#seriously this is your public education on republican

[pudding-parade]

Why do I read YouTube comments? I mean, seriously, why do I do this to myself? I truly do not know whether to laugh or cry. This was a comment in response to a video about the ten deadliest animals in America, made by a person old enough to have a pregnant daughter, and...and...I can't. Then again, the creator of the video that this person commented on needs to be taken to task as well because of things like showing images of African wildebeest when talking about North American bison as well as images of caribou and elk when talking about moose. I mean, the latter is somewhat more understandable because at least they're all large species of deer, but at the very least moose have very different-looking antlers than the other two, soooooo...

But you know what might be a fun idea? A sideblog highlighting idiocy like this. Because I see a shit-ton of appalling scientifically-illiterate idiocy on YouTube and elsewhere that is often not worth responding to because the comments are months old or whatever, and sometimes I just need to vent. And it's not just when watching shit put out by creationists and flat-earthers or, worse, by people who are both at the same time.

OK, I'll go back to Sims now. Sorry. I just needed to share the pain. Oh, the pain...

[mckitterick]

Christofascist Republican calls LGBTQ people "filth" during public forum

The culture of hate among Christofascists recently led to the violent beating and subsequent death of Choctaw two-spirit teenager Nex Benedict in Oklahoma.

When questioned about how 50+ anti-LGBTQ bills might have affected this case, State Senator Tom Woods said,

“We are a Republican state - supermajority - in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma.”

Several audience members clapped at his statement, while others appeared shocked.

“We are a religious state and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state - we are a moral state,” Woods said. “We want to ... let people be able to go to the faith they choose. We are a Republican state and I’m going to vote my district, and I’m going to vote my values, and we don’t want that in the state of Oklahoma.”

State Representative David Hardin added, “How you live your life personally, that’s between you and God... but what goes through our public schools - I will fall back on my faith. I want to make sure that at least the children in our public schools have that faith... what I want to make sure of is that our young children have the right to grow up with that faith."

After the forum, Woods reiterated his stance on the matter: "I support my constituency, and like I said, we’re a Christian state, and we are tired of having that shoved down our throat at every turn... I stand behind my statement, and I stand behind the Republican Party values."

When asked what he thought of Woods’ characterization of LGBTQ people as “filth,” State Senator Dewayne Pemberton said, “No comment.”

Again and again, today's christofascist Republicans (any other sort doesn't get elected these days) reveal that they want to indoctrinate public school kids into their own bigoted hatred, forcing children to hate anyone who doesn't subscribe to their narrow interpretation of their religious texts. Christofascists seek to impose their personal, misguided religious biases on the general public, including creating laws codifying hate and authoritarian control over the lives and bodies of everyone, not just others in their own religion.

Make no mistake, Nex Benedict's death was caused by christofascist indoctrination of the three girls who brutally beat Nex in that school bathroom. Nex Benedict's death was caused by the school failing to take their injuries seriously, by hate codified in Oklahoma state laws designed to harass LGBTQ folks and normalize bigotry against them, by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters appointing hate-speech villain Chaya Raichik (responsible for "Libs of TikTok") to the Oklahoma Department of Education's Library Media Advisory Committee even though she doesn't live in the state (but he likes that she used Benedict's school and teacher for targeted hate). And on and on - it's a systematic attack on personal freedom and human rights - and the lives of queer folks.

Nex Benedict's death is exactly what christofascists seek through indoctrinating children into their hate that perpetuates bigotry into the future and forcing their religious fanaticism into the public sphere through unconstitutional laws built on hate and control.

Do you want to live in a theocracy dictated by those who narrowly interpret their personal religious texts to promote hate? Because as long as citizens fail to speak out against these harbingers of civilizational collapse, they'll only feel more and more emboldened to turn hate crimes into victories.

We must not let another of our people become victim of systemic bigotry. To protect children and end generational indoctrination, we must fire all public officials who subscribe to christofascist hatred and, when appropriate, prosecute them for the violence they incite.

If we fail to end the careers of hateful christofascists, we fail our children.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

I keep seeing memes and other posts claiming strong black female journalists stood up to Trump and didn’t let him get away with anything. Were they watching the same interview the rest of us saw? Trump steamrolled them like he steamrolls everyone else. They tried to get a few questions in but he never allowed himself to be put on the spot. He loudly talked over their questions and weak protests and then they just gave up in frustration and let him spew lies as usual. Lies, deflection, exaggerations, misdirections, and personal attacks on them they he delivered with impunity. Of course Faulkner on the far right of the stage works for Fox and would have shined his shoes if given the chance. Plus he had his usual operatives planted in the audience to guffaw to his every sarcastic remark and put down.

It was still better than the debate where the lousy traitors actively aided and abetted him. To round it out his lackeys yanked him out prematurely so he could leave on a high and dodge any potential Hail Mary shots from the two women who weren’t Fox News stooges.

What are these people thinking when they sit down with this maniac? Do they think he’s suddenly going to seriously answer questions and provide facts and details? After all these years do they think they’re going to be the one that finally pins him down and puts him on the spot. There’s one person on tv news who’s loud enough, bold enough, smart enough, and fast talking enough to match him and that would be Chris Cuomo. Formerly of CNN, and now living in exile with the aging has been at News Nation, Chris could easily go toe to toe with DonOld but Trump would start shouting and storm out. The way Cuomo eviscerated Ted Cruz in his last days at CNN was a work of art, and Cruz is one of the most slippery bastards the right has.

Now I know the reason they invited him to the conference of black journalists was the hope they could expose him as a fool to a larger black audience than usual. Trump and his team knew that and the reason he attended was to delight his MAGAt audience by owning black journalists. Each side was trying to use the other. Those of us already planning to vote Democratic were disgusted. However less informed and less educated people watching that were witness to a display of confidence and dominance by the Orange anus. The media that are actively trying to get the news out need to stop giving him free press. Many undecided voters believe they witnessed a show of strength that they feel is a good quality for a president.

Half the public that isn’t a well informed Democrat like those reading this, or on the flip side an indoctrinated MAGAt, can actually be swayed by this. No such thing as bad press. Don’t assume everyone else thinks like you. It doesn’t matter that he was racist, rude, lacking facts, or outright lying like a rug. Far too many people simply believed he dominated a hostile panel. Our society, especially those on the right, have been propagandized to the point where it’s only about winning or losing. People have been deliberately divided into teams, as in sports, and the only thing that matters to the masses is being on the winning side even if it means backing Hitler. Propaganda works best when it’s oversimplified down to cartoonish levels, our side is right and your side is wrong. No shades of grey, no extenuating circumstances, no worries about future repercussions, and no worries about complications.

Someone like DonOld needs to be put in a one on one situation with someone loud, knowledgeable, imposing, and possessing nerves of steel and with no audience for him to play to. It has to be a confrontation that we’re sure we can win. No quarter whatsoever can be given. Every insult needs to be returned with double the force. Every lie needs to be called out as many times as it takes to get him to abandon it.

That will probably never happen so for now we must register as many new voters as possible and get them to the polls. We need to get the 1/3 of Hispanics that are registered Republicans to switch sides. We need to get the entire African-American community to vote and vote blue, not just the mature women. We need to get the Log Cabin (Gay) Republicans to stop voting and donating to a party wants them to be outlawed. We need to convince immigrant groups that have recently become citizens to stop voting for loudmouths that remind them of the autocrats back home. We need to reinvigorate the working class that was once unionized to back Dems who want to bring back unions and their benefits. We need to reclaim the aging veterans who have been radicalized by Fox. Republicans aren’t pro-military, they’re pro defense contractor and those defense corporations suck up billions of tax dollars and funnel a few million back to their Republican lackeys. We need to claim the South Florida Cubans that keep swaying Florida red which costs us dearly. we need to make inroads into the women living with MAGA husbands and get them to stop voting against themselves.

