June is LGBTQ Pride Month, so JSTOR Daily gathered some of our favorite stories to celebrate. All with free and accessible scholarly research.
By: The Editors
June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in the United States, so we’ve collected some of our most popular stories on a range of topics—from pronouns to politics—that highlight the history of the LGBTQIA+ community. As always, links to free JSTOR scholarship are included with each of these.
During congressional testimony, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, which his J6 insurrectionists/terrorists could have applied for, is dead. In the Oval Office today, Donald Trump said that he doesn’t know if it’s dead. He is lying.
The one thing that we do know for sure is that the immunity for Trump and his family from IRS audits is still alive and well. But more on that tomorrow.
The slush fund was not popular, even with Republicans, with one calling it “stupid on stilts.” Another unpopular thing, even with Republicans, is the appointment of Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte is currently the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
When asked if he has concerns that Pulte would “weaponize” the position, given the role he has played during Trump’s second term in digging into mortgage records to see whether Trump’s political adversaries have committed fraud, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said: “We don’t need a weaponized DNI; we need professionals there.” (snip-MORE)
Recently I posted a cartoon after reading this Propublica story about the connections between a Don Jr. linked company and a $620 million Pentagon loan. We haven’t heard as much in the news during the second presidential term about the Trump family and their various grifts (probably due to Trump taking the oxygen out of the room with his various vanity projects), so I’m posting some cartoons from the first as a reminder the entire Trump family is in it all for themselves.
(snip-there are 7 MORE, and they are fantastic-go see!)
Andrew Paul Johnson was one of the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He pleaded guilty to multiple nonviolent charges for breaching the Capitol, and was just a few months into his year-long sentence when Donald Trump gave him a pardon. Last March, he was sentenced to life in prison after a Florida jury found him guilty of five criminal charges, including molestation, lewd and lascivious exhibition, and transmission of material harmful to a minor.
Police reported that Johnson, 45, tried to keep the children quiet by telling them he would share millions of dollars in restitution money he expected to receive from the Trump regime in connection with his Jan. 6 case. Don’t worry, kids, he told them. Uncle Donald will take care of you. (snip-it’s disgusting that there is MORE just like this)
In normal times, in a normal Federal Communications Commission, Anna M. Gomez’s job might be described as wonky. But now is not that time.
“A large part of my role is to call out this administration’s abuses of the First Amendment, particularly when it chooses to weaponize the FCC in trying to shut down any voices that it doesn’t like,” said Gomez. “And we see this constantly, there is a constant infringement on the free press and on the First Amendment and on the rights of viewers and listeners to see and hear what they want to see.”
Gomez is the sole Democrat on the commission. Her term is set to end on June 30. Normally, there would be five commissioners at the FCC, but right now, there are only three. Two resigned last year, and the Trump administration has not nominated their replacements. Gomez is on a First Amendment tour of sorts—telling Americans that the actions of the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, are egregious. Disney seems to agree. Unlike other media companies, it’s lawyered up to fight against the FCC’s latest demands.
On a recent episode of What Next: TBD, host Lizzie O’Leary spoke to Gomez about the FCC and why ABC isn’t folding like CBS did. This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Lizzie O’Leary: How do broadcast affiliates work?
Anna M. Gomez: Although Disney owns and operates only eight stations nationwide, there are hundreds of ABC affiliates because there are hundreds of markets all over this country. They are owned independently by other broadcasters. Some of those broadcasters are quite large, and some of them are very small.
The FCC manufactured a complaint against a Disney station in Texas that carried The View. And although multiple ABC stations carried that particular program, it had the Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico on it.
There were tons of other ABC affiliates that also could have had this complaint lodged against them. But the FCC went to the nonowned affiliates in the market and said to them: “We want you to file with us, and we’re not going to hold it against you because of this alleged violation.” They didn’t go to Disney.
The FCC then used the fact that other affiliates filed as a reason to initiate this investigation against the one Disney-owned station. That to me is a setup. Some would call that entrapment. It’s where the FCC manufactures an issue and coordinates with the other stations so that only the Disney-owned station is the outlier. And this is why it is so egregious what this FCC is doing, because it is clearly targeting Disney in retaliation for its viewpoints.
How is that legal?
It’s not. It’s absolutely unlawful. Not only is it unlawful, it is also unconstitutional. The FCC is challenging the First Amendment rights of the broadcasters, the talent, the press, through all of these actions. We are explicitly prohibited from censoring broadcasters, but this is censorship.
This feels like a shakedown. This feels like the emperor doesn’t like these comedians, whether it’s Jimmy Kimmel or Joy Behar, and if you don’t do something, we’re going to take away your affiliate licenses. Is that a fair reading?
