I don't need to make threats. I have God on my side.
Today Ani joins the show to tell us about a zionist throwing trash on her pro-Palestine truck and then shouting about it inside her bookstore. Was this a tactical IDF strike? Divine retribution? Plus: we cover the recent Florida Library Insanity, as thousands of books have been removed from school shelves, including several dictionaries, the Guinness Book of World Records, and even a couple Bill O'Reilly joints. We follow many of the banned titles back to the complaints of one woman, a school teacher herself, and someone who is absolutely not attracted to strong, steadfast, rock hard gargoyles. https://popular.info/p/florida-school-district-removes-dictionaries https://firestorm.coop/bannedbooks.html https://www.ala.org/aboutala/affiliates/chapters/state/stateregional https://ncac.org/project/the-kids-right-to-read-project Buy tickets to Miss Me Yet at The Beacon in Seattle for Thursday 02/15/24 and 02/22/24 at 7:30pm Watch clips on youtube at http://youtube.com/miniondeathcult Music: Talk Talk - Ascension Day Brian Eno - St. Elmo's Fire
The liberals are destroying California, and conservative humor gone awry... Conservative humor gone awry is going to fascistphonia today.
So stay tuned, we're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
stay tuned guys we'll show you exactly what uh we'll show you exactly what it looks like yeah he's like a big uh he's a big deal in the northwest far right scene and he has like a pretty popular daily radio show and he's like a guy who open carries and and he is high up in a synagogue blocks away from the bookstore
if you would have told me like any you know a while ago oh no it's he's it's a it's a guy that open kids open carry rabbi i'd be like fuck yeah that sounds cool as hell - No, he wants to shoot a UW student.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
My dad, who listens to far right radio occasionally for fun, just to see what those guys are up to, he knew who this guy was.
And when I talked to him about it, he could not be more proud that that is who I had pissed off.
That's funny.
You tell your dad that he shouldn't be wading into far right spaces, even for entertainment.
It's a sick habit to have.
Tony, do you want to hear the story of how a Zionist threw trash on Ani's truck?
Wait, a Zionist threw trash on a, a Zionist wouldn't do that.
Not a Zionist.
That's, please, please tell me that story.
So I work at a bookstore in a pretty, pretty Jewish neighborhood in Seattle.
And most of the shuls around the bookstore are like overtly Zionist.
And, you know, back in October, me and Alex went, went to some protests, went to some pro-Palestine protests.
And afterwards I had like a sign left over.
And I just figured out, you know, I might as well, like, get some mileage out of it and I'll just put it in my truck windshield if I'm, like, parked somewhere for a long time.
So it's in my truck windshield, like, when my truck is outside of our house and when it's parked, like, near the bookstore when I'm at work.
And if you're asking, was this a genocidal sign?
You know, a genocide?
It said, free Palestine.
So, yes.
Like, you know, like I drive like a shitty old lifted truck.
I feel like kind of a moral responsibility to let people in the community know that I'm like not going to hate crime them.
I'm one of the good ones.
So I've got like a pro-trans sticker on there.
I've got like pro-abortion stickers, pro-union stickers.
You know, I just want to like just be clear.
This truck is a safe space.
But so I had that sign in my truck and then, you know, weeks, weeks and weeks go by.
And then I heard from some friends in the neighborhood.
That a local rabbi was furious about the sign and that like congregants at the shul were like furious about it and that they were looking into ways to make me take it down or get my truck towed.
Which is very silly because there's nothing illegal about my truck or about having a sign in it and it was parked in like a, you know, time limit free zone public parking.
I don't know.
If we examine the actual parking space, we might find some answers because I do believe it's like primo parking right in front of the bookstore, right on the main street where you can just zip in, zip out.
Maybe they're just pretending to be Zionists so they can get the parking spot back.
I would do that.
That makes more sense.
That makes way more sense.
This is so funny, too, because oftentimes you'll see a bumper sticker or something like that, and sometimes I'll be like, well, that's pointless.
This is doing no good.
This is making zero impact.
And then here we are, here we are, causing a community ruckus.
Well, not to derail Ani's story, but I also, I don't know, I never doubted stickers, maybe the way you did, Tony.
I always kind of knew in my heart how important it was to have 17 band stickers.
On the back of my car, because literally last year I received a note in my windshield that said, Hey, from a fellow metal head, thanks for the new bands to listen to heart emoji or whatever, you know, drawing the heart.
So beautiful.
And I think about how often that happens for like my car specifically, like being, you know, influential and tasteful person I am without them even writing a note, you know, you got to multiply that by like a dozen at least.
You know what?
Once this is over, I'm going to go put more stickers on my car.
Oh yeah, you've got to.
This is inspiring.
Since you made someone's day better, I still want to hear more about how Ani is ruining people's lives.
I have a question.
When you first told me this story, there was a local rabbi mad at you.
Was it a female rabbi?
I don't know.
I did a very basic initial amount of sleuthing because I was curious, and then I just realized that I'm in the most Jewish neighborhood in Seattle, and most of the synagogues surrounding the store are casually, if not overtly, Zionist.
And I was like, I'll never find out.
I don't know.
Would you still call them liberal or progressive schools?
Do you know?
I don't know because there's talk on the different websites about like we have a very diverse congregation or we are we're a modern orthodox shul, but like I don't really know.
I'm not super familiar with them.
Like I know some people who like go to them as customers and they're all sweet.
They're lovely customers.
Cause like people in, I don't know, from, I've only been in this city for four years now, people in this city seemed it, the split, it definitely seems to be like fiscal conservatism.
It seems like almost everybody in Seattle to be like a public figure has to be okay with gay people and has to be okay with.
Immigration and stuff like that.
So I was just I was just imagining like a progressive, you know, Black Lives Matter synagogue, you know, trying to get your truck towed for a free Palestine sign.
