April 24, 1915 The Ottoman Turkish government arrested 200 of the most prominent political and intellectual leaders of the Armenian community in the capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul). These men and hundreds more were then imprisoned from throughout Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and, shortly thereafter, most were summarily executed. This is the day on which the genocide of more than a million Armenians is commemorated: when the intention of the Turkish government to eliminate the Armenian people became clear. Already Armenian recruits in the Ottoman Turkish army had been disarmed and organized as laborers working under slave-like conditions. The plan for Armenian genocide from University of Michigan-Dearborn
April 24, 1916 The Easter Uprising began when between 1,000 and 1,500 members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood attempted to seize Dublin and issued the declaration of Irish independence from Britain. The seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation Read about the Proclamation Read more
April 24, 1934 This editorial cartoon appeared in New Masses magazine. It refers to the attempt of anti-radical vigilantes and repressive college administrators to disrupt the first national student strike against war.
April 24, 1962 President John F. Kennedy authorized high-altitude atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons to determine whether missile-borne warheads could be used to black out military communications.
April 24, 1967 At a news conference in Washington, D.C., General William Westmoreland, senior U.S. commander in South Vietnam, said that the enemy (considered to be North Vietnam and the Viet Cong southern insurgents) had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”Though he said that ninety-five percent of the people were behind the United States effort in Vietnam, he asserted that the American soldiers in Vietnam were “dismayed, and so am I, by recent unpatriotic acts at home.” This criticism of the anti-war movement was not received well by many in and out of the movement, who believed it was both their right and responsibility to speak out against the war. General Westmoreland meeting President Lyndon Johnson later in 1967, Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam
April 24, 1971 500,000 demonstrated against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. It was the largest-ever demonstration opposing U.S. war; 150,000 marched at a simultaneous rally in San Francisco.
April 24, 1987 On the World Day for Laboratory Animals, nationally coordinated demonstrations occurred in California, Arizona, Florida, New York, Minnesota, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Tennessee, and other states. It was the largest display of civil disobedience for animal rights ever. Hundreds of activists across the country blocked access to university laboratories and more than 150 were arrested nationwide. The day was designated to bring attention to the treatment of lab animals used in testing of medical and other products, sponsored in Congress by the late Tom Lantos (D-California). World Day Laboratory Animals
“We’re going to miss you, Pete,” is a phrase no one will be saying Read on Substack
Let it be known that just because you might look and sound good on TV, it doesn’t qualify you to be Defense Secretary (and you didn’t look or sound good on TV or anywhere else, Pete). Nobody wants Alan Alda to conduct surgery on them because he played a convincing Hawkeye on M.A.S.H. Though, I’m sure Alan Alda would make a better Secretary of Defense than Pete Hegseth.
For that matter, Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen, Morgan Freeman, Harrison Ford, Bill Pullman, Terry Crews, and Tommy Lister would all make a better president than our current one (sic).
Remember when a journalist was added to a Pete Hegseth-led government group chat containing classified information about an upcoming strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen? Pete did it twice.
Minutes before American fighter jets took off to begin strikes against the Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Hegseth.
The material Kurilla sent included details about when US fighters would take off and when they would hit their targets. These were the kind of details that if they fell into the wrong hands, could put the pilots’ lives at severe risk. But this is what the general was supposed to do, provide his superior (oh, dear god), with information he needed to know and using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and classified information. So what did Pete do with this information? He shared it with the wrong people. (snip-MORE)
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Trump’s tattoos by Ann Telnaes
Trump shows a doctored photo of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Read on Substack
I was putting together a post on this, then saw tengrain had already done so, so here it is. There is an additional snippet/link from LawDork beneath the MPS window here; I was tossing around which parts to snip for a post when I opened MPS’s page.
SCOTUS conservatives seem eager to increase parents’ religious rights in public schools by Chris Geidner
Tuesday’s arguments over Montgomery County schools’ story-time sessions included alarming questions about LGBTQ people. Read on Substack
The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservatives appeared eager on Tuesday to side with parents wanting to opt their students out of story-time sessions in Montgomery County’s public schools in Maryland that included a handful of books that contain same-sex couples and discussion of what it means to be transgender.
The question brought to the court by the parents’ lawyers from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is not whether schools can do so — as many do — but rather whether the First Amendment’s free exercise guarantee constitutionally requires it.
The school district has argued — and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed — that teachers simply reading the books and students being exposed to these ideas do not constitute “coercion” such that parents’ free exercise rights are implicated.
But, in an alarming sign for LGBTQ people, it was clear that at least three of the justices believe that describing queer people accurately — acknowledging their equal existence — amounts to taking sides or trying to “influence” children.
