“Trump never pays his bills”: Truth Social reportedly stiffs contractor amid financial “disarray”

Trump's Twitter knockoff is already in a "bitter battle" with its web host over $1.6 million in unpaid bills

By IGOR DERYSH

Deputy Politics Editor
SALON
PUBLISHED AUGUST 26, 2022 

Donald Trump and Devin Nunes (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump's Twitter knockoff Truth Social stiffed a contractor in the latest sign of financial "disarray" at the troubled social network, according to Fox Business.

Truth Social, which is headed by former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is in a "bitter battle" with RightForge, the network's web host and one of its largest vendors, over $1.6 million in unpaid bills, according to the report.

The company entered into an agreement with Truth Social in October. Sources told Fox Business that Truth Social made just three payments and hasn't paid anything since March. The company is now threatening legal action unless it is paid, according to the report.

RightForge CEO Martin Avila did not deny the report but told the outlet he would not comment on "any private matters."

"RightForge believes in the mission of President Trump's free speech platform and wish to continue supporting the president in his media endeavors," he said in a statement.
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A spokesperson for Truth Social likewise did not deny the allegations.

Trump and his companies have a long record of stiffing contractors. "Trump never pays his bills," tweeted Jeff Jarvis, a media professor and blogger.


Related
Trump's "free speech" platform Truth Social bans users who post footage from Jan. 6 hearings

RightForge, which aims to provide right-wingers with alternatives to Silicon Valley products, previously announced big plans for Truth Social. Avila told Axios last year that the company was "laying the groundwork" for Truth Social to compete with Twitter and have more than 75 million users.

"If you believe that the president should be de-platformed, we believe that you're not really interested in living in a free country," he told the outlet. "And that's really what we're all about is making sure that America stays true to its core ideas, and that the marketplace of ideas stays open."

But less than a year later, the company is accusing Truth Social of breach of contract.

The network got off to a disastrous launch as users were plagued by technical glitches, outages and an extensive waitlist. Truth Social's planned merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), has been indefinitely delayed amid questions about its financial health. The blank check company is facing a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into whether it illegally negotiated the Truth Social deal before going public. The company was also subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in New York last month amid a Justice Department investigation into the merger.

The probes have upended the two sides' business plans. Digital World said that the investigations "could materially delay, materially impede, or prevent the consummation of the business combination."

The company in an SEC filing this week set a September 6 shareholder meeting to determine whether to delay the deadline to finalize the merger and warned that it could go under if the merger is not completed, according to CNBC. The company warned in the filing that Trump's mounting scandals threaten to harm the deal.

"If President Trump becomes less popular or there are further controversies that damage his credibility or the desire of people to use a platform associated with him, and from which he will derive financial benefit, [Trump Media's] results of operations, as well as the outcome of the proposed Business combination, could be adversely affected," the filing said.

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Shares of Digital World have fallen by more than 42% since the start of the year.

Despite Trump's big plans for the company, Digital World said in May that it is far from certain that the venture would succeed.

"There is no operating history upon which to base any assumption as to the likelihood that [Trump Media] will prove successful and [Trump Media] may never generate any operating revenues or ever achieve profitable operations. If TMTG is unsuccessful in addressing these risks, its business will most likely fail," Digital World said in a regulatory filing, adding that Truth Social does not yet generate revenue and may not until at least next year.

Trump has also complained about his app's absence from the Android app store, with the app only available for download on iOS devices.

"Is Google trying to f**k me?" he questioned over the spring, according to Rolling Stone, even though a source told the outlet at the time that Truth Social had not even submitted an app for Google to review because it was still in development.

The former president suffered another setback after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied his application to trademark "Truth Social." The office determined that the company's name is "confusingly similar" to the social media platform Vero – True Social and the Truth Network, a Christian radio network.

"Ideally," trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who surfaced the filing, told Axios, "you would pick a name where this wasn't going to happen."

Read more about Truth Social's woes

Trump's Truth Social partners just got hit with grand jury subpoenas — and it could blow up merger
Trump supporters use Truth Social to dox investigators in Mar-a-Lago raid — and their families
New Trump business partners compile list of his business failures — showing he poses financial risk

Igor Derysh is Salon's Deputy News and Politics Editor. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.

