So what is the goal here, to save money, or ultimately to kill unhealthy Americans that Republicans think are a drag on their wallets? Inside U.S. health agencies, workers confront chaos and questions as operations come ungluedflip.it/3rz_Ee
Jonathan says that when he asked a border agent to repeat a question, the reply was, “Are you deaf or just retarded?” He adds that he was then told, “Trump is back in town, we’re doing things the way we should have always been doing them.” Hit the link for much more. No paywall.
The quote below is only because they thought it would hand control over the schools to the republican religious haters like themselves. They fought for and got the right of a small minority to force their opinion on the majority of parents. They got the removal of books they hate and also forced in to the schools of their religion. It did not matter if a majority of parents wanted their children to have access to these books it was only the haters parental rights that mattered, not other kids parents. The progressive parents were not given the same authority that the republican religious haters were. Hugs
Ironically, Moms for Liberty, a group that has advocated for local control over schools, is now complicit in handing that power to the federal government.
The Trump administration’s weaponization of the Education Department continued apace on Thursday with the debut of what some are calling a “snitch line” — a website inviting parents, students and school staff to report “illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning.”
“The Department of Education (DOE) will utilize community submissions to identify potential areas for investigation,” the department notes.
The post went viral and fueled a confrontation with Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills.
The website was introduced in a press release by Moms for Liberty, the group behind efforts to purge LGBTQ+ content from school libraries and apparently a new partner in the DOE’s crackdown on school systems not falling in line with Trump’s DEI and “gender ideology” executive diktats.
“For years, parents have been begging schools to focus on teaching their kids practical skills like reading, writing, and math, instead of pushing critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies — but their concerns have been brushed off, mocked, or shut down entirely,” said Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of the group, which has been labelled an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Parents, now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools. This webpage demonstrates that President Trump’s Department of Education is putting power back in the hands of parents,” Justice added.
Ironically, Moms for Liberty, a group that has advocated for local control over schools, is now complicit in handing that power to the federal government.
Critics were aghast at the call for colleagues and kids to anonymously rat out anyone not falling in line with the rightwing ideology Trump is imposing from Washington.
“I believe Hitler had a program like this,” wrote Michael E. Mann, a scientist, author and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media.
I believe Hitler had a program like thiswww.salon.com/2025/02/27/m…
“Trump Education Department opens snitch line to rat out diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at local public schools,” wrote Gabe Ortíz, an editor at America’s Voice who focuses on immigration, LGBTQ+ and Latino issues.
“The fact that Trump’s — bigoted, extremist — effort to end diversity, inclusion, & equity in schools uses Moms for Liberty as its only validation tells you everything you need to know. The same Moms for Liberty that approvingly quoted Hitler & has deep ties to violent groups like the Proud Boys,” wrote Amy Spitalnick, CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
The DOE website’s launch follows a growing number of investigations undertaken by multiple departments targeting DEI and noncompliance with Trump’s “gender ideology” order.
The DOE’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating California and Minnesota schools. Maine is also the subject of a probe by the same office and the Department of Agriculture, recieving a threatening letter from the Attorney General Pam Bondi at the Department of Justice.
Another DOE probe targets San Jose State University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) for separate incidents involving trans athletes competing on a women’s or girls’ sports team under Biden-era rules.
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In another reversal of the Biden administration’s expansion of federal protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has eliminated language in internal documents prohibiting the surveillance of individuals or groups based solely on their sexual orientation or gender identity, Bloomberg reports.
The terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” which were added to the list of protected groups and individuals at the direction of the Biden administration, have been removed.
Language in the manual now reads, “OSIC [Open Source Intelligence Collection] Personnel are prohibited from engaging in intelligence activities based solely on an individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, sex, religion, country of birth, nationality, or disability. The use of these characteristics is permitted only in combination with other information, and only where (1) intended and reasonably believed to support one or more of [Intelligence and Analysis’] national or departmental missions and (2) narrowly focused in support of that mission (or those missions).”
The Trump administration reversed Biden’s executive order facilitating the addition of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the intelligence agency’s prohibited list on his first day in office.
Biden’s order, signed on his own first day in office and titled “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation,” was hailed at the time by the Human Rights Campaign as “the most substantive, wide-ranging executive order concerning sexual orientation and gender identity ever issued by a United States president. Today, millions of Americans can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that their President and their government believe discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is not only intolerable but illegal.”
The Office of Intelligence and Analysis focuses on domestic intelligence gathering, often involving U.S. citizens and others in the country.
It “has a long track record of civil liberties and civil rights abuses,” according to theBrennan Center for Justice.
