August 3, 1882 Congress passed the first U.S. law to restrict immigration of a particular ethnic group into the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Act. It stopped all further Chinese immigration for ten years, and denied citizenship to those already in the country, most of whom had been recruited by American railroad and mining companies. The law remained in effect until 1943. Chinese rail workers Very cool site from the National Archives and Records Administration
August 3, 1913 Four died and many others were injured in the Wheatland Hop Riot when police fired into a crowd of California hop pickers trying to organize (with the help of the IWW, or Industrial Workers of the World). At the Durst Ranch in Wheatland, the state’s largest single agricultural employer, hundreds of workers—whites, Mexicans, and Filipinos—had put down their tools because of terrible working conditions, low wages, and an almost complete lack of sanitation and decent housing. It was one of the first attempts to organize agricultural workers. The story of the Wheatland Hop Riot
August 3, 1981 Nearly 13,000 of the nation’s 17,500 air traffic controllers, members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), went on strike.After six months of negotiations with PATCO President Robert Poli, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had offered less than 10% of what the union had sought. Due to the stressful nature of their jobs, managing the nation’s ever-increasing volume of airport landings and take-offs without up-to-date equipment, they had asked for a shorter workweek, an increase in pay and retirement after 20 years. 95% of PATCO members rejected the FAA’s final offer. The union had endorsed Ronald Reagan for president in 1980 (one of very few to do so), but President Reagan said they were violating U.S. law banning strikes by federal workers, and would all be terminated unless they returned to work within 48 hours. A Reagan Letter to Robert Poli, PATCO (October. 20, 1980) Dear Mr. Poli: I have been briefed by members of my staff as to the deplorable state of our nation’s air traffic control system. They have told me that too few people working unreasonable hours with obsolete equipment has placed the nation’s air travellers in unwarranted danger. In an area so clearly related to public safety the Carter administration has failed to act responsibly. You can rest assured that if I am elected President, I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety…. I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers. Sincerely, Ronald Reagan More about the strike
August 3, 1986 Laurie McBride and seven other Motherpeace members of the Nanoose Conversion Campaign were arrested for picnicking on Winchelsea Island, east of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. They, along with dozens of volunteer witnesses and supporters who had set off by boat from the town of Nanoose Bay, were protesting the ten-year extension of free use by the U.S. of the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental Test Range (CFMETR). It is a joint Canadian-American facility for torpedos, other maritime warfare and detection equipment; the island held the command and control center. The Campaign advocated conversion of the area back to peaceful purposes. Laurie McBride’s story
August 3, 1988 One hundred forty-three white English and Afrikaans conscripts from four cities in South Africa announced their refusal to serve in the South African Defense Force. The SADF was engaged in actions to preserve apartheid, the social and economic system of racial separatism, in South Africa, and to occupy and thwart independence for South Africa’s neighbors, Angola and Namibia [see July 31, 1986]. 24-year-old David Bruce had just been sentenced to six years in prison for refusing to serve; he was released after two. He works today with The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation on issues of integrity, conduct and accountability in democratic policing. David BruceThe Police That We Want .pdf
Black Indigenous Chefs Are Reclaiming Identity Through Food — One Dish at a Time by Michael Harriot
Black Native food workers are passing down culinary traditions, restoring lost connections and feeding body and soul. Read on Substack
Crystal Wahpepah (Photo courtesy of Crystal Wahpepah)
The Indigenous food movement has seen a renaissance in North America, with restaurant openings, cookbook releases and community initiatives that announce the presence, expertise and heritage of Indigenous food workers. Amidst this moment, Black Native food workers have seen both the beauty and the harshness of living at the intersection of Blackness and Indigeneity, as the dominant settler colonial culture of the United States often tries to erase or flatten all parts of their identities.
But those attempts at erasure have also provided moments of reflection and insight, and a realization that the mission of Black Indigenous food workers is profoundly spiritual and political healing work. For Stephan Oak, a Black and Lakota forager and woodworker who lives in Detroit, the threads of connection that Black Indigenous people hold in their family stories that are “steeped in violence, but also steeped in love and resistance” are also guides that allow them to connect in the past, present, and future — a shared cosmology.
