Trump & Moms for Liberty open “snitch line” to report on pro-LGBTQ+ schools

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/02/trump-moms-for-liberty-open-snitch-line-to-report-on-pro-lgbtq-schools/

The quote below is only because they thought it would hand control over the schools to the republican religious haters like themselves.  They fought for and got the right of a small minority to force their opinion on the majority of parents.  They got the removal of books they hate and also forced in to the schools of their religion.   It did not matter if a majority of parents wanted their children to have access to these books it was only the haters parental rights that mattered, not other kids parents.  The progressive parents were not given the same authority that the republican religious haters were.  Hugs

Ironically, Moms for Liberty, a group that has advocated for local control over schools, is now complicit in handing that power to the federal government.

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A group of Moms for Liberty members

A group of Moms for Liberty members

The Trump administration’s weaponization of the Education Department continued apace on Thursday with the debut of what some are calling a “snitch line” — a website inviting parents, students and school staff to report “illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning.”

“The Department of Education (DOE) will utilize community submissions to identify potential areas for investigation,” the department notes.

The website was introduced in a press release by Moms for Liberty, the group behind efforts to purge LGBTQ+ content from school libraries and apparently a new partner in the DOE’s crackdown on school systems not falling in line with Trump’s DEI and “gender ideology” executive diktats.

“For years, parents have been begging schools to focus on teaching their kids practical skills like reading, writing, and math, instead of pushing critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies — but their concerns have been brushed off, mocked, or shut down entirely,” said Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of the group, which has been labelled an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Parents, now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools. This webpage demonstrates that President Trump’s Department of Education is putting power back in the hands of parents,” Justice added.

Ironically, Moms for Liberty, a group that has advocated for local control over schools, is now complicit in handing that power to the federal government.

Critics were aghast at the call for colleagues and kids to anonymously rat out anyone not falling in line with the rightwing ideology Trump is imposing from Washington.

“I believe Hitler had a program like this,” wrote Michael E. Mann, a scientist, author and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media.

I believe Hitler had a program like thiswww.salon.com/2025/02/27/m…

Michael E. Mann (@michaelemann.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T03:58:45.502Z

“Trump Education Department opens snitch line to rat out diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at local public schools,” wrote Gabe Ortíz, an editor at America’s Voice who focuses on immigration, LGBTQ+ and Latino issues.

“The fact that Trump’s — bigoted, extremist — effort to end diversity, inclusion, & equity in schools uses Moms for Liberty as its only validation tells you everything you need to know. The same Moms for Liberty that approvingly quoted Hitler & has deep ties to violent groups like the Proud Boys,” wrote Amy Spitalnick, CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

In 2023, Indiana Moms for Liberty chapter chair Paige Miller quoted Hitler on the cover of the group’s monthly newsletterThe Parent Brigade, in a chilling preview of Trump’s efforts at the Department of Education today.

“He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future,” the newsletter’s cover read, citing the Nazi leader.

Moms for Liberty’s Justice defended Miller, declaring, “I stand with that mom!

The DOE website’s launch follows a growing number of investigations undertaken by multiple departments targeting DEI and noncompliance with Trump’s “gender ideology” order.

The DOE’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating California and Minnesota schools. Maine is also the subject of a probe by the same office and the Department of Agriculture, recieving a threatening letter from the Attorney General Pam Bondi at the Department of Justice.

Another DOE probe targets San Jose State University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) for separate incidents involving trans athletes competing on a women’s or girls’ sports team under Biden-era rules.

