I am riding with a friend to a Humane Society board meeting this evening. I don’t tend to leave the house much in the evenings; I prefer daytime stuff, and tucking up in the evening. But, I do want to get back into helping the shelter, and they need board members, so I’m going. It is causing me anxiety; I think I’d rather drive myself, but it’ll be fine. So Chuck Drew A Thing, and here it is below:
WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Connie Palacioz, a World War II-era “Rosie the Riveter” who helped build B-29 Superfortress bombers in Wichita and later spent decades volunteering with the restored B-29 DOC aircraft, has died. She was 101.
During World War II, more than six million women entered the workforce in a variety of roles, including factory work that was crucial to the war effort.
Palacioz went to work at The Boeing Co. in Wichita at age 17 and served as a riveter on the B-29 production line from 1943 to 1945. The Wichita factory built 1,644 B-29 Superfortress bombers during the war.
In 2000, when B-29 DOC returned to Wichita for restoration, Palacioz was 75 years old. She joined the team working to return the aircraft to flight, according to a statement from Doc’s Friends, Inc., the non-profit she volunteered at.
“She was the first one up when she was on tour with us, and the last one to leave the airplane. She was so proud of what she and her volunteers and what she and her team had built,” said B-29 DOC Executive Director Josh Wells.
Palacioz remained an active member of the organization for 26 years. She served as an advocate for the nonprofit’s mission while sharing her own story and those of other women who worked in wartime production.
“Connie’s life journey was inspiring, and it’s been our great honor to have shared her legacy and life story through B-29 DOC,” Wells said in a statement. “Not only was Connie a Wichita and Kansas legend, but her story and work during World War II on the B-29 Superfortress production line also made her a national hero.”
Wells also shared the impact Palacioz had on his life.
“She was an inspiration to me. She was an inspiration to many people, and I think she’s a trailblazer,” Wells said.
Not only was Palacioz a trailblazer for women, she was also a supporter of civil rights, as she worked with a minority coworker when no one else would.
“Jerry was African-American, and Mom said, ‘that’s fine with me, I’m a minority, I’m Mexican, I’ll work with her.’ Then they wanted to separate them, and they didn’t separate,” said Tish Nielsen, Palacioz’s daughter.
Palacioz often reflected on her role in the wartime effort while speaking with visitors to the aircraft.
“When visitors come and they ask us, and then I tell them that I worked there and that I did this, and everything is still in order,” Palacioz said. “You know, I always tell them there were seven rivets missing when it was in the desert.”
“I wish all the others that worked with me could be here, but of course, they are gone,” she said. “But, I don’t know, it’s been great. It just is something that I can’t tell you exactly how, but I feel wonderful to be here.”
For many years, Palacioz’s story was unknown, even to her daughter, which Nielsen pointed to as a sign of her humility.
“When you would ask her, ‘why didn’t you tell us you were Rosie the Riveter?’ She said, ‘Well, I was just doing my job.’ And that’s the way she was,” Nielsen said.
Wells said it’s important to keep stories like Palacioz’s alive.
“It’s very important that we carry on their stories and honor people like Connie, to make sure that the next generation knows about them,” Wells said.
Nielsen said the thing she’ll remember most about her mother is her faith and her hard work throughout life.
“I would say she was a very faithful, faith-filled woman, who was very determined, and enjoyed life,” Nielsen said.
Funeral services are pending. A public celebration of life will be planned, according to the statement.
stuff here on Playtime, day to day; lots of material from which to listen, choose, skim, read in full, watch. Today is Sunday. I frequently take the day to get my emails cleared and read the stuff I haven’t gotten to through the week. Sunday is the day a new Lit Hub email comes, and today I indulged myself by opening it before many other things, including last week’s Lit Hub. I did that because I admire Mae West; also I tend to use the F-word a lot inside my home and inside my head. Today’s Lit Hub covers each of these subjects along with its usual variety. If you likeand/or use the F-word, and/or are interested in the etymology of the F-word, you should read the Lit Hub story you can see by clicking this sentence. And now, here is the bit of info of interest about Mae West. We may all be aware that she was so much more than the caricature we tend to receive; she was an ally of LGBTQ+, a playwright, and more. This short bit has some links to her work. Enjoy!
Monstrosity Plucked From Garbage Can: On Mae West’s early career as a controversial playwright.
Mae West is an icon: literally, a representative symbol. In the popular imagination, Mae West stands in for a certain type of seduction—blonde, campy, one-liner-heavy. But though West is best known for her distinctive performances, she was also a controversial playwright; before West established the acting persona that would stick in the public’s minds for a century, she was offending critics and facing jail time for shows that she called “comedy-dramas of life,” illuminating elements of life yet to be popularized onstage.
