Category: Courts / Laws / legal

New Oklahoma curriculum includes pro-Trump conspiracy theories

https://popular.info/p/new-oklahoma-curriculum-includes

Judd Legum

,

Rebecca Crosby

, and

Noel Sims
May 01, 2025

Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (Screenshot/YouTube)

Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, thousands of high school students in Oklahoma will be required to learn about President Trump’s debunked claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud. The lesson will not be part of a course on conspiracy theories, but an official component of the new social studies curriculum created by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R).

The new curriculum includes a section that requires students to “analyze contemporary turning points of 21st-century American society.” That requirement includes the following:

Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of “bellwether county” trends.

In March, Walters said the purpose of this section was to teach “students to think for themselves” and “not be spoon-fed left-wing propaganda.” According to Walters, there are “legitimate concerns” about the integrity of the 2020 election that were “raised by millions of Americans in 2020.”

Walters is wrong. There are no “discrepancies” in the 2020 election results that validate the claims of Trump and his allies that the results were fraudulent. The new curriculum is simply an amalgamation of unsupported claims.

There was no “sudden halting” of ballot counting in key states. The counting took an extended period in some states because election officials were legally prohibited from counting early ballots in advance. Mail-in balloting is safe and secure. Large increases in vote totals (“batch dumps”) happen in every election, impact both parties, and are not a sign of fraud. Record turnout in 2020 was not “unforeseen” — it was due to increased engagement related to the pandemic and other factors. And traditional “bellwether” counties are now more conservative than the nation as a whole.

The new curriculum will cost Oklahoma taxpayers at least $33 million.

Oklahoma’s legislature had an opportunity to block the new curriculum. The chairman of the Oklahoma Senate Education Committee, Adam Pugh (R), filed a resolution that would have sent the curriculum back to the Oklahoma State Board of Education for further review. But ultimately, the resolution did not receive a vote.

Moms for Liberty, a far-right activist organization, sent a letter to Republican members of the legislature, praising the new curriculum as “truth-filled, anti-woke, and unapologetically conservative.” They also delivered a warning: “In the last few election cycles, grassroots conservative organizations have flipped seats across Oklahoma by holding weak Republicans accountable. If you choose to side with the liberal media and make backroom deals with Democrats to block conservative reform, you will be next.”

How Walters jammed his new standards through the State Board of Education

Walters’ new social studies standards were approved by the Oklahoma State Board of Education in February. But many members have since said that Walters used deceptive tactics in order to pass new last-minute changes.

Walters did not send the new standards with his additions to the members of the board until 4 p.m. the day before the board’s 9:30 a.m. meeting. This did not give members enough time to read the new standards, which are around 400 pages long. Some of the members said later that they did not even realize that the new standards were different from the earlier version that they had previously reviewed.

The email sent the day before the meeting “subtly indicate[d]” that updates had been made, but did “not provide any specifics,” 2 News Oklahoma reported. In the meeting, Walters did not mention the specific changes. In an April 24 meeting, one of the board members, Chris VanDenhende, asked Walters to provide documents that noted the changes made, but Walters called the request “irrelevant.”

At the February meeting, Ryan Deatherage, a board member, asked to delay the vote so they had time to read the full standards, but Walters “pressure[d] the board to vote that day, indicating a legislative time crunch,” according to 2 News, which attended the meeting. In reality, they had until April to approve the standards. After the February meeting, multiple members of the board stated that they wanted another chance to review the standards, calling Walters’ tactics a “breach of trust,” the Oklahoman reported.

Walters claimed that the last-minute additions to the standards were based on public input. But there is no evidence of this. During a press conference, “a reporter who reviewed an open records request said there were no public comments that suggested adding a standard about election discrepancies,” KGOU reported. Walters responded by arguing that there were “focus groups” and “a lot of discussions that were going on.” But Walters also acknowledged that he was the one who decided to change the content. “Ultimately, it was up to me to make the final decisions of what are we going to put in,” he stated.

Walters also included right-wing activists on the committee that reviewed the social studies standards. The committee would normally involve educators and other experts, but Walters’ committee included Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation; Dennis Prager, the co-founder of PragerU; and right-wing media personalities Steve Deace and David Barton. Only three out of the 10 people on the committee have lived in Oklahoma, according to the Oklahoma Voice.

The Oklahoma Council for Social Studies (OCSS) opposes Walters’ new standards: “OCSS cannot fully support the standards in their current form. Many of the late additions include historically inaccurate content and do not align with the inclusive, evidence-based approach that is essential to high-quality social studies instruction.” The statement also argued that “the manner in which these changes were introduced raises serious concerns, casting doubt on the transparency and integrity of the standards development process.”

