The conditions are on purpose to make people so miserable they give up their rights to asylum or any cases they have going. The ICE people / US government are already violating the rights of the people they kidnap off the streets. These are as bad as any concentration camp and the US government denies it all. When Democrats take power / authority back we need to investigate and punish all involved. The government flat out lies and gaslights the public as if they think nothing will ever be found out. Hugs
This morning I had an MRI on my lower back. It all went well and was quick. The reason for it is my right leg feels as if it is being tased and it makes it difficult and challenging to stand on the leg. I took an extra dose of instant morphine and a muscle relaxer before the MRI, as those tend to be very painful for me to lie on the table in one position for that length of time.
Since I got home I have felt more and more disconnected from reality My pain levels in my back have increased so I struggle to sit in my desk chair and have had to take even more more pain relievers of all kinds. But I still struggle, I am feeling lost like debrie in the wind of a storm. Ron has contacted me three times to forcefully tell me he loves me. But I feel lost, ungrounded, I find myself relieaziing I am simply staring into space or have not heard a word of what is playing on the video computer.
Plus, Sam Seder is talking to someone about the abuse of Palestinians in Gaza such as how their lands are being torn from them and they are being terrorized, yet I find I am not registering large parts of the video. I simply am missing large segments of the video and have to rewind to watch so much of it again. I am zoning out. I have seriously thought of going to bed. So much pain and abuse toward people who have no way to fight back or protect themselves. If I let my mind focus I am instantly thrown back to my own childhood situation as a child unable to fight back against all the abuse from much more powerful people who seemed to have all the authority behind them.
But it is more than the normal remember, be very upset, cry, sob, and try to find a way to deal. Currently I simply am lost like I am moving in slow motion as I struggle to focus on what I need to do. I feel like I am on go …
I just realized that for some time, I am not sure how long I have had my head down on my folded arms on my desk. I was not crying, I was not sleeping, I simply checked out. This seems much scarier than when I sob and cry out of control. For an unknown part of time I just checked out of reality. This is not normal. I am going to go lie down for a few minutes. Hugs
I went to lie down. I had texted Ron with my situation. I was just lying there not thinking, no intrusive thoughts which is strange enough, just checked out when he called all upset. He offered to start for home right away. I explained to him that was not needed. I am not feeling upset. Just lost. Just like I don’t comprehend what is happening within my eye sight and hearing. My mind was not registering what the inputs were. I admit it feels a bit like when I had my stroke, everything stopped making sense for a while. Anyway while I was laying down the medication started working and I feel a bit more connected to reality. I am not writing this to upset or concern anyone but to try to explain what is happening to me in my life. Thank you for letting me have a place to explain my feelings and for all of you who are willing to listen. I appreciate it, it means a lot to me. I can’t explain how important it is for me to have this space to exspress my feelings / life and know the people reading care about me. Hugs.
Hello everyone. I am looking for a meme / cartoon story I had a few years ago and can’t find again. It is of a kid going out in the morning with a sign hanging from their neck down to their chest. The sign said something like I am good and I am happy. Then through the day every insult and attack on the kid tore pieces of the sign off so when the kid got home the sign was destroyed being just a bit of what they started out with. I really want to find it again but every search I try to do fails to give me what I am looking for. Thanks. Hugs
This week I needed a quiet place to escape from my own head so I made one:
And then I added another swing because maybe you need a quiet place to be as well. We’re all in this together.
In slightly related news, I follow a lot of artists on instagram who share tips and tutorials and this tree idea came from Cathflo.art who I adore. Her tutorials aren’t in English but art is universal in any language. Also universal? Hope. Love. Joy. Kindness. Compassion.
(The above link is for the video interview at the top of this Substack page; 20 minutes and small change. -A.)
Happy Superbowling to all who celebrate.
It’s been less than 48 hours since I sent out the first episode of I Spent Three Days in Minneapolis. (Are these “episodes”? I don’t know what else to call them. They are more than interviews… Moments? Happenings? Witnessings?) The response from you all has been amazing and truly heartening. It is inspiring to think that me and a small crew turned all this around so quickly AND ALSO that it has found an audience. It really makes me proud. I can’t wait to share more, so leeeeeeeeet’s gooooooooooo!
I’m sending this today, because my subscribers don’t seem like the types of people who’d get upset having their Superbowl activities interrupted with an incredible conversation. One of the big “gets” that my producer Deshawn Plair chased down was this meet-up with three-time Emmy-winning, Twin Cities journalist Georgia Fort. Luckily, our film crew, Destiny and Kai, were already working on a project with Georgia, so they helped set this up.
