www.newsweek.com

Andrew Wommack #wingnut #psycho #fundie newsweek.com

"I've actually had people say that if Trump was to be elected if we got a conservative Congress, that they fear that we would have another civil war," Wommack said during a Wednesday episode of his Truth & Liberty show. "And you know what? I don't want a civil war, I don't know anybody that does, but would it be worth it? To turn this nation back? I believe it would."

Wommack's remarks came in response to a call from a viewer who asked if it would be possible to have a "grace revolution" that would create a nation that would "use the Bible as the Constitution." In response, Wommack said there was nothing wrong with the U.S. Constitution, but rather the "problem" is that no one is following it.

"If they were still writing the Bible today, I believe that the American Constitution and the founding of this nation would be in scripture as one of the great things that God has done," he said.

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) #homophobia #psycho #transphobia newsweek.com

Republican Congressman Tim Walberg is facing criticism on social media following support for Uganda's anti-LGBTQ+ bill, widely called the "Kill the Gays" law

On Wednesday, Salon, considered a liberal news organization,reported that in October, Walberg traveled to Uganda and delivered a speech where he spoke about his support for the country's anti-LGBTQ+ law

"Though the rest of the world is pushing back on you...though there are other major countries that are trying to get into you and ultimately change you, stand firm. Stand firm," Walberg said about Uganda's anti-homosexuality law while delivering a speech at Uganda's National Prayer Breakfast

According to Salon, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni said that Walberg "thinks like us," following his speech. In May, Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 which seeks to criminalize homosexuality, and includes the possibility of the death penalty for individuals found guilty of "aggravated homosexuality," Human Rights Watch reported#
In March, Walberg sought to include a measure in the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their (PROTECT) Kids Act, requiring schools to get consent from parents before a student is allowed to change their preferred pronouns

Mike Johnson #crackpot #elitist #fundie #god-complex newsweek.com

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is receiving a fresh wave of backlash for his alleged ties to Christian nationalism after a video was shared online of the Republican leader comparing himself to biblical figure Moses.

A segment of Johnson's speech has since circulated online, during which he compared his path to speakership as a "Red Sea moment."

"The Lord told me very clearly to prepare. 'You ready?' 'Be ready for what?'" Johnson told the crowd, according to a clip shared to X, formerly Twitter, by the project Right Wing Watch Wednesday afternoon. "'We're coming to a Red Sea moment.' 'What does that mean?'"

Johnson said during his speech that the House speaker's race, which took three weeks, was the "Red Sea moment" that God told him to prepare for. He also said that he assumed "at the time" that God was going to "choose a new Moses" and that he would act as "Aaron," Moses' brother and a priest in the Old Testament.

"And so I work to get Steve Scalise elected speaker, that didn't happen," Johnson said. "And then Jim Jordan, who is like another big brother of mine. No, that didn't happen."

"Ultimately, 13 people ran for the vote," he said. "And the Lord had told me to wait, wait, wait. So I waited and waited and then, at the end, when it came to the end, the Lord said, 'Now, step forward.'"

Father James Altman #fundie #psycho #wingnut newsweek.com

A U.S. priest recently called for Pope Francis to be killed and likened him to the devil, prompting a Christian organization to launch a petition seeking to have his priesthood removed

Last month, Father James Altman shared a video on X, formerly Twitter, where he is heard referring to Pope Francis by his birth name, Jorge Bergoglio, and saying, "today, we are going to consider Jesus' teaching on the great millstone as it applies to Jorge Bergoglio"

"The best thing we could do, would be to tie the great millstone around Jorge Bergoglio's neck and throw him into the deep blue Mediterranean Sea," Altman says in the video

Altman goes on to discuss how he has received criticism and pushback for saying that Pope Francis is not the pope and that "Bergoglio should get Jesus' great millstone treatment"

In another post to X, Altman shared an artificial photo of Pope Francis sitting next to what appears to be the devil. "Birds of a feather...," Altman wrote as the caption

The remarks by Altman sparked the Christian organization Faithful America to launch a petition saying that "the church urgently needs to laicize him altogether." In 2021, the St. James the Less parish in Wisconsin announced that Altman was removed as a pastor for saying, "You cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat. Period"

Matt Walsh #crackpot #dunning-kruger #fundie newsweek.com

Conservative political commentator Matt Walsh, is now condemning anime as "satanic."

"I think it's all satanic," Walsh says in the clip. "I have no argument for it. I have no argument for why it's satanic. It just seems that way to me."

"All anime to me seems weird—just like bizarre, creepy," he continued. "And in general, I don't think that adults should be—whether it's anime or any other kind of cartoon—with rare exception, adults really shouldn't be watching cartoons in general, I would say."

Donald Trump #wingnut #god-complex newsweek.com

Former President Donald Trump reposted a meme calling him the "savior of western civilization" and appeared to respond to the suggestion favorably on his Truth Social platform.

Trump shared a post from a Truth Social user with the username @AQPatron early on Friday morning that included an image showing the former president and the phrase "They told me I could be anything I wanted so I became the savior of western civilization."

"Thank you. We have a long way to go, but we will get there!" Trump responded in what was likely a nod to his potential return to government.

Trump launched a new campaign for the White House shortly after the November midterm elections and he has been leading among potential Republican primary voters in most polls. The meme was in a thread of other users praising Trump for pursuing a second term, including one of Trump next to an American flag with the caption: "Donald J. Trump is the only one qualified to be President of the USA!"

Lily Cade #psycho #sexist #transphobia newsweek.com

This was done by men who hate women more than any other men who have ever walked the Earth, the worst men that have ever existed, trans women, men so worthless they can't even admit the most obvious thing about themselves that is obvious to the dogs and rats who can smell their manhood and should be obvious to every mother on Earth.

Trans women are vile, weak, disgusting, whiny, fake-victim masturbators who should be ashamed of themselves.

No woman should ever pity a weak man. Tear your f***ing blinders off, b****, what the f*** is wrong with you? Your pity rewards weak men for their weakness. You have sacrificed your children's futures on the altar of that pity.

I have looked thousands of adult men in the eyes and have not met one man, not once, who believed that trans women are women. No one believes that trans women are women. Trans women know they are men. They are forcing you to pretend to believe that they are women to rape your minds and the minds of your children.

Trans women are men. Say it. Own it. Know it. Hold the f***ing line, b****. Michfest held the line. When Michfest fell, so fell Western Civilization!

This is a pedophile cult. It's been here the whole time.

Trans women are men.

