The Trump administration has made an aggressive push to add the president’s name to buildings, battleships, money and government websites.
President Donald Trump is physically leaving his mark on Washington and beyond, more so than any other president in modern U.S. history.Andrew Harnik / Getty Images file
The federal government is undergoing an unprecedented presidential branding makeover, with Donald Trump’s name being added to everything from buildings and battleships to a drug website and a park pass.
While Trump has had roads and even an airport named after him since winning a second term in office, his administration has initiated a series of actions to imprint his name and likeness on the federal government well beyond internal documents and communications.
The branding is in stark contrast to prior presidencies, including Trump’s first term, when the largest branding controversy involved having his name added to Covid relief checks during an election year.
Here’s a look at all the places and items where the administration has added Trump’s name during his second term.
Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace
The U.S. Institute of Peace headquarters in Washington last year.Alex Kent / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
The first federal building to be named after a sitting U.S. president was the U.S. Institute of Peace headquarters in downtown Washington in December 2025. The agency was named by Congress when it was established through legislation in 1984.
The renaming was carried out by the State Department.
“President Trump will be remembered by history as the President of Peace. It’s time our State Department display that,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on social media on Dec. 3, 2025.
The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts
The Kennedy Center in Washington last year.Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
About two weeks after the Institute of Peace renaming, the president’s handpicked board at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts voted to add his name to the storied performance venue as well.
“The unanimous vote recognizes that the current Chairman saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction,” a spokesperson for the center said at the time.
Democrats and some Kennedy family members say the name change is illegal, since the center was established as a living memorial to Kennedy. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, who’s an ex officio member of the board, filed a suit challenging the change. The case is still in litigation.
Trump-class battleships
“Trump-class” battleships were announced at Mar-a-Lago last year.Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images file
Also in December, then-Navy Secretary John Phelan unveiled “Trump-class” warships during an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The “Trump-class battleships,” including a vessel dubbed the USS Defiant, will be “the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans,” Phelan said.
“Hopefully we never have to use them, but there will never be anything built like these,” Trump said at the event.
The Trump gold card
President Donald Trump displayed a “Trump gold card” visa aboard Air Force One last year.Mandel Ngan / AFP – Getty Images file
The president unveiled his “Trump gold card” visa in December. Foreign nationals can pay $1 million to obtain the card, which enables them to legally live and work in the U.S. once they’re approved.
It’s “the green card on steroids,” Trump said as he displayed the card at the White House. He said companies can buy the gold cards for students so they can stay in the country instead of being “shipped out” after graduation.
As of late April, only one person has been approved for the card, The Associated Press reported.
Trump coins
Designs for Semiquincentennial gold coins featuring President Trump.Treasury United States Mint
In March, a federal commission consisting solely of Trump-appointed members approved a 24-carat commemorative gold coin depicting the president in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary.
The design approved by the Commission of Fine Arts features an image of Trump in the Oval Office on one side and a bald eagle on the other. The coin needs to be approved by the Treasury Department, which has already announced plans to release a separate $1 coin featuring the president as part of the anniversary celebration.
Trump dollar bills
The President boarding Air Force One with a $50 bill sticking out of his pocket last year.Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images file
The Treasury Department announced in March it would be adding Trump’s signature to “future paper currency” as another part of the country’s 250th anniversary.
“There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in his announcement.
Paper currency typically only bears the signature of the treasury secretary and treasurer, and has never featured that of a sitting president.
Trump passports
The State Department will be releasing a limited series of U.S. passports featuring an image of President Trump.U.S. State Dept.
The State Department announced in April that it would be issuing a limited number of U.S. passports with a large image of Trump on the inside cover as part of the 250th celebration as well.
Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that the “new patriotic passport design provides yet another great way Americans can join in the spectacular celebrations for America’s 250th birthday.”
Trump national park pass
The Interior Department revealed in November that it was featuring Trump and George Washington on the front of its annual park pass, citing the 250th anniversary.
