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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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News

‘Crazy’: RFK Jr. Is a Top Global Public Health ‘Expert’ Claims Miller, Sparking Mockery

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August 29, 2025

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Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — an environmental lawyer, former leader of a children’s anti-vaccine organization, and a promoter of conspiracy theories — is being praised by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller as a “foremost” global health expert and a “crown jewel” of the Trump administration.

Kennedy has no medical degree or formal training, nor does he hold any degrees in public health.

Secretary Kennedy’s challenges this week include his attempt to fire the newly confirmed Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and announcing that most Americans will not be eligible to receive COVID vaccines without a doctor’s prescription and at least one underlying health condition. (Future CDC advisory panel regulations may alter that landscape.)

Kennedy was assailed by medical experts this week when he declared that, while walking through an airport, he could see the “mitochondrial” illness and inflammation of children, which he claimed he could detect “from their faces, from their body movements and from their lack of social connection.”

READ MORE: ‘Glass Jaws’: Democrats Cast Ernst Exit as Harbinger of Weakening GOP

Miller, who also holds no medical degree, told reporters on Friday (video below) that “the CDC’s credibility was shattered during the COVID era.”

“CDC used to be, of course, seen widely around the world as a premier health agency, and much of the world discovered in the last few years, that CDC was actually staffed by a lot of very partisan, and very political bureaucrats who weren’t at all concerned about public health and weren’t actually very knowledgeable about public health,” he baselessly alleged.

“And we are working hard, and more importantly, Secretary Kennedy — one of the world’s foremost voices, advocates, and experts on public health — is working hard to restore the credibility and the integrity of CDC as a scientific organization committed to the scientific method, and getting to the root causes of the public health epidemic in this country,” Miller continued.

READ MORE: Johnson Pins Gun Violence on ‘Mental Health’ After Trump Slashes $1B in School Counseling

Asked if there are any concerns about Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, and despite the resignations this week of top CDC scientists in response to the President’s firing of the CDC Director, Miller declared, “Secretary Kennedy has been a crown jewel of this administration who’s working tirelessly to improve public health for all Americans.”

Critics blasted Miller.

“Calling RFK Jr. ‘one of the world’s foremost experts on public health’ with a straight face is crazy,” wrote The Lincoln Project.

“I’m a an MD, PhD, physician toxicologist and drug developer. This is the biggest pile of horse-s– I have seen in months of horses–,” declared Peter H Proctor MD, PhD.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Brutal’: Trump Approval Tanks as Support Plummets Across Key Issues, Poll Shows

 

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‘Glass Jaws’: Democrats Cast Ernst Exit as Harbinger of Weakening GOP

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August 29, 2025

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U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), once seen as a possible Republican Secretary of Defense, or vice-presidential or presidential candidate in a more traditionally conservative environment, is expected to announce that she will not seek re-election next year. The news has sent shockwaves through the political system, with some Democrats — especially her challengers — rejoicing, and some critics and political operatives suggesting the move shows the GOP brand is weakening, especially given the number of other prominent Republicans who have already announced their retirement.

“Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa has told confidantes she plans to reveal next week that she won’t seek reelection in 2026, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News,” the media outlet’s Jennifer Jacobs first reported. “Ernst’s announcement is scheduled for Thursday, the sources said. Ernst, 55, has served in the U.S. Senate since 2015.”

Some on the left already saw a weakening Republican brand, and now see Senator Ernst’s exit as further evidence of that volatility.

Ernst joins a slew of prominent Republican Senators bowing out of their re-election races, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who just won re-election in November, is mounting a run for governor.

READ MORE: Johnson Pins Gun Violence on ‘Mental Health’ After Trump Slashes $1B in School Counseling

Former Biden White House official Neera Tanden, the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, remarked, “GOP senators are cratering in their support. Glass jaws all the way down.”

Author and political commentator Sophia A. Nelson, a Republican turned independent, on Friday predicted embattled U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine will be the next to announce their retirements.

“Democrats need to get it together,” Nelson added. “They have a real shot at the US Senate and retaking it in 2026. As well as the House of Representatives.”

In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek note, podcaster Chuck Todd responded to the news, writing: “On Earth 2, where the establishment of the GOP in 2016 successfully stopped Trump’s hostile takeover of the party, Ernst is either serving as VP, on a GOP ticket in 2020 or 2024 or had run for top spot herself.”

