So what happened to the idea of the right just wanting immigrants to come here legally. Right? All they wanted was to get the illegals and criminals out. But these are people who came here the legal way and are working, living their lives as good members of the communities. No see to the current white supremacists the crime was brown people coming to the US at all. They want a white majority in charge with others second class or lower people. tRump once asked why no one from the Scandinavian countries immigrate to the US. The reason tRump wants them is they are white. But their country is doing so much better than ours and rated so much higher on the happiness index so why would they. The only ones who want to come here are from countries the US has made worse, ruined, and allowed for dictators or drug lords to take over. Hugs
The move could leave over 900,000 immigrants vulnerable to deportation — unless they self-deport, DHS said.
“Under federal law, Secretary [Kristi] Noem — in support of the president — has full authority to revoke parole,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
The Trump administration is revoking parole status for immigrants who entered the U.S. via the Biden-era CBP One app, in a push to get immigrants to voluntarily leave the country.
“Under federal law, Secretary [Kristi] Noem — in support of the president — has full authority to revoke parole. Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement.
Some immigrants began receiving formal email notices from the DHS on Tuesday stating that the department would be using its discretionary authority to revoke parole. The move could leave over 900,000 immigrants vulnerable to deportation.
The CBP One app, launched in January 2023, was one of the Biden administration’s key efforts to control illegal immigration, by organizing appointments at different ports of entry along the southern border for immigrants seeking asylum. The parole designation protected immigrants from deportation and also issued work authorizations for up to two years.
The Trump administration quickly suspended the app’s appointment system and rebranded it as CBP Home — with a built-in function for immigrants to report their intention to leave the U.S.
“Formal termination notices have been issued, and affected aliens are urged to voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home App,” the DHS spokesperson said. “Those who refuse will be found, removed, and permanently barred from reentry.”
The parolees designated under United for Ukraine — which provided legal status for Ukrainians affected by the war — and Operation Allies Welcome — which resettled Afghans following the U.S. exit from Afghanistan — will not be affected, DHS added.
You know this is what the fundamentalist religious right wants to do this here. This is one of the reasons the maga right loves Russia and Putin, he hates who they hate. He wants a straight cisgender stereotypical white society the same as they do. Hugs
Russia’s Interior Ministry has plans for a sweeping electronic database of LGBTQ+ people in the country, Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet, revealed this week.
Citing anonymous sources at the Interior Ministry, the outlet reported that the Orwellian plan has been in discussion since last year after Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed the so-called “international LGBT movement” as an “extremist organization” at the urging of President Vladimir Putin.
Raids and arrests at LGBTQ+ clubs have become commonplace across the country.
The database will be a “large-scale” system to track members of the LGBTQ+ community at large, according to sources.
The plans were corroborated by Dmitry Chukreyev, an official with the Civic Chamber of Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city. He said police have been keeping informal lists of LGBTQ+ individuals since the Supreme Court ruling was announced.
In 2024, police conducted at least 42 raids on LGBTQ+-friendly venues across Russia, according to an investigation by independent news outlet Current Time and human rights organization Sphere. Beatings, forced confinement, and sadistic humiliations based on sexual and gender identities are regular features of the sweeps.
Russian officials and state-aligned media regularly describe Russia’s LGBTQ+ community as a network of “paramilitary groups” calling for an “open gender war,” who engage in “dehumanization” and “devil worship,” the outlet reports. Officials and media credit security forces’ actions with “suppressing” anti-state activity.
The raids, in addition to intimidating the queer community at large and forcing the closure of several venues, have provided security officials with information that would supply an electronic LGBTQ+ registry.
An employee at a Siberian queer establishment told Meduza, “Security forces copied the entire database from the computer where we keep track of reservations,” obtaining information about hundreds of clients. Fingerprints and mouth swabs were collected from visitors during a raid the Eden club in Chelyabinsk, and employees and patrons at the Orenburg club Pose were forced to state their registered residential address on camera.
