Tag: Political

Peace & Justice History For 6/2

June 2, 1783
At the urging of General George Washington, the United States Congress agreed to gradually disband the Revolutionary army following the end of the war. Subject only to the signing of a final peace treaty with Great Britain, all soldiers and non-commissioned officers were discharged; additionally, a full pardon was granted to privates and non-coms in confinement.
June 2, 1863
Abolitionist and former slave James Montgomery led 300 African-American troops of the Union Army’s 2nd South Carolina Volunteers on a raid of plantations along the Combahee River. Meanwhile, backed by three gunboats, Harriet Tubman’s forces set fire to the plantations and freed 750 slaves.

Harriet Tubman
More on General Tubman 
June 2, 1936
General Anastasio Somoza, head of the U.S. Marine-trained National Guard, forced the resignation of Nicaragua’s elected President, Juan Bautista Sacasa. This followed a seven-year U.S. occupation of the country and was followed by Somoza family control of the country for the next four decades.
More about Somoza and other U.S.-friendly Central American dictators
June 2, 1952
The U.S. Supreme court ruled illegal President Truman’s order two months earlier for the Army to seize the nation’s steel mills in order to avert a strike during the Korean war.
The decision 

Some recent clips from The Majority Report. Watch / listen to those that interest you.

 

 

 

Another Young Person Running For Office

I’m skipping down to the part about the candidate. We’ve all seen the clip of Sen. Ernst. But I remember the statements of Zach Wahls; I bet we all do! -A.

Well, We Are All Going to Die by Charlotte Clymer

An all-timer cruel remark. Read on Substack

Snippet:

Anyway, while Sen. Ernst may not care if your loved ones don’t have the lifesaving health care they need, I do bring good news: there’s a leader in Iowa who does.

You may remember Zach Wahls; he’s the young man who went viral many years ago when he delivered a deeply moving testimony to the Iowa Legislature about growing up with two mothers, as lawmakers were considering support for marriage equality.

Well, Mr. Wahls has been serving in the Iowa State Senate since 2019—including a few years in tenure as the Minority Leader—and he’s public exploring a run against Sen. Ernst in next year’s election.

I have rarely been as impressed with an elected official as I am with Mr. Wahls. He’s exactly the kind of leader you’d hope would be dedicated to fighting the good fight and having the kind of good sense necessary to bring folks together for common sense solutions.

Sen. Ernst was already looking at a competitive fight before her “we are all going to die” honesty this morning, and I have to imagine the math ain’t looking great for her against Mr. Wahls moving forward.

If you’d like to throw a donation to Mr. Wahls in what I believe would be a successful campaign, I’d be grateful.

I’ll end this on a note of reason and empathy. When word of Sen. Ernst’s comment reached the great Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, her response couldn’t have summed it up better:

“I thought my job as Senator was to try to keep my constituents alive.”

Remove the Enablers

Hi everyone. I found this to be a hopeful sign. We need to excise, like an infection, the poison that has taken over our country’s leadership and too many of our citizens. And, in keeping with that, since they are a bunch of juvenile delinquents, perhaps the best person for the job is a pediatrician?

Responding to Charlie Kirk on homosexuality & the Bible

OK I admit this guy is a scholar so he uses words and phrases that are sometimes hard for me to follow with my limited education.  But I do understand enough to follow what he is saying.  Charley Kirk is full of shit on what he thinks they bible says because he is letting his own bigotry and prejudices create what the passages mean for him rather than research it with people more knowledgeable.  Jesus and the bible were not against homosexuality as we understand it because they did not see sexuality and sex acts the same way we do.    The sin of Sodom was lack of hospitality and men wanting to take a higher sexual role than angels.  The people of the time of the bible were like young macho men types today, worried about what looked manly enough, and putting your penis in someone regardless of sex was manly.  But the person who took another person in them was not, they were lessor.  Women were viewed as lessor, inferior, and so were men that took another male’s penis inside them.  It was not about pleasure or love, it was all about status.   One thing I like about this guy is he freely admits the bible is context driven and doesn’t know what we know and understand today, that in some areas the morals we have today are superior to that of the bibles for example slavery.   Hugs.