“Since at least 2016, I&A officers have conducted interviews with people held in jails without sufficient constitutional protections, targeted journalists and activists protesting local monuments under the guise of homeland security, surveilled racial justice demonstrators, and monitored political views shared by millions of Americans — about topics like abortion, government, and elections — that DHS baldly asserts will lead to violence,” the group said following passage of the National Defense Authorization Act in 2024.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a longtime LGBTQ+ antagonist, was confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in January.
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This is an important story even though it is an older one. This shows how the rights constant badgering companies and using the idea of protecting the children, calling those who understand at LGBTQ+ children like to see themselves represented in an accepting world. This shows how the rights not stop attacks on the rights of minorities over the last 6 years are working to erode the expectancy, tolerance, and the representation of these minorities. The haters on the right are loud and very vocal, they give their opinion nonstop using incorrect misleading studies or lies. We need to be just as loud and in your face to fight back. Democrats need to start / return to defending the LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people. The democrats shrank back and hid letting the republicans loudly lie and misinform people. The republicans spend 215 million attacking trans people in the presidential election. Kamala Harris did not fight back, did not call out the adverts misinformation and lies, did not spend money attacking those ads. She gave one lame response when directly asked about the trans ad attacks. She minimized them and barely pushed back. But notice it is an openly Christian character not one of the other religions. Hugs
The Win or Lose series is Pixar’s first-ever original long-form animated series. It follows the Pickles, a co-ed middle school softball team, throughout the week as they prepare for their upcoming championship game.
Each episode focuses on a different character and their life off the field, including “the insecure kids, their helicopter parents” and “even a lovesick umpire.” It premiered on Disney+ on February 19, 2025.
In the debut episode, the character of Laurie is introduced, and is openly Christian. This character begins her scene with the words, “heavenly father” and there is an angel cutout in her bedroom.”
A spokesperson for Disney confirmed that the story arc was removed and provided the following statement to Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter: “When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”
This is the first openly Christian character to feature in a Disney film since 2007’s Bridge to Terabithia. The film features young adolescent children Jesse Aarons (played by Josh Hutcherson) and Leslie Burke (played by AnnaSophia Robb) , who in one scene attend church together, and discuss religion on the way home.
Trump and his allies have often been critical of Disney and what they describe as its “woke” policies. In a May 2023 social media post, Trump branded the entertainment juggernaut a “woke and disgusting shadow of its former self,” criticizing its move toward diverse casting in some of its recent movie remakes.
Following raging culture wars over such issues as LGBTQ+ rights and diversity, equity and inclusion, Disney appears to be tempering its approach towards inclusion.
An exclusive poll for Newsweek conducted by Redfield and Wilton Strategies in July found that 34 percent of viewers disapproved of Disney’s attempt to add more LGBTQ+ topics to its content.
Since returning to office, Trump has signed an order that rolled back transgender rights, emphasizing the importance of the issue to his agenda in his second term. Trump’s executive order declared that the federal government would recognize only two sexes: male and female.
What People Are Saying
Mark Mitchell of Rasmussen Reports on X: “Openly gay out. Openly Christian in!”
One social media user on X: “Again f*** Disney for removing the trans storyline from WIN OR LOSE, but so far it’s a great show.”
Another social media user on X: “Another week, another two incredible Win or Lose episodes. The way they show both the kid’s and parent’s struggles and perspectives is top-notch. The animation, the story, the voice acting, the music… it’s all PERFECT. The team behind this show is just brilliant.”
What’s Next
Episodes of Win or Lose are being released each week up until March 12.
A second season of the show has not yet been announced.
The two quotes from the article I added just below what I am writing give away the Fundamentalist Christian republican’s goal, which is to make those people they disagree with, that they hate, disappear from society. Their goal by taking LGBTQ+ media out of schools is to make it appear that all kids are straight and cis. No one can be different from them or their beliefs. Everyone must walk lockstep with them, their way is the only way people can live. Holy dictators. Their goal is to erase anyone different from them from the public view, from society. We must not let them do that. Hugs
A controlled production of “knowledge” maintains the marginality of other groups, and it denies exposure to multiple perspectives.
The institutionalization of a hegemonic norm functions to legitimize what can be said, who has the authority to speak and be heard, and what is authorized as the truth.
Former President Donald Trump speaks about border security at a rally at Million Air, a private airplane terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Friday October 25, 2024.
“When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.”-Adrienne Rich
The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could possibly perpetuate the “psychic disequilibrium” that Adrienne Rich laments.
Trump’s Department of Education called the suggestion that rightwingers are trying to ban book a “hoax.”