West’s plays The Dragand The Pleasure Manbrought a type of communal gay camp onstage that at turns scandalized and excited a largely straight audience. And back in 1926, before Diamond Lil, her play-turned-movie about a good-natured prostitute, launched West to bona fide stardom, she wrote and performed another play—SEX—which would lay the groundwork for the plot of Diamond Lil but polarized audiences in a way Diamond Lil never did.
In SEX, West starred as a prostitute named Margy Lamont. The plot is winding, complicated, and not the point; viewer response was created by the first two acts, where the audience saw Margy working in a brothel and then in a nightclub. Critics were universally horrified by SEX. TheNew Yorker described the script as “street sweepings”; the New York Herald Tribune said that “never in a long experience of theatre-going have we met with a set of characters so depraved”; the slightly more provocative New York Daily Mirror titled their review “SEX an Offensive Play, Monstrosity Plucked From Garbage Can, Destined to Sewer.”
It wasn’t that there had never been sex or representations of sex workers on Broadway before; but critics found SEX reminiscent of burlesque (stigmatized at the time), as well as uncomfortably realistic in its treatment of sex work and class. As Marybeth Hamilton puts it in “SEX, The Drag, and 1920s Broadway,” “Margy was . . . an ill-paid sex-worker who traded her body on the streets. West made that fact unmistakable. As West embodied her, Margy was palpably from the lower orders . . . Margy is bitterly conscious of herself as a member of the oppressed class, and the grimness and harshness of her manner are reflected in the world she inhabits.” Imagine Mae West’s characteristic delivery without the irony: that was Margy Lamont. Understandably (though not correctly), people were scandalized.
As usually happens when people freak out about a piece of art, ticket sales went up. Then, on February 9, 1927, SEX was raided by the acting mayor, and West spent $14,000 to bail herself and her fellow actors out of jail. As she refused to shut down the show, West was sentenced to ten days in jail for “corrupting the morals of youth.” She was released two days early for good behavior, and the jail time essentially operated as a publicity stunt, launching her in the media as a “bad girl” of theater.
West capitalized on the publicity of SEX and took it as an opportunity to retool her persona, creating Diamond Lil. West plays a sex worker in Diamond Lil as well, but this time, it was funny. Lil was constantly making jokes, and West played her with a veil of irony, so an audience could interpret all of the raunchiness as satire. Plus, the specter of class was never mentioned, making it easier to swallow for middle-class audiences. West called Lil “a little spicy, but not too raw”; this was the beginning of the West performances we know today. I’m grateful for West’s fame, and her later work; but I’m glad we know what was lost in translation.
I did some reviews on the Cass report because it was supported by so many anti-trans bigots. Turns out there were so many lies and errors in the report that it became clear the purpose was to discredit the clinic and get it shut down. The report was driven by anti-trans people and even Cass herself was well known to be anti-trans. But what is so irksome is the lies still get told and circulated repeatedly even when they are pointed out. The idea of social contagion was found to be entirely made up by people desperate to keep their child from transitioning. The idea came from a website set up for parents that had kids transitioning and they hated it. The Cass report used lies from that site as if they were medical facts saying that parents were not told and children were being rushed to transition, when even the parents admitted they had all the information in writing that they had to sign and the biggest complaint was how long it took to get seen by the clinic with many kids going through puberty before they got gender affirming care. The idea of large amounts of detransitioners is totally made up as real studies have found it is less than 2% and the regret levels are well below any other medical procedure. I wish haters and bigots would understand if they have to make up stuff and lie to prove their point then they have no point to make. They just hate the idea of people not accepting they are the gender / sex assigned at birth and don’t want to accept new medical data. Hugs
April, 16, 1971 The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimated over 2,000 people openly refused to pay part or all of their income tax. “If a thousand [people] were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood.” – Henry David Thoreau on the Mexican War
April 16, 2000 Between 10,000 and 20,000 activists blockaded meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. Sitting down at intersections and locking arms to form human chains, the protesters were opposed to Bank and IMF policies that increased third-world indebtedness and did little to directly benefit the poor in those countries. “The World Bank is subjugating our economic and social independence,” Vineeta Gupta, a doctor from the Punjab in India, said in a letter he delivered to World Bank President James Wolfensohn at his home. “It is time that we shut the bank down, and this boycott is a great start.”
More from National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee:
War tax resistance means refusing to pay some or all of the federal taxes that pay for war. While you can refuse income tax legally by lowering your taxable income, for many people war tax resistance involves civil disobedience.
In the U.S. war tax resisters refuse to pay some or all of their federal income tax and/or other taxes, like the federal excise tax on local telephone service. Income taxes and excise taxes are destined for the government’s general fund and about half of that money goes for military spending, including weapons of war and weapons of mass destruction.
People take many roads to war tax resistance. Most are motivated by a combination of reasons and actively work for peace in many other ways too. If you consider your motivations this will help you determine your method of resistance.