Trans women are evil.

Trans women are rapists.

Trans women are predators.

I committed voter fraud for Joe Biden. Joe Biden put a pedophile monster in charge of Health and Human Services so that the process of trapping your children with that lifetime commitment to pharmaceuticals can be honed ever further into the path of least resistance. Joe Biden knows that's a man and he knows that's a pedophile and he knows that's the agenda.

I thought pedos got the wall?

I thought chomos got the rope?

Cancel this so hard that no man dare walk the path of the trans woman in public ever again! Enough is enough. Lynch Kaitlyn! Lynch the "Sisters" Wachowski! Lynch Laurel Hubbard! Lynch Fallon Fox! Make these men stand up as the men you all know they are and hold them accountable for their shame.

Karlyn Borysenko #crackpot #magick #fundie #racist newsweek.com

A presenter at academic media company PragerU has been criticized for stating that her spiritual beliefs means she thinks Jewish people chose to be killed in the Holocaust, and that Adolf Hitler went to heaven.

In a series of tweets over the past few days, Karlyn Borysenko has been outlining her beliefs that people make decisions about their lives before they "choose to be born," including when they die.

While answering a number question on the subject, Borysenko said this includes children who "choose to be aborted" as they could "choose to be born into human form" if they wanted.

Borysenko went on to suggest that even those who were killed in the Holocaust chose to do so spiritually for the "experience."

"Everyone who died in the Holocaust chose to die in the Holocaust before they were ever born because they collective[ly] wanted to understand the experience of ultimate oppression. That’s why Hitler went to heaven.”

Wyoming Republicans #fundie newsweek.com

The Wyoming Republican Party is seeking to kill a bill working its way through the state Legislature proposing to raise the state's legal marriage age to 16, arguing that putting "arbitrary" limits on child marriage interferes with parental rights and religious liberty.

The bill—which already passed the Republican-controlled Wyoming House of Representatives on a 36-25 vote late last month—proposes banning state residents from marrying anyone under the age of 16, while requiring anyone under the age of 18 seeking to get married to receive written consent from their parents under the eye of a competent witness.
[…]
The Wyoming Republican Party, however, is urging its constituents to oppose it not because the bill is too weak, but because it believed the bill stood to rob their constituents of constitutional rights in ways the "seemingly harmless" bill did not immediately make clear.

To make the point, the party shared materials in a Thursday evening email to constituents containing talking points from Wyoming Family Watch, a religious lobbying group organized by a conservative pastor in the state.

Among other points, the letter argued that preventing children under 16 years old from marrying "denies the fundamental purpose of marriage," robbing teen parents from the ability to remain together under one roof for any children they might bear together—even though nothing in state law would prevent those children from co-parenting.

"Since young men and women may be physically capable of begetting and bearing children prior to the age of 16, marriage MUST remain open to them for the sake of those children," the post read. "The sad fact that physical maturity often does not match emotional and intellectual maturity is an indictment of our modern educational system. That is a problem that should be addressed. But we should not use it as an excuse to instantiate bad law."

Marjorie Taylor Greene #wingnut #dunning-kruger newsweek.com

GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has called President Joe Biden "absolutely pathetic" for refusing to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon over the continental United States, saying that nobody on the ground was killed when the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania during the 9/11 attacks.

The Georgia Republican said: "The excuses that were given on this were pathetic, absolutely pathetic. They told us it was too risky, oh, it was too risky to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon. Do you know what a bunch of b******* that is?”

"They said it's three school buses wide," she continued. "OK, well, do you guys remember on 9/11 when an airplane crashed in Pennsylvania? A jetliner, remember that? It didn't kill anybody on the ground. Killed everybody on board, but it didn't kill anybody on the ground. So they want to tell all of us that it was too risky to take down that Chinese spy balloon over rural Idaho or Montana or any of these other states, or Alaska."

Greene continued: "They are liars. You can only see it two ways. Either they're liars or they're cowards, or our president has sold out to China. You know what, I'll go for all three."

Alex Jones #wingnut #conspiracy newsweek.com

Alex Jones Compares U.S. to 9/11 Hijackers on Russian TV

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has compared the U.S. to the 9/11 hijackers in an interview with a prominent Russian state-media pundit.

In the 45-minute interview with Vladimir Solovyov, one of Moscow's chief propagandists, Jones made a series of unsupported or false accusations against some of America's wealthiest people and drew comparisons with their "control" of the country and the September 11 hijackings.

Jones has rarely made media appearances since he was ordered to pay damages to people involved in or affected by the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting for spreading false theories about the incident. His interview with Solovyov is another example of how the Russian propaganda machine exploits the views of U.S. commentators and conspiracy theorists to further its narrative around the war in Ukraine.

Speaking to Solovyov on his show Full Contact, Jones said that he is proud to be an American but that he lives in an "occupied globalist country". He accused "oligarchs" like "Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates" of being in control of the country. In a series of outlandish comments, he claimed they are "arresting everybody" and that "our country is captured."

"They are so used to wielding American power, of the country they've hijacked, like hijackers who take over an airplane," Jones said. "They're flying the American airplane into the building—like 9/11—that is Russia. And so I'm trying to stop that."

He also said he was facing "assassination" threats but that he can "not back down at this point."

Jones echoed claims made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, used as a pretext for launching the invasion in February 2022, that Nazis were operating in Ukraine. He said "we have to tell the truth about what's happening in Ukraine, even if it gets us killed, because the globalists are insane, mentally [sic] degenerates."

Speaking about the threat of nuclear war, he said that if there is such a conflict "at least it will kill the globalists so we can all die together." For each of his claims Jones did not offer any sources or verification.

Apti Alaudinov #fundie #homophobia #psycho #transphobia #wingnut newsweek.com

Apti Alaudinov, the commander of Chechen forces fighting for Russia, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, calling it a "holy war" against the "Satanic" values of Europe and the United States as well as the LGBTQ community.

"This is a holy war our saints and elders spoke of," Alaudinov asserted, who went on to say that he praises God to live in Russia and that the country is led by Putin. "He is the man that refused to accept the so-called European values," the commander added.

"In reality, those are Satanist values that are imposed on the entire world," he said. Alaudinov noted that he is "grateful" that Putin is following the values of "the Most High," referring to God. "We are not under the flags of the LGBT and as long as he's alive, we won't be under those flags."

He also called American democracy "the main enemy of mankind." Continuing, he said the U.S., Europe, and NATO carry within them "everything that is Satanic," and that they are "the army of the anti-Christ."