And while I’m always down to talk to an independent Black journalist, this was extremely special. Georgia was only a few days removed from making international news. On January 30, Georgia Fort and my fellow ex-CNNer Don Lemon were arrested for the “crime” of reporting on a news story. Georgia and Don were covering the protest of a church where a pastor is being accused of being a member of I.C.E. (FYI, joining I.C.E. is what Jesus wouldn’t do.)
The Trumped up charges (literally TRUMPED UP) against Georgia and Don are for conspiracy(?) and for interfering with the church goers first amendment rights(??). (Yeah, suuuuuuuuure!) As much as I am mocking the anti-constitutional arrests, these are still FEDERAL charges. Two other people (both Black) were also arrested at the protest.
Let’s not forget that arrests like these are even bigger than our country’s already big need to defend the first amendment. These arrests are about punishing people who the administration simply doesn’t agree with, and more people than just the ones arrested are affected. In addition to being an award-winning independent Black journalist, Georgia is a mom, a wife, a daughter, a mentor to young Black journalists, and community member who cares. During our talk Georgia bravely admits to being terrified, but as she declares, “God did not give me a spirit of fear.”
“God did not give me a spirit of fear.” – journalist Georgia Fort
This interview was taped around 5pm on February 3, 2026. Georgia was kind enough to sit with me after she had already had a day filled with interviews. As always, shout out to Destiny and Kai for turning this around so quickly. Again, I hope you don’t mind me filling up your inbox.
Thanks again to The McKnight Foundation for partnering with me on this project.
WHO’S WITH ME?
Here’s the video I made the day I learned about the arrests.
I had no idea that I would be talking with Georgia only four days later,
The video below details some of the racist attempts to purge black people from positions of authority and to erase the racist history of attacks on black people over time. The video also explains how tRump ordered the agencies of his government to remove black hoildays from the list of free entry days at national parks and instead replaced them with his birthday. This is simply the whitewashing of history, the removing of evidence of the massive racism / damage done to black people in the past, and the purification of the US as a white ethnostate. Just look how tRump refers to black journolists. Hugs
As republicans lose control due to the public being upset with what they are doing they don’t change their views / actions, but instead they try harder to restrict voters rights to vote. They don’t believe in democracy or being public servants; they believe in a one party rule where they are the party in control. Why? Because it gives them all they want, power, fame, fortune, and the ability to control how other people live. The goals of these people who are not interested in others living as who they are and having happy quailty lives but in having total control over how others live to force them to live according to the church doctrines of their version of the religion. But the thing about this SAVE act is it would keep married women from voting if they have not updated all of their identification and other requirements. I experienced this when Ron and I got married. I took his last name. I think everyone who reads the blog understands why. I had to change everything and then take all that documentation to the election supervisor’s office: my marriage certificate, my socialsecurity name change, and so much more. How many people fail to do that and then go to vote and can’t? Hugs
House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation’s voting laws, a long-shot priority for President Donald Trump that would impose stricter requirements, including some before Americans vote in the midterm elections in the fall.
The package released Thursday reflects a number of the party’s most sought-after election changes, including requirements for photo IDs before people can vote and proof of citizenship, both to be put in place in 2027. Others, including prohibitions on universal vote-by-mail and ranked choice voting — two voting methods that have proved popular in some states — would happen immediately. The Republican president continues to insist that the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged.
“Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity — including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” said Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, in a statement.
“These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,” said Steil, R-Wis.
The legislation faces a long road in the narrowly-split Congress, where Democrats have rejected similar ideas as disenfranchising Americans’ ability to vote with onerous registration and ID requirements. The effort comes as the Trump administration is turning its attention toward election issues before the November election, when control of Congress will be at stake.
The administration sent FBI agents Wednesday to raid the election headquarters of Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, seeking ballots from the 2020 election. That follows Trump’s comments earlier this month when he suggested that charges related to that election were imminent.
The top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, said Trump and the Republican Party are trying to “rig” the system.
“This is their latest attempt to block millions of Americans from exercising their right to vote,” Morelle said in a statement. He said he would “fight the bill at every turn.”
Republicans are calling their new legislation the “Make Elections Great Again Act” and say their proposal should provide the minimum standard for elections for federal offices.
