Category: Military

Peace & Justice History for 4/7

April 7, 1979
Thousands protested against the nuclear industry in Sydney, Australia. The country is by far the world’s largest exporter of uranium (and thorium ores and concentrates), the radioactive heavy metal necessary for the power generation and weapons industries.
The marchers were from groups concerned about many related issues: the link between the uranium industry and weapons proliferation; the environmental destructiveness of nuclear power; the impact of uranium mining on Aborigines and workers in the industry; weapons testing in the Pacific, and the secret history of the British nuclear weapons tests in the region; and the Cold War nuclear arms spiral and Australia’s contribution to it through the hosting of U.S. military bases, allowing nuclear warships to use Australian ports through the ANZUS alliance (among Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.); weapons testing in the Pacific, and the secret history of the British nuclear weapons tests in the region.

Sydney anti-uranium protest, Photo: Paul Keig
Today’s Australian Nuclear Free Alliance 
April 7, 1994
Genocide in Rwanda began. Over the following 90 days at least a half million people were killed by their countrymen, principally Hutus killing Tutsis.
This day is commemorated annually with prayer vigils in Rwanda.
Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, head of the U.N. Peacekeeping Force in Rwanda, a tiny African nation formerly a Belgian colony, had warned of impending slaughter, but was ordered not to attempt to intervene.

PBS interview with General Dallaire, what he knew and what he watched happen
  

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april7

Naval Academy Staff Removed Display on Female Jewish Graduates for Hegseth Visit

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/04/02/naval-academy-staff-removed-display-female-jewish-graduates-hegseth-visit.html

The defense secretary, along with the wider Trump administration, has spent its months in office purging the Pentagon, military and federal government of anything it deems diversity related, which has been widely interpreted by the military services and many others to mean anything that recognizes women and people with minority backgrounds.

Hegseth issued a vague order for the Defense Department to remove all “news articles, photos, and videos promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including content related to critical race theory, gender ideology, and identity-based programs.”

Case at U.S. Naval Academy that housed items commemorating female Jewish graduates.
Display case at the U.S. Naval Academy which housed removed items that commemorated female Jewish graduates. (Photo courtesy of Military Religious Freedom Foundation)
Military.com | By Konstantin Toropin
Published 
 

The U.S. Naval Academy has confirmed that officials there removed items commemorating female Jewish graduates from a historic display ahead of a visit to the school by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, or MRFF, a nonprofit group that advocates for religious freedom, first reported on the move after its members noticed the removal of the items on display at the Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel.

 
 

Cmdr. Ashley Hockycko confirmed late Tuesday that the historical items honoring the Jewish graduates had been removed but said that it was done so “mistakenly.” “U.S. Naval Academy leadership is immediately taking steps to review and correct the unauthorized removal,” she added.

Read Next: Air Force Brings Back Flight Restrictions on Pregnant Crew Members in Policy Reversal

The removal appears to be the latest example of military and defense officials removing displays, websites and other materials honoring the achievements of women and minorities within the military, often with the presumption of acting on Hegseth’s orders or reacting to his preferences and beliefs.

 
 

The defense secretary, along with the wider Trump administration, has spent its months in office purging the Pentagon, military and federal government of anything it deems diversity related, which has been widely interpreted by the military services and many others to mean anything that recognizes women and people with minority backgrounds.

 

Hegseth issued a vague order for the Defense Department to remove all “news articles, photos, and videos promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including content related to critical race theory, gender ideology, and identity-based programs.”

Since that order, the military has removed books from schools that featured women who fought in the U.S. Civil War; deleted websites that highlighted Kristen Griest, the first woman to graduate from the Army‘s grueling Ranger School; and pulled lessons in Air Force boot camp that featured the Tuskegee Airmen, the historic Black aviators, and the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots.

Some of that content has been restored after the removals became public. However, Hegseth’s office has not offered a full accounting of what has been removed to date.

MRFF founder and President Mikey Weinstein told Military.com in an interview Wednesday that his organization heard from 31 Naval Academy faculty, Midshipmen and staff, who were “outraged” by the removal of the items.

According to the MRFF, the displays containing items from male Jewish graduates and service members were left untouched.

However, the items were removed for only a short time, and officials told Military.com that they had been restored by Tuesday evening, having been gone less than a day.

The military academy also purged nearly 400 books from its library around the time of Hegseth’s visit as well, an official confirmed to Military.com. The books were banned under the Trump administration push to purge materials related to diversity, and were culled from library shelves before the defense secretary’s visit to the academy, according to The Associated Press.

