The Civil Rights Inversion: Where Up is Down and Down is Up

That is the Republican mantra now.

Ever since the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Republicans have been chipping away at them through court cases like Shelby County v. Holder (2013), Brnovich v. DNC (2021), and Wal-Mart v. Dukes (2011), which limited class-action lawsuits. They’ve found a champion in Trump.

61 Years After Bloody Sunday, We Are Entering a New Era of Voter Suppression

Two efforts underway threaten to erode the promise secured by the foot soldiers of Selma in 1965.

The Nation

Janai Nelson

March 9, 2026

As the writer Zora Neale Hurston eloquently observed, “There are years that ask questions, and there are years that answer.”

Nineteen sixty-five was one of those years that answered. And 2026 is shaping up to be its heir.

In 1965, a group of ordinary citizens stood on the doorstep of history. On one side, the brutal reality they had lived since the final days of Reconstruction, one of white hoods and open caskets, strange fruit and sundown towns. On the other was the promise of true equality, which had eluded them for so long.

[...]

Two consequential voting rights developments greet us this year: a seemingly innocuous change to Postal Service procedure that actually has massive ramifications for mail-in voting, and an imminent congressional vote on the so-called “SAVE America Act,” which passed the House last month and now heads to the Senate. Together, they threaten to erode the promise secured by the foot soldiers of Selma.

Despite its misleading name, the SAVE America Act is not about saving our elections. It’s about sabotaging them. The measure would require American citizens to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. The problem: Nearly half of Americans don’t have a passport, and 69 million women could not use their birth certificate to prove their citizenship status because it doesn’t match their current legal name.

One of the things the SAVE Act does is require mail-in ballots to be delivered by Election Day; no ballots received after that date will be accepted... period. This becomes dangerous when paired with the recent USPS announcement stating they can't guarantee when or where mail will be postmarked. If ballots are misplaced behind a machine and not found until the next day, the attitude is simply: "Oh well!"

Now, Trump & Company have stood the entirety of civil rights legislation on its head. They are claiming that even court-ordered affirmative action is itself a form of discrimination. What we are seeing is a "complete inversion" of civil rights law. Up is down and down is up, like something out of the dystopian novel 1984.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights writes,

January 20, 2025: President Trump issued an executive order that defines ‘sex’ in unscientific narrow binary terms, mandates that federal policies and documents align with this definition, and prohibits funding or promotion of so-called “gender ideology.” It also directs agencies to remove references to nonbinary people and prohibit recognition of gender identity differently from sex assigned at birth in a blatant attack on trans people. Many of the actions listed in this order would be in direct conflict with much of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, binding precedent interpreting Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex in the workplace. The order also calls on the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Homeland Security to ignore the guidelines of the Prison Rape Elimination Act and enforce a blanket policy forcing transgender women into men’s prisons and detention centers against their will.

Plus, Trump and Company tore up a legal agreement on the protection of transgender students! PBS News reported,

The Education Department said Monday it has terminated agreements that previous administrations reached with five school districts and a college aimed at upholding rights and protections for transgender students.

The decision means the department will no longer play a role in enforcing those agreements, which called for schools to take steps to comply with federal civil rights law. The districts affected are Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Sacramento City Unified and Taft College in California.

In other words: "I'll see you in court!"

Ultimately, all the work that both parties in Congress and the presidency achieved decades ago is being torn asunder.

With Computers It Is So Much Easier

Just think back in the 1930s when Hitler was trying to eradicate they had a hard time trying to identify Jews but now with computers it is a "Snap!"

Just look at Kansas in a blink of an eye, every trans person with a driver license was eradicated! Poof gone! Stonewall... poof gone! You want to search the Social Security files that DOGE stole without legal authority, just look at all those who changed their gender markers! We live in an era of a pushbutton pogroms!

Trump’s minions have quietly disappeared most federal data on gender identity

Some agencies went even beyond what the president ordered on day one.

LGBTQ Natiopn

Anna Rogers

March 26, 2026

“EO14168 has been overwhelmingly responsible for driving changes to federal forms and survey data,” says Melanie Klein, an analyst with the federal monitoring organization DataIndex who has been tracking these alterations. Although Trump signed EO14168—better known by its title “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”—on his first day in office, data experts are still getting a sense of its far-reaching scope.

Of more than 500 federal databases affected by Trump’s myriad executive orders, nearly three-quarters were revised because of the Defending Women order alone. Most of the cases involved removing trans-inclusive gender identity options from survey forms, leaving people to choose between male or female.

Poof gone!

