Thank you, Ten Bears! I keep pointing out that Project 2024, Agenda 47, and the Republican National Party Platform are all cut from the same whole cloth. It’s important to be aware, even though one need not read each document separately.
Category: News / Information
Peace & Justice History for 10/19:
| October 19, 1923 The War Resisters League was founded in New York City.  WRL history  Above: One of the founders, Jessie Wallace Hughan (r), 1942 photo: WRL/Swarthmore Peace Collection The War Resisters League home |
October 19, 1960 Martin Luther King, Jr., and 36 others were jailed after being arrested during a sit-in at the snack bar of Atlanta’s Rich’s department store where they requested service and were refused on account of their race. More about this arrest |
| October 19, 1980 J.P. Stevens & Co. was forced to sign its first contract with a union after a 17-year struggle in North Carolina and other southern states. The workers, organized by the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union, were supported by a widespread boycott of Stevens products by labor, progressive and religious organizations.  Read more about the struggle and the movie “Norma Rae” |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october19
A Worthy Cause as well as a Resource-
He’s been flying people to access reproductive care. Here’s how he’s preparing for the election.
Regardless of the outcome of the election, this organization flying people to access abortion and gender-affirming care will have plenty of work. (Emphasis mine, but important-A)
Originally published by The 19th
This article was co-published with The Advocate as part of The 19th News Network’s Abortion on the Ballot series.
Just two months before the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating the federal right to an abortion, Mike Bonanza launched Elevated Access.
The nonprofit dedicated to helping patients receive reproductive health care would soon find its services more crucial than ever. Since its beginnings in April 2022, Republican-run legislatures have passed near-total abortion bans in 13 states. Conservatives also began pushing bans on gender-affirming care for minors alongside other anti-transgender laws, culminating in 26 states that now prohibit this widely-supported medical treatment, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
As the need has grown, so has Elevated Access. The organization has continued to enlist volunteer pilots and offer free flights to patients who need reproductive health care, such as abortions and gender-affirming care, but who don’t have access to it where they live, whether due to bans or lack of resources. Elevated Access completed 400 flights in its first 18 months, according to Bonanza. In the past 12 months, it’s completed 1,200.
Now, Bonanza and his few staff members are preparing for the results of the November elections, which could have an impact on their work. For Bonanza, there is a “best-case” scenario that sees Vice President Kamala Harris ascend to the presidency, and a “worst-case” that sees former President Donald Trump return to office. But no matter the outcome, there will still be plenty of work for Elevated Access.
“Trump winning alone doesn’t necessarily do all the bad things that could happen. Harris winning doesn’t mean all the good things will happen,” Bonanza said. “So, a likely scenario really is some form of what we see today, where it’s going to vary wildly between states no matter who wins, at least for probably the first year to 18 months [of the next administration].”
While Trump’s campaign has attempted to distance itself from the unpopular idea of a national ban — even claiming recently that he would veto one if it made it to his desk — his running mate, JD Vance, previously expressed the desire to restrict abortion federally, and a road map to implement such a policy is outlined in Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump presidency crafted by conservative organization the Heritage Foundation.
Bonanza isn’t quite sure what will happen to Elevated Access in the longshot event of a national ban. While the organization currently enlists its volunteer pilots and other allies through aviation conferences and media coverage, their efforts have remained domestic. He insists that if abortion is somehow outlawed nationally or otherwise restricted, his group will continue to do what they’ve done in the face of increasing state bans, which is “get creative.”
“When I think about what the worst case scenarios are of the future — short of having to shut down because there’s just no legal space for us to operate in — we’ll find a way to help people, whatever that looks like,” Bonanza asserted. “We’re really creative and really nimble, and always ready to find solutions to new challenges.”
While Harris is “certainly” the “better” option, according to Bonanza, the rollback of rights seen at the state level over the past two years has happened under a Democratic president and can continue to happen under another one. There are unlikely pathways a Harris administration could take to solidify access to reproductive health care, such as by expanding the Supreme Court or championing legislation through a Democrat-controlled Congress — which is currently not in place.
Even under Harris, Bonanza explained that “there’s always going to be people that don’t have transportation, don’t have the funds they need to pay for the care they need, don’t have housing and other things they might need in order to get care from the right provider.” Part of this is due to “the state of the American health care system” and lack of universal health care, but “that’s not something we’re gonna fix in the next two to four or even eight years — it’s going to be a long process.”
“The problems that people are facing today are not new. Some of our partners have existed for a decade helping people travel to get access to abortion in particular. That’s because you can’t just walk to any medical provider and get that care, because some providers don’t do it,” Bonanza said. “So, even if President Harris is able to [legally protect] abortion, gender-affirming care, and all the possible scenarios that we would support, legalization does not equal access.”
Ten states will be voting on abortion directly: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota each have a referendum on the ballot that would enshrine abortion access in their state constitutions. So far, every abortion protection referendum that’s previously been brought to vote has passed.