Back in May, Ernst was highly criticized for remarks she made at a town hall, telling voters (video below) upset over President Donald Trump’s trillion-dollar gutting of Medicaid and Medicare, “Well, we are all going to die.”

Some pointed to that gaffe as the impetus for her expected retirement.

READ MORE: ‘Brutal’: Trump Approval Tanks as Support Plummets Across Key Issues, Poll Shows

Responding to the news of Ernst’s exit, journalist Aaron Rupar snarked, “You’re saying that telling your constituents they don’t need healthcare because they’re gonna die anyway isn’t winning politics?”

Iowa Democratic state Senator Zach Wahls, who is running for Ernst’s seat, responded to the news: “Joni Ernst saw the writing on the wall. Iowans are fed up with rising costs and unchecked corruption. And next year, we’re going to flip this seat.”

Newsweek on Wednesday reported that Ernst was narrowly trailing Wahls in an in internal Wahls campaign poll, and only narrowly beating other opponents.

Iowa Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek, also running for Ernst’s seat, weighed in, commenting, “Whether it’s Joni Ernst or someone else, they’ll have to answer for supporting cutting Iowans’ healthcare in favor of a tax break for billionaires. When I’m in the Senate, I’ll never forget about Iowa.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News, in its coverage of Ernst’s retirement, pointed to reasons for Democratic optimism.

“One thing the national GOP cannot afford to ignore: Recent generic congressional ballots are giving a consistent edge to Democrats. A CNBC poll showed a 5-point lead for Democrats in August that had only widened since spring, something CNN pollster Harry Enten called a ‘big uh-oh’ for Republicans. In the last three elections with a new president — 2022, 2018 and 2010 — the party out of power gained enough seats in the midterms to control the House.”

The news outlet also reported that “outside of his GOP base, Trump’s legislative agenda is proving widely unpopular on his key issues: tariffs, inflation, the economy and deportation.”

See the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Act of Revenge’: Trump Axes Kamala Harris’s Secret Service Protection

 

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Johnson Pins Gun Violence on ‘Mental Health’ After Trump Slashes $1B in School Counseling

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2 days ago

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August 29, 2025

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is criticizing prominent voices on the left who denounced Republicans for urging prayer but taking no action on gun violence in the wake of the Minneapolis Catholic school mass shooting that left two young children dead and 17 wounded.

The Louisiana lawmaker pinned the blame for gun violence on “mental health” and “the human heart,” while insisting that guns are not the problem.

The House has voted to cut mental health services, including Medicaid, which is the largest payer of behavioral health services. Additionally, President Donald Trump has slashed $1 billion in school mental health programs that Congress approved in response to the 2022 Uvalde, Texas mass school shooting.

READ MORE: ‘Act of Revenge’: Trump Axes Kamala Harris’s Secret Service Protection

“It’s incredible to me that Jen Psaki and Gavin Newsom and others would attack religion, diminish the faith of millions of Americans at a time of such great tragedy,” Speaker Johnson alleged (video below). “There are a lot of commonsense solutions, things that can be done to protect children at schools and in churches that do not involve taking away the constitutional rights of law-abiding American citizens.”

Wednesday morning, Psaki, the former White House press secretary turned MSNBC anchor, lamented, “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers [do] not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”

Speaker Johnson continued, insisting that now is not the time to “politicize these issues.”

“And at the end of the day,” he continued, “the problem is not guns, okay, Jen Psaki? The problem is the human heart. It’s mental health.”

READ MORE: ‘Brutal’: Trump Approval Tanks as Support Plummets Across Key Issues, Poll Shows

In late April, the Trump Department of Education announced that it would stop funding “roughly $1 billion in grants that were meant to boost the ranks and training of mental health professionals who work in schools, saying the grant awards made under the Biden administration now conflict with Trump administration priorities,” Education Week reported. “The funds were authorized by Congress in the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which passed after 19 students and two teachers lost their lives in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

The Trump Education Department alleged the $1 billion in funds might “undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help.”

Critics blasted Johnson’s remarks.

“The GOP refuses to expand Medicaid for psychiatric care, cuts funding for ‘mental health,’ LGBTQ+ hotlines, denies the value of community services, yet feigns interest in ‘underlying causes’ of gun violence,” charged award-winning TV writer and playwright Hal Corley.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Hard Questions’: VP Echoes False Claim About Antidepressants and Mass Shootings

 

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