Yearly Wrap Up!

And another year.

Okay, if you are still here reading our blog, thank you on behalf of me (TheBlueLightBuzz), La Reyna and every contributor to Journal de la Reyna.

So it's been 10 years since joining this blog after retiring my other blog. I am not going anywhere but I am easing up on the postings. I will focus mostly on what goes on in the world but not too frequently. I am working two jobs and its exhaustive to keep up with the constant news cycle.

Still we are here and we will keep the blog still active for anyone.

So as we close out 2022 and start 2023, we want to acknowledge the year.

Instead of the long winded version, I am going to rate the top 10 of 2022 in my honest opinion.

The media may be moving from Trump.

1. Donald J. Trump - The thrill is gone.

Former president Donald J. Trump is still a toxic figure in American politics. He announced he is running for president again. He had his taxes handed over to the Democrats. He is being overshadowed by Ron DeSantis, Florida governor and culture warrior. His endorsements did not help most of his hand picked candidates. Tiffany Trump got married and he looked miserable. He hosted a gathering with Kanye West, Ray J, Kodak Black, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, Mike Lindell, Sean "Softball" Hannity and Nick Fuentes. Of all these clowns, the white nationalist Fuentes. His taxes were released showing he is not a billionaire. He also cost the Republicans crucial governor races and senate races. He also promoted NFT trading cards instead of announcing his campaign stops. It is a mess with Washed Up 45. But remember we laughed and mocked Trump saying he could never win. We were so wrong.

2. Bet on Black - Kamala Harris, Joy Reid, Symone Sanders, Jalen Hurts, Chris Rock, Lil Baby, Marsai Martin, Trevor Noah, Tiffany Cross, Candace Owens, Herschel Walker, Raphael Warnock, Keke Palmer, Shontel Brown, Hakeem Jeffries, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Wes Moore, John James, Tim Scott and Don Lemon.

Been an impressive year for Black leadership in film, television, politics, sports, academics and music.

I am so thankful that these individuals took an opportunity to show the world regardless they are willing to take on challenges. I mean don't get me wrong, I strongly disagree with Candace Owens, Herschel Walker and Black conservatives. Owens and Walker became famous only for being divisive.

Benzino no neck and no brains.

3. Benzino - The No Neck Chronicles. 

Rappers who supported Donald J. Trump really fell off. Kanye West, Ray J, Kodak Black, Lil Pump, Takashi 6ix9ine, Jaheim, Forgiato Blow, DaBaby, Andrew Tate, Lil Wayne and Kid Rock are washed up like Trump. They paid the price of associating with noise.

I will say Raymond Scott formerly known as Benzino had a rough year. He has his no neck ass in a lot of controversy. Nick Cannon is a unrelenting baby making machine. DaBaby fell off (see Kanye West - Double or Nothing).  

The Game picked a one sided fight with Eminem and lost even before Em picked up a mic. 

DaBaby did not sell out a concert venue and his latest album flopped. He was caught trying to pawn off tickets. He fell off so hard after his anti-gay rant in 2021.

Scott sabotaged Coi Leray, got caught with a dildo, caught in a hotel room with a man, caught spazzing out when he saw Althea with another man, got caught talking to a transgender model twice, getting arrested multiple times for driving without a license punching out Althea's male friend's vehicle and doing multiple stupidity on a high level.

He at least won a fixed boxing match. 

Benzino no neck and no signs of going away in 2023.

4. Kanye West - Double Or Nothing.

Jay-Z can't save him. Kim Kardashian can't help him no more. Should have listened to Wiz Khalifa, D.L. Hughley, Trevor Noah, Pete Davidson, Amber Rose, Taylor Swift, Drake, Big Sean, John Legend and Beyonce.

Ye heads to the washed up celebrity category.

Kanye West is not mentally ill. He is just plain ignorant. Ye has gambled everything and lost it all. He must pay child support. He lost his title of being a billionaire. He was banned on Twitter. Elon Musk reinstalled his account only for it being pulled two weeks later. He appears on Fox with Tucker Carlson and in unedited footage he says anti-semitic remarks. He doubled down and went "def con 3" on the Jews. He also lost Adidas, Def Jam and numerous endorsements. His rants also brought down Washed Up 45 and Kyrie Irving.

He appears even on conspiracy nut Alex Jones. Jones lost $1 billion to the families of Sandy Hook and I guess Ye is soon to join him when George Floyd's family sues him and Candace Owens for slander.

I haven't bought a Kanye West album since his collaboration album with Jay-Z. 

I admit that single Easy with The Game was dope. But the dope, The Game tried to aim his venom at Eminem and it already tanked him. 

Ye or Yeezy is telling his white supporters that white lives matter. He is telling his Black supporters that Black Lives Matter is a scam and it is over now.

I seriously doubt Ye can recover from the shame of failure.

5. Guns Ablazin' - Mass Shootings In America.

Over 700 mass shootings in the United States. Approximately 74,000 people died from gun violence.

Every community in the United States will eventually have a legacy. A legacy of tragedy. Gun violence, monkeypox and COVID-19 will affect your town, your family and your life. So I don't want to hear that bullshit about how gun reform is taking away your rights to own firearms.

I don't want to hear that protesting against police killing people of color is hate on cops in general. I don't want to hear talk about the coronavirus being a myth.