At a house party raided by security forces in Leningrad Oblast, guests were forced to surrender their passports and unlock their phones; if someone refused, the others were subjected to collective punishment and forced to squat.
According to human rights activists, such raids are also aimed at exposing LGBTQ+ government officials. The organizer of one queer-friendly event in the Urals region revealed police who raided the venue hoped to “catch deputies [officeholders] and other significant individuals” at the event.
While security forces continue to collect data in ever-more sadistic operations, progress on a full-scale LGBTQ+ registry has been hampered by Putin’s other current obsession: the expansion of Greater Russia through his war on Ukraine. Forces assigned to that conflict are draining the ranks of police who would otherwise be hunting down members of the “international LGBT movement.”
But the raids continue to produce results.
One sweep at a restaurant and club in Gorno-Altaysk last year yielded data on 80 patrons and staff alone, an employee said.
“We know all of you now,” security forces repeated as the raid dragged on.
The bills author said the bill was “designed to restrict government’s ability to burden anyone’s religious freedom.” What they really mean is it would allow a religious person the right to hurt others, to be a jerk, to be an asshole to other people. It is a bill to enshrine the right of someone to disregard the rights and equal treatment of those the don’t like. Anytime one of these hate bills come up just replace the LGBTQ+ with the word black, or Jewish, or even white males and see if it still sounds like a good idea. Hugs
latest push in a long-running effort from right-wing policy groups to “vilify people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“They’re trying to elevate so-called ‘religious liberty’ above all other civil rights and claim that someone’s religious belief allows them to dominate the laws, the policies, the practices of the government and the rest of society,” Dickson said.
Arkansas ACLU Executive Director Holly Dickson testifies at the Capitol.
A bill allowing for discrimination against LGBTQ Arkansans in housing, employment, education and other areas passed out of committee Tuesday and will be heard next by the full Arkansas House of Representatives.
Rep. Robin Lundstrum (R-Springdale), the bill’s lead sponsor and a longtime crusader against LGBTQ rights, said it’s “designed to restrict government’s ability to burden anyone’s religious freedom.”
The bill would “prohibit the government from discriminating against certain individuals and organizations because of their beliefs regarding marriage or what it means to be female or male.”
“It helps protect religious organizations, places of worship, religious schools and religious ministries from government discrimination,” Lundstrum said, adding that it would protect a cake maker or wedding venue or anyone “asked to solemnize a marriage that they do not agree with.”
The bill would shield state government employees from being reprimanded in any way for engaging “in expressive conduct based upon or in a manner consistent with a belief about biological sex or marriage,” both at work and off the clock.
The state would not be able to do anything disciplinary to an employee making homophobic or transphobic social media posts, for example.
The full scope and implications of the bill aren’t clear, but Kaymo O’Connell, a transgender student from Little Rock, told lawmakers this bill clears the way for people to discriminate when making employment decisions.
Other critics of the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, say the bill is poorly written, allows and encourages discrimination against LGBTQ Arkansans and violates multiple federal laws and protections.
Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, said the bill is the latest push in a long-running effort from right-wing policy groups to “vilify people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“They’re trying to elevate so-called ‘religious liberty’ above all other civil rights and claim that someone’s religious belief allows them to dominate the laws, the policies, the practices of the government and the rest of society,” Dickson said.
HB1615 is supported by the First Liberty Institute, a national right-wing extremist group, and the Arkansas Justice Institute, the legal branch of local right-wing extremist group the Arkansas Family Council.
Lundstrum was joined by legal representatives from both groups in committee today.
“Whether or not this bill passes it has already harmed Arkansans because, yet again, we are saying some people are worthy and other people are unwelcome,” Dickson said.
Rep. Nicole Clowney (D-Fayetteville), who voted against the bill, noted that it’s a clear case of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
John Oliver discusses why trans athletes seem to be at the center of U.S. politics right now, the nuances around competition and safety, where the conversation could be headed, and what The Rock would do in a barre class.