But regardless of whether the ballot measures pass, Bonanza predicts that legal challenges to abortion laws will continue. In Georgia, a six-week ban was recently overturned before the state Supreme Court almost immediately reinstated it. Bonanza said that while providers were “ready to start providing abortions again” in the state, it’s the constant back-and-forth that leaves health care suspended in legal limbo.
“The providers that have been under a state ban the shortest amount of time are going to have the most capability to get up and running again. But there are certainly providers out there that relocated from one state to another after their bans were passed,” Bonanza explained. “I know a provider that relocated both his practice and himself from Ohio to Illinois. I don’t see a scenario where he moves back to Ohio and starts a new clinic again.”
Beyond the election, Elevated Access is preparing for the U.S. Supreme Court’s impending ruling on gender-affirming care and the constitutionality of state restrictions for youth. Bonanza, who is not just the executive director but also a pilot, has personally flown both transgender adults and youth to receive treatment.
He emphasized that there’s “a very broad spectrum of what gender-affirming care looks like,” from altering one’s hair and wardrobe to puberty blocker and hormones. For the transgender youth Bonanza has served, the gender-affirming care they receive is often “as simple as just going to see a talk therapist.” For the adults he serves, many “are traveling just to get access to care because they don’t have a provider locally.”
Surgeries on minors are incredibly rare — a recent study published in JAMA found that there were only 151 breast reductions performed on American minors in 2019, and 146 (97 percent) were performed on cisgender males.
The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the World Medical Association, and the World Health Organization all agree that gender-affirming care is evidence-based and medically necessary not just for adults but minors as well.
The American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, National Library of Medicine, and World Health Organization, all agree that abortion is an essential component of reproductive health care which requires legal and safe access. A large majority of the U.S. — 63 percent — also believe that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the most recent data from Pew Research.
But, Bonanza said, facts and data are no match for “dehumanizing language” from politicians and public figures, which is why he has issued a call to voters ahead of November: “Let’s rehumanize people that have been attacked from certain parts of the spectrum, especially immigrants, trans people, and others that have been targeted by people in politics today.”
“If you listen to the rhetoric of people that are running — and whether they’re in the same party or from one person — you hear the people that use dehumanizing language,” Bonanza continued. “What it comes down to is: If that person in your family, that neighbor that you have, might be experiencing some of these things, do you want them to suffer under these oppressive policies? Or do you want them to be able to live their lives and get access to health care that they need?”
‘Madonna, please. It’s only a film. Be happy!’ The star of Emilia Pérez on transitioning at 46 and making icons cry
(She makes a lot of good points about differences in how one must navigate the world.-A)
Karla Sofía Gascón is the first openly trans actor to win best actress at Cannes for her role in Jacques Audiard’s audacious musical. She talks about awful corsets, riding motorbikes and suing her critics
Fri 18 Oct 2024 00.00 EDT
When Madonna posted an image of the Spanish actor Karla Sofía Gascón on Instagram recently, the word she scrawled above it in vivid pink letters captured what most viewers will think after seeing her in the award-winning noir-musical Emilia Pérez: “WOW”. The 52-year-old Gascón, who was born and raised near Madrid and has spent the bulk of her career acting in Mexican telenovelas, plays the drugs kingpin Manitas, who fakes his death, transitions from male to female and reinvents herself as Pérez, a socially conscious activist. Emilia Pérez the movie, like Emilia Pérez the character, is a one-off. After all, there can’t be many films that feature brutal Mexican drug cartels and a singalong about vaginoplasties.
As befits a project that began life as a libretto, the movie is operatic in its emotions. “Madonna was crying so much after the screening in New York,” says Gascón, perched demurely on the edge of a chaise longue in a London hotel room. Her thick chestnut hair brushes the shoulders of her black dress, which has white collars and white-trimmed short sleeves. “She told me: ‘You’re amazing!’ She was crying and crying. I said: ‘Madonna, please. It’s only a film. Be happy!’”
Gascón has shed her fair share of tears, not least when the movie’s quartet of female stars were jointly named best actress at Cannes, where the picture also took home the jury prize. Her fellow recipients were Zoe Saldana, who plays Emilia’s attorney and fixer; Selena Gomez, who stars as Manitas’s widow, who is persuaded that Emilia is her late husband’s cousin; and Adriana Paz, who plays the new love of Emilia’s life. It was Gascón, though, who delivered the moving six-minute acceptance speech at Cannes. Trans people, she told the audience, had “been insulted, denigrated, subjected to a lot of violence”.
Not that approbation precludes abuse. The morning after Gascón’s triumph, the French far-right MEP Marion Maréchal tweeted: “So a man has won best actress.” Six LGBTQ+ organisations filed complaints against Maréchal. Gascón has personally sued her.