That move led to a lawsuit from an environmental group, alleging the department violated a 2004 law requiring the pass to carry a picture by the winner of an annual photo contest. The winner for this year had been image of Glacier National Park in Montana.
Trump banners
The Department of Justice headquarters in Washington earlier this year.Brendan Smialowski / AFP – Getty Images
Large banners of Trump have been hung from the Justice, Agriculture and Labor departments.
“We are proud at this Department of Justice to celebrate 250 years of our great country and our historic work to make America safe again at President Trump’s direction,” a DOJ spokesperson said when the banner was hung in February.
TrumpIRA.gov
Trump issued an executive order in April directing the Treasury Department to launch a new website called TrumpIRA.gov.
A “Trump Accounts” event in Washington in January.Win McNamee / Getty Images file
The Trump administration is launching new savings accounts for children this summer called Trump Accounts.
Created under the “big, beautiful bill,” Trump Accounts are tax-advantaged investment accounts for children under 18. Babies born from Jan. 1, 2025, to Dec. 31, 2028, will get $1,000 from the Treasury Department to kick-start their accounts.
“This is something that’s so special,” Trump said at his State of the Union speech in February.
TrumpRx.gov
The launch of “TrumpRx.gov”, which the adminstration said would help to lower prescription drug prices, at the White House in February.Nathan Howard / Getty Images file
In February, the administration launched TrumpRx.gov, a self-pay prescription drug website. It offers coupons that people can take to the pharmacy where they fill their prescriptions.
“You’re going to save a fortune,” Trump said at the news conference launching the site. “And this is also so good for overall healthcare.”
I love this video. John Fugelsang is a wonderful person to elaborate on the bible and he does so as a follower of Jesus, not Paul or the Old Testament. His mother was a nun and his father was a monk and the way he describes his father wearing his robes is as the Christian jedi of Flatbush. He explains how those using the bible to attack or bash others including the LGBTQ+ are not following Jesus that they are following Paul. He explains clearly how Jesus brought a new covenant for the people doing away with the old one in Leviticus. He explained how those using the bible to bash others and not feed & clothe the stranger/ immigrant are totally against what Jesus preached. He also mentioned how those trying to force the Old Testament of the bible in schools never want the words of Jesus hung in classrooms in public schools, they never want the sermon on the mount posted on the walls. Those kind of people only want authoritarian laws or do and dont do pushed on kids. Enjoy the video, I listen to him on The Daily Beans (news with swearing) friday newscast and his Sirius talk show. Hugs
As Congress finalizes its funding for fiscal year 2027, Republicans are attempting to include five anti-LGBTQ riders in the National Security and Department of State Appropriations Act.
A rider is an unrelated provision tacked onto a bill that must pass — in this instance, the bill provides funding for national security policy and for the State Department.
The riders range from restricting Pride flags in federal buildings to banning transgender healthcare, but all aim to limit the visibility and rights of LGBTQ Americans.
Section 7067(a) prohibits Pride flags from being flown over federal buildings.
Section 7067(c) restricts the United States’ ability to appoint special envoys, representatives, or coordinators unless expressly authorized by Congress. These roles have historically been used to promote U.S. interests in international forums — including advancing human and LGBTQ and intersex rights and other policy priorities. The change would halt what the Congressional Equality Caucus describes as providing “critical expertise to U.S. foreign policy and leadership abroad.”
Section 7067(d) reinforces multiple anti-equality executive orders signed by President Donald Trump, effectively requiring that foreign assistance funded by the United States comply with those orders. This includes rescinding federal contractor nondiscrimination protections, including for LGBTQ people.
Section 7067(e) prohibits funding for any organization that provides or promotes medically necessary healthcare for trans people or “promotes transgenderism” — effectively banning funds for organizations that recognize trans people exist. This is despite the practice of gender-affirming care being supported by nearly every major medical association.
