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Uganda: Kill The Gays Bill Moving Forward Unchanged, Contrary To Reports

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The Uganda “Kill The Gays” bill, infamous around the world for its provision mandating the death penalty for anyone convicted of the “crime” of homosexuality, anyone convicted of same-sex rape, anyone who is classified as a “serial offender,” even anyone with HIV, may become law before the Uganda Parliament ends its session May 12, and contrary to a published AP report, still with the death penalty provision included.

David Bahati, the Uganda minister who has become internationally known because of the bill, has again announced he may “concede” the death penalty provision if it means the bill will become law. But some say agreeing to drop the death penalty provision is essentially a ruse designed to garner support. In fact, the death penalty has not been dropped from the bill, according to Box Turtle Bulletin (BTB), who directly countered the AP report.

“The bill would lower the bar for conviction, making mere “touching” for the perceived purpose of homosexual relations a criminal offense,” writes Jim Burroway at BTB, adding, “newspapers all over the world are carrying this AP article with a misleading headline indicating that the death penalty’s being dropped is a fait accompli. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Burroway continues, “The penalty has not been officially dropped. This is merely a statement of concession that Bahati is reiterating, one that he has made many times before. The bill itself remains unchanged.”

The “Kill The Gays” bill also mandates jail time for those who know of homosexuals but do not report them to authorities within 24 hours.

READ: Clinton: “Disturbing Trend” of International Repression of LGBT People

The bill also offers a maximum of seven years prison time for even renting a room to someone who is homosexual. Any assistance to a gay man or lesbian would be considered criminal.

With or without the death penalty provision, Bahati still believes the bill can pass Parliament. “I can guarantee you I have not seen any member of parliament who is opposed to it,” he said.

 

“We are not here to hang the gays as people have speculated but to protect young men and girls being recruited into the practice,” Pastor Ssempa has claimed, in an awkward twist of logic.


 

“We shall try and see how far we can go with the bill. It may be possible. We are doing all we can,” said Stephen Tashobya, the chairman of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, reports the Associated Press.

“We have limited time,” he said Tuesday, adding, “Many people have expressed concern about that provision providing for the death sentence and I’m sure when we start hearings on that bill we will hear many more concerns,” according to the AP.

Just one month ago, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni had determined the bill, which has been public since 2009, was “redundant.” Museveni wants the bill to die, according to reports, because of international outrage, including condemnation from U.S. President Barack Obama, and Rep. Barney Frank, who has stated Uganda may lose all U.S. foreign aid, about $500 million, if the bill passes.

The bill reportedly was shelved last month but Bahati — who has said he wants to “kill every last gay person” — appeared defiant, stating at the time, “I think that the government is aware that 95 percent of Ugandans do not condone homosexuality.”

But one week later, supporters of the bill, lead by right-wing zealot Pastor Martin Ssempa, presented to Speaker of the Uganda Parliament, Edward Ssekandi, a petition reportedly carrying two million signatures, demanding the “Kill The Gays” bill — also known as the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” — become law.

“We as religious leaders and civil society are distressed that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is being deliberately killed largely by the undemocratic threats of western nations,” Pastor Ssempa, leader of Uganda’s Inter-Religious Taskforce Against Homosexuality, said at the time. In an awkward twist of logic, Ssempa has also claimed, “We are not here to hang the gays as people have speculated but to protect young men and girls being recruited into the practice.”

READ: Uganda Kill The Gays Bill Returns With 2 Million Signature Petition

Ssempa has come under attack from the US, especially after The New York Times wrote on April 13 that Ssempa had bribed at least one man to claim he was recruited into homosexuality by Uganda gay activist David Kato. Kato was murdered in January.

Uganda, which has a population of over 32 million, is one of 83 countries where homosexuality is already illegal. Seven other countries already make homosexuality punishable by death.

The “Kill The Gays” bill, which has also become known as the “Bahati bill,” is necessary, according to the team of Pastor Ssempa and David Bahati, because homosexuals are supposedly “recruiting children” in Uganda, and, the two claim, paying them large sums of money to have same-gender sex or to become homosexual. The petition with two million signatures, came with a list of nineteen organizations that they claim are “promoting” homosexuality in Uganda. That list has not been made public.