Refusing to pay federal income taxes is an act of civil disobedience with a long history in the U.S. America’s most well-known war tax resister was Henry David Thoreau, whose refusal to pay his poll tax because of the Mexican-American War earned him an night in jail and the experience that led him to write his influential essay, Civil Disobedience. While those of us who refuse to pay war taxes believe our refusal is just and imperative — and some of us cite international law to back up this belief — the government considers the refusal to pay these taxes to be illegal, and there are potential repercussions through the IRS collection system. For most of us who resist, the dire consequences of voluntarily paying for war are far worse that what the IRS and government can do to us. (snip-MORE)
April 17, 1959 22 were arrested in New York City for refusing to take shelter during a civil defense drill.
April 17, 1960 Inspired by the Greensboro sit-in of four black college students at an all-white lunch counter, nearly 150 black students from nine states formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, with Ella Baker, James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., the founders set SNCC’s initial goals as overturning segregation in the South. They also considered it important to give young blacks a stronger voice in the civil rights movement, as many had participated in sit-ins that had proliferated to dozens of cities over the previous three months. At the Raleigh conference Guy Carawan sang a new version of “We Shall Overcome,” an adaptation of an old labor song. This song would become the national anthem of the civil rights movement.People joined hands and gently swayed in time singing “black and white together,” repeating over and over, “Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day.” What SNCC did to make change happen
April 17, 1961 Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs invasion. An army of 1500 anti-Castro Cuban exiles, mercenaries equipped and trained at a secret Guatemala base by the CIA, landed at Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) in an attempt to “liberate” Cuba from Communist rule. Within three days, the invasion proved disastrous with nearly 1200 members of Brigade 2506 (who had been trained in the U.S.) taken prisoner.
Known as Operation Zapata, it was conceived by Vice President Nixon, planned and approved by the Eisenhower administration, and executed shortly after President John Kennedy’s inauguration. President Kennedy receives the Brigade 2506 flag in Miami in 1962 and declares: “I promise to return this flag in a free Havana.”
Soviet General Secretary Nikita Kruschev sent a telegram to President Kennedy: “Mr. President, I send you this message in an hour of alarm, fraught with danger for the peace of the whole world. Armed aggression has begun against Cuba. It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America. The planes which are bombing Cuban cities belong to the United States of America, the bombs they are dropping are being supplied by the American Government . . . .” What actually happened
April 17, 1965 The first national demonstration against the Vietnam War took place in the nation’s capital. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the organizers, had expected about 2000 marchers; the actual count was 15,000–25,000. This was the largest anti-war protest ever to have been held in Washington, D.C. up to that time. The number of marchers approximately equaled the number of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Several hundred students in the protest broke away from the main march and conducted a brief sit-in at the U.S. Capitol’s door. An exam prepared by SDS about the Vietnam War (answers available)
April 17, 1965 Gay rights advocate Jack Nichols The first demonstration promoting equal treatment of homosexuals, Jack Nichols, Barbara Gittings and others picketed in front of the White House. There were no media present. Read more (Go-it’s interesting!)
April 17, 1986 Reverend Jesse Jackson, future congresswoman Maxine Waters and others co-founded the Rainbow Coalition, initially intended as a progressive public-policy think tank within the Democratic Party.
Representative Maxine Waters, Harry Belafonte, John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Willie Nelson August 6, 2005-Atlanta, Georgia.
April 17, 1992 On Good Friday morning, about 50 people accompanied Fr. Carl Kabat and Carol Carson to Missile Silo Site N5 at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the same silo that Carl and other members of the Silo Pruning Hooks (see below) disarmed in 1984. They cut through a fence and, once inside, Carol used a sledgehammer on the concrete lid of the silo while Carl performed a rite of exorcism. Eventually, the police arrived and arrested Carl and Carol. They were jailed and held until their court appearance. At that time, they made a preliminary agreement with federal prosecutors wherein they would plead “no contest” to trespass in exchange for the property destruction charge being dropped; they were sentenced to six and three months, respectively, in a halfway house. Carl Kabat A History of Direct Disarmament Actions About the Silo Pruning Hooks action
(Personally, at this stage of my life, I’m thinking of tattooing DNR on my forehead and chest. There is no need to rescusitate me now. But, over the years, I’ve watched little to no progress on women’s cardiac treatment; they’re treated as if they’re hysterical, and also by using research on men’s cardiac. Frequently, women’s heart attacks don’t present the way men’s do. Even though women bother to learn about this so they know when to get help, they aren’t able to be treated properly because of lack of knowledge, and, as reported below, disbelieving the women. Anyway, here is this.)
If you’ve been watching The Pitt Season 2, you may have caught one of the most medically important scenes on television this year. (Alert: small spoiler from last week’s episode coming!)
A woman arrives at the ER by ambulance, clutching her chest, complaining of pain. Her EKG comes back looking normal. Doctors are puzzled. Then her heart stops.
