Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Bad Reviews!

Tacky!
Strange!
Triumphalist!
Crass!
Gaudy!
Unseemly!

Those are some of the adjectives used to describe the fight at the White House! What Trump was create a circus on the White House lawn,
Daily Beast via Yahoo
Mary Papenfuss, Matt Young
Sun, June 14, 2026


President Donald Trump is facing a backlash for turning the White House and Washington, D.C., into a circus for his UFC birthday spectacle.

The White House and its surroundings were filled with eyebrow-raising events for the America 250 celebrations over the weekend. At the top of the bill is a UFC fight on Sunday night, also Trump's 80th birthday.

The hijinks got started Saturday morning with the weigh-ins of the fighters, who promoters warn will get hurt and bloodied in Sunday's seven wild spectacles. Heavyweight Josh Hokit walked unsteadily and appeared to drool, dribble, or vomit at the weigh-in. "So what? Maybe I was drinking last night," the bare-chested fighter told spectators. "Who wouldn't be? I have a giant Black man that wants to knock me out."
The pre-fight entertainment also got a lot of attention in creating a circus like atmosphere...
Posting footage of the moment, Trump critic Ed Krassenstein wrote, "Donald Trump has made a disgrace of America."

The bizarre moments continued as adrenaline junkies from The Nitro Circus performed motorbike jumps on the South Lawn of the White House.

"Disgraceful," wrote the Lincoln Project in response.
I think that this photo says it all...

Motorsports athletes and stunt performers do a motorcycle jump ahead of the UFC Freedom 250 fights on the South Lawn. / Alex Brandon / via REUTERS

Everything Trump touches turns to that brown stuff!





Even the UFC wants noting to do with it again!
AP News
By  DAN GELSTON
June 15, 2026


By the time Justin Gaethje pummeled his bloodied foe to a pulp and celebrated a championship win with a backflip off the top of the wire-mesh cage, then shook hands with President Donald Trump — and even fist-bumped Melania — this much about his company’s future was clear to the ultimate boss of UFC: Just say no to the White House.

“It was an amazing, experience, this was a one-of-one,” UFC CEO Dana White said.

“It will never happen again.”

Oh, not because the show dubbed Freedom 250 and ostensibly held to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing wasn’t by White’s accounts a smashing success. He crowed about merchandise sales and streaming service subscriptions and how UFC surpassed its goals in every metric he could list at a news conference that stretched well into the dawn’s early light Monday.
Translated from business speak: "We made tons of money!"
Forget it, almost impossible to top on a night when fighters essentially treated their walkouts like they were kids on a class trip. The all-male lineup toured the West Wing, the Oval Office, walked past presidential portraits, through the Roosevelt Room, the Cabinet Room — and the winners even got a meet-and-greet with Trump.

[...]

Forget it, almost impossible to top on a night when fighters essentially treated their walkouts like they were kids on a class trip. The all-male lineup toured the West Wing, the Oval Office, walked past presidential portraits, through the Roosevelt Room, the Cabinet Room — and the winners even got a meet-and-greet with Trump.

[...]

“Usually, I kind of blank out when it comes to getting ready to walk to the cage,” Gaethje said. “It was pretty crazy, looking at the Declaration of Independence. The original one. Their language was different. I’m not smart enough to read that.”

Gaethje also banked a whopping $825,000 in bonus money for winning “Performance of the Night” and “Fight of the Night” honors.

[...]

Blood and guts were a mandate before an American fighter wrapped himself in the flag.
Under Trump the White House is now center stage for a 3 ring circus!
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There Are So Many Titles I Could Use

Like what were you expecting?

Really, Texas is one most anti-everything state, they are so far right that they stand in the shadow of Trump.
Muslim delegates and attendees hoping to participate in the state Republican convention were shunned and rejected by members as they espoused themes of party unity ahead of the November election.
Texas Tribune
by Renzo Downey
June 15, 2026


To some extent, Mohamed Hussein knew he was preparing to enter the lion’s den.

But he made the decision to attend the Republican Party of Texas Convention to confirm for himself that he had a place in the GOP, even as members of the party have railed for months about the urgency of ending Sharia Law and the so-called “Islamification” of Texas.

What he found was a party that didn’t want him. He arrived with hope but left in tears after being told explicitly that he should leave the country.
The Republican party is a party that is against "The Others"
Hussein was among four Muslims who arrived at the convention in earnest — not as protesters, but as delegates or attendees — to participate in the annual meeting of the state’s most hardlined Republicans as they vote on the party’s priorities and hear from GOP leaders. Two prevailing themes from the Houston gathering were party unity and combatting Sharia Law, a movement that veered into outright Islamophobia by members of the convention.
The Republican party has turned into the party of the White Christian Nationalists 
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Monday, June 15, 2026

The Constitution. What's That?