But the erasures are far more sweeping than that. “The breadth and diversity of the removals is really quite astounding,” Medina told me. According to a recent report from the Williams Institute, Trump’s order has affected some of the government’s most frequently used forms, including citizenship and passport applications and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Saying that the Republicans want to wipe us off the face of this earth is putting it mildly! They want us "Poof Gone!"

The End Is In Sight!

Hun? What are you talking about? Trump’s war? What?

This meme! The automatic registration for the Selective Service

The Vietnam War… why did we leave?

The protests? No!

The atrocities? No!

We were losing? No!

It was because of the draft! All of a sudden, little Johnny was being drafted!

The Vietnam war... why did we leave?

The protests? No!

The atrocities? No!

We were losing? No!

It was because of the draft! All of a sudden, little Johnny was being drafted!

All the White kids got college deferments (Including me.)

So now all these rich Republicans are saying "What wait a minute!" You're starting a daft again because of your war in Iran. Even though they are not drafting anyone... yet! They hear the silent "yet" and we are the Vietnam generation, we know where this leads!

If they do start a draft... it will probably be a lottery because of past history.

So it will be in November that in the voting booth... you're not getting my grandchild like you did me! It’s not just memories—it’s institutional memory with a human face.

Another War

While I was researching yesterday afternoon blog I came across this.

When Russia invaded Ukraine they said it was to protect the Russians living in the Ukraine. Then we have Trump invading other countries, and now the rhetoric coming out of Hungary!

Orbán says Ukraine is mistreating its Hungarian minority. It’s not that simple.

Christian Science Monitor

By Dominique Soguel

April 08, 2026

With snow lending a deceptive calm to the forested landscape of Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region, the war between Russia and Ukraine feels distant, but for recruitment posters and conscription patrols combing mountain roads.

Yet the war is casting a large shadow here, shaped through the lens of a conflict much closer to home: the one between Kyiv and Budapest over Zakarpattia’s Hungarian minority.

Zakarpattia, or Transcarpathia, is home to tens of thousands of ethnic Hungarians, and their well-being is a central talking point in the nationalist rhetoric of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is widely viewed as sympathetic to Moscow and critical of Ukraine. Mr. Orbán frequently alleges that Ukraine’s Hungarian minority, many of whom can vote in Hungary, endures systematic discrimination and disproportionate conscription.

Does all this seems familiar? Does this sound like they are leading up to invading Ukraine?

Mr. Orbán frames his government’s engagement in and funding for Zakarpattia as a matter of minority protection. The government of Ukraine, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sees the subject through the lens of national cohesion and puts emphasis on upholding Ukrainian as the official language. Hungarian media focuses on cultural and educational rights, while Ukrainian outlets tend to raise questions about the community’s patriotism.

Kind of sounds like Trump's rantings, doesn't it?

Budapest has funded a wide range of initiatives across Zakarpattia. Locals credit Mr. Orbán with supporting cultural organizations and churches, financing the renovation of schools and kindergartens, and backing media outlets and local football clubs. Several establishments said to receive funding from Hungary declined interviews.

Let's see during WWII Germany used the same argument when they went into Austria, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies writes,

The Anschluss was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 12 March 1938.  When Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, desire for unification could be identified with the Nazis, for whom it was an integral part of the Nazi “Heim ins Reich” concept, which sought to incorporate as many Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans outside Germany) as possible into a “Greater Germany”.   Nazi Germany’s agents cultivated pro-unification tendencies in Austria, and sought to undermine the Austrian government.

And now we see the rhetoric coming from Mr. Orbán it has to make you wonder... another war?

Health & Politics!

So when I saw this my first thought in today's politically charged environment my first thought was... Democrat states vs. Republican states! Why do they keep voting Republican?

Yeah the article is two years old but the health facts are still the same.

2024 State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care

Common Wealth Fund.

July 18, 2024

Scorecard Highlights

• Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island top the rankings for the 2024 State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care, which is based on 32 measures of health care access, quality, and health outcomes. The lowest performers were Mississippi, Texas, Nevada, and Oklahoma.
• Deaths from all causes among women of reproductive age — 15 to 44 — were highest in southeastern states. Causes of death include pregnancy and other preventable causes such as substance use, COVID-19, and treatable chronic conditions.
• The highest maternal death rates were in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Vermont, California, and Connecticut had the lowest rates. Nationally, rates were highest for Black and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) women.
• Mental health conditions are the most frequently reported cause of preventable pregnancy-related death, including deaths by suicide and overdoses related to substance use disorders. States that screened for postpartum depression at the highest rates also had lowest rates of postpartum depression.
• Among women of reproductive age (ages 15–44), those in Texas, Georgia, and Oklahoma were uninsured at the highest rates; those in Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and Vermont had the lowest uninsured rates. Women in states that had not expanded Medicaid eligibility were among those most at risk of lacking coverage.
• The U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022 has significantly altered both access to reproductive health care services and how providers are able to treat pregnancy complications in the 21 states that ban or restrict abortion access.

