Category: Civil Rights

An American “Gulag”?

The inspiration for this post came from an article that I read…..

In a criminal arrest, the legal system creates an immediate paper trail: police reports, court logs, and attorney filings. But inside immigration detention, the process works under an entirely different set of rules.

In this episode of “Inside Story,” host Lawrence Bartley and reporter Aala Abdullahi explore how rapid transfers across the country leave families unable to locate their loved ones. More than 1 in 10 detainees are moved out of state within their first 24 hours in custody, while the government’s online locator system frequently lags or shows no assigned facility. Because deportation is a civil administrative process rather than a criminal one, individuals face repeated transfers without the right to appointed counsel or stable court jurisdiction.

Drawing on federal transfer data and accounts from families and attorneys, they examine how the rapid expansion of detention isolates individuals across the country

(marshallproject.org)

That brings me to the idea of a gulag.

Gulag?

Most Americans, that could actually read, became acquainted with the term ‘gulag’ from a couple of books written by a former prisoner….Former prisoner and Nobel Prize-winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote two books about the Gulag: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago.

But what is a gulag?

A Gulag was a vast system of forced labor camps and prisons in the Soviet Union.

  • The Acronym: The word comes from the Russian abbreviation Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerey, meaning “Main Camp Administration” or “Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps”.

  • Literal Meaning: It originally referred to the specific government agency that ran the Soviet secret police labor camps, but it came to mean the entire prison and camp network.
    • Conditions: Prisoners faced brutal conditions, extreme weather in remote areas like Siberia, starvation, and long hours of hard manual labor used to build Soviet infrastructure and industry

    A horrific condition that Russians had to face if they were not in favor with the regime in power.

    I bring this up because of Donny and his ICE thugs and their arrest of anyone with brown skin…..the excuse is the round-up of illegal immigrants….

    I write this because there has not been sufficient reporting on this ‘camps’ that house those arrested by ICE…..and the conditions smack of gulag tactics.

    This is what these ‘prisoners’ have to look forward to if arrested….

    Conditions inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities are severe, overcrowded, and frequently inhumane, according to reports from oversight groups, medical experts, and human rights organizations

    • Surge in Fatalities: According to data analyzed by KFF, deaths in ICE custody have risen sharply, making recent years the deadliest on record for the immigration detention system. [1, 2]

    • Lack of Care: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports that detained individuals face severe medical neglect, delayed treatment for chronic conditions, and outbreaks of infectious diseases like tuberculosis and measles.  Sanitation Failures: Detainees and inspectors have documented overflowing toilets, lack of basic hygiene supplies like soap, poor ventilation, and insect infestations in various facilities.  Physical and Verbal Mistreatment: Legal filings and witness statements gathered by the Vera Institute of Justice cite instances of verbal harassment, physical abuse, and intimidation by facility staff.

      Punitive Isolation: A report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) states that ICE frequently uses solitary confinement to punish minor infractions or retaliate against complaints and hunger strikes, worsening mental health issues like PTSD and depression. Packed Cells: Whistleblower reports and legislative inspections detailed by Human Rights Watch show that populations have swelled past facility limits, leaving people to sleep on concrete floors or in prolonged chains.

      • Inmates: It held millions of people, including common criminals, prisoners of war, and political dissidents or innocent people accused of opposing the state. [1, 2]

      Those listed conditions smack of the conditions within the ‘gulag’ system in the Soviet Union.

    To me this treatment of ‘prisoners’ is ripe with human rights violations but we know that Donny and his Minions care little about the rights of humans.

    Am I wrong in this thought?

    But more of this……it is beginning to look very familiar to an old fart like me….

    Recently, one is drawn to recognize the parallels between the NKVD bread trucks and black SUVs filled with ICE officers, who mask their faces and offer no identification as they snatch children and adults off the street because they have melanin in their skin or speak with an accent. Like the NKVD, ICE officers shoot people without substantive explanation, detain more than 66,000 people, many without criminal records, including occasional citizens, and ship them off to undisclosed detention centers. They have also deported hundreds of thousands of people, often without notice or due process.

    https://thefulcrum.us/governance-legislation/stalinization-of-america-parallels-authoritarianism

    We are better than this and as long as we ignore these deplorable conditions and treatment of people makes us a smaller people.

    Americans should be outraged but instead they spend their time bitching about TikTok or Instagram….and that to me makes us a pathetic nation.

    Anyone want to wade in?