 

Brown v. BOE, and more, in Peace & Justice History for 5/31

May 31, 1955
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered (in a unanimous decision known as Brown II after the 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education) that school integration be implemented “with all deliberate speed,” ordering the lower federal courts to require the desegregation of public schools.
Between 1955 and 1960, federal judges held more than 200 school desegregation hearings. The decision reiterated “the fundamental principle that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional . . . . All provisions of federal, state or local law requiring or permitting such discrimination must yield to this principle.”

A timeline of school integration 
May 31, 1957

U.S. playwright Arthur Miller was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to reveal the names of associates who were alleged to be Communists.
The conviction was ultimately set aside on appeal.
More about Arthur Miller 
May 31, 1966
Nguyen Thi Can, a 17-year-old Buddhist girl, committed suicide by setting herself afire (self-immolation) on a street in the city of Hue, Vietnam. She was protesting against the South Vietnamese regime and the war being waged by the U.S., the separate armies of the north and south, and the insurgent Viet Cong; it was the fifth such death in three days.
May 31, 1973
A bipartisan majority (69-19) of the U.S. Senate voted to cut off funds for the bombing of Cambodia (Vietnam’s neighbor) despite pleas from U.S. President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may31

Some stories I wanted to share but never found time. I have read these and found them informative and worth the reading

Trump Appointee Pressed Analyst to Redo Intelligence on Venezuelan Gang

Call for EU ban on anti-LGBTQ ‘conversion’ gets 1 million signatures

Call for EU ban on anti-LGBTQ ‘conversion’ gets 1 million signatures

Tim Walz Perfectly Explains Why Trump Running The Country ‘Like A Business’ Is A Bad Idea

https://www.comicsands.com/tim-walz-trump-businessman?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=infeed&utm_campaign=linkprogram

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz criticized President Donald Trump during an interview with MSNBC host Jen Psaki, stressing just why the people who elected Trump to run the country “like a business” were completely misguided.

Walz particularly lamented the impacts of Trump’s ongoing trade war with Canada and Mexico, noting that Trump has a history of scuttling deals and “a proven track record of being an absolute failure.”

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1920290310212759910

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1920290310212759910?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1920290310212759910%7Ctwgr%5E00f795982a109b5c6cc456d92454395e8ffdfb59%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.comicsands.com%2Ftim-walz-trump-businessman

Military commanders will be told to send transgender troops to medical checks to oust them

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-ban-military-discharge-troops-0218f0b6fec595c420bd0ac072d87335

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks at the Al Udeid Air Base, Thursday, May 15, 2025, in Doha, Qatar. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks at the Al Udeid Air Base, Thursday, May 15, 2025, in Doha, Qatar. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Military commanders will be told to identify troops in their units who are transgender or have gender dysphoria, then send them to get medical checks in order to force them out of the service, officials said Thursday.

A senior defense official laid out what could be a complicated and lengthy new process aimed at fulfilling President Donald Trump’s directive to remove transgender service members from the U.S. military.

The new order to commanders relies on routine annual health checks that service members are required to undergo. Another defense official said the Defense Department has scrapped — for now — plans to go through troops’ health records to identify those with gender dysphoria.

 

Far Right Federal Judge Rules Gay And Trans People Can Be Discriminated Against In Workplaces

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/far-right-federal-judge-rules-gay

Judge Kacsmaryk, a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas, ruled on the EEOC’s treatment of Title VII employment discrimination claims on gay and trans people.