Crystal Wahpepah, who is Black and Kickapoo and the executive chef and owner of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, Calif., says that often, through representation and education, Black Native people in the food industry come to a deeper peace about their identity and heritage. At Wahpepah’s Kitchen, over cornbread dishes from the Ute and Kickapoo people, wild rice from the Great Lakes tribes and bison from the Great Plains, people often find themselves.
“I meet so many people who are Black and Native but never felt connected to their Indigenous side, and when they meet me, they start talking about it, about culture, about those things that have been lost,” she says. Wahpepah is also opening a new restaurant, A Feather and a Fork, which is also the title of her upcoming cookbook.
That loss is something felt in both Black and Indigenous communities and can often feel pronounced because of family separation through residential schools, land expulsions, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the domestic slave trade that broke up Black families across the country. “Because of colonial violence, there’s a fractured relationship to home or your connection to your ancestors,” says Oak. “The intent of the colonizer is to stop you from looking … to accept the identity of the conditions they’ve placed on you.”
Food is one of the ways Oak and others are reclaiming autonomy over their identities, especially as governments use food as a weapon by depriving communities of affordable, culturally relevant food. Oak points out that even amidst food deserts on reservations and urban Black communities, people find ways to be more self-sufficient and connect back to the land, which helps them reconnect with the essence of who they are. (snip-MORE; lots more but not too long)
Crystal Wahpepah’s wild rice salad with strawberries and pecans (Courtesy of Crystal Wahpepah)
July 31, 1896 The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was established in Washington, D.C. Its two leading members were Josephine Ruffin and Mary Church Terrell. Founders also included some of the most renowned African-American women educators, community leaders, and civil-rights activists in America, including Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Margaret Murray Washington, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Mary Church Terrell The original intention of the organization was “to furnish evidence of the moral, mental and material progress made by people of colour through the efforts of our women.” However, over the next ten years the NACW became involved in campaigns favoring women’s suffrage and opposing lynching and Jim Crow laws. By the time the United States entered the First World War, membership had reached 300,000. The NACW and its founders
July 31, 1986 25,000 people rallied in Namibia for freedom from South African colonial rule. In June, 1971 the International Court of Justice had ruled the South African presence in Namibia to be illegal. Eventually, open elections for a 72-member Constituent Assembly were held under U.N. supervision in November, 1989. Three months later Namibia gained its independence, and maintains it today. More on Namibia’s independence Namibian flag
July 31, 1991 The United States and the Soviet Union, represented by President George H.W. Bush and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I. It was the first agreement to actually reduce (by 25-35%) and verify both countries’ stockpiles of nuclear weapons at equal aggregate levels in strategic offensive arms. The Soviet Union dissolved several months later, but Russia and the U.S. met their goals by December, 2001. Three other former republics of the U.S.S.R., Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, have eliminated these weapons from their territory altogether. Comprehensive info from the Federation of American Scientists:
Again the attempt to kill diversity and the LGBTQ+ representation. This may seem small potatoes but again this is about erasing the LGBTQ+ community. Hugs
We are writing with profound regret to inform you that the 17th annual Desperado LGBTQ+ Film Festival has been canceled. This decision comes in direct response to recent presidential executive orders impacting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts at public institutions, including our community college district.
As a publicly funded institution, we must comply with these orders. Failure to do so would jeopardize the district’s federal funding, including student financial aid and grants that support over 300 positions across our campuses. The loss of such funding would create a ripple effect, significantly affecting students, faculty, staff, the community, and the educational services we provide.
Thank you to our audience that has made Desperado possible for the past sixteen years. You have helped us provide a platform for underrepresented voices and celebrate the richness of the LGBTQ+ community through the power of film. We are deeply grateful.
While we are heartbroken to pause this year’s event, we hope this is not a farewell but a momentary pause. We look forward to the possibility of resuming the festival when conditions allow.
Read the full press release. The festival is hosted by a student organization at Phoenix’s Paradise Valley Community College, which receives federal funds.
As I keep saying this is a small very loud mostly religious driven minority using ever tool and lie they can to change perception of the LGBTQ+ to erase them from society to create the cis straight society they want to force on everyone. We must counter them by being as loud and forceful to not only refute their lies but also promote the joy of living freely as an inclusive society. Hugs
Close-Up of rainbow flag with crowd In background during LGBT Pride Parade. Getty Images.
