#Kroll-Oper

[hoerbahnblog]

Hitlerwetter 1a/12 – Begeisterung und Angst und Schrecken – von Tillmann Bendikowski (Auszug)

   C.BERTELSMANN Hitlerwetter Tillmann Bendikowski Einleitung + Begeisterung und Angst und Schrecke (Auszug) 1a/12 – Januar 1939 Literatur Radio Hörbahn stellt dieses Buch in besonderer Weise vor. Können die Menschen in einer Diktatur tatsächlich glücklich an einem Badestrand liegen? Frisch verliebt durch die Straßen schlendern, in ein Café oder ins Kino gehen? Können sie ausgelassen tanzen,…

[fordreviews]

📽️ Operation Finale (2018)

This movie was so interesting! It was extremely detailed and easy to follow. It wasn’t super action-packed, although there was some action; but it kept my interest the whole time. The fact that it’s based on a true story just makes it even better, especially since I learned some things I never knew about Israel after World War II. I would definitely recommend this movie especially if you’re someone who is interested in history.

Sex/nudity: 2/10 (kissing, woman briefly seen in a bra)

Language: 4/10 (one f word and several other curse words)

Violence: 7/10 (gory violence vividly described but not seen, other violence including torture seen on screen)

Overall rating: 7/10

[morbidology]

This creepy photograph shows serial killer, Joachim Kroll, reenacting one of his murders.

Joachim Georg Kroll was born on April 17, 1933, in Hindenburg (now Zabrze, Poland), during a time of significant upheaval in Europe. The youngest of eight children, Kroll grew up in a poor family, facing the hardships of post-World War II Germany. His father was a soldier in the German Army during the war and was captured by Soviet forces, never returning home. The loss of his father and the subsequent financial and emotional strain on the family deeply affected Kroll's development.

Kroll was reportedly a slow learner and struggled with school, dropping out early. He had a low IQ, estimated to be around 76, and was considered mentally deficient by those who knew him. Despite these challenges, Kroll eventually found work as a factory laborer, living a solitary and unremarkable life on the surface.

Kroll's reign of terror began in 1955 when he committed his first known murder. His victims were primarily young girls and women, although he occasionally targeted young boys. Kroll would lure his victims into secluded areas, where he would assault, murder, and in many cases, mutilate them. What made his crimes particularly gruesome was his practice of cannibalism; Kroll admitted to eating parts of his victims' flesh, which he claimed helped him save money on groceries.

Kroll's method of operation was chillingly methodical. He would often dismember his victims, keeping parts of their bodies for later consumption and disposing of the rest in rivers, forests, or other remote locations. His killings were not driven by a need for material gain or revenge but by a deeply rooted compulsion.

For years, Kroll evaded capture, in part due to his unassuming appearance and demeanor. He was described as quiet, polite, and somewhat simple-minded, which allowed him to fly under the radar of authorities and those around him. Moreover, the police were unable to connect the murders due to the wide geographical spread and varying victim profiles.

Kroll's killing spree finally came to an end on July 3, 1976, after the disappearance of a four-year-old girl named Marion Ketter. Her parents reported her missing, and a large-scale search was initiated. During the search, a neighbor of Kroll’s reported a disturbing incident: Kroll had mentioned that the waste pipe in his apartment was clogged with "guts."

When the police arrived at Kroll's apartment, they discovered a scene of unimaginable horror. The remains of Marion Ketter were found in his kitchen—parts of her body were cooking on the stove, while other parts were stored in the refrigerator. Kroll was immediately arrested, and during his interrogation, he calmly confessed to the murders of at least 14 people over the previous two decades. He provided chilling details of his crimes, showing no remorse for his actions.

Joachim Kroll's trial began in 1982, and the sheer brutality of his crimes shocked the public and the judiciary alike. He was charged with eight counts of murder, as the evidence for these cases was the most concrete, though he admitted to many more. Throughout the trial, Kroll's mental state was a significant point of discussion. He was diagnosed with a severe personality disorder, and his low intelligence was considered by the defense, who argued that he was mentally unfit to stand trial.

Despite these arguments, Kroll was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on April 8, 1982. He spent the rest of his days in prison, where he reportedly lived quietly, maintaining the same unremarkable persona that had allowed him to elude capture for so long. Joachim Kroll died of a heart attack on July 1, 1991, while still incarcerated.

[thatbiologist]

Overthinking the Doctor Who Timeline

The present day on Gallifrey during the time of the Sixth Doctor is 30,491 CE (Doctor Who: FASA. Sourcebook for Field Agents). With a stated age of the Sixth Doctor is 900 years old (Revelation of the Daleks).

On that assumption, the Doctor was loomed circa 29,591 CE, and is a genetic reincarnation of the Timeless Child/the Other (Lungbarrow and The Timeless Children). The Doctor left the House of Lungbarrow to go to the Academy circa 29,599 CE (Lungbarrow and The Sound of Drums). Whilst at the Academy, the Time Lord known as Theta Sigma (the Doctor) befriended a fellow Prydonian from the House of Oakdown, Koschei (the Dark Path).

The Doctor left their primary school at the age of 45 (Shroud of Sorrow).

There were only 26 students in Theta Sigma’s class at the Academy (Lungbarrow). Ten of these students were the most gifted, called the Deca (Divided Loyalties).

During their years at the Academy, Theta Sigma and Koschei formed a pop band together, the Gallifrey Academy Hot Five. Theta Sigma played the perigosto stick and Koschei ironically was on the drums (Deadly Reunion).

The First Doctor left Gallifrey in a stolen Type 40 TARDIS at the age of 236 (The Ribos Operation) circa 29,827 CE. The First Doctor regenerated before the age of 450 years old (The Tenth Planet and The Tomb of the Cybermen).

The Second Doctor is grabbed by the Time Lord secret service (possibly Division) to carry out clandestine missions for the High Council (Beyond War Games). The Second Doctor visible ages between the trial at the end of the War Games and his appearance in the Two Doctors. (The War Games and The Two Doctors). Personally, I would view this as a 200-year time gap. Making the Second Doctor around 650 years old when he regenerates.

Personally, (I know people will disagree) but the Fugitive Doctor exists here. But her memories were erased by Division, so sadly it’s impossible to know how long she lived for. Her memories were erased and trapped inside a Chameleon Arch. Furthermore, Division sent back the Doctor back to the moment they were taken. To being their exile on Earth.

I believe the Fugitive is a Season 6b Doctor as. Firstly, she was working for the Time Lord secret service, other than her only the Second Doctor ever worked for them. Secondly, her TARDIS had a police box, the Chameleon circuit only broke at the end of the first ever episode (The Unearthly Child). Thirdly, UNIT was aware of the existence of the Fugitive Doctor, as she helped plan various the contingencies with Operation Time Fracture (Doctor Who: Time Fracture). Fourthly, her face was shown the Rogue when he analysed the different faces of the Doctor; but no other Timeless Incarnations were shown (Rogue).