For Trump & Company losing in court is starting to get them mad. So what do they do... use the tactics that Trump developed with his businesses! The Trump administration has developed it to an art form the appealing, delaying compliance with, sought to circumvent court orders they disagreed with, or failed to fully comply with court orders.
AP News
By  SUDHIN THANAWALA
May 2, 2026


When a federal judge shot down a Trump administration policy of holding immigrants without bond last December, it seemed like a serious blow to the president’s mass deportation effort.

Instead, a top Justice Department official insisted the ruling wasn’t binding, and the administration continued denying detainees around the country a chance for release.

By February, the district court judge, Sunshine Sykes, was fed up. Sykes, a nominee of President Joe Biden, accused Trump officials in a ruling that month of seeking “to erode any semblance of separation of powers,” adding that they could “only do so in a world where the Constitution does not exist.”

Hardly isolated, the case illustrates a broader pattern of defiance of lower court decisions in President Donald Trump’s second term.

[...]

In the second Trump administration’s first 15 months in office, district court judges ruled it was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts and immigration practices, the AP’s review of court records found. That’s about one out of every eight lawsuits in which courts have at least temporarily blocked the administration’s actions.
Why can he get away with thumbing his nose at the courts... simply the Republicans in Congress do not have a backbone, and they let Trump walk all over the Constitution!

The Republican administration's power struggle with federal courts — which is testing basic tenets of U.S. democracy — reflects an expansive view of executive authority that has also challenged the independence of federal agencies, a president’s ethical obligations, and the U.S.’s role in the international order.

Judges find widespread noncompliance

The violations in the 31 lawsuits are in addition to more than 250 instances of noncompliance judges have recently highlighted in individual immigration petitions — from failing to return property to keeping immigrants locked up past court-ordered release dates.
Who is going investigate the charges... the DOJ? Ha! Trump has them wrapped around his little finger!

And now... can you believe this? They want to do away with one of most basic Constitutional rights! The right to be heard in court... habeas corpus! This goes father back than the Constitution, it goes back be traced to medieval English law! To the Magna Carta in 1215 and back to even 1066 and Anglo-Saxon England.

The Trump adminstration has a problem with that!
Secret memos show that the White House debated last year, to a greater degree than previously known, whether to limit habeas corpus rights for undocumented immigrants.
The New York Times
By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
June 15, 2026


Last spring, Will Scharf, an arch-conservative lawyer serving as the White House staff secretary, wrote a secret memo to the chief of staff that reflected growing unease in the West Wing about one of the extreme measures being weighed by Stephen Miller, the powerful adviser driving President Trump’s deportation campaign.

Dated April 29, 2025, and stamped “confidential,” the memo was careful and lawyerly but amounted to a warning against end-running the rule of law. The subject line read: “THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS.”

[...]

The suspension of habeas corpus has occurred just a handful of times in U.S. history, and always under the most dire circumstances of war or invasion. Yet to a greater degree than previously known, administration officials, encouraged by Mr. Trump, actively weighed taking that step in the early months of his second term — this time to accelerate the mass deportation of immigrants in the country illegally.
Hey! Forget about the laws that get in our way... this is the president!

The International Business Times UK (Why does it seems like on the NYT and foreign media are the ones only carrying this?) reports,
Donald Trump's second White House seriously explored suspending a core constitutional protection to speed mass deportations and curb protests, according to newly disclosed internal memos written in Washington in 2025 by senior staff secretary Will Scharf. The confidential documents, detailed in reporting for the forthcoming book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, show that aides weighed using both the suspension of habeas corpus and the Insurrection Act as tools against unauthorised immigrants and demonstrators.

The revelations trace back to the early months of Trump's second term, after his emphatic 2024 election win emboldened a hard-line immigration drive from the Oval Office. Stephen Miller, restored as one of the most powerful figures in the West Wing, was again pressing sweeping measures to accelerate deportations and sideline the courts that had frustrated the first Trump administration. What had previously sounded like late-night cable talk was being turned into draft policy, routed through a small circle of loyalists and sceptics.
They knew that this was a bad idea, why else keep it secret?

It has historically been held that only Congress can suspend it, a precedent famously tested during the Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln suspended it and was rebuked by Chief Justice Roger Taney in the case Ex parte Merryman. But given this Congress's fear of Trump, I doubt very much that they would do anything to stop him!


They are also ignoring maritime law;


Alone in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, somewhere off the coast of Dominica, in the dead of night with no lights to guide me, I swam. With no motor, no radio, and a hull filling quickly in the rough chop, our little dinghy no longer offered safety. The currents would soon pull us far offshore, a tiny speck in the endless sea. We chose to abandon ship. 