Dr. Robby, played by Noah Wyle, figures out what happened: the paramedics placed her EKG leads too low on her chest, and far too low to get an accurate reading, missing her heart attack. Later, he confronts the paramedics directly. They felt uncomfortable moving her breasts to place the leads correctly. He turns to his staff and asks: “Shall we put it to a vote? Ladies in the room—show of hands—death with modesty, or life with brief nudity?”
The vote from the women is clear: they want to live.
It’s a fictional scene (and in real life, public chastisement is certainly not the way to correct medical staff), but it highlights a very real problem we see every day.
Women are less likely to receive bystander CPR.
If someone collapsed at a restaurant, would you start CPR? It turns out that for many people, the answer depends on the sex of the person who collapsed: women are less likely than men to receive CPR from a bystander (a nonmedical professional who is nearby) in public, and they are less likely to receive defibrillation (shocks that can restart the heart).
A Duke University study of more than 309,000 cardiac arrests found that women who had a cardiac arrest in public were 14% less likely to receive bystander CPR than men. This is true around the world, too.
And women are less likely to survive. Chest compressions and shocks in those first few minutes are critical, and bystander CPR can double to triple the chance of survival.
Why are women less likely to receive CPR? The same reasons The Pitt depicted.
Researchers have asked the public why they think this happens, and the answers are striking:
Concerns about touching a woman’s chest to provide compressions.
Concerns about accusations of sexual assault.
Fear of causing injury to women, in part due to perceptions they are more frail.
Gender stereotypes that women are emotional or overreactive to symptoms.
Misperceptions that women are unlikely to experience true cardiac arrest.
While these fears may be common, actual cases of lawsuits against bystanders performing CPR are not—and Good Samaritan laws protect individuals genuinely trying to help in medical emergencies.
A 2020 review of CPR lawsuits in the U.S. found the vast majority of lawsuits were related to withholding CPR (not providing it). Lawsuits alleging harm from CPR were extremely rare (only 3 out of 170 cases), and all took place in medical facilities (not bystander CPR). The review found zero cases where a layperson was found liable for harm by providing CPR.
When should CPR be provided?
If someone is unresponsive and not breathing (or only gasping), start CPR. The basics are simple, and anyone can do it. Here’s a quick refresher:
Call 911 immediately (or have someone else call while you start CPR).
Push hard and fast in the center of the chest: press 2 inches deep to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive” (or any other song with a beat of 100-120 per minute). Let the chest return to its normal position between each compression.
Don’t stop until emergency services arrive. CPR is a WORKOUT. If you get tired (which is normal), try to switch out with someone.
Use an automated external defibrillator (AED) as soon as one is available. Follow the voice prompts, it walks you through where to place the pads and when a shock is needed.
Common questions and misconceptions about CPR
(Note: this is for the general public, if you are health care provider, different guidance will apply.)
Do I need to check a pulse?Nope! It turns out most people are pretty bad at this. Instead, if someone is not responsive and not breathing (or only gasping), assume their heart has stopped and start compressions.
Do I need to provide rescue breaths (mouth-to-mouth)?If it’s a teen or adult, for most cases the answer is no.Chest compressions alone (“hands only CPR”) can be just as effective. While rescue breaths are important in cases of drowning, suspected overdose, and for children, in most other situations chest compressions alone is enough!
Do I need to remove clothing to start chest compressions? Nope! The priority is starting compressions as soon as possible. If you find something they are wearing is getting in the way, then don’t hesitate to remove it, but otherwise you can do compressions on top of clothing.
Do I need to remove clothing to use the defibrillator (AED)?Yes—the pads for a defibrillator should be placed directly on the skin. Place them where the stickers show they should go, and reposition or remove any clothing that is in the way. (This may include a bra!) Metal in bras is not an issue for shocks—you can leave it on as long as it’s not in the way of the pads.
What if we’re in public and other people might feel awkward from exposure of a woman’s chest? Do it anyway.Remember, the alternative is letting the woman die. Other people’s potential opinions or discomfort should not be weighed as more important than a woman’s life.
What if they appear frail and I might injure them? Start compressions anyway. You can’t get more injured than dead—which is what a cardiac arrest is. Broken ribs are common in CPR (for both male and female patients), but people can heal from those. They can’t heal from a heart that stops beating and isn’t restarted.
If I haven’t taken a CPR course, should I still provide CPR? Yes! Any chest compressions—even imperfect ones—are far better than no compressions. If you’d like to take a course, find one at redcross.org or heart.org.
Bottom line
Women are less likely to receive CPR, less likely to be defibrillated, and less likely to survive cardiac arrest. The first few minutes after a cardiac arrest are the most critical, and CPR from someone like you significantly improves chance of survival. If someone isn’t responding and isn’t breathing, start chest compressions. Even if it’s a woman.
Love, KP
Thank you to Dr. Sarah Perman, emergency physician and cardiac arrest researcher, for reviewing this post!