To make the timeline add up, the Third Doctor probably lived for a century. With most of this time being between companions and in missing adventures. The only ages the Third Doctor gives is “several thousand years” (The Silurians and The Mind of Evil). However, it is safe to assume the Doctor is lying or may been unconscious aware as their life as the Timeless Child/the Other.

The Fourth Doctor says to Sarah Jane that he is 750 years old (Pyramids of Mars). Then when the Fourth Doctor first met Romana he claims to be 756; however, Romana corrects him saying that he’s 759 (The Ribos Operation). The Doctor has a birthday during the Key to Time story arc, as he then states to be 760 (The Power of Kroll). Furthermore, the Fourth Doctor regenerated into the Fifth at the age of 813 (Cold Fusion). This would mean the Fourth Doctor lived for at least 63 years.

The Fifth Doctor regenerated at approximately 850 years old (The Ultimate Treasure). This would mean the Doctor only lived as the Fifth incarnation for 37 years.

The Sixth Doctor regenerated at the age of 953 (Time of the Rani). This would mean the Doctor lived as the Sixth incarnation for 103 years.

The Seventh Doctor claimed to have regenerated at the age of 1010 (Set Piece). However, the Eighth Doctor believes the Seventh survived to the age of 1200. This would mean that the Seventh Doctor either lived for roughly 57 years or 247. Considering that the Seventh Doctor visibly ages, I would believe the latter.

But the Doctor starts to recount their age after becoming their Eighth incarnation (Vampire Science). But considering that the Eighth Doctor visibles ages, I would believe the Eighth incarnation lived for roughly 300 years.

The War Doctor states his age at the very end of the Time War claims to be 800 years old (Day of the Doctor). The War Doctor estimated that he fought in the Time War for roughly 400 years (Engines of War). However, we do not know how far into the Time War this story takes place. So for convenience sake I’ll add another century until the end of the Time War. This would make the War Doctor 800 years old when he tri-generates. The War Doctor tri-generates into three different Ninth Doctors (Rowan Atkinson, Richard E Grant, and Christopher Eccleston).

The first Ninth Doctor (Rowan Atkinson) claims to be over 800 years old (Curse of Fatal Death). This shockingly lines up well with the age that the War Doctor claimed. Thus, supporting the tri-generation theory.

The second Ninth Doctor (Richard E Grant) doesn’t state his age (Scream of the Shalka). However, he is travelling with an android incarnation of the War Master (Derek Jacobi). Furthermore, it is implied that Gallifrey has been destroyed, as this Ninth Doctor is protecting a Time Lord matrix (Scream of the Shalka). The Time Lord matrix is a supercomputer containing the consciousness of every dead Time Lord (The Deadly Assassin and Dark Water/Death in Heaven).

The third Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) claims to Rose Tyler be 900 years old (Aliens of London). This means the Doctor meet Rose Tyler a literal century after the end of the Last Great Time War. This is even more hilarious that the Ninth Doctor never looked at his face for 100 years. Furthermore, the Doctor spends 28 years on Earth (from 1894 to 1922) before returning to Rose (The Other Side).

The Tenth Doctor is the shortest-lived incarnation, only existing for approximately 5 to 6 years. Regenerating at the age of 906 (The End of Time). Also, for three of years he was without his TARDIS and trying to save Martha and find the wreckage of the Infinite (The Infinite Quest).

The Eleventh Doctor claims to be roughly 1200 years old (Day of the Doctor). Shortly thereafter, the Eleventh Doctor was trapped on Trenzalore and spent the next 900 years protecting the town of Christmas (The Time of the Doctor). Regenerating at the age of 2100.

There’s two major time jumps for the Twelfth Doctor. Firstly, the Doctor spends 24 years on Darillium with River Song (The Husbands of River Song). Secondly, the Doctor has lectured at St Luke’s University for 50 years or 70 years (The Pilot). Also, the Doctor spends 100 years on the planet of Sto, after being sent back in time by a weeping Angel (A Confusion of Angels). Therefore, the Twelfth Doctor lived for roughly 200 years. This would make the Doctor 2300 years old when he regenerated (Twice Upon a Time).

There’s lots of time gaps in Thirteenth Doctor’s incarnation, allowing lots of potential for missing and solo stories. Also, she spent around 30 – 40 years in a Judoon prison.  However, it’s impossible to know how long this incarnation lived for; but I would speculate around 45 to 50 years.

Initially, the Fourteenth Doctor bi-generates 15 hours after Thirteen regenerated (The Giggle). As the bi-generation allowed the Fourteenth Doctor to continue on living, as a separate incarnation of the Doctor. But sadly, the Fourteenth Doctor finally dies in Venice in 2063, trying to prevent the city from sinking. Then he possibly regenerates into the Curator (Tom Baker). Assuming this incarnation was living on the ‘slow path’ with only occasional day trips in time and space. This would mean the Fourteenth Doctor dies after 39 to 40 years.

[hitchell-mope]

Every serial of classic who.

An unearthly child

The Daleks

The edge of destruction

Marco Polo

The keys of Marinus

The Aztecs

The Sensorites

The reign of terror

Planet of giants

The Dalek invasion of Earth

The rescue

The Romans

The web planet

The crusade

The space museum

The chase

The time meddler

Galaxy 4

Mission to the unknown

The myth makers

The Daleks' Master Plan

The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve

The ark

The celestial toymaker

The gunfighters

The savages

The war machines

The smugglers

The tenth planet 

The power of the Daleks

The highlanders

The underwater menace

The moonbase

The macra terror

The faceless ones

The evil of the Daleks

The tomb of the Cybermen

The abominable snowmen

The ice warriors

The enemy of the world

The web of fear

Fury from the deep

The wheel in space

The dominators

The mind robber

The invasion

The Krotons

The seeds of death

The space pirates

The war games

Spearhead from space

Doctor Who and the Silurians

The ambassadors of death

Inferno

Terror of the autons

The mind of evil

The claws of axos

Colony in space

The dæmons

Day of the Daleks

The curse of Peladon

The sea devils

The mutants

The time monster

The three doctors

Carnival of monsters

Frontier in space

Planet of the Daleks

The Green Death

The time warrior

Invasion of the dinosaurs

Death to the Daleks

The monster of Peladon

Planet of the spiders

Robot

The ark in space

The Sontaran experiment

Genesis of the Daleks

Revenge of the cybermen

Terror of the zygons

Planet of evil

Pyramids of Mars

The android invasion

The brain of Morbius

The seeds of doom

The masque of Mandragora

The hand of fear.