The case arose from conflicts between those in favor of teaching LGBTQ+ topics in schools and those who believe in so-called parents’ rights on religious grounds when it comes to the education of their children. The case stems from some parents’ concerns about a policy sanctioned by the Montgomery County Board of Education requiring new elementary school storybooks covering LGBTQ+ topics that could be read in class.
One of the contested books is titled “Pride Puppy!” and is about a puppy who gets lost in the crowd during an LGBTQ+ Pride parade.
When the policy first passed, parents could opt their children out of the curriculum, but later, the board reversed that part. In this demographically diverse school district, some Christian and Muslim parents, in particular, objected. I wonder, though, whether they think parents should be allowed to opt their children out of reading age-appropriate stories about Jewish or Asian people, for example.
This case harkens back to one of the earlier curricular programs created in 1991 by the New York City Board of Education. The Children of the Rainbow Curriculum was introduced to first-grade teachers to “assist with teaching about multicultural social issues.” The board developed the program to counter the increase in hate crimes directed against members of marginalized communities.
The curriculum contained 443 pages of suggested readings, activities, and other lectures, all designed to help teachers promote academic and social skills while teaching about diversity.
Unfortunately, the section on families that covered LGBTQ+ people incited enormous criticism. Some opponents argued that it promoted sex and sodomy to kids.
The battle gained significant publicity, and the New York City Department of Education ultimately voted against accepting the entire Children of the Rainbow Curriculum.
And the moments of psychic disequilibrium continued.
Surplus Repression & Anti-Knowing
Of course, parents and other adults have the inherent responsibility of protecting young people from harming themselves and being harmed by others and of teaching them how to live and function in society within our ever-changing global community.
In Freudian terms, we must develop a balance between the individual’s unrestrained instinctual drives and that person’s restraints (repression) on these drives in the service of maintaining society (civilization) and sustaining the life of the individual.
Nonetheless, we must establish a line demarcating protection from control, teaching from oppression, and minimal and fundamental repression from what Herbert Marcuse terms “surplus repression” (that which goes over and beyond what is necessary for the protection of the individual and the smooth functioning of society and enters into the realm of domination, control, and oppression).
Authorizing the “truth”
When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall.
Paul Simon laments in his song “Kodachrome” that his education consisted of neutralizing, meaningless content. “Everything looks worse in black and white,” he sang of the whitewashing of his lessons.
Metaphorically, most schools teach only in black and white, whereas most students want the array of colors Paul Simon wished for: “Those nice bright colors: the greens of summers, makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah.”
Unfortunately, Simon’s educational system took his Kodachrome away: the camera film that captured the full spectrum of the rainbow from the brightest reds, oranges, and yellows, to the darkest blues and browns and deepest purples.
Schools across the nation are attempting to function amidst increased book banning and control of course content by state legislatures under the false flag of “parental rights.” It’s all part of the current tide of right-wing takeovers of educational systems.
People on the political right transform terms like “woke” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” into hate-filled and frightening epithets. In the process, they have driven us away from the underlying purpose of education.
The term “education” is derived from two Latin roots: “e,” meaning “out of,” and “ducere,” meaning “to lead” or “to draw.”
In its original translation and intent, education includes the process of drawing knowledge out of the student or leading the student toward knowledge. This is in contrast to the placing or depositing information into what some educators perceive as the students’ waiting and docile minds, or what the Brazilian philosopher and educator Paulo Reglus Neves Freire termed “the banking system of education.”
Surrounding forces – religion, parenting, schooling, and other types of socialization – often inhibit the maintenance of critical thinking facilities in young and old alike.
Let us take, for example, the Biblical warning in Genesis 2: 16-17, related to the story of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’”
The apples on that tree represent knowledge. When eaten, this “forbidden fruit” unlocks levels of knowing that can more than overturn the apple cart. But more importantly, it can give the knower a full-color spectrum of the workings of the world. We are encouraged, nonetheless, to think only in the black and white determined by those in power.
Figures like the biblical Eve and Greek Pandora, women, are blamed for the downfall of “man.” In fact, they were strong women who refused to be trapped under the thumbs of the patriarchy.
Additionally, the ancient Greek legend of Prometheus casts a cautionary tale on the gifting of knowledge. The chief of the gods, Zeus, punished him for offering mortals the best of the sections from a slaughtered cow while giving the gods the remaining fat and bones.
After an infuriated Zeus took back fire from humanity, Prometheus stole and returned it to mortals, thus turning the darkness from the spectrum of black and white to technicolor once again.