More Bible, less Biden

Among the curriculum changes that will soon go into effect is the removal of part of a unit in which students will learn about former President Joe Biden’s administration. The original lesson plan taught students about the “challenges and accomplishments” of Biden’s term, but the new version focuses on challenges and leaves out accomplishments.

The original version said that students should be able to describe economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic and bipartisan infrastructure legislation. The new version only asks students to describe “the United States-Mexico border crisis” and “America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Gaza-Israel conflict.”

While Biden’s accomplishments are de-emphasized in the new curriculum, the amount of time Oklahoma students spend learning about Christianity and the Bible will be increased. In December, Walters proudly announced that his new curriculum will increase the number of mentions of the Bible from two to nearly 50 for students starting in first grade. The Bible lessons primarily focus on the influence of Christian values on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.

Students as young as six years old will learn the stories of the Ten Commandments and David and Goliath. By the end of middle school, students will have gone through several lessons on how the Bible’s principles served as inspiration for the American independence movement. In high school, they will be able to take an entire course about early Christians and the history of Christianity.

Despite the new emphasis on the relationship between the Bible and America’s founding, the curriculum does not reference the separation of church and state. Walters and many of the Christian nationalist figures who helped him craft the curriculum have said that the separation of church and state is unconstitutional or a myth.

Some Women’s Work in 1945

Women’s Work: Building Justice — The Women Behind the Nuremberg Trials

Where justice faltered, they persisted.

Tanya Roth

Clockwise from top left: Katherine Fite, Belle Mayer Zeck, Harriet Zetterberg, and Cecelia Goetz

When Katherine Fite arrived in London in the summer of 1945, her role in the post-World War II justice process was so novel that the New York Times took notice. “Woman joins staff of war crimes group,” the paper proclaimed. Fite told the Times that “she would not know the scope of her assignment until she had arrived overseas, but that she had been conversant with most phases of the work of the State Department on war crimes.” As the quest for postwar justice continued, Fite became one of just a few women lawyers participating in what became known as the Nuremberg Trials.

On May 2, 1945 — just six days before Victory in Europe, or V-E Day — Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson agreed to serve as chief prosecutor. That summer, as Europe emerged from the war, Jackson worked with his team and the Allies to prepare for the first ever international war crimes trials. Fite joined both the negotiations and legal research that led to the August 8 signing of the London Charter, creating the International Military Tribunal.

Katherine Fite (right) with Justice Jackson, ca. 1945 (National Archives)

Fite was the only woman lawyer present in the preparation phase. In September 1945, a month before the trials began, Fite toured Dachau Concentration Camp outside of Munich. She wrote home about the experience: “The gardens might well look fertile — human ashes were readily available for fertilizer.” A Polish-Jewish man who had survived Dachau showed her the gas chambers, disguised as shower rooms.

After the first trial, which lasted until October 1946, the United States launched 12 more trials that continued through 1949. Men dominated the courtroom — both as lawyers and as defendants — so women’s contributions were often overlooked. From the beginning, however, the American legal team relied on women’s work in key ways, from Fite’s work in the planning through the execution of the final trials, to Belle Zeck’s foundational work investigating German manufacturer I.G. Farben, to Cecelia Goetz’s key role prosecuting Krupp Industries.

Fite was not the only woman present at the Nuremberg Trials, but she was the highest-level female attorney in the early phases. Harriet Zetterberg was another early participant, the only woman lawyer assigned to the main prosecution team for the first Nuremberg trial, beginning in mid-August and lasting until June of 1946. Zetterberg arrived in Nuremberg in mid-September and prepared trial briefs, including one on slave labor and how it was used as a method to kill. Zetterberg felt the weight of the work, calling the six interrogations she witnessed “extremely interesting — one gets a sense of listening to history in the making.” (snip-MORE. This is really good.)

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/04/womens-work-building-justice-the-women-behind-the-nuremberg-trials

Some more news items I want to share. These are only small quotes there is much more to each story if you follow the links

Trump’s Attack on ActBlue’s “Dark Money” Was Backed by Elon Musk’s Dark Money

Trump’s Attack on ActBlue’s “Dark Money” Was Backed by Elon Musk’s Dark Money

The billionaire helped fund an effort to gin up fraud claims against the Democratic donation platform.

Trump’s claim that he can order the Justice Department to investigate a fundraising platform used by his political foes based on vague allegations is part of his ongoing effort to use the government’s powers to target political enemies. It’s not a particularly realistic accusation—the fact sheet claims it’s targeting “straw donor” schemes, in which one person donates on behalf of another. Given the fairly strict limitations on campaign contributions, any straw donor scheme that wants to inject any noticeable amount of money into an electoral system that had $15.5 billion run through it is a great deal of tedious, high-risk work for a scammer.

