“And which brands would you like to put in your parents’ promotions tab this year?”
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Political cartoons / memes / and news I want to share. 12-24-2025
A SCOTUS Decision Upon Which Many Of Us Waited: Trump v. Illinois
It is a .pdf. I was going to say, if you don’t want to read it top to bottom, go to the last (25th) page, but Justice Alito’s dissent is lengthy and verbose. (Yes, maybe worse than I, so I’ve given pages of particular pertinence here.) Justice Thomas joined him in that, then Justice Gorsuch also dissented on his own. Justice Kavanaugh concurred with the decision on page 2, denying the Petitioner, and in favor of The State Of Illinois. There is language there to read, as the scope was kept narrow by the Court: no stay, and as to various statements or defenses of Petitioner no finding of good application to the case. The concurrence (by Kavanaugh) agreed but named a circumstance in which he would have ruled to issue the stay. It’s a page and a half. I suggest reading it all, but I’m a nerd that way. This is a win, as long as protestors stay well-behaved, as we do.
NPR: Federal judge says U.S. must give due process to deported Venezuelans
Federal judge says U.S. must give due process to deported Venezuelans
Judge James Boasberg said the U.S. denied due process to the Venezuelan men it deported to a prison in El Salvador after President Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/A8wU4EF63Taeev4FbSXfVzg
Shared from Apple News
Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie
A Steve Hofstetter Short
It’s pretty funny!
The White House’s new media ‘bias’ tracker is a desperate gimmick Margaret Sullivan
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/02/white-house-media-bias-tracker-gimmick
The White House’s new media ‘bias’ tracker is a desperate gimmick
The site isn’t exposing misleading reporting – it’s revealing the bubble Trump increasingly inhabits
‘Given that bubble, harsh reality via the media is a rude intrusion.’ Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Donald Trump has used the mainstream press as a punching bag for many years, but in recent weeks his jabs have become even more frequent – and more ill-tempered.
He threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn last month over the editing of a documentary that aired more than a year ago. He called one White House reporter “piggy”, and told another – the well-regarded Mary Bruce of ABC News – that she was a “terrible person and a terrible reporter”. He called a New York Times reporter “ugly, both inside and out”.
And last Friday, his White House unveiled the latest wrinkle: a new website that supposedly tracks media bias. It offers a “Hall of Shame” and “media offenders of the week” to focus on reporting that the president dislikes. It names individuals and news organizations, and it points to the Boston Globe and CBS News, among others, for doing supposedly misleading and biased work. It uses terms like “left wing lunacy” to describe some of its complaints.
The site’s first iteration is particularly focused on media reporting about Trump’s call for six Democratic members of Congress to be arrested, tried and punished for their supposedly “seditious” video reminding military and intelligence personnel that they are not obliged to follow illegal orders. Trump even boosted a social media post that shouted: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD” (He later told Fox News he wasn’t “threatening death, but I think they’re in serious trouble”).
All this for a video in which the members of Congress sought to remind people that military members make an oath to the constitution, not to the president.
“Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders,” Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former astronaut and a US navy veteran, says on the video. Trump has been especially furious about Kelly, who seems like just the wrong person to go after, giving his background of service and high credibility.
The White House site crows that those journalists and outlets who reported on all this are now “exposed”.
There really is something being exposed here, but it’s not the reporting.
It’s Trump’s own increasing desperation and his decreasing ability to countenance anything other than flattery and sycophancy. That’s not what the mainstream press is – or should be – in the business of providing.
But as Jonathan Lemire reported this week in the Atlantic, this president has become more and more isolated lately. His social media appears mostly restricted to his own (poorly named) Truth Social site; his travel is generally not to meet with (or even see) ordinary Americans; instead he tends to hang out with the billionaires who want something from his administration and are willing to cozy up shamelessly to get it.
“President Trump has never before been in such an echo chamber,” according to Lemire. “His domestic travel has basically stopped. He sees rich donors and Maga media, not actual voters.”
