#Joyful Warriors National Summit

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nathalie Baptiste at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON ― Hundreds of mostly white women gathered at a swanky downtown hotel to hear prominent conservative speakers and strategize with other moms about how to spread their message across the country. Decked out in everything from stylish pantsuits, light-up American-flag jackets and, obviously, Donald Trump swag, the crowd at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors National Summit cheered and hollered as speaker after speaker spewed hate about transgender people ― all under the guise of protecting children.

[...] At the 2024 summit this week, the focus was on fearmongering about trans kids and criticizing school employees who support them. “There’s no such thing as a transgender child,” Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told HuffPost in an interview. Her position is a common one among conservatives, who have taken to attacking trans rights around the country ― even as less than 1% of the U.S. population identifies as trans. The right wing has attacked gender-affirming care as “child abuse,” though the American Pediatrics Association says such care can be lifesaving by reducing the risk of suicidal ideation.

Seth Dillon, CEO of the conservative satire website Babylon Bee, talked about “gender madness” when he addressed the crowd. Actor Rob Schneider, who had a prime-time speaking slot on Thursday night, claimed that children were getting “mutilated.” Texas state Rep. Shawn Thierry, who lost her primary this spring, announced that she was leaving the Democratic Party in part because of members’ views on transgender youth. Maud Maron, a former New York City community education council member who was removed from her post for sending anti-transgender text messages, claimed men were playing in women’s sports. “I think the federal government pushing child abuse really concerns American parents,” Justice said when asked why there was so much focus on trans issues at the summit. “Cutting off the healthy body parts of children is pretty extreme, right?” she said. “We’re cutting off the healthy body parts of girls.” She was referring to gender-affirming surgeries such as mastectomies, which are very rarely performed on minors.

At a panel on writing laws that protect parental rights, the session was laser-focused on transgender children. The speakers addressed the audience about how, through legislation, they can put a stop to “secret social transitions,” or schools transitioning children without telling their parents.

“We’re getting calls from parents saying this is happening at our school,” claimed Matt Sharp, senior counselor at Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing legal group. (It is not uncommon for transgender children to be out at school but not at home if they don’t feel safe telling their parents.)

[...] January Littlejohn, a Florida mom, had a similar story. She said her daughter wanted to transition after some of her friends did. The school held a meeting with the child, Littlejohn said, but refused to tell her the details of the meeting. Littlejohn had a warning to the parents in the room. “Parents of young children and grandparents, you need to be actively inoculating your children against this,” she said, claiming that “the faucet of gender ideology is free flowing” on social media. She also railed against allyship, claiming that children were being “indoctrinated” into being allies. “If you see buzzwords like ‘inclusivity’ and ‘safe and welcoming,’ that means gender ideology is alive and well in that school,” she warned.

At the Moms For Liberty’s Joyful Warriors National Summit this weekend, numerous speakers, including Tiffany Justice, Seth Dillon, and Rob Schneider, uttered out anti-trans statements.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 7, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 8, 2023

For more than a week now, I have intended to write a deep dive into the right-wing Moms for Liberty group that held their “Joyful Warriors National Summit” in Philadelphia last week, only to have one thing or another that seemed more important push it off another day. This morning it hit me that maybe that’s the story: that the reactionary right that has taken so much of our oxygen for the past year is losing ground to the country’s new forward movement.

Today the jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics pushed ahead of them by showing that the U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June. The rate of job growth is slowing but still strong, although the economy showed that the Black unemployment rate, which had been at an all-time low, climbed from 4.7% to 6%. Since Black workers historically are the first to lose their jobs, this is likely a signal that the job market is cooling, which should continue to slow inflation.

In the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin called out the media outlets so focused on the idea that Biden would mismanage the economy and that recession was imminent that they have ignored “29 consecutive months of job growth, inflation steadily declining, durable goods having been up for three consecutive months, 35,000 new infrastructure projects, an extended period in which real wages exceeded inflation and outsize gains for lower wage-earners.” As reporters focused on the horse-race aspect of politics and how voters “felt” about issues, she noted, “[w]e have seen far too little coverage of the economic transformation in little towns, rural areas and aging metro centers brought about by new investment in plants, infrastructure projects and green energy related to the Chips Act.”