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Disney Introduces Christian Character After Ditching Transgender Story

https://www.newsweek.com/disney-christian-character-transgender-story-laurie-win-lose-2037780

This is an important story even though it is an older one.  This shows how the rights constant badgering companies and using the idea of protecting the children, calling those who understand at LGBTQ+ children like to see themselves represented in an accepting world.  This shows how the rights not stop attacks on the rights of minorities over the last 6 years are working to erode the expectancy, tolerance, and the representation of these minorities.  The haters on the right are loud and very vocal, they give their opinion nonstop using incorrect misleading studies or lies.  We need to be just as loud and in your face to fight back.  Democrats need to start / return to defending the LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people. The democrats shrank back and hid letting the republicans loudly lie and misinform people.  The republicans spend 215 million attacking trans people in the presidential election.   Kamala Harris did not fight back, did not call out the adverts misinformation and lies, did not spend money attacking those ads.  She gave one lame response when directly asked about the trans ad attacks.  She minimized them and barely pushed back.   But notice it is an openly Christian character not one of the other religions.  Hugs

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By 

Live News Reporter
Disney is introducing an openly Christian character into its Pixar animated show Win or Lose shortly after a transgender storyline was pulled.

Newsweek has reached out to Disney via email outside of regular working hours for comment.

Why It Matters

The moves comes amid a wider cultural shift toward conservativism, in tandem with the beginning of President Donald Trump‘s second term in office.

Disney
The Disney logo forms part of a Disney Plus menu on a computer screen in Walpole, Massachusetts, on Nov. 13, 2019. AP Photo/Steven Senne, File

Disney has made moves to placate Trump, who previously branded the organization as “woke.” In December, Disney’s ABC News agreed to a $15 million settlement over a defamation lawsuit, marking a win for the president.

What to Know

The Win or Lose series is Pixar’s first-ever original long-form animated series. It follows the Pickles, a co-ed middle school softball team, throughout the week as they prepare for their upcoming championship game.

Each episode focuses on a different character and their life off the field, including “the insecure kids, their helicopter parents” and “even a lovesick umpire.” It premiered on Disney+ on February 19, 2025.

In the debut episode, the character of Laurie is introduced, and is openly Christian. This character begins her scene with the words, “heavenly father” and there is an angel cutout in her bedroom.”

In December, Deadline reported that Disney had cut “a few lines of dialogue” from an episode that referenced a character’s gender identity.

A spokesperson for Disney confirmed that the story arc was removed and provided the following statement to Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter: “When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”

This is the first openly Christian character to feature in a Disney film since 2007’s Bridge to Terabithia. The film features young adolescent children Jesse Aarons (played by Josh Hutcherson) and Leslie Burke (played by AnnaSophia Robb) , who in one scene attend church together, and discuss religion on the way home.

Trump and his allies have often been critical of Disney and what they describe as its “woke” policies. In a May 2023 social media post, Trump branded the entertainment juggernaut a “woke and disgusting shadow of its former self,” criticizing its move toward diverse casting in some of its recent movie remakes.

Following raging culture wars over such issues as LGBTQ+ rights and diversity, equity and inclusion, Disney appears to be tempering its approach towards inclusion.

An exclusive poll for Newsweek conducted by Redfield and Wilton Strategies in July found that 34 percent of viewers disapproved of Disney’s attempt to add more LGBTQ+ topics to its content.

Since returning to office, Trump has signed an order that rolled back transgender rights, emphasizing the importance of the issue to his agenda in his second term. Trump’s executive order declared that the federal government would recognize only two sexes: male and female.

What People Are Saying

Mark Mitchell of Rasmussen Reports on X: “Openly gay out. Openly Christian in!”

One social media user on X: “Again f*** Disney for removing the trans storyline from WIN OR LOSE, but so far it’s a great show.”

Another social media user on X: “Another week, another two incredible Win or Lose episodes. The way they show both the kid’s and parent’s struggles and perspectives is top-notch. The animation, the story, the voice acting, the music… it’s all PERFECT. The team behind this show is just brilliant.”

What’s Next

Episodes of Win or Lose are being released each week up until March 12.

A second season of the show has not yet been announced.

