June 21, 1877 The Molly Maguires Four members of the Molly Maguires were hung for murder in what was then Mauch Chunk, and in Pottsville, towns in Pennsylvania’s Carbon County. The Molly Maguires was a secret and violent Irish-Catholic organization of coal miners formed to combat the oppressive working and living conditions in the anthracite coal region of the state. Readmore (2 links)
June 21, 1908 A Women’s Sunday Suffrage rally, supporting the right of women to vote, drew several hundred thousand to London’s Hyde Park from all over the country. Women were encouraged to wear “the colours” – white (for purity), green (hope) and purple (dignity) – and in “as fetching, charming and ladylike a manner as possible.” As the Yorkshire Daily Post put it: “At least one half of the crowd was composed of the sort of people you would expect to see at a suburban garden party.” The women’s suffrage movement
June 21, 1964 James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, three young Freedom Summer workers, disappeared in Philadelphia, Mississippi, while registering negroes to vote. Their bodies were found six weeks later, having been shot and then buried in an earthen dam. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner Eight members of the Ku Klux Klan eventually went to prison on federal conspiracy charges related to the disappearance; none served more than six years. Schwerner and Goodman, both white New Yorkers, had traveled to heavily segregated Mississippi to help organize civil rights efforts on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Chaney was a local African-American man who had joined CORE in 1963. Read more and hear versions of Pete Seeger’s song, “Those Three are On My Mind” More on Chaney Read about the movie
June 21, 1997 100,000 marched in solidarity with striking newspaper workers in Detroit after nearly two years on the picket line. support rally march 1, 1997 photo: Paul Felton The Detroit Newspaper Agency (DNA) had refused to bargain in good faith (later confirmed by a ruling of the National Labor Relations Board), even after the union members had worked for months without a contract, and the DNA, which ran both the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, had begun to impose the changes they had been insisting on at the bargaining table.
An appeals court is allowing Donald Trump to retain control of the California National Guard.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Trump “probably” acted within his authority, and added that his administration “probably” complied with the requirement to coordinate with Governor Gavin Newsom, and even if it did not, he had no authority to veto Trump’s directive.
The panel, with two Trump-appointed judges and one Biden-appointed judge, is using “probably” a lot in their ruling. That’s probably a bunch of bullshit.
The law sets out three conditions that a president can federalize state National Guard forces; an invasion (which isn’t happening here), a “rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against the government (which isn’t happening here), or a situation in which the U.S. government is unable with regular forces to execute the country’s laws (another thing not happening here).
The appeals court said the final condition had probably been met because protesters hurled items at immigration authorities’ vehicles, used trash dumpsters as battering rams, threw Molotov cocktails, and vandalized property, frustrating law enforcement. There was that probably again. What about the cops shooting reporters? Which cop agency is enforcing that?
Yet, the governor never called the president (sic) to say that Los Angeles or California couldn’t execute the nation’s laws because ICE agents were having items thrown at them. And lately, ICE and Trump have been breaking more laws than protesters. Can we deploy a state’s National Guard to enforce laws on Trump?
The courts need to factor in that Trump deployed the National Guard to fight Californians. (snip-MORE, including Caitlin Clark)
I was admiring the view from my buddy’s backyard late yesterday afternoon when a hawk, or some kind of bird of prey, almost flew into my head. What?
The backyard overlooks a ravine. So the hawk was flying as usual, but his height decreased as he approached the hill, him not approaching the ground but the ground coming to him, and the next thing you know, he comes closer to objects on the ground, in this case, me. Bear with me, I’m making a point.
This did not happen on Tuesday, but it did happen yesterday, which was Wednesday (there may be some MAGAts reading, and they probably can’t figure out how a calendar works). What I’m telling you is that yesterday, there was a 100 percent increase in hawks nearly flying into my head.
Of course, I’m exaggerating. While the hawk did make me jump as it came from behind, it was probably about 15 to 20 feet away. Still, it was at my head level, though it wasn’t ever about to slam into me. I still jumped, but my point remains.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security have both claimed multipletimes since May that there’s been a 413 percent increase in assaults against their agents to justify their wearing of masks to conceal their identities.
