Wednesday political cartoons / memes / and news items. Sorry it is late I am sick with a stomach bug

Among those transgender service members that Hegseth is kicking out is Commander Emily Shilling, who has served in the Navy for almost two decades. A naval aviator with over 60 combat missions under her belt, she is the lead plaintiff suing the administration to overturn the ban. Shilling told Women Rule that it’s her duty not only to follow lawful orders but to challenge those she believes to be unlawful.

She has proved that Transgender people are no different to anyone else that serves and in many cases their service is over the top.

Hegseth a National Guard weekend warrior and Trump the draft dodger are not good enough to lick the boots of the commander. I say this as a retired US army disabled vet. I hope the two of them die in their travels and the world and country would be better off.

https://trumpgolftrack.com/

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#qatar from Liberals Are Cool

#qatar from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#mothers day from Liberals Are Cool

#ICE from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#universal childcare from Liberals Are Cool

#india from Liberals Are Cool

#india from Liberals Are Cool

#india from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#tariffs from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#pope leo xiv from Liberals Are Cool

#medicare for all from Liberals Are Cool

#qatar from Liberals Are Cool

#qatar from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

image

#china from Liberals Are Cool

#china from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#qatar from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

Image from Liberals Are Cool

#south africa from Liberals Are Cool

#south africa from Liberals Are Cool

Trump has imported a new Mickey Mouse from South Africa.

Thumbnail
I figure the most classic image of Gittings is this one:

 

Sooner or Later, There Turns Out to Be A Reason For Everything

I have bitterly wondered why people wouldn’t just go vote for whoever they had to, but to just vote, especially in the 2024 election. I’ve had a hard time with the non-voters. But, turns out, some of them have legitimate reasons (I’ve spoken with none,) but it turns out that not all the non-voters are asses. -A

Political tension and fears of violence may have depressed voter turnout in 2024

This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Women and gender-nonconforming people were more likely than men to fear violence and harassment while voting in the 2024 election, and those who expressed concerns about safety were more likely not to vote at all, new research shows. 

The study, released Monday and shared first with The 19th, was conducted by States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization focused on promoting fair and secure elections and upholding the rule of law.

“Tens of millions of Americans ultimately cast their ballots in 2024 without incident,” the report said. “But voting was not straightforward and safe for all Americans. Many were harassed, and a limited number were subjected to physical violence.”

The study found that the 2024 election was, as a whole, safe, fair and securely conducted, with voters overwhelmingly reporting feeling safe at the polls and confident in the safety and security of the election. But rising incidents of political violence, heightened political polarization and gender-based harassment had a measurable impact on how women and gender-noncomforming people especially viewed the safety of voting in the 2024 election — and whether they turned out to vote at all, the study says.

Researchers surveyed voters before and after the 2024 election in partnership with research data and analytics group YouGov and held a series of seven focus groups before the election — with three groups of White women, three groups of women of color and one made up of gender-nonconforming participants. They also fielded surveys of state lawmakers, election administrators and law enforcement officials in partnership with the nonprofit CivicPulse. The study is also one of the first of its kind to study the voting experiences of gender-nonconforming voters, who are subject to gender-based discrimination and harassment at the polls. 

Women, people of color and gender-nonconforming people were more likely to have perceived the election environment as being unsafe, reported experiencing higher rates of voting-related harassment and were more likely to take precautionary measures when going to the polls. The study also compared pre-election survey responses to voting records and found that higher expectations of experiencing violence or harassment at the polls was correlated with lower voting rates.  

“Concerns about violence or harassment depressed turnout, likely turning millions of voters into non-voters,” the report said. 

The pre-election survey, conducted September 23 to 30, 2024, surveyed 4,016 American adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 points. The post-election survey, conducted November 7 to 19, surveyed a separate group of 4,017 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 points. The researchers asked a series of questions to identify gender-nonconforming respondents in its surveys with YouGov, resulting in a sample of 81 gender-nonconforming voters in the pre-election survey and 103 in the post-election survey.  

To measure fears of harassment and violence, researchers asked respondents how likely they thought it was to experience events ranging from verbal or written harassment to property damage and acts of physical violence. While all gender groups provided average responses of “somewhat unlikely” across all five, gender-nonconforming respondents had a higher expected likelihood of harassment or violence. 

