#expelling black legislators

[maladapted-druid]

UK Supreme Court Ruling - 16 Points of Clarification and Reassurance

Welcome to day 2 comrades, we survived the night and now we're going to pick up arms and fight back; what are the most effective arms you ask, seductively in my ear? KNOWLEDGE! That's right, let's look at this ruling that's so full of holes it'd make an orgy a logistical nightmare.

My job deals with legal documents and legislation so I have attempted to translate some of the ruling and clarify it for everyone, to expel the rumours and present the facts as written in all their bigoted glory. Facts are in black while my comments and opinions are in red italics.

A special thank you to Transactual and QueerAF for their resources and articles (linked at the bottom).

Also included are some of Timothy Snyder's "20 Lessons on Tyranny". Because it's fucking relevant.

The Supreme Court chose not to hear from any trans people, choosing to listen to only hate groups. This suggests anti-trans biases from the beginning. The only pro-trans source allowed was Amnesty International who affirmed that the Scottish Court's interpretation is correct, Amnesty's mention is in passing however the court notes that it is "particularly grateful" to the TERF lawyer for his input, "particularly grateful" is just a phrase but it potentially hints at further bias.

The crux of the judges "logic" seems to be that the basis of being a woman is being born that way and the basis for being trans is possessing a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). My brain literally cannot process the stupidity of this. Obviously inter-sex people are not mentioned. What about people who no longer match the definition of biological woman (i.e. cancer survivors who have had organs removed or due to health conditions) what are they protected by? If a woman has had her cervix removed for health reasons makes a sexual harassment complaint against her line manager, can it be dismissed because she, legally, isn't a woman? There are hundreds of unanswered questions and examples the court just vomitted into public with no intention of solving.

An element that the judges came to repeatedly was that if trans people were not recognised by their sex at birth then the Equality Act would be "inconsistent". For example the EA refers to 'pregnant women' but because trans women cannot get pregnant and some trans men can, by referring to women', Parliament was clearly intended 'woman' to mean 'biological female' because only 'biological females' can become pregnant. And that's it. That's fucking it. The judges decided it would be easier if women were all grouped under one category with no variation, that clarity around pregnancy was too difficult and it was best to rely on a single word written 15 years ago when inclusive language was very uncommon, let alone in halls of power.

The ruling makes zero (0) mention of Inter-Sex people. Once again Inter-Sex people have been left entirely out of the discussion and are bound by their birth certificates.

The ruling refers to "biological" and "certified" sex but doesn't define either, only suggesting that "biological" is what's on your birth certificate and that "certified" is people with a GRC. I'm not a midwife but I'm reasonably sure that babies don't come out holding a birth certificate, in fact in the UK it can take 2 weeks to get a certificate in which time decisions can be made for inter-sex babies that are not represented on the birth certificate. Additionally the court only recognises two binary sexes which is provably false. Gender is a spectrum according to every biologist who ever lived. Now that "biological" and "certified" sex are different, trans people cannot make claims based on "biological" sex, for example trans people now can't make a claim for equal pay or sexual harassment. Transgender people can now legally be forced out of the work environment and are at a higher risk of harm from others because their "certified" sex doesn't match their "biological" sex.

Single Sex Spaces have always been protected by the Equality Act. Let me say that one more time: SINGLE SEX SPACES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PROTECTED BY THE EQUALITY ACT. The law already allowed keeping transgender people out of 'single sex spaces' (which is another bullshit term we could spend an hour taking apart) which raised the question why was this case even brought forward? More and more the ruling just seems to be ideologically based with little regard for solving or clarifying anything.

Single Sex Spaces are also never defined, does a space have to be declared a 'woman only space' under the Equality Act or is it a space where one may expect to find a large number of women? It is in the ambiguity here that a lot of people will be targeted, told to get out or they're calling the police because this is a 'single sex space' even though the law never once tells us what that is.

The Gender Recognition Act (2004) is now in question because the ruling states that "trans women are men and trans men are women, with or without legal gender recognition." Theoretically the GRA now has no effect which logically follows that GRC's are in-valid. This leads nicely onto the next point:

Transgender people in public bathrooms; the ruling never once mentions toilets, bathrooms, restrooms or anything similar presumably because these are covered under 'single sex spaces'. Seeing as, in the courts view, transgender people no longer match their sex they are, theoretically, no longer allowed in public bathrooms of their sex, so transgender women should return to the mens and transgender men should return to the womens. This suggestion is unclear because, as with a lot of other things in this dogshit ruling, it is never defined or clarified. This is an excellent opportunity for solidarity if Trans Men gather or take selfies in women's bathrooms with your magnificent beards, glorious muscles and wonderful masc energy, that is, apparently, right where they want you. I have seen several claims that there is a specific ruling that forbids transgender men from entering women's public restrooms however I can find no trace of it in the text, if someone knows where it is please let me know.