OK, DHS and ICE…since when? Since Trump took over the White House? I mean, gosh and golly gee wilikens, 413 percent is a lot. That is huge, right? You would think with such a huge increase in assaults that we’d hear more about it, especially since ICE agents are such huge victimized crybabies.
What action justifies being classified as an assault? I mean, if it’s the action New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Landers committed when ICE illegally arrested him, then it’s not really much of an assault. When I was a kid, my mother used to threaten to beat me with a wet noodle. That threat of an “assault” never really scared me, and I was afraid of everything. The three things I was afraid of the most were sharks, tornadoes (before we even had Sharknadoes), and my mother. If you beat an ICE agent with a wet noodle, Kristi Noem would probably call it an assault.
I would have to know what kind of noodle would classify as an assault, only if it’s wet, of course. Would it have to be a spaghetti noodle, a linguine noodle, or a cork screw noodle? How about one of those Asian flat noodles? Maybe that could do some damage.
In a column for The Washington Post, Phillip Bump wrote, “That ICE uses a percentage is telling. A 413 percent increase could mean that the number of assaults went from 200 in 2024 to 1,026 in 2025 — or that it went from eight to 41.” Bump points out, “But there’s a big difference between an increase of 826 assaults and an increase of 33 — especially if some of those ‘assaults’ are of the Lander variety.”
If the assaults are of the Lander variety, then DHS and ICE are lying about the assaults. Also, if the assault by Landers was so bad, then why did ICE drop the charges, including assault, against him? (snip-MORE)
June 20, 1960 Nobel Prize-winner in Chemistry Linus Pauling [for study of the nature of the chemical bond and the determination of the structure of molecules and crystals] defied the U.S. Congress by refusing to name circulators of petitions calling for the total halt of nuclear weapons testing. Pauling later won a second Nobel, a Peace Prize, for his work championing nuclear disarmament. Linus Pauling Interview with Linus Pauling on the peace movement, 1983
June 20, 1965 Hundreds protested following a military coup in Algiers, the capital of Algeria. The military, under chief of the armed forces Colonel Houari Boumedienne and his National Revolutionary Council, had deposed President Ahmed Ben Bella, the first president of an independent Algeria (following the withdrawal of French colonial control). On the news at the time
June 20, 1967 Boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston, Texas, of violating the Selective Service law by refusing induction into the U.S. Army (during the Vietnam War). The World Heavyweight Champion had claimed conscientious objector status on the basis that he was a Muslim minister. The conviction, for which Ali was sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, was later overturned by the Supreme Court. “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.”
June 20, 1982 2500 were arrested during a two-day blockade of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, about 50 miles east of San Francisco, the principal American nuclear weapons research facility, operated by the University of California.
June 20, 1995 Shell Oil gave in to international pressure and abandoned its plans to dispose of the Brent Spar oil-drilling platform and its contents into the North Atlantic. The environmental group Greenpeace spearheaded the effort to prevent Shell from sinking the rig, its members boarding and occupying it as a tactic to stop the deep sea disposal, and to call attention to the issue peacefully. Shell’s plan would have dumped toxic and radioactive sludge into the ocean just west of the British Isles. A month later, at the Oslo and Paris Commission (OSPARCOM) meeting, 11 out of 13 countries agreed to a moratorium on the “dumping” of offshore installations, pending agreement on an outright ban. Greenpeace climbers on Brent Spar platform Shell ships use water cannons against Greenpeace activists on board the rig. Read more about Greenpeace and Brent Spar
June 20, 2002 The U.S. Supreme Court declared executing mentally retarded individuals convicted of capital crimes to be unconstitutionally cruel [Atkins v. Virginia]. Besides being in line with a consensus among state legislatures, the court found that “Their deficiencies [the mentally retarded] do not warrant an exemption from criminal sanctions, but diminish their personal culpability.”