Erin Reed's avatar
Erin Reed
May 16, 2025
On Thursday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk—a far-right federal judge in the Northern District of Texas with a record of aligning with the GOP’s most extreme legal positions—issued a ruling declaring that Title VII no longer protects LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination. The decision directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is, by definition, sex discrimination. Kacsmaryk’s ruling marks one of the most alarming judicial rollbacks of LGBTQ+ rights in recent memory—and sets up a direct legal challenge to one of the foundational civil rights protections for queer and trans people in the United States.

Montana Court Issues Final Blow to Anti-Trans Health Care Law

A judge found that the law’s premise is not scientific, but “political and ideological.”

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s. baum
May 14, 2025

Montana Court Issues Final Blow to Anti-Trans Health Care Law

A judge found that the law’s premise is not scientific, but “political and ideological.”

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s. baum
May 14, 2025
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Photo by Steven Cordes on Unsplash

A state judge in Montana has permanently struck down SB 99, a law which sought to ban gender-affirming care for Montana youth under age 18.

The court decision is a welcome reprieve for young trans Montanans, who have had the threat of forced detransition hanging over their heads since 2023. The bill would have threatened the licensure of physicians who provided trans-affirming care to this age group and prevented state funds from being used for gender-affirming surgeries, hormones, puberty blockers, and “social transitioning” measures for trans youth. It also would have allowed parents of trans kids to sue medical professionals for providing their children with the proper care.

But these kinds of laws, which are being passed around the country, are highly unscientific. They try to erase the biological reality of gender and sexual diversity to further a far-right gender ideology. As the court ruling declared, “the State’s interest is actually a political and ideological one: ensuring minors in Montana are never provided treatment to address” their gender dysphoria.

“In other words, the State’s interest is actually blocking transgender expression.”

1) The court found overwhelming evidence backing the benefits of gender-affirming care for trans people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is It Profiteering?

(This reminds me of Halliburton coming into a few lucrative contracts before and during the GWOT. -A.)

Tech, defense and support services companies make millions off new ICE contracts

Palantir employees, including CEO Alex Karp, made millions in campaign donations in 2024. In April, the company won a $30 million contract to develop software to help ICE manage deportations. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

In early April, hundreds of military and tech companies exhibited their products at the Border Security Expo, which brought “government leaders, law enforcement officials, and industry innovators” together. During the two-day event  in Phoenix, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons said he would like ICE to operate more like a business: “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” He added that “the badge and guns” should do “the badge-and-gun stuff, everything else, let’s contract out.” 

The event illustrates how companies are rushing to secure government contracts as the Trump administration ramps up its spending on ICE to reach its deportation goals. The House approved a spending bill in early May that sets aside $175 billion for immigration enforcement – about 22 times ICE’s annual budget – and includes $45 billion for detention, $14.4 billion for transportation and removal operations and $8 billion for hiring new ICE staff. The Trump administration ordered DHS to hire an additional 20,000 ICE officers. 

OpenSecrets previously reported on the private prisons and air carriers that are poised to benefit from President Donald Trump’s plans to increase deportation. This final article in the series focuses on other for-profit companies benefiting from deportations. 