The move comes about a week after the Capital Gazette, an Annapolis newspaper, reported that leaders at the Naval Academy didn’t think they needed to remove any books since President Donald Trump’s January executive order banning materials on diversity applied to kindergarten through 12th-grade schools that receive federal funding — not colleges.

The Navy would not offer a list of the books removed when asked.

The orders and policies claiming to target “diversity, equity and inclusion” — a term that has taken on a difficult-to-define and amorphous meaning under the Trump administration — are leaving officials in the Pentagon and the military branches frustrated. They feel that many of the policies being released by Hegseth demand urgency but lack specifics and are open to interpretation.

One official who remained anonymous to speak freely without fear of retaliation frustratedly noted to Military.com that this dynamic sets up a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.”

If the military services and their various offices overreact and remove content that becomes a scandal, they are slammed by Hegseth and his staff for “malicious compliance.”

That dynamic played out several weeks ago when the Pentagon was forced to walk back the removal of a website honoring trailblazing baseball player and Army veteran Jackie Robinson.

Robinson’s webpage was among a tranche of content about recordbreaking female aviators; World War II Navajo Code Talkers; medal recipients in segregated combat units; and “numerous other wartime sacrifices by soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen” that was discovered to be offline by Congress, Military.com reported two weeks ago.

In a March 21 video, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell admitted that “some important content was inadvertently pulled offline” and attributed that to “the realities of AI tools and other software.” He said content was being both “mistakenly removed” and “maliciously removed.”

Meanwhile, the official went on to note, if the services take directives at their literal meaning, which was seemingly what the Naval Academy did when it decided it didn’t need to purge its library since it was not a K-12 school, that leads to the perception of noncompliance with orders and directives.

The result, according to the official, is a very uneven and ad hoc application of policy that leaves employees and officials paralyzed, frustrated and uncertain, with little more to go on than what they see in public statements like Parnell’s videos or Hegseth’s appearances on television.

“History is not DEI,” Parnell declared in his video.

“What does that mean? What am I supposed to do with that?” the official said.

Peace & Justice History for 4/4

A goodly number of events have happened on April 4.

April 4, 1958

Aldermaston March, 1st Day, 1958.
Four thousand began the first of eleven consecutive annual Easter protest marches. It took three days on foot from London to Aldermaston AWRE (Atomic Weapons Research Establisment) base in England.
Watch one of the marches
Interviews with participants 
———————————————————————————————
April 4, 1967
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, in a speech to Clergy and Laity Concerned at the Riverside Church in New York City, called for common cause between the civil rights and peace movements. The Nobel Peace Prize winner proposed the United States stop all bombing of North and South Vietnam;

MLK delivering the important speech
…declare a unilateral truce in the hope that it would lead to peace talks; set a date for withdrawal of all troops from Vietnam; and give the National Liberation Front a role in negotiations.” . . . this war is a blasphemy against all that America stands for . . . .”
Read the speech 
Or listen 
Impact of the speech 
———————————————————————————–
April 4, 1968
Martin Luther King, Jr., 39, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had come to help with a strike by sanitation workers.
Reverends Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, and King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel shortly before he was shot.
Riots in reaction to the assassination broke out in over a hundred cities across the U.S., lasting up to a week; cities included Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Cincinnati, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toledo, Pittsburgh, and Seattle. The federal government deployed 75,000 National Guard troops. 39 people died and 2,500 were injured.
In Indianapolis, Indiana, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-New York) was campaigning for president. Learning about the assassination just before speaking to a large rally, he said, “we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.”
Indianapolis experienced no rioting that night.

Senator Robert Kennedy speaking to a large, mostly African-American rally
about the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Video and text of Kennedy’s speech 
The building now houses the National Civil Rights Museum; visit the museum 
James Earl Ray confessed to the slaying, was sentenced to 99 years in prison, but later recanted. Numerous people originally involved in investigating him have raised serious doubts about his involvement; after Ray’s death, a 1999 civil jury trial in Memphis concluded that Ray did not act alone.
—————————————————————————————-
April 4, 1969
CBS cancelled “The Smothers Brothers’ Comedy Hour,” a television show which featured edgy political satire and such rock bands as the Beatles, the Who, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors.

Smothers brothers
The brothers had refused to censor a comment made by Joan Baez. She wanted to dedicate a song to her husband, David, who was about to go to jail for objecting to the draft during the Vietnam War.