 

How authoritarians use public education to control the “truth”

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/01/how-authoritarians-use-public-education-to-control-the-truth/

The two quotes from the article I added just below what I am writing give away the Fundamentalist Christian republican’s goal, which is to make those people they disagree with, that they hate, disappear from society.  Their goal by taking LGBTQ+ media out of schools is to make it appear that all kids are straight and cis.  No one can be different from them or their beliefs.  Everyone must walk lockstep with them, their way is the only way people can live.  Holy dictators.  Their goal is to erase anyone different from them from the public view, from society.  We must not let them do that.  Hugs

The institutionalization of a hegemonic norm functions to legitimize what can be said, who has the authority to speak and be heard, and what is authorized as the truth.

Former President Donald Trump speaks about border security at a rally at Million Air, a private airplane terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Friday October 25, 2024.

Former President Donald Trump speaks about border security at a rally at Million Air, a private airplane terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Friday October 25, 2024.

“When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.” -Adrienne Rich

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could possibly perpetuate the “psychic disequilibrium” that Adrienne Rich laments.

The case arose from conflicts between those in favor of teaching LGBTQ+ topics in schools and those who believe in so-called parents’ rights on religious grounds when it comes to the education of their children. The case stems from some parents’ concerns about a policy sanctioned by the Montgomery County Board of Education requiring new elementary school storybooks covering LGBTQ+ topics that could be read in class.

One of the contested books is titled “Pride Puppy!” and is about a puppy who gets lost in the crowd during an LGBTQ+ Pride parade.

When the policy first passed, parents could opt their children out of the curriculum, but later, the board reversed that part. In this demographically diverse school district, some Christian and Muslim parents, in particular, objected. I wonder, though, whether they think parents should be allowed to opt their children out of reading age-appropriate stories about Jewish or Asian people, for example.

This case harkens back to one of the earlier curricular programs created in 1991 by the New York City Board of Education. The Children of the Rainbow Curriculum was introduced to first-grade teachers to “assist with teaching about multicultural social issues.” The board developed the program to counter the increase in hate crimes directed against members of marginalized communities.

The curriculum contained 443 pages of suggested readings, activities, and other lectures, all designed to help teachers promote academic and social skills while teaching about diversity.

Unfortunately, the section on families that covered LGBTQ+ people incited enormous criticism. Some opponents argued that it promoted sex and sodomy to kids.

The battle gained significant publicity, and the New York City Department of Education ultimately voted against accepting the entire Children of the Rainbow Curriculum.

And the moments of psychic disequilibrium continued.

Surplus Repression & Anti-Knowing

Of course, parents and other adults have the inherent responsibility of protecting young people from harming themselves and being harmed by others and of teaching them how to live and function in society within our ever-changing global community.

In Freudian terms, we must develop a balance between the individual’s unrestrained instinctual drives and that person’s restraints (repression) on these drives in the service of maintaining society (civilization) and sustaining the life of the individual.

Nonetheless, we must establish a line demarcating protection from control, teaching from oppression, and minimal and fundamental repression from what Herbert Marcuse terms “surplus repression” (that which goes over and beyond what is necessary for the protection of the individual and the smooth functioning of society and enters into the realm of domination, control, and oppression).

Authorizing the “truth”

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall.

Paul Simon laments in his song “Kodachrome” that his education consisted of neutralizing, meaningless content. “Everything looks worse in black and white,” he sang of the whitewashing of his lessons.

Metaphorically, most schools teach only in black and white, whereas most students want the array of colors Paul Simon wished for: “Those nice bright colors: the greens of summers, makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah.”

Unfortunately, Simon’s educational system took his Kodachrome away: the camera film that captured the full spectrum of the rainbow from the brightest reds, oranges, and yellows, to the darkest blues and browns and deepest purples.

Schools across the nation are attempting to function amidst increased book banning and control of course content by state legislatures under the false flag of “parental rights.” It’s all part of the current tide of right-wing takeovers of educational systems.

People on the political right transform terms like “woke” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” into hate-filled and frightening epithets. In the process, they have driven us away from the underlying purpose of education.