Kristen Panthagani, MD, PhD, is completing a combined emergency medicine residency and research fellowship focusing on health literacy and communication. In her free time, she is a contributing writer for Your Local Epidemiologist and creator of the newsletters You Can Know Things and The Public Health Roundup. Views expressed belong to KP, not her employer.
Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) is founded and operated by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, wife, and mom of two little girls. YLE reaches over 450,000 people in over 132 countries with one goal: “Translate” the ever-evolving public health science so that people will be well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. (snip)
I was especially interested in the Justice Clarence Thomas comments, which I read, then became disinterested for reasons you’ll get if you read them. Lots of news of the day here.
A thin-skinned and prickly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went off on journalists in his press conference this morning, resorting to the classic “attack the messenger” defense to a unpopular war going poorly.
It’s not the first time Hegseth has succumbed to blaming a lack of patriotism among reporters for unfavorable headlines and critical reporting on a Middle East conflict ignited by the Trump administration. But today’s screed was striking for how it mixed the old worn-out reflexive questioning of the loyalty of reporters with biblical references that reflect Hegseth’s personal Christian nationalism:
“Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on,” Hegseth said. “It’s incredibly unpatriotic.”
In the decades since the Vietnam War, the Pentagon had haltingly moved away from the defensive crouch it often took in the face of criticism toward a more transparent and self-reflective public response to bad news. It was not always consistent and the backsliding was dramatic during periods of sustained setbacks, like in Iraq during the aughts, but the general trajectory was away from the kind of knee-jerk circle-the-wagons approach that Hegseth rolled out this morning.
Questioning the loyalty of journalists — or any regime critics — harkens to earlier dark eras of America history and to authoritarian regimes worldwide. But Hegseth’s diatribe came with a strong Christian twist, as he compared journalists to the Pharisees who rejected Jesus in the Bible:
“The Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to record, but their hearts were hardened, even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter,” Hegseth said.
“They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him, how to destroy him,” he continued.
“I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees, not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,” he added.
Hegseth — callow, reactive, driven by a warped theology of nationalism, and poorly grounded in history — personally represents a dramatic break from decades of training, education, and refining of a professional officers corps. In 15 months in office, Hegseth has done more to politicize the military than any secretary of defense in at least the last half century.
Third Boat Strike in Three Days
The accelerated pace of unlawful strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats continued in the eastern Pacific, with the third such strike in the last three days. Three people were killed in the 51st strike of the U.S. campaign, bringing the death toll to at least 177 people.
What Trump Foreign Policy Looks Like
USA Today: Pentagon ramps up planning for possible military ops in Cuba
WSJ: Pentagon Approaches Automakers, Manufacturers to Boost Weapons Production
WaPo: Trump administration pushes nations to sign ‘trade over aid’ declaration
SCOTUS Watch
Justice Sonia Sotomayor apologized privately to Justice Brett Kavanaugh and followed up with a public apology released by the Supreme Court for remarks last week that, without naming him, attributed his defense of what have become known as “Kavanaugh stops” to his posh upbringing.
In a public appearance at Yale Law School, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the Roberts Court’s handling of its emergency docket.
In unusually pointed remarks carried live by CSPAN, Justice Clarence Thomas launched a broadside at progressivism.
Jan. 6 Never Ends
Trump lawyer and coup plotter John Eastman was officially disbarred in California after the state Supreme Court declined to take up his appeal.
Trump I White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is seeking reimbursement from the Trump DOJ of his legal fees incurred as a witness in both of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.
Must Read
Heather Cox Richardson draws a straight line from Lincoln’s assassination to Jan. 6 and the events of this week.
Do as We Say Not as We Do
NBC News: “Anti-abortion advocates met with Justice Department officials Wednesday, just hours after the Trump administration fired prosecutors it accused of coordinating too closely with abortion-rights advocacy groups during the Biden administration.”
Election-Year Islamophobia
When all else fails and their election prospects look dire, Republicans fall back on various forms of racist appeals to solidify their base and wrong-foot Democrats. This year, top Texas Republicans have landed on Islamophobia as the racist appeal of choice. TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports on the ground from Grapevine, Texas, where he talks to right-wing activists who are back again to warning about Sharia law and portraying Muslims as an external threat to “real” Americans.
Too often, gullible national media outlets treat these racist effusions like an organic upwelling of nativism, rather than a calculated election year strategy. TPM, I’m proud to say, has never been suckered in.
Thread of the Day
The Corruption: Bitcoin Jesus Edition
ProPublica offers a casebook study in the erosion of white-collar crime prosecutions under Trump II that includes the intervention of DOJ political appointees and the retention of a former Trump criminal defense attorney to outright kill one of the largest-ever cryptocurrency tax fraud cases.
Creepy Text of the Day
“Hearing u/r in town. Wishing you would let me know. I could have made some excuses to get out and show u around. Please keep this private.”—Richard Chavez, father of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, in a text to a young female staff member working for his daughter
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here. (snip)
There’s gotta be something each of us wants to know, and likely are things we need to know but may not be covered by traditional or partisan news outlets. It’s long, of course.