David Harris and Joan Baez
More about the show
Joan Baez and the Smothers Brothers sing Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released”
————————————————————————————————— 
April 4, 1984

The women of the main peace camp at Greenham Common in Berkshire, England, were evicted by British authorities. They had been encamped for over two years to oppose the presence of U.S. nuclear-armed cruise missiles at the military base there. They said their eviction would not end their protest.
Read more 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april4

Peace & Justice History for 4/3

April 3, 1958
10,000 British joined a rally in advance of a three-day, fifty-mile peace march from Trafalgar Square, London, to Aldermaston, Berkshire. Berkshire was the site of the AWRE (Atomic Weapons Research Establishment). This march marked the beginning of many protests against Britain’s development of nuclear weaponry. Thousands made the march along the same route for many years.

Some 10,000 people joined the 1958 rally.

David and Renee Gill at the first Altermaston march 1958

and at the April 2004 march…still protesting fornuclear disarmament.
Their story
April 3, 1963
Black residents of Birmingham, Alabama, sat in at several lunch counters seeking to be served as customers. It was part of “Project C” (for Confrontation) on “B Day” (for Birmingham) organized by Reverends Fred Shuttlesworth of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). They issued a Birmingham Manifesto: “. . . the patience of an oppressed people cannot endure forever.”
April 3, 1968

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech in Memphis, Tennessee. King was there to support sanitation workers striking to protest low wages and poor working conditions.
“. . . I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
King was assassinated the next day.
Read the speech  …or listen 
Watch an excerpt of his final and prophetic speech 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april3

Peace & Justice History for 4/2 (& 4/1)

When I went to Peace buttons Monday night, their site was down, or something, so no P&J 4/1 morning. However, keep scrolling; it’ll be after 4/2! -A

April 2, 1917

Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, took her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The first woman ever elected to Congress, she became the only member to vote against U.S. entry into both world wars.
Rankin lost her seat in the next election but was re-elected twenty years later when she opposed entry into World War II. She again served just one term.
Though American women weren’t guaranteed the right to vote for three more years with passage of the 19th amendment, women in Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Washington had full voting rights even before statehood.
Rankin was instrumental in passing laws that made married women citizens in their own right.
Jeannette Rankin biography 
April 2, 1966
One hundred thousand Vietnamese demonstrated in DaNang against both the U.S. and their South Vietnamese governments. Civil unrest spread also to Hue and the capital, Saigon.
April 2, 1970
Massachusetts, in the midst of the Vietnam war, enacted a law which exempted its citizens from having to fight in an undeclared war.
The U.S. Congress had never formally declared war on North Vietnam as required by Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

April 1, 1841

Brook Farm, perhaps history’s most well-known utopian community, was founded by George and Sophia Ripley near West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Its primary appeal was to young Bostonians who were uncomfortable with the materialism of American life, and the community was a refuge for dozens of transcendentalists, including authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Following four days of demonstrations against the Military Services Act that devolved into rioting in Quebec City, Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden sent in troops from Ontario to stop the violence. Orders from the soldiers were read only in English to the mostly Francophone demonstrators, and when the they didn’t disperse, the troops fired, killing four and wounding 70.
[see March 28, 1918]

A memorial in Quebec to those who died protesting conscription into World War I
More about Brook Farm 
April 1, 1932
500 schoolchildren, in the depth of the Depression, paraded through Chicago’s downtown section to the Board of Education offices, demanding that the school system provide them with food.
April 1, 1955
The African National Congress had called on parents to withdraw their children by this day from South African schools in resistance to the Bantu Education Act. That 1953 law transferred education of the Bantu (blacks) from religious missions to state-controlled schools. Mission education, argued then-Minister of Bantu Education Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, not only tended to create “false expectations” amongst the natives, but was also in direct conflict with South Africa’s racially separatist apartheid policies.
Whites, who were in complete control of government and society, comprised only 14% of South Africa’s population. Verwoerd presented to Parliament:
“When I have control of native education, I will reform it so that natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them. There is no place for him (the black child) in European society above the level of certain forms of labour…What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?”
April 1, 1983
Tens of thousands in the United Kingdom formed a “peace chain” 22.5 kilometers (14 miles) long to express their opposition to nuclear weapons. The chain started at the American airbase at Greenham Common, passed the Aldermaston nuclear research center, and ended at the ordnance factory in Burghfield.

At the same time 15,000 people took part in the first of a series of anti-nuclear marches in West Germany. They were protesting the siting of American cruise missiles on West German territory.
Contemporaneous coverage of the Peace Chain 
April 1, 1985
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered an end to the dumping of sludge off the New Jersey coast into the Atlantic Ocean.
21st century sludge 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april2

No Foolin’-Sen. Booker’s Doin’ Something With Substance!