That was very funny to think about.
But yeah.
Anyway, so what happened next?
You heard rumblings that people were upset.
What happened?
Yeah, I heard a little grumbling about it.
And then I didn't hear anything for like months, you know.
And then a couple days ago, I was at the front counter at the register.
Well, no, you got a, there was a, there was a phone call.
Oh yeah.
God, I forgot about that.
So yeah.
So like a couple of weeks after my, my friends from the neighborhood told me about the rabbi being mad at me, I answered the phone at the bookstore and it, it was a guy who like identified himself and said that he worked at a local synagogue.
And asked to speak to a manager.
And in my head, I was like, oh, I bet I know what this is about.
And so I handed the phone to my manager and I heard her side of the conversation.
And her side of the conversation basically went like, uh-huh.
Oh, well, no, that's not a threat.
Well, no, I don't think that's anti-Semitic.
You know, I really don't know what you expect me to do about somebody's private vehicle with a sign on it that's not actually on bookstore property.
What was he saying?
He was saying like you were targeting him in the neighborhood with the sign?
He said that members of the congregation felt that the sign was provocative and that it was a threat and that it was somebody from outside of the neighborhood coming into the neighborhood.
I'll fucking, I love to free Palestine.
I'll fucking do it again right now.
It's so funny because it's like, I don't know if you notice this man, but like, I'm there 40 hours a week.
That's my neighborhood too, dude.
Yeah.
I spend at least 40 hours of my life every week in that neighborhood helping your kids find books.
It's funny because it's like, This is what people wish they were talking about when talking about triggered snowflakes?
Like this is actually it.
This is the actual version.
The book selection is so wholesome.
Like they have a Palestine end cap.
But it's such wholesome stuff.
It's nothing like demonizing the other or anything like that.
And there's plenty of Jewish representation as well in the bookstore, even in those spaces.
The guy who called, uh, Ani gave me his name and I was like, no way.
I, cause I know who that guy is because he's someone we've almost covered on the show.
Uh, we're not gonna, we're not gonna say who it is because we're not trying to escalate this.
We're just not trying to give him any clout either, you know?
No free clout, okay?
Frankly, like, by the time we get to the end of the story, you're gonna understand that, like, the prank that was pulled on my truck is, like, not worthy enough to even identify anybody over.
Because we're not trying to get, like, protesters coming to the store.
We're not trying to, like, piss this guy.
I don't know, like, I don't want to talk to this guy because I think I would assault him.
If I say I just need to like stay out of that and he's open carrying he's gonna love that that I assaulted him so I just you know I'm gonna stay out of it but Yeah, she found out it was this right-wing Seattle figure who called, complained about her Free Palestine sign being a threat, and then the manager was apparently pretty cool.
My manager was great, and she was really supportive and really mad at this guy for using a made-up threat to make an actual threat, which he was like, Well, you know, we don't like to have to do this, but we'll be doing our own investigation.
And she was like, OK, here's here's my manager's number.
Bye.
It's funny because what the fuck?
Investigate the Palisades.
I'm like, listen, man, the truck sits out front of our house with the sign in the window every like people.
People have probably seen it in both places.
The license plate is right there, my man.
Do all the investigating you want.
And it's like, I don't know what you think you're going to find, but I'm just some bitch who works retail.
What do you think I have to lose?
Soros funded, where'd you get the Sharpie to write on that sign?
It was a really big Sharpie.
It was like one of the Magnum sized Sharpies.
Oh yeah.
But yeah, so that happened.
My manager was very supportive.
My manager's manager was also very supportive.
He was like, oh, that's awful.
That's so ridiculous, you know?
Talking about, obviously not talking about you, talking about the sign.
No, she was fired.
She's been fired.
I'm gone.
It's illegal for me to touch a book now.
No, I mean, my manager was chill, was very reasonable and humanistic about the whole scenario.
And then I didn't hear anything for like a long time.
We figured he didn't have time for Ani in between trying to get UW students put on the terror watch list for showing up to a free Palestine event.
Yeah.
You know, leading like pro-Israel marches to like really, really rich neighborhoods in Seattle.
Yeah, pro-Israel marches of like 25 people.
Yeah, it's so backwards.
We all know those things.
It's pretty obvious that you're well-liked in your store.
You seem to have a nice environment there.
Coming after you for some reason is so silly.
It's pretty obvious that you're like well liked in your store You know you guys all see you seem to have like a nice Environment there like yeah, you're like coming after you for some is so silly.
It's so funny.
I like It's what do some investigating and find out how much you're wasting your time out Absolutely.
Investigate me, sir, please.
So then a couple days ago, I was at the register helping a customer find a super specific book.
And kind of out of the corner of my eye, I see this like very, very tall guy come in the store.
And first he goes over to like the side of the bookstore that's like a bar cafe and talks to someone at the counter there.
And then he kind of walks over towards me, but stands at like a weird angle, kind of behind like a spinner rack full of calendars.
And he like interrupts the- - He's like looking between impulse buy items.
- Yeah, he's looking- - He's like pulling the key chains back like a beaded curtain.
- Looking at me.
And he's like tall, he's like six, seven, but like probably weighs as much as me.
When she texted me, she was like, some really tall guy just came in and yelled at me and dumped trash on my truck, and I think he was Israeli.
I was like, oh fuck, was it the Mossad?
Did a Mossad agent come in and he said he was 6'7"?
Israeli accent?
What the fuck?
She's like, no, he looked like Jack Skellington.
I don't think he was with Mossad.
All he did was dump some garbage on my truck and aren't the Mossad supposed to be good at sabotage and threat assessment?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I think they, I think they go out like they haywire when they're trying to deal with somebody in a building with only one story on it.
But so this guy walks up and like interrupts the customer and he's like, cause that's your truck outside.
And I was like, huh?
Yeah.