    I Read, I Write, You know

    “lego ergo scribo”

Has The Constitution Failed Us?

WE have a garden slug in the White House and he has by-passed the Constitution on several occasions….you know that document that guarantees us of certain rights….and our dear Donny has managed to stomp on the document with both feet.

The U.S. Constitution was ratified to create and to restrain the government. It established boundaries beyond which the government may not venture, even when it invokes national security, public order, economic necessity, emergency or the will of a popular majority. Its purpose is not to make government more powerful but to keep the government off the people’s backs.

By that measure, the American Constitution is a failure. Formally, the document physically survives, its ceremonies continue, and politicians swear their oaths to abide it. Yet functionally, the government it was designed to restrain has accumulated vast and totalitarian powers that its authors would never recognize.

…

Across these episodes, the pattern repeats itself. Government restricts speech in the name of stability, expands executive power in the name of war, weakens monetary discipline in the name of economic management, conducts secret operations in the name of security and broadens surveillance in the name of preventing terrorism. Each measure arrives with an explanation. Each emergency is declared exceptional. Yet the accumulated result is a government more powerful and a citizen less secure in his liberty. And none is countenanced by the Constitution.

Was Jefferson right that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants? His famous language arose from the revolutionary generation’s experience and its fear of concentrated power. It expressed a belief that liberty cannot survive without eternal vigilance and a continuous willingness to resist oppression.

The deeper question is whether the Constitution can preserve liberty when the people entrusted with enforcing it benefit from its erosion. The answer depends upon whether Americans treat government as their servant or their master.

…

The Constitution cannot save a people who have abandoned the principles from which it sprang. Ultimately, liberty survives only when the governed insist that the government remain within its constitutional limits. If it won’t, we must alter or abolish it.

America’s Failed Constitution

With Donny’s antics is the Constitution outdated?

  • Counter-Majoritarian Institutions: Critics point to structures like the Electoral College, which can allow a candidate who loses the popular vote to win the presidency, and the Senate, which equally represents small and large states regardless of population, as undemocratic.

  • Difficulty of Amendment: Under Article V, amending the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress (or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the states) and ratification by three-fourths of the states. Scholars note this has made formal amendments virtually unamendable in an era of deep partisan polarization.

  • Stagnant Representation: The size of the House of Representatives has been capped at 435 members since 1929, leading to massive congressional districts that critics argue fail to adequately represent a vastly larger, urbanized population.

  • Lack of Modern Explicit Rights: Some legal critics note the absence of explicit, modern guarantees (such as an explicit right to vote) compared to newer global constitutions.

It appears that it is antiquated…..and has reached is expiration date…..thanx to Donny and the Merry Band of Criminals….

I agree….if we cannot have the document to protect us from the government then it is time to alter or abolish….and start over.

Is there more that needs saying?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

When The Secret Police Comes Knocking

Donny’s secret police have now raided the home of a US Representative….but no details were provided…

Federal agents searched Democratic US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s DC-area home on Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, according to people familiar with the matter. The search was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations agents, said the people, who were not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. More details about the investigation were not immediately clear, reports the AP. An email seeking comment was sent Monday to a representative for Omar.

The Justice Department said in a statement Monday that HSI agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the department in the Washington, DC, area but provided no other details. “This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” the department said. Omar, 44, represents Minnesota’s 5th District, including Minneapolis. She was first elected to the House in 2018 and has been known as a member of what’s called “The Squad” of female lawmakers known for their progressive views and pointed opposition to President Trump.

No details?  I have few ….she is a Muslim or she is an immigrants daughter or she is brown or she is a Dem and a member of the ‘the squad’ or…..

This is ridiculous and pathetic overreach by Donny and the mindless morons in the government.  Donny has hated this woman for 10 years.

After the raid Donny had plenty to say….

President Trump told reporters on Monday he had no role in the surprise federal raid of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s residence, but he sounded a note of support about it. “I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DOJ—I have nothing to do with it,” he said, reports the Hill. Trump added that “I understand that they’re looking at her very carefully,” without providing details. “I’ve always found her to be a totally crooked personally.” The Justice Department has said only that the search relates to a criminal investigation, but multiple reports say the investigation centers on longstanding allegations from Omar’s critics on the right that her family committed immigration fraud when emigrating from Somalia decades ago.

Trump said, per NBC News. “She’s telling us about the Constitution, and she comes from one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet.” He triggered chants of “Deport!” about her and Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, whom he described as a “jihadist,” adding, “They don’t belong in America. Better get them the hell out of here.”

