Thursday, March 6, 2025

Part I

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Why are U.S. Tax Dollars Supporting Homosexual Practices in Uganda? The Pull of U.S.A.I.D. Reveals Major LGBTQ Support by U.S. Federal Funds

The Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, has been getting a lot of attention in Washington. President Trump drew attention to this particular new department. Not a federal department lasting in terms of the structure as of yet, but when put in place by President Trump himself, the President pointed to DOGE and he pointed to Elon Musk, its director, and he pointed to some of its achievements as he described them as the President set out his address to a joint session of Congress earlier this week.

But many Americans are basically in the dark about what is going on here. Furthermore, there have been suspicions, and indeed there’s been plenty of very hard evidence for a very long time that an awful lot of government spending is not only out of control, frivolous, and wasteful, but it is downright subversive of the values held by millions of Americans.

And that’s exactly what has come to light with an article that has appeared in the New York Times about what has resulted as the cutoff on some of the funding in the nation of Uganda when it comes to USAID funds. That’s US Aid In Development funds. Now, Conservatives for a long time have felt that a good deal of mischief has been going by, and of course, to the tune of millions and indeed billions of dollars of American taxpayer money. This New York Times article basically warns that there have been negative impacts in this cutoff of American aid, or at least a shutoff for now of this American Aid pending an investigation and evaluation.

The headline in the New York Times article by Abdi Latif Dahir is “To Uganda’s LGBTQ, Aid Cuts Are like Death.” Okay. Now, wait just a minute. We’re talking about the African Nation of Uganda. The headline speaks of LGBTQ persons aid cuts, and then says that the aid cuts are like death.

What’s going on here? It bears a closer investigation. It turns out to be extremely revealing. The article tells us, “In the week since President Trump signed an executive order dismantling the US Agency for International Development, Andrea Minaj Casablanca’s phone has been inundated with desperate pleas for help.” The article continues. “A counselor who works with nonprofits catering to members of Uganda’s embattled LGBTQ population, she has fielded urgent requests from people seeking HIV medications, therapy sessions, and shelter in the wake of Mr. Trump’s executive order. Ms. Casablanca responded to these calls while grappling with her own crisis being fired from a job that was funded by USAID.”

Let me just interject at this point that what this article represents is a lament about what is seen as the negative impact of this cutoff of American aid through USAID, and yet what we are told the American taxpayer has been paying for is facilitating the LGBTQ community in an African nation.

I think it’s fair to assume that by the time we know what has been going on, we’re going to find out that the American taxpayer has been funding the bill for all kinds of issues, all kinds of funding, all kinds of programs that are deeply subversive of the moral values held by millions of Americans.

Listen to this, “Our whole world has been turned upside down,” Ms. Casablanca, a 25-year-old transgender woman, said on a recent afternoon in Kampala, the capital, “everyone is in fear of the future.” Okay. Let’s just hold on for a moment. We’re talking about the nation of Uganda. That is an African nation, which has rather significant laws limiting LGBTQ expression within the nation. As a matter of fact, the New York Times goes on to tell us, “LGBTQ people in Uganda have in recent years endured an intensifying crackdown in this conservative East African nation. President Yoweri Museveni signed a law in 2023 that calls for life imprisonment for anyone who engages in same-sex relations in Uganda and up to a decade in prison for anyone who tries to.”

That’s the law in this nation, and yet we are told that USAID, meaning the federal government of the United States of America has been funding a very massive program of support for, as it is defined, the LGBT community there in Uganda. We’re talking about a ton of money. The New York Times tells us, “The United States provides more than $970 million annually in development as well as humanitarian and security assistance to Uganda.” The paper continues, “In 2023, about 440 million was spent on health programs followed by emergency relief agriculture and education services according to US government data.” And the article tells us, “For years the United States supported LGBTQ groups in Uganda through USAID-funded initiatives offering HIV treatment, legal training, and resources for activism. Previous US governments also condemned human rights violations against gay Ugandans imposing trade and travel restrictions in response.”

