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Various Conservatives #transphobia time.com

Online critics are making calls to boycott Hershey after a trans woman was included on the chocolate bar’s wrappers for its International Women’s Day campaign in Canada.

The backlash is the most recent attack by conservative social media users against brands who they say are “too woke,” or in this case, “erasing women.”

#BoycottHersheys was the top trending topic on Twitter once users saw Fae Johnstone, a transgender woman and 2SLGBTQIA+ advocate, was one of five women who are being honored as part of the confectioner’s “Her for She” campaign.

Tina Arthur and Marcella Frank #wingnut #conspiracy #psycho time.com

On a cigarette break outside their small business in Ozaukee County, Tina Arthur and Marcella Frank told me they plan to vote for Trump again because they are deeply alarmed by “the cabal.” They’ve heard “numerous reports” that the COVID-19 tents set up in New York and California were actually for children who had been rescued from underground sex-trafficking tunnels.

Arthur and Frank explained they’re not followers of QAnon. Frank says she spends most of her free time researching child sex trafficking, while Arthur adds that she often finds this information on the Russian-owned search engine Yandex. Frank’s eyes fill with tears as she describes what she’s found: children who are being raped and tortured so that “the cabal” can “extract their blood and drink it.” She says Trump has seized the blood on the black market as part of his fight against the cabal. “I think if Biden wins, the world is over, basically,” adds Arthur. “I would honestly try to leave the country. And if that wasn’t an option, I would probably take my children and sit in the garage and turn my car on and it would be over.”

Taiwanese students #racist time.com

A high school principal in Taiwan has resigned after students at his school reportedly dressed up as Nazis for a holiday parade, prompting outrage from local educators and the island’s Israeli representative.

According to the Taipei Times, the school’s principal, Cheng Hsiao-ming, took full responsibility and will step down as the head of Kuang Fu High School in Taiwan’s Hsinchu City.

Photos of students hoisting swastika banners and parading behind a cardboard tank went viral over the weekend. One student was seen emerging from the tank and giving the Nazi salute, a red armband appended to his or her jacket.

The event, which the school originally branded as “cosplay,” immediately caught the attention of Israel’s de facto diplomatic mission in Taiwan, the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei (ISECO), which called the event “deplorable and shocking.”

“Schools should educate for tolerance and understanding among people, and we are deeply disappointed that this took place in Taiwan,” read a statement shared on the ISECO Facebook account.

“We strongly condemn this tasteless occurrence and call on the Taiwanese authorities, in all levels, to initiate educational programs which would introduce the meaning of the Holocaust and teach its history and universal meaning,” the statement continued.

The Taipei Times reports that Cheng, the principal, has pledged to strengthen Holocaust awareness by screening films such as Schindler’s List and Life Is Beautiful, and says that the school would invite speakers from the Israeli office to address students.

Cheng reportedly said that a teacher had recommended Arabic culture as a theme for the event, but that the students twice voted against it in favor of a Nazi parade. The students were advised that the theme would be controversial, according to the Taipei Times, but the teacher decided to respect their decision.

Some students seemed unaware of Hitler’s atrocities, while others said they chose the theme because it would be reportedly easy to convert their school uniforms into Nazi costumes.

Educators say the botched event exposed inherent flaws in Taiwan’s school system; the self-ruled island off the coast of eastern China has its own fraught history of authoritarianism and violence, and history curricula are often closely managed by the government.

“The students’ lack of empathy to the historical trauma suffered by others shows that Taiwanese history and civic education is in crisis,” Hua Yih-fen, a history professor at the National Taiwan University, told the Taipei Times.

She and other educational professionals say authoritarian imagery and practices such as strict uniform codes and militaristic anthems have become institutionalized in schools on the self-ruled island — which was a place of refuge for nationalists exiled from the mainland following Mao Zedong’s communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949.

“Events that took place in the past continue to have reverberations in the present,” Hua told the Taipei Times, “and the incident in Hsinchu proved that Taiwan still has a long way to go on its path toward transitional justice and in dealing with its own historical traumas.”

Vladimir Putin #fundie time.com

Putin Wants to Control Rap Music as Its Popularity Rises in Russia

Alarmed by the growing popularity of rap among Russian youth, President Vladimir Putin wants cultural leaders to devise a means of controlling, rather than banning, the popular music.

Putin says “if it is impossible to stop, then we must lead it and direct it.”

But Putin said at a St. Petersburg meeting with cultural advisers Saturday that attempts to ban artists from performing will have an adverse effect and bolster their popularity.