The ruling has created a lot more legal questions and answered none of those it set out to. Lawyers and Lawmakers will spend the next few months and years arguing over what this means and how to interpret it, further more will the decisions of lawyers and lawmakers hold up in court when challenged? We may spend the next decade finding out. That also leads onto:

Do Not Obey In Advance (20 Lessons on Tyranny) There are a lot of unanswered questions from this ruling and, on a real life level, very little has changed at 1000 16/04 when the court read out its decision. So make sure you do not change your behaviour, hide away or surrender in advance; carry on as your beautiful glorious self and if someone challenges you tell them to sue your perfect arse because this is not a settled issue in the courts so why should you settle in advance? Fuck them. If the want us back in the closet they'll have to shove us in with a fucking bulldozer. Furthermore media organisations will take the bigoted side they always do and boil it down to the simplest point to the extent of being wrong - 'trans women banned from women's toilet's', 'trans women aren't allowed in public without identifying themselves', 'trans women never existed and were actually several queers in trench coats'. You get the idea. Dismiss these misleading headlines. Correct anyone who brings it up to you or you feel comfortable talking to. Remind them that these is no clarity and people are working very hard, every day to restore our rights. Once again, Do Not Obey In Advance.

Defend Institutions (20 Lessons on Tyranny) A fine time to remember that human rights organisiations, law projects and LGBT groups will be fighting this to the bitter end and they will need your support; please do your part for our freedom by donating to any charities or organisation you feel comfortable with, the following are just a suggestion and is not exhaustive: Stonewall - lobbying, activism. Mermaids - youth Equality Network - consultation. Transactual - adults, healthcare and legal, accurate trans news. QueerAF - news

At one point, the judgment explicitly refers to a trans woman as ‘a man who identifies as a woman’. Yeah, no, the judges were never biased at all, they totally had an open mind the whole time.

5 judges with a combined age of 338, 3 men, 2 women, know what a lesbian is better than you do. According to the ruling a lesbian "must be a [AFAB] female who is sexually oriented towards (or attracted to) [AFAB] females." Apparently the concept of sexual orientation would be "rendered meaningless" if we included trans women in relationships and that would "wrongly affect the composition of lesbians as a group." WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? THE COMPOSITION OF LESBIAN GROUPS? What do those words, in that order, even mean? And just appreciate, for a moment, that the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom doesn't believe that transgender should be allowed to enter certain types of relationships, wasn't that a hallmark of South Africa's despicable Apartheid that only certain types of people were allowed in certain relationships?

The Scottish Government is allowed to appeal this ruling however it is unclear if they will do so, they have had a change in leader since the case began and their new leader is significantly less pro-trans than the former; on top of that the Scottish Government are losing on several fronts and may want to drop this if they feel it isn't a vote winner. Because fuck standing up for human rights yeah? All that matters is winning an undemocratic popularity contest, that's where the money is. Not human decency or morality.

What about the European Court of Human Rights? We don't know how they will react to this however they have previously stated that failing to recognise a trans woman as legally a woman violated her Article 8 rights (respect for private and family life) (Goodwin vs UK). Oh look. Europe may be our salvation. Again. If only there was some kind of union we could join to protect us in the future.

According to the court's data there are about 48,000 trans man and 48,000 trans women in England and Wales (96,000), 19,990 trans people in Scotland (115, 990 UK total). Only 8,464 of those have a GRC. Which means...drum roll please... Trans people are 0.17% of the UK population and this law primarily targets 7.3% of THAT population, or 0.012% of the UK population!

Relevant Quotes -

Transactual Statement - “This ruling has no real purpose beyond ideological objection to the existence of trans people. There is no evidence of harms arising from the system of rights and protections which have been in place since 2010, only increasing hostility and hypothetical fears being leveraged to enable anti-trans discrimination."

Queeraf - By rooting misogyny in women’s ‘shared biology’, rather than our shared oppression under patriarchy, the Supreme Court relies on incredibly conservative ideas about gender as a naturalised phenomenon. In reality, trans women experience misogynistic discrimination as much as, if not more than, many other women.

@ayeforscotland - this will never be a doomerism blog.

@theinimitablefuckstormkilligan - If there's one thing I know about my fellow UK folks, it's that we're all tough as nails. So, if you're from the UK and you're trans: I believe in you. You are a powerful warrior. Your soul is a conduit for the light of love and life. You're gonna do just fine.

@on-a-lucky-tide - This isn't the end. We will fight on. We will not comply. We do not bow to fascism. We survived Section 28. We will survive this.

@isabela-merceds - trans women have existed long before those stuffy bigots sitting in a court room have. trans women will continue to exist long after they're dead and rotting in the earth.

