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23-Year Old Beheaded In Anti-Gay Hate Crime Murder In South Africa

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A 23-year old transgender and gay man was beheaded in his home town of Kuruman, South Africa Friday, in an anti-gay hate crime. Thapelo Makutle, who was crowned Miss Gay Kuruman, was murdered by two men who remain at large. Reports state that police, for reasons of language and training, are not classifying the murder as a hate crime, and do not understand the significance of the attack. On report states the police reject that Makutle was beheaded, but acknowledge his throat was slashed.

Mamba Online reports:

According to the group Legbo Northern Cape, Thapelo Makutle was attacked at his place of work in the John Taolo Gaetsewe district on Friday. The organisation said that there was an argument related to “his sexuality and homosexuality”.

His two attackers are believed to have followed him to the room where he lived and on Saturday cut his throat, decapitating him.

They left his body under a blanket as though he were sleeping.

Makutle, who identified as both gay and transgender, was a volunteer for Legbo Northern Cape. He recently participated in the Kimberley Out In Africa Gay and Lesbian Festival, was known as a beauty queen named Queen Bling and was recently crowned Miss Gay Kuruman.

“It’s so sad. I can’t describe the pain that we are feeling right now,” Shaine Griqua, director of Legbo Northern Cape, told Mambaonline. “We have lost a young, talented, gay man who was open about who he was. The last few days have been like a dark cloud.”

He said that no arrests have yet been made in connection with the murder. He expressed his frustration with the lack of support for LGBT people in the Northern Cape and noted that hate crimes are on the rise in the province.

“We recently had a lesbian stabbed three times in a bar because they said that she should be a woman and not a man. She chose not to press charges because she didn’t want her family involved,” Griqua said.

“The government is not interested in this problem,” he added.

A later report form Mamba Online states:

According to the Mothibistad police, Thapelo Makutle’s body was found lying on the floor of his rented room. It is alleged that the victim has been out with his friends that night. He left unannounced and his friends assumed that he had gone home to sleep.

Shaine Griqua, Director of Legbo Northern Cape, who first reported the attack, said that confusion around the state of the body likely stems from miscommunication due to most people in the area not speaking English as a first language.

Griqua believes that the attack was a hate crime and said that he has information that Makutle was killed as a result of an argument about his sexuality and gender appearance, but police have yet to confirm this, saying that the motive is as yet unknown.

He told Mambaonline that the police in the area are ill-equipped to deal appropriately with a hate crime.

“These people [the police] are not reliable. They don’t even know what a hate crime is. If you ask them if it was related to his sexuality they will say ‘no’ because they don’t understand the context,” Griqua insisted.

Global Post adds:

In a statement, Cosatu’s Northern Cape secretary Anele Gxoyiya condemned “this brutal attack on a young, brilliant and educated soul whose head was chopped off in a hate crime.”

While South Africa is one of the few countries in the world to extend equal rights to homosexuals, and the only nation in Africa to allow same-sex marriage, the reality of life in townships and rural areas for gays and lesbians has been one of often brutal violence.

In a high-profile incident last year, Noxolo Nogwaza, a lesbian activist based in KwaThema township near Johannesburg, was gang-raped and then stabbed and stoned to death, in what the New York-based group Human Rights Watch described as part of an “epidemic” of hate crimes against gays and lesbians in South Africa.

Politics Web published a statement in response to the murder, by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, Democratic Alliance Parliamentary Leader:

This violent and gruesome assault is yet another reminder that many of our country’s people are still denied the basic rights and freedoms which our Constitution enshrines.

There is a spate of homophobic hate crimes which have recently taken place across our country, including the repugnant and unconscionable crime of so-called “corrective rape” committed against lesbian South African women.

At this time, South Africa needs strong leadership from President Jacob Zuma, and an indication of his commitment to ensuring that all South Africans are able to live their lives free from fear of discrimination or violence.

Unfortunately, the silence from the Presidency has been deafening. This silence is made worse by the fact that President Zuma has in the past shown himself to be prejudiced towards homosexuals.

Last year, the DA welcomed the establishment of a government-led Joint Task Team on a “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Intervention Strategy”, established in September 2011, under the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

Unfortunately, this task team has yet to make any report on its work.

Meanwhile, the spate of crimes continues.

President Zuma must speak out against this weekend’s horrific murder, and the many others like it, which are in danger of becoming all too commonplace in our country today.

I will today be calling for a debate in Parliament about the prevalence of these crimes in South Africa, and calling on MPs to discuss what can be done by the government to address this ongoing problem.

In addition, I will also be writing to the President to ask what immediate steps his government will be taking to address the violence and intimidation that homosexual South Africans must face on a daily basis.