No one has ever provided actual, credible proof that anyone is “recruiting” children into homosexuality. Bahati, who has a Cardiff University MBA, has been repeatedly asked in this country by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for any proof of these allegations. Bahati promised to provide it but never has.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Impeach Biden, Fire Fauci and Expel Waters in Red-Meat Alabama Speech

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July 25, 2021

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke Friday night to the Alabama Federation of Republican Women, an event for which the media had been told to leave after a press availability beforehand.

But the conservative Alabama website www.yellowhammer.com managed to be in position to report on Greene’s remarks. It happily described the event as one that “went off with no disruptions and instead, spells of raucous applause from the attendees.”

The reporting did offer a glimpse into what Greene says behind closed doors when tossing out the rarest of the red meat. Here’s how that went:

“Greene kicked off her speech by reiterating three of her ‘favorite things’ she often says while speaking before crowds,” Yellowhammer reports.

“That’s like three of my favorite things: impeach Joe Biden, expel Maxine Waters — we’ve got to take out the trash in Washington, D.C. — and fire Dr. Anthony Fauci,” she said to applause.

“I’m not going to apologize for saying what I’m about to say, but I’m a big fan of President Donald J. Trump,” she continued. “That’s how I always test my crowd. Then I’m going to tell you something else: I believe Trump won the election.”

The website added, “Greene spoke for an hour and hit some highlights of her first seven months in the U.S. House of Representatives, including her interactions with U.S. Reps. Marie Newman (D-IL), Cori Bush (D-MO) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

What she had to say about those three was left to the imagination. But Yellowhammer did report that Greene reiterated her comments from earlier in July distancing herself from fellow wacko Mike Lindell’s claims that Donald Trump would be reinstalled as president in August.

That’s not news: Greene pushed back against Lindell publicly earlier in July. But unbiased observers would have been choking on their fried green tomatoes listening to Greene impersonating a sober voice of reason in Alabama:

“I will tell you this: Sometimes you hear people saying crazy things like, ‘President Trump is going to be back in the White House in August,'” she said. “That is not going to happen. Please don’t believe anyone who is telling you those kinds of things. I get so frustrated with that. There are three members of Congress sitting right here that will tell you that’s not going to happen. The process for putting President Trump back in the White House — it’s not there.”

“We don’t have a constitutional process for that,” Greene continued. “So, I don’t want anyone to get their hopes up over something that is not going to happen. What we’ve got to do is reveal the fraud that took place in the 2020 election — reveal it, then hold people accountable that made it take place, make sure we have good election laws, get rid of this crazy absentee ballot voting, make sure our machines are OK. Then we win in 2022 and 2024.”

Somehow, hearing Greene use the phrase “crazy things” when discussing someone else’s conspiracy theories is a bit much. She gets “so frustrated” with people becoming misinformed by this one? Really?

Greene is just a few short years away from spreading the grossest of QAnon craziness, from 911 denial to Pizzagate to Frazzledrip to Jewish space lasers and more. She was not some QAnon apologist: She was full Q.

Here’s how that was recaptured in a Business Insider analysis laying out the litany of Greene’s wildness:

“Greene said “Q” is “someone that very much loves his country, and he’s on the same page as us, and he is very pro-Trump.” And she said, “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.”

That was four years ago, not four decades. Within a year came Greene’s unspeakably cruel deceits claiming that mass shootings at Parkland, Sandy Hook and Las Vegas were “false flag” events staged to promote gun control.

As Business Insider noted, “A recently resurfaced video from earlier that year shows Greene accosting David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting, who was 17 at the time, in Washington, DC. Hogg was in town to advocate for gun control at the Capitol. Greene followed the teen down the street, calling him a “coward,” just weeks after the shooting at his high school killed 17 people.”

Now, instead of stalking some poor young survivor on the streets outside the nation’s Capitol, Greene works in the building. In another time, Greene was the sort of individual who might have been housed in an institution for troubled souls.

In 2021, tragically, that’s the Republican caucus in Congress.

