This is a fucking hard short video to watch. Children found alive buried under ruble of bombed buildings. The rescuers are just normal people and they want to help so badly that they get into each other. Some try to yank the kids out, which hurts the kids, but others make them stop. There are a few that seem to know they have to move the stuff first to get the weight off the kids. These are the terrorist that Israeli is targeting with the bombs in crowded places, little kids and civilians. Israel has the most sneaky intelligence spies that tracked down German Nazis all over the world, why not use them to get Hamas members instead of killing over 20,000 civilian men, women, and so many innocent children. This is why Israel will never get rid of Hamas, the hate against them, will never win this war. They are just creating more people who hate them. I know from experience you can not have respect and love beaten into you. Israel won’t get the Palestinians to love them by abusing them, killing them, making their lives miserable, making them live in fear. Trust me that just breeds more hate and anger. Sad angry hugs. Scottie
This is the incredible moment Palestinians pull out children trapped underneath the rubble of a house in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza, after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
Please read the quote below from the post on Ten Bear’s site. Then think of the things tRump and his supporters claim they plan to do. Hugs. Scottie
White Rose survivor Jürgen Wittenstein described what it was like to live in Hitler’s Germany: “The government – or rather, the party – controlled everything: the news media, arms, police, the armed forces, the judiciary system, communications, travel, all levels of education from kindergarten to universities, all cultural and religious institutions. Political indoctrination started at a very early age, and continued by means of the Hitler Youth with the ultimate goal of complete mind control. Children were exhorted in school to denounce even their own parents for derogatory remarks about Hitler or Nazi ideology.”
M4L is a nationwide “parental rights” organization. Like Truth and Liberty, M4L strives to take over and transform public school boards in their own Christian “conservative” image. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated M4L as an extremist group due to their anti-LGBTQ+ policies and ties to the Proud Boys, which led the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Wallnau also popularized the “seven mountains” mandate trumpeted by Truth and Liberty. The mandate is a supposedly divine strategy used by Christian supremacists in order to achieve societal dominion for God, as I’ve reported previously. They seek control over these seven “mountains” or “spheres”: business, government, family, religion, media, entertainment, and education.
TALLAHASSEE — Time is running out for Florida to opt into a new federal program that would provide $248 million to help feed 2 million children next summer who might otherwise go hungry.
But it isn’t likely to happen as the state agency best equipped to run the program said it wouldn’t be pursuing the funding for it.
“We anticipate that our state’s full approach to serving children will continue to be successful this year without any additional federal programs that inherently always come with some federal strings attached,” Mallory McManus, spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families, wrote in an email 30 minutes after this story went online.
The Summer EBT Program was approved by Congress last December. It would provide healthy meals while school is out to children who receive free or reduced-cost lunches during the school year. So far, 25 states, territories and tribes have signed on.
It’s administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps.
After discussions between state officials and childhood hunger advocates, Florida has not designated a lead agency to administer the program. The deadline to apply is January 1.
Sky Beard, Florida director of No Kid Hungry, an advocate for programs to help end child hunger, called DCF’s decision “incredibly disappointing.”
More than three-quarters of Floridians reported it was harder to buy food this year than last, she said, and summer is the hungriest time of the year when children lose access to consistent and nutritious food provided by their schools. That money would have helped them buy groceries and other essentials at local stores across the state, she said.
“Not only does this hurt nearly 2 million children in our state but it also disregards the economic boost this would have provided many hardworking families,” said Beard, who added that her organization had been in conversations with House and Senate leaders about the program.
The state would have to provide a 50% match for administrative costs to participate, which comes out to about $12 million a year, Beard said. The state budget has no money approved for such an expense.
Spokespeople for the governor, Senate president and House speaker did not reply to requests for comment.
DCF was first asked for comment on Monday but did not respond until McManus’ email Thursday. It said the state already runs programs to make sure “children have access to nutritious meals.”
Those include free and reduced lunch programs at school, SNAP benefits to families who qualify, and Summer Break Spot programs administered by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Florida has a record of culling the ranks of those receiving food assistance. It opted out of a COVID-19 food benefits program two years before it expired in March, costing the state $5 billion. Also in 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis decided not to enlist in a pandemic food aid program for about 2 million children from low-income families that would have brought Florida $820 million.