New contracts

  • In April, ICE awarded software company Palantir Technologies a $29.8 million contract for developing ImmigrationOS, a tool to help ICE with identifying and prioritizing the deportations of individuals who are considered a risk, such as violent criminals; tracking who is self-deporting; and managing cases from the individual’s entry through detention, hearing and deportation. Palantir is expected to provide a prototype of the ImmigrationOS tool by Sept. 25. The tool is an extension of systems that Palantir has already delivered as part of its almost $128 million contract signed in 2022.
  • Deployed Resources, an emergency management company that has provided mobile restrooms, sinks and tents to music festivals such as Lollapalooza and emergency relief following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Hurricane Sandy, has been awarded over $4 billion in government contracts to build and operate border tents since 2016, according to ProPublica. The company earned a $3 billion contract with ICE in 2022 for running tent detention facilities around the border. On April 11, ProPublica reported that ICE awarded a new contract worth up to $3.8 billion to Deployed Resources. On April 17, however, the billion-dollar contract was canceled for reasons unknown. The next day, ICE submitted a $5 million proposal for Deployed Resources to deliver unarmed guard services for 30 days at an ICE facility in El Paso, Texas. ProPublica also revealed that ICE has housed detainees at a tent facility in El Paso operated by Deployed Resources since March. The facility was previously used by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, but the Trump administration used the Department of Defense to award Deployed Resources an unannounced $140 million contract to run the site for ICE, citing the declaration of an emergency at the southern border. The facility can house up to 1,000 detainees, and ICE started transferring detainees on March 10, according to ProPublica. 
  • Axon Enterprise, a company that develops technology and weapons for public safety, law enforcement and the military, took part in the Border Expo. The company was awarded a year-long $5.1 million contract on March 10 to deliver body cams and equipment. A day later, the company was awarded a $22,376 contract to deliver tasers that have been used specifically in deportations. ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division bought $2.6 million worth of Axon tasers in 2020 and 2021. 
  • Parsons Government Services, a “technology provider,” was also at the Border Expo. The company was awarded a contract worth up to $8.9 million for COVID-19 testing supplies in February, as well as an $87,467 contract in March and a $118,758 contract in April with ICE, both to provide “mobile biometric collection devices in support of the biometric identification transnational migration alert program.” The company is already wrapping up a one-year, $4.2 million contract for the transportation and guard services of ICE detainees in Newark. 
  • General Dynamics, a weapons company, was awarded new $101,034 and $80,050 contracts in March to purchase non-lethal ammunition for training purposes for ICE’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs. 
  • Sig Sauer Inc., a firearms company, was awarded more than $200,000 worth of contracts with ICE for firearms and firearm accessories in the first months of 2025: $57,163 in February, and $19,824, $35,106 and $90,854 contracts in April. 
  • Paragon Professional Services, was awarded a $1.1 million contract on April 1 for transporting people who are detained by ICE in the New York City area and a $458,400 month-long contract to provide transportation of ICE detainees in Baltimore on April 17. 

Follow the money

  • Palantir spent $5.8 million on lobbying the federal government in 2024. The company’s employees also made almost $5 million in campaign contributions during the 2024 elections. The largest contributions included $1 million to Make America Great Again Inc, $1 million to MAGA Inc and $344,914 to the Republican National Committee. Palantir’s CEO, Alexander Karp, contributed to Democratic as well as Republican candidates during the 2024 elections. In 2023, Karp contributed $163,800 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $154,920 to their Republican counterparts. Karp increased his contributions to the Republican Party after Trump was elected: On Dec. 12, 2024, Karp contributed $1 million to MAGA Inc., the Trump-supporting super PAC. In the first months of 2025, Karp contributed $360,000 to Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) Grow the Majority PAC and a combined $310,100 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Palantir also spent $170,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of 2025.  
  • Even though the company has no lobbying history, Deployed Resources has hired more than a dozen former government insiders, according to ProPublica, including some high-ranking ICE officials. Marlen Pineiro joined Deployed recently, after working for the Department of Homeland Security in Central America developing policies with Panama, and a decade as a senior official at ICE, according to her LinkedIn profile. A month after Trump’s victory, former ICE field office director Sean Ervin announced he was joining Deployed Resources as a senior adviser for strategic initiatives. 
  • Axon Enterprise contributed to both the Democratic and Republican parties. The CEO, Patrick Smith, donated $25,000 to the Scalise Leadership Fund of 2024, a joint fundraising committee run by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). James Norton, the vice president of the company, contributed several thousand dollars to Republicans in the past two years. Axon Enterprise spent $1.5 million on lobbying in 2024 and $510,000 in the first quarter of 2025, a $180,000 increase compared to Q1 2024. One of Axon’s lobbyists, Helen Tolar, also served as a transition advisor to Doug Collins, Trump’s secretary of veterans affairs. 
  • Employees and PACs related to Parsons Government Services’ mother corporation, Parsons Corporation, contributed $592,053 in the 2024 elections, with $27,715 to Kamala Harris and $13,076 to Donald Trump. The company spent $950,000 on lobbying in 2024, mostly on defense issues. In the first quarter of 2025, the company ramped up its lobbying to $590,000, a $370,000 increase from the same quarter in 2024. Parsons Corporation has its own PAC, which spent $247,600 on Republican federal candidates in the 2024 elections, and $151,250 on Democratic candidates. 
  • Sig Sauer Inc.’s PAC contributed $87,715 in the 2024 elections, mostly to Republican candidates. The company’s CEO, Ron Cohen, contributed $25,000 in 2024 to Preserve America, a super PAC supporting Donald Trump. The company spent $530,000 on lobbying in 2024 and $260,000 in the first quarter of 2025, a $180,000 increase from the first quarter in 2024. It did not lobby on specific bills in 2024. 
  • General Dynamics contributed $3.4 million in the election, both to Republicans as well as Democrats. The company also spent $12.2 million on lobbying in 2024, mostly regarding defense issues. It spent $3.3 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2025, a $340,000 increase from the previous year. 
  • Paragon Professional Services LLC is a subsidiary of Bering Straits Assn., which contributed $15,305 in the 2024 elections, both on Democratic as well as Republican candidates. The company lobbied to the tune of $280,000 in 2024, mostly on the Coast Guard Authorization Act and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act. It has spent $60,000 on lobbying in 2025 so far. CEO Gail Schubert spent several thousand dollars on Republican candidates in Alaska. 