Ohio lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have introduced several LGBTQ-related bills so far this General Assembly.
Republicans have put forth a drag ban bill, a piece of legislation that would make it harder for a student to use a different name or pronoun at school, and a bill requiring transgender political candidates to list their deadname, among others.
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have introduced the Ohio Fairness Act and a bill that would ban conversion therapy.
An Ohio court partially overturned a ban on gender-affirming care for LGBTQ youth earlier this year, meaning doctors can still prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Anti-LGBTQ bills
Ohio House Bill 249 would ban drag performers from performing anywhere that is not a designated adult entertainment facility. State Reps. Angie King, R-Celina, and Josh Williams, R-Sylvania Twp., introduced the bill, which has had sponsor testimony.
This is a re-introduction of a bill from the previous General Assembly that did not make it out of committee and faced much opposition.
Ohio House Bill 190 would require parental permission for schools to use different pronouns or different names for students that don’t match up with the biological sex or birth name.
Williams and state Rep. Johnathan Newman, R-Troy, introduced the bill, which has had sponsor testimony.
Ohio House Bill 172 would ban children 14 and older from receiving mental health services without parental consent. Newman also introduced this bill, which has had sponsor testimony.
Ohio House Bill 196 would require political candidates to list their former names on candidacy petitions. This, however, would not apply to names that have been changed due to marriage. King and state Reps Rodney Creech, R-West Alexandria, introduced the bill, which has had sponsor testimony.
Ohio House Bill 262 would designate the weeks from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day as Natural Family Month. Williams and state Rep. Beth Lear, R-Galena, introduced the bill, which has had sponsor and opponent testimony.
Pro-LGBTQ bills
Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, has introduced a few bills that support LGBTQ people. Antonio is the only openly gay lawmaker in the Ohio General Assembly.
Ohio Senate Bill 70, also known as the Ohio Fairness Act, would expand anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity. House Bill 136 is a companion bill.
Antonio has introduced the Ohio Fairness Act in every General Assembly since she was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2011 and this is the first time since 2018 the bill has no Republican support.
Ohio Senate Bill 71 would ban any licensed health professionals from doing conversion therapy when providing mental health treatment to minors. Antonio and state Sen. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, introduced the bill. House Bill 300 is a companion bill.
Ohio Senate Bill 211 would designate the first full week of June as “Love Makes a Family Week.” Antonio introduced this bill as well.
None of these bills have had any hearings so far this General Assembly. Ohio lawmakers are on summer break and will come back to the Statehouse this fall.
Mehdi moderates a panel with YouTube star Brian Tyler Cohen, LA city council member Nithya Raman, and podcaster Van Lathan, LIVE in Los Angeles!
Mehdi and Zeteo concluded our one-year anniversary tour last week, with a final stop in the city that has made headlines in recent days and weeks, after the Trump administration deployed the National Guard against protesters.
Yes, Los Angeles. Political commentator and YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen: “If it was happening in another country… We would not hesitate for a single second to call it autocracy, authoritarianism, or a dictatorship”
In this special live recording, Mehdi sits down with Cohen, as well as LA City Council member Nithya Raman and “Higher Learning” co-host Van Lathan for a conversation on President Donald Trump’s targeting of LA protesters and immigrants, Democrats’ response, and the media’s handling of Trump 2.0.
LA Councilmember Nithya Raman: “There is an incredible amount of fear right now,” Raman tells Mehdi. “They’re [ICE] showing up at workplaces. They’re showing on street corners. They’re showing up taking street vendors who are selling outside of a Home Depot…
They showed up outside of an elder care facility in Santa Monica and took workers from there. I mean these are kidnappings.” Mehdi asks Lathan, who frequently appears on CNN, about whether he believes the media is meeting the moment right now when it comes to covering Trump’s second term.
Van Lathan: “The legacy media right now is made to serve a commercial break ‘I’m mad on the left,’ ‘I’m on the right,’ ‘I am the host, you two stop fighting! We’ll be right back,’ ‘Proctor & Gamble.’” Did you like this video? It was published on zeteo.com several days ago.