Given that bubble, harsh reality via the media is a rude intrusion, and the new White House site is an evident effort to dispel the discomfort by disparaging it.
Who, I wonder, does Trump think he’s reaching with this effort?
The Maga faithful, of course, don’t need to be persuaded. They already are fully on board with anything their dear leader does. And most other Americans – even some of the millions who voted for him – already have his number.
Trump’s overall approval rating of 38% is the lowest since his return to the presidency, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. It has fallen dramatically since the start of that second term and is down two percentage points just since the beginning of November. Even his iron grip on the Republican party has weakened. All of that is a deep worry with the approach of the midterm elections – less than a year away.
Who can he blame?
Why, the press, of course. And that’s precisely what this new site is all about.
Will it work? Granted, trust in the mainstream press is low, so reporters and news organizations are a convenient target of criticism. And granted, media bias exists, though the most blatant is on the far right, the busy pro-Trump propagandists.
But I agree with Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, who told the Washington Post that most people – whatever their politics – aren’t going to buy what this new “bias tracker” is selling.
“People understand the obvious conflict inherent in a presidential administration appointing itself the arbiter of media bias,” Stern said.
That’s especially true for media criticism from those doing the bidding of Trump, who has made his antipathy toward the press so central to his persona.
Calling out inaccurate and biased reporting is a fair pursuit. Journalists are far from flawless; they make mistakes, and the best of them correct those quickly and fully.
But that’s not what this new site is about. And trashing the media is not going to help Trump get out of the trouble – or the bubble – that he’s in.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
Political cartoons / memes / and news I wish to share. 12-23-2025
Wealthy bought SCOTUS, Congress and the White House and they intend to keep them!
Why 1776 and Why Now … ? From Ten Bears
Ten Bears made a post that points out something I think we all should be aware of. I know a lot of the people who come here also go to his site also. But incase anyone missed it this short video is a powerful reminder of what we are fighting in the second tRump dictatorship. Hugs
Entire Library Board Dissolved Over One Picture Book About a Trans Kid
Randolph County Public Library is doing without its Board of Trustees for now.Commissioners in Randolph County, North Carolina dissolved the county library system’s entire board of trustees last week, after the trustees voted to keep a picture book about a transgender boy on library shelves.In October, the Randolph County Public Library’s Board of Trustees voted to keep the picture book Call Me Max on shelves despite some objections from members of the public. The book, written by Kyle Lukoff and illustrated by Luciano Lozano, tells the story of a young trans boy who asks to be called Max at school, eventually leading him to come out to his parents. The Randolph County trustees voted 5-2 to keep the book available, with some trustees reportedly commenting that removing or relocating the book would be a “slippery slope” toward censorship.In response, the Randolph County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 on December 8 to dissolve the library board and its governing bylaws entirely, Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR) reported. Commissioner Hope Haywood, who cast one of the two dissenting votes, told BPR that the other commissioners’ likely intended to appoint new members, but that she had wanted to establish plans to facilitate that process first.
“Three commissioners didn’t see it that way. Three commissioners felt like, just abolish the board and then figure it out,” Haywood told BPR.
Minutes and video of the December 8 meeting were not yet available at time of writing. According to coverage of the meeting by local news website Randolph Hub, commission chairman Darrell Frye made bizarre comments about a member of his family he said had killed themself after being “brainwashed” on social media, apparently in reference to being trans. “It’s about, to me, exposing a child before it’s able to make a decision. It’s personal to me,” Frye reportedly said. Commissioner Kenny Kidd opined that dissolving the board of trustees was “a black-and-white issue,” and that “the soul of our children” was at stake.
“We adhere to the rules for the disposition of materials. We have the responsibility to serve all sides of issues,” trustee Betty Armfield reportedly told the board, adding that it was “parents’ responsibility to choose what they believe are appropriate books for their children.”
