In the latest round of primary elections, voters in four states chose candidates for the November general elections, and something something national consequences, something something Donald Trump’s continued clammy grip on the Republican Party, yadda yadda. Primaries were held Tuesday in Maine, South Carolina, Nevada, and North Dakota. And in California, vote counting in last week’s primary for governor was complete enough that Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, secured the second spot in the at-large gubernatorial primary, so it’ll be him and Democrat Xavier Becerra facing each other in November. Funny how Democrats somehow only frauded up the LA mayor’s race, while the very same vote count process put Hilton on the ballot.
One might even think the cries of fraud were complete bullshit!
(snip-we know about Maine. Lets get Dems elected to our legislature!! Click through if you wish to read it, though.)
South Carolina: Nancy Mace Out, Lindsey Graham Persists Like A Bad Odor
In the Palmetto State, Rep. James Clyburn (D) easily won his primary and is likely to hold the seat, for an 18th term in the House. Clyburn benefited from the Republican-dominated state Lege’s decision to not join the rest of the former Confederacy in redrawing every last majority-Black congressional district out of existence this year.
But before you get carried away and accuse South Carolina Republicans of having a fit of decency or ethics, several top Goopers in the Lege said last month they opposed redistricting because early voting was already underway for this very primary. Still, that’s better than Louisiana,slightly, in the voting rights race to the bottom. For this year.
The really big outcome from South Carolina was that Rep. Nancy Mace, of the House Republican Batshit Awful Caucus, finished fifth — dead last — in the state’s gubernatorial primary. After this year, she’s both out of Congress and maybe even out of elected office forever, though here we note that the evil baddies in slasher flicks never seem to stay dead, either.
True to hateful bigoted form, Mace was an asshole right up to the final days of the primary, pandering to xenophobes by introducing a constitutional amendment that would ban naturalized citizens from serving in Congress, serving as federal judges, or serving in any position requiring Senate confirmation. She insisted that three of her Democratic colleagues in the House — Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), Shri Thanedar (Michigan), and Pramila Jayapal (Washington) — are “all making clear every single day their loyalty is not to America.” Jesus, what a vile person.
Trump’s endorsed GOP candidate in the governor’s primary, Lt. Gov. Pamela “not Nancy Mace” Evette, wasn’t able to get enough votes to secure the nomination outright, and will go up against state Attorney General Alan Wilson in a runoff on June 23. Mace endorsed Wilson, probably out of spite, although last year she had attacked Wilson, baselessly claiming he was protecting defendants accused of child sex abuse.
“Pamela Evette is NOT ENDORSED by DONALD TRUMP,” Mace wrote, incorrectly. “Do not believe her LIES.” Mace posted an AI-generated image of herself posing with Trump.
Oh, and speaking of assholes, Lindsey Graham easily fended off a primary challenge from self-funded business guy Mark Lynch, clearing the 50-percent threshold to avoid a runoff with 56 percent of the primary vote. Trump had unironically warned that it’d be a “DISASTER for the Republican Party” if Lynch won, which, hmmm, sounds vaguely familiar to something we heard a decade ago … what was that?
Mo Turner doesn’t often think about their time in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.
In that building, they were Mauree — the first out nonbinary state legislator in United States history; the first Muslim elected in Oklahoma; a Black, queer, gender non-conforming lawmaker in one of the most conservative states in the country. Elected at 27 to represent House District 88, which includes much of Oklahoma City, they stepped into a political institution that had never belonged to someone like them before.
The job almost broke them. Turner left office in November 2024, four years into their tenure, after the work took a toll on their health. They are still recovering.
“I spent January 2026 walking. And weeping. And reading,” Turner said. After the legislature took over their life, they had to find a way back to who they were before a national spotlight brought constant harassment, abuse and stress. They’ve found solace in a particular song near the end of the Hamilton musical, when the eponymous founding father takes long, quiet walks after losing his son and stepping away from politics.
Turner’s own walks can go on for three hours.
If there’s one lesson Turner took from their time at the statehouse, it’s that politics won’t help communities. People will.
Turner left the House of Representatives in November 2024, four years into their tenure, after the work took a toll on their health. They are still recovering. (Katrina Ward for The 19th)
“I want people to understand that policy is not coming to save you,” they said. “We get justice, we get faith, we get warm meals, we get community right here when we start talking to folks.”
