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Violent Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes On The Rise After Marriage Equality Ruling

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Several violent attacks on the LGBT community have occurred in the days after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality.

As expected, there are lots of people who are not happy with the Supreme Court’s ruling last Friday, giving equal marriage rights to same-sex couples across the country. Conservative politicians and organizations immediately lashed out through multiple media channels. Unfortunately, physical attacks have also occurred.

On Sunday, June 28, Lucas Dylan Wilhelmson was charged with assault in North Carolina after entering an LGBT bar, criticizing the Supreme Court’s ruling, and attacking the bar’s owner. According to Qnotes, the bar’s general manager explained that the attacker came in looking to start a fight. “From the second he started talking to people, it was downhill from there. He was looking for trouble. He said he was straight, but you could tell he obviously had deep issues from what he was saying and how he was acting. When he came in, he did not seem friendly at all.” He was released after posting a $3,000 bail.

Southern states aren’t the only places where attacks on the LGBT community occur. Incidents still happen in friendly places like San Francisco. Over the weekend, a bystander was shot at a Pride event in San Francisco. Even though reports claim the attack wasn’t related to the Pride festivities, it’s hard to ignore the event’s location, or that shootings are becoming an annual Pride occurrence in San Francisco.

In Seattle, a couple was also attacked at a Pride event over the weekend. Patrick Dettling (image, top) and Stevens Briggs say a group of three men and two women attacked them while yelling out homophobic slurs. According to KOMO news, Dettling has a broken nose, cuts, and bruises. Briggs lost a tooth in the struggle and has a broken finger. 

On Sunday, also in Seattle, a man wearing rainbow-colored beads says he was called a homophobic slur, and his attacker, placing a gun to his stomach, asked, “is your life worth that much?” Police booked the suspect on a hate crimes charge.

The Seattle Police report that later Sunday evening “a man and woman attacked a transgender victim.” The “suspects approached and asked ‘did you enjoy your parade?’ followed by an anti-gay slur. The male suspect then punched the victim in the face several times as the woman jumped on the victim’s back. The attack left the victim sprawled on the sidewalk. The male suspect put his foot on the victim’s head before fleeing the scene with his accomplice.”

Police arrested one of the two suspects, also on a hate crimes charge.

In Cincinnati, a pro LGBT business was vandalized on Sunday. The Bromwell antique store was proudly displaying pride colors during the offense, which many people believe is the reason the store was hit. It was the only business targeted on the street. Even though it’s a big coincidence that a pro LGBT business was vandalized shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, the police are not treating it as a hate crime.

Meanwhile, on Monday night members of the LGBT community and their supporters met at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, MO for a town hall meeting to address violence against the community. It’s important that we celebrate the recent win with marriage equality, but it’s also important to remember that not everyone agrees with the ruling, and when emotions are high, people can react. Remaining aware and cautious over the next few weeks would be a good idea. Use the buddy system when going out, and remember to report all hate crimes to the police and media. It’s important to address these attacks immediately and inform the community when they are happening.

 

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The 27 Words the NSA Is Scrubbing From Its Websites: Report

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The National Security Agency (NSA), a largely clandestine global intelligence-gathering and counterintelligence organization that “prevents and eradicates threats to U.S. national security systems,” is reportedly undergoing a massive “purge” on its public and private websites and internal network, eliminating any site that contains any of a list of 27 words — despite possibly including mission-related work. The operation is an effort to comply with President Donald Trump’s order to eliminate any so-called “DEI” programs or language.

Trump has called DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion — “illegal,” and in his January 21 executive order alleged that DEI “policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.”

According to Popular Information, on Monday the NSA, which is under the U.S. Department of Defense, “is planning a ‘Big Delete’ of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including ‘privilege,’ ‘bias,’ and ‘inclusion.’ The ‘Big Delete,’ according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences.

READ MORE: ‘Stomach Turning’: Trump Defends His J6 Pardons as ‘Great for Humanity’

Popular Information’s Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby report that “the dragnet is taking down ‘mission-related’ work. According to the NSA source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, the process is ‘very chaotic,’ but is plowing ahead anyway.”

A memo announcing the 27 banned words “acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term ‘privilege is used by the NSA in the context of ‘privilege escalation.’ In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to ‘techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network.'”

Efforts to comply with Trump’s anti-DEI orders are not limited to the NSA.

“Since Trump took office, thousands of web pages across various federal agencies have been altered or removed entirely. Federal agencies have taken down or edited resources about HIV, contraceptives, LGBTQ+ health, abortion, and climate change. Some web pages have later come back online ‘without clarity on what had been changed or removed.” Popular Information also reported.

“An analysis by the Washington Post of 8,000 federal web pages ‘found 662 examples of deletions and additions’ since Trump took office. The analysis found that words like diversity, equity, and inclusion were removed at least 231 times from the websites of federal agencies, including the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Transportation.”

READ MORE: ‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

A quick search of the NSA’s public website for the word “transgender” came up with only one hit, a page titled, “50 Years of Pride: Celebrating NSA’s Committment {sic] to Promoting Respect, Individuality, Diversity, and Equality.” That link led to an error page that stated: “The page you are looking for might have been moved, renamed, or may be temporarily unavailable.”

But a search for pages with the words “Diversity,” “Privilege,” and “Pronouns” resulted in numerous positive hits.

Legum posted the list of 27 banned words to social media. They include, Anti-Racism, Racism, Allyship, Bias, DEI, Diversity, Confirmation Bias, Equity, Feminism, Gender, Gender Identity Inclusion, Inclusive, and All-Inclusive, among others.