More broadly, and after two-and-a-half hours of arguments at the Supreme Court, it was clear that the argument from the parents — with backing from the Trump administration — is going to prevail. The only real question was how the court will resolve the case. Given the different paths the court can take, though, the answer to that question is important.
It was, however, a lopsided argument that showed how extreme the “religious freedom” arguments have gotten in front of a court that has made clear that it backs religious supremacy over many — if not most — other constitutional rights. (snip-MORE)
April 22, 1963 The Mothers for Peace, a group made up of Catholic Workers, members of PAX (which became Pax Christi in 1972), Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and others, met with Pope John XXIII to plead for a condemnation of nuclear war and the development of nonviolent resistance. About Women Strike for Peace
April 22, 1970 Banner at the first Earth Day On the first Earth Day observance, an estimated 20 million participated in peaceful demonstrations of concern for the environment across the U.S. including ten thousand grade schools and high schools, two thousand colleges across one thousand communities. 1st Earth Day, 1970 Beginnings of Earth Day from then Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) One on the 1st buttons
April 22, 1992 50,000 attended “Don’t Count On Us,” an anti-war rock concert in Belgrade, Serbia. It was to the nationalist regime of President Slobodan Milosevic an expression of the resistance within society to the military aggression he had been pursuing in the name of Serbian nationalism. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the various constituent republics of the former Yugoslavia—Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina—had declared their independence. Following a military draft call-up, fewer than 10% had reported for duty, and there was considerable dissension within what was then still called the Yugoslav People’s Army.
April 22, 1997 On Earth Day, Plowshares activists Donna and Tom Howard-Hastings used handsaws to cut down three poles in northern Wisconsin supporting the ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) transmitter for communication with submerged Trident nuclear submarines. After the poles were cut they were decorated with photos of children and posted with documents about international law and treaties outlawing nuclear weapons. They also placed stakes to mark tree seedlings under the transmission lines that they said were “doomed to the cutting bar.” They cut a section of one of the downed poles, carrying it to the nearby transmitter site where they turned themselves in to security personnel. They were then taken into custody by county sheriffs. An ABC-TV news affiliate, along with reporters from two public radio stations, were on hand to observe what happened. During the three-day jury trial on charges of sabotage and property destruction in Ashland County District Court, the defense was allowed to present several expert witnesses, including a retired Navy captain, Trident missile designer Bob Aldridge, and international law expert Francis Boyle. Both Howard-Hastings defendants were acquitted of the sabotage charge, which carried ten years and a $10,000 fine, but were convicted of destruction of property. At sentencing, they claimed the court had no jurisdiction over them, seeing that a jury had determined that their action was reasonable, and that they did not damage the national defense. They also made a passionate appeal to the judge to heed international law and the World Court decision to outlaw nuclear weapons. Donna was sentenced to 114 days she had already served, with a three-year period of probation and restitution. Tom was sentenced to one year in prison, with credit for time served and three years of intensive probation, including electronic home monitoring, and restitution. The name Laurentian Shield refers the granite geological formation at the ELF site. More Plowshares actions
So JD Vance meets the Pope less than 24 hours before he dies. Coincidence? I’m sure it is, but can you imagine all the conspiracy theories if a Democrat had met the Pope within 24 hours of him dying?
Take note of the kind of person JD is. The Pope is dying, but JD still wants his photo-op, which makes sure he’s one of the last people the Pope sees in his life. And forget about Joe Biden declaring Easter Sunday Trans Visibility Day (he didn’t), JD made this request on Easter Sunday.
An archbishop read the Pope’s final Easter homily. Themessage decried “how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants.” The address also warned against elected officials who “yield to the logic of fear, which only leads to isolation from others.” I’m sure JD was too obtuse to notice it was about people like him, as the Trump regime continues a war on migrants.
Vance, who’s a new convert to Catholicism, disagreed with the Pope on the treatment of migrants and other teachings of the church, and wanted to lecture the Pope…on Catholicism.
Just a few days ago, Vance criticize the “smug, self-assured bullshit” coming from people like the Pope who were criticizing Trump’s deportation policies.
Vance told the Pope, who was barely able to speak, “I know you’ve not been feeling great, but it’s good to see you in better health,” just a few hours before Pope Francis died. I’m kinda surprised JD didn’t bring him balloons.