Although the United States is a representative democracy, our political system still rejects anyone who strays too far from the norm. Turner’s story shows how far from equal the nation’s politics still are — and how being an out LGBTQ+ elected official today is just as revolutionary as it was five decades ago.
The violence holding democracy back
Elaine Noble was the first openly LGBTQ+ person ever elected to a state legislature, serving two terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the 1970s. She described the campaign as ugly: her car was destroyed, her windows were shot through, her headquarters were vandalized. The harassment she received from colleagues in the statehouse was ugly, too. She routinely heard obscene profanities. Once, someone left human feces on her desk. Another time, a man stopped her as she walked to work and spat on her.
These are not just scenes from a distant past. Political violence against LGBTQ+ candidates is rising, according to a new report from the Victory Institute. Many LGBTQ+ candidates who ran for office between 2023 and 2025 experienced death threats on the trail. One candidate said their house was shot up by a neighbor. Another said that someone posted in a local newspaper’s online thread that a bullet should be put through their brain. Another candidate was shoved off a porch while door-knocking.
Some LGBTQ+ candidates receive death threats on social media at least once a week, according to the Victory Institute. A number of them respond to those threats by limiting voter engagement. Some avoid door-knocking and social media. Others decline public events entirely.
American politician and LGBT activist, Elaine Noble smiles after addressing the crowd at a Gay Rights rally on Boston Common, Boston, Massachusetts, 13th June 1977. Noble is openly gay and the Democratic Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from Back Bay, Boston. (Stan Grossfeld/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)
Rising violence against LGBTQ+ candidates doesn’t just scar candidates; it scars democracy, according to the authors of the report.
“This is changing who feels able to run for office, how candidates are showing up in their campaigns, whether they can even remain in public life at all,” said Pooja Prabhakaran, director of elected and appointed officials engagement at the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. “The broader piece of it is, who is able to serve and participate in democracy?”
Death threats against Turner began as soon as they entered office. They received voicemails filled with racial slurs and obscene emails targeting their religion and LGBTQ+ identity. As a freshman lawmaker, they were surprised to learn that not everyone was treated that way. They thought death threats were commonplace.
Turner has dealt with harassment on a larger scale than many other LGBTQ+ candidates do, Prabhakaran said. For other trans people or LGBTQ+ people of color who consider running for office, there is a chilling effect: Do they want to be subjected to the same treatment?
Threats against Turner escalated after they were censured by the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2023, during their second term. They were accused by the Republican leadership of “harboring a fugitive” — a trans person who went to the statehouse with their partner to protest a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors.
At the protest, the couple got into a scuffle with a state trooper after one of them threw water at a state representative. One was arrested. The other sought out Turner’s office.
Once Turner took office, there were eight Black legislators in the Oklahoma statehouse — a record. Currently, there are six. (Katrina Ward for The 19th)
“This person’s spouse was just arrested. They came to my office to process. That’s what happened,” Turner told The 19th at the time, in 2023. “I let folks get their affairs in order, because everyone was in agreeance that they were going to go ahead and turn themselves over.”
Democrats said Turner cooperated with law enforcement during the search for the protester. Still, they were punished. Republicans asked Turner for a formal apology in exchange for keeping their committee assignments. They declined.
“I think an apology for loving the people of Oklahoma is something that I cannot do,” they said at a press conference following the censure.
Many constituents already saw Turner as a trusted confidant. People would call to ask where they should move to escape anti-LGBTQ+ laws and how to crowdfund to help someone travel for an abortion. As politics restricted daily life, more and more people came to Turner for help.
Now, after earning that trust, they were silenced. They couldn’t shape legislation through committees or join caucus discussions to speak on behalf of voters in their district.
The threatening calls and emails got worse.
Some political violence is based on a candidate’s beliefs. Some of it is driven by a desire to intimidate them out of politics altogether because of their identity. Those who challenge the status quo often face the most backlash, said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. And those conditions don’t just stop once someone gets into office, she said.
“I can have an elected position, but my power in that position is very much influenced by all of these other dynamics that are not formalized,” Dittmar said. There’s a difference between politics as usual within a two-party system, where everyone jockeys for influence, and being seen as a threat for being different or a minority, she said.