U$A

Long COVID Is Keeping 4.1M People Out Of Work, Study Shows

Aug 26, 2022 05:44 AM By Dawn Geske

Long COVID symptoms may be preventing as many as 4.1 million people from working, according to a new study from the Brookings Institution.

The study bumped up the number of people out of work due to the virus disorder more than twice earlier estimates of 1.6 million full-time workers – a fact that could be key in solving labor shortages.

By looking at four new questions about long COVID from the Census Household Pulse Survey, Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow Katie Bach said that the impact from long COVID could "worsen over time if the U.S. does not take the necessary policy actions."

According to Bach, about 16 million Americans aged 18 to 65 have long COVID, with 2 to 4 million of these people out of work due to their symptoms. Lost wages for these individuals are around $170 billion a year and potentially skyward of $230 billion, she said.

But what is more startling is the unknown reason why people get long COVID and how to treat the condition that can linger for months, then go away, and then come back.

Symptoms of long COVID vary by person but can include tiredness, malaise, fever, shortness of breath, cough, heart palpitations, headache, sleep problems, dizziness, change in taste or smell, depression, or anxiety, among several others, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"With 16.3 million working-age Americans afflicted and annual wage losses totaling nearly $200 billion, long COVID is already a meaningful drag on U.S. economic performance and household financial health. And absent intervention, the situation is likely to worsen," Bach said, adding that the "government should take the threat of long COVID as seriously as the numbers show it to be..."

Up to four million Americans may be out of work due to long COVID

Researchers estimate that at least $170b in wages may be lost annually due to long COVID symptoms, report says.

Aug 26, 2022, 

Suffering long COVID (illustrative)iStock

A new report published this week by the Brookings Institution showed that up to four million people in the US may be out of work due to long COVID, NBC News reported.

The report noted that this number could add up to at least $170 billion per year of lost wages.

The report examined US adults who worked full-time or the equivalent of full-time hours prior to suffering long COVID. This number was estimated based on federal data to be around 12 million people in the US.

The researchers then examined how many people were out of work or working less hours due to persistent health issues following a COVID-19 infection, NBC added. They used the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, including as long COVID sufferers only those whose symptoms lasting three months or longer, and who did not suffer those symptoms before they contracted COVID-19.

The Brookings Institute then determined that between two and four million people in the US are working reduced hours or not at all due to long COVID.

Katie Bach, the report's author and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, was quoted by NBC as saying, "This is a shocking number. If this looks like other post-viral illnesses, some people will recover, but there will be this big stock of people who don't, and it will just continue to grow over time."

"Every time you get COVID, you risk getting long COVID. It's not like once you've had COVID once, or once you've been vaccinated, then you're all clear," Bach said. "If people keep getting infected and reinfected, we will continue to have new cases of long COVID emerging."

In June, a study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 19% of adults who had previously been infected with COVID-19, and 1 in 13 adults in the US, suffer from long COVID symptoms.

Top Experts Raise Questions Regarding Legal Basis of Zawahiri Strike


by Just Security
August 4, 2022


A note from co-editors-in-chief Tess Bridgeman and Ryan Goodman: Although Just Security is on hiatus this week, we wanted to be sure to examine and reflect on the U.S. airstrike that killed al Qaeda’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. We asked members of our board of editors to assess the US government’s strongest argument for the legal basis for the strike and any significant weaknesses or flaws in that argument. We invited them to consider international and domestic law.

Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law. Prior to joining Crisis Group in 2021, he served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.

As a matter of international law, the U.S. government would likely argue that Zawahiri was targeted as an enemy commander in the ongoing non-international armed conflict with al Qaeda. Further, I would expect the U.S. government to claim that the strike in Kabul was a lawful measure of self-defense as the de-facto authorities were either unable or unwilling to effectively address the threat posed by al Qaeda.

But such arguments raise questions: Twenty years after 9/11, what threat to the United States does al Qaeda still pose, whether from Afghanistan or elsewhere?

Is the threat from al Qaeda such that the use of force in self-defense remains “necessary” as a matter of international law? Or are other non-military tools sufficient to mitigate the threat such that force is no longer necessary?

