Trumpers Want To Burn Pride Flags, A Singer Praises Trump as Savior and Jan. 6 Heroes Are Booed
Not much new on the trump-GOP front.
Politicians pushed to burn Pride flags, a congressman said trump’s conviction is akin to the racism of the south, a new song is out praising trump as chosen by God, Republicans booed Jan. 6 heroes, and right wingers want a new $500 bill printed, with trump’s mug on it.
Pretty mundane for the trump circus.
Regarding the flags, Colorado’s Republican Party sent out a fundraising e-mail and social media posts which called for LGBTQ Pride flags to be burned in debasement of June as Pride Month because LGBTQ Americans are “godless groomers.” The mailings are a direct insult to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, who is the nation’s first openly gay governor.
“Burn all the #pride flags this June,” the state GOP wrote Monday on the social platform X . An email sent by the party with the subject line “God Hates Pride” perpetuated the false claim that LGBTQ people are “grooming” children to abuse them.
“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children,” reads the email.
The email contained an image reading “God Hates Flags,” a reference to the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, an extremely queerphobic church known for its slogan of “God Hates Fags.” The church members gained national notoriety for picketing funerals of LGBTQ people, up to and including services for hate crime victims, children and fallen members of the armed forces.
The Republican party’s hateful, homophobic message is signed by David Williams, chair of the Colorado Republican Party, who also is a far right candidate for Congress. The message has links with a sermon led by Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor known for his anti-LGBTQ views.
“I’m 100 percent pro-life, 100 percent pro-Second Amendment and have never voted for a tax or spending increase,” Williams said in an email announcing his campaign for Congress. “Authentic Christian leadership means serving others above self and not letting failed, say-anything politicians in Washington D.C. get away with taking citizens for a ride.”
Williams, 37, has served as chair of the Colorado Republican Party since 2023, having previously been a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from 2017 to 2023.
Known as a far right politician, Williams is a candidate for Colorado’s 5th congressional district in the 2024 elections, running to replace the retiring Doug Lamborn. He has trump’s endorsement and has questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election and has promoted false claims of voter fraud.
William is a candidate for the 5th Congressional District where he faces conservative Jeff Crank, who has been endorsed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Williams is an outspoken opponent of gun laws in a district that includes Colorado Springs, where five people were killed and more than two dozen were injured in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in 2022. Survivors linked the Club Q attack to “extreme anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric” and policies championed by Republicans.
Williams said the Colorado Republican Party makes “no apologies for saying God hates pride or pride flags as it’s an agenda that harms children and undermines parental authority. The only backlash we see is coming from radical Democrats, the fake news media, and weak Republicans who bow down at the feet of leftist cancel culture.”
Colorado’s Republican Party has increasingly opposed support of LGBTQ issues. In May, the party sent a fundraising email calling on parents to pull their children out of public schools , citing “LGBTQ indoctrination.” The email criticized a new law signed by Polis that requires teachers to use the preferred pronouns of a student without notification or permission from a guardian.
“Our next policy aims to save Colorado children from progressive Democrats who want to turn more kids trans by requiring teachers to use ‘pronouns’ that do not make any sense and cause gender confusion,” according the fundraising email.
The message has links with a sermon led by Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor known for his anti-LGBTQ views. Driscoll, 54, is a right wing, evangelical pastor, author and founder and primary contributor of RealFaith ministries. He also founded Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Ariz. in 2016.
Driscoll previously led Mars Hill, a Seattle, Wash., megachurch but resigned in 2014 amid accusations of bullying, plagiarism and manipulation. The church soon dissolved. Among his misogynistic transgressions, he described women as “penis homes” and criticized “effeminate, anatomically male worship leaders.”
The launch of Trinity Church was sponsored by several megachurch pastors, including Newspring Church Pastor Perry Noble, who said he was going to “choose to believe in Pastor Mark and Grace (Driscoll) as they set out on this endeavor,” adding “I just want to say that I support him 100 percent.”
Noble’s fate was similar to Driscoll’s. The church leadership fired Noble as senior pastor in November 2016 for personal issues related to alcohol and neglect of his family.
Like Black People
In North Carolina, Republican Rep. Dan Bishop said trump’s legal troubles mirror those of a Black person in the segregated south.
“It’s as bad as it was in Alabama in 1950 … if a person happened to be Black, in order to get justice,” Bishop said on Charlotte radio station WBT. “And that’s what they did in New York. So it was fundamentally rigged, and the people who attacked me for saying so can attack all they want.”
Trump has been gaining growing GOP support since a jury found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made during his 2016 campaign to keep quiet alleged affairs.