Absolutely. This administration cannot tolerate anything that is critical of it, that doesn’t mention its worldview. And it is weaponizing any tool in its toolbox, whether it’s the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Defense, in order to go after the press and to go after the media.
It is clear that this is absolute harassment in order to get Disney to capitulate. The good news is that Disney is not capitulating. It has actually shown courage. It has decided to stand up for its First Amendment rights and to push back. And if this gets carried out to its conclusion, and by that I mean it goes to court, the FCC will lose.
Is Disney finding a spine, or can Disney read a poll?
Disney has, in fact, found its spine. Part of that, of course, is that we saw Disney capitulate very early on when it settled the case against ABC because of the George Stephanopoulos interview. And legal scholars said there is no basis for this case, but it went ahead and settled it. And that opened the door to all of these future actions against the media. I think what Disney learned is that capitulation doesn’t buy you protection; it might buy you some time, but they will keep coming back and coming back for more because what they demand is absolute allegiance to this administration and nothing else.
I’m curious about where this impacts TV. How much of this campaign is about pressuring tech platforms?
There’s an absolute campaign by this administration to censor and control any media outlet using whatever levers it has at its power. Look at social media. The Federal Trade Commission used the fact that there were two ad agencies merging to force them to carry ads on Twitter, which they had stopped doing because of some of the content that they found to be harmful to their clients’ interests. And that is forced speech. That is a First Amendment violation.
I do believe that this administration is sending a signal. We have seen media companies win time and time again against this administration when they go to court. But litigation and regulatory investigations are costly, and a lot of companies, corporate parents, make the decision that it is actually less painful to settle and to capitulate than it is to fight. So the process is the point, the pain is the point, the threat is the point. They don’t want this to be carried out to its fruition. They want it to just force the companies enough pain so that they will capitulate. Now, I think this is a signal to every part of the media that they would do this to them, whether it’s to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, universities, law firms, or broadcasters. They will go after anyone who speaks out against them.
Friend of Playtime Barry, from Another Spectrum, intro’d me to this blog I’m reblogging today. Thanks to both!
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard 6 hours ago
Happy Pride Month lovely people! 🌈
https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxzqP2DqFtvQK9iQBY8IblzyZ3IS6B7Kso
There is a great deal of peace & justice history for June 1, that includes Sojourner Truth, the Greenwood massacre, Nazis, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, The Lord’s Prayer in public schools and SCOTUS, and even more; here for PRIDE I’m featuring Henry Gerber. The link for the entire date’s history is beneath.
| June 1, 1932 |
| Gay rights organizer Henry Gerber published an article in Modern Thinker magazine attacking the view that homosexuality is a neurosis. In 1924, Henry Gerber, a postal worker in Chicago, started the Society for Human Rights, America’s first known gay rights organization. |  |
| “The Society for Human Rights is formed to promote and protect the interests of people who are abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence, and to combat the public prejudices against them.” |
| After having created and distributed a newsletter called “Friendship and Freedom,” Gerber was arrested and held for 3 days without a warrant or being charged with any infractions. Upon release he lost his job for “conduct unbecoming a postal worker.” Following the last of his three trials, in which the charges were ultimately dismissed, Gerber moved to new York City and re-enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving another 17 years. He lived until 1972, passing away at the the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C., living long enough to see the Stonewall Rebellion [see June 28, 1969], the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. |
| More on Henry Gerber (2 links; I’m including the 2d one because it’s a National Parks Services page, but it’s “in progress,” as we would expect in light of Exec. Orders…) |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjune.htm#june1
https://inthesetimes.com/article/new-comics-left-wing-oligarchy-strike-trump-union
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/prophecy
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/debunking
US law states that no living president can appear on currency. Yet, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is preparing for Congress to change that and is plowing ahead with plans to create a $250 bill featuring Donald Trump’s face for the 250th anniversary of the country.
Bessent said, “It’s all in the hands of… Capitol Hill. We prepared things in advance… but we will stick to the law.”
For the sycophants that make up the Trump regime, everything is always Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. They gotta put his name on this, put his face on that, repeat, rinse, and repeat. It is starting to get weird. Soon, all US currency will feature Donald Trump’s signature.
Bessent added that he didn’t think there was anything “untoward” about having the president who was in office during the country’s 250th anniversary appear on the bill. In this case, “untoward” means creepy. (snip-MORE)
June Means PRIDE!
Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images
Pride Month is an annual celebration of the many contributions made by the LGBTQ+ community to history, society and cultures worldwide. In most places, Pride is celebrated throughout the month of June each year in commemoration of its roots in the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. However, in some areas—especially in the Southern Hemisphere—pride events occur at other times of the year.