When you hear folks say "gun rights," what they really mean is that its white privilege. This good guy with a gun nonsense has to end. The cops didn't do nothing when children were shot inside a school in Uvalde, Texas. A group of people disarmed a mass shooter at a gay club in Colorado Springs. A worker killed his coworkers at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia. A man killed numerous people watching a July 4th parade in Highland Park, Illinois. Numerous police officers were killed when answering a minor call or a routine pull over. Cops shoots and kills unarmed Americans. A security guard was shot dead trying to protect shoppers in Buffalo. A cop accidentally shot his own.

Of course pivots to Chicago whenever the mention of gun reform or police reform.

I don't want to hear folks say masks and vaccine mandates impede their freedoms. It prevents a deadly outbreak from spreading. If you want to die from the coronavirus, that's on you. We lost over 1 million people from the coronavirus.

I don't want to hear the shit about guns saving lives. Cause a bullet does not have eyes and it's always likely gonna hit a target. These folks seem to not get it. These incidents are a tragic part of American history. Thoughts and prayers and your heart going out to the victims is not enough. It quite frankly is an insult. I am also tired of scapegoating Black on Black crime, Chicago, Baltimore and Democratic mayors for the nation's obsession to be numb to gun violence. You pretty much enable this nonsense by deflecting.

President Joe Biden is trying to curb gun violence. However, he has no support from Republicans. Most Democrats and America are for gun control measures. However the two Democrats in the Senate refuse to change the filibuster rules and its holding us back.

The National Rifle Association is always pushing against it. They will not relinquish from the narrative that guns are not saving lives. The Republicans aided by a fickle junk food media are openly encouraging anarchy and disruption in a desperate attempt for the Republicans to win back Congress and the White House. These agitators are calling for Biden to curb crime but will not help him. They want more guns on the street. It makes no sense.

So in closing, expect more.

The website Officer Down is a memorial to those who were killed in the line of duty. Those who don't get their names mentioned in the junk food media. Also the website the National Gun Violence Memorial also keeps record of the many individuals killed by gun violence. 

Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or 988, or text the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741). Both services are free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The deaf and hard of hearing can contact the Lifeline via TTY at 1-800-799-4889. All calls are confidential. Contact social media outlets directly if you are concerned about a friend’s social media updates or dial 911 in an emergency. Learn more on the Lifeline’s website or the Crisis Text Line’s website.

The call number to the U.S. Capitol is now going to be used. This is the official phone number, 202-224-3121. Let them know that "thoughts and prayers," "hearts going to" and "good guys with guns" are no longer acceptable and you want legislation to curb gun violence.

GUN VIOLENCE WILL ALWAYS BE THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES.

6. Oh, Margie - Far Right Extremism Gotten Worse.

The unprovoked war in Ukraine by Russia. The Federation has been teasing nuclear warfare after the U.S. and NATO promised funding to help Ukraine beat back the Russian military. Over 24,000 Ukrainians and 123,000 Russian troops have died. Not all of this confirmed. Americans have lost their lives to this war as well. Journalists, volunteers for the Ukrainian paramilitary and Russian military who hold American citizenship died for the extremist views of Vladimir Putin.

Marjorie Taylor Greene will keep the noise going.

The constant culture wars by conservatives. LibsofTikTok, Andrew Tate, Candace Owens, Kirk Cameron, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tomi Lahren, Fox, Newsmax, Real American Voice, OANN and Twitter are dangerous.

They are a cesspool of noise.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wins the year only for being the noise that America is sick and tired of. She finalized her divorce from her husband. She is dating a media agitator from Right Side Broadcasting.

She lied in court when progressive activists took her to court to get her disqualified from the Republican primary.

It appears that Greene is now feuding with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and many other Republicans who refuse to back House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his quest to become the house speaker. I just hope they continue to make so much noise that the Republicans two years in power will be quite short.

7. Elon Musk  - You Need Some Deodorant.

Elon Musk went from Playboy billionaire to now the most vilified and most hated billionaire on the planet. This company Tesla is going downhill quickly. His purchase of Twitter for $45 billion dollars has only made him even more of a casualty than a success story. Since you took over Twitter, he had ended up firing almost 90% of his worksforce. 

He ended up reinstating Washed Up 45, many extremist and release classified information regarding Twitter's policies on how to deal with misinformation. The Republicans have seized upon the Twitter files by claiming that the company was working with the federal government to suppress damaging information about Joe Biden. Also musk has also went after Dr Anthony fauci and he seeks to have him permanently banned on Twitter as well. Elon Musk also tweeted conspiracy theories regarding outgoing house Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul being attacked by a right-wing extremist. He tried to troll Hillary Clinton by showing her a link to a fake website which was promoted by conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, Sean "Softball" Hannity, Jesse Watters, gay black conservative Terrence K. Williams and numerous other cranks.

Elon Musk will take Tesla and Twitter down with him.

The European Union has worn musk that Twitter must be monitored for extremist rhetoric or face consequences. So far he has ignored that and continues to carry forth his trolling and baseless bullshit. He even went as far to do a poll suggesting he should resign. Turns out it wasn't a real poll it was just a baseless noise machine cranked up for clickbait. In 2023, Elon Musk will either face investigations from the US Congress or european lawmakers. 

He's also got numerous lawsuits awaiting him for letting the Twitter workers overseas go without notice. I just hope that Washed Up 45 doesn't decide on trying to get back on it. So far I guess he's enjoying his own platform called Truth Social.