Basically we need to be as organized as the oligarch backed movement that was once referred to as the "vast right-wing conspiracy." We need to take the offensive and control the narrative for once and knock them on their heels and have them waste their time responding to endless brush fires. This needs to be a perpetual movement and not just something we do in the last few months before the election.

Thanks for following and taking the time to read and interact.

[fangirltothefullest]

I Figured You Had A Job But I Would Have Never Guessed That You Were A Teacher What Do You Teach? Does Your Experience As A Teacher Effect How You Portray Logan From Sanders Sides In Your Art And Other Teacher Characters As Well?

Well the funny thing about that is that I WAS a teacher... I don't want to be one any more because I HATE the system. It's basically a corporation pushing for an outcome instead of a place dedicated to actual learning, and it's based on an outdated system designed, ironically, to prepare people for factory work (this is why you go with people of the same age to the same places and told what to do and when in buildings that keep having less and less windows). And I'm not just making this up by the way they taught me about this during college. So why have we not changed the way schools are set up since factories aren't so prevalent anymore?

(That, and the American government WANTS schools to be privatized to force only certain people to be educated, can you see how horrible that is? Republican moneylenders really want every aspect of life to be behind a paywall on purpose and so electing them leads to them passing policies which slowly and steadily ruing public schools over time until they're unbearable.... but i digress -_-;;; ) And honestly no I don't think my experiences as a teacher affects how I write him mostly because I USUALLY portray him as a college professor, whereas I taught elementary and preschool.

But I DO base him off my philosophy of teaching, mostly because I teach similarly to the way he does. I will never NOT clarify and explain, I will never NOT answer a question with as many needed details as possible. I will derail the topic if a really good question is asked because the answer is a lot more important than what the fucking curriculum has to say because curriculum is written by old fuckers sitting in a committee who haven't seen a child in real life in 50+ years.

So... I guess I DO make him a lot like me? In the terms of... he wants to teach, he wants to share information, he wants so badly to get people to understand if they are confused or distressed. And he's also just as pissed as I am when people don't take him seriously. In my case it's because i'm so short and people mistake me for stupid because i'm excitable and bubbly... and that's also why I project on him a LOT lol he's my fave for a reason.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Steve Corbin

According to a May 15 NBC News report, there are a multitude of issues that voters must discern about Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the independent presidential candidates before voting on Nov. 5. Logically, the importance of each issue differs between and among America’s 161.4 million registered voters.

One issue missing from the NBC News report that has become a focal point of the Biden camp, Make America Great Again Republicans and third-party candidates is democracy vs. authoritarianism. Specifically, on Jan. 20, 2025, will the duly elected and inaugurated president of the United States keep America as a democracy that dates back to the 1630’s in the New England colonies, or will it be the start of changing the country to authoritarian fascism?

If you’ve not heard of Project 2025, it’s very worthy of your independent investigation. Project 2025 is a playbook specifically created for Donald Trump and his supporters to use in the first 180 days of Trump’s 2025-29 presidential administration. The far-right extremism-based Heritage Foundation proudly takes claim for facilitating the creation of the 887-page turning-democracy-into-an-authoritarian-country document.

Project 2025’s two editors had assistance from 34 authors, 277 contributors, a 54-member advisory board and a coalition of over 100 conservative organizations (including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Heartland Institute, Liberty University, Middle East Forum, Moms for Liberty, the National Rifle Association, Pro-Life America and Tea Party Patriots).

Project 2025 is a serious endeavor, if Trump returns to the White House, to make America a fascist country. After all, on May 20, Trump posted a video on his Truth Social media account depicting his 2025-29 administration as a “Unified Reich.” (Hitler’s Third Reich occurred from 1933 to 1945.)

Download the Project 2025 document (it's linked from this essay) so you can check out the disconcerting manuscript that tells Trump what specifically to do from Jan. 20 to July 18, 2025, to convert America into an authoritarian regime.

The 30 chapters of Project 2025 are a daunting read. Project 2025 proposes, among a host of things, eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating the Department of Commerce, deploying the US military whenever protests erupt, dismantling the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, removing sexual and gender protected discrimination and terminating diversity, equity, inclusion and affirmative action.

Additional mandates include: siphoning off billions of dollars of public school funding, funding private school choice vouchers, phasing out public education’s Title I program, gutting the nation’s free school meals program, eliminating the Head Start program, banning books and suppressing any curriculum that discusses the evils of slavery.

Project 2025 also calls for banning abortion (which makes women second-class citizens), restricting access to contraception, forcing would-be immigrants to be detained in concentration camps, eliminating Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, recruiting 54,000 loyal MAGA Republicans to replace existing federal civil servants, and ending America’s bedrock principle that separates church from state.

A news story in Politico described Project 2025 as an authoritarian Christian nationalist movement and a path for the US to become an autocracy. Several legal experts have indicated implementing the 180-day manual would undermine the rule of law and the separation of powers.

As noted earlier, Project 2025 is worthy of your independent investigation. So that you’ll be in-the-know as to what authoritarianism looks like, seriously consider reading one research-based book per month for the next five months as pre-election homework. Here’s my suggested reading assignment:

JUNE: "On Tyranny: 20 lessons from the 20th century," Timothy Snyder, 2017.

JULY: "Twilight of Democracy: The seductive lure of authoritarianism," Anne Applebaum, 2020. Chapters IV, V and VI get to the bottom line.

AUGUST: "Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America," Heather Cox Richardson, 2023.

SEPTEMBER: "Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America," Barbara McQuade, 2024. The 1,717 reference citations proves this is well researched and an honest read.

OCTOBER: "1984," George Orwell, 1949. Orwell’s novel shows Americans what life would be like under totalitarian and oppressive rule.

Reading even just one of these books will enable you to discern political candidate and party-based disinformation, misinformation and propaganda from truth, ready to vote on Nov. 5 and keep America a democracy.

[ziskeyt]

VOTER REGISTRATION: COMPLETE Goodness, i was so worried about that. Also, i registered as a republican this time around to vote in the republican primaries to give better candidates a chance and forgot i did this, so i got the republican primary ballot and i was like ??????? what is going on. lol. anyway after going through and voting on my ballot, i'm glad i switched parties when i registered under my new name. the two party system isn't working to represent the majority of people, but it is what we have and if we wish to change it we have to participate in the democratic experiment to get changes like ranked-choice voting to exist. it is a good reminder, reading up on all the candidates for the republican party up for the various seats in this election, that there are those who are in either party who believe in continuing to be a democracy, who want to be in office to help the citizens who vote for them, and who take the job seriously. and there are those who are far less qualified to take these seats. there's a guy on my ballot who's a registered republican who's talking about environmental conservation, supreme court term limits, he's not a perfect candidate, but perfection doesn't exist anyway and he's the best out of the competition on the ballot. there are decent people who work in politics that we can put in office, or at least, get on the election ballots to give our counties, states, and entire country a chance to be better, represent the people better, and give us as a people a better chance to fight climate destruction. i vote from abroad. as a dual citizen i vote in two countries, where i live and where i was born. you have a right to vote, but also you have a responsibility to vote. if you can vote in the place that you live, why not take part? why not ensure your voice is heard? i'm sure there are pot holes in your roads you want fixed, or you don't like the turn education curricula has taken in eliminating learning phonics, or you want to ensure trans kids and adults can access the care they need and are treated as people in public -- there are so many things on every ballot that can change the area you live in for the better, that can help so many people for the better, and that can make the future a more hopeful possibility.

