Woot! He has mentioned in other posts that this one is longer than usual, so relax and enjoy. Also, remember Josh is on The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert, tonight!
Category: Video / YouTube
Zohran’s First 100 Days Of Sewer Socialism Success In New York City
This is what working for the people, working for the public means. This is what representing the will of the people / public looks like. This is what is attracting the people / public voters to the democrats, yet Chuck Schumer as yet to endorse Mamdani. Why? Because the two are the opposite sides of the political coin. One wants to serve and represent the people / public and the other is a corporate democrat beholden to big money donors and major lobbyist groups. Same with Hakeem Jerofies who only endorsed Mamdani when on election night it became clear he would be the winner. Hugs
Israel Has Created Hell On Earth
This is a doctor working in Gaza. He describes the conditions. The Israelis are sniping World Health doctors. Israelis are moving the “yellow line” that they are claiming is the new boundary line between Israel and Palestinians. They are slowly moving the line deeper ad deeper into Gaza. The Israeli snipers were shooting the young boys in different areas on different days, now they are using drones to fire on young children alone with horrific results. Remember from the last clip he was saying how Israel is blocking and destroying the medical supplies and equipment. Israel is deliberately shooting and killing children. They want the chaos it causes, they like the fear it promotes, and they like that no new generations of Palestinians are growing. The doctor spoke of other atrocities that Israel is inflicting daily on the Palestinians. Israel is a criminal nation doing a genocide, and much of our democratic leadership is deeply in the pockets of AIPAC. Notice that Hakeem Jeffries was also at the same event. People here have asked why I am so anti-democratic leadership; this is one of the reasons why. They are beholden to the big money donors and lobbies doing their bidding while ignoring the desires and will of the people they are supposed to represent, not rule over. Hugs
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has emphasized his commitment to maintaining pro-Israel sentiments within the Democratic Party. In recent statements, Schumer articulated that his role is to ensure that the left remains supportive of Israel, a position he conveyed during an interview with The New York Times. This assertion reflects a broader concern regarding the changing dynamics of the Democratic Party’s support for Israel and Jewish causes. Schumer’s comments have sparked discussions about the implications of this shift, particularly in light of the party’s historical alignment with pro-Israel policies. Opinion pieces have noted that Schumer views the preservation of American institutions as integral to protecting religious minorities, highlighting the intersection of Jewish identity and political advocacy. https://deepnewz.com/middle-east/chuck-schumer-emphasizes-role-keeping-left-pro-israel-says-job-to-keep-the-left-f0ff217c
“I have many jobs as [Senate] leader… and one is to fight for aid to Israel — all the aid that Israel needs,” Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.
“I will continue to fight for it.,” Schumer continued. “We delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, than ever, ever before.”
According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks while reporting for The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/schumer-israel-aid
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on Sunday that one of his most important jobs as Senate minority leader is to “fight for aid to Israel,” as the Trump administration’s masked federal agents continue their deadly raids of the U.S. with little to no pushback from Democrats.
In remarks at a breakfast gathering of Jewish leaders in New York City, Schumer said, “I have many jobs as leader … and one is to fight for aid to Israel, all the aid that Israel needs.” Part of the remarks at the UJA-Federation of New York gathering were posted online by The Forward reporter Jacob Kornbluh. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) also spoke at the event. https://truthout.org/articles/as-trumps-dhs-ravages-us-schumer-says-his-job-is-to-fight-for-aid-to-israel/
Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubani’s Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare projects.
Trump Admin Fires Top US Army General In The Middle Of A War
Ron flew to Texas on Saturday. We used Uber to take him. He is driving his sister back here. They should be here tomorrow. I need a few days of rest then I will start replying to comments and bogging again. Hugs
Heather ‘Digby’ Parton joins the program to recap the week’s news. Check out Digby’s work at Salon as well as her blog Hullabaloo. Topics include the American right-wing’s desperation to keep Victor Orban in power in Hungary, Trump firing all the women around him, Iran and more.
Doctor Reports from Gaza | Dr. Tarek Loubani | TMR
Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubani’s Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare project.