The Chechen commander described his forces fighting with Russia against Ukraine as "the army of Jesus." He praised Putin for doing "what the Islamic countries should have done" by fighting back against the U.S. and NATO.

various commenters #transphobia newsweek.com

RE: There Is Only Male and Female. Women Pay the Price When We Pretend Otherwise | Opinion

( Jeffrey )

Millions of biological women and girls have suffered all sorts of bad things perpetrated on them by biological men and boys. To allow biological men and boys in womens safe spaces and sports is just forcing these millions of biological girls and women who are already victims to retreat even further in fear.

( Tho mas )

Megan Rapinoe said she would accept a transgender woman replacing a biological female on the U.S. national team. What makes her think she would make the team then?

there will be 100' of guys who didn't make the men's team that could just claim to be a women and cash in on the new equal pay deal the women's team made.

( William A. Ferguson )

I wonder how Rapinoe has the right to give away women's safety, security and fairness?

( Rohan )

There Is Only Male and Female. Women Pay the Price When We Pretend Otherwise

They sure do. It makes Transgenderism one of the most Misogynist movements ever devised. Since Transgenderism also effects men in a negative way, it is one of the most Misandrist movements too.

( Draxx Skolunst )

My teacher in logic and debate always said when it comes to truth

The person with an experience is never at the mercy of the person with the truth. Seems to be playing out with these fantasizers.

Today from observation, being a 'woman' from the fahtasizers world\view means putting on makeup, a dress, and acting like a cheerleader. Pretty much a sexist reductionist brain built on bigotted sterotypes. That's also when asked what a woman is they won't qualify what it means yet demand to be seen as one.

Very weird.

( chrisford1 )

It was sad to see the "empowered" women of the Ivies "bend over and take it" from the brutal Trans invasion of their sports and any place where they could have privacy from the other sex.

Hard Left feminists joined with the Trans activists in brutalizing the female athletes and threatening gals who objected with "canceled scholarships and other opportunities".

Tomorrow's leaders? No, just submissives made so by hard left female Administrators

( DARKSTAROFDEATH )

Female sports teams will soon be 100% male.

Michael Flynn #conspiracy #crackpot #wingnut newsweek.com

Michael Flynn Claims COVID Invented to Steal 2020 Election

Disgraced former general Michael Flynn has falsely claimed COVID was invented by a globalist cabal in order to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

The ex-adviser to former President Trump made the unfounded assertion during an interview with conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones shared on its website on Saturday.

In a lengthy rant, Flynn claimed that Geroge Soros, Bill Gates, the World Health Organization and the United Nations among others, had somehow invented COVID in a bid to rule the world.

He said: "They see themselves as 'this is how we can rule the world, this is how we can control societies, this is how we can control humanity.'

"So, let's introduce something called COVID, and they did it, and they did it for a couple of reasons. One of the big reasons was to steal an election.

"I mean, if the Democrats, you know, work this hard on foreign policy as they work on stealing the elections maybe we would be better off."

Flynn later continued: "There are real people behind it, I mean [Klaus] Schwab is one, George Soros, you have the Arabella Group, these are real things, led by real people who have placed themselves above, you know [Bill] Gates is another one, who have placed themselves above some of these world institutions and they drive them, they really do drive them."

...

Flynn has also promoted the conspiracy theory the 2020 Presidential Election was somehow stolen from Trump and last year suggested a Myanmar-like military coup "should happen" in the U.S. ...

Racist Wookiepedia Editors #racist newsweek.com

The Last Jedi star Kelly Marie Tran, who plays mechanic Rose Tico, has quickly become a favorite addition to the Star Wars universe. The 28-year-old actress earned points with fans for being a fangirl herself—she screams in interviews over Kylo Ren shirtless and identifies as a Finn/Poe shipper. (Google it.) Furthermore, Tran—who is Vietnamese-American—is the first ever woman of color to have a leading role in the franchise.

Well, she's become a favorite addition for most fans. There are, unfortunately, losers even in the Star Wars fanverse.

On Tuesday, Tico's page on "Wookieepedia," a fan-run online encyclopedia with entries about everything Star Wars, was edited to include racist comments. Her name was changed to "Ching Chong Wing Tong," and her homeworld (Hays Minor) to "Ching Chong China." A fake quote was also attributed to Rose: "Heil Hitler and I don't know why I was casted [sic] in a good movie like Star Wars."

Writer Bryan Young, who posted a screenshot of the racist attacks on Twitter, told Newsweek that he was alerted to the changes by a friend on Tuesday.

Wookieepedia admins have removed the vandalism, closing off Rose's page for editing. A history of the edits to the page, with attached IP addresses, is still publicly available, though the edit in question has been removed. Young told Newsweek the IP address attached to the edit in the screenshot is 64.203.14.213. The user has been blocked from using Wookieepedia or any other FANDOM wikis.

Idaho Republicans #sexist newsweek.com

Idaho Republicans rejected an amendment to their party platform that would have allowed abortion to save a mother's life.

A 2020 law banning abortions except in cases of reported rape or incest or to protect the mother's life is set to take effect in the deeply conservative state 30 days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on June 24.

At the Idaho GOP convention in Twin Falls on Saturday, delegates approved changes to the party platform that criminalize all abortions without exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, according to Idaho Reports.

Delegates voted 412-164 to reject an amendment that would have allowed an exception if the mother's life was in "lethal danger."

The platform states: "We affirm that abortion is murder from the moment of fertilization. All children should be protected regardless of the circumstances of conception, including persons conceived in rape and incest."

Scott Herndon, a Republican candidate who is running unopposed for the Idaho Senate, argued against the exception being included.