if you can vote, take the time to learn your candidates (i use ballotpedia as a starting point) and participate especially because there are people around you who cannot vote for various reasons, and if you value community take the time out of your day to cast your ballot to see the changes you wish to see happen. voting isn't a quick-fix solution to anything, it's not a five-minute craft. politics is a long term goal system. we vote to get people in power now who are slightly better than the last guard so in x years time we have people in power who really push the needle when we look back at attitudes today. i think, for a lot of voters, the fact that it takes a long time to see and enact change is discouraging, and i get it. it is. it would be amazing if we could fix things quickly, but unfortunately that's not the world that we live in. get yourself a pie-in-the-sky dream for the world you want to see, and start voting for people now who aren't perfect, who don't fully realize that dream, but who help us toe a little closer to that reality. afterall, how long did it take you to be who you are today? it certainly didn't happen overnight and you're just one person. when it comes to voting and the politics of an entire country, that's millions of people, of course it'll take a while.

[endcant]

a big reason why i personally respond very strongly and publicly about internet censorship bills is because every tool and support ive ever had to understand my trauma, cope with my mental health issues, historically contextualize my experiences, and become a somewhat functional adult, were all found online. the friends who support me found me online. my ability to do my art business & be my authentic self in the same place at the same time is thanks to the expressive powers of the internet. almost nothing good in my life would have been possible if there was legislation like KOSA enacted when i was a child. which is why i have been openly speaking out against legislation like this ever since i was a child.

one example of the problem here is that the heritage foundation intends to use KOSA as a way to sue websites into censoring information about LGBT+ issues and sex/reproductive health. they said it publicly, and i have no reason to think they’re bluffing. the heritage foundation is also the main party behind Project 2025 (an authoritarian agenda for the U.S. political right published and free to read online). they should be taken seriously because they have proudly played a massive role in deciding what Republican public policy be will be since the Reagan administration. if you are politically active online at all and don’t know whether your most dearly held causes are under threat by this group, type “the heritage foundation’s stance on” into your favorite search engine, take a look at the recommended searches, and get ready to have a very bad time. (…unless you’re one of those rare far-right political users on this site, in which case you’d probably have a pretty good time)

this is happening alongside the recent growth of the “parental rights” movement, whose achievements include promoting book bans, trying to suppress any information they deem to be “Critical Race Theory”, as well as harassing and threatening people for supporting LGBT+ kids. they aim to silence any voices that don’t fall in line with their agenda. moms for liberty is a prominent example of a harmful “parental rights” activist group; they have repeatedly done things like this. i have no doubt that these groups would absolutely utilize KOSA to further prevent children from accessing important educational information.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the one of the two legislators who has spearheaded the push to pass this bill through the Senate, is a self identified “hard-core” “politically incorrect” conservative who came into the Senate during the Trump administration. She is also part of the larger Tennesseean right-wing political apparatus that has brought this state wonders like cities where public homosexuality is illegal, and a county where the juvenile detention rate approaches 50%. these people do not care about the wellbeing of children. they are doing awful things here that the majority of tennesseans do not support. there are many other recent, infamous examples of similar state and local human rights failures throughout the US. if you let them have their way, these post-Trump Republicans will do their best to bring this kind of nonsensical, authoritarian governance to the entire country and potentially the rest of the world, given the role that U.S. law plays in the reality of the international internet.

i have been mostly sharing others’ posts and contacting legislators on my own time, but on December 6th, a letter was published in support of KOSA that was signed by 200 organizations— largely mental health and childrens’ health related groups. i believe that far-right political groups will use KOSA to silence the kind of online information that helped me with my own mental health when i was a kid, and that kids are currently relying on today. ultimately, i think it is a shame that these 200 organizations think they can get away with publicly supporting a bill that is so widely criticized and politically fraught.

[racefortheironthrone]

What are your thoughts on James Longstreet? He was a Confederate commander, and so fought to preserve slavery, but he was also one of the few among the Confederate senior officers who supported the Reconstruction.

So Longstreet is a fascinating case of pesonal character growth. Pretty much through the war he was a very conventional Southern officer in his attitudes to slavery; he owned slaves, he was very open that the Confederacy's cause was "protecting and defending lawful property," infamously in 1862, he gave this speech to rally his men against the enemy:

He told his men that the Yankees were determined to seize Southern land and property; as proof, he cited “one of their great leaders [who has] attempted to make the negro your equal by declaring his freedom. They care not for the blood of babes nor carnage of innocent women which servile insurrection thus stirred up may bring upon their heads.” (source)

That's a pretty straightforward invocation of the specter of slave revolts and the rape of white women which were the hallmarks of pro-slavery mobilization of public opinion in Southern society, the original blood libel against black emancipation.

But to give him credit, James Longstreet was also one of the few high-ranking Confederates who really took the idea of Reconstruction seriously on a personal level and sought to educate and grow from his experiences. As he said in a letter to the newspaper after the war:

"The great principles that divided political parties prior to the war were thoroughly discussed by our wisest statement...appeal was finally made tot the sword, to determine which of the claims was the true construction of constitutional law. The sword has decided in favor of the North, and what they claimed as principles cease to be principles, and are become law. The views that we hold cease to be principles cease to be principles because they are are opposed to the law. It is therefore our duty to abandon ideaas that are obsolete and conform to the requirements of law."

As a philosophical and political position, It's weirdly militaristic and oddly Hegelian, but Longstreet goes on to explicitly state that black suffrage and full citizenship should be adopted throughout the South. This letter destroyed his reputation among white Southernors, but Longstreet put his money where his mouth was, becoming a Republican and a railroad executive, and a general in the Louisiana state militia leading black troops against white supremacist paramilitaries. He was an imperfect man, but I think you have to give him credit for consistently applying his beliefs, being willing to follow reason and logic even if it required a complete renunciation of his former beliefs, and following through with thorough action in furtherance of his new principles.

[healingheartdogs]

Call to Action for all Americans!

This is of extreme importance, so I am begging everyone who sees this post to read it and share this information with everyone you know. Groups of conservative elites are planning to quite literally overthrow our government to replace it with a theocracy if they secure a Republican win in the next election (specifically they want Trump again, the man with RICO charges who attempted to steal an election with voter fraud and by encouraging alt-right violence in an attack on the capitol, but they will take anyone with similar ideology). No, that is not an exaggeration. This plan -- called Project 2025 -- is posted online for everyone to see, so please look it up. This is led by a group called The Heritage Foundation, a rich alt-right think tank with ties to fossil fuel billionaires that wants to walk back civil rights and environmental protections, which they view as actions by "the left" that are ruining our country, as well as outright criminalize being LGBTQ+ and implement conversion therapy as the only form of "treatment" for being LGBTQ+. I am not making this up, it is all detailed in their plan in fanciful distracting wording that tries to paint these things as being done for the sanctity of families and religious freedom.

The policies this group wants to put in place if they secure the next election will harm everyone in this country, even their own conservative and alt-right supporters. It is ONLY to benefit the 1% in this country. Let me state that again in clearer words. YOU ARE NOT SAFE FROM BEING SERIOUSLY HARMED BY PROJECT 2025 EVEN IF YOU ARE CONSERVATIVE, REPUBLICAN, ALT-RIGHT, OR WHITE. This project is by the 1% FOR the 1%. This is not a situation where you should be voting for "small government" or "tax policy" on the right while ignoring the other key points of the Republican platform, this is an effort by Republicans' rich extremist donors to actively overthrow the government and rebuild it from the ground up to only benefit themselves.