Does the Biden administration have a theory for when the armed conflict with al Qaeda ends? If so, what is that theory?

The killing of Zawahiri also raises questions of domestic law and the future of the war on terror. After two decades, what is al Qaeda for the purposes of the 2001 AUMF? Which affiliates of al Qaeda are “associated forces” for the purposes of AUMF? Will the Biden administration publicly release the list of all groups it deems covered by the AUMF?

Professor Adil Haque, is Executive Editor at Just Security. He is also Professor of Law and Judge Jon O. Newman Scholar at Rutgers Law School, and author of Law and Morality at War (Oxford University Press):

The U.S. will almost certainly argue that the strike was an exercise of its inherent right of self-defense under the U.N. Charter. The Obama administration took the position that the right of self-defense is triggered by an actual or imminent armed attack by a non-state armed group. Once triggered, the right of self-defense remains activated, and justifies the use of force, as long as “hostilities” with the group continue. Importantly, there is no requirement that further armed attacks are ongoing or imminent, so long as further attacks are expected at some point in the future. Relatedly, there is no requirement to seek the consent of the state on whose territory the strike will take place, if that state is deemed “unwilling or unable” to prevent the armed group from using its territory. That position was adopted by the Obama and Trump administrations, and there is no reason to think that the Biden administration will look elsewhere.

In my view, both aspects of the U.S. position are fundamentally flawed. There is no right to use force in self-defense absent an ongoing or imminent armed attack, and there is no right to use force on the territory of another state, without its consent, absent its responsibility for an ongoing or imminent armed attack. The U.S. has not claimed that Zawahiri was orchestrating an imminent armed attack that the strike preempted, nor has it alleged that the Afghan government is substantially involved in Al Qaeda’s ongoing operations. It appears that members of the Taliban regime may have provided Zawahiri with safe haven. But that alone is not enough to justify the strike.

Zawahiri was a wretched man, and few will mourn his passing. But legal judgment should not be biased by hindsight. The U.S. tried to kill Zawahiri at least twice before. Those strikes killed 76 children and 29 adults according to Reprieve. The U.S. claims that its latest strike killed no civilians. That may be. If so, it is only by sheer luck that the U.S. did not kill even more civilians for no reason that the law accepts.

Professor Oona Hathaway, is Executive Editor at Just Security. She is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, Professor of International Law and Area Studies at the Yale University MacMillan Center, Professor of the Yale University Department of Political Science, Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges, and Counselor to the Dean at Yale Law School. She served as Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense:


From a domestic law perspective, the legal basis for the strike on Zawahiri is, most lawyers would agree, straightforward: The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, enacted mere days after the 9/11 attacks, authorizes the President to use all “necessary and appropriate force against those … organizations he determines planned … the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” Zawahiri, as the leader of the organization that carried out the attacks—and a prominent figure in the organization on 9/11, falls squarely within that authority. That surface clarity, however, ignores a deeper question about whether that 2001 authorization has expired. There is no sunset clause in the 2001 AUMF, but Congress clearly did not contemplate an endless war when it enacted the law more than two decades ago. There is a strong argument that the authorization has effectively expired, though that argument has yet to win in court when raised by those who continue to be detained at Guantanamo Bay under the authority indirectly granted by the authorization. Indeed, the successful strike on Zawahiri is likely to lead to a new set of challenges to those detentions on the ground the conflict in which they were detained has now run its course.

The international law basis for the strike is similarly easy on the surface and harder on deeper reflection. On the surface, the strike is justified as an act of “self defense” under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and almost certainly is considered by the administration to fall within the Article 51 letter filed with the UN shortly after the attacks. But when we consider the fact that the attack on Zawahiri comes more than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the legal argument gets harder to sustain. Granted, Al Qaeda has more fighters than it did on 9/11 despite two decades of our best efforts—during which we spent trillions of dollars—to defeat the group. But it’s far from clear that any of the affiliates have plans to attack the United States or that Zawahiri was involved in such plans if they do. Under international law, acts of self defense need to be aimed at averting active ongoing threats to the state undertaking the self defensive action (or, if it is an act of collective self defense, threats to a state that has requested that state’s assistance). There is also the issue of Afghanistan’s sovereignty. The Afghan government clearly did not consent to the strike. The United States has long sought to justify strikes against nonstate actors located in states that are “unable” or “unwilling” to address the threat they pose as falling within the scope of Article 51. But this theory has been explicitly endorsed by fewer than a dozen states. It may be conventional wisdom in Washington that such strikes are justified, but that conventional wisdom is one of many ways in which what is taken for granted in Washington is at a disconnect with traditional methods of international law. (Under a separate body of international law—international humanitarian law—the strike seems to have been clearly legal, assuming Zawahiri was a legitimate military target. According to current reporting, there was, remarkably, no collateral damage—which would be a testament to the careful planning, techniques, and technology developed over two decades of war.)