Section 7067(g) reinforces two global gag rules put forward by the Trump-Vance administration. One is the Trans Global Gag Rule, which prohibits foreign assistance funding for organizations that acknowledge the existence of trans people or advocate for nondiscrimination protections for them, among other activities. The second is the DEI Global Gag Rule, which prohibits foreign assistance funding for organizations that engage in efforts to address the ongoing effects of racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry outside the United States.
The global gag rule has its roots in anti-abortion policy introduced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, when the 40th president barred foreign organizations receiving U.S. global health assistance from providing information, referrals, or services for legal abortion, or from advocating for access to abortion services in their own countries. Planned Parenthood notes that the policy also affects programs beyond abortion, including efforts to expand access to contraception, prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, combat malaria, and improve maternal and child health.
If organizations funded by the State Department engage in these activities, they could lose funding.
This anti-LGBTQ push aligns with broader actions from the Trump-Vance administration since the start of Trump’s second term, which have focused on restricting human rights — particularly those of trans Americans.
The House Appropriations Committee is responsible for drafting the appropriations legislation. U.S. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) serves as chair, with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) as ranking member. The committee includes 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats.
For FY27 appropriations, Congress is supposed to pass and have the president sign the funding bills by Sept. 30, 2026.
In a 6-3 decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district, ruling it an unconstitutional gerrymander. Immediately, Louisiana conservatives started redrawing the state’s congressional districts, without any of them being majority Black. Now, election maps from local school districts to state legislatures to Congress will be redrawn to undermine minority representation.
Louisiana is now planning to postpone the state’s May 16 primary, in which many people have already voted, so it can redraw the congressional maps. And just announced early this evening, Alabama and Tennessee will also be redrawing their congressional maps before the midterms. They won’t be the last.
Don’t be surprised if Republicans don’t create a red sweep of congressional districts across the South on Election Day.
The Voting Rights Act was created to prohibit discrimination in American voting and was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. The act ended things like literacy tests for minorities before they could be allowed to vote. It increased voter turnout among black Americans. According to the National Archives, around 250,000 new Black voters registered to vote by the end of 1965. Nine out of 13 Southern states had more than 50 percent of African Americans registered to vote by the end of 1966. What the Supreme Court did on Wednesday was to encourage discrimination in American voting.
The conservative Supreme Court has been chipping away at the Voting Rights Act for years. The court issued a ruling in 2013 that killed federal oversight of voting rules in nine states, and led to over 1,000 closings of voting precincts, mostly in Black districts. Studies years later show that it increased the racial turnout gap, translating to hundreds of thousands of uncast ballots by voters of color in the 2022 election. Remember the 2013 ruling the next time you hear a MAGAt brag about Trump sweeping all of the swing states in 2024.
In 2021, the court ruled that fears of election fraud could justify new election rules without evidence that any fraud had occurred in the past, or that new rules created by Republicans in the aftermath of Donald Trump losing the 2020 election would make elections safer.
Now the court has ruled that the majority-minority congressional districts created with the intent of ensuring minority voters could elect candidates of their choice were unconstitutional. This will lead to states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and South Carolina, etc, having congressional delegations without any Black members.
Samuel Alito wrote the conservative court’s majority decision and said that the gerrymandered district that gave the state its second Black congressional representative was unconstitutional. The six conservatives say that this congressional district was discriminating.
The Civil Rights Act required Southern states with a history of voter discrimination to obtain federal approval before making changes to their voting laws. Now, that’s gone. Yeehaw states will now be free to discriminate in their elections without the burden of the federal government stopping them.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act outlaws any voting practice that creates hurdles to voters “on account of race or color.” Technically, that provision has not been eliminated, but as Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, it leaves the provision “all but a dead letter.” She said the bar to show intentional discrimination is “an almost insurmountable barrier for challenges to any voting rights issues to prove discrimination.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton called the high court’s decision a “bullet in the heart of the voting rights movement, and said in a statement, “The Supreme Court has not just weakened a law, it has humiliated and dismantled the life’s work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and every man and woman who marched, bled, and died for Black Americans to have an equal voice at the ballot box.” It’s like the Roberts Court has just burned down the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Cliff Albright, a co-founder of the group Black Voters Matter, said Wednesday’s ruling “means that you have entire communities that can go without having representation. It is literally throwing us back to the Jim Crow era unapologetically, and that’s not exaggeration.”
Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington office, said the court’s steady work to erode the Voting Rights Act, culminating in Wednesday’s decision, amounted to “burying it without the funeral.”
Maria Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, said the decision will allow more aggressive “cracking and packing” of populations to dilute their votes, “not just in congressional districts but also in state legislatures, county commissions, school boards, and city councils.”
Marc Morial, National Urban League president and CEO, said, “This decision is a continuation of a frontal assault on the gains of the Civil Rights Movement that began in 1954 with the Brown versus Board of Education decision.
Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project pointedout that a loss of representation, especially in state legislatures and Congress, will translate into minority communities losing a voice on issues that matter to them, such as healthcare, education and needed public works upgrades, and said, “States can now point to partisan objectives to justify maps that strip voters of color of representation, and federal courts will have little basis to intervene.”
Shalela Dowdy, an Alabama resident who was a plaintiff in a lawsuit that resulted in the creation of a new Alabama district in 2023, said, “Putting it in the hands of the states on this level is dangerous. There’s just been a history of the states not doing the right thing based off their state population.”
Stupid and racist, conservatives, like Gary McCoyandMargolis & Cox, love to claim that rules and laws that create black congressional districts, and the Civil Rights Act itself, are racist. But what they are doing is eliminating black representation while creating more for whites.
The Supreme Court has once again taken our nation backward. And again, this is the fault of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, who broke every rule and norm they could to pack the court with their troglodytes, even by stealing appointments from Democratic presidents. This court has actually taken away rights from Americans, like the guarantee of a woman’s right to choose.
And again, the court is doing everything it can to make it much more difficult to defeat Republicans.
Republicans love to claim that they’re the party that passed the Voting Rights Act. While not technically true, it could not have passed without Republican support. But now, the Republican Party is the one to kill the Voting Rights Act.
Donald Trump’s legacy will not be ballrooms, arches, his face on coins, passports, and his name on federal structures; it will be creating the court that killed democracy.
Crows: My Neighbourhood is full of crows. While you do find them in cornfields, they are also an urban bird. They also have the ability to mimic, like a parrot or a mynah. They are extremely intelligent. I like them. My friend and cartooning colleague Chris Britt creates paintings of crows. I texted him once to tell him that I just saw a murder outside my house. On some days, I have very large and loud murders. (snip-MORE)
Over 50 cities, mostly European, have either restricted or tabled motions to introduce formal limitations on the advertisement of polluting products and services. Some – including several Dutch municipalities, Stockholm, Edinburgh and Sydney – have banned them altogether.
A ban on advertising of fossil fuels and meat products in public spaces came into effect on Friday in Amsterdam, marking the first capital city in the world to introduce such a policy.
The city’s council passed a legally binding ban on ads for fossil fuels and meat products in a 27-17 vote in January. The ban spans high-carbon products and services like flights, petrol and diesel vehicles, gas heating contracts as well as meat products like fast-food burgers across all public spaces in the city, including on billdboards, public transport and in transit environments.
The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are the primary drivers of global warming as they trap heat in the atmosphere and raise Earth’s surface temperature. The meat industry is also responsible for a huge portion of global greenhouse gas emissions, and for nearly 60% of the food sector’s emissions. The global livestock industry alone is one of the world’s highest emitting sectors, estimated to be responsible for between 14-18% of total human-made greenhouse gas emissions.
“Advertising doesn’t just sell products; it grants social licence, shaping what we see as normal and acceptable,” said Andrea Mancuso, Community & Grants Manager at Creatives for Climate. Ahead of the vote in January, Creatives for Climate and local campaign group Reclame Fossielvrij (Fossil Free Advertising) coordinated an open letter backed by more than 100 creatives and industry leaders urging Amsterdam’s council members to fulfill its 2020 commitment to ban fossil fuels and meat ads in the city.