Overall, 91 percent of men, 89 percent of women and 73 percent of gender-nonconforming respondents said in the post-election survey that they felt safe voting. But respondents’ perceptions and feelings of safety varied by race among women and gender-nonconforming people. In the post-election survey, 92 percent of White respondents said they felt completely or mostly safe voting, compared with 85 percent of Black voters and 84 percent of Hispanic voters.

In pre-election surveys, women and voters of color were more likely than men and White respondents to view voting as unsafe and to say they were taking precautions as a result. Among women, the most common safety precaution respondents said they were likely to take was not bringing their children to the polls (32 percent), while the most common safety precaution for gender-nonconforming people was not interacting with others at the polls (46 percent). About a quarter of women and gender-nonconforming respondents said they were likely to vote by mail.   

Several women voters in focus groups cited the potential of gun violence as a concern. 

“I don’t go to the polls, because you never know what you will encounter there,” said a White independent woman voter who participated in one of the focus groups. “It seems like everybody in Arizona has a gun. We vote by mail, because it’s safer. Everybody has an opinion; you get in line, and you hear it all. You never know, if they don’t agree with you, they’ll shoot you. People are crazy.”

Others spoke to the heightened political climate and general political tensions around the election as a reason they feared threats, harassment and even heated conversations in line. 

“I go early, or late, when I won’t run into anybody I know, and there won’t be any conversation,” said a Black Republican woman focus group participant. “I don’t want to deal with the emotional, ‘Who did you vote for?’ And me saying, ‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ So there are no issues, fighting, cussing, yelling. Save my peace of mind.” 

People who feared violence and harassment at higher levels were less likely to vote, researchers found by comparing survey responses to verified voting records. When controlling for turnout differences based on demographic considerations, the study still found an average three percentage point decline in the likelihood of voting. 

“For context, differences in voter behavior based on education level, one of the strongest predictors of turnout, are only half as large as differences explained by expectations of violence or harassment,” the report said. “Put another way, generalizing our results to the nationwide electorate, roughly 6 million Americans may have decided not to vote in 2024 because of concerns about violence or harassment.”

Gender-nonconforming voters face particularly unique challenges and barriers when it comes to voting. 

A rise in anti-transgender political rhetoric from the right has been accompanied by a slew of laws targeting transgender people in Republican-controlled states. Some of these laws have sought to create strict definitions of gender and bar transgender individuals from changing the sex listed on their official identification to align with their gender identity. In states that require voters to show photo identification at the polls, that could open up transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals to scrutiny and potential harassment. In the pre-election survey, a third of gender-nonconforming voters said they were likely to dress differently at the polls.

“I’ve been a registered voter for decades. When I attempted to vote last time, they had a hard time ‘finding’ my registration,” said a gender-nonconforming Black independent who participated in a focus group. “I could tell I was being judged. The attitude of the person looking at your information to give you the voting packet can be intimidating. My documents have been submitted, I have my ID, what’s the problem? I felt there was judgment as far as was my information correct or was it fraudulent.”

In the post-election survey, over half of gender-nonconforming respondents said they took at least one safety precaution when voting, compared with about a third of men and women who said they took at least one precaution. Thirteen percent of gender-nonconforming respondents reported experiencing verbal harassment, intimidation and threats compared to 5.2 percent of men and 4.8 percent of women. In all, 18 percent of gender-nonconforming voters reported experiencing violence or harassment during the 2024 election season. 

“I am obviously queer when you look at me, and I’ve been harassed for it,” said another focus group participant, an Asian-American Democratic voter. “Depending on how I do my hair or what I wear [on election] day, it’s a higher chance I’ll get harassed. If I was girly, I would be afraid someone could see through that and do me harm.”

This story has been updated to clarify support and funding for the report.

DOJ Says Susman Godfrey Is National Security Threat… For Giving Money To GLAD

https://abovethelaw.com/2025/05/doj-says-susman-godfrey-is-national-security-threat-for-giving-money-to-glad/


Their goal is to copy Russia.  The goal is to wipe the LGBTQ+ community from society, from the public view.  They want to make us illegal like in the most hateful countries or again to be like Russia under Putin.  I used to think these people wanted to return to the 1950s but now I think I was wrong.   They want to return to the early 1930s when the Nazi party was very active and strong in the US.  I kept telling the people who wanted the LGB to let the t go to protect the rest that it was a divide and conquer strategy and that they would come for the rest of us next.  And they are doing that.  Just being gay or fighting the haters trying to deny gay people rights is a security risk to nation according to them.     Hugs


Stupid, but also disturbing.

