November 19, 1915 Joe Hill, a labor organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was assassinated by firing squad in the courtyard of the Utah State Penitentiary in Salt Lake City. The IWW, or Wobblies as they were known, were advocates of organizing all workers into One Big Union. It is reported that Joe had been framed for murder by copper bosses, the press and government forces. Just prior to his execution, as Joe stood before the firing squad he propelled himself him from organizer to labor martyrdom with these words: “Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize!“ Joe Hill: The Man Who Didn’t Die, and more The IWW today
November 19, 1969 In an effort to undercut growing opposition to a draft made necessary by the Vietnam War, Congress passed a law requiring random selection of draftees through a lottery. The Selective Service System would call up young men based upon their birthday, first with 19-year-olds and those with expired college deferments.
November 19, 1977 Sadat arrives in Israel In an unprecedented move for an Arab leader, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat traveled to Israel to seek a permanent peace settlaement with Egypt’s neighbor after decades of conflict. This action was extremely unpopular in the Arab World and especially among Muslim fundamentalists. Egypt and Israel had fought four wars since 1948.
Sadat on November 9: “ Israel would be astonished when they hear me say this. But I say it. I am ready to go even to their home … to the Knesset and discuss peace with them if need be.” Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on November 11: “ Let us say to one another, and let it be a silent oath by the peoples of Egypt and Israel: no more wars, no more bloodshed and no more threats.” Together in Israel: Sadat: “ I wish to tell you today and I proclaim to the whole world: We accept to live with you in a lasting and just peace.” Begin: “ Everything must be negotiated and can be negotiated. We Jews appreciate courage, and we will know how to appreciate our visitor’s courage.” Sadat’s speech to the Israeli Knesset (parliament):
While the new President and new Congress will not take office until early next year, they have already put forward an agenda — through Project 2025, Republican budget plans, and campaign proposals — that would increase poverty and diminish opportunity. Their proposals would raise costs for basics like housing, food, and health care and take health coverage away from people; slash funding for schools where our children learn, roads and bridges we use to get to work, and scientific and medical research that improve our health and strengthen our economy; double down on tax giveaways for wealthy households and corporations while imposing tariffs that fuel inflation; and further widen already glaring differences in people’s well-being and opportunity across income, race, and ethnicity.
These policymakers campaigned on promises to make the economy work better for people without big bank accounts who are trying to get ahead. But their proposals to date seldom match those promises.
Instead, a policy agenda designed to advance economic opportunity and racial justice and help families make ends meet would:
Make it easier for people to afford housing, food, health care, and prescription drugs.
Support children and families with an expanded Child Tax Credit, especially for children who don’t get the full credit today because their families’ incomes are too low; more affordable child care; and investment in our schools so that all of our nation’s children get what they need to thrive.
Invest in the things that will keep the economy strong and growing, including basic building blocks like roads, bridges, and research, as well as protections that keep our communities’ food, air, water, and workplaces safe.
Support these investments with a fairer federal tax system that requires wealthy households and corporations to pay their fair share and strengthens our fiscal outlook.
Create an immigration system that recognizes the critical role that immigrants and their families play in our communities and the economy, eschewing harsh deportation regimes that separate families and embracing reforms that provide people with a workable opportunity to gain legal status and a pathway to citizenship.
This kind of policy agenda would build toward a nation whereeveryone — regardless of their income or their background — can get the health care they need, afford to put groceries on the table, live in safe homes and strong communities, and have the income, education, and child and home care they need throughout their lives. And it would reflect the truth that our nation succeeds only when all of us succeed.
We are eager to work with policymakers who put forward policies that advance this agenda and we — together with our partners — will work hard against policies that make people less economically secure, less healthy, and have less access to opportunity.
On Monday, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore honored one of his state’s most beloved military veterans, Harriet Tubman, by promoting Tubman posthumously to the rank of brigadier general in the state National Guard. Why yes, that’s General Harriet Tubman, who in addition to being a famous abolitionist and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad was also the first woman to lead a US military operation during wartime.
Tubman’s history of military service doesn’t get the same attention as her activities as an abolitionist and helper of those who freed themselves from enslavement, which was already plenty enough to make her a hero. But after her final expedition to guide escapees from slavery North, she put her skills of disguise, concealment, and familiarity with Southern territory to use for the US Army when the Civil War broke out in 1861, serving as a spy, scout, and eventually, as the joint leader of an 1863 Army raid on plantations in South Carolina, which freed nearly 800 enslaved people and burned several of the plantations.