The deadly assassin

The face of evil

The robots of death

The talons of Weng-Chiang

Horror of fang rock

The invisible enemy

Image of the Fendahl

The sun makers

Underworld

The invasion of time

The ribos operation

The pirate planet

The stones of blood

The androids of Tara

The power of kroll

The Armageddon factor

Destiny of the Daleks

City of death

The creature from the pit

Nightmare of Eden

The horns of nimon

The leisure hive

Meglos 

Full circle

State of decay

Warriors gate

The keeper of Traken

Logopolis

Castrovalva

Four to doomsday

Kinda

The visitation

Black orchid

Earthshock

Time flight

Arc of infinity

Snakedance

Mawdryn undead

Terminus

Enlightenment

The king’s demons

The five doctors

Warriors of the deep

The awakening

Frontios

Resurrection of the Daleks

Planet of fire

The caves of Androzani

The twin dilemma

Attack of the Cybermen

Vengeance on Varos

The mark of the Rani

The two doctors

Timelash

Revelation of the Daleks

The mysterious planet

Mindwarp

Terror of the Vervoids

The ultimate foe

Time and the Rani

Paradise towers

Delta and the Bannermen

Dragonfire

Remembrance of the Daleks

The happiness patrol

Silver nemesis

The greatest show in the galaxy

Battlefield

Ghost light

The curse of fenric

Survival

The movie

[greenjeanqueen]

After thinking about it, I’ve made the difficult decision to sell my Classic Doctor Who DVDs. I’m hoping to find someone who will enjoy them and add to their own collection. I’m pricing them at $5.00 each (with packs it will still be $5.00 each DVD, not $5.00 for the whole pack). If anyone is interested please let me know. I’ll send an invoice via PayPal to keep things professional.

First Doctor Stories:

“The Beginning” Pack:

An Unearthly Child

The Daleks

The Edge of Destruction

Second Doctor Stories:

The Mind Robber

The Invasion

Third Doctor Stories:

Spearhead from Space

Inferno

Fourth Doctor Stories:

Complete Season One - Blueray ($20.00 - case is broken, but DVDs are brand new, never used

The Ark in Space

The Sontaran Experiment

Place of Evil

Pyramids of Mars

The Hand of Fear

The Deadly Assissin

The Talons of Weng-Chang

Horror of Fang Roch

“The Key to Time” the complete adventures

The Ribos Operation

The Pirate Planet

The Stones of Blood

The Androids of Tara

The Power of Kroll

The Armageddon Factor

City of Death

The Leisure Hive

“New Beginnings” pack:

The Keeper of Traken

Logopolis

Castrovalva

Fifth Doctor Stories:

The Visitation

Earth shock

The Five Doctors

Resurrection of the Daleks

The Caves of Androzani

I also have complete season of New Who 1-12 available for $15.00 each

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Jarmila Novotna by Truus, Bob & Jan too! Via Flickr: German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6837/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Walter Firner, Berlin. Czech soprano Jarmila Novotná (1907-1994) was one of the world-renowned opera luminaries of the 20th Century. Her film appearances were unfortunately few and far between. Jarmila Novotná was born in in Prague, Czech Republic in 1907. She studied singing with Emmy Destinn. In 1925, the 17-years-old Novotná made her operatic debut at the Prague Opera House as Marenka in Bedřich Smetana's Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride). Six days later, the lyric soprano sang there as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata. The following year, she made her film debut in the silent film Vyznavaci slunce/The Sun Disciples (Václav Binovec, 1926), starring Luigi Serventi. In 1928 she starred in Verona as Gilda opposite Giacomo Lauri-Volpi in Verdi's Rigoletto and at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples as Adina opposite Tito Schipa in Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. In 1929 she joined the Kroll Opera in Berlin, where she sang Violetta as well as the title roles of Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Madama Butterfly. When talking pictures arrived, she headlined in German films like Brand in Der Oper/Fire in the Opera House (Carl Froelich, 1930), with Gustaf Gründgens, Der Bettelstudent/The Beggar Student (Victor Janson, 1931), and the film version of The Bartered Bride, Die Verkaufte Braut (Max Ophüls, 1932). Hal Erickson at AllMovie on Die Verkaufte Braut (1930): “The original libretto, involving the comic misadventures of two mismatched couples, is given a respectable amount of attention, but the film's biggest selling card is the photographic dexterity of Max Ophuls, who never met a camera crane he didn't like. Since filmed opera was seldom big box-office in 1932, Ophuls concentrates on the farcical elements of the story; especially worth noting are comic contributions by Paul Kemp and Otto Wernicke, who seldom let their German film fans down. Curiously, star Jarmila Novotna, whose ‘live’ appearances in The Bartered Bride were much prized by contemporary critics, doesn't come off all that well in this film version.” Other films followed such as Nacht Der Grossen Liebe/Night of the Great Love (Geza von Bolvary, 1933) with Gustav Fröhlich. In January 1933 she created the female lead in Jaromir Weinberger's new operetta Frühlingsstürme (Spring Storms), opposite Richard Tauber at the Theater im Admiralspalast, Berlin. This was the last new operetta produced in the Weimar Republic, and she and Tauber were both soon forced to leave Germany by the new Nazi regime. Jarmila Novotnà returned to Czechoslovakia to star in the film Skrivanci pisen/Lark's Songs (Svatopluk Innemann, 1933). In 1934, she left for Vienna, where she created the title role in Franz Lehár's operetta Giuditta opposite Richard Tauber. Her immense success in that role led to a contract with the Vienna State Opera, where she was named Kammersängerin. She also appeared there with Tauber in The Bartered Bride and Madama Butterfly. In the cinema, she starred in the Austrian operetta film Frasquita (Karel Lamac, 1934) with Heinz Ruhmann, the Austrian romantic thriller Der Kosak und die Nachtigall/The Cossack and the Nightingale (Phil Jutzi, 1935) with Iván Petrovich, and in the French-British operetta film La dernière valse/The Last Waltz (Leo Mittler, 1935), which was made in two language versions. She then left the film industry to concentrate on her stage work with the Viennese State Opera. After the Anschluss of Austria, she had to leave Vienna. In January 1940 she made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as Mimí in Puccini's La bohème. From 1940 to 1956, Novotná performed regularly at the Met. In 1946 she returned before the cameras in a straight dramatic role in the Hollywood production The Search (Fred Zinnemann, 1946), starring Montgomery Clift. The Search is a semi-documentary film on the plight of WWII orphans. Novotná played a Czech mother who has lost contact with her young son when they were in Auschwitz and she now travels from one refugee camp to another in search of him. Novotna's then played turn of the century diva Maria Selka in the biopic The Great Caruso (Richard Thorpe, 1951), featuring Mario Lanza. The film traces legendary tenor Enrico Caruso's ascension from adolescent choir singer in Naples to the uppermost ranks of the opera world. Mario Lanza's tenor voice made this film one of the top box-office draws of 1951, and this helped to popularize opera among the general public. On TV she appeared in The Great Waltz (Max Liebman, 1955), which charts the life and times of composer Johann Strauss, Jr. She also played Hans’ mother in the TV musical Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates (Sidney Lumet, 1958), starring Tab Hunter. Her last screen appearance was as an interviewee in the documentary Toscanini: The Maestro (Peter Rosen, 1985). At 85, Jarmila Novotná passed away in 1994 in New York. Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

[jiminysjournal]

How I would have done The Key to Time:

Tom Baker had been hoping to leave after this season, but the producers talked him into staying. If he had left, he would've last as long as Pertwee, tying them both for longest-lasting Doctor.