There’s a new “Axis of Evil” in the Trump administration cosmology and it’s not al Qaeda or North Korea. Instead, the preeminent threat to national security, according to the hapless folks at Donald Trump’s personal law firm, is anyone who ever donated money to LGBTQ civil rights organization GLAD. At least that’s the government’s new working theory as it tries to justify its retaliatory executive order against Susman Godfrey.

Had Susman, for example, taken on that GLAD challenge pro bono, the allegation would still be risible, but when the whole argument hinges on the firm generally donating to a prominent non-profit it crosses into professionally embarrassing.

Not quite, “making up fake Supreme Court quotes” embarrassing, but still.

Aside from trying to tag Susman for its charitable contributions, it’s also deeply troubling to suggest that filing a federal lawsuit is a “dangerous effort to undermine the effectiveness of the United States military.” In a rule of law society (I know, I know, but humor me on this idea for the moment), “going to court” isn’t sedition, but the system working as intended. Checks and balances and all that stuff. To call a federal lawsuit an effort to undermine the government, requires adopting the premise that it’s a threat to make sure the government isn’t doing anything illegal. Courts can get the law wrong, but the point is that we encourage people to take grievances to court and not storm federal buildings… you know, the behavior that we traditionally considered a “dangerous effort to undermine” the government. Not so much these days.

There’s no bright line between the GLAD challenge and any other discrimination case brought against the DOD. If the government chooses to contest a suit for any reason, under this standard, it’s an effort to undermine the effectiveness of the military. Frankly, there’s not much keeping the DOJ from expanding this rationale to any other case brought against the government. That would put us a little beyond warnings about a slippery slope and into “that point where Wile E. Coyote hasn’t noticed he’s off the cliff yet.”

Not that GLAD’s challenge would’ve dangerously undermined effectiveness. General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated unequivocally that there is no problem with transgender troops if they meet standards. But as a career soldier, Milley cared more about merit and the ability to do the job. A civilian talk show host more interested in texting war plans to his buddies might have… different priorities.

Though all of this remains far afield of the instant issue: Susman Godfrey, giving money to an organization that has in the past filed a civil rights challenge, is not even in the same universe as a threat to national security.

But you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, I guess.


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

 

Let’s talk about Trump’s Air Force One problem….

“We Want Beer” and More, in Peace & Justice History for 5/13

May 13, 1888
Brazil, which had imported more African slaves than any other country (nearly 40% of the 11 million Africans shipped to the western hemisphere), abolished slavery.
May 13, 1932
“We Want Beer” marches were held in cities all over America, with 15,000 unionized workers demonstrating in Detroit. Prohibition (the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution barring “the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors”) was repealed the following year.
May 13, 1954
Natives of the Marshall Islands pleaded for an end to atmospheric H-Bomb testing in the south Pacific.
A ground zero forgotten  The Washington Post
May 13, 1958
During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon’s limousine was attacked with rocks and bottles by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The crowd was angered by U.S. Cold War policies and their effect on Latin America. Five days earlier in the trip, the Vice President had been shoved, stoned, booed, and spat upon by protesters in Peru.
May 13, 1967
250 Chicano students from Los Angeles colleges & universities met to form the United Mexican American Students (UMAS).
May 13, 1968

“We are the power”
Workers joined Paris students’ protest in a one-day general strike calling for the fall of the government and protesting police brutality. The protest by French students included occupation of The Sorbonne; by the end of the month over 10,000,000 French citizens had been involved in school and workplace occupations.
View and read about the great poster art from Paris ‘68 
May 13, 1970
The Movement for a New Congress—to elect peace candidates—was founded at Princeton University.
May 1968, month of intense protest and political organizing around the country 
May 13, 1992
Ecuador’s government granted 148 native communities legal title to more than three million acres (slightly less than the size of the state of Washington) in the Amazon Basin.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may13

Here’s A Useful Tool

from the Center for American Progress (remember them?) This gives us the info by congressional district, including the congresscritter’s names so we know just who to call about our concerns. There are options for pagination or a table.

2 From Clay Jones

Darth Hideous by Clay Jones

Trump is looking to suspect habeas corpus Read on Substack

The Trump regime is openly talking about suspending habeas corpus without the approval of Congress. This is the right to see a judge, challenge the government’s evidence against them, and present a defense if you are detained in the United States.

Why would the regime not want you to have that right?

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen “Baby Goebbels” Miller told reporters while hanging upside-down by his feet from a ceiling, “That’s an option we’re actively looking at.”

