Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's JournalPundit hospitalized with COVID after saying it's God's judgment against LGBTQ & Jewish people
Far-right pundit Rick Wiles established himself during the pandemic as one of the top Evangelical news sources for hate-based conspiracy theories about the virus. He said that the world would be a “better place” after a “genocide” caused by the vaccines kills 70% of the population. Time and again, he said that COVID-19 is “God’s judgment” against people he doesn’t like.
He has just been hospitalized with coronavirus.
Wiles made national headlines last year when his website got White House press credentials despite his long history of hate speech. Now his church is asking for “an army of people praying” for their ailing pastor.
“Flowing Streams [Church, where Wiles is senior pastor] is experiencing a sudden cluster of flu and Covid among some employees and their relatives,” Wiles’s news outlet, TruNews, said in a post on the conservative platform Gab last week. “Rick Wiles made the decision tonight to close the offices and studios until a TBA date next week.”
more...
President Biden honors "all those we have lost" in 40 years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic
President Joe Biden (D) released a statement marking the anniversary of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, recognized when the first AIDS cases were documented 40 years ago on June 5, 1981. In his statement, he recognized the “the tireless dedication of activists, scientific researchers, and medical professionals” who faced “years of neglect, discrimination, fear-mongering, and limited action by government officials and the public.”
In light of that, Biden’s administration also announced their appointment of a new director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, Dr. Harold Phillips.
40 years ago, doctors noted that five gay men in California — described as “active homosexuals” — had displayed similar, severe symptoms of what appeared to be unusual infections. Although the disease could have been widespread before then, within a year of the discovery, medical professionals would declare an epidemic and name the disease AIDS.
Today, while significant advances have been made in the fight against AIDS and the viruses now known as HIV, the epidemic remains.
Biden’s statement acknowledged the sacrifice, struggle, and marginalization that people faced in the fight to combat HIV.
more...
Glad to see this acknowledged! Thank you President Biden!
40 years ago, the first cases of AIDS were reported in the US
40 years ago, the first cases of AIDS were reported in the US
On June 5, 1981, a curious report appeared in the Center for Disease Control's weekly public health digest: Five young, gay men across Los Angeles had been diagnosed with an unusual lung infection known as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) -- and two of them had died.
It was the first time that acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) -- the devastating advanced-stage of HIV infection that would go on to claim the lives of more than 32 million people globally -- was reported in the US.
Days after the initial report hit the newspapers, the CDC learned of many more such cases in gay men. Not only did those men have PCP, they also had other secondary infections, among them a rare and aggressive cancer known as Kaposi's sarcoma (KS).
About a month after that first report, the write-up in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report counted 26 gay men across New York and California with those diagnoses -- a number that would increase exponentially.
Deotis McMather is pictured asleep in bed at the San Francisco General Hospital's Ward 5B -- the first AIDS hospital unit in the nation. After being diagnosed with AIDS, he returned to his apartment, where all of his belongings had been thrown out onto the street.
more...
Homophobia kills!
There are other forms of systemic oppression. Recognize!
In Ukraine, bullet holes are found in a synagogue and a mass grave of Holocaust victims is desecrate
In two separate disturbing incidents in Ukraine, bullet holes were found in a synagogue and grave robbers allegedly raided a Holocaust-era mass grave , exposing and scattering human remains.
The aftermath of a shooting at the synagogue of Kremenchuk, a city located 130 miles southeast of Kyiv, was discovered early last month but reported by the local Jewish community on Monday. The delay was planned “in order to prevent panic in the Jewish community of the city,” the news site Jewish.ru reported, quoting a spokesperson for the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, a communal interest group.
No one was hurt in the incident.
----
“Nazis and local collaborators shot more than a thousand Jews, including women and children in May 1942 there,” Dolinsky said. “Now some people who have lost their humanity are looking for gold in their grave.”
more...
Just a reminder.
More anti-LGBTQ laws have been passed in the last year than any other time in American history
In what are considered some of the most polarizing times in modern American history, one political trend has continued to grow to alarming levels: enacting laws that take away rights or protection of rights from queer and trans people.
With the enactment of two anti-LGBTQ laws this weekend, Montana has officially broken the record for the most anti-LGBTQ legislation enacted in a calendar year in the United States. All it took was four months and nine days to get over the previously recorded threshold made in 2015.
Montana’s Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) signed House Bill 112, which bans transgender youth from participating in sporting events under their gender identity. His signature on May 7 made it the 17th piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation enacted in the United States, surpassing the 16 that were passed in 2015, according to an analysis by the Human Rights Campaign.
“The rights of LGBTQ people — and especially transgender people — across the country are being systematically threatened and undermined by national anti-LGBTQ groups coordinating with anti-equality lawmakers to wage an unprecedented war on the LGBTQ community,” Alphonso David, the President of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement.
more...
