John Oliver discusses the recent deportations by the Trump administration, the conditions in the facility people are being sent to abroad, and why even Henry Winkler could be in danger of being expelled from the U.S. Yeah, even national treasure Henry Winkler.
Category: Racism
US Complicity In Israel’s Gaza Starvation Is Policy, Not Accident
Trigger warnings for starving and abused kids / people. Sadly this is what the US government is supporting and keeping other world leaders from stopping. This was because Biden was an old person who remembered being part of Israels founding and thought they were so important that it excused everything they did. tRump doesn’t care about the human cost, he wants the value of the land or as much of the share he can get. This is sickening. Personal note. I was so lacking nutrition in my childhood that my childhood doctors were concerned enough to tell my adopting mother if I did not get more food I would never see five feet in height. I ended up in a child ICU rushed to the hospital by my grandfather and I had clinical death. Hugs
They’re doing it again, they are so messed up and hurtful. They are destroying everything they touch Part1
In November, Dhillon appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast to recount “all the crimes committed by Kamala Harris.”
Other estimates have placed the cost of the parade at twice the $45 million cited by NBC.
Peace & Justice History for 5/7
| May 7, 1954 The battle at Vietnam’s Dien Bien Phu ended after 55 days with Viet Minh insurgents overrunning French colonial forces, and forcing their surrender. An agreement for complete French withdrawal was negotiated within two months in Geneva, Switzerland. The battle began in March, when a force of 40,000 Vietnamese troops armed with heavy artillery surrounded 15,000 French soldiers holding the French position under siege. The Viet Minh guerrillas had been fighting a long and bloody war against French colonial control of Vietnam since 1946.  French prisoners being marched by Viet Minh out of Dien Bien Phu, May 7, 1954 |
| May 7, 1955 The Reverend George Lee, one of the first black people registered to vote in Humphreys County, Mississippi, and who used his pulpit and his printing press to urge others to vote, was murdered in his hometown of Belzoni.  Rev George Lee The county sheriff had initially refused to accept Reverend Lee’s poll tax (a tax collected before someone was allowed to vote, which became unconstitutional in 1964), but he was later allowed to vote after contacting federal authorities. That, and the subsequent registration of 92 other negro citizens he helped register, angered some white residents of the county. His assailants were never caught, and Reverend Lee is considered the first martyr of the civil rights movement. More on Reverend Lee |
May 7, 1984 American veterans of the Vietnam War reached a $180-million out-of-court settlement with seven chemical companies in a class-action suit relating to use of the herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam. The veterans charged they had suffered injury and illness from exposure to the defoliant used widely in the war to eliminate jungle cover for Vietnamese forces opposing the U.S. military presence. Book review about the ongoing effects of Agent Orange |
| May 7, 1996 15,000 protesters demonstrated against the import of French nuclear waste to Gorleben, Germany. Water cannons were used to disperse the crowd. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may7
LGBTQ advocates celebrate wins after Pride flag banning bill and others fail this Session
LGBTQ advocates celebrate wins after Pride flag banning bill and others fail this Session
I think the tide is turning and the superexpressive attacks on the LGBTQ+ people, both adults and kids is not working well for republicans. I think they will see at local levels people are not buying it and are working to stop efforts to wipe all mention of LGBTQ+ people from society. Hugs
Gabrielle RussonMay 3, 2025
‘This is more than a policy victory,’ Equality Florida said.LGBTQ advocates are celebrating several bills — including one that could have banned Pride flags flown at government buildings — stalling out this Session.
“Once again, we’ve done what many thought was impossible: not one anti-LGBTQ bill passed this session,” Equality Florida’s Executive Director Nadine Smith said in a statement Saturday.
The Legislative Session ended Friday although lawmakers failed to pass a balanced budget.
Some of the dead bills including HB 75/SB 100 that would have banned government buildings, schools and universities, from flying flags that represented a “political viewpoint.”
The proposal was sponsored by outgoing state Sen. Randy Fine before he left for Washington, D.C.