Also of note is that today is Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s first day of talks with top Chinese officials in Beijing, where she will also talk to U.S. business leaders. At stake is the Biden administration’s focus on U.S. national security, which includes both limiting China’s access to U.S. technology that has military applications and bringing supply chains home. China interprets these new limitations as an attempt to hurt its economy. Yellen is in Beijing to emphasize that the U.S. hopes to maintain healthy trade with China but, she told Chinese Premier Li Qiang, “The United States will, in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security.” 

Meanwhile, China’s faltering economy has led to new rules that exclude foreign companies, leading U.S. businesses to reconsider investments there. Chinese leaders have tried to reassure foreign business leaders that they are welcome in China, while Yellen told U.S business leaders: “I have made clear that the United States does not seek a wholesale separation of our economies. We seek to diversify, not to decouple. A decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would be destabilizing for the global economy, and it would be virtually impossible to undertake.”

The success of Biden’s policies both at home and abroad has pushed the Republican Party into an existential crisis, and that’s where Moms for Liberty fits in. Since the years of the Reagan administration, the Movement Conservatives who wanted to destroy the New Deal state recognized that they only way they could win voters to slash taxes for the wealthy and cut back popular social problems was by whipping up social issues to convince voters that Black Americans, or people of color, or feminists, wanted a handout from the government, undermining America by ushering in “socialism.” The forty years from 1981 to 2021 moved wealth upward dramatically and hollowed out the middle class, creating a disaffected population ripe for an authoritarian figure who promised to return that population to upward mobility by taking revenge on those they now saw as their enemies. 

In the past two years, according to a recent working paper by economists David Autor, Arindrajit Dube, and Annie McGrew, Biden’s policies have wiped out a quarter of the inequality built in the previous forty. And at the same time that Biden’s resurrection of the liberal consensus of the years from 1933 to 1980 is illustrating that the economic problems in the country were the fault of Republican policies rather than of marginalized people, the extremism of those angry Republican footsoldiers is revealing that they are not the centrist Americans they have claimed to be.

Moms for Liberty, which bills itself as a group protecting children, organized in 2021 to protest mask mandates in schools, then graduated on to crusade against the teaching of “critical race theory.” That, right there, was a giveaway because that panic was created by then-journalist Christopher Rufo, who has emerged as a leader of the U.S. attack on democracy. 

Rufo embraces the illiberal democracy, or Christian democracy, of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, saying: “It’s time to clean house in America: remove the attorney general, lay siege to the universities, abolish the teachers’ unions, and overturn the school boards.” Radical right activists like Rufo believe they must capture the central institutions of the U.S. and get rid of the tenets of democracy—individual rights, academic freedom, free markets, separation of church and state, equality before the law—in order to save the country. 

Because those central democratic values are taught in schools, the far right has focused on attacking schools from kindergartens to universities with the argument that they are places of “liberal indoctrination.” As a Moms for Liberty chapter in Indiana put on its first newspaper: “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.” While this quotation is often used by right-wing Christian groups to warn of what they claim liberal groups do, it is attributed to German dictator Adolf Hitler. Using it boomeranged on the Moms for Liberty group not least because it coincided with the popular “Shiny Happy People” documentary about the far-right religious Duggar family that showed the “grooming” and exploitation of children in that brand of evangelicalism.  

Moms for Liberty have pushed for banning books that refer to any aspect of modern democracy they find objectionable, focusing primarily on those with LGBTQ+ content or embrace of minority rights. During the first half of the 2022–2023 school year, PEN America, which advocates for literature, found that 874 unique titles had been challenged, up 28% from the previous six months. The bans were mostly in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and South Carolina. A study by the Washington Post found that two thirds of book challenges came from individuals who filed 10 or more complaints, with the filers often affiliated with Moms for Liberty or similar groups. And in their quest to make education align with their ideology, the Moms for Liberty have joined forces with far-right extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, sovereign citizens groups, and so on, pushing them even further to the right.