Call Me Max will still be available to check out from Randolph libraries in the wake of the commissioners’ vote, the county public information officer told CBS affiliate station WFMY. Still, Lukoff — who won a 2020 Stonewall Book Award for another picture book about a trans boy, When Aidan Became a Brother — lamented the vote and what it represents on Instagram last week.
“A library’s entire board of trustees was fired and replaced because they refused to ban one of my books. It’s so terrible,” Lukoff wrote. “I just feel so bad for the people who live in that community and love their library,” he added in a later reply.
Anti-LGBTQ+ activists have increasingly targeted local and school libraries over the past several years, particularly amid the rise in popularity of “Drag Queen Story Hour” events, some of which have been the subject of bomb threats and harassment from far-right militia groups. Tennessee officials have ordered libraries across the state to remove books with LGBTQ+ themes or characters this year, while in South Carolina, the York County Library board voted last week to move all books dealing with gender identity to sections for patrons aged 13 and older. One conservative activist claimed that move was necessary for “protecting childhood innocence.”
Issues of access to LGBTQ+ materials are increasingly landing in courts. Earlier this year, former Wyoming librarian Terri Lesley settled a wrongful dismissal lawsuit with county officials for $700,000, after she was fired in 2023 for refusing to remove LGBQ+ books from children’s and young adult sections of her library. (Neither party admitted wrongdoing as a result of the settlement.)
“People that want to keep pushing an agenda to go against these library materials and the First Amendment, I hope they see this, and I hope it’s a deterrent,” Lesley told CBC Radio in October.
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Samantha Riedel is a writer and editor whose work on transgender culture and politics has previously appeared in VICE, Bitch Magazine, and The Establishment. She lives in Massachusetts, where she is presently at work on her first manuscript. … Read More
Dr Oz furious over ‘$150k penis surgery’ for trans youth – here’s the truth
Dr Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Mehmet Oz, better-known as Dr Oz, has raged about “$150k penis surgery” for trans youth, but he failed to cite any facts.
Dr Oz, who leads Medicaid and Medicare, announced on Thursday (18 December), alongside health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, measures that will ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.
The ban, part of Dr Oz’s bid to end “taxpayer funding of sex rejecting procedures for children in Medicaid and CHIP [children’s health insurance program], full stop”, takes the form of two new proposed rules from Medicaid and Medicare.
The first prevents doctors and hospitals from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursement for gender-affirming care provided to trans youth under the age of 18, while the second blocks all Medicaid and Medicare funding for any services at hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care.
Medicaid, which is the health care program that covers low-income Americans, alongside older and disabled citizens, is taken at most hospitals, meaning the proposals could have a wide-ranging effect, as per New Hampshire Public Radio.
During announcing the proposals, Kennedy referred to gender-affirming care as “malpractice”, while Dr Oz went completely off topic.
The 65-year-old began ranting about the prices of bottom surgery, which is very rarely performed on individuals under 18.
“A vaginoplasty – a procedure a child does not need – costs $60,000,” he claimed, adding: “Shockingly, a phalloplasty, the creation of a penis, costs, on average, in America, $150,000 per child.
“I do believe, with doing some work, that these prices have continued to increase due to increased manufactured demand,” he continued. “A scrotalplasty, where you add testicles? That’s extra.”
Dr Oz didn’t clarify where he pulled his quoted figures from, but according to the Gender Confirmation Center, the price of a vaginoplasty is between $23,000 and $24,500, while phalloplasty ranges between $35,000 and $50,000.
According to 2025 data from the Williams Institute, about one per cent of people aged 13 and older identify as trans in the US, and despite the proposals attacking gender-affirming care for trans youth, multiple studies show that surgeries are rarely performed on minors.
A 2024 study by researchers at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health found that no gender-affirming surgeries were performed on trans or gender diverse youth (TGD) aged 12 and younger in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available.
