Category: Bigotry

FBI To Investigate “Targeted Violence Against Religious Groups” After Hate Group Rally In Seattle Gayborhood

FBI To Investigate “Targeted Violence Against Religious Groups” After Hate Group Rally In Seattle Gayborhood

I watched videos of this protest and the complete violence of the police going full out assault against the gay protestors who were just standing there.  The Christian group in anger at what the mayor said about them, so the next day blocked access to the town hall not letting reporters, workers, or people in the community into the town hall.  The Christian group did not have a permit and violated sound level ordnances but the police did not try to remove them or force them to let people through to the town hall.  But the police did again violently attack the counter protestors from the neighborhoods.  It seems clear the police are pro the Christian haters who want conversion therapy done on LGBTQ+ kids to wipe out anyone not straight and cis. The police chaplain is on the fly for the hate group as you can see below.    The Christian hate group wants to force everyone to live as their church doctrines demand.  They are extremely hateful towards the LGBTQ+ community.  They demand that people respect and accommodate their views but refuse to accept the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, not accept the rights that the LGBTQ+ communities are due.   I will post the rest of the post by Joe. My. God.  but at the end I will post a video that streamer Vaush made on this subject also.  As Vaush says the prosecutors refused to press charges on many the police arrested.  Maybe because they were innocent protestors viciously attacked by bigoted police.   Hugs

May 28, 2025

The Seattle Times reports:

In the days after a chaotic confrontation between police and protesters at a conservative Christian rally on Capitol Hill, several groups have questioned why the demonstration was held at Cal Anderson Park and how the city could have better prepared.

The rally, advocating “freedom from same sex attraction” and ”the sacrality of biological gender,” was permitted in the heart of the state’s most LGBTQ+-friendly neighborhood, in a park named for the state’s first openly gay elected official. It attracted scores of protesters who scrapped with police. Twenty-three people were arrested.

Local LGBTQ+ advocates and at least one City Hall politician expressed anger the permit was granted for Cal Anderson, alleging the location was intended to rile the neighborhood’s residents.

Seattle’s ABC affiliate reports:

The Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced via a social media post on Tuesday evening the FBI will investigate allegations of targeted violence against religious groups regarding last weekend’s chaotic Cal Anderson Park rally.

Dan Bogino posted the announcement on X at 5:15 p.m., writing, “We have asked our team to fully investigate allegations of targeted violence against religious groups at the Seattle concert. Freedom of religion isn’t a suggestion.”

MayDay USA, which describes itself as a Christian Pro-Life organization, held the rally at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. It was met by LGBTQ+ protesters in a competing rally. At some point, police were called in, and there were multiple scuffles between the group and officers.

From my first post about the incident…

Seattle’s Fox affiliate reports:

One of the prominent supporters of Mayday USA is former Spokane Valley state representative Matt Shea, of the “On Fire Ministries,” according to the Radical Women Seattle. Mayday USA organizers have set up a tour of five cities in the country, with Saturday’s event being held in what is considered the heart of the LGBTQ+ community in Seattle on Capitol Hill.

Seattle’s NBC affiliate reports:

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said the far-right rally was specifically held at the park in Seattle’s known LGBTQ+ neighborhood “to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values.”

In a statement, Mayor Harrell called Seattle “a welcoming, inclusive city for LGBTQ+ communities, and we stand with our trans neighbors when they face bigotry and injustice.” Harrell said anarchists joined the counterprotesters, which resulted in violence and arrests. He said the event organizes shut down the event early after being asked to do so.

Matt Shea, the far-right extremist cited above, has appeared here multiple times, most recently in February 2023 when a church then-affiliated with Shea was ordered to pay Planned Parenthood nearly $1 million in legal fees and a fine related to protests that “interfered with patient care.”

He first earned national headlines in 2019 when leaked chats showed his violent fantasies about executing non-Christians and when it was learned that he had participated in militia drills to train young men for “biblical warfare.”

Shea advocates for the creation of a 51st US state based on “biblical law.” He has also said that all American men who fail to avow allegiance to Jesus should be executed.

He was expelled by the Washington state Republican caucus but refused to resign even after the feds found that he had “participated in an act of domestic terrorism against the United States” by helping plan the armed takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016.

Shea did not seek reelection in 2020 and is now the pastor of Covenant Christian Church in Spokane.