June 19, 1865 Known among African Americans as Juneteenth (also Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, or Emancipation Day), this is the day enslaved people in Texas and parts of Louisiana learned they had been freed by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. U.S. Major General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, Texas, and announced the order that the slaves had been freed. This was two-and-a-half years after the Proclamation had taken effect January 1, 1863. It had stated, “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious (Confederate) states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” This had been kept from the slaves so the slaveowners could reap additional harvests, or because there weren’t enough Union soldiers to enforce the order until Granger arrived, but Juneteenth is the celebration of that day…. A Junetheenth celebration Richmond. Photo from Library of Congress (maybe 1921) Learn More About Juneteenth?New York Times “Black Joy—Not Corporate Acknowledgment—Is the Heart of Juneteenth”The Atlantic
June 19, 1964 Two hundred college students left Oxford, Ohio’s Western College for Women to join hundreds of other civil rights volunteers in Mississippi as part of “Freedom Summer.” Under the umbrella organization of COFO(Council of Federated Organizations) they worked on projects across the state.Led by SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) field secretaries, they helped Negroes try to register to vote, they taught in Freedom Schools, participated in community organizing and, in doing so, endured the hostility toward civil rights work among whites in the deep South. “If we can crack Mississippi,” the students said, “we can crack segregation anywhere.” Mississippi Freedom Summer Volunteers singing We Shall Overcome, 1964< Student protestors are photographed by a policeman on Freedom Day in Greenwood, Mississippi in 1964. ROBERT MOSES, director of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project and leader of the training program in Oxford, is shown here during a break in a session which he conducted in Jackson, Mississippi, to prepare African-Americans for politically effective action. more photos Good background on the need for a “Freedom Summer”
June 19, 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate. The new law, initiated and passed through the determination of President Lyndon Johnson and Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois, guaranteed for the first time equal access to public accommodations “without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.” Massive demonstrations a year earlier ensured passage of the Acts The Senate had never before voted to end the filibuster of a civil rights bill, all of which were consistently opposed by the bloc of senators from the South. Following Senator Robert Byrd’s (D-West Virginia) 14+ hour-long speech, Senator Dirksen rose to speak, “We dare not temporize with the issue which is before us. It is essentially moral in character. It must be resolved. It will not go away. Its time has come.” About the Civil Rights Act
June 19, 1982 One thousand landowners occupied key islands in protest against French nuclear weapons tests at Kwajalein Atoll.The atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific Ocean, is about 2100 miles [3400 km] southwest of Hawaii and 1400 miles [2250 km] east of Guam. The island is now home to USAKA (United States Army Kwajalein Atoll), the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, and about 2000 support personnel and family members on Kwajalein and the islands Roi and Namur. Kwajalein Atoll Struggles of Pacific Islanders to stop nuclear testing
June 19, 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruled teaching of creationism in public schools to be a violation of the U.S. constitution’s prohibition on establishment of religion by the government [Edwards v. Aguillard]. Students, parents and teachers had contested the Louisiana “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction” law (Creationism Act). It required schools that taught evolution to also teach creation science. “The preeminent purpose of the Louisiana Legislature was clearly to advance the religious viewpoint that a supernatural being created humankind,” concluded Justice William Brennan in his majority opinion.
(I’m inserting this, because it’s not yet made it into the newsletter. -A) June 17, 2021 (for June 19) President Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a national holiday. Read a bit about the significance here, from the National Museum of African American History & Culture: “This year marks the second anniversary since President Joe Biden named Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021. “As more Americans celebrate Juneteenth with family and community, it is vital to share the important historical legacy behind Juneteenth and recognize the long struggle to make it an officially recognized holiday. It is an opportunity to honor our country’s second Independence Day and reflect on our shared history and future. “The origins of Juneteenth date to June 1865. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and the Confederate army surrendered to the Union army in April 1865, enslaved people in Texas — the westernmost Confederate state — could not exercise their freedom until June 19, 1865. ‘On that date, Union General Gordon Granger led some 2,000 Union troops, many of whom were Black, into Galveston Bay, where they announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as ‘Juneteenth,’ deriving its name from combining ‘June’ and ‘nineteenth.’” Read More
Here’s a fun fact: Between the 2024 presidential election and the inauguration on January 21, 2025, the Trump Store launched at least 168 new products. One product would have been weird.