 

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NUTS

100 Minutes of Whining: Here Are the 7 Most Absurd Moments From Trump’s Arizona Grievance Festival

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11 hours ago

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July 24, 2021

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Donald Trump spoke for over 100 minutes during a long-winded speech at a “Rally to Protection Our Elections” in Phoenix.

Much of Trump’s speech was focused on repeating his debunked lies that he won the 2020 presidential election, when in reality he was defeated by Joe Biden.

But he also found time to bash much of America while praising the local extremists behind Arizona’s audit of the vote in Maricopa County and listing his many perceived grievances.

Trump attacked Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), all the Republicans who are “worse than Democrats,” Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), soccer’s United States Women’s National Team, and said his supporters have to “fight” against everyone who said he lost the election with language that echoed his speech that preceded the January 6th insurrection.

Much of the speech was just bizarre due to the combination of Trump brazenly lying about things that happened while also pontificating on the delusions that populate right-wing media.

Here are the seven most ridiculous moments from the speech.

7. Trump is so out-of-touch you thinks Americans must show their papers to purchase groceries

Despite being ridiculed when Trump spoke of this delusion in the past, Trump falsely claimed Americans need to show identification to purchase groceries as he pushed voter I.D. laws.

6. Trump imagined what he would do if he were Native American

Trump complained about the Cleveland Guardians baseball team and praised the racist logo the team retired. “If I was an Indian, I’d sue. Sue them Indians,” he said.

5. Trump argues America is becoming a communist country

“Like it or not, we are becoming a communist country. That’s what’s happening, that’s what’s happening,” Trump said without providing any evidence. “We are beyond socialism.”

4. Trump explains how it hurts Republicans at the polls when his supporters believe his election lies

Trump repeatedly mentioned during his speech his belief that when his supporters believe his false claims of election fraud, it makes them less likely to turn out to vote. Trump said this is how Republicans lost control of the U.S. Senate.

3. Trump explains how a politician repeating lies creates disinformation

During a speech that will keep fact-checkers busy, Trump explained disinformation in a way that seems to perfectly describe why he traveled to Arizona to repeat his “Big Lie” about election fraud.

2. Trump describes his unconstitutional fantasy of being reinstated as president

Despite both the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department warning this conspiracy could fuel more violence by Trump supporters, the former president discussed being reinstated.

1. Trump gaslights America by lying about his attacks on democracy and voters

Of the many lies Trump told, one of the most absurd had to be his claim that, “I am not the one trying to undermine American democracy— I am the one trying to save American democracy.”

 

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DISASTER

Republicans Boot Only Person With Elections Experience From AZ GOP’s $9 Million ‘Audit’ Fiasco: Report

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16 hours ago

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July 24, 2021

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Republicans once referred to Ken Bennett as the “director” of their widely-panned audit of votes in Maricopa County, but he has reportedly lost his privileges to even enter the building where the fiasco is taking place.

Bennett, who served as Arizona’s Secretary of State and president of the state Senate, was the one person associated with the recount with experience in elections. He was officially listed as the liaison to the state Senate, which paid $150,000 of the $9 million the audit is reportedly costing.

“Questions are mounting about who is in control of the long-running partisan review of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results — the Arizona Senate, which ordered it, or the outside firms that are running it,” The Arizona Republic reported Friday evening. “On Friday, Ken Bennett, the Senate liaison to the audit, was not allowed into the building at the state fairgrounds where the audit is taking place, a day after he shared data with outside critics from an ongoing ballot count.”

“While this work is supposedly being overseen by Senate representatives, many times that oversight is not there,” the newspaper noted. “The Cyber Ninjas have for weeks resisted getting outside checks of the audit, insiders say.”

Reporter Ryan Randazzo explained why the outside review is threatening.

“The data Bennett provided to outside analysts, Larry Moore and Benny White, showed the results of the ongoing machine count of the ballots tracks very closely with the the county’s tally,” the newspaper reported. “If that trend continues, it may call into question the results of Cyber Ninja’s count, because [Senate President Karen] Fann has said that the Cyber Ninjas’ count did not match the county’s.”

The newspaper reported Cyber Ninjas spokesperson said any decision to ban Bennett was made by Fann’s office.

 

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