8. Royal Jam - British Monarchy post Queen Elizabeth II. The longest serving Monarch in modern history has passed away in September of 2022. With the death of the queen, King Charles III has become the newest Royal to rule over the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth. But with this new reign, Charles is going to be experiencing a lot of headaches. Five countries already decided that they don't want to be a part of the Commonwealth. Black Britons do not approve of Charles' handling of Meghan and Harry. Duchess Megan and Prince Harry have faced numerous attacks from the media, Royal insiders, and likely Prince William and Princess Catherine. Last year, Duchess Meghan contemplated suicide only for Piers Morgan to attack her for being human.

 

When they left Royal duties, the junk food media here in the United States and over in Great Britain have been nonstop with what kind of controversies they can come up with against Meghan. She has joined Spotify and now has one of the top leading podcast in the world. And as most people should know she's been very honest about a lot of issues going on with her and Harry. Prince Harry on the other hand has called out the media, his family, and the institution. He believes that the institution needs to change quickly before it disappears. The the Netflix documentary series about Harry and Megan has pulled in numerous reviews and has driven some of the most harshest critics out of the woodwork. 

Royal drama between Prince Harry, Duchess Meghan and the institution.

Jeremy Clarkson, Johanna Weiss and The Daily Mail have went out of their way to make noise. They were met with protests, boycotts and driven out of their jobs.

King Charles III will not have a long Royal reigning. 

He is 73 years old. I wouldn't be surprised he wouldn't last but 10 years at least. He and Camilla will not have a long time in royal duties.

But the people have spoken in my opinion and I believe that Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan will always be the the Royals people will love.

MVP. Vice President Kamala Harris is still a strong force.

9.  A Cup Of Joe - President Joe Biden's Ups And Downs. 

President Joe Biden managed to keep control of the Senate with the Democrats. With 48 senators in the Democratic caucus and three independent senators, the Democrats won't need vice president Kamala Harris to break ties for now. Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema flipped to become an independent shortly after Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) beat Herschel Walker.

Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) have both been distractions to the Democratic party. Also Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and numerous other Justice Democrats have kind of screwed up everything as well. Due to the Republican gerrymandering that Republicans managed to take back the House of Representatives by a five-seat majority. Biden is prepared to face off against the Republicans when they go after him for Hunter Biden. Instead of worrying about the S. Capitol attack, former president Donald Trump taking classified information, and many other actual issues, the Republicans are returning back to the conspiracy theories, cultural Wars and name calling. 

Biden has to deal with the Karen behavior of Kyrsten Sinema.

Like I said with the Marjorie Taylor Greene issue, the Republicans will overplay their hand yet again and hopefully this time around American voters will see how how their governing is pretty much worthless. 

Biden said he is running for a re-election despite some of the far left and many of the far rights noise promoting that he should not run ever again. The key to keeping Joe Biden in power is Black voters. He may have trouble trying to win over many Black male voters but Black women are the most important factor to Democrats winning. 

I wish President Joe Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala harris, Doug Emhoff, and the Democrats well. They got a long two years a coming.

10. The Future - A New Chapter.

So as we close out 2022, I want to say that I am cutting back on postings. I am still going to post on issues facing the community, the government and the junk food media, but I am not going to be everyday and consistantly posting. I working two jobs to survive and Blogger continues to be a nightmare when it comes to posting. The interface is a hot mess.

Every image I add it goes at the bottom of the page, no matter when I place the cursor. So I have to switch to HTML, copy the code, and paste it where is needed.

Before, we had the opportunity to choose the option to have an "auto <br>" when in HTML mode. Now the HTML is totally useless. You have to write in normal mode, then switch to HTML every time you have to add a piece of code like an embedded video or a tweet.

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So in closing, I will make a New Year's resolution. Watch from the sidelines. Do not do too much for people. Work hard to win. 

So in 2023, there will be more celebrities and politicians that will pass away. There will be more mass shootings, more police shootings of unarmed people of color and nothing being done with gun violence. There will be more major natural disasters. More scandals and stuff to keep you informed.

Who knows what happens next?

Add your feedback here _______________.

On behalf of me, La Reyna and Councilman George L. Cook III, well wishes this New Year. 

Keep the faith.

Elise Stefanik Called Washed Up 45 A "Whack Job" A**hole!

Next year, Elise Stefanik will a loud noise maker.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), one of the top leaders within the Republican Party may seek the House Speakership if the Republicans reject Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

However, the ultra-MAGA may have her dirty laundry aired out.

No. 1, her endorsement of controversial Rep-elect George Santos (R-NY). The Rep-elect is facing heat for misleading voters about his record. Now there are calls for him to resign and so far, Republicans won't say they want him go, but they are concerned that his issues will be a big distraction.

No. 2, she called Washed Up 45 a "whack job." 

n an extensive feature article headlined “The Invention of Elise Stefanik,” NYT reporter Nicholas Confessore writes about the GOP leader’s migration from the Paul Ryan moderates to the “ultra-MAGA” hard right.

“I am Ultra-Maga, I’m proud of it,” Stefanik said in May of this year. Confessore describes it as “one of the most brazen political transformations of the Trump era.”

The NYT article goes back to Stefanik’s earlier days, pinpointing the 2018 midterms as the corner turn for the New York Republican.

