Wayne Besen

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  October 10, 2026 • Opinion, Politics, Truth Wins Out, Weekly Column, World • 4

  American Evangelicals Praised Uganda as a Christian Utopia. It Transformed into a Police State Dystopia

  Uganda’s Anti-LGBT Crusade Proves ‘Human Rights for Some’ Always Ends with ‘Human Rights for None’

  seventeen years after Evangelicals began working feverishly to claim Uganda as God’s Kingdom on Earth, it’s worth examining the results of their crusade. New York Times opinion columnist Megan Stack painted a brutal portrait of Uganda, which has degenerated into a hyper-surveillance police state.

  In her illuminating essay, “The Authoritarian Future Is Already Here,” Stack wrote, “a reign of terror grips Uganda. Specifically, the reign of Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the country’s belligerent and erratic military chief, who also happens to be the only son of Yoweri Museveni, the octogenarian autocrat who’s ruled Uganda for four decades.”

  Stack continued:

  Critics of General Kainerugaba, who recently announced his intention to become Uganda’s next president, risk finding themselves in the “basement,” his nickname for the torture chambers he brags about on social media.

  One of those targeted critics was Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, a Ugandan lawyer and novelist. His first book, “The Greedy Barbarian,” is a satirical narrative of a president who abuses his position to become dictator, until he is finally removed by an uprising. This thinly veiled swipe at President Museveni led to his arrest and a trip to General Kainerugaba’s dungeon.

  In a disturbing twist, Rukirabashaija alleges that General Kainerugaba made him undress so he could measure his member. This was a peculiar demand, considering Kainerugaba’s parents helped lead the anti-LGBTQ campaign in Kampala:

  During the first visit, he said, the general ordered the author — the taller of the two men — to bend over to make himself shorter and to remove his pants to reveal the size of his penis. Then, as the general recorded the exchange on his phone, he told Mr. Rukirabashaija to kneel on the floor and apologize, the author said.

  On the second visit, he said, General Kainerugaba offered him a bribe to keep quiet about the abuse he had suffered. Mr. Rukirabashaija was stunned.

  “I just looked at the floor. I couldn’t believe what he was telling me,” Mr. Rukirabashaija said. “He could see that I could not even stand.”

  Public officials justified the brutal anti-LGBT crackdown by pretending they were protecting the morals of Uganda’s children. Yet, Museveni’s own Chrisitan parenting produced a child who grew up to be a psychotic sadist who revels in torture, uses violence to seize power and allegedly measured the cock size of a dissident inside a clandestine prison.

  Uganda’s dystopian hellscape is enabled by a sprawling network of cameras and AI-enabled security devices that let the police to break into the smart phones of people they are monitoring.

  

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  October 8, 2026 • Israel and Palestine, Politics, Truth Wins Out • 10

  TWO Condemns Global Intifada Protesters Who Stormed New York Oct. 7 Vigil

  Protesters’ Hateful Behavior Reminiscent of Fred Phelps Clan

  Delray Beach — Truth Wins Out (TWO) today strongly denounced the Global Intifada (GI) protesters who cruelly intruded upon a New York City vigil honoring the memory of Israelis beaten, raped, tortured, kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023.

  The 1,200 slain victims, and 251 hostages paraded through the streets of Gaza while throngs wildly cheered, represented the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Yet, these GI zealots were so extreme, and so lacked any modicum of decency, that they refused to even allow a solemn Israelis for Peace event to take place, which was dedicated to remembrance and mourning.

  “The Global Intifada is starting to exhibit the contours of a hate movement,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “The protesters’ total contempt for anyone who does not share their beliefs and their dearth of empathy towards Jewish New Yorkers mourning those lost in the October 7 massacre, was unacceptable and beyond the pale.”

  Truth Wins Out has studied hate movements for twenty years and played an instrumental role in fighting the “ex-gay” industry. TWO is soon releasing its third volume of “Behind the Mask: The Project 2025 Organizations Reshaping America,” which studies the 114 organizations on Project 2025’s advisory board. So, we have vast experience with intolerant movements and the deleterious effect they have on society.

  TWO has previously seen sanctimonious behavior curdle into extremism that demonizes perceived opponents.

  “The vile behavior demonstrated by the Global Intifada protesters is reminiscent of the Rev. Fred Phelps clan in Kansas,” said TWO’s Besen. “This infamous family storms LGBT events waving bigoted signs, while also invading funerals to harass mourners.”

  

  The zealous mob ferociously jeered Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The mayor has angered many in the Jewish community for his condemnations of Israel while presiding over a city that has seen a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents. Yet, for the fanatics in the GI, Mamdani no longer passes their increasingly austere purity tests. The New York Times reported:

  The mayor, who is known for his broad, effervescent smile, seemed especially stung by the opposition to him expressed by the pro-Palestinian crowd in Union Square, given his consistent support of their cause.

  During the vigil, he stared stone-faced, and at times looked crestfallen, as the activists chanted in support of Hamas, called for the deaths of Israeli soldiers and denounced him as a “traitor,” many citing his meetings with President Trump or his efforts to build ties with Jewish leaders.