He called her a crook…..think about that for a moment….

What a douche!

But this incident gives me a chance to teach a little history….back in the early days of the USSR Lenin formed the Cheka, a secret police, that would ferret out enemies of the state (or so the story goes)….

The Cheka (Vecheka) Secret Police was created by Vladimir Lenin’s Soviet government in December 1917 to ruthlessly stamp out all opposition to the Bolshevik Revolution. During the Russian Civil War, the Cheka operated without restrictions of any kind, arresting, torturing, and executing without trial tens of thousands of citizens deemed enemies of the state.  The Cheka, dissolved in 1922, was the first of many Soviet incarnations of a secret police force which involved itself in every aspect of public and private life in the USSR.

Confused?  Think NKVD or KGB….if that still has one head scratching then think Gestapo tactics.

Donny has the FBI and DHS as his personal police force….ICE as his personal attack arm all in an attempt to hold onto his ‘revolution’….he just cannot have people in opposition to his will.

So was this raid on the Rep’s home in retribution for her opposition?

Trump has not been shy about wanting to use federal law enforcement to target his perceived political enemies. He’s pushed prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York’s Democratic Attorney General, Letitia James, following earlier probes the two launched against him. Omar, a left-wing firebrand, has been a longtime target of Trump and Republicans in general.

…

Omar has long criticized Trump, and the president has likewise gone after her repeatedly over the years. Trump late last week alluded to possible action against the congresswoman. At a rally in Tennessee on Saturday, Trump referred pejoratively to Omar as coming from a country of “crime and squalor” and suggested that Vice President JD Vance “and our people” were investigating her.

The agents who searched Omar’s home, pursuant to a federal search warrant, were Homeland Security investigators, indicating the investigation regards immigration issues. Several Trump officials have suggested that is how they intend to pursue Omar.

Vance has suggested before that Omar committed immigration fraud. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin last month cited an “ongoing investigation” that he suggested was examining potential fraud on her family’s immigration paperwork.

(apnews.com)

This is a pathetic attempt by a disgusting little man to influence an election.

The sooner we drop the presidential bozo the better.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS Strikes Again

Yet again SCOTUS proves they are a pack of political hacks that care little for the rights of the people.

Once again it is the whole voting thing….

The Supreme Court on Friday lifted restrictions on a controversial federal voter database before November’s elections, granting President Trump a temporary win in his campaign against noncitizen voting. The court’s three liberal-leaning justices publicly dissented from the decision, reports the AP. The emergency order allows states, for now, to use the Department of Homeland Security program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, in their efforts to verify the eligibility of voters on their rolls. But because existing law blocks most states from systematically purging voters from their rolls within 90 days of an election, the immediate impact on the upcoming midterms is likely limited.

The court’s order puts on hold a federal judge’s June ruling that deemed the administration’s recently revamped version of SAVE illegal. US District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan had blocked the use of the tool, saying it violated Americans’ privacy rights and could result in voters being wrongly removed from the rolls. A federal appeals court declined to pause Sooknanan’s ruling, prompting the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court. The SAVE program was created under an immigration law mandating that DHS help federal, state, and local agencies prevent government benefits from going to noncitizens. Since the Trump administration moved last year to significantly expand its search abilities, at least 67 million registrations have been scanned, but critics worry it could end up purging valid voters.

Some registrants have already been wrongly flagged. In Travis County, Texas, for example, officials said they investigated 97 voters flagged by SAVE as apparent noncitizens and found that at least 10% of them—and likely up to 21%—were US citizens. The county urged the Supreme Court to reject the administration’s appeal, while the state of Texas submitted its own brief defending the database. Even though the use of the SAVE program has been blocked for months, the administration said in court filings that DHS officials have continued to use Social Security Administration data “in certain cases to verify information and help determine whether illegal voting may have occurred.”

What are the possibilities that someone could lose their right to vote because they have the wrong political leaning?

Many eligible voters may be at risk of having their voter registrations wrongfully canceled just weeks before the midterms after the US Supreme Court cleared the way on Friday for the Trump administration to screen voters using a database known for flagging naturalized citizens.

In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority lifted a lower court order that blocked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from using and expanding the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database—whose original purpose was to check if noncitizens qualified for government benefits—to trawl through state voter rolls and link them to information supposedly confirming citizenship.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/supreme-court-trump-voter-database

This is just an extension to the already felonious rulings that these fools have made that will make cheating in an election almost a gimme.