For Prometheus’ crime of returning light and knowledge to humankind, Zeus had Prometheus chained to the Caucasus Mountains and sent an eagle to eat his immortal liver every day, which grew back every night.
Literature and cinema likewise warn of the horrific and often fatal risks of challenging the limitations placed by the powerful on the accumulation of knowledge.
The first film in the “Planet of the Apes” franchise, released in 1968, can be understood as a recreation of the legend of Prometheus. A U.S.-based crew crash land their space vehicle on a strange planet in the distant future amounting to nearly 2000 years advancement on Earth, as they traveled at the speed of light.
The crew, led by Taylor – the Prometheus character – discover that the planet is ruled by a species of apes who possess what to the Earthlings appear as human-like qualities, including speech, high reasoning, and cultural artifacts such as museums, medicine, constructed homes, a judicial system, and written religious and governing scrolls.
A community of humans on this planet, on the other hand, lacks the facility of speech and operates on an animal-like intellectual level. The apes hunt, enslave, and murder humans to keep them from invading their gardens and stealing food and to use them in medical and psychological experiments.
Taylor rebels and protests his treatment by challenging the hierarchical ranking of apes over humans. Two apes listen to Taylor and befriend him, Zira and Cornelius, and they eventually come to believe that what they have been socialized to accept as factual was somehow manipulated and falsified.
Blond-furred Dr. Zaius (Zeus), Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith, knows the truth regarding the origins of his species and the rise and fall of humans through industrialization and the power of the atom, which terminated life as it had been once known. His primary objective has been to keep the fire of “knowledge” away from his ape community and humans.
He attempts to destroy any artifacts and other remnants of pre-nuclear holocaust human society to keep alive the myth of perennial simian superiority. Knowledge, therefore, represents overturning the proverbial apple cart, undermining origin myths, and challenging hierarchal positionings.
These genesis/origin stories are examples of the concept of “hegemony,” a term coined by social theorist Antonio Gramsci to describe the ways in which the dominant group successfully disseminates dominant social realities and social visions in a manner accepted as common sense and part of the natural order.
This controlled production of “knowledge” maintains the marginality of other groups, and it denies exposure to multiple perspectives.
The institutionalization of a hegemonic norm functions to legitimize what can be said, who has the authority to speak and be heard, and what is authorized as the truth.
This was certainly the case in Nazi Germany. In 1933, Nazi stormtroopers invaded, ransacked, and closed The Institute for Sexual Sciences in Berlin, founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish and homosexual sexuality researcher. The Institute conducted early sexuality research and was a precursor of the Indiana-based Kinsey Institute in the United States.
Storm troopers carried away and torched over 10,000 volumes of books and research documents calling the Institute “an international center of the white-slave trade” and “an unparalleled breading ground of dirt and filth.”
Soon thereafter, Nazis and conservative university students throughout Germany invaded Jewish organizations and libraries, confiscating books they deemed “un-German.”
The German Student Association (Deutsche Studentenschaft) declared a national “Action against the Un-German Spirit.” On May 10, 1933, students and Nazi leaders across Germany set ablaze over 25,000 volumes. Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, fired up the Berlin crowd of over 40,000 sympathizers by declaring, “No to decadence and moral corruption. Yes to decency and morality in family and state.”
In 2018, we witnessed anti-LGBTQ+ Christian crusader Paul Dorr check out four LGBTQ+-inclusive children’s books from the Orange City, Iowa Public Library and burn them in a 27-minute October 2018 video diatribe on Facebook. – Dorr is the founder of Rescue the Perishing, a group “contending against moral evil to advance the Kingdom of Christ.”
The books in question were Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan; Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, by Christine Baldacchino; This Day In June, by Gayle E. Pitman; and Families, Families, Families!, by Suzanne and Max Lang.
In his video rant, Dorr argued that Two Boys Kissing was “designed to get 12-to-13-year-old boys to start having homosexual sex together.”
The fight for all the colors
To build off of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famed poem:
First they came for Leaves of Grass, and I did not speak out — Because I was not gay.
Then they came for Stone Butch Blues, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a transgender person.
Then they came for Critical Race Theory and Beloved, and I did not speak out — Because I was not Black.
Then they came for Maus, and I did not speak out — Because I am a Christian and not a Jew.
Then they came for books representing my experiences and identities — and there was no one left to speak out for me.