The term “education” is derived from two Latin roots: “e,” meaning “out of,” and “ducere,” meaning “to lead” or “to draw.”

In its original translation and intent, education includes the process of drawing knowledge out of the student or leading the student toward knowledge. This is in contrast to the placing or depositing information into what some educators perceive as the students’ waiting and docile minds, or what the Brazilian philosopher and educator Paulo Reglus Neves Freire termed “the banking system of education.”

Surrounding forces – religion, parenting, schooling, and other types of socialization – often inhibit the maintenance of critical thinking facilities in young and old alike.

Let us take, for example, the Biblical warning in Genesis 2: 16-17, related to the story of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’”

The apples on that tree represent knowledge. When eaten, this “forbidden fruit” unlocks levels of knowing that can more than overturn the apple cart. But more importantly, it can give the knower a full-color spectrum of the workings of the world. We are encouraged, nonetheless, to think only in the black and white determined by those in power.

Figures like the biblical Eve and Greek Pandora, women, are blamed for the downfall of “man.” In fact, they were strong women who refused to be trapped under the thumbs of the patriarchy.

Additionally, the ancient Greek legend of Prometheus casts a cautionary tale on the gifting of knowledge. The chief of the gods, Zeus, punished him for offering mortals the best of the sections from a slaughtered cow while giving the gods the remaining fat and bones.

After an infuriated Zeus took back fire from humanity, Prometheus stole and returned it to mortals, thus turning the darkness from the spectrum of black and white to technicolor once again.

For Prometheus’ crime of returning light and knowledge to humankind, Zeus had Prometheus chained to the Caucasus Mountains and sent an eagle to eat his immortal liver every day, which grew back every night.

Literature and cinema likewise warn of the horrific and often fatal risks of challenging the limitations placed by the powerful on the accumulation of knowledge.

The first film in the “Planet of the Apes” franchise, released in 1968, can be understood as a recreation of the legend of Prometheus. A U.S.-based crew crash land their space vehicle on a strange planet in the distant future amounting to nearly 2000 years advancement on Earth, as they traveled at the speed of light.

The crew, led by Taylor – the Prometheus character – discover that the planet is ruled by a species of apes who possess what to the Earthlings appear as human-like qualities, including speech, high reasoning, and cultural artifacts such as museums, medicine, constructed homes, a judicial system, and written religious and governing scrolls.

A community of humans on this planet, on the other hand, lacks the facility of speech and operates on an animal-like intellectual level. The apes hunt, enslave, and murder humans to keep them from invading their gardens and stealing food and to use them in medical and psychological experiments.

Taylor rebels and protests his treatment by challenging the hierarchical ranking of apes over humans. Two apes listen to Taylor and befriend him, Zira and Cornelius, and they eventually come to believe that what they have been socialized to accept as factual was somehow manipulated and falsified.

Blond-furred Dr. Zaius (Zeus), Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith, knows the truth regarding the origins of his species and the rise and fall of humans through industrialization and the power of the atom, which terminated life as it had been once known. His primary objective has been to keep the fire of “knowledge” away from his ape community and humans.

He attempts to destroy any artifacts and other remnants of pre-nuclear holocaust human society to keep alive the myth of perennial simian superiority. Knowledge, therefore, represents overturning the proverbial apple cart, undermining origin myths, and challenging hierarchal positionings.

These genesis/origin stories are examples of the concept of “hegemony,” a term coined by social theorist Antonio Gramsci to describe the ways in which the dominant group successfully disseminates dominant social realities and social visions in a manner accepted as common sense and part of the natural order.

This controlled production of “knowledge” maintains the marginality of other groups, and it denies exposure to multiple perspectives.

The institutionalization of a hegemonic norm functions to legitimize what can be said, who has the authority to speak and be heard, and what is authorized as the truth.