Although the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled Moms for Liberty an “extremist group” that spreads “messages of anti-inclusion and hate,” the group appeared to offer to the Republican Party inroads into the all-important “suburban woman” vote, which party leaders interpret as white women (although in fact the 2020 census shows that suburbs are increasingly diverse—in 1990, about 20% of people living in the suburbs were people of color; in 2020 it was 45%).

When Moms for Liberty convened in Philadelphia last week, five candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, including Trump, showed up. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told them: “When they mentioned that this was a terrorist organization, I said, ‘Well then, count me as a mom for liberty because that’s what I am.”

But here’s the crisis for the Republican Party: Leaders who wanted tax cuts and cuts to social programs relied on courting voters with cultural issues, suggesting that their coalition was protecting the United States from radicalism. 

But the Republican embrace of Moms for Liberty illustrates dramatically and to a wide audience how radical the party itself has become, threatening to turn away all but its extremist base. A strong majority of Americans oppose book banning: about two thirds of the general population and even 51% of Republicans oppose it, recognizing that it echoes the rise of authoritarians.

As historian Nicole Hemmer points out today for CNN, Moms for Liberty are indeed a new version of “a broader and longstanding reactionary movement centered on restoring traditional hierarchies of race, gender and sexuality” that in the U.S. included the women of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and segregationists who organized as “Restore Our Alienated Rights” (ROAR) in the 1970s. Hemmer observes: “The book bans, the curricula battles, the efforts to fire teachers and disrupt school board meetings—little here is new.”

In the past, a democratic coalition has come together to reject such extremism. If it does so again, the Republican marriage of elites to street fighters will crumble, leaving room for the country to rebuild the relationship between citizens and the government. When a similar realignment happened in the 1930s under Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Republican Party had little choice but to follow. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[news247planet]

#Liberty #Party #NFL Mothers for Liberty Is the Tea Social gathering All Over Once more https://news247planet.com/?p=405893

[bikerpoliticalreport]

Epic Republican Rally: Moms for Liberty Ignite Revolutionary Change in Education Policy

 In the bustling heart of Philadelphia, the Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warriors” National Summit stood resolute against a cacophony of insults such as “bigot” and “fascist,” hurled by a handful of protesters. These protesters, engaging in a transgender “dance protest,” starkly contrasted the conservative gathering within the summit venue on Friday and Saturday.

   Amid vibrant rainbow flags, loud music, and public speeches, the protest outside the summit was hardly discreet. It was heavily publicized in media stories, social media posts, and various signage placed strategically throughout the city. They had prepared for a larger crowd with stacked placards for on-the-spot protestors, assorted snacks, sidewalk chalk for ground-based insults, and tables loaded with persuasive literature. However, the protest’s anticipated impact seemed overestimated, with the cardboard signs barely utilized.

   Inside the venue, supporters of the Moms for Liberty Summit displayed a stark contrast. Encouraging messages echoed throughout the room, advocating conservative values. Attendees made it clear they would continue defending their beliefs, regardless of the labels imposed by those opposing their cause.

   Moms for Liberty is a grassroots conservative group born out of parents’ concerns regarding policies perceived as destructive during the Covid-19 pandemic two years prior. This concern culminated in a formidable political movement that attracted significant attention from five Republican presidential hopefuls, including Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and former President Donald Trump, along with Asa Hutchinson, former Arkansas Governor, and Vivek Ramaswamy on a subsequent day. This attention drawn to the group was believed to be the cause of the protest.

   Ramaswamy, joined by his wife, a throat surgeon, and his two children, engaged in a lively discussion with Tiffany Justice, the co-founder of Moms for Liberty. They discussed proposed national policies, including his proposed changes to the educational system. His policies, particularly the idea of dismantling the U.S. Department of Education to facilitate school choice, found favor among many of the moms present. His suggestion of overhauling various federal agencies like the FBI, IRS, ATF, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission also stirred a positive response.

   Ramaswamy, at 37, stands as the first millennial U.S. presidential candidate. His positions, such as acknowledging two genders, embracing fossil fuels, and recognizing parents’ rights to decide their children’s education, resonated with the crowd. He warned against the growing “woke” culture and what he described as a moral void being filled with damaging ideologies like “wokeism,” “transgenderism,” and “COVIDism.”