Today, we will look at yesterday’s congressional resignations, President Donald Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo, and other news spanning each continent.
Let’s get to it.
United States
-Both Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell and Republican Congressman Tony Gonzalez resigned from the House of Representatives yesterday amid a slew of ethical and legal controversies related to sexual misconduct.
The House Clerk read their respective resignation letters on the floor, which were met by bipartisan applause.
Their departures leave the lower chamber with 216 Republicans and 213 Democrats.
-California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation yesterday setting the date for a special election to fill the remainder of Swalwell’s term for August 18.
-House Democrats introduced a bill that would establish a commission to assess whether President Donald Trump should be removed from office.
-Wholesale inflation rose to 4% in March, a four-year high, according to new data released yesterday.
The uptick was fueled by a 15.7% rise in gasoline prices, accounting for half of the increase due to the war in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the average U.S. gas price stood at $4.11 yesterday, according to AAA.
-Senate Majority Leader John Thune said yesterday that Republicans “would be prepared to confirm” a nominee to the Supreme Court in the event of a retirement ahead of the midterm elections.
For weeks, rumors in Washington have circulated around whether Justice Samuel Alito could retire in the next several weeks.
The 76-year-old conservative has been on the Court since 2006 and is the second-oldest on the high court, behind Clarence Thomas.
-The Senate Banking Committee is expected to hold a confirmation hearing next Tuesday on Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve.
-Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that Trump is readying an executive order that would mandate U.S. banks to collect citizenship information.
-The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Connecticut and the city of New Haven over its sanctuary policies.
-The Republican National Committee (RNC) ended February with $109 million, seven times as much as its Democratic counterpart.
-Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper raised more than $13.8 million in the first quarter of the year.
-Trump said that he was “not a big fan” of Riley Gaines after the conservative activist criticized his posting of an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus.
-Streamer Hasan Piker called the Republican Party the “biggest domestic terrorist” group in the country on Pod Save America.
The comment comes as Democrats wrestle with whether to welcome or distance themselves from the content creator ahead of this year’s elections.
-Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a prospective 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, will be honored by the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund in Washington this weekend.
-Former President Joe Biden’s official portrait was unveiled yesterday at Syracuse University.
-Authorities in Nigeria apprehended a 33-member gang allegedly responsible for abducting 38 people at a church in the country’s central Kwara state in November.
The arrest is part of the central government’s crackdown on criminal groups.
-Libya’s eastern- and western-based administrations participated in military exercises hosted by the United States for the first time on Tuesday.
Since the ouster of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the North African country has been rocked by civil conflict and divided government authority, with competing geographic factions vying for territorial control since 2014.
-On this day in 1958, the First Conference of Independent African States was held in Accra, Ghana, bringing together the leaders of the eight independent African nations at the time to coordinate their opposition to colonialism and foster continental unity.
At the gathering, the leaders designated April 15 as “African Freedom Day.”
In 1963, the Organization of African Unity moved the date to May 25.
In 2023, civil war broke out in Sudan after the country’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) descended into a battle for control of the capital, Khartoum.
Since then, the country has been gripped by widespread death and disease.
According to some estimates, there have been at least 150,000 deaths since the war broke out, with some 14 million more people having been displaced.
According to the United Nations, an estimated 19 million people, or about 41% of the population, are facing “high levels of acute food insecurity.”
-Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for the extradition of former spy chief Alexandre Ramagem after he was apprehended in the United States.
Ramagem fled Brazil after he was convicted of his role in plotting a coup with now-former President Jair Bolsonaro following his 2022 election defeat.
Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison term.
-On this day in 1959, Fidel Castro visited the United States, just four months after successfully leading a revolution that toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
-North Korea carried out another test of its strategic cruise and anti-warship missiles on Sunday as relations between Pyongyang and South Korea continue to deteriorate.
-Five countries in the Indo-Pacific will participate in U.S.-led military exercises in the region starting next week.
The drills, which will run from April 20 to May 8, come as U.S. allies in the region worry that Washington’s strategic focus has shifted from Asia to the Middle East amid its conflict with Iran.
Australia, Canada, France, the Philippines, and New Zealand will contribute forces to the multilateral effort.
-Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. did a few rounds of jumping jacks in a bid to dispel rumors of his failing health.
-The United Nations said that around 250 people are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea due to heavy winds.
-On this day in 1998, Pol Pot died in his sleep.
During his four-year rule over Cambodia, his Khmer Rouge regime carried out a genocide against the Cambodian people, killing an estimated 1.5 to 3 million people, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the Southeast Asian nation’s population.
-Days after President Trump criticized Pope Leo for his opposition to Washington’s war against Iran, the Vatican issued a statement warning the advanced democracies risked sliding into “majoritarian tyranny,” a seemingly veiled shot at Trump’s populist movement.