If Baby Goebbels is looking at it, then you know it’s the wrong idea.

Article 1 of the Constitution states, “the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

Senator Chris Murphy said at a Democratic rally in Sarasota, Florida, “The one power you cannot give the executive is the power to arbitrarily imprison people who oppose the regime. Today, it may be an El Salvadorian immigrant or a foreign student, but tomorrow it is you or me. The slope to despotism can be slippery and quick.” (snip-MORE)

Toon For Flagler by Clay Jones

Palm Coast has a paranoid mayor Read on Substack

This cartoon was drawn for Flagler Live in Palm Coast, Florida. Palm Coast has a weird mayor, and I blame Trump. Donald Trump has made it acceptable for politicians to spout of stupid crazy shit without concern for how ridiculous it sounds.

Want to know more? Read the column this cartoon accompanies.

Creative note: Flagler Live has been good to me. Not only are they a client, but they’re also paid subscribers to this Substack. So when I woke up to a request from the editor for a cartoon on a local subject, I wanted to give him what he wanted. I hate to say no to clients, even if it’s on a Saturday when I already have two deadlines. He was also very easy to work with.

The editor described the situation, sent me the column the cartoon would accompany, and sent photos of the mayor, his truck, and of city hall. He didn’t give me a hard time about the cartoon either. I sent two ideas, he picked his favorite, and he didn’t request any changes to the cartoon when it was completed.

I think I would kick a lot of ass if I lived in Florida and covered the subjects there. But ya know, it’s Florida. It’s full of Republicans and flying buzzy stingy things. (snip-MORE)

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka arrested at ICE detention facility in NJ

https://pix11.com/news/local-news/newark-mayor-ras-baraka-taken-into-custody-by-ice-in-new-jersey/


This is selective persecution which is illegal.  So if this ever goes to court he will have the charges dismissed.  In the meantime the hate party cult of tRump just made him a front runner for the mayoral election.  Hugs.


 

Posted: 

Updated: 

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for allegedly trespassing at an ICE facility in New Jersey on Friday afternoon, authorities said.

“The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon,” Alina Habba, the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, posted on X.

Baraka was taken to an ICE field office at 620 Frelinghuysen Ave. in Newark, according to his office. The charges have not been announced.

“We are actively monitoring and will provide more details as they become available,” his representatives said.

Witnesses said the arrest came after Baraka attempted to join a scheduled tour of the facility with three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman.

When federal officials blocked his entry, a heated argument broke out, according to Viri Martinez, an activist with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. It continued even after Baraka returned to the public side of the gates.

In video of the altercation shared with The Associated Press, a federal official in a jacket with the logo of the Homeland Security Investigations can be heard telling Baraka he could not join a tour of the facility because “you are not a congress member.”

Baraka then left the secure area, rejoining protesters on the public side of the gate. Video showed him speaking through the gate to a man in a suit, who said: “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.”

“I’m not on their property. They can’t come out on the street and arrest me,” Baraka replied.

Minutes later several ICE agents, some wearing face coverings, surrounded him and others on the public side. As protesters cried out, “Shame,” Baraka was dragged back through the security gate in handcuffs.

“The ICE personnel came out aggressively to arrest him and grab him,” said Julie Moreno, a New Jersey state captain of American Families United. “It didn’t make any sense why they chose that moment to grab him while he was outside the gates.”

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that as a bus of detainees was entering the detention center, “a group of protestors, including two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin was quoted in the statement as calling it “beyond a bizarre political stunt” and saying it put agents’ and detainees’ safety at risk.

“Members of Congress are not above the law and cannot illegally break into detention facilities. Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility,” McLaughlin said.

The department said the facility has the proper permits and inspections have been cleared.

The Newark mayor was visiting Delaney Hall to conduct oversight after the building was turned into an ICE facility.

Delany Hall was leased for $63 million annually from a private prison group known as The GEO Group. The city of Newark is suing for more inspections, claiming ICE has not indicated how many detainees it has in the building – which can only house 1,000 people.

Baraka said on Monday that the issues at Delany Hall go beyond the lack of safety inspections and proper permits.

This is a developing story please check back for updates.

Dominique Jack is a digital content producer from Brooklyn with more than five years of experience covering news. She joined PIX11 in 2024. More of her work can be found here.

–Associated press material was used in this report.

USDA, DOGE demand states hand over personal data about food stamp recipients

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5389952/usda-snap-doge-data-immigration

Let’s talk about Trump folding to China….