“(A)s her third term unfolded, according to current or former friends and advisers, it was becoming painfully clear that she was the future of a Republican Party that no longer existed,” writes Confessore. “The party was now firmly controlled by Donald J. Trump, a populist president she didn’t like or respect…”

Staying close to the former president was beneficial.

As it turns out, more than not respecting him, she had some very negative comments about him, which the Times reveals included calling him a “whack job” in a message “obtained” by the paper.

In the beginning, she was not supportive of the former president when he ran as a candidate in 2015-16.

The "grab 'em by the pussy" remark kind of turned her off. Soon after he became the president, she ended up becoming one of the most loyal members of MAGA. She soon became a top leader after Republicans rejected Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the sole member of top leadership at the time who voted to impeach the former president.

The Republican was a moderate at one time. Many Democrats crossed over to support her with 80% of the vote. Now she gets at least 64% of the vote. Still a win but now it's mostly a partisan deal.

No. 3, she talks about "the white replacement" theory which is a dangerous conspiracy theory that agitates white extremists to violence.

As she prepares for a new role in top leadership, we want to make sure that she's going to be held accountable for her actions.

We Just Eating And Sharing On TikTok And This Racist Threatened Us!

TikTok influencers accosted.

So inside a California In-and-Out Burger, two young adults were threatened with violence from a Colorado man who threatened them with racial slurs and physical violence.

Two people enjoying food at an In-N-Out Burger in California were faced with racist language and threats on Christmas Eve.

The extremist, 40-year-old Denver resident Jordan Douglas Krah, approached two suspects to whom he made racist and homophobic comments.

Arine Kim and her friend were filming themselves while trying menu items at an In-N-Out location in San Ramon. She said that’s when a man approached them and said, “You’re filming yourself eating? You’re weird homosexuals.”

Kim and her friend laughed in shock. Not long after, the man returned to their table and asked, “Are you Japanese or Korean? Are you Kim Jong Un’s boyfriend? You have gay sex with him?”

As the exchange continued – and the camera kept recording – Kim’s friend responded with sass at one point, and asked if he could take the man out to dinner. That’s when Kim realized the incident could escalate, and she repeatedly asked her friend to stop engaging with the stranger. The man responded by threatening to spit in their faces.

The pair tried to ignore him, but the man later returned and referred to himself as a slave master and used a homophobic slur. He then said, “See you outside in a minute.”

Kim and her friend decided to wait until the In-N-Out location closed before leaving. The pair asked one of the employees to check outside to be sure he wasn’t still waiting for them. An employee watched as they walked to their car.

Caught the digital dash.

Kim later posted the video to her social media pages, where it caught the attention of San Ramon Police Chief Denton Carlson. Carlson retweeted her video and asked the pair to reach out. Kim said they have been in touch with police to investigate the incident.

@arinekim My friend and i were filming his reaction to my in-n-out order when this happened… #arinekim ♬ original sound - arine kim

@arinekim Replying to @ryan.owateva update ! #arinekim #greenscreen ♬ original sound - arine kim

On Sunday, Carlson tweeted a photo of the suspect. Carlson says the photo was taken on Christmas morning when the man in the photo exhibited “similar behavior.” The vehicle in the photo is a silver Mustang with Florida license plates, according to police.

Kim said it was a scary incident, but she’s happy they didn’t get hurt. “My friend and I were a bit shaken after the incident but I’m just grateful we’re both safe and out of harm’s way.”

The suspect is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Crying over a loss.

In Washed Up 45's universe, if you lost an election, you called it rigged and refuse to concede to the election. It happens with Arizona's losing candidate Kari Lake and now Jair Bolsonaro, the one term Brazillian president. He was a race-baiting, Amazon-developing, coronavirus-downplaying, vaccine-skeptical leader of Latin America’s largest country

Now he pouts about his loss and is planning on heading to Florida for a residency.

Days after Bolsonaro’s loss, allies met with Trump aides in the United States to discuss next steps. His son Eduardo, a Brazilian congressman, met Washed Up 45at Mar-a-Lago last month in Palm Beach, Florida.

He may meet with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Bolsonaro remained defiant in a teary farewell address on Friday, defending his record and saying the election that led to his ouster was not impartial, but condemning violence against the result.

He apparently planned to skip the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday, when the outgoing leader traditionally presents the presidential sash to his successor, a ceremony intended to reaffirm the country’s young democracy.

Bolsonaro’s remarks, live-streamed for nearly an hour Friday morning, were his most extensive since he lost the election in October. He still has not conceded the race, but acknowledged that a new administration would take over on Sunday.

“Nothing is lost,” he told supporters. “Brazil is a fantastic country, and Brazil doesn’t end on January first.”

Lula won Brazil's closest-ever election. That was the easy part.

Concern is growing over security around Lula’s inauguration in Brasília on Sunday. Bolsonaro supporters have camped outside army installations since his Oct. 30 defeat to call for a military coup to keep him in power. A group of radical bolsonaristas set fire to buses and tried to invade federal police headquarters in the capital this month after the arrest of a Bolsonaro supporter who was accused of having “expressly summoned armed people to prevent the certification of elected” officials.

On Saturday, police said they defused a bomb planted by a Bolsonaro supporter in a tanker truck full of gas near the international airport in Brasília. They said the suspect told investigators his plan was to provoke chaos to draw military intervention.