The roots of the gay rights movement go back to the early 1900s, when a handful of individuals in North America and Europe created gay and lesbian organizations such as the the Society for Human Rights, founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago in the 1920s.
Following World War II, a small number of groups like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis published gay- and lesbian-positive newsletters and grew more vocal in demanding recognition for, and protesting discrimination against, gays and lesbians. In 1966, for example, members of the Mattachine Society held a “sip-in” protest at Julius, a bar in New York City, where they demanded drinks after announcing that they were gay, in violation of local laws against serving alcohol to gays and lesbians.
Despite some progress in the postwar era, basic civil rights were largely denied to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people—until one night in June, 1969, when the gay rights movement took a furious step forward with a series of violent riots in New York City.
https://www.history.com/articles/pride-month (this is one of those videos embedded on the page, beneath is a bit about it, then more about the riots. Go see the video, if you like!)
The 1969 Stonewall Inn Riots sparked the beginning of the gay rights movement in America. Learn how.
As was common practice in many cities, the New York Police Department would occasionally raid bars and restaurants where gays and lesbians were known to gather. This occurred on June 28, 1969, when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan.
When the police aggressively dragged patrons and employees out of the bar, several people fought back against the NYPD, and a growing crowd of angry locals gathered in the streets. The confrontations quickly escalated and sparked six days of protests and violent clashes with the NYPD outside the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street and throughout the neighborhood.
By the time the Stonewall Riots ended on July 2, 1969, the gay rights movement went from being a fringe issue largely ignored by politicians and the media to front-page news worldwide.
(snip-here ends our history.com lesson for today)
I’ve been trying to get this posted the past couple of days. It’s still pertinent.
Erin Brockovich Asks Americans for Help as She Launches Data Center Map
updated May 29, 2026 at 12:27 PM EDT
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich is appealing to the public for help after launching a website to report data center concerns as the rapid expansion of AI-driven facilities across the United States increasingly clashes with local communities.
The appeal threatens to thrust an iconic anti-corporate activist into the heart of the battle to expand AI infrastructure at a time of growing public skepticism about the technology’s impact on jobs, safety and the environment.
The website, brockovichdatacenter.com, lists several “key concerns” surrounding such data centers, including high energy consumption that drives environmental impacts and costs, substantial water use for cooling that can strain local supplies, increased e‑waste from frequent hardware upgrades, exposure to location risks such as natural disasters or geopolitical instability, growing scalability pressures that can outpace local infrastructure, and constant noise from cooling systems and generators that can disrupt nearby communities.
“These challenges highlight the need for sustainable, secure, and efficient AI data center practices,” the website says. “Self-reporting is the best way we can get this information out to the public!”
A map on brockovichdatacenter.com shows major AI data centers in the U.S. that are either operational or under construction, overlaid with locations w…Read More
| brockovichdatacenter.com
There are now more than 4,200 data centers—built to train, deploy and deliver AI—across the U.S., according to Data Center Map.
According to the website’s statistics, more than 2,716 reports have been submitted, with the most in Texas (612), as of Monday. The state is home to more than 460 data centers, according to Data Center Map.
The greatest concern among communities was water, followed by electricity, health and wildlife.
“The race to build AI infrastructures is unfolding town by town across America. In some places, data centers are welcomed. In others, they are delayed, contested or abandoned altogether. This map captures the real-world footprint of that race—revealing patterns of growth, conflict and uncertainty,” Brockovich said.
Who Is Erin Brockovich?
(snip-we know who she is. Or, please click through to read on the Newsweek page)
As data centers become more visible across America’s landscape, some states are seeing more than others.
Why companies are choosing these states:
Humans have questioned “Who Am I” as far back in our history as we first discovered we had a navel and could gaze upon it. Since then, the philosophers and prognosticators and teen-agers everywhere have come to one and only one conclusion:
Do define myself by my relationships? By my likes and dislikes? By the number of followers I have on TikTok (don’t even have an account)? By my past? Future? Hopes? Fears? By my employment? By my religion?
The past couple of months I have found myself adrift in a very strange place: one without my computer. It was crashing like a lead-footed blind man at Daytona! I thought it was a virus, then maybe a windows update snafu, then maybe a windows defender snafu (windows has a lot of snafu’s). I thought maybe I had a adblock issue, then a competing issue with my security software. I couldn’t go on line at all or the computer would crash. I struggled with it for a couple of months until I finally gave up and did a full factory image wipe. And, let’s be clear, I’m not Scottie. When I do a wipe I may as well have taken a sledgehammer to it because whatever that computer was is gone.