You can see the framework of this plan being laid across the country by conservative politicians these elite groups have already paid off -- overturning Roe v. Wade and attacking reproductive rights and medical privacy, conservatives running under progressive platforms and then switching sides after being elected to take political seats from progressives that the people actually want in office and voted for, criminalizing openly LGBTQ+ people in public spaces and labeling them groomers for daring to exist, walking back voter accessibility and putting obstacles in the way of marginalized groups voting to attempt to steal the next election, banning books that teach anything that goes against their fascist white supremacist religious extremist world view (indoctrination), defunding public schooling because they don't want an educated public who can more easily understand them and therefore fight back against them, and walking back protections for children including those preventing child labor and providing free meals and family supports from public institutions like schools (while simultaneously screaming about protecting kids from trans people to distract you from their own blatant attempts to harm kids). Don't just take my word for this, you can see it in action around you with your own eyes by looking up policies Republican politicians have pushed across the country these last few years as well as discussions of Project 2025 in news outlets.

This is, straight up, an attempt at treason by conservative politicians and the elite who are puppeteering them. For the sake of what shreds of democracy this country has remaining DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN IN THIS NEXT ELECTION. They are counting on you being uneducated and scared enough of "the left", "communism", and "foreign adversaries" like China and Russia that you will vote against your own best interests and give them all the power to hurt you and everyone else in this country (and the world as a whole, seriously. Take a look at their plans for our military around the world in their mandate if you don't believe me). If you're already liberal, centrist, left, democrat, whatever and you currently don't exercise your voting rights as much as you should PLEASE go vote blue in the next election. You need to be actively voting on both the state and federal level to help fight these threats to our country and our lives. These actions by the rich elites and their politician puppets are trying to lead us to potential civil war and the overthrow of the current US government. Again, THIS IS NOT EXAGGERATION. This is their PUBLIC PLAN for 2025 if they secure a Republican win for president.

Some articles discussing Project 2025 from various news sources:

https://www.damemagazine.com/2023/08/14/the-gop-has-a-master-plan-to-criminalize-being-trans/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/27/project-2025-dismantle-us-climate-policy-next-republican-president

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-08-30/conservative-groups-draw-up-plan-to-dismantle-the-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision

https://www.salon.com/2023/09/05/dark-right-wing-network-recruits-maga-army-to-replace-50k-workers-plans-to-purge/

https://accountable.us/right-wing-network-plots-to-undermine-democracy-with-project-2025/

The official Project 2025 website, which has their plan posted for anyone to read:

https://www.project2025.org/policy/

And the Mandate itself, taken directly from their official website for Project 2025: (Content warning, this mandate is full of anti-vax, anti-healthcare, covid denial conspiracy, systemic racism denial, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-reproductive rights, anti-equality, anti-divorce, anti-environmental protection, climate change denial conspiracy, anti-social support (SSI/SSDI, CEP, WIC, SNAP, etc), anti-public education, anti-higher education accessibility, pro-fossil fuel, pro-military expansion, pro-conversion therapy, pro-religion in government, and pro-government controlled media censorship and propaganda rhetoric as well as many other fascist, alt-right, religious extremist, and white supremacy political points.)

https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

I have also included some screenshots directly from the Project 2025 mandate in this post for those of you who don't follow links to include a taste of just how evil this mandate actually is. A lot of these things are worded to make it sound like their goal is family protections, increased protections for "democracy" for the right, and to tear down the "corrupt ruling elite" (so they can make themselves the new corrupt ruling elite). DO NOT BE FOOLED, these policies will have wide reaching negative effects for EVERYONE -- including their own voter base. Project 2025 wants to create a government where the president, chosen by groups like The Heritage Foundation specifically for extreme right platforms, and their hand-picked political appointees have power over all other branches to restructure as they see fit and prevent those branches from being able to check the president's powers. This is not for the benefit of the American people, this is for the benefit of the billionaires heading The Heritage Foundation and their elite allies.

Finally, I'd like to make a note about one of the screenshots I included regarding wanting to criminalize pornography and imprison anyone who produces it. This note is for my LGBTQ+ friends and allies. When they are talking about pornography here they are specifically talking about LGBTQ+ rights, not actually porn (as detailed in the article I linked above about their plan to criminalize being trans). They are more likely than not including things like children's books that teach about LGBTQ+ equality and representation and even organizations like the Trevor Project -- a crisis support service for suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth -- as pornography to be criminalized. The proof for this is in actions taken by the Republican politicians they have already bought, like the "don't say gay" laws in Florida, which Project 2025 wants to make into federal law. This would also put LGBTQ+ parents and even non-LGBTQ+ parents who support their LGBTQ+ children at risk of being criminalized and imprisoned for exposing their children to "pornography" by being LGBTQ+ themselves or for "sexualizing", "grooming", and making "pornography" of their children by allowing their kids to be LGBTQ+ and seeking affirmative care for them. It would also put educators, librarians, doctors, and therapists who teach about and support LGBTQ+ rights, possess LGBTQ+ positive education materials, or provide affirmative care in the line of fire as criminals, groomers, and pedophiles. Again, this is not exaggeration. A lesbian couple was literally arrested in Houston for kissing in front of a homophobic woman who was with her child in a public space and then called the cops on them, which the arresting officers told the couple was "sexual harassment of a minor" when they asked why they were being arrested. That is the type of law and punishment that this Project plans to pass on the federal level if given the chance.

PLEASE spread the word about this as much as you possibly can. They released this mandate so early because they are trying to gather an "army" of alt-right supporters ahead of time to steal the next election and take over our government immediately starting day one of a new conservative presidency, so we need to be just as proactive in mobilizing against this and making sure their plan is fully exposed to voters across the country so that can't happen.

[attibar]

RIP Oklahomans.

In all seriousness, this is concerning. In particular this passage:

"HB3008 details anyone who wants to access a pornographic site deemed as harmful to minors will have to submit a digitized identification card, a government issued identification card, or “any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify whether the person attempting to access the information is 18 years of age or older.”

“Transactional data” refers to a third party vendor that verifies a user’s age via their mortgage, educational, employment, or other records."

I work in mobile app development. When I hear third party vendor, I hear "company that wants your data to sell and make money". Imagine information about your mortgage, education, your job, and other stuff being given to companies that want to spam you with shit. And that's not even considering if two and two are put together and they find out what kind of pr0n you're into.

And another thing: what's stopping adult child abusers from showing kids adult content? What's stopping a dumb kid from taking their parent's id card and use that to verify when no one is looking? The only thing this prevents is less tech savvy kids from getting to those sites. For a bill who's purpose is to protect kids from pr0n-to-sexual abuse-pipeline, it does a shit job at it.

[tiggymalvern]

I understand the sentiment, but I just want to let you know that your VOTE hashtag might be undermining your efforts. I think it’s great to demonstrate what the Biden administration HAS accomplished because it’s not being publicized and it’s helpful information to hear, but ending with a blunt VOTE is dismissive of where people’s anxieties and despair are coming from. Instead of leading with the conclusion you’ve drawn, I just ask you to consider changing the way you’re communicating with your audience so that they can get there with you. A lot of people who are saying “VOTE” are using it to ignore genuine critiques and while I think voting for Biden is still the best option, I think there are better ways to help people get to that understanding.