"For the last 49 years we have essentially lost the argument in the culture because we have focused on abortion as the termination of a pregnancy and not the termination of a living human being," Herndon told delegates, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

"We will never win this human rights issue, the greatest of our time, if we make allowances for the intentional killing of another human being."

think again #transphobia #sexist #conspiracy #dunning-kruger newsweek.com

misogyny has never been a serious problem

on the other hand discrimination against males today and hatred towards males is a much more pressing issue than discrimination against females which is a non issue
also men and women are not equal and have different gender roles just as the first males and first females did 2.5 billion years ago
also sex is binary so it is impossible to change from a man to a woman or vice versa
i also wonder how most americans think that men and women can transform into the opposite gender
most americans are very detatched from reality
the worst flaw of democracy could easily be discovered by having a 5 minute conversation with the average american voter
the average american can't read write do math or science or know basic geography
in china only educated people have the right to vote
in china the powerful are abusing their power
we must restructure the govt in a way that creates a new balance of power in a way that intelligent people have more say in the govt
we must make slow cautious changes
also if you think that americans are ignorant just look at the average person in any other country
even in most western european countries 20% of the people think that the earth revolves the sun
in a month and not a year

Jenny Holland #transphobia newsweek.com

Transgender Ideology Isn't About Dignity. It's Warmed Over Misogyny | Opinion

[…]

Yet lately, my father's words about the shapeshifting nature of misogyny have been ringing in my ears. Some aspects of the transgender ideology taking over the liberal establishment are all too reminiscent of the kinds of misogyny my father so aptly pointed out. Recently developed tech platforms and the medical-industrial complex seem to me to have collided with the world's oldest prejudice, the primal drive to control and appropriate female bodies.

Does this sound like extremist fear-mongering? If it does, it's probably because in our culture right now, the reality is being hidden behind a veneer of kindness and inclusivity to which most decent people adhere—without realizing that by inclusivity, some trans activists seem to mean the wholesale destruction of female privacy and identity. The transgender issue has been nested in the movement for gay rights, which means that for many people, questioning it at all looks like a threat to return to the bad old days of intolerance. But it's more accurate to say that the trans movement itself is in many ways a return to the bad old days, with a uniquely 21st century spin.

You can see it in the reaction women face when they protest the sudden appearance of biological men in our changing rooms, prisons, and sports. Social media is full of examples of violent terminology posted by trans women voicing their outrage against TERFs—which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists.

[…]

I am not claiming that every person who identifies as a trans woman is a misogynist or a predator. But it is a documented fact that some well-known predators and misogynists have adopted a trans identity explicitly because our misogyny-ridden society has decided that the male predator's feelings about his identity are more significant than women's safety.

Object at your peril. Consider what happened to J.K. Rowling, whose vocal support for the idea that women and girls should have penis-free spaces in dressing rooms and prisons caused a huge backlash that endures to this day. The misogyny of that backlash has been explosive and explicit.

[…]

Craig Shubert #crackpot #wingnut newsweek.com

Ohio Mayor Says It's a Slippery Slope From Ice Fishing to Prostitution

[...]

Mayor Craig Shubert of Hudson, Ohio, made his comments at a council meeting this week during a discussion about the safety and liability issues that might arise if the city allows ice fishing at Hudson Springs Park.

"If you open this up to ice fishing, which while on the surface, it sounds good, then what happens next year? Does somebody come back and say, 'I want an ice shanty in Hudson Springs Park for X amount of time?'" Shubert asked. "And if you then allow ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem: prostitution. And now you have the police chief of the police department involved. Just some data points to consider."

[...]

It's unclear why Shubert thought the shanties would lead to prostitution. [...]

[...]

Video of Shubert's comments have since gone viral. It has also drawn attention to his past statements accusing a local school board of peddling "pornographic content." [...]

In September 2021, Shubert accused the Hudson City School District board of allowing students in a high school senior-level college credit writing class use of a book titled 642 Things to Write About, which contained two sexual writing prompts. One prompt suggested writing a parent-friendly version of "a sex scene you wouldn't show your mom" and another said to "describe your favorite part of a man's body using only verbs." Neither prompt was assigned to students.

"Your educators are distributing essentially what is child pornography in the classroom," Shubert told the school board's members, according to WEWS-TV. "So I'm going to give you a simple choice. You either choose to resign from this Board of Education or you will be charged."

Prosecutors determined the assignments weren't child pornography, no charges were filed and no board members resigned, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

Sameera Khan and unnamed Taliban women #sexist newsweek.com

Members of the Taliban are "worried about Andrew Tate" and are "asking us if he's free yet," according to Sameera Khan, a former Miss New Jersey turned "anti-woke" journalist

Khan said she took part in a "Twitter space with the Afghan Taliban" to "discuss the detainment of Andrew Tate", an American-British influencer who was arrested in Romania on December 29, along with his brother and two Romanian nationals, and charged with human trafficking

Romanian prosecutors allege the Tate brothers coerced six women into producing pornography, with the alleged victims facing "acts of physical violence and mental coercion." One of those arrested was also charged with rape, though their identify has not been disclosed

On Saturday, Khan tweeted: "We are hosting a Twitter space with the Afghan Taliban to discuss the detainment of Andrew Tate

"They are worried about Andrew Tate and they are asking us if he's free yet

"They say westerners need Andrew Tate because we are oppressed by feminists"

In a separate tweet, she added "#FREETOPG," calling for Tate to be released, with 'TopG' being a nickname used for the influencer by some of his supporters

British journalist Otto English tweeted a screenshot from the Twitter space, showing some of the attendees, adding: "This actually happened"[…]
Those taking part in the Twitter space with Khan included a number of users who claim to support the Taliban, some of whom had the group's flag in their profile picture

One of those taking part was Shahab Lewal, who claims to be a "Member of the Cultural Commission" of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, based out of Kabul

Candace Owens #conspiracy #crackpot #wingnut newsweek.com

Candace Owens Compares Child Vaccination Efforts to Hitler and Stalin Youth Programs

[...]

This week, advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) backed Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11, saying its benefits outweigh the risks.

An advertisement Pfizer released this week featured children who had participated in clinical trials for the jab and called them "super heroes" for helping develop knowledge of the effects of the jab among the young.

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy asked for [Candace] Owen's reaction, referring to the offer by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio of $100 incentives for children who get their first vaccine dose at a city-run vaccination site or public school site.

[...]

"There's something about this that feels like a child predator," she told Fox News, comparing it to allowing a stranger come up and offer candy.

"That's not a good incentive," [...] "adults should not be coming to you and trying to bribe you to do anything, especially when we're talking about medical decisions that belong to the parents."

She said that she believed there was an undercurrent to the jab push among the young which appeared "evil" and "sinister"

"We can always look to history to see where these things come from, she added, saying it reminded her of when she "studied Stalin youth programs, Hitler youth programs. When you are talking about schools and the government issuing these brain-washing doctrines.

"It is because they are trying to raise up children to do whatever the state wants unquestioningly," she added [...]

"It's time for parents to take control of their children and realize the government is trying to step in as the parent [...]"

Owens also went on to say that the CDC said that the coronavirus "does not harm children" and condemned the move by San Francisco to require children aged over five to show proof of vaccination to enter some indoor public venues.

"This is a dystopian nightmare," she added.