   The summit also hosted former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, an advocate for the future of education, particularly in computer science. As governor, he championed a comprehensive education program for computer science. If elected president, he aspired to establish such programs in all American high schools. Hutchinson, who had also been a federal prosecutor, stressed his commitment to border security and a balanced budget, further enhancing his appeal to the conservative audience.

   The Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warriors” National Summit served as a beacon for conservative values in the face of protest and opposition. Despite the external noise, the summit successfully hosted influential figures in the Republican Party, showcasing the strength of grassroots movements in shaping the national political conversation.

[sutrala]

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.] By Tony Kinnett The Daily Signal PHILADELPHIA—Former President Donald Trump promised to issue executive orders and ask Congress to pass laws that protect parental rights in a speech Friday evening at...

[delectablywaywardbeard-blog]

Usa, i repubblicani all’arrembaggio delle “Mamme per la Libertà”: Trump e DeSantis a caccia del voto delle famiglie anti-woke

NEW YORK – La sfida tra Donald Trump e Ron DeSantis si concentra adesso sulla conquista del voto delle “Moms for Liberty”, o “mamme orse”, l’organizzazione politica americana che si oppone all’insegnamento a scuola di temi legati ai diritti Lgbt, teoria della razza e discriminazione. Tutti i candidati conservatori sono intervenuti al “Joyful Warriors National Summit”, la convention di…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Olivia Little at MMFA:

Scandal, school board election failures, and a disastrous 60 Minutes interview appear to have diminished Moms for Liberty’s once powerful influence, and last weekend’s summit provided plenty of additional evidence that the group is currently flailing.  Nearly every Republican presidential hopeful and a number of right-wing giants spoke at Moms for Liberty’s lively summit last year. But this year’s gathering was comparatively small, with far fewer panels and a weaker speaker lineup. In fact, Glenn Beck and D-list comedian Rob Schneider were advertised as the star headliners until the exceptionally late addition of former President Donald Trump just days before the event.  This is the second year that my colleague Madeline Peltz and I attended Moms for Liberty’s summit. It was immediately apparent to us that the small crowd had seemingly been reduced to largely die-hard members who, unlike many, remained loyal to Moms for Liberty through its year of scandal and failure. Co-founder Tina Descovich acknowledged that the organization was losing some support while presenting an award, saying, “You have been a friend to Moms for Liberty when some have stepped away.”

[...]

Invoking transgender panic

Much of the conference was spent attempting to terrify parents into believing that schools are secretly grooming, manipulating, and transitioning students. The bag handed to us at registration included an illustrated flyer laying out the ridiculous “school to clinic pipeline,” which, according to the flyer, begins at “pronouns” and ends in a hospital. Almost every speaker we listened to incorporated transgender panic into their speech. One panel was even titled “Protecting Kids from Secret Gender Transitions in Schools.” 

[...]

Spiritual warfare is anything you want it to be

“This is spiritual warfare,” said far-right political commentator Sebastian Gorka at Friday’s lunch session, “and they are on the side of the devil.” Speakers repeated vague accusations of “spiritual warfare” throughout the weekend. Even comedian-turned-conservative-activist Rob Schneider accused the pharmaceutical industry of engaging in spiritual warfare.  [...] The summit’s itinerary included the March for Kids, an event promoting parental rights with coalition partners such as Gays Against Groomers and PragerU. (It’s worth noting that the March for Kids wasn’t actually a march, but a largely empty assembly at DAR Constitution Hall.) March for Kids speaker Naomi Van Wyk used the rhetoric of spiritual warfare to describe homosexuality and encouraged intervention to alter same-sex attraction, promoting a form of conversion therapy. 

[...] The Heritage Foundation was one of the earliest supporters of Moms for Liberty and, in turn, the group fell in line with Heritage’s policy priorities and shepherded members toward the think tank’s “resources for parents.” In 2022, Moms for Liberty was the recipient of Heritage’s Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship and Heritage President Kevin Roberts spoke at the group’s 2023 summit. In a breakout session last year, anti-trans activist “Billboard Chris” Elston revealed that The Heritage Foundation had identified and brought together 40 people, including him, in March 2022 to “fight gender ideology.” 