Admiral Hackett - "Stand fast. Stand strong. Stand together."

[yitzh0k-r3uven-hal3v1]

We must start to hold people and nations to account. Nations who "stand with Palestine" yet have a history of antisemitism and Jew hate.

Spain, Portugal, and Ireland are very good examples of this.

Spain and Portugal expelled their Jews, and forced other Jews to either convert or die. These policies wouldn't be relaxed until the 1800s.

Ireland had pogroms, and the nationalist party Sinn Fein had newspapers who accused Jews many antisemitic stereotypes.

By far the biggest one however is Russia. Russia not only has ties to Hamas and the IRGC, but has a deep antisemitic history. Pogroms, the pale of settlement, the cantonist system, the black hundreds, antisemitic legislation etc.

There are several other nations who haven't owned up to their antisemitic past, and still don't support Israel's right to exist as a nation and the home of the Jewish people.

Sorry if this hurts your feelings, but it has to be said. There's a clear pattern between nations who support Israel and owned up to their past, and those who don't and haven't owned up.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

deAdder

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 11, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 12, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her running mate seems to cement the emergence of a new Democratic Party.

When he took office in January 2021, President Joe Biden was clear that he intended to launch a new era in America, overturning the neoliberalism of the previous forty years and replacing it with a proven system in which the government would work to protect the ability of ordinary Americans to prosper. Neoliberalism relied on markets to shape society, and its supporters promised it would be so much more efficient than government regulation that it would create a booming economy that would help everyone. Instead, the slashing of government regulation and social safety systems had enabled the rise of wealthy oligarchs in the U.S. and around the globe. Those oligarchs, in turn, dominated poor populations, whose members looked at the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few people and gave up on democracy. 

Biden recognized that defending democracy in the United States, and thus abroad, required defending economic fairness. He reached back to the precedent set by Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 and followed by presidents of both parties from then until Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. Biden’s speeches often come back to a promise to help the parents who “have lain awake at night staring at the ceiling, wondering how they will make rent, send their kids to college, retire, or pay for medication.” He vowed “to finally rebuild a strong middle class and grow our economy from the middle out and bottom up, giving hardworking families across the country a little more breathing room.” 

Like his predecessors, he set out to invest in ordinary Americans. Under his administration, Democrats passed landmark legislation like the American Rescue Plan that rebuilt the economy after the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic; the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that is rebuilding our roads, bridges, ports, and airports, as well as investing in rural broadband; the CHIPS and Science Act that rebuilt American manufacturing at the same time it invested in scientific research; and the Inflation Reduction Act, which, among other things, invested in addressing climate change. Under his direction, the government worked to stop or break up monopolies and to protect the rights of workers and consumers.

Like the policies of that earlier era, his economic policies were based on the idea that making sure ordinary people made decent wages and were protected from predatory employers and industrialists would create a powerful engine for the economy. The system had worked in the past, and it sure worked during the Biden administration, which saw the United States economy grow faster in the wake of the pandemic than that of any other developed economy. Under Biden, the economy added almost 16 million jobs, wages rose faster than inflation, and workers saw record low unemployment rates.

While Biden worked hard to make his administration reflect the demographics of the nation, tapping more women than men as advisors and nominating more Black women and racial minorities to federal judicial positions than any previous president, it was Vice President Kamala Harris who emphasized the right of all Americans to be treated equally before the law. 

She was the first member of the administration to travel to Tennessee in support of the Tennessee Three after the Republican-dominated state legislature expelled two Black Democratic lawmakers for protesting in favor of gun safety legislation and failed by a single vote to expel their white colleague. She has highlighted the vital work historically Black colleges and universities have done for their students and for the United States. And she has criss-crossed the country to support women’s rights, especially the right to reproductive healthcare, in the two years since the Supreme Court, packed with religious extremists by Trump, overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

To the forming Democratic coalition, Harris brought an emphasis on equal rights before the law that drew from the civil rights movements that stretched throughout our history and flowered after 1950. Harris has told the story of how her parents, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, who hailed from India, and Donald J. Harris, from Jamaica, met as graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley and bonded over a shared interest in civil rights. “My parents marched and shouted in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s,” Harris wrote in 2020. “It’s because of them and the folks who also took to the streets to fight for justice that I am where I am.”

To these traditionally Democratic mindsets, Governor Walz brings something quite different: midwestern Progressivism. Walz is a leader in the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which formed after World War II, but the reform impulse in the Midwest reaches all the way back to the years immediately after the Civil War and in its origins is associated with the Republican, rather than the Democratic, Party. While Biden’s approach to government focuses on economic justice and Harris’s focuses on individual rights, Walz’s focuses on the government’s responsibility to protect communities from extremists. That stance sweeps in economic fairness and individual rights but extends beyond them to recall an older vision of the nature of government itself.