Hostile territory
In 2023, Oklahoma lawmakers introduced 35 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — a lot more than most other states at the time. They passed laws enabling broad discrimination against trans people and restricting young students from learning about LGBTQ+ people. Inside the statehouse, Turner felt demoralized.
The next year, their Republican colleagues introduced 55 anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Oklahoma already had few legal protections for LGBTQ+ people, and things only got worse.
“I’m going into a job that doesn’t care about me in a state that it feels like doesn’t care about me,” they said, reflecting on how they felt at the time.
Still, Turner was making an impact. As the first out transgender lawmaker in Oklahoma’s statehouse, they inspired young people. Students told Turner that they had never cared about politics until seeing them in office. High school and middle school students would approach them in the capitol to ask questions about their tenure for class reports.
They represented more than just House District 88. They represented younger generations of queer people in Oklahoma and beyond. Turner felt the weight of the responsibility. That’s what made it so hard for them to leave.
Turner found an ally in then-Rep. Monroe Nichols, a Democrat who now serves as the first Black mayor of Tulsa. Nichols was the only one who seemed to genuinely care that Turner was receiving death threats. He was the only one who made them feel human.
“I do think that there was solidarity in him being a Black man from Tulsa of all places, understanding what it looked like to feel discrimination or oppression,” Turner said.
In March, Turner went back to the statehouse to help a friend, the executive director at Freedom Oklahoma, a state LGBTQ+ advocacy group, monitor anti-trans bills. But the building is still full of red tape. (Katrina Ward for The 19th)
Once Turner took office, there were eight Black legislators in the Oklahoma statehouse — a record. Currently, there are six. Most politicians in the building are White. The status quo of power in Oklahoma is very much White, cisgender, heterosexual and male, said Dittmar of Rutgers University. And those who break that mold are seen by others as a threat, she said.
Then there’s this: In a state like Oklahoma, Democrats have very little leverage. On top of the low pay and high stress, there’s a small chance of achieving any concrete policy wins. Republicans sponsor most state laws because 80 percent of the lawmakers are Republicans. Barely any bill passes without Republican support. Being in the minority party means taking on the steep personal costs of being in office in exchange for little payoff.
Toward the end of those four long years, Turner didn’t feel like a good legislator anymore. In their words, they were phoning it in. Although they did spark a committee hearing on repealing the state’s HIV criminalization law, none of their bills advanced.
Turner would frequently sit in their car in the parking lot before work, trying to breathe through the rising panic and find the will to go inside. Walking into the statehouse each day was taking a deep toll on them.
The stress grew until they landed in the emergency room. At the beginning of their last legislative session, they were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and underwent a procedure to have cancerous cells removed from their body. That health scare followed bouts of migraines, panic attacks and depression.
As their health cratered, they felt alone. After their visit to the emergency room, none of their colleagues checked to see how they were doing.
Turner knew something had to change. They were worried for their nephew, Anthony, whom they are raising on their own. While juggling their job and all the harassment that came with it, they were setting up daycare and school drop-offs — everything that comes with being a single parent. Sometimes, Anthony would join them on the House floor if work ran late. But they had to leave by 7 p.m. to make it home at a reasonable time for dinner, bath and bedtime.
“I remember one day thinking, I would like to see him grow up,” they said.
So they left. They walked away from politics.
“It was a tough decision to make because I know that representation matters. And some days, me just showing up to work is the representation that people need,” they said.
This is the passion that still fuels Turner: showing up for Oklahomans and showing up for young LGBTQ+ people who don’t feel heard by their elected representatives.
What real change looks like
In March, Turner went back to the statehouse to help a friend, the executive director at Freedom Oklahoma,a state LGBTQ+ advocacy group, monitor anti-trans bills. But the building is still full of red tape: Initially, they were barred from entering the gallery by statehouse security. The experience became a reminder of why they left.
To actually make change in their community, Turner knew they would have to work outside of politics.
Here’s how: They’re working with the immigrant advocacy group Dream Action Oklahoma, making and distributing zines on how bystanders can intervene when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are out making arrests. They help serve community breakfast with the Foundation for Liberating Minds, a Black-led abolitionist group based in Oklahoma. And in their new job, they get to work with LGBTQ+ students from across the country.
