Lee Moran Thu, March 20, 2025 at 2:02 AM CDT 1 min read
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt faced mockery on Wednesday after another apparent slipup during a press briefing.
Leavitt stated that President Donald Trump is “committed to passing a big reconciliation package later this year,” which includes “ending no taxes on tips.”
Leavitt says Trump is committed to "ending no taxes on tips"
Critics quickly seized on the phrase, interpreting it as an accidental double negative that contradicted Trump’s 2024 election campaign promise to nix taxes on tips. Trump has yet to implement the policy.
Leavitt on Monday drew similar mockery after she accidentally claimed the Department of Justice will focus on “fighting law and order” when “fighting for law and order” was likely what she meant.
The self-anointed chairman of the Kennedy Center fancies himself a producer Read on Substack
One of his favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof and “when he was a young man Mr. Trump had dreams of one day becoming a Broadway producer himself. Now, he said, the Kennedy Center’s focus would be on producing ‘Broadway hits.’”
We’re approaching the third Trans Rights Readathon! It’s an annual call to action that coincides with Trans Day of Visibility on March 31st, and it aims to uplift, amplify, and support trans, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and Two-Spirit authors. It takes place from March 21st through the 31st, and this year, there are five core prompts to complete, as well as a list of bonus prompts.
The five core prompts for the 2025 Trans Rights Readathon are Transmasc and Trans Man Rep; Transfemme and Trans Woman Rep; Nonbinary, Agender, Genderqueer, and Other Gender Expansive Rep; Intersectional Trans+ Rep Outside Your Own Experience; and 2Spirit, Indigiqueer and Indigenous Gender Expansive Rep.
If you’d like some recommendations for these prompts, as well as the many bonus prompts, you can find the reading challenge on Storygraph, where users have added suggestions for each. Just be sure to vet these, since anyone can add a title.
The Storygraph description also adds more context to the reading challenge, including making sure not to out authors or interrogate authors about their gender identity: “If information isn’t available in an author’s bio, social media, or on their website, they don’t owe it to you. In an era when people’s identities are being used to target them, please be mindful that we want to CELEBRATE these stories and support authors while keeping each other safe.”
Each prompt also has more information, including that books in the 2Spirit, Indigiqueer, and Indigenous Gender Expansive Rep category may not be trans, so to be mindful about language when discussing these books: “2Spirit, Indigiqueer, and other non-Western Third Genders exist outside of Western concepts of gender and sexuality, and an author who identifies as 2S may not identify as trans.”
Another great resource for the challenge is the Trans Rights Readathon Instagram. They have posts about the readathon itself, including how to participate: by reading trans books, reviewing and discussing them online (using the tags TransRightsReadathon and #TRR2025), and monetarily supporting the trans community (including donating to mutual aid funds).
They also have posts recommending books for each of the prompts. These are vetted by the organizers, so they’re more reliable than the Storygraph suggestions.
Leading up to and during the readathon, I’ll be sharing trans book recommendations. Let me know in the comments if there’s anything in particular you’d like suggestions for!
As a bonus for All Access members, below is a list of 27 new LGBTQ books out this week.
Exclusive content for All Access members continues below. Become a member for $6 a month or $60 a year to get community features and access to exclusive content across all 20+ Book Riot newsletters.
March 21, 1937 On Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter), the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico was to march in Ponce (city on the southern coast of the island) in support of Puerto Rican independence. They were also protesting the imprisonment of Albizu Campos, leader of the Party and the lawyer for the sugarcane workers who had led a general strike.The colonial military governor, Blanton Winship (a Georgian who had been Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army), revoked the parade permit at the last minute. Nationalists insisted on marching regardless and, surrounded by the well armed police, were fired upon as they began. Whoever fired the first shot, 18 Nationalists and 2 policemen died. 200 others, Nationalists and bystanders, were injured, 150 arrested. This incident is known as Masacre de Ponce, or “The Ponce Massacre.” Families of those who died in the Ponce Massacre A history of Puerto Rico The Ponce massacre remembered
March 21, 1960 South African police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators in the black township of Sharpeville near Johannesburg. The demonstrators were protesting the establishment of apartheid pass laws which restricted movement of non-whites. In Sharpeville itself, 69 were killed and 176 wounded when police fired on the crowd, 63 of them shot in the back. In the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, protests broke out in Cape Town and elsewhere, and there were further casualties. Overall, 13,000 were jailed. The organizer, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, head of the Pan-Africanist Congress, had written to the police commissioner, notifying him of the plans, and had said at a press conference, “I have appealed to the African people to make sure that this campaign is conducted in a spirit of absolute nonviolence, and I am quite certain they will heed my call.” The Sharpeville Massacre and its significance in South African history
March 21, 2003 The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa was released. The commission was led by the Reverend Desmond Tutu, a bishop in the Anglican Church, the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, and Nobel Peace Prize winner for his efforts to bring peace and justice to all South Africans. .Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu The Commission was charged with investigating and providing “as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights” under the racial separatist apartheid regime from 1960 until the inauguration of Nelson Mandela in 1994, South Africa’s first black president. But the Commission sought to go beyond truth-finding to promote national unity and reconciliation, to facilitate the granting of amnesty to those who made full factual disclosure, to restore the human and civil dignity of victims by providing them an opportunity to tell their own stories, and to make recommendations to the president on measures to prevent future human rights violations. Reverand Tutu concluded in his foreword to the report, “Quite improbably, we as South Africans have become a beacon of hope to others locked in deadly conflict that peace, that a just resolution, is possible. If it could happen in South Africa, then it can certainly happen anywhere else. Such is the exquisite divine sense of humour.” The complete report of the Commission
March 21, 2008 More than 300 people participated in an annual Good Friday peace action at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, organized by Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CARES). The lab is a key participant in the design of all weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The Alameda County Sheriff arrested 91 of the protesters. CARES Executive Director Marylia Kelley said, “The emphasis is on nonviolence and rejecting violence.” The organization behind the action
March 21, 2011 An estimated 14 million Egyptians voted in an essentially problem-free election. 77% voted to endorse a process that would bring elections for parliament within six months and a presidential election later.