And he was like the green one with the, with the free Palestine sign in it.
And I was like, yeah, man, that's mine.
What's up?
He was like, you got what you deserve.
And I was like, excuse you?
And he was like, you got what you deserve.
And I was like, I, you're going to have to clarify, like, are you threatening me?
And he was like, no, I don't, I'm not a terrorist.
I don't have to, I'm not Palestinian.
I'm not a terrorist.
I have God on my side.
I don't need to threaten.
And I was like, okay, all right, man.
And he just kept repeating, like, you got what you deserve.
And I was like, okay, I'm helping a customer right now so you're gonna have to like leave or get in line or something if you want to talk to me.
And then at that point my manager caught on to what was happening and she just walked up to him and was like, get out, get out, do not come back, get out.
Two other guys from like the cafe walked over too and were just like kind of flanking him like yeah man you gotta leave.
Awesome.
And he kind of said the same stuff to them like oh she got what she deserved and then Now at this point, he kept saying that.
He got what he deserved.
He never told me.
Are you like stressed?
Are you like thinking, did something actually happen?
I was...
I was just kind of baffled.
Did he find Alex on his lap?
The water you've been drinking for the last two hours has been laced with cyanide.
I was baffled and I also was just like, in my mind, like, you know, I guess, you know, I guess it happened.
Like, my truck's been through a lot.
Maybe today's the day.
I don't know.
You definitely expect a cinder block in the windshield.
I expected a broken window, which like, whatever, my fucking Windshield's already cracked.
That's already in the works.
Or like... I heard the trash cracked it, actually.
I heard that the trash cracked the window.
I was talking to a witness who said the trash cracked the window if anyone's wondering.
Definitely heard a cracking sound.
Or like, you know, maybe like a sliced tire.
Maybe like some paint.
Maybe some red paint.
Or graffiti.
Banana in the tailpipe.
Anything.
Yeah, you know, like a banana in there or something.
Oh no, did you guys use my truck for a bad comedy skit?
As the dude is, like, still kind of, like, harassing my boss at that point, as she's, like, backing him out.
She's, like, shorter than me.
I'm, like, 5'6".
She's really short.
He's, like, 6'7", and she, like, intimidated him out of this door.
She was like, get out.
Do not come back here.
So, as he's, like, still saying, like, you got what you deserve, my other co-worker looks out the receiving door at my truck, and she's just like, oh, he just, like, dumped some garbage on your truck.
And so as he was walking out the door, I turned and I was like, oh no, not my old truck.
But it's like, man, you fucking amateur.
Like when I think, when I think of like a threat against my truck, I mean, my mind goes to like the IRA.
My mind goes to like, oh shit, did you put like a mercury tilt bomb in my truck?
Did you shit on it?
Like, but all he did was like, Empty a little bag of like Trader Joe's garbage onto my truck and it's like you you fucking baby I use the truck to carry garbage to the dump.
I mentioned this to Tony when it happened before we had all the information and Tony was like what an idiot Ani loves trash.
That's not what I said.
I did grow up like- You were like, he picked the best person because it would get recycled, but you don't even know how much Ani loves trash.
Ani would have probably found something that she could keep in that.
I can rinse this container out.
This is a good container.
Alex makes fun of me because I do pick through piles of free things on the street a lot, and I do own at least one shirt that I actually got out of a gutter and washed.
I also own a beer koozie that I found in a gutter.
Hey, hey, does it cover your torso?
Does it keep your beer cold?
How do you not have MRSA right now?
How do you not have MRSA right now?
I listen to a lot of catharsis, but I believe in soap and water, okay?
I may have spent the early 2000s reading a lot of Derrick Jensen and listening to a lot of Zagota, but I believe in showering, okay?
The whole point was like, dude, if you did any investigating at all, it's like all you're doing is throwing your trash out correctly the long way.
I don't know if you, like, looked closely at this truck, bro, but it has not been washed since, like, 2020 probably.
Like, I mean, I still haven't washed it.
Like, my co-workers were sweethearts, and they, like, scraped most of the garbage off of it.
And then later on, I noticed the crows of the neighborhood were, like, picking trash out of the grill of my truck and stuff.
Nature's got your back.
You know, the little air vents underneath my windshield are already just packed full of pine needles and dirt because of where I park and how little I care about washing that thing.
But it's just like, dude, you just have to look at the instrument console and you can see that it has 241,000 miles on it.
It has been through some shit.
Her dad was like, because when she told him about the guy, her dad was like, what a coward.
He didn't even try to spit on you So good so good I I love the idea of fucking dancing around a truck, because apparently he had a U-Haul truck that he pulled this trash bag out of, and when I heard that, I'm like, oh, this guy's on a mission to spread trash to every Palestine supporter in the city.
It's like a fucking trash ferry, you know?
And just, yeah, the idea of him, like, dumping this trash and then coming in and being like, I dumped trash.
I played around with trash.
I touched trash for you.
Did he bring his own trash from home?
Did he find a bag?
Was there a convenient bag by the car?
I don't know.
Like, I didn't watch the whole thing happen.
So our UPS driver did watch it happen, but he didn't say where the where the trash came from.
He was just like, yeah, I was like, just unloading my truck just now with your delivery.
And I saw this guy pull over onto the wrong side of the street with a U-Haul truck and he dumped some trash on your truck?
You could probably get the plates pretty easily.
It's like, I'm not really worried about it.
It's just so funny.
He told us who he was.
Like, I'm shocked he didn't film himself doing it.
God, I hope he did.
Make a TikTok like sprinkling trash on her truck to like a Katy Perry song or to a fucking EDM, a techno song or something.
And, you know, like thinking it made him look cool.
And then also, like, being really insistent that you got what you deserve.
I mean, it's not that bad.
I guess I wasn't that bad this year.
I got one bag of trash dumped on my truck.