In short, the strike reflects the ambiguities inherent in the current U.S. counterterrorism program: It was at once a great success that falls squarely within widely accepted legal theories that have guided U.S. conduct for two decades and it demonstrates how flawed and strained those very same theories are.

Stephen Pomper, Chief of Policy at the International Crisis Group. During the Obama administration, he served as Special Assistant to the President and NSC Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights. He also served as Senior Director for African Affairs. Prior to moving to the NSC, he was the Assistant Legal Adviser for Political-Military Affairs at the Department of State. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law:

The much celebrated recent U.S. strike that killed Ayman Zawahiri sheds some useful light on the Biden administration’s approach to the so-called the global war on terror (GWOT) including some of the tensions in the administration’s approach to warmaking.

On the one hand, President Biden pledged on the campaign trail to end what he referred to as “forever wars”. He pulled American troops from Afghanistan in the face of withering criticism; told the United Nations that the U.S. is no longer at war; and appears to have diminished the tempo of military counterterrorism operations considerably.

On the other hand, the Biden administration continues to engage in counterterrorism operations from a war footing. It has maintained the capacious legal interpretations that enabled the GWOT to branch out to countries far from Afghanistan; has spent no visible political capital to repeal or narrow the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force that undergirds this framework; and – as evidenced by the Zawahiri operation – continues to strike senior al-Qaeda leadership.

None of this is especially surprising. Candidate Biden and his team were always careful to hedge their commitments to end unproductive U.S. military entanglements in a way that left space for military counterterrorism, and have never shown much appetite for yielding the expansive authority that executive branch lore and practice – and congressional acquiescence – afford them in this space. But they also have other challenges, including most immediately a Russian war in Ukraine and a tense situation in the Taiwan strait. The result is arguably a sort of GWOT-lite, which has the full legal contours of the longstanding war on terror but a more limited op tempo that generally keeps strikes off the front pages, lowers the volume on criticism, and preserves the resort to force as an option for when policymakers feel it is needed. (Of course there is nothing inherently durable about the “lite” aspect of the current scheme: the same legal architecture could be used in a much more heavy-handed way by a different group of policymakers.)

Given who Zawahiri was, and so long as major reports of civilian casualties do not emerge, it is hard to imagine too much by way of criticism against the strike. But the operation does present some interesting questions that lawyers and commentators can be expected to probe. Among them:What facts could the U.S. present to make the case that the Taliban’s relationship to Zawahiri’s activities and whereabouts violated the 2020 Doha agreement (in which the Taliban committed to prevent any groups or individuals, including al-Qaeda, from “using its soil” for and “recruiting, training, and fundraising” “to threaten the security of the United States and its allies”).

 Beyond a passing comment by a White House official, will it publicly try to make that case?

Under what theory did President Biden disclose an action reportedly taken by intelligence operatives under what appear to be covert authorities? 

Did the strike fall under the 2001 AUMF or is the U.S. deeming it an act of national self-defense and why?

If the latter is the U.S. going to notify the United Nations or rely on its 2001 notification following the September 11 attacks?

Looking ahead, does the U.S. consider itself to be still at war in Afghanistan for purposes of international and domestic law and if so against specifically what groups and on what bases?

The answers are unlikely to depart significantly from what this and past administrations have offered, which is a useful reminder that while September 11 continues to recede and the GWOT fades from view, the changes they wrought to the U.S. national security apparatus endure.

