March 25, 1965 Their numbers having swelled to 25,000, the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers arrived at the Alabama state capitol. “Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter us. (Yes, sir) The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now.” Read all of Rev. King’s speech Martin Luther King Jr. and wife Coretta lead march into Montgomery, Alabama.
March 25, 1965 Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a housewife and mother from Detroit, driving marchers back to Selma from Montgomery, was shot and killed by Klansmen in a passing car. She had driven down to Alabama to join the march after seeing on television the Bloody Sunday attacks at Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge earlier in the month. It was later learned that riding with the Klansmen was an FBI informant. read more about Viola Liuzzo Anthony & Viola Liuzzo
March 25, 1969 The newly wed John Lennon and Yoko Ono-Lennon began their seven-day “bed-in for peace” against the Vietnam War at the Amsterdam Hilton in New York City. read more about their bed-ins for peace bed-in photo album “Yoko and I are quite willing to be the world’s clowns, if by so doing it will do some good.”
with lots to read and to think about. Also an interesting video and transcript of an interview with Nate Vance. Have a nice beverage, and take in a longer read/watch.
March 24, 1616 William Leddra was executed by the Charter government of Massachusetts for being a Quaker. He was the fourth and last of his religion to be hanged with the approval of Governor John Endicott. Though the court did not find him “evil,” he had sympathized with the Quakers who were executed before him; he had refused to remove his hat, and he used the words “thee” and “thou,” which, to Quakers, implied the equality of all people. (Check out the way the link works for this. Much better than the terrible transcription I read the other day.-Newsletter author) Contemporaneous letter describing Leddra’s and other Quakers’ persecution (starts p.58) =========================================== March 24, 1918 Native-born Canadian women over 21 (except native, or First Nations, women) won the right to vote in federal elections, but not to run for office for yet another year. Suffrage was not granted to women in Quebec provincial elections until 1940. Read about Thérèse Casgrain =========================================== March 24, 1964 In a sit-down against nuclear weapons at Parliament Square in London, England, 1,172 were arrested. ============================================ March 24, 1965 The first Teach-In on the Vietnam War was held at the University of Michigan a month after President Lyndon Johnson ordered bombing of North Vietnam. The U-M teach-in was among the first of a new form of campus protest that was to spread nationwide, as a means of mobilizing students to examine policies of their government that they previously had taken for granted. About the 1st Teach-In view original leaflets Very few Americans had ever heard of the country in southeast Asia, and the event was intended to educate the participants in the history of Vietnam and foreign aggression there. Young protester in Chicago march, photo Jo Freeman ============================================= March 24, 1967 Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led an anti-war march for the first time in Chicago, opposing the Vietnam War by saying: “Our arrogance can be our doom. It can bring the curtains down on our national drama . . . Ultimately, a great nation is a compassionate nation The bombs in Vietnam explode at home—they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America . . . .” Reverend King addresses rally at the end of the Chicago march, photo: Jo Freeman ============================================== March 24, 1980 The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) was founded, electing as their first president Olga Madar, a vice president of the United Auto Workers. The convention adopted four goals: organize the unorganized; promote affirmative action; increase women’s participation in their unions; and increase women’s participation in political and legislative activities. CLUW history CLUW today ============================================= March 24, 1980 The archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was assassinated while consecrating the Eucharist during mass. Monseñor Romero had become a well-known critic of violence and injustice and, as such, was perceived in the right-wing civilian and military circles of El Salvador as an enemy, and criticized by the Roman Catholic church. Romero had exhorted the police and soldiers to disobey orders to kill innocent people, refusing to be silenced. Worshippers had interrupted, with ovations, his homilies condemning the terrorism of the state. The ongoing legacy of Monsignor Romero (The Fransiscans have scrubbed him away. Here’s another place to read about him) ============================================== March 24, 1989 The most environmentally damaging oil spill to date began when the supertanker Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, ran aground on Bligh Reef in southern Alaska’s Prince William Sound. An estimated 11 million gallons of oil (257,000 barrels or 38,800 metric tons) eventually leaked into the water.Attempts to contain the massive spill were unsuccessful, and wind and currents spread the oil nearly 500 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 1300 miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands of birds and thousands of sea mammals were lost in the disaster. A dead murrelet, one of the hardest-hit sea birds in the Valdez spill. 25 years after the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, read more
BEHOLD! Gay Republicans are finding out they cannot wear the red hat of hatred in LGBTQ+ nightclubs.