Christian Extremist Kirk Cameron Invades The Indianapolis Library!

In a sea of white, Kirk Cameron reads his Christian propaganda.

In the bubble of Fox, if you are an actor, academic, rapper, singer, entrepreneur, athlete or an activist who opposes conservatives or Republicans, you should "shut up and dribble" to quote Laura Ingraham.

Fox often criticizes entertainers and politicians who lean towards the left.

The same bubble says that the left wants to silence them. 

So when an actor who supports conservatives is told he/she can't get what they want, they scream, plead to social media to get people riled up to do something.

Speak of that, LibsofTikTok has become a dangerous figure. She revealed herself to Fox.

Some claim she was at the U.S. Capitol during the deadly attack.

Washed up entertainer and Christian extremist Kirk Cameron celebrated a victory. He gets to read his propaganda to his cult at the downtown Indianapolis Public Library.

Upset over drag queens reading children stories in libraries, the far right extremist had decided to stage these read a longs at libraries. He of course paid for the spacing but he acts like thousands of people come to see him.

IndyPL responded in kind saying that less than 500 people saw the washed up celebrity. 

They shared that he did not rent out a full capacity center. He rented a small room.

Cameron promotes his latest propaganda “As You Grow.”

Cameron’s publisher Brave Books booked a room at the Central Library, and some members of the public had to be turned away because the room had reached capacity.

Brave Books posted on Twitter following the event, saying, “This is a message to every library in the United States: In 137 years of the Indianapolis Public Library’s history, NEVER ONCE have they had over 2,500 people show up to a single event. UNTIL TODAY.”

The tweet was accompanied with a video showing a full room and a line outside the door.

IndyPL responded and said the alleged numbers were inaccurate, also pointing out Brave Books could have booked a larger room but chose not to.

This is a message to every library in the United States:

In 137 years of the Indianapolis Public Library’s history, NEVER ONCE have they had over 2,500 people show up to a single event.

UNTIL TODAY. pic.twitter.com/sFI9Gv4Q5g

— BRAVE Story Hour (@BraveBooksUS) December 29, 2022

We will be here, we will stand strong & we will show the world how many of us there really are!

Thank you to everyone who gave up their morning to join us! This movement is beginning!

Host your own Brave Books Story Hour Today!@KirkCameron

— BRAVE Story Hour (@BraveBooksUS) December 29, 2022

We are being inaccurately portrayed in news/social after a room rental yesterday. Our estimated door count during the event is around 750, not 2500. We've had larger events. We turn 150 yrs old in 2023. And our auditorium, which our guests chose not to rent, holds 300, not 2000. pic.twitter.com/ETwtOhS7AP

— Indianapolis Public Library (@indylibrary) December 30, 2022

Fox News anchor Julie Banderas to Kirk Cameron, who has been demanding public libraries give him story hours: "This has been quite a battle. You would never imagine you'd be in for the battle of your life because you wrote a children’s book!" pic.twitter.com/NhUMIp7dVW

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) December 30, 2022

“Our estimated door count during the event is around 750, not 2500. We’ve had larger events. We turn 150 yrs old in 2023. And our auditorium, which our guests chose not to rent, holds 300, not 2000,” read a tweet Friday morning.

However, IndyPL said its programming department only declined to partner with Brave Books for the event, and it never turned down a request to host the story hour.

“We have a programming department that handles Library events, and they do not say yes to everyone who asks to work with them on an event. Declining to partner on or promote a program happens often and is not a unique circumstance,” IndyPL said in a statement.

IndyPL stated Brave Books was also made aware of the room’s capacity before the event and never inquired about securing a larger space.

Pope Benedict XVI Passed Away!

Pope Emeritus Benedict passed away in the Vatican City.

The Vatican announced the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the age of 95.

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Congress, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, King Charles III, Valdimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron and the world leaders will respond in due time.

Benedict lived at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City following his retirement, where he continued to write and pray until his death.

Benedict pushed for greater cooperation and ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and other religions, most notably Islam and Judaism. He also encouraged greater understanding and reconciliation with Protestant churches, despite a firm rejection of Protestant theology. 

The pope viewed Christianity as a logical reality that could be studied and slowly understood piece by piece. He expressed approval for the Theory of Evolution, reminding Catholics that science was not at odds with religion and that Genesis was not considered a straightforward text by early Christian communities. 

He is most immediately remembered outside the Catholic Church for his surprise resignation — the first papal abdication since 1415 — and subsequent life as the world’s first "pope emeritus" in centuries. 

Benedict was born Joseph Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in Bavaria. He came of age in Germany after World War I at the same time the Nazi regime was growing in power.  

His Roman Catholic family — harassed and punished by the Nazi Party for their opposition to state policies — shaped his desire to commit to the church. 

Pope Benedict XVI was a staunch traditionalist associated with the Catholic Church. He was more conservative than his successor Pope Francis. 

Francis is considered more moderate than Francis and Saint John Paul II.

Ratzinger was inspired to join the priesthood at an early age when he was tasked with presenting flowers to Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber of Munich. Seeing the clergyman’s crimson robes and refined demeanor, the five-year-old Ratzinger declared he would become a cardinal. 

"It was the way the cardinal looked, his bearing, and the knickerbockers he was wearing that made such an impression on him," his brother Georg recalled in a 2005 interview with the New York Times. 