The Republican Party’s roots were in the Midwest, where ordinary people were determined to stop wealthy southern oligarchs from taking over control of the United States government. That determination continued after the war when people in the Midwest were horrified to see industrial leaders step into the place that wealthy enslavers had held before the war. Their opposition was based not in economics alone, but rather in their larger worldview. And because they were Republicans by heritage, they constructed their opposition to the rise of industrial oligarchs as a more expansive vision of democracy. 

In the early 1870s the Granger movement, based in an organization originally formed by Oliver H. Kelley of Minnesota and other officials in the Department of Agriculture to combat the isolation of farm life, began to organize farmers against the railroad monopolies that were sucking farmers’ profits. The Grangers called for the government to work for communities rather than the railroad barons, demanding business regulation. In the 1870s, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois passed the so-called Granger Laws, which regulated railroads and grain elevator operators. (When such a measure was proposed in California, railroad baron Leland Stanford called it “pure communism” and hired former Republican congressman Roscoe Conkling to fight it by arguing that corporations were “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment.)

Robert La Follette grew up on a farm near Madison, Wisconsin, during the early days of the Grangers and absorbed their concern that rich men were taking over the nation and undermining democracy. One of his mentors warned: “Money is taking the field as an organized power. Which shall rule—wealth or man; which shall lead—money or intellect; who shall fill public stations—educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?” 

In the wake of the Civil War, La Follette could not embrace the Democrats. Instead, he and people like him brought this approach to government to a Republican Party that at the time was dominated by industrialists. Wisconsin voters sent La Follette to Congress in 1884 when he was just 29, and when party bosses dumped him in 1890, he turned directly to the people, demanding they take the state back from the party machine. They elected him governor in 1900.

As governor, La Follette advanced what became known as the “Wisconsin Idea,” adopted and advanced by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. As Roosevelt noted in a book explaining the system, Wisconsin was “literally a laboratory for wise experimental legislation aiming to secure the social and political betterment of the people as a whole.” La Follette called on professors from the University of Wisconsin, state legislators, and state officials to craft measures to meet the needs of the state’s people. “All through the Union we need to learn the Wisconsin lesson,” Roosevelt wrote.

In the late twentieth century, the Republican Party had moved far away from Roosevelt when it embraced neoliberalism. As it did so, Republicans ditched the Wisconsin Idea: Wisconsin governor Scott Walker tried to do so explicitly by changing the mission of the University of Wisconsin system from a “search for truth” to “improve the human condition” to a demand that the university “meet the state’s workforce needs.” 

While Republicans abandoned the party’s foundational principles, Democratic governors have been governing on them. Now vice-presidential nominee Walz demonstrates that those community principles are joining the Democrats’ commitment to economic fairness and civil rights to create a new, national program for democracy. 

It certainly seems like the birth of a new era in American history. At a Harris-Walz rally in Arizona on Friday, Mayor John Giles of Mesa, Arizona, who describes himself as a lifelong Republican, said: “I do not recognize my party. The Republican Party has been taken over by extremists that are committed to forcing people in the center of the political spectrum out of the party. I have something to say to those of us who are in the political middle: You don’t owe a damn thing to that political party…. [Y]ou don’t owe anything to a party that is out of touch and is hell-bent on taking our country backward. And by all means, you owe no displaced loyalty to a candidate that is morally and ethically bankrupt…. [I]n the spirit of the great Senator John McCain, please join me in putting country over party and stopping Donald Trump, and protecting the rule of law, protecting our Constitution, and protecting the democracy of this great country. That is why I’m standing with Vice President Harris and Governor Walz.”

Vice President Harris put it differently. Speaking to a United Auto Workers local in Wayne, Michigan, on Thursday, she explained what she and Walz have in common. 

 “A whole lot,” she said. “You know, we grew up the same way. We grew up in a community of people, you know—I mean, he grew up… in Nebraska; me, Oakland, California—seemingly worlds apart. But the same people raised us: good people; hard-working people; people who had pride in their hard work; you know, people who had pride in knowing that we were a community of people who looked out for each other—you know, raised by a community of folks who understood that the true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down. It’s based on who you lift up.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[thebiscuiteternal]

However, Lee's bill has been all but defeated by the Republican supermajority, where legislative leaders have largely refused to consider the issue. Without any debate, three variations of similar proposals for so-called extreme risk protection orders, or ERPOs, carried by Democratic Rep. Bob Freeman of Nashville, immediately failed Tuesday in the same House subcommittee where the public was kicked out.

On the first day of the special session on Monday, House Republicans advanced a new set of procedural rules that carried harsh penalties for lawmakers deemed too disruptive or distracting, and banned visitors from carrying signs inside the Capitol and in legislative hearing rooms. The Senate and House also signed off on severely limiting the public from accessing the galleries where people have traditionally been allowed to watch their government in action.

