Two more men have come forward to accuse Christian rock superstar and Maga firebrand Michael Tait of drugging and sexually assaulting them – including Jason Jones, the founding manager of the American hard-rock band Evanescence.
Jones said he was fired from the band – which had ties to Tait – for speaking out about his alleged assault. Jones said the firing, which he claimed happened in 1999, cut him out of Evanescence’s massive success beginning in 2003.
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In all, eight alleged victims have now come forward publicly with sexual assault allegations against Tait. A previous investigation by the Guardian reported allegations of sexual assault by Tait against three young men while another from the Christian news outlet the Roys Report reported allegations by three other men.Tait became famous as the frontman for DC Talk and Newsboys, two Christian mega-bands known for packaging conservative rhetoric about sexual abstinence, sobriety, Christian nationalism and the coming rapture in catchy rock songs. Tait has been a supporter of Donald Trump and served as a key bridge between Trump and evangelical voters. (COMMENT: I can hear Trump now — “Don’t know him, may have met him once but don’t know him.”
What will the US look like in 2056?
The author of this blog has posted a very long description of where the US is headed and what we will look like in 2056 — which is well within the lifetime to today’s teenagers.
Anything here sound familiar?
Any bets on when Trump will pardon Ghislane Maxwell?
I’m betting before the end of August.
Trump’s visit in Turnberry, Scotland, is a whole lot of crazy shit
Trump gave, as ever, a rambling press conference, wherein he:
1) Couldn’t name the Israeli PM who pulled the IDF out of Gaza — but he thought is was really important to then state that he knew who it was even if he wasn’t naming the guy.
2) Did a big promo about how nice the new ballroom at Turnberry is — I guess he wants to get some weddings booked there — and how he was going to get a ballroom built at the White House, as if any American could give a fig about getting a White House ballroom for Trump’s ego trip.
3) Claimed the US was the only country that had given Gaza aid recently, but really complained that no one was thanking him for it, which apparently makes him think twice about giving aid, and that people “would have starved if we weren’t there” — newsflash: dozens have already died from hunger (that’s not counting the nearly 1,000 Palestinians killed while attempting to collect food supplies).
4) Very upset that Iran is being “very nasty” with their words and their mouth.
5) Went on and on about how awful windmills are. “They’re killing us. Killing the beauty of our scenery of our valleys, our plains — had I’m not talking about airplanes — I’ talking about beautiful plains, beautiful areas in the United States and you look up and see windmills all over the place….” When they rust and rot, you can’t bury the props in the ground…It ruins the landscape…over the last short period of time they had 18 of them (whales wash up on the shore (Massachusetts). Today I’m playing the best course in the world…and I look over the horizon and see 8 or 9 windmills, and it’s a terrible thing….Some countries prohibit them.”
No countries prohibit windmills. SOmething about Don Quixote tilting at windmills comes to mind… Still, it’s so ironic, because Trump was famously trying to get approval to build a much higher seawall to protect his Turnberry course from rising sea levels.
6) And, incidentally, talked about the prospects of a trade deal with the European Union. 50/50. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, went along that, agreeing to those odds.
It’s going to be a long 3.5 years, especially for people who want the US to invest in wind energy.
Trump is batshit crazy.
Oklahoma State Superintendent of Education addicted to porn
Before you read further, remember: This is the guy who (1) professes loudly to be a “Christian,” and (2) is pushing for Bibles in every classroom and teaching of the Christian religion to be required in Oklahoma schools.
Now for the good part.
Oklahoma’s Trump-loving top school official, known for mandating Bibles in every classroom, is now facing an investigation after naked women were seen on TVs in his office, according to reports.
What should have been a mundane Oklahoma State Board of Education executive session Thursday turned shocking after board members saw naked women appear on a TV screen behind Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction and board chair, in his office, according to The Oklahoman.
The Independent has reached out to Walters for comment. A spokesperson for Walters branded the incident as a “junk tabloid lie” to the outlet.
Of course, he’s claiming he was set up by Democrats, which is what they all claim.
WTF?????
Everyone sleep with one eye open tonight – Dahud Hanid Ortiz is on the loose thanks to Trump.
Dahud Hanid Ortiz, who stabbed three people to death in 2016, was one of ten people released from prison in Venezuela AT THE REQUEST OF THE TRUMP GOVERNMENT and returned to the US. His current whereabouts are unknown.
One of the 10 Americans released from Venezuela in a prisoner swap last week was convicted of killing three people in Spain and was serving a 30-year sentence in a Venezuelan prison before his release, Spanish and Venezuelan officials told ABC News.
Dahud Hanid Ortiz, 54, was convicted in Venezuela of killing three people in a Madrid law office in 2016, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry and the Venezuelan vice president’s office.
Spanish authorities said Ortiz stabbed to death two female employees and a client of the law firm in June 2016. Authorities said Ortiz was looking for the lawyer who ran the office, who was away at the time.