The 120-plus-page bill includes requirements that people present a photo ID before they vote and that states verify the citizenship of individuals when they register to vote, starting next year.
More immediately, this fall it would require states to use “auditable” paper ballots in elections, which most already do; prohibit states from mailing ballots to all voters through universal vote-by-mail systems; and ban ranked choice voting, which is used in Maine and Alaska.
States risk losing federal election funds at various junctures for noncompliance. For example, states would be required to have agreements with the attorney general’s office to share information about potential voter fraud or risk losing federal election funds in 2026.
And starting this year, it would require states to more frequently update their voting rolls, every 30 days.
Stephen Richer, a Republican who clashed with Trump over the president’s false election conspiracy theories while he served as the recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona, posted on the social media site X that the bill is reminiscent of a Democratic effort to reshape national elections in the opposite direction that floundered during Biden’s term.
He wrote that the legislation “flattens federalism, and takes away many rights from the states.”
Similar Republican proposals have drawn alarm from voting rights group, which say such changes could lead to widespread problems for voters.
For example, prior Republican efforts to require proof of citizenship to vote have been criticized by Democrats as disenfranchising married women whose last names do not match birth certificates or other government documents.
The Brennan Center for Justice and other groups estimated in a 2023 report that 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of their citizenship readily available. Almost half of Americans do not have a U.S. passport.
Trump has long signaled a desire to change how elections are run in the United States. Last year he issued an executive order that included a citizenship requirement, among other election-related changes.
At the time, House Republicans approved legislation, the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” that would cement Trump’s order into law. That bill has stalled in the Senate, though lawmakers have recently revived efforts to bring it forward for consideration.
….
Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
I often say that a lot of anti-trans anti-gay anti-LGBTQ+ people have their feelings because they don’t feel different from the cis straight majority so can’t understand or accept that such things because they simply don’t feel that way. If they don’t feel it it can’t be real which is the same with how many white people feel about racism. Remember the old question of how do you know you’re gay or trans or lesbian or nonbinary or what ever simply because the people who grew up straight and cis felt normal in society? But if you ask them when they knew or how they knew they were straight and / or cis they are confused. If a boy at 10 comes out as gay the parents freak out, but if that same kid starts showing interest in girls the parents are ecstatic about their boy growing up. Why the difference? Because one fulfills their expectations and the other … well it just is not like them. It simply comes down to tradition and what feels normal for them. Every person who asked me if I tried to change my sexual orientation and there have been so many, to them I ask have you? They act offended. Why would I do that and I reply, then why should I. Then if they persist for some reason that I should do conversion therapy I ask could they convert from their straight / cis desires to being LGBTQ+? Again they are stunned why they would do that and instantly claim not I couldn’t do that. Then again why ask me to do it? Hugs
Providing objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, original journalism that investigates America’s anti-LGBTQ landscape and elevates everyday American heroes. Expect two rigorously reported stories every weekend.
On Oct. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that challenges Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy.
Shortly after, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sent an email to their supporters quoting Paul in Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
The email goes on to say, “You might think that a law like this might be just a ‘Colorado problem.’ Sadly, laws like this exist in 22 other states,” referencing other parts of the U.S. that have instituted conversion therapy bans.
This sort of language about conversion therapy is nothing new for the Christian legal group representing Kaley Chiles. Unlike most legal organizations, ADF is sharply anti-LGBTQ. Since their inception over 30 years ago, the group has fought to maintain anti-sodomy laws, uphold the right to discriminate against gay couples and overturn Roe v. Wade.
In recent years, a major element of their fight has been to legalize the discredited practice of conversion therapy.
The Supreme Court appears poised to rule in favor of ADF, which could effectively invalidate conversion therapy bans for minors by licensed professionals across the U.S. This victory would add to the organization’s already-high win streak, which they say is around 80%.
“I don’t think anyone is undermining LGBTQ rights as relentlessly as ADF,” Peter Montgomery, research director at the advocacy group People for the American Way, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “They’re shaping the culture for generations to come.”
Although nearly every major medical association has denounced conversion therapy, ADF is arguing that disallowing the practice is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
“This case is part of its crusade to turn religious freedom into a license to harm others,” says Amy Tai, the co-author of an amicus brief in Chiles v. Salazar that is urging the Supreme Court to uphold the Colorado law. “It is part of a larger effort and movement to harm LGBTQ people and strip them of their constitutional rights.”