(Plus more Dem Senators pitchin’ in! Go see-video below)

Cory Booker Holding Senate Floor All Night Long (All Night), All Night Long (All Night) by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Washington Post takes pains to tell us it’s not REALLY a filibuster. Read on Substack

Since 7 p.m. Eastern yesterday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) has held the Senate floor, speaking out against what Donald Trump and his evil coconspirators are doing to America. He was still going when we started this piece at 8:30 this morning, and we expect he’ll still be going when we click “Publish.”

Booker began the all-night speech by making his intentions clear:

“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.

“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy. These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”

While we were writing this piece, Booker was every bit as impassioned as he condemned the Republican budget plan that would slash Medicaid and the social safety net so billionaires and corporations could have (more) huge tax cuts, adding trillions to the US debt, asking, “If you’re a Christian conservative, how can you hurt the weak to benefit the rich and powerful? The people of the United States have to stand up and say ‘NO!’”

This man does not look like he’s been speaking for more than 14 hours. Here’s the AP’s live feed. Watching this, we’re even feeling some hope — especially if other senators follow up with marathon speeches of their own.

(And it’s still running! -A)

Also too, we’re going to go ahead and call this a filibuster anyway, if only because the Washington Post went out of its way to explain in its subhead (archive link) that it’s not actually a filibuster because Booker isn’t delaying a vote on legislation. Just seems like the sort of nitpick best saved for the body of the article, which is where all the other outlets have placed it. So why did we mention it in our subhed? Because fuck WaPo is why.

Booker received help throughout the night — and still, this morning — from other senators, because he is allowed to take questions, which tend to come in the form of brief speeches ending with a question mark. But it’s not just a tactic to help him preserve his voice; it’s also a chance for fellow Democrats to show their unity, with multiple voices pointing out how completely not normal the last two months have been. Booker and other senators called out Trump and co-president Elon Musk for multiple assaults on democracy, like their attempts to shut down federal agencies created by Congress, to cancel spending authorized by Congress, to withhold grants to nonprofits that were already awarded, to fire large segments of the federal workforce without regard to worker protections, and to effectively dissolve America’s alliances by siding with Russia against Ukraine and our European allies. And much more.

We should also note that, unlike the longest talking filibuster on record, old racist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond’s 25-hour filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights bill, Mr. Booker doesn’t have the opportunity to take restroom breaks. Now that’s impressive.

During the speech, Booker repeatedly reminded Republicans — for any good it might do — that many of them saw who Donald Trump was, and why he was no good for America. He spoke with genuine affection about John McCain, who had the courage to shut down Trump’s attempt to end Obamacare:

“Senator McCain, I know you wouldn’t sanction this, I know you would be screaming, I’ve seen how angry you can get, John McCain. I’ve seen you tear people apart on this floor, Democrat and Republican, for doing the same stupid thing over and over again. Listen to John McCain explain why he voted ‘no’ the last time the Republican Party tried to unite and tear down health care with no idea how to fix it, threatening to put millions of Americans in financial crisis and health care crisis. I can’t believe we are here again.”

Booker returned again and again to that theme: Why on earth are we allowing this madness to happen? How on earth are we in a situation where a US president is threatening to invade our allies and help our adversaries?

As we wrap up here, Booker’s voice is beginning to get a little raspy, but his overall energy isn’t flagging so far. At the moment, he’s having a colloquy with Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) about the importance of US foreign assistance, which Trump and musk have unconstitutionally slashed. Coons called attention to how those cuts have left us unable to provide help to the victims of the earthquake in Myanmar — and Booker immediately pointed out that by wrecking America’s soft power, Trump has handed all that influence to China.

We hope Booker keeps going a couple more hours. And that as many of his Democratic colleagues follow his example with filibusters of their own. (snip)

Good Commentary Here

This was linked in a substack I was reading, I found it worthy of sharing, and also of the author getting the clicks on their own page.

(Also Not April Fools. I’m gettin’ to it! Probably.)

It’s Time for a Republican Sickout

If you can’t find the strength to take a stand, at least lie down.

Ali Davis March 31, 2025

Hello, Congressional Republicans who still care about the republic! I know you’re out there because I kept hearing how differently Trump’s cabinet confirmations would have gone if only the votes have been secret.

We have reached a crisis point. We have reached so many crisis points. We reached like three new crisis points between me starting and finishing this article.