The VOTE hashtag on my posts means exactly that. Everything that I think about who people should vote for and why has been eloquently explained by the OP and in the additions. People are either going to read it and engage with it or they aren't, and one tag that I put on the bottom probably isn't going to change it.

The VOTE hashtag reflects my belief. I literally think everyone who is allowed to vote should turn up and vote. Even if, for whatever reason of your own, you feel you need to vote Republican or Alternative für Deutschland or National Rally, or whoever your local neo-fascists happen to be.

Throughout history, people have had to battle for the right to choose their government. There were monarchies or emperors, and nobody got to choose. Then in many countries only landowners were eligible to vote, and the people who worked the land were excluded. Then in various countries, all white men were allowed to vote, and women and people of colour might have all had to fight in their turn to get their right to vote.

Whatever category of human you are, some people somewhere marched and/or were arrested, jailed or killed so that YOU could have the chance to vote. My grandmother was nearly 30 when women in England were allowed to vote on the same terms as men. This is not ancient history. This is less than a hundred years ago. If you are eligible to vote, DO NOT waste it. Do not blithely toss aside the right that your grandparents risked everything for.

I have voted in every single election that I was eligible to vote in. There was one year when I was around 20 when the candidates for the three main parties in my local elections were all so awful that I couldn't vote for any of them. It was for the regional council, so there were no larger ramifications in the national voting block of the government. So I turned up and voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party as a protest vote. Doing that made it clear that I wasn't staying at home through apathy - not voting for any of the main candidates was an active choice, and it registered my vote as a rejection of all of them.

I have voted for the candidates I truly believe in. I have voted tactically, simply to make sure that the worst candidate didn't get chosen. But I have always, always voted, when I could. And I believe that everybody should, even if I also believe you're a misguided idiot in where you place your X.

I'm not allowed to vote in the US, where I currently live, because I'm not a US citizen. I also live in a blue state where I can guarantee that Dems will get elected without my vote, so I don't fret too much about being excluded. But I am excluded.

I believe that everybody should validate their ancestors' struggles and do their civic duty and show up at the polls if they're allowed. I also believe that you should educate yourself on the issues and the reasons before you do. So I reblog the posts about the issues and the reasons that I believe, in the hope that those candidates will be elected. But my tag VOTE isn't just to try and get Dems to turn out (although everyone knows that Dems win when turnout is high, because low turnout means fewer Dems, not so much fewer Republicans).

VOTE. Seriously. Everyone. Even, especially, if you live in a red state where arseholes in power are deliberately making it hard for you to vote. If Republicans ban you from mailing in your vote and make you stand in line for three hours at a polling station, that's all the more reason to do it - it's the same battle that has been fought before, and you damn well insist on your right to vote. It's inconvenient and miserable, but you're not being arrested or murdered for wanting to vote, the way other people before you have been.

Your rights have been hard won. Understand that, respect it, and vote.

[leaves-lilies-and-esther]

Reasons we still need feminism (in the US!)

Because out of every 1,000 sexual assaults, only 25 perpetrators will be incarcerated (RAINN)

Because our politicians feel comfortable saying that "if it's inevitable, just enjoy it" (Clayton Williams) and "when you're a star, they let you do it" (Donald Trump)

Because female survivors are routinely accused of lying, even though only 6% of rape accusations are false (meaning that 9/10 are true) (Lisak et al 2010).

Because the US is one of the only countries in the world without maternity leave

Because Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Texas all have abortion restrictions modeled on the scientifically inaccurate heartbeat bill (Scientific American)

Because women are already being prosecuted for miscarriages as a result of these rules- even when experts can't prove that their actions caused the stillbirth (google Marshae Jones, Brittney Poolaw)

Because in Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, and Texas, you cannot get divorced while pregnant. Meanwhile, the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide because of domestic violence (Healthline).

Because women are frequently blocked from getting their tubes tied because they're young/haven't had enough children/ are unmarried. Men never share similar stories

Because people are already advocating against contraception. Idaho's No Public Funds for Abortion Act includes Plan B. Missouri Republicans tried to ban public funding for IUDs and contraception (along with many other examples from Slate)

Because women's pain is not taken as seriously by doctors- 25% less likely to be prescribed opioids for acute abdominal pain, and 2x more likely to be diagnosed as 'mentally ill' for complaining of heart disease (Washington Post)

Because the "husband stitch" is a thing

Because women are routinely under-represented in clinical trials for medication, and get less effective healthcare as a result (The Guardian).

Because pads/tampons are taxed like luxuries

Because roughly 58% of Americans have viewed porn (Institute for Family Studies). We know this fuels sex trafficking. Moreover, exposure to violent pornography makes boys 2-3 times likelier to commit sexual assault (Rostad et al 19).

Because attending strip clubs and similar establishments is still relatively normalized, even though 90% of sex workers want to leave immediately but are unable to (National Organization for Men Against Sexism). Because sex workers are more likely to be homeless, are frequently assaulted, etc.

Because women aren't educated about their bodies to the extent that only half were told about birth control (Forbes). Because my health classes never discussed pelvic exams or breast self-exams. I bet yours didn't either.

Because magazine images are photoshopped until the models don't even look like the models.

Because women are sold a false image of their bodies to the extent that they feel uncomfortable leaving the house without makeup, and 46% of girls worry regularly about their appearance as compared to 25% of boys (Mental Health Foundation).

Because we're told that over-sexualizing yourself at a young age is 'empowering', even though it has outcomes such as depression, disordered eating, and reduced productivity (New York University).

Because we're more likely to encourage our daughters to break gender norms than we are to encourage boys. We still view the feminine as inferior.

Because in 78% of films, the main character was male. And even when the movie is about women, the majority of the dialogue goes to men (Vox).

Because women are 28.7% of the house of representatives in 2023 (Wikipedia) despite being like 51.1% of the population. Because the US has never had a female president.

Reblog and add your own.

[tardistimeladyyeah]

Unfortunately I have to change my pinned post because this keeps happening and I'm sick of it.

This is a Pro-Palestine blog, but if I reblog your "I'm Pro-Palestine but screw voting" post telling OTHER PEOPLE seeing the post why voting is important for Palestine and that there are other issues that will impact how we help Palestine if the wrong side (Republicans) wins and that a lot of us will be in similar situations to them if the Trump/Vance ticket wins and if you reply why I'm wrong and if you jump to a wild conclusion about the point of my post, you're blocked. I don't like waking up to that when the party that has called my friends and relatives pedophiles for being teachers/LGBTQIA+ has a chance of winning because enough people voted third party to split the vote for Clinton in swing states in 2016. I'm done with you people. I live in a state that will vote for Trump/Vance no matter what and I want other states to cancel out my stupid state's vote. I also live in a state that banned abortion, did not protect the right to contraception, repeatedly attacks LGBTQIA+ identifying people (especially the State Superintendent), and is making a quality public education harder to access (we rank last on a lot of those state education lists). There are more issues than Palestine that I care about that will be impacted if Trump/Vance wins and I seriously need people to know that you need to vote if you can because fascism is at the front door. You may not care about these issues, but I do. Congratulations on living in a blue state or in a country that is not regressing to the 1950s. Follow the local news of one of these states for a month and you'll see what I'm talking about or get off my blog.

To my regular followers who have had to endure that, I apologize deeply. I try to not be toxic but when my beliefs are challenged (which tend to just be "hey you should vote if you can and here's why") and I'm a mad and scared political science student who just wants to finish their degree in peace. Information is important, and I feel like these people aren't using it correctly. That isn't an excuse, however. I will try to be better. From now on, I'll explain why their position on the election is incorrect and then block them so I don't have to deal with their response that thinks I told them to not care about Palestine when really all I tried to tell them that 1. There are more issues than Palestine and 2. Some of those issues will impact the way we fight for Palestine and 3. One party wants to blow everything up and the other wants to negotiate.

