Wednesday, March 25, 2026

I Was All Alone...

... I used to feel like I was the only one who felt the way I did. Then, this song came on the radio one Saturday morning while I was washing my car for a date.
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola
La-la-la-la Lola
At the time, whenever I encountered the word "transsexual," I researched it, but what I found never seemed to apply to me. No way could I be trans—the definitions back then only used words like "pervert" and "sexual deviant."

Then I heard about Lola, and my world changed.

Recently, however, the lens has shifted. The Guardian reported this week (March 23, 2026) that,
The band’s co-founder responded to the US musician’s comments, defending the song and saying they are ‘not transphobic’
by Laura Snapes
Mon 23 Mar 2026


The Kinks co-founder and guitarist Dave Davies hit back at Moby after the US electronic musician said that he could no longer listen to the band’s 1970 hit Lola on the grounds that he found it “gross and transphobic”.

Moby told the Guardian Saturday magazine’s Honest Playlist feature that he was repulsed by the song after it came up on a Spotify playlist. “I like their early music, but I was really taken aback at how unevolved the lyrics are,” he said.

The song details a young man in a nightclub falling for a figure who “walked like a woman but talked like a man”. It concludes: “Girls will be boys and boys will be girls / It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world / Except for Lola.”

Davies responded on X: “I am highly insulted that Moby would accuse my brother” – Kinks songwriter Ray Davies – “of being ‘unevolved’ or transphobic in any way.” In another post, he continued: “I don’t wanna show the guy up, but Moby should be careful what he says.”
It’s a strange conflict of eras. As Bob Dylan wrote, "The Times They Are A-Changin'." They were changing in the seventies, and they are still changing today—and so is our vocabulary. Back then, the community was amazed that a song like "Lola" would even be played on the radio. It was avant-garde; it broke the ice. As punk icon Jayne County once wrote,
In the letter, County described herself as “thrilled and amazed” that the Kinks would write such a song, and wondered if other listeners had clocked its subject. “Lola will always be one of those songs that for me ‘broke the ice’ so to speak! A song that breaks down barriers and brings a used to be, hush, hush subject to the forefront and makes it sound perfectly natural to be singing a song about a ‘girl’ named Lola!”

She said that the song had propelled the Kinks into “the modern world. The REAL world! A world full of all kinds of people! Bisexual, gay, trans, not just a world full of straight heterosexuals!”

The LGBTQ+ subject matter of Lola was not without precedent for the Kinks. In 1965, their song See My Friends centred on a man unsure of his sexual orientation. Dave Davies also wrote in his 1996 autobiography Kink about having had affairs with musician Long John Baldry and producer Michael Aldred.
And sometime our lens change color!
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Mini-Save Act

Trump wants the SAVE Act to save him! He knows that he and the Republican Party are getting clobbered in the polls and losing elections even in Republican districts. They see the handwriting on the wall, and they are scared!
In the shocker of the night, Democrat Brian Nathan defeated Republican Josie Tomkow in the Senate District 14 race by 408 votes.
Florida Phoenix
By: Mitch Perry
March 24, 2026


Florida Democrats flipped two legislative seats Tuesday night in their biggest election night in years.

In the only state Senate election on the ballot, Democrat Brian Nathan, a Navy veteran, union organizer, and first-time candidate, shocked Republican state Rep. Josie Tomkow in the Hillsborough County Senate District 14 contest, winning by just 408 votes, taking 50.25% of the vote to Tomkow 49.75%.

Tomkow said she will run again for the seat in November.

The seat has been vacant since August, when Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed GOP incumbent Jay Collins to serve as his lieutenant governor.

[...]

In the Palm Beach County House District 87 race that includes Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, Democrat Emily Gregory, a first-time candidate with a public-health background, defeated Republican financial adviser Jon Maples, 51%-49%, in a district that Trump won by more than 10 points in 2024.

It’s a seat that was formerly held by Rep. Mike Caruso, one of Ron DeSantis’ closest allies in the House whom he elevated to the county clerk of the court position last summer. Caruso won the seat by 19 points in 2024.
That is why the Republicans are pushing the SAVE Act! They are scared s**tless that the Democrats will control Congress and impeach Trump!