1. Gay Bar Bans Bigots
Last week, Badlands, a beloved LGBTQ+ nightclub in Sacramento, posted this heavenly announcement:
“Moving forward, MAGA-related attire will not be allowed in the venue. This decision is not about banning political beliefs — it is about ensuring that Badlands remains a space where our community feels comfortable and supported.”
That’s not censorship. That’s community care. And this is not the first bar to make the news for banning MAGA, either. Last week a bar in Indianapolis went viral for kicking out one of these bigots.
2. “What the Heck? Let’s See What Happens”
Steven Bourassa, the idiotic Trump supporter whose actions inspired the bar to make the change, told local news station KCRA:
“I’ve never worn a red [Make America Great Again] hat to the gay bars before. I said, ‘What the heck? Let’s see what happens.’ We were having drinks and hanging out, and it was a pleasant time. So I was really impressed. And I complimented security on the good job they did.”
What didst this imbecile think wouldst happen?!?
This is not a prank show. This is real life. And you’re not the main character.
Steven Bourassa.
3. “It’s About Bullying”
“This decision is not based upon protecting our community,” said Preston Romero, president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Sacramento. “It’s about bullying and singling out one particular political ideology. And we believe that that’s unfair.”
WHAT HEINOUS HYPOCRISY!!! Because when trans kids are banned from sports, queer teachers are forced back into the closet, and drag queens are treated like criminals—they don’t say ONE DAMN WORD.
But when a gay bar sets a boundary to protect its patrons from symbols of literal hatred? Suddenly it’s bullying? Give God a damn break!
Preston Romero, president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Sacramento.
4. God’s Final Word
And after all the hypocritical outrage, Bourassa says he’ll still go to Badlands but he’ll just leave the hat at home.
“I didn’t have any problems,” he said. “I’ll still go back… but I’ll leave the hat at home now.”
This man got banned, agreed with the ban, and is going right back.
REJOICE, everyone! We finally found the thing that can break the MAGA cult…and apparently it’s gay sex.
5. We’re Fighting Back And It’s Working
This isn’t just a moment, it’s momentum.
And it’s building everywhere you look.
People are fighting back everywhere.
Here’s how we fight:
Keep people engaged & informed with truth, hope and laughter.
Rally thousands of voices to push back against fascism.
Build an independent platform where truth can’t be silenced.
And it’s working.
📈 LOOK AT THIS: (snip-go look. The clicks help God [the Substack.])
You won’t get a long, thoughtful, in-depth, eloquent educational blog today (usually, just long) because I’m just having some fun. We also discussed this issue two days ago, so there’s really nothing to get outraged about here. Or is there?
When I wrote the last blog on this, someone left a comment (I don’t remember who but you can claim it) that the media needed to stop referring to the two astronauts with the extended stays on the International Space Station (ISS), as stranded.
I agree because they were not stranded. Even MAGAt Steve Kelley knows they weren’t “stranded” because if they were, then he would have drawn Superman saving them instead of kissing Elon’s ass. Superman knew the astronauts were safe, so he could focus on more important things, like saving Canada and Greenland from Trump.
This was not Apollo 13, where NASA had to figure out how to get the astronauts home. One of those astronauts was played by Tom Hanks in a film, who had also played a castaway in another movie. And it wasn’t like the film The Martian, when an astronaut was stranded on Mars, played by Matt Damon who also had to be rescued in Saving Private Ryan by Tom Hanks. Sonofabitch! It’s also not like the other times Matt Damon had to be rescued, like in Interstellar, Courage Under Fire, Titan A.E., Elysium, Syrianna, or Green Zone. We need to tie Matt Damon to Ben Affleck so we’ll never have to rescue him again. We’re not lucky enough to lose Ben Affleck.
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were NOT stranded. Also, it’s not like being asked to work a weekend like in Office Space where if you don’t go, Bill Lumbergh’s going to call you all Saturday.
“Yeah, hi…it’s Bill Lumbergh calling again. Uhhhh, yeah…I just wanted to make sure you knew that we started…mmmm, yeah, at the usual time this morning at the….yeah…International Space Station. So…. if you could come on in….yeah…and bring those TPS reports with you…that would be great…uhhhh, also, it’s…yeah…Hawaiian shirt day.”
Most astronauts want to spend more time in space. They’re not Matt Damon.