The slugs continue to rule against the people of this country in favor of corporations and MAGA issues that allows them to rule the roost.

Discuss

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Lefties Must Pay

In my younger years, after Vietnam, I was an anti-war protester and as such I was a target of the government’s program, COINETPRO….a program that targeted protesters….I wrote about the program many years ago….

COINTELPRO: The Ghosts Of Protests Past

Thanks to this government program once I finished college I could get a good job….I settled for shoe store clerk then a bookkeeper the went to work for the state but thanks to the government that did not last long….then there was a string of similar jobs….all because the government used my anti-war stance against me then I got a good job as the manager of a pub that lasted 11 years but all that time I continued my protests against the government on many issues.

Sadly in today’s world the government has many ways of spying on protesters….from social media to phone conversations to face recognition….which makes their job so much easier than in the 70s.

That program never really went away they just used other terms to describe it and now with all the protests that is across the country the government is at it in a big way again…

Newly disclosed records reveal the US government extensively spied on prominent leftwing organizations and on protesters as part of a vast operation into groups opposing the immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year.

Internal investigative reports show the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent undercover agents to community meetings in the Twin Cities and New York City, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records of mainstream unions and left-leaning non-profit groups.

Nearly 30 internal law enforcement reports were released on Thursday as part of a criminal case the Department of Justice has filed against 15 Minneapolis protesters. The defendants are accused of a “conspiracy” to “impede” US immigration officers during the Trump administration’s surge in the region.

The DHS investigative reports were disclosed by the government and submitted to the court by an attorney for one of the defendants. The records show that in January, DHS launched an inquiry called “Operation Puppet Master” to identify a “network of conspirators” organizing against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The operation came as community organizing against ICE was swelling in the region in response to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/13/us-government-spied-anti-ice-protesters

Us so called ‘pinkos’ may not be the only targets of our government….you could be ….

The rapid spread of public surveillance cameras represents something far more consequential than a new piece of police technology. It represents a fundamental change in the relationship between the individual and the state.

These cameras allow government agents to record, identify, catalog and retroactively track the movements of people who have committed no crime, are suspected of no wrongdoing and have done nothing to invite government scrutiny. That’s not public safety. It’s an assault upon individual privacy.

Privacy is not a privilege granted by government. It is an aspect of personal liberty that the government exists to protect. It is a natural human right protected from the government in the Bill of Rights. The fact that a person leaves his home and travels upon a public road does not mean that he has surrendered that right.

There is an enormous moral and constitutional difference between a police officer who happens to observe a person in public and government surveillance that automatically and systematically records that person’s vehicle, location and movements; and stores that information for future use.

A free society doesn’t just protect people from crime; it protects them from arbitrary government. The presumption is liberty. Government is the negation of liberty. A person should not have to establish his innocence before the government leaves him alone. The burden always belongs to the government to justify all intrusions into personal liberty. Police cameras reverse that principle. They collect information about everyone the camera views and leave it to individuals to challenge the collections afterward.

A State of Surveillance

Be on your best behavior….Big Brother Is Watching.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Chipping The 2nd

I WOULD LIKE TO WISH MY CANADIAN FOLLOWERS A VERY HAPPY CANADA DAY.

SCOTUS seems to be the theme or the meme for today…..they will be ruling on the law against AR-15s….a good law in my opinion…..

The Supreme Court is stepping directly into the fight over bans on AR-15-style rifles. On Tuesday, the justices agreed to hear challenges to assault-style weapons restrictions in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, setting up a major Second Amendment clash in the term that begins in October, NBC News reports. Both laws bar certain semiautomatic rifles that gun-control advocates label “assault weapons,” including AR-15s, which have been used in mass shootings such as the 2012 attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the 2022 Uvalde school massacre. Connecticut expanded its ban after 20 children and six adults were killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has recently broadened gun rights, including a 2022 decision that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry guns outside the home. Last week, the court struck down a Hawaii gun law. When the justices declined to hear a similar case last year, four conservatives signaled they view AR-15 bans as unconstitutional; Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the court “should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon.”

Under longstanding precedent, bans of “dangerous” or “unusual” weapons are allowed, but gun rights advocates say that as “the most popular rifle in the country,” AR-15-style rifles shouldn’t be considered unusual, Politico reports. At least 10 states have banned “assault weapons,” arguing that they don’t qualify as “arms” protected by the Second Amendment, per the Hill. Challenges to the Connecticut and Cook County laws were brought by individual gun owners and gun-rights groups including the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation. Lower courts have so far upheld both bans.