[...]

Hulk Hogan #conspiracy #wingnut newsweek.com

It was under this comment that Hogan sent a reply saying that Saget's death, along with White and Sidney Poitier, was due to the booster vaccine. Hollywood legend Sidney Poitier died last week at the age of 94.

Hogan's comment read: "100 percent Betty and Sidney were also jabed their dropping like flies but they'll never say it." A screenshot was shared on Reddit.

Rochester Police Department #psycho newsweek.com

The head of a police union in Rochester, New York defended officers after body camera videos showed officers handcuffing and pepper spraying a distressed nine-year-old girl.
[…]
However, Mike Mazzeo, president of the Rochester Police Locust Club, the union representing uniformed officers, told reporters the girl "could have been hurt worse. [The officer] made a decision there that he thought was the best action to take. It resulted in no injury to her. Had they had to go and push further, and use more force, there's a good chance she could have been hurt worse. It's very very difficult to get somebody into the back of a police car like that. And she's nine years old. Imagine what happens when we have a full grown individual."

In the footage, the girl is seen repeatedly screaming "I want my dad" as officers restrained her. When officers pushed her to the ground, she begged them to stop while lying in the snow, the footage shows.
[…]
The video shows the girl telling officers she did not want to get in the car until she had seen her father. The officers at the scene initially attempt to calm the girl, but grow increasingly impatient. "Get in the car, I'm done telling you," a male officer is heard telling her. When the girl asks for someone to get the snow off her, an officer replies: "You had your chances."
[…]
Later, a female officer attempts to convince the girl to sit inside the vehicle before threatening to pepper spray her if she doesn't oblige. "Come on, I'm gonna pepper spray you and I don't want to, so sit back... this is your last chance otherwise pepper spray is going in your eyeballs," she says. As the girl continues to plead for her father, a male officer says: "Just spray her... just spray her at this point." The girl screamed and yelled for someone to wipe her eyes before the officers placed her fully in the vehicle and shut the doors. "Unbelievable," an officer said.

Robert Jeffress #crackpot #dunning-kruger #fundie newsweek.com

Pastor Robert Jeffress, who serves on President Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board and the White House Faith Initiative, had words for young climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Jeffress appeared on Fox Radio's Todd Starnes Show on September 23 to discuss the United Nations climate summit, which President Trump notably attended for just 14 minutes before heading to give an address on religious freedom.

On the program, Jeffress referred to climate change as an "imaginary crisis," telling listeners that Trump was right to skip the summit. He then pivoted to discussing Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has become the face of the global climate justice movement.

"Somebody needs to read poor Greta Genesis, Chapter 9," Jeffress said, "and tell her the next time she worries about global warming, just look at a rainbow. That's God's promise that the polar ice caps aren't going to melt and flood the world again."

There is no scientific evidence connecting rainbows with the preservation of the polar ice caps.

Starnes agreed with Jeffress, commenting, "This whole global warming, tree-hugging fiasco—again, there is nothing to it. As you point out, they might as well hold a commission on the Tooth Fairy or Bigfoot, Sasquatch."

Jenny Holland #transphobia newsweek.com

Transgender Ideology Isn't About Dignity. It's Warmed Over Misogyny | Opinion
(submitters note: continued from https://fstdt.com/2Q9PNWHR9JGL6 )

[...]

Is it any wonder that large numbers of young women and girls want to erase their femininity?

We know that there is an element of social contagion to the growing number of trans-identifying young women. But it often feels like it's on steroids. The other day on the radio, I heard a young female singer who goes by "they" pronouns discussing an artist who inspired her, a well-known French lesbian who now says she is a man. In the 19th century, George Eliot wrote under a man's name because society did not take female writers seriously. Today, women are choosing to identify out of womanhood. Is that progress?

The trans movement is not the root cause of misogyny, nor is it misogyny's only home. And certainly, there are transgender individuals who don't hate women. But as a movement, there are core components of the ideology which are undeniably the latest manifestation of a hatred of the female that stretches back millennia.

In a recent podcast, a formerly trans-identified woman called Leigh Janet Marshall said something that could have been lifted directly out of my father's book: By watching porn, she learned as a young girl that men being sexual still retain their personhood, but women being sexual become animals. This made her want to shed her female identity.

The idea that a sexual woman is not really human but rather a frightening, animalistic creature who inspires horror is one of the oldest tropes in the misogyny playbook. How can it still be rearing its head in our supposedly enlightened, scientific and secular society, never mind successfully infecting the psyches of girls being raised in bastions of liberal America?

[...]

Bobby Piton #wingnut #conspiracy #god-complex newsweek.com

Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois is refusing the concede, despite suffering a blowout loss in Wednesday's GOP primary.

[…]

"I am NOT conceding my US Senate race primary ... stay tuned ..." Piton tweeted.

"It appears as though the machines flipped results between different candidates differently in each voting jurisdiction ..." he added.

Piton, whose campaign website touts his experience as "a paid thinker" who reads "two to three times as fast as the average human being," reiterated his claim that the votes had been "flipped" in a phone call with Newsweek. He said that he completely rejected the official results, citing no evidence but insisting that statistics and an algorithm used in stock trading explained his loss.

Piton maintained that the first-place result may have been flipped with seventh place "and so on," although he admitted that he still had to "figure out" which candidates had swapped fortunes. He argued that "they" were treating the primary's different candidates like stocks and speculated someone may have "hacked" voting machines or used some other method to manipulate the outcome.

When asked who "they" referred to, Piton said that "the uniparty" was behind the alleged plot and was responsible for fraud affecting both Republican and Democratic candidates.

Donald J. Trump #transphobia newsweek.com

Former President Donald Trump has said that teachers should not be allowed "to teach transgender to our children" without permission from their parents, in his latest comments about transgender people.

Trump made the remarks during his keynote speech at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority Policy Conference in Nashville, Tennessee on Friday and also criticized what he described as "gender ideology."

The former president is weighing in on an issue that has rapidly become a major point of contention for Republicans: discussions of gender and sexual identity in the classroom.

"Pushing woke gender ideology, think of it, on young people, is nothing less than child abuse," Trump said.

"No teacher should ever be allowed to teach transgender to our children without the parents' consent, and I don't think too many people are gonna be giving that consent. Not too many," the former president said.

During his speech in Nashville, Trump also said that politics had become a "religion" for "the radical left" and that it "has warped their sense of right and wrong. They don't have a sense of right and wrong. True and false. Good and evil."