This was certainly the case in Nazi Germany. In 1933, Nazi stormtroopers invaded, ransacked, and closed The Institute for Sexual Sciences in Berlin, founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish and homosexual sexuality researcher. The Institute conducted early sexuality research and was a precursor of the Indiana-based Kinsey Institute in the United States.

Storm troopers carried away and torched over 10,000 volumes of books and research documents calling the Institute “an international center of the white-slave trade” and “an unparalleled breading ground of dirt and filth.”

Soon thereafter, Nazis and conservative university students throughout Germany invaded Jewish organizations and libraries, confiscating books they deemed “un-German.”

The German Student Association (Deutsche Studentenschaft) declared a national “Action against the Un-German Spirit.” On May 10, 1933, students and Nazi leaders across Germany set ablaze over 25,000 volumes. Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, fired up the Berlin crowd of over 40,000 sympathizers by declaring, “No to decadence and moral corruption. Yes to decency and morality in family and state.”

In 2018, we witnessed anti-LGBTQ+ Christian crusader Paul Dorr check out four LGBTQ+-inclusive children’s books from the Orange City, Iowa Public Library and burn them in a 27-minute October 2018 video diatribe on Facebook. – Dorr is the founder of Rescue the Perishing, a group “contending against moral evil to advance the Kingdom of Christ.”

The books in question were Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan; Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, by Christine Baldacchino; This Day In June, by Gayle E. Pitman; and Families, Families, Families!, by Suzanne and Max Lang.

In his video rant, Dorr argued that Two Boys Kissing was “designed to get 12-to-13-year-old boys to start having homosexual sex together.”

The fight for all the colors

To build off of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famed poem:

First they came for Leaves of Grass, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not gay.

Then they came for Stone Butch Blues, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a transgender person.

Then they came for Critical Race Theory and Beloved, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not Black.

Then they came for Maus, and I did not speak out —
Because I am a Christian and not a Jew.

Then they came for books representing my experiences and identities —
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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NYU Study Finds Age Verification Laws Don’t Work

https://www.xbiz.com/news/287606/nyu-study-finds-age-verification-laws-dont-work

These types of laws are marketed as to protect the kids.  The right has learned that if they want people to back banning something bring out the trope “of it is needed to protect the innocent littlest ones, the children”.  They are trying to do it with everything they disagree with and always have.  In the 1970s they went after gay people, especially teachers claiming it was needed to protect the kids from the evil gays.  They did it with drag queens a few years ago and are using the same trope against trans people.  They insisted any book or media that had any LGBTQ+ characters or plot had to be removed from libraries to save the kids.  They seem to think reading a book with a gay kid somehow makes real life kids gay?  These people just want everyone to live by what they preach, to live by their precepts.  They have no respect for the rights of other people to live and do as they want.  They want to force their restrictive morality on everyone else and to their Christian hell with anyone who disagrees with them.  They are dictators of how others live.  I just do not get their fear of sex and the enjoyment of it.  Hugs’

it indicates that the laws are “effective” or “working” — contentions that imply the goal is to prevent anyone from viewing adult content, rather than just minors.

 

A group of university researchers has published a study whose findings suggest that age verification laws are ineffective at achieving their stated goal of preventing minors from accessing adult content.

In states that have passed AV laws, some adult websites, including Pornhub, have opted to block access rather than shoulder the legal burden of compliance.

A representative for Pornhub parent company Aylo told Mashable that after the company complied with local AV laws in Louisiana, the site’s traffic dropped 80% in that state.

Focusing on search behavior as an indicator of adult content viewing habits, researchers at New York University’s Center for Social Media & Politics found that searches for Pornhub dropped 51% in states with AV laws, while searches for noncompliant platforms rose by 48.1%, and searches for VPN services rose by 23.6%.

In other words, people living in states with AV laws who did not want to submit identifying information to prove their age did not stop watching porn.

Instead, according to Aylo’s statement to Mashable, “They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age, that don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content. In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.”