Women Fasted, Amnesty Int’l Founded, and Much More in Peace & Justice History for 5/28

May 28, 1892

The Sierra Club, America’s oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, was organized in San Francisco with wilderness explorer John Muir as its first president. The organization’s initial effort was to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park.
Muir introduced President Theodore Roosevelt to Yosemite the following year, inspiring him during his presidency to establish the U.S. Forest Service, create 5 national parks, and sign the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 national monuments.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”
– John Muir, The Yosemite (1912)

John Muir
The Sierra Club today
May 28, 1961

Amnesty International (AI) was founded on this date in Great Britain.
It is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights, particularly as laid out in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Members of AI help maintain a media focus on political prisoners, and organize public pressure to afford them their legal rights and obtain their release.
Visit Amnesty International 
Read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Amnesty International projects 
May 28, 1963
Black and white civil rights advocates were attacked as they sat-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi. They were defying state laws against serving “colored” citizens at “whites-only” public facilities.
According to John Salter, AKA Hunter Bear, one of those who sat in:
“This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I’m covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things.”

Attacked for trying to eat at Woolworth’s (L to R): John Salter (Hunter Bear), Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), and Anne Moody.
More photos and the story of the struggle against segregation 
Freedom Movement Bibliography 
May 28, 1982
Seven women fasted for 10 days in Springfield, Illinois, in support of ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by the Illinois state legislature. The amendment had already been ratified by 35 other states of the 38 required.
May 28, 1998
Pakistan exploded five underground nuclear devices in response to India’s most recent nuclear tests.
 
Since the British partitioned the subcontinent in 1947, there have been three wars between the two countries and numerous border clashes over the disputed Kashmir province. Kashmir had a majority (77%) Muslim population at the time of partition, but became part of predominantly Hindu (80%), though constitutionally secular, India.

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely proclaimed as the ” Father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb,” stands in the access tunnel inside the Chagai Hills nuclear test site before Pakistan’s
28 May 1998 underground nuclear test.
Read more 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may28

Janet Brings Us Digby

Are We Safe? The Implications of ICE’s Power

The First US Witch Execution in 1647, and More in Peace & Justice History for 5/26

May 26, 1647

The first person in America was executed for the crime of witchcraft. Alse Young was arrested, tried in Windsor, Connecticut, and hanged at Meeting House Square in Hartford, the site of what is now the Old State House.
There is no further record of Young’s trial or the specifics of the charge — only that she was a woman, as 80% of those executed for witchcraft were. The Salem witch trials would not begin for another 45 years.
Some 300 years later the U.S. experienced another “witch hunt” as Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee pursued communists. Arthur Miller makes this comparison in his famous play “The Crucible.”
Read more about the play “The Crucible”   The Guardian
May 26, 1937
United Auto Workers organizers and Ford Service Department men clashed in a violent confrontation on the Miller Road Overpass outside Gate 4 of the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. It became known as “The Battle of the Overpass.” Henry Ford announced: “We’ll never recognize the United Automobile Workers Union or any other union.” Though General Motors and Chrysler signed collective bargaining agreements with the UAW in 1937, Ford held out until 1942.
More background and photos 
Read more
 T
The Ford Servicemen (goons) approach Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen, third and second from right, and the other unionists.

UAW official Richard Frankensteen being beaten by Ford goons
May 26, 1946
A patent was filed in the U.S. for the H-Bomb, the hydrogen, or fusion-based, nuclear explosive device.
May 26, 1969

John Lennon and Yoko Ono (along with her 5-year-old daughter Kyoko) held their second Bed-in for Peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec. A late-night rendition of “Give Peace a Chance,” recorded in the hotel room with their visitors singing and accompanying, reached No.14 on the Billboard pop music charts.
John and Yoko meet cartoonist Al Capp in their hotel room 
May 26, 1972
The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was signed by U.S. and U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which included Russia and 15 other republics). The two countries agreed not to build defensive missile systems and thus to limit escalation of the nuclear arms race. It was reasoned that if either side deployed defensive missiles, the other would be forced to respond by increasing the number, explosive yield or effectiveness of their offensive nuclear weapons and delivery systems to maintain the balance of nuclear deterrence.
Research and development of defensive systems was allowed under the ABM treaty, the U.S. having spent about $100 billion in the 20 years before the treaty was abrogated by President George W. Bush in the first months of his presidency.
May 26, 1991
20,000 Israeli Jews and Palestinians participated in a peace rally in Israel’s capital, Tel Aviv.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may26

Some Harvard News from God (just read it!) 😉

Trump Humiliates Himself at West Point Graduation by God

Just in time for Memorial Day. Read on Substack

Snippet:

3. God’s Final Word

Dictator Donald wants everyone afraid and confused at all times. Verily, God says fuck that.