I guess, like, a sign that bums you out is approximately equal to, like, a little bag of trash.
That's sure.
Like, he believes in, like, you know, the escalating steps, I guess.
And so you took the sign out, right?
No, it's still there.
I added my little watermelon twinkle lights underneath it though.
You do need to put a Ray Pro Recycling sticker on there.
A sticker that just says dispose of your trash correctly.
I do have the sticker that our county requires you to display to go to the dump.
So like, he knows that I go to the dump regularly.
I'm going to put it in the back for you.
I am worried that they're gonna think they've won because Ani's having knee surgery next week and so she won't be at work for like four months at least.
So I think I'm just gonna drive her truck over there every morning.
Please, I love that.
That's what needs to happen.
Or actually, maybe let him think he won, and you can do a better sign on your downtime.
Because you've got downtime, maybe you can make something that lights up.
I was thinking about that.
I was thinking about making just like a... Because I mean, this one is just a hastily made, plain, white, corrugated plastic Sharpie.
It just says, like, Free Palestine.
Yeah, we can color it.
We can give it the colors.
The other side just says that your taxes are funding apartheid and 2,000 pound bombs.
I don't know if he realizes that this is literally the most polite sign I could make about the topic.
Absolutely.
It's so funny.
So far, yeah, but you got what you deserve.
You got what you deserve.
And I hope you learned your lesson, which is that signs really piss people off, apparently, and let's make better ones.
Let's make more.
Yeah, I mean, they can be equally as good as on a sign.
I think it's pretty good, you know?
Yeah, you actually don't have to do much at all.
Yeah, so I don't know.
Yeah, Zionists keep spreading trash around.
Keep keep littering across the city publicly.
Tell people when you do it.
And I think just associating yourselves with trash in the street is good.
Good thing.
Good thing for your movement.
And I would encourage like if you're going to play a prank on somebody's vehicle, you should you should do a better job.
You should like put the trash on top of like the engine block or the intake manifold.
Something that's going to get hot.
Fish maybe?
Maybe like a rotten fish?
Dude, he had such a good opportunity.
There were like Trader Joe's like salmon packaging in the bag.
He could have just like hid that somewhere.
You could play hide the Duke, like...
You know, you just got to try like a tiny bit harder.
Okay.
Yeah.
Maybe this will be a thing.
Maybe, maybe hopefully this will take off and it will become like a TikTok challenge.
You know, they can use like, um, hashtag Zionist trash and, and this in, they can record themselves dumping trash on things.
So if you're a Zionist and you're hearing this and you want to pop off on TikTok, go ahead and do it.
Use hashtag Zionist trash and go from there.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
That's what we've been freaking talking about for 20 freaking minutes.
Haven't you been paying attention?
And I thought it would be a good time to cover the insane things that have been happening with Florida's book ban for school libraries and the most recent Kind of just absurdity in the news is from Escambia County School District in Florida.
I have an article here from Jed Legum at popular.info.
So thank you, Jud.
I'll put the link to this story in the episode description.
I'm not familiar with this site, but I enjoy it.
It's like a sub stack.
I enjoyed this guy's writing.
I enjoyed what he was covering.
Florida School District removes dictionaries from libraries, citing law championed by DeSantis.
Let me just bring that up here on the screen.
Now is that, is that, this is, you know, not like an Onion-style joke headline?
That's like something that's actually happened now?
Yeah.
Yeah, this is something that actually happened.
I get a lot of newsletters every day at my work email talking about, like, the American Booksellers Association's, like, free speech, anti-book banning efforts and stuff, and, like, stuff from, like, Publishers Lunch and Publishers Weekly about this, and this, this was talked about in, like, all of the newsletters this week.
It's that great thing where we're watching them become what they think exists that they hate, where it's like, oh, you are banning dictionaries.
That happens in all the post-apocalyptic movies you guys are thinking of.
It's so insane, yeah.
It is like a parody of a parody of a parody.
So good.
Keep it up, keep it up, Ronnie.
Okay, yeah, I'm going to read from this article here.
The Escambia County School District, located in the Florida Panhandle, has removed several dictionaries from its library shelves over concerns that making the dictionaries available to students would violate Florida law.
A violation of this Florida law, from what I've been reading, can result in a felony.
They threatened these school li- I don't know if you can confirm that, Ani, but they've, like, threatened these school librarians with felonies.
If they don't comply with, you know, like it's probably like under the sex offender registry or some shit.
Oh, unfortunately.
Yeah.
Just when you thought librarians couldn't get any cooler.
Now they're also felons.
Has removed several dictionaries from library shelves over concerns that making the dictionaries available to students would violate Florida law.
The American Heritage Children's Dictionary, Webster's Dictionary for Students, and Merriam-Webster's Elementary Dictionary are among more than 2,800 books that have been pulled from Escamilla County school libraries and placed into storage.
That's just one county.
That's just one school district.
2,800 books.
The Escamilla County School District says these texts may violate HB 1069, a bill signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis in May 2023.
HB 1069 gives residents the right to demand the removal of any library book that depicts or describes sexual conduct, as defined under Florida law, whether or not the book is pornographic.
Rather than considering complaints, the Escamilla County School Board adopted an emergency rule last June that required the district's librarians to conduct a review of all library books and remove titles that may violate HB 1069.
Each school in Escamilla County has thousands of titles.
As a result, many school libraries were closed at the beginning of the school year pending the completion of the review.
Libraries are so fucked up that they're closing the libraries in the schools.
Isn't this kind of like the definition of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
Absolutely, yeah.
Throwing the baby's library out with the supposed pornography, by which I mean the diary of Anne Frank.
I mean, well, there was that one, I thought it was a little weird that that one dictionary did have like a visual for gape.
I thought that was unnecessary.
I'm happy they got rid of that dictionary, but I don't know why the other ones are getting tossed out.