Why does it matter?

(snip-It Matters! MORE on the page; click through above on the article headline.)

Women Fasted, Amnesty Int’l Founded, and Much More in Peace & Justice History for 5/28

May 28, 1892

The Sierra Club, America’s oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, was organized in San Francisco with wilderness explorer John Muir as its first president. The organization’s initial effort was to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park.
Muir introduced President Theodore Roosevelt to Yosemite the following year, inspiring him during his presidency to establish the U.S. Forest Service, create 5 national parks, and sign the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 national monuments.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”
– John Muir, The Yosemite (1912)

John Muir
The Sierra Club today
May 28, 1961

Amnesty International (AI) was founded on this date in Great Britain.
It is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights, particularly as laid out in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Members of AI help maintain a media focus on political prisoners, and organize public pressure to afford them their legal rights and obtain their release.
Visit Amnesty International 
Read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Amnesty International projects 
May 28, 1963
Black and white civil rights advocates were attacked as they sat-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi. They were defying state laws against serving “colored” citizens at “whites-only” public facilities.
According to John Salter, AKA Hunter Bear, one of those who sat in:
“This was the most violently attacked sit-in during the 1960s and is the most publicized. A huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I’m covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things.”

Attacked for trying to eat at Woolworth’s (L to R): John Salter (Hunter Bear), Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), and Anne Moody.
More photos and the story of the struggle against segregation 
Freedom Movement Bibliography 
May 28, 1982
Seven women fasted for 10 days in Springfield, Illinois, in support of ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by the Illinois state legislature. The amendment had already been ratified by 35 other states of the 38 required.
May 28, 1998
Pakistan exploded five underground nuclear devices in response to India’s most recent nuclear tests.
 
Since the British partitioned the subcontinent in 1947, there have been three wars between the two countries and numerous border clashes over the disputed Kashmir province. Kashmir had a majority (77%) Muslim population at the time of partition, but became part of predominantly Hindu (80%), though constitutionally secular, India.

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely proclaimed as the ” Father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb,” stands in the access tunnel inside the Chagai Hills nuclear test site before Pakistan’s
28 May 1998 underground nuclear test.
Read more 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may28

Continuing Education

Hello All; I thought that since the drumpf and the republicans want to defund public education and national educational standards, we could use this time to learn some new words. Please feel free to add these to your vocabulary as I believe these will be especially useful for describing current politics.