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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Florida County Bans Kids’ Book About Gay Penguins as Schools Cite DeSantis’ ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law to Erase LGBTQ Themes

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Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis claimed his “Don’t Say Gay” law only applied to “classroom instruction” in kindergarten through third grade, and only prohibited “sexual instruction,” but his Dept. of Education is promoting false claims that school library books are included, and some school systems are using the possibly unconstitutional law to ban books that have LGBTQ characters.

One Florida school system, Lake County, which includes about 60 public schools, has banned “And Tango Makes Three,” according to Popular Information‘s Judd Legum. The award-winning children’s book is based on the true story of two gay male Central Park Zoo penguins who adopt an egg and raise the baby penguin as their own.

There is nothing sexual about the book.

Popular Information quotes DeSantis defending his discriminatory “Don’t Say Gay” law, officially titled the Parental Rights in Education Act.

“When you actually look at the bill and it says ‘no sexual instruction to kids pre-K through three,’ how many parents want their kids to have transgenderism or something injected into classroom instruction?” DeSantis said. “It’s basically saying for our younger students, do you really want them being taught about sex? And this is any sexual stuff.”

READ MORE: 18 Attorneys General Blast Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law as Unconstitutional

There is nothing sexual about two male penguins raising a baby penguin.

“Florida schools are using the law to justify the erasure of LGBTQ people,” Legum reports. “Public records obtained by Popular Information through the Florida Freedom to Read Project reveal that several Florida schools have already removed books with LGBTQ characters from their libraries, citing the Parental Rights in Education Act. Further, training materials produced by the Florida Department of Education for librarians reveal that the DeSantis administration is encouraging this expansive interpretation of the law.”

Legum points to Lake County’s ban of three books, including, “And Tango Makes Three.”

“In Lake County, for example, the school district has removed three books with LGBTQ themes from libraries. The school district claimed the removal of these books was required ‘due to content regarding sexual orientation/gender identification prohibited in HB 1557,’ the Parental Rights in Education Act.”

READ MORE: Florida ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Author Indicted on Federal Fraud Charges: DOJ

It’s not just Lake County. In Seminole County, three books removed from school library shelves “include gender-nonconforming characters, but have nothing to do with sex. Jacob’s New Dress, for example, is about a little boy that likes to wear dresses. Officials in Manatee County have also removed several books with LGBTQ characters from the shelves based on the Parental Rights in Education Act.”

Legum also reports how DeSantis’ Dept. of Education is encouraging school systems to ban as many books as possible, and using tactics from the far right to do so.

“To encourage the removal of more books, the training instructs librarians to ‘err on the side of caution’ and consider ‘whether you as an adult would be comfortable reading the material in person in a public meeting.’ The ‘read aloud’ standard has no basis in Florida or federal law but is being pushed aggressively by right-wing organizations like Moms For Liberty. Members of Moms For Liberty regularly attend school meetings and read passages aloud as ‘proof’ they are inappropriate for students.”

Read the entire Popular Information report here.

READ MORE: Florida Father Sues School for ‘Proselytizing’ in Favor of ‘Homosexual Lifestyles’ Under DeSantis Don’t Say Gay Law

Image: Gov. DeSantis, surrounded by children, holds up signed “Don’t Say Gay” law

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Trump Has Been Notified He Is Target of DOJ Investigation – Insists ‘It’s Not True’ He’s Getting Indicted: Reports

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Attorneys for Donald Trump reportedly have been notified the ex-president is a target of a criminal investigation into his handling of classified documents. The ex-president denies he is being indicted.

The Guardian Wednesday evening reported federal prosecutors told Trump’s attorneys last week he is a target of the long investigation that is now led by Special Counsel Jack Smith. That investigation, experts believe, could lead to obstruction of justice and Espionage Act charges.

“Trump’s lawyers were notified before they met on Monday with the special counsel Jack Smith leading the Mar-a-Lago documents case and the senior career official in the deputy attorney general’s office and made the case that prosecutors should not indict the former president in the matter,” The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports.

Politico also confirms The Guardian’s reporting, stating: “Federal prosecutors have notified former President Donald Trump in a letter that he is the target of a criminal investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter.”