[...]

There is a trust among mariners — trust that in our worst moments we cast aside whatever grievances divide us to offer aid. Our struggle is, first and foremost, against the sea. 

This duty to render aid to mariners in distress is codified in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

On Sept. 2, 2025, the U.S. attacked an unidentified vessel in international waters, and then attacked again as at least two sailors clung to the wreckage of their small boat. Over the next eight months, the U.S. would strike more than 60 small vessels, killing over 200 sailors. None of these sailors have ever been conclusively identified as narco-terrorists, though several were found to have no connection to Latin American drug trade. These were not enemy combatants — they were but men clinging to upturned hulls in a vast and unforgiving sea.
But this is the Trump adminstration, and they don't follow the law.
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All The King's Horses And All The King's Men

I don't know about you, but it sure does seem like everything is falling down around "The Art of the Deal" Trump. It feels like everyone except his most devoted MAGA shills is jumping ship.

As for all his loyal minions, he either had to shit-can them because things were getting too hot, or they committed the unforgivable sin of contradicting the boss.


Take a look at the Secretary of Defense... um.. er... Secretary of War.

Just look at the whole name thing. Why "war"??? Did he feel that it fit better with his macho self-image of him riding off to battle on a white charger?

Case in point: D-Day, Normandy, 2026.
US defence secretary cancelled appearance at D-day event in Langrune-sur-Mer after protest by residents
Ashifa Kassam and Kim Willsher
Sun 14 Jun 2026


When news came that the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, would be travelling to Normandy to mark D-day, some in the seaside village of Langrune-sur-Mer – where the afternoon ceremony was slated to be held – felt they had to speak up.

“We found it unbelievable that they could send someone who held views and values contrary to democracy, human rights, peace and Europe,” said resident Chantal Richard. To her, the incongruence felt deeply personal. “We grew up going to D-day ceremonies, some of us had grandparents or parents whose lives were affected by this war.”

The view led Richard and the 40 or so other members of Langrune en Commun, a residents’ association, to sign a 179-word statement. Published days before the 82nd anniversary of the D-day landings, it called for Hegseth’s visit to be cancelled.
But wait! There's more! He got caught in an embellishment.

"Shoes for Industry"
"Shoes for Defense"

On CBS's Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, he got called out for...


Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday refuted the idea that the U.S. is facing a crisis with its munitions stockpile, despite testifying earlier this year that replenishing the stockpile could take "months and years."

"That is a manufactured story that the media wants to peddle and ultimately our stockpiles are great, and they're only getting stronger," Hegseth said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

Weeks after the ceasefire began in the war with Iran, Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Pentagon's $1.5 trillion budget request. During the April 30 hearing, Hegseth estimated that it could take "months and years" to replenish the stockpile as the Iran war had stretched on for months. Hegseth called the timeline "fast," and he noted that the speed will depend on the weapon system.

[...]

"I think it's widely understood that when you attack over 10,000 targets from the air with cruise missiles and ballistic missiles and bombs from airplanes, you are using a lot of munitions, and we do not have an endless supply of these things," Kelly said. "So now we're in a posture where we've got to be incredibly careful."
Then came the biggie! He admitted that Trump's war accomplished nothing... we got the exact same thing President Obama had.
Daily Kos
by News Corpse for Media Watch
June 14, 2026


The political and PR tug of war between Donald Trump and Iran is continuing to strain relations without making any observable progress. On Saturday Trump posted a comment on his dedicated propaganda platform, Truth Social, declaring that an alleged “peace” deal would be signed Sunday (today). So far, there’s been no confirmation of that.

On Sunday morning Trump’s Secretary of War Crimes, Pete Hegseth, was interviewed on CBS News’ Face the Nation by Margaret Brennan. During their discussion Hegseth admitted something that totally contradicts what Trump has been lying about for years with regard to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated by the Obama administration to halt Iran’s nuclear aspirations.
Hegseth: Obama begged Iran for a deal. We bombed Iran, and then put in a blockade…The document says Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, won’t seek one, won’t buy one, won’t have one.
Brennan: JCPOA said that too.
Hegseth: But they didn’t have the threat of military force the way that we do…and that’s why they’re at the table. The huge difference is we did this from a position of strength. Trump led with military might.
I hear that Hegseth is hopping around on one foot now. Somehow, in Pete Hegseth's mind, blasting a country into ruin is better than sitting down peacefully and negotiating a treaty.

Do I think Trump will fire him? No, his Christian Nationalist base is too strong.
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Sunday, June 14, 2026

Suppose You Gave A Party

And it cost 1.5 million dollars to go?
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released June 11 found only 16% of Americans 'said it was appropriate for Trump to hold the Ultimate Fighting Championship event, scheduled for his 80th birthday.'
Rex Huppke
USA TODAY
June 14, 2026


A more proper title for the heavily sponsored UFC Freedom 250 fight desecrating the White House lawn on June 14 would be: "Donald Trump’s Sad Little Mandatory Birthday Party."