At the age of 14, Ratzinger was mandated by law to become a member of the Hitler Youth alongside all other German children of his age group. Ratzinger resented the organization and became horrified after his cousin, who suffered from Down’s syndrome, was abducted and killed by the government as part of their Aktion T4 campaign. 

Despite entering seminary, Ratzinger was drafted into the anti-aircraft corps in 1943 and later into the regular military during World War II. He deserted the German military in April 1945.  

Benedict said that he chose to abandon the military after witnessing the horrors of the war, including Jews in Hungary being sent to death camps, according to an interview with Time Magazine in 1993. 

He was captured and held as a prisoner of war by American forces for several months before returning to Germany and re-entering the seminary with his brother, Georg.

Pope Francis saw Benedict as a spiritual mentor and friend.

Ratzinger and his brother were ordained on the same day in 1951, receiving Holy Orders from the same cardinal who had inspired Benedict’s decision to enter the priesthood as a child. 

His extensive work in theology and Christology saw him promoted to Archbishop of Munich and Freising in May 1977. He was then swiftly promoted to cardinal by Pope Paul VI in June of the same year. 

Cardinal Ratzinger built a positive reputation in Catholic circles for his intense scholarship and prolific writing career.  

His bibliography — volumes of works that span from his earliest years of the priesthood through his papacy and beyond — includes encyclicals on morality, explorations of the life of Jesus, and retrospective looks at church history. 

Perhaps one of his most profound early contributions included founding the theological journal Communio, which became one of the most important journals of Catholic thought in his home country. 

He was also among the vanguard in tackling the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church while serving as a cardinal under Pope St. John Paul II.  

Pope Francis has been a fervent supporter of Benedict and has spoken highly of his predecessor as both a theologian and a priest. 

The two have been photographed together frequently, celebrating holy days, and attending events. The pair of popes often prayed together, and Benedict spoke approvingly of his successor in rare interviews. 

Benedict even attended Pope Francis’s ceremony appointing 19 new cardinals in 2014. 

Washed Up 45's Taxes Are Released!

Washed Up 45 angry over tax releases.

Somewhere in Mar-a-Lago, Washed Up 45 is fuming at the House Weight and Means Committee releasing six years of his taxes. He called it a travesty and a partisan witch hunt for the House Democrats to look into his financial dealings.

For most of his time as a candidate to his God awful presidency, Washed Up 45 has stood by the claim that his taxes are being audited.

Democrats gave the 2024 presidential candidate a bigger headache than Ye and Nick Fuentes sitting at the table with him.

The documents include individual returns from Washed Up 45 and his wife, Melania, along with his business entities from 2015-2020. They show how the former president used the tax code to lower his tax obligation and reveal details about foreign accounts, charitable contributions and the performance of some of his highest-profile business ventures, which had largely remained shielded from public scrutiny.

The disclosure marks the culmination of a yearslong legal fight that has played out everywhere from the presidential campaign to Congress and the Supreme Court as the former president persistently rejected efforts to share details about his financial history — counter to the practice of transparency followed by all his predecessors in the post-Watergate era. The records release comes just days before Republicans retake control of the House and weeks after he announced another campaign for the White House.

The records show how Washed Up 45 limited his tax liability by offsetting his income against corporate losses as well as millions of dollars in business expenses, asset depreciation and other deductions.

While Washed Up 45 paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year he began his campaign for president, he paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017, according to a report released last week by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. He paid nearly $1 million in 2018, but only $133,445 in 2019 and nothing in 2020, the year he unsuccessfully sought reelection.

The records also detail Washed Up 45’s foreign holdings.

Washed Up 45, according to the filings, reported having bank accounts in China, Ireland and the United Kingdom in 2015 through 2017, even as he was commander in chief. Starting in 2018, however, he only reported an account in the U.K. The returns also show that the former president claimed foreign tax credits for taxes he paid on various business ventures around the world, including licensing arrangements for use of his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.

In several years, the former president appears to have paid more in foreign taxes than he did in net U.S. federal income taxes, with income reported in countries including Azerbaijan, China, India, Indonesia, Panama, the Philippines, St. Martin, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

The documents also show that the former president’s charitable donations often represented only a sliver of his income. In 2020, the year the coronavirus ravaged the economy, Washed Up 45 reported no charitable donations at all. In 2019 and 2018 he reported writing checks for about $500,000 in donations. In earlier years the numbers were higher — $1.8 million in 2017 and $1.1 million in 2016.

It’s unclear whether the reported sums included the former president’s $400,000 annual presidential salary, which he had said, as a candidate, that he would forgo and which he claimed he donated to various federal departments.

Jeff Hoopes, an accounting professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, described Washed Up 45’s returns as “large and complicated” with “hundreds of entities scattered all over the globe.”

He noted that many of those entities are slightly unprofitable, which he described as “pretty magical as far as the tax code.”

“It’s hard to know if someone’s really bad at business or really good at tax planning, because they both look like the same thing,” he said.

Daniel Shaviro, a taxation professor at New York University, cited the large financial losses from so many of Washed Up 45’s businesses, despite their often healthy sales, as something that should raise suspicions from auditors. “There’s fishy looking stuff here.”

Shaviro also cited examples of suspicious or sloppy math even in smaller businesses, such as an aviation firm dubbed “DT Endeavor I LLC,” which in 2020 reported both sales and expenses of $160,144. Such exact matches are unusual, Shaviro said. Yet the form also reported an $18,923 loss.

