Category: Emotions / Emotional / Feelings
Clay Jones, Open Windows, & A PRIDE Greeting from We Rate Dogs
Trump is bored with his war
Thousands killed and billions of taxpayer dollars for Trump’s Iran quagmire
Trump also says he “couldn’t care less” if negotiations break down with Iran.
Murder, She Wrote
Scott Pelley said that Bari Weiss is murdering 60 Minutes
Getting rid of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to appease Donald Trump isn’t the only poke in the eye of CBS by Paramount Skydance.
Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, appointed by Paramount Skydance CEO and Trump ally David Ellison, has been accused by Scott Pelley of murdering 60 Minutes.
Ellison really wants to be on good terms with regulators in the Trump administration. He was at the inauguration, has attended UFC fights with Trump, and even hosted an invite-only Washington DC party for him.
Tech journalist and filmmaker Nick Bilton is the new executive producer of 60 Minutes, who was appointed last week after the firing of former producer Tanya Simon and her deputy, along with correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Bilton held a morning meeting in Midtown Manhattan, which was a formal introduction to the staff of 60 Minutes, where he was told by Pelley that he had “slender” qualifications for the job and that Beri Weiss was “murdering” 60 Minutes.
A recording of the meeting was obtained by The New York Times. (snip-MORE)
This is Bodie. His presence indicates the beginning of Pride Month. May his whimsy and steadfastness bring joy and confidence to all. 14/10 the parade starts right behind him 🌈🐾
The Rainbow Flag & Gilbert Baker Day
(Gilbert Baker Day was yesterday, but PRIDE month is all month. I’m not sure I recall ever learning Gilbert Baker’s name before this morning. Also, I’m really gonna miss Gov. Kelly after her term ends, even if we manage to elect another Dem.)
As Pride Month dawns, Kansas governor helps celebrate rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker
Clay Wirestone
Kansas residents and activists gathered with Gov. Laura Kelly last week for her signing of a proclamation honoring rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker. (Photo from Kansas governor’s office)
Happy Gilbert Baker Day!
Thanks to a proclamation from Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly signed Friday, we can celebrate the life and work of Parsons native Baker this June 2. He created a piece of American iconography that has spread across the globe and into the hearts of those who care for their gay neighbors: the rainbow pride flag.
Kelly Wall, a board member of PFLAG Lawrence, requested the day after reading about Baker in an authoritative piece by founding Kansas Reflector opinion editor C.J. Janovy. (You can also read Janovy’s work in the new anthology “Kansas Matters: Twenty-First-Century Writers on the Sunflower State.”)
Lauren Shepard of Parsons was on hand at the Statehouse to watch Kelly sign. She had just graduated from Pittsburg State University with a master’s degree. According to her, efforts to honor Baker locally ran into static.
“Ultimately, the town, the city commission ended up tabling the idea, so we pivoted and got together and started a Gilbert Baker Memorial Scholarship through the Parsons High School, where he graduated,” she told me. “So now every year we select a student that’s active in their OAQ, which is like a gay-straight alliance, it’s a student organization there at the high school.”
Wall was out of the state Friday, but a group assembled by her showed up to honor Baker. It included Shepard, several Lawrence activists and state Sen. Marci Francisco. I tagged along and noted that multiple groups had gathered on the second floor of the Statehouse for their own proclamation time with Kelly. One was promoting an “Asteroid Day.”
Inside the governor’s ceremonial office, group members realized that no one had actually brought a rainbow flag — the symbol for Pride Month and LGBTQ+ rights more generally.
No worries, Kelly told them.
She retreated into her actual office and returned bearing a rainbow flag coaster and a copy of Janovy’s book, “No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas,” which features rainbow stripes on the cover.
Crisis averted, the group took pictures with Kelly, the proclamation and the props. That was that.
No one on hand missed the broader implications. Baker had turned his back on his Kansas background, living in San Francisco and New York City. He had finally agreed to return to Parsons, Janovy writes, for a key to the city and film festival in 2017. A month before the events, Baker died at the too-young age of 65.
“It allows us to recognize one of our own who created an emblem that allows us to recognize all of LGBTQ across the country and across the world,” said Rachel Reed of Lawrence. “And it’s very, very important.”