And with one in seven homes short on food to feed their families, Beard said, agencies like hers “are looking for as many tools in the toolbox as we can find. This would be a huge missed opportunity.”
In a letter to Washington in July, Vianka Colin of the agriculture department said her agency wasn’t “the best equipped” to run the program, and that DCF would be better suited to the task.
“At this time, the FDACS does not have the necessary infrastructure and legislative directive to administer the Summer EBT Program,” Colin said.
DCF does have the infrastructure as the state agency in charge of running SNAP and providing customer support services, she said. The agriculture department helped DCF issue Pandemic EBT cards in the past, and would be willing to do the same with Summer EBT cards, Colin said.
“We look forward to our continued partnership to ensure that children in our state have continuous access to nutritious food throughout the summer,” she wrote.
The full quote perfectly describes the Republican mindset.
“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I am very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned–they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Clearly racism and bigotry. They even rescinded anti-discrimination policies. Why not discriminating is good, discrimination is bad. But we can thank tRump for making it safe for these … people to come out from under the rocks and openly push for white supremacy. Their goal is to push the LGBTQIA out of public view and remove any equality for black / brown people. Read the quote below and see if you can find the real truth he is saying.
Cook, in July, defended rescinding the anti-racism resolution, saying the board “doesn’t need to be in the business of dividing the community.”
Why would anti-racism divide the community unless a lot of the white community wants to be racist against the black community, and the whites feel targeted / put on by the resolution. Hugs. Scottie
O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — A conservative-led Missouri school board has voted to drop elective courses on Black history and literature, five months after the same boardrescinded an anti-discrimination policyadopted in the aftermath of the killing ofGeorge Floyd.
The Francis Howell School Board voted 5-2 Thursday night to stop offering Black History and Black Literature, courses that had been offered at the district’s three high schools since 2021. A little over 100 students took the courses this semester in the predominantly white suburban area of St. Louis.
In July, the board revoked an anti-racism resolution and ordered copies removed from school buildings. The resolution was adopted in August 2020 amid the national turmoil after a police officer killed Floyd in Minneapolis.
The resolution pledged that the Francis Howell community would “speak firmly against any racism, discrimination, and senseless violence against people regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability.”
The resolution and course offerings were targeted by five new members who have taken control of the board since being elected last year and in April, all with the backing of the conservative political action committee Francis Howell Families. All seven board members are white.
The PAC’s website expresses strong opposition to the courses, saying they involve principals of critical race theory, though many experts say the scholarly theory centered on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions is not taught in K-12 schools.
The decision to drop the courses was met with protests outside the board meeting. Several parents and students chanted, “Let them learn!” Inside, speakers questioned the decision.
“You’ve certainly taught me to not underestimate how low you will go to show your disdain toward the Black and brown communities’ experiences and existence,” Harry Harris, a Black father, told the board.
Another speaker, Tom Ferri, urged the board to focus on bigger issues such as high turnover among teachers.
“Tapping into a diverse talent pipeline would be a great way to slow attrition, but what diverse staff wants to work in a district waging culture wars?” he asked.
Board Vice President Randy Cook Jr., who was elected in 2022, said the Francis Howell courses to which he and others objected used “Social Justice Standards” developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center with a bent toward activism.
“I do not object to teaching black history and black literature; but I do object to teaching black history and black literature through a social justice framework,” Cook said in an email on Friday. “I do not believe it is the public school’s responsibility to teach social justice and activism.”
District spokesperson Jennifer Jolls said in an email that new Black history and literature courses “could be redeveloped and brought to the Board for approval in the future.”
This semester, 60 students at the three schools combined enrolled in the Black History course, and 42 took Black Literature, the district said.
Francis Howell is among Missouri’s largest school districts, with 16,647 students, 7.7% of whom are Black. The district is on the far western edge of the St. Louis area, in St. Charles County.