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So what happened to the idea of the right just wanting immigrants to come here legally. Right? All they wanted was to get the illegals and criminals out. But these are people who came here the legal way and are working, living their lives as good members of the communities. No see to the current white supremacists the crime was brown people coming to the US at all. They want a white majority in charge with others second class or lower people. tRump once asked why no one from the Scandinavian countries immigrate to the US. The reason tRump wants them is they are white. But their country is doing so much better than ours and rated so much higher on the happiness index so why would they. The only ones who want to come here are from countries the US has made worse, ruined, and allowed for dictators or drug lords to take over. Hugs
The move could leave over 900,000 immigrants vulnerable to deportation — unless they self-deport, DHS said.
“Under federal law, Secretary [Kristi] Noem — in support of the president — has full authority to revoke parole,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
The Trump administration is revoking parole status for immigrants who entered the U.S. via the Biden-era CBP One app, in a push to get immigrants to voluntarily leave the country.
“Under federal law, Secretary [Kristi] Noem — in support of the president — has full authority to revoke parole. Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement.
Some immigrants began receiving formal email notices from the DHS on Tuesday stating that the department would be using its discretionary authority to revoke parole. The move could leave over 900,000 immigrants vulnerable to deportation.
The CBP One app, launched in January 2023, was one of the Biden administration’s key efforts to control illegal immigration, by organizing appointments at different ports of entry along the southern border for immigrants seeking asylum. The parole designation protected immigrants from deportation and also issued work authorizations for up to two years.
The Trump administration quickly suspended the app’s appointment system and rebranded it as CBP Home — with a built-in function for immigrants to report their intention to leave the U.S.
“Formal termination notices have been issued, and affected aliens are urged to voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home App,” the DHS spokesperson said. “Those who refuse will be found, removed, and permanently barred from reentry.”
The parolees designated under United for Ukraine — which provided legal status for Ukrainians affected by the war — and Operation Allies Welcome — which resettled Afghans following the U.S. exit from Afghanistan — will not be affected, DHS added.
You know this is what the fundamentalist religious right wants to do this here. This is one of the reasons the maga right loves Russia and Putin, he hates who they hate. He wants a straight cisgender stereotypical white society the same as they do. Hugs
Russia’s Interior Ministry has plans for a sweeping electronic database of LGBTQ+ people in the country, Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet, revealed this week.
Citing anonymous sources at the Interior Ministry, the outlet reported that the Orwellian plan has been in discussion since last year after Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed the so-called “international LGBT movement” as an “extremist organization” at the urging of President Vladimir Putin.
Raids and arrests at LGBTQ+ clubs have become commonplace across the country.
The database will be a “large-scale” system to track members of the LGBTQ+ community at large, according to sources.
The plans were corroborated by Dmitry Chukreyev, an official with the Civic Chamber of Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city. He said police have been keeping informal lists of LGBTQ+ individuals since the Supreme Court ruling was announced.
In 2024, police conducted at least 42 raids on LGBTQ+-friendly venues across Russia, according to an investigation by independent news outlet Current Time and human rights organization Sphere. Beatings, forced confinement, and sadistic humiliations based on sexual and gender identities are regular features of the sweeps.
Russian officials and state-aligned media regularly describe Russia’s LGBTQ+ community as a network of “paramilitary groups” calling for an “open gender war,” who engage in “dehumanization” and “devil worship,” the outlet reports. Officials and media credit security forces’ actions with “suppressing” anti-state activity.
The raids, in addition to intimidating the queer community at large and forcing the closure of several venues, have provided security officials with information that would supply an electronic LGBTQ+ registry.
An employee at a Siberian queer establishment told Meduza, “Security forces copied the entire database from the computer where we keep track of reservations,” obtaining information about hundreds of clients. Fingerprints and mouth swabs were collected from visitors during a raid the Eden club in Chelyabinsk, and employees and patrons at the Orenburg club Pose were forced to state their registered residential address on camera.
At a house party raided by security forces in Leningrad Oblast, guests were forced to surrender their passports and unlock their phones; if someone refused, the others were subjected to collective punishment and forced to squat.
According to human rights activists, such raids are also aimed at exposing LGBTQ+ government officials. The organizer of one queer-friendly event in the Urals region revealed police who raided the venue hoped to “catch deputies [officeholders] and other significant individuals” at the event.
While security forces continue to collect data in ever-more sadistic operations, progress on a full-scale LGBTQ+ registry has been hampered by Putin’s other current obsession: the expansion of Greater Russia through his war on Ukraine. Forces assigned to that conflict are draining the ranks of police who would otherwise be hunting down members of the “international LGBT movement.”
But the raids continue to produce results.
One sweep at a restaurant and club in Gorno-Altaysk last year yielded data on 80 patrons and staff alone, an employee said.
“We know all of you now,” security forces repeated as the raid dragged on.