When You Need A Break-
Owlets Hatch At The Wildflower Center Great Horned Owl Nest
The Great Horned Owl Cam just got a whole lot cuter this week thanks to two new arrivals. Athena, the female owl, stood watch over the nest as her first egg hatched a down-covered owlet on April 8 after 34 days of incubation. The second owlet arrived two days later, on April 10. Over the next six weeks, viewers will get an intimate look at the nestling period of one of the sky’s most formidable predators.
This marks Athena’s sixteenth consecutive season nesting with her mate in a sotol planter above the courtyard of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. It is also the third year in a row that she has successfully hatched a pair of owlets on camera since the stream launched in 2024.
At hatch, the owlets are covered in white natal down and are largely helpless. They begin to raise their heads after about three days and may start snapping their bills and casting pellets of indigestible material within the first week. Their eyes remain closed until about 9–11 days old, and they rely on Athena to keep them warm and fed during their first weeks.
(snip-how owlets grow, etc.)
Watch the owls journey through the breeding season live on the Great Horned Owl Cam, and follow daily updates on Twitter/X and Mastodon.
Randy Rainbow To The Rescue!
(It’s not long, but it’s not a short. However, the figurative ripping of Sec. Hegseth is fine!)
Historic WH Treaty Room To Become Guest Bedroom
tRump treats the White House the official residence and working office of the president. The longest any resident may live there is normally 8 years or 10 years if the vice president takes over after 2 years of the president’s term. A federal judge told tRump’s administration that he was only holding the White House in trust for the people and next person to hold the office. It did not give him the right to change it or do what he wanted with it as if it was Mar-a-Lago or one of his other properties. That judge ordered a stop to the ballroom until congress authorized it, which the people do not want at a time when all their social services are being cut. tRump is deluded into thinking the more gold in a room the fancier and wealthier the person seems. He is trying to keep up with other dictators palaces. Now he is talking about replacing the front of the white house, the iconic columns. It is almost like he thinks he won’t be leaving. And that every other president will share his clearly in his mind superior tastes in decorating. However most people will see it as tacky and pretentious, which both describe tRump. Hugs
The New York Times reports:
President Trump has discussed turning the White House Treaty Room, historically a meeting place for diplomats and statesmen, into a guest bedroom with an en suite bath. He has added gold flourishes to the East Room of the Executive Residence in a style similar to the gilded trimmings he installed in the Oval Office. And he has affixed “challenge coins” that celebrate his presidency — including the newest medallions in red and gold — to the walls inside the West Wing.
The Treaty Room is one of the most historic rooms in the White House. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley used it as a Cabinet room, and it was where the Spanish-American War peace protocol of 1898, and the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963, were signed. Once known as the “Monroe Room,” because it was where President James Monroe worked, it also has been the setting for major wartime addresses by presidents George W. Bush and Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Read the full article.
A Few Short Vids: Some Politics/War, Some Not, & A Marriage Proposal!
Federal court OKs Iowa’s “cruel” book ban law in stunning LGBTQ+ defeat
The idea behind these laws seems to be if they can hide that LGBTQ+ people / kids exist they can prevent the acceptance and tolerance of LGBTQ+ kids / people. In the minds of the haters who write these bills hopefully that will force people who are not straight or cis to stay hidden from society. They are desperate to return to the 1950s when LGBTQ+ people had to stay hidden or risk losing everything they had, their job, housing, and friends. They are pathetic in their need for everyone to be the same as they are, feel the same as they do, and to live as they do. Why I did not know or understand. The irrational hate for LGBTQ+ kids is really weird. That they would rather have kids hurt, harmed, assaulted, ostracized, and possibly driven to suicide rather than give them acceptance or simply tolerance. I don’t undestand what their gain is in this? Hugs
April 2026
John Russell (He/Him)April 7, 2026, 1:00 pm EDT· Updated on April 8, 2026Shutterstock
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has ruled that Iowa can enforce a 2023 law restricting classroom instruction on LGBTQ+ topics and access to certain books while legal challenges against the law proceed.
