It’s an interactive site, and it looks like a fine resource. I’m not aware of problematic things with GLAAD, but am aware I don’t see them mentioned here, so if there is something I’ve missed about them, please let us know. Also then, my apologies. But this looks like an excellent resource, so I hope they haven’t messed up anything for people. The blue GLAAD Weather Watch below is the link.
This year, anti-LGBTQ extremists are continuing their dangerous mission to ban LGBTQ people from access to bathrooms, schools, sports, and medical care. We need your help to defeat bad legislation, and to celebrate wins: Tune in to the GLAAD Weather Watch and sign up to receive updates of how you can take action!
It’s not only handwringing about what’s happening, it’s reportage of how what’s happening is being fought on We The People’s behalf.
Mary Trump Live: Two Weeks of Chaos by Mary L Trump
Donald’s Power Grab, Elon Musk’s Treasury Takeover, and the Future of DemocracyRead on Substack
Two weeks into Donald’s second term, while a demented old man plays emperor, Elon Musk—who has no authority, no votes, no confirmation—has effectively taken control of the U.S. Treasury.
Four years ago, in the lead-up to the 2020 election, I and many others warned that American democracy was on a knife’s edge. I also said that if Donald ever returned to power, it would mark the end of the American experiment. I desperately wanted to be wrong.
But here we are.
Tariff War: Chaos with Mexico and Canada
Donald’s 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, scheduled to take effect at 12:01 AM Tuesday, have been paused for 30 days after frantic negotiations.
Here’s what Mexico conceded:
10,000 National Guard troops deployed to Mexico’s northern border to combat fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration.
The U.S. pledged to help Mexico curb weapons trafficking.
And here’s what Canada conceded:
A $1.3 billion border security plan was announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Donald agreed to a 30-day pause to explore a broader economic deal.
This wasn’t a bluff. The tariffs were scheduled to happen tonight. Economists sounded the alarm, and the U.S. stock market opened nearly 450 points down over fears of rising prices and a trade war.
Donald, however, thrives in uncertainty. He emphasized that the tariff pause is conditional, stating that tariffs will proceed if a final deal isn’t reached within 30 days.
After speaking with Trudeau, Donald posted:
“Canada has agreed to ensure we have a secure northern border and to finally end the deadly scourge of drugs like fentanyl that have been pouring into our country, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans while destroying their families and communities. Canada will implement their $1.3 billion border plan, reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology, and personnel. I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and will be backing it with $200 million.”
Sure, Donald.
Of course, data shows minimal fentanyl smuggling at the northern border, but who needs facts when you can manufacture a crisis?
Elon Musk’s Hostile Takeover of USAID and the Treasury
Elon Musk—who holds no official government position—is shutting down USAID (United States Agency for International Development), an organization that has provided humanitarian assistance since the Kennedy administration.
Musk hates USAID, though it’s unclear why. Maybe because it helps starving children, funds education for war-torn Ukraine, or provides foreign aid that limits China and Russia’s influence.
Regardless, Marco Rubio—who, as Secretary of State, apparently has enough free time—was appointed as acting director of USAID.
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been named the acting administrator of the US Agency for International Development.” — CBS News
Yes, you read that correctly. The guy running the State Department now has a side gig managing foreign aid.
The reason for this? Donald’s administration is trying to dismantle USAID by placing it under the State Department’s direct control. Rubio has long criticized the agency for its “lack of responsiveness” to the State Department’s directives. Now, he’s in charge of gutting it.
But Democrats are fighting back.
Representative Jamie Raskin didn’t mince words:
“They have removed all evaluations from the USAID website. They have shut down, immediately, as of right now, all evaluations of USAID efforts across the world. This has nothing to do with evaluation—this is about termination and obliteration of the major foreign aid programs of the United States of America.”
Raskin also pointed out that USAID’s total budget is less than $40 billion, while the Pentagon budget is $900 billion—the very budget that defense contractor Elon Musk profits from.
The impact of USAID’s collapse is already being felt:
Emergency food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt were exempted, but programs for refugees, HIV/AIDS treatment, and war-torn regions like Ukraine and Syria are now at risk.
In Zimbabwe, a U.S.-funded HIV program credited with saving millions of lives faces collapse—a death sentence for many patients.
China will step in to fill the vacuum, expanding its influence in Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific.
Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) has responded by placing a hold on all of Donald’s State Department nominees, saying the move is illegal. His hold will force Republicans to spend valuable Senate time on confirmations, slowing Donald’s ability to install loyalists.
has been moving along rapidly, and I haven’t put much here because it’s moving so quickly that posting doesn’t keep up with the changes. Anyway, we’ve likely all heard of the non-government workers who are directed by an unelected, unsworn, non-government worker and are accessing US Treasury data bases and We The People’s personal and financial data. If not, well; it’s everywhere. Anyway, I spent a lot of time writing to my Rep, the one of my senators who’s not insane, and Sen. Chuck Schumer about this yesterday, and had more letters and calls (messages) about other business this morning. I’ve had 6 stories up to post only to find as I began to set up posts that something had changed, and they weren’t accurate news anymore. However, here’s a thing. Many people have been despairing of and finger-pointing to “the Dems” as being at fault for all of this. Here is where Dems’s actual momentum is at this time:
Senate and House Dem Presser Outside USAID Today (Video) – Please Watch And Share by Simon Rosenberg
Senate and House Dems forcefully challenge Trump/Musk’s illegal attacks on USAID and the US government Read on Substack
Above is the link to the video, and all of what Simon Rosenberg wrote. Here’s a snippet:
Friends,
I was really impressed with the House presser today and decided to send it along to all of you. Please watch and share with others you think might be interested. You all have wanted Dems to fight – well here you go!
Note that several speakers today talked about how important the calls are they’re receiving from constituents. These calls matter everyone. Keep working it!
(snip-go see everything, and if you’ve contacted your legislators, thanks and please keep it up! If not, I don’t know what it’s gonna take, but to me, we don’t want things to get worse than this, so now is the time. Unless you think this is all fine, of course, but I don’t think you’d be reading here if you did. Links to contact and phone numbers are right beneath.)
Here’s the only one of the tabs I was going to post, but it gives good background if someone needs a little more info in order to act: Musk’s Little Green Men
January 31, 1865 The U.S. House of Representatives passed (119-56) the 13th constitutional amendment which abolished slavery, and sent it to the states for ratification (three-quarters of the states would do so by the end of the year). The Kentucky legislature didn’t vote to ratify until 1976. Mississippi’s legislature finally ratified it in 1995 but failed to submit the paperwork to the federal government until 2013. Text of the amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” More about the 13th Amendment
January 31, 1876 Sitting Bull: One of several chiefs who refused to comply. The U.S. government ordered that all Native Americans had to move to reservations by this date or be declared hostile. Most Sioux did not even hear of the ultimatum until after the deadline.
January 31, 1945 Eddie Slovik Private Eddie Slovik became the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion, and the only one who suffered such a fate during World War II.Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered Slovik’s execution be carried out, he said, to avoid further desertions in the late stages of the war. Eisenhower
January 31, 1950 U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announced his decision to support the development of the hydrogen (fusion) bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic (fission) bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.
January 31, 1971 The Winter Soldier Hearings began in a Howard Johnson’s motel in Detroit. Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the three days of hearings were an attempt by soldiers who had served in Vietnam to inform the public of the realities of U.S. conduct in the war. The veterans testified that the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident, and that some American troops had committed atrocities. Among those who spoke about aspects of their service in Vietnam was John Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant and future senator and presidential candidate. More than 100 veterans testified to sometimes brutal acts. Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield later entered the transcript of the Winter Soldier hearings into the Congressional Record but, otherwise, the proceedings captured little attention. The term “winter soldier” is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776. He spoke of the “sunshine patriot and summertime soldiers” who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. Winter Soldier film watchthetrailer (appox 4 minutes) watchthe entire movie (1:35) VVAW/Winter Soldier Organization
January 31, 1993 300,000 Berliners rallied to protest attacks on immigrants, and against racism and renewed support for Nazism on the 60th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. During the previous year there had been 2,285 racially motivated attacks, including 77 against Jewish sites, and the death of two young Turkish girls in an arson attack.
I receive Economic Policy Institute’s newsletter for general info about which I contact my congresscritters. EPI have opened a page dedicated to what the White House, the Legislature, and the courts are doing that affect working people. I figure, first of all, forewarned is forearmed, as to little things that may not be loudly reported but which affect us regular people just out here trying to live our lives. So, here’s a link and a snippet. When a person goes on the page, you can get your choice of newsletters in your email box, if you care to; or you can just look around. Thanks for checking it out-I think it will help people.
(I’m running slightly “behind” for the day; yesterday was eventful at home, then I was up a little later watching some of the local coverage of the plane crash in DC. So, I’m takin’ my time today, and what gets done, gets done. Anyway, I’m still enjoying this toon, and I hope you do, too! -A.)
Rare because I rarely post such. Pastor Bolz-Weber says all this so well, and it is what I learned when I was young and growing up; what I work to apply in my own (and in no one else’s) life. I’m not proselytizing or trying to “draw anyone in.” This helps to explain why and how I feel as I do about justice and peace, and love and understanding and all that, including hope and light. Enjoy with a mind that can absorb without feeling there’s gonna be a “come forward” moment, because there’s not one. (Other than to Christians who feel as we do, but wonder about Zionism and Nationalism being as bad as they are.)
This morning I had a quick breakfast with another Lutheran pastor. This of course is not terribly remarkable in the scheme of things, except for the fact that the breakfast took place in the Kingdom of Jordan, a few feet away from the Dead Sea and my colleague had to cut the breakfast short so he could return home to his family, but he was anxious about all the military check point between here and there.
“How far of a drive is it” I asked.