“Promoting fossil fuels directly undermines climate action and locks in behaviour we know must change. By becoming the first capital to legally ban fossil fuel and meat advertising, Amsterdam is drawing a clear line; and setting a global standard,” said Mancuso. (snip-MORE)
As you know, by now, Todd, Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and current acting Attorney General, is a political hack.
If you had read that someone was going to prison in another country for posting an image of seashells that spelled out 8647, you would think that it was from an authoritarian state. If this were North Korea, would James Comey be put to death by anti-aircraft fire?
Pam Bondi, Blanche’s predecessor, was fired for what many believe was for being too slow to prosecute Donald Trump’s enemies. She had already indicted James Comey once before, which was basically laughed out of court, and never had even the slightest possibility of ever going to trial.
Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) fell by more than 3 million people (8 percent) nationwide between July 2025 and January 2026. The drop followed the enactment of H.R.1, the Republican megabill that made unprecedented cuts to the program. SNAP typically expands to meet need and then shrinks when economic conditions improve. It took over three years for the caseload to drop by over 3 million people (or 7 percent) between its peak in December 2012 and February 2016, during the recovery following the Great Recession.
But economic conditions haven’t been improving as the number of people receiving SNAP has plummeted in recent months, representing the sharpest decline in decades. The last time there was such a steep decrease in participation in such a short period of time (other than temporary spikes following natural disasters) was nearly three decades ago, after Congress enacted very deep cuts to SNAP (then the Food Stamp Program) in 1996. SNAP participation dropped by 9.4 percent (2.2 million people) in the six months between March and September 1997.
SNAP participation has fallen in every state and in some, the drop is particularly alarming. (snip-MORE)
(Click the headline right up there for more info, or scroll down for yet more links and info)
The next National Day of Action is right around the corner, May Day, Friday, May 1st.
The national call is for no business as usual. This will look different in different places. In some locations, it will mean no work, no school, and no shopping. (snip)
This May Day, we’re flexing our economic power as workers, students, and everyday people to send a clear message to the Trump regime: we will not do business as usual while they trample our rights, terrorize our communities, and drag us into a senseless war in Iran.
Note: A core principle behind all May Day events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events. No weapons are permitted under any circumstances. (snip)
It’s time for the conditions and standard of living that the working class deserves. We’re beginning a year of action on May 1st with a series of protests, strikes, and other direct action opportunities.
MAY 1 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTIONS:
THRIVING WAGES The working class people have been taken advantage of for far too long! Join us as we mobilize to create worldwide plans of action for THRIVING WAGES. We are demanding at least $20/hr as well as better union laws, the ease of information for organizing co-ops, and better working conditions. But wait, there’s more! We are also demanding mandatory PTO, paternal leave, and good benefits.
Why do we want these demands? Inflation over the last year has risen over 7% and continues to climb. Rents and housing costs have skyrocketed. The costs of consumer goods as greatly increased. Yet corporations and billionaires have doubled their wealth in 2 years as the working class has struggled during a pandemic that has killed over 850,000 Americans and counting. (snip-MORE)
May 1, 1886 May Day was called Emancipation Day in 1886 when 340,000 went on strike (though it was Saturday it was a regular day of work) in Chicago for the 8-hour workday.
May 1, 1890 May Day labor demonstrations spread to thirteen other countries; 30,000 marched in Chicago as the newly prominent American Federation of Labor threw its weight behind the 8-hour day campaign.
May 1, 1933 Dorothy Day The Catholic Worker newspaper was founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Dorothy Day said, “God meant things to be much easier than we have made them,” and Peter Maurin wanted to build a society “where it is easier for people to be good.” Peter Maurin
May 1, 1948 Senator Glen Hearst Taylor (D-Idaho) was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked for “Negroes” rather than using the “whites only” door, and convicted of disorderly conduct. Taylor was the Progressive Party candidate for Vice President, running mate of Henry Wallace. He was in Birmingham to address the Southern Negro Youth Congress.