Earlier Wednesday, a conservative website reported federal prosecutors had informed Trump’s attorneys he is a target and likely to be indicted. That website is run by John Solomon, who Trump named as his official representative to the National Archives last year. That move reportedly gave Solomon access to non-public administration records related to Russia, Politico reported.

READ MORE: Pence Presidential Launch Mocked for Suggesting Drag Queens Are Assaulting ‘American Values’ – With No Mention of Trump

Later Wednesday, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported via Twitter she had been in touch with Trump.

“Trump tells me minutes ago he has NOT been told he’s getting indicted, when contacted. ‘It’s not true,’ he said, adding again he hasn’t done anything wrong,” Haberman tweeted at 2:40 PM.

“When I asked if he had been told he’s a target, he demurred, saying he doesn’t talk directly to prosecutors,” she added.

Haberman says she used the Solomon report as the basis for her conversation with Trump.

Less than one hour after Haberman says she spoke with the ex-president, he again posted an angry rant on his Truth Social platform.

“No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong, but I have assumed for years that I am a Target of the WEAPONIZED DOJ & FBI, starting with the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, the “No Collusion” Mueller Report, Impeachment HOAX #1, Impeachment HOAX #2, the PERFECT Ukraine phone call, and various other SCAMS & WITCH HUNTS,” he rambled.

Trump made clear he expects House Republicans to protect him: “REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS MUST MAKE THIS THEIR # 1 ISSUE!!!”

 

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Fox News Anchor’s Bad Week: Slammed for ‘Complete Lie,’ Accused of Making Up Story During Primetime Guest Hosting Gig

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After firing its star host, Tucker Carlson, Fox News has been scheduling its other anchors to fill in as guest hosts on a week-by-week basis, with some viewers, if not network brass, seeing these as auditions.

This week Harris Faulkner, host of the far-right network’s “The Faulkner Focus” and co-host of “Outnumbered,” filled in during what was once Carlson’s slot.

Reaction online has not been positive.

On Monday, Faulkner claimed she had been kicked out of a restaurant for praying, in what The Wrap called a “blistering, biblical monologue about the ongoing ‘attack’ on the Christian faith in America.”

“We know who we are. And we know who’s we are,” Faulkner told the dwindling Fox News audience. “For those of us who believe, we must be bold in our faith right now. When you gather in public spaces pray thankfully over your food, even when the server gives you the stink-eye, or tells the manager that your peaceful grace is triggering them. Had it happen to me. I’ve been asked to leave a restaurant for openly bowing my head in prayer hands. In America. It’s all good. They don’t deserve my money anyway.”

Many demanded Faulkner name the restaurant, or provide proof. Among them, The Daily Beast’s senior media reporter Justin Baragona, who tweeted, Monday night, “I’m going to ask Fox News PR if Harris Faulkner can provide the name of the restaurant and date when this happened. Will update if I receive a response.”

READ MORE: Pence Presidential Launch Mocked for Suggesting Drag Queens Are Assaulting ‘American Values’ – With No Mention of Trump

Baragona has yet to state he’s received a response.

Another doubter is Republican former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who wrote: “We need the name of this restaurant and when it happened. If true that’s awful. IF it’s not true… which seems most likely the case… then there needs to be accountability. Lies are not the tool of the Lord. And the USA isn’t his god.”

During that same monologue, as The Daily Beast noted, Faulkner told Fox News viewers: “Women and children are being redesigned by some sort of mad leftist science experiment.”

“It’s as though people on the left have more free time than anybody else. They want to acronym and pronoun us to death,” she said, apparently taking a swing at the LGBTQ community. “Well know this: the Lord has determined I am a woman, and my pronouns are U.S.A.”

“We are in a spiritual fight for the soul of America,” she also claimed, “and if you think that’s not true, take a look around at what’s going on. The devil has gotten into some people. The worst part of experiencing our country ripping at the seams is that our enemies are massing, feasting on the tastiness of our weaknesses.”

Baragona pointed out, “In her first night on primetime filling in for Tucker’s old timeslot, Harris Faulkner drew 1.59 million total viewers and just 105,000 in the 25-54 advertising demographic, finishing behind CNN and MSNBC in the demo. Tucker averaged 3.26 million total viewers last quarter.”