 Opinion

Now more than ever: Let’s get the Equal Rights Amendment finalized

As women of faith, we are committed to the common task of making the ERA the law of the land.

Jamie Manson, head of Catholics for Choice, speaks during demonstrations in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, May 3, 2022, in Washington. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins

August 26, 2022

By 

Ani Zonneveld, Lisa Sharon Harper, Mary E. Hunt, Valarie Kaur, Sharon Brous, Allyson McKinney Timm

(RNS) — Recent Supreme Court opinions dangerously undermine women’s equal protection under the law. As women of faith, we are alarmed and active. Each of us has struggled against patriarchal interpretations of texts and teachings that undermine women’s autonomy and rights. We reject the mainstreaming of repressive religious interpretations in shared public spaces that derail our quest for equal justice.

On Women’s Equality Day, we affirm the Equal Rights Amendment as an essential next step to protect women’s rights and dignity.

Justice and equality are at the heart of the human project. American history is replete with diverse, multifaith coalitions that advance cultural shifts toward inclusivity. It is appalling that the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned abortion rights based on the literal text of a centuries-old document that excluded women from its inception. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected …,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito.

We recognize this brand of originalism from religion. Opposing justice because a text does not mention a word or emerged from a patriarchal context is a familiar argument made to preserve hierarchical power. It has long been common conservative practice to declare that the sexist historical context in which a document was penned should remain the norm today — just as the court did. 

Many of our religious texts make no explicit mention of the terms “abortion,” “homosexuality,” “same-sex marriage” or “the declaration of human rights,” but all emphatically insist on justice. 

Islamic ethics allow for many views on abortion, depending on what kind of scriptural sources are considered and by whom. (SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images)

In Islam, the word “abortion” does not exist; the supreme right and well-being of the mother do. For centuries, a Muslim woman has had the right to end her pregnancy whether for the mother’s health or for economic reasons. A fetus’s personhood is only recognized with the baby’s first gasp of air.   

Judaism has a similar belief rooted in Exodus. The Jewish tradition has such reverence for human life that the pregnant person is held in high regard. Abortion is not only mandated to save the mother’s life but is permitted to save her from great distress, physical or emotional. The ancient rabbis described a fetus as part of the mother’s body, which does not take on personhood until the majority of the head emerges from the womb. 

Protestant and Catholic Christians hold diverse views of abortion and women’s equality. A thread of misogyny runs through traditional orthodoxy; control of women remains a consistent theme in many theologies. Yet, Christian sacred texts highlight the dignity and empowerment of women in accord with Jesus’ teaching that all are equal. 

Christian Scriptures are silent on abortion. There is no Christian consensus on when fetal life begins. Many feel compelled by their faith to respect women’s moral agency to make prayerful choices about childbearing and family life. Opposition to responsible reproduction is a minority view among U.S. Christians. It should not be accorded broad legal authority in a pluralistic society.

The Sikh tradition proclaims the equality and dignity of women. Sikh sacred texts present a vision of a world where people of all castes, creeds and genders are sovereign in their bodies. Any ban on abortion is a violation of this core belief. To strip away a woman’s freedom to care for her body — to decide when, whether and how to bring children into the world — is to deny her intelligence and humanity. 

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson stated that “a wall of separation between Church and State” was a foundational element of American democracy. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly cited Jefferson’s words as justification for the priority of secular law over the teachings of any individual faith. We live in a democratic society where rule of law, not fiat, should control.

Part of a crowd of 25,000 demonstrators march along Chicago’s lakefront on May 10, 1980, in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Many churches and religious organizations participated in the event. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society

The Equal Rights Amendment will play an important role in ensuring such a democracy. By inserting these words in the Constitution: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged … on the basis of sex,” we can correct the intentional exclusion of women. For the first time in U.S. history, people of all genders will be citizens of equal stature. 

This nation is a hair’s breadth away from finalizing the ERA. It has been duly ratified by 38 states and needs only to be published by the U.S. archivist. We call on President Biden to ensure that this happens swiftly. We call on the U.S. Senate to affirm that there is no arbitrary deadline on the ERA’s adoption. 

Recent Supreme Court decisions, with repercussions in the states, have shown us how urgent this reform is. As women of faith, we are committed to the common task of making the ERA the law of the land. We invite all people of goodwill to join us as we get it done.