Here’s a cool thing: A 2022 CIA website article acknowledges that well before she formally became a military operative, her work for the Underground Railroad “applied sophisticated tradecraft including the use of disguises, clandestine communication, and assets and allies, who provided safe houses, transportation, and funding” — genuine praise for an intelligence operative.
Tubman was recruited for the Union cause by Massachusetts Governor John Andrew and sent to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where she was assigned to work under Major General David Hunter, the head of Union operations there and in Georgia and Florida. As the CIA explains, she was trained as a nurse, and worked as one, but that also gave her the documents and funding necessary for her secret work, recruiting a spy ring of Black volunteers in the area, who gathered intelligence on plantations, commerce, Confederate troop positions, and the locations of “torpedoes” — barrels of gunpowder in rivers that could blow up any Union boats. Tubman was unable to read or write, but had an outstanding memory, making her a valuable spy without leaving any notes behind, encrypted or otherwise.
In 1863, Tubman moved from spying and reconnaissance to actually commanding Union troops in a raid on plantations along the Combahee River in South Carolina’s “Lowcountry” region. Although she was not a commissioned officer, she planned and shared leadership duties with Col. James Montgomery, an abolitionist in charge of a Black Army regiment, the Second Carolina Volunteers. The goal of the raid was to rescue enslaved people, recruit the freed men to join the Union Army if they were willing, and to wipe out the rice plantations in the area.
Montgomery commanded about 300 men, and to prepare for the raid, Tubman was in charge of a group of eight scouts who made maps of the area and helped her get news of the coming raid to enslaved people so they could be ready to run for the Union gunboats from which the attack would be launched.
“She was fearless and she was courageous,” said Kate Clifford Larson, historian and author of Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. “She had a sensibility. She could get Black people to trust her and the Union officers knew that they were not trusted by the local people.”
On the night of June 1, 1863, Tubman, Montgomery, and the troops boarded three Union gunboats to head up the river; on the way, however, one of the steamboats ran aground and the troops had to transfer to the remaining vessels. Tubman’s reconnaissance of the area proved invaluable in avoiding torpedoes in the river, and for guiding the ships close to shore, where they launched smaller boats full of raiders to attack the plantations.
Just before the raid got underway, the gunboats broke formation and headed to different parts of the river, with Montgomery commanding one, the Harriet A. Weed, and Tubman leading the 150 soldiers on the John Adams. Just want to underline this: Tubman wasn’t serving as an adjunct to Montgomery, she was in charge of half the attacking force. In the wee hours of June 2, they attacked their assigned plantations.
Tubman later recalled that when the signal to attack was given, she saw enslaved people running to escape toward the Union boats at the riverside, with women carrying their babies and children and whatever supplies they could take along, including chickens, pigs, and pots of rice. The enslavers tried to chase them down, firing guns on them, reportedly killing one girl. We’ll hand off the narrative here to History.com, and add that we’d watch this movie:
As the escapees ran to the shore, Black troops in rowboats transported them to the ships, but chaos ensued in the process. Tubman, who didn’t speak the region’s Gullah dialect, reportedly went on deck and sang a popular song from the abolitionist movement that calmed the group down.
More than 700 escaped slavery and made it onto the gunboats. Troops also disembarked near Field’s Point, torching plantations, fields, mills, warehouses and mansions, causing a humiliating defeat for the Confederacy, including the loss of a pontoon bridge shot to pieces by the gunboats.
After the raiding gunboats docked in Beaufort, South Carolina, the first press report of the raid didn’t name Tubman, but it did say that the raid was led by a “She-Moses” under the command of Montgomery, and that the raid came off without a single injury to the Union forces. A later report in a Boston newspaper named Tubman as the hero; the editor was a friend of hers. At least 100 men freed during the raid joined the US Army.
Illustration via Library of Congress.
For all the news the story made at the time, Tubman didn’t get paid, and even after the war her petitions to receive a soldier’s pay for the raid were turned down, because women simply weren’t allowed in the Army, you silly goose. She later received a military pension on behalf of her late husband, a Union soldier, but not for herself. But when she died in 1913, she was buried with military honors; the US Army’s Military Intelligence Corps also inducted Tubman into its Hall of Fame in 2021.
Prior to the war, in 1858, abolitionist and eventual insurrectionist John Brown met Tubman and nicknamed her “General” for her courage. That was made official by Gov. Moore’s Veteran’s Day proclamation Monday, naming her a one-star general in the Maryland National Guard.
