Political cartoons / memes / and news I wish to share. 4-26-2026

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Neil deGrasse Tyson’s 5-Minute Takedown of Right Wing Hosts’ IDIOCY

Tyson makes great points how the privacy issues dealing with trans people and also the sports issues.  He suggests ways to handle each of these situations.  He explains it is better to solve the issues instead of forcing everyone to live as was done in the past.  Hugs

SCOTUS to hear religious freedom case about Roman Catholic preschools refusing LGBTQ+ families

I had my allergy shots this morning.  Ron and Diane have gone to see if they can find the casino in the next county over.  I am trying to stay awake.  I want to see if I can reply to a few comments before going back to bed.  Fof those that don’t know I am not eating.  I have one meal in the morning and spend most of my time in bed these days.  My blood tests showed my red and white blood cells were all messed up.  Animia?  Cancer?  Depression?  My body breaks down under stress, and I have been stressed since November of last year.  It is a lot less right now with Ron home but he still has little time for stuff at home because of the need to spend so much time with his sister.  Plus he is having health issues as well.  The real issue is I am tired.  Just so tired I am unable to think, eat, or even engage with Ron.  I find I am easily irritated, and when he reached out to touch me in bed I snaped at him for it.  I have not reacted that way in a long time.  I like his touch.   I have lost between 8 to 10 pounds because I am not eating.  I keep this up and I could get from my normal 170 t the goal of 150 pounds I want. 😀😃😉😎.  Ron is concerned and says if we don’t see improvement next week I have to contact my primary care doctor.  It all seems like too much work, I just want to go back to bed.  The pain is less there.  My right leg becomes so painful after five minutes of use I can’t really walk and I have to do the dishes with a rolling very high adjustable stool.  

Anyway the video below is a great example of why real Christians are not bigots.  I wish I felt up to posting more videos, it is all I seem able to do right now, just watch videos.   Be well, and enjoy the Rev. explain why bigotry is a really bad thing for the Christian church.  Hugs

ICE Death Toll Climbs To Horrific Heights

 

Most US Voters Support Trans Rights, Even Republicans

This video explains what everyone on the real left already knew instead of forgetting the trans  / woke culture wars and moving right, the center left keeps demanding which is simply code speak for leaning right.  While all the same democratic strategists since the Bill Clinton days demand candidates move to the right to “triangulate” to capture republican voters these polls show what we already knew.  The culture wars are losing for the republicans.  After republicans spent nearly 3 million dollars in ads against trans people the polls showed almost no one felt those adverts influenced their vote.  Even as red states rail against higher education, acceptance, and tolerance of people who are different it is losing them votes.  Some thing the Christian nationalists who are in the height of their influence now in political circles don’t understand is that people who grew up with LGBTQ+ classmates, friends, and even dated some do not find them the evil that these hate religions preach they are.  

*** Personal note.   I explained to Ali in an email that I am not functioning.  For what ever reason wheither it be anemia or something worse I am desperately tired from the time I manage to get up.  I often get up only to a few hours later go back to bed for four or more hours.  I have started taking vitamin B-12 and a woman’s one-a-day vitamin.  That with more red meat which was recommended to me in the past every time I go into anemia.   How ever I get up, I have coffee and stuff with Ron then I need to go back to bed for normally 4 hours, get up and do dishes while watching The Majority Report.  How ever some days like yesterday I did not even get that far, going to back to bed by 2 pm only to have Ron wake me and beg me to eat.

I have done better today only going back to bed for 3 hours later in the morning.  I wanted to go to bed two hours ago, but Ron was all upset he couldn’t sleep due to the neighbors having new skirting put around their home outside our bedroom.  So I got him in his recliner and moved his CPAP out to his chair.  Still he was not tracking.  Good news as I was falling asleep at my desk he woke up and is fixing supper.  At this point I am so tired I don’t really care whether I eat or not.  

I tried to reply to comments, but I couldn’t.  I even started to move old saved open tabs out by making a new cartoon / memes post but I simply couldn’t do it.  Right now the best I can do to function is make doctors appointments and watch videos that don’t take too much thought to understand.  That means most political videos are outside my ability.  I am sorry but right now I am functioning at the level of a confused grandpa.  Sorry.  I hope to get better soon.  Ron says if I don’t clear up by next week we will demand the primary care see me and deal with it. I’m not sure if I want that as my last visit he was insisting I think  about getting a colonoscopy.   Anyway.  This is a good video and one I watched several hours ago when I was much sharper than I feel now.   ***  Hugs

 

Trans Women BANNED From The Olympics | Trans Guy Reacts

Canada’s Proposed Hate Speech Law – Don’t worry you can still humiliate, discredit, hurt and offend

I have the same idea as the Reverend on this issue.  It is how I handle my comments on my blog.  Attack the ideas, not the person expressing them.  Hugs

Trans Children’s Lives Were Endangered Based on a Lie

I did some reviews on the Cass report because it was supported by so many anti-trans bigots. Turns out there were so many lies and errors in the report that it became clear the purpose was to discredit the clinic and get it shut down.  The report was driven by anti-trans people and even Cass herself was well known to be anti-trans.  But what is so irksome is the lies still get told and circulated repeatedly even when they are pointed out.  The idea of social contagion was found to be entirely made up by people desperate to keep their child from transitioning.  The idea came from a website set up for parents that had kids transitioning and they hated it.  The Cass report used lies from that site as if they were medical facts saying that parents were not told and children were being rushed to transition, when even the parents admitted they had all the information in writing that they had to sign and the biggest complaint was how long it took to get seen by the clinic with many kids going through puberty before they got gender affirming care.  The idea of large amounts of detransitioners is totally made up as real studies have found it is less than 2% and the regret levels are well below any other medical procedure.  I wish haters and bigots would understand if they have to make up stuff and lie to prove their point then they have no point to make.  They just hate the idea of people not accepting they are the gender / sex assigned at birth and don’t want to accept new medical data.  Hugs

Olympic Athletes Rapinoe and Bird Slam IOC Trans Ban: “I’m Sickened By It”

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/olympic-athletes-rapinoe-and-bird

“It’s just a total acquiescence to the Trump Administration,” Rapinoe said.

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  

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/04/federal-court-oks-iowas-cruel-book-ban-law-in-stunning-lgbtq-defeat/

April 2026

Photo of the author

John Russell (He/Him)April 7, 2026, 1:00 pm EDT· Updated on April 8, 2026
An empty classroomShutterstock

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.

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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John Russell is a writer and editor based in New York City. In addition to covering politics and entertainment for LGBTQ Nation, he has written for Vanity Fair, Slate, People, Billboard, and Out. He also writes about film, TV, and pop culture in his free newsletter Johnny Writes…