Now, don’t let this slip by you. What I just read to you from the New York Times is the report that the United States, through our own federal funding, as it was expended in international aid or what was defined as international aid, funded initiatives in Uganda offering HIV treatment, legal training, and get this, resources for activism. In other words, the United States government has, by the millions of dollars, been paying for LGBTQ activism in an African country. And this has been going on, funded by the United States of America. And we might point out, in violation of the law of that country.

But it’s not just that. As the article goes on, it’s about a half page, a little less than that, in the print edition of the New York Times, we find out that the American taxpayer has been paying millions of dollars for such things as condoms, medications, well, I’m not even going to use the next word. I’ll simply say it’s directly tied to sexual activity. And by directly, I mean directly.

The article clearly describes actions underwritten by the United States of America, American taxpayers for LGBTQ activism, and we know that Uganda is just the tip of the iceberg. It is just one example.

Now, when it comes to the person here identified as Casablanca, the reality is that the name was pretty much a tip-off to the fact that this was probably a man claiming a female identity. But this is something that has now been discovered to have been underwritten by the taxpayers of the United States of America. And in a big way, we’re not just talking about say a few hundred dollars. We’re talking about millions of dollars and just add that up year by year by year.

We’re also told that, in Uganda, where the death penalty could be applied to those who are convicted of the crime described as “aggravated homosexuality,” the United States government has basically been funding a program, which is at odds with the law in that country.

Now, let me just say that from a Christian moral perspective, the laws of a country don’t necessarily tell us what the United States should advocate. But when you’re looking at this, you recognize that the United States government has been doing the opposite of what I believe most American citizens would want, certainly Christian citizens, and that is advocating for homosexuality, the entire LGBTQ array there in Uganda, but also paying for clinics, paying for medical treatments and supplies that would, well, you can’t avoid saying this, just facilitate that lifestyle right down to the acts involved.

By the way, this article is so convoluted that it is hard to tell who Mr. and Mrs. are with any of this reference because that’s another indication of how the transgender revolution has made much of this absolute nonsense. But the bottom line is this. Regardless of how you have people identified in this article, the issue of homosexuality and frankly all the related issues to homosexuality come very much to the fore. What we have here is massive American taxpayer money going to subsidize what could euphemistically be called sexual minorities in a place like Uganda. And by the way, very much at variance with Ugandan law.

The article also makes clear that the funds from the United States have been paying for an awful lot of jobs in Uganda for what can only be described as LGBTQ activism. American citizens have every right to demand a halt to this kind of funding, and quite frankly, to make certain that it happens. So we’re looking right now at a lot of controversy about the shutoff of these funds from Washington DC and from the White House and the organization now known as DOGE. But in reality, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and American citizens and in particular, American Christians should demand an accounting of these funds. What exactly has the United States been doing? What has the American taxpayer been paying for?

Part II

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The Moral Discourse of Hollywood Becomes Even Clearer: Hollywood Claims the Big Loser of the Oscars was Climate Change – Yes, Seriously

Well, to shift to another front in our cultural considerations. I’m speaking to you from Southern California. And of course, one of the big obsessions here in recent days has been the Oscar ceremony on Sunday night. I’m not going to look in depth at that ceremony, but it does tell us a great deal about, in particular, the cultural elite as it is manifested in the film and movie industry. And it often becomes just a ludicrous display of a clash of views between middle America and the so-called creative geniuses that fuel Hollywood. And that means at every level from those who do the writing, to those who do the acting, the investing, the managing, the self-congratulatory culture, which is Hollywood. By the way, just imagine almost any other industry in which you hold multiple ceremonies to give each other awards for doing your job.