There is a better story I want to share.

Harvard just announced free online courses for every US citizen. Topics include basic government, the Constitution, and how to recognize a dictatorship.

Now that is how you defeat tyranny. Not with fear, or panic, but with knowledge. With clarity. With truth. And with stories of hope.

The fight is far from over. But we are not alone.

We will not go quietly.
We will not forget.
We will fight like hell. And we will win.

(snip)

Is It A Good Day To Post About Drag in The US Army?

Everyday’s a good day to do that! Jeff Tiedrich included this in his substack today about the President’s grad speech at West Point. I also linked that below this snippet, if anyone’s interested in that. It’s TMI for me today, but very good; I read his most days. Meanwhile, back to the Army news: -A

Drag in the military: How drag queens helped U.S. soldiers win World War II

Ronald Reagan was even involved in this largely-forgotten tradition.

By Dan Tracer Friday, June 21, 2024 · Updated on June 22, 2024

Long before RuPaul’s Drag Race, Drag Queen Story Hour, or any one of the countless drag shows gracing the stages of LGBTQ+ bars around the world, there was another popular spot for performative gender-bending: U.S. military bases in the 1940s.

During World War II, the military embraced drag shows as a unique form of entertainment and a morale-boosting activity. These officially sanctioned events featured all-male performances with soldiers often dressing in women’s attire. According to author Allan Bérubé, GIs staged these shows everywhere from makeshift platforms to grand theater stages, incorporating popular female impersonation routines of the day.

Due to the official segregation of the armed forces, service-member theater productions had no option but to cast men in female roles.

One of the most iconic productions of the era, “This is the Army,” was initially a Broadway musical designed to raise funds for troops. It later became a sensation as a 1943 film starring Ronald Reagan, 37 years before he was elected President of the United States. These shows not only provided soldiers with much-needed diversion during the stresses of conflict but also served as a safe haven for gay service members, as explained by Joe E. Jeffreys, a drag historian and professor at New York University’s New School. (snip; a little MORE with video)

==========================

elderly golfer’s brain goes fuckity-bye in batshit West Point speech by Jeff Tiedrich

Donny can’t be bothered to act like a human being Read on Substack

New Montana law limits what flags can be flown at schools and government buildings

The entire article is saying that the public schools should be for everyone … except LGBTQ+ kids and parents of those kids.  Yes gay and trans children exist and need / deserve to see themselves represented in the community just as much as straight cis kids do.  This is a hate bill, banning a group because the majority in charge doesn’t like them.  The flags they say are ok to fly like the Gladstone flag or the thin blue line flag are not neutral and they most definitely represent a political ideology.  Again this is about erasing the LGBTQ+ kids / people from society to make the Christian fundamentalist and insecure parents who know they can’t have produced a gay / trans kid feel better about themselves.  It is a desire to force the fundamentalist view point on every one regardless if they believe it.  It is a desperate attempt to return to the 1950s.   Hugs

https://www.ktvh.com/news/new-montana-law-limits-what-flags-can-be-flown-at-schools-and-government-buildings

By: John Riley
Posted 2:53 PM, May 21, 2025 
and last updated 6:48 PM, May 21, 2025

A new Montana law limits what flags can be flown on government property or at public schools.

House Bill 819, sponsored by Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, restricts any flags that “represent a political party, race, sexual orientation, gender or political ideology.”

The law effectively bans Pride flags and other LGBTQ flags from being flown at schools or government buildings. In 2019, Gov. Steve Bullock, D-Montana, flew a Pride flag over the state Capitol, which drew criticism from Republicans.

Language in the bill does allow flags like the Gadsden flag and other “official historical flags” to be flown. It also allows flags for law enforcement officers and fallen officers, like the “Thin Blue Line” flag, which Gov. Gianforte, R-Montana, flew above the Montana Capitol on Thursday, May 15, 2025.

When HB 819 was debated on the floor of the Montana House of Representatives, Mitchell said the bill was intended to ensure government entities remain a place of neutrality and was not to impact an individual’s free speech.