Like when I was first reading this, I was like, Oh, this was like the librarians playing hard ball.
Like, Oh, if you don't, I don't know, we're not going to comport with this law.
So we're just going to shut down the library.
But it's the school board itself who preemptively was like, no, all of our books need to be under review before we open.
They didn't even want to wait for a parent to bring a complaint about a specific book.
So it was the school board who shut down this library, essentially.
At the completion of that process, so after they had done an initial review of which books might need to be removed for the law to abide by the law, more than 2,800 books were removed from libraries.
This includes, in some cases, multiple copies of the same book.
So it's not 2,800 titles, but it's probably a lot of titles.
Yeah.
These books are being reviewed again by the school district, but that process is proceeding extremely slowly.
Like, of course, do you think there are even enough people in the school to actually run the library efficiently?
Like, alone?
And then you're going to make them do a fucking, like, high school essay on whether or not they got a boner from each book?
Like, there's no way that this was ever going to be implemented.
Yeah, no, the scale, like what they've asked these librarians to do, it's...
In my mind, it's comparable to the kinds of insane building code laws and hospital admitting privilege laws that get lobbed at abortion clinics.
Absolutely.
Where it's just meant to structurally make it impossible for you to not just fully, preemptively comply with the law.
Yeah.
Fucking insane.
That's wild.
Don't get it twisted.
These particular things are Beyond just the whole political thing, there are for sure private schools and those kind of schools, non-public schools, who are behind all this, too.
They're all behind this, too, because they want to make public schooling impossible.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And they want to strain the union employees who have to actually... I don't know why I couldn't think of charter, by the way.
Charter was the word I was looking for.
Oh, that's fine.
Charter means a private school.
I would never fault you for saying private school instead of charter school.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, but that process is proceeding extremely slowly.
According to a list maintained by the Escambia County School District, fewer than 100 texts have gone through the final review process.
Many of these books remain unavailable to students absent a parental quote opt-in.
The dictionaries, according to the school district's data, remain locked away.
Their exclusion demonstrates the preposterously broad language of HB 1069.
Dictionaries do... Nice.
What?
Now that was a trap.
They named it 1069?
Really?
That's so funny.
Oh, I bet we can get this law thrown out because it sexualizes my children.
Dude, yeah.
Yeah, this law can't be in the library.
Dictionaries do contain descriptions of quote sexual conduct.
Merriam Webster's, for example, defined sex as a sexual union involving penetration of the vagina by the penis or intercourse, such as anal or oral intercourse.
Can you believe that shit?
Your kids can just open up a fucking dictionary and read the words anal intercourse.
That's insane.
That's disgusting.
That is pretty funny, though.
Like, imagine seeing that as a kid.
Imagine opening up the dictionary to the anal intercourse page.
You would have fucking, like, struck gold.
You for sure was like, wait, I want to see what it says under sex.
Yeah, that's true.
And then you're just like not surprised at the answer at all.
It is the most bland, like benign description of the act.
Yeah.
I love, I love that.
Yeah.
Using the word intercourse, which is like, what, another synonym for talking?
I don't know.
It's, it's too, too exciting.
District staff responsible for the review at each school were given a checklist to determine whether a book should be withheld from students.
This part's insane.
The checklist suggests reviewers consult BookLooks, a right-wing website relied on by Moms4Liberty and other groups to justify the banning of books from school libraries.
It was created by Moms4Liberty member Emily Mikeish, according to public records reviewed by BookRiot.
The Florida Freedom to Read Project obtained a copy of the checklist from the school district which they provided to Popular Information.
This checklist is great.
Book Review Checklist for HB 1069.
This was given to the people, the librarians, the people who oversee these books by the school board.
Use this checklist to review your adult and young adult titles for sexual conduct as defined in HB 1069.
Sexual conduct means actual or simulated.
What?
It was like simulated in a book?
Isn't it already simulated?
Double simulated?
There's like some book out there where it has one of those, um, the flip, a flip cartoon, you know, where you flip through the pages and actually shows simulated sex.
You can see it.
Does, does a book containing simulated sexual intercourse mean like there's a passage where a character talks about sex?
Yeah.
Do they fuck in the game in player one?
I don't know.
I heard if you fuck in the game, you come in real life.
What were you gonna say, Ani?
I think you're right, yeah.
It's just so vague.
Deviate sexual intercourse.
So you can't do sexual intercourse and deviate sexual intercourse?
That just means gay, right?
I think so.
Outside of wedlock.
Yeah, or maybe it even means oral.
Like you can't do any of the non-straight edge stuff.
Yeah, are they getting ahead of soaking?
simulated sex sounds like a night with my wife.
Yeah, deviant sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality.
Sexual bestiality.
It's the name of the worst Jamiroquai song ever.
Don't do that to Jamiroquai.
Jamiroquai is great.
I like that you can tell that this list was like written by people who weren't allowed to read these books. - Yes.
Sexual bestiality.
This is what happens when your parents don't let you have gum that actually has sugar in it.
Yeah.
They don't let you pick out books from the young adult part of the bookstore.
Oh, we'll get there.
They call the cops on you and they find a copy of Twilight or whatever.
Yeah, no way at all.
Okay, you can't do sexual bestiality, masturbation, or sadomasochistic abuse.
Actual or simulated lewd exhibition of the genitals.
So you can't even be naked in any of these books.
Actual physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or if such person is a female, breast, with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of either party.
So you can put your hand on a man's chest to initiate sexual arousal, as long as it's a man's breast.
Like, do they know?
Have they read young adult books?
They're like...
Yeah, Fifty Shades of Grey is practically a young adult book.
Dude, The Story of the Eye is my favorite young adult book.
Like, you fucking idiots.
And then they have a checklist here and one of the checklists says, check Book Look's website to see if book listed.
Review passages for sexual conduct.