The AARP had this to say about the act:
Key Takeaways
  • A proposed federal bill would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote and photo ID at the polls, making voting tougher for many older adults
  • Millions lack easy access to passports or birth certificates, and older adults face added complications from name changes, moves or expired IDs
  • The changes could complicate mail-in voting and create new avenues for identity theft
Older adults are a force in deciding U.S. elections.

Voters 65 and older have had the highest turnout of any age group since 1988, with 72 percent casting ballots in 2020. For the 2024 election, voters 50 and older made up 55 percent of the electorate.

But a bill that passed the House of Representatives could make it harder for U.S. citizens 50 and older to exercise these rights. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, even though citizenship is already a requirement to vote. The proposal would also compel voters to show valid photo identification at the polls or submit a copy of their ID when mailing a ballot. The bill is awaiting a vote in the Senate.
The AARP is warning about the dangers of the SAVE Act!
Only a few documents, such as a U.S. passport or a birth certificate in conjunction with a valid form of photo ID, will satisfy the proposed requirements in the SAVE America Act. The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy organization, estimates that more than 21 million Americans of voting age don’t have easy access to documents that confirm citizenship. Roughly half of Americans 65 and older lack a passport, according to a YouGov survey from 2023. If your passport has expired, you will need weeks (and must pay a fee) to renew it. Older Americans who have moved often over the span of their lives, or have moved out of their homes and into nursing or assisted living facilities, may have an especially tough time gathering the required proof of eligibility.
And remember: regarding voter fraud, the Brennan Center found "...meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent."The SAVE Act exists for only one thing: to protect the Republican Party—even Trump said it! The Dispatch reported that,
Many pugilists in the debate over the SAVE America Act assume that a proof-of-citizenship requirement would yield a Republican electoral advantage. Trump said that the Democrats “know if we get [the SAVE America Act], they probably won’t win an election for 50 years.” Sen. Mike Lee of Utah warned that Republicans will lose power—“likely for a long time”—if Congress doesn’t pass it (although Trump won in 2016 and 2024 without the legislation, and Utah, Lee’s home state, does not require documented proof of citizenship for voter registration).
Why do they know they will win if the SAVE Act is passed? Because they already tried a "mini-SAVE Act," and it did exactly what it was supposed to do: disenfranchise voters!
As the Senate considers President Donald Trump's stringent anti-voter fraud measure, legal experts say Kansas's offers a troubling case study
By Josh Meyer
USA TODAY
Updated March 19, 2026


If you want to understand what might happen nationwide if President Donald Trump's SAVE America Act goes into effect, ask lawyer Lauren Bonds, who fought − and defeated − a similar statewide law in Kansas nearly a decade ago.

Bonds was part of a legal team that sued Kansas and its secretary of state, Kris Kobach, after they implemented a voter registration law that required proof of citizenship to register to vote, as Trump's proposal would.

A federal judge ruled that the state law was unconstitutional and violated federal election laws designed to protect people from being disenfranchised, or unfairly denied the ability to vote.

By then, though, the damage had been done. At least 31,000 people were barred from registering to vote, according to the judge’s findings, including in a key statewide election in 2014 in which incumbent Republican Gov. Sam Brownback narrowly defeated Democrat Paul Davis.
Thirty-one thousand voters denied the right to vote!!!
Bonds and other voting rights advocates said that if Republicans manage to pass the SAVE America Act, or SAVE Act for short, it could disenfranchise vast numbers of eligible voters.

"It was tens of thousands of people in Kansas," Bonds, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas at the time, told USA TODAY. "Obviously, if you multiply that nationally, it could really deprive a bunch of people who are undoubtedly lawfully authorized to vote from being able to cast their ballot."
This entire SAVE Act is for one thing, and one thing only: to keep the Republicans in power forever and ever!


The Save Act also bans mail-in ballots!
Palm Beach County records show that Trump, 79, voted via mail ahead of this week’s special election in the state, according to reports
People
By Becca Longmire
Published on March 24, 2026


President Donald Trump has reportedly cast another ballot via mail, despite his constant criticism of mail-in voting.