(Ani Zonneveld is the founder and president of Muslims for Progressive Values. Lisa Sharon Harper is the president and founder of Freedom Road. Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., is cofounder and codirector of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER). Valarie Kaur leads the Revolutionary Love Project. Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR and a leading voice in reanimating religious life in America. Allyson McKinney Timm is a human rights lawyer and the founder of Justice Revival. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Christian groups step up harassment of pagan festivals

American pagans and witches depend heavily on assemblies with names like Pagan Pride and Between the Worlds to share information and camaraderie.

People attend WitchsFest USA 2022 in New York's Astor Place on July 16, 2022. Video screen grab

August 22, 2022

By 

Heather Greene

(RNS) — As widespread immunity and milder COVID-19 strains have spread across the U.S., pagans and witches, like their neighbors, have begun to gather more freely this summer at  annual community events after two years of relative isolation. So have some unwelcome guests.

Street preachers and Christian protesters have long been a fixture of earth-based religions’ gatherings as they try to distract and deter people from enjoying what are typically outdoor festivals and ritual gatherings. But this year, some attendees say, these opponents of witchcraft and paganism have become more aggressive and even dangerous.

“There were about 30 (evangelists) this year” said Starr RavenHawk, an elder and priestess of the New York City Wiccan Family Temple and organizer of WitchsFest USA, a street fair held in the city’s West Village in mid-July.

Over the past seven years, barely half a dozen of these disruptors would show up, RavenHawk said. But the groups who have appeared this year “aren’t just protesting,” she added. “They are collectively at war with us. They made that clear.”

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RELATED: What is Wicca? An expert on modern witchcraft explains.

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Starr RavenHawk. Photo via Facebook

RavenHawk said the evangelists and street preachers walked through WitchsFest, holding up signs and preaching through amplifiers. By the day’s end, their presence had caused class cancellations and vendor closings.

Without formal networks of houses of worship and often living far from fellow practitioners, American pagans and witches depend heavily on assemblies with names like Pagan Pride and Between the Worlds to share information and camaraderie. While some are held inside conference centers or in hotel ballrooms, summer events tend to be visible and hard to secure.

In 2016, Nashville Pagan Pride Day was visited by street preachers Quentin Deckard, Marvin Heiman and Tim Baptist, who marched through the event with signs, Bibles and a bullhorn. In 2017, The Keys of David Church protested Philadelphia Pagan Pride Day. In 2018, a Christian men’s group encircled a modest crowd at Auburn Pagan Pride Day in Alabama in an attempt to intimidate them.

Indoor events aren’t entirely immune. In 2018 and 2019, members of TFP Student Action, a division of American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, were joined by Catholics in New Orleans to protest HexFest, held annually at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel. Religious flyers placed under hotel doors informed attendees they were surrounded. “Your only hope is to accept defeat and surrender your life to One who created you,” read one flyer.

On the same weekend as WitchsFest USA, attendees at the Mystic South conference in Atlanta found Christian pamphlets in the lobby and on car windows outside the hotel where it was taking place. In Texas, pastor Kevin Hendrix has encouraged Christians to take a stand against the Polk County Pagan Market, held in October.

Many Pagan events are not held in public spaces for this reason, although that has been changing over the past 10 years as occult practices have found more acceptance in the public eye.

Held in busy Astor Place, a tourist crossroads, the daylong WitchsFest USA is one of the most visible pagan festivals and, therefore, one of the most vulnerable. 

“RavenHawk creates this marvelous event every year in the heart of New York City as a public celebration where everyone is welcome as long as they maintain an atmosphere of respect towards others,” said Elhoim Leafar, who was scheduled to lead a workshop at WitchsFest USA and has attended for years.

The Christian group took up a prominent position on one street corner as the festival began at 10 a.m. and began talking to attendees and preaching into amplification devices. Among them, RavenHawk said she recognized members of the NYC chapter of Christian Forgiveness Ministries, a Toronto organization that had sent visitors before.

Crowds attend WitchsFest USA 2016 in New York’s Astor Place. Photo courtesy of WitchsFest USA

After her security team asked the preachers to leave, RavenHawk called the police as she has done in past years. But, for the first time, the cops did nothing, she said.

