Very informative and heart felt. Aron Ra is well known for his thought approach to atheism and science, delivering it in a way that a normal person can understand. The things he says at the end and the pictures he shows makes clear that as he says this is not about protecting anyone but about enforcing bigotry. Hugs
Category: Schools / Schooling / Education / Libraries
Peace & Justice History for 7/21
https://www.gocomics.com/lards-world-peace-tips/2025/07/20
| July 21, 1878 Publication of “Eight Hours,” written by Reverend Jesse H. Jones (music) and I.G. Blanchard (lyrics), the most popular labor song until “Solidarity Forever” was published by the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) in 1915. “Eight hours for work, Eight hours for rest; Eight hours for what we will.” All the lyrics (The eight-hour was an established concept before the song.) |
| July 21, 1925 The so-called “Monkey Trial” ended in Dayton, Tennessee, with high school teacher John T. Scopes convicted of violating a state law against teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. It was considered illegal to contradict the Bible’s description of God’s seven-day creation of the world in Genesis. The trial pitted two of America’s leading advocates as the opposing lawyers: William Jennings Bryan, thrice the Democratic presidential candidate (1896, 1900, 1908) and the state’s prosecutor; Clarence Darrow, a lawyer famous for representing the underdog, at the defense table. Referred to as “the trial of the century” even before it began, it was the first trial ever broadcast (on radio). Bryan became ill and died shortly after the trial’s end; the conviction was later overturned by Tennessee’s Supreme Court.  The Defendant John T. Scopes   The Attorneys: Darrow & Bryan/ The Verdict: Thou Shall Not Think Interest in the trial by the populace and the media (and the heat in the courtroom) prompted Judge John T. Raulston to move the trial outdoors to the courthouse lawn. Bryan himself was called as a witness on the literal interpretation of scripture. Attorney General Thomas Stewart, in response to Darrow’s questioning, asked, “What is the meaning of this harangue?” “To show up fundamentalism,” shouted Mr. Darrow, “to prevent bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the educational system of the United States.” Mr. Bryan sprang to his feet, his face purple, and shook his fist in Darrow’s face: “To protect the word of God from the greatest atheist and agnostic in the United States.” ACLU History: The Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’ More about the Monkey Trial |
| July 21, 1954 Major world powers, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, reached agreement on the terms of a ceasefire for Indochina, ending nearly eight years of war. The war began in 1946 between nationalist forces of the Communist Viet Minh, under leader Ho Chi Minh, and France, the occupying colonial power after the Japanese lost control during World War II. The Geneva conference included France, the United Kingdom, the U.S., the U.S.S.R., People’s Republic of China, Cambodia, Laos, and both Vietnamese governments (North and South).  The peace treaty called for independence for Vietnam and a 1956 election to unify the country. However, only France and Ho Chi Minh’s DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North)) signed the document. The United States did not approve of the agreement. Instead, they backed Emperor Boa Dai and Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem’s government in South Vietnam and refused to allow the elections, knowing, in President Eisenhower’s words, that “Ho Chi Minh will win.” The result was the Second Indochina War, more commonly known as the Vietnam War. The treaty is signed |
July 21, 1976 Plaza de Mayo mother A military junta under General Jorge Rafael Videla took power in Argentina on March 24, disbanding parliament and taking over all labor unions. The military kidnapped hundreds of people from two villages of Jujuy province in northern Argentina, thirty of whom never returned from a clandestine detention center. Most of those disappeared worked for the Ledesma sugar refinery. Since 1983, on the Thursday closest to July 21, Madres de Plaza de Mayo (an organization of mothers and wives of the missing) are joined by others, and walk the 7 km (4.3 miles) from Calilegua to San Martin, demanding answers about their loved ones. Madres de Plaza de Mayo is supported by Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Read more |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july21
Some The Majority Report clips on ICE and the democrats
Clay Jones, Open Windows
SCOTUS flunks Separation of Powers again by Ann Telnaes
Supposedly only Congress has the power to abolish the Department of Education Read on Substack
This is the result by the majority Supreme Court’s expansion of presidential power and a Congress who long ago failed to uphold its constitutional oath of office.
Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, is quoted in the Economist that there is “no rhyme or reason” in these rulings other than “enabling lawless behaviour by the Trump administration”. Vladeck has a substack about the U.S. Supreme Court I recommend following.
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Tanks For Nothing by Clay Jones
SCOTUS says Trump can dismantle the Education Department and Grok goes to war Read on Substack
It’s frustrating to watch Trump get everything he wants, from media outlets settling bogus lawsuits, to social media caving into his demands, to FIFA giving him a trophy while making the winners celebrate with a duplicate (he was even caught stealing a medal), to FIFA (again) renting office space in Trump Tower to kiss his ass, to the Supreme Court of the United States allowing him to deport whoever he wants and destroy any federal agency he wants.