Sorry for the rant. I just keep opening Tumblr to this and I don't want to see it anymore because it's toxic and extremely dangerous.

[ausetkmt]

Wellll Its BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2023

SO LETS START TELLIN SOME TRUTHS ,

SARAH, STOP YA LYIN AND START DEALIN WITH YOUR STATES STANK ATTITUDE TOWARD MINORITIES in 2023

A bill that would ban affirmative action in Arkansas passed out a Senate committee Tuesday. Sponsored by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro), Senate Bill 71 frames programs that gives special consideration to historically marginalized groups as “discrimination.”

“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, an individual or group on the basis of race, gender, color, ethnicity, or national origin in matters of state employment, public education, or state procurement,” it reads.

Arkansas would be the ninth state to ban affirmative action, and the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to ban any consideration of race-based factors in higher education, which critics say will severely limit minorities from the best colleges and best jobs.

From Bloomberg Law:

Sen. Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock), one of only two Democrats on the Senate State Agencies Committee and the only one in attendance Tuesday, was a lonely voice of reason.

“If this passes and becomes law, then the state of Arkansas is saying that discrimination no longer exists, racism no longer exists, sexism no longer exists,” Tucker said. The bill suggests that there’s nothing more the state should do to ensure that people who have been historically discriminated and historically disenfranchised get an equal shot, Tucker said.

That position is morally and factually wrong, Tucker said.

Sullivan brought an amendment to the bill that hasn’t yet made it to the legislative website and at least some of the committee members hadn’t seen ahead of the meeting. Tucker and several Republican committee members urged Sullivan to pull the bill back and allow the committee and the public time to review the amendment, but Sullivan declined and had the votes to move forward.

Tucker also noted that neither the bill nor the amendment addresses at least one area of existing law: the Minority and Women-Owned Economic Development Act. It’s a law that directs state agencies to attempt to make their goods and services purchases with diversity in mind. The act directs state agencies to direct at least 10% of spending toward minority-owned businesses and at least 5% of spending to women-owned businesses every year.

If Sullivan’s bill becomes law, a state employee who “negligently” violates the law would be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

Sullivan, always quick to take offense, said Tucker was effectively accusing him of racism. He said he agreed that racism and sexism still existed.

“This bill puts everyone on an equal field,” Sullivan said. “If the purpose of affirmative action is to give people who are in need a course of action, that’s exactly what the bill says. The bill says, people who are in need qualify. It doesn’t have to be race or sex or gender or whatever.”

Tucker later told Sullivan it wasn’t his intent to suggest that Sullivan is racist.

As to the negligent liability aspect of the bill, Sullivan said, “We’re serious against racism. We’re serious against people being taken advantage of or not having a seat at the table. If you’re going to treat people differently, we’re not going to stand for that and there will be a crime and a penalty, and we expect our state employees to take it seriously and make sure we don’t do that.”

[wawagooba]

The Franklin scandal fucks me up in a way that’s just different from a lot of clandestine government conspiracy stuff I delve into. Maybe it’s the horrifying imagery, or the vast scope of who was involved. The complete, existential bleakness surrounding the whole premise: That the highest reaches of government could not only be aware of but participate in systemized child rape for profit and political leverage. But what bothers me most about the Franklin conspiracy was that it really happened.

The Franklin Federal Credit Union Pedophile Ring

The scandal itself involves a national, possibly international, pedophile ring centered around Larry King, the Republican manager of the Franklin Federal Credit Union (FFCU), based in Omaha, Neb. In the ‘80s (but likely before), King cultivated and procured a stable of children to be used as child sex slaves, drug traffickers, tools of blackmail and sacrifices. King financially ingratiated himself in Boys Town, an orphan educational complex run by the archdiocese and granted the privileges of an incorporated town, in order to gain access to the youth. He ferried children from Boys Town to FFCU, and then trafficked them to pedophilic orgies around town. This abuse eventually gave way to reports — along with suspicions of financial embezzlement that directly fueled the sex parties — that reached the proper (and I want to stress, for the documentary’s sake, the Herculean lifting “proper” is doing here) authorities. On April 11, 1988, the FBI raided and closed FFCU.

What follows is a profoundly sad story of betrayal, murder and court narratives that deliver a litany of torture and sexual abuse, but more than that, Conspiracy of Silence (CoS) is an example of an American capitalist sub-system that reproduces itself through exploitation, blackmail and violent suppression: If everyone’s doing the same illegal thing, everyone can hold each other accountable for it, and from there you can extract, from participants, political, monetary and material gain while continuing to abuse people yourself. Who’s going to stop you, the people who’re supposed to stop you? They’re doing it too.

From Post-Franklin to Post-Epstein

Looking at it from afar, the Franklin Scandal seems tailor-made to be disbelieved: The most powerful men in the state and country, those in politics, law enforcement, industry and media, terrorizing the most vulnerable of our citizens for the sake of carnal satisfaction and Satanic ritual abuse (SRA). Shit, and Iran-Contra might’ve been involved? AND George Bush, Sr. (who the documentary doesn’t explicitly mention but is identified by one of the witnesses)??

Who would take that seriously? Who could? To accept the Franklin scandal on its own terms requires a complete restructuring of your entire worldview and values.

Approaching it more closely, however, it’s hard to just wave away how much weird shit is going on here: The mysterious deaths of those involved; the punishment of those who believed the story, including the excessively cruel sentencing of Alisha Owen, whose staunch testimony identified several key public figures in court; the fact that there were charges in court regarding prostitution; that the court acknowledged abuse occurred; that there were publicized records of politicos giving “escorts” after-hours White House tours.

But it’s impossible to ignore Conspiracy of Silence’s most prominent feature: That it was made in the mid-90s.

We’ve had a good quarter-century since then to digest not only the Franklin scandal (whose total viewer numbers I’d love to see but is probably impossible to quantify),

but the Dutroux scandal; the Clinton scandal; the Bryan Singer scandal; the Weinstein scandal; the Epstein scandal; the Prince Andrew scandal; literally dozens of scandals involving the Catholic Church all over the world since the big story broke back in 2002 (and it bears mentioning these stories were reported far earlier); the Celeste Guap sex trafficking scandal, which involved multiple police departments in the Bay Area sex trafficking a teenager; scandals involving our current and last sitting presidents; the sheer multitude of celebrity, political, military, international, athletic, you name it sex scandals that’ve come out, just so many fucking scandals that indicate well-furbished multi-generational networks of oligarchical abusers that is constantly regurgitating itself; hell there’s even the Cleveland Street scandal going all the way back to 1889; finally, over the last few years, there has been newfound interest in Operations Gladio and MK Ultra, both which incorporate sexual espionage, manipulation and abuse.

Most recently we’ve seen the grotesque reconciliation that Afghanistan, with all its own instances of West-perpetuated war crimes and rape, was a massive pre-ordained scam (or, if you’re a true believer, a military failure, though both conclusions should take into account the human misery involved and meanwhile, those who profited will never know any of it) designed to destabilize entire countries while enriching the U.S. I risk adding to the memeification of what is a key historical event but: Look up Operation Cyclone.

We live in a world where Law & Order: SVU will enter its 23rd season later this year and it’s not hard to trace that show’s source material to real life (the show has also been renewed for a 24th). The show even featured an Epstein episode all the way back in 2011.