I'm curious if, had he regenerated, Mary Tamm may have been more willing to stay, as it would've given her a new dynamic to work with.

Anyway, I'm gonaa break it down, serial-by-serial:

The Ribos Operation

Some pacing would be adjusted, including introducing The Seeker earlier. Honestly, the best Ribosian character.

The Pirate Planet

Mmm…no notes.

The Stones of Blood

Cut to three parts, with the courtroom storyline cut entirely (don't worry; it'll come back). Just keep it supernatural. Because, why not?

By the way, Amelia Rumford walked, so River Song could run.

The Androids of Tara

Cut to three parts. The fourth part is completely unnecessary. Rather than Grendel escaping and then being shot dead by K•9 offscreen, he gets killed by the monster he "saved" Romana from, earlier.

The Power of Kroll

Replaced with the proposed but unwritten Chris Boucher story about an Earth outpost.

The Armageddon Factor

The first two episodes are compressed into one, and the last four are compressed into three. The Shadow is, himself, the Black Guardian, removing the need for a tacked-on confrontation.

That being said! The courtroom storyline cut from SoB would be moved here, serving as parts 5 and 6. It would, instead, be the trial of the Black Guardian.

In one last act of desperation, the Black Guardian kills the Doctor. Because he was killed by a Guardian, he cannot regenerate. As the Black Guardian attempts to take the Key, it instead absorbs itself into the Doctor, and he regenerates…into Lalla Ward.

As a result, the Key is not rescattered (by the way, the Doctor and Romana figure out Astra is the segment earlier), and Astra does not return. But, she lives on, through the Fifth Doctor.

I'm also curious if a Doctor-playing Lalla might've stayed longer than she did as Romana. Who knows? Who…nose?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Right accuses their critics of the conspiracy they themselves engage in

People on the right have some really weird ideas about their ideological enemies: that we’re “groomers,” that we’re secretly on some billionaire’s payroll, that we hijacked the education system to promulgate revisionist histories, that we steal elections, and, of course, that we are secretly plotting to take over America and subjugate them.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/10/teneo/#i-grasp

The weirdest thing about this is that it’s the right that engages in revisionist race-history:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-myth-of-the-happy-slave-explained

And it’s the right who stole a presidency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot

Election-rigging is a right-wing specialty:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/23/state-of-play/#patchwork

It’s the right who pay for fake grassroots activism:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/raising-them-right-far-right-fight-college-campus-1234636392/

Any time some right-wing politician comes out against queers and calls them groomers, chances are good that he’s spending his free time on Instagram, sending fire emojis to naked boys:

https://www.ibtimes.sg/randy-mcnally-tennessees-anti-lgbtq-lt-gov-caught-liking-commenting-young-gay-mans-racy-69364

That’s especially true when we’re talking about evangelical youth pastors:

https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-texas-pastors-charged-abusing-children-1765910

It’s almost like that old playground rebuttal, “I know you are but what am I?” contains a deep political truth:

https://doctorow.medium.com/takes-one-to-know-one-104d7d749408

Of all the absurd libels of the right, the weirdest one is that leftists are secretly funded by woke billionaires spending dark money to foment the overthrow of the USA. The idea of “leftist billionaire” is laughable on its face: how did this imaginary billionaire make their billions while paying a living wage and providing decent working conditions?

But it’s easy to understand how a group of people who are so positively *aslosh* in dark money — people whose every political maneuver is a carefully planned scheme to separate terrified xenophobes and rubes from their money — for “alternative” covid therapies, apocalypse-ready MREs, “sound money” gold coins, and so. much. culture. war. nonsense.

What I’m trying to say is: when the right accuses the left of being driven by cabals of shadowy, crepulent billionaires and their pathetic lickspittle Renfields, it is because the right is indeed in the thrall of those crepulent billionaires.

Meet Leonard Leo, a crepulent, shadowy billionaire. Leo was last seen around these parts when he was revealed to have been the bagman behind the ultradark money group Judicial Crisis Network. After spending $27m to block confirmation for Obama’s SCOTUS pick, Merrick Garland, they spent tens of millions more on campaigns to seat Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. Coney Barrett was seated thanks to a $15.9m campaign to make an unqualified, unhinged ideologue seem like a viable lifetime member of the highest court in the land:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/29/betcha-cant-eat-just-one/#pwnage

Leo controls the Judicial Crisis Network, which worked with the Federalist Society to allow Trump to appoint a whopping 28% of all US federal judges — lifetime appointments for slavering Renfields who’ll follow his political lead. Witness the firepower of a fully operational billionaire.

Leo’s post-Trump side-hustle is a “Federalist Society for everything” — a secretive, lavishly funded cabal aimed at taking over campuses, corporations, news outlets with an army of “under 40s” conservative operatives. It’s called Teneo, and it was a secret — until its internal memos, videos and other materials leaked to Propublica.

Propublica’s Andy Kroll and Andrea Bernstein collaborated with Documented’s Nick Surgey to report out the leaks, describing how Teneo when from “a dinner club with partisan overtones” to a dark-money juggernaut whose annual donations grew by leaps and bounds (2017, $750k; 2020, $2.3m; 2021, $5m):

https://www.propublica.org/article/leonard-leo-teneo-videos-documents

These financial good fortunes are not the result of excited small-money donors hoping to help Teneo with its good works — it’s a handful of ultra-wealthy sociopaths hoping to use a minority of willing lackeys to project their will over all of us.

Teneo’s network members are a Monster’s Manual of the wildest wingnuts in public life, from Josh Hawley (who wrote its founding manifesto) to JD Vance to Elise Stefanik to BenShapiro to three of Ron DeSantis’s top aides. Also: federal judge who struck down Biden’s mask mandate and the heads of the Republican Attorneys General Association, Republican State Leadership Committee and Turning Point USA.

The stated goal of Teneo founder Evan Baehr (a tech bro turned conservative organizer) was for Teneo members to infiltrate “the House and the Senate, as governors — one might be elected president.”