There went my favorite websites. My ways of spending time not working – even when I should have been working – were gone. I mean, who remembers all their passwords!?! I’ve got sites I’ve been going to for years that I put on a ridiculous password and saved it on the computer to never bother remembering it again. And they were all gone. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do with my time now! I can’t tell you how stressful this was, and how dumb I felt feeling stressed about it.
So, I started reading more, and I mean a lot more. I went on a diet. I had a lot of work going on at my parent’s place and I started taking care of my own better. I cleaned my kitchen every day, my bathroom 3-times a week, kept caught up on laundry and even sorted through some of the junk I’ve allowed to pile up. I mowed the lawn and got rid of a pile of downed branches I had reserved for “later” (I have a lot of those “later” things – stuff I’ll take care of, ya know, … later). I didn’t even come into my office anymore. I was actually eating at the diningroom table! I know – sacrilege!
So, on Tuesday I began the work of putting this computer back together again, of re-establishing my very identity. Now, today, as I write this it’s Friday, the sink is full, laundry on the floor, dirty towels in the bathroom, I have a dirty plate and cup of cold coffee stagnating on my desk that I keep bumping with my elbow and somehow my life is now “right”. Truly, I found how the other folks live and I didn’t like it!
One thing I did also learn in all of this: I restarted Google and when I signed in I was presented with a number of bookmarked sites that I haven’t seen in years. A good third of them didn’t even exist anymore. Folks, let me tell you – Google Never Forgets! But, it’s nice to visit who I used to be 🙂
Hugs
-randy
Surprisingly, 3% saying it would make them more likely to shop at a store.
By Matt Novak
A whopping 68% of Americans say they worry about surveillance pricing increasing the cost of goods, while just 5% believe it will lead to lower prices, according to a new survey from GBAO Strategies distributed by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Twenty percent say it will likely just keep prices the same.
The new survey is part of the UFCW’s “Affordable Groceries and Good Jobs Campaign,” an effort to encourage states to pass laws banning surveillance pricing and electronic shelf labels (ESLs), the increasingly common price tags that some activists worry allow companies to rapidly change prices in stores several times per day.
The concern includes obvious dynamic pricing models, like increasing the cost of cold beverages when it gets hot outside, but also involves more sophisticated and as-yet theoretical examples like increasing the cost of food staples when a customer’s data is analyzed in store and it’s determined they’re willing to pay more.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans in the survey say digital price tags would make them less likely to shop in a store, with 35% saying it would make no difference, and 3% saying it would make them more likely to shop there. Sixty-seven percent are in favor of banning ESLs outright, according to the new survey.
Walmart, which has patented AI-powered price changes, has been rolling out electronic shelf labels across its stores, and it aims to feature them in every U.S. location by the end of 2026. But the company has insisted it’s not going to use ESLs for jacking up prices and insists that a human manager must be in the loop when prices change.
Unsurprisingly, 66% of those surveyed say they’re worried about the cost of groceries. And it’s no wonder, given the trajectory of inflation in recent months. The University of Michigan’s May sentiment index hit a record low last month at 44.8, down five points from April, according to Bloomberg.
In April, inflation rose 3.8% on an annualized basis, while wages rose just 3.6%, the first time wages have failed to keep up with inflation since 2023, according to CBS News. And that’s causing major concerns about supermarkets’ plans to squeeze customers for more money with new tech.
The new survey takers at GBAO Strategies noted that some grocery stores are replacing paper price tags with digital price tags and asked Americans whether that technology was likely to increase or decrease prices for consumers. Just 3% thought it would decrease prices, while 65% thought stores would use digital price tags to increase prices. 24 percent of participants believe it will keep prices about the same, with the remainder (8%) saying they don’t know.
UFCW International Vice President Ademola Oyefeso told Gizmodo that he believes electronic shelf labels are a tool for price gouging and that tech companies are marketing them for that purpose.
“The ESL industry sells the prospect of higher prices and job losses as positives,” said Oyefeso. “Across the country, families are having to make tough choices in the grocery aisle every day as a result of sky-high prices, and polling clearly shows that they want these predatory technologies banned.”
Proponents of digital shelf labels take issue with the idea of using the term surveillance pricing at all. They prefer terms like “personalized pricing” and believe that stores have an incentive to make pricing competitive. But unions like UFCW don’t believe that’s true and are urging legislation to be passed around the country to fight it.
“Federal and state lawmakers know these practices are wrong, and the UFCW urges them to get ahead of them before they appear in every store,” Oyefeso told Gizmodo. “Any lawmaker that is serious about cutting costs for hardworking families must support a ban on electronic shelf labels and surveillance pricing in grocery stores.”
At least a dozen states are currently considering legislation that would regulate surveillance pricing, with Maryland recently passing the first law banning the practice at grocery stores. But activists have spoken out about that law and worry that it has way too many loopholes.