The actions come after the Tennessee Republicans attracted national attention for expelling two young Black Democratic lawmakers earlier this year for breaking House rules during a demonstration in support of gun control. Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson have since been reinstated to their positions, but the actions sent shock waves about the Republican supermajority's ability to hand down strict punishments to opponents.

[beansguytm]

I’ve been to just one multi-stall gender neutral public restroom in my life, and it’s the one at the Museu do Aljube in Lisbon, Portugal. It was weird walking away from the urinal then going to wash my hands next to my female classmate who had left her stall at the same time, but it felt,,, good? Like, this is the way things are meant to be. We’re all just animals. We need to expel our waste and it really can be that simple.

Every time I hear about public facilities during racial segregation here in the US, I think like “you chucklefucks were so racist that you intentionally made twice as many facilities as you needed? Or arbitrarily cut them in half? Just to make half of them worse?” Like I look back at that and laugh at how much of a logistical nightmare it was just to be racist. You fucking losers, you hated black people so much you inconvenienced yourselves over it.

Well that’s about how I feel about restrooms. You’re telling me that we spent almost two hundred years making gender-segregated bathrooms? What the fuck? How did that even fly? Well, I did some research. To quote this article from The Guardian:

>Understanding that “inherently weaker” women could not be forced back into the home, legislators opted instead to create a protective, home-like haven in the workplace for women by requiring separate restrooms, along with separate dressing rooms and resting rooms.

>Thus the historical justifications for the first laws in the US requiring that public restrooms be sex-separated were not based on some notion that men’s and women’s restrooms were “separate but equal” – a gender-neutral policy that simply reflected anatomical differences.

>Rather, these laws were adopted as a way to further early-19th century moral ideology that dictated the appropriate role and place for women in society.

So yeah. The separation of men’s rooms and women’s rooms is firmly rooted in the patriarchy. All restrooms should be gender neutral. If you don’t wanna change the plumbing, just tell us which ones have the urinals. Doesn’t just make things simpler for trans and nonbinary people. It can teach us a lesson. Men do need to behave ourselves around women, no matter where we are. Women shouldn’t need a safe space. Fuck it. Abolish it.

the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

[cannabistravelguides]

Buy Weed Online In Venice, Italy

Cannabis Travel Guide

Smoking Tolerance Level

[1= very illegal 5=virtually legal]: 3.5

Marijuana Laws & Legislation for Venice

As of February 2025, Italy maintains a complex legal framework regarding cannabis use. Recreational cannabis remains illegal; however, possession of small amounts for personal use has been decriminalized since the 1990s, typically resulting in administrative penalties such as fines or suspension of personal documents. Unauthorized sale or cultivation of cannabis is a criminal offense, punishable by imprisonment.

In 2016, Italy legalized the cultivation of industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) with a THC content below 0.2%, leading to the emergence of the “cannabis light” industry, which offers products with low THC levels. However, in late 2024, the government, under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, proposed legislation to ban products derived from the hemp flower, citing public safety concerns. This move threatens the burgeoning “cannabis light” sector, which had reached an annual turnover of approximately €500 million.

Regarding cannabidiol (CBD) products, Italy’s regulations have been evolving. As of September 2023, the Ministry of Health classified orally administered CBD products as narcotic medicines, requiring them to be dispensed through pharmacies with a medical prescription. This reclassification has significant implications for the CBD market, affecting the availability and distribution of CBD oils and related products.

In the medical sphere, Italy legalized cannabis for therapeutic use in 2007. Patients with specific conditions, such as chronic pain or multiple sclerosis, can access medical cannabis through the national healthcare system, provided they have a valid prescription. The military pharmaceutical plant in Florence is authorized to cultivate cannabis for medical purposes to ensure a controlled supply for patients.

Law Enforcement

Within the city, the police are more anti-drug than on the neighboring island of the lido.

Where to buy marijuana in Venice:

When in Venice searching for smoke, it has been my experience that the best luck can be had on the lido, the city’s beach. The town has a more laid back, smoke a joint atmosphere than the nearby city. A vaporetto ride taking less than 10 minutes allows visitors to the city of Venice to reach lido quite easily. Walk along the main drag near the beach *stretching the length of the island*

Venice Marijuana Brands and prices:

Moroccan hash ; 40 euro for roughly one half oz. of the black variety Blonde hash and skunk are available as well, but the locals seem to gravitate towards the black moroccan.

City tale

Home to one of Europe’s most well known Carnival celebrations, countless canals, romantic gondolas and fabulous seafood, Venice is both visually stunning and hard on the pocketbook. While public drinking -and drunkenness- are tolerated in Venice, especially during the no-hold-barred Carnival in February, the fairly conservative locals frown on pot or hash smoking.