In a leaked video, Baehr identifies the “woke” enemy he seeks to vanquish, describing a hypothetical meeting between “a billionaire hedge funder, a film producer, a Harvard professor and a New York Times writer.” These four cook up a plan to give middle-school kids “free access to sex-change therapy paid for by the federal government.” The filmmaker promises to make a documentary to support the project. The Harvard professor promises to falsify studies to reassure people that the therapies are safe. The Times reporter vows to “profile people who feel trapped in the wrong gender.”

This irony is that this unhinged conspiratorialism was hatched by someone who was and is actively conspiring to take over the country with members of his secret society. After years in the wilderness, Baehr connected with Leo, who turned on the money spigots. Together, they recruited an “inner core” of FedSoc members “and recruit[ed] them for either specific roles to serve as judges or to spin up and launch critical projects.”

Other shadowy billionaires piled in: Home Depot’s trumpy founder Bernie Marcus, Charles Koch, and Betsy DeVos and her family. The new “Teneo 2.0” sought to “to help members find jobs, write books, meet spouses, secure start-up financing or nonprofit donors and learn about public service.”

Their vision is to create “Silicon Valley of Conservatism — a powerful network of communities where the most influential young leaders, the biggest ideas, and the most leveraged resources come together to launch key projects that advance our shared belief that the conservative worldview drives human flourishing.”

They funnel money to speakers from the absolute depths of the swamp: Erik “Blackwater” Prince, David Brooks, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. New members are assured that their involvement with Teneo is “private and confidential” and the group has kept a low profile — Propublica asked Sheldon Whitehouse — a bitter critic of Leo’s — about the group and got a blank stare.

Teneo’s latest project is to recruit “state attorneys general, state financial officers, state legislators, journalists, media executives and best-in-class public affairs professionals” to fight ESG policies — all the froth you’ve encountered about the evils of ESG are the result of this secret, coordinated project.

(To be clear, ESG is bullshit, but not because it’s bad for capitalism — ESG is a dumpster fire of greenwashing:)

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/15/sanctions-financing/#profiteers

Teneo organizes donors for members who run for local, state and federal office. Will Scharf, who’s hoping to become Missouri’s next attorney general, has received donations from dozens of Teneo members, giving the maximum allowable donation of $2650.

The paranoid style in American politics never went away. From the Witchfinders General of New England to Joe McCarthy and the John Birch Society, there has always been a rump of Americans who are very rich and very frightened and who want to put us all in their place.

For these fevered schemers, the Jack Chick tracts that depicted secret Satanic societies seducing innocent kids through Dungeons and Dragons games were hard-hitting documentaries, and as far as they’re concerned, they’re fighting fire with fire.

Image: Jack Chick https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046

Tendeo https://www.teneonetwork.com/

Fair use https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property

[Image ID: A page from the Jack Chick tract 'Dark Dungeons,' depicting a sinister society of robed figures gathered in a circle, welcoming in a new initiate. The pentacle on the floor has been replaced with Teneo's stylized 'T' logo. The dialog has been replaced with text from Teneo's 2019 Community Vision report: 'The Silicon Valley of Conservatism — a powerful network of communities where the most influential young leaders, the biggest ideas, and the most leveraged resources come together to launch key projects that advance our shared belief that the conservative worldview drives human flourishing.]

[popentertainment-moviereviews]

RED ONE (2024)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, JK Simmons, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju, Nick Kroll, Wesley Kimmel, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Marc Evan Jackson, Jenna Kanell, Clayton Cooper, Lanz Duffy, Makana David, Samantha Benson, Ashleigh Domangue, Cody Easterbrook, Nikki Garza, Abel Arias and the voice of Reinaldo Faberlle.

Screenplay by Chris Morgan.

Directed by Jake Kasdan.

Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios. 123 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Once upon a time, in the movies, Santa Claus was just a hefty, jolly, bearded guy in a red and white suit who went about doing good deeds and distributing toys and was a good friend to reindeer. Somewhere along the line, though – probably about the time of How the Grinch Stole Christmas in the 1966 TV special – Hollywood decided to make him darker. However, the Grinch wasn’t really Santa, he was a bad guy who was masquerading as the St. Nick.

The real dark quirky times probably started early in the millennium with the Billy Bob Thornton starrer Bad Santa. But, again, this wasn’t the real Santa, it was just an alcoholic con artist running a scam as a mall Santa.

Soon enough the movies started making the questionable choices and ethics about the real Santa, though, and Christmas movies are just turning into genre pastiches. Forget peace, goodwill and joy to the world. Even the commercial aspects of the holiday, like presents, are now just getting cursory glances.

Just last year, Santa was portrayed as a dirty, homeless alcoholic who was more than willing to savagely mow through some naughty criminals in Violent Night. Now, less than a year after slasher Santa, why not make him a ripped and unpredictable action star, and slip him into a film that seems like an unholy merge of Fast and Furious, a particularly obnoxious mythological Marvel movie and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians?

Which brings us to Red One.

Now, actually, Santa is not in a huge chunk of Red One, because the film is about Santa being kidnapped just days before Christmas. This is actually a real shame, because casting JK Simmons as Santa is by far the smartest decision made in this film, even if they play up some of the wrong things about the character. Simmons has an enviable physique for a man of his age, but showing how buff Santa is goes in direct contradiction of holiday lore. Still, Simmons is the best thing in Red One, and when he is not on screen the film suffers for it.

So, if this film is only tangentially about Santa, what is it about? Well, mostly a mish mash of vague holiday ideas pureed through tired action tropes that have been done better – and made much more sense – in many other movies.

In the world of Red One, the North Pole and the toy factory are like a military operation, full of regulations, cutting edge technology, and a strange amount of odd alien creatures. (Walking talking grizzly bears, for example, or elves which look like undercooked versions of Harry Potter’s Dobby. Even the half-brother of Santa is an evil looking goat troll.)

The real stars here, though, are Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, both slumming for a relatively easy paycheck.

Johnson plays Cal, Santa’s stone-faced head bodyguard, the leader of Enforcement Logistics and Fortification (E.L.F., get it? Okay, it isn’t funny.) He has just decided to retire from his job after hundreds of years, because of course he did. Getting ready for his final trip, he is thrown into saving Santa (code name: Red One) from an evil Icelandic shape-shifting witch (Kiernan Shipka, taking advantage of her witch experience from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) who is determined to take over the holiday and punish everyone on the naughty list.

Evans is Jack, a “level four naughty lister,” who we are introduced to in a prologue where when he was a child, he was charging his cousins for what he called proof that Santa wasn’t real. He has grown up to be an alcoholic, gambling, thieving deadbeat dad who also just happens to be the greatest hacker on the dark web.