It is an absolutely obsessive business. But we’re all obsessed with it to some degree, even if it is a negative obsession. And that’s because Hollywood has been so important to American culture for so long. So in the lead-up to the Oscars, and in the aftermath of the Oscars we’ve been seeing here, especially in Southern California, pathologies of what the film industry’s current status tells us. UCLA, that’s the University of California Los Angeles released a study reported on by the Orange County Register telling us that film studios have retreated from ethnic and racial diversity. “The latest Hollywood Diversity Report from UCLA found that opportunities for people of color fell across the board in 2024. A reversal from gains seen in recent years, women saw an increase in their share of lead roles, but experienced a drop in the writing room.” Who’s quantifying all of this?

That’s one of the most interesting aspects of all of this. A business that is supposed to be so much based upon art and storytelling often comes down to the politics of counting, well, just about anything they can come up with. We’re told that the report is known as 12th year of “analyzing movies, television, and audiences focused at the top 200 movies released globally in theaters each year.” Well, we are told later that the researchers had looked at theater audiences and they’ve been looking at everything from race and ethnicity to gender breakdowns. How exactly they do this is not fully explained.

One of the persons behind the research cited in the report said, “Last year, we celebrated some historic highs for people of color in the industry, but 2024 saw a widespread reversal as film studios retreated from racial and ethnic diversity in front of and behind the camera.” So you see here that they’re counting, well, in so many different ways. They say, “Women were doing pretty well. Racial and ethnic minorities not so well,” right down to very interesting changes by percentages. But nonetheless, we are told that diversity is still a big commitment of Hollywood. “According to the report, films that most reflected the country’s population now estimated to be 44.3% people of color according to the US Census outperformed other top releases both domestically and internationally.”

One of the spokespersons for the industry, and the report said, “Diversity travels when a film lacks diverse faces and perspectives it’s just not as appealing here and abroad.” Well, the problem is that as you look at this data, what becomes very interesting is that you have a rise a fall in terms of those who come out ahead and those who come up behind given all of the sub-identities of identity politics year by year. But when you also look at the industry, you recognize that films are years in the making, and so some of this is just an accident of calendar. But when it comes to the obsessions of Hollywood, all of this is just laid out. And awards week is evidently the right time to lay it out.

The LA Times reporting on the research tells us, “The study did find some positive trends. After two years of decline, women accounted for 47.6% of lead performers in 2024. Closer to parity with men compared to 2023, that was only 32.1% of leads. Meanwhile, female directors accounted for 15.4% of films in 2024, which is similar to the previous year’s findings of 14.7%.” I’ll just simply add the words, more or less. But the LA Times also gave us a major piece analyzing how climate change has been receding as an issue in Hollywood and particularly, in the motion pictures that were featured at the Academy Award ceremony.

Sammy Ross, the reporter, the subhead in the article, “Hardly Any of the Oscar Nominated Films Mentioned Global Warming.” As the article tells us, “For the second year running nonprofit consulting firm Good Energy, applied its climate reality check to the actual Oscar nominated films intended as a climate version of the Bechdel test, which measures representation of women, the climate reality check test, whether a movie and its characters acknowledged global warming.”

Here’s the issue. The bottom line, “Compared with last year, the results weren’t great.” The article continues, “Of last year’s 13 Oscar nominated films that met Good Energy’s criteria that’s feature-length movies set in present-day or near-future Earth, three passed the test. This year, there were 10 eligible films. Only The Wild Robot passed.” The climate silence is deafening, we’re told.

Okay. Then the article drops this, “The climate silence does feel a little striking after the harrowing year we’ve had,” said Good Energy Chief Executive Anna Jane Joyner, “Referring to the fossil-fueled wildfires that tore through Altadena and Pacific Palisades.”

Now, wait just a minute. Does this spokesperson, this activist know something we don’t know? Were the wildfires that tore through those California communities, especially Altadena and Pacific Palisades, indeed, “fossil-fueled”. How would she know? That is not what we’re being told by the fire authorities.