The county’s dramatic growth has coincided with the equally dramatic population decline in St. Louis city. In 1960, St. Louis had 750,000 residents and St. Charles County had 53,000. St. Louis’ population is now 293,000, nearly evenly split between Black and white residents. St. Charles County has grown to about 415,000 residents, 6% of whom are Black.
Racial issues remain especially sensitive in the St. Louis region, more than nine years after a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri,fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brownduring a street confrontation. Officer Darren Wilson was not charged and the shooting led to months of often violent protests, becoming a catalyst for the national Black Lives Matter movement.
Cook, in July, defended rescinding the anti-racism resolution, saying the board “doesn’t need to be in the business of dividing the community.”
“We just need to stick to the business of educating students here and stay out of the national politics,” he said.
The district’s description of the Black Literature course says it focuses “on contemporary and multi-genre literary works of Black authors and will celebrate the dignity and identity of Black voices.”
For the Black History course, the description reads, “Students understand the present more thoroughly when they understand the roots of today’s world in light of their knowledge of the past. This Black History course tells the history of Blacks from the beginning Ancient Civilizations of Africa through the present day accomplishments and achievements of Black individuals today.”
School board elections across the U.S. have become intense political battlegrounds since 2020, when some groups began pushing back against policies aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19.
PACs in many local districts have successfully elected candidates who promised to take action against teachings on race and sexuality, remove books deemed offensive and stop transgender-inclusive sports teams.
Never ceases to amaze me that a word generally understood to mean “not asleep,” “awake” is the worst epithet that Trump and his thugs can throw at progressives.
It just shows how entrenched they are in their dogma they are, that equality is so undesirable. They are incapable of considering anything that challenges their bigotry
I recall reading about a journalist who asked a bunch of Trump supporters what “woke” means to them. The replies were hysterical.
Half of them really didn’t have any idea what it means. The other half used the usual “commie, socialist, atheist, homo” description they use when describing anyone or anything they don’t like or don’t understand.
It was first used by white liberals to mean “I’m listening to women, black, hispanic, lgbt, etc. voices and hearing what they are saying.” How horrible. To acknowledge other people’s lived experiences and treat them with respect.
Yep, in the city of Saint Louis , in the gated private streets of 1904 Worlds Fair era mansions just north of the large city park where the Fair was held. Private streets are really private, they don’t allow (certain) non-residents to walk or drive there – the streets hire private security. I have lived about 2 blocks from idiot gun-toters’ house for over 30 years, in a neighborhood of pre-WWII high rise apartment buildings. 1904 World’s Fair is the one immortalized in the Judy Garland movie Meet Me in St. Louis. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas…”
Yes, it’s population boomed, growing more than four-fold in the ’50s. O’Fallon, MO, should not to be confused with O’Fallon, IL or the O’Fallon neighborhood in north St. Louis, all within the same metro and named after the same rail baron. The O’Fallon neighborhood was hard-hit by block-busting, white-flight, and subsequent red-lining. It’s to recent to be allowed to publish the individual household records to see how many moved from the O’Fallon neighborhood to what is now the largest, and exceedingly white, suburb of St. Louis.
Think about the line that the school claims is unacceptable. “Wouldn’t it be nice to live in paradise… where we’re free to be exactly who we are.” That is what the school district finds so unacceptable. Why? It must be something to do with demanding everyone must live by the church doctrines of the minority. Hugs. Scottie
A federal court in Wisconsin declined to dismiss a teacher’s First Amendment retaliation claim against the school district that fired her for publishing a tweet critical of its decision to prohibit her first-graders from singing “Rainbowland” by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton at a school concert. She has shown that her employment was terminated for exercising her First Amendment rights, so her claim survives the motion.
A Wisconsin school board has banned the song “Rainbowland” by Dolly Parton & Miley Cyrus from a concert because they say the lyrics are “controversial.” The song says, “Wouldn’t it be nice to live in paradise… where we're free to be exactly who we are.” https://t.co/I5GRTpv44P
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) March 24, 2023
First-grade teacher @melissatempel was fired last week after she publicly criticized the Waukesha, Wisconsin, board of education for not allowing students to sing the song “Rainbowland,” citing a “controversial content policy.” “It was really horrifying,” says Tempel. pic.twitter.com/8wQzukuNFq
I never heard of the song and never heard it, either, but I just looked up the lyrics.
in those lyrics, there is not a single mention of race, gender, sex, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, or even a bigotry. All of those are the usual sources for bigotry, and thus of “controversy”.So what exactly is the problem?