After all, while the event is cloaked in America’s 250th anniversary iconography, it’s happening on the president’s 80th birthday, it’s a mixed-martial-arts company run by one of his friends, and Trump is the one who foisted the garish event nobody asked for on the American people. 

Now we have a 92-foot-tall “claw” structure in front of the People’s House, covered in corporate logos ranging from Bud Light to Polymarket and promoting everything from nicotine pouches to crypto.

[...]

But I’m not at all alone in thinking this event has no business being held on the White House property.
As usual, Trump is out of touch with reality and does what he wants without any thought. Some of the adjectives used to describe the fight are "tawdry," "vulgar," "gladiatorial," "Hobbesian," and a "bizarre, commercialized spectacle."


Summary
  • Only 16% of Americans approve of Trump holding UFC event at White House
  • UFC event coincides with Trump's 80th birthday
  • One in five Americans say they are mixed martial ​arts fans
Few Americans, including only a third ‌of Republicans, approve of President Donald Trump's plan to hold mixed martial arts cage matches at the White House on Sunday to celebrate U.S. history, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Just 16% of Americans said ​it was appropriate for Trump to hold the Ultimate Fighting Championship event, ​scheduled for his 80th birthday, while 46% said it was inappropriate and ⁠the rest didn't offer an opinion.

[...]

Only 31% of Republicans considered it appropriate, a ​small share considering that eight in 10 Republicans approve of Trump's overall performance in ​the White House, according to the six-day poll, which concluded on Monday.
Meanwhile, Trump has been hawking UFC Freedom 250 as "The Greatest Show on Earth."

I want to point out one thing: just about everywhere you look, you see Freedom 250—the truck tours, the events around the country, and Washington, D.C.

Freedom 250 is not America250, which was created by Congress. Rather, Freedom 250 is a private, for-profit company! The Freedom 250 truck tour was even designed by the ultra-conservative PragerU!

Freedom 250 was created in 2025 when Trump bypassed Congress entirely to establish it via executive order. Technically structured as a public-private partnership housed inside the National Park Foundation, it operates as a limited liability company (LLC). However, it functions as a vehicle that allows for-profit, commercial entities to monetize historic federal spaces like the White House and the Lincoln Memorial (i.e., to allow Trump to make a buck off of it!).

The LA Times reports that,
But the gala is facing fierce legal challenges from activists who say UFC Freedom 250 is a scam flavored by financial and political corruption, accusing Trump and his close friends Ellison and UFC chief Dana White of benefiting financially from the event. Opponents say Trump has purchased stock in UFC’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings, while pointing out that UFC Freedom 250 is happening weeks before the Fourth of July anniversary.
There are those who say that this flies in the face of the U.S, Constitution's Emoluments Clause! Trump owned a chunk of TKO Group Holdings is bring up all types of questions, Front Office Sports writes...
The Public Integrity Project, a Washington, D.C.-based organization seeking to combat political and corporate corruption, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the event violated strict National Park Service regulations, failed to secure Congressional approval, and did not involve a required environmental review.
Since then the judge ruled in Trump's favor, but the article goes on to say,
The lawsuit also highlights a core element of UFC Freedom 250: the longtime friendship between U.S. President Donald Trump and UFC president and CEO Dana White that enabled the event.

“This plan is deeply corrupt,” the suit reads. “The president is giving White and his company what none have enjoyed before: unfettered access to the White House and Lincoln Memorial to stage a private, for-profit sports event, with all the promotional and branding opportunities that accompany such access.”
WHAM! That is the smoking gun! His ownership in the parent company! 

So who is going tonight?

Dana White and Donald Trump directly split up the guest list like a private party, rather than a public or military celebration:
  • The Troops: 1,200 seats (roughly 28% of the venue).  
  • Donald Trump’s Personal Invites: 1,000 seats.  
  • Dana White (UFC): 200 seats.  
  • Ari Emanuel (TKO Group CEO): 200 seats.  
  • The Rest (Lobbyists, Corporate Partners, and VIPs): Roughly 1,700 seats.

Here is what the New Republic had to say;
The president turns 80 on Sunday, and, as with everything pertaining to Donald Trump, his need to place himself at the center of our attention is pathological. He could not just have a dinner at the White House, or a party at Mar-a-Lago. No; he had to build a massive arena on real estate that belongs to the people of the United States to host a vulgar, garish event that is one of the most violent forms of spectacle available to the human race today. Trump will be sitting there