-In an interview with an Italian newspaper, Trump said that he was “shocked” by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s opposition to his decision to launch a military operation against Iran, representing a break between the conservative allies.
In response to Meloni calling his attacks on the Pope “unacceptable,” Trump said, “It’s her who’s unacceptable.”
-Trump called on the United Kingdom to drill oil from the North Sea to offset surging global energy prices.
-U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will once again skip a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group today. Instead, the Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby, will attend in his place.
A meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in June 2022.
The grouping of over 50 defense chiefs seeks to coordinate military assistance to Ukraine as it wards off invading Russian forces.
The forum was established in April 2022 just after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since assuming office, the Trump administration has delegated its leadership role in the body.
-French President Emmanuel Macron said he would seek a coordinated approach to ban minors from using social media across the 27-member European Union.
-On this day in 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was born in Italy.
In 1912, the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic.
Shortly after the U.S. and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran on February 28, the Israeli military began striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, ending a teetering ceasefire agreement.
According to estimates, the fighting has killed around 2,000 people and displaced over one million people in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, President Trump said yesterday that talks with Iran could resume as early as this week.
Last weekend, Vice President JD Vance led a U.S. delegation for talks with Iranian officials in Pakistan. After those talks broke down, Trump said that he would impose a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz in a bid to get Iran to agree to a long-term agreement to settle the war and to place limits on its nuclear program.
Vance appeared on Fox News on Monday to discuss the talks.
It is believed that Iran has planted mines in the strategic waterway, and Tehran has threatened to attack ports belonging to Arab Gulf states if its ports are attacked.
Prior to the recent war in the region, the Strait served as a conduit for 20% of the world’s daily oil consumption.
The 76-year-old, who has dominated politics in Israel for the better part of the past two decades, is expected to seek another term in office in parliamentary elections due by late October.
Last week, a long-running public corruption trial against Netanyahu restarted after pausing due to the war.
-On this day in 1993, President Bill Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the Oval Office to discuss the Middle East peace process.
Later that year, Clinton would host Rabin, along with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, at the White House for the signing of the Oslo Accords, establishing a framework for the eventual settlement of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
In 1995, Rabin was assassinated as he departed a peace rally in Tel Aviv by an Israeli radical angry over Rabin’s peace overtures to the Palestinians.
Speaking at Rabin’s funeral service in Jerusalem, Clinton said, “Your Prime Minister was a martyr for peace, but he was a victim of hate. Surely we must learn from his martyrdom that if people cannot let go of the hatred of their enemies, they risk sowing the seeds of hatred among themselves.”
This is a doctor working in Gaza. He describes the conditions. The Israelis are sniping World Health doctors. Israelis are moving the “yellow line” that they are claiming is the new boundary line between Israel and Palestinians. They are slowly moving the line deeper ad deeper into Gaza. The Israeli snipers were shooting the young boys in different areas on different days, now they are using drones to fire on young children alone with horrific results. Remember from the last clip he was saying how Israel is blocking and destroying the medical supplies and equipment. Israel is deliberately shooting and killing children. They want the chaos it causes, they like the fear it promotes, and they like that no new generations of Palestinians are growing. The doctor spoke of other atrocities that Israel is inflicting daily on the Palestinians. Israel is a criminal nation doing a genocide, and much of our democratic leadership is deeply in the pockets of AIPAC. Notice that Hakeem Jeffries was also at the same event. People here have asked why I am so anti-democratic leadership; this is one of the reasons why. They are beholden to the big money donors and lobbies doing their bidding while ignoring the desires and will of the people they are supposed to represent, not rule over. Hugs
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has emphasized his commitment to maintaining pro-Israel sentiments within the Democratic Party. In recent statements, Schumer articulated that his role is to ensure that the left remains supportive of Israel, a position he conveyed during an interview with The New York Times. This assertion reflects a broader concern regarding the changing dynamics of the Democratic Party’s support for Israel and Jewish causes. Schumer’s comments have sparked discussions about the implications of this shift, particularly in light of the party’s historical alignment with pro-Israel policies. Opinion pieces have noted that Schumer views the preservation of American institutions as integral to protecting religious minorities, highlighting the intersection of Jewish identity and political advocacy. https://deepnewz.com/middle-east/chuck-schumer-emphasizes-role-keeping-left-pro-israel-says-job-to-keep-the-left-f0ff217c
“I have many jobs as [Senate] leader… and one is to fight for aid to Israel — all the aid that Israel needs,” Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.
“I will continue to fight for it.,” Schumer continued. “We delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, than ever, ever before.”
According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks while reporting for The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/schumer-israel-aid
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on Sunday that one of his most important jobs as Senate minority leader is to “fight for aid to Israel,” as the Trump administration’s masked federal agents continue their deadly raids of the U.S. with little to no pushback from Democrats.
Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubani’s Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare projects.