And yeah, Book Look's is just the Moms for Liberty website where you can go see if a book is demonic or whatever.
Why are they okay with that?
Oh, don't worry, Moms Liberty uses this website founded by Moms Liberty.
Why is that okay?
Why does that work?
Because those are the people in power.
That's why.
Because they have control over the school board.
From NPR, it's NPR says that over 1,900 library book titles targeted for censorship so far in 2023.
So almost 2,000 titles in 2023.
This article that I got that from was for in September.
So, you know, probably more even more titles than that.
And I don't know if that counts.
The S can be Uh, titles that are, you know, were removed at the beginning of the school year.
Um, but yeah, most of the scrutinized books were written or contained written by or contained subject matter about people of color or members of the LGBTQ plus community, according to research by the American Library Association.
I don't know why like conservatives pick these fights.
Like I know they have the money and the power to win them for at least a little bit, but like you're never going to turn People against the American Library Association, dude.
This is the ground that liberals are strongest on, culturally.
Calling Republicans inbred morons who don't know how to read is their bread and butter.
You're kind of picking the wrong fight.
One of the things I've seen come out of this is people learning what an amazing resource libraries actually are.
Oh yeah.
All I'm seeing is people realizing libraries are more than books.
You're doing what I said.
Don't give out free clout, you guys.
You guys are giving out free clout to libraries.
You're just making it look so cool.
Yeah, I mean, as a result of stuff like this, like now, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of kids across the country just have a free membership to, like, whatever, the Brooklyn Library or whatever.
Yeah, the online libraries, yeah.
Yeah, they have access to, like, their audiobooks, their e-books, their, like, their video services, because different library branches have decided to fight against this.
And yeah, people people are finding out that you can like fucking rent like a Wi-Fi hotspot from libraries and like you can get free tax help at libraries.
You can get free COVID tests there.
The library by our house has a fucking kids story time in like every different language throughout the week.
Like you want to hear a story time in Arabic, you can like go to that library.
It's so sick.
It's really cool.
You can record podcasts in some libraries.
Yeah, you can, like, you can, like, rent utility rooms and shit to, like, do stuff.
I mean, they can't all be great things.
Do you think that maybe that is kind of a bit of the future?
Because I don't know if Moms Liberty is going to catch on to, like, audiobooks.
Well, yeah, you can't.
It's hard to delete a file.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you can't.
I'm trying to delete a file.
Well, just, I think, like, I mean, the idea, like, I think we might be kidding ourselves a little bit if we thought all these kids are little just revolutionaries and waiting that are looking for, like, great, you know, life affirming literature and seeking it out.
It's like, no, of course they're not their kids.
Some of them like reading, some of them don't, but they're far less likely to get into reading if they don't have that right in their school or if they don't have that, you know, if they're not, someone's not taking them to the library or whatever.
So unfortunately, there'll be ways around this, but it's still obviously a pretty big roadblock if we let them run roughshod over libraries like this.
Let me read from more popular info.
Along with dictionaries, the books removed from Escombia County School libraries as a result of this process include eight different encyclopedias, two thesauruses, and five editions of the Guinness Book of World Records.
Other than that last one, just imagine how mad this would make boomers and traditional, what do you call it?
Like, I'm a classical liberal and I believe in facts and logic and science before it got all political.
We're removing the atlas from the library because it's woke.
Sorry, dude.
Did they get rid of encyclopedias?
They probably got rid of encyclopedias because of pictures of tribal people, too.
Because it included a single global map that actually represented how big the continent of Africa is in relation to everything else.
They accidentally had one of the African centric ones where Africa is proportionally done.
They can't know about that, no!
Inflations come for everything.
The list of resources provided by the continents is real bad stuff.
But I mean, yeah, banning the Guinness Book of World Records, that is really nefarious, because that is how a lot of us got into reading, was looking at the guy who had the most zits on his face.
Yeah, I think as long as fingernails might be something to somebody.
Like if they, if they ban like Star Wars guide to, uh, the weapons, you know, or Star Wars guide to aliens or whatever, we're fucked as a speed.
No one's going to learn how to read again.
Yep.
Gone.
Um, uh, biographies of Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are also locked in storage.
Dude.
That list was insane.
I know.
Thurgood Marshall.
Well I think he's trying to say they're all people of color, but Lady Gaga is just weird.
She's a marginalized community of being weird.
It's so funny how Lady Gaga is touted as everything but a white woman.
What do you mean?
Because she's just a straight white woman.
Isn't she gay?
No!
She just likes gay people.
Bye!
No!
She just likes gay people.
Okay, but she doesn't- Gay people like her.
She just makes good music to dance to.
She is attracted to intelligence, though, right?
That's- Oh, I forgot.
She's a sapiosexual.
She has kind of a deep voice.
And, you know, as somebody who faces discrimination for the same thing, I really identify with her.
What color band of the rainbow are you guys?
What color flag do I get for having a deep loud voice?
Classic texts like Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile are no longer available to Escanbia County students.
And it's just like, yeah, I remember like five years ago, maybe a little longer, like seven years ago, It was like a week-long scandal because somebody thought they were going to take out the Adventures of Huck Finn from the library because of the n-word, right?
Oh, they changed the fucking cover of the Dr. Seuss book!
This is fucking censorship!
And now they're literally removing the dictionary.
You can't have a fucking biography of Oprah Winfrey.
Dude, I read a biography of Marilyn Manson when I was in middle school and I should not have done that.
But it didn't turn me into a homosexual.
No.
He talks about like watching his grandpa jerk off.
Like as a kid.
That's wild.
He went into the grandpa's basement and got caught, or was gonna get caught, so he like hid behind some fucking stacks of porno.
And he watched his grandpa, and he describes The Come, too.
Oh, of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, unfortunately, you were reading it when you were in middle school, so all the really foul shit he would go on doing was happening in that moment, so that wouldn't come out until the second volume of the biography.