Unlike more tolerant Rome, getting caught with bud in Venice will probably mean getting expelled from the country even though jail time is now only a remote possibility. Anything more than a personal stash (an ounce or so, no more can mean spending time in the slammer.

According to the Italian Ministry of Health, you can even lose your passport if caught with drugs. Just keep in mind levels of tolerance for smoking Maria (local slang for marijuana) varies widely throughout the country.

Whether there for the masked glamour, stunning glass art or just top-notch food and wine, always keep an eye on the budget, as Venice is one of the most expensive cities in Italy.

“Shit is expensive and you get crap. But people don’t care what you drink, how much of it you drink, when you drink it, or where you drink it,” said a traveller who gave his name as Axd.

Featured in films from James Bond to Indiana Jones, Venice is unique among European cities. Composed of countless tiny islands separated by salt-water canals and connected by tiny bridges, there is only one main highway linking the city to the mainland.

The heart of Venice is Piazzo San Marco (Saint Mark’s Plaza) with a stunning view of outlying islands, grand architecture, including the Basilica di San Marco. “This plaza was incredible. At one end were the Basilica of San Marco and the bell tower and all around it were four story-arched buildings. There were two small string orchestras on each side of the plaza and the whole area was lit up with white lights — absolutely amazing,” said Ben W. from Texas.

<<>>

The brave can face the hordes of pigeons that inhabit the plaza armed with small bags of birdseed, available from old ladies who man carts in the area.

“As soon as you start feeding them, pigeons surround you, land on you and in general envelop you faster than a pack of lawyers at the scene of a slip-and-fall accident,” said James K. from the United States.

The best way to get oriented in the twisting, turning canal-lined streets is to ride the vaporetti – the flat-bottomed boats that are the Venetian version of trams and busses. It’s possible to see most of the main canals, including the main Grand Canal, from the deck and it is far less expensive than the gondolas.

It isn’t as romantic as a ride in one of the traditional all-black boats, however.

“We all were cheesy American tourists and took a gondola ride. It was sunset, so it was so beautiful and very peaceful,” said 21-year-old Michele from Dartmouth College in the U.S., who was travelling with five friends. Regardless of how you get oriented, Venice is best seen by foot.

While hand painted signs pointing out Piazzo San Marco are everywhere, in recent years Italian jokers have added to the collection, confusing and misleading tourists. Maps, available at touristy stands everywhere, are a necessity in the confusing city, at least if you ever want to find your hotel again.

Shoppers should head to the Rialto Bridge, where mask makers, fruit sellers, Venetian glass, knock-off handbags and a stunning view fight for attention. Apply a close eye to what you buy. Make sure an artist signs your glass and double-check that freakish carnival mask to make sure plastic overlaid with plaster isn’t masquerading as paper mache. The vendors here are far more reliable than the cheap stands near San Marco. While fantastically expensive, handmade leather Carnival masks are by far the most beautiful for sale.

Wandering aimlessly around the city is a great way to find restaurants, wine shops and handcrafts tucked away into thousands of tiny nooks. If you get hungry or thirsty, just pick up a bottle of excellent Italian wine and enjoy.

“One of the great things about Europe is that there are no laws about having open alcohol containers in public. So one of the guys and I grabbed a 32 oz. Heineken and two bottles of wine each from a street vendor near the canal,” said Ben W.

And no trip to the city is complete without a seafood dinner.

Lining the Grand Canal are dozens of softly lit restaurants with outdoor seating and fresh scampi, squid risotto, stuffed crab and other ocean treats.

“We got a table by the canal. Ed had the mix grill with lobster, shellfish, and white fish. He said it was best seafood he had,” said Betty from Michigan, on vacation with her husband Ed.

[whitesinhistory]

On April 3, 1911, President William Howard Taft directed the U.S. Army to expel the Ninth Cavalry, an all-Black unit, from San Antonio, Texas. Earlier that day, the president had met with San Antonio’s U.S. congressman, John Garner, who urged President Taft to expel the Black cavalrymen from the entire State of Texas because their protest of segregated seating on city streetcars threatened local “law and order.” Immediately afterward, President Taft issued a memorandum to General Leonard Wood, the Army’s chief of staff, directing the nation’s highest-ranking army official to remove the Ninth Cavalry from San Antonio.

Two days later, the Black soldiers were relocated to Rio Grande City, Texas, a city near the Mexican border. Local white residents protested the arrival of the Black cavalry soldiers, claiming that Black men who volunteered to serve their country were “continually looking for an opportunity to exercise brutality.” Facing mounting hostility from this white opposition, President Taft ultimately rescinded the order and had the Black troops returned to San Antonio. White Rio Grande City residents adopted a resolution commending the decision, while white San Antonio residents were outraged. In July 1911, the Black soldiers of the Ninth Cavalry were again removed from San Antonio, this time relocated to Fort Russell, Wyoming.