May 1, 1965 Second Factory for Peace opened in Onllwyn, Dulais Valley, in south Wales, employing disabled miners. Tom McAlpine, active in the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, and a supporter of cooperatives and industrial democracy, established Rowen Engineering in both Wales and Glasgow, Scotland.
May 1, 1967 Soviet youths openly defied police and danced the twist in Moscow’s Red Square during May Day celebrations. In the early ‘60s the Twist had been banned in Buffalo, New York, and Tampa, Florida. The religious right claimed the Twist was actually a pagan fertility dance. Are you old enough to remember Chubby Checker? — May 1, 1971 Five days of anti-war May Day protests began in Washington, D.C., resulting in over 14,000 arrests—the largest mass civil disobedience in U.S. history. — May 1, 1986
One million South Africans demonstrated their opposition to apartheid in a strike organized by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
So, some of us don’t get around much anymore. Some of us may be somehow constrained to go to work. Some of us have waited all week to buy a few needed groceries. Maybe we wanted to participate, but just forgot and now it’s tomorrow, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to do it. How can we participate? Well, click onto any or all of these links to find out. There is no fault or fail in not being able to do the primary actions, but there are other ways to participate, and even if we don’t find a way, we can certainly work toward being able to observe a personal May Day now and then on our own. We can simplify, and always work to keep our spending where it will be most useful to community. And maybe we can watch someone else’s kids or pets while they go and do.Benefitting our communities while not feeding the already-wealthy with our commerce, labor, and dollars will benefit people, and is the objective. Above this graf are resources. May Day is tomorrow. Let’s do all we can!
Some good news for a change. An attempt to stop the ever increasing discrimination and white supremacy push by haters, bigots, and racists. The idea of white only communities had long been something of the past only now with constant push from racists making a come back at the same time as the SCOTUS is on a break neck pace to roll back minorities civil rights while enshrining Christian white privilege over the rights of any other group into laws. I have heard repeatedly the phrase “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” however that says nothing about fairness or equality. I don’t understand the hate, bigotry, or racism or why a majority party in the US, along with the majority of the SCOTUS appointed by such people endorse those harmful feelings / ideas but I know we must resist and fight against them as was done in the past. We can not let big moneied instrests fuel the destruction of what the US could be, a progressive country where the government works for the entire public and minorities have equality, tolerance, and acceptance under law in a society where people are free to think what they wish or have a faith that harms no one but can not use those thoughts / ideas to harass or cause harm to others. Hugs
Lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House passed legislation on Tuesday that would add the commonwealth to the growing list of states that have enshrined nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals into state law – a vote that came despite Republican concerns that the bill would jeopardize fairness in women’s sports and infringe upon religious liberties.
The House voted 101-100 on Tuesday to pass House Bill 2103, which would make it unlawful under the state’s Human Relations Act for someone to be denied housing, employment or access to public accommodations based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The legislation sparked a contentious debate on the House floor over whether the nondiscrimination protections are written in a way that would allow transgender women to access women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, and that would also infringe upon religious liberties.
Proponents of the bill argued that the legislation is ultimately about fairness and the protection of LGBTQ Pennsylvanians from discrimination.
“Today, at its core, is about fairness – the right to exist as your full self without fear that you’ll lose your job or your apartment,” said Democratic state Rep. Jessica Benham, who said she has experienced discrimination firsthand as a queer woman. “I believe that Pennsylvania is better when it’s fairer, and I know that most Pennsylvanians believe that, too.”
Democratic state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, the prime sponsor of the Fairness Act in the state House, said bills seeking to enshrine nondiscrimination protections into state law have been routinely introduced because LGBTQ Pennsylvanians have been experiencing discrimination firsthand.
“If you want to understand why we’ve offered this bill, why it has been offered and reintroduced for 20-plus years, it is because Pennsylvanians are experiencing this discrimination and they want it to end,” he said. “Pennsylvanians are recognizing that they don’t have full access to their God-given inalienable right to be treated with dignity and respect – to have full access to this American Dream.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign, 23 states currently have laws on the books that prohibit housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while 22 states have laws that outlaw discrimination pertaining to public accommodations.