Turner is the director of public policy and advocacy at GLISTEN, a national nonprofit that lobbies for LGBTQ+ students. They’re working to expand GLISTEN’s National Student Council, a leadership program for high schoolers. They’re working on the curriculum for that program and thinking about how these students want to grow. Many of them want to become activists, or already are. These students represent a future that is rapidly changing, regardless of how many anti-LGBTQ+ laws are passed; more and more young people are identifying as queer and trans.
Turner is the director of public policy and advocacy at GLISTEN, a national nonprofit that lobbies for LGBTQ+ students. (Katrina Ward for The 19th)
Working with students is a bright spot for Turner. Their organization is asking LGBTQ+ students about their experiences, their school policies and what they think needs to be different. And amid so much anti-LGBTQ+ hostility in politics, kids are making it clear that they’re ready to make change on their own terms.
“Youth aren’t just saying, ‘Oh, god, policy is so bad, whatever.’ They’re saying, ‘No, maybe I will run for office. Or ‘I’ll work on my friend’s campaign.’ They’re being outspoken,” Turner said. “Our power lies in the streets, outside of any state legislature, and it always will.”
Turner doesn’t think they will ever go back to politics. But that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped paying attention. They still keep tabs on bills moving through Oklahoma’s legislature. Lately, they said, things have been going from bad to worse.
The legislature just passed a law to create criminal penalties for providing gender-affirming care to minors and adults. No public funds or property may be used to provide the care, which threatens state university hospitals. The state Medicaid program will also no longer cover gender-affirming care for any patients.
This bill is just another step in stripping health care from all Oklahomans, Turner said. They want people to respond to laws like this by doing more than signing a petition or calling their local reps. They can reach out directly to state agencies, donate to local healthcare fundraisers or just talk to their neighbors.
“When the government fails us, what do we have?” they said. For Turner, the answer is clear: community.
In a way, Turner has returned to their home turf as an activist. Before elected office, Turner worked with local branches of the ACLU, the NAACP and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. They learned the ways of the statehouse and now they know how to push for change outside.
And they don’t plan on leaving the state or their community in House District 88. Their brother went to college in this district. They worked an internship here. They met friends at Picasso Cafe and The Red Cup and had first kisses at local bars. Oklahoma City feels like such a queer place to them, and they have fallen in love with it.
“This is my home. I love it,” they said. “I’m going to stay and fight.”
Sam and crew go over Graham Platner’s win and his interview with Mika Brzezinski Scarborough on Morning Joe. Amoung the jokes about her interview they go over his acceptance speech. I am personally satisfied he has answered all the questions. I love his line “… if you give me the chance I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator”. I am a progressive and a believer in DSA policies. Graham Platner is not the perfect person who is flawless and unlike many his flaws are out in the open, not hidden behind a facade of fake religious politeness. He is a populist. I am not looking for religious leaders in our lawmakers, I am not expecting someone who walked blamelessly through life, that they way only one person did and his name was Jesus. I am looking for someone whose policies help the lower incomes and the public at large, not the privileged few. I am looking for a congress and White House filled with people who do not think elected office is their golden ticket to personal wealth and authority over others. Real people screw up and those that ask and work for a second chance should be given a chance to show they deserve it. In my opinion Platner has and does shown he deserves his forgiveness. Plus people look at Graham’s past are not looking at Collin’s past or even Mika who started dating Joe when he was still married. To me a lot of these people going on about Platner’s past seem to hold him to a different standard than they themselves are held or republican canidates are held. Hugs.
I first read about Bayard Rustin in “The Nation” in the late 1990s. His story was both sad and inspirational. Here is some background on an unrecognized star (not that article I read years ago, I’m sorry. I have no access.)
Bayard Rustin (1912–1987) was a human rights activist known for his work during the Civil Rights Movement
Rustin was a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest advisors, especially on techniques of nonviolent resistance. Rustin was extremely active in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and helped to create the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Early in his career, he was arrested for “moral cause” which led to his outing to the public. However, once outed, Rustin was completely open about his sexuality and was never ashamed. Criticism and discrimination over his sexuality led Rustin to have a more background role in the Civil Rights Movement. He never wanted his sexuality to have a negative effect on the Movement, which is often the reason that Rustin’s efforts are not widely known. (snip-MORE)
Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.