Earlier this month, Trump, 79, voted in this week’s special election for House District 87 in Florida, which includes his Mar-a-Lago residence, CNN reported, citing Palm Beach County records.

Public records suggest that the president’s mail ballot had been counted and received by election officials in Palm Beach County, per NBC News. Trump is registered to vote in the area.
Do as I say, not as I do!

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Tuesday, March 24, 2026

So Where Did Trump Get The Amazing Idea Of ICE In Airports?

What could possibly go wrong?

Where did the "bright idea" of putting untrained ICE agents in airports actually come from?
The LA Times
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips
March 23, 2026


  • President Trump is deploying hundreds of ICE officers to major U.S. airports to support TSA checkpoints strained by a government shutdown.
  • TSA and other Homeland Security workers have labored without pay since February, prompting many to call in sick or resign.
  • Labor unions warn that ICE’s immigration enforcement role could distract from airport security and escalate tensions with travelers.
Armed federal immigration officers in tactical gear moved through terminals at some of the busiest U.S. airports Monday, standing near security lines and checkpoints after President Trump ordered their deployment during a partial government shutdown that has disrupted air travel nationwide.

The officers were not making arrests or screening passengers. The Trump administration vaguely said they would supplement Transportation Security Administration staffing at certain airports. But after a year of intensified immigration enforcement and protests in cities across the country, their appearance at airport checkpoints has unsettled some travelers and raised new questions about how far their presence might extend.
The first thought that popped into my head was: "Why do they need tactical gear in an airport?" Talk about escalation!

So whose idea was it? Well it all seems to funnel back to a right-wing radio talk show!
A suggestion from ‘Linda from Arizona’ on The Clay and Buck Show made its way to Fox News and, soon after, into White House policy
Poynter
By: Tom Jones
March 24, 2026


On Monday, ICE agents were deployed to 14 airports throughout the country to, in theory, help ease the long lines because of a shortage of Transportation Security Administration agents. Many TSA agents have quit during this latest partial government shutdown, and thousands called out of work because they are not being paid.

[...]

So, where did President Donald Trump get the idea to send ICE into airports to help the TSA? It might have been …

Linda from Arizona.

Several media observers — including Semafor’s Ben Smith and CNN’s Brian Stelter — noted that a woman named Linda called into Clay Travis’ conservative radio show last Friday and made the suggestion to deploy ICE to airports.

Linda told “The Clay and Buck Show,” “I think I have a solution to the TSA problem. … We need to bring in ICE agents.” Travis replied, “Linda, I have to say that’s kind of a brilliant idea.”

So here’s where the story gets a little more suspect. That night, Travis appeared on Trump’s favorite network — Fox News — and passed along the idea. Less than 24 hours later, Trump announced the plan to send in ICE agents.

Now, it’s entirely possible that more folks than just Linda from Arizona had this idea, and it’s possible that some of those people work in the White House.
So it was a radio talk show caller that put armed tactical gear ICE agents in airports! And other right-wing pundits jumped on the bandwagon!

Steve Bannon suggested that President Donald Trump deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to major U.S. airports as part of a “test run” for using them to meddle in upcoming elections.

“We can use this as a test run, as a test case, to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterms,” Bannon, a close Trump ally, said on his War Room podcast Monday.

Last month, Bannon, who served as White House chief strategist during the opening months of Trump’s first term and who remains an influential figure in the current administration, urged the president to send immigration officers to voting sites during this year’s midterms.

He baselessly claimed that the tactic would prevent Democrats from “stealing” elections. In reality, the move is clearly meant to intimidate voters and poll workers and artificially influence election outcomes. 

The White House and leaders of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, have never definitively ruled out the tactic, even though federal law expressly bars the stationing of law enforcement officers or members of the military at polling places.
Are you scared yet? Because it looks like the groundwork is being laid to rig the elections.

But here is the "minor" fact that all of these pundits are ignoring: The Law.

Cornell Law School


Whoever, being an officer of the Army or Navy, or other person in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, orders, brings, keeps, or has under his authority or control any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both; and be disqualified from holding any office of honor, profit, or trust under the United States.
Hey Trump... 5 years! You still want to bring ICE to the polls?

