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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 8 months ago

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By: Brad Polumbo

Published: Jun 25, 2024

Republicans are very concerned about left-wing indoctrination in the public school system, and often for good reasons. Yet, it seems that some Republican leaders feel differently about ideological indoctrination in the classroom when they’re the ones doing it.

In Louisiana, a recent law mandates the display of the Ten Commandments across all public educational institutions, from elementary schools to universities. The bill, championed by Republican Governor Jeff Landry, was signed into law at a private Catholic school. During the ceremony, Governor Landry declared, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.”

This makes Louisiana the only state in the nation with such a mandate. Other red states haven’t ventured into this territory in recent years, perhaps because they know it’s blatantly unconstitutional. Nonetheless, Governor Landry appears undeterred, openly stating that “can’t wait to be sued.”

He may not have to wait very long.

A coalition of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has already announced its intention to file suit, condemning the mandate as “unconstitutional religious coercion of students, who are legally required to attend school and are thus a captive audience for school-spons.ored religious messages.” The ACLU also added that the mandate “send[s] a chilling message to students and families who do not follow the state’s preferred version of the Ten Commandments that they do not belong, and are not welcome, in our public schools.”

This is not uncharted territory. The ACLU cited the 1980 Supreme Court case Stone v. Graham, where the court explicitly ruled that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits the establishment of a formal state religion, prevents public schools from displaying the Ten Commandments.

“If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments,” the Supreme Court ruled in that case. “However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.”

Governor Landry is surely aware of this precedent and simply does not care that this legislation will almost certainly be blocked in the courts. Nonetheless, it represents an opportunity for him to signal his cultural war bona fides—a move that, in any other context, Republicans might rightly describe as empty “virtue signaling.”

Regrettably, this isn’t just an isolated incident among Republicans in one conservative state. Louisiana’s initiative has garnered support from many of the most prominent figures in the modern GOP. One such figure is Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who praised the legislation in an interview with Real America’s Voice. “This is something we need all throughout our nation,” she said. “I’m so proud of Governor Landry…. We need morals back in our nation, back in our schools, and if there’s anything we’re going to present in front of our children, it should be the word of God.”

This stance appears to be a mainstream view within the Republican Party, as the party’s leader, Donald Trump, also threw his support behind Louisiana’s efforts in a post on Truth Social:

The Republicans’ embrace of this religious mandate in public schools is deeply hypocritical, contravening many principles they have previously claimed to stand for, and incredibly short-sighted.

Firstly, they are proving to be fair-weather fans of the First Amendment. These same types regularly champion free speech when it comes to opposing government censorship or progressive attempts to crack down on “hate speech” (which now includes uttering basic biological truths), and they are absolutely right to do so. However, you cannot selectively support the First Amendment, endorsing free speech and freedom of religion clauses while actively violating the Establishment Clause. After all, if Republicans can disregard the parts they don’t like when it’s inconvenient, then progressives can too!

Secondly, Republicans are compromising their stated beliefs about the importance of parents’ rights and opposing “indoctrination” in schools. Now, they suddenly advocate for the government’s role in teaching children morality, instead of leaving this responsibility to parents or families.

Which is it? Consistent supporters of parents’ rights believe that it should be up to parents to teach their kids about morality, whether it concerns pronouns or prayer.

There’s also the issue of misplaced priorities. Louisiana ranks 40th out of all 50 states in education. Meanwhile, 40 percent of 3rd graders cannot read at grade level, according to The Advocate. Yet, the governor prioritizes mandating posters of the Ten Commandments—and allocating tax dollars to defending it in court—that many students probably can’t even read.

Even many conservative Christians can see the issue here. As radio host Erick Erickson put it:

When the 3rd grade reading level is only 49 percent, I don’t see why the state wants to spend money on lawyers for a probably unconstitutional law making the Ten Commandments mandatory just to virtue signal a side in a culture war. Actually use conservative reforms to fix the schools instead of putting up posters half the 3rd grade cannot even read.

Perhaps the most common Republican rejoinder is that displaying the Ten Commandments is an educational initiative focused on historical context rather than a promotion of religion. But while there’s no disputing its historical significance, it’s not being presented as part of a broader course on religion that features a variety of religious and secular perspectives, which would be fine. Instead, beliefs from a particular religious tradition, the Judeo-Christian one, are being elevated and mandated to the deliberate exclusion of others. This selective approach is hardly subtle: Governor Landry purposefully signed the bill at a Catholic school and even referenced Moses!

There’s no denying that the Ten Commandments are inherently religious, as they proscribe not only murder and adultery but also idolatry, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and working on the Sabbath. So, conservatives making this “history, not religion” argument are straining credulity.

What’s more, further empowering government schools to promote a specific ideology to students will not end well for conservatives. It’s not exactly breaking news that the public education system is overwhelmingly staffed and run by people with increasingly left-leaning political and cultural views. Conservatives should be fighting to restore viewpoint neutrality in the public square—not further undermining it and thereby making it easier for woke ideologues to propagandize to everyone’s kids.

It’s sad, but ultimately not surprising, to see so many Republicans proving to be inconsistent allies to true liberal values. At least those few genuine, principled defenders of the First Amendment now know who our allies are—and who they are not.

About the Author

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is an independent journalist, YouTuber, and co-founder of BASEDPolitics.

Moral consistency requires opposing both.

... Secularism means that no particular ideology is being forwarded and getting special treatment. Go have your belief. Believe what you want. Privately. You don’t get special treatment because you believe this with tons of conviction. Secularism means that your belief in your faith covers none of the distance to proving that it’s true. Conviction is not evidence of much of anything. Except conviction. -- James Lindsay

“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.”

Leviticus 25:44-46

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Who's going to tell him?

#Brad Polumbo #christianity #Ten Commandments #religion in schools #secularism #indoctrination #religious indoctrination #child indoctrination #childhood indoctrination #freedom of religion #ideological indoctrination #freedom from religion #First Amendment #Establishment Clause #US Constitution #unconstitutional #religion #religion is a mental illness

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 4

1650 – William III was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth, and he governed Holland from 1672. From 1689 he also reigned as William III over England and Ireland. By coincidence, his regnal number (III) was the same for both Orange and England. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is informally known by sections of the population in Northern Ireland and Scotland as "King Billy". In what became known as the "Glorious Revolution", on 5 November 1688 William invaded England in an action that ultimately deposed King James II and won him the crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland. In the British Isles, William ruled jointly with his wife, Mary II, until her death on 28 December 1694. The period of their joint reign is often referred to as "William and Mary".

A Protestant, William participated in several wars against the powerful Catholic king of France, Louis XIV, in coalition with Protestant and Catholic powers in Europe. Many Protestants heralded him as a champion of their faith. Largely because of that reputation, William was able to take the British crowns when many were fearful of a revival of Catholicism under James. William's victory over James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is still commemorated by the Orange Order. His reign marked the beginning of the transition from the personal rule of the Stuarts to the more Parliament-centred rule of the House of Hanover.