Furthermore, how do you explain that much of the progress in putting out the fires was driven by fossil-fueled equipment, including massive jets dropping fire retardant directly on the fires? What would it have looked like if the fossil fuels had been banned and the airplanes had been grounded and the fire trucks couldn’t have gotten to the fire? This is absolute insanity. But it’s the kind of thing that evidently is the normal moral discourse for most of Hollywood. If not all of Hollywood, then at least it’s safe to say most of Hollywood because that’s what makes Hollywood, Hollywood.

And just in case you wonder if all this posturing includes you, well, you as at least a viewer and consumer. Were told in the article that an analysis which was led by a firm “found that movies passing the climate reality check and released in theaters earn 10% more at the box office on average than films failing the test.”

I continue. “Netflix meanwhile says on its website that 80% of its customers choose to watch at least one story on Netflix that helps them better understand climate issues or highlight hopeful solutions around sustainability. Clearly, one representative said, audiences are more and more interested in these stories.” You just have to wonder. Are you?

Now, remember, this article is published in the Los Angeles Times, not some fringe newspaper. It purports to be written as a responsible article by a responsible writer. But then listen to this. “I was sitting in a movie theater this month enjoying Captain America: Brave New World, the latest entry in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, when to my surprise, Sam Wilson, that’s actually Anthony Mackie got out of his SUV and pulled his iconic red, white, and blue shield out of the front truck. Yes, a front trunk where an internal combustion engine would normally be. That meant Captain America was driving an electric vehicle, right? Yes, we are told indeed he was.”

This is what passes for moral seriousness in Hollywood, celebrating the fact that Captain America drives an electric vehicle.

Part III

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Hollywood is Keeping DEI Tabs on Everything: Hollywood’s Increasing Virtue Signaling in Wake of the Political Election of Donald Trump

Meanwhile, the LA Times ran another article by Meg Waite Clayton. It was entitled “A Rare Case of Gender Equality in Hollywood.” I won’t go through all the background. But basically, it comes down to analysis like this. “Does it matter who is behind the scenes if we’re seeing women’s stories on the screen? It does.”

“Overall, film females continue to be substantially younger than males, and they are far less likely to be portrayed as leaders or even at work.”

“Female characters are more likely to be identified in relation to males, whereas males are more likely to be identified by what they do. That according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film’s Martha M. Lauzen whose 2024 study results, mirror Smith’s.”

But we are told. “In women-directed films, females tend to be portrayed less stereotypically and with more agency. When women are involved behind the scenes, female characters tend to speak and interrupt others more, both powerful language behavior, she says. Her study also finds that female-directed films employed women as editors, writers, and cinematographers twice, four times, and seven times more often respectively than exclusively male-directed films did.” The article concludes, “Equality on screen and behind the scenes in Hollywood may be elusive, but it’s not impossible.”

You notice how they’re keeping score on everything and congratulating themselves one way or another, or castigating themselves because they didn’t meet the expectations that they had set. This just goes on and on. The Hollywood Reporter, one of the major journalistic outlets for the Hollywood industry, it ran an article just before the Oscars with a headline asking the question, will Hollywood meet the moment?

The subhead is this. It tells you everything. “The 2025 Oscars will reveal an industry at an inflection point as it reckons with recent catastrophe, constant disruption, and the dawning of the second age of Trump. Will it rise to the occasion or retreat to safety?” Now, notice this question is all about politics. In other words, will Hollywood go after Donald Trump? Will Hollywood be in its own self-congratulatory way, prophetic as an agent in this culture? We are told that there was a shining moment when Hollywood did just play such a role, and that’s particularly in the 1970s in the midst of the Watergate controversy. But we are told that now, things are quite different in Hollywood, and there could be what’s described here as a retreat to safety because many forces aren’t willing to put big money into projects that Americans might not want to see.

And so the article goes on to say, “Yes, the arguments against Hollywood taking a page from the ’70s are many.”

The article tells us, “The corporate caution is now greater. The President’s weapon is more powerful. The tools of disinformation more plentiful, and even some members of minority groups supposedly more autocrat friendly, and how to begin to tangle with a force that politicizes the basic human tragedies of wildfires and plane crashes.”