After Moore read the official order promoting Tubman, he presented the proclamation to Ernestine “Tina” Martin Wyatt, Tubman’s great-great-great-grandniece, as a representative of Tubman’s family.
Thank you again for your service, General Tubman. Now if we can just get you on the $20 bill to replace that racist fuck-knuckle Andrew Jackson. (Snip)
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joins Meet the Press to discuss his criticism of the Democratic Party and what’s next for Democrats after Kamala Harris’ projected loss.
From Mabry: This guy is suffering from sliding bicep syndrome, plus his forearm seems to be stolen from a 7 foot tall basketball player. And then there’s the nipple that’s trying to leave the scene altogether.
He also looks like one of the Property Brothers.
Sarah: Ok the proportions and perspective here are really weird to the point I feel like I should give everyone a warning. Like, uncanny valley vaguely nauseous proportions.
The ARM. the size of the head! his neck! I’m queasy now.
Lara: They must have used a funhouse mirror filter of some kind.
Sarah: Did he get stung by something?
From Jen: Awkward wolf placement. Is he a wolf shifter? Or is he banging this wolf? The wolf appears to be complaining about the dude behind him.
Lara: Oh that is some champion poor placement! Worst/best I’ve seen!
Sarah: Please stop making covers where it looks like some indifferent dude is about to hump an animal.
Amanda: Isn’t the saying, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes and bad animal placement on shifter romance covers”?
From Susan: Blow it up for best effect. Lots here to play with.
Sarah: Wood.
Elyse: WHAT COULD ALL THE WOOD REPRESENT.
Sarah: Honestly I have no idea. What could it be?
From lils: Well “something” is burning! Is it love or an effect of the mess hall?
Sarah: This is a visual representation of what some of my headaches feel like!
Amanda: What in the J.J. Abrams is with all the lens flare?
“Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
obeying in advance is how fascism wins.
just last month, we saw Dick-Rocket Czar Jeff Bezos — owner of the Washington Post — preemptively kowtow to Donny Convict.
‘please sir, don’t hit me. look, look, I’ve told my editor at the Post not to endorse Kamala. they had one all written, and I told them to shitcan it. see, sir? can we be friends now?’
today, lets check in on some leaders who are already saying no to the coming reign of King Fuckface the First.
Donny Convict hates the shit out of California — and, by extension, he hates its Governor, Gavin Newsom. look at this handsome fucker, with his square jaw and his thick head of hair. he makes Donny seem like a misshapen garden gnome by comparison — and Donny knows it.
inside Donny’s childish, ignorant brain, California is entirely populated by chardonnay-sipping hippie elites who hate his guts — and so when disaster strikes, he’s inclined to deny them federal aid.
Donny somehow believes that all of California’s water comes from a massive faucet in Canada. this faucet is so ungodly ginormous that it takes an entire day to turn it. I wish I were making this up — but no, our incoming 47th president actually imagines that the reason California experiences droughts is because Gavin Newsom keeps that big-ass faucet under lock and key and won’t let anyone open it.
oh god oh god oh god he’s so fucking stupid. it hurt my brain just to type that last paragraph.
can we just pause to reflect for a moment on just how insane it is for a country to have a chief executive who believes in such a fever-swamp hallucination? this is a man who will once again be in charge of a nuclear arsenal — and he’s wandering about, babbling incoherently about giant spigots. holy shit.
Donny’s already threatening to inflict preemptive retribution on California as part of his Day One Dictatoring — and Governor Newsom has a message for Donny:
California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, on Thursday called for lawmakers to convene a special session ahead of another Trump presidency to safeguard the state’s progressive policies. Meanwhile, attorneys general in blue states across the country announced they were also gearing up for a legal fight.
Newsom’s office told The Associated Press that the governor and lawmakers are ready to “Trump-proof” California’s state laws.
no word from Newsom on if he’s ever going to open that big fucking faucet.
In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker said on Thursday he would ask his state’s legislators, possibly as soon as next week, to address potential threats from a second Trump term. “You come for my people,” Mr. Pritzker said at a news conference, “you come through me.”
here’s New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul:
The announcements echoed a vow on Wednesday by Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York to “honor” the election results and to try to work with Mr. Trump, but also to fight any efforts to curtail reproductive freedoms, expand gun rights or curb environmental regulations.
At a news conference, Ms. Hochul addressed Mr. Trump directly: “If you try to harm New Yorkers or roll back their rights, I will fight you every step of the way.”