What I’m getting at is: I’m not sure how you could dismiss the Franklin Scandal wholesale without at least even considering the possibility that it could be real.

In the Enemy de Camp

John de Camp was a Republican senator, lawyer, and Vietnam vet who sought to expose the Franklin cover-up, which, by the documentary’s end, he believes has been primarily orchestrated by the FBI. CoS prominently features de Camp as its main subject and de facto hero. He is, after all, the one who wrote “The Franklin Cover-Up.”

After watching this, I’m leaning toward de Camp being part of the whole thing, a paperweight op or something to keep the door ajar without blowing it wide open. There’s just too much weird shit going on with him:

- He himself spent time at Boys Town in his youth (CoS thankfully gets that little morsel right out of the way instead of saving it for a cheap thrill at the end of the documentary)

- De Camp’s name has been associated with Operation Phoenix (per his own biography at the end of The Franklin Cover-Up), a Vietnam military strategy that basically gave soldiers the green light to brutalize innocents through rape and torture (does this sound like a pattern yet?)

- De Camp acted as lawyer to Sen. Loran Schmit, a corn farmer and head of the Franklin Committee, who investigated the abuses. He convinced Schmit to turn over evidence to the FBI, some of which was subsequently lost in federal possession (whoops!)

- De Camp also claims in his bio that he initiated Operation Babylift, wherein a ton of orphans were forcibly evacuated from Vietnam. However, the one citation on his Wikipedia page linking him to that on his, an early aughts doc called Daughter of Danang, doesn’t mention de Camp by name. To the best of my knowledge there’s nothing linking de Camp to Babylift other than his own insistence.

- Per his obituary, de Camp was an assistant to an Iranian geologist in his youth, which would have been in the 50s, which, well there was a lot of shit going on between the CIA and Iran in the 50s.

- One segment that stands out is when Schmit says his faith in government institutions has been shaken, and a few minutes later there's a contrived 1-on-1 scene with de Camp and Troy Boner (a victim and witness who met his own death under mysterious circumstances in 2003-4) where de Camp implores him to "use institutions of government that’ve been set up to protect you and make them work.” Maybe it’s just dramatic juxtaposition on the editor’s part but it gave me pause, an instance where I felt the documentary was trying to communicate de Camp was insincere

- This annoys me the most, but the crew couldn’t interview a local authority figure involved in the case worth a damn, but William fucking Colby, director of the CIA (who’d meet his own suspect end in 1996), and a personal “friend” to de Camp (he was Colby’s aide while the latter acted as a diplomat to Vietnam), gets his own interview? Incidentally, also one of the few doc subjects who gets his own title cards lol

So what would the point of having de Camp as the star of this sordid nightmare if he also had an actionable role in it? Maybe to give it an air of legitimacy — there was a whole trial, after all, and Larry King did go to prison, and the court decided that the witnesses had been abused, just not by King and whoever — while also neutralizing its effect on the public imagination as a whole (not that he needed the help; the Omaha Herald, whose staff included perpetrator Peter Citron, did a bang-up job of steamrolling the witnesses and portraying them as opportunistic grifters and addicts). Maybe because de Camp’s goofy improv school delivery and subsequent stunts — he acted as God’s lawyer in a stupid mock trail regarding free speech in 2009 — ensured that the casual viewer wouldn’t take him seriously. Either way, not a huge fan.

De Camp was, in all likelihood, a limited hangout. According to former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA Victor Marchetti, a limited hangout is "spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further." (Paragraphs 1-6, but also check out the case while you’re there)

The real heroes for me are Alisha Owens, who received a heavier sentence than her perpetrators, and investigator Gary Caradori, who died in a mysterious plane crash along with his 8-year-old son after obtaining a damning piece of evidence against King and his cohorts (his partner, investigator Karen Ormiston appears in the documentary but offers no real useful insight into that event or her own experiences in the case, which surprised me given her partner was straight up mur—I mean died).

John de Camp also looks like Bobby Moynihan from Saturday Night Live which is kinda funny (by the way, how have SNL alumni Horatio Sanz and Jimmy Fallon

been doing recently?)

A Vision of Henry Vinson

Adding this section strictly because Henry Vinson is one of the stranger figures in this whole saga, mostly because he’s still alive.

A former D.C. pimp (his preferred term is madam), Vinson only gets one mention toward the end of CoS as having been arrested as part of a prostitution sting. In Vinson’s own memoir, “Memoirs of a D.C. Madam,” he claims he was approached by King and Craig Spence, a prominent Republican lobbyist, to provide boys for potential clients but he declined. He faced RICO charges but accepted a plea deal on the advice of his attorney, former Fox News anchor Greta Van Sustern (he also gratefully mentions in tweets that she introduced him to Scientology, which, lol), whereupon he served 63 months in a federal prison.

He was involved either tangentially or deeply, but is still (fairly) active on social media. His whole timeline is amazing, by the way: Years of normalcy from about 2012 to 2015, followed by a long self-promotional period leading up to his memoir, and from there a bunch of significant claims: That Bill Casey, former CIA director, was both a client of his and friends with Craig Spence, who, before I forget, was later found dead in a hotel room under suspect circumstances. Vinson also claims Dennis Hastert was the “victim” of blackmail (lol), and teases that other powerful figures feature in his memoir.

These days it looks like Vinson just acts like a milquetoast anti-Trump liberal. But there’s definitely an element of deception in his whole online presence. The RT/L (retweet/likes) ratios get hilariously skewed as his timeline progresses, and according to an account audit site, 75% of his follows are fake anyway, making me think his whole thing was just a branding exercise during his 2015 push to get recognition for his memoir.

He mentions Larry King (as Lawrence King, which is uncommon as far as how other sources refer to him throughout this whole case) only in one tweet.

Whether he’s a key player or feckless grifter is up for you to decide but he’s certainly worth mentioning. It's also like, if he's saying all this wild shit while living a life of relative ease why haven't they offed him yet but I digress.

An excerpt of his book can be read here, in a 2015 piece by The Advocate. Vinson co-authored his memoir with none other than Nick Bryant, who’s own book on the Franklin scandal, simply titled “The Franklin Scandal,” is to date the most recent comprehensive piece of literature on the event.

Vinson currently runs a funeral parlor and is an avid aviator, both occupations I find morbidly interesting given how often death and flights come up in witness testimonies.

21st Century Franklins

Even today suppression efforts still seem visible: The documentary still has not aired; it was mysteriously pulled from broadcast in 1994 by the discovery channel and supposedly later mailed to de Camp. The Franklin scandal Wikipedia page bears precious little text despite a wealth of narratives and transcriptions existing on the net, and also seems designed to dissuade interest in the event, calling everything involved "allegations" right of the bat. User Acroterion ripped a ton of resources off the site and seems to have made up their mind the whole thing is a hoax. And I know I’m making several leaps in logic by bringing up the Panama Papers, but the journalist who spearheaded that story did die, as did the son of one of the judges overseeing the case. Silence under the penalty of extrajudicial murder is a common motif that’s brought up by the witnesses throughout CoS. There exist threads online that consolidate the deaths surrounding the case that I have not linked to because I could not corroborate them. Far as I’m concerned you really need to know about Caradori’s death anyway.

Alisha Owens is out of prison and still alive, best I can tell. Boner’s dead, and he’s certainly not the only one. Paul Bonacci was sent jail for molesting his cousin, unsure what he’s doing now. Many of the major players in the documentary never faced significant repercussions for their crimes. In fact, many of them received promotions.