“How would we feel if the city of Palm Bay or the city of Ormond Beach flew the Make America Great Again flag from City Hall? How would we feel if a teacher hung that in their classroom?” Fine said during a March committee hearing. “The idea is whether it’s political viewpoints that we agree with or we disagree with, let’s keep that stuff out of government buildings.”
Equity Florida lobbied against the bill with its public policy director Jon Harris Maurer calling the flag ban “unnecessary, unclear, unconstitutional and dangerous.”
“It does not help Floridians struggling with insurance and housing affordability,” he said. “Instead, it is a made-up solution to a culture war for political purposes, but it will have real harms.”
Ultimately, Fine’s bill was withdrawn, failing to reach the Senate floor.
Equity Florida also heralded the defeat of other bills, including HB 1495/SB 440 to prevent governments from using the preferred pronouns for people who are transgender and other bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI.)
The organization pointed to its grassroots campaign this Session with 400 LGBTQ activists lobbying during “our largest largest advocacy week ever,” 16,000 emails sent to lawmakers and about 325 in-person meetings with legislators.
“It’s students and seniors, faith leaders and frontline workers, parents and teachers, standing together and making sure lawmakers hear us loud and clear: we will not back down,” Smith said in a statement.
Gabrielle Russon
Gabrielle Russon is an award-winning journalist based in Orlando. She covered the business of theme parks for the Orlando Sentinel. Her previous newspaper stops include the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Toledo Blade, Kalamazoo Gazette and Elkhart Truth as well as an internship covering the nation’s capital for the Chicago Tribune. For fun, she runs marathons. She gets her training from chasing a toddler around. Contact her at gabriellerusson@gmail.com or on Twitter @GabrielleRusson
4 Dead in OH; When The Sense Of The Congress Was Nuclear Freeze; and More in Peace & Justice History for 5/4
| May 4, 1961 A group of Freedom Riders left Washington, DC for New Orleans in a first challenge to racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals; it was organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).  The Freedom Riders dining at a lunch counter in Montgomery before traveling to Jackson, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana. Read more about the freedom riders 50 Years After Their Mug Shots, Portraits of Mississippi’s Freedom Riders |
| May 4, 1970 Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others, one permanently disabled.  The previous day, President Nixon had announced a widening of the Vietnam War with bombing in neighboring Cambodia.  There were major campus protests around the country with students occupying university buildings to organize and to discuss the war and other issues. Read more about that day at Kent State with pictures |
| May 4, 1983 A “sense of the Congress” resolution, intended to urge a halt to all testing of nuclear weapons, was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives (287-149). The support for a nuclear freeze, ending all American and Soviet nuclear weapons testing, was widespread. In ballot resolutions in 25 states, the freeze had passed in all but one, losing in Arizona by just two points. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may4
1st Broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Fire Hoses in Birmingham, and More in Peace & Justice History for 5/3
| May 3, 1808 Civilians were executed by Napoleonic forces putting down a rebellion by the citizens of Madrid, Spain on Principe Pio Hill. The event was memorialized in the painting by Francisco de Goya, “The Third of May 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid.” Aspects of the painting inspired the design of the peace symbol by Gerald Holtom in 1958.  |
May 3, 1886 At Haymarket Square in Chicago, a rally was being held because of a strike at the McCormick Harvester plant, just two days after an enormous May Day turnout. Though the mass meeting was peaceful, a force of 176 police officers arrived, demanding that the meeting disperse. Someone, unknown to this day, then threw a bomb at the police. In their confusion, the police began firing their weapons in the dark, killing at least three in the crowd and wounding many more. Seven police died (only one by the bomb), the rest probably by police fire. Read more |
| May 3, 1963 In Birmingham, Alabama, Public Safety Commissioner and recently failed mayoral candidate Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor used fire hoses and police dogs on children near the 16th Street Baptist Church to keep them from marching out of the “Negro section” of town.  With no room left to jail them (after arresting nearly 1000 the day before), Connor brought firefighters out and ordered them to turn hoses on the children. Most ran away, but one group refused to budge. The firefighters turned more hoses on them, powerful enough to break bones. The force of the water rolled the protesters down the street. In addition, Connor had mobilized K-9 (police dog) forces who attacked protesters trying to re-enter the church. Pictures of the confrontation between the children and the police were televised across the nation. Read more about the Birmingham Campaign |