  “Zohran, you coward!” someone yelled from the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds. Others yelled, “Zohran is a sellout!”

  The spectacle of caterwauling crowds and masked goons praising Hamas at what was supposed to be a serene vigil honoring October 7 victims is beyond grotesque.

  “The Global Intifada isn’t going to hate its way into improving the lives of Palestinians, nor will it intimidate Jews into bending at the knee,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “Sadly, this is a lesson the GI refuses to learn. As a result, it has degenerated into a uniquely unserious, vulgar movement of loud fireworks, while producing no actual movement towards peace on behalf of the Israeli and Palestinian people. We strongly urge this movement to rethink its cultish strategy before it further metastasizes.”

  Truth Wins Out is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that works to advance liberty and democracy, protect the rights of LGBTQ people and other minorities, combat religious extremism, and fight against the spread of disinformation.

  

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  October 7, 2026 • Israel and Palestine • 14

  We Will Never Forget

  

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  October 4, 2026 • Israel and Palestine, News, Opinion, Politics, Weekly Column • 21

  The Pro-Palestine Movement Has Hit a Dead End

  The Global Intifada Can’t Hate Its way into Helping Palestinians, Nor Will It Intimidate Jews into Bending at the Knee

  At first blush the “Free Palestine” movement appears to have momentum. In reality, it has been an abject failure that is going nowhere fast. Never in human history has a cause received so much publicity yet achieved so few results. Having hit a dead end, this effort has curdled into a worldwide orgy of antisemitism that has only made Jews reaffirm the importance of Israel–the opposite of what this movement wanted.

  The chief strategic blunder was morphing from a Pro-Palestine movement into a “Global Intifada.” Its leaders decided that the best way to bring Israel to its knees was bullying Jews across the planet. This required coercion against the apolitical or Jewish allies too, tyrannically forcing people to declare “Free Palestine” or face threats and a manufactured online backlash.

  By embracing such repugnant tactics, the movement has irritated and alienated the very people that it should have courted. It has been reduced to stalking Jewish singers and actors, harassing delis and haranguing synagogues.

  If the Global Intifada (GI) was interested in influencing Israeli policy, it would organize narrow protests at the Israeli embassy that condemned Bejamin Netanyahu’s government. By widening its targets to include Jewish entertainers, students, politicians, business leaders and houses of worship–the GI exposed its true mission–piggybacking on Gaza to unleash waves of antisemitism. In this equation, Palestinians were a mere afterthought in their larger crusade.

  The GI’s premise, that spewing hate would cause diaspora Jews to pressure Israel into changing course, was fatally flawed. After three years of futilely attempting to turn “Zionist” into an epithet and working to systematically exclude Jews from public life, these insults have receded to white noise.

  Such bilious anger, combined with chronic policy incoherence, has left this flailing crusade increasingly radicalized and desperate. After falsely accusing Israel of genocide and embracing every wacky antisemitic conspiracy theory under the sun, the GI was left with nothing in its advocacy holster. Once a movement smears its opponents as “Baby Killers,” it has nowhere left to go rhetorically. Smart activists know this and that’s why they speak with deliberation while trying to avoid premature escalation.

  The GI movement has boxed itself into an awkward crouch where its only move is loudly belching “Israel!”. When no change occurs, it turns up the volume and screeches “ISRAEL!!!!” After that inevitably falters, they turn the decibels up even higher and caterwaul,

  “ISRAEL!!!!!!!”

  At no point do these third-rate activists question whether their tactics are backfiring or whether they have an achievable end game. When you talk to these radicals, a high percentage of them actually believe that they can insult Israelis, 80-percent of whom were born in Israel, into uprooting their lives and moving away to far away countries they’ve never even visited. The hallucinations run so strong with this crowd that they ought to package their mass delusions as a drug and sell it at nightclubs.

   

  

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  September 27, 2026 • Opinion, Politics, Weekly Column • 27

  Trump’s Malice Sabotages Medicine Raising Pandemic Fears

  RF Quack Jr. Guts the CDC Creating ‘Zombie’ Agency

  If you’re like me, you’ve probably said the Trump administration makes you sick. But Trump’s spectacular bungling of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quite literally could make us deathly ill. America is relying on nothing more than dumb luck to prevent the dumb people running our country from causing a devastating pandemic.

  This week, the United States joined Europe in rejecting a United Nations Declaration on Preparing for Future Pandemics. At least the European Union had a rational explanation, expressing concern over patents. The U.S. spurned the U.N. over petty culture war issues, such as claiming the document included “divisive ideologies.” The U.S. “asked to delete mentions of equity, solidarity, and universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services.”

  “Agreeing to collaborate to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics should not be controversial,” said Helen Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand and a co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

  Unfortunately, it became controversial because our unhealthy MAGA government now prioritizes battling “woke” over fighting deadly diseases where people don’t wake up. The crisis extends far beyond high-minded United Nations documents few people will read. Our key health agencies are suffering from an epidemic of idiocy and an outbreak of quislings and quacks.

  The New York Times described the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “zombified,” saying “the agency has lost its independence and nearly a third of its staff, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and associates have tightened control.”

  

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