Putin noted that “rap is based on three pillars: sex, drugs and protest.” But he is particularly concerned with drug themes prevalent in rap, saying “this is a path to the degradation of the nation.”

He said “drug propaganda” is worse than cursing.

Putin’s comments come amid a crackdown on contemporary music that evoked Soviet-era censorship of the arts.

Last month, a rapper known as Husky, whose videos have garnered more than 6 million views on YouTube, was arrested after he staged an impromptu performance when his show was shut down in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar.

The 25-year-old rapper, known for his lyrics about poverty, corruption and police brutality, was preparing to take to the stage on Nov. 21 when local prosecutors warned the venue that his act had elements of what they termed “extremism.”

Husky climbed onto a car, surrounded by hundreds of fans, and chanted “I will sing my music, the most honest music!” before he was taken away by police.

On Nov. 30, rapper Gone.Fludd announced two concert cancellations, citing pressure from “every police agency you can imagine,” while the popular hip hop artist Allj cancelled his show in the Arctic city of Yakutsk after receiving threats of violence.

Other artists have been affected as well — pop sensation Monetochka and punk band Friendzona were among those who had their concerts shut down by the authorities last month.

City of Dickinson, TX #fundie time.com

A Texas city located about 30 miles from Houston asks people who apply for grant funding to pay for Hurricane Harvey repairs to promise not to boycott Israel.

The city of Dickinson, Tx. posted an application form to its website for relief money collected from donations to the Dickinson Harvey Relief fund about two months after Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coastline. A provision of the application asks people to verify they do not boycott Israel and to promise not to do so during the terms of the agreement.

Malaysian religious extremists #fundie time.com

A Malaysian social activist has received death threats and torrents of online abuse for organizing a dog-familiarization event that religious conservatives claim insults Islam.
More than 1,000 people attended the “I Want to Touch a Dog” event in the affluent Bandar Utama neighborhood on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur on Sunday to learn about Islam’s views on canines and become familiar with the animals, which are a source of fear for many Malaysians.
But the event’s planner, Syed Azmi Alhabshi, has now been forced into hiding after hard-liners insisted he “should be stoned to death.”
Traditionally, dogs are considered haram, or forbidden, in Islam as they are thought of as dirty. But while conservatives advocate complete avoidance, moderates simply say Muslims should not touch the animal’s mucous membranes — such as the nose or mouth — which are considered especially impure. Even if that happens, they say, there is a special cleansing ritual that can be followed.

Ted Cruz #fundie time.com

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz looked to gain the support of military voters in South Carolina on Tuesday, promising to build a robust military if elected and pledged not to provide gluten-free military meals, which he equated with a culture of political correctness.

“That’s why the last thing any commander should need to worry about is the grades he is getting from some plush-bottomed Pentagon bureaucrat for political correctness or social experiments—or providing gluten-free MREs,” Cruz said, using the shorthand term for Meal, Ready-to-Eat, CNN reported.

About 1% of Americans have celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that makes a person intolerant to gluten, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation. A spokesman for the Department of Defense said the provision of gluten-free meals differs based on the military branch.

During the remarks in Mount Pleasant, S.C., Cruz criticized President Barack Obama for “seven years of neglect” of the U.S. military, according to Charlotte WBT radio.

“It is time for America to once again prioritize a strong, advanced and robust military,” he said.

Paul Gosar #fundie time.com

Media reports indicate His Holiness instead intends to focus the brunt of his speech on climate change—a climate that has been changing since first created in Genesis. More troubling is the fact that this climate change talk has adopted all of the socialist talking points, wrapped false science and ideology into “climate justice” and is being presented to guilt people into leftist policies. If the Pope stuck to standard Christian theology, I would be the first in line. If the Pope spoke out with moral authority against violent Islam, I would be there cheering him on. If the Pope urged the Western nations to rescue persecuted Christians in the Middle East, I would back him wholeheartedly. But when the Pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one. Artist and columnist Maureen Mullarkey effectively communicated this fallacy stating, “When papal preferences, masked in a Christian idiom, align themselves with ideological agendas (e.g. radical environmentalism) [they] impinge on democratic freedoms and the sanctity of the individual.”

The Earth’s climate has been changing since God created it, with or without man. On that, we should all agree. In Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment (written with the consultation of that great seminary the EPA and its embattled head Gina McCarthy), he condemned anyone skeptical of the link between human activity and climate change and adopted the false science being propagated by the Left. If the Pope wants to devote his life to fighting climate change then he can do so in his personal time. But to promote questionable science as Catholic dogma is ridiculous.

Sarah Palin #fundie time.com

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

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