Who knew that a plea for tolerance could be considered “controversial”, except to the highly and terminally intolerant?
We just want things to be the way they used to be — when you people were invisible and uppity brown folk knew how to hold their tongue. Just like white Jesus promised. Merry Christmas!
Oh, it’s much worse than that. The lyrics also say, “We are rainbows, me and you, rvery color, every hue,” and if that isn’t a direct call out to CRT, I don’t know what is. They might as well have said slavery is bad or something else equally controversial to the snowflake replubican’ts.
Because of course – “In her lawsuit, Tempel says that although Sebert announced in August 2021 that the policy would equally ban signs, flags and materials promoting causes like Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter, signs saying “Students for Life” and “Thin Blue Line” were permitted to be displayed in school common areas while Gay-Straight Alliance locker signs and signs stating, “this classroom is anti-racist” and “this school welcomes you” were prohibited.”
I was thinking of the photo of the Wisconsin HS students giving the Nazi salute in their class photo. The only one who wouldn’t was the gay gentleman in the top right corner, who was rightly disgusted.
The policy appears to originate with Neola, a company that provides school policy services to 317 clients in Wisconsin in addition to more than 1,000 others across six states, according to the company’s website. A call to Neola’s business office in Ohio could not immediately reach a spokesperson who could answer questions about the lawsuit and the policy on Tuesday.
In her lawsuit, Tempel says that although Sebert announced in August 2021 that the policy would equally ban signs, flags and materials promoting causes like Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter, signs saying “Students for Life” and “Thin Blue Line” were permitted to be displayed in school common areas while Gay-Straight Alliance locker signs and signs stating, “this classroom is anti-racist” and “this school welcomes you” were prohibited.
In July 2021, the district also suspended diversity, equity and inclusion training for staff and suspended the work of its Equity Leadership Team, according to the complaint.
I was a regular babysitter in the 1970s for one family. They let their son watch TV, notably ‘The Electric Company” which, in my opinion, was so frenetic that the boy almost became agitated. The show that followed was Mr Rogers Neighborhood, which he loved – as did I watching for the first time as a teenager. One day while the show was on, his father came home from work to change clothes and go out on the bay. Walking by the TV set on his way to his room, the Dad muttered, “get that fag off the tv.’ Years later, I remember the Dad crying into my arms at the funeral home visitation after his son committed suicide by putting a rifle into his mouth in his bedroom.
I want to send this teacher some money for the fight.
Thanks again to Ten Bears for the link. This shows the claim they are against indoctrination in schools is not true, but instead the goal is to indoctrinate kids in a hard right wing fundamentalist Christian ideology. It is a return to the fake myth of the 1950s society and the removing of everything LGBTQIA and gender identity. Total authoritarian back to the dark ages regression. It is a rejection of all the social advancements of the modern age. Hugs. Scottie
One thing that is seldom mentioned about the removal of books from Florida classroom libraries: much of this activity may be illegal.
The school board in Escambia County, Florida, for example, is being sued over their decision to remove And Tango Makes Three and other books from public school libraries. And Tango Makes Three is the true story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who lived in the Central Park Zoo and raised an adopted chick. The woman who challenged the book, notorious Escambia County English Teacher Vicki Baggett, told Popular Information she was concerned it exposes students to “alternate sexual ideologies.” Baggett said “a second grader would read this book, and that idea would pop into the second grader’s mind… that these are two people of the same sex that love each other.” The school board appeared to have similar concerns. “The fascination is still on those two male penguins,” school board member David Williams said. “So I’ll be voting to remove the book from our libraries.”