When one of his hacks shows the kidnappers how to find Santa, Jack is hunted down by M.O.R.A., the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority (lots of weird agencies in this movie). In fact, they do it surprisingly easily considering he is supposed to be an impossible-to-identify specter on the dark web. Jack is forced to help find the big guy with them, taken on a whirlwind tour of tropical islands with killer snowmen, a medieval castle that seems to have been populated by the random alien characters from the Star Wars cantina band sequence, and several other supposedly life-threatening experiences.

Not surprisingly, Cal and Jack, who are immediately antagonistic, grow a grudging respect for each other. And then, completely out of the blue, the film drops a completely gratuitous speech about love, family and the holiday spirit, because they suddenly remembered this was supposed to be a Christmas movie.

I’m not sure who this film is supposed to be for. It is too violent and has too much foul language for kids but is too ridiculous and disjointed for adults. But perhaps that is the answer. Maybe Red One is for no one.

Put Red One on the naughty list and leave a lump of coal in its stocking.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: November 14, 2024.

[sataniccapitalist]

Ziklag Exposed: Secretive Christian Nationalist Network Tries to Purge Voters in Battleground States

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made headlines this week after suggesting the 2024 election could be the last U.S. election if he wins in November. We look at a secret organization of wealthy Christians called Ziklag that is backing Trump's efforts by working to purge more than a million voters from the rolls in battleground states and mobilize Republican voters to back Trump. The news outlets ProPublica and Documented obtained thousands of Ziklag's internal files and found the group has divided its 2024 activities into three different operations: Steeplechase, which uses churches to get out the vote; Watchtower, which aims to rally voters around opposition to transgender rights; and Checkmate, which is focused on funding so-called election integrity groups, explains ProPublica investigative reporter Andy Kroll.

[rassilonwatchathon]

It's the 9 year anniversary of The Watch-A-Thon of Rassilon, so this month we're sharing our older episodes!

FOURTH DOCTOR SEASON SIXTEEN (March 12th, 2019-June 11th, 2019) Episode 98- The Ribos Operation (Binro WAS Right) w/ @truestoriesaboutme & Felicity Kusinitz Episode 99- The Pirate Planet (A Very Very Good Sandwich) Episode 100- The Stones of Blood (Rad Frocks Represent) w/ @radiantbaby Episode 101- The Androids of Tara (2 Brash 2 Young 2 David) w/ Mike Gordon Episode 102- The Power of Kroll (Kroll Show) WHOlanta Special- The Macra Terror (The Macra DO Exist!) w/ R. Alan Siler, @mgoldentumbls, & Mike Gordon Episode 103- The Armageddon Factor (You Can’t Just Steal a Dog!)

[adventure-showdown]

Fourth Doctor Rankings

the DWM rank is the rank from Doctor Who Magazine earlier this year, the change (in brackets) is calculated as though Key to Time was not included

you can the scores for each story here

image description under the cut

ID: a table, the header row reads, RANK, STORY, DWM RANK, the contents is

1, City of Death, 1 (0)

2, The Robots of Death, 4 (+2)

3, Genesis of the Daleks, 2 (-1)

4, The Pirate Planet, 17 (+13)

5, Horror of Fang Rock, 8 (+3)

6, State of Decay, 15 (+9)

7, Logopolis, 12 (+5)

8, The Keeper of Traken, 14 (+6)

9, The Face of Evil, 21 (+12)

10, The Seeds of Doom, 6 (-4)

11, The Stones of Blood, 13 (+2)

12, The Deadly Assassin, 10 (-2)

13, The Horns of Nimon, 40 (+28)

14, The Ribos Operation, 20 (+6)

15, The Key to Time, NA

16, Pyramids of Mars, 3 (-12

17, The Ark in Space, 9 (-7)

18, Warriors' Gate, 16 (-1)

19, The Androids of Tara, 18 (0)

20, Terror of the Zygons, 7 (-12)

21, The Hand of Fear, 19 (-1)

21, The Sunmakers, 29 (9)

23, The Brain of Morbius, 11 (-11)

24, The Invasion of Time, 36 (+13)

25, Full Circle, 25 (+1)

26, The Masque of Mandragora, 26 (+1)

27, Planet of Evil, 24 (-2)

28, Image of the Fendahl, 22 (-5)

29, Robot, 23 (-5)

30, The Android Invasion, 28 (-1)

31, Nightmare of Eden, 33 (+3)

32, The Armageddon Factor, 37 (+6)

33, The Leisure Hive, 32 (0)

34, The Sontaran Experiment, 27 (-6)

35, Destiny of the Daleks, 30 (-4)

36, The Creature from the Pit, 35 (0)

37, Meglos, 39 (+3)

38, Revenge of the Cybermen, 31 (-6)

39, The Power of Kroll, 38 (0)

40, The Invisible Enemy, 34 (-5)

41, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, 5 (-35)

42, Underworld, 41 (0)

[quakerjoe]

Ziklag Exposed: Secretive Christian Nationalist Network Tries to Purge Voters in Battleground States

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made headlines this week after suggesting the 2024 election could be the last U.S. election if he wins in November. We look at a secret organization of wealthy "Christians" called Ziklag that is backing Trump's efforts by working to purge more than a million voters from the rolls in battleground states and mobilize Republican voters to back Trump.

The news outlets ProPublica and Documented obtained thousands of Ziklag's internal files and found the group has divided its 2024 activities into three different operations: Steeplechase, which uses churches to get out the vote; Watchtower, which aims to rally voters around opposition to transgender rights; and Checkmate, which is focused on funding so-called election integrity groups, explains ProPublica investigative reporter Andy Kroll.

[ulkaralakbarova]