The Venezuelan government opted to try Ortiz, an American-Venezuelan dual national, in Venezuela rather than fulfill an extradition request form Spain because Venezuela’s constitution prohibits the extradition of Venezuelan-born citizens.
Speaking on Venezuelan TV on Thursday, Venezuela’s Justice Minister Diosdado Cabello said U.S. officials were told about Ortiz’s conviction but said they still wanted him released.
The U.S. was aware of Ortiz’ past but made the decision to bring him out in the swap anyway, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
Ortiz served in the U.S. Army for about 17 years as an enlisted soldier, starting in 1995, and then served more than four years as an officer, an Army spokesperson said. He deployed to Kuwait and Iraq and left the Army in October 2015, nine months before the murders were committed.
A defense official said Ortiz was court-martialed “and dismissed from the Army” in 2015.
Upon his return to the US with a group of ten, Ortiz was released and the US government is not aware of his current whereabouts.
Nothing surprising here
Pictures are worth thousands of words
Report from the heartland . . . and it’s bad, very bad
No Tassels, No Ears. A Sterile Summer In Northern Ohio
by AuntieB
Across the road from my house is my neighbor’s cornfield. He lives about a half-mile up the road. The corn is tall, lush and green. It is easily seven or eight feet but something’s wrong with it. On hot July afternoons, the air stays still and scentless. There’s no sweet smell of tasseling corn, no perfume of silks curling from the husks. In the evenings, the fireflies don’t rise from the fields like they have in years past. Instead, they lift in waves from my yard and pastures, blinking above the sheep and chickens, avoiding the corn as if they know it’s no longer home.
I’ve been watching the field every day.
Spring was an odd one. May started out cold, like spring might never come. There was rain, and more rain. Then a dry spell of just a few days, and every farmer in the area rushed to plant before the weather turned again. It was early June by the time the corn went in.
Then came the heat.
June hit like an oven. One day of rain, then nearly a week in the high 90s, with three days in the triple digits. After that, the temperatures plunged into the 60s again, followed by even more rain. For weeks, the corn in the surrounding fields just sat there, two little leaves high, looking like it might never make “knee-high by the Fourth of July.”
But it did. Just barely. Then, almost overnight, summer finally settled in, and the corn sprang upward, from knee-high to towering. By mid-July, it looked like a perfect crop.
Then I started to notice the silence. Usually corn fields hum with life. Birds, crickets, all sorts of insects create a quiet hum all day and all night. I couldn’t hear it.
Some of the fields also looked different. They were planted just before that wild swing of rain followed by heat. That brutal one-two punch hit right as the seeds were waking up. Now the corn has grown tall, but it’s sterile. No tassels. No ears. No harvest.
Farmers here are calling it “tight tassel.”
They say it might affect a third to half of the local crop.
Up until then, the farmers who grew row crops, commodity crops like corn, soybeans, and wheat, were considered the lucky ones.
The fruit and vegetable farmers were already in trouble. Without the migrant workers who normally come for each harvest, their crops are rotting in the fields. The blueberries are finishing up now. When you walk past the rows, you see birds feasting and smell the vinegary scent of overripe fruit. There are too many berries, and too few hands to pick them.
Last month, a local orchard, a century-old family farm, sold off its apple, pear, and peach trees. They plowed under their asparagus field. The orchard building and its coolers were rented out to vegetable farmers hoping to sell directly to locals.
I spoke to the granddaughter of the orchard owners. A few years ago, the family refinanced to install solar panels and new walk-in refrigeration. This year, their year-round workers were gone. Some were deported by ICE. Others just left to avoid deportation. Many of the trees went untrimmed in spring. The family managed to spray most of the orchard themselves, but when they learned the migrant harvesters wouldn’t be arriving, they called the bank, hoping to defer the loans.
The bank said no.
The orchard was auctioned off in two-acre lots in June.
At the local diner, the row crop farmers shook their heads over the loss. Everyone agreed it was a tragedy, but at least the grain farmers were still safe. They didn’t rely on migrant labor because their machines did most of the work.
Then came the hundred-degree days at the beginning of June.
The other morning, my neighbor pulled into the ditch across the road. I stepped out with a glass of lemonade. It was already 80 degrees at 10 a.m. He held the cold glass but didn’t drink it.
We talked about the corn. It looks so lovely, but with no ears.
He’s thinking about cutting it for silage, just to salvage something. But the other farmers have warned him that if the insurance companies decide the silage counts as a crop, he won’t get paid. No harvest, no insurance. No insurance, no next season.
Some of the other farmers will soon start running over their corn with equipment to shred it, and are planning to plow it under this fall or next spring. They will start as soon as the insurance is sure.
He’s hoping to get enough insurance money to cover the loans and try again next year. But he’s got payments on the combine, on the house, and on the new truck. He looks like he’s doing well, and in other years, he would be. But I know he’s thinking about that orchard. A family who farmed this land for a hundred years, and now selling it acre by acre.
I told him I missed the smell of sweet corn on days like this. His field is green and lush, but barren. Even the lightning bugs avoid it. It doesn’t smell like corn at all.