Florida English teacher pushing book bans is openly racist and homophobic, students allege
In May, Penguin Random House, five authors, two parents, and the non-profit group PEN America sued the Escambia County school board in federal court, alleging that the school board’s actions violated the United States Constitution. The lawsuit alleges that the school board banned and restricted books “based on their disagreement with the ideas expressed in those books.” In so doing, the school board has “prescribed an orthodoxy of opinion that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
The lawsuit is ongoing, and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) has intervened in the case, arguing that it should be dismissed. In an extraordinary filing earlier this year, Moody argued that the First Amendment does not apply to public school libraries and that school boards can remove any book for any reason — even if the motive is discriminatory.
In Moody’s filing, Florida argues that the purpose of public school libraries is to “convey the government’s message,” and that can be accomplished through “the removal of speech that the government disapproves.” The issue of what books are allowed to be carried by school libraries, Florida states, should be settled at the “ballot box.” According to the state’s filing, public school libraries “are not a forum for free expression.”
Florida’s argument has serious flaws. Indeed, Florida’s filing acknowledges that no court has ruled, as Florida argues, that public school libraries are a form of government speech. The issues with Florida’s legal position were detailed in an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs filed by two dozen law professors.
Florida is arguing for an expansion of the definition of “government speech” to include public school libraries. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito — one of the court’s most conservative members — warned in the 1996 case of Matal v. Tam that the concept of “government speech” is “susceptible to dangerous misuse.” Alito, writing for the Supreme Court, wrote that “we must exercise great caution before extending our government-speech precedents” because it could be used as a pretext to “silence or muffle the expression of disfavored viewpoints.”
Currently, “the government speech doctrine only applies to state programs in which the government conveys an official message that the public would recognize as such.” Public school libraries do not exist “to carry official messaging” for the government, the law professors note. Therefore, “[a]pplying the government speech doctrine to school libraries would create a dangerous incompatibility with the nature and purpose of those libraries.”
A federal judge recently rejected a similar argument made by the Arkansas government regarding the removal of books from public libraries. “Defendants are unable to cite any legal precedent to suggest that the state may censor non-obscene materials in a public library because such censorship is a form of government speech,” the judge ruled.
The law professors highlight that there is a Supreme Court case that directly addresses the government’s role in curating school libraries, the 1982 case of Island Trees School District v. Pico. In Pico, the Supreme Court recognized that school boards have significant flexibility in determining the contents of school libraries. However, the Supreme Court was clear that the scope of the school board’s power over school libraries is limited by the First Amendment.
Citing previous Supreme Court decisions, the plurality opinion in Pico notes that “students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate” and the “school library is the principal locus of such freedom.” As a result, it is unconstitutional for school boards to remove books from a school library in a “narrowly partisan or political manner.’” This appears to be exactly what is happening. And Tango Makes Three was removed from Escambia County school libraries because it didn’t conform to the school board’s political opinions about LGBTQ people.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit note that the precedent goes beyond Pico: “Every court that has addressed that issue… has rejected the position that libraries — including school libraries — constitute Constitution-free zones in which government officials can freely discriminate based on viewpoint.”
Florida realizes that Pico and related cases present a serious challenge to its position. In its filing in support of the Escambia County School Board, Florida argues that Pico should be ignored because it was a plurality decision. But the fact is that, in the 40 years after Pico was decided, the Supreme Court has never repudiated the case.
From “parental rights” to “authoritarianism”
The significance of Florida’s filing was recentlycovered in the Tallahassee Democrat, which interviewed several experts about the implications of the state’s arguments.
Ken Paulson, the director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, noted that proponents of removing books from school libraries frequently say they are fighting for “parental rights.” But “[if] government speech determines what books can be in the library, the government is essentially saying your children can only see the ideas that the government has approved.” That is inconsistent, Paulson argues, with parental rights. “It’s authoritarianism,” Paulson said.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said Florida’s position goes against the fundamental principle “that no government entity can engage in viewpoint discrimination.” Caldwell-Stone said, if Florida prevails, it would transform schools from a place dedicated to “preparing individuals… to make decisions about their own lives” to “indoctrination centers for only one viewpoint.”