Bishop said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and special counsel Jack Smith are acting in similar ways to the mistreatment of Blacks in the days of segregation.
“They (Bragg and Smith) are using power in a way that they know is wrong, or they have no excuse for not knowing it, and they should be prosecuted for their interference with the election,” said Bishop, who is running for North Carolina attorney general.
“Election interference to ‘get Trump,’” Bishop posted. “It’s never been about justice — it’s about rigging and weaponizing our justice system against anyone who threatens their grip on power. We must end the leftist lawfare in November.”
On January 6, 2021, Bishop was one of 147 Republican lawmakers who objected to the certification of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and forced an emergency recess of Congress. Later that month, he voted against impeaching Trump for his role in inciting the mob to storm the Capitol.
Sing Along With Trump
It’s finger-popping, foot-stomping time for trump and the new Natasha Owens song, “The Chosen One,” a sophomoric, ditty about how “God has chosen President Trump to push back against the evil in our country.”
Owens sings, “one thing is true and imperfect people a perfect God can use. I’m standing with the Chosen One.”
Trump answers, “I am the Chosen One!”
To which Owens responds melodically, “Ain’t no stoppin’ what the Lord’s begun! He’s only human, like you and me — just a Chosen One.”
Leading to trump’s response, “Somebody had to do it!”
With Owens proclaiming, “The Chosen One!”
Trump promoted the song on his Truth Social account, with the note, “‘Trump Won’ Hitmaker Natasha Owens Declares Former President ‘The Chosen One’ with New Single.”
Owens said in a press release that last year she dedicated her song “Warrior” to trump and sang it on the lawn of Mar-A-Lago in West Palm Beach, Fla.
“I believe that God has protected him and has made President Trump into a warrior who is fighting for us for such a time as this. We are in a battle between good and evil and I believe that God has chosen President Trump to push back against the evil in our country and the evil in this world. President Trump is ‘The Chosen One,’” Owens said.
In 2023, Owens released her song “Trump Won”, which promoted the false claim that trump won the 2020 presidential election. The single debuted at number two on the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart. Owens, 48, primarily plays a contemporary Christian music style of contemporary worship music. She released “I Made it Through,” in 2013, and “No One but You,” in 2015.
CJay Engelstad and Lyndsey Morris created the country song “Real Women Vote Trump” in 2020 and posted it under their band name “Deplorable Choir.” Lyrics include the lines, “We don’t care if you’re white, we don’t care if you’re black, we don’t care if you’re gay, we’re all under attack.”
Many songs, albums, bands and performances have referenced trump, or his brands, including Trump Tower, The Apprentice TV show, his hotel chain, and his casinos. Recent songs reference his campaign, election and tenure but more than 200 songs refer to trump before his presidential campaigns.
His name was first heard in hip hop lyrics during the 1980s when he became an icon of the ultra rich. Among the earliest mentions of trump in rap lyrics was the Beastie Boys’ track “Johnny Ryall” on the 1989 album “Paul’s Boutique,” in which they contrast trump with his homeless alter-ego, Donald Tramp.
Eminem’s “Revival” has many lines critiquing trump’s presidential campaign and election, calling him a racist, a Nazi, and Adolf Hitler — among other insults and a fantasy in which the rapper is “framed” for murdering Ivanka Trump.
Rocky Mountain Mike’s cover of “Mr. Tambourine Man” remakes the Bob Dylan lyrics to be about trump, with the song’s title alluding to the color of his skin. Sung from the perspective of a xenophobic trump supporter, the song opens:
“Hey Mr. Tangerine Man, build a wall for me.
I’m not that bright and don’t know that you’re not going to. Hey Mr. Tangerine Man, keep Muslims away from me.
With my jingoistic worldview, I’ll come following you.”
Paul McCartney’s song “Despite Repeated Warnings” from his 2018 solo album “Egypt Station” compares then-president trump’s failure to acknowledge climate change to the sinking of the Titanic where the captain ignored warnings of icebergs. McCartney cites trump’s references to global warming as a “Chinese hoax,” his pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords, and otherwise denying the existence of climate change altogether.
Heroes Booed
Two U.S. Capitol Police officers attended a session of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and were honored for their heroics at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol but not before some representatives booed, hissed and left the ceremony.
Former officer Harry Dunn and former sergeant Aquilino Gonell, who were both injured during the January 6 riots, are touring Pennsylvania to campaign for President Joe Biden’s reelection.
At least two Republicans were seen walking out, though most stood and applauded.
Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, R-Clinton County, screamed “say her name” referring to Ashli Babbit, an unarmed protester who was shot and killed while climbing through a broken window in a hallway of the Capitol on January 6. Babbit has been termed a “patriot” by trump and supporters who claim the Jan. 6 insurrection was justified.
Borowicz, whose husband Jason is a pastor, shouted that the attack did not happen and yelled “traitor” at the former officers, according to fellow lawmakers.
Borowicz, 46, has been a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives since 2019. She attracted national attention when she gave an invocation at the start of a state house session, invoking Jesus 13 times as she praised trump and Israel and said, “at the name of Jesus, every knee will bend.” The prayer was given on the same day that Movita Johnson-Harrell was sworn in as the first Muslim woman to serve in the state chamber. Johnson-Harrel criticized the invocation as “weaponized prayer” and Islamophobic. Borowicz claimed that people were offended because “there’s power in the name of Jesus.”
In May 2019, a man in a shirt with the name and logo of the American Guard took a selfie with Borowicz at a pro-gun rally in Harrisburg. The Anti-Defamation League requested Borowicz apologize for the picture because of the American Guard’s ties to white supremacy. She replied, without mentioning the American Guard.
“We do not, nor should we, require ID or background checks as a condition for being photographed with the people of Pennsylvania — our constituents! The many photos taken of me at this year’s Rally to Protect Your Right to Keep and Bear Arms are no different,” Borowicz said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Borowicz introduced a resolution that the virus was a “punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins” and she sought to proclaim March 30, 2020, a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. After the 2020 presidential election, Borowicz joined 25 other Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers in a resolution to demand the decertification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes. The group cited false claims of a rigged election in their resolution.
In 2022, Borowicz introduced a bill modeled after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Her bill would ban discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools through twelfth grade. The bill was referred to the State House’s Education Committee but was never taken up. She reintroduced the bill in 2023.
Another legislator, Rep. Russ Diamond, a Lebanon County Republican, said he “got up to go to the bathroom” during the welcome of the officers because of a medical condition at the same time the officers were introduced.
Diamond said he “was offended by what the speaker did, some of the things she said.”
Diamond, 59, lost a series of races for various offices before he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2014. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Diamond opposed public-health measures to prevent the spread of the virus. In July, Diamond mocked a statement against discrimination against LGBT people issued by Dr. Rachel Levine, the Pennsylvania secretary of health, who is transgender. Diamond copied the statement and replaced the term “LGBTQ” with the word “unmasked” to allege discrimination against what he called the “unmasked community” or people who refuse to wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On December 4, 2020, John Eastman, a Trump adviser, emailed to Diamond instructions for an illegal scheme to allow Pennsylvania’s legislature to award Pennsylvania’s electoral votes to trump, despite trump having lost the state by over 80,000 votes. Diamond was one of 26 Pennsylvania House Republicans who called for the state’s certification of presidential electors to be withdrawn and supported a resolution calling on Congress to consider Pennsylvania electors to be “in dispute.” The resolution echoed trump’s baseless claims of election fraud and his unsuccessful attempt to overturn the election results.
Two women filed for and were granted protection from abuse (PFA) orders against Diamond in 2002 (Diamond’s former wife) and 2013 (a woman who lived with and dated Diamond), respectively. One woman claimed Diamond “pushed her in the face seven times and scratched her under an eye” and “threatened to kill her if she disconnected the cable.”
The second woman told the courts that when she wouldn’t leave his apartment, “he knocked her down and dragged her to the doorway.” Diamond was later fined $200 for violating the second order.
In fall 2015, Diamond was cited for public drunkenness and he later acknowledged that he is an alcoholic.
Trump Money
And finally, there’s a proposal from Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., a major supporter of trump’s claims that he was robbed of reelection by non-existent, widespread election fraud. Gosar wants to resurrect the out-of-print $500 bill and put trump’s face on it.
The bill is called the “Treasury Reserve Unveiling Memorable Portrait (TRUMP) Act.”
The last version of a $500 bill featured a portrait of President William McKinley and was printed in 1945. The denomination was discontinued 24 years later, according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Gosar said it is time to bring back the $500 bill to “empower Americans with the freedom of more tangible options to save and exchange goods and services.”
“Furthermore, from a collector’s perspective, these $500 Trump bills will become highly sought after, generating revenue for the government through increased demand for numismatic items,” Gosar said. “Collectors often covet currency with unique designs and historical significance and bills featuring the very popular 45th President will attract considerable attention from collectors. This will no doubt create a market for the $500 Trump bills far beyond their face value and increase the seigniorage earnings of the government, thus increasing overall revenues.”