2HKJNR6 Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), American civil rights activist, attending Walter Reuther Press Conference, Warren K. Leffler, US News & World Report Magazine Collection, March 17, 1965
Bayard Rustin was an unsung hero whose indomitable spirit and relentless dedication carved a pivotal path in the American civil rights movement. Despite the shadows cast by prejudice and political adversity, Rustin’s life radiated with a fervent commitment to justice, equality, and nonviolence. His story is one of courage, resilience, and unwavering passion for the principles he held dear.
A Foundation of Activism
Born on March 17, 1912, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Rustin was nurtured in a household steeped in activism and moral conviction. Raised by his Quaker grandparents, particularly his grandmother, Julia Rustin, a dedicated member of the NAACP, he absorbed the values of equality and social justice from an early age. This upbringing ignited a spark within him that would blaze throughout his lifetime.
Rustin’s early education at Wilberforce University and Cheyney State Teachers College further fueled his activist spirit. Though he did not complete his degree, these institutions were fertile ground for his burgeoning political consciousness. His move to Harlem in 1936 immersed him in the heart of African-American culture and political activism, setting the stage for his life’s work.
The Power of Nonviolence
Rustin’s commitment to nonviolence was both a strategic choice and a deeply held belief. His association with the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a pacifist organisation, was pivotal. Under the mentorship of A. J. Muste, Rustin honed his skills in civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, becoming a leading voice in the fight against racial injustice.
In 1947, Rustin co-organised the Journey of Reconciliation, a courageous precursor to the Freedom Rides of the 1960s. This daring initiative aimed to dismantle segregation on interstate buses through direct action. Facing arrests and brutality, Rustin’s unwavering resolve demonstrated the transformative power of nonviolent protest and set a powerful precedent for future civil rights campaigns.
A Strategic Visionary
Rustin’s encounter with Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery Bus Boycott marked a turning point in the civil rights movement. Recognising King’s potential, Rustin became a crucial advisor, infusing the movement with his vast experience and strategic acumen. His efforts were instrumental in the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, strengthening the infrastructure of the civil rights struggle.
Rustin’s strategic brilliance shone through his emphasis on Gandhian principles of nonviolence. He played a key role in guiding King towards these philosophies, ensuring that nonviolent resistance remained at the heart of the movement. Rustin’s behind-the-scenes influence was a driving force that propelled the civil rights movement forward, even amidst escalating tensions and opposition.
Bayard Rustin was a black Civil Rights activist, a close associate of Martin Luther King, and an advocate of gay and lesbian rights, and a Quaker.
Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania and was brought up by his grandmother, who had been raised as a Quaker. He himself became a Quaker in 1936, shortly before moving to New York where he lived most of his adult life. He was a pacifist and a primary influence in bringing non-violent resistance into the American Civil Rights Movement, much inspired by Gandhi’s approach in India.
In 1941, he joined the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. He protested against segregation within the armed forces, and worked with the American Friends Service Committee to protect the property of interned Japanese Americans.
Despite his membership of the Society of Friends (one of the so-called ‘Historic Peace Churches’), Rustin was jailed in 1944 for his conscientious objection to cooperating with the draft. While in jail, he organised protests against segregated seating in the dining hall. In a letter to the prison warden, he wrote:
Both morally and practically, segregation is to me a basic injustice. Since I believe it to be so, I must attempt to remove it. There are three ways in which one can deal with an injustice. (a) One can accept it without protest. (b) On can seek to avoid it. (c) One can resist the injustice non-violently. To accept it is to perpetuate it.
After the War, he took part in the Journey of Reconciliation across four southern States, to protest against illegal segregation in inter-state travel. He was arrested, along with his fellow protestors, several times in the course of the journey and in North Carolina was sentenced to thirty days on a chain gang. The protest became a model for future ‘Freedom Rides’.
In 1956, he was asked to advise Martin Luther King on the application of non-violent resistance to the boycott of public transport in Montgomery, Alabama. In August 1963, Rustin had the mammoth task of organising the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom – a rally attended by twenty thousand people that culminated in King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech. In 1968, shortly before King’s assassination, he drafted the ‘Economic Bill of Rights’ which called for – among other things – a meaningful job and a living wage for people of all colours.