Congress created the Department of Education by law, and Trump acted to destroy it. He was sued, and a lower federal court paused it. Now, SCOTUS ruled, 6-3 as usual, that Trump can continue to destroy it as the case makes its way through the lower courts. Even if SCOTUS says Trump can’t destroy the department by the time the case returns from the lower courts, it will probably be too late.
It will be like reversing the death penalty after the execution.
These rulings are partisan. When the Biden administration asked SCOTUS to unpause a lower court’s freeze on forgiving student loans, SCOTUS refused. But for Trump, they’re bending over backward. SCOTUS is officially saying, “It’s OK if a Republican does it.”
I thought SCOTUS was on a break. They are, but they figured it was an emergency, so they came back to help Trump destroy education. This shit doesn’t make America great again. They wouldn’t have done this for Biden, nor would they have ruled that Biden is immune from prosecution.
Hmmmm, what else happened yesterday? Oh, yeah. Grok, Elon’s AI product, has been given a $200 million contract with the Defense Department. This came one day after Grok went on an antisemitic rant on Twitter/X. Of course, only Elon could teach a robot to be a Nazi.
It’s bad enough we got Drunky Hegseth leading the department while spilling classified information and pausing arms shipments to Ukraine, and now we’re going to trust Artificial Intelligence.
The Pentagon also gave contracts to Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. The federal government is hiring robots while the Education people are being dumped.
Did none of these bozos watch The Terminator? At what time does Skynet become self-aware? We’re all doomed. Doooooomed, I tell you. (snip-MORE)
More what the fuck are they doing … and why?
Let’s start with the grifter in chief. I am old enough to remember when the office of president had a grave dignity that each resident of the office did their best to uphold. Now we have a carnival barker in the overall office using the presidency to hawk everything he can think of to separate his cult rubes from their money to make him profit. The presidency has become not a job to guide the nation but a profit seeking center of a crime family. But right wing media crowed non-stop about the Biden crime family over an alleged 20 thousand dollar payment. Meanwhile it was reported that tRump made almost 600 million in just the time he has been in office on a crypto scheme. And no one is stopping him. So much for the emolument clause of the constitution. Hugs
Speaking of trying to buy votes, here is another criminal trying to steal an office. Hugs
And speaking of hate for those no white …. what is the death of brown children worth these days compared to billionaires getting a tax cut to keep more money they will never need other than to claim to have it. Hugs.
It was all about not having a ship named after a gay navy hero because to these bigots somehow gay means weak. However some of the greatest military heroes are members of the LGBTQ+ community. They just needed the cover of claiming these other ships would be renamed also. There is no inclusion and diversity with these white supremacist haters. If someone thinks different from them, looks different from them, or has a different religious view from them that person must be destroyed by them. Such a person is a threat to them. Weird way to think. Hugs
Let’s talk about the attempt to whiten the US. That is what the entire goal is. It is not about removing criminals as the government just gave two convicted traffickers felon gang members asylum for at least one year and removed from jail just so they could accuse an innocent man the government deported “by accident”. These concentration camps and ICE actions are because people like Stephen Miller hate anyone not white especially if they speak Spanish which Miller can not understand which makes him sure that they are insulting him. It is about older white people scared that the brown people will do to the whites what they did to the brown people while they were in charge. Hugs
Add in the capitalist all the profit must be for us people who hate for a democratic socialist that wants to make live better for the lower incomes, along with the Christian freak out the man is Muslim claiming he will install his religious laws instead of theirs on the public, and the weirdest right wing shit like he will authorize killing all Jewish people and go on a terrorist campaign on the city, but the worst thing is corporate democrats are terrified to support the elected Democratic Party nominee because their corporate over lords don’t like he is going to do stuff for the public, for the people instead of shifting all possible profit to the wealthy like the corporate Democratic Party leadership republican lite members. Hugs
It’s rather telling that they’ve chosen to go after CNN, and NOT Apple nor the app creator. If they were serious, they’d attempt to stop it immediately by going after the app creator first and then Apple for allowing it to be available in their App Store and compatible with their iOS. (Apple could install a patch that would hinder the app.)