Oregon Holocaust memorial defaced with swastikas and antisemitic slurs
A Holocaust memorial in Portland, Oregon, was defaced with swastikas and antisemitic slurs.
Police discovered the vandalism over the weekend covering a wall of the memorial in the Washington Park neighborhood and appearing elsewhere near the memorial, the local NBC affiliate KGW reported. There are no suspects.
The memorial was created by Holocaust survivors who lived locally and includes names of their family members who perished in the war, Judy Margles, the director of the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, told the news station.
https://twitter.com/tedwheeler/status/1389276966931423232
more...
Also see:
Nazi swastikas scrawled across Oregon Holocaust Memorial in SW Portland
At least one person struck the Oregon Holocaust Memorial in Southwest Portland’s Washington Park, scrawling swastikas across the memorial’s stone wall, city officials said.
The vile vandalism, written in white, also included the numbers “1488,” a symbol popular among neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, a photo reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows.
Portland and other communities around the U.S. recognize May as Jewish American Heritage Month.
more...
Happy Jewish American History Month!
Sec. Blinken in Holocaust Day speech recalls past State Department obstruction of bids to save Jews
Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations are by their nature calls for accountability for atrocities past and present.
Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, used the occasion to take his own department to task for its neglect of Jews during the Nazi era, and to call for action on behalf of the persecuted today.
Blinklen, delivering the keynote address Thursday at the event organized by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, savaged the World War II-era assistant secretary of state, Breckinridge Long, for blocking the entry into the United States of Jews fleeing Nazi Europe, and for lying to Congress about it.
“He had immense power to help those being persecuted,” Blinken said at the event, this year presented virtually because of the coronavirus. “Yet as the Nazis began to systematically round up and execute Jews, Long made it harder and harder for Jews to be granted refuge in the United States.”
more...
NJ Teen Admits to Coordinating Neo-Nazi Group's Plot to Deface Synagogues Across U.S.
A New Jersey man admitted Friday to coordinating a neo-Nazi group’s plot to vandalize two Midwestern synagogues and cause other damage across the country.
Richard Tobin, 19, of Brooklawn, pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights, according to federal prosecutors in New Jersey. He faces up to 10 years in prison when he’s sentenced June 28.
Tobin admitted communicating online in September 2019 with other members of The Base, a neo-Nazi group, and directed them to vandalize synagogues in Michigan and Wisconsin. At the time, he told investigators that he had launched “Operation Kristallnacht,” a reference to the deadly pogrom in 1938 when Nazis looted and burned synagogues and Jewish-owned homes and stores in Germany.
Tobin also told FBI agents that he was “triggered by the state of the country” and recounted a time when he became enraged at seeing large crowds of Black people at a mall in Edison, New Jersey.
more...
'Jewish ideas poison people,' State Department official writes on Christian nationalist blog
A U.S. State Department employee named Fritz Berggren has been moonlighting as a blogger devoted to attacking Jews and promoting white Christian nationalism.
“Jesus Christ came to save the whole world from the Jews — the founders of the original Anti-Christ religion, they who are the seed of the Serpent, that brood of vipers,” Berggren wrote in an Oct. 4, 2020, post on his website titled “Jews are Not God’s Chosen People. Judeo-Christian is Anti-Christ.”
Later in the post he writes, “Jewish ideas poison people.”
Berggren has been sharing his extremist and anti-Semitic views under his real name for years while working as a mid-level civil servant. Politico first reported the connection on Friday after being tipped off by current and former State Department officials.
more...
How Buttigieg Could Make Transportation Safer, According to LGBTQ+ Advocacy Groups
When Pete Buttigieg was sworn in as the 19th Secretary of Transportation earlier this month, he became the first openly gay man to be named for this role in U.S. history.
Buttigieg—known for his military service and former role as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana—was chosen for his ability to bring all facets of the Department of Transportation together, according to President Biden. Those facets include improving transportation by rail, air, and road, as well as overseeing the Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Highway Administration.
In this historic moment, advocacy groups are optimistic that Buttigieg's platforms might make all forms of U.S. transportation safer for LGBTQ+ travelers. "Pete Buttigieg's visibility within the past election campaign was necessary because of its symbolism,” says Daina Ruduša of OutRight Action International, a nonprofit that fights for LGBTQ+ rights globally. “The appointment fits into a larger context of this administration being the most LGBTQ+ friendly ever, which, in turn, has great implications beyond the borders of the U.S."
But what does that mean for the community? Policy reforms that community members and allies hope to see range from modernized identification markers for trans and non-binary people to alerts from the government when visiting countries that criminalize those who identify as LGBTQ+.
more...
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayMember since: Sat Aug 7, 2004, 03:58 AM
Number of posts: 53,951
