Definitely Worth the Click

Snippet:

The billionaire owners of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times can hedge their bets about the possibility of a fascist in the White House, unrestrained by the rule of law and the idea that Americans are citizens, not subjects. The rest of us, including me, cannot. I want the United States that Donald Trump can’t, never could, and would never want to, give us all. That United States is one I believe Kamala Harris is working toward, and would continue to work toward as President.

In any year, Kamala Harris would be my choice for President of the United States. In this year, she is the only choice. She has my vote. She should have yours as well.

The Scalzi Endorsement: Kamala Harris for President

Reblog from Janet:

Odessa’s New Law: Targeting Trans Rights in Texas

Mel Manuel, Trans Candidate for U.S. House, Injected T on Camera in a Campaign Ad

Manuel is running on a platform of abortion rights, universal healthcare, and gun control.

BY SAMANTHA RIEDEL

(Way to go-run for office! Especially in and as opposition to people like Steve Scalise-A)

A trans nonbinary Louisiana candidate for the U.S. House released a defiant campaign video this week, showing themself injecting testosterone to defend bodily autonomy.

Mel Manuel, who is running to unseat far-right House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, released the video on social media platforms on Tuesday. In the video, Manuel called on voters to “take a stand” while performing a routine testosterone injection.

“I believe that you, not the government, own your own body,” Manuel told viewers, wearing a “My Body My Choice” T-shirt. “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”

Manuel, who is running on a platform of abortion rights, universal healthcare, and gun control, highlighted a recent analysis that found Republicans had spent more than $65 million in anti-trans advertisements since the start of August. They also promoted Louisiana’s “Geaux Vote” app, which allows voters to find their polling location and get ballot information.

“To my LGBTQ+ family and our allies… No one is coming to save us,” Manuel wrote in the video description. “We have to show up at the polls for ourselves and for those we love. I’ve spent the last year and a half campaigning because we need to speak up and be represented before it’s too late. You can speak up now with your vote.”

Manuel is the cofounder of Queer Northshore, an LGBTQ+ activist organization based in St. Tammany Parish, and has previously organized against conservative book bans and anti-trans laws in the state. In contrast, Scalise has earned a reputation as a staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ Republican since first taking office in 2008, voting against the Byrd-Shepard Hate Crime Prevention Act, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the Respect for Marriage Act; he is also firmly anti-trans, condemning “the left’s radical gender ideology” in a 2022 statement calling for trans girls to be banned from school sports. Scalise even once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage,” referring to the infamous former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Given that Manuel is running in opposition to all that, injecting T on camera is a pretty big flex. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean they expect to win; as their campaign website notes, Manuel’s goal is simply to get 35% of the vote. “Even if your candidate doesn’t win, if we can move the needle to 35 percent or 40 percent of the vote, that means the next progressive candidate will get more funding,” they explained to The Nation last year. “There’s a very, very small chance at winning, and I understand that, but we can still use the role of candidacy as a platform in and of itself.”

https://www.them.us/story/mel-manuel-campaign-ad-injection-testosterone

U.K. Teacher Who Outed Trans Student Banned From Teaching in England “Indefinitely”

In a series of posts on X, Camilla Hannan outed a trans student by name and made several disparaging comments about trans identity.

BY MATHEW RODRIGUEZ

A teacher in Manchester, England, who outed a trans student and posted transphobic messages on social media is now banned “indefinitely” from teaching in England.

Prior to the decision, Camilla Hannan had admitted to posting a series of tweets in which she outed a student of hers as trans and disparaged the trans kids at her own school. Though the panel convened in September, the UK’s Teaching Regulation Agency posted the decision online on Tuesday.

(snip)

“In particular, the panel found that Miss Hannan had a deep-seated attitude, and that, whilst she was entitled to have that attitude and hold the views that she did, it was not acceptable for her to have posted these on social media in a way that was damaging to the profession, the school, pupils and in particular Pupil A,” the report reads.

Hannan will be allowed to appeal the decision in two years, though the panel’s decision did not bode well for any future lifting of the suspension. “It is necessary to impose a prohibition order in order to maintain public confidence in the profession,” the report reads.