This isn't the first time in recent weeks that Trump has made direct reference to discussions of gender identity in schools. He made very similar remarks at a rally in Wyoming on May 28.

"No teacher should ever be allowed to teach transgender to our children without parental consent," Trump said at the time. "Can you imagine?"

"We will save our kids and we will also keep men the hell out of women's sports. Is that OK?”

Tucker Carlson #wingnut newsweek.com

Tucker Carlson Makes Wild Claim in Deaths of Tyre Nichols, Ashli Babbitt

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has claimed that deceased Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt was "murdered" by police, while denouncing those who were "weeping" over the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols.

Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man and father, was killed after being brutally beaten by five officers following a traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee, this month. Babbitt died after being shot by an officer inside the Capitol as she was attempting to climb through a broken window toward an area holding members of Congress on January 6, 2021.

During the Friday night edition of his opinion show Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson played police video of the Nichols beating and accused Democrats and the media of attempting to "inflame racial hatred" over the death as part of a "highly aggressive propaganda campaign" to gain more "power."

Carlson went on to argue that Babbitt was "far more clearly" the victim of murder than Nichols, despite her death having been ruled a justified use of police force after repeated investigations. The officers involved in the fatal beating of Nichols were charged with multiple felonies including murder on Thursday.

"The very same people who are weeping on television about police brutality applauded when one of Nancy Pelosi's officers murdered an unarmed woman called Ashli Babbitt," said Carlson. "Yes, murder. That's exactly what that was. Far more clearly than anything you just saw in the videotape we played."

"The point of this is to federalize local law enforcement," he added. "Obviously, it's never about saving anybody's life. It's about accumulating power. But there are a lot of nuances here that are hard to untangle in real time."

Earlier on the show, Carlson argued it was not possible for race to be a factor in the death of Nichols since all of the officers involved were Black.

Carlson suggested that an "evil" plan to help Democrats by inflaming violence over the killing was being "coordinated on both coasts" by antifa, a loosely connected but largely unorganized network of anti-fascists.

Pastor Louie Giglio #racist #fundie #wingnut newsweek.com

Atlanta Megachurch Pastor Wants to Use the Phrase 'White Blessings' Instead of 'White Privilege'
BY SEREN MORRIS 6/16/20


A prominent Atlanta megachurch pastor wants people to start using the phrase "white blessings" instead of "white privilege." Pastor Louie Giglio suggested the U.S. should "get over" the phrase "white privilege" in a conversation with rapper Lecrae and Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy on June 14.

...

"I feel like on the inside of the church we're fighting this historical context you [Lecrae] talk about. In other words, we love the blessing of the cross but we don't love to sit in it and realize this is what gods asking me to do, to die to myself, and live for him, whatever context that's going to look like for me.

But I want to flip that upside down because I think the other side of it is true with our nation's history. We understand the curse that was slavery, white people do, and we say 'that was bad,' but we miss the blessing of slavery that it actually built up the framework for the world that white people live in and lived in."

...

You can see the full Newsweek article here:
https://www.newsweek.com/atlanta-pastor-louis-giglio-white-privilege-blesssing-1511126

Basilpern #fundie newsweek.com

Well there's many ways to demonstrate what you're saying you don't think can be demonstrated. For one thing there's information in the biblical texts that couldn't possibly have been known by the authors at the time they wrote them without supernatural influence. Take a look for example at the Egyptian medical journal roughly from the time of Moses called "papyrus embers" and compare that to the regulations Moses said he got from God on Sinai to protect the Jews during this wilderness wandering years and as they came into the Promised Land. You'll find it very specific protections that are unexplainable apart from an understanding of microbiology. For example detailed instructions for how to deal with mold and mildew if you find it in a home. Detailed instructions about different diseases and how long people should be quarantined from the camp who are suffering from them. Detailed instructions about how to deal properly with animal entrails and human feces. etc etc. The instructions are what we understand is safe in the 20th and 21st centuries and really no other time before that in no other culture before that. Or you might want to take a serious look at biblical prophecy about the land and nation of Israel specifically, or the Messiah Jesus the Christ. Extremely specific prophecies in the Old testament books on these two big themes in the Bible were filled and are being filled in our time today in such a way that coincidence is not a reasonable explanation

Philadelphia Karen (update if she is found and identified, pls) #racist #psycho newsweek.com

Police are looking for a woman accused of attacking a pregnant Asian-American woman and her daughter last week in Philadelphia.

Jing Chen was walking along 13th and Walnut Streets when a woman allegedly crossed the road and started spraying water at her and her child. "What made you do that?" Chen said to the woman.

"She turned around and tell me 'because you are fu**ing Chinese' and my daughter was right there and she said 'you too,'" Chen explained to ABC 6 News.

Police are searching for a woman believed to be a known local beggar in the area, but will not likely charge the suspect on the basis of ethnic intimidation.

"This is an active investigation and we have not ruled out additional charges, but there is not sufficient evidence that has been presented to us that this is a case of ethnic intimidation at this time," said the District Attorney's office in a statement.

"The assailant deliberately crossed the street and singled them out and then mentioned race during the attack," said Anna Perng, an advocate for immigrant communities and those with disabilities working with the Mayor's Office.

Instead the suspect may be charged with simple assault, harassment and recklessly endangering another person.

Chen has warned other families on social media channel WeChat about potential attacks on the Asian-American community.

"I haven't been out of the house until yesterday," said Chen. "It's made me feel so scared," continued the expecting mother.

Newsweek has contacted the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office for further comment.

Greg Locke #conspiracy #crackpot #fundie #wingnut newsweek.com

Pastor Greg Locke Vows to Remove Anyone Wearing Mask in Church, Blasts 'Godless Democrats'

7/25/21 AT 5:33 PM EDT

...

The Tennessee-based Baptist pastor [Greg Locke] offered his latest tirade against "godless Democrats" and the Biden administration, claiming the federal government only wants "compliance," and not improved public health ...

...

"Don't believe this Delta variant nonsense. Stop it! Stop it! If they go through round two and you start showing up with all these masks and nonsense, I will ask you to leave," Locke told the cheering audience. "I will ask you to leave. I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church."

"I don't need to be a jerk for Jesus, but...I'm not going to kowtow down to a wicked godless culture," Locke continued, sparking raucous applause. "Here's what the left has told us: 'If you comply, you compromise, if you comply, eventually you'll get in our good graces.' But no, you'll never be able to comply enough!"

...