Today, the actor cuts a more composed figure than she did at Cannes. She is casually affectionate – a kiss on each cheek when you arrive, a grateful hug on departure – and playful in her interactions with the interpreter. She talks at such length that the poor scribe is soon writing on the back of her pad. “You have more paper?” asks Gascón. “Or will you use your …?” She mimes scribbling frantically on her own arm.
Madonna and Greta Gerwig, the president of this year’s Cannes jury, are not the only ones convinced of Gascón’s greatness. The industry bible Variety has predicted that she will be one of the five best actress Oscar contenders next year, alongside the likes of Angelina Jolie (for Maria) and Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door). That would make her the first openly transgender performer to be recognised in one of the Academy’s acting categories.
Hers is a performance of immense stillness and gravitas, which must also contain and occasionally exhibit the volatility that enabled Emilia to dominate the drug trade, and to assert herself now in a radically different life. Living openly as a woman, Emilia is still hiding, most obviously from her wife and children. Toggling between these contradictory layers, Gascón does her subtlest work.
Having cast her as Emilia, the director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) was sceptical about her playing the character pre-transition. She convinced him by sending videos of herself with TikTok filters, and by changing her voice. It’s something she does for pleasure anyway. “I turn down the volume on the TV, and I do the voices for all the people on screen,” she says. “Just for fun when I’m bored at home. So this was easy for me. I know my …” She consults with the interpreter, then announces the word triumphantly: “Virtues!”
Why was she so determined to play Manitas? “I love roles that are far from who I am,” she says. “And I didn’t want to miss out on this character in all her dimensions. If there had been flashback scenes, I would have pushed to play those, too.”
Emilia sounds like more of a challenge. “It is difficult to do someone close to me,” she says. The role highlighted distinctions she already feels between the demands placed on women and men. “I’m convinced that the masculine is freer physically and more confined mentally. When you are a woman, you are freer mentally but less so with your body. As a woman, you need to have your hair great, your makeup great. When you are a man, you just wake up and go to work. With a woman, there is the perfection mentality.”
She sits bolt upright, clasping her torso. “Right now, I’m wearing a corset,” she says. “And I can barely breathe!” I notice she has also kicked off her shoes; the shiny black heels lie next to her stockinged feet. “Society sees you as more beautiful like this. As Emilia, I had to be more feminine than I usually am.”
Gascón transitioned at the age of 46. Back then, she told herself: “I do it now, or I never do it.” She continues to have the support of her wife, whom she has known since they were teenagers, and their daughter, who is now 13. But there were other hurdles, even after transitioning. “I have been criticised for how I look. I ride a motorbike. I don’t usually wear makeup. People say: ‘Why become a woman if you’re not going to wear makeup?’ But there’s a big confusion in society about what a woman is.” All this has been conveyed in Spanish via the interpreter, who now reads sheepishly from her own shorthand notes: “And I’d just like the translator to confirm what I have said about being a woman in society.” She nods, we laugh, and Gascón gestures at her as if to say: “See?”
The criticisms of her lipstick-free, motorbike-riding lifestyle come from all corners. “Including the minority I represent,” she points out. There is something she tells herself in that situation: “You can be LGBTQ+. You can be a man, a woman, an astronaut, an electrician. But if you are stupid, you are stupid.” More laughter.
Part of the message of Emilia Pérez, she thinks, is that power lies not in using violence but in renouncing it. “With violence, you can control a lot of people and impose your will. It is a form of imposition that has led us to women being made to do the household chores, or people of colour working in the cotton fields, or gay people not being allowed to marry. There has always been an explicit violence toward others in parts of male heterosexuality, and that has also been taken up by a part of women’s feminism to crush a certain section of the population.”
Where does the solution lie? “Education,” she says. “For instance, I’ve taught my daughter to respect herself and others, and to not let anyone treat her as if she is inferior. Women can feel now that they don’t need any man to solve their problems.” That’s the vibe coming from the rest of the cast. Saldana has said that she, Gomez and Paz were focused on “making sure that [Gascón] had what she needed”. Which prompts the question: what did she need? “I don’t know,” she says now, startled by that quote. “I was hoping you were going to tell me.” Then she arrives at an answer. “All I needed from my colleagues was for them to do the best job of their fucking lives.”
With any luck, their collective effort will help seal her Oscar nomination. Has she written her acceptance speech? “I wrote it on the first day of shooting,” she says, then roars with laughter. “No, no! It is just in the clouds, not reality. If it happens, I will be the happiest actress in the world. If not, it doesn’t matter. All I could do – all I did – was to put my entire soul into the film. And I believe it is the best work of my life. Whenever I see myself on screen, I always have criticisms. I think, ‘Why did I do this or that?’”
Not so with Emilia Pérez. “I searched but I couldn’t find one thing I wasn’t happy with,” she says. “And that is my Oscar.”
Emilia Pérez is in cinemas from 25 October and streaming on Netflix from 13 November.
This Is Very Seriously A Big Deal: Pro-Trump dark money network tied to Elon Musk behind fake pro-Harris campaign scheme
An initiative called Progress 2028 that purports to be Kamala Harris’ liberal counter to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is actually run by a dark money network supporting former President Donald Trump.