“Government buildings, schools and public facilities serve all citizens and should not be used to promote political, ideological or activist messaging,” said Mitchell during the March 6 floor debate.

Critics of HB 819 say the bill targets free speech by allowing provisions for specific flags like the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag to be flown, while others were prohibited. Rep. Pete Elverum, D-Helena, said under the language, a Confederate flag could be flown.

“What we’re doing here is we’re expressly prescribing what speech is allowed, ‘these flags’, and what speech is not allowed, ‘these other flags’,” said Rep. Pete Elverum, D-Helena, on March 6. “And as for the definition of ‘promoting a certain ideology,’ those [flags] are expressly prohibited, but at the exact same time we’re sitting here with a bill proclaiming to be about free speech, we’re expressly prohibiting some and promoting others.”

Flags of tribal nations, foreign countries, military service branches, the POW/MIA flag and official school or government entities’ flags are also permitted under the law.

HB 819 went into effect immediately after Governor Greg Gianforte signed it.

This year, both Utah and Idaho have passed similar laws restricting or banning Pride flags on government property or at schools.

New Montana law decides which flags fly in public schools.

— The Pulp (@thepulp.org) 2025-05-23T21:15:13.391Z

So is this one allowed, or not?

John T. Scopes Indicted This Date, + More in Peace & Justice History for 5/25

May 25, 1774
A group of African slaves in Massachusetts Bay colony petitioned the British royal governor for freedom as their natural right: “. . . we have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedoms without Being depriv’d of them by our fellow men as we are a freeborn Pepel [people] and have never forfeited this Blessing by aney compact or agreement whatever.”
May 25, 1925
John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Scopes, a football coach and substitute high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, agreed to be arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution. He was challenging the legitimacy of a four-day-old state law barring Darwin’s theory from the public school curriculum.

The Scopes “Monkey Trial”  ACLU
May 25, 1948

Garry Davis, formerly a member of the U.S. military, renounced his American citizenship to become a Citizen of the World. Davis continued to promote “world citizenship” for over 50 years; 400,000 have, at one time or another, joined the movement.    
  watch trailer “THE WORLD IS MY COUNTRY”
Read more about Garry Davis   NY Times
May 25, 1963
Leaders of 32 African nations met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to set up the Organization of African Unity (OAU), giving them a united voice for the first time in the continent’s history. The primary aim of the OAU was to end European colonial control in the countries where it still existed at the time: Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South Africa, Mozambique and Angola.

OAU flag
Read more 
May 25, 1986

An estimated 7 million Americans participated in Hands Across America, forming a line across the country from Los Angeles to New York to raise public awareness of the issues of hunger and homelessness in the U.S. Participants paid ten dollars [almost $20 in 2009] to reserve their place in line; the proceeds were donated to local charities to feed the hungry and help the homeless.
May 25, 2003
Four activists, members of the Catholic Worker movement and known as “Riverside Ploughshares,” were arrested for pouring blood and hammering on the USS Philippine Sea’s Tomahawk cruise missile hatches. The ship was visiting New York City for the annual “Fleet Week.”
“With hammers we have initiated the process of disarming this battle ship, of transforming this carrier of mass destruction into a vessel for peace…”
pouring blood and hammering..
Details of the Riverside Ploughshares action 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may25

Trump Administration Must Republish Harvard Doctors’ Studies (1)

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/trump-administration-must-republish-harvard-doctors-studies

May 23, 2025, 3:13 PM EDT; Updated: May 23, 2025, 3:35 PM EDT
Allie Reed

Allie Reed
Correspondent

A large transgender flag with signatures and messages during a protest.
Photographer: Manaure Quintero/Bloomberg

The Trump administration must republish two Harvard Medical School professors’ papers it censored because they contained words related to gender ideology, a federal judge ruled Friday.

“The plaintiffs are likely to succeed in proving that the removal of their articles was a textbook example of viewpoint discrimination by the defendants in violation of the First Amendment,” Judge Leo Sorokin wrote for the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

The US Department of Health and Human Services took down peer-reviewed articles by doctors Gordon Schiff and Celeste Royce from the now-inactive Patient Safety Network website, run by the HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

PSNet said the articles were taken down in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order directing agencies to remove content that promotes “gender ideology.” Schiff’s article, on suicide risk assessment, and Royce’s, on endometriosis, both referenced transgender people.