“If possible, we will work with his administration, but we will not compromise our values or our integrity, our principles,” she said. “We did not expect this result, but we are prepared to respond to this result, and my office has been preparing for several months, because we’ve been here before, we’ve faced this challenge before, and we use the rule of law to fight back.”
Donny’s plan to round up million of immigrants and disappear them into detention camps hinges on using each state’s local law enforcement to do the rounding-up. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy say that Donny can stick that plan where the sun don’t shine.
However, plans for using local law enforcement and the National Guard could face roadblocks in states led by Democrats.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey told MSNBC that she would “absolutely not” allow state police to assist in mass deportations if the Trump administration requested it.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has a message for Donny, who has threatened to fire him: go ahead, make my day. (Snip-go see it)
Short one today, very bad one tomorrow but also some light.
November 8, 1892 Thirty thousand Black and White factory and dock workers staged a general strike in New Orleans, demanding union recognition, closed shops (where all co-workers join the union), and hour and wage gains. They were joined by non-industrial laborers, such as musicians, clothing workers, clerks, utility workers, streetcar drivers, and printers.
November 8, 1935 United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis and other labor leaders formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). They had split with the existing labor union umbrella organization, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which was not interested in organizing unskilled workers, such as those in the steel, rubber, textile and auto industries. John L. Lewis CIO history
As I said yesterday, today is the day we start to figure out how to fight back against what is coming. From what I read yesterday a lot of men still won’t vote for a woman, especially Latino heritage men. Plus people said things cost less under tRump in 2019 and felt he could bring prices down to those levels. But that is stupid, he won’t and can’t because to him and the wealthy profit is king. But what could happen is that their incomes will be cut, their safety nets will be cut. One guy was heard saying tRump had the economy and immigration and Harris only had women’s rights and Democracy. Think on it, hating others was more important than others rights and Democracy. But we will learn more. Arab voters who claim they warned Harris she needed to change on Gaza will notice that already Israel has increased its take over of Gaza, saying that Palestinians will NOT be allowed to return to the north and all that are still there will be killed. Knowing that tRump will back him. So they sure made a difference didn’t they. Hugs.
Vice President Kamala Harris led President-elect Donald Trump 86% to 12% among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, according to the NBC News Exit Poll Desk.
By Patrick J. Egan, NBC News Exit Poll Desk
Former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become the next U.S. president, NBC News projected, but he didn’t do so with the help of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters.
LGBT voters shifted even more solidly into the Democratic camp this year, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Harris led President-elect Trump 86% to 12% among LGBT voters, the poll found. That’s a 15-point change from 2020, when Trump won 27% of the LGBT vote against Biden.
Harris’ performance among LGBT voters was stronger than that of any Democratic candidate in the last five presidential elections.
Although Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance predicted that he and Trump would win the “normal gay guy vote,” the GOP presidential ticket captured fewer than 1 in 5 LGBT male voters, though that figure could also include bisexual and transgender men. Trump’s support among LGBT female voters was even more tepid, at 8%. White LGBT people went solidly for Harris over Trump by 82% to 16%, though Harris’ margin was even bigger among LGBT voters of color at 91% to 5%.
Most LGBT voters said they’d be either “excited” (39%) or “optimistic” (43%) if Harris were elected president. By contrast, 62% of LGBT respondents said they’d be “scared” if Trump won.
According to the exit poll, 8% of American voters identified as LGBT in 2024. That’s the highest share on record. The percentage of the electorate identifying as LGBT has doubled since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, when it was 4%.
As in previous elections, LGBT voters stood out as one of the most left-leaning voter blocs in the electorate. Among LGBT voters, Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, 56% to 5%, and liberals surpass conservatives, 61% to 5%. LGBT voters are staunchly pro-choice: 59% say abortion should be legal in all cases, a much higher level of support for abortion rights than among non-LGBTs, at 31%.
Lovable policy dork and new US Congresswoman Sarah McBride gives a hug to the kid who stole my pink unicorn dress. Yes, I will sue.
How do you do, fellow Wonks! It is I, your friendly neighborhood trans woman who is happy about a thing!
What? What is with those faces? Did something bad happen? No matter! For it is my job to give you the good news, with a spring in my step and a song in my heart and I am going to fucking do that because it is my job, melonfuckers, and I will not neglect my professional duty to be happy about a happy thing. Or three!
Yesterday, for those not in the know, the United States had an election. And during this election the transgenders worked their genderqueer asses off, not only running for election to the local sixth-grade softball team but also to at least 35 political positions around the country. And while we here at Wonkette salute every single one of those eager beavers, a couple stand out for their prominence and their victories.