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The Gender Police!

You knew this would happen… the gender police casting their dragnet, rounding up anyone who doesn’t conform to narrow gender norms.
"I stopped breathing and my heart skipped. My pants were down around my ankles, and no one else was within earshot."
HuffPost
By Rey Katz
Mar 22, 2026


“Hello? Are you a male or female in there?” a rumbling voice called into the women’s restroom. A man’s boots stepped across the threshold, clunking on the tile floor, as I sat alone in the stall closest to the door.

I stopped breathing and my heart skipped. My pants were down around my ankles, and no one else was within earshot.
We’ve seen this before, whenever legislatures go bananas passing anti-trans laws and stoking fear that people are in bathrooms doing something other than what everyone does there… use the bathroom.

“Is this the women’s room?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered curtly, forced a smile, and walked away quickly, past the word “Women” in 6-inch green painted letters on the wooden wall of the building.
Some conservatives seem to believe all women have long hair and wear dresses, an image rooted in rigid, often religiously influenced ideas about gender.
Gerika Mudra alleges that a server followed her into the bathroom and said, “The man needs to get out of here.”
Them
By Samantha Riedel
August 13, 2025


A Minnesota teenager filed a discrimination charge against a Buffalo Wild Wings franchise this week, alleging that a worker followed her into a bathroom and coerced her to “prove” her gender by showing her chest.

Gerika Mudra, an 18-year biracial, cisgender lesbian, says that she “will never go back” to the Owatonna Buffalo Wild Wings after eating there with a friend in April this year. In her complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR), Mudra alleges that when she used the women’s bathroom during her meal, a server followed her into the bathroom, misgendered her, and ordered her to leave.

“This is a women’s restroom. The man needs to get out of here,” the unnamed worker allegedly said, according to the nonprofit legal aid organization Gender Justice, which is representing Mudra. The worker allegedly continued to insist that Mudra “[had] to get out now” until she exited her stall and unzipped her sweatshirt to show that she had breasts “just to make it stop,” Gender Justice wrote in a statement this week.
The Gender Police is on the prowl!
For nearly a decade, Republican politicians in the U.S. have pushed for “bathroom bills” which ban transgender people from public facilities that match their gender. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson enacted one such ban at the U.S. Capitol in January. Although these policies specifically target trans people, they contribute to profiling and harassment of cis women as well, particularly Black and brown women, whose genders are regularly policed. In May, two cis lesbians alleged that security staff at Boston’s Liberty Hotel “forcibly removed” them from a bathroom, compelled them to “prove” their sex by showing ID cards, and told them to leave the premises.
And we’re likely to see more of these incidents: more ordinary, law-abiding people confronted, questioned, and harassed by self-appointed enforcers of gender norms.

Meanwhile.
Trans people reported less harassment when they can use the appropriate public restroom.
LGBTQ Nation
Arin Waller (She/They)
February 20, 2025


According to a recent study by the Williams Institute, transgender people are more likely to face harassment when using restrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth, as opposed to their gender identity.

The study examines experiences in the past 12 months from both trans male and female participants who were asked if they ever experienced verbal harassment or were denied access to restroom facilities of their corresponding gender and sex assigned at birth.

In the study, it was found that around 10% of transgender men were denied access to and or verbally harassed in women’s restrooms.
So yes; these policies don’t just harm trans people. They create an environment where anyone who doesn’t “look feminine enough” becomes a target.

And here’s the hard truth: the people pushing these laws know the harm they cause—not just to the trans community, but to cis women as well. But they keep doing it anyway, because it mobilizes voters.

And I’m glad the woman in the Buffalo Wild Wings case is suing. She should.

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Monday, March 23, 2026

Did You Noticed Something The Other Day?

That Trump is defunding the weather bureau? It appears he is breaking up the NSF’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the very organization that tracks global warming, tornadoes, and severe weather.
Proposals include transferring a supercomputer to the University of Wyoming and shifting a space weather lab to a private company.
The New York Times
By Eric Niiler
March 13, 2026


The Trump administration is reviewing proposals to break up one of the world’s leading climate and weather laboratories, transfer its work to universities and private companies, take away its aircraft, and sell its property in Boulder, Colo.

The laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has been targeted for months by the Trump administration. In a social media post in December, Russell Vought, the White House budget director, called the Colorado center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”

The center, founded in 1960, is responsible for many of the biggest scientific advances in understanding of weather and climate. Its research aircraft and sophisticated computer models of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are widely used in forecasting weather events and disasters.

Scientists say the move to dismantle the center would weaken research that is crucial to understanding the atmosphere, space and oceans, air pollution and climate change. It would leave emergency officials and planners less prepared for extreme weather events, critics said.
Exactly! That is his goal: to break it into small pieces that can never equal the sum of the original center. This raises the obvious question: Why?
He has asked the N.S.F. inspector general to review allegations from a whistle-blower that Trump administration officials began negotiating the transfer of the center’s space weather program to a private company in January, before the review had been completed.
Is it possible his billionaire coal donors dislike the global warming forecasts produced there? While The Hill attributes the move to political retaliation:


A new lawsuit opposing the breakup of a federal climate and weather lab alleges that the move is part of a Trump administration retribution effort against the state of Colorado.

{...}

UCAR alleged that the breakup of the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was part of an effort to punish Colorado for refusing to give up its authority over elections as well as over its legal actions against former county clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted of election interference.

Peters is serving a nine year sentence and has been a major part of President Trump feud’s with Colorado. Prosecutors accused her of stealing a county employee’s security badge to help a man connected with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell gain access to the county’s voter systems.

“When Colorado refused to accede to attempts to infringe upon its sovereignty, the Agencies launched a widespread and coordinated campaign of punishment and coercion,” the lawsuit stated. “UCAR and NCAR are collateral damage.”
Is that the true reason?
In December, OMB Director Russell Vought announced that the science foundation “will be breaking up” NCAR, which predicts severe weather, models flooding, forecasts air quality and conducts climate research.
Why is the administration so determined to dismantle this agency? Why is Trump so "hellbent" on closing it? It has been in his sights for some time; as Science Advisor reported in the spring of last year:
White House aims to end NOAA’s research office; NASA also targeted
11 Apr 2025
By Paul Voosen


President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking to end nearly all of the climate research conducted by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), one of the country’s premier climate science agencies, according to an internal budget document seen by Science. The document indicates the White House is ready to ask Congress to eliminate NOAA’s climate research centers and cut hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists who track and study human-driven global warming.

The administration is also preparing to ask for deep cuts to NASA’s science programs, according to media reports today.

The proposed NOAA cuts—which could be altered before the administration sends its 2026 budget request to Congress in the coming weeks—would cut funding for the agency’s research arm, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), to just over $171 million, a drop of $485 million. Any remaining research funding from previously authorized budgets would be moved to other programs. “At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office,” the document states.

{...}

The administration’s plan would “eliminate all funding for climate, weather, and ocean laboratories and cooperative institutes,” says the document, which reflects discussions between NOAA and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) about the agency’s 2026 budget request. Currently, NOAA operates 10 research labs around the country. They include influential ocean research centers in Florida and Washington state; five atmospheric science labs in Boulder, Colorado, and Maryland; and a severe storm lab in Oklahoma. It also operates the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, the birthplace of weather and climate modeling, as well as a lab in Michigan devoted to the Great Lakes. The agency further funds cooperative institutes, which support a large collection of academic scientists who work closely with the NOAA labs.
It clearly isn't about the money... Trump is blowing that each day with the Iran War. In 2024 Forbes wrote that,
Office of Oceanic And Atmospheric Research: The office, which provides the research that underpins the government’s climate work, is “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and should be downsized, Project 2025 argues, proposing that its climate change research should be disbanded and the division’s other operations “should be reviewed with an aim of consolidation and reduction of bloat.”
This appears to be a coordinated effort to promote one of the Republicans Big Lies..: that global warming is a "hoax." By dismantling the tools used to measure the crisis, they effectively killed the messenger. The next thing you know, we’ll be paying a monthly subscription just to see a weather forecast.
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