This summer, a group of 20 trans teen activists gathered outside the U.K. Department of Education’s London Headquarters in order to demand greater protections for trans students. Activists hoped to underscore the “urgent need for policy changes that respect and protect the rights of trans youth, including their rights to autonomy, safety, trust, respect and inclusion.” One of their demands included protection from transphobic bullying, misgendering, and deadnaming, something that is apparently just as applicable to teachers as fellow students.

https://www.them.us/story/manchester-england-uk-teacher-camilla-hannan-outed-trans-student

American Bird Conservancy: “The Sleeping One”

Common Poorwill

Peace & Justice History for 10/26:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october26

I Am So Glad

to see Scottie posting more again! I’ve missed him here, and I’m sure everyone else who reads here did, as well. So, here’s to many more fine Playtime posts by the original!

It’s also been handy, because life has been busy at the Redford manse, and somewhat stressful. We’ve needed foundation work for years, probably since before DH bought the house, even (he had it when I came into the picture; we paid it off, and just never did move out. Anyway.) So, having saved, and retired, it’s time. Meeting with the contractor, learning necessary facts, and of course, parting with the dollars needed to get the work done. Part of the work will be done the second week of November, the other part will be done the first week of December. There are some things that need to be moved before the December date; we’ll need some help with a few items. But we’ll get it worked out. Things will be all right.

3 weeks ago, Corky crossed the Rainbow Bridge. She went into acute kidney failure, likely due to age, according to the vet. She was 13, and a larger medium dog, though very healthy until this happened. I worry it’s because we let her have too much human food, but she was a happy old girl until the last 2 days of her life, and even then, was not miserable. She is very missed after 4.5 years with us, and the search is on for who she’s sending us. But it’s cut a bit of brightness out of the days, until The One shows up.

Other than the election, which is discussed everywhere all the time, that’s what’s happening. I’ve gotten the postcards done, and am awaiting the phone banking instructions. Life sometimes takes time, though, so I haven’t posted so much. (Probably a relief to readers!) I hope all are doing at least as well in your own little slices of heaven, and here’s to a good day today.

‘Shameful’: Naval Academy cancels authoritarianism lecture After ‘MAGA pressure’

(There is always a lot of news on https://currentstatus.io/ . The Current Status page sometimes doesn’t have any news a person wants to read, and some days, no news anyone needs to read. It compiles via algorithms based on what people are clicking on during a day. Sometimes it’s just discouraging to see what people are reading when they could be reading good and/or necessary stuff. Last night was necessary stuff, but I can’t post it all. I chose this one. -A)

Written by David Badash October 24, 2024

The U.S. Naval Academy is under fire after it invited — then uninvited — a distinguished expert on authoritarianism and fascism to give a lecture.

Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian Studies at New York University, where her bio says she “writes about fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and the threats these present to democracies around the world.” She is the author of books on fascism and serves as an advisor to the nonpartisan nonprofit organization Protect Democracy. She is also an MSNBC opinion columnist, where she appears as a commentator, as she does on other news networks.

For weeks, since early October, right-wing media has been criticizing the U.S. Naval Academy for inviting her to speak.

The Daily Caller, founded by Tucker Carlson, described Dr. Ben-Ghiat as “an outspoken anti-Trump guest” who was invited to “give the keynote speech at a high-level lecture this month.”

“Ben-Ghiat announced that she’d be speaking at the event in an op-ed last month and further claimed that former President Donald Trump was an ‘authoritarian ‘and drew comparisons between him and world dictators,” The Daily Caller’s Jake Smith wrote in an opinion piece.

For weeks, since early October, right-wing media has been criticizing the U.S. Naval Academy for inviting her to speak.

The Daily Caller, founded by Tucker Carlson, described Dr. Ben-Ghiat as “an outspoken anti-Trump guest” who was invited to “give the keynote speech at a high-level lecture this month.”

“Anti-Trump historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat is scheduled to lecture midshipmen on ‘authoritarianism,’” two Heritage Foundation officials, Mathew Lee and Wilson Beaver, wrote at The Daily Signal in a piece marked commentary. They called for the Naval Academy to retract the invitation to Dr. Ben-Ghiat.

The Heritage Foundation is the headquarters of Project 2025. The ACLU calls Project 2025, “a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity. Project 2025’s largest publication, ‘Mandate For Leadership,’ is a 900-page manual for reorganizing the entire federal government agency by agency to serve a conservative agenda.”

Dr. Ben-Ghiat in her Substack piece also wrote about Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where a cemetery official was “pushed,” allegedly by Trump campaign staffers, according to an Army report. A judge on Tuesday ordered the Pentagon to release its records related to Trump’s visit there in August, by the end of this week.