Such crimes, and the President’s silence on them, cannot be allowed to continue.

Hat-tip: Towleroad

 

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OPINION

Johnson Moves for Trump Protection Against Greene With Mar-a-Lago Joint Press Conference

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Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, under threat of ouster from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), will hold a joint press conference with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on “election integrity,” in an apparent effort to send a message to his base that he has the support of the four-times indicted ex-president.

Both Trump and Johnson are election deniers.

Pointing to Greene’s threat to oust Johnson, CNN’s Kristen Holmes and Melanie Zanona first reported the plans which they call, “still fluid, but comes as Johnson is facing a threat to his speakership from MTG.” MSNBC later confirmed the event, slated for Friday.

There are few credible claims of election fraud in the U.S., certainly none that would have altered the outcome of any election in modern times (with the possible exception of some local elections,) including the 2020 presidential election, according to numerous studies, reports, experts, and Trump’s own Attorney General.

Both Donald Trump and Speaker Johnson are responsible for leading efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump is now facing federal criminal charges for his alleged role in the January 6 insurrection and other attempts to interfere in the election, and he is also facing state criminal RICO charges over his alleged efforts to overturn the results.

READ MORE: ‘Bless Those Who Persecute You’: Johnson Invokes Bible Amid Greene’s Ouster Threat

Mike Johnson Is Now the Most Powerful Election Denier in Washington,” was the headline at the Brennan Center for Justice after the backbench Louisiana Republican was elevated to Speaker of the House last year.

“Johnson led over 100 GOP lawmakers in backing a lawsuit challenging the results,” ABC News reported last year when he won the Speaker’s race.

“House Republicans unanimously chose him … despite his record as an election denier, something some GOP lawmakers previously had said would be disqualifying,” ABC added. “Back in 2020, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, had argued Biden’s win was bogus because some states officials had changed voting procedures during the coronavirus pandemic without legislatures’ approval.”


HuffPost last year also reported that Johnson had “played a key role in crafting the rationale that many of his GOP colleagues used in justifying their votes to throw out the 2020 election results ― even just hours after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.”

Critics blasted the move to hold a joint press conference.

“Johnson’s obvious move as he tries to navigate his increasingly precarious existence is to seek help from Trump,” commented Aaron Fritschner, the Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). “If Trump told the Speaker he could only share a stage with him if he showed up wearing the Bluth Banana Stand costume I’m pretty sure Johnson would do it.”

READ MORE: Liz Cheney Was Up for a Prestigious Award. Then the Trustees Worried Trump Might Be Re-Elected.

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‘Bless Those Who Persecute You’: Johnson Invokes Bible Amid Greene’s Ouster Threat

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Embattled Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is defending his leadership amid a threat to oust him by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and he’s invoking the Bible to try to save his job. Greene has threatened if Johnson puts a bill on the floor to help support Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s illegal war she will move to have him replaced.

“I try to follow all the biblical admonitions as I do every day and one of them says, ‘Bless those who persecute you.’ I’m getting a lot of practice in that right now,” Speaker Johnson, smiling slightly, told David Brody (video below) after the Christian Broadcasting Network reporter mentioned Congresswoman Greene has attacked him personally, and attacked his faith.

“And that ‘a soft word turns away wrath,’ and that, you know, those who are opposing you, you don’t hate them and return you know, evil for evil, you return good for evil,” Johnson continued. “And so that’s the way I’ve lived my life. That’s the way I operate, and so I don’t harbor any ill will towards Marjorie. Never have. I like Marjorie.”

Asked if he’s spoken to Rep. Greene after she filed a motion to vacate, which allows her to call a vote to oust the Speaker of the House as Republicans did last year to Kevin McCarthy, Johnson said he “tried over the two week break.”

READ MORE: Liz Cheney Was Up for a Prestigious Award. Then the Trustees Worried Trump Might Be Re-Elected.

“She wasn’t interested in speaking,” he admitted. “And that’s okay.”

Johnson and Greene are now slated to meet some time on Wednesday.

“Look, Marjorie is upset about the spending bill. And guess what, so am I. It’s not the bill that I would have drafted or all of us would have drafted if we had the majority in the House and the Senate and had a Republican president that would sign it in law, but instead we have Democrats in those other two chambers,” Johnson explained, “in the Senate and of course the Oval Office, and so they know over here that we have a one vote margin so I have virtually zero leverage to be able to negotiate, get a better package.”

Brody, moving the interview back to Marjorie Taylor Greene, asked, “So you’ve reached out but she’s not returning your calls or something along those lines?”

“We exchanged text messages over the break, multiple times, and told her that I really would love to visit by phone, or her convenience and she said what she wasn’t interested in that so,” Johnson replied.