I look for SCOTUS to strike down the law for they have not been a friend to the people but rather the gun industry….it has a lot more money to give than joe blow.

Do not get me wrong….I have no problem with gun ownership just that of assault weapons and such….no one needs that for hunting or personal protection….if they are that bad of a shot then get a shotgun the coverage is better.

Do you think SCOTUS will do the right thing?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

If At First…

Yesterday SCOTUS handed another defeat to Donny’s push to rid this country of brown skin people….and after the ruling I said it would not end there….and I was right…..

President Trump isn’t dropping his fight over birthright citizenship, even after the Supreme Court ruled against him. In a social media post, Trump called the decision “too bad for our Country” and urged Congress to start work immediately on a legislative workaround, reports the New York Times. “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!” he wrote. In its ruling Tuesday, the court overturned a Trump executive order that sought to end the policy of bestowing citizenship on children born on American soil. The order violates the 14th Amendment, declared the 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts.

  • Kavanaugh dissent: Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh joined the majority, along with the court’s three liberal justices. Kavanaugh, however, dissented from the majority ruling by disagreeing that the order violated the Constitution, per the Washington Post. He agreed it violated federal law, though.
  • Thomas vents: Clarence Thomas was in the “no” camp with Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, and Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Gorsuch. “The Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support,” Thomas wrote.
  • Alito, too: “This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake,” Alito wrote. “As interpreted by the Court today, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone who happens to be born in this country, including the children of ‘birth tourists.'” But a “careful analysis” of the amendment shows it does not do that, he asserted. (The full text of the 1868 amendment is here.)
  • Birth tourism: As alluded to by Alito, supporters of Trump’s executive order argued that the existing policy encourages “birth tourism,” in which pregnant women come to the US for the express purpose of giving birth. “The trouble is that there is scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view,” wrote Roberts, per the Wall Street Journal.

Birth tourism?  Sounds a lot like the crap that use to be spread about women who got pregnant so they could collect welfare…that was bullshit and this subject is too.

This is just hatred of people with brown skin….they can put all the cheap lipstick on that pig but it will not change the bigotry.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Donny Loses To SCOTUS (Go Figure)

Donny has been trying really hard to see the babies born on US soil to non-citizens lose their right to be Americans for being born here….

The Supreme Court upheld the principle of birthright citizenship on Tuesday, handing President Trump a major defeat on one of his signature immigration initiatives. In the 6-3 ruling, the court backed the idea that nearly all children born on US soil are American citizens, no matter the status of their parents. Chief Justice John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices in striking down an executive order issued by Trump, reports SCOTUSblog and the New York Times. Roberts wrote the majority opinion.

The concept of birthright citizenship has been in place for more than a century under the 14th Amendment, which stipulates that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The Trump administration disagrees with the interpretation of the sentence. But Roberts’ opinion declares:

  • “Citizenship, then and now was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”
  • In a sign of how much the case mattered to the White House, Trump attended oral arguments in person earlier this year. The ruling could affect the legal status of about 250,000 babies a year, notes Reuters.

One of the few times that the judges did not side with Donny Do-Little….why?

You can bet that the little nazi fucker Miller will be working on the next way to try and take citizenship away from some Americans.

I do not think this issue is dead just yet…..

What do you think of this turn?

I Read, I* Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

Birthday Wish From “No Kings”

Sunday is Flag Day…..it’s Donny’s birthday….it’s time to protest.

The anti-Donny movement, No Kings, has had several successful protests and they have another planned for Donny’s birthday, 14 June…..

It’s been more than two months since “No Kings” protests again drew crowds across the U.S. Another event is set to take place in just over a week, but the call to action by organizers is a little different than others before it.

Back in March, millions attended more than 3,000 “No Kings” events held nationwide, marking the third round of rallies since President Trump took office. Rallies last year attracted more than 5 million in June and 7 million in October, according to U.S. organizers.

The next event is scheduled for June 14. The same day, Trump’s birthday, UFC match-ups are set to be held on the White House’s South Lawn as part of a series of celebrations marking America’s 250th anniversary.

Meanwhile, the Committee for the First Amendment, relaunched last year, will be hosting “Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the First Amendment.

Being held at The Town Hall in New York City, the 90-minute event is set to be headlined by Bette Midler, Patti Smith, and Jane Fonda. It will “celebrate the freedoms guaranteed by our First Amendment … and the people power that both fuels these rights and is essential to guarantee them.”