Thanks to ten Bears for the link. This is a scary and important read, and people need to understand what will happen this time if tRump and his ilk get into power again. We must put small time bickering of age and other things aside until the threat posed by these people are gone. If we don’t stand together and vote for Biden and other democrats in large numbers or democracy goes away and the US becomes a hell of inequality, no rights, no personal freedoms, and required living as you are ordered to do so. The LGBTQIA will be illegal, as will other personal freedoms. Reading material and movies will have to be state sanctioned and follow party lines, like in China. Hugs. Scottie
If you thought it can’t happen here, I have an old Sinclair Lewis book to share with you…
If Trump is re-elected, he’d be America’s 47th president, so he’s named the plans for his second term “Agenda 47.” At best, it’s a dystopian nightmare: at worst it means ending our current system of American government; aligning the US with Russia and other autocratic nations; and the USA leading the charge against democracy and in favor of authoritarian, strong-man forms of government across the world.
Over at his website, Trump lays out the details of his governing agenda, complete with short videos promoting each of the steps he plans to take. They, and his many statements about future plans, include:
Criminalizing homosexuality
Part of Agenda 47, Trump says, is “finishing the job” he started as president between 2017 and 2021.
Just two hours after he and Pence were sworn into office, they removed all mention of LGBTQ+ issues from the White House website.
Two days later, his State Department deleted former Secretary of State John Kerry’s apology to the nation for the “Lavender Scare” government persecution of gays and lesbians during the McCarthy era 1950s and early 1960s. A month later, Trump’s Justice Department announced they’d no longer defend the civil rights of trans kids.
His Education and HUD offices both withdrew their court defenses of queer people, particularly students and those in homeless shelters, and his Secretary of State refused to mention to the Russian Foreign Minister the detention and brutal executions of gay men by Russian soldiers in Chechnya. On May 4, 2017 Trump signed an executive order letting the DOJ ignore claims of illegal discrimination against queer people and women throughout every single one of the nation’s federal agencies.
In September, 2017, Trump’s Secretary of Education, billionaire Betsy DeVos, officially ended that agency’s Title IX guidance requiring schools to do something about sexual harassment, including sexual violence, against women and LGBTQ+ kids. In response to a question from the media about the change in policy and gay men, Trump said that his Vice President “wants to hang them all.”
In January of 2018, Trump rolled out the “Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom” at HHS, which would backstop people who wanted to use the excuse of “deeply held religious beliefs” to justify explicit discrimination against queer people and women, or to simply to make life difficult for government agencies.
All of this is just the beginning. The Human Rights Campaign has documented page after page of anti-queer policies put into effect by Trump that will be resurrected and put on steroids in a second term.
Destroy academic freedom and gut our public schools
In the Agenda 47 section of his website, Trump explains how he’s going to use our schools and colleges to indoctrinate young Americans in rightwing ideology. He explicitly says:
“When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics. We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all.”
Any colleges that continue to teach “under the guise of [racial] equity will not only have their endowment taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.”
In other words, just like Viktor Orbán did in Hungary and Putin did in Russia, he’s going to bankrupt the nation’s schools and colleges if they continue to teach the true history of America and promote egalitarian values. As Trump notes at his website:
“[W]e are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all.”
Gut the EPA, OSHA, CPSB, IRS, the Labor Department, and other federal agencies that keep our air clean, our water pure, and protect average Americans from predation by the morbidly rich and their corporations
Back in the 1970s, Richard Nixon said he was going to use “impoundment” to strip funding from agencies his donors didn’t like, claiming that, even though Congress had appropriated budgets for them, he could, as head of the Executive Branch, simply “impound” the money and refuse to spend it. His plan to remake the federal government was interrupted by Watergate.
In 1974, Democrats in Congress got together and passed legislation outlawing this and Jerry Ford signed it into law. But Trump’s lawyers apparently think they can get it overturned through their appointees on the courts or even, if they can take both branches of Congress, through new legislation. As Trump says on his website:
“I will use the president’s long-recognized Impoundment Power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings.”
Since the fossil fuel companies, banks, refineries, anti-union big employers, and their billionaires who fund the GOP hate all of these agencies, it’ll be a bonanza for them.
Not so much for working people, retirees, and those of us concerned about a livable future environment for our kids and grandkids, though.