On the same day that Rep. Garner lobbied for the removal of Black soldiers from San Antonio, he announced plans for legislation that would repeal the Army Organization Act of 1866. That Reconstruction-era law had required the War Department to establish and maintain two Black cavalry units and four Black infantry units in the U.S. Army to enable Black men to serve in the otherwise all-white, segregated U.S. military. In 1911, the nation’s army remained segregated, and Black soldiers were barred from serving in all but these six units. Rep. Garner’s proposal repealing the 1866 Act would have given the War Department discretion to abolish the all-Black units—and thus prevent any Black citizens from serving in the military. Rep. Garner in fact intended for his proposed legislation to exclude Black soldiers entirely, as he believed that no high-ranking official in the military would permit Black Americans to serve if federal law did not require it.

Though the bill did not pass, its proposal—and the punitive treatment of Black soldiers simply fighting for civil rights— reflects the extreme levels of white resistance to Black military service that characterized the highest offices of government and military institutions. To learn more about racial discrimination and violence faced by Black veterans, read EJI’s report Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans.

[worldofwardcraft]

Laboratories of fascism.

February 17, 2025

While the media focus on the chaos created by our newly crowned Felon-in-Chief, along with the abuses of co-president Elon Musk and his gang of saboteurs, overlooked are the power grabs taking place in Republican-controlled statehouses. It's getting so bad that what used to be called the "laboratories of democracy" are turning into pint-size banana republics.

Exhibit A is North Carolina. Here, despite big wins by Democrats last November, GOP lawmakers are busily stripping away powers from the incoming Democratic officials. Such as removing the new governor's authority to appoint members to the state elections board and weakening his ability to fill vacancies on the state courts. They're also prohibiting the attorney general from taking legal positions contrary to the radical MAGA legislature’s.

Meanwhile, Jefferson Griffin, the Republican who lost election to the North Carolina Supreme Court, is suing to overturn that result, despite two recounts and the State Board of Elections certifying the Democrat as the winner. If successful, Griffin's suit would throw out 65,000 ballots and have him declared the winner. Observed Steven Greene, political science professor at NC State University:

This is not how healthy democracies work. You don’t lose and decide you’re going to change the rules because you don’t like that you lost.

Over in Wisconsin, the lame-duck Republican legislature passed a bunch of bills back in 2018 stripping the newly elected Democratic governor and attorney general of several powers. For example, forcing the AG to seek permission from lawmakers before settling any lawsuits. And preventing the governor from removing Wisconsin from a multi-state lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act.

In Minnesota, Republicans are attempting to seize control of the state's evenly divided legislature (67-67) by refusing to recognize a Democratic representative who won in a special election — even after his win was upheld by a district court. Wrote the judge, “This election is not invalid.” Still, the Republicans are trying to force another special election.

GOPers are even more brazen in Tennessee. In April 2023, the Republican-dominated state legislature summarily expelled two Black Democratic representatives for proclaiming their solidarity with thousands of Tennesseans demanding gun reform after a Nashville school shooting. GOPers also passed a bill (blocked by a state court) halving the size of Nashville's city/county legislative body. The reason? Too much racial diversity.

There are plenty of others we could point out (Florida MAGAs, for example, have turned that state into a fascist paradise under Führer Ron DeSantis). But we just don't have the space to describe all the red states experimenting with authoritarianism.

[solecoffee]

Representative Justin Jones is a member of the Tennessee General Assembly. Born in 1995 to an African American Father & Filipino Mother, Justin currently represents the 52nd District in the city of Nashville.  

Shortly after being elected, Rep. Jones gained national attention in 2023 following a school shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville. In the days following the shooting which killed 3 adults, and 3 children, Jones, Rep. Justin Pearson, and Rep. Gloria Johnson protested on the legislative floor of the Tennessee General Assembly with a gallery full of supporters. For their actions, Jones & Pearson were expelled from their post by the Republican majority. Within days, the representatives were reinstated to their position; however, the protest and subsequent expulsion drew national attention to gun laws in Tennessee, and shined a bright light on the racism that still exists among lawmakers in positions of power.

We learned in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (2018) that representation refers to the use of languages and images to create meaning about the world around us. During the protest to call attention to gun violence, there were several photos taken that have a deep resemblance to what our nation saw during the Civil Rights movement. The images of Black men protesting, while White men order them to be arrested, is a direct representation of the current event as it unfolded, but also mimics many other protests during the Civil Rights movement, such as Bloody Sunday in Selma, AL.