Aylo’s statement takes issue with the way many states have chosen to implement AV laws, calling said implementation “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.” The company believes that children should be shielded from porn, but that the best way to do that is for parents to employ content filters on individual devices.

To test the effectiveness of the laws, the researchers created a “digital twin” — a computer simulation — of each state, and compared actual observed search trends in those states with their model of what search trends in those states would have looked like had they not passed AV laws.

This revealed that users faced with an age verification requirement to view an adult site searched for alternative sites that did not require age verification, and for methods of circumventing age verification, such as using a VPN.

The team then used multiverse analysis, a technique that considers alternative research approaches to the same question, to confirm that its findings remained reliable under various scenarios.

While the researchers admitted that using Google Trends is inherently flawed due to the limitations of its data — for instance, it is not possible to know what percentage of users searching for AV-noncompliant sites or VPNs may have been minors — the study nonetheless concluded that AV laws were ineffective, since users in states with such laws simply seek alternative ways to access adult content.

They also noted that such laws effectively punish compliant sites and function to limit general access to adult content, not just minors’ access.

“Our findings highlight that while these regulation efforts reduce traffic to compliant firms and likely a net reduction overall to this type of content, individuals adapt primarily by moving to content providers that do not require age verification,” the study reports.

Numerous backers of the current spate of state AV laws have asserted that when adult sites withdraw completely from states with such laws, it indicates that the laws are “effective” or “working” — contentions that imply the goal is to prevent anyone from viewing adult content, rather than just minors.

Peace & Justice History for 4/11

April 11, 1916

Annie Besant, founder of the India Home Rule League and publisher of New India.
Annie Besant, a Briton and active suffragist who moved to India, established the Home Rule League with autonomy for India from British colonial rule as its goal. Head of the Theosophical Society of India, she was also the publisher of the newspaper, New India, and CommonWeal.
More on Annie Besant 
April 11, 1961
The trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann began in Israel. The man accused of leading Hitler’s effort to exterminate the Jewish people and others faced 15 charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and war crimes, all of which took more than an hour to enumerate.

Adolf Eichmann
The charges against Eichmann 
April 11, 1968
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson just one week after the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Known as the Fair Housing Act, it first outlawed discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of housing and now bans it for reasons of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or handicap.
The struggle for Fair Housing 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april11

Peace & Justice History for 4/10

April 10, 1516
In what was the first ghetto, Jews in Venice, Italy, were forced to live in a specific, restricted area of the city known as Campo del Ghetto Nuovo. The word “ghetto” comes from the Venetian word “geto,” meaning foundry. Prior to becoming an exclusively Jewish neighborhood, the Venice ghetto was the site of a foundry.
After its establishment the city’s Jews, who were allowed to attend to their business during the day (though required to wear a yellow badge or scarf indicating their religion), were forced to return to the ghetto where gates were locked to keep them inside overnight.
Venice also restricted the living quarters of Germans and Turks, all to satisfy the demands of the Roman Catholic Church.


The site of the Ghetto Nouvo today
April 10, 1971
Ninety-year-old Jeannette Rankin, the first female member of Congress (R-Montana), and the only one to vote against U.S. entry into both World Wars, led 8000 in protest of the Vietnam War in a women’s peace march on the Pentagon.
 
April 10, 1972

Charlie Chaplin received an honorary Oscar for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.” The British native’s political views had previously been criticized, as had been his failure to apply for U.S. citizenship.
Pressed for back taxes and accused of supporting subversive causes during the McCarthy era, Chaplin left the United States in 1952.Informed that he would not be welcomed back, he retorted, “I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ were president.” He returned briefly from exile, however, to accept this award and received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full five minutes.

