewhere, particularly for low-income students. The new state law, which has a price tag of about $2 million a year, is an actual solution to help address this, one that’s relatively low-cost. And there’s real-world data to back it up. New York City schools reported a 2.4% increase in attendance after a state law went into effect requiring free period products for students, according to the advocacy group Alliance for Period Supplies.
Minnesota is far from alone in providing this type of assistance. More than half of the nation’s 50 states have taken steps to help students who struggle to afford tampons and pads. Ohio, led by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, now requires period products in schools and has provided $5 million in funding for this, the Alliance for Period Supplies reports. Alabama and Georgia provide grants for schools to make free products available.
Other states, such as Washington, Nevada, Illinois and Utah, require schools to provide these products, though they didn’t fund them. To Minnesota’s legislators’ credit, the new law provides dollars to schools and is not an unfunded mandate.
Other background information is also useful as the dubious online debate continues.
The new law went into effect in January and applies to students in grades four through 12. The legislation itself was passed during the 2023 session as part of a broader educational bill, which Walz then signed. Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, was the bill’s chief author in the Minnesota House. Sen. Steve Cwodzinski, a retired teacher and DFLer from Eden Prairie, championed the measure in Minnesota Senate.
But the most powerful advocates for it came from outside the State Capitol. Young Minnesotans reached out to Feist about this issue. After Feist introduced it, these students testified on its behalf as the legislation made its way through various committees. Among them was Elif Ozturk of Golden Valley, who is now 18 and will attend Columbia University this fall.
In an interview, Ozturk told an editorial writer she got involved after seeing other students struggle to afford these products in junior high. She spoke to counselors and was told that some students had to leave class or couldn’t attend because they lacked pads or tampons. Ozturk dug into the issue and discovered that other states had taken steps to help students’ access these products. She thought Minnesota should do the same.
“If we don’t talk about it, it’ll never be fixed. These people who are in power, predominantly old men, have no clue what young girls go through every single day,“ Ozturk said.
Other advocates for the law’s passage: school nurses, who testified movingly about how students struggle to afford these products and the educational and emotional consequences when they can’t.
A specific but ill-informed attack on the new Minnesota law is in dire need of a reality check. Critics contend, wrongly, that it mandates menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms. This has unfortunately been used to stoke ongoing culture wars over transgender individuals.
But the law’s actual language provides considerable flexibility for school districts to implement it, according to Deb Henton, the executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.
That might mean making these products available for free in various locations for all who need them, such as unisex bathrooms, girls’ bathrooms, the school nurse or the front office, but not necessarily in boys’ bathrooms. Henton, in an interview, lauded the “local control” the law provides for implementation, and said she’s fielded no concerns about its rollout.
At Anoka-Hennepin, the state’s largest school district, the free products are not found in traditional male-only bathrooms, a spokesman said. But they are provided for free to all in “nongendered bathrooms,” girls’ bathrooms or from health staffers.
There’s nothing radical about Minnesota’s new law. Instead it’s a smart, low-cost measure to address educational achievement gaps, one that many states are embracing. Weaponizing this measure is laughably out of touch and likely to backfire not only with women, but all who care about them.
Airstrike at Gaza mosque kills at least 80, Palestinian officials say
I don’t care if there was an entire army hold up there, there are rules to war that Israel has violated each one. They are willing and wantonly killing civilians. Plus they are trying to sabotage the peace plans. I am very glad Biden is not running because he is allowing Israel to get away with this. Hugs. Scottie
LGBTQ Student Protections Blocked In 4 More States
sigh.
Are the authorities powerless to stop Tommy Robinson’s online output?
New laws may make it easier to pursue far-right activist over alleged role in spreading disinformation
(I think they are here, because of our Constitution. However, it’d be good to see this sort of activity controlled, and people safer. -A)
Images of Tommy Robinson using his phone while sunbathing in Cyprus as a Rotherham hotel housing asylum seekers was set alight have prompted outrage among those long concerned about his ability to inspire far-right action, even from a distance.
Yet while he has long seemed able to operate with impunity, events may finally be catching up with the man who first rose to prominence in 2009 as the de facto leader of the now defunct English Defence League (EDL).
Far from being powerless to pursue Robinson, new legislation means the authorities may be able to move more easily against those who share damaging information online that they know to be untrue.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is already known to be among those who are being looked at by police for their alleged role in disseminating disinformation.
A former director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald KC, spelled out on Monday how he believed investigators would want to quickly identify individuals who are involved in “online organisation, online incitement and online conspiracies”.
“I think prosecutors will want to have a strategy to identify people who may have been involved in inciting and encouraging these events, and they will want to arrest them and build cases against them. These are, in one sense, the most important people,” Lord Macdonald told BBC Radio 4’s World at One.
While Robinson has been abroad since 28 July, when he fled the UK on the eve of a high court hearing over contempt of court proceedings, he has maintained a near constant commentary on events in the UK since the fatal stabbings of three young girls in Southport on 29 July, sharing claims that police have described as false.
While he has long been a prolific user of multiple social media platforms – benefiting in particular from the return of his X account after Elon Musk bought Twitter – going after him for his online output is not clear-cut.
The far right has moved online, where its voice is more dangerous than ever Read more
Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general for England and Wales, told the Guardian: “It is an offence to incite violence on the grounds of race, belief or sexual orientation, and there is incitement to hatred. But it’s a grey area between the right to criticise and incitement to hatred and is a very difficult area to police.