“The Christians say nobody is being bothered,” RavenHawk was reportedly told by the officers. In past years, officers would relocate the preachers to the far side of Astor Place, where they would continue without the use of speakers, which require a permit.

This year, the Christian groups were allowed to remain at the festival with their sound amplification. According to RavenHawk, the officers called the preaching “freedom of speech.” It is unclear whether the groups had permits. 

One attendee, Soror Da Glorium Deo, said, “When the police had the opportunity to downgrade things by possibly escorting the troublemakers off the area, they chose not to de-escalate.”

The New York Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

“(The officers) treated us as if we were invading the Christians’ space, as if they had more rights than we do” RavenHawk said. “(The preachers) were loud, and they were carrying on. Of course it was disruptive.” 

When organizers moved the workshop tent away from the corner near the preachers, the Christian groups followed. “At a certain point, the protesters were not only in the surroundings and corners of the event with microphones and banners, but inside it,” said Leafar, whose class was cancelled due to the preachers.

“We are not publicly protesting at their churches on a Sunday,” he said.

“It is not correct, moral or ethical to harass any individual in public or in private based on their individual or family beliefs,” Leafar said. He believes that this behavior comes from ignorance and a “contempt for our individual values.”

By the middle of that day, two vendors left, said RavenHawk, telling her that “they didn’t feel safe.”

RavenHawk said she is tired of “turning the other cheek.” She has called New York’s Street Activity Permits Office, the Community Board and the 9th Precinct (NYPD). “I want a paper trail,” she said. “I want to know exactly what my rights are.”

RavenHawk also called Lady Liberty League, a pagan civil rights organization based in Wisconsin, for legal advice and support.

“The United States is founded on religious freedom for all,” said Lady Liberty League co-founder the Rev. Selena Fox in a statement to RNS. “Safe gathering and the right to practice our faith is as much our right as it is anyone else’s,” she said.

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RELATED: Pagan ‘metaphysical’ shops navigate threats from Christian critics

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Some attendees have suggested that RavenHawk move the event to a less public location, such as a park or hotel.

“We shouldn’t have to move,” she said. “We fought for this location for eight years.” It took that long, according to RavenHawk, for the community board to designate “WitchsFest USA” an “annual” event. Until then she was required to reapply every year, she said, enduring questions such as, “Are you going to burn babies?”

Leafar agrees that it is important to not back down. “If we remain silent in the face of these protesters, those people who are new to our community are going to feel that they do not have the right to express themselves and pursue their individual faith openly.” 

This story has been updated.

Demi Lovato’s fusing of the sacred and the profane is part evolution, part miracle

Lovato knows how it feels to break the tenets of conventional society while all eyes are on you.

Demi Lovato’s latest album, titled “Holy Fvck." Photos by Brandon Bowen

August 23, 2022

By 

Da'Shawn Mosley

(RNS) — This is not the first time I’ve felt sacrilegious singing a Demi Lovato song.

When I was 14, the title track of the singer-songwriter’s debut album, “Don’t Forget,” was my jam, a fact I tried to hide from nearly everyone I knew. My community, primarily Black like me, seemed to listen exclusively to rap and R&B. My passion for a pop-rock bop — “white” music — would make me an oddity if anyone ever found out about it.

More importantly, I had heard enough Sunday sermons to know how weird it was for a boy to enjoy belting a song about a fading romance with a boy. One could call it strange. Queer, even.

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Demi can relate. She has never been good at maintaining the image the industry expected of a former Disney Channel star. Her first stint in a treatment facility derailed the show she starred in (“Sonny With a Chance”). In 2018, Lovato came out as sexually fluid, and a year later as gender nonbinary. A few weeks ago, they said they were using the pronouns “she/her” again, in addition to “they/them” — explaining that she was feeling more feminine of late. Lovato knows how it feels to break the tenets of conventional society while all eyes are on you.