Rustin’s concern for Human Rights was never confined to black Americans. In the 1940s and 50s, He supported independence movements in India, Ghana and Nigeria. In the 1970s and 1980s, Rustin became an election and human rights observer in countries like Chile, El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti, Poland, and Zimbabwe. As Vice Chairman of the International Rescue Committee he participated in the international March for Survival on the Thai-Cambodian border and helped raise awareness of the plight of the Vietnamese boat people. He was Co-Chairman of the Citizens Commission on Indochinese Refugees and helped found the National Emergency Coalition for Haitian Refugees.
Rustin was an openly gay man who had once been arrested for public indecency at a time when homosexuality was illegal in all US states. This fact was used against him more than once and contributed to his relatively low profile in the Civil Rights movement. However, in the 1970s and 80s he wrote a number of essays which drew parallels between the black civil rights movement and the gay liberation movement. In 1986, Rustin wrote:
Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination… It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change… The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.
Rustin fell ill during a human rights expedition to Haiti in 1987 and died shortly after from a perforated appendix.
His life was documented in the film Brother Outsider.
His collected writings were published in A Time On Two Crosses.
A Republican wearing an IDF pin is defending Israel’s genocide and invasion of Lebanon. He believes anything Israel does is OK, including attacking another country, killing its people, all to steal that country’s land. Same thing Russia is doing to Ukraine that the US tried to stop. Yet some members of our government / congress are bought and owned by Israel’s government. Hugs
Fired journalist accuses CBS News chief of interfering with report because it did not echo Trump’s view of the shooting
Scott Pelley was fired from CBS 60 Minutes last week. Photograph: Charles Sykes/AP
The fired 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley has accused editorial management at CBS of interfering with a broadcast segment on the killing of the Minneapolis protester Renee Good by an immigration officer in January.
The veteran broadcaster, who was recently dismissed from the show, said CBS News’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, had sent an email to his supervisor requesting changes shortly before the airing of the segment in question.
Pelley told the outlet: “Two of the things in the email include, ‘Can we make the protesters look more violent?’ Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.”
Pelley maintained that was the direction contained in the email even though video of Good’s shooting did not support such a conclusion.
A CBS News spokesperson told the Times in response to Pelley’s statements that Weiss had made four points in an email exchange on the segment that had “no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible”.
“Not everything she raised made it into the final piece,” the statement added.
Pelley’s accusation comes amid turbulence at the flagship TV news show that has seen the 60 Minutes executive producer Tanya Simon replaced and several correspondents and producers leave over questions of editorial independence. Three of the show’s veterans – Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim – are staying on.
The newly installed executive producer, Nick Bilton, a former Vanity Fair journalist and film-maker, told staff in a memo that “the foundation of 60 Minutes is journalistic independence.
“We will always pursue stories without fear or favor.”
Pelley’s accusations to the Times followed a heated exchange at a meeting on Monday in which he accused Weiss of “murdering” the show. He was fired soon after.
In his latest salvo, Pelley said he was concerned that Weiss “had zero television experience and had never managed a large global operation like CBS News”. He also called her lack of TV news experience “red flags to me”.
Pelley also said that Bilton’s mission to modernize the 58-year-old show ignored changes that were already in play.
“Of course we have to reach out to a younger and younger audience, but their argument about joining the internet age is just disingenuous,” Pelley said. “It’s almost as if Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton were sealed in a time capsule in 1990, and it just cracked open. They’ve just discovered the internet, and they’re running around telling everybody how important it is.”
Pelley’s accusations over the Minneapolis segment in part centered on what took place in the seconds before Good was shot by an immigration enforcement officer.
“On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car,” Pelley told the Times. “You clearly see Ms Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head [and] kills her.”
Pelley also alluded to cellphone video from the officer’s vantage point that was publicly released and captured him calling Good a “fucking bitch”.
As Pelley put it, the officer said “something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company”.
Pelley said that 60 Minutes had “gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had … somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms Weiss”.
He added that video of the shooting showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t “driving toward him”. He argued that Weiss “wanted it described that way” because it echoed what Donald Trump said of the shooting in his capacity as president.
Asked to respond to Pelley’s claim that Weiss “was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the [Trump] administration”, CBS News said there was “no credible argument” to suggest she was doing that.