READ MORE: ‘Incoherent’ and ‘Scared’: Trump Slammed Over Latest Abortion Statement

Johnson did warn that “it’s really a very dangerous thing to be waving around a motion to vacate right now, when we’ve got to demonstrate we can keep this country moving forward. And I hope that she’ll realize that in the end, and I think others are trying to make that case.”

He also warned, “if the chair is vacated, it’s certainly possible you get a Democrat speaker.”

On Wednesday, Johnson also spoke with congressional reporters about Rep. Greene, calling her a “friend,” and a “colleague,” but refused to say when Ukraine aid legislation would see a vote on the House floor. Both Greene and Donald Trump staunchly oppose Ukraine aid.

“There are a lot of different ideas on that, as you know, it’s a very complicated matter. At a very complicated time,” Johnson said. “And the clock is ticking on it and everyone here feels the urgency of that, but what’s required is that you reach consensus on it. And that’s what we’re working on.”

Greene, a self-professed “proud Christian nationalist” has been accused by some of her Republican colleagues of

Johnson’s Wednesday remarks came after Greene on Tuesday posted, “I spent time this weekend writing a letter to all of my Republican colleagues laying out clearly why we need a new Speaker of the House. Mike Johnson has surrendered to Joe Biden at every turn and is no different than Nancy Pelosi. He has funded the left’s radical agenda time and time again!”

Recently, Greene has been accused by Republican former U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of “getting her talking points from Russia.” Buck also called her, “Moscow Marjorie.”

Watch the video of Speaker Johnson below or at this link.

READ MORE: Kari Lake Urges Governor She Does Not Recognize to End Abortion Ban She 100% Supported

 

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Liz Cheney Was Up for a Prestigious Award. Then the Trustees Worried Trump Might Be Re-Elected.

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Presidential scholar and former White House photographer David Hume Kennerly issued a scathing letter of resignation criticizing the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation after it repeatedly refused to give Liz Cheney its annual award, he says, because the trustees are afraid of possible retribution if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

The Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service is a prestigious award that has been bestowed upon Republicans and Democrats alike, among them, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, former presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, and former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill.

Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), whose strong criticism of Donald Trump and work as Vice Chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack led to “a stream of death threats,” and ended her congressional career, was considered for the Gerald R. Ford Medal, three times, Kennerly says.

Kennerly, according to Politico, “resigned yesterday from the board of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, blasting the group for cowardice in rejecting Trump critic Liz Cheney as the recipient of its top yearly award, Daniel Lippman reports.”

READ MORE: Kari Lake Urges Governor She Does Not Recognize to End Abortion Ban She 100% Supported

“Kennerly claimed in a letter to fellow trustees that Cheney’s nomination for the Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service was nixed largely out of fear that Trump would retaliate against the organization if he’s reelected. Cheney, herself a trustee, was rejected three separate times, Kennerly wrote, as other potential honorees declined the award.”

As his photographer, Kennerly writes he “was in the room with [President Ford] almost every day that he was in office,” and blasted the GOP: “If President Ford could see the current state of his former party he would be shocked and royally riled.”

Kennerly said he “strongly supported” efforts to give Liz Cheney the Ford Foundation award.

“To me there was no other choice,” Kennerly continued. “In 2022 Liz also received a Profile in Courage award from the JFK Foundation along with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They said she had been a ‘consistent and courageous voice in defense of democracy’ and that she had ‘refused to take the politically expedient course that most of her party embraced.'”

He adds that after two other people refused the award, “it became crystal clear to me that something else was going on.”

READ MORE: ‘Disinformation’: Greene Pushes Pro-Putin Propaganda in ‘War on Christianity’ Rant

“A key reason Liz’s nomination was turned down was your agita about what might happen if the former president is reelected. Some of you raised the specter of being attacked by the Internal Revenue Service and losing the foundation’s tax-exempt status as retribution for selecting Liz for the award. The historical irony was completely lost on you. Gerald Ford became president, in part, because Richard Nixon had ordered the development of an enemies list and demanded his underlings use the IRS against those listed. That’s exactly what the executive committee fears will happen if there’s a second coming of Donald Trump.”

Edward Luce, the Financial Times’ chief U.S. commentator, responded, writing, “If Trump can scare the Gerald Ford Foundation from giving an award to @Liz_Cheney six months before the election, imagine the spinelessness we’d see after he won. Really terrible foretaste what would be in store.”

Pete Souza, the famed former White House photographer for both presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, praised Kennerly, writing, “Bravo.”

Yale University professor Howard P. Forman summed it up, saying: “Ford Presidential Foundation trustees afraid of Donald Trump; decline giving an award to a lifetime public servant (Liz Cheney). Profiles in cowardice.”

 

 

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