The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, whose challenge of their anti-miscegenation arrest for their marriage in Virginia led to a legal battle that would end at the US Supreme Court. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Richard Loving: Joel Edgerton Mildred Loving: Ruth Negga Grey Villet: Michael Shannon Sheriff Brooks: Marton Csokas Bernie Cohen: Nick Kroll Frank Beazley: Bill Camp Lola Loving: Sharon Blackwood Raymond Green: Alano Miller Garnet Jetter: Terri Abney Judge Bazile: David Jensen Phil Hirschkop: Jon Bass Theoliver Jeter: Christopher Mann Musiel Byrd-Jeter: Winter-Lee Holland Deputy: Michael Abbott Jr. Percy Fortune: Chris Greene Virgil: Will Dalton Chet Antieau: Matt Malloy Laura: Andrene Ward-Hammond Alex: D.L. Hopkins Hope Ryden: Jennifer Joyner Cousin Davis: Lance Lemon Cousin Gerald: Marquis Adonis Hazelwood Older Sydney: Brenan Young Older Donald: Dalyn Cleckley Older Peggy: Quinn McPherson Middle Sidney: Jevin Crochrell Middle Donald: Jordan Williams Jr. Middle Peggy: Georgia Crawford Toddler Sydney: Micah Claiborne Baby Sydney: Devin Cleckley Infant Sydney: Pryor Ferguson Clara – Cashier: Karen Vicks Reporter #1: Scott Wichmann Construction Worker: Benjamin Loeh Court Secretary: Bridget Gethins Store Pedestrian: Mark Huber Drag Race Spectator: James Matthew Poole Secretary: Coley Campany Secretary: Sheri Lahris Construction Worker: Jordan Dickey Telephone Man: Coby Batty Drag Race Spectator / Bar Patron: Chris Condetti Richard’s Racing Crew: Logan J. Woolfolk County Clerk: Robert Haulbrook Bricklayer: Keith Tyree Spectator: James Nevins Prisoner: W. Keith Scott Photojournalist: Tom Lancaster Street Walker: Lonnie M. Henderson Court Audience Member: Brian Thomas Wise Drag Race Spectator: Ken Holliday Antieau’s Secretary: Terry Menefee Gau Driver: Marc Anthony Lowe Racetrack Spectator: Jay SanGiovanni D.C Teen: Tyrell Ford Baby Boy #1: James Atticus Abebayehu Phil’s Dad: Jim D. Johnston …: Derick Newson Boarding House Boy: Miles Hopkins Construction Worker: Kenneth William Clarke Reporter: Robert Furner Secretary: Victoria Chavatel Jimison Field Hand / Drag Strip Attendee / Shot Gun Shack Attendee (uncredited): Darrick Claiborne Courtroom Spectator (uncredited): Raymond H. Johnson Drag Race Driver: Dean Mumford Pregnant Girl: Rebecca Turner Magistrate: Mike Shiflett County Jailer: Greg Cooper Supreme Court Reporter: A. Smith Harrison Press Conference Reporter: Keith Flippen Soundman: Jason Alan Cook Courtroom Spectator (uncredited): Lucas N. Hall Film Crew: Director: Jeff Nichols Editor: Julie Monroe Producer: Peter Saraf Executive Producer: Jack Turner Executive Producer: Jared Ian Goldman Executive Producer: Brian Kavanaugh-Jones Unit Production Manager: Sarah Green Art Direction: Jonathan Guggenheim Casting: Francine Maisler Production Design: Chad Keith Storyboard: Nancy Buirski Associate Producer: Oge Egbuono Producer: Colin Firth Producer: Marc Turtletaub Set Decoration: Adam Willis Producer: Ged Doherty Unit Production Manager: Will Greenfield Costume Design: Erin Benach Music Supervisor: Lauren Mikus Original Music Composer: David Wingo Still Photographer: Ben Rothstein Director of Photography: Adam Stone Script Supervisor: Jean-Paul Chreky Special Effects Coordinator: Gary Pilkinton Special Effects Technician: Trevor Smithson Property Master: A. Patrick Storey First Assistant Director: Cas Donovan Second Assistant Director: Tommy Martin Stunt Driver: Dean Mumford Key Makeup Artist: Katie Middleton Second Second Assistant Director: Ben LeDoux Construction Buyer: Roslyn Blankenship Assistant Property Master: Hannah Ross Dialogue Editor: Brandon Proctor Genetator Operator: Maxwel Fisher Post Production Supervisor: Susan E. Novick Boom Operator: Proctor Trivette Leadman: Stephen G. Shifflette Second Assistant “A” Camera: Stephen McBride Sound Effects Editor: David Grimaldi Foley Mixer: Judy Kirschner Makeup Department Head: Julia Lallas Hairstylist: Brian Morton Sound Effects Editor: Joel Dougherty ADR Mixer: Chris Navarro Sound Effects Editor: P.K. Hooker ...

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey at ProPublica:

A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump. These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation, including the billionaire Uihlein family, who made a fortune in office supplies, the Greens, who run Hobby Lobby, and the Wallers, who own the Jockey apparel corporation. Recipients of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the Christian legal group that led the overturning of Roe v. Wade, plus the national pro-Trump group Turning Point USA and a constellation of right-of-center advocacy groups.

[...]

Ziklag’s 2024 agenda reads like the work of a political organization. It plans to pour money into mobilizing voters in Arizona who are “sympathetic to Republicans” in order to secure “10,640 additional unique votes” — almost the exact margin of President Joe Biden’s win there in 2020. The group also intends to use controversial AI software to enable mass challenges to the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of voters in competitive states. In a recording of a 2023 internal strategy discussion, a Ziklag official stressed that the objective was the same in other swing states. “The goal is to win,” the official said. “If 75,000 people wins the White House, then how do we get 150,000 people so we make sure we win?”

According to the Ziklag files, the group has divided its 2024 activities into three different operations targeting voters in battleground states: Checkmate, focused on funding so-called election integrity groups; Steeplechase, concentrated on using churches and pastors to get out the vote; and Watchtower, aimed at galvanizing voters around the issues of “parental rights” and opposition to transgender rights and policies supporting health care for trans people. In a member briefing video, one of Ziklag’s spiritual advisers outlined a plan to “deliver swing states” by using an anti-transgender message to motivate conservative voters who are exhausted with Trump.

But Ziklag is not a political organization: It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity, the same legal designation as the United Way or Boys and Girls Club. Such organizations do not have to publicly disclose their funders, and donations are tax deductible. In exchange, they are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office,” according to the IRS. ProPublica and Documented presented the findings of their investigation to six nonpartisan lawyers and legal experts. All expressed concern that Ziklag was testing or violating the law. The reporting by ProPublica and Documented “casts serious doubt on this organization’s status as a 501(c)(3) organization,” said Roger Colinvaux, a professor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law.

[...]

“Dominion Over the Seven Mountains”

Ziklag has largely escaped scrutiny until now. The group describes itself as a “private, confidential, invitation-only community of high-net-worth Christian families.” According to internal documents, it boasts more than 125 members that include business executives, pastors, media leaders and other prominent conservative Christians. Potential new members, one document says, should have a “concern for culture” demonstrated by past donations to faith-based or political causes, as well as a net worth of $25 million or more. None of the donors responded to requests for comment.

Tax records show rapid growth in the group’s finances in recent years. Its annual revenue climbed from $1.3 million in 2018 to $6 million in 2019 and nearly $12 million in 2022, which is the latest filing available. The group’s spending is not on the scale of major conservative funders such as Miriam Adelson or Barre Seid, the electronics magnate who gave $1.6 billion to a group led by conservative legal activist Leonard Leo. But its funding and strategy represent one of the clearest links yet between the Christian right and the “election integrity” movement fueled by Trump’s baseless claims about voting fraud. Even several million dollars funding mass challenges to voters in swing counties can make an impact, legal and election experts say.

Ziklag was the brainchild of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur named Ken Eldred. It emerged from a previous organization founded by Eldred called United In Purpose, which aimed to get more Christians active in the civic arena, according to Bill Dallas, the group’s former director. United In Purpose generated attention in June 2016 when it organized a major meeting between then-candidate Trump and hundreds of evangelical leaders.