The conservative pastor's accusations against the Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers have included his claims that ... Kamala Harris is a "jezebel demon" and that the administration is overseeing "child-trafficking tunnels" beneath Washington, D.C.

"I ain't playing their games, shut the nation down for a second time...it didn't hurt the economy bad enough. You know what happens when they shut down private businesses? They open government businesses. The government isn't hurting one bit," Locke said ...

"Yes, I'm narrow-minded...doesn't matter to me what 'The View' says, what Oprah [Winfrey] says, what Whoopi [Goldberg] says, what [Pastor] Joel Osteen says. If you want to social distance, go to First Baptist Church but don't come to this one! I'm done with it, I said I'm done with it," Locke said ...

"They're talking about shutting down this nation for round two, talking about masking everybody back up, shutting down churches, hey, my hind leg if they think they're going to shut this church down," he added.

Tucker Carlson #sexist #wingnut #elitist #dunning-kruger newsweek.com

"Look at Robert 'Bobby' Crimo, would you sell a gun to that guy, does he seem like a nut case? Of course, he does," Carlson said. "So why didn't anyone raise an alarm? Maybe it is because he didn't stand out. Maybe it is because there are a lot of young men in America who suddenly look and act like this guy. That is not an attack, it is just true."

He added: "Like Crimo, they inhabit that solitary fantasy world of social media, porn and video games."

Carlson then went on to claim these same men may be high on drugs and angry because they believe their lives will be worse than their parents'.

"They are high on government-endorsed weed, 'smoke some more, it is good for you.' They are numbed by the endless psychotropic drugs that are handed out in every school in the country by crackpots posing as counselors. Of course, they are angry, they know that their lives will not be better than their parents', they will be worse. That is all but guaranteed, they know that. They are not that stupid." he said.

"And yet the authorities in their lives, mostly women, never stop lecturing them about their so-called privilege. 'You are male, you are privileged.' Imagine that, try and imagine an unhealthier, unhappier life than that. So a lot of young men in America are going nuts," Carlson continued.

"Are you surprised? By the way, a shockingly large number of them have been prescribed psychotropic drugs by their doctors, SSRIs or anti-depressants. That would include quite a few mass shooters."

Republican Party of Texas #wingnut newsweek.com

Texas Republicans are pushing for a referendum to decide whether the state should secede from the U.S.

The demand for Texans to be allowed to vote on the issue in 2023 was one of many measures adopted in the Texas GOP's party platform following last week's state convention in Houston

Under a section titled "State Sovereignty," the platform states: "Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified

"Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto"

In another section on state governance, the platform states that Texas Republicans want the state Legislature to pass a bill in its next session "requiring a referendum in the 2023 general election for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation"

Lisa Miller #conspiracy #wingnut newsweek.com

When Obama gave his acceptance speech in Chicago Park, the same-day Illinois winning Powerball numbers were #666 - the Number of the Beast aka the Antichrist/is Obama.

Belief Watch: Is Obama the Antichrist?
BY NEWSWEEK STAFF ON 11/14/08 AT 7:00 PM EST

On Nov. 5, Todd Strandberg was at his desk, fielding E-mails from around the world. As the editor and founder of RaptureReady.com, his job is to track current events and link them to biblical prophecy in hopes of maintaining his status as "the eBay of prophecy," the best source online for predictions and calculations concerning the end of the world. Already Barack Obama had drawn the attention of apocalypse watchers after an anonymous e-mail circulated among conservative Christians in October implying that he was the Antichrist. Former "Saturday Night Live" ingénue Victoria Jackson fueled the fire when, according to news reports, she wrote on her Web site that Obama "bears traits that resemble the anti-Christ." Now Strandberg was receiving up-to-the-minute news from his constituents in Illinois. One of the winning lottery numbers in the president-elect's home state was 666— which, as everyone knows, is the sign of the Beast (also known as the Antichrist). "It is very eerie, and I take it for a sign as to who he really is," wrote one of Strandberg's correspondents.

John Ventre, J.Z. Knight, et al #conspiracy #racist #ufo newsweek.com

Imagine an alien race finally comes to Earth and this is the man they meet.

image

[Facebook Post: Netflix announced a new anti-white show (Dear White People) that promotes white genocide. I cancelled my account. Do the same. I don't find this funny. The last thing blacks want is for white males to organize and that's not too far away! White males are the absolute target of the gov't with illegal affirmative action which violates the 14th amendment and the supreme ct refuses to hear the case because they know it does. The media also attacks us constantly with interracial couples in every show and commercial and portraying white males as incompetent. Everything this world is was created by Europeans and Americans. F'ing blacks didn't even have a calendar, a wheel, or aa numbering system until the Brits showed up. Google serotonin by race, IQ by race and then violent crime by race and then compare that to the F'ing message the media portrays. Time to turn off the TV's.]

That’s John Ventre. He was, until recently, MUFON State Director for Pennsylvania and oversaw field investigations of the most compelling of the state’s approximately 600 annual UFO sightings. You may have seen him on History Channel's UFO Hunters or Anderson Live. Ventre wrote this on his personal Facebook page in response to a post from a popular alt-right account characterizing Netflix’s Dear White People as promoting “white genocide.” […] He further alluded to pseudoscientific race science, which has found purchase in the mainstream right, spread by prominent conservative think tank figures like Charles Murray, who wields unjustified extrapolations from existing IQ data to argue against improving living standards for the poor.

Ventre’s comments have kicked off a wave of anger and resignations across MUFON, most recently UFO researcher Dr. Chris Cogswell. Cogswell was named Director of Research for MUFON in January, but announced his resignation from the organization on Twitter in April. “When I first joined MUFON, taking on the Director of Research position, I believed this issue [with Ventre] had been dealt with,” Cogswell said. But on April 13, Cogswell learned of Ventre’s “continued role within MUFON as an active member” after Ventre emailed him about preparations for the 2018 MUFON Symposium in Cherry Hill, NJ. “Within six hours of finding out I had resigned. My internal conscience would not let me continue,” he said.

MUFON boasts nearly 4,000 members and 500 investigators across a coalition of just-the-facts data collectors, alien abductees, far-thinking engineers, conspiracy theorists, ancient alien pseudohistorians, religious visionaries and ufology enthusiasts of every possible stripe. If MUFON is successful, who would the first aliens actually meet? An organization representative of the full spectrum of human experience, or a club of aging white men?

It’s a question MUFON is currently struggling to answer, with Ventre’s post a crisis point in the organization’s ongoing evolution.

[...]