This is clearly about intimidating, censoring & controlling the media, and the fat fascist is just itching to destroy one of these entities.
tRump and crew do not care how many people lose their coverage. They claim those “able-bodied people” should get a job so they have healthcare. That is how out of touch most wealthy republicans are if they honestly believe that companies routinely offer health care now. Most companies either don’t or have strict requirements to qualify. The thing is republicans have been trying to cancel health care of the public, for the people since forever. Look how many times they tried to repeal the ACA / Obama care. This bill they just passed will let them roll back the subsidies and throw millions off the ACA rolls. Why? Because they don’t care, they got their healthy care so you can fuck off as it costs profits. You’re not wealthy enough to pay for care yourself than you don’t need or deserve it. Just suffer and then slink away and die. Hugs
This is the person who the cult felt was so much smarter and better than Joe Biden? I often ask how his cult could be taken in by him and the reply comes back “he speaks like we do, he hates who we hate”. WTF. Hugs
With all that is happening it is hard to keep up but we are in the land of nonsense where people with the least understanding of a subject override the advice and judgment of experts. Real scientists make judgments based on medical data / studies while these people run on emotional high that conspiracies give them. Dunning-Kruger effect. Hugs
At what point can we start calling and admitting tRump is not acting as a president of the US but as an authoritarian dictator trying hard to cement his power / authority to crush any dissent. When will our eyes be opened wide enough to see that time is short to stop the erosion of our rights and due process. The Democratic Party is not doing enough to get the message out. Hugs
As was widely reported during the 2022 and 2024 elections, hundreds of seasoned local and state election officials fled their jobs due to threats of violence by the cult. The statement below is from the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State.
So this guy who never served in the military and has no background in law enforcement will lead the army and the ATF, but is convinced he alone is smart enough and needs no help? No I think what this is about is they don’t want the civilians to find out planes to illegally use the military and to either try to stop it or tell people about it. Think on it, tRump wants complete unfettered control to use the military / Army to enforce tRump’s decrees. Maybe his taking over local or state elections apparatus to declare republicans
won when they clearly did not, to enforce voter suppression acts, or simply to back him as he demands a third
On Friday, Driscoll notified the 115 members of the Civilian Aides to the Secretary of the Army program, or CASA, an all-volunteer group that serves as the secretary’s eyes and ears in communities across the country, that their roles were being terminated.
Just last month, in a virtually unprecedented move, the service granted direct commissions at the rank of lieutenant colonel to a group of wealthy tech executives from firms including Palantir, Meta and OpenAI. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Army planners are quietly trimming down, or outright dismantling, programs seen as peripheral to the service’s high-tech future.
as the service doubles down on its push to modernize with a Silicon Valley-style lensI can imagine where that’s headed.
A couple of posts I want to share.
Reasons to Leave Christianity* in 2025
I have long liked this young YouTuber. I started following him when he was more into debunking stuff while also producing atheist content. I felt he understood what a lot of people were going through in that he was trying hard to hide being an atheist from his parents and family which gave him an idea what many in the LGBTQ+ community were going through with their families. He himself noted that similarity. One of the things I like about him is his calm quiet fact filled delivery. If others have not noticed I don’t like aggressive angry yelling videos, they are too close to what I grew up with and suffered in my childhood. Drew is not a fervent anti-Christian like so many atheists are. Instead he simply is against the bad stuff some people do in the name of religion / Christianity. I like that. At the end of this video he again says if you are getting something good from your faith, don’t leave it, just change it to make it better. I agree. He explains how Christianity was abused by corporations and wealthy people to get people to do things against their own interest they otherwise wouldn’t do. In the name of god work more at a lower cost to make money for your employer type stuff. Hugs
Christian extremists get librarian fired for displaying book about transgender child
No one forced these people to read the book. But just having the book there in open view enraged them. How dare this librarian admit that trans kids exist, that they are real. They wouldn’t have an issue with a book on child angels or mythical creatures, but humans that are different from the majority straight cis must be denied and destroyed. Forbidden knowledge seems big in the Christian extremest world. They seem to live for and delight in harming anyone or thing different from the way they want the world to be. They seem to think it fine for them to force their views on others but requiring factual teaching about science, biology, geology, race history is oppressing them. Imposing the idea that some people dress up in costumes to read books to children on them is a violation of their rights, but a kid’s desire to see themselves represented in media they feel they have a right to prevent. Hugs
Arin Waller (She/They)June 24, 2025, 4:00 pm EDTThe cover of the offending book, When Aidan Became a Brother by transgender male author Kyle Lukoff. | Lee & Low Books
Lavonnia Moore, a 45-year-old library manager, had worked at the Pierce County Library in Blackshear, Georgia, for 15 years. She was ultimately let go when a Christian extremist group filed a complaint to the library after Moore approved the display of a children’s book about a transgender boy.
According to Moore, the display (entitled “Color Our World”) included the book When Aidan Became a Brother (by trans male author Kyle Lukoff), a story about a family accepting a trans child named Aiden while also preparing for the birth of Aiden’s sibling. Library volunteers created the display as a part of a regional-wide summer theme featuring books that celebrate diversity.