Building America’s Future, the dark money group at the helm of the network, has steered money to a constellation of groups and initiatives boosting Trump’s agenda and spreading messaging aimed at chipping away voters from Harris. The dark money group reportedly received over $100 million in funding from billionaire Elon Musk, along with other donors, the New York Times recently reported.
The newest effort to benefit from their largesse is Progress 2028. Building America’s Future registered to use Progress 2028 as a fictitious name on Sept. 23 and the website was created three days later, OpenSecrets’ analysis of corporate filings and DNS records found.
The Progress 2028 site appears to be created by IMGE LLC, a firm run by Republican political operatives that the New York Times described as the “hidden hand” behind Building America’s Future, and a page on the Progress 2028 site includes the firm’s sizzle reel.
IMGE LLC has also done work for Elon Musk’s America PAC and several other Republican political committees, including a super PAC funded by America’s Future Fund named Future Coalition PAC, as first pointed out by Brendan Fischer, Deputy Executive Director of Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project.
The Progress 2028 manifesto draws clear parallels to Project 2025, a controversial blueprint for restructuring the executive branch under the next Republican administration. The Project 2025 blueprint was developed by the Heritage Foundation and written by many conservatives who worked in or with Trump’s administration. Project 2025 has drawn intense criticism, and the former president has said it does not reflect his own priorities should he return to the White House.
Some of the policies listed in Progress 2028 highlight disproven and misleading claims about Harris’ positions. Policies listed include “Empowering Undocumented Immigrants, Building Our Future” and “Expanding Medicaid to Undocumented Immigrants.”
“Undocumented immigrants are the backbone of our country, and by removing barriers, we unlock incredible potential,” the document states. “Kamala Harris believes that every person, no matter their immigration status, deserves access to basic healthcare.”
Harris expressed support for allowing immigrants residing in the U.S. to obtain health insurance with her 2019 Medicare for All plan but did not indicate whether there would be a cost. Her 2024 running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, recently said that Harris does not currently support programs for undocumented immigrants to qualify for free government health care, free tuition at state universities or driver’s licenses.
The document claims Harris will “support policies that protect minors’ access to gender-affirming care and ensure that schools provide comprehensive LGBTQIA education.”
“She’s committed to banning fracking, phasing out internal combustion engines, and rolling out the most progressive Green New Deal yet,” another section of the Progress 2028 plan reads. Harris has explicitly stated that she won’t ban fracking natural gas but her campaign has sent mixed signals about her own position on regulation of gas-powered cars.
Some individuals have received text messages directing them to the Progress 2028 page.
“Kamala Harris will support a nationwide gun buy-back program that will take dangerous weapons off our streets,” one text message reads, noting, “A mandatory buy-back is the only way to keep our streets safe.” Harris expressed support for a mandatory buyback of military assault weapons in 2019 but has expressed a more lenient stance in 2024, highlighting her own gun ownership.
(snip-graphics on the page)
Digital advertisement featuring Kamala Harris paid for by Progress 2028 (Screenshot from Meta Ad Library)
Progress 2028 has also started pouring money into digital advertising. Since Oct. 11, several digital ads on Facebook and Instagram have included the disclaimer “paid for by Progress 2028” — totaling over $36,000 in ad buys over just five days.
While the ads appear to include pro-Harris messaging, they lean into contentious issues listed on the Progress 2028 site that have created friction among different divisions of the party.
“Let’s remove barriers for undocumented immigrants who are undocumented!” one ad states, adding, “Access to affordable housing, driver licenses, and fair wages creates a stronger America for everyone.”
Another ad reads, “A national, mandatory buy-back program means fewer guns & fewer tragedies. Kamala Harris gets it!”
Operating under a shroud of aliases, Building America’s Future has funneled tens of millions of dollars in dark money from anonymous sources into campaigns boosting Trump ahead of the 2024 election. The dark money network also has a history of fueling initiatives impersonating and parodying Democrats.
Building America’s Future is the top funder of Citizens for Sanity, a dark money group that bankrolled inflammatory ads mocking Democrats and progressive policies in battleground states ahead of 2022 midterms, tax returns show. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Elon Musk secretly steered tens of millions of dollars through Building America’s Future to help fund the effort.
Citizens for Sanity spent over $90 million on messaging pitting minority communities against each other and chipping away at traditionally Democratic voting blocs.
Similar to Progress 2028, the ads hit on contentious issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, immigration and criminal justice reform. The ads have been accused of trying to suppress voting among minority communities.
(snip-embed video on the page)
Citizens for Sanity does not disclose its donors but other groups were legally required to report money they gave to it. That includes $43 million from Building AmerIca’s Future as well as $28.7 million from Freedom’s Future Fund, a sister group of Building America’s Future, and $13.4 million from American Commitment.