“The conduct of Trump and his campaign on those hallowed grounds violated federal prohibitions against election-linked activities at military cemeteries,” Ben-Ghiat wrote. “The photos and videos they took there also showed graves of U.S. service members whose families had not given permission. Additionally, a Trump aide shoved an Arlington employee who was trying to enforce the rules, and Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung claimed she initiated the aggression and was having a ‘mental health episode.’”

“It seems counter-intuitive when you are running for president and commander-in-chief to insult the U.S. military,” she added. “But that hasn’t stopped Trump: insulting and mocking the military are among his most consistent habits.”

On Tuesday, in an opinion piece in the Baltimore Banner, Rick Hutzell slammed the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 for getting Dr. Ben-Ghiat’s lecture canceled. (The U.S. Naval Academy is based in Annapolis, Maryland.)

“If Trump wins, the right-wing thought police will come for the Naval Academy,” Hutzell wrote in a scorching editorial.

“You could hear the spittle fly as the Heritage Foundation shouted out its latest intellectual assault on the Naval Academy,” he wrote. “All over Ruth Ben-Ghiat and a lecture the midshipmen likely will never hear.”

“Her politics were the problem, not her lecture.”

“As controversies go, it was easy to miss this one. It all took place within the conservative media ecosystem. But it could foreshadow what might happen to the U.S. service academies if Trump is elected next month,” he added. “Deep within Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 925-page roadmap for the next Republican president, its authors say they want the service academies scrubbed of anything and anyone deemed insufficiently pure of thought — exactly what they did to Ben-Ghiat.”

Ben-Ghiat in an email told Hutzell: “The lecture had nothing to do with contemporary America and I was not going to mention Mr. Trump at all in this strictly nonpartisan event at an institution, the U.S. Naval Academy, which I greatly admire.”

Hutzell wrote that Heritage “Foundation ‘researchers’ Matthew Lee and Wilson Beaver made the connection a month after Ben-Ghiat’s announcement and simply made up the rest, assuming she planned to attack Trump.” He also pointed to another piece at The Daily Signal by “Heritage Foundation mouthpieces Hans von Spakovsky and Cully Stimson,” and n0ted (sic) that “U.S. Rep. Keith Self — a West Point graduate who represents a district north and northeast of Dallas — wrote Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids, the academy superintendent, and demanded that she cancel the lecture.”

He also reports The Daily Signal’s managing editor called for an apology from the Naval Academy, and Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee “called for an explanation.”

Rep. Nick LaLota, running for reelection in up-for-grabs NY-01, was one of the signers of this letter, demanding an explanation from the Naval Academy for inviting NYU historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat to give a history department lecture, after pressure from Heritage Foundation because… https://t.co/3BjZiIWoHY pic.twitter.com/rhp51zlJvL
— Jacqueline Sweet (@JSweetLI) October 24, 2024

“The harrumph over Ben-Ghirat (sic) smacks of hamfisted stagecraft. It’s not about protecting young minds from learning what tools authoritarians use, it’s about preparing the case for an intellectual bloodletting,” Hutzell concluded.

Others lashed out at the Naval Academy.

“This is a shameful move by @NavalAcademy. If our armed services are truly training people to be loyal to the Constitution, not to an individual, this is one lecture they need to hear. Very disappointing,” declared attorney and former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa, a legal and national security expert.

She also blasted the “members of Congress who do not want students at service academies to learn what happens when you turn into Hitler’s generals,” likely a response to news of Trump allegedly praising Hitler and saying he had wanted “Hitler’s generals.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a professor of law and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, pointing to Ben-Ghiat being disinvited, warned: “This is exactly what she’s been warning about—caving in to the demands of authoritarian leaders, even before they’re in place. Dangerous & shameful.”

Historian and professor of strategic studies Phillips P. O’Brien, author of several books including, “How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II,” called Hutzell’s editorial a “terribly worrying story about how MAGA pressure is already leading to censorship in the US military. The US Naval Academy disinvited the distinguished historian @ruthbenghiat from delivering a major lecture because of Heritage-MAGA pressure.”

https://www.alternet.org/authoritarianism-maga-pressure/

Stores Should Not Put Out The Christmas Merch until the Peppermint Bark is there to be sold, as well.

I love that stuff. That is all. For this post.

Stressed about the election? Try this Kansas-centric playlist.

(You may not like them all, or any of them. Listen to what you like; that’s what I’m doing. All the commentary is good. I saw this last night in my Women for KS newsletter, and wanted to share. Enjoy! -A)