ADF, originally the Alliance Defense Fund, was founded by evangelical anti-gay activists in 1994. Alan Sears, their former CEO and president, co-authored “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.” The book calls homosexuality a “disordered sexual behavior” and equates it with pedophilia and states that gay people on college campuses are involved in “the promotion of sexual relations between adults and children.”
D. James Kennedy, another founder, has preached about “reparative” therapy for gay folks. In a 1993 fundraising letter for his Christian media organization Coral Ridge Ministries, he asked “Would you want your son, daughter, or grandchild sharing a shower, foxhole, or blood with a homosexual?”
A third founder was the late James Dobson, who advised several presidents and argued that conversion therapy could “cure” people.
Since ADF launched, many powerful political figures with anti-LGBTQ beliefs have worked for them. While working as an ADF spokesperson between 2002 and 2010, House Speaker Mike Johnson described gay folks as “destructive” and argued that support for homosexuality could lead to support for pedophilia.
Kristen Waggoner speaking at a press conference in 2018 (Groversawit)
And their current president, Kristen Waggoner, has delegitimized the harm conversion therapy causes by defining the practice as merely having conversations.
Today, their influence in the U.S. government is stronger than ever, with ties to all three branches. In addition to Speaker Johnson, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has been a paid speaker for ADF at least five times since 2011. And in May, President Donald Trump appointed Waggoner to the newly-formed Religious Liberty Commission.
All of these resources and connections are employed to advance an anti-LGBTQ agenda. “They want to see what they see as the God-defined order for gender and marriage be imposed into law,” Montgomery says. “They are trying to create a legal regime in which people can claim religious beliefs to opt out of laws that apply to everyone else.”
History of Fighting to Criminalize Homosexuality and Legalize Conversion Therapy
Over time, ADF has incorporated these viewpoints into their litigation to try and dismantle legal protections for LGBTQ people.
“Just 20 years ago, they were still arguing in court that states should be able to criminalize gay people,” says Montgomery.
In 2000, for example, ADF funded amicus briefs in Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, a case where an assistant scoutmaster sued the Boy Scouts after the organization revoked his membership for being gay. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of ADF.
In 2003, when support for gay marriage was still low in the U.S., they filed an amicus brief to uphold the criminalization of gay sex in Lawrence v. Texas, arguing that the state has a right to regulate “public health and morality.” The group lost the case and sodomy laws were banned nationwide.
As public opinion changed and gay marriage became legal across America in 2015, ADF shifted to more nuanced arguments. “Now, because they know that most Americans favor LGBTQ equality, they’ve really reframed their arguments [around] religious liberty and free speech,” says Montgomery.
The organization has since set its sights on overturning state bans on conversion therapy. In 2018, ADF Senior Counsel Matt Sharp argued against a California bill that classified conversion therapy as fraud. And in 2019, the group sued New York City for a similar law, which led the city to reverse the ban out of fear the case would reach the Supreme Court.
A few years later, in 2021, ADF fought to overturn a statewide conversion therapy ban in Washington, where they represented Christian therapist Brian Tingley. In this instance, they argued that Washington’s law censored Tingley from speaking about gender dysphoria.
A federal appeals court unanimously upheld Washington’s law, with Circuit Judge Ronald Gould shutting down ADF’s argument, writing that: “Washington, like other states, has concluded that health care providers should not be able to treat a child by such means as telling him that he is ‘the abomination we had heard about in Sunday school.’”
Learning from their mistakes, ADF tried again with Chiles v. Salazar, claiming the Colorado law discriminates against Chiles’ viewpoint. Chiles is an evangelical therapist who received her counseling training and education from a seminary.
In their arguments to the Supreme Court, ADF says the conversion therapy ban encourages therapists to help minors explore LGBTQ identities and condemns assisting patients to align with their assigned gender.
Though intended to ban conversion therapy for all LGBTQ people, ADF’s case focuses on gender identity, capitalizing on souring U.S. public opinion on trans rights.
“Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” ADF wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court.
“ADF has tried to draw a connection between laws prohibiting conversion therapy and states attempting to force mental health professionals or doctors to treat transgender youth,” Christopher Stoll, senior staff attorney at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. But if the law passes, conversion therapy would become legal to practice on all LGBTQ people.
Another part of ADF’s success stems from manufacturing legal battles to advance cases that match their goals.
Chiles, for example, had not incurred any legal penalty from the Colorado district attorney. Instead, ADF filed a pre-enforcement lawsuit, claiming that she had censored herself and stopped accepting patients for conversion therapy following the law’s passage.