On Monday, the three-judge panel overturned injunctions previously issued by lower courts in two separate lawsuits challenging aspects of the Senate File 496, according to the Associated Press and The Des Moines Register.
Related
Passed by the Iowa state legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds in 2023, the law prohibits “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation” in kindergarten through sixth grade. It also bans materials featuring “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act” from school libraries and classrooms — a provision which critics say is intended to ban books featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes.
The law went into effect on July 1, 2023. The following November, the ACLU of Iowa and Lambda Legal sued the state on behalf of LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Iowa Safe Schools and seven students and their families, challenging SF 496’s classroom instruction ban.
Last May, a federal judge issued a split decision, upholding the law’s ban on discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in K–6 classrooms, but blocking its ban on school “promotions” and “programs” that acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people. U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher also blocked a provision of the law banning schools from providing “accommodation that is intended to affirm the student’s gender identity” without notifying their parents, writing that S.F. 496 was impermissibly vague about what constitutes an “accommodation.”
Writing for the Eighth Circuit on Monday, Judge Ralph Erickson held that the state’s interpretation of the law as requiring school “programs” and “promotions” to only encompass curricular activities does not violate the U.S. Constitution. However, the court did not address whether it is constitutionally permissible for the state to ban specific groups and extracurricular programs, such as Gender & Sexuality Alliance groups, because the Iowa Safe Schools lawsuit did not challenge specific applications of the law, according to the Register.
The court also disagreed with Judge Locher’s ruling that the law’s language around “accommodations” was too vague, restoring S.F. 496’s ban on schools accommodating students’ gender identities without outing them to their parents.
In a separate November 2023 lawsuit, the Iowa State Education Association was joined by publisher Penguin Random House and several prominent authors of banned books in a challenge to S.F. 496’s book-banning provision. Last March, Judge Locher sided with the plaintiffs, issuing a preliminary injunction preventing schools from removing books it considers “obscene” from classrooms and libraries.
Again, writing for the Eighth Circuit in a separate decision Monday, Judge Erickson disagreed w ith Locher’s ruling that school library books are not part a school’s curriculum. Erickson wrote that a school’s library catalogue constitutes government speech and can be restricted by state law, according to the Register.
The decisions on both cases send them back to the district court. But as the Register notes, the Eighth Circuit indicated in both rulings that the plaintiffs could not show a “likelihood of success on the merits” in their challenges to S.F. 496.
At the same time, in a joint press release the ACLU of Iowa and Lambda Legal noted that the rulings narrow “where and how the law may be applied.”
“The prohibition regarding sexual orientation and so-called gender theory applies only to specific, mandatory instruction on these topics during class time. The law, as currently interpreted, does not require schools to prohibit student expression of LGBTQ+ identity nor does it limit the sponsorship or promotion of GSAs,” ACLU of Iowa Senior Staff Attorney Thomas Story said.
“The court’s interpretation of the provision on banning books is that it applies only to those that specifically describe or depict one of those sex acts defined in Iowa’s criminal law. And with the forced outing provision, a report would be made to parents or guardians only if a student specifically requests a school accommodation for the stated purpose of affirming a gender identity different from their registration forms,” Story added.
In a statement responding to the court’s decision, Iowa State Education Association president Joshua Brown told the Register that the case was “about much more than legal technicalities.”
“It is about protecting the freedom of speech and the right to share ideas — values guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Brown said. “Our schools should be safe spaces where students are free to learn, teachers can use their professional expertise without fear, and families can trust that education is based on open inquiry rather than government censorship.”
A spokesperson for Penguin Random House indicated in a statement to the Register that the company intends to keep fighting against S.F. 496. Similarly, Lambda Legal Senior Attorney Nathan Maxwell called the ruling “a setback,” but noted that “it is not the end of this fight.”
“Iowa’s SF 496 is a cruel and unconstitutional law that silences LGBTQ+ children, erases their existence from classrooms, and forces educators to expose vulnerable students to potential harm at home,” Maxwell said in a statement. “We will continue to use every legal tool available to protect these young people. They deserve nothing less.”
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