Now, wait just a minute. Isn’t that what Hollywood just did? Isn’t that actually what Hollywood does?

Part IV

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‘Empathy is Not Weak or Woke’: Jane Fonda’s ‘Fiery’ and Hypocritical SAG Lifetime Award Speech

But before leaving this issue, I need to go back to something that happened just a few days before the Oscars ceremony. And that was when SAG held its awards ceremony, the Screen Actors Guild. And in this case, SAG-AFTRA, as it is formally known, gave its Life Achievement Award to Jane Fonda. She went on to say, “Empathy is not weak or woke.” Now, of course, empathy is very much a part of conversation these days, and appropriately so because you have in the posturing of people such as in Hollywood, empathy as a substitute for something authentic like sympathy.

But the article in this case that was published also in Los Angeles Times tells us that Jane Fonda delivered a fiery speech. And no doubt it was a fiery speech. And this is Hanoi Jane given her anti-Vietnam war activism that almost led to criminal charges back during the 1960s. Here you have Jane Fonda, who is, in receiving this award, “Emphasizing the need for the Hollywood community to fight for what they believe in. This is big time serious folks,” she said. “So let’s be brave. We must not isolate. We must stay in the community. We must help the vulnerable. We must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future.” She went on to go down through a list of the kind of activism that’s called for. As the paper says, “Fonda’s activism in the 1970s made her a polarizing figure, particularly for her involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement. She remains dedicated to raising awareness for causes she finds important like climate change, which has been her focus for the past several years. Fonda has also been vocal about her disagreements with President Trump’s policies in the past we’re told.”

“During her speech, she did not directly address the president or any of his administration’s specific policies or actions, but its intent was clear. She said she was a big believer in unions. She went on basically to call for Hollywood to resist. It is so interesting that she leaned into the word empathy again and again and again. And basically made the point that many of us have been making about the falsity of that word, the inadequacy of that word, especially when compared with the genuine notion of compassion or sympathy. Empathy costs you nothing. Jane Fonda could identify with every activist cause and she just picked up another award from a film organization, the Screen Actors Guild.”

“She could stand in front of her colleagues in Hollywood and talk about all the moral causes they stand for, but it was at a glittering event that actually was if you could see it, the refutation of everything they said they believed in. They rail against say, economic inequality, but you know there’s an awful lot of economic inequality that is demonstrated in Hollywood itself. Just ask Jane Fonda about that.”

By the way, in the background to the Oscars award ceremony this year, there were an awful lot of, well, moral dimensions that simply weren’t discussed. For instance, you had the lead movie that won the best picture, and of course, which also had the winner for the best actress and many other awards, and you’re looking at other movies as well. They featured persons who were either say sex workers, or sexually explicit entertainers or transgender. These days, Hollywood pats itself on the back for being prophetic by being transgressive. That’s that old word that tells us, again, that their understanding is that if you’re not transgressing moral boundaries, then you’re not being prophetic by your own definition, which is what Hollywood is all about.

Now, my point here is not simply to criticize Hollywood because after all, Hollywood would go out of business if Americans weren’t buying tickets. On the other hand, the closer you look at Hollywood’s projects and the closer you look at its products, it isn’t clear that making money is in the final evaluation, all that important to Hollywood if they can make a point. And we understand the points they’re trying to make. By the way, one final theme in all of this is that Hollywood is berating itself for not being liberal enough, progressive enough in the face of, say, the second Trump term in office, or at least that’s what they blame.

But the problem in Hollywood has been going on for years. It has been a part of what some identified in the 1960s and ’70s already as the adversary culture. It sees itself in an adversary position to mainstream American culture, but it counts on those who populate mainstream American culture buying tickets to its products, and that is something of a vicious cycle, and that’s where we’re going to have to end. We are responsible for our own consumption of these projects or our own decision not to receive these products at all. But it’s also a reminder that these products in this industry is very influential in our culture, whether we buy tickets to their movies or not.