Destroy the media and the truth
First, he wants to make it illegal for the federal government’s security services to notify social media platforms about Russian disinformation and other foreign efforts to swing elections, since nearly 100% of those efforts are coming from authoritarian countries in support of Trump and against democracy.
“I will ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as “mis-” or “dis-information,” Trump proclaims on his Agenda 47 website.
He also wants to force social media to carry his buddy Putin’s trolls’ lies and attempts to pit Americans against each other, and limit the companies’ ability to label or block lies and propaganda. As Trump puts it:
“I will ask Congress to send a bill to my desk revising Section 230 to get big online platforms out of censorship business.”
In Hungary, one way Viktor Orbán got rid of actual news media and replaced the ownership of all the nation’s major radio and TV networks, websites, and newspapers was by changing the libel laws so that public figures (like Orbán himself) could sue for libel when they thought they were treated unfairly.
They then sued company after company, commentator after commentator, reporter after reporter, into bankruptcy.
Orbán’s rightwing buddies could buy the media properties out of bankruptcy which is why now virtually all the media in Hungary is like Fox “News,” broadcasting suck-ups to Orbán and criticism of “liberals,” immigrants, and gays 24/7.
Trump wants to do the same here in the US.
When Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury came out with some unflattering characterizations of Trump in it, the then-president said:
“We are going to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts. And if somebody says something that’s totally false and knowingly false, that the person that has been abused, defamed, libeled, will have meaningful recourse.”
Simply reporting on what Trump’s up to could bring lawsuits that would bankrupt even the Times or the Post, and, like in Hungary and Russia, pretty much end the existence of a free and independent press in America.
Turning America into a vigilante police state
Trump has promised to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists who tried to murder the Vice President and Speaker of the House (and whose actions led to the death of four police officers), and put into place a national “stop and frisk” law that upends the 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
It would also — like Duterte in the Philippines who executed over 10,000 people during his reign of terror — authorize the federal government to immediately execute anybody convicted of trafficking in drugs without further due process or appeals.
Republicans in Texas have already pioneered using vigilantes to hunt down women who’ve had abortions and the people who’ve helped them. Expect these vigilante-enforced laws to spread across the country with a second Trump administration, with groups like the Proud Boys and III Percenters becoming the modern-day equivalent of the old west’s 19th century bounty hunters.
In a flashback to Hitler’s “work camps” that preceded the death camps by five years, Trump’s also proposed building concentration camps around the country to house “millions” of undocumented aliens and his political enemies. As he noted in a speech on Veterans’ Day this year:
“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” adding that Russia isn’t a problem. Instead, he said, “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
Presumably that means people like me and you, who would oppose his fascist agenda.
Corrupting the federal government
Way back in 1881, a man named Charles Guiteau thought he’d properly bribed President James Garfield by giving the president, during an in-person visit in the White House, a speech he’d written for Garfield to use. Garfield was polite but didn’t offer Guiteau a federal speechwriter’s job, which provoked a murderous rage: shortly thereafter, Guiteau met Garfield’s train and shot him twice, killing him.
The explicit and institutionalized practice of exchanging gifts and personal loyalty for federal jobs dated back to the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), arguably the second-most depraved president in American history behind Trump (which is probably why Trump hung his picture in the Oval Office; Jackson’s favorite nickname for himself — given him by the Cherokee he slaughtered — was “The Indian Killer”).
Jackson had elevated the practice of bribing the president — himself, at the time — to get federal jobs into an art-form: it was called the “spoils” or patronage system and was insanely corrupt. It was also, by Garfield’s presidency in 1881, routine.
After Guiteau failed to gain his “spoil” or “patronage” from Garfield and killed him, President Chester Arthur oversaw the writing and passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883.
It separated all those government jobs from the administration in power, turning federal workers from patrons of the president into permanent bureaucrats, whose first loyalty was to the nation instead of the guy who happened to be in the White House at any particular time.
It also explicitly outlawed bribing the president for a job. The goal, which it accomplished and has held for 140 years, was to end corruption in the bureaucratic branches of the federal government.