No trans star shines brighter in, lo, these early morning hours as I write you this, than Sarah McBride. While McBride was not the first trans person to be elected to any ol’ thing, she was not elected to any ol’ thing. She was elected to the actual Congress of the US America. That’s right! We’re talking about the very same federal legislature made famous in Schoolhouse Rock’s song “I’m Just A Bill.”
This is not particularly surprising, as like some San Franciscans we could name, she was very well qualified for the position she sought. Before coming out or even turning 20 years old she worked as a junior staffer for Delaware Governor Jack Markell’s campaign in 2008 and Attorney General Beau Biden’s campaign in 2010. Next she lobbied for adding gender identity to Delaware’s equal protection law and interned at the White House in 2012 before graduating from college. She was on this shit young, I tell ya. And after she came out that year, her story was featured on American University Radio (later rebroadcast on NPR) including an anecdote about Beau telling her that after coming out she “was still part of the Biden family.”
After graduating she went to work as an activist with Equality Delaware and used her relationships to help pass positive bills before she became the first ever out trans speaker at a major party political convention in 2016 — something she’s sure as hell going to do again now. She then went on to write a book (foreword by some dude named “Joe Biden”), work for the Human Rights Campaign as their spokesperson, and then spend the most recent four years representing 50,000 Delawareaniteishers in the state Senate.
With her resumé and the Blue-leaning makeup of the state electorate, she had this. And it showed both during her campaign and in her 57/42 victory. (Which won me five bucks.) And now she’s going to Congress to make sure that Republican dickweasel bigots have to look a trans person in the eye as they ban driving through McDonalds while trans or whatever evil-ass bill they’re proposing next January. She lists her top two priorities as universal healthcare and reproductive rights, with other big ticket items like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the union-friendly PRO Act, curbing climate change, ending mass incarceration and more. She sounds too good to be true, but she’s real and she’s going to be kicking Matt Gaetz ass in just eight weeks.
Still convinced there’s a catch? Like maybe she’s great but replaced someone greater? Worry not: The woman she’s replacing is now your new US Senator from Delaware Lisa Blunt Rochester, making all kinds of demographic firsts from a state previously obsessed with sending only white men to the Senate but which has now elected a Black woman 56/39/4.
Yeah, we could use a lot more Delawares right now.
But if you’ll excuse Hawaii for not being Delaware, there’s also some good shit doing down on the islands. Over the last few decades indigenous Hawaiians have become homeless at a horrible rate — yes, this started long before Lahaina burned to the ground. The primary culprit is a tourism-first legislature full of corporate Democrats who never met a bit of housing they couldn’t rezone for rental to visiting mainlanders. Along with other forces making housing expensive even on the continent, this has made trying to find a place to live in the state a genuine crisis, especially for the people working those low-paying service jobs catering to tourists.
While Kim Coco Iwamoto isn’t the only Hawaiian to notice the problem, she made it her mission to knock off the incumbent Speaker of the Hawaiian state House in the Democratic primary. It took three tries, but this year she managed it and put the game away in the general last night. She only takes over the district of Scott Saiki, not his speakership, and the still pro-corporate Dem majority is certain to elect another tourism-pleasing Speaker, but Iwamoto becomes a trans voice against homelessness and for affordable housing. Iwamoto didn’t start off in politics going straight after Saiki. She was actually the first out trans person ever to hold statewide office anywhere in the US as she was elected to an at-large position on the Hawaii Board of Education and then later appointed to the state Civil Rights Commission. She is experienced and determined, she knows Hawaii politics, and she’s going to get things done.
Our third and final Trans Nice Times! for this morning comes to you from Los Angeles, where for the first time ever a trans-centric non-profit was designated a voting center. You may be used to voting in gymnasiums and churches, but yesterday in West Hollywood if you wanted to drop off your ballot (or fill one out if you hadn’t had a chance to vote from home as is the norm in California these days), your home precinct was The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center where instead of having to to look at posters saying, “Jesus dies a little every time you touch your cooter! Don’t be chewed bubblegum!” as you walk through the lobby to cast your vote, you instead got to see signs saying, “Trans joy **is** resistance!” Won’t that just be a hoot for the two conservatives who still live in West Hollywood?
In summary and conclusion, there is still joy in this world, like trans people who kick ass and golden retrievers who know just a little too much English.
Now ain’t that some nice times?
Send this post to a friend who needs to read it! (I thought we all needed this here. -A)
Scottie's Playtime 