We have flipped our foreign policy so radically that we are now the villain of the world. All decision on that end seems to have been handed over to Putin and a bunch of preening technofascists. Our economy is crashing toward a depression and the only trick the Trump Administration pony has is more insane tariffs. High-level cabinet members endangered the lives of our servicemembers by discussing classified information on the already-hacked Signal app, and that doesn’t even cover gloating over civilian deaths, adding a journalist to the group text, and further damaging our relationship with Europe. The Trump administration is trying to start wars with freaking Denmark and Canada. DENMARK AND CANADA, for chrissakes.

And the most insane thing is that this is an abridged list. There are paragraphs and paragraphs of human rights horrors that I have skipped.

This is it. You are a part of an authoritarian government, a twisted and vile parody of what we once had. Elon Musk is stripping it for parts and awarding himself lucrative contracts while Donald Trump threatens Republican judges and lobs all of our state secrets straight to Putin.

The window for stopping this is small and vanishing. The most patriotic thing you could do is stand up and impeach Donald Trump, but, whether it’s due to a fear of Trump or fear of his zealots, you’re not doing that. The second most patriotic thing you could do is resign and leave your seat open to a flip by the Democrats. But you don’t seem to be doing that either. So here it is: The third most patriotic thing you can do, your last option for saving your beloved country from falling completely into authoritarianism: Get sick.

Get terribly sick and refuse to discuss your personal health information during this challenging time. Or get just a little bit sick and keep insisting that you’ll be as right as rain in a week or two. Have a family emergency. Or just take some dearly needed personal time.

Just drop out for a while. Hole up at home or get out of the country if you need to and let some trusted Democrats know that they’ll have the majority for a while and the time and leeway to move. (BE SURE YOU KNOW WHO IS ON THE SIGNAL CHAT.)

But what if someone is blackmailing me?

No offense, but this is bigger than you. Putin wants to break the United States. And he wants to break the United States so that he can roll over Western Europe. Do you really want to go to your grave knowing that you held onto your secret at the expense of Permanent Global Fascism? For that matter, do you really think complying now will stop them from burning you with it when you become inconvenient later?

Let’s be honest: A lot of us are already kind of assuming that you’re being blackmailed. And the fact that you’ve abandonedyour principles when the stakes are so high is making people think that the thing you’re being blackmailed over is much worse than what it probably really is. If Matt Gaetz can brazen it out, what on earth must you be hiding?

The good news is that there is nothing better for blowing your blackmail material straight out of the news cycle than a fiery Presidential impeachment that the nation can’t stop watching. There’s no better time to get out from under someone’s thumb.

But if the Democrats are smart, they’ll remove Johnson and prosecute Vance for the Signal debacle. That means a Democratic President will be in. I’ll lose some of my own power. What about that?

More real talk: Donald Trump has screwed the Republican party’s chances for decades at a minimum. You are now the party that let the Nazis in. You are the party that closed the national parks and tried to put Grandma out on the street. You are the party that kneecapped scientific research right when it looked like there might be a cure for pancreatic cancer. You are the party that crashed the stock market, the party that made us hated by the world, the party that let Musk and Putin take the reins. You are the party that just came out as pro-measles and made room for polio. The Republican Party is going the way of the Know-Nothings. You’re going to have to scrap it and start over.

And that’s if we ever have real elections again.

The only hope of you, personally, ever coming back into power is if Trump gets impeached and you become a zealous reformer. Toss out everyone who helped Trump, Musk, Thiel and Putin, support real jail time, and legislate us back out of Citizens United. Throw the bastards out and keep on throwing or you are surely getting tossed out yourself.

You can start right now, of course. That would be ideal. But you can also start after you take a little break to let the Democrats get the ball rolling.

Can’t I just keep my head down and appease Trump until things are magically better?

No. If you have read this far instead of screaming about George Soros and fake Venezuelan gang members, you are a Republican who thoughtcrimes against Trump. He and his barrel of vipers who the nonbelievers are. You won’t make it.

Fascists always need a villain to rail against. They always have a list. It is not a question of whether you are on the list, it’s a question of how far down you are. Right now, it’s foreign students and random brown people with innocent tattoos, but Trump is going to crave new meat and fresh news stories soon. You know that he needs to ritually humiliate and cast out a Republican every so often to reassert his dominance. You’re higher up the list than you think.

And if we hit the era of No Real Elections, which is more likely every day, there is no way you are keeping your elected position. Only perfect toadying cult members will make it through, and there is no way you can tap dance fast enough to make up for the past.

Besides: Is “enthusiastic supporter of the fascist regime” the way you want your grandchildren to remember you?

If you aren’t moved by the idea of saving the democratic republic we’ve all grown fond of, think about the fact that your only path to staying in your elected office is to get Trump out of his, and your chance to do that is slipping away.