Republican lawmakers feared that the definitions included in the bill are too broad and that they could infringe upon religious beliefs.
Many of the arguments against the bill centered on the definition of public accommodations and whether that definition would extend to bathrooms and locker rooms in schools, as well as to girls’ sports teams. “The definition of gender identity or expression … most definitely means that if you identify as a female, you get to get on a female sports field,” said GOP state Rep. Craig Williams. “If the whole point here is to protect people in special classes, we just denigrated all young women.”
“This bill shifts power away from elected representatives and places it in the hands of judges who will decide over time how far these definitions reach,” state Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa said in remarks on the House floor. “And while that plays out, it will not be large institutions that carry the burden, it will be the small business owners, it will be the faith-based organizations, it will be the individuals, people of faith, forced to choose between their beliefs and the threat of litigation.”
“We’ve heard these arguments before,” noted GOP state Rep. Scott Barger. “They may be subtle, they may be emotional, but we reject them because we know that what you’re really doing is weaponizing degeneracy against our faith communities.”
Benham, in response to Barger, said: “As a queer woman, I know what it’s like to experience discrimination, to be told I’m ‘less than,’ that I’m a degenerate, that I am perverse – and treated like that too … I believe that both the right to be free from discrimination and to practice one’s religion can coexist.”
Democrats noted that the bill includes protections for religious liberty, stating that nothing in the bill shall be interpreted to require an individual or religious entity “to engage in conduct that constitutes a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion.”
Despite passing in previous legislative sessions with bipartisan support, the legislation was approved along party lines on Tuesday, with one Democrat, state Rep. Frank Burns, joining Republicans in opposing the bill.
Prior to being amended with the nondiscrimination language on Monday, the original version of HB 2103 sought to prohibit the development of white nationalist communities and housing developments by not allowing private clubs and members-only organizations to discriminate based on race or other protected classes.
The bill’s prime sponsor, Democratic state Rep. Ben Waxman, said he introduced the bill after an organization called Return to the Land created a “whites only community” in Arkansas, with plans to build additional locations.
Waxman said Tuesday that the amended version of his bill “further protects people all over this Commonwealth.”
“I’m so thrilled that it’s a part of my bill,” he said.
With the SCOTUS overturning the usefulness of the voting rights act to protect minority voters and the push by Project 2025 to make the US an apartheid nation of white male dominated society non-whites across the entire US are suffering. Ice is targeting even citizens who are nonwhite. The white supremacists are so worried that they won’t be a powerful majority in the near future that they are doing everything possible to cement the dominance of the white people, specifically white males. It is like these white men are afraid that women and non-white people will treat them the way the white supremacists treat minorities now. Hugs
The change didn’t happen overnight in one historic Southern town, but it felt like it. It started with fewer farm engines turning over at dawn and a sudden, sharp decline in local Black farmers’ payrolls in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, as white men with thick accents were tapped to work the local fields, earning significantly higher wages than the residents they replaced.
In Mound Bayou—about two hours north of Jackson—the town’s soil carries a historic weight that few other places in America can claim. Founded in 1887 by former slaves and dubbed the “Jewel of the Delta,” the largest segregated African American town was a safe haven during the Jim Crow era where residents not only enjoyed independence, they governed themselves.
The town boasted thriving Black-owned businesses, the Taborian Hospital and the Bank of Mound Bayou, the only surviving historic commercial building in the Mississippi Delta.
Then came the newcomers. Under the federal H-2A via program, foreigners are supposed to be a last resort meant to fill seasonal gaps in the American workforce when domestic workers are unavailable. But in Mound Bayou, residents say the last resort has become the first choice. The previous decade relied on a steady stream of Mexican labor, that is until the Trump administration cracked down on immigration.