Hello All. I was going to comment on a post by Scottie (here) of Pastor Ed Trevors, but I runneth off at the mouth. So, I made a post of it. If you have not listened to that 8-minute video yet, it would help to understand this comment post. I apologize if it comes off a bit preachy, that is not my intent.
A good portion of that video is Pastor Ed speaking on how they have taken steps to protect their parishioners but also spoke on how Jesus spoke on hypocrisy quite often. What I know he also knows but didn’t speak on yet struck me as central to the argument is the understanding of judgement and sin in opposition to love and respect.
Scottie and I have had great conversations about belief and faith, and it has taught me that there is a huge variance of people. I believe we very well may find ourselves up for Judgement one day, and so many will be surprised to find someone being told “Well Done” who never went to church but did their very best to be good loving people. But, so many others who claim that they are righteous because they go to church, that they are good people because they are Christians, are so godly because they tithe and demand the Ten Commandments be posted in the schools, are so holy because they shame the sinners – will be disappointed when He says He doesn’t know them.
In recent times, we have seen people laying hands upon Trump and speaking of him as some prophet or good man sent by god. And, while this is not a dump on drumpf post, it very much is a post about Christian Values and how the boundaries are so situationally elastic for far too many.
I recognize that it is human nature to look upon others and judge them harsher than ourselves. The saying “If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit” has more value in the Christian Church than it has any right. I guess it could be said that if we were to look upon our sins honestly we would either become indifferent out of the need to be sane or suicidal in the need to be accountable.
Jesus reportedly spoke on this very thing. He didn’t think we were to be perfect. If you consider the woman accused of adultery that was to be stoned, he didn’t excuse her of what she had done, in fact he told the crowd to throw their stones, but only if they were perfect. When none could, he told her he didn’t condemn her either but to sin no more.
But that huge difference shown in that example is the defining point that I believe is the root cause for so many of our problems in this world; Some believe that “your sin is so very much worse than my sin” and not only should you be ashamed of it but made lesser for it is destroying what we could be for the ability of others to control who we are and what we do. My readings of the Gospels are not about seeking some sort of ‘get out of jail’ card for myself by offering up another for sacrifice, but being honest and seeking to improve.
To say that ‘the sin another committed is proof for judgement while my sin is not’ goes above and beyond any scope of what Jesus reportedly came to teach and modeled for us to follow.
Franklin Graham famously showed his hypocrisy in this, but he did far more: He showed his willingness to publicly judge and shame one sin while all but condoning the same sin from another – and for political purposes at best and personal gain perhaps as well.
THIS is what religion into politics has brought us: This notion that someone is “approved by God” despite what they do, and others should be chastised no matter what they do.
To conclude: I believe “Love your Neighbor as Yourself” means we all will fail, we all will come short, but we all deserve to find love, to find meaning, to be free and whole, to find our way. And just as I have no right to abuse others or force my neighbor to conform his actions to my beliefs, he has no right to force himself upon me or others, for that violation of another’s identity or freedom of personhood is the very worst abuse we can do.
I love how Rev. Ed Trevors looks at other faiths and religions. They are not a threat to him, his religion, nor his god. I personally think if a person’s faith doesn’t harm others and helps them it is grand even if I don’t believe the same way. If you get benefit from your faith, your god, your religion and cause no harm to others … and maybe even helps other then it is a grand thing. Remember even though I am an atheist I was rescued at 17 yrs old by a very devout Christian. He did not turn his back on an abused kid like so many others did. So I don’t, do not, believe that religion poisons everything. It is like everything else in life it is how you use it that makes it good or bad. If you use your faith, your god as a crutch for your own hate, if you claim your deity hates others based on who you hate … then you are not following the Christian Jesus but maybe the one that tempted him. As Belle and Beau say … It is just a thought. Hugs.