“The return doesn’t say, ‘Guess what? I’m committing fraud,’” Shaviro said, “but there are red flags.”

The release marks the latest setback for Washed Up 45, who has been mired in investigations, including federal and state inquiries into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Department of Justice also has been investigating reams of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago club and possible efforts to obstruct the investigation.

I really though they had him this time.
If I had a dollar for every time they “finally got him” I’d be Volodymyr Zelensky… +\- 130,000,000,000 pic.twitter.com/6nH9tXh3xy

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 30, 2022

In a statement Friday, Washed Up 45 lashed out at Democrats and the Supreme Court for the release.

“It’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” he said. “The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”

He said the returns demonstrated “how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions” to build his businesses.

The returns were released by the House Ways and Means Committee, which held a party-line vote last week to make the returns public after years of legal wrangling.

The returns detail how Washed Up 45used tax law to minimize his liability, including carrying forward massive losses from previous years. Washed Up 45 said during his 2016 campaign that paying little or no income tax in some years “makes me smart.”

In 2020, more than 150 of Washed Up 45’s business entities listed negative qualified business income, which the IRS defines as “the net amount of qualified items of income, gain, deduction and loss from any qualified trade or business.” In total for that tax year, combined with nearly $9 million in carryforward loss from previous years, Washed Up 45’s qualified losses amounted to more than $58 million.

Another of Washed Up 45’s money losers: the ice rink his company operated until last year in New York City’s Central Park. Washed Up 4t reported a total of $2.6 million in losses from Wollman Rink over the six years made public. The rink, an early Trump Organization jewel run through a contract with New York City’s government, reported a loss of $1.3 million in 2015 despite taking in $9.3 million in revenue, according to the tax returns. The rink turned a $298,000 profit in 2016, but was back to melting cash in each of the next four years.

“Trump seems to be creating huge losses that are suspicious or questionable under current law,” said Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who said he had spent 20 years preparing taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals and “never saw anyone lose money as regularly and as large as Trump lost money year after year.”

“To me, Trump’s business operations were phenomenally unsuccessful and I struggle to figure out how much of it is attributable to Trump’s unluckiness as a businessman and how much of it is attributable to Trump’s inflation,” he said.

Aspects of the former president's finances had been shrouded in mystery since his days as an up-and-coming Manhattan real estate developer in the 1980s.

Washed Up 45, known for building skyscrapers and hosting a reality TV show before winning the White House, did offer limited details about his holdings and income on mandatory disclosure forms and financial statements he provided to banks to secure loans and to financial magazines to justify his ranking on lists of billionaires.

The former president’s longtime accounting firm has since disavowed the statements, and New York’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit alleging Washed Up 45 and his Trump Organization fraudulently inflated asset values on the statements. Washed Up 45 and his company have denied wrongdoing.

In October 2018, The New York Times published a Pulitzer Prize-winning series based on leaked tax records that contradicted the image Washed Up 45 had tried to sell of himself as a self-made businessman. It showed that the former president received a modern-day equivalent of at least $413 million from his father Fred Trump's real estate holdings, with much of that money coming from what the Times called “tax dodges” in the 1990s.

A second series in 2020 showed that the former president paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years because he generally lost more money than he made.

In its report last week, the Ways and Means Committee indicated the Washed Up 45 administration may have disregarded a requirement mandating audits of a president’s tax filings.

The IRS only began to audit the former president’s 2016 tax filings on April 3, 2019 — more than two years into his presidency — when the Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., asked the agency for information related to the returns.

Every president and major-party candidate since Richard Nixon has voluntarily made at least summaries of their tax information available to the public.

As he declared his intention to run for president, he has not done many campaign stops.

The Republicans did not surf the red wave. They barely took the House of Representatives, his handpicked candidates Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Larry Elder and Doug Mastriano lost. The Senate is in Democratic control.

Washed Up 45 is under investigation in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, New York and U.S. Justice Department.

He is trailing behind Ron DeSantis, a divisive nobody who is governor of Florida. Many of the establishment Republican lawmakers are hoping for Washed Up 45 to tire out.

The former president continues to believe the "deep state" wanted him to fail. His allies are turning against him after his latest announcement of NFT trading cards flopped.

Is the chewing gum losing its flavor? 

Cause Washed Up 45 is the gum underneath a park bench.

BREAKING: Barbara Walters Passed Away!

Legendary journalist Barbara Walters passed away at her New York home.

American journalist and iconic host of The View passed away.

Barbara Walters, a longtime stable of ABC News has passed away at the age of 93.

President Joe Biden (with First Lady Jill Biden), Vice President Kamala Harris (with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff), Congress, former presidents Barack Obama (with Michelle Obama), George W. Bush (with Laura Bush), Bill Clinton (with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton), Jimmy Carter (with Rosalynn Carter) and former vice president Mike Pence (with Karen Pence) will address the passing in some form.

I guess Donald J. Trump might respond but strongly doubt it.

The View, The Talk, Nicolle Wallace, Meghan McCain, Star Jones, Rosie O'Donnell, Raven-Symone, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Jenny McCarthy, Sherri Shepherd and Lisa Lang will respond in due time.

ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, MSNBC, CNN, Fox and NewsNation react to the news.