Comparing the possibility of white genocide to The Purge, Ventre professed to be unaware of the term’s origins in neo-Nazism as reference to a demographic decline white supremacist groups use to portray prejudice as self-defense, guarding the white race against multiculturalism. “I don’t hate anybody, I apologized for what I said. It was in a fit of anger, it was one time in my entire life,” Ventre said, mentioning his multiracial grandson and a black man from his gym for whom he arranged a job interview. “I’m feeling like because I’m a 60-year-old white man I’m getting totally unfairly attacked here.”

By the end of May 2017, Ventre was removed from his state directorship, but MUFON’s response didn’t stop a wave of researchers from distancing themselves. In July, board member and Washington State Director James Clarkson stepped down, citing both Ventre’s post and MUFON’s association with deep-pocketed donors like J.Z. Knight. Knight preaches to tens of thousands of followers through her Lemurian warrior persona Ramtha, a 35,000-year-old spirit who leads “spiritual drinking games” while accusing Jewish people of paying their way out of the gas chambers and disparaging Mexicans, homosexuals and “organic farmers.” Like Knight, Ventre was also a high-tier “Inner Circle” donor to MUFON.

Asked for comment after the Cogswell resignation, Clarkson told Newsweek, “There are many excellent state organizations, but money and power have corrupted the top. Same old story.”

Awaken Church and Rev. Chad Gonzales #fundie newsweek.com

A church in Arkansas plans to continue holding services this weekend despite federal and state guidelines against holding gatherings of more than 10 people amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Awaken Church in Jonesboro claimed in a Wednesday evening Facebook post that Jesus was the "first death of Covid-19," the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The post included an image of a cross wrapped in a white sash against a sunset background, with the words "Jesus died with COVID-19 so that you didn't have to bear it."

In a separate post earlier on Wednesday, the church explained that it would continue to hold services despite the rapidly spreading pandemic. The local NEA Report news site first reported Awaken Church's decision to keep its doors open to worshippers.

The first death of Covid 19 actually happened 2000 years ago. The Bible tells us that Jesus took on every sin, sickness...

Posted by Awaken Church on Wednesday, April 1, 2020

"The Dept of Health has stated that all gatherings of ten or more do not apply to houses of worship and yet suggest to follow CDC safe practices, of which we are doing," the church wrote in a Facebook post.

"For us to not have services due to a virus would be for us to go against our extremely strong convictions of the power of God to protect and the power of God to heal," the post continued. "Jesus knew the world He was sending us into contained sickness and disease. Instead of telling us to retreat from sickness, He told us to go into the world and to heal the sick."

Chad Gonzales, a lead pastor at Awaken Church, told Newsweek that the decision to keep the religious services going was not something he took "lightly," saying it was "one of the most gut wrenching decisions" he has ever made. He noted that the church "certainly would have complied" if the government had required them to cancel services.

"Many people have said that us continuing to hold physical services was about the money, but that's not it at all. The vast majority of our donations come through either our website or mobile app. It had nothing to do with money, but everything to do with my convictions," Gonzales said.

In the post that claimed Jesus had died of COVID-19, the church justified the assertion by referencing the biblical verse 2 Corinthians 5:21. "The Bible tells us that Jesus took on every sin, sickness and every disease...Jesus bore it so you wouldn't have to. Salvation provided forgiveness and healing...if you'll believe it, you can receive it!" the post said.

Laura Ingraham #racist newsweek.com

Speaking on The Ingraham Angle yesterday, the host said: "The road to Democrat dominance in the commonwealth was paved long before Trump took the presidency. The undeniable fact is demographic changes throughout the state, but especially in northern Virginia, have altered what was once a moderate to right-of-centre state.

"It made it really a petri dish for radical, left wing ideas. Virginia's foreign-born population nearly doubled from 2000 to 2017, and these immigrants are mostly concentrated in northern Virginia."

After referring to a Washington Post editorial reporting that a third of Fairfax County's population was foreign-born, Ingraham said: "Since immigrants are more likely to vote Democrat, well this of course has dragged the electorate to the left. It's just a fact of life."

Tomasz K., Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, Zbigniew Ziobro and unnamed Polish Catholic bishops #homophobia #fundie newsweek.com

Ikea is being sued by a former employee who claims he was fired for refusing to take down anti-gay comments from the company's intranet.

On May 16, International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, the Swedish furniture maker posted an article on its internal website, underscoring support for the LGBT community. The post also encouraged employees to ask customers what pronoun they preferred and engage in conversations with LGBT customers about their partners and families.

That didn't sit right with at least one employee in Warsaw, identified only as Tomasz K. He told Polish state broadcaster TVP Info, "I've been hired to sell furniture but I'm a Catholic and these aren't my values."

Tomasz posted a comment to the article, reportedly writing that "acceptance and promotion of homosexuality and other deviations is a source of scandal."

He also included two Bible verses: One, Matthew 18:6, reads, "Woe to him through whom scandals come, it would be better for him to tie a millstone around his neck and plunge him in the depths of the sea."

The other, Leviticus 20:13, decrees, "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them."

Shortly after leaving his comments, Tomasz said he was called in by management and asked to take them down. "I said that I cannot withdraw my words because this is a quote from the Holy Bible," he told TVP Info." As a Catholic I can not censure God."

Not long after, Tomasz was brought back in and told his contract was being terminated. "I was supposed to pack, empty my locker and give them my ID," he said.

Tomasz filed a lawsuit against Ikea last week, alleging religious discrimination and wrongful termination. His case has been taken up by the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, an ultra-conservative Polish group opposing LGBT rights and access to abortion. In a statement on the Ordo Iuris website, Tomasz insisted he believed "every man deserves respect."

[...]

Tomasz denied his comments encouraged violence against homosexuals: "You do not need to be a theologian or a philosopher to realize that the Holy Bible is not read in a literal way, and its text is full of allegories and hyperbole."

[...]

On Saturday, a group of Polish bishops denounced Ikea for letting Tomasz go.

"From the point of view of the law and above all of propriety and common sense, it is unacceptable to attack the IKEA employee who refused LGBT indoctrination in the workplace," the bishops said in a statement. The bishops said Tomasz defended his faith in an "exemplary" way.

According to Bloomberg, IKEA is now being investigated by prosecutors in Poland and members of the ruling Law and Justice Party have suggested a boycott of the company.

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro told TVP Info that, if true, the allegations show how foreign companies discriminate against anyone who doesn't share their values. "This is unacceptable," Ziobro said. "It's absolutely scandalous."