The many faces of Building America’s Future
Building America’s Future has also fueled other pro-Trump groups and was the sole funder of the Future Coalition PAC, new Federal Election Commission records filed Oct. 15 show.
The super PAC that has run ads targeting Harris in Michigan by highlighting her positions that are pro-Israel and the Jewish faith of her spouse, Doug Emhoff. The ads are reported to be pro-Harris but have been criticized as featuring antisemitic dog whistles. The PAC has been accused of attempting to use the conflict in the Middle East as a wedge issue to depress turnout for Harris in Michigan, a state with a significant Muslim and Arab American population.
Future Coalition PAC reported receiving $3 million from Building America’s Future through the end of September.
Another $16 million was steered through Building America’s Future to Duty to America PAC, according to new FEC disclosures filed Oct. 15. The super PAC has targeted young male voters and Black voters trying to persuade them to vote for Trump.
Building America’s Future was also the top funder of Stand For Us PAC, OpenSecrets’ analysis of FEC reports filed Oct. 15 found. The super PAC received at least $3.8 million from the dark money group and has spent over $15 million on ads attacking Republican primary candidates in Ohio with divisive messaging tying a prescription drug program to immigration and transgender rights.
In addition to funding a cluster of political groups, Building America’s Future operates under several fictitious names such as Americans for Consumer Protection.
In August, Americans for Consumer Protection launched an ad campaign criticizing the White House’s proposal to ban menthol cigarettes. CNBC reported that the effort was intended to chip away at Harris’ key base of Black voter support in swing states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Building America’s Future reportedly raised and spent more than $100 million over the last four years, the New York Times reported.
Building America’s Future is not legally required to report its finances, vendor payments or outgoing grants for 2023 until after Election Day and, even then, will not be required to disclose its donors.
OpenSecrets’ requests for comment to Building America’s Future and Progress 2028 were not returned prior to publication.
Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit OpenSecrets.
For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact OpenSecrets: info@opensecrets.org
Oklahoma families, teachers and faith leaders file lawsuit to block Superintendent Ryan Walters’ Bible-education mandate
October 17, 2024
Snippet:
OKLAHOMA CITY – More than 30 Oklahomans – including parents and children, public school teachers and faith leaders – today filed a lawsuit urging the Oklahoma Supreme Court to block state Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ mandate that all public schools incorporate the Bible into their curricula. The lawsuit, Rev. Lori Walke v. Ryan Walters, also asks the court to stop the state from spending millions of taxpayer dollars on Bibles to support the mandate.
The 32 plaintiffs include 14 public school parents, four public school teachers and three faith leaders who object to Walters’ extremist agenda that imposes his personal religious beliefs on other people’s children – in violation of Oklahomans’ religious freedom and the separation of church and state. The plaintiffs come from a variety of faith traditions, including Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian (U.S.A.) and United Church of Christ, and some identify as atheist, agnostic or nonreligious. Some are of Indigenous heritage, and some have family situations – such as LGBTQ+ members or children with special educational needs – that cause particular concerns around teaching the Bible in public schools, especially around bullying.
The plaintiffs are represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice.
Plaintiff the Rev. Lori Walke, senior minister of Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City: “I am a faith leader who cares deeply about our country’s promise of religious freedom and ensuring that everyone is able to choose their own spiritual path. The state mandating that one particular religious text be taught in our schools violates the religious freedom of parents and children, teachers, and taxpayers. The government has no business weighing in on such theological decisions. I’m proud to join this lawsuit because I believe Superintendent Walters’ plan to use taxpayer money to buy Bibles and force public schools to teach from them is illegal and unconstitutional.”
Plaintiff the Rev. Mitch Randall of Cleveland County, a Baptist pastor and CEO of Good Faith Media: “As a Christian, I’m appalled by the use of the Bible – a sacred text – for Superintendent Walters’ political grandstanding. As a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, I’m alarmed by the parallels between this Bible mandate and the religious proselytization and forced assimilation my relatives faced in government boarding schools. As a taxpayer, I object to the state spending public funds on religious texts. The separation of church and state is a bedrock principle protecting religious liberty for every citizen; I urge the court to uphold this principle and strike down this mandate.
Plaintiff Erika Wright of Cleveland County, the founder and leader of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition and a parent of two children who attend public schools: “As parents, my husband and I have sole responsibility to decide how and when our children learn about the Bible and religious teachings. We are devout Christians, but different Christian denominations have differenttheological beliefs and practices. It is not the role of any politician or public school official to intervene in these personal matters. Oklahoma’s education system is already struggling, ranking nearly last in national standings. Mandating a Bible curriculum will not address our educational shortcomings. Superintendent Walters should focus on providing our children and teachers with the resources they need; our families can handle religious education at home.”
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United: “The separation of church and state guarantees that families and students – not politicians – get to decide if, when and how to engage with religion. Superintendent Ryan Walters is abusing the power of his office to advance a Christian Nationalist agenda and impose his personal religious beliefs on other people’s children. Not on our watch. We’re proud to defend the religious freedom of all Oklahomans, from Christians to the nonreligious.”
Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief: “This Bible mandate is a blatant power grab that violates state law and tramples the separation of church and state. Public-school students, families, and teachers – and the taxpayers who support them – deserve better.”
Tamya Cox-Touré, Executive Director of the ACLU of Oklahoma: “By filing this lawsuit, Oklahomans have come together in a common fight to reject the State Board of Education’s use of religion as a cover for repression. All families and students should feel welcome in our public schools and we must protect the individual right of students and families to choose their own faith or no faith at all. The separation of church and state is a bedrock of our nation’s founding principles.”
Annie Laurie Gaylor, Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation: “Superintendent Ryan Walters cannot be allowed to employ the machinery of the state to indoctrinate Oklahoma’s students in his religion. Thankfully, Oklahoma law protects families and taxpayers from his unconstitutional scheme to force public schools to adopt his preferred holy book.”
Colleen McCarty, Executive Director of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice: “The constant use of Oklahoma as a testing ground for religious extremism is growing tiresome. Oklahoma families deserve a public school system devoted to the education of their children, and instead we get flash-bulb political stunts and attempted erosion of the Constitution. The buck stops here. We will defend the principles our nation is built on, starting with the separation of church and state.” (snip-MORE)
Things to Remind People in the Grocery Line
or wherever mentions of prices, and whatever else has improved since Pres. Biden took office. I post this because my own US Rep is campaigning about how bad everything is, with facts from the Don’s admin when they’re facts at all. I’m certain he’s not the only “safe” (I voted for the Dem-we actually have a Dem running!) Republican running for the US House, as they’re all up for election every two years. Anyway, he makes the claims that things are bad under Biden-Harris, and how he’s just focusing on improving those very things that have improved thanks to Biden-Harris and the legislators who managed to get things passed (most Republicans are not among those legislators, btw.) Anyway, here’s Heather Cox Richardson:
October 17, 2024
Oct 18, 2024
In a new rule released yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission requires sellers to make it as easy to cancel a subscription to a gym or a service as it is to sign up for one. In a statement, FTC chair Lina Khan explained the reasoning behind the “click-to-cancel” rule: “Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” she said. “Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.” Although most of the new requirements won’t take effect for about six months, David Dayen of The American Prospect noted that the stock price of Planet Fitness fell 8% after the announcement.
When he took office in January 2021, with democracy under siege from autocratic governments abroad and an authoritarian movement at home, President Joe Biden set out to prove that democracy could deliver for the ordinary people who had lost faith in it. The click-to-cancel rule is an illustration of an obvious and long-overdue protection, but it is only one of many ways—$35 insulin, new bridges, loan forgiveness, higher wages, good jobs—in which policies designed to benefit ordinary people have demonstrated that a democratic government can improve lives.
When Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, she noted that the administration “has driven a historic economic recovery” with strong growth, very low unemployment rates, and inflation returning to normal. Now it is focused on lowering costs for families and expanding the economy while reducing inequality. That strong economy at home is helping to power the global economy, Yellen noted, and the U.S. has been working to strengthen that economy by reinforcing global policies, investments, and institutions that reinforce economic stability.
“Over the past four years, the world has been through a lot,” Yellen said, “from a once-in-a-century pandemic, to the largest land war in Europe since World War II, to increasingly frequent and severe climate disasters. This has only underlined that we are all in it together. America’s economic well-being depends on the world’s, and America’s economic leadership is key to global prosperity and security.” She warned against isolationism that would undermine such prosperity both at home and abroad.
The numbers behind the proven experience that government protection of ordinary people is good for economic growth got the blessing of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday, when it awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to James Robinson of the University of Chicago. Their research explains why “[s]ocieties with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better,” while democracies do.
Although democracy has been delivering for Americans, Donald Trump and MAGAs rose to power by convincing those left behind by 40 years of supply-side economics that their problem was not the people in charge of the government, but rather the government itself.
Trump wants to get rid of the current government so that he can enrich himself, do whatever he wants to his enemies, and avoid answering to the law. The Christian nationalists who wrote Project 2025 want to destroy the federal government so they can put in place an authoritarian who will force Americans to live under religious rule. Tech elites like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel want to get rid of the federal government so they can control the future without having to worry about regulations.
In place of what they insist is a democratic system that has failed, they are offering a strongman who, they claim, will take care of people more efficiently than a democratic government can. The focus on masculinity and portrayals of Trump as a muscled hero‚ much as Russian president Vladimir Putin portrays himself, fit the mold of an authoritarian leader.
But the argument that Americans need a strongman depends on the argument that democracy does not work. In the last three-and-a-half years, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Democrats have proved that it can, so long as it operates with the best interests of ordinary people in mind. Trump and Vance’s outlandish lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene are designed to override the reality of a competent administration addressing a crisis with all the tools it has. In its place, the lies provide a false narrative of federal officials ignoring people and trying to steal their property.