Donald Trump had an interview with a national news network, and he got fact-checked. Obviously, this network was not Fox News, because it would typically allow him to lie unabated.
It was a wide-ranging interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker that aired Sunday on Meet the Press, and ended abruptly in a hissy fit on his part. Trump claimed that the California gubernatorial primary is “rigged” in favor of Democrats. Instead of letting his lie slide by, Welker pushed back and pointed out that there is no evidence to his claim. Welker was professional and tried to move the interview forward after calling out his lie, but Trump would not let it go.
Trump has a tradition of castigating black female journalists, and he continued it with Welker, saying, “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” before ending the interview in a tantrum. (snip-MORE)
It seems that Donald Trump wants to take something else away from the people and make it all about himself. This time, it’s the NBA finals.
The New York Knicks lead in the finals, 2-0, after defeating the Spurs in the first two games in San Antonio. Now, the series is headed to New York City, where it will resume on Monday night. Not only will there be thousands upon thousands of rabid New York fans waiting for them, but also Donald Trump.
The Knicks haven’t won an NBA Finals series since 1973, and fans are worried that Donald Trump’s presence will jinx their current run, where they have not lost in the last 12 games. The Knicks swept the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Detroit Pistons on their way to meet the Spurs in the finals. The Spurs are supposed to be the better team, but no one has told the Knicks that yet.
Knicks owner James Dolan has invited Trump to attend Monday’s game at Madison Square Garden. Why would he do that? Is he stupid? (snip-MORE)
I considered taking the day off, but I have a hard time not working. I kind of sort of don’t know what to do with myself. So I drew something, but decided not to spend too much time on it.
I was thinking about artificial intelligence and how much I hate it. I really hate these people on social media who use AI to create cartoons. They suck. It annoys me that these people think that they are cartoonists. We all use AI, but I really hate that people are using it for their creative process. Lately, the word “slop” has been used with AI. I don’t know who was the first to use it that way, but it’s most appropriate. When it comes to art, there isn’t a lot of variety in styles with AI, which means that when you use it, it looks generic. I can usually tell when something has been created with AI. (snip-MORE)
Tucked in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s sprawling universal childcare plan is a little-talked-about milestone: In September, the city will open what appears to be the first free daycare for municipal workers in the country.
The center, called The Little Apple, is a pilot program that could prove to be a model for cities across the country that are childcare curious, but not ready to take the big universal swing.
Housed in a renovated space on the first floor of the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building in Manhattan, home base for more than 2,000 city workers, the Little Apple will offer free care to the kids of full-time staff. All workers in the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), a city government support agency, can also take advantage of it regardless of their work location.
The center will be small — just 40 seats for children ages six weeks to 3 years old. To pay for it, the city budgeted about $1.5 million, or $35,000 per child.
“This is what Wall Street could call a good investment,” Mamdani said in a press conference announcing the new center. “We know that after housing, the cost of childcare is what is pushing working families out of this city.”
DCAS Commissioner Yume Kitasei told The 19th said the solution came about as a retention strategy, responding to the needs workers shared. In surveys, workers enthusiastically embraced the idea. One worker described access to free childcare as “life-changing.”
That’s probably not hyperbole. Childcare affordability is a national problem that has only grown more acute. Childcare costs an average of more than $13,000 annually nationwide; in New York for an infant at a center it’s closer to $21,000 on average. Paying for a daycare now vies with housing costs as the top constraint on family budgets, so much so that some parents have had to move or drop out of the workforce.
Cities, meanwhile, have been struggling to retain their workers since the pandemic. Benefits like childcare, which some cities and private companies have dabbled with, can help address the quality-of-life issues that are pushing workers out of jobs.
“This is a great time for us to sort of be thinking about: How can we make our jobs even more attractive to people and also retain the city workers that we have?” Kitasei said. “This is one piece of that puzzle.”
Kitasei added that a “healthy” number of staffers applied for The Little Apple and the department expects to fill its 40 childcare seats. Anyone who doesn’t get a spot will be put on a waitlist.
There is an appetite across the country for childcare solutions that could help bring down costs for certain workers, and cities are already taking on creative fixes.