Olivia Little of Media Matters For America went to the 2024 Joyful Warriors National Summit hosted by right-wing extremist “parental rights” group Moms For Liberty.

Little revealed that M4L’s influence has waned over the past year or so.

[donaldjohntrump]

The Joyful Warriors National Summit organized by Moms for Liberty has sparked controversy due to its opposition to inclusive education and LGBTQ+ acceptance. Featured speakers include Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Protests have emerged, highlighting concerns about its impact on education and social issues.

[trumpnewsdeutschland]

Today President #Trump speaks #live at „#Moms for #Liberty: Joyfull Warriors National Summit“! 😍😍👍😎

Heute spricht Präsident Trump live auf dem "#MomsforLiberty: #JoyfullWarriors National Summit"!

🇩🇪❤️🇺🇸

Watch the #livestream through @rsbnetwork at 15:00 o’clock CEST:

https://www.rsbnetwork.com/video/live-president-donald-j-trump-at-moms-for-liberty-joyful-warriors-summit-6-30-23/

#womenforTrump #moms4liberty #Trumpwon #Trumpwasright #Trump2024 #Trump47 #DonnotRon2024 #draintheswamp #redwave #maga #youngglobalmaga #WWG1WGA #unitedwestand #ultramagabayern #trumpfansbavaria

[dfroza]

Today’s reading from the ancient books of Proverbs and Psalms

for Sunday, march 21 of 2021 with Proverbs 21 and Psalm 21, accompanied by Psalm 2 for the 2nd day of Spring and Psalm 80 for day 80 of the year

[Proverbs 21]

[God Is the Source of Wisdom]

It’s as easy for God to steer a king’s heart for his purposes

as it is for him to direct the course of a stream.

We may think we’re right all the time,

but God thoroughly examines our motives.

It pleases God more when we demonstrate godliness and justice

than when we merely offer him a sacrifice.

Arrogance, superiority, and pride are the fruits of sin.

Brilliant ideas pay off and bring you prosperity,

but making hasty, impatient decisions

will only lead to financial loss.

You can make a fortune dishonestly,

but your crime will hold you in the snares of death!

Violent rebels don’t have a chance,

for their rejection of truth and their love of evil

will drag them deeper into darkness.

You can discern that a person is guilty by his devious actions

and the innocence of a person by his honest, sincere ways.

It’s better to live all alone in a rickety shack

than to share a castle with a crabby spouse!

The wicked always crave what is evil;

they’ll show no mercy and get no mercy.

Senseless people learn their lessons the hard way,

but the wise are teachable.

A godly, righteous person has the ability

to bring the light of instruction to the wicked

even though he despises what the wicked do.

If you close your heart to the cries of the poor,

then I’ll close my ears when you cry out to me!

Try giving a secret gift to the one who is angry with you

and watch his anger disappear.

A kind, generous gift goes a long way

to soothe the anger of one who is livid.

When justice is served,

the lovers of God celebrate and rejoice,

but the wicked begin to panic.

When you forsake the ways of wisdom,

you will wander into the realm of dark spirits.

To love pleasure for pleasure’s sake

will introduce you to poverty.

Indulging in a life of luxury

will never make you wealthy.

The wicked bring on themselves

the very suffering they planned for others,

for their treachery comes back to haunt them.

It’s better to live in a hut in the wilderness

than with a crabby, scolding spouse!

In wisdom’s house you’ll find delightful treasures

and the oil of the Holy Spirit.

But the stupid squander what they’ve been given.

The lovers of God who chase after righteousness

will find all their dreams come true:

an abundant life drenched with favor

and a fountain that overflows with satisfaction.

A warrior filled with wisdom ascends into the high place

and releases breakthrough,

bringing down the strongholds of the mighty.

Watch your words and be careful what you say,

and you’ll be surprised by how few troubles you’ll have.

An arrogant man is inflated with pride—

nothing but a snooty scoffer in love with his own opinion.

Mr. Mocker is his name!

Taking the easy way out is the habit of a lazy man,

and it will be his downfall.

All day long he thinks about all the things that he craves,

for he hasn’t learned the secret that the generous man has learned:

extravagant giving never leads to poverty.