It’s time to come down with a severe but undefined and conveniently curable medical issue. Play hooky. Go AWOL. Bunk out. Chuck a sickie. But do it quickly.

If you can’t bring yourself to impeach Donald Trump, you need to get the hell out of the way so someone else can. (snip)

Crazy Republican stuff from Joe My God

I was going through Joe My God for news and memes.  I found these stories either outrageous enough or so crazy I felt I should share them.  Hugs.  

Not much to say about the RFK ones.

CDC Ordered Staff Not To Release Measles Warning

The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations#Measleshttps://www.propublica.org/article/measles-vaccine-rfk-cdc-report

— Gail Waldby (@gailwaldby.bsky.social) 2025-03-28T21:18:30.238Z
WSJ: “Our Worst Fears About RFK Are Coming True”

So much for cutting fraud, waste, and inefficacies.  Hugs

US Spent $40 Million To Jail 400 Migrants At Gitmo

The U.S. has spent $40 million to jail about 400 migrants at Guantanamo BayEarly costs of the enterprise emerged over the weekend along with a statement from five senators who toured the base Friday and urged the Trump administration to “immediately cease this misguided mission.”

— Carol Rosenberg (@carolrosenbergnyt.bsky.social) 2025-03-31T19:26:19.913Z

CRT and DEI hate from the right is all about racism and bigotry.  It is so clear that to them a mediocre white male is better than the most talented gifted woman, person of color, or anyone LGBTQ+.  It doesn’t matter to them how good and educated anyone is if they are not a white male they are inferior to any white man.  These people, these Nazi wannabees in charge of our government are desperate to enshrine in the law that white males are always better than anyone else.  Why do they feel so inferior that they need to get rid of any attempts to allow others the same opportunities they have, to have shows and movies that represent the entirety of the population / society?  What are they afraid of.   Hugs 

FCC Chairman Threatens ABC’s Broadcast Licenses

Talk about corruption much?  The last voter give away he ran he first called it a lottery that anyone voting for a republican could win.  But when he was taken to court because that was illegal he admitted that it was all a preplanned scam.  Musk had already picked the winner which was some GOP insider.  Seems he did the same thing here.  Yet maga cult falls for it all the time.  Hugs

Musk’s $1M “Winner” Happens To Be GOP Group Chair

Gee tRump is banning refugees from most other countries, trying hard to close the Southern border, revoking the visas and green cards of legal non-white residents … yet opening the door to white South Africans.  Begging the white people who formerly keep the black people as impoverished near slaves in their own country to move here.  tRump influenced by the South African immigrant currently screwing up every department of the government maybe, you know the guy that gave the Nazi salute?  Or self avowed white supremacist Stephen Miller?  The reason given is the South African government is being mean to white people and taking their land.  That is not what the law says.  The fact is that the whites took the farm land from the blacks and they couldn’t legally own it.  The law seeks to balance that ownership out fairly.  The law has safeguards for the white owners.  The law says … expropriate land from private parties if it’s in the public interest and allows for expropriation without compensation, but only if negotiations for a reasonable settlement have failed, the government says.  It says it does not allow land to be taken arbitrarily.   Hugs

US Opens Refugee Centers For White South Africans

Gee, and here I thought these Nazi-racist-clowns claimed that it was wrong to use race as a basis for any decision-making; that they don't see race as a basis for admissions anywhere. ‘Mission South Africa’: How Trump Is Offering White Afrikaners Refugee Status http://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/u…

— (@theunderminer.bsky.social) 2025-03-30T21:19:47.591Z

So much for lowering prices on … groceries.  You know that word that seemed to fascinate tRump.  Guess cars are not eggs.  And yes why would billionaires and millionaires care if prices rise and the lower incomes can’t afford to live, it won’t stop them from eating, from having homes, from driving nice cars.   Hugs

Trump “Couldn’t Care Less” If Tariffs Spike Car Prices

Why not let the Department Of Defense, the upper ranks and people who understand the military and its equipment / abilities.  Why farm the work out to a political regressive think tank that wants desperately wants a 1950s world.  From the article … It outlines, in broad and sometimes partisan detail, the execution of Trump’s vision to prepare for and win a potential war against Beijing and defend the United States from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama Canal. Hugs

Heritage Wrote Hegseth’s Secret Memo On China

In the land of the free where we are supposed to have freedom of speech and the right to protest.  But anyone that says anything supporting the Palestinians being exterminated and going through a genocide done by Israel.  Any acknowledgment of what Israel is doing the administration now claims is an antisemitic attack on Jewish people.   That is wrong!  It is a gross lie and crazy misinformation made to vilify the people who are correct.  Oh I have a post cued up to make about the father shipped by mistake to El Salvador but PINO tRump refuses to bring him back.  After all he is brown you know.  The real reason these people are being targeted is some are brown and others are Muslim, or both Hugs