Demi Lovato for her album “Holy Fvck.” Photo by Brandon Bowen

The older she gets, Lovato seems to become more herself, more assured of who she is and unafraid of showing it, no matter who gasps or makes the sign of the cross. Many of us manage this evolution, but when it’s an LGBTQ+ person who was raised Baptist, as Lovato was, their evolution seems nothing short of a miracle. Christians separate the world into the sacred and the profane, unfairly denying LGBTQ+ people the former, the better to categorize them as the latter.

Lovato’s latest album, titled “Holy Fvck,” is a bombastic call for Pharaoh to let Demi’s people go.

The album revels in religious condemnation, with Lovato boasting about her “sinfulness.” “Prod me, laud me, ungodly but heaven sent,” she sings in the album’s opener, “Freak.” Embracing damnation isn’t a new concept in pop — Rina Sawayama’s summer bop “This Hell” challenges religiously motivated attacks on LGBTQ+ rights: “God hates us? Alright then! / Buckle up at dawn we’re riding.”

But Lovato’s brilliant wordplay and overt and also subtle allusions to the Bible make her interpretation fresh. “I’m just trying to keep my head above water / I’m your son and I’m your daughter / I’m your mother, I’m your father / I’m just a product of the problem,” Lovato sings in “Skin of My Teeth.”

“Skin of My Teeth” also takes on Lovato’s struggles with addiction and her freedom to move from one gender identity to another, reminiscent of the Trinity. The alcohol Lovato is afraid of drowning in is likened to a baptism, but here, there is no washing away of sins; here, the water is the sin. This pivotal act of Christianity is flipped.

The water imagery continues with the song “Heaven,” which takes a passage from the Gospel of Matthew — “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell” — and essentially responds, Nah, hell is better. “If pleasure’s wrong, cast me out like a sinner,” Lovato sings, “I found myself with my two little fingers. … My right hand’s got me singing my praises. Holy water and my spirit awakens.”

The album, as its title might suggest, joins Beyonce’s recent release “Church Girls” in giving us some of the most potent, sonic combinations of holiness and sex since maybe Prince.

“Skin of My Teeth” and the tracks “Eat Me,” “Holy Fvck” and “Feed” evoke the Last Supper, the body of Lovato broken for all at the table but with Lovato not as a savior but instead a sinner. “Cause my body’s the communion / Take a bite of what I’m doing,” she sings on “Holy Fvck,” which compares sex with her to the sort of enlightenment many call to God for. “I’ll show you the light with all the lights off … I’ll bring you to life,” as Jesus did Lazarus.

The cover of Demi Lovato’s latest album, titled “Holy Fvck.” Photo by Brandon Bowen

The album probably could bring the dead to life. It’s loud, full of heavy metal and screamo elements that take me back to the pop-rock/emo bands of my adolescence: Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Evanescence, The All-American Rejects. “Holy Fvck” is reminiscent of the rage Fiona Apple captured in her 2020 album, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters.” Lovato’s album is more accessible, though, hewing closer to classic pop in its songs’ structures.

This should make “4 Ever 4 Me” — a ballad that wouldn’t sound out of place on Taylor Swift’s country-pop-rock “Speak Now” — less surprising. Promising a lover “forever” and “heaven” is practically a prerequisite for airplay for Lovato’s base. But “4 Ever 4 Me” is quieter than the rest of the album, less thunderous, and its emotional resonance benefits. Deeming her lover “beautifully made” (an echo of Psalm 139), Lovato sees her lover the way God sees the companion. The borders of the sacred and the profane are dissolved.

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“I don’t believe in organized religion anymore,” Lovato told the Los Angeles Times in an interview about “Holy Fvck.” “My God is the universe. It’s so much bigger than me, or us.”

I won’t be surprised if “Holy Fvck” earns a nomination for Album of the Year Grammy. Though not a game changer sonically, it’s lyrically rich, shows Lovato to be more of a songwriter than I thought. She has come so far from “Don’t Forget,” a song that still “slaps,” as the youths say. “Holy Fvck,” her eighth and arguably her best album, makes me wonder if, had my adolescent self heard it, I would have been less inclined to believe I was destined for hell and more aware of my sacredness. I might have even quoted “Eat Me” to my critics. “I can’t spoon feed you anymore. You’ll have to eat me as I am.”

(Da’Shawn Mosley is an editor and journalist in the Washington, D.C., metro area. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)