She was the trailblazing television news broadcaster and longtime ABC News anchor and correspondent who shattered the glass ceiling and became a dominant force in an industry once dominated by men, has died. She was 93.

Walters joined ABC News in 1976, becoming the first female anchor on an evening news program. Three years later, she became a co-host of "20/20," and in 1997, she launched "The View."

In a career that spanned five decades, Walters won 12 Emmy awards, 11 of those while at ABC News.

"We were all influenced by Barbara Walters," ABC News' David Muir said in a tribute Friday, remembering Walters as an "extraordinary human being, journalist, pioneer, legend."

"She broke barriers behind the scenes and she broke news on-camera. She got people to say things they never would've said to another journalist."

Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs were the hosts of 20/20 and were cultural icons.

She made her final appearance as a co-host of "The View" in 2014, but remained an executive producer of the show and continued to do some interviews and specials for ABC News.

"I do not want to appear on another program or climb another mountain," she said at the time. "I want instead to sit on a sunny field and admire the very gifted women -- and OK, some men too -- who will be taking my place."

Barbara Jill Walters was born in Boston on Sept. 25, 1929, to Dena and Louis "Lou" Walters. Her father worked in show business as a booking agent and nightclub producer, and discovered comedians Fred Allen and Jack Haley, who would go on to star as the Tin Man in the classic film "The Wizard of Oz."

Growing up around celebrities taught a young Barbara a lesson that she relied upon throughout her career.

"I would see them onstage looking one way and offstage often looking very different. I would hear my parents talk about them and know that even though those performers were very special people, they were also human beings with real-life problems," Walters said in a 1989 interview with the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences. "I can have respect and admiration for famous people, but I have never had a sense of fear or awe."

Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Whoopi Goldberg with Barack Obama. 

In her 2008 memoir "Audition," Walters revealed that she got her ambition to succeed from her older sister, Jacqueline, who was born developmentally disabled.

"Her condition also altered my life," Walters wrote. "I think I knew from a very early age that at some point Jackie would become my responsibility. That awareness was one of the main reasons I was driven to work so hard. But my feelings went beyond financial responsibility.

She made her on-air debut in 1956, when as a writer for CBS’ "The Morning Show," she and four other young women modeled modest one-piece bathing suits. In 1961, she became NBC’s “Today Girl,” and in 1974, the first female co-host of "Today." In 1976, she was disastrously teamed with Harry Reasoner, as co-anchors of ABC’s "Evening News." Reasoner didn’t think much of her, and he didn’t hide it.

But she “survived,” as she put it, and enjoyed a long career at ABC interviewing celebrities and politicians, including Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin (together, for the first time, in 1977). She had a successful run on newsmagazine "20/20" and in 1997, launched "The View," ABC's daily chatfest aimed at women.

Over the years, she interviewed Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, John Wayne, the Shah of Iran, Fidel Castro (an hourlong prime-time exclusive that was broadcast worldwide), Barbra Streisand and, perhaps most famously, presidential intern Monica Lewinsky (who drew a record news-broadcast audience of 48.5 million viewers).

Her "Barbara Walters Specials" for years were among the top-rated broadcasts, and included a Who’s Who of entertainers such as Sir Laurence Olivier, Bing Crosby, Bette Davis, Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Her "Most Fascinating People" special broadcasts, launched in 1993, offered a year-end review of prominent newsmakers of the year.

Interpol Arrest Scammer!

Scam artist arrested for sexual exploitation.

The U.S. Justice Department confirms they have the co-founder of GirlsDoPorn in custody after they issued a request to Interpol to Red Notice his ass. He is being arrested for sexual assualt, child porn and deceptive fraud.

New Zealand/American sexual predator Michael Pratt was caught by Spanish authorities.

Pratt is charged in a 19-count indictment with sex trafficking, production of child pornography, sex trafficking of a minor, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments in connection with the operation of the GirlsDoPorn adult website. Pratt has been a fugitive since 2019 and was named to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List earlier this year.

Pratt was arrested by Spanish National Police on December 21, 2022, in Madrid, Spain, pursuant to an Interpol Red Notice. A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action. Pratt is being held in Spain pending extradition.

“The capture of Michael Pratt is an example of how the FBI will pursue justice beyond U.S. borders—you can run but you can’t hide,” said Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Stacey Moy of the FBI San Diego Field Office. “Thank you to our determined FBI San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force and to our federal and international partners for their commitment to making sure that Michael Pratt is brought to justice.”

SAC Moy would like to thank the Spanish National Police, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for their coordination in the arrest of Michael Pratt, and the public for their assistance in this investigation.

Victims had their lives in turmoil cause of GirlsDoPorn 

Pratt was the 529th person to be placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, which was established in 1950. Additional information concerning Pratt and the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives can be found by visiting the FBI’s website at fbi.gov/topten.

The public is reminded that a complaint is not evidence of guilt and all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

GirlsDoPorn was an American pornographic website active from 2009 until 2020. In October and November 2019, six people involved were charged on counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. In December 2019, two more individuals were charged with obstruction of sex trafficking enforcement. The website was removed in January 2020 after 22 victims won the civil case against the company. According to the United States Department of Justice, the website and its sister website GirlsDoToys generated over $17 million in revenue. Videos were featured on GirlsDoPorn.com as well as pornography aggregate websites such as Pornhub, where the channel reached the top 20 most viewed, with approximately 680 million views.