On the other hand, in the post-Citizens United era, there are plenty of ways to inject unaccounted-for money—even, theoretically, foreign money—into the election. Super-PACs can accept unlimited donations from fairly easy-to-obscure sources, for instance, which makes the idea of anyone using a small-dollar conduit like ActBlue (or the GOP equivalent WinRed) fairly silly.

And notably, the funding for some of Trump’s “data” on an alleged ActBlue “fraud” seems to have come from just such a source: a super-PAC bankrolled by Elon Musk.

Last year, an opaque group called the Fair Election Fund began promising to pay “whistleblowers” who cited election fraud “with payment from our $5 million fund.” That never panned out, but the same organization found more success with a claim that 60,000 people who were named as small-dollar donors in the Biden-Harris campaign’s July Federal Election Commission report did not recall making the contribution when contacted by the Fair Election Fund.

As Mother Jones reported last year, the Fair Election Fund appears to have generated this finding by blasting out ominous-sounding texts and emails telling ActBlue donors that their donations had been “flagged,” then tallying people who responded—accurately or not—by checking a box saying they did not recall making the contribution.

More at the link above

Israel carrying out ‘live-streamed genocide’ in Gaza, Amnesty says

Amnesty accuses US President Donald Trump of committing a ‘multiplicity of assaults’ on human rights.

Israel is perpetrating a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza, committing illegal acts with the “specific intent” of wiping out Palestinians, Amnesty International has said.

Israeli forces in Gaza have violated the United Nations Genocide Convention with acts that include “causing serious bodily or mental harm to civilians” and “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”, the human rights organisation said in its annual report released on Monday.

Israeli air strikes have also frequently hit civilians who were following evacuation orders, while its forces continued to “arbitrarily detain and, in some cases, forcibly disappear Palestinians”, the rights group said.

DOGE has made a big impact on Washington. But government spending is up.

Elon Musk and his shadowy “tech support” team have ripped through Washington, reshaping the government and culling the federal workforce with astonishing speed and scope.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/29/doge-impact-washington-spending-100days-00316587

Nearly a quarter of a million workers have or are expected to leave their federal jobs. That includes more than 112,000 federal workers who have opted into the deferred resignation program, according to a POLITICO analysis of previous reporting and conversations with administration officials. It also includes some 121,000 workers across agencies who have been fired, according to a CNN analysis.

DOGE has hollowed out or shut down 11 federal agencies and says it has terminated more than 8,500 contracts and 10,000 grants. It has wiped out foreign aid and volunteerism in the U.S., slashed education spending and made sweeping changes to the way the government makes procurements, hires contractors and shares data.

DOGE, after promising $2 trillion in savings, now says it has saved the government $160 billion. But even these reported savings, so far, have not led to any meaningful decline in total government spending this year, according to the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model, which tracks weekly Treasury data.

In fact, the government has actually been spending more compared to this time last year, the model found.

Total spending rose by 6.3 percent, or $156 billion since Trump took office, compared to the first four months of 2024, said Kent Smetters, a Wharton professor who directs the model. Even when accounting for inflation, the federal government has still added $81.2 billion more spending to its books compared to the same period last year, he added.

‘We’re citizens!’: Oklahoma City family traumatized after ICE raids home, but they weren’t suspects

https://kfor.com/news/local/were-citizens-oklahoma-city-family-traumatized-after-ice-raids-home-but-they-werent-suspects/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJ_QL1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFHRjV0Y2EwTnI4R2pqMVI2AR4zcnV54IV6xDFtZ-JOWbTSuWUuEbqjxQ6L9UtKOYQqJcYHbnAMbUUbj-GG_A_aem_BSYWD8eZJzFS9TH_rbpK5g

ICE is a thug unit run by a major thug.   This family was badly mistreated, in some ways brutalized.   I read earlier where the mother said the 20 ICE agents who broke into their home with no warring then wanted the women, one adult and the others teenagers to remove their clothing in front of them to get dressed before being forced outside in the rain.   The report said the mother refused saying even her husband had not seen the children nude and she did not want them to do that in front of these men.  They were ordered in their “underwear” outside in the rain where they were kept for hours.   Is this the government / police any way people should be treated by law enforcement in the US.  They so disrespected this family sure in the fact they were correct with no room for any doubt.  They had no empathy, no common sense.  In the time I was an axillary sheriff’s deputy we were trained never to act like that.  We were taught to respect the rights of people but be aware they might be lying and the danger of the situation.   Respect the rights of the people.  All people on US soil, in the country regardless of status have due process rights.   The right wing haters want to tell you that if you are here illegally you have no rights but SCOTUS has repeatedly said every person here does.  Hugs  

As for Marissa’s phones, electronics, and cash, they have no idea which agency has those belongings or how to get those items back.  

by: 

Posted: 

Updated: 

Update: 4.30.25

At this time, there is not a fundraising campaign set up for the family. KFOR will share any details if that happens.