Last February, Vance cited a homily Pope Francis gave to an empty St. Peter’s Square in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. Vance’s wife, Usha, had just had their second baby weeks earlier, and the world was shut down. Vance had bought 900 rounds of ammunition from Dick’s Sporting Goods and two bags of rice from Walmart, Vance told those at the prayer breakfastthat the Pope’s words were so meaningful during that time of uncertainty, that he has repeatedly reread the sermon since, which I’m sure with repeated mentions of the rice and ammo.
Talk about not being able to read a room. How did Vance find a way to mention buying 900 rounds of ammo and praise the Pope at the same time?
Why, is it possible the vice president (sic) is a moron?
Creative note: I was awake when I got a news alert that the Pope died. I could have been the first with a Pope cartoon, but I had to get on a train. A few hours later, I was in the terminal at DCA, sitting across from a young lady who wanted to talk about politics and the Pope (she was on our side) when I suddenly got the idea for the cartoon. After the nice lady got on her flight, I started on the cartoon, but didn’t finish it until I was in my hotel in Chicago.
I did not sleep last night, and that’s partly why you’re getting a late and short blog. I’ll give you some Chicago notes tomorrow.
I’ve been wrestling with whether to post this, or not. I want to always advise of resources for marginalized people to find community. However, these are religious resources. They’re the sort that emphasize inclusion and welcome and community, though, so that wins out, for me. I’m going to post this, hoping that someone will be able to use the information or knows someone else who can. I don’t know if there is an audience here for such things, so this would be the time to comment as to Yea, post these when I see them, or no comments/Nay being there is no one who might use these, and I’ll save the space in future. Thanks for your time! There is no proselytization intended with this post. It’s only to try to reach any- and everyone who is looking for community. These came from my Sojourners magazine. They’re simple resources that one can check out with no obligation or identification.
April 21, 1856 Stonemasons and other construction workers on building sites around Melbourne, Australia, stopped work and marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House. They advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest. Their direct action protest was a success, becoming the first organized workers in the world to achieve an eight-hour workday, inspiring the celebration of Labor Day and May Day.
April 21, 1989 Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students from more than 40 universities gathered at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu prior to his funeral.They voiced their discontent with China’s authoritarian communist government, and called for greater democracy. Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, the students were joined by workers, academics, and civil servants. Pro-democracy student protesters face-to-face with policemen outside the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square the day of Hu Yaobang’s funeral.
(Having only just now (10 PM Sunday) opened the email with this comic, I’m quite late; I’d saved it for a possible post, and it got buried. No matter, though; the message is good for more than one day, IMO. Everyone should be welcome everywhere every day, as they are welcome here. So, enjoy a comic. -A)
It seems Stafford County has always been staunchly conservative, but Joe Biden won the county in 2020 and 2024, barely…but he won. Blue Northern Virginia stopped at Stafford, but maybe that’s changing.
Yet, the Board of Supervisors is majority Republican, but it wasn’t that long ago when they held all the seats. But despite the board being majority GOP, taxes are still going up.
Hell, taxes aren’t just going up in Stafford. Donald Trump is raising our taxes while trying to cute them for billionaire assholes, such as himself. Trump is raising taxes while denying they’re taxes. They’re called tariffs, and Trump claims other nations pay them, not US taxpayers. If you’re not an idiot, you know that’s true.
The Board of Supervisors voted to advertise a one percent increase to the meals tax and a two percent increase to the transient occupancy tax. The three percent tax increase isn’t a bad thing, though, as it’s going to public schools. At least Republicans in Stafford are trying to help public schools, while Trump is trying to destroy them. Well, most of them. Not every member voted for the tax increase.
This three percent increase is a lower hike than the recent hikes to my Cox WiFi service, Netflix, Disney Plus, Peacock, Prime, and the giant increase in YouTube TV.
The County Administrator requested a five percent increase, but he only got three. To keep the increase low, the Board is cutting other things like new cars for the sheriffs department, delaying raises, and cutting $5,000 from the Christmas lights budget. Governments shouldn’t have Christmas budgets. We need more separation of church and state.
Creative note: I usually draw my cartoons for the Advance on Friday evenings or Saturday afternoons. I drew this one Thursday night.
Drawn in 30 seconds (turn up your volume): (Go see and listen!)
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Bluto by Clay Jones
The regime wants to make Harvard more like Trump University Read on Substack
Trump has been pushing everyone around, from the courts to law offices to corporations to governors to media outlets to fellow Republicans to world leaders to universities. Many of those, like The Washington Post, CBS, and Facebook, obeyed before he even started pushing. But two that pushed back are Janet Mills, the Governor of Maine, and Harvard.
During a meeting with governors in the White House, Trump asked, “Is Maine here?” He probably forgot her name.