Janis Guyot serves as president of Lawrence PFLAG and stood in for Wall at the signing. Afterward, she held the proclamation certificate as others in the group swirled around to take a look.
“I’m really happy that there’s something to celebrate for the LGBTQ world right now,” Guyot told me. “It’s tough time for all of them.”
Since Baker’s untimely death, we’ve seen a public push and pull over gay rights. Transgender folks — members of the movement from the beginning, whether they were identified as such or not — have been systematically excluded and discriminated against. The Kansas Legislature has repeatedly passed hateful laws.
Who knows what Baker might say about this recent turmoil. Given that he went by the drag name “Busty Ross,” I imagine he would bring an irreverent sense of humor along with his passion for making the world a better place.
Hopefully, he would say progress hasn’t stopped, and it won’t stop, regardless of small minds and even smaller hearts.
In an oral history from 2008, Baker suggested as much: “I do know that time is on our side and that the young people generation, and more importantly my generation, we have fought hard, and we have — we’ve worked on our parents, we have our own children, and we’re moving society forward. So I think we’re going to be all right. I mean, it may take a little more fight and a little more work than people want, but we’ll get there.”
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
More For Pride:
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard 6 hours ago
Happy Pride Month lovely people! 🌈
https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxzqP2DqFtvQK9iQBY8IblzyZ3IS6B7Kso
There is a great deal of peace & justice history for June 1, that includes Sojourner Truth, the Greenwood massacre, Nazis, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, The Lord’s Prayer in public schools and SCOTUS, and even more; here for PRIDE I’m featuring Henry Gerber. The link for the entire date’s history is beneath.
| June 1, 1932 |
| Gay rights organizer Henry Gerber published an article in Modern Thinker magazine attacking the view that homosexuality is a neurosis. In 1924, Henry Gerber, a postal worker in Chicago, started the Society for Human Rights, America’s first known gay rights organization. |  |
| “The Society for Human Rights is formed to promote and protect the interests of people who are abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence, and to combat the public prejudices against them.” |
| After having created and distributed a newsletter called “Friendship and Freedom,” Gerber was arrested and held for 3 days without a warrant or being charged with any infractions. Upon release he lost his job for “conduct unbecoming a postal worker.” Following the last of his three trials, in which the charges were ultimately dismissed, Gerber moved to new York City and re-enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving another 17 years. He lived until 1972, passing away at the the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C., living long enough to see the Stonewall Rebellion [see June 28, 1969], the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. |
| More on Henry Gerber (2 links; I’m including the 2d one because it’s a National Parks Services page, but it’s “in progress,” as we would expect in light of Exec. Orders…) |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjune.htm#june1
Tom Steyer Isn’t F****** Around
I am really becomeing in favor of this person for governor. I love how he talks about trans kids and how he wants them to feel included in society. He said that because of the risk of suicide and self harm if these children are excluded he won’t do that to them. He is not giving an inch on trans issues. As for advantages or not as Emma and Sam discuss there is a basket ball player so tall that he can stand on his toes and put the ball in the net. Is that an unfair advantage? Hugs
Some clips from The Majority Report on different subjects
REPORT: Trump To Pull US Assets Set Aside For NATO
Putin must be so pleased with his US employee and asset. This thin skined ego managi in dementia with a cult following and a terrified Republican Party has ruined all efforts to rein in dictatorships and authoritarian countries. The only authoritarian country they attack is because it has the wrong religion for the religious part of the cult. This tRump guy wrote love letters to the dictator of North Korea and bows deeply metaphorically to Putin, talking lovingly about autocrats around the world who push white supremacy and the Christian family values talking points. But since his first term he has had it out for NATO seemingly at Putin’s behest. He has refused to provide Ukraine with weapons and support again something Putin has been demanding. tRump repeated Russian talking points of Ukraine starting the war with Russia. He has constantly attacked NATO partners about funding not understanding that funding is not money put into a pot for NATO to use, the funding was what each country could / would put into the group in weapons, people, and equipment. He is angry that NATO did not support the US illegal unprovoked war against a country who had not attacked the US. But the NATO charter specifically mandates that they wouldn’t be required to do so in that case. But the only time that article five was activated was for the US after 9-11 attack on the US. tRump is not allowed to remove the US legally from NATO so this is a way he can legally do it with out really removing us from NATO. I wanted to post the linked article but it required allowing adverts and I simply won’t do that. Hugs
White Lion – When The Children Cry (Official Music Video)
I hate the YouTube algorithm and and myself more for giving into it and saving all the hateful abuse videos I get. I am crying now trying not to alert Ron who is in the next room with the door between us open. I had two open windows. In one I had so many tabs of abuse that the algorithm pushed them to me because I occasionally watch them. I deleted 8 of them before switching to the other open window. What does YouTube think I need to see / hear after all that deleting and not watching all those videos? The two videos below.