If you would like early access to more exclusive content like this, then do consider becoming a paid subscriber. It costs as much as a single coffee a month, gives you early access to all our fearless, independent reporting, and goes a long way in supporting our mission of bringing the best of journalism to YOU our subscribers. So what are you waiting for?
The minority groups trying to push hate on the LGBTQ+ are well funded by billionaires like J.K. Rowling and the Christian church. They are using every media they can to turn young people against the LGBTQ+ using the most misinformation they can generate. And as much as they want / demand society return to their fantasied Christian 1950s pro white cis straight only country it was not true then and can’t be true now. Their goal is the total erasure of the LGBTQ+ and also any rights for those gained in the civil rights act. Below is a quote from the article. Hugs.
“I’m almost 40 and have seen so much progress like equal marriage,” Kelly says. “But something is changing. Hatred towards people like me is becoming mainstream again.”
Demonstrators participate in an event called “Show the flag: For queer visibility in the Bundestag!” in front of the Reichstag building that houses Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin, on July 8. The conservative president of the Bundestag said the rainbow flag would no longer be raised on top of the parliament building during Pride month, which in Germany runs from June 28 until July 27.
Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
The tree-lined neighborhood near Nollendorfplatz square in central Berlinis as gay today as it was a century ago.
It’s where Christopher Isherwood wrote novels chronicling the rise of the Nazis amid the city’s rich queer nightlife that inspired the musical Cabaret.
Every summer, the neighborhood throws its own smaller-scale LGBTQ+ Pride event separate from the city’s main annual parade taking place this weekend.
It’s just one of more than 200 Pride events taking place in Germany this year. But with far-right extremist groups staging anti-Pride protests, many Pride attendees fear for their safety.
Sipping on a cocktail as the street party gets underway, 62-year-old Georg Schmidt says he’s relieved that this event is a relaxed affair. He says he attended a different local pride parade last month across town in the district of Marzahn and the mood there was tense.
“There was a massive police presence to shield us from anti-Pride protests. We only felt safe because the police kept us apart,” Schmidt says.
Revelers march down the Leipziger Strasse street during a Pride parade in Berlin, July 23, 2022.
Markus Schreiber/AP
Sabine Volk, a researcher at the Institute for Research on Far Right Extremism at the University of Tübingen, says these groups attract young men who promote what they call traditional family values — a kind of pride that has little to do with rainbow flags.
“The key slogan is that the German flag and Germany itself is already colorful enough,” Volk says. “And the overall message is that queer life does not have a place in Germany.”
President of German Parliament Bundestag Julia Klöckner speaks to the media on July 8 in Berlin.
Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images
Speaking on public broadcaster ARD, Merz signaled his support for the rule at Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, with the words, “the Bundestag is not a circus tent” — a remark to which many have taken umbrage.
Merz backs his colleague’s argument that the lower house must maintain neutrality and cannot support events with a political agenda.
Nyke Slawik speaks during a parliamentary debate on queer hate crime in the Bundestag. Photo: Carsten Koall/dpa (Photo by Carsten Koall/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Carsten Koall/picture alliance via Getty Images
Opposition Green Party lawmaker Nyke Slawik criticized the move. “Declaring the rainbow a political symbol is highly problematic” stressing that “queer people are not an ideology; they are people!” Slawik told public broadcaster ZDF.
Slawik argues they are people increasingly in need of protection. Germany’s federal police report an almost tenfold increase in reported queerphobic hate crimes since 2010 and they believe the majority of cases go unreported.
The issue is not divided by party political lines; criticism of Merz’s choice of words has come from within his own party. Sönke Siegmann, the chair of the Christian Democrats’ LGBTQ+ Association, says some within his party are still catching up on terminology.
“If you say queer in my party, most people take a deep breath and say: ‘Oh, that’s a left-wing term,’ ” Siegmann observes. He says he has spoken with Merz since he made his “circus tent” comments.
“We explained to him what queer really means and two days later when asked in Parliament about LBGTQ+ hate crimes and what his government will do about them, Merz actually used the term queer,” Siegmann says.