ICE Is Secretly Revoking Students’ Immigration Status

Some of the students don't appear to have been activists or even op-ed writers; they're seemingly being targeted for being from a Mideast or Muslim country.SCOOP: ICE Revoking Students’ Immigration Statuses Without Their or the University’s Knowledge zeteo.com/p/ice-manual…

— Barry Deutsch (@barrydeutsch.bsky.social) 2025-03-30T03:01:28.359Z

I think the constitution is very clear.  After this term he can’t serve as either president or vice president.  The 22nd forbids more than two terms, and the 12th forbids anyone who can not be president from being the vice president.  Plus with his mental decline so clear he soon will be sitting in a corner talking to the wall where he thinks there are people listening to him.  The way he eats and his health he will be lucky if he doesn’t have a health emergency before the end of the year much less by 2028.  I wonder if he says this stuff just for distraction?  He does think he is entitled to anything he wants and always has.  Hugs

Trump: “There Are Methods” For Me To Get Third Term

Peace & Justice History for 3/31

March 31, 1492
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered the expulsion from Spain before August of all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity under penalty of death.
March 31, 1776
Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John (later to be the second U.S. president):
I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
March 31, 1968
President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek re-election, ordered a partial bombing halt in Vietnam, and appointed W. Averell Harriman to seek peace negotiations with North Vietnam.
March 31, 1970
The Oakland, California, Induction Center revealed that over the prior six months, half those drafted for the Vietnam War had failed to appear, and 11% of those who reported then refused induction into the U.S. Army. Later that Spring 2500 University of California-Berkeley students at once turned in their draft cards to the Oakland Center.
March 31, 1972
Protesters – singing, blowing horns and carrying banners – launched the latest leg of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s 56-mile Easter march from London to Aldermaston, Berkshire, England.

The banner used in the 1960s Aldermaston marches.
March 31, 1985
Throughout Australia, 300,000 demonstrated in peace and anti-nuclear rallies.
March 31, 1991
Before dawn on Easter, five Plowshares activists boarded the USS Gettysburg, an Aegis-equipped Cruiser docked at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. They proceeded to hammer and pour blood on covers of vertical launching systems for cruise missiles.
“We witness against the American enslavement to war at the Bath Iron Works, geographically near the President’s home.” They also left an indictment charging President George H.W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff with war crimes and violations of God’s law and international law, including the killing of thousands of Iraqis.
Remembering Aegis Plowshares 
March 31, 1997
Four East Timorese were arrested in Warton, England, at the British Aerospace factory where Hawk fighter jets were built for the Indonesian military, who used them in the ongoing occupation and genocide of their homeland.
March 31, 2004
Air America, intended as a liberal voice in network talk radio, made its debut on five stations.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march31

Some news items I wanted to post that got lost in the short time I have to share stuff.

These four articles come from March 17 / 18th and I really wish I could have posted them then.   Hugs

How many eggs can you send? U.S. asks countries to help lower soaring prices

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-many-eggs-can-you-send-us-asks-countries-help-lower-soaring-prices-2025-03-14/

The above is the tRump admin trying to get other countries with higher standards in their food to send us their eggs to protect tRump from the soaring prices.

————————————————————————————————————————–

 

Hungary To Use Facial Recognition Against LGBTQs

Hungary To Use Facial Recognition Against LGBTQs

This scares me because the fundamentalist and white cis straight male supremacists will demand it be used here.  First on trans people to protect the children then expand it to the entire LGBTQ+ as they have been doing everything else they tried to use against trans kids / people. 

Famed Navajo Code Talkers Axed From Pentagon Sites

Famed Navajo Code Talkers Axed From Pentagon Sites

Yes I know that these were restored.  But now tRump is demanding Vance who is on the board of the Smithson and the National Zoo to remove all illegal (purge) references to race, gender, the LGBTQ+ and so much more.  He is demanding a national landmark the US government doesn’t control to toe the fundamentalist straight cis white supremacy Christians agenda to deny anything but them into history or society.  We really are seeing a complete take over of society and we must do all we can to prevent the rollback of all rights and equality of anyone not white straight cis Christian males.  This is horrifyingly scary.  Because these hate groups have learned if they can control information, control education, control what is considered good or bad by their standards they can force the youngest people in the country to voice that belief and grow up to enforce it.  It is what theocratic Islamic nations do.  Are we now a nation taken over by theocratic Christian fundamentalist demanding a change in even the constitution to force everyone to follow their god and their rules?  Please kill me first. 