“If I had a car and could drive straight there, about an hour. But my hope is that it will only take 8 hours.” He accepted that he may in fact not even make it home at all tonight.
Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Lutheran Pastor who lives and serves a church in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Christians have been here since the day the Spirit blew through them on the day of Pentecost, so Munther and my other Palestinian Christian friends can get slightly annoyed when well meaning Christians from the West ask “when did your family convert?”.
Um, over 2,000 years ago?
Munther and I are in Jordan right now for a conference – 60 academics and church leaders from 17 countries gathered over the last several days for a consultation on Christian Zionism (belief that Jewish people have a “divine right” to the land here – using a few verses in a 4,000 year old text to have authority over foreign policy and global political realities of today), and the impact of that on Christians in the Middle East; a few days together in a majority Muslim country, across the Dead Sea from the State of Israel to talk about Christian folks’ business: how do the theological beliefs of one group of Christians impact the lives of another group of Christians halfway across the planet?
Many of us grew up with some form of Christian Zionism, I know I did. Perhaps it stemmed from a desire to be faithful to what we have been told, or a desire to help usher in the second coming of Christ (ala The Late Great Planet Earth) so he can come back and destroy the world and take us up to heaven (described this week as science fiction theology), or a desire to assuage the guilt left over from the unspeakable atrocities and genocide of the holocaust.
It will take me time to metabolize what I heard over the last few days. Christian Zionism is widespread, and far reaching in it’s impact, and I am committed to try and maintain the humility it takes as a US citizen and a Christian to consider people like Munther and my friend Mitri Raheb as reliable narrators of the impact on the ground in Palestine.
Palestinian Christians should be listened to by us, their siblings in Christ.
Munther Isaac appeared in ‘Til Kingdom Come (2020), an Israeli documentary about American Christian support for Israel.[20] In the film he explains his view to pastor William Bingham that Christian Zionism contributes to the oppression of Palestinians. After their conversation, Bingham calls Isaac an anti-semite and says that Palestinians do not exist. – Wikipedia
This morning before Munther left to make his way home, he told me a story of a family in his church. For over 150 years they have rightfully owned and inhabited their land outside Bethlehem – a beautiful parcel dotted with olive trees, often hundreds of years old themselves.
Israeli settlers (whose actions are deemed illegal by the UN Security Council) who for years have been attempting to take this family’s land, confronted them at their gate recently, demanding the family leave. The family showed them their ownership documents – dating back from Ottoman rule, then Jordanian rule through to Israeli rule. The settlers angrily lifted up their Bible and said “We have documents too. God gave us this land!”
As I mentioned, I am overwhelmed by all I heard this week and will try and write more later for those who are interested, but for now I wanted to report how one word stood out for me in a particular way during the conference, and that word is: heresy.
19th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher defined heresy as, “that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence“
So perhaps that is the correct word for when, with all the trappings of Christianity behind us, we who seek to justify or maintain our dominance over another group of people use the Bible to prove that our domination`is not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but is, indeed, part of “God’s plan”. Because there you have the appearance of Christianity (Bible verses and God-talk) contradicting its essence (love God, and love your neighbor, blessed are the meek, etc…).
Is it not heresy when slavery is established as “God’s will”; when the subordination of women is established as “God’s will”; when discrimination against queer folks is established as “God’s will”, when the taking of one people’s land by another people is established as “God’s will” (hello, manifest destiny), when the executive VP of the National Rifle Association claims that the right to buy an assault rifle is “not bestowed by man, but granted by God”? When a self-justifying message is heretically delivered in God’s name it brings with it a poison that infects the deepest parts of us and when the poison spreads, so does the violence.
When you can say that God Almighty is co-signing on your dominance over another group of God’s children, then every means is justified, right to the end. Every inch of land stolen, every suicide bombing enacted, every act of violence committed, every weapon used, every checkpoint and illegal detention, every child who dies, every tower that falls to the ground – all of it covered under some sort of bullshit spiritual umbrella policy. There are no means that need justifying if we claim God as our patron and guide.
And I imagine God is just about sick to death of it.
As I claimed in my book about sexual shame and religion, we should never be more loyal to a doctrine or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. If the teachings of the church are harming people we re-think those teachings. Amen?
Speaking up for Palestinians often comes at a cost. Those of you who have done it know. I also know, but am frankly too tired to care right now. So, if based on my recounting of the stories of my friends and colleagues, anyone is moved to called me anti-semitic, please open up the notes app on your phone and feel free to write it there but I will delete your unfounded accusations if you leave them here.
My apologies for the edge in my writing voice. We are all exhausted and as my friend Jodi just texted me, “this month has been two years long already.”
Thank you for reading. I am genuinely sending my love. Please pray this ceasefire holds. And for those waiting on the side of a road right now to return to the rubble of their homes. And for the hostages and prisoners who were released yesterday. I cannot imagine the trauma.
I am not autistic. But many of us here read Barry’s blog to learn, and to be more effective allies. The next 2 entries on his blog are informative, as well.
Scottie's Playtime 