To bring an offering to God with an ulterior motive is detestable,

for it amounts to nothing but hypocrisy.

No one believes a notorious liar,

but the guarded words of an honest man stand the test of time.

The wicked are shameless and stubborn,

but the lovers of God have a holy confidence.

All your brilliant wisdom and clever insight

will be of no help at all if the Lord is against you.

You can do your best to prepare for the battle,

but ultimate victory comes from the Lord God.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 21 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 21]

Through Your Strength

For the end times, to the Pure and Shining One

David’s poem of praise

[Looking Back]

Yahweh, because of your strength the king is strong.

Look how he rejoices in you!

He bursts out with a joyful song because of your victory!

For you have given him his heart’s desire,

anything and everything he asks for.

You haven’t withheld a thing from the king.

Pause in his presence

Rich blessings overflow with every encounter with you,

and you placed a royal crown of gold upon his head.

He wanted life—you have given it to him and more!

The days of his blessing stretch on one after another, forever!

You have honored him and made him famous.

Glory-garments are upon him,

and you surround him with splendor and majesty.

Your victory heaps blessing after blessing upon him.

What joy and bliss he tastes, rejoicing before your face!

For the king trusts in Yahweh,

and he will never stumble, never fall.

The forever-love of the Most High holds him firm.

[Looking Forward]

Your almighty hands have captured your foes.

You uncovered all who hate you and you seized them.

When you appear before them,

unveiling the radiance of your face,

they will be consumed by the fierce fire of your presence.

Yahweh’s flames will swallow them up.

They and their descendants

will be destroyed by an unrelenting fire.

We will watch them fail,

for these are the ones who plan their evil schemes against the Lord.

They will turn and run at the sight of your judgment-arrows

aimed straight at their hearts.

[Looking Up]

Rise up and put your might on display!

By your strength we will sing and praise your glorious power!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 21 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 2]

The Coronation of the King

[Act I – The Nations Speak]

How dare the nations plan a rebellion.

Their foolish plots are futile!

Look at how the power brokers of the world

rise up to hold their summit

as the rulers scheme and confer together

against Yahweh and his Anointed King, saying:

“Let’s come together and break away from the Creator.

Once and for all let’s cast off these controlling chains

of God and his Christ!”

[Act II – God Speaks]

God-Enthroned merely laughs at them;

the Sovereign One mocks their madness!

Then with the fierceness of his fiery anger,

he settles the issue and terrifies them to death with these words:

“I myself have poured out my King on Zion, my holy mountain.”

[Act III – The Son Speaks]

“I will reveal the eternal purpose of God.

For he has decreed over me, ‘You are my favored Son.

And as your Father I have crowned you as my King Eternal.

Today I became your Father.

Ask me to give you the nations and I will do it,

and they shall become your legacy.

Your domain will stretch to the ends of the earth.

And you will shepherd them with unlimited authority,

crushing their rebellion as an iron rod smashes jars of clay!’ ”

[Act IV – The Holy Spirit Speaks]

“Listen to me, all you rebel kings

and all you upstart judges of the earth.

Learn your lesson while there’s still time.

Serve and worship the awe-inspiring God.

Recognize his greatness and bow before him,

trembling with reverence in his presence.

Fall facedown before him and kiss the Son

before his anger is roused against you.

Remember that his wrath can be quickly kindled!

But many blessings are waiting for all

who turn aside to hide themselves in him!”

The Book of Psalms, Poem 2 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 80]

For the worship leader. A song of Asaph to the tune “The Lilies.”

Turn Your ear toward us, Shepherd of Israel,

You who lead the children of Joseph like a flock.

You who sit enthroned above heaven’s winged creatures,

radiate Your light!

In the presence of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh,

arouse Your strength and power,

and save us!

Bring us back to You, God.

Turn the light of Your face upon us so that we will be rescued from this sea of darkness.

O Eternal God, Commander of heaven’s armies,

how long will You remain angry at the prayers of Your sons and daughters?

You have given them tears for food;

You have given them an abundance of tears to drink.

You have made us a source of trouble for our neighbors—

our enemies laugh to each other behind our backs.

O God, Commander of heaven’s armies, bring us back to You.