Original:

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A woman says her family’s fresh start in Oklahoma turned into a nightmare after federal immigration agents raided their home, taking their phones, laptops, and life savings – even though they were not the suspects the agents were looking for.

The agents had a search warrant for the home, but the suspects listed on the warrant do not live in the house.

The woman who actually lives in the house had just moved to Oklahoma City from Maryland with her family about two weeks earlier.

The woman, who News 4 will refer to as “Marisa”, and her three daughters came to Oklahoma looking for a slower, more affordable pace of life.

They rented a house in a seemingly safe northwest Oklahoma City neighborhood.

Her husband stayed back in Maryland a couple of extra weeks, planning to join them this weekend.

“I was like, ‘okay, Oklahoma’s my home now,’” Marisa said.

But any comfort they had disappeared Thursday morning when about 20 men, armed with guns, busted through the door.

“I don’t know who they were,” she said. “It was dark. All the lights were off.”

Marisa said the men identified themselves as federal agents with the U.S. Marshals, ICE, and the FBI.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service denied having agents present during the raid, telling News 4 they were “aware of the operation before it happened,” but did not assist in any capacity.

“I keep asking them, ‘who are you? What are you doing here? What’s happening,’” she said. “And they said, ‘we have a warrant for the house, a search warrant.’”

She said they ordered her and her daughters outside into the rain before they could even put on clothes.

“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments—her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear.”

Marisa said the names on the search warrant were not hers or anyone in her family.

She recognized them as names listed on mail still arriving at the house—likely former residents.

“We just moved here from Maryland,” she said. “We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens.”

She said the agents didn’t care.

“They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless,” she said. “I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren’t criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn’t do anything.”

Marisa said the agents tore apart every square inch of the house and what few belongings they had, seizing their phones, laptops and their life savings in cash as “evidence.”

“I told them before they left, I said you took my phone. We have no money. I just moved here,” she said. “I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”

Before they left, Marisa said one of the agents made a comment.

“One of them said, ‘I know it was a little rough this morning,’” she said. “It was so denigrating. That you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it was a little rough? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow.”

Now, Marisa said they have, quite literally, nothing.

“I said, ‘when are we going to get our stuff back?’ They said it could be days or it could be months,” she said.

Marisa said she is left with nothing but questions.

“What if I would have been armed,” she said. “You’re breaking in. What am I supposed to think? My initial thought was we were being robbed—that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped. You have guns pointed in our faces. Can you just reprogram yourself and see us as humans, as women? A little bit of mercy. Care a little bit about your fellow human, about your fellow citizen, fellow resident. We bleed too. We work. We bleed just like anybody else bleeds. We’re scared. You could see our faces that we were terrified. What makes you so much more worthier of your peace? What makes you so much more worthier of protecting your children? What makes you so much more worthy of your citizenship? What makes you more worthy of safety? Of being given the right that they took from me to protect my daughters?”

Marisa told News 4 the agents wouldn’t even leave her a business card.

She said she has no idea who to contact to get her things back.

Marissa told KFOR the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the FBI were involved in this raid.

However, a representative for the U.S. Marshal’s Service says their team was not involved.

News 4 reached out to the FBI. Last week, a spokesperson said they were assisting on this case and directed inquiries to Homeland Security.

A spokesperson for Homeland Security told News 4 they are looking into it and will get back to us, but we have not heard from them.

As for Marissa’s phones, electronics, and cash, they have no idea which agency has those belongings or how to get those items back.

 

LGBTQ+ news

Poland finally repealed the country’s last “LGBT-free” zone

The zones backfired, drawing widespread condemnation and economic consequences for the east European country.

Ten years after the far-right Law and Justice Party was elected to power in Poland, and two years after their defeat in national elections, a last vestige of the party’s state-sanctioned anti-LGBTQ+ policies has finally been eliminated.

On Thursday, a council in the southeastern Polish town of Łańcut officially abolished the country’s last remaining ‘LGBT-free’ resolution.

UK

Gay, lesbian and bi people at greater risk of self-harm and suicide, new figures show

https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/04/10/suicide-ideation-gay-lesbian-bisexual/

Gay, lesbian and bisexual people are twice as likely as their straight peers to attempt suicide or have thoughts of taking their own life, new figures have revealed.

Requests to remove books from library shelves are on the rise in the UK, as the influence of pressure groups behind book bans in the US crosses the Atlantic, according to those working in the sector.

Most of the UK challenges appear to come from individuals or small groups, unlike in the US, where 72% of demands to censor books last year were brought forward by organised groups, according to the American Library Association earlier this week.