Trump’s memory for grievances was calling back to a moment during the pandemic in 2020 when he referred to Mills as a “dictator,” and she replied, “I have spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weakness.” She’s got his number.
Back to the White House (sic) meeting, Trump bullied Mills to ignore an anti-discrimination law in her state that allows transgender athletes to participate in girls’ and women’s sports. Trump threatened to cut off funding for Maine at the White House event with governors if the law persisted. Mills replied, “See you in court.”
When you listen to Republicans, you would believe that men are intentionally cutting their nuts off to play women’s volleyball.
Later, Trump claimed her talking back to him was…wait for it…”illegal.” This is probably the “nastiest” a woman has talked to him since that time a woman wouldn’t sell him Greenland, or that other time a woman in Puerto Rico told him, “No, you’re doing a shitty job with hurricane recovery, you bloviating fartknocker,” or that time a female Speaker out-negotiated him, or that time a woman said his penis looked like a cartoon mushroom, or that time a woman dared to run against him, or that other time a woman dared to run against him.
Since then, the federal government has barraged the state with investigations, declared its education system to be in violation of federal law, and frozen some of its funding. Maine sued the Trump administration on April 7, doubling down on its defiance as it began the legal fight that Governor Mills promised at the White House.
Governor Janet Mills has bigger balls than every male governor in this nation combined, and she cracked Trump’s little nuts like it was a Maine Lobster.
Trump is also waging war with universities, especially Ivy League schools. He’s demanding that schools ban “woke,” and the regime is revoking student visas and has sent goons to kidnap foreign students without pressing criminal charges, and holding them in detention facilities in the Deep South.
The Trump regime is accusing Harvard of violating students’ civil rights (which is ironic, coming from the regime that violates students’ civil and constitutional rights). The regime is also accusing its leaders of breaching Title VI, the federal law that bars federal funding to any school found to violate civil rights.
The regime claims that Harvard was failing to keep Jewish and pro-Israel students safe by allowing antisemitism on campus.
Most of the claims of antisemitism during the protests from last year are not true. I’m sure hatred and harassment happened here and there, and from both sides, but it wasn’t widespread or condoned by any university. I don’t believe Muslim students were beating up Jewish students outside a dean’s window at any university, and he said, “Eh, kids will be kids.”
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, an independent non-profit that tracks political violence and political protests around the world, found that 97 percent of campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza have been peaceful. It analyzed 553 US campus demonstrations nationwide and found that fewer than 20 resulted in any serious interpersonal violence or property damage.
Republicans lie about the Gaza protests like they lie about Black Lives Matter protests (who was that who brought a gun to a BLM protest and shot people? Oh, yeah. Kyle Fucking Rittenhouse).
The non-profit also documented at least 70 instances of forceful police intervention against students, including the arrest of demonstrators and the use of physical dispersal tactics, including the deployment of chemical agents, batons, and other kinds of physical force.
Last Monday, Harvard refused to submit to extensive government oversight while overhauling its governance, admissions, and hiring practices, calling the orders illegal and unconstitutional.
According to Harvard’s President, Alan Garber, those demands include requirements to ‘audit’ the viewpoints of the student body, faculty, staff, and to “reduce the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views.”
The Trump regime retaliated by freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.
This is bullshit. The Trump regime doesn’t care about antisemitism on college campuses any more than they care about it coming from within the Trump regime. When Trump was elected in 2016 (sic), hate crimes increased substantially. We never heard Trump express outrage about that. Instead, he defended it. When tiki-torch Nazis chanted “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil” shortly before they murdered Heather Heyer, an anti-racism protester in Charlottesville, Trump defended the Nazis (they had a permit!) Maybe he got a free tiki torch out of it. Who knows?
Trump doesn’t hate antisemites. Instead of condemning them, he invites them to lunch at MAGA-Lardo. Trump dined with racists and antisemites Ye and Nick Fuentas at one of his shitty golf resorts. That kinda sets a bad example for Harvard to follow, doesn’t it?
Republicans have always pushed the narrative that education is bad somehow, and people who went to college should be spited, condemned, spit on, and treated like polo-loving foie gras eaters. They push the narrative that people with higher education look down on the rest of America. They often talk about the “East Coast Elite,” or “elitists.”
Some people do act like that.