Am I the one to blame but if so what does that say about all the vulnerable children who are led down hate rabbit holes? At least the harm happening here is to me done myself aidded by the shit pushed into my feeds and I am so stupid that I click on them and leave the tab open while I try to move onto something else. But eventually I end up coming back to the ones that hurt me so much. Who is to blame? As always in my life, as in my childhood … I am, and I have always been according to those that hurt me. Goodnight. Scottie. Hugs
We’re Wrong About the Rates of Trans People
I love Ethel and her way of presenting facts and reality. She points out that studies in high schools indicate that the rates of trans children are 3.+ and those questioning are 2.+. Plus she points out the reason more trans people are out is the same reason more gay kids came out in the 2000s, it was the left handed issue again. When being left handed became OK to admit more people admitted and openly lived as left handed. Despite everything, trans kids feel safer coming out in the US than ever before. Hugs.
The No Labels Party, Also Free Suicide Prevention Training
Some news about No Labels from my state; what’s happening with parties in your state? And great news regarding suicide prevention efforts aimed at LGBTQ+. I bet my state isn’t the only one!
No Labels Kansas is no more as a political party, despite bizarre bid to hijack the organization
Party didn’t fulfill plan to nominate candidates for president, vice president
By: Tim Carpenter
TOPEKA — Demise of the No Labels Kansas political party was inevitable after it neglected to fulfill the organization’s central objective when formed in January 2024 to nominate candidates for U.S. president and vice president.
The failure of No Labels Kansas to field candidates for any type of statewide office or to win at least 1% of the total votes cast for that office in a general election meant the organization would eventually lose its standing in Kansas among the state’s five political parties. Instead of leaving Kansans to speculate when that might occur in 2026, No Labels Kansas secretary and treasurer Shane Mathis requested May 15 the termination of state recognition of the political party.
“Because No Labels Kansas declined to nominate candidates for those offices in 2024 and has no intention of doing so in the future, its central organizational purpose no longer exists,” Mathis said.
Secretary of State Scott Schwab complied Monday with the request and notified county election clerks and commissioners of state law requiring voter registration records be amended so 5,955 people registered with No Labels Kansas would be reclassified as unaffiliated.
In Kansas, the Republican Party dominates with 897,000 registered voters compared with the 575,000 unaffiliated and 495,000 Democratic Party registrants.
While founders of No Labels Kansas didn’t make a dent in Kansas elections, the existence of its organizational shell led a pair of longtime Republican operatives to attempt a hijacking of No Labels Kansas so it might be transformed into an organization with a broader mission that included nomination of candidates for state offices. (snip-MORE)
Kansas organization launches free suicide prevention training focused on LGBTQ+ community
By: Baya Burgess
TOPEKA — A Wichita organization created an online training program for suicide prevention and mental health education to improve the care that LGBTQ+ Kansans receive when reaching out to crisis resources, including the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
The organization, Center of Daring, focuses on inclusivity and leadership training. Its 10-part training program takes nine hours to complete and is available for free on the center’s website, according to an April 28 press release announcing the program.
“We believe this training series will fill a deep need here at a time when many LGBTQ+ Kansans don’t feel safe in our state,” said Liz Hamor, the Center of Daring founder, in the release.
Through learning activities, videos and surveys, the training covers trauma-informed intervention, intersectionality and promoting equity within a crisis response organization. The training was designed with input from LGBTQ+ residents and Kansas crisis care providers, according to the press release.
The 988 helpline is a mental health crisis resource available 24/7. It went nationwide in 2022. Kansas’ line received more than 34,000 calls, 12,000 texts and 9,000 chats in 2025, according to a state-mandated annual report.
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is a free, confidential hotline available 24/7 for individuals in crisis or those looking to help someone else. To speak with a certified listener, call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.