Kentucky Republicans Overturn Ex-Gay Torture Ban

Kentucky Republicans Overturn Ex-Gay Torture Ban

Every accredited organization except those directly driven by fundamentalist religiously motivated agree this is simply torture.  The religious just simply refuse to believe sexual orientation is not a choice and no one wants to be like that no matter what has to be done to change it.  Including electroshock therapy to the genitals.   Think of yourself, gay straight, or any other orientation.  If you are cis and straight, how much conversion therapy would it take to make you believe you were gay / lesbian and desire that.  How could who you are attracted to be changed.  That all comes from the idea that it is a mental illness and a sickness that needs to be cured.  Which the majority of medical organizations reject, agreeing it is an inborn part of a fetus development.  Plus if you could change a sexual orientation … look at my childhood.  I was forced to please sexually both males and females.  But the only rapes that totally crashed me in the military was the one by a woman with more rank than me who demanded I have sex with her … four times.  The last time I was so upset and humiliated that I ran nude up the stairs of the housing unit for higher enlisted and pounded on my soon to be E-7’s door.  I was sobbing incoherently.  I have been raped all my life and was able to stand that.  Why did what this woman force me to do reduced me to that state?  Because it was against my very nature of who I was.  I was having same sex relations with another young guy and loving it.  What she was forcing me to do was against everything I felt inside.  That is what the people of these gay conversions want to do. 

Some of them think that being gay is a choice because … well when did they decide instead of men they would like to have sex with women?  No they just felt it, but what gay / lesbian people feel is not valid and must be forced to change. The rest of this group feels their interpretations of their view of what their god wants must be enforced on everyone even those that don’t follow their god.  Because it is their god and he must be pleased because their god hates what they hate.  Even if it is not in the bible or they misunderstood it, their hate preacher told them it was so.  They can not let others live their lives, everyone must live by their church dictates.  Why??? Because only that way their god will love them?  I am an atheist that is willing to let religious people believe as they wish as long as they don’t try to force their beliefs on others.   You do you … but why can’t they do the same.  They insist that no one can be different from them and their beliefs.   That is scary just that they think like that and more that they are now running the US government.  

PS.  When James was a newly teen of 13 his parents went to the Florida Keys with a group of us.  They always stayed apart even though they asked to be part of the caravan of RV going.  Well I caused an issue.  His … maybe abusive parents had lots of tattoos and were highly Catholic religious … even had a statue of the mother Mary in the entrance of their home.   Yes the husband ruled the house and told the wife what she would do at all times.  Which included the abuse of the child which is where we came in.  In a year or so after this even the boy started staying at our home because he was not allowed home until the mother was there.  I had seen a young kid come in with a Mohawk.  The boy had his hair shaved on both sides of his head and long in the front and back.  We had already talked to their son at our table because the parents they were trying to force the boy to get Christian tattoos. 

When I spoke up and said there is …. next hair cut … it will look grand on him.  His stepdad exploded and said he wouldn’t ever allow the boy in the house with that and he would hold him down and shave all his hair off.  As anyone can imagine I got triggered, I had been held down and had my hair cut.  I flew up from the table as Ron was grabbing at me and yelled you want him to have tattoos which is against the bible but a simple haircut which can be changed or grow back and has no mentioned in the bible upsets you so much you’re threatening the kid.  I loudly said, “What the fuck is wrong with you”!  They took the boy from our table and left his meal uneaten.  I was furious.  Others who did not know of my childhood tried to calm me down.  The family of the boy left that day from our group at the campground.  Next time the boy came to our home his hair was cut short and the parents never went on another trip with us.  Hugs

FL GOP Advances Ban On City Diversity Initiatives

FL GOP Advances Ban On City Diversity Initiatives

Again an attempt to turn the country into a while male cis straight only nation.  How much clearer can it be.  And all these republicans or most of them are fundamentalist Christians who were funded by their church in a steal run to get elected.   This not what the publican wants.   But these republican fundamentalist groups understand … politicians can force change in public opinion if they support something loud and forcefully enough.  Which is one why Kamala Harris l think lost the election, the democrats refused to respond to the attacks on trans people fearing it would hurt them.  That is how you bring people along to a new understanding.  The republicans are doing it in reverse of what the progressive movement did with government support in the early 2000s.  Now that democrats have retreated only the hard right republicans are getting their voices heard returning the countries view to pre-rights for LGBTQ+ people.  Hugs