“Quite simply, that’s why it is possible for people to play around with that area. Either you clamp down on it, in which case legitimate freedom of speech gets eliminated and breeds undesirable problems of its own, or you live with it and challenge those views through debate.”
Recent changes in the law open up other possibilities. Since January, an amendment to the Online Safety Act 2023 allows for the prosecution of those who convey information that they know to be false and “if the person intended the message, or the information in it, to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience”.
Ashley Fairbrother, a senior prosecutor at the law firm Edmonds Marshall McMahon, said: “This now makes the circulation of damaging and false information online into an offence in its own right.” (snip-More)
Religious Misogyny
Kamala Harris has MAGA World Freaking Out …
Aug. 4, 2024, 5:00 AM CDT By Anthony L. Fisher, Senior Editor, MSNBC Daily
It’s always the end of the world for the Make America Great Again movement. Ever since Donald Trump’s escalator ride in 2015, there’s been zero nuance to the MAGA message. “Only I can fix it,” the leader roared to thunderous applause upon accepting the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
But especially since Vice President Kamala Harris became the likely Democratic nominee, MAGA messaging has gone from overwrought and hyperbolic to absolutely hysterical and apocalyptic.
Trumpists wave off any and all criticism as unworthy of discussion, bad-faith accusations from minds afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. And yet, deranged is the only appropriate descriptor of the rhetoric emanating from MAGA land’s loudest megaphones. It’s Trump and some of his closest allies and most prominent boosters who have been speaking of an imminent totalitarian government, end times and literal biblical demons.
These people include podcasters with massive, fiercely dedicated audiences. Titans of industry. Religious extremists with political ambitions and close ties to Trump world. And the richest man in the world.
In just the past week, popular MAGA pundits warned that Harris is “Hitler and Stalin combined but times 200,” and also a “commie” who will choose a running mate who supports “allowing men to beat up women in the Olympics.” They also expressed outrage over the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics as the end of “Western civilization,” and singled out one woman on a Zoom fundraiser call for Harris’ campaign as another harbinger of end times.
Then there was the billionaire Trump supporter who finally freed himself from the burden of pretending he’s not MAGA, Elon Musk, bringing back one of his favorite apocalyptic buzzwords, “extinctionist,” to describe Harris. (And because he’s a serious adult, he called her “Shamala.”)
Musk once generally reserved that term for environmentalists — or really anyone concerned about climate change. But he’s since expanded the definition to anything that involves the mysterious and horror-movie-sounding “woke mind virus.” In 2023, Musk told Joe Rogan, “It’s essentially the extinctionists. It is that they’re propagating the extinction of humanity and civilization.”
It’s hard to argue what’s “most disturbing” among these deranged comments from very angry people, but a worthy contender came from Lance Wallnau, the influential Christian nationalist who has the ears of both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. He likened the first Black and Indian woman to be nominated for president by a major party to Jezebel — a spirit with demonic powers. In case he wasn’t driving the point home with just the name, Wallnau clarified that Harris represents “the spirit of Jezebel … in a way that’ll be even much more ominous than Hillary because she’ll bring a racial component and she’s younger.”
The MAGA right hasn’t cornered the market on ridiculous and irresponsible hyperbole in politics. Left, right and center are all capable of taking liberties with facts, hyping the fear factor and exaggerating the stakes.
But of all American political tribes, there’s only one with politically influential figures using this election season to prophesize about Jezebels and explicitly making it about race and gender. Or literally warning of the imminent end of the world because of a Marxist conspiracy to smuggle totalitarianism on an unsuspecting public through environmentalism.
This was once the content you’d find on the furthest, most ridiculous fringes of the AM radio dial. And they are what remains of the brain trust of the MAGA movement. (snip-More)
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kamala-harris-maga-jezebel-apocalypse-rcna164922
Virginia man charged with threatening to kill Vice President Kamala Harris
By Holmes Lybrand, CNN Published 5:46 PM EDT, Mon August 5, 2024
sigh.
CNN —
A Virginia man has been charged with making death threats against Vice President Kamala Harris and appeared in federal court on Monday.
According to court records, Frank Lucio Carillo made several threats against Harris, President Joe Biden, FBI Director Christopher Wray, several Arizona officials, and others on the right-wing social media platform Gettr.
In response to a subpoena, the FBI found 4,359 posts from Carillo “targeting various public officials,” including Harris.
In several posts, Carillo allegedly threatened to cut out Harris’ eyes and described various ways he wanted to kill the vice president, court records say.
“I will cut your eyes out,” Carillo allegedly wrote in one expletive-laden rant where he called Harris a “b*tch” and said he hoped she would “suffer a slow agonizing death.”
A number of similar posts are cited in court records, with graphic and detailed threats against the vice president as well as others, including one Islamophobic post in 2023 when he wrote that people should “go out with your guns and kill all Muslims.”
When FBI agents first arrived at Carillo’s house over the social media posts, Carillo asked if they were there “about the online stuff,” and said, “I posted it.” Carrillo, appearing to talk to himself, also said, “I guess I’m gonna need a lawyer,” according to court documents.
Federal agents retrieved two firearms from his home, including a pistol he bought in 2023 and a rifle purchased this year.
A hearing to determine whether Carillo will remain behind bars while awaiting a resolution in his case has been set for Thursday. (snip)
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/05/politics/death-threats-kamala-harris-virginia-man-arrested
Scottie's Playtime 