This isn’t just a way to grift your supporters, but also to take bribes. The Trump Store isn’t run by the Trump Campaign, but by the Trump Organization. All the profits go directly to Donald Trump. These 168 products are in addition to the products launched before the election, like Trump Watches, Trump Shoes, Trump Bible, etc, etc. Now, we’re going to get Trump Mobile. I, for one, expect future commercials to be made even cheaper than those featuring Ryan Reynolds for Mint Mobile.
Trump Mobile will sell a gold (fake) cell phone for $500. Check it out. (snip-MORE)
They did it again. The goons have arrested a Democratic politician for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was just last week when California Senator Alex Padilla was tackled and handcuffed in a federal building in Los Angeles during a press conference held by Kristi Noem, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The excuses for handcuffing the senator have been lies and bullshit.
They said he “barged” into the press conference. He was escorted in by the FBI and the National Guard, which is not “barging.” The so-called barging is not on any of the videos I have seen.
They said he “lunged” toward Kristi Noem, but you don’t see that on any of the videos either. You just see the Secret Service grabbing him. Kristi Noem carries on speaking while the SS is grabbing the senator and dragging him out of the room. If she was “lunged” at, she didn’t seem to be rattled by it.
They say he took off his Senate pin. Even if this is true, so what? It’s not a factor, especially since he identified himself.
They say he didn’t identify himself. Look at the tapes. He identified himself multiple times. (snip-MORE)
June 18, 1571 King Sebastian of Portugal enacted penalties for violation of censorship legislation. The fines could be as much as a quarter or half of the violator’s legal possessions, plus the threat of exile to Brazil or an African colony. Death sentences were also not uncommon. Seized books were burned and burnings were supervised by Roman Catholic priests.
June 18, 1840 The Oberlin Non-Resistance Society was formed at the Ohio college by students who believed “that the Gospel of Jesus Christ inculcates the duty of peace and good-will.” They were inspired by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s New England group of similar name. They rejected all use of violence even in the name of duty to country. “We must submit to the ‘powers that be,’ and ‘obey magistrates,’ except when their requirements conflict with God’s laws; when we are meekly to endure the penalty of disobedience ‘threatening them not.’ ” Though denounced by the faculty and ignored by the student newspaper, the group was among the first in a succession of peace- and justice-oriented organizations begun at Oberlin. Oberlin’s peaceful tradition
June 18, 1941 Less than two weeks before a scheduled march on Washington, its chief organizer, (Asa) A. Philip Randolph, was invited to the White House byPresident Franklin Roosevelt. Randolph was the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful black trade union. He, along with activist and singer Bayard Rustin, had issued a “Call to Negro America to March on Washington for Jobs and Equal Participation in National Defense on July 1, 1941.” Roosevelt was wary of the prospect of such a demonstration and desirous of developing support for a war effort. Randolph told Roosevelt he would abandon the march plans only if the president would stop job discrimination in both the defense industry and the government. Before the end of the month, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which barred government contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of race, color, creed or national origin. A. Philip Randolph and Eleanor Roosevelt The order, sometimes called a second emancipation proclamation, was the federal government’s most significant action on behalf of the rights of African Americans since post-Civil War reconstruction of the 1870s.
June 18, 1948 A United Nations commission approved and recommended to the General Assembly an International Declaration of Human Rights, recognizing that “the inherent dignity and . . . the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world . . . .” Text of the Declaration: . . .
June 18, 1970 The U.S. Congress passed the 26th amendment to the constitution, lowering the voting age to 18 for all elections—federal, state and local. The amendment went into effect just 100 days later after 38 state legislatures had ratified the amendment.
June 18, 1979 SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty), an agreement to put limits on both America’s and the Soviet Union’s long-range missiles and bombers, was signed by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev. This was the first arms-reduction treaty between the two superpowers. It was signed despite the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the previous year. Read more on SALT II’s control of weapons of mass destruction
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