Their attack on democracy has another problem, as well. In addition to the reality that democracy has been delivering for Americans for more than three years now—and pretty dramatically—Trump is no longer a strongman. Vice President Kamala Harris is outperforming him in the theater of political dominance. And as she does so, his image is crumbling.
In an article in US News and World Report yesterday, NBC’s former chief marketer John D. Miller apologized to America for helping to “create a monster.” Miller led the team that marketed The Apprentice, the reality TV show that made Trump a household name. “To sell the show,” Miller wrote, “we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.” But the truth was that he declared bankruptcy six times, and “[t]he imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV,” Miller wrote. While Trump loved the attention the show provided, “more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV.”
Miller says they “promoted the show relentlessly,” blanketing the country with a “highly exaggerated” image of Trump as a successful businessman “like a heavy snowstorm.” “[W]e…did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader,” Miller wrote. “I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.”
Speaking as a “born-and-bred Republican,” Miller warned: “If you believe that Trump will be better for you or better for the country, that is an illusion, much like The Apprentice was.” He strongly urged people to vote for Kamala Harris. “The country will be better off and so will you.”
A new video shown last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live even more powerfully illustrated the collapse of Trump’s tough guy image. Written by Jesse Joyce of Comedy Central, the two-minute video featured actor and retired professional wrestler Dave Bautista dominating his sparring partner in a boxing ring and then telling those who think Trump is “some sort of tough guy” that “he’s not.”
Working out in a gym, Bautista insults Trump’s heavy makeup, out-of-shape body, draft dodging, and physical weakness, and notes that “he sells imaginary baseball cards pretending to be a cowboy fireman” when “he’s barely strong enough to hold an umbrella.” Bautista says Trump’s two-handed method of drinking water looks “like a little pink chickadee,” and goes on to make a raunchy observation about Trump’s stage dancing. “He’s moody, he pouts, he throws tantrums,” Bautista goes on. “He’s cattier on social media than a middle-school mean girl.”
Bautista ends by listing Trump’s fears of rain, dogs, windmills…and being laughed at.” “And mostly,” Bautista concludes, “he’s terrified that real, red-blooded American men will find out that he’s a weak, tubby toddler.” Calling Trump a “whiny b*tch,” Bautista walks away from the camera.
The sketch was billed as comedy, but it was deadly serious in its takedown of the key element of Trump’s political power.
And he seems vulnerable. Forbes and Newsweek have recently questioned his mental health; yesterday the Boston Globe ran an op-ed saying, “Trump’s decline is too dangerous to ignore. We can see the decline in the former president’s ability to hold a train of thought, speak coherently, or demonstrate a command of the English language, to say nothing of policy.”
Trump’s Fox News Channel town hall yesterday got 2.9 million viewers; Harris’s interview got 7.1 million. Today, Trump canceled yet another appearance, this one with the National Rifle Association in Savannah, Georgia, scheduled for October 22, where he was supposed to be the keynote speaker.
Meanwhile, Vice President Harris today held rallies in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and La Crosse, Wisconsin. In La Crosse, MAGA hecklers tried to interrupt her while she was speaking about the centrality of the three Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices to the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion.
“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” Harris called to them with a smile and a wave. As the crowd roared with approval, she added: “No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”
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Notes:
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-5154814/click-to-cancel-subscriptions-memberships-ftc-rule
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2654
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/press-release/
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/popular-information/
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ditches-nra-event-latest-cancellation-1970902
https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-fox-news-interview-ratings-donald-trump-1970906
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/16/opinion/trump-cognitive-decline-press-republicans/
https://www.newsweek.com/dancing-donald-trump-clearly-steep-decline-opinion-1969551
X:
ddayen/status/1846991070309101761
ddayen/status/1847011806587634007
carlquintanilla/status/1847051458618736920
KamalaHQ/status/1847026957407449361
YouTube:
watch?v=rn-Dw2JUVmo&t=910s (video starts at 15.23)
3 For Science on Friday!
Why did scientists name these new frogs after Star Trek characters?
What sound does a frog make? If you said “croak” or “ribbit” or even “bonk” like the Australian pobblebonk frog, you’d be right. And now, thanks to new research, “Star Trek whistle” is also a correct answer!
Seven newly discovered species of frogs in Madagascar have been named for their unique calls, some of which are similar to whistle-like sound effects used in Star Trek: the “boatswain whistle” and “tricorder” device.
“That’s why we named the frogs after Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer, Burnham, and Pike – 7 of the most iconic captains from the sci-fi series,” says Miguel Vences of the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany, who led the research. (snip-MORE)
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“Stellar volcano” captured in dramatic Hubble images
https://players.brightcove.net/5483960636001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6363356718112 (video on the page; it wouldn’t embed.)
Dramatic and colourful close-ups from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show a binary system of rambunctious stars. See the high-resolution image here.