Reverend Ed Trevors did a video on this. He liked the guys message but thought the way he did it was wrong. For me it is amazing that in Florida he was not seriously hurt by the police that came to the scene. They read his message and did not use their authority to harm him for it. As you know in Florida the authorities are not respectful or kind to those who are expressing a message of kindness, tolerance, and acceptance of others. Hugs
By Melinda Henneberger Updated March 31, 2025 6:57 PM
“I wasn’t preaching hate or using profanity,” says Jimbo Gillcrist. Then he was thrown to the ground. Melinda Henneberger
A man who walked up to the pulpit at the church he’d grown up in, Holy Spirit Catholic Church in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, a few minutes before last Sunday’s 11 a.m. Mass was soon wrestled to the ground by four parishioners.
Jimbo Gillcrist had just started to recite his own version of the “Our Father,” and to say how we’re all God’s children. He had intended to talk to his fellow Catholics about care for the migrant, but he didn’t get to before being taken down, marched out and handcuffed by OP police.
“I thought the worst that could happen is maybe they’d try to shout me down and ask me to leave,” Gillcrist told me in an interview on Friday. “I in no way thought I’d be tackled in a church.”
When one of those who removed him called the police, they reported, “He has long hair and a beard.”
I know that because I listened to the 38-minute audio of the whole thing that was recorded on Gillcrist’s phone, which his removers took away from him but failed to stop from recording.
So I can also say that the police who responded were a lot more chill than the church folk, one of whom asked the others, “Is anybody armed?” “Mine is in my car,” one responded.
“Mine is, too,” said another. All the better to protect followers of Christ from someone quoting Christ? Some horrible things have happened in churches throughout history, actually, so I could understand safety being a concern.
But the back-and-forth between Gillcrist and those who made him leave suggests they were more focused on propriety.
Holy Spirit’s pastor, Fr. Justin Hamilton, did not respond to a Friday message asking about what happened.
If Gillcrist’s name sounds familiar, he’s the theology teacher fired from Kansas City’s Rockhurst High School last November after telling his students that it would be their moral duty as Catholics to stand up against mass deportations. So here he is, doing that, or trying to.
‘Brother, you need to leave’ After he started his prayer, a priest approached him at the pulpit: “Come with me. Turn the sound off! Brother, you need to leave.”
And then, after the sounds of a very quick takedown came this: “Stay still. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“You already used violence against me in a church.”
“You’re trespassing.” “Trespassing? I’m a baptized Catholic.” “It’s inappropriate.” “To pray?” “There’s an appropriate time.” “It is the appropriate time.”
“No, you have to listen to your authorities, which is your pastor.”
As Gillcrist was taken out, he raised his voice for the first and only time, “Love your neighbor as yourself! And who is my neighbor?”
When police arrived, an officer asked those who had marched him out, “Did he do anything physical?”
“He pushed our priest off the steps” one answered, “but he didn’t fall or anything.”
A second officer arrived and said, “Is he the one who pushed the priest? Put him in handcuffs.”
“But I didn’t,” Gillcrist insisted.
We’ll figure it out, one of the officers said. And they did, while Gillcrist sat in the back of the patrol car in cuffs.
Video shows the moments before Jimbo Gillcrist was taken down at Holy Spirit Catholic Church. ‘So I see you mention Gaza and Ukraine’ Officers asked Gillcrist some questions as telling as his answers, so I’m just going to let the recording play:
“Why are they saying you pushed a priest?”
“They were trying to pull me away from the pulpit. I grabbed the pulpit and just held on. I didn’t push anyone. They had four guys grabbing me and dragging me off there.”
“What made you want to preach today?” “I’m worried about human beings, our brothers and sisters who live within our midst and are being targeted by the government.”
“What do you consider to be targeted by the government? What class of people are you …”
“Undocumented immigrants.”
“So you don’t agree with deportations and things like that?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you say anything like that?”
“I didn’t even get there.”
Looking at a copy of Gillcrist’s prepared remarks, the officer said, “So I see you mention Gaza and Ukraine in here. What’s your message with that?”
“They’re our brothers and sisters. When we stop seeing people that way it’s so easy to start making laws or enacting policies that harm them.”