In the private sector, Google, General Mills and Siemens closed longstanding childcare centers they operated on their campuses in recent years, but efforts continue elsewhere. Patagonia has operated a childcare center at its California headquarters since the 1980s, a move it argues has lowered turnover from employees who use the site by 25 percent. Overstock.com also has an onsite childcare center at its Utah headquarters. Both are subsidized, not free.
“As cities in every region of the country compete with the private sector and other municipalities to attract and retain workers and elected officials, ensuring access to childcare offers an opportunity for local governments to build a representative workforce and invest in the future of their communities,” said Quincy Midthun, an outreach specialist with the Mayors Innovation Project at the High Road Strategy Center, a think tank focused on solutions to social problems.
The Little Apple, and New York City broadly, reflect a changing political tide when it comes to childcare.
Mamdani and New York City children cut through “red tape” at a formerly vacant early childhood education center in Brooklyn, marking its official opening ahead of the fall term in 2026. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
The announcements of universal childcare in New York City and in New Mexico in the last year received an enormous amount of attention across the country. Both places took an idea that for many years was floated as a pipe dream — treating childcare similarly to public education — and turned it into reality. In New York, it’s one of the few issues that Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, and Gov. Kathy Hochul, a centrist Democrat, can agree on.
Voters are also hungry for more solutions: In poll after poll, they assert that spending money on childcare is a goodinvestment.
Emmy Liss, who heads Mamdani’s childcare office, said childcare is at a “political tipping point.”
“We’re in this moment where folks across all political, socioeconomic, demographic spectrums recognize that childcare is essential, that childcare is something families are struggling to access, and know that the market economics of childcare don’t work without public investment,” Liss said. “We see recognition of that.”
With Little Apple, New York is testing what it looks like to commit to its promises of free care for all, but doing it first for its own employees.
“If we are asking folks to report to work in person in parts of the city where childcare is expensive, as it is all over the city, I think that we have to recognize that childcare is an important part of how we keep people in the workforce,” Liss said.
Mamdani and Hochul have been working to make childcare universally available to children in the city through a phased rollout set to conclude in four years. For 2-year olds, the mayor announced that 2,000 free seats will be available in the fall in four largely low-income areas of the city. Another 12,000 are planned for 2027. For 3-year-olds, about 2,000 new seats will be added in the fall, as well. The city has an existing universal childcare program for 4-year-olds.
Universal childcare as Mamdani envisions it will cover kids ages 6 weeks to 5 years with a price tag of about $6 billion annually, making it the most expensive pillar of his affordability agenda. Mamdani is expected to push to fund the program with a tax increase on the wealthy, a strategy Hochul has not been on board for, though the state is chipping in $4.5 billion. Mamdani has not yet unveiled what his universal childcare program would look like for infants and young toddlers.
How New York City’s program rolls out and its sustainability are being closely watched by proponents of universal care, who argue it’s also an anti-poverty measure.
“We know that other places are watching as we try different things out, including the work at the Little Apple,” Liss said.
In New York City, 21 percent of working parents experienced some kind of childcare hardship in 2024 that forced them to forgo care or use inadequate care, particularly families living in poverty, single mothers and Black parents, according to a recent report from Robin Hood, an anti-poverty organization, and Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy.
An average of 3,400 2- and 3-year-olds were pushed into poverty between 2022 and 2024 specifically due to the cost of childcare, a separate report from the same organizations found. An estimated 4,100 2- and 3-year-olds would be lifted out of poverty each year if they had access to universal 2-K and 3-K education. That would reduce poverty for this age group by 9 percent.
Rebecca Bailin, the executive director of the parent organizing group New Yorkers United for Child Care, said the problem has reached such a fever pitch that thousands of parents started to organize around the issue in 2023 and helped push the agenda that was central to Mamdani’s election.
Bailin, who has a 1-year-old, said she can now depend on a 3-K program when her child turns 3 and likely a 2-K program, as well — a savings of about $100,000. The 2-K program Mamdani is rolling out will also be full-day care rather than partial-day care that wraps up around 2 p.m. like the existing 3-K program, addressing a top ask from parents.
“People are stoked,” Bailin said. “People feel like they can stay in the city.”
The Little Apple is a small part of the larger effort, but, “if we want to retain people, we have to do this,” Bailin said.
“This is something we want to see scaled. If city workers can’t afford to live here, that’s a real problem,” she continued. “This is really critical and we need this for everybody.”
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