Williams and Wilmore’s trip was extended because the spacecraft that took them to the ISS had safety issues, so their trip was extended. They were NOT alone on the ISS as other astronauts were there with them. Were they also stranded? No. There are seven astronauts on the International Space Station right now. There are three more on the Tiangong Space Station (space commies). None of them are stranded.
In the case of Williams and Wilmore, NASA wasn’t trying to figure out how to get them home. They were trying to decide when and which craft. No one had to figure out how to get them home. They were picked up during the regular rotation of delivering and returning astronauts.
When you go to a bar and do the responsible thing and call an Uber to take you home, the Uber is not rescuing you (unless a Nickelback cover band is playing in the bar…and you’re sitting next to Ben Affleck, then you really are being rescued).
SpaceX is already contracted with NASA so it’s not like Elon came running to help from out of nowhere. NASA has contracts with other companies that deliver astronauts. Also, Elon didn’t volunteer to “rescue” these astronauts for free. Elon has been paid $13 billion by NASA over the past decade, and future payments will be higher.
While most readers will think this cartoon is just me having some fun, it’s also mocking all the fuckers who believe Elon rescued stranded astronauts.
And speaking of Gilligan, why can’t we lose Elon during a three-hour tour?
Music note: I listened to Van Halen, NOT Van Hagar.
Creative notes: I wrote this idea yesterday and saved it for today so I could draw the deportation cartoon, which I had been trying to do for a week. This cartoon, the second I’ve drawn today (the first was for the Advance which you’ll see tomorrow) took four hours.
March 23, 1918 The trial of 101 Wobblies (members of the Industrial Workers of the World or IWW) began in Chicago, for opposition to World War I. In September 1917, 165 IWW members were arrested for conspiring to hinder the draft, encourage desertion, and intimidate others in connection with labor disputes. The trial lasted five months, the longest criminal trial in American history at the time.The jury found them all guilty. The judge sentenced IWW leader “Big Bill” Haywood and 14 others to 20 years in prison; 33 were given 10 years, the rest shorter sentences. They were fined a total of $2,500,000 and the IWW was shattered as a result. Haywood jumped bail and fled to the Soviet Union, where he remained until his death 10 years later. “Big Bill” Haywood Read more
March 23, 1942 The U.S. government began moving all those of Japanese ancestry, including some native-born U.S. citizens (known as nisei), from their west coast homes to indefinite imprisonment in detention centers, beginning with Manzanar in California which eventually held more than 10,000 Americans. Located on 60,000 acres west of Los Angeles, it is now a national historic site; only 3 of the original 800 buildings remain. Gallery of photos and other materials about Manzanar
March 23, 1961 Army Major Lawrence Robert Bailey was the first recorded American to be held as a prisoner of war in Southeast Asia. One of eight crew members of a C-47 surveillance aircraft shot down over Laos, Bailey was held by the Pathet Lao for 17 months, losing one-third of his body weight (down to 53 kg, or 117 lbs) during that time. The other occupants of the plane are presumed to have died in the crash; Bailey always wore a parachute.
March 23, 1984 USS Queenfish nuclear submarine student die-in outside the U.S. Consulate. One thousand boats, known informally as the Auckland Harbour Peace Squadron, demonstrated against arrival of the nuclear submarine, U.S.S. Queenfish in New Zealand.
March 22, 1933 The Nazi German concentration camp at Dachau was opened, the first of many such camps built for the incarceration and extermination of those considered unfit: Jews, Polish Catholics, Communists, the Roma (frequently referred to as Gypsies), the “work-shy,” homosexuals, the “hereditary asocial,” and those with mental and/or physical handicaps. The gate to Dachau “Work will make you free” Over 200,000 prisoners were registered at Dachau, nearly all of whom died there. The early days of Dachau
March 22, 1956 Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was convicted of organizing an allegedly illegal boycott by black passengers of buses in Montgomery, Alabama. He was fined $500 but when his lawyers indicated his intent to appeal, the sentence was changed to 386 days of imprisonment. Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
March 22, 1965 3,200 civil rights demonstrators, led by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and under protection of a federalized National Guard, began a third attempt at a week-long march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol at Montgomery in support of voting rights for black Americans. Marchers on their way to Montgomery A week before, the march had been violently stopped before leaving Selma. People from all over the country arrived to support the effort for enfranchisement of African Americans in the South whose right to vote had been systematically denied. From Selma to Montgomery: An Introduction to the 1965 Marches – Lesson Plan
March 22, 1974 The Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ERA) was passed by both houses of Congress with two-thirds majorities. The amendment, to give women full equality under law, was ratified by the legislatures of only 35 states, short of the required three-quarters of the 50 states, and thus never became law. Detailed history of the Equal Rights Amendment
March 22, 1980 30,000 marched in Washington, DC against re-introduction of draft registration. Denise Levertov’s lines from her poem, “A Speech for Antidraft Rally, D.C., March 22, 1980″”…Let our different dream, and more than dream, our acts of constructive refusal generate struggle. And love. We must dare to win not wars, but a future in which to live.” The entire poem(pdf)
Lee Moran Thu, March 20, 2025 at 2:02 AM CDT 1 min read
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt faced mockery on Wednesday after another apparent slipup during a press briefing.