In his essay The Shadow and the Substance (2003), Nicholas Mirzoeff explains there is a clear scientific consensus that there are no biological grounds to distinguish humans into separate races. Nonetheless, the social practices of slavery, segregation, and racism made race a social fact in the United States (p. 111). As it is today, Representative Justin Jones continues to advocate on behalf of his constituents in Nashville, and millions across the nation, to disrupt the system and implement changes to policy which promote equality for all.

Citations:

Fusco, Coco, and Brian Wallis. (2003). Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self. Harry N. Abrams Publishers, Inc.

Sturken, M., & Cartwright, L. (2018). Practices of looking: an Introduction to Visual Culture (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

[bllsbailey]

Capitalizing on Tragedy: The Democratic Party's Abortion Narrative Poses Risks to Women

As Election Day approaches, Democrats are struggling to find positions on issues that resonate with voters. On most topics important to the electorate—such as the border crisis and immigration, the economy and inflation, and crime and public safety—Republicans hold a significant lead. However, one issue where the left has an advantage is abortion, prompting them to heavily lean on this topic to drive their voters to the polls. This focus has led to a narrative surrounding abortion that is both shocking and deeply troubling.

Recent Democratic messaging has centered around the deaths of two Black women in Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, following their use of FDA-approved abortion medications. Democrats hope to leverage these tragedies for electoral success, but they have unintentionally highlighted the serious risks associated with these drugs, as well as a troubling pattern of denial and exploitation by the party and the media.

Contrary to media narratives, these women did not die because of the much-maligned state pro-life laws. They died after taking abortion pills marketed as safe and effective—pills that do not require a doctor's visit or even a follow-up examination to ensure the patient's health after use. Instead, they experienced painful complications that the abortion industry and its supporters seem all too willing to ignore.

Why did they suffer? Because of misleading information from the media regarding the safety of these drugs, combined with fearmongering about abortion restrictions in Georgia.

Regarding Amber Thurman's tragic death from sepsis, it highlights the absence of proper medical oversight that should accompany such procedures. As ProPublica reported, “She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear the tissue from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C. But just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison.” However, Georgia law does allow for the removal of a deceased unborn child, which is precisely what a D&C would accomplish.

Candi Miller's story is equally distressing. She endured days of suffering, just out of reach of the medical assistance she needed—a situation made worse by the false narratives surrounding legal repercussions for seeking care. ProPublica reported, “Miller ordered abortion pills online, but she did not expel all the fetal tissue and would need a dilation and curettage procedure to clear it and avoid sepsis, a grave and painful infection. In many states, this care, known as a D&C, is routine for both abortions and miscarriages. In Georgia, however, performing it had recently become a felony, with few exceptions.” Despite being classified as high-risk (she was 41 and had a history of lupus), Miller was allowed to order the abortion drug online and use it without any medical supervision.

In both cases, these women were let down by the abortion industry, politicians, and the media as they navigated the fallout of their choices alone, with the promise of safe, medically supervised care turning out to be misleading at best.

While the abortion industry touts these pills as the future of reproductive health, the reality reveals a much darker side. These tragic losses raise serious questions about the accountability of those promoting the supposed safety of self-managed abortions. The FDA’s relaxed regulations have created an environment in which women are left vulnerable and uninformed about potential dangers, ultimately leading to fatal outcomes. Yet, the political machinery benefiting from these narratives seems overly eager to downplay these risks while blaming pro-life legislation that aims to protect women and unborn children.

Moreover, the complicity of the media in this discourse cannot be overstated. The narratives surrounding these tragic deaths appear almost exclusively shaped to serve a political agenda rather than seek the truth. A brief search will reveal extensive coverage placing the blame on state pro-life laws while neglecting the role of a profit-driven abortion industry. Instead of examining the inherent dangers of abortion pills and advocating for better conditions to safeguard women's health, the media often spins a narrative that exploits their anguish for political gain.

As Marjorie Dannenfelser from SBA Pro-Life America has stated, the common factors in these casualties—dangerous abortion drugs and a lack of medical care—should spark a serious investigation into the practices of the abortion industry. Families suffering such profound loss deserve an honest reckoning, not just a political narrative. The media's sensationalism obscures the real dangers at hand, which extend beyond state legislation, touching on systemic issues surrounding the use of abortion drugs.

In the end, the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller should not be used as convenient fodder for political points, but rather as a call for scrutiny and accountability. The abortion pill, endorsed by the FDA, has been heralded as a cornerstone of reproductive freedom. However, the reality is that it is fraught with dangers that many are unwilling to acknowledge. The stories of these women warrant reflection, not exploitation. Rather than using their tragedies for political warfare, it is time to focus on the actual failures of a system that claims to champion women's health while leaving them vulnerable and isolated during their most desperate moments.

Project 21 Ambassador Craig J. DeLuz has almost 30 years in public policy and advocacy.  He currently hosts a daily news and commentary show called The RUNDOWN. You can follow him on X at @CraigDeLuz.