However, evidence suggests that the work of US action groups is reaching UK libraries too. Alison Hicks, an associate professor in library and information studies at UCL, interviewed 10 UK-based school librarians who had experienced book challenges. One “spoke of finding propaganda from one of these groups left on her desk”, while another “was directly targeted by one of these groups”. Respondents “also spoke of being trolled by US pressure groups on social media, for example when responding to free book giveaways”.

The types of books targeted may also differ. “Almost all the UK attacks reported in my study centred on LGBTQ+ materials, while US attacks appear to target material related to race, ethnicity and social justice as well as LGBTQ+ issues,” said Hicks.

This supports the findings of an Index on Censorship survey last year, in which 28 of 53 librarians polled reported that they had been asked to remove books from library shelves, many of which were LGBTQ+ titles. In more than half of those cases, books were taken off shelves.

Tennessee county sued for banning books without even reading them

They’re accused of just using an anti-LGBTQ+ organization’s book ban list to deny students access to tomes like Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”

The plaintiffs in this case are three families, who wish to remain anonymous, of two freshmen and a senior who will attend a Rutherford County school next year. Joining in on the lawsuit is PEN America, a nonprofit freedom of expression advocacy group for writers. Thirty-two writers in the organization have seen 53 of their books included in the ban.

Trump DOJ Ordered ICE to Invade Homes Without Search Warrant

The Justice Department quietly authorized immigration agents to seize power in arresting people under the Alien Enemies Act—no warrant required.

https://newrepublic.com/post/194440/donald-trump-restores-foreign-students-visas-legal-losses

The Justice Department quietly invoked the Alien Enemies act last month to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents the power to conduct warrantless searches of people’s homes as long as they suspect them to be an “alien enemy.” USA Today obtained the memo that contained this order on Friday.

In the memo, the Justice Department defined an “alien enemy” as anyone who is 14 years of age or older, not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, a citizen of Venezuela, and “a member of the hostile enemy Tren de Aragua,” per the Alien Enemy Validation Guide, a document that has already been slammed by immigration experts.

The broad definition has already resulted in the apprehension and deportation of more than 200 men to El Salvador who just happened to have tattoos, like gay makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero.

This type of order will likely lead to more indiscriminate arrests and wanton racial profiling. The memo, which is from March 14, is another massive departure from the U.S. immigration norms.

White House Confirms Trump Is Exploring Ways To ‘Deport’ U.S. Citizens

The administration could try removing American citizens if it identifies a pathway it can claim to be legal.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that President Donald Trump is exploring legal pathways to “deport” U.S. citizens to El Salvador, where the administration has already arranged to house deported immigrants in a prison known for its human rights abuses. (Watch the video, above.)

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that he “love[s]” the idea of removing U.S. citizens, adding that it would be an “honor” to send them to El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele — an eager partner in Trump’s schemes.

“I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla,” Trump wrote. “Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!”

Shocking report reveals HIV deaths will explode due to Trump’s foreign aid cuts

Nearly 500,000 children could die from AIDS by 2030 without PEPFAR funding.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/04/shocking-report-reveals-hiv-deaths-will-explode-due-to-trumps-foreign-aid-cuts/

Nearly half a million children could die from AIDS-related causes by 2030 without restoration of PEPFAR programs cut by the Trump administration, a new study published in the Lancet reveals.

The new health policy analysis estimates that one million children could become infected with HIV and nearly half a million could die from AIDS by 2030. Additionally, 2.8 million children could experience orphanhood in sub-Saharan Africa (because their parents died from preventable HIV-related illnesses) if the PEPFAR funding isn’t restored.

A study released by UNAIDS in March showed an uptick in new HIV infections has already started as local HIV prevention programs funded by PEPFAR have been thrown into chaos.

Men who have sex with men, girls, and young women between the ages of 15 and 24 not pregnant or breastfeeding, and sex workers and people who inject drugs “can not” be offered PrEP during the pause or “until further notice,” Trump administration officials wrote.

 

For Now-

3 Federal Judges Stop Trump’s Relentless Attack on Racial Justice in Public Schools, for Now

Gary Tyler and More in Peace & Justice History for 4/29

April 29, 1942
Exclusion Order No. 20 affected 660 people living in the area bounded by Sutter and California streets and Presidio and Van Ness Avenues in San Francisco. The Japanese Americans living in those neighborhoods were ordered to report to 2031 Bush St. for registration, and then, on this day, for removal to internment camps for the duration of the Second World War, and faced loss of their homes and businesses.
Presentation on what happened  (Check it out! Some of Dorothea Lange’s work.)
April 29, 1962
Nobel Prize-winner (for chemistry in 1954) Linus Pauling picketed the White House with others protesting the resumption of nuclear weapons testing. He had been invited there by President John Kennedy, to be honored at a dinner along with other Nobelists.