Take a look at the states with the best and the worst. Do you see a trend here?

Tighter limits and additional bans on abortion are certain to drive more maternal and reproductive health care providers to shut down or leave their states, deepening the crisis of access to maternity care. Abortion bans threaten American’s future access to care across all medical specialties; in fact, since 2022, medical residency applications in states with bans have declined by more than those in other states.8

Women’s access to contraception and infertility treatments is also at risk. In February 2024, Alabama’s supreme court gave stored embryos the same legal protections as children. This ruling disrupted the care of women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment in Alabama until the state’s governor signed legislation in March providing civil and criminal immunity to IVF providers. In some states, widespread misinformation and misunderstanding could also lead policymakers to place limits on contraception in the new landscape created by the Dobbs decision.9

Clearly, women’s health is under threat. That’s why the Commonwealth Fund has developed the first-ever state scorecard to track trends in women’s health over time and document how policy choices and judicial decisions may impact women’s access to timely health care.

Politics pays a big part in our health!

Do You Know Who He Is?

Birds of a feather fly together!

Like attracts like.

Two peas in a pod.

Of the same stripe.

A man is known by the company he keeps.

Or whatever cliché you want to use for Trump’s close ally, Viktor Orbán.

Trump stumps for Viktor Orbán in phone call during Vance’s rally

Orbán is one of the Trump administration’s top allies in Europe, but he’s lagging in the polls ahead of Hungary’s national election next week.

Politico

By Gregory Svirnovskiy

04/07/2026

President Donald Trump took a call from Vice President JD Vance to voice support for Viktor Orbán during a rally alongside the Hungarian leader in Budapest on Tuesday, as the White House looks to boost the beleaguered prime minister ahead of what could be a bruising April 12 national election for his ruling Fidesz party.

Trump’s phone call came just hours after the president threatened the death of an entire civilization if Iran misses his 8 p.m. deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“He does a job, remember this, he didn’t allow people to storm your country and invade your country like other people have, and ruin their countries frankly,” Trump said of Orban. “He’s kept your country good, he’s kept Hungarian people in your country. And he’s done a fantastic job.”

Orban is one of the Trump administration’s top allies in Europe, and the president has routinely praised his anti-immigration stance while slamming leadership in the United Kingdom, France and Germany as “weak.” Vance’s visit to the Hungarian prime minister follows a February meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Orban, during which Rubio announced a “Golden Age” in relations between Washington and Budapest.

Who is Viktor Orbán? The Guardian wrote this about him last year,

‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán

Trump has moved to gut the federal government, fire critics and reward allies – a path similar to ‘would-be dictators’ like Orbán, experts say

David Smith 

Fri 7 Feb 2025

A pitiless crackdown on on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions.

The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun.

With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down.

“They are copying the path taken by other would-be dictators like Viktor Orbán,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut. “You have a move towards state-controlled media. You have a judiciary and law enforcement that seems poised to prioritise the prosecution of political opponents. You have the executive seizure of spending power so the leader and only the leader gets to dictate who gets money.”

And this is the person Trump envies, you want to know where Trump is getting his ideas from, his pal Orban.

Orbán’s fans in the US include Vice-President JD Vance, the media personality Tucker Carlson and Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation thinktank, who once said: “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.” The Heritage Foundation produced Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term.

Orbán has addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and two months ago travelled to the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for talks with both Trump and Musk. He has claimed that “we have entered the policy writing system of President Donald Trump’s team” and “have deep involvement there”.

They worship this fascist authoritarian would-be dictator! In an opinion piece in The Washington Post...

The Trump administration is extremely invested in the outcome of the April 12 Hungarian election. Vice President JD Vance travels to Budapest this week for a series of events with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the same trip, touting the “golden age” of U.S.-Hungarian relations. Late last month, President Donald Trump gushed on Truth Social that Orban is “a truly strong and powerful Leader, with a proven track record of delivering phenomenal results.”

It’s almost as if Trump and Orbán were cut from the same cloth.