After Trump was elected in 2016, Eldred had an idea, according to Dallas. “He says, ‘I want all the wealthy Christian people to come together,’” Dallas recalled in an interview. Eldred told Dallas that he wanted to create a donor network like the one created by Charles and David Koch but for Christians. He proposed naming it David’s Mighty Men, Dallas said. Female members balked. Dallas found the passage in Chronicles that references David’s soldiers and read that they met in the city of Ziklag, and so they chose the name Ziklag.

The group’s stature grew after Trump took office. Vice President Mike Pence appeared at a Ziklag event, as did former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Sen. Ted Cruz, then-Rep. Mark Meadows and other members of Congress. In its private newsletter, Ziklag claims that a coalition of groups it assembled played “a hugely significant role in the selection, hearings and confirmation process” of Amy Coney Barrett for a Supreme Court seat in late 2020.

Confidential donor networks regularly invest hundreds of millions of dollars into political and charitable groups, from the liberal Democracy Alliance to the Koch-affiliated Stand Together organization on the right. But unlike Ziklag, neither of those organizations is legally set up as a true charity. Ziklag appears to be the first coordinated effort to get wealthy donors to fund an overtly Christian nationalist agenda, according to historians, legal experts and other people familiar with the group. “It shows that this idea isn’t being dismissed as fringe in the way that it might have been in the past,” said Mary Ziegler, a legal historian and University of California, Davis law professor. The Christian nationalism movement has a variety of aims and tenets, according to the Public Religion Research Institute: that the U.S. government “should declare America a Christian nation”; that American laws “should be based on Christian values”; that the U.S. will cease to exist as a nation if it “moves away from our Christian foundations”; that being Christian is essential to being American; and that God has “called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.”

One theology promoted by Christian nationalist leaders is the Seven Mountain Mandate. Each mountain represents a major industry or a sphere of public life: arts and media, business, church, education, family, government, and science and technology. Ziklag’s goal, the documents say, is to “take dominion over the Seven Mountains,” funding Christian projects or installing devout Christians in leadership positions to reshape each mountain in a godly way. To address their concerns about education, Ziklag’s leaders and allies have focused on the public-school system. In a 2021 Ziklag meeting, Ziklag’s education mountain chair, Peter Bohlinger, said that Ziklag’s goal “is to take down the education system as we know it today.” The producers of the film “Sound of Freedom,” featuring Jim Caviezel as an anti-sex-trafficking activist, screened an early cut of the film at a Ziklag conference and asked for funds, according to Dallas.

[...] A driving force behind Ziklag’s efforts is Lance Wallnau, a prominent Christian evangelist and influencer based in Texas who is described by Ziklag as a “Seven Mountains visionary & advisor.” The fiery preacher is one of the most influential figures on the Christian right, experts say, a bridge between Christian nationalism and Trump. He was one of the earliest evangelical leaders to endorse Trump in 2015 and later published a book titled “God’s Chaos Candidate: Donald J. Trump and the American Unraveling.” More than 1 million people follow him on Facebook. He doesn’t try to hide his views: “Yes, I am a Christian nationalist,” he said during one of his livestreams in 2021. (Wallnau did not respond to requests for comment.)

[...]

“Operation Checkmate”

In the fall of 2023, Wallnau sat in a gray armchair in his TV studio. A large TV screen behind him flashed a single word: “ZIKLAG.” “You almost hate to put it out this clearly,” he said as he detailed Ziklag’s electoral strategy, “because if somebody else gets ahold of this, they’ll freak out.” He was joined on set by Hiss, who had just become the group’s new day-to-day leader. The two men were there to record a special message to Ziklag members that laid out the group’s ambitious plans for the upcoming election year. The forces arrayed against Christians were many, according to the confidential video. They were locked in a “spiritual battle,” Hiss said, against Democrats who were a “radical left Marxist force.” Biden, Wallnau said, was a senile old man and “an empty suit with an agenda that’s written and managed by somebody else.”

[...] A prominent conservative getting money from Ziklag is Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer and Trump ally who joined the January 2021 phone call when then-President Trump asked Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to flip Georgia in Trump’s favor. Mitchell now leads a network of “election integrity” coalitions in swing states that have spent the last three years advocating for changes to voting rules and how elections are run. According to one internal newsletter, Ziklag was an early funder of Mitchell’s post-2020 “election integrity” activism, which voting-rights experts have criticized for stoking unfounded fears about voter fraud and seeking to unfairly remove people from voting rolls. In 2022, Ziklag donated $600,000 to the Conservative Partnership Institute, which in turn funds Mitchell’s election-integrity work. Internal Ziklag documents show that it provided funding to enable Mitchell to set up election integrity infrastructure in Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

[...] For Operation Watchtower, Wallnau explained in a members-only video that transgender policy was a “wedge issue” that could be decisive in turning out voters tired of hearing about Trump. The left had won the battle over the “homosexual issue,” Wallnau said. “But on transgenderism, there’s a problem and they know it.” He continued: “They’re gonna wanna talk about Trump, Trump, Trump. … Meanwhile, if we talk about ‘It’s not about Trump. It’s about parents and their children, and the state is a threat,’” that could be the “target on the forehead of Goliath.” The Ziklag files describe tactics the group plans to use around parental rights — policies that make it easier for parents to control what’s taught in public schools — to turn out conservative voters. In a fundraising video, the group says it plans to underwrite a “messaging and data lab” focused on parental rights that will supply “winning messaging to all our partner groups to create unified focus among all on the right.” The goal, the video says, is to make parental rights “the difference-maker in the 2024 election.”

According to Wallnau, Ziklag also plans to fund ballot initiatives in seven key states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Montana, Nevada and Ohio — that take aim at the transgender community by seeking to ban “genital mutilation.” The seven states targeted are either presidential battlegrounds or have competitive U.S. Senate races. None of the initiatives is on a state ballot yet. “People that are lethargic about the election or, worse yet, they’re gonna be all Trump-traumatized with the news cycle — this issue will get people to come out and vote,” Wallnau said. “That ballot initiative can deliver swing states.” The last prong of Ziklag’s 2024 strategy is Operation Steeplechase, which urges conservative pastors to mobilize their congregants to vote in this year’s election. This project will work in coordination with several prominent conservative groups that support former president Trump’s reelection, such as Turning Point USA’s faith-based group, the Faith and Freedom Coalition run by conservative operative Ralph Reed and the America First Policy Institute, one of several groups closely allied with Trump.

ProPublica takes a look at a secretive Christian Nationalist organization called Ziklag, a network of ultrawealthy Christian donors seeking to mobilize Republican-leaning voters to turn out for the general election with three different operations: Checkmate, Steeplechase, and Watchtower.

Read the full story at ProPublica.