April 29, 1968

Peace message, Vanessa Redgrave, 1968 photo: Frank Habicht
Actress Vanessa Redgrave was among 826 British anti-nuclear protesters arrested during a London demonstration protesting the Vietnam War.
Film from the BBC and their take on the demonstration that day
April 29, 1970
U.S. and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia and began a bombing campaign, known as Arclight, that widened the Vietnam War. They were after North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops and supplies that had been moved into Cambodia. By the time the bombing ceased in 1973, the U.S. had dropped more than half a million tons of ordnance on Cambodia, three and a half times that dropped on Japan in World War II.
Background on the Cambodia “incursion” 
April 29, 1992
Deadly rioting erupted in Los Angeles after an all-white jury in Simi Valley acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of almost all state charges in the beating of Rodney King, an African-American motorist who had been stopped for a traffic offense.Videotape of the abuse had been seen around the world. 17 other officers, who had been present and had not intervened, were never charged. The National Guard was called out to help restore civil order.
By the time schools were able to re-open on May 4, more than 50 had been killed, over 4000 injured, 12,000 people arrested, and $1 billion in property damage.

The Riot 
The trial  (The original link to the trial news on History.com is no longer present. This link will take you to more about the rioting. Again, noting the loss of the info, this time, also again, that an all white jury acquitted police of battery of a Black man.)
April 29, 2016
Gary Tyler was released from Angola penitentiary in Louisiana.
He was just 16 years old when charged with shooting a
white student in 1974.
Gary was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury and became  the youngest person on death row.
His case sparked a movement to gain his release which persisted for 40 years.

FreeGaryTyler.com 
Read more about the case and the movement to free him
Listen/watch more about the case Democracy Now

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april29

Some more news articles I wanted to post but never found time. Hugs

Navy chaplain accused of violating Constitution for encouraging soldiers to ‘lead like Jesus’

https://www.christianpost.com/news/navy-chaplain-accused-of-violating-constitution-for-encouraging-soldiers-to-lead-like-jesus.html

Greenland ‘Freedom City’? Rich donors push Trump for a tech hub up north

https://www.aol.com/greenland-freedom-city-rich-donors-100326241.html

ICE Deletes Post About Stopping ‘Illegal Ideas’ From Crossing Border

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) quickly deleted a social media post Thursday that claimed that its mission is not just to keep out illegal immigrants, money, and products, but “ideas” as well.

https://www.newsweek.com/ice-illegal-ideas-border-security-social-media-post-2058217

US DOGE Service Agreement With Department of Labor Shows $1.3 Million Fee—and Details Its Mission

The unsigned agreement between the US DOGE Service and the Department of Labor provides significant insight into DOGE’s work with federal agencies.

https://www.wired.com/story/department-of-labor-doge-usds-payment/

State tells employees to report on one another for ‘anti-Christian bias’

“It’s very ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-esque,” one official said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/state-report-anti-christian-bias-033535
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Justice Dept. skirts judge’s deadline on plans to return wrongly deported man

A government lawyer argued that a Friday deadline was not enough time to detail steps for the return of Kilmar Abrego García, who was sent to a Salvadoran mega-prison despite another judge’s protection order.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/11/kilmar-abrego-garcia-el-salvador-deported-case/

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

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

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

Ghana lawmakers reintroduce controversial, cruel and regressive anti-LGBTQ+ legislation

https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/04/ghana-lgbtq-bill-reintroduction/

This far-right organization is behind five state bills to overturn gay marriage

By Johnny Levanier

https://www.intomore.com/culture/this-far-right-organization-is-behind-five-state-bills-to-overturn-gay-marriage/

 

Information From An Informed Source

There is solid information here; she knows criminal procedure at the federal level, having been a federal prosecutor.

Arresting a Judge by Joyce Vance

Read on Substack

Judges across the country are undoubtedly wondering what sort of trumped-up charges might be used to storm into their courtrooms and arrest them if the attorney general of the United States doesn’t like the way they’re keeping order and conducting the people’s business in their courtrooms. Arresting judges isn’t something we should have to worry about in a democracy. But after Friday’s events, where federal agents arrested Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Judge Hannah Dugan to the loud cheering of their bosses, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, it’s one more marker of the country’s constitutional distress.

From Pacer: Compliant signed by Magistrate Judge Stephen C Dries

Dugan is charged with obstruction of proceedings before a department or agency of the United States, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and concealing a person to prevent arrest, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison. The allegations relate to efforts by federal agents to arrest a Mexican national, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, on charges of illegally reentering the United States after being deported. He had not been indicted, and the warrant for his arrest was an administrative warrant issued by ICE, not a warrant issued by a federal judge. Flores-Ruiz was in Judge Dugan’s courtroom on misdemeanor assault charges—no one is saying he shouldn’t face both the state and federal charges.