Donald Trump wants to functionally end the Civil Service system and replace the top levels of the nation’s 2.7 million federal workers with people loyal exclusively to himself.
He tried to do this in the last months of his presidency through an October 21, 2020 executive order, Schedule F, (which Biden reversed on his first day in office) that reclassified those workers out of their Civil Service jobs and into political appointee positions, doing the same work but now entirely dependent on the good will of the president to keep their jobs.
The next Republican administration will almost certainly put Schedule F back into force, reestablishing the 1829 spoils system for the federal government, and ending any possibility that people in the government will push back against Trump the way they did during his presidency.
Making the nation’s police into Trump’s private enforcers
The Department of Justice was established by President Ulysses S. Grant after the Civil War, in part to enforce federal laws protecting the rights of people who’d recently been freed from slavery.
After Richard Nixon tried to use it against his enemies (and his Attorney General, John Mitchell, went to prison for his efforts), Congress in 1978 passed the Ethics in Government Act which put a wall of separation between the DOJ and the White House.
Trump has explicitly proclaimed his intention to tear that wall down and go farther than Nixon ever imagined in using our armed investigative services for personal revenge and harassment of people he perceives as his enemies.
He wants the nation’s premiere police agencies to become his own personal enforcers, and has already said they will be hunting down “liberals,” Black Lives Matter protest participants, and Joe Biden, his family, and members of his administration.
He wants to imprison them, as well as the prosecutors and judges who have been participating in the effort to hold him to account for the crimes he committed over the past 7 years.
This politicization of law enforcement has been a first-order and primary feature of every authoritarian or totalitarian regime that’s risen to power over the past few hundred years, worldwide. It’s always one of the first things fascist leaders do when they seize power.
“Freedom cities”
In an apparent attempt to portray himself as a visionary like JFK, with his promise to send men to the moon and bring them back safely, Trump is promising to build “freedom cities” in his second term. The main feature he’s discussed is that people will get around in them in “flying cars.”
While it’s being portrayed as a goofy stunt designed to make him seem like an imaginative idealist, in fact there has been a movement among rightwing billionaires for some time to create cities that they basically run as little feudal fiefdoms, the same way the morbidly rich run their companies and their football teams.
Some libertarian billionaires assert that the only reason there’s never been a successful libertarian nation in the history of the world is because true libertarianism — government doing nothing but running the police, army, and courts and everything else left to private charity and business owners — “has never been tried.”
The ”freedom cities” could be a new libertarian experiment, or they may be the 21st century version of the old “company town,” where nobody has rights or protection of the law but is subject to the whims of the local billionaire owner. A group backed by Silicon Valley billionaires has already put forward what appears to be a plan to build a new city in California that they may or may not envision running along these lines. The group has so far purchased more than 53,000 acres of land, an area larger than the entire city of Beaumont, Texas, or Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Ending democracy across Europe and the world
Trump is also promising that he’ll end the brutal attacks against Ukraine on “day one” by simply turning the country over to his good friend, Vladimir Putin.
For the first time since World War II, this would legitimize a nation attacking another nation simply to seize their land, resources, and people.
It would greenlight China to do the same with Taiwan, and encourage every other tinpot dictator in the world to grab nearby territory that he wants. It would encourage war, and could very easily lead to a world war.
Abandoning Ukraine like this, along with Trump’s oft-stated preference to leave or end NATO and stop support for the UN, would lead the autocracies of the world — particularly Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and North Korea — to destroy the democracies in their sphere of influence, replacing those democracies with strongman autocracies.
The democratic experiment on this planet is only 250 years old, more or less, and this would signal a return to the way the world had been ruled for the 7,000 years prior to that: by kings, popes, mullahs, strongman warlords, and the morbidly rich.
Between Agenda 47 and Project 2025, Donald Trump and the rightwing billionaires who own the GOP have big plans for this nation, regardless of which Republican takes the White House next. They’re dead serious and far more well-funded than any of the groups that fight for and advocate democracy.
If you thought it can’t happen here, I have an old Sinclair Lewis book to share with you.
Triple check your voter registration, especially if you live in a Red state where the voter purges have already begun, and make sure everybody you know is registered vote.
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