The No Kings Coalition, which is partnering with the Committee on the First Amendment, says watch parties are being scheduled across the country to stream the event, giving communities space “to sing along, make art, share food, connect with neighbors, and take meaningful action together.”

While previous No Kings events have resulted in rallies, June 14’s event “will serve as a critical opportunity for No Kings supporters to strategize, connect with local organizers, and prepare for the ongoing fights ahead of the midterm elections.”

“… while the President attempts to distract the country with his UFC cage fight spectacle, the No Kings movement will be gathering in living rooms, community centers, and local businesses for public and private watch parties in key cities and rural communities alike,” a press release reads.

Several watch parties have already been scheduled, including events in and around Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and San Francisco.

(thehill.com)

Let’s wish this fool a happy birthday by protesting his stranglehold on the country and his killer policies…..time for this clown to go away….one way or another.

https://www.nokings.org/ can help make this happen but it will take much more work for a success.

There is an op-ed about this protest….and I agree with it for the most part…..

Americans across the country are banding together to fight the Trump administration. Sort of. Maybe. Well, not really. But many will spend a few hours on June 14 standing in a park, yelling into the air, and then go home wondering why nothing has changed. On the president’s birthday, there will be yet another “No Kings” protest – and it will accomplish next to nothing.

We keep getting calls to protest for a day, boycott for a day, stay silent for a day, wear a color for a day, post on social media one time. There’s a phrase for this kind of action: Doing the bare minimum.

The 1950s Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 13 months. To desegregate a single public transit system in a single city, residents sacrificed for more than a year. They carpooled, walked, watched each other’s kids, left home earlier and got back later. They didn’t ride the bus for a day and pat themselves on the back. The same goes for the lunch counter sit-ins across the South. Those college students didn’t get food dumped on them, get punched and kicked, get spit on and called racial slurs for an afternoon and call it a victory. They went back again and again.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2026/06/11/no-kings-protest-june-2026-trump-resistance/90422193007/

These protests are a good idea but they are short-term…..for a Saturday protest will be forgotten by the following Thursday.  If you want these protests to have lasting effect then they must be continuous and relentless.

So on one hand the op-ed is correct and should be a long-term strategy.

You thoughts will be appreciated.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Freedom To Worship?

Not according to Pistol Pete.

I do not normally post on religion for to me it is a personal decision and should stay that way….because I do not care how you choose to worship because it is a personal thing and should stay that way.

We have the freedom to worship as we see fit….well that is not exactly true you must be part of the ‘qualified’ religions…..

The Department of Defense announced on Friday a significant reduction in the number of religious affiliations it officially recognizes. The new list of 31 is down from more than 200 previously recognized traditions that troops could choose from. The list no longer includes atheists, Unitarian Universalists, pagans, or Wiccans, the AP reports. “This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement. The move is intended to help chaplains quickly assess the religious composition of their units to allocate resources, he added.

The list creates broad categories of some Christian traditions—Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist—without specifying denominations within those traditions, which can span the theological and ideological spectrum. Service members can choose to identify as “no religion,””other religions” or agnostic. Also included are Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, the Baha’i faith, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Unitarian Universalist Association, which was cut from the list, said in a statement, “This may make it more difficult for our uniformed UUs to access the spiritual care that they need.” The denomination said it is working on a strategic response to support its adherents in the service.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the impending changes in December, saying the number of faith codes had become unmanageable. “Secretary Hegseth is not ‘streamlining’ anything. He is elevating one narrow religious worldview from the top of the chain of command,” said the Rev. Paul Raushenbush, a Baptist minister and head of the progressive Interfaith Alliance. “The First Amendment does not allow the government to create a hierarchy of faiths, and it certainly does not allow the Pentagon to decide which beliefs are worthy of recognition.” Nearly 70% of troops identify as Christian, a 2019 congressional report said. Almost a quarter of troops were listed as other, unclassified, or unknown. “As a member of a minority religion, I think it’s really important that we be counted,” said Irene Glasse, a pagan religious professional and Marine veteran. “It erases us, and so many of us have served so proudly, so well, and so honorably.”

This is such BS….just more of Pistol Pete’s religious crap.

Here is a list of what Pete says are not recognized religions….

Complete List off Faiths That Just Got Dropped From the Pentagon’s Recognized Religions List

This should go to SCOTUS….they may side with Pistol Pete but at least make an effort to right this damn wrong.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“leho ergo scribo”