Um, but yeah, another book.
Sorry, I would say this is us reaping what we sow, though, because they yeah, we take out we take out the Orientalist depictions of Dr. Seuss.
They're going to take everything else out.
We started it.
This is our fault.
That was the that was the the keystone of the American literature framework was was.
Yeah.
Another book that got banned.
Bill O'Reilly's books, Killing Jesus and Killing Reagan, which is, he's running out of ideas.
Reagan wasn't even killed!
Are you going to talk about dementia?
There's a book about dementia?
Um, and, uh, Bill O'Reilly, not too happy about that because he spoke to Newsweek, uh, about, yeah, uh, Newsweek, former Florida, former Fox News host, blasts Florida for removing his books, colon, absurd quote.
Uh, I love he's described as a former Fox News host, even though I think he still has a show.
I think he has a show on like some, and like not OAN, but something, um, on one of the little subdivisions.
Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly ridiculed the temporary removal of two of his books from a Florida school district.
Quote, It's absurd, O'Reilly told Newsweek on Friday.
Preposterous!
On Thursday, the Florida Freedom to Read Project obtained a list of over 1,000 book titles that were temporarily removed from the Escamilla County School District pending an investigation.
Two of the books on the list were written by O'Reilly, the conservative pundit, titled Killing Jesus, A History, and Killing Reagan, The Violent Assault That Changed the Presidency.
I fucking wish.
Didn't change it enough, buddy.
Quote, when DeSantis signed the book law, I supported the theme.
I like that.
I supported the theme.
I supported the spirit.
It's the vibe of the thing.
Yeah, exactly.
Because there was an abuse going on in Florida.
Not enough kids were reading Bill O'Reilly.
But now it's even worse.
It's worse than ever.
Fewer kids than ever.
There were far left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children, like an agenda like there's two guy penguins and they're a couple.
I love this idea, because I don't know if you've ever watched a parent try to make their kid read a book that the parent was really into, but that the kid was not into.
It doesn't work.
It doesn't happen.
I still haven't read My Side of the Mountain.
Sorry, Dad.
Sorry, bud.
I can't do it.
So what are you saying?
The idea that leftist parents were successfully forcing this kind of leftist literature down kids' throats is fucking insane.
I'm a kids' bookseller and I spend a lot of my day trying to help kids and their parents Find books that kids actually want to read.
Like I get a lot of parents that come in that's like, you know, my kid's like behind on reading or like is a really reluctant reader.
And then usually I end up witnessing parents try to force boring fucking books on their kids.
And it's like, yeah, bro, that's why your kid doesn't want to read.
Your kid wants to read like funny books or horror books or sci-fi books.
They don't want to read like the kind of historical fiction that you're into.
Like, you just have to let kids pick out books, and then they will become a reader.
That's the downfall of lots of these leftist parents, right?
They don't realize it does take community.
What you need is, you need a third party who your kid already thinks is very cool in general, who will curate a reading list for them, and send them books.
And therefore, as the parent, you don't gotta do shit.
Because they don't care about your opinion on stuff, they just care about your very cool friend who lives far away, who sends you books.
Which is what Ani does for Penny.
One of my greatest joys is when I should be alphabetizing, instead I'm like, oh shit, this looks like something that Penny would be into.
And then I go and put it in my little pile.
She's so proud of her book, her bookshelves.
Uh, so there were far left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children.
There's no doubt about it.
And the state has an obligation to protect, to like, I don't want to, I'm belaboring it a little bit, I think, but just like what Bill O'Reilly is saying when he says there's a far left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children.
He's referring to a conspiracy theory that librarians and the progressive forces in society are trying to sexually groom your children.
Is Bill O'Reilly really willing to say that?
He's talking to Newsweek here, this isn't his publication.
Which is why I think he puts it in such a such a nice political term.
Oh, they're they're imposing an agenda.
No, you're talking about like sexual abuse, dude.
That's like what this whole moral panic is about.
And like, I don't know if anybody ever says anything like this to you, I think they should have to really elaborate what they think members of the community are doing to their children like Like not even their children, just all the children.
You know what I mean?
Like you should be forced to actually espouse the idea that you're using as a cudgel to win your culture war.
Because, you know, I'm not I'm not saying call them out for hypocrisy or whatever I'm saying, like make them say what they're really fucking saying, because it's it's pretty sick shit to.
Yeah.
I mean, I do.
I do.
It's definitely, you know, those people need to be held accountable for not really pressing them.
Like you just if you're a journalist or whatever, you have to say things like, so what do you mean by that?
Sure.
No, what exactly do you mean by that?
What, what is the outcome that you're trying to, you know, something like that?
Like even just putting parentheses, he's referring to the grooming epidemic, the grooming conspiracy theory, anything like that to, to help, like, not, I mean, I sound like such a, such a lib, but like to not normalize this, this like, this offensive that they're, that they're doing.
I don't, you know, I don't think we have to accept that framing at all.
Um, Okay, and he goes on, and the state has an obligation to protect children, but the wording of the law was too nebulous in Tallahassee, so that law needs to be tightened up.
DeSantis needs to come out publicly and say, quote, this is insane.
We're not going to cooperate with this, and we're going to investigate the people who did it.
I love the idea of the governor saying it's insane that people are trying to avoid going to prison under the law I signed.
We're going to investigate and find out who's doing this and why.
Him saying this is fucking hilarious because it's like that is what's happening in Texas.
In Texas they tried to make this shit also applicable in like privately owned bookstores.
And the Texas courts like it's getting fought in Texas courts and like I think at this point multiple judges have been like oh this shit is wildly illegal.
This is blatantly a first amendment violation.
Yeah, I think the pushback is already happening and I think it's going to be effective.