Elon Musk’s DOGE continues to lie about Social Security, and now very alive recipients are being told that they are actually dead?!
Sam Seder of The Majority Report joined Francesca to set the record straight about Social Security.
Elon has been busy destroying our federal agencies for a while now, and Social Security has been at the top of his list despite being the most popular federal program. Heaven forbid someone other than Elon gets money from the government!
Musk has attempted to sell a bunch of lies about the program, from 150 year olds getting checks (they aren’t), to claiming the program is increasing the national debt (it isn’t). Both these claims were very easily disproved, and yet, Elon is still pushing to gut the program. Unfortunately, we may already be seeing the results of his efforts.
There have been multiple recent reports from Social Security recipients who stopped receiving their checks. When these retirees looked into the reason why, they found out that they were listed in the system as being deceased! We don’t know for sure if DOGE is behind this, but it is extremely sus to say the least.
If it can happen to them, being held without due process. It can happen to any of us. We know it has happened before with US citizens of Mexican heritage that were not allowed any due process but just deported. We know tRump had unmarked black bag groups just adduct people off the streets during the BLM protests. They were held with no charges, interrogated by people who did not identify themselves, and had their items take and phones searched. In some cases they never got their phones back. It can and will happen to any of us if it is not stopped now. Hugs
A man being held by ICE at the KROME detention center in Miami is posting videos to TikTok about the inhumane conditions and treatment.
USA is ruled now by a government of the rapists, by the rapists and for the rapists. 😭😡🤬‘Sinister’, says Irish rape crisis center.The White House visit could help rebuild rapist’s reputationwww.theguardian.com/sport/2025/m…
The Commerce Secretary is promoting a company’s stock on live TV, and not just any company’s – the company owned by a ‘special government employee’ and the president’s biggest donor.The corruption is the point.
"It is truly chilling…we are in a very dark place because if you accept the [Trump] argument that there is no due process for people then what is to stop them from going after citizens & political enemies?"I spoke to @therickwilson.bsky.social & @stuartpstevens.bsky.social about this dark moment.
The administration is removing phone support for Soc Security recipients. Making it more difficult for seniors to get their checks. It’s a back door way to cut SS benefits. Horrific. If you know anyone who is impacted, please help them get online to get their benefits approved
So this is how Canadians show a 🖕Buy Australian and help a fellow commonwealth nation push their GDP up by a few billion. http://www.thestar.com/politics/fed…
Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown post doctoral fellow who is a legal immigrant, was detained solely for sharing pro Palestinian views on social media. He was detained under the same provision as Mahmoud Khalil.He's already been moved to Louisiana.www.politico.com/news/2025/03…
While Elon Musk is playing the victim keep this in mind: he will have deprived millions of the poorest people around the world AIDS medication and pre-digested food this year alone. Millions will die because of him. He's one of histories greatest monsters.
Some how we have fallen in to the time line where the most stupid people are the ones leading the country and the most greedy are in charge of the public money. There was a movie based on this … or several dystopian ones. But anyone who has seen this simpleton’s tRump Towers penthouse apartment can tell you he has no clue what looks good or is even acceptable. The idea that making everything gold is good taste shows just how lacking in good taste this moron is. Hugs
Yet big tough weak president in name only keeps claiming that the world respects us now. According to the orange bloat owned by Putin and Musk the world laughed at the US durning Obama and out right eat the US lunch after stuffing us in the our locker during Biden. Yet ever poll and by every measure the reverse is true. But when did reality or facts matter to the dear cult leader and his maga lemmings cult followers. Hugs.
Scottie's Playtime 