The system is called R Aquarii. The primary star is an aging red giant more than 400 times heavier than our Sun. Its companion is a burned-out white dwarf.
The red giant pulsates, changes temperature, and varies in brightness by a factor of 750 times over a roughly 390-day period. At its peak the star is nearly 5,000 times brighter than our Sun.
Meanwhile, the white dwarf dances around the red giant. It orbits the giant star every 44 years.
When the white dwarf gets closest to the red giant, its gravity pulls hydrogen gas off the red giant. The material accumulates around the dwarf star and undergoes nuclear fusion. The result is an explosion akin to an enormous nuclear bomb.
Filaments shoot from the dwarf star’s core like a geyser, forming loops and trails of plasma traveling at more than 1.6 million km per hour. (snip-MORE)
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Confirmed: The Sun has reached solar maximum
Representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the international Solar Cycle Prediction panel met on Tuesday and announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum.
The solar cycle is 11 years. At the height of the cycle, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip and its activity intensifies.
“During solar maximum, the number of sunspots, and therefore, the amount of solar activity, increases,” says Jamie Favors, the director of NASA’s Space Weather Program. “This increase in activity provides an exciting opportunity to learn about our closest star –but also causes real effects at Earth and throughout our solar system.”
Increased solar activity can affect satellites and astronauts in space, as well as communications and navigation systems. (snip-MORE)
Please click on through-
-turns out FOX News viewers got a goodly dose of truth from our VP.
A TV station stopped playing pro-abortion rights ads after state’s threats, lawsuit says
The lawsuit is asking the federal courts for an injunction.One Fort Myers TV station acquiesced and stopped playing pro-abortion rights ads after a Department of Health (DOH) lawyer threatened Florida TV stations with criminal prosecution.
It’s a revelation in a new First Amendment lawsuit as the political committee supporting the Amendment 4 abortion rights initiative sued a pair of state officials Wednesday in federal court.
Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF) is currently negotiating with CBS affiliate WINK-TV to get the ads back on air, but representatives for the PC say it has lost valuable time to reach voters in that market with the election just three weeks away.
FPF is suing Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who is also the head of DOH, and John Wilson, the Department’s former General Counsel who wrote the letters, in the U.S. District Court’s Tallahassee Division.
“The State’s threatened sanctions against third-party media organizations that host the advertisement — in a heavy-handed effort to silence FPF’s speech — is a classic and deeply disturbing example of unconstitutional coercion,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants’ threat is an escalation of a broader State campaign to attack Amendment 4 using public resources and government authority to advance the State’s preferred characterization of its anti-abortion laws as the ‘truth’ and denigrate opposing viewpoints as ‘lies.’”
The lawsuit is asking the federal courts for an injunction to stop the state from threatening or intimidating more TV stations over the ads, aimed at supporting a ballot measure that would protect abortion rights in Florida’s Constitution and overturn the state’s current six-week abortion ban. FPF is also asking for compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorneys fees.
“CBS affiliate WINK News, a leading local news station in Southwest Florida, has stopped airing a false advertisement created by a dark money group to push Amendment 4,” the Vote No On 4 Florida opposition group said in a Wednesday afternoon statement. “The ad was removed for making a patently inaccurate and harmful claim about Florida law: That it prohibits abortion even when the pregnancy is a threat to the mother’s life.”
The ad at the heart of the controversy is about a Tampa woman who found out she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant with her second child. Before Florida’s current abortion law, she was able to get an abortion to get chemotherapy that extended her life for her family.
“Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine. Amendment 4 is going to protect women like me. We have to vote ‘yes,’” the woman identified as Caroline says in the ad.
But in his cease and desist letters to Florida TV stations, Wilson argued, “The advertisement is not only false; it is dangerous. Women faced with pregnancy complications posing a serious risk of death or substantial and irreversible physical impairment may and should seek medical treatment in Florida.”
Wilson wrote that TV stations playing the ad were violating sanitary nuisance laws that were punishable as a second-degree misdemeanor.
FPF’s lawsuit countered that examples of health sanitary nuisances are things like garbage and dead animals — not “political advertising that contradicts state officials’ political beliefs.”
Wilson’s Oct. 3 letters caused the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair to issue a reprimand.
“The right of broadcasters to speak freely is rooted in the First Amendment,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “Threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government’s views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech.”
Wilson left DOH a short time later, according to the Miami Herald, which reported that the reason for his departure was unclear.
FPF also stood by the Caroline ad and called it an accurate depiction of the state’s abortion law.
“Suffice to say, FPF disagrees with the State of Florida’s narrative about its current law, which bans most abortions after six weeks’ gestation,” the lawsuit said. “FPF sponsored Amendment 4 precisely because current Florida law does not protect women and instead runs roughshod over their rights and imperils their health by substituting the government’s judgments for those of women and their healthcare providers.”
FPF plans to keep running more ads, the lawsuit added.
Scottie's Playtime 