Back inthe Nollendorfplatz area, rainbow flags fly every month of the year. But local resident Chris Kelly says the mood here is not as “live and let live” as it once was. He recently opened a boutique that sells high-end garments made from industrial strength rubber. He says business is good and he has a broad customer base, but it was almost impossible trying to find premises for the boutique.
“We found plenty of suitable spaces to rent and our finances are solid, but a lot of landlords rejected us, saying they didn’t want people like us,” Kelly remembers. “Real estate agents had warned us, but I was flabbergasted to encounter such prejudice in Berlin’s queerest, gayest neighborhood.”
Kelly’s store is located just down the street from Romeo and Romeo, a gay bar whose owner was attacked last month. Kelly says he too gets more verbal abuse than he used to and he hears again and again of attacks on members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“I’m almost 40 and have seen so much progress like equal marriage,” Kelly says. “But something is changing. Hatred towards people like me is becoming mainstream again.”
Kelly points out that a few doors down in the other direction is where the legendary nightclub Eldorado stood until the Nazis closed it down in 1933, eventually sending its queer clientele to concentration camps.
A commuter walks down the steps of Berlin’s Bundestag subway station, decorated with rainbow colors, the symbol of the LGBTQ+ community, on July 24.
John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images
As preparations for Berlin’s main Pride parade get underway, the city police say they’ve received a permit request for a counterdemonstration protesting “against Pride terror and identity disorders.”
In reaction to the Bundestag president’s decision not to fly the rainbow flag on top of parliament this year, Berlin’s transport authority has decorated its Bundestag subway station stop in rainbow colors, writing on Instagram: “So our Bundestag is ready for Pride.”
Kelly urges people to attend Pride and stand up to a new generation of the far-right. He has no desire to say Goodbye to Berlin and the neighborhood around Nollendorfplatz, as Isherwood was forced to do.
Of course, I’m just joking, but I might be starting something here. If MAGAts can believe in chemtrails (and they do), then they can believe President Barack Obama used Kenyan voodoo to give Trump cankles. They already believe in a lot of crazy shit.
The Trump administration claims that Obama committed treason by ordering an investigation into Russia collusion, but how is that treason? Who is it treasonous to, Trump? Is it treasonous to Russia? And how is ordering an investigation into an attack against our country treasonous? I think it’s more treasonous to ignore it or lie about it. It should be treasonous to take Putin’s side over America’s.
If Trump were president in World War II, and Russia had bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, he would have called it a “hoax” and “fake news.”
Now, Trump is coming up with more bullshit to distract his zombies from the Epstein case. He’s howling for prosecuting Beyonce and Oprah. Even if what he was howling about was true, a president (sic) is supposed to let the Justice Department do its job, and leave it alone. Here, Trump wants the DOJ to prosecute Beyoncé and Oprah for supporting his political opponent.
MAGAts have been asking us, “How is Trump fascist?” Ordering the prosecution of your political opponents is just one example of fascism.
One final note: I do know that voodoo is not Kenyan. (snip)
Die, Die, UVA DEI, Die by Clay Jones
A board without diversity will hire the next UVA president Read on Substack
Abigail Spanberger will be Virginia’s next governor. Governor Glenn Youngkin knows this and has probably known throughout his regime that not only was he limited to one term, but so was his party. Just as Trump left things horrible for Joe Biden to clean up in 2021, Youngkin is leaving a mess for the next governor. With help from the Trump regime, one of those messes is at UVA, the University of Virginia.
As you may remember, Trump’s politicized Department of Justice, chock-full of goons, has forced out the president of UVA over DEI policies. They used his integrity against him, blackmailing him by withholding federal funds unless he resigned.
Now, UVA’s Board of Visitors will hire a new president. Unfortunately, the board is stocked entirely of right-wing fucknuts appointed by Glenn Youngkin, including former state Attorney General and member of the first Trump regime, Ken Cuccinelli. The board is nearly as White as the Trump cabinet. Even the two non-white members probably love them some mayonnaise sandwiches.
Trump has stripped funding for schools to implement his anti-DEI policies, which include shutting down student protests. Columbia University recently agreed to pay a $200 million fine to protect its funding, but lost a huge chunk of its independence to the Trump regime. (snip-MORE, and it’s very good!)
Scottie's Playtime 