It's just one of those things, you know, it just takes the collective effort of the millions of decent and aware people in this country to combat the one person like Vicki Baggett Who's gotten hundreds of books banned in Escambia.
This is the woman, she's a school teacher.
Okay, so there's that video going around of the two Moms for Liberty people, the man and the woman in the sheriff's station, trying to get their librarian, their school librarian, arrested for having the book in the library.
The book is Storm and Fury.
It's a young adult book about gargoyles.
I mean, I can't stress that enough.
Get rid of him!
Get rid of it!
No, that's sick shit right there, gargoyles.
The only reason we're here.
A crime is being committed.
It's a third degree felony.
We'll work on that, okay?
And we got the evidence that is.
That's why we're looking for that.
Okay.
Do you see where I'm coming from?
I do hear what you're saying.
I know.
I know the procedure.
The governor says this is child pornography.
It's a serious crime.
It's just as serious as if I handed a Playboy to her right now, right here, in front of you.
It's just as serious, according to the law.
The way that they got this book, they told the cops that their 17 year old checked the book out and said, Oh, it's because she's a minor.
This is like giving, giving pornography to a minor.
And, and then when the cop asked them again, who checked, like, so how did you get this book?
They could, they didn't say that their kid checked it out because their kid didn't check it out.
What happened?
17.
What's that?
Their kid's 17.
Yeah.
What happened was.
Their friend, Vicki Baggett, got a different 17-year-old to check the book, told this 17-year-old to check the book out, and then took it and gave it to these parents.
So literally manipulated a minor into doing her bidding.
Yep.
You know, like insane.
You know what?
I think that Vicki Baggett's just mad because she thinks that reading is where you learn puns from, and I think she got made fun of a lot growing up.
Uh, Penguin Random House, five authors, two parents of Escambia County students, and the non-profit group Pen America sued the Escambia County School Board last May, alleging that the board's actions violate the First Amendment.
The lawsuit relates to decisions by the school board prior to the passage of HB 1069 to permanently ban several books from Escambia schools.
The Escamilla County School banned most of these books at the request of Vicki Baggett, a high school English teacher in the county.
Baggett is responsible for hundreds of challenges in Escamilla County and neighboring counties.
Baggett has challenged books like Antango Makes Three, the true story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who lived in the Central Park Zoo and raised an adopted chick.
In an interview with Popular Information, Baggett said she objected to Antango Makes Three because it exposes students to, quote, alternate sexual ideologies.
Baggett said she was concerned a quote second grader would read this book and the idea would pop into the second graders mind that these are two people of the same sex that love each other, which would be horrible.
There was also students who said she used to just say homophobic shit all the time, like racist and homophobic shit all the time.
And one of the homophobic things she said was she told a student her sister was faking being a lesbian because nobody's born like that.
Listen, your sister's doing it for clout.
I saw your sister and your sister said that she would never actually go down on a woman.
She just thinks they're pretty.
See, I actually take the opposite tag.
I think no woman is not bisexual.
Oh, okay.
Every woman is into ladies because, I mean, look at them.
How couldn't you be?
We're all just tripped into thinking that we're straight.
Yeah, so great people literally manipulating a minor into doing your weird fucking Censorship project great great going guys very cool people none of whom at all secretly identify as a gargoyle No, no gargoyle material on your personal computer whatsoever I heard that you sleep crouching?
You sleep in a crouch?
Is that true?
Miss Bagot, I was on DeviantArt and I noticed you... Oh my god, what the fuck?
I saw this gargoyle looks an awful lot like you.
What's that about?
We saw in your desk some drawings of some like really buff gargoyles.
These parents are the age of people who would have grown up with the gargoyle animated series.
Sexual awakening took place at 9am on a Saturday.
Stony jaws.
Deep gravelly voices.
Moral compass firmly pointed north.
Listen, if you didn't think of those pecs the moment we said gargoyle, they're too young for you dawg.
Alright, well that's the episode.
Thank you so much to Ani for joining us.
This was a fun one.
We'll keep you updated if any more Zionists do any epic pranks like, I don't know, smearing peanut butter on their face and coming in and being like, this is what you guys look like.
This is what you look like as a supporter of Palestine.
Shout out to Firestorm Books.
They're a worker-owned bookstore in North Carolina.
They got a bunch of these books.
They gathered like thousands of these books that got banned and they're distributing them for free to kids all over the country.
Awesome.
Yeah, they're sick.
And also, if you're concerned about this kind of stuff, a thing that you can do is go to local school board meetings or try to join a local school board if you're fucking insane enough.
And you can also donate or become a member of your state library association.
They do a lot of really important work when it comes to stuff like this.
Oh, that's really cool.
That all sounds like amazing stuff.
Thank you.
Yeah, well, thanks for listening, folks.
If you want a bonus episode of Minion Death Cult every week and a live stream we do with Patreon supporters, well, you got to go to that Patreon website and start supporting, baby.
Go to patreon.com slash Minion Death Cult.
Five bucks a month gets you those two bonus episodes every week.
Access to a catalog of hundreds of previous bonus episodes including live reads we did years ago of very insane books like Rodham the book about what if Hillary still had raw sex with Bill Clinton, but didn't marry him How much better off she would be?
My Antifa lover.
Gents, let's talk about feminists.
All the good stuff over there.
I am hosting a screening of Christopher Bell's Miss Me Yet, the Means TV distributed miniseries about the George Bush era.
It's something that if you have Means TV, you should highly encourage your Liberal friends and family to view anybody who might have any sort of think there's a warm glow surrounding the George Bush era that you know in contrast to the Trump era should definitely This is a must-see and we will be screening it at the Beacon Cinema in Seattle February 15th at 7 30 p.m.
And February 22nd also at 7 30 p.m.
We're splitting it up I will be hosting it.
Hope to see everybody out there.
Tickets for that will be in this episode's description.