READ MORE: ‘Isn’t There a Beach in Mexico Waiting for You?’: Cruz Mocked for Claiming Garland Will Indict Trump Over SCOTUS Seat Loss

Former CNN media reporter Brian Stelter added, “And Jen Psaki was filling in at 8 on MSNBC,” suggesting MSNBC might have had fewer regular viewers during that time slot.

But the real outrage came on Tuesday, when Faulkner delivered what many deemed an outright “lie,” and served up proof of their accusations.

Faulker told Fox News viewers, “You know, we didn’t actually close schools in 1918, during the Spanish flu pandemic.”

That’s false. Provably false.

“And sometimes we make dangerously bad decisions, like pandemic lockdowns and keeping our own children home from schools when a virus was hurting them far less often than adults,” she said, ignoring the fact that family transmission often started with children (see below.) “You know, we didn’t actually close schools in 1918 during the Spanish flu pandemic. We didn’t even have penicillin back then. We did sacrifice. We suffered but then we pressed on. Our enemies hate us for surviving, but they would love to be like us.”

“This is blatantly untrue and takes about 3 seconds to fact check,” observed Media Matters for America’s Kat Abu.

And fact check many did.

Some noted that penicillin is an antibiotic, not an antiviral, and would have had no effect on the “Spanish flu,” an erroneous term (the first case identified was in the U.S.) for what is broadly known as the 1918 flu pandemic. The CDC says, “The 1918 H1N1 flu pandemic, sometimes referred to as the “Spanish flu,” killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including an estimated 675,000 people in the United States.”

READ MORE: Buttigieg: Republicans Are Targeting LGBTQ People Because They ‘Don’t Want to Talk About’ Their Own ‘Radical Positions’

Attorney Brad Moss, calling Faulkner’s claim a “complete lie,” also tweeted: “Utter and total falsity. You would think these fools would have some shame after paying Dominion hundreds of millions of dollars.”

And he came with receipts, including a screenshot of a New York Times article from October, 1918, noting the entire state of Pennsylvania had “indefinitely” shut down all schools, churches, theaters, and “all places of public assemblage.”

Others pointed to a PBS article from 2020 that reads: “During the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, when an estimated 675,000 people died in the United States alone, the majority of public schools were closed for weeks to months on end. But three major cities — New York City, Chicago, and New Haven — kept their schools open amid valid questions and concerns about safety.”

So false was Faulkner’s claim, a readers’ note was added to video of it. It points to a study that states: “During the 1918–19 influenza pandemic, many local authorities made the controversial decision to close schools.”

Others on social media pointed to an article published last week by the University of Minnesota: “More than 70% of US household COVID spread started with a child, study suggests.”

As for Faulkner’s claim that, “Our enemies hate us for surviving, but they would love to be like us,” the U.S. ranks 15th worst among all countries around the world in COVID deaths per capita.

Meanwhile, Baragona also weighed in, noting: “Throughout the height of the pandemic, Harris Faulkner would only broadcast her show from the safety of her house.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Fox Host Says Democrats Don’t Believe in Heaven So They Play ‘Hard’ to ‘Perfect’ Earth

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Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy blamed the differences between Republicans and Democrats on religious beliefs about Heaven.

On Sunday’s Fox & Friends program, co-host Pete Hegseth argued religion was liberating because people could realize they aren’t perfect. A video clip of the moment was shared on social media.

“It changes the way you look even at politics,” Campos-Duffy agreed. “And sometimes, you know, we look at how hard on the left they play. They really play for keeps. They play in a way that’s very, you know, a lot of times conservatives look at it and go, why don’t we play as hard as them?”

The Fox News host said Democrats were trying to perfect the Earth because they did not believe in Heaven.

“Well, for them, where we live right now, this place, Earth is it,” she opined. “So everything’s on the line here for them. They think, as you said, they can perfect this Earth. Those of us who have faith don’t believe that. And we believe how we act here determines where we go after. And so we had to behave.”

“And so even in politics, we don’t, you know, we act within those moral limits,” Campos-Duffy insisted. “And you know, the ends justify the means is sort of the rules for radicals. That’s not how Christians act.”

Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link.

 

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