| May 3, 1968 More than 100 black students took over a building at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. They were demanding attention to their advocacy for inclusion of African-American history, literature and art in the curriculum. Their efforts led to the establishment of an African-American studies department which now offers a doctoral program. How it happened |
| May 3, 1971 The Nixon administration ordered the arrest of nearly 13,000 anti-war protesters calling themselves the Mayday Tribe who had begun four days of demonstrations in Washington, D.C. on the first. They aimed to shut down the nation’s capital by disrupting morning rush-hour traffic and other forms of nonviolent direct action, skirmishing with metropolitan police and Federal troops throughout large areas of the capital. The slogan of the Mayday tribe: “If the government won’t stop the [Vietnam] war, we’ll stop the government.“ Read more |
| May 3, 1971 The first broadcast of National Public Radio’s evening news and public affairs program, “All Things Considered,” was aired on about 90 public radio affiliates around the country. The main story was the disruptive anti-Vietnam protests in Washington.It is now the fourth most listened-to radio program in the U.S.  More about that first program |
| May 3, 1980 Sixty thousand marched on the Pentagon to urge the end of U.S. military involvement in El Salvador. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may3
it is the same … so get over it.
Some more news items I want to share. These are only small quotes there is much more to each story if you follow the links
Trump’s Attack on ActBlue’s “Dark Money” Was Backed by Elon Musk’s Dark Money
Trump’s Attack on ActBlue’s “Dark Money” Was Backed by Elon Musk’s Dark Money
The billionaire helped fund an effort to gin up fraud claims against the Democratic donation platform.
Trump’s claim that he can order the Justice Department to investigate a fundraising platform used by his political foes based on vague allegations is part of his ongoing effort to use the government’s powers to target political enemies. It’s not a particularly realistic accusation—the fact sheet claims it’s targeting “straw donor” schemes, in which one person donates on behalf of another. Given the fairly strict limitations on campaign contributions, any straw donor scheme that wants to inject any noticeable amount of money into an electoral system that had $15.5 billion run through it is a great deal of tedious, high-risk work for a scammer.
On the other hand, in the post-Citizens United era, there are plenty of ways to inject unaccounted-for money—even, theoretically, foreign money—into the election. Super-PACs can accept unlimited donations from fairly easy-to-obscure sources, for instance, which makes the idea of anyone using a small-dollar conduit like ActBlue (or the GOP equivalent WinRed) fairly silly.
And notably, the funding for some of Trump’s “data” on an alleged ActBlue “fraud” seems to have come from just such a source: a super-PAC bankrolled by Elon Musk.
Last year, an opaque group called the Fair Election Fund began promising to pay “whistleblowers” who cited election fraud “with payment from our $5 million fund.” That never panned out, but the same organization found more success with a claim that 60,000 people who were named as small-dollar donors in the Biden-Harris campaign’s July Federal Election Commission report did not recall making the contribution when contacted by the Fair Election Fund.
As Mother Jones reported last year, the Fair Election Fund appears to have generated this finding by blasting out ominous-sounding texts and emails telling ActBlue donors that their donations had been “flagged,” then tallying people who responded—accurately or not—by checking a box saying they did not recall making the contribution.
More at the link above
Israel carrying out ‘live-streamed genocide’ in Gaza, Amnesty says
Amnesty accuses US President Donald Trump of committing a ‘multiplicity of assaults’ on human rights.
Israel is perpetrating a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza, committing illegal acts with the “specific intent” of wiping out Palestinians, Amnesty International has said.
Israeli forces in Gaza have violated the United Nations Genocide Convention with acts that include “causing serious bodily or mental harm to civilians” and “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”, the human rights organisation said in its annual report released on Monday.
Israeli air strikes have also frequently hit civilians who were following evacuation orders, while its forces continued to “arbitrarily detain and, in some cases, forcibly disappear Palestinians”, the rights group said.
DOGE has made a big impact on Washington. But government spending is up.