For teens ages 15 to 17 and adults ages 18 and older, the rate of undergoing gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000 and 5.3 per 100,000, respectively. The majority of surgeries were chest surgeries.
Co-author Elizabeth Boskey, instructor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, said: “We found that gender-affirming surgeries are rarely performed for transgender minors, suggesting that US surgeons are appropriately following international guidelines around assessment and care.”
Lead author Dannie Dai, research data analyst in the Department of Health Policy and Management, added: “Our findings suggest that legislation blocking gender-affirming care among TGD youth is not about protecting children, but is rooted in bias and stigma against TGD identities and seeks to address a perceived problem that does not actually exist.”
Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.
ICE tore her away from her wife. Now she’s suffering in an endless legal limbo.
Greg OwenDecember 21, 2025, 5:00 pm ESTShutterstock
A same-sex female couple in Pennsylvania is suffering through a “Kafkaesque nightmare” after one of the women was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when she showed up for a regularly scheduled immigration check-in.
ICE agents detained her and shipped her to a detention center in California.
Xiomara Suarez, 28, arrived in the U.S. in 2022 seeking asylum after fleeing Peru, where she was stalked and endured a violent sexual assault based on her sexual orientation. In a sworn declaration to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials reviewed by Advocate, Suarez said Peruvian police refused to acknowledge her complaints or offer protection, and she feared for her life.
Suarez was admitted to the U.S. on “parole” as her request for permanent status was processed.
In February, Suarez married her then-girlfriend, Grazi Chiosque, 29, an American citizen. The couple hoped to adjust Suarez’s immigration status and smooth the way for her to obtain a green card. They filed the required documents in May.
Before that request was processed, however, Suarez was swept up in a wave of detentions by ICE at courthouses targeting immigrants scheduled for hearings — only to be arrested and shipped to detention centers despite their legal non-criminal status.
Suarez was now one of them.
Chiosque says her wife is enduring degrading and isolating conditions at the Adelanto ICE detention facility in Southern California, where she’s been detained since September.
“There’s mold in the food,” Chiosque said. “You don’t have any privacy.”
“She was put into shackles,” Suarez’s wife added. “She told me that crying because it really made her feel like she did something that was wrong, and she didn’t.”
Far from expediting Suarez’s immigration status, the couple’s decision to marry may have only complicated Suarez’s legal claim.
Earlier this month, she was scheduled for back-to-back appearances with government officials. The first was with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to adjudicate her spousal petition. The second was before an immigration judge related to her detention and status in the country.
Chiosque flew from Pennsylvania to help Suarez through the process.
At the first appointment, a supervisor with Citizenship and Immigration Services told Chiosque, referring to her wife, “USCIS does not have jurisdiction because she’s detained.”
“The immigration judge would have to adjudicate on both,” Chiosque was told.
But at that hearing, the explanation flipped, Chiosque said.
“‘No, I don’t have jurisdiction on the I-130,” the judge told Suarez, referring to her spousal petition. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“If USCIS does not want to give you an interview,” he added, “contact your congressman.”
The couple had hoped their marriage claim would help expedite Suarez’s permanent residency. Now it was keeping her behind bars.
“USCIS says it’s not them because she’s detained. And the judge says it’s not them, it’s USCIS,” Chiosque said.
Suarez was returned to detention. Her next immigration hearing is scheduled for January 28.
The couple’s legal limbo is indicative of a broader, and intentional, pattern by ICE and the Trump administration, said Álvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
“This administration is separating and trapping families like Xiomara and Grazielli in a Kafkaesque nightmare, with the clear intention of making life so unbearable that they abandon all hope,” Huerta said. “It’s not only a policy failure, but also a betrayal of LGBTQ immigrant families who deserve dignity, safety, and the chance to thrive.”
“It feels like we’re begging,” said Chiosque, whose wife sits in detention a continent away.
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Scottie's Playtime 