In the end, another officer said he had talked to the pastor and there wouldn’t be any charges for now, but “if you do return here, you will be charged with trespassing.”
So was this a pointless provocation or an important disruption?
I understand those who say church needs to be a refuge from politics. At the same time, I don’t see how you could take Matthew Chapter 25 seriously — “for I was a stranger and you gave me no welcome” — and register no protest right now.
Where is American Oscar Romero?
Jesus spoke a lot about care for the stranger, who is these days being snatched off the street without any due process and used by smiling Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as a prop — with a shaved head and few clothes, looking shamefully for us not unlike a prisoner in Dachau.
If you’re an actress from Canada, maybe things will eventually be made right, but if not, who knows? The danger everyone ought to see is that if you can be picked up and shipped out without any hearing for supporting Palestinians — and without due process, we really don’t know that it’s any more than that — then you can also be sent away for supporting Israel, or Ukraine.
Or Jesus, or even Donald Trump.
Gillcrist belongs to a different, less conservative parish now. But what he was thinking in going to Holy Spirit, he said, is that those in his original faith home may not hear his point of view very often. If he could move even one person who doesn’t like what’s going on a little closer to speaking out about that, he had to try.
Of course, his effort might also have had the opposite effect. He went, too, because he sees the Catholic Church in the U.S. as silent when it should be strong.
“Where is the American Romero?” he asked, referring to Oscar Romero, the sainted Salvadoran archbishop assassinated in 1980 for standing up against a repressive regime.
Gillcrist had just started speaking when he was stopped, so I don’t know that he had the chance to change that one mind, or that he would have even if he’d been allowed to finish.
I do know, however, that many are wondering how to make this country a place where both people and the rule of law matter again. They’re not sure how to stop our slide into autocracy.
I’m not, either, but we do know we have to try and then try some more. Whether or not Gillcrist went about it the right away, I give him credit for looking for different ways to express his straight-from-Jesus dissent.
Because for those of us revulsed by what’s going on, smiling along like we’re still in the “before times” is no longer possible. This story was originally published March 30, 2025 at 8:05 AM.
This video touches just briefly on child abuse in that the republicans / clergy / highly religious do in the defense of the LGBTQ+ especially trans people accused of it. The Rev. Trevors is a real supporter of the LGBTQ+ and he doesn’t like it when Christians use his god / bible to harm others. Hugs
Does this keep us safe? What harm does washing her hands cause? What is more traumatic, a passing trans person in the bathroom washing their hands or the police barging in and arresting someone in the bathroom. I can see the mistake she made. She thinks they know in their hearts that it is wrong to make bans on trans people. No they are sure their god, one with the same name as her own god, but their god is the hateful vengeful fundamentalist Old Testament god while her is a loving Jesus. Hugs.
Left – Wikimedia Commons, Khrystinasnell // Right: Marcy Rheintgen, selfie
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When 20-year-old college student Marcy Rheintgen made her yearly spring break trip to her grandparents’ property in Florida, she said she felt at peace — until March 19, when police escorted her out of the bathroom of the State Capitol Building and placed her in handcuffs. Evidently, Rheintgen had violated a 2023 state law criminalizing trans people who use government-owned public restrooms that align with their gender.
Tampa Bay Times reporter Romy Ellenbogen accompanied Rheintgen to the Capitol. When they arrived, several officers were stationed outside the women’s restroom doors. They warned her not to enter the women’s restroom. Draped in a white, frilly dress and a pink bow, Rheintgen went in anyway and washed her hands.
That’s when police entered the restroom and told Rheintgen she was being detained. A devout Catholic, she had wanted to take a moment to pray the rosary, but she never got the chance.
After spending less than 60 seconds in the women’s restroom, Rheintgen said, she was charged with trespassing with a warning.
Meanwhile, her rosary was confiscated as an officer from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement handcuffed and detained Rheintgen, searched her person and her vehicle, and then shuttled her to the Leon County Detention Facility, where she stayed overnight in the men’s ward. If convicted, she could spend up to 60 days incarcerated.