Larry King, for his part, appears to be enjoying retirement. And yes, that thread is worth checking out.

”Fuck, man . . .”

CoS is a crisp 60 minutes, and effectively tells its story in that amount of time. It’s not just a hard documentary to watch thematically, however, but also visually. The quality is poor, the interview tapes are grainy, and it’s terrible at identifying its interview subjects. The narration is solid but at times feels superflouous, and I’ve already mentioned my issues with the documentary centering de Camp (I wonder if they tried interviewing Owens?). I do NOT care for the Twin Peaks soundtrack, and frankly having no soundtrack would've been aesthetically and thematically more appropriate. Plus, its shady broadcast history — or lack thereof — confuses analysis, though I’m in the “Fuck, man. . .” camp when it comes to just considering it, much less what to do about it.

Honestly it feels weird rating this movie at all, given its relative importance and sinister implications (and between you and me it’s really more of a 2.5-3/5 on a technical level). But, whatever, it’s important to see so showing it some love via the website’s metrics is important too. I can understand people’s apprehension to approach this artifact, much less believe it. At the same time if you give this a low rating, you suck.

It took me a while to realize I’d heard of the Franklin scandal years before but had rejected it less critically than I’ve accepted it today. I’ve really nothing to lose by believing in this and given trends of the last few years, and it’s probably the right call that the world is, functionally, run by a bunch of rich pedophiles. Like if you’re into conspiracies this is the documentary to see. I don't believe every lurid detail involved in the Franklin scandal, but you absolutely don't need to twist my arm to convince me there are networks of these people who cover their actions through il/legal means. I considered the possibility that CoS is in itself a limited hangout but then my head started hurting.

I doubt anyone reading this review is part of the class of abusers exposed in the film, the rich and powerful who can inculcate themselves and their family from any repercussions of this behavior. And if you’re some random person reading this, why would you ever think the elite care about us, about you? Why would you tacitly endorse the class who’s stolen lives, land, money, time, and have even taken steps to manipulate reality to further their own goals of exploitation?

What do you even have to gain by disbelieving this “conspiracy?”

Better question: What, who, gets lost if you don’t believe it?

Resources on The Franklin Scandal

Stuff I consulted and consumed before and during writing this review:

Conspiracy of Silence

The documentary itself. There are different versions of CoS floating around online, with different colorizations, narrations and even footage, but this is the one I found easiest to watch. I believe it was a latter version of the original doc.

web.archive.org/web/20060714030056/http://www.franklincase.org:80/index.htm

Tag is fucked for some reason but this archived webpage provides a timeline of events, including monetary figures relating to the banking aspect I didn’t include. Spookily enough, the ‘Key Persons’ and ‘Key Places’ links are no longer accessible.

Subliminal Jihad

Subliminal Jihad has a superb two-episode (#26-27) deep dive into the scandal that’s rich in detail and analysis. They offer a far more nuanced and historical take than mine and also consult a number of resources I’ve linked to. Heavily recommended.

Interview with Nick Bryant from the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation

Bryant’s book is the latest piece of major content regarding the Franklin scandal. Note the name of the institution that’s interviewing him.

John de Camp’s Obituary

Overview of the late politico. One thing that stuck out to me is that it explicitly refers to him and Schmit as friends but that also doesn’t seem like an out-there thing to write about political colleagues.

The Franklin Cover-Up

One final reiteration on my misgivings about de Camp but until Bryant’s book came out, this was the definitive recap on the Franklin scandal and hey, it’s free.

1988 New York Times article

Provides a good overview of the case as well as Larry King’s background. I believe this is one of the earlier pieces to’ve covered the scandal as it unfolded, and by my measure the most in-depth exploration in a major newspaper.

1989 Washington Post story on Henry Vinson

Fascinating background on an underexamined figure in this whole thing. Focuses on his escort service but Craig Spence features prominently.

Govcrime.Wordpress

This site has supposed transcriptions of some of the victims (as well as scans of official documents uploaded by Bryant though I’m not sure who the author of the site is), Paul Bonacci, and more testimonies.

CW: The PB debriefing is VERY graphic and filled with CSA/SRA and, like I mentioned at the beginning, the breadth itself is just staggering. I’d skip it entirely if you’re only curious about the big picture of this whole shitshow.

TheFranklinFiles

A now-barren message board that primarily served to be the stomping ground of a figure named Darron, who claims he was a victim of SRA. The site includes episodic recollections and even photographs of the locations Darron claims he was taken too (also a decent amount of right-wing anti-climate rhetoric, among other stuff, be warned). Even if the whole thing is a sham, the depth is impressive, like discovering an empty message board and making it your own. The last post was in 2011 but guests still lurk on the site. Apparently you can still register a new account. Not really useful, but interesting.

I apologize this list isn’t exhaustive but it is, I think, a good springboard to launch from if you’re interested in the Franklin scandal.

Anyway, fuck Larry King, fuck Alan Baer, fuck Peter Citron, fuck Craig Spence, fuck OPD, fuck the FBI, fuck the CIA, fuck Reagan, fuck the government and fuck America. I’m gonna go watch Bake Squad.

PS: Was that a Columbian or Russian or ??? flag flying at King’s property about 12 minutes into the documentary?

[mariacallous]

I don’t think people truly understand what is meant by “harm reduction”.

Having worked in public health, with clients who were homeless and had serious substance use, and also just doing reading and educating myself...the point of harm reduction is to gradually decrease harmful behaviors.

If you have a client who drinks every day, work with them to drink only every other day. if they drink hand sanitizer, or rubbing alcohol, get them to switch to vodka, or beer. If they inject meth, make sure they use clean needles and work with them to not use every week, but every other week.

The point is recognizing the issue, and working with the individual to take gradual but regular steps to minimize behaviors that are harmful or dangerous. It doesn’t solve things right away, it takes work and effort.

You can’t get someone to change radically and swiftly without some kind of serious reaction and increased harm and danger to the individual.

People throw the phrase around in politics and clearly think harm reduction=making all negatives go away and thus mock anyone arguing that voting for such-and-such candidate is harm reduction.

I literally don’t know how you can look at what this Administration and the Republican Party has been doing for the last 4 years, and how they blocked things during the 8 years of the Obama Administration, and look at the Democrats now, over the last 4 years, etc., and truly say that both parties are equally horrendous and it doesn’t matter who you vote for. Especially when you promote and hide behind a ridiculous, distorted arrangement of the last 30 years of American and world history, and also hold up people of color in America, and people trying to survive oppression and hardship in other countries in order to justify your distortions and actions. Especially when people are trying to actively correct the negative actions of these last 30 years and improve things.

Especially in the middle of one of the worst public health crises of my lifetime which is actively being made worse by this Administration and the Republican Party and which is exacerbating all of the issues you claim to care about and advocate for and drastically and harmfully and deeply ravaging the same populations that you claim to care about and advocate for.

If you’re seriously ill, and your choices are to inject a substance that will kill you quicker and with pain, a substance that will help you stay alive and start to recover but will still be kinda painful and won’t be a quick recovery, or to lay there and let the illness ravage you and drag out your suffering and death while you make the environment worse for the other patients around you, I don’t expect anyone to go “I am fine if you choose to inject me with the poisonous one” or “I will just lay here because your medication to help me stay alive doesn’t make all the pain go away and doesn’t get me high enough”.

You cannot go through this life and live in this world without having to confront the nasty and the dirty. Don’t pretend that you didn’t just step in dog shit and are tracking it everywhere because you didn’t want to walk in the mud.