Charlie Chaplin, one of PBS’s American Masters 
April 10, 1981
The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention) started gathering signatures of nations willing to abide by its limitations.
Currently, 109 countries have agreed to ban or limit munitions that cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants, or affect civilians indiscriminately. So far the restrictions cover mines, booby traps, incendiary weapons (such as Napalm) and blinding laser weapons.
This Life photograph of a naked child running down a street in Vietnam screaming in agony captures the effects of Napalm. Nick Ut’s photograph of Kim Phuk, taken in 1972, won the Pulitzer Prize ( Associated Press).

Not all country signatories have agreed to all its provisions
How militaries think about incendiary weapons
April 10, 1994
France, Belgium, the U.S., among other countries airlifted their nationals out of Rwanda as the wholesale slaughter of Tutsis at the hands of the Hutu majority proceeded. Rwandan employees of Western governments were left behind.
The International Red Cross was already estimating the death toll in the tens of thousands.
April 10, 1998
The Northern Ireland peace talks ended with an historic accord—called the Good Friday Agreement—reached after nearly two years of talks and 30 years of conflict. Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) was chair of the talks which established a Northern Irish Assembly for both the Irish Catholic republicans and the British Anglican unionists.

Senator George Mitchell

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april10

Wednesdays cartoons / memes. Sorry it is so short. Hugs.

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Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#hands off from Liberals Are Cool

#gaza from tamarrud

#eat the rich from Liberals Are Cool

#bernie sanders from Liberals Are Cool

#tariffs from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#hands off from Liberals Are Cool

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Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#ai from Liberals Are Cool

#trumpcession from Liberals Are Cool

Perhaps “Liberation Day” referred to enough voters finally realizing Trump is a dangerous fool. I know, wishful thinking…

George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2025-04-07T16:30:00.870Z

CBS reviewed internal government documents:"Three weeks ago, 238 Venezuelan migrants were flown from Texas to a maximum security prison in El Salvador… We could not find criminal records for 75% of the Venezuelans – 179 men- now sitting in prison." http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-re…

Emma Vigeland (@emmavigeland.bsky.social) 2025-04-07T15:30:57.162Z

After Trump and Trumpism are consigned to the dust bin of history, we will need to spend a long time earning back the trust and friendship of our allies.

George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2025-04-07T15:30:01.508Z

 

 

 

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Your reminder that the photo below is considered hateful by the regime.

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Texas Letting Teachers and School Workers Engage In Religious Speech

DHS revokes parole for hundreds of thousands who entered via the CBP One app

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/08/dhs-parole-revoked-app-00007326

So what happened to the idea of the right just wanting immigrants to come here legally.  Right?  All they wanted was to get the illegals and criminals out.  But these are people who came here the legal way and are working, living their lives as good members of the communities.  No see to the current white supremacists the crime was brown people coming to the US at all.  They want a white majority in charge with others second class or lower people.  tRump once asked why no one from the Scandinavian countries immigrate to the US.  The reason tRump wants them is they are white.  But their country is doing so much better than ours and rated so much higher on the happiness index so why would they.  The only ones who want to come here are from countries the US has made worse, ruined, and allowed for dictators or drug lords to take over.  Hugs

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The move could leave over 900,000 immigrants vulnerable to deportation — unless they self-deport, DHS said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks.

The Trump administration is revoking parole status for immigrants who entered the U.S. via the Biden-era CBP One app, in a push to get immigrants to voluntarily leave the country.

“Under federal law, Secretary [Kristi] Noem — in support of the president — has full authority to revoke parole. Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement.

Some immigrants began receiving formal email notices from the DHS on Tuesday stating that the department would be using its discretionary authority to revoke parole. The move could leave over 900,000 immigrants vulnerable to deportation.

The CBP One app, launched in January 2023, was one of the Biden administration’s key efforts to control illegal immigration, by organizing appointments at different ports of entry along the southern border for immigrants seeking asylum. The parole designation protected immigrants from deportation and also issued work authorizations for up to two years.

The Trump administration quickly suspended the app’s appointment system and rebranded it as CBP Home — with a built-in function for immigrants to report their intention to leave the U.S.