“All of these cases are, in a sense, made up cases. … They’re brought on behalf of therapists who have not actually been subject to any kind of investigation or penalty by either state or local governments,” says Stoll, who is representing Kansas City, Mo. as ADF and Missouri’s Attorney General challenge the city’s ban on conversion therapy.
This strategy is what makes ADF stand out. Montgomery says that unlike many other legal organizations, ADF also helps file lawsuits and writes the bills that directly challenge precedents and legislation they hope to change.
This was in part how they were effective in overturning Roe v. Wade. ADF drafted the Gestational Age Act, which banned abortion in Mississippi after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That law then became the central point of the Dobbs case, which overturned abortion rights nationwide.
“They’re just engineered to test these legal arguments, when really no dispute has arisen,” says Stoll.
When asked for comment, an Alliance Defending Freedom Media Relations Specialist redirected Uncloseted Media to a website criticizing the Southern Poverty Law Center, saying the group mischaracterizes ADF as a hate group.
How ADF Operates Globally
ADF’s efforts to dismantle conversion therapy and LGBTQ rights span far beyond the U.S. Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADFI) boasts about efforts in 70 countries, where they push anti-LGBTQ legislation as far as possible in each country.
In 2012, ADF’s then-legal counsel Piero Tozzi spoke at a conference in Jamaica, advocating for the prohibition of gay sex, stating that the “retention of the legislation prohibiting sodomy is a bulwark against this agenda.” And in 2013, members of ADF defended a statute in Belize that characterized LGBTQ sex as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”
“They’re one of the most powerful and influential Christian right religious extremist groups that we have operating in Europe,” Neil Datta, executive director of the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Datta says with offices in six cities with international human rights centers, ADFI contacts political allies throughout the continent, feeding them legal briefs and direct arguments. Then, those partners take that information and rejig it to align with their country’s political discourse.
“They’re hiring Europeans, training them in the American model of social issues litigation from an anti-rights perspective, and then hoping that [they] will be running with this in European courts,” Datta says. “They bring know-how and capacity to the continent.”
Datta says the U.S. is where the organization conducts its litmus tests for anti-LGBTQ laws and legal arguments: “In the U.S., you have 50 little courts that you can try things out in,” he says. “[ADF] has their own range of different areas that they would like to be active in, and they hunt for opportunities where they can make some progress.”
That includes the defense of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen, who in 2021 was tried for hate speech for condemning a Lutheran church for supporting a Pride event. With ADFI’s assistance, Räsänen was acquitted in 2023.
Making Headway to Ban Conversion Therapy Abroad
While ADFI has yet to succeed in overturning conversion therapy bans in Europe, Datta says some politicians with links to the group have promoted reintegrative therapy, another form of therapy that attempts to help folks suppress same-sex attraction. While the term attempts to distance itself from conversion therapy, it uses similar procedures to the condemned practice.
However, Datta says ADFI is taking steps to shift the discourse by lobbying against the Digital Services Act, a European Union regulation for online hate speech.
In October, ADFI penned a letter to the European Commission asking the organization to review the law. ADF has also posted various blogs on the legislation, one posing a hypothetical about gender identity, stating, “Let’s say you went on Facebook … to post something as common sense as believing that there are only two genders. … If someone were to report that as hate speech, the E.U. could pressure Meta … to remove the post lest it face those stiff financial penalties.”
ADFI has also expanded its horizons to Africa. In May, Bettina Roska, an ADFI legal officer based in Geneva, joined a consortium of anti-LGBTQ advocates in a Pan-African conference on “family values” in Nairobi, Kenya.
“They are trying to do the same thing in Africa, around the African Union, and the African human rights system,” Jamie Vernaelde, senior researcher at Ipas, a non-governmental organization that focuses on reducing the harm of U.S. foreign policy, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Back in the U.S., the Supreme Court will rule on Chiles v. Salazar before the end of its current term next year. Their decision will potentially clear the way for conversion therapy to be practiced nationwide and abroad.
Vernaelde says that if Chiles v. Salazar is successful, ADF is hoping to bring their fight against conversion therapy worldwide in the same way they are expanding their anti-abortion lawsuits. Today, the group is attempting to undo abortion protections in the U.K. with the help of allies in the country’s right-wing Reform party.
“This is a template that they can use in other places that they can spread as widely as they want through their networks,” says Vernaelde.
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