READ MORE: ‘Bring Him Back’: JD Vance Wants Musk to Rehire 25 Year Old DOGE ‘Kid’ After Racist Posts

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‘Stomach Turning’: Trump Defends His J6 Pardons as ‘Great for Humanity’

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President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One on Sunday announced that the nearly 1600 people he pardoned after they had been convicted of January 6-related crimes did not assault anyone but had been assaulted by the U.S. government, and his granting those pardons on his first day back in office was “a great thing for humanity.”

Trump was sitting next to a large map of what he announced is now the “Gulf of America,” and had signed an executive order requiring that new designation as the plane flew over what has, for hundreds of years, been called the Gulf of Mexico. Some observers have noted that Trump is also attempting to reshape the narrative of the January 6 insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol by claiming that those convicted of crimes were actually victims.

Reminded by a reporter that he had planned to honor first responders at the Super Bowl, President Trump was asked why he would pardon people who had assaulted first responders.

READ MORE: ‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

“I pardoned people that were assaulted themselves. They were assaulted by our government,” Trump insisted, despite countless hours of footage of people he pardoned attacking the U.S. Capitol, and some of them attacking law enforcement officers.

“I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government. That’s who assaulted — and they were treated unfairly, there’s never been a group of people in this country outside of maybe one instance that I can think of, but I won’t get into it, that were treated more horribly than the people of J6,” Trump insisted.

“I didn’t assault, they didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.”

Just days after Trump handed down the pardons, The New York Times reported that even some of his close allies “opposed granting clemency to those rioters found guilty of violent crimes, especially the more than 600 who were convicted of assaulting or resisting police officers. Of those defendants, nearly 175 used a dangerous or deadly weapon, prosecutors say.”

On January 20, via a presidential proclamation, Trump announced he was commuting the sentences of 14 of some of the worst January 6 offenders, and granting “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

READ MORE: ‘Bring Him Back’: JD Vance Wants Musk to Rehire 25 Year Old DOGE ‘Kid’ After Racist Posts

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, called the pardons “an attempt to rewrite history and erase an attack on the Constitution and the country.”

Critics are blasting President Trump’s remarks on Sunday, including his claim the people he pardoned had been assaulted by “our government.”

“This administration & the GOP are completely rewriting the events of January 6. The president is doing it here. They pretend all the evidence, footage, confessions, & documents just don’t exist, that we didn’t see it happen. It’s an authoritarian move, & it should terrify us all,” observed T. Kenny Fountain, an associate professor whose bio says he researches extremism, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and disinformation.

Noted political scientist and professor of politics Larry Sabato called Trump’s remarks “Absolutely stomach-turning.”

Journalist Jim Acosta wrote simply, “Disgraceful.”

Award-winning investigative reporter Phil Williams posted video from January 6 and wrote, “These people were all pardoned.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Inherits Biden’s ‘Astonishing’ Jobs Legacy, But Prices Are Now Climbing on His Watch

 

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‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

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Members of Congress say they are being flooded with calls from angry constituents about President Donald Trump’s Director of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, and what he is doing inside the federal government.

“Senators’ phone systems have been overloaded, lawmakers said, with some voters unable to get through to leave a message. The outpouring of complaints and confusion has put pressure on lawmakers to find out more about Musk’s project, heightening tensions between the billionaire tech mogul and the government,” The Washington Post reports.

Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska “said the Senate’s phones were receiving 1,600 calls each minute, compared with the usual 40 calls per minute. Many of the calls she’s been receiving are from people concerned about U.S. DOGE Service employees having broad access to government systems and sensitive information. The callers are asking whether their information is compromised and about why there isn’t more transparency about what is happening, she said.”

READ MORE: ‘Bring Him Back’: JD Vance Wants Musk to Rehire 25 Year Old DOGE ‘Kid’ After Racist Posts

On Monday, the Office of U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) said, “We’re receiving reports of phones being offline across the Senate. Our office is immediately at work to address the issue and get our phones online again.”

U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) called it, “a deluge on DOGE”

“Truly our office has gotten more phone calls on Elon Musk and what the heck he’s doing mucking around in federal government than I think anything we’ve gotten in years. … People are really angry,” she told The Post.

On social media, Senator Smith added, “Musk is unpopular because Americans can see that he’s running rampant inside the federal government and no one believes he’s doing this to help us — he’s doing it to help himself. That’s what corruption looks like. I’ve been getting more calls into my office in the last week than any time I can remember. People are mad about it and they should be.”

READ MORE: Trump Inherits Biden’s ‘Astonishing’ Jobs Legacy, But Prices Are Now Climbing on His Watch

“We can hardly answer the phones fast enough. It’s a combination of fear, confusion and heartbreak, because of the importance of some of these programs,” U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) told The Post, saying “he’s been hearing from constituents ‘constantly’ on DOGE and Musk.”

The surge of telephone calls appears to have been going on all week.

“Callers are getting busy signals and voicemail inboxes are full at many U.S. Senate offices as people try to reach out and voice their opinions on President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, executive orders and moves to dismantle various federal programs,” the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. “The influx of phone calls — which some in the Senate say are at unprecedented volumes — come as Trump and ally Elon Musk are working to shrink the federal government during the president’s first weeks in office. They are shuttering agencies, temporarily freezing funding and pushing workers to resign, all while staffers with Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency infiltrate departments in a stated effort to root out fraud and abuse.”

READ MORE: Pam Bondi Quietly Disbands DOJ Task Force Targeting Russian Oligarchs

 

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