Tag: politics

Prominent DeSantis ally who shot himself dead last year was under investigation for using sold out Taylor Swift tickets to lure teen to his office and show him her breasts – then trying to buy family’s silence

The political donor behind Ron DeSantis‘s rapid rise to prominence took his own life after he was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with an underaged teen, a DailyMail.com investigation has revealed.

Kent Stermon’s suicide in December came shortly after the girl’s father turned down a ‘five-figure sum’ in a hush-money deal and reported him to the police instead, we have learned.

The prominent DeSantis ally and GOP donor, who was based in Jacksonville, Florida, was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with the girl, for whom he obtained highly sought-after Taylor Swift concert tickets which he said he’d give her if she sent him a photo of her breasts.

After the girl reluctantly complied, Stermon insisted she collect the tickets at his office – but when she turned up he refused to let her leave until she ‘showed him the real thing,’ law enforcement sources say.

The teenager balked at the idea and he eventually let her go.

She later told her boyfriend and her father about the encounter, prompting her dad to furiously confront Stermon at an arranged meeting at a diner in Atlantic Beach, according to sources. 

It was there that Stermon offered him the five-figure sum to keep quiet, but the dad refused.

Not too long after on December 8, Stermon killed himself just as Jacksonville police were launching their probe into the girl’s claims.

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Attacks on US churches tripled since 2018, often politically motivated, report says

Attacks on churches in the United States have nearly tripled in the last four years, and many have political motivations, according to a new study.

Evangelical activist group and think tank The Family Research Council (FRC) argues that criminal acts of vandalism against a church, among other forms of attacks, are “symptomatic of a collapse in societal reverence and respect for houses of worship and religion.” With an emphasis on Christianity, FRC researched the trend of criminal acts against churches over the last four years.

FRC utilized FBI data for its report, which groups Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox and “other Christians” under Christianity.

The report released earlier this month found a significant upward trend in attacks or “acts of hostility.”

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The “Crazy, Right-Wing Shooter” Myth

If you only read the New York Times editorials, you’d believe that political violence in America is a “right-wing” problem. The Times has been warning of violence from the right for years, but on Nov. 19 and 26, they wrote two long editorials making these claims. The violence stems from the lies “enthusiastically spread” by Republican politicians. Democrats’ only complicity was their $53 million in spending on “far-right fringe candidates in the primaries.” The fringe candidates, it was hoped, would be easier to beat in the general election. 

Both editorials mention the mass murderer in Buffalo, New York, as a political right-winger. But they have been doing that all year. In May, the Times claimed he was of the right because he was racist and listened to a video on a “site known for hosting right-wing extremism.” 

The headline in the Times announced:

“Replacement theory, espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre, has been embraced by some right-wing politicians and commentators.”

You wouldn’t know it from reading the Times, but the Buffalo killer was yet another mass murderer motivated by environmentalism. 

In his manifesto, the Buffalo mass murderer self-identifies as an “eco-fascist national socialist” and a member of the “mild-moderate authoritarian left.” He expresses concern that minority immigrants have too many children and will damage the environment. “The invaders are the ones overpopulating the world,” he writes. “Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment.”

The murderer argues that capitalists are destroying the environment, and are at the root of much of the problem.

“The trade of goods is to be discouraged at all costs,” he insists.

Overpopulation and the environment are hardly signature conservative issues.

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Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of Extremist Pastors Spreading Christian Nationalism

Days before the midterm elections, Pastor David MacLellan was ready to preach far-right politics through Bible verses to his small congregation. MacLellan, a hulking man with a long, grizzled black beard, isn’t an ordinary pastor. He proudly identifies himself as a far-right, extremist pastor and a Christian nationalist, someone who believes American politics should reflect fundamentalist Christian values. 

And he’s part of a growing national religious political movement called the Black Robe Regiment, a modern-day group inspired by a myth of a group of militant pastors during the American Revolution who took up arms to lead their flock into battle against the British. The movement, imbued with support from far-right political activists like Michael Flynn, wants pastors to play a central role in not only preaching politics from the pulpit but also actively getting their congregations to rise up and claim election fraud by weaving myths about the American Revolution together with modern-day conspiracy theories and hard-line Christianity. These pastors believe they’re saving democracy, though what they’re really doing is encouraging supporters to undermine the democratic process.

And MacLellan plans to take an active role: He’s convinced that the 2020 election was stolen and that fraud has already been committed in the 2022 midterms. He wants his congregants to fight back. 

“This Tuesday, I’ll be taking some of our seniors to the polling station,” MacLellan announced at the beginning of his service, held in the living room of his home in Mesa, Arizona. That day, he wore a tweed jacket over a black shirt, and a bolo tie. His hands are gnarled with faded tattoos—a nod, he says, to his Scottish heritage and a holdover from a past life when he played in punk bands in New York and was a “heathen biker.”

His sermon mixed Bible verses with remarks about evolution, made claims of violence against anti-abortion groups, and described Jewish people as a “wealthy group of people who didn’t believe in heaven or hell, didn’t believe in angels, and they had political control over everything.”

“Interesting, huh?” he said, as an aside to the congregation crowded into his living room, who responded with knowing sounds.

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