March 30, 1891 Signaling a growing movement toward direct political action among desperate western farmers, “Sockless” Jerry Simpson called on the Kansas Farmers’ Alliance to work for a takeover of the state government. “Sockless” Jerry Simpson Simpson was one of the most well-known and influential leaders among Populist-minded western and midwestern farmers of the late 19th century. Angered over low crop prices, high-interest bank loans and unaffordable shipping rates, farmers began to unite in self-help groups like the Grange and the Farmers’ Alliances. Initially, these groups primarily provided mutual assistance to members while agitating for the regulation of railroads and grain elevators. Increasingly, though, they became centers of support for more sweeping political change by uniting to help form the nationwide third-party movement known as the Populists. More about Populist “Sockless” Jerry Simpson
March 30, 1919 Shops were closed and thousands demonstrated in protest against Rowlatt Acts in New Delhi, Amritsar, and other Indian cities. The hastily passed law permanently extended wartime civil liberties restrictions such as trial without jury and internment without trial.
March 30, 1948 Henry Wallace, former vice-president (under Franklin D. Roosevelt) and then Progressive Party presidential candidate, lashed out at the Cold War policies of President Harry S. Truman. Wallace and his supporters were among the few Americans who actively voiced criticisms of America’s Cold War mindset during the late 1940s and 1950s. Read more on his warnings about American fascists
March 30, 1976 Land Day, 1978. (Photo: Gidon Gitai) Became known as “Land Day” when Palestinians in occupied territories stood strong against the Zionist entity’s attempted confiscation of thousands of acres of land. Their grassroots protests were met with aggressive violence in which the Zionist police force killed six and injured hundreds of its Palestinian citizens. What is LandDay? | more 1982 AP photo/Castelnuove; Marchers protest for Land Day on March 30, 1982 in the Arab village of Sakhnine in northern Israel. 2018 Palestinian people mobilized en masse along the Gaza border to demand an end to a brutal “Israeli” blockade and to demand the rights for displaced Palestinians to return to their homeland. On that day, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza put their lives on the line to participate in demonstrations that continued every Friday for over a year. Over 250 Palestinian demonstrators have been killed and over 30,000 injured. Rightfully called the Great March of Return, this unwavering display of strength solidified the Palestinian commitment to liberation and sent a clear message that Palestinians will not be silenced.
March 30, 1980 80,000 demonstrated against construction of a commercial nuclear reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf, Germany. The project was ultimately abandoned.
Hi hi, what’s this about, with the hoodies and the masked thugs?
More on Rumeysa Ozturk. She seems to have been kidnapped to ICE prison in Louisiana, whether before or after a judge said NOT TO FUCKING MOVE HER is unknown. (Zeteo)
So fucking jealous of Brazil right now. (Guardian)
Sure yes good:
In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, according to Katherine Wells, the city’sdirector of public health.
Billions in health funds for infectious diseases and drug treatment being clawed back after they were already given out, and “Some predicted the loss of as much as 90 percent of staff from some infectious disease teams.” (Gift link New York Times)
Vance and Usha backing down from Greenland visit (she was supposed to go with Mike Waltz, but he got real busy this week); instead of going and flaunting themselves around Greenland, they’re going only to a US base, and Greenland is stoked. (CNN)
Alito and Thomas on the wrong end of a 7-2 vote as Supreme Court says the JACKBOOTED THUGS can FORCE YOU to … put serial numbers on your ghost guns. THE HUMANITY!!!!!! (Decision) Don’t wanna read 63 pages? It was Gorsuch, in the library, with a coherent decision. (Lawyers Guns & Money)
This new US Attorney for upstate New York said Joe Biden should be tried for treason and Barack Obama should be deported, so that’s just a very stable kind of guy to be a top Trump prosecutor. (Syracuse)
Pam Bondi, the attorney general of the United States, is spending all her time going on TV to yell at Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who is supremely unperturbed by it. (Our Liz at Public Notice)
Oh thank god! Now the gay whales won’t get windmill cancer! (Heatmap, reg req)
“It’s like a Tea Party rally for people who believe the 14th Amendment is real.” With Bernie and AOC in Tempe and Tucson. (Mother Jones)
Oh huh, real wages (after accounting for inflation) were up 14 percent for the lowest-paid working people under Joe Biden? And 11 percent for the next decile? And still up but not as much for the richer people? I am sorry, I will NEVER get over how we kept having to apologize for Joe Biden’s economy every time it was mentioned.