Turn the light of Your face upon us so that we will be rescued from this sea of darkness.

You took us like a grapevine dug from the soil of Egypt;

You forced out the nations and transplanted it in Your land.

You groomed the ground around it,

planted it so it would root deep into the earth, and it covered all the land.

As it grew, the mountains were blanketed by its shadow;

the mighty cedars were covered by its branches.

The plant extended its branches to the Mediterranean Sea,

and spread its shoots all the way to the Euphrates River.

God, why have You pulled down the wall that protected it

so that everyone who wanders by can pick its sweet grapes?

The wild boar of the forest eats it all,

and the creatures of the field feast upon it.

O God, Commander of heaven’s armies, come back to us.

Gaze down from heaven and see what has happened.

Keep watch over this vine, and nourish it.

Look after the saplings which You planted with Your own right hand,

the child whom You have raised and nurtured for Yourself.

Your enemies have chopped it down and burned it with fire;

may they be destroyed by the sight of Your rebuke.

Let Your protective hand rest on the one who is at Your right hand,

the child of man whom You have raised and nurtured for Yourself.

Then we will not turn away from You.

Bring us back to life! And we will call out for You!

O Eternal God, Commander of heaven’s armies, bring us back to You.

Turn the light of Your face upon us so that we will be rescued from this sea of darkness.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 80 (The Voice)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Olivia Little at MMFA:

Right-wing media figure and now teen fiction author Glenn Beck is partnering with Moms for Liberty to place his new novel in public schools. Beck was an early supporter of Moms for Liberty, an anti-LGBTQ “parental rights” organization whose members have advocated for banning books across the country and harassing school officials, and his Blaze Media outlet even has a page on its website dedicated to promoting the group. Notably, Beck is set to speak at the group’s 2024 summit beginning this week. The Moms for Liberty Foundation ran a special campaign in late July as part of its “Moms for Libraries” initiative to place conservative propaganda in school libraries and classrooms, promising that 100% of donations to the foundation would go to putting Chasing Embers, Beck’s premiere teen fiction novel, into public schools. This suggests that the money raised was likely eventually fed to Beck through payouts from his publisher.

According to Beck’s Moms for Libraries page, Chasing Embers is just the first in The Oarsmen series, which “will become a six-book-adventure” — well, “with your support” (money). The Chasing Embers world is boldly described “as complex and exciting as Harry Potter. But, instead of witchcraft,” the book is “powered by our history."

Right-wing extremist “parental rights” group Moms For Liberty is partnering with Blaze Media founder Glenn Beck to place his teen fiction novel Chasing Embers into school libraries. Beck is set to speak at the organization’s Joyful Warriors National Summit this weekend.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mira Lazine at Erin In The Morning:

On Friday, former President Donald Trump appeared at a Moms for Liberty conference in Washington, D.C. where he expressed extremist views on trans people that are wildly divorced from reality. He made numerous remarks that highlight both his record as an anti-trans figurehead and the relationship he has to those orchestrating Project 2025. The conference, featuring discussions between Trump and Moms for Liberty founder Tiffany Justice, included 20 minutes of discussion relating to transgender issues. It was in this section that Trump made one of the most outlandish claims on transgender issues in recent history: “But uh, the transgender thing is an incredible thing… your kid goes to school & comes home a few days later with an operation the school decides what’s going to happen with your child & you many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say ‘what the hell happened, who did this to me?’”

This statement has no basis in reality—no school in the United States, or anywhere in the world, has authorized gender-affirming surgery on a child without the parent’s consent. The discussion turned to transgender issues when Tiffany Justice suddenly brought up the topic, initially referencing Elon Musk’s recent interview with Jordan Peterson, in which Musk ranted about the “woke mind virus” supposedly affecting his trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson. Justice expressed agreement with Musk’s remarks. Wilson, however, provided detailed rebuttals on her Threads account, pointing out how Musk’s statements were inaccurate and often ignored the truth. No reference was made to her careful rebuttals.