The FDLE did not respond to a request for comment.
About a week before her trek, she sent about a hundred and sixty print letters to Florida lawmakers announcing she would engage in the time-honored practice of civil disobedience: She would use the women’s restroom at the Florida State Capitol. She named her date and time.
The letter sent to Florida legislators. Image courtesy of Marcy Rheintgen.
“I know that as a transgender woman, this means I will probably be arrested. I am violating laws because I personally believe it to be wrong.
“I’m not a political activist,” she told Erin in the Morning. “I’m just a normal college student who thinks this law is wrong.”
The letters included a photo of herself so that officials could identify her. “I understand I could go to jail for up to sixty days in a men’s prison, where if the statistics are true, I would likely be raped.”
She writes that going to jail would “uproot her life,” but this was a risk she was willing to take:
“I understand that if you’re receiving this letter, you’re part of the Florida Bicameral Legislature, which means you’re probably one of the people who wrote this law or voted for it. I know that you know in your heart that this law is wrong and unjust. I know that you know in your heart that it’s wrong to arrest me and jail me for sixty days for simply using the bathroom. I know that you know in your heart that transgender people are human too, and that you can’t arrest us away. I know that you know in your heart that transgender people are no different from you or anybody else. I know that you know in your heart that the same people that go to church with you, eat in the same restaurants, go to the same schools, root for the same sports teams, watch the same movies and pray to the same God as you cannot be all bad. I know that you know that I have dignity. That’s why I know that you won’t arrest me.”
Signing off, she added: “Pray for me.”
“I’m a really religious person,” she told Erin in the Morning. She’s a devout Catholic who describes herself as a political centrist, with an appreciation for “family values” but a soft spot for Dorothy Day, the prolific Catholic leftwing activist.
A police affidavit she shared with Erin in the Morning — with her deadname (blurred out below), and the wrong pronouns listed — otherwise corroborates most all of her story.
Photo Rheintgen’s affidavit, but her deadname has been blurred out for privacy. Image courtesy of Marcy Rheintgen.
Rheintgen’s telling is also corroborated by reports from the Tampa Bay Times journalist who accompanied Rheintgen to the bathroom.
A selfie. Image courtesy of Marcy Rheintgen.
“I actually wanted to move to Florida when I was older, growing up, but I don’t know if I can do that now, ” she said. She fondly remembers her favorite beaches and bologna sandwiches with her grandparents. But now, it seems, her “home away from home” isn’t safe for her.
“I don’t want attention. I just want people to see this law and how crazy it is to put people like us in jail. I was so terrified,” she said. She admits she hadn’t consulted legal or advocacy organizations before the endeavor; she didn’t know what to expect. “They were treating me like I murdered someone — but I just used the wrong bathroom.”
Rheintgen said she was motivated to act after seeing the anti-trans legislation surge throughout the United States, and when she read about Hunter Schafer, the Euphoria actress, who was issued a “male” passport despite being a woman. “She’s a personal hero of mine,” Rheintgen said. The fear and the vitriol she saw play out over the news cycle brought her to a breaking point.
While bills like bathroom bans and drag bans have been sweeping the country in recent years, the criminalization of gender diverse people is by no means new. Black and brown trans women, especially, have been routinely criminalized for decades under the guise of “solicitation” or “loitering” ordinances, even in a so-called liberal stronghold like New York. The phenomenon is so pervasive that it has been dubbed the “Walking While Trans Ban.”
Jon Harris Maurer, Public Policy Director of Equality Florida, emphasized that the bathroom bans are just the latest attempt by the state’s GOP to eradicate trans people from public life. “These are hard working, tax paying individuals who are our family, neighbors, and colleagues,” he told Erin in the Morning. “Weaponizing bathroom access in a place like the State Capitol is an antidemocratic effort to block them from directly participating in government while simultaneously stripping their rights behind closed doors.”
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Arkansas ACLU Executive Director Holly Dickson testifies at the Capitol.
Scottie's Playtime 