Related
“I simply supported community involvement, just as I have for other volunteer-led displays. That’s what librarians do — we create space for everybody… I did not tell the parents and children what they could or could not add to the display, just as I do not tell them what they can or cannot read,” she wrote in a statement.
However, the book caught the attention of a group calling themselves the Alliance for Faith and Family (AFF), not to be confused with the anti-LGBTQ+ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. The AFF had previously been in the public eye for demanding the removal of a mural in the Waycross-Ware County Public Library, which included a Pride theme declaring, “Libraries Are For Everyone.”
The AFF campaigned on Facebook, urging their followers to pray and take a few moments out of their day to email the Three Rivers Library System and Pierce County Commissioners to “put a stop to this and show them the community supports them in taking a stand against promoting transgenderism at our local library,”
In an update post, the group wrote, “The display has been removed, and LaVonnia is no longer the Pierce County Library Manager. Please thank the Pierce County Commissioners and Three Rivers Regional Library System for quickly addressing our concerns.”
Moore and her sister Alicia confirmed that LaVonnia Moore had been fired. A statement to The Blackshear Times from the Three Rivers Library System Director Jeremy Snell explained that the library board leadership decided to move to new leadership for the Pierce County Library. He specifically cited the display of an “inappropriate” book as his reasoning.
“The library holds transparency and community trust in the highest regard,” Snell said.
“Instead of investigating, talking to me or my team, or exploring any kind of fair process, they used the ‘at-will’ clause in my contract to terminate me on the spot. No warning. No meeting. No due diligence. Just the words ‘poor decision making’ on a piece of paper after 15 years of service,” Moore claimed.
“I am just heartbroken,” she said of her dismissal.
According to Moore’s sister Alicia, “She messaged the family group and said ‘I was just fired.’”
“I don’t think she’s doing emotionally good, because imagine having to pack up 15 years in two days,” Alicia Moore told First Coast News.
“She’s heartbroken that a place she gave so much of herself to turned its back on her so quickly. And yes, she’s still in disbelief. She didn’t expect to be punished for doing her job with integrity and love for all patrons — especially children.” the sister explained.
The sisters are currently seeking legal counsel, and Alicia is urging people to reach out to the library board and county commissioners.
“I’m hoping the same method will be useful to get her justice,” Alicia said.
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She is correct, they don’t want to admit the LGBTQ+ exist and are doing their best to make it so we don’t to their kids. If they can convince their kids early that those people are bad before the kids learn their friends are LGBTQ+ they might turn out to be bigots as the parents want
BREAKING: The three liberal Supreme Court justices release a scathing dissent after the Republican-controlled judges issue an anti-LGBTQ ruling that “ushers in a new reality” that will deny children the “opportunity to practice living in our multicultural society.”
This is only the third time that Sonia Sotomayor has read her dissent from the bench, indicating strong disapproval…
“Exposing students to the ‘message’ that LGBTQ people exist, and that their loved ones may celebrate their marriages and life events, the majority says, is enough to trigger the most demanding form of judicial scrutiny,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, supported by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The ruling was made in favor of a group of parents who want to opt their children out of elementary school lessons that include LGBTQ storybooks. The case will now go back to a lower court for final decision on whether schools must provide such an opt-out option.
Thanks to the Republican justices, school districts must now inform parents in advance of the books being read in class and allow them to pull their children if they choose. For underfunded schools, this additional burden will be too much to bear. It adds administrative costs and distracts teachers who are already struggling to teach overcrowded classrooms. Taken in tandem with the Trump administration’s efforts to completely eliminate the Department of Education, it’s a grim omen of things to come.
Crucially, the decision is a blatant handout to the religious radicals who helped put Donald Trump in power, which in turn tilted the court even more conservative. Such people want to pretend that LGBTQ people don’t even exist.
“Given the great diversity of religious beliefs in this country, countless interactions that occur every day in public schools might expose children to messages that conflict with a parent’s religious beliefs. If that is sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny, then little is not,” Sotomayor continued.
She predicted that the decision will cause “chaos for this Nation’s public schools.”
“Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,” she continued. “The harm will not be borne by educators alone: Children will suffer too. Classroom disruptions and absences may well inflict long-lasting harm on students’ learning and development.”
“Worse yet, the majority closes its eyes to the inevitable chilling effects of its ruling,” she went on. “Many school districts, and particularly the most resource strapped, cannot afford to engage in costly litigation over opt-out rights or to divert resources to tracking and managing student absences. Schools may instead censor their curricula, stripping material that risks generating religious objections.”
“The Court’s ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards,” she added. “Because I cannot countenance the Court’s contortion of our precedent and the untold harms that will follow, I dissent.”
Scottie's Playtime 