“In year-to-year visits, Target saw a decline in nearly 5 million shoppers during a four-week period that ended Feb. 9. For Costco, the big-box store corporation saw an increase of 7.7 million visits.” And that’s why you don’t shit on “DEI” (Black and gay people existing). (Black Enterprise)
Hey it’s your right to make your 14-year-olds work past 11 p.m. on a school night. Florida says so! (Tallahassee Democrat)
Single women are driving the housing market. Couldn’t even get a mortgage until 1974. (Detroit Free Press)
My goodness Vanity Fair used to pay all the money in the world. (Yale Review)
I was not going to post again tonight, and in fact had thought to place some videos in a scheduled post for tomorrow. But this is FAR TOO IMPORTANT TO WAIT! When I told Ron about this, he remembered the Portland protests where tRump had security from prisons in unmarked vans and blacked out uniforms snatch people from the street. Is this them. Or as Ron asked me, is this just his brown shirt thugs trying to enforce his positions on the street? How to know because he sent them after drag queens and drag queen story hours. How far down the authoritarian road have we traveled already? How much farther before we can’t come back. Want to know her crime. She is a legal student here from Turkey and she wrote a pro-Palestinian op-ed. For that she got black bagged and sent to a location no one can contact her as even her lawyer says he has heard nothing and has no way to contact her. Even after a judge told ICE / tRump not to do this, they did it. Oh and why are they snatching these students and others then sending them to Louisiana? The appeals court for that area is notoriously right wing. They want as much good press and legal writing as they can get before it hits the SCOTUS. Even if a judge in the proper district tells them to do something they don’t want they just ignore it trying to force the judge to sanction tRump and his administration for using his core power which the SCOTUS tRump seems to feel has made him immune from any consequences of even an illegal act. We will soon see if he is correct. Seems Justice Sotomayor was correct. Hugs. Hugs
Unidentified men grabbing someone off the street and putting her in a car because she wrote an op-Ed. This as flatly authoritarian as anything we’ve seen in this country in a very long time.
Video of the international student at Tufts being arrested by "federal authorities" in Massachusetts has been released and it's terrifying. They're not even uniformed officers. Just secret police thugs in hoodies and masks. From WCVB: youtu.be/PuFIs7OkzYY
A longer version of the Tufts announcement about the abduction of an international graduate student by federal authorities, circulating on Twitter and Reddit.
"An emergency rally has been called for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Powder House Square in Somerville to protest a Tufts international graduate student being taken into custody Tuesday by federal authorities."
The first mistake was giving classified information to Pete HegsethRead on Substack
If only someone could have foreseen that being a host on Fox & Friends doesn’t make one qualified to be the Secretary of Defense.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was sitting in his car in a Safeway parking lot when he received a message about an upcoming military strike in Yemen. The message was part of a group chat in Signal, a messaging app, sent from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Goldberg wrote in The Atlantic, “I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.”
The world found out on March 15 at 2 p.m. Eastern time that the United States had bombed Houthi targets in Yemen, but Goldberg knew at 11:44 a.m. The message included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.
Note that Goldberg didn’t expose this intel fiasco until yesterday, ten days after the strike. My question is: Did any of the group chat participants notice Goldberg was in the chat before yesterday?
After the National Security Council confirmed the legitimacy of the chat, Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard claimed there was no classified information in the chat. The White House also claimed no classified information or war plans were shared. Then, Pete Hegseth made the same claim, saying, “Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that.”
Except, that wasn’t all he had to say about “that,” as he also said Goldberg is “a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.” Keep in mind that this guy who used to work for Fox News now works for Donald Trump, the king of discredited lies and conspiracy theories.
While interviewing Goldberg on CNN Monday night, Caitlin Collins said to Goldberg, “I want to start by getting your reaction to what we heard from Secretary Hegseth there, saying that ‘Nobody was texting war plans.’ Given you were privy to this group chat, is that how you saw it?”
Goldberg replied, “No, that’s a lie. He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans. When targets were going to be targeted; how they were going to be targeted; who was at the targets; when the next sequence of attacks was happening.”
The only way the Trump administration can cover their ass on this is to lie.
In a quickly-called Senate hearing this morning, Gabbard refused to even admit she was part of the chat, saying she didn’t want to get into “specifics.” Senator Mark Warner asked, “Why aren’t you gonna get into the specifics? Is this—is it because it’s all classified?
Gabbard said she couldn’t get into specifics about the chat she claimed didn’t contain classified intel, and said she couldn’t “because this is currently under review by the National Security Council.”
That prompted Warner to ask, “Because it’s all classified? If it’s not classified, share the texts now.”
Gabbard, Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe lacked the basic due diligence to check the group chat participants before spouting off about war plans. These people chosen by Trump are amateurs when it comes to their jobs and securing classified intelligence.
If only someone had pointed to these people’s lack of qualifications for their jobs. Oh, wait. We did.
Other members of the chat were National Security Advisor Mike Walz Veep JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, National Counterterrorism Center Director Nominee Joe Kent, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen “Baby Goebbels” Miller, and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff. Not one of these idiots noticed Goldberg’s name in the chat and asked, “Who’s that guy?”
Gabbard said there was a difference between the “inadvertent release” and “malicious leaks” of classified information before restating that there was no classified material in the chat, trying to have it both ways.
Unless the administration came out before the strike and said, “We’re going to start dropping bombs on Houthi rebels in Yemen at 2 p.m. on March 15, the information in the chat was classified.
This leak wasn’t malicious or inadvertent. It was inept. You would think if all the participants of this classified chat were competent, at least one of them would have spotted that one of the participants was a journalist, a journalist who did a better job of retaining the classified information better than the Secretary of Defense, Director of National Security, the FBI Director and the CIA Director.
Warner said Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Walz didn’t “conduct hygiene 101” in making sure the classified chat was secure.
Warner said, “If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired” and “This is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information, that this is not a one-off or a first-time error.”
If you don’t remember this happening in the Biden administration, it’s because it never did. Biden hired competent and qualified people, not the Gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
Later, he called for the resignations of Hegseth and Walz, but I think everyone in that chat should resign, including the vice president (sic). Didn’t they all want Hillary Clinton “locked up” for risking the exposure of classified information?
The Trump administration talks a lot of shit about our national security, as though they take it seriously. If they really took it seriously, they wouldn’t hire jackasses like Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Mike Walz, Kash Patel, and John Ratcliffe. Hell, if Republicans took our nation seriously, they wouldn’t have nominated that racist idiot Donald Trump.
Mark Warner said, “When the stakes are this high, incompetence is not an option.”
Creative note: I had something else planned for today, but this story threw that out the window last night. I had more than one reader message me, “Can’t wait to see your Hegseth cartoon.” Fortunately, those messages weren’t classified.
Music note: I listened to everything on this cafe’s sound system. Unfortunately, it included a lot of John Mayer. I hate John Mayer.
March 26, 1966 Over 50,000 marched peacefully in the Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade in New York City. They were part of the second International Days of Protest with marches in several cities in North America. Fifth Avenue anti-Vietnam War demonstration photo: Robert Parent Early efforts opposing the war in Vietnam
March 26, 1979 In a ceremony at the White House, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a peace agreement they had worked out with the assistance of President Jimmy Carter at Camp David, the U.S. president’s rural retreat. The agreement ended three decades of hostilities between Egypt and Israel, establishing diplomatic and commercial ties. The two countries have remained at peace for 40 years. Less than two years earlier, in an unprecedented move for an Arab leader, Sadat had traveled to Jerusalem to seek a permanent peace settlement with Egypt’s Jewish neighbor. Coverage by the BBC
March 26, 1986 The Oklahoma Supreme Court (Post v. State of Oklahoma) upheld a ruling that an Oklahoma anti-sodomy law could not be constitutionally applied to private, consensual activity.
March 26, 2003 Over one million students in Spain went on strike in opposition to their government’s support of the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq. The demonstration in Barcelona
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
the post along with the comments beneath it are important to read. There are ways to make our directions to our government known. Even if a person can’t show up, a person can send a pizza or some cold drinks to a group who’s out speaking out. We can each do a thing. Meanwhile, please read Tengrain’s post, and the comments, as they’re important to know.
Hello Everyone. Before I turn you over to Ethel to watch her informative video on the same group attacking trans people making up lies about furry’s to try to attack trans people through them. Of course according to the hate group anything not cis straight that they don’t understand is attacking children somehow. But my good news I won’t have to dump my main computer. I figured out what was causing two of my programs that I need to refuse to work. I combed through the setting of both programs. I then dumped the video computer. I later realized I did not have to. There was a setting that said make this program work with the VPN (paraphrased) Then the other side of that said make programs not work with VPN. So I had placed the switched it to work with VPN. For two days I couldn’t get the two program. This morning at 3 am I dumped the computer, resetting it, then loaded up the two programs and kept changing settings and things until suddenly everything works. Then I check to make sure the VPN was not leaking my location with the settings that way. The switch should have said this way bypasses the VPN, this way makes the program use the VPN. Why do I need the VPN? I live in Florida, a republican nanny state that thinks adults in the state need permission to visit sites labeled NSFW if you get my meaning. Anyway. Now I have to reload all my programs on the video computer. Now to the video. Hugs
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)
Scottie's Playtime 