Last year I posted about this, because of the consensus of attendees that they should prepare for war. Gee whiz they called that! A lot of people ignore this, because it’s all a buncha rich people who think they run the world. Well, it is a buncha rich people, and no doubt they do run some parts of the world, but all the wee little people all have free will, and they use it. Bilderberg prepares those with all the money for what appears will happen due to free will’s this, that, and the other thing. I don’t care who wore what, or even who was there, but the tiny things within the name-dropping matter; that tells us what they come away with as info for keeping their interests safe. So, in case I’m not the only one, here is this.
This year’s conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, but it’s a mystery why the press fails to talk about it
The 72nd meeting of the Bilderberg group, the elite and secretive policy conference that is the longtime subject of endless conspiracy theories, was held at the weekend in Washington DC. A security cordon went up around the opulent Salamander hotel for the notoriously media-shy summit, which was packed as ever with prime ministers, military leaders, tech billionaires and the heads of giant investment companies.
Bilderberg, which since the 1950s has been the intellectual engine room of Nato, took place this year at a time of immense crisis and uncertainty for the alliance. In recent weeks, with Trump threatening at every turn to withdraw from the “paper tiger” of Nato, the “Trans-Atlantic Defence-Industrial Relationship” (as it’s called on the agenda) has reached a strained breaking point.
The head of Nato and Bilderberg regular Mark Rutte arrived at the conference fresh from a “very frank” conversation at the White House. But away from Trump’s bluster, and for all his rhetoric about abandoning Nato, there were no signs that the Americans are withdrawing from Bilderberg. Far from it – the Americans were there in force.
Wall Street titans, including the CEOs of KKR and Lazard, and the heads of huge corporations like Pfizer, met behind closed doors with a delegation of senior politicians close to the president. Big business lobbying in private is Bilderberg’s speciality, and this secretive mix of the private and public sectors fits perfectly with Trump’s brand of crony-capitalism.
Trump’s trusted secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, was attending, alongside his favourite trade guru, Robert Lighthizer. They were joined by Trump’s economic ally Jason Smith, the chair of the influential House ways and means committee, and his secretary of the army, Dan Driscoll, known as Trump’s “drone guy”.
It was no surprise with the conflict in Iran dominating the global news cycle that this year’s conference had a wartime flavour: with the “Future of Warfare” on the agenda, and a participant list including the four-star admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command. From the private sector there was a healthy contingent of military contractors and drone manufacturers, led by the Bilderberg insider Eric Schmidt, who’s the former head of Google and a keen evangelist for drone warfare.
Earlier this year, Schmidt told the FT that “future wars are going to be defined by unmanned weapons”, with “swarms of drones operated remotely and increasingly automated with AI targeting”. Thriving in this rich overlap between drones and AI are companies like Anduril Industries, whose co-founder and CEO, Brian Schimpf, is attending the Washington conference, alongside his collaborator in Trump’s “Golden Dome” project, Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp.
Karp is close to fellow billionaire tech-bro Peter Thiel, whose name, remarkably, is absent from this year’s participant list. Thiel has been a member of the group’s steering committee since 2008, and it was unheard of for him to miss a Bilderberg. Thiel’s reach runs deep into the Trump administration, and his influence within Bilderberg has also been growing through the years. Through the American Friends of Bilderberg Inc, he largely funds the lavish Washington-based meetings, alongside fellow steering committee member and billionaire Schmidt.
Thiel operates in the powerful liminal area between big finance and big intelligence – most notably, he set up Palantir with the help of funding from the CIA. This shady intersection was the birthplace of Bilderberg, and is baked into its history: the group was set up by British and American intelligence, and there’s always a handful of spy chiefs at the conference. This year, three intelligence directors were present, including the head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli. It is a fascinating backstage world which Thiel will now miss along with the strategising, the talent spotting and the big ideological discussions on “China” and “the west”.
It was no small thing for the arch-networker Thiel to skip Bilderberg. After all, Bilderberg is all about the chance to stay three steps ahead with all that lovely, off-the-books access to policymakers such as breakfast with the president of Finland, tea with the head of the IMF, and cocktails with the King of Holland.
Quite why the press fails so spectacularly to talk about Bilderberg, such a major annual summit with so many senior politicians present, is an enduring mystery. This year’s conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, not least the presence of Vivian Motzfeldt, the former Greenlandic foreign minister and ex-speaker of the Inatsisartut (Greenland’s parliament).
Motzfeldt was the first Greenlander to appear at Bilderberg, and her presence was a clear signal to the Trump administration that Greenland has powerful allies within the Trans-Atlantic partnership. Motzfeldt no doubt contributed to the session on “Arctic Security”, and might even have been moved to quote the final sentence of Trump’s recent anti-NATO vent: “REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!”
But as there was no press oversight for this conference, it is something that we will probably never know.
Carl Kabat
Scottie's Playtime 