“This is a flagrant violation of the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights as private speakers on a limited public forum,” Sorokin wrote.

The government can only restrict speech on a limited public forum like PSNet in a way that is reasonable and viewpoint neutral, the order said, and the administration’s restrictions were not.

Sorokin said it is not within his discretion “to evaluate the wisdom of restricting access to peer-reviewed scientific information that enhances patient safety by fostering more informed and timely diagnostic care—or of eliminating entirely a free, online repository of patient-safety resources accessed each year by thousands of medical professionals seeking to provide better, safer care to their patients in the United States. Those are matters for the political branches of government to decide.”

The preliminary injunction applies to Schiff and Royce’s articles, as well as other content removed from PSNet in a similar manner.

The case is Schiff v. U.S. Office of Personnel Mgmt., D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10595, preliminary injunction order 5/23/25.

(Updates throughout.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Allie Reed in Boston at areed@bloombergindustry.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alex Clearfield at aclearfield@bloombergindustry.com

U.S. citizen with REAL ID handcuffed and held in immigration raid before being released

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-citizen-immigration-raid-real-id-handcuffed-alabama-rcna208794

The man told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him.

By Suzanne Gamboa

A U.S.-born citizen who was wrestled into the dirt, handcuffed and detained in a vehicle as part of an immigration raid had a REAL ID on him that was dismissed as fake, the man’s cousin said Friday.

Video of the arrest, aired by Noticias Telemundo, showed authorities grabbing Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, while at a job site in Foley, Alabama, on Wednesday and bending his arms behind him. Someone off-camera can be heard yelling, “He’s a citizen.”

Garcia told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him. REAL ID is the identification U.S. citizens are required by law to have in order to travel through airports and enter federal buildings. It is considered a higher security form of identification.

“Apparently a REAL ID is not valid anymore. He has a REAL ID,” his cousin Shelah Venegas said. “We all made sure we have the REAL ID and went through the protocols the administration is asking for. … He has his REAL ID and then they see him and I guess because his English isn’t fluent and/or because he’s brown it’s fake, it’s not real.”

Garcia had told Noticias Telemundo that “they grabbed me real bad” and the handcuffs were placed “very hard” on him.

Garcia said he was released from the vehicle where he was held after he gave the arresting officials his Social Security number, which showed he is a U.S. citizen.

The arrest has left Garcia, who was born in Florida, shaken, particularly because the officers also arrested and detained his brother, who is not in the country legally, Venegas said. She added that Garcia lived with his brother. Their parents are from Mexico.

Leonardo Garcia Venegas.
Leonardo Garcia Venegas.Telemundo

“He was actually pretty sore when he got back,” Venegas said of Garcia. “He said his arms were hurting and his hands. His wrists, you could see where he had all the marks from the handcuffs. … The way they put him on the ground, his knees also were hurting.”

She said they have been trying to find a lawyer but local ones have told them that it is nearly impossible to sue a federal agent. It is not clear from the video whether the authorities were federal immigration agents or local law enforcement carrying out enforcement duties.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to NBC News that Garcia interfered with an arrest during a targeted worksite operation.

“He physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands,” said Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary. “Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”

The response did not address the dismissal of Garcia’s identification.

Garcia denied that he interrupted an arrest. He told NBC News that he was trying to take out his phone when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent took it and threw it to the ground and then an agent began grabbing him.

Venegas said Garcia’s brother has signed deportation papers because the family didn’t want him detained “forever” as they’ve seen happen to another family member, who was held for months in a Louisiana detention center.

“It’s inhumane, what they are doing to our people. They are treating them as if they were murderers,” she said.

Venegas said the immigration arrests are creating repercussions among Hispanics, even among U.S. citizens.

“It’s about race now. It’s not about whether you are here legally or not,” she said.

Her family owns a fairly large contracting company, she said, “and a lot of the people that work with us are not working. … They are refusing to go to work. They said they are not going to go until this stuff calms down.”

Venegas added that the majority of her family is self-employed and “we do the same thing every other citizen does.”

“It’s just insane we can’t be different, the color that we are. We contribute to this country the same way every other citizen does with their taxes,” she said. “But we have to be the ones that every time we go to work, we are going to be scared that we’re going to get discriminated.”

“I think about my family,” she said. “Even though a lot of them are citizens, I think about how we all work in the same area in construction and they can’t sit out there because they could literally get harassed or attacked the way my cousin did.”