I was recently kinda seeing a woman who is as liberal as I am, and during a conversation about how members of both of our families are Trumpers, she mentioned that some of her family members, who live in the Midwest, considered her to be among the “East Coast Elite.” You know, a snob who looks down on people. When I told her I kinda get the same thing, she became quickly annoyed, and said I couldn’t be considered a member of the “East Coast Elite” because I didn’t have a PhD, which she has. I was just some bum who dropped out of college to go surfing and draw cartoons, and it wasn’t even a snooty college I dropped out of. She started off criticizing the notion that there is an “East Coast Elite,” and then started acting as if she were a bona fide member of it. Later, she took me to a party and was “called out,” as she put it, that it was only for “serious people,” and I haven’t seen her since. As you can tell, I still have a little attitude about that.
Maybe it is all my fault. Someone at the party told me they had season tickets to the orchestra, and I told them that was awesome and to let me know if they make the playoffs. See? I’m not a serious person.
While I don’t like stuck-up obnoxious boring assholes who look down on people as if they’re better than them, I also don’t like hypocrites. Who am I talking about?
The vice president (sic), JD CouchFucker Vance, is all in on this attack on Ivy League schools, but it should be noted that he’s a graduate of Yale, an Ivy League school. Another Yale man is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Harvard. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum didn’t go to an Ivy League school, but he did go to Stanford, which is private and snooty enough. Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, also went to a private school, Haverford College. RFK Jr, secretary of health and weird conspiracy theories, also went to Harvard and three other universities. The Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, went to MIT and Berkeley, which is a hippy school. Right? John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA, went to Notre Dame. Jamieson Greer, Trump’s trade rep, went to Brigham Young, which is another private school (and founded by a guy with 56 wives and 52 more kids than Donald Trump has).
Where did Donald Trump matriculate? Trump went to the Wharton School, which is not a daycare but the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, and the last time I checked, it is an Ivy League school.
Trump is like one of those people who travels the world and somehow fails to take any of it in, and returns home still a knuckle-dragging moron with an inability to comprehend simple thoughts. Donald Trump went to an Ivy League school and came out still behaving like Donald Trump. That gives me the impression he only “went” there. It’s like that guy who visits France and complains that the croissants aren’t croissandwiches.
Turning a croissant into a croissandwich would be like turning Harvard into Trump University.
Creative note: This cartoon is dedicated to John Belushi. I believe his work is an influence on my cartoons.
This was interesting: Last night, I ran into an ex (of sorts) who is involved in the local theater scene. She invited me to audition for a part in an upcoming play, saying she thinks I would be a good fit for it. I haven’t acted since the sixth grade, but I was the lead (there hasn’t been a better Pecos Bill since). I was intrigued and wanted to audition this morning, but not to get the part, but just to see if I could do it. I didn’t go because I had to draw this cartoon.
I just want you readers to know that I gave up being the next Brad Pitt for you.
April 20, 1853 Harriet Tubman began her Underground Railroad, a network of people and places that aided in the escape of slaves to the north. Story of a liberator of her people from bondage Harriet Tubman
April 20, 1914 Troops from the Colorado state militia attacked strikers, killing 25 (half women and children), at Ludlow. Having struck the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company the previous September for improved conditions, better wages, and union recognition, the workers established a tent camp which was fired upon and ultimately torched during a 14-hour siege. The Ludlow Massacre
April 20, 1964 In his closing statement at the Rivonia Trial, African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela addressed the court: “We want a just share in the whole of South Africa . . . We want security and a stake in society. Above all, my lord, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent.” He was in Pretoria Supreme Court in South Africa where he and eight co-defendants were charged with 221 acts of sabotage designed to “ferment violent revolution,” and were facing the death penalty. At the time, black South Africans had no civil or political rights whatsoever, though they composed over 80% of the population. He concluded: “During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. “ I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live and to see realised. But, my lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Mandela in 1958 The trial that changed South Africa
April 20, 1969 On the site of a parking lot owned by the University of California, Berkeley, a diverse group of people came together, each freely contributing their skills and resources to create People’s Park. People’s Park history
April 20, 1982 Seven women were arrested in an anti-nuclear protest outside Mather Air Force Base, near Sacramento, California, in what had become a weekly vigil. Speaking after her arrest, Barbara Weidner, 72, said, “As a mother and grandmother, I could no longer remain silent as our world rushes on its collision course with disaster which threatens the lives and futures of all children, everywhere, and the future of this beautiful planet itself.” She later said, “I hope people will not think we are encouraging people to break the law,” she said. “But our actions should teach people, and children, to scrutinize laws against human life, and they should be broken to prove a point.”
April 20, 2002 More than 75,000 marched in Washington, D.C. to protest U.S. policies in the Middle East, specifically regarding Palestine and the threatened war in Iraq. The demonstration was organized by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) and included members of the Arab-American, Muslim and South Asian communities.
Scottie's Playtime 