Then, the conversation abruptly shifted to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz enacting the “trans refugee” bill, which guarantees the state as a safe haven for transgender people across the country. Trump briefly responded, saying, “that’s crazy,” before Justice continued, raising concerns about “an explosion in the number of people identifying as transgender” and referring to the “born in the wrong body” claim as “abusive.”

This prompted further discussion, with Trump comparing school boards to “dictatorships” and describing situations where parents are “screaming for the life of their child,” attributing these conflicts to “transgender” and other issues. During the interview, Justice expressed concerns about banning the government from funding transgender surgeries, to which Trump responded casually, “Well, you can do everything. [The] President has such power.” During the talk, Trump also targeted boxer and Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif, who has been incorrectly labeled as transgender by right-wing media despite statements from the International Olympic Committee, which allows sports to restrict trans women from participation, confirming that she is cisgender. Trump repeated the false claim by stating that Khelif was “a person who has transitioned” and “transgendered.” He said, “I wouldn’t want to fight this person. But… [she] transitioned and met certain qualifications… So [Italian boxer Angela Carini is] fighting this person that transgendered, it was like she got hit by a horse.”

[...] Trump continued his anti-trans attacks, calling trans inclusion in sports “very demeaning to women…It’s a very sad thing,” he continued, before shifting the conversation to criticize presidential candidate Kamala Harris for being “totally in favor [of trans people.” Trump then attacked Harris’ climate record and offered to send her a Make America Great Again hat.

Speaking at the far-right extremist “parental rights” group Moms For Liberty’s Joyful Warriors National Summit this past Friday, Donald Trump told numerous lies about trans people, including falsely labeling Imane Khelif a “person who has transitioned” and the bonkers assertion that schools are authorizing gender-confirmation surgery on minors without parental consent.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Donald Trump claims that schools are performing gender-affirming surgery on students

The Advocate: Donald Trump claims schools are performing gender-affirming surgeries on transgender kids. That's not true.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ari Drennen and Alyssa Tirrell at MMFA:

At a September 7 rally in Wisconsin, former President Donald Trump again repeated his baseless claim that schools could be providing gender-affirming surgeries to minors without parental consent. Mainstream outlets have debunked Trump's claim, assuring readers that “no children are going to school and receiving surgery there for gender dysphoria.” According to CNN, “Trump’s own presidential campaign could not provide a single example of this ever happening.”  But accusations that schools "groom" children into identifying as trans have circulated throughout right-wing media and politics in recent years. Some outlets and media figures have gone even further. 

At a 2023 event, Rafael Cruz, father of Texas senator and onetime Trump primary opponent Ted Cruz, claimed that children were being “mutilated” by gender affirming care in public schools. Right-wing outlets including National Review, The Federalist, and The Daily Wire have all promoted claims that public schools are providing cross-sex hormones to children, leaving out of their headlines the important detail that parental consent is required to access this treatment.  The day before Trump made this claim, the account Libs of TikTok also appeared to make the same unsubstantiated accusation by implication.

The National Center for Youth Law notes that under the law in question, only very specific services can be provided for minors without parental consent, such as STD testing, abortion care, and treatment for sexual abuse. Those services do not include gender-affirming care, which cannot be provided to a minor without parental consent in the state of California.  Libs of TikTok has a documented history of posting misleading and false content. Chaya Raichik, the creator behind the account, has maintained a right to do so as recently as February 2024, asking an interviewer who questioned the policy, "Is there a law against lying?”

[...] Right-wing activists appear to see Trump’s words not as statements to be evaluated for accuracy, but rather as non literal expressions of presidential priorities. And indeed, the former president has laid out a draconian set of policy proposals targeting the trans community in a hypothetical second term.  These proposals include targeting federal funding for hospitals providing gender-affirming care, creating a “new credentialing body” for teachers that promotes conservative ideas about the nuclear family, and asking “Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth.”

Where did Donald Trump get his berserk lie about schools and gender-confirming surgeries from? Right-wing anti-trans extremists such as Libs of TikTok.

These are the same extremists who falsely equate gender-affirming care to “mutilation” and baselessly equate trans identity to “social contagion.”

See Also:

The Advocate: Moms For Liberty founder 'thankful' for Trump's school transgender surgery lie

Daily Kos: Even Trump’s team can’t defend his lie about schools and surgeries