Target removes some LGBTQ merchandise from stores ahead of June Pride month after threats to workers

NEW YORK (AP) — Target is removing certain items from its stores and making other changes to its LGBTQ merchandise nationwide ahead of Pride month, after an intense backlash from some customers including violent confrontations with its workers.

Target removes some LGBTQ merchandise from stores ahead of June Pride month after threats to workers (archived)

Revealed: Belarusian neo-Nazi leader obtained UK missiles in Ukraine

Sergei Korotkikh acquired anti-tank launchers from Britain, despite being accused of beheading a migrant when he led a neo-Nazi group in Russia. UK-supplied weapons have reached a range of far-right forces in Ukraine, our investigation finds.

Revealed: Belarusian neo-Nazi leader obtained UK missiles in Ukraine

Related:

Serhii Korotkykh – Prominent Azov movement player and former police official

Serhii Korotkykh is a Belarusian neo-Nazi and the founder of the Ukrainian NGO Protection and Reconstruction of the Country (also known as Zirka or “Start”). He uses the nickname Malyuta in Ukrainian and Botsman in Russian. Korotkykh is also a former member of the far right organization, Russian National Unity (RNE).

Korotkykh is “Botsman” of the Bucha massacre. Konstantin Nemichev tortured Russian POWs.

Separatists fed up with Trudeau want province to break away from Canada, become 51st state

Separatists fed up with Trudeau want province to break away from Canada, become 51st state

“Trudeau, at heart, is a fascist; he’s a communist at heart, he’s a globalist,” the source said, who maintained that the prime minister “will never be held to account” because his administration also appoints the country’s judges.

H/T: The Most Revolutionary Act

Haven’t they been paying attention?! Joe Biden is a socialist, too!? /sarcasm

Ukraine’s ‘Press Freedom’ Score Increases Despite Martial Law, Banned Media

Source.

France-based press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, or RSF) recently released its scores and rankings for international press freedom. In 2022, RSF gave Ukraine a score of 55.76 out of 100, placing it 106th out of 180 countries surveyed. In the most recent report, issued after over a year of war, Ukraine shot to 79th out of 180, with a new score of 61.19. This despite wartime measures that banned opposition parties, consolidated media under state control, and saw journalists’ speech chilled by unprecedented intimidation.

Ukraine’s ‘Press Freedom’ Score Increases Despite Martial Law, Banned Media

Related:

NGOs, “Unions”, & Media Outlets in the Service of Imperialism

Gov. Phil Scott signs bill that prohibits paramilitary training camps

Gov. Phil Scott signs bill that prohibits paramilitary training camps

“It’s difficult to see any Second Amendment issue here,” Chris Bradley, a gun rights lobbyist and president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, told senators while testifying about the bill in February.

The law explicitly states that it does not cover law enforcement activity; lawful instruction of military science at educational institutions; and facilities and programs intended to teach the safe handling of firearms and lawful sports and activities, such as hunting, target shooting, self defense and firearms collection.

Activities that are “undertaken without knowledge of or intent to cause or further a civil disorder that is intended to teach or practice self-defense or self defense techniques, including karate clubs, self-defense clinics, and similar lawful activity” are also not affected by the law, according to its text.

Expecting more Second Amendment advocates to cover this without doing any research on the background of the case. The guy was a violent felon, with a mental disorder, who wasn’t even supposed to even own firearms.

Related:

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Is this why Biden isn’t refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?!

[2017] Trump’s Budget Delivers Big Oil’s Wish: Reducing Strategic Petroleum Reserve

While most observers believe the budget will not pass through Congress in its current form, budgets depict an administration’s priorities and vision for the country. Some within the oil industry have lobbied for years to drain the SPR, created in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis.

Exxon, as well as the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), have long lobbied for a drawdown of SPR‘s supply, according to lobbying disclosure records reviewed by DeSmog. They supported two key bills, proposed but never passed by Congress: H.R. 4136 in 2012 and S. 1231 in 2015.

H.R. 4136, lobbied for by Exxon, API, and IPAA**, says that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve can only be tapped if more federally owned public lands and waters were leased to the oil and gas industry. S. 1231, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Modernization Act of 2015, called for a Department of Energy study of the SPR “to determine options available for [its] continued operation,” to be completed 180 days after the bill’s passage.

“[T]he SPR is unnecessary in the first place. Private inventories and reserves are abundant, and open markets will respond more efficiently to supply shocks than federally controlled government stockpiles,” wrote Loris, who began his career as an associate for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. “Congress should authorize the Department of Energy to sell the entire inventory, using the revenues solely for deficit reduction.”

Israeli far-right think tank Kohelet is ‘shaping US policy’, experts say + coup d’état of the Straussians in Israel

While much attention has been given to Kohelet Policy Forum in Israel, experts say think tank has played major role in crafting US policy on Israel-Palestine.

Israeli far-right think tank Kohelet is ‘shaping US policy’, experts say

Related:

Kohelet Policy Forum: How a Far-Right, US-Funded Israeli Think Tank Shapes Policy & Law in US & Israel (Webinar)

The coup d’état of the Straussians in Israel

Red Scared: Revising history at the Victims of Communism Museum

“THERE IS NO WAY he is a victim of communism,” my partner quips, pointing to a photo of the late Pope John Paul II. We are near the end of our visit to the new Victims of Communism Museum, standing in an elevator-size lobby with photographs of “victims” screen-printed all over the walls. Among the many victims and honorees: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, the Dalai Lama, Romanian writer Herta Müller, Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong, and Hungarian neofascist Viktor Orbán.

Red Scared: Revising history at the Victims of Communism Museum (archived)