Between 2024-2025, some 25,000 South Africans have come to work on American farms alone, according to The Clarion-Ledger. Agricultural firms claim a labor shortage justifies the shift, yet for the Black families who have lived and worked the land for centuries, the math doesn’t add up.
Mound Bayou, Mississippi Rogers Morris, far right, grows sweet potatoes, soybeans and vegetables on about 500 acres in Mound Bayou. He hires workers (left to rt) Dora Roberson, Brenda Seals and Charles Montgomery. Small black farms struggle as major portions of federal crop subsidies are given to large industrialized farms. Agricultural towns like Shelby and Mound Bayou suffer from poverty, crime and high unemployment. (Photo by Carol Guzy/The The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Locals condemn the sudden pivot to white South African crews as blatant discrimination and intentional displacement. Some residents allege they have had to train their foreign replacements before being fired.
“I see it around here, I see these guys when I go to Walmart. They are usually wearing short pants and they speak in Afrikaans to each other. It doesn’t make sense to me economically,” Herman Johnson Jr., director of the Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History said, The Clarion-Ledger reported.
He continued: “If you bring people in from another country to work on your farm and you’re paying them more, that means you have more going out from your pocket to them. A lot of things in a racial perspective that white supremacy does doesn’t make economic sense.”
Now, unemployment among Mound Bayou’s residents continues to soar, according to The Clarion-Ledger. While the H-2A program requires employers to prove they cannot find local workers before hiring internationally, critics allege misuse of this system—and they’re taking their complaints to court.
Five Black U.S. farmworkers from Mississippi sued Gregory Carr for allegedly discriminating against them in favor of white foreign workers and costing them thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, the Mississippi Center for Justice (MCJ) announced last May. In the federal lawsuit, they alleged Black farmhands were paid $10 while white South Africans earned more for the same work.
“The intentional underpayment and misclassification of Black farmworkers in favor of white foreign labor not only violates federal law but has become increasingly common in the Mississippi Delta, holding our communities back for generations and perpetuating the historical exploitation faced by Black agricultural workers in our community,” Kimberly Jones Merchant, President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Justice, said.
The May 2025 lawsuit is the ninth case filed by the Southern Migrant Legal Services (SMLS) and the MCJ challenging alleged discriminatory practices of farmers in Mississippi. The MCJ said previous cases were settled with significant wage recoveries for local workers.
Mound Bayou, Mississippi Rogers Morris grows sweet potatoes, soybeans and vegetables on about 500 acres in Mound Bayou. Small black farms struggle as major portions of federal crop subsidies are given to large industrialized farms. Agricultural towns like Shelby and Mound Bayou suffer from poverty, crime and high unemployment. (Photo by Carol Guzy/The The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“This case shows how the H-2A program can be manipulated to exclude and underpay Black American workers,” said Marion Delaney of SMLS. “Federal protections are only meaningful if we enforce them– and that’s exactly what our clients are demanding through this lawsuit.”
This guest is an immigration attorney with expertise in ICE tactics and in ICE detention. She dispels the misunderstanding and the myths created by the tRump administartion. These detentions are civil detentions not criminal and entering the country with out inspection is a class B misdemeanor. Another thing she mentions is the ever-increasing costs for detention which is currently $200 a day per detainee and there are over 70 thousand detainees. She gives a lot of other useful to know information including the brutality in the detention centers. For example they are taking detainees out in the Everglades and forcing them to stand with hands shackled in the hot sun being eaten by misketoes and bugs. They are putting people in “hot boxes” and leaving them there in the hot Florida sun with no water or medical treatment when they are let out. She describes many more examples. Hugs
Katie Blankenship, an immigration attorney from Sanctuary of the South, a grassroots legal services organization that provides critical, affordable legal defense to immigrant families affected by detention, deportation, and abuse, joins Sam to discuss abuses at the Alligator Alcatraz ICE detention center in Florida. To find resources or ways to help those targeted by ICE in your area you can visit Freedom for immigrants, American Immigration Council or visit the ACLU to find your local affiliate.
Scottie's Playtime 