Back in 2020 the Human Rights Watch wrote,

Tell Hungary That Trans Rights Are Human Rights

Update 28 May 2020 – Since this piece was originally written, sadly, Section 33 has passed into Hungarian Law. As it contravenes fundamental human rights, Amnesty International is calling on the Hungarian Human Commissioner for Fundamental Rights to stop this by rejecting the validity of this legislation. Join us in taking action

According to international and regional human rights standards, transgender people should be able to obtain legal gender recognition through quick, accessible and transparent procedures and in accordance with their own perceptions of gender identity. States must ensure that transgender people can obtain documents reflecting their gender identity without being required to satisfy criteria that in themselves violate their human rights.

Instead of complying with their human rights obligations, the Hungarian government is moving in the opposite direction, as they put forward a new bill including an article – Section 33 – which would ban legal gender recognition in Hungary. This is happening while all efforts should focus on protecting and guaranteeing the right to health for everyone without discrimination and taking urgent measures necessary to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hmm.... where are we seeing that now?

Do you now see why I questioned Vance's trip?

Cuckoo Award! Got Milk?

I’ve never given the coveted Cuckoo Award to Congress before, but they’re well on their way to earning it by passing a truly crazy bill on behalf of an industry.

The milk industry!

Interstate Milk Freedom Act of 2026: Congress Moves to End Federal Ban on Raw Milk Interstate Commerce

March 10, 2026

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced H.R. 7880 on March 10, 2026 – the latest and most politically significant push yet to lift the FDA’s decades-old prohibition on transporting raw milk across state lines.

On March 10, 2026, Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced H.R. 7880, the Interstate Milk Freedom Act of 2026, in the 119th Congress. The bill would prohibit any federal department, agency, or court from interfering with the interstate transport of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption – stripping the FDA of the regulatory authority it has used since 1987 to effectively ban raw milk from crossing state lines.

And yes, that’s from a milk industry website.

Why are they doing this? The usual political talking points: “food freedom,” “small farm rights,” and “less federal regulation.” It echoes the same mindset seen in anti-vaccine movements.

What’s wrong with raw milk? Like anti-vaccine rhetoric, it ignores the role of public health. Raw milk can spread disease.

Common diseases associated with raw milk:

• Salmonellosis – causes diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps
• E. coli infection – can range from mild diarrhea to severe kidney complications
• Listeriosis – especially dangerous for pregnant people, newborns, and older adults
• Brucellosis – can cause long-term fever, fatigue, and joint pain.
• Tuberculosis – historically spread through contaminated milk

People with weakened immune systems, children, pregnant individuals, and older adults are especially at risk.

Once again, it’s about “me, me, me” and not “us.”

So today, I award the coveted Cuckoo Award to Congress for its idiocy in bowing to the milk industry.

Courts? Legal Agreements? What's That?

You when you reached an agreement in court between two parties, one party can't tear up the agreement unilaterally.

But for Trump & Company they just did that exact thing, they torn up a court agreement!

Trump administration rolls back settlements that protected trans rights in unprecedented move

One of the agreements over Title IX violations dates back more than 10 years.

LGBTQ Nation

Faefyx Collington (They/Them)

April 7, 2026

This week, the Trump administration terminated or reworked agreements in settled gender-discrimination cases across five school districts and one community college. Such a reversal of closed Title IX matters appears to be without precedent and takes matters a step beyond Trump’s previous efforts to roll back DEI protections.

“To go back and terminate agreements and say all of the policies and procedures should be reversed as if nothing ever happened, that is very different and a very big deal,” a former supervising lawyer for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) with the Education Department, Nancy Potter, told the New York Times.

[...]

However, the Trump administration has put forward its own interpretation of Title IX, claiming that it requires anti-trans discrimination. This is part of a long battle over the law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.

You know darn well that this is going back to court, you just can say that there are no trans people and tear up legal agreements!

---

Trump is also seeking advice from an anti-trans organization...

Moms for Liberty wanted a seat on the school board. Trump gave them a voice in the White House

AP News

By COLLIN BINKLEY

April 4, 2026

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order against transgender athletes last year, he took a moment to thank Tina Descovich, co-founder and CEO of Moms for Liberty.

Descovich was back at the White House a few months later, seated alongside CEOs of Google and IBM to weigh in on artificial intelligence and education policy.

Last month, when first lady Melania Trump hosted a global technology summit in Washington, Descovich was there, too.

Her presence at the White House underscores the meteoric rise of a group that made its name in local politics, fighting to win school board seats and end “wokeness” in U.S. schools. What started as a fringe of far-right mothers has seen its interests collide with a presidential administration that embraces and amplifies their message, launching the group into a new level of influence in public policy.

This is what we are facing