Leavitt stated that President Donald Trump is “committed to passing a big reconciliation package later this year,” which includes “ending no taxes on tips.”
Leavitt says Trump is committed to "ending no taxes on tips"
Critics quickly seized on the phrase, interpreting it as an accidental double negative that contradicted Trump’s 2024 election campaign promise to nix taxes on tips. Trump has yet to implement the policy.
Leavitt on Monday drew similar mockery after she accidentally claimed the Department of Justice will focus on “fighting law and order” when “fighting for law and order” was likely what she meant.
The self-anointed chairman of the Kennedy Center fancies himself a producer Read on Substack
One of his favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof and “when he was a young man Mr. Trump had dreams of one day becoming a Broadway producer himself. Now, he said, the Kennedy Center’s focus would be on producing ‘Broadway hits.’”
March 21, 1937 On Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter), the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico was to march in Ponce (city on the southern coast of the island) in support of Puerto Rican independence. They were also protesting the imprisonment of Albizu Campos, leader of the Party and the lawyer for the sugarcane workers who had led a general strike.The colonial military governor, Blanton Winship (a Georgian who had been Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army), revoked the parade permit at the last minute. Nationalists insisted on marching regardless and, surrounded by the well armed police, were fired upon as they began. Whoever fired the first shot, 18 Nationalists and 2 policemen died. 200 others, Nationalists and bystanders, were injured, 150 arrested. This incident is known as Masacre de Ponce, or “The Ponce Massacre.” Families of those who died in the Ponce Massacre A history of Puerto Rico The Ponce massacre remembered
March 21, 1960 South African police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators in the black township of Sharpeville near Johannesburg. The demonstrators were protesting the establishment of apartheid pass laws which restricted movement of non-whites. In Sharpeville itself, 69 were killed and 176 wounded when police fired on the crowd, 63 of them shot in the back. In the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, protests broke out in Cape Town and elsewhere, and there were further casualties. Overall, 13,000 were jailed. The organizer, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, head of the Pan-Africanist Congress, had written to the police commissioner, notifying him of the plans, and had said at a press conference, “I have appealed to the African people to make sure that this campaign is conducted in a spirit of absolute nonviolence, and I am quite certain they will heed my call.” The Sharpeville Massacre and its significance in South African history
March 21, 2003 The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa was released. The commission was led by the Reverend Desmond Tutu, a bishop in the Anglican Church, the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, and Nobel Peace Prize winner for his efforts to bring peace and justice to all South Africans. .Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu The Commission was charged with investigating and providing “as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights” under the racial separatist apartheid regime from 1960 until the inauguration of Nelson Mandela in 1994, South Africa’s first black president. But the Commission sought to go beyond truth-finding to promote national unity and reconciliation, to facilitate the granting of amnesty to those who made full factual disclosure, to restore the human and civil dignity of victims by providing them an opportunity to tell their own stories, and to make recommendations to the president on measures to prevent future human rights violations. Reverand Tutu concluded in his foreword to the report, “Quite improbably, we as South Africans have become a beacon of hope to others locked in deadly conflict that peace, that a just resolution, is possible. If it could happen in South Africa, then it can certainly happen anywhere else. Such is the exquisite divine sense of humour.” The complete report of the Commission
March 21, 2008 More than 300 people participated in an annual Good Friday peace action at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, organized by Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CARES). The lab is a key participant in the design of all weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The Alameda County Sheriff arrested 91 of the protesters. CARES Executive Director Marylia Kelley said, “The emphasis is on nonviolence and rejecting violence.” The organization behind the action
March 21, 2011 An estimated 14 million Egyptians voted in an essentially problem-free election. 77% voted to endorse a process that would bring elections for parliament within six months and a presidential election later.
Scottie's Playtime 