Elon Musk and his shadowy “tech support” team have ripped through Washington, reshaping the government and culling the federal workforce with astonishing speed and scope.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/29/doge-impact-washington-spending-100days-00316587
Nearly a quarter of a million workers have or are expected to leave their federal jobs. That includes more than 112,000 federal workers who have opted into the deferred resignation program, according to a POLITICO analysis of previous reporting and conversations with administration officials. It also includes some 121,000 workers across agencies who have been fired, according to a CNN analysis.
DOGE has hollowed out or shut down 11 federal agencies and says it has terminated more than 8,500 contracts and 10,000 grants. It has wiped out foreign aid and volunteerism in the U.S., slashed education spending and made sweeping changes to the way the government makes procurements, hires contractors and shares data.
DOGE, after promising $2 trillion in savings, now says it has saved the government $160 billion. But even these reported savings, so far, have not led to any meaningful decline in total government spending this year, according to the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model, which tracks weekly Treasury data.
In fact, the government has actually been spending more compared to this time last year, the model found.
Total spending rose by 6.3 percent, or $156 billion since Trump took office, compared to the first four months of 2024, said Kent Smetters, a Wharton professor who directs the model. Even when accounting for inflation, the federal government has still added $81.2 billion more spending to its books compared to the same period last year, he added.
May Day, Original Memorial Day, Emancipation Day, “Mission Accomplished” Day, and Much More, all 5/1 in Peace & Justice History
My annual May Day musical offering. Enjoy!
| May 1, 1865 Memorial Day was started by former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 2,800 Black children where they marched, sang and celebrated.  More of the story |
May 1, 1886 May Day was called Emancipation Day in 1886 when 340,000 went on strike (though it was Saturday it was a regular day of work) in Chicago for the 8-hour workday. May 1, 1890 May Day labor demonstrations spread to thirteen other countries; 30,000 marched in Chicago as the newly prominent American Federation of Labor threw its weight behind the 8-hour day campaign. More May Day info |
May 1, 1933 Dorothy Day The Catholic Worker newspaper was founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Dorothy Day said, “God meant things to be much easier than we have made them,” and Peter Maurin wanted to build a society “where it is easier for people to be good.”  Peter Maurin  Read more about the Catholic Worker |
May 1, 1948 Senator Glen Hearst Taylor Senator Glen Hearst Taylor (D-Idaho) was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked for “Negroes” rather than using the “whites only” door, and convicted of disorderly conduct. Taylor was the Progressive Party candidate for Vice President, running mate of Henry Wallace. He was in Birmingham to address the Southern Negro Youth Congress. |
| May 1, 1965 Second Factory for Peace opened in Onllwyn, Dulais Valley, in south Wales, employing disabled miners. Tom McAlpine, active in the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, and a supporter of cooperatives and industrial democracy, established Rowen Engineering in both Wales and Glasgow, Scotland. |
| May 1, 1966 500,000 Vietnamese marched for an end to the war dividing their country. |
| May 1, 1967 Soviet youths openly defied police and danced the twist in Moscow’s Red Square during May Day celebrations. In the early ‘60s the Twist had been banned in Buffalo, New York, and Tampa, Florida. The religious right claimed the Twist was actually a pagan fertility dance.  Are you old enough to remember Chubby Checker? |
| May 1, 1971 Five days of anti-war May Day protests began in Washington, D.C., resulting in over 14,000 arrests—the largest mass civil disobedience in U.S. history. |
May 1, 1986 One million South Africans demonstrated their opposition to apartheid in a strike organized by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) COSATU: a brief history |
| May 1, 2003 President George W. Bush landed in a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast and, in a speech to the nation, declared major combat in Iraq over. The banner his staff posted on the ship read, “Mission Accomplished.”  Since that presidential declaration more than 4500 American and allied troops and nearly 9000 members of Iraqi security and police forces (Jan. 2005 through July 2011) have lost their lives. In addition, tens of thousands (more than 32,000 Americans) injured in the hostilities. The number of Iraqi civilian deaths is open to dispute, but minimally stands at well over 100,000. Details of Iraq military casualties Civilian casualties |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may1
Scottie's Playtime 