We’ll get into the government’s specific allegations in a minute. Suffice it to say, the Judge was in her courtroom, trying to keep order and conduct proceedings, and the agents intruded into that space in a manner that is inconsistent with the way federal agents are, or at least used to be, taught to respect courtrooms.

There are practical implications too. If ICE can make arrests in courtrooms, defendants simply won’t show up. Witnesses may be hesitant too. People may become less willing to report crimes in immigrant communities. The ability of police to enforce the law, to obtain witness testimony, and to protect communities could be seriously hampered. This is not new territory. It’s been plowed again and again. ICE is free to make their arrests. They can do it outside of the courthouse—there are a limited number of exits. In some courthouses, they can do it in public spaces, but this courthouse in Milwaukee was still in the process of determining its policy, so Judge Dugan asked the agents to speak with the chief judge before they proceeded. An eminently reasonable request.

We don’t yet know the reason she escorted Flores-Ruiz out the side door of her courtroom that led to her jury box, and also back out to the main hall, according to one person familiar with the courtroom. But it makes sense, since the main hall is where they ended up and where agents saw them, following them out of the courthouse. It doesn’t sound nefarious, and even if the Judge took unusual steps to preserve public safety or order in her courtroom—we haven’t heard her version of the facts yet—it hardly rises to the level of criminality. She returned to the bench to continue with her docket after the incident; that’s hardly the conduct of a hardened criminal.

But here’s Attorney General Pam Bondi:

“What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me,” Bondi told Fox News, commenting on Judge Dugan’s arrest. “They’re deranged. I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law, and they are not. We are sending a very strong message today: If you are harboring a fugitive, we don’t care who you are. If you are helping hide one, if you are giving a [gang] member guns, anyone who is illegally in this country, we will come after you, and we will prosecute you. We will find you.”

Condemning the entirety of the judiciary in 50 states on the strength of two indictments is going overboard. And that’s precisely what we count on the attorney general of the United States not to do. It’s a position that calls for a calm, measured individual who gets the facts straight and understands the rules, because if they don’t, individuals’ rights get trampled upon and due process gets denied.

But what’s going on here is something more. It’s the negligent wave of the hand at “our judiciary,” a weak, sloppy, willingness to undercut the public’s confidence in an entire branch of government at the state level across the country in order to push Trump’s political agenda on immigration. As attorney general, Bondi’s job is to serve the president who appointed her but keep him at arm’s length when it comes to bringing cases against individuals.

My husband is a state court judge. It’s far too easy for me to imagine federal agents entering courtrooms across the country to arrest state court judges for running their courtrooms as they see fit. Getting rid of inconvenient judges on the path to autocracy is a well-worn step for would-be dictators to take. Viktor Orban did it in 2012 in Hungary, using forced retirements to strip out judicial opposition to his plans, despite a finding by the EU court that his steps were inconsistent with EU law. Perhaps in America in 2025, arresting a few judges in hopes of intimidating the rest is considered an easier path to get to the same place without the risk that seven judges on the Supreme Court might rule against you. Arrest judges in places like Milwaukee a few times, and on top of the threats to impeach federal judges who rule against the administration, a president might be able to create a climate of fear that would keep the rest of the judiciary in line. Dictators are adept at eroding democracy into a shell of itself, little more than an empty facade. Interfering with the judiciary is one of the keys to getting there.

Judges do get arrested for legitimate reasons from time to time. We had one of those cases in my office when I was a young prosecutor, and the nature of the alleged crimes is instructive. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Jack Montgomery’s house was searched pursuant to a warrant authorized by a federal judge in October 1993, and FBI agents found thousands of dollars in cash in his home. We indicted him on extortion and racketeering charges. Judge Montgomery was found shot dead in his home before a trial could take place. But despite the outcome of the case, no one had doubts it was the type of case the federal government should be prosecuting, as long as the evidence was solid. The charges were serious, involving corruption of the judicial system and interference with justice.

That’s a far cry from charging a judge with obstruction of justice and harboring a fugitive because a judge let a defendant out a side exit in her courtroom that fed him back into the main hall, which is what happened to Hannah Dugan. We don’t know all of the facts yet, and it’s important to remember that. But, we do have the government’s version—it’s the judge’s side of the story that is yet to be told. And the government’s version isn’t compelling. Even those who staunchly believe in mass deportations may find that prosecuting a judge for maintaining order in and around her courtroom is a bridge too far; the overblown allegations and absurd effort to connect the dots and come up with a crime in the affidavit used to obtain an arrest warrant don’t meet the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Americans understand how outrageous this is. In Milwaukee, they flocked into the streets outside the courthouse by midday to protest. Suddenly, everyone was aware of what had happened, and there were protests in other cities too. Even at this early stage, there are some real questions about how the government is proceeding and the merit of the charges:

  • Why was the Judge arrested? Normally, in cases like this that don’t involve violence or risk to the community, or where there’s some indication that a defendant might flee, a case goes to the next grand jury. If an indictment is issued, the defendant receives a notice to appear in court for arraignment. Arrests like this one are unusual. Here, it appears to be an effort to sensationalize the case in a way that is unnecessary and seems designed to intimidate this judge and other judges. The government will still have to take the case to a grand jury to obtain an indictment within the next few weeks, or face a preliminary hearing in court, where they would have to present all their evidence —a step federal prosecutors typically avoid. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a case where that happened, although there may be a few out there.
  • Why arrest her at the courthouse? Again, this is just an effort to sensationalize the case and intimidate other judges. She could have been safely arrested at her home. There is absolutely no doubt that if they had advised her of the situation, she would have turned herself in to be booked. In essence, this is the biggest, most outrageous perp walk of all time, complete with a tweet from the Director of the FBI.
  • State court judges have legitimate concerns about ICE operating inside of their courtrooms and courthouses. The agents were always going to get their guy. But the language in the affidavit reflects no respect for any of the Judge’s concerns, describing her as becoming “visibly angry” and calling their conduct “absurd” as though that was somehow objectionable on her part.
  • The affidavit used to obtain the arrest warrant for the Judge seems to view every action in the worst possible light. The defendant and his lawyer, after leaving the courtroom, walked down the hall to the elevators, passing one bank and heading to the next. Sounds suspicious if you read the agent’s affidavit. Except that the facts are, they walked past a bank of elevators that went to the parking lot and entered one that took them to an exit on the main floor that they used to leave the building. The agent’s complaint that they spoke Spanish in the elevator, and that he doesn’t, isn’t even worth addressing. At one point, the affidavit seems to object to the Judge walking down “a non-public hallway from which she could access her courtroom and chambers—a pretty standard way for judges to enter their courtroom. Courts are used to relying on agent’s relating the facts in a good faith manner. That’s simply not the case here, and the affidavit contains multiple inconsistencies and overreaches. You can read the complaint here and the DOJ press release here.
  • The government has to prove the Judge intended to obstruct justice when she permitted the defendant to leave her courtroom through the side door, and that’s difficult to do. We know that intent is often the most challenging issue prosecutors face. Here, when the defendant leaves the Judge’s courtroom and goes into a space where agents can, and in fact do, apprehend him, it’s going to be hard to show she had “an improper purpose,” as the law requires, and was trying to prevent them from going about their business. We still don’t know what all of the evidence is, but on its face, this looks like a burden the government will have difficulty overcoming.
  • As for harboring a fugitive, part of what the government would have to prove involves establishing the Judge actually harbored or concealed the fugitive. There is legal precedent that explains harboring means giving someone a place to stay or caring for them while they’re hiding from law enforcement. The government would also have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Judge intended to prevent the fugitive’s discovery or arrest. Unless the government has more evidence, that looks like a heavy lift here.

Given all of these concerns, legal, factual, and policy, you would expect prosecutors to take their time to think things through instead of jumping in with a precipitous and highly public indictment. The concerns take us back to the question of why the case was charged at all, and the answer is that the motivation has little to do with what Judge Dugan did here. Trump is coming for the judges. It will be up to all of us to stand with them.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

Peace & Justice History for 4/27

April 27, 1936
The UAW (United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America), gained autonomy from the AFL (American Federation of Labor), becoming the first democratic, independent labor union concerned with the rights of unskilled and semi-skilled laborers.
April 27, 1937
The Social Security Administration began operation by making its first payment to an American protected under the law, principally the elderly, and children who’ve lost their parents. 
April 27, 1942
Sixteen pacifists, including Evan Thomas and A.J. Muste, refused to register for the World War II draft. Muste was a Quaker activist, founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and author of two pamphlets that same year, War is the Enemy and Wage Peace Now.

A.J. Muste still working for peace 25 years later with Dorothy Day, leader of the Catholic Worker movement.
Read about War is the Enemy 
April 27, 1974
Ten thousand marched in Washington, D.C., calling for impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon.
April 27, 1987
Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, was blockaded by people protesting U.S. policies in Central America and Southern Africa. 700 were arrested.
April 27, 1989
Thousands of Chinese students took to the streets in Beijing to protest government policies and issued a call for greater democracy in the communist People’s Republic of China.
The protests grew until the Chinese government ruthlessly suppressed them in June during what came to be known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, students from more than 40 universities began a march to Tiananmen this day.

The students were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants and, by mid-May, more than a million people filled the square.
April 27, 1994

Nelson Mandela casting his first vote
South Africa held its first multiracial elections and chose anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela (with more than 62% of the vote) to head a new coalition government that included his African National Congress Party.
More on that historic election 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april27