“Formal termination notices have been issued, and affected aliens are urged to voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home App,” the DHS spokesperson said. “Those who refuse will be found, removed, and permanently barred from reentry.”

The parolees designated under United for Ukraine — which provided legal status for Ukrainians affected by the war — and Operation Allies Welcome — which resettled Afghans following the U.S. exit from Afghanistan — will not be affected, DHS added.

Trump plans to fine migrants $998 a day for failing to leave after deportation order

The reason they are doing this is clear.  They want to make sure that no one can afford to fight their deportation order in the courts.  Think of it is you were required to pay that money daily how long could you afford to do so?  Hugs
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  • Trump turns to rarely used 1996 law to fine and potentially seize migrant assets
  • Administration calls on migrants to “self deport and leave the country now”
  • Memo obtained by Reuters says implementing fines would require system overhaul
WASHINGTON, April 8 – The Trump administration plans to fine migrants under deportation orders up to $998 a day if they fail to leave the United States and to seize their property if they do not pay, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.
The fines stem from a 1996 law, opens new tab that was enforced for the first time in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. The Trump administration plans to apply the penalties retroactively for up to five years, which could result in fines of more than $1 million, a senior Trump official said, requesting anonymity to discuss non-public plans.
The Trump administration is also considering seizing the property of immigrants who do not pay the fines, according to government emails reviewed by Reuters.
In response to questions from Reuters, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that immigrants in the U.S. illegally should use a mobile app formerly known as CBP One – rebranded as CBP Home under Trump – to “self deport and leave the country now.”
“If they don’t, they will face the consequences,” McLaughlin said. “This includes a fine of $998 per day for every day that the illegal alien overstayed their final deportation order.”
DHS warned, opens new tab of the fines in a March 31 social media post.
Emails reviewed by Reuters show the White House has pressed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to handle the issue of penalties, property seizures for migrants who don’t pay, and the sale of their assets.
The Department of Justice’s civil asset forfeiture division could be another option for the seizures, one email said.
President Donald Trump kicked off a sweeping immigration crackdown after taking office in January, testing the bounds of U.S. law to increase arrests and deportations. The planned fines target the roughly 1.4 million migrants who have been ordered removed by an immigration judge.

WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE

Trump invoked the 1996 law during his first term to levy fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars against nine migrants seeking sanctuary in churches. The administration withdrew the penalties, but then proceeded with smaller fines of about $60,000 per person against at least four of the migrants, according to court records.
President Joe Biden stopped issuing the fines and rescinded, opens new tab related policies when he took office in 2021.
Scott Shuchart, a top ICE policy official under Biden, said migrants and their supporters could challenge the fines in court but that the threat alone could have a chilling effect.
“Their point isn’t really to enforce the law, it’s to project fear in communities,” he said.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The proposed asset seizures against the migrants who fail to comply with final deportation orders could impact U.S. citizens or permanent residents in their households.
The immigration advocacy group FWD.us estimates that some 10 million migrants with no legal status or temporary protections are living with U.S. citizens or permanent residents in what are known as “mixed status households.”
The steep fines could hit lower-income immigrants. An analysis of 2019 Census data by the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute found 26% of households with unauthorized immigrants had incomes below the federal poverty line.
Trump has said people with final deportation orders should be a priority for removal although many have families, jobs and established ties in the U.S.
The White House National Security Council and Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy, have been pressing CBP to administer the fines and handle seizures, a CBP official wrote in a March 31 email reviewed by Reuters.
But a CBP memo a day later, also reviewed by Reuters, argued for ICE to take on the task instead. The memo said that CBP’s systems do not currently support this type of immigration fine and that upgrading it could lead to significant costs and implementation delays.
The memo anticipated CBP would need at least 1,000 new paralegal specialists, up from the current staffing of 313.
The start date for the fines remained unclear. DHS did not comment on Miller’s involvement or the technical aspects of implementing the penalties.

Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Mary Milliken and Suzanne Goldenberg