During the 1690s rumours grew of William's alleged homosexual inclinations and led to the publication of many satirical pamphlets by his Jacobite detractors. He did have several close, male associates, including two Dutch courtiers to whom he granted English titles: Hans Willem Bentinck became Earl of Portland, and Arnold Joost van Keppel was created Earl of Albemarle. These relationships with male friends, and his apparent lack of more than one female mistress, led William's enemies to suggest that he might prefer homosexual relationships. William's modern biographers, however, still disagree on the veracity of these allegations, with many contending that they were just figments of his enemies' imaginations, and others suggesting there may have been some truth to the rumours.

A spate of political satires accusing William of intimate relations with both men circulated during his reign. These scurrilous poems are quite explicit in their allegations, and are obviously the work of Tory partisans who favored James. For this reason they have been discounted by William's defenders.

One satire begins:

"For the case, Sir, is such, That the people think much, That your love is Italian*, your government Dutch. Ah! Who would have thought that a Low-Country Stallion and Protestant Prince should prove an Italian*?" (*Italy was the country most notably associated with sodomy in the seventeenth century.)

Bentinck's closeness to William did arouse jealousies in the Royal Court at the time, but most modern historians doubt that there was a homosexual element in their relationship. But William's young protege, Keppel, aroused more gossip and suspicion, being 20 years William's junior and strikingly handsome, and having risen from being a royal page to an earldom with some ease. Portland wrote to William in 1697 that "the kindness which your Majesty has for a young man, and the way in which you seem to authorise his liberties ... make the world say things I am ashamed to hear". This, he said, was "tarnishing a reputation which has never before been subject to such accusations". William tersely dismissed these suggestions, however, saying, "It seems to me very extraordinary that it should be impossible to have esteem and regard for a young man without it being criminal."

Most telling, however, are the remarks of Bishop Gilbert Burnet, who praised William unstintingly as "a person raised up by God to resist the power of France and the progress of tyranny and persecution." Yet in considering matters that might make it difficult for William to assume the English throne, Burnet refers to one "particular . . . too tender to be put in writing," which under the circumstances can only be interpreted as a reference to William's sexual nature.

1896 – J. R. Ackerley (d.1967) - His full registered name was Joe Ackerley; Randolph was added later as a tribute to an uncle - was arts editor of The Listener, the weekly magazine of the BBC. He was also openly gay, a rarity in his time.

Ackerley's memoir My Father and Myself, begins: "I was born in 1896 and my parents were married in 1919." His father, Roger Ackerley, was a fruit merchant, known as the "Banana King" of London. His mother, Netta, and Roger had lived together for a number of years and had already had one boy, Peter. An aunt said of Joe's conception: "Your father happened to have run out of French letters that day."

While at public school JR discovered he was attracted to other boys. His striking good looks earned him the nickname "Girlie" but he was not sexually active, or only very intermittently, as a schoolboy. He described himself as

a chaste, puritanical, priggish, rather narcissistic little boy, more repelled than attracted to sex, which seemed to me a furtive, guilty, soiling thing, exciting, yes, but nothing whatever to do with those feelings which I had not yet experienced but about which I was already writing a lot of dreadful sentimental verse, called romance and love.

Failing his entrance examinations for Cambridge University, Ackerley applied for a commission in the Army, and as World War I was in full swing, he was accepted immediately as a Second Lieutenant. In June 1915 he was sent over to France. The following summer he was wounded at the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916. He was shot in the arm and an explosion caused shards of a whiskey bottle in his bag to be imbedded in his side.

In May 1917 Ackerley led an attack in the Arras region where he was again wounded, this time in the buttock and thigh. He was taken prisoner. Being an officer, his internment camp was located in neutral Switzerland and was rather comfortable. Here he began his play, The Prisoners of War, which deals with the cabin fever of captivity and the frustrated longings he experienced for another English prisoner. He was repatriated to England when the war ended.

After the war Ackerley returned to England and attended Cambridge. He moved to London and continued to write and enjoy the cosmopolitan delights of the capital. He met E. M. Forster and other literary bright lights, but was lonely despite a plenitude of sexual partners. With his play having trouble finding a producer, and feeling generally adrift and distant from his family, Ackerley turned to Forster for guidance.

Forster got him a position as secretary to the Maharaja of Chhatarpur who he knew from writing A Passage to India. Ackerley spent about five months in India, still under British rule, and met a number of Anglo-Indians for whom he developed a strong distaste. The recollections of this time are the basis for his comic memoir Hindoo Holiday. The Maharaja was also homosexual, and His Majesty's obsessions and dalliances, along with Ackerley's observations about Anglo-Indians, account for much of the humor of the work.

During these months, he also developed a short friendship with the twenty year old Narayan and sixteen year old Sharma, who were servants of the King of 'Chokrapur'. Of one evening with Narayan he wrote, 'he suddenly laughed softly and drew me after him. And in the dark roadway, overshadowed by trees, he put up his face and kissed me on the cheek. I returned his kiss; but he at once drew back, crying out: 'Not the mouth! You eat meat! You eat meat!' 'Yes, and I will eat you in a minute,' I said, and kissed him on the lips again, and this time he did not draw away.'

Back in England, Prisoners of War was finally produced to some acclaim. Its run began at The Three Hundred Club on 5 July 1925, then transferred to The Playhouse on 31 August. Ackerley capitalized on his success, carousing with London's theatrical crowd, and through Cambridge friends met the actor John Gielgud, and other rising stars of the stage.

In 1928, Ackerley joined the staff of the BBC, then a year old, in the "Talks" Department, where prominent personalities gave radio lectures. He was Literary Editor of the BBC's magazine The Listener from 1935-59 discovering and promoting many young writers, including Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Christopher Isherwood.

Ackerley spent the last 24 years of his life in a small flat overlooking the Thames. Almost all his significant work was produced during this period. He had a stable job at the BBC, and the unsatisfying promiscuity of his younger years faded. What remained was his search for what he called an "Ideal Friend". He acquired an Alsatian bitch named Queenie from a sometime-lover, Freddie Doyle, who was going to prison for burglary. This scene, with Ackerley visiting Freddie at the police station, is how Ackerely's only novel, We Think the World of You, begins. ("Johnny" in the novel is closely modelled on Freddie.)

In the years folowing, Ackerly worked on his memoir about his father and drank too much gin. His sister Nancy found him dead in his bed on the morning of 4 June 1967. Ackerley's biographer Peter Parker gives the cause of death as coronary thrombosis.

Ackerly was openly gay, at least after his parents' deaths, having realized his homosexuality while interned in Switzerland as a prisoner of war. Ackerley worked hard to plumb the depths of his sexuality in his writings and belonged to a circle of notable literary homosexuals that flouted convention, specifically the homophobia that kept gay men in the closet or exposed openly gay men to persecution.

While he never found the "Ideal Friend" he wrote of so often, he had a number of long-term relationships. Ackerley was a "twank," a term used by sailors and guardsmen to describe a man who paid for their sexual services, and he describes in detail the ritual of picking up and entertaining a young guardsman, sailor or labourer. Forster warned him, "Joe, you must give up looking for gold in coal mines."

My Father and Myself serves as a guide to the understanding of the sexuality of a gay man of Ackerley's generation. W. H. Auden, in his review of My Father and Myself, speculates that Ackerley enjoyed the "brotherly" sexual act of mutual masturbation rather than penetration. Ackerley described himself as "quite impenetrable."

Wagstaff (L) with Mapplethorpe

1921 – Sam Wagstaff Jr. (d.1987) was an American art curator and collector as well as the artistic mentor and benefactor of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (who was also his lifetime companion) and poet-punk rocker Patti Smith. Wagstaff is known in part for his support of Minimalism, Pop Art, Conceptual Art and Earthworks, but his aesthetic acceptance and support of photography presaged the acceptance of the medium as a fine art.

Born to a wealthy family, after growing up on Central Park South, attending the Hotchkiss School and graduating from Yale University, and being a fixture on the debutante circuit, Wagstaff joined the US Navy in 1941 as an ensign, where he took part in the D-day landing at Omaha Beach in World War II.

In 1959, an art history fellowship took him to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. He served as curator of contemporary art at the Wadsworth Atheneum from 1961 to 1968, and then at the Detroit Institute of Arts from 1968 to 1971.

After seeing the exhibition "The Painterly Photograph, 1890-1914" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1973 and meeting Robert Mapplethorpe in 1972, Wagstaff became convinced that photographs were the most unrecognized and, possibly, the most valuable works of art. He began selling his collection of paintings, using the proceeds to buy 19th-century American, British, and French photography. Then, influenced by Mapplethorpe, Wagstaff's taste veered toward the daring, and he began to depart from established names in search of new talent. His collection was soon recognized as one of the finest private holdings in the United States. In 1984 Wagstaff's photography holdings - comprising at least 2,500 masterworks - went to the J. Paul Getty Museum, for a reported price said to be in the neighborhood of $5 million.

Sam Wagstaff met his lifetime companion and protégé, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in 1972 at a party. Mapplethorpe, whom Wagstaff called his shy pornographer, was also his guide to the gay demimonde of extreme sex and drugs that flourished in New York in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s, Wagstaff gave Mapplethorpe $500,000 to purchase the top-floor loft at 35 West 23rd Street, where the photographer lived and had his shooting space.

Wagstaff died of pneumonia arising from AIDS at his home in Manhattan on January 14, 1987, two years before Mapplethorpe.

1946 – Robert Mapplethorpe (d.1989) was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men. The frank homoeroticism of some of the work of his middle period triggered a more general controversy about the public funding of artworks.

Mapplethorpe was born and grew up as a Roman Catholic in Queens, New York. He majored in graphic arts, though he dropped out in 1969 before finishing his degree. Mapplethorpe lived with his partner Patti Smith from 1967-1974, and she supported him by working. They created art together, and even after he realized he was gay, they maintained a close relationship.

Mapplethorpe took his first photographs using a Polaroid camera. In the mid-1970s, he acquired a Hasselblad camera and began taking photographs of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, including artists, composers, and socialites. In the 1980s he refined his aesthetic, photographing statuesque male and female nudes, delicate flower still-lifes, and highly formal portraits of artists and celebrities. In the 1980s, his mentor and lifetime companion art curator Sam Wagstaff gave him $500,000 to buy the top-floor loft at 35 West 23rd Street, where he lived and had his shooting space.

Mapplethorpe worked primarily in the studio, particularly toward the end of his career. Common subjects include flowers, especially orchids and calla lilies, and celebrities, including Andy Warhol, Deborah Harry, Richard Gere, Peter Gabriel, Grace Jones, and Patti Smith. Smith was a longtime roommate of Mapplethorpe and a frequent subject in his photography, including a stark, iconic photograph that appears on the cover of Smith's first album, Horses.

Other work includes homoerotic and BDSM acts (including coprophagia), and classical nudes. Mapplethorpe's X Portfolio series sparked national attention in the early 1990s when it was included in The Perfect Moment, a traveling exhibition funded by National Endowment for the Arts. The portfolio includes some of Mapplethorpe's most explicit imagery, including a self-portrait with a bullwhip inserted in his anus.

Night Work

Though his work had been regularly displayed in publicly funded exhibitions, conservative and religious organizations, such as the American Family Association, seized on this exhibition to vocally oppose government support for what they called "nothing more than the sensational presentation of potentially obscene material." As a result, Mapplethorpe became something of a cause célèbre for both sides of the American Culture war. The installation of The Perfect Moment in Cincinnati resulted in the unsuccessful prosecution of the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati and its director, Dennis Barrie, on charges of "pandering obscenity". His photographs of black men have also been criticized as exploitative.

Bob Love

Mapplethorpe died on the morning of March 9, 1989, 42 years old, in a Boston, Massachusetts, hospital from complications arising from AIDS. His body was cremated and the ashes buried in Queens, New York, in his mother's grave, marked "Maxey".

Nearly a year before his death, the ailing Mapplethorpe helped found the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc. His vision for the Foundation was that it would be "the appropriate vehicle to protect his work, to advance his creative vision, and to promote the causes he cared about". Since his death, the Foundation has not only functioned as his official estate and helped promote his work throughout the world, it has also raised and donated millions of dollars to fund medical research in the fight against AIDS and HIV infection.

1960 – Tom Ryan, FDNY Firefighter, president emeritus of FireFLAG/EMT and LGBT Rights activist, is born. Ryan retired from FDNY in 2003, after a distinguished FDNY career, and is a veteran of 9/11. He has worked tirelessly for the issues effecting LGBT Firefighters and Emergency Workers, continues to speak out on issues of homophobia in the fire services, the rights of domestic partners, and discrimination toward the gay community.

September 11, 2001, started out as a picture-perfect day in New York City, Tom Ryan recalls. The sun was shining brightly. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Ryan, a firefighter with Ladder Company 12, a house located in the Chelsea District of Manhattan, was off that day, busying himself in the Bronx home he shared with his partner of 11 years, Scott Arigot, and two of their children.

An instant message alerted him that the beauty of the day was about to be shattered, altering life in America, and the world, as we had known it.

Ryan made a quick call to the firehouse and spoke with his fellow firefighter, Angel Juarde, who told Ryan he was about to leave the station for the enflamed World Trade Center. It turned out to be the last time the two men would speak.

Moments later, all firefighters and police officers were called in to work in the city.

By the time he got to Ladder Company 12 in Manhattan, motorcycling in and out of the steady flow of traffic driving against him, Ryan was not yet aware that both World Trade Center towers had collapsed.

"I was trying to figure out what I should expect when I got down there. Have you ever been in New York to see the ticker-tape parades?" Ryan said in a recent phone conversation, searching for a metaphor to adequately explain the nightmarish specter.

"This was like an evil ticker tape parade. Paper was going everywhere. And dust—that grey dust went everywhere.

"The whole week I felt very isolated, and I know a lot of the other firefighters did, too," Ryan said.

"Basically, you went to the site, you came back to the firehouse. You tried to sleep but ended up walking the floors for a couple hours. Then you went back. You caught little naps, 20 minutes here and 20 minutes there. Your mind was racing. We really thought people were still alive in there."

Saturday morning, September 15, was the first time after the attacks that Ryan had any appreciable time off.

Before leaving the firehouse, he sat in the station's communal kitchen, reading that morning's edition of the New York Times. One of the first articles he read chronicled Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blaming the attacks on gays and lesbians, and liberals in general.

"I just went nuts. I could not believe I had just had the week that I had had, and these two supposed-Christians were going to condemn me," Ryan said, the timbre of his voice raising. "I started ranting and raving, and the people in the firehouse kitchen were saying 'What's the problem?'"

Ryan told them the problem. His colleagues' response was, "Well, it's only words."

"But it's not only words," Ryan said. "People believe what they say."

Despite his anger and frustration, Ryan decided to attend the funeral that day of gay fire chaplain Mychal Judge, thought to be the first rescue worker to perish when the World Trade Center Towers fell. A former Catholic, Ryan said he knew Mychal Judge was gay, but had no other connection with him.

The firefighters from the house located across the street from the church were to be Judge's pallbearers. Immediately in front of Ryan, one of the pallbearers began to falter, losing his grip on the coffin.

"I don't know what happened. I don't know if he couldn't emotionally do it, or if he was just physically exhausted, or what," Ryan said. "The coffin was rocking, and someone shouted, 'Step out, step out!'"

Ryan immediately jumped forward, took the weakened pallbearer's place, and began carrying Judge's coffin into the church.

"I felt like it was such a clear message from [Mychal Judge]," Ryan said. "Here he was, the gay chaplain of the New York City Fire Department. What are the odds of me being the firefighter who jumps out and grabs his coffin? I felt like it was a message from him, that there's no difference between any of us."

Ryan retired from FDNY in 2003, having been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome. He also suffers from respiratory problems he associates with the contaminated air that lingered for weeks at Ground Zero.

After that he attended classes at Brookdale Community College in New Jersey, near the Jersey shore where he and Arigot moved, to earn a his teaching degree. They have two sons and a daughter. The men also opened their home to care for a set of twins, who were seniors in high school.

Ryan continues his association with FireFLAG/EMS, a national support group for gay firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and their friends and families. Ryan is a past president of the organization. What started as a local group for rescue workers within the five New York City boroughs in 1991 has now blossomed into a national organization with as many as 500 members. Ryan estimates that among those members, four lost their lives in the 9/11 tragedy.

"I've been told there were a couple of [gay] police officers, too. Unfortunately, they were very closeted, so nobody stepped forward claiming to be a partner," he said. "I have [gay] friends who were in the Twin Towers," he said, marveling at the irony of the closeted rescue workers. "But they're still afraid to come out of the closet. I say, 'How could you be afraid of anything anymore?'

"It just speaks volumes about the pressures that society puts on you when you're still afraid to come out of the closet even though you lived through this horrendous experience."

1961 – Adam Bock is a Canadian playwright currently living in the United States. He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In the fall of 1984, Bock studied at the National Theater Institute at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. He is an artistic associate of the Shotgun Players, an award-winning San Francisco theater group. His play Medea Eats was produced in 2000 by Clubbed Thumb, which subsequently premiered his play The Typographer's Dream in 2002. Five Flights was produced in New York City by the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2004.

The Thugs opened Off-Off-Broadway in a production by SoHo Rep in October 2006, directed by Anne Kauffman. He won a 2006-07 Obie award, Playwriting, for The Thugs.

During the 2007-2008 New York theatrical season, two plays by Bock were produced Off Broadway: The Receptionist at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2007 and The Drunken City, originally commissioned by the Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, New York, at Playwrights Horizons.

Bock is openly gay and often writes about homosexuality. He is quoted as saying "I'm a gay playwright. I like being called a gay playwright. It's who I am. It's how I write. I have a very specific take on the world because I'm gay."

1971 – Perry Moore (d.2011) was an American author, screenwriter, and film director. He was an executive producer of The Chronicles of Narnia film series and the author of Hero, an award-winning novel about a homosexual teenage superhero.

He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1994, and while in college interned at the Virginia Film Festival. He also served as an intern in the White House and at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in New York City.He worked on the production team for The Rosie O'Donnell Show, then joined Walden Media (a media production company created by conservative billionaire Phillip Anschutz to produce family-friendly movies, documentaries, and television programs). He was the executive in charge of production for the film I Am David, an adaptation the Anne Holm novel North to Freedom.

He co-wrote and co-directed (with life partner Hunter Hill) the 2008 film Lake City, a drama that tells the story of a mother (Sissy Spacek) and son (Troy Garity) who reunite under desperate circumstances years after a family tragedy drove them apart. He also co-produced (again with Hill) a Spike Jonze-directed 2010 documentary (Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak) about children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak

Moore had a personal mission: although he was glad that comic books had been introducing Gay superhero characters for some time, he wanted to see them portrayed in a better light. What particularly disturbed him as the death of Northstar, a member of the Marvel Comics’ X-Men, whose announcement in the Marvel comic book that he was gay made headlines in 1992. In 2005, Northstar was killed by a brainwashed Wolverine. Moore said he felt that the murder of Marvel’s biggest gay hero by one of its most popular characters had sent the wrong message.

He began giving speeches in which he cited his own research showing that more than 60 gay and lesbian comic book characters had been ignored, maimed or murdered. "Yes, bad things happen to all people," Mr. Moore said. "But are there positive representations of gay characters to counterbalance these negative ones?" His answer was "Not enough." So Moore wrote Hero (2007), a novel about Thom Creed, a teen-ager coping with high school, a strained home life and his budding superpowers as well as his sexuality.

A longtime fan of children's literature and comic books, Moore's novel Hero was first published by Hyperion Books in August 2007. The young adult novel tells the story of a closeted homosexual teenager who becomes a superhero. In May 2008, Hero won a Lambda Literary Award as the best LGBT Children's/Young Adult novel of the past year. In 2008, Moore was in talks with veteran comic book writer Stan Lee about producing a television series based on the book. Moore began writing a sequel to Hero in 2009. Moore's father said that in early 2011 his son was working on turning Hero into a movie on the Starz cable television channel.

Openly gay, Moore lived in New York City with life partner Hunter Hill, a writer for Paper magazine. Moore was also a Christian and spoke publicly about his faith. According to family members, Moore had suffered knee and back problems before his death, which required pain medication and corrective surgery, but which he had put off to continue working. Moore died on February 17, 2011 at age 39 of a drug overdose, his body discovered by Hill in their SoHo apartment. While an initial autopsy proved inconclusive, his death was subsequently attributed to a lethal combination of benzodiazepine, methadone, and morphine.

1973 – Levi Kreis is an American recording artist and Tony Award-winning actor from Oliver Springs, Tennessee.

His debut album One Of The Ones was released on November 17, 2005 accompanied by an appearance on a special Sirius/XM radio edition of NBC's The Apprentice. Four hopefuls were chosen from thousands of submissions. The two teams had a challenge to write, record, produce and package an artist for Sirius/XM's station XM Cafe. Levi Kreis and his team won the challenge, launching Levi's recording career worldwide.

He followed his debut album with The Gospel According To Levi, confronting religion and its unhealthy views on sexuality, specifically as it relates to the LGBT community and conversion therapy (Levi did six years with Exodus International.) Levi's early music articulated the growing pains of young gay men and their relationships when it was still not a widely embraced topic of conversation.

In 2009, Levi won the OutMusic Award for his song "Stained Glass Window", a song inspired by the Del Shores play Southern Baptist Sissies. In addition to Levi's early musical activism, his compositions have been featured on many tv shows and movies.

As an actor, Levi was cast in the role of "Roger" in the national tour of RENT. He next starred in the award-winning independent film "Don't Let Go" starring Katharine Ross and Scott Wilson. He also played opposite Matthew McConaughey with the role of "Adam Meiks" in Bill Paxton's directorial debut Frailty.

Levi starred as Pastor Jimmy Ray Brewton in the film A Very Sordid Wedding (2017) and as Tom Cutler in the multi-award-winning film The Divide (2018).

2008 – Arkansas voters pass Act 1, which effectively bans adoption by same-sex couples, by a margin of 54% to 41%. Florida had done so in 1978. Florida’s ban was repealed in 2010.

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mariacallous · 10 months ago

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For the third time since December, House Speaker Mike Johnson has failed to wrangle support for reauthorizing a critical US surveillance program, raising questions about the future of a law that compels certain businesses to wiretap foreigners on the government’s behalf.

Johnson lost 19 Republicans on Tuesday in a procedural vote that traditionally falls along party lines. Republicans control the House of Representatives but only by a razor-thin margin. The failed vote comes just hours after former US president Donald Trump ordered Republicans to “Kill FISA” in a 2 am post on Truth Social, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which the program is authorized.

The Section 702 surveillance program, which targets foreigners overseas while sweeping up a large amount of US communications as well, is set to sunset on April 19. The program was extended by four months in late December following Johnson’s first failed attempt to hold a vote.

Congressional sources tell WIRED they have no idea what the next steps will be.

The program itself will carry on into the next year, regardless of whether Johnson manages to muster up another vote in the next week. Congress does not directly authorize the surveillance. Instead, it allows the US intelligence services to seek “certifications” from a secret surveillance court on a yearly basis.

The Justice Department applied for new certifications in February. Last week, it announced they’d been approved by the court. The government’s power to issue new directives under the program without Congress’s approval, however, remains in question.

The certifications, which are required only due to the “incidental” collection of US calls, generally permit the program’s use in cases involving terrorism, cybercrime, and weapons proliferation. US intelligence officials have also touted the program as crucial in combating the flood of fentanyl-related substances entering the US from overseas.

The program remains controversial due to a laundry list of abuses committed primarily at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which maintains a database that holds a portion of the raw data collected under 702.

Although the government says it only “targets” foreigners, it has acknowledged collecting a large amount of US communications in the process. (The actual amount, it says, is impossible to calculate.) Nevertheless, it claims that once those communications are in the government’s possession, it is constitutional for federal agents to review those wiretaps without a warrant.

An unlikely coalition of progressives and conservative lawmakers formed last year in a push to end these warrantless searches, many of the Republicans involved vocal critics of the FBI following its misuse of FISA to target a Trump campaign staffer in 2016. (The 702 program, which is only one part of FISA, was not implicated in that particular controversy.)

Privacy experts have criticized proposed changes to the Section 702 program championed by members of the House Intelligence Committee, as well as Johnson, who had previously voted in favor of a warrant requirement despite now opposing it.

“It seems Congressional leadership needs to be reminded that these privacy protections are overwhelmingly popular,” says Sean Vitka, policy director at Demand Progress, a civil liberties–focused nonprofit. “Surveillance reformers remain willing and able to do that.”

A group of attorneys—among the few to ever present arguments before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court—said in a statement on Tuesday that an amendment offered up by the Intel committee risked dramatically increasing the number of US businesses forced to cooperate with the program.

Declassified filings released by the FISA court last year revealed that the FBI had misused the 702 program more than 278,000 times, including, as reported by The Washington Post, against “crime victims, January 6 riot suspects, people arrested at protests after the policing killing of George Floyd in 2020 and—in one case—19,000 donors to a congressional candidate.”

James Czerniawaski, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity, a Washington, DC, think tank pushing for changes to Section 702, says that despite recognizing its value, it remained a “troubled program” in need of “significant and meaningful reforms.”

“The outcome of today was completely avoidable,” he says, “but it requires the Intelligence Community and its allies to recognize that its days of unaccountable and unconditional spying on Americans are over.”

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verycleverboy · 2 hours ago

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"Legal Black Box"

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but the second term Trump government's undocumented immigrant policy is already well on the way to becoming a human rights nightmare.

Per NPR:

A coalition of immigrant rights and legal aid groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, has sued the Trump administration, demanding that migrants flown by the government to a U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, be given access to lawyers. Wednesday's lawsuit says the Trump administration, after sending dozens of migrants to the remote Caribbean outpost in recent weeks, is now "holding them incommunicado, without access to attorneys, family, or the outside world." The suit alleges that "this isolation is no coincidence," since the distant location makes it especially difficult for migrants to communicate with attorneys who could explain their legal rights and challenge their detention. "One has to wonder if they're doing it so they don't have access to counsel, so that they can be held without rights, and so that the government can have these photo opps," the lead attorney in the lawsuit, ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt, said in an NPR interview, referring to images of shackled men being loaded onto and off of military planes. According to the lawsuit, some of the migrants' family members learned their relatives had been sent to Guantánamo upon seeing those photos, which were circulated publicly by the departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Several of those family members are plaintiffs in the case. Since traveling to Guantánamo will be onerous for lawyers, the lawsuit requests that "at a minimum," attorneys be allowed to communicate with the migrants via phone calls, video conferences or email.[...]

"Secretly transferring people from the United States to Guantánamo without access to legal representation or the outside world is not only illegal, it is a moral crisis for this nation," Deepa Alagesan, a senior supervising attorney at IRAP, said in a statement. "We will not stand by as the United States government tries to use Guantánamo as a legal black box to deny immigrants their basic rights to counsel and due process."

(continue reading)

Okay, back to me.

Border control policy has always had a nasty edge to it, regardless of who's overseeing it in the White House, but as with any Trump-era decision directed against a particular group, the cruelty is the point, and in that spirit the DHS defense takes a predictably belligerent tone. In a DHS statement, Tricia McLaughlin said, "If the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union cares more about highly dangerous criminal aliens including murderers & vicious gang members than they do about American citizens — they should change their name."

First of all, putting "AMERICAN" in all caps isn't as big of a flex as McLaughlin thinks it is. Also, she must be new here, because the whole premise of the ACLU is that everyone in this country gets due process or the entire system is a sham. If that's stopped being an important American principle, even in lip service, then maybe they aren't the problem here.

But of course, the main problem with her argument is we don't know who any of these people are. Their families of the first detainees don't even know where they are. So those of us outside the system are being asked to take the word of a government headed by a lifelong pathological liar who expects his underlings to follow his unethical lead. And obviously McLaughlin's using his style guide.

In short, like a lot of fact-free press releases in the post-truth era, this one cries out for [citation needed].

#donald trump #us immigration #guantanamo bay

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ilikeapples01 · 6 months ago

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Prayers to the Silicate Pantheon (all hail empress pink au) (art by HellMick)

When the Khahalita were first graced by the arrival of the Empress their technology was... primitive. Barely able to reach their own moons, let alone the other worlds in their system, there was precious little they could do to stop her. Pink waltzed through their amassed forces alone and unsupported like they weren't even there, unfazed by the resistance offered. To the Khahalita she was like a god, and with the enforced subjugation of their world she may as well have been. With the generations, their world prospered, even if liberties and pride were sacrificed for it, and the truth degraded into myth as deification crept in. The 'Silicate Pantheon' as it became known eventually encompassed every city on every continent of theplanet, and several post-conquest Khahalita colonies, such as the domain of one Wharla Marquessa and her demigod daughters. Prayers were collected and codified, rites were invented and passed down, and doctrine was carefully written under the watchful eye of their Angel of Death, Prime Minister Asriel. Exerpts have been provided below:

"Hail to thee, Angel of Death, tongue sharp as your blades, insight unmatched and will indomitable. Our foes are innumerable and our forces are helpless; lend us your wit, your charisma, your magnificence, that we may divide our enemy amongst itself, and thus be spared their wrath. Protect us, your loyal acolytes, that we live to return the favour that day you call upon us." - Prayer to Asriel Dreemurr, seeking to collapse a contentious enemy coalition.

"Praise be to the Lord of War, patron of army and soldier, wise master of strategy and victory of armaments. Guide not our shells and blades but our manoeuvres and our plans. Lend us your supreme excellence in the art and science of conflict, that we may deliver unto you and your pantheon final victory over our foes." - Prayer to Yellow Diamond, seeking to boost the capabilities of the general staff.

"All hail the Pink Empress! Unquestionable force of nature! Ruler of all things! Tyrant and liberator at once, such is your power to straddle, to defy definition! We beseech thine mercy on the souls of those of us who saw fit to transgress against you, who knew not the magnitude of their crimes and fell afoul of evil tongues and thoughts. We plead you take heed of the Angel's word and show mercy, that we may correct our failings and atone our sins lest we suffer your irresistible wrath." Prayer to Empress Pink Diamond, begging for mercy for a supposed unspecified wrongdoing.

The culture shock involved has been intensively studied by scholars empire-wide, especially those extracted from the Blue Diamond's essence, the latter having found her way into the Silicate Pantheon generations later as a minor 'Moon Goddess' to the mild confusion of the government.

#allhailempresspinkau #steven universe au #steven universe #pink diamond #su pink diamond

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thalkonvotes · 1 year ago

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Current Recognized Party Labels

Welcome Page 2024 Party List

The following is a list of the abbreviations used to identify the party labels on various state ballots for the U.S. Presidential and Congressional candidates. The party label listed may not necessarily represent a political party organization.

*** If the party is no longer current it will be crossed out ***

AC = Agent of Change

ACE = Ace Party

ACP = American Congress Party

AE = Americans Elect

AIC = American Independent Conservative

AIP = American Independent

AKI = Alaskan Independence Party

ALP = American Labor Party

AMC = American Constitution Party

AMP = American Party

ANT = Action No Talk

APF = American People's Freedom Party

APP = Anti-Prohibition

ARM = American Renaissance Movement

BD = Be Determined

BHT = Bring Home Troops

BP = By Petition

CEN = Centrist Party

CFL = Connecticut for Lieberman

CGR = Coalition on Government Reform

CIT = Citizens' Party

CL = Citizen Legislator

CMD = Commandments Party

CMP = Commonwealth Party of the U.S.

CNC = Concerned Citizens Party of Connecticut

COM = Communist Party

CON = Constitution

COU = Country

CPA = Constitution Party of Alabama

CPF = Constitution Party of Florida

CPW = Constitution Party of Wisconsin

CRV = Conservative Party

D/C = Democratic/Conservative

DAC = Defend American Constitution

DCG = D.C. Statehood Green

DEM = Democratic

DFL = Democratic - Farmer - Labor

DGR = Desert Green Party

DNL = Democratic-Nonpartisan League

FA = For Americans

FED = Federalists

FLP = Freedom Labor Party

FRE = Freedom Party

FWP = Florida Whig Party

GBS = Gravity Buoyancy solution

GR = Green-Rainbow

GRE = Green

GRT = Grassroots

GTP = Green Tea Patriots

GWP = George Wallace party

HRP = Human Rights party

IAP = Independent American Party

ICC = Independent citizen for Constitutional Government

ICD = Independent Conservative Democratic

IDE = Independent Party of Delaware

IDP = Independence

IGD = Industrial Government Party

IGR = Independent Green

IND = Independent

INP = Independent Patriots

INW = Independent No War No Bailout

IP = Independent Party

IPR = Independent Progressive

JCN = Jewish/ Christian National

JNP = Jobs Now

JUS = Justice party

LAB = U.S. Labor Party (Also see LBR)

LB = Liberty

LBL = Liberal party

LBR = Labor party (Also see LAB)

LBU = Liberty Union Party

LFT = Less Federal Taxes

LIB = Libertarian

LRU = La Raza Unida (Also see RUP)

MLU = marklovett.us

MOD = Moderates

MTP = Mountain Party

N = Nonpartisan

NA = New Alliance

NAF = Non-Affiliated

NAP = Prohibition Party

NDP = National Democratic Party

NJC = New Jersey Conservative Party

NJT = NJ Tea Party

NLP = Natural law Party

NNE = None

NON = Non-Party

NOP = No Party Preference (Commonly used in CA & WA)

NP = Nominated by Petition

NPA = No Party Affiliation

NPP = New Progressive Party

OE = One Earth Party

OTH = Other

PAF = Peace and Freedom (Also see PFP)

PCH = Personal Choice Party

PFD = Peace Freedom Party

PFP = Peace and Freedom Party (Also see PAF)

PG = Pacific Green

POP = People Over Politics

PPD = Popular Democratic Party

PPY = People's Party

PRI = Puerto Rican Independence Party

PRO = Progressive

PSL = Party for Socialism and Liberation

PTF = Party Free

RDH = Rent is 2 Damn High

REF = Reform

REP = Republican

RES = Resource party

RTL = Right To Life

RUP = Raza Unida Party (Also see LRU)

SEP = Socialist Equality Party

SHE = S.H.E.R.O. Party

SLP = Socialist labor party

SOA = Socialist Action

SOC = Socialist Party U.S.A.

SUS = Socialist Party

SWP = Socialist Workers

TBE = The Blue Enigma Party

TEA = Tea party

TCH = Time For Change

TFC = Towne for Congress

THD = Theo- Democratic

TPN = Tea Party of Nevada

TRI = Tax Revolt Independent

TRP = Tax Revolt

TVH = Truth Vision Hope

TWR = Taxpayers Without Representation

TX = Taxpayers

UC = United Citizens

UN = Unaffiliated

UNI = United Party

UNK = Unkown

UPA = United Party of America

USM = United States Marijuana

USP = U.S. People's Party

UST = U.S. Taxpayers

VET = Veteran's Party

VPC = Vote People Change

W = Write-In

WF = Working Families

WG = Wisconsin Green

WTP = We The People

YCA = Your Country Again

Welcome Page

#U.S Political Parties #U.S. Politics #Party Code Descriptions

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justinspoliticalcorner · 9 months ago

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Sanjana Karanth at HuffPost:

A coalition of press freedom, civil liberties and human rights organizations sent a letter to the White House on Tuesday to call on the Biden administration to make public an upcoming report on whether foreign countries — including Israel — are using U.S. military aid in ways that break international humanitarian laws. For months, members of Congress have been demanding assurances that Israel, which receives U.S. military aid, has complied with international and U.S. law — which prohibits violence against civilians and efforts to block aid — in its war in Gaza. In response, President Joe Biden in February issued a memo known as NSM-20, which requires federal U.S. agencies to submit a report to Congress on whether countries that get U.S. military aid are in fact obeying the law. The report’s initial deadline was May 8, though it is currently unclear if it will be ready to submit by Wednesday. The Biden administration has not said explicitly if it will make the report publicly available.

But the letter’s signatories — including Amnesty International USA, Defending Rights & Dissent, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Press Photographers Association, the Radio Television Digital News Association and Reporters Without Borders — said that the “process established in NSM-20 suggests” that the report to Congress should be unclassified. “The public and the press have an especially strong interest in understanding how the U.S. has assessed the assurances provided under NSM-20 by all countries that receive U.S. defense articles, and particularly those in areas of armed conflict,” read the letter. “Your administration has pledged to ‘bring transparency and truth back to the government,’” the letter continued. “We urge you to adhere to this commitment by releasing the … report to Congress under NSM-20 to the press and the public.”

The White House did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment, while the National Security Council referred the question to the State Department. The State Department did not immediately respond to HuffPost. The Biden administration is facing growing pressure both domestically and from the international community over its continued diplomatic and military support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which has so far killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7. While Hamas agreed this week to a proposal that would include a cease-fire and the return of hostages, Israel rejected the plan. As Israel is poised to invade the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah — despite allies like the U.S. warning against it, due to the city’s large civilian population — lawmakers and humanitarians have are increasingly concerned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has committed war crimes.

A coalition of human rights groups, press freedom, and civil liberties urge the Biden Administration to make public a report whether foreign countries-- including Israel-- are using US military aid in ways that break international humanitarian laws.

#Joe Biden #Human Rights #Israel/Hamas War #Israel #NSM 20 #Foreign Aid

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automatismoateo · 1 year ago

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'Truth & Liberty Coalition' expands culture war to 30 Colorado school boards. This county ought to be totally dominated by believers. said leader Andrew Wommack. via /r/atheism

'Truth & Liberty Coalition' expands culture war to 30 Colorado school boards. “This county ought to be totally dominated by believers.” said leader Andrew Wommack. https://ift.tt/u7fZmbA Submitted November 02, 2023 at 04:16PM by Leeming (From Reddit https://ift.tt/zik5BPZ)

#reddit

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kcnrqz · 1 year ago

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NEWS ARTICLE

Support the drug war victims’ call for full investigation of ICC — ICHRP

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) strongly upholds the drug war victims’ call for the full investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into the crimes against humanity of the Duterte administration and his “war on drugs”.

In a report posted online by the ICC Registry, 192 out of 204 representations, or 94%, of the representations on behalf of 1,530 individuals and 1,050 families of victims of Duterte’s drug war want the ICC to investigate the drug war campaign.

“This is a staggering support from the victims’ families. We can no longer ignore the fact that these families want justice for their loved ones,” ICHRP Global Chairperson Peter Murphy said. Out of the 204 representations, only five did not want to proceed with the investigation due to fear of retaliation and did not want to relive their experiences.

“But this doesn’t mean that they don’t want justice,” Murphy added. “We respect their decisions, but at the same time, we still call for justice even for those who do not want to proceed with the investigation.”

The ICC Registry Report noted the following crimes against humanity in the context of the war on drugs: murder (181), attempted murder (8), imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty (54), rape and other forms of sexual violence (3), enforced disappearance of persons (28), and torture and other inhumane acts (103).

Most of the representations said that they also wanted the investigation to cover these crimes reported.

One of the main motivations for the representations to the ICC is the desire for a genuine investigation by an impartial international court.

“Without the ICC, many of the families would choose not to pursue any form of justice. The prospect of an ICC investigation has rekindled their hopes of achieving justice and surfacing the truth,” one of the representations said.

This is in complete contrast to Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque’s claim on August 30 that the victim’s families can instead seek justice under Philippine laws. Furthermore, the palace spokesman even downplayed the report’s findings by saying that the ICC was only being used by staunch critics of the Duterte administration as a political tool.

But the findings of the Independent International Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Violations in the Philippines (Investigate PH) as reflected in their First and Second Reports clearly showed the flaws and failure of domestic remedies.

“ICHRP firmly believes in the impartiality of the ICC,” Murphy said.

“We hope that the ICC heeds the call of these families to fully investigate the Duterte administration for these crimes against humanity so that, finally, justice may be served and impunity ended.” Murphy said.

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leutjaneausten · 2 years ago

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February 21, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 22

Speaking at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland, today, President Biden continued to define this global moment as one in which democracies are defending their way of life against rising authoritarianism.

Biden began his speech noting that a year ago “the world was bracing for the fall of Kyiv.” But he had just come from there and could report: “Kyiv stands strong! Kyiv stands proud. It stands tall. And most important, it stands free.”

The 2022 Russian invasion tested the world’s democracies, Biden said, and they stood up for national sovereignty, for the right of people to live free from aggression, and for democracy. Putin “thought autocrats like himself were tough and leaders of democracies were soft,” Biden said, but he “found himself at war with a nation led by a man whose courage would be forged in fire and steel: President Zelenskyy.” A year later, “President Putin is confronted with something today that he didn’t think was possible a year ago. The democracies of the world have grown stronger, not weaker. But the autocrats of the world have grown weaker, not stronger.”

“A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never be able to [erase] the people’s love of liberty,” he said. “Brutality will never grind down the will of the free. And Ukraine—Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never. For free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness.”

Biden said it’s time to decide what kind of world we want to build. Looking at the coalition that supports Ukraine, he said: “We need to take the strength and capacity of this coalition and apply it to lifting up—lifting up the lives of people everywhere, improving health, growing prosperity, preserving the planet, building peace and security, treating everyone with dignity and respect. That’s our responsibility. The democracies of the world have to deliver it for our people.”

It’s time to choose “between chaos and stability,” he said. “Between building and destroying. Between hope and fear. Between democracy that lifts up the human spirit and the brutal hand of the dictator who crushes it. Between nothing less than limitation and possibilities, the kind of possibilities that come when people…live not in captivity but in freedom. Freedom. Freedom. There is no sweeter word than freedom. There is no nobler goal than freedom. There is no higher aspiration than freedom.”

“Americans know that, and you know it,” Biden told his Polish audience. “And all that we do now must be done so our children and grandchildren will know it as well.

“Freedom. The enemy of the tyrant and the hope of the brave and the truth of the ages.

“Freedom.

“Stand with us,” Biden said. “We will stand with you.”

During his speech, Biden thanked Poland for taking in 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees, then turned to the United States. “The American people are united in our resolve as well,” he said. “All across my country, in big cities and small towns, Ukrainian flags fly from American homes. Over the past year, Democrats and Republicans in our United States Congress have come together to stand for freedom. That’s who Americans are, and that’s what Americans do.”

The line drew applause, and indeed, five Republican lawmakers met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv today. Led by Representative Mike McCaul (R-TX), the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, they pledged their support for Ukraine.

But extremist Republicans stand against continuing Ukraine aid. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and ten other Republican representatives recently introduced to Congress a “Ukraine Fatigue” resolution calling for an end to U.S. aid to Ukraine and urging “a peace agreement,” a position that accepts Russia’s invasion as legitimate.

Right-wing media has been trying to spin Biden’s trip to Kyiv and speech in Poland as proof that he doesn’t care about the derailment of the train carrying hazardous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio. In fact, Republican governor Mike DeWine initially rejected federal help when Biden offered it, saying he didn’t see the need for it.

The right wing has also gone after Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for the accident, although it was the Trump administration that weakened safety regulations put in place under Barack Obama that could have mitigated the crisis, and railroad personnel cuts that left the train understaffed. Before the accident, train workers had worried that the 151-car train, 9,300 feet long and weighing 18,000 tons, was too long and too heavy to travel safely.

But Buttigieg is answering his Republican critics. After Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called for Buttigieg’s resignation, Buttigieg responded: “I can’t help but notice the last time this agency heard from him on rail regulation was his signature being on a letter that was pretty obviously drafted by industry, calling on us to weaken our practices around track inspection.”

Concerns about train safety seem warranted: on Monday, four train cars derailed in Riverbank, California, and another train of 31 cars carrying coal derailed today in Gothenburg, Nebraska. Unlike in Ohio, in neither case were there injuries or, apparently, hazardous spills.

Buttigieg has called for a three-pronged push to improve safety and hold the freight rail industry accountable for accidents. Among those proposals are calls for safer cars, paid sick leave for railroad workers, and larger crew sizes, some of the very things railroad workers wanted last fall. After Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) tweeted that Buttigieg should “[s]how up, do your job and stop playing politics with every crisis you find,” Buttigieg responded with his proposals and wrote: “If you’re serious, I’ll work with you on this.”

As Greg Sargent of the Washington Post spelled out today, right-wing figures like Fox News Channel (FNC) personality Tucker Carlson and newly elected Ohio senator J.D. Vance are now spinning the Ohio disaster as an issue of racial malice, portraying it not as a result of weakened safety regulations under former president Trump, but as proof that the Biden administration is throwing white people overboard to focus on Buttigieg’s idea that “we have too many white construction workers.”

In fact, Buttigieg’s comments addressed the problem of creating opportunities for minority construction workers when white workers are brought in to work on construction projects in minority communities, and the Biden administration has passed expansive legislation that is bringing jobs to poor white communities, legislation most Republicans opposed. But the race baiting has gone so far that, Sargent notes, right-wing personalities are accusing the Biden administration of “spilling toxic chemicals on poor white people.”

Knocked out of the news by the flurry of activity around the past several days has been the filing in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case against FNC. The texts and testimony in that filing establish that the FNC is a propaganda arm of the Republican Party.

That information is important as we grapple with House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) apparent release of the U.S. Capitol video clips from January 6, 2021, to Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson. According to Politico, Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger, who has oversight responsibility for those files, did not learn of this deal until he heard it on the news. The Capitol Police have been leery of permitting indiscriminate release of the footage out of concern it reveals safety information.

It remains unclear how—or, perhaps, if—this permission was actually granted. Carlson publicly described his access as “unfettered,” but McCarthy isn’t commenting, and the three-person Capitol Police Board, including Manger, that oversees security decisions would likely have had to sign off on the exchange. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has told House Democrats he and his team are still trying to learn the details.

There is lots of buzz today about comments from the foreperson from the Georgia grand jury investigating the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Emily Kohrs said the grand jury had recommended a number of indictments and suggested that people would not be shocked to hear the names on the list. Actual indictments are in the hands of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

—

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/02/21/remarks-by-president-biden-ahead-of-the-one-year-anniversary-of-russias-brutal-and-unprovoked-invasion-of-ukraine/

https://apnews.com/article/zelenskyy-united-states-government-us-republican-party-5038bef174ae02b12196cacecc11570d

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/usdot-secretary-buttigieg-calls-rail-industry-take-immediate-commonsense-steps

Twitter avatar for @SecretaryPete

Secretary Pete Buttigieg

@SecretaryPete

Here are some examples of what Congress can do to help (along with immediate steps we've been taking and what we demand rail companies do). If you're serious, I'll work with you on this.

transportation.gov

USDOT Secretary Buttigieg Calls on Rail Industry to Take Immediate, Commonsense Steps to Improve Accountability and Safety and Highlights W…

Among the immediate calls for action: Freight rail industry should accelerate phase-in of safer tank cars and provide workers paid sick...

9:00 PM ∙ Feb 21, 2023

3,589Likes514Retweets

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/21/east-palestine-train-derailment-tucker-carlson-jd-vance-fox-news/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/train-derailment-gothenburg-nebraska-coal-31-cars-emergency-response-wake-of-east-palestine-ohio-incident/

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/politics/fulton-county-trump-grand-jury-foreperson-ebof/index.html

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/buttigieg-reminds-rubio-recent-record-rail-inspections-rcna71584

https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/02-21-2023/tucker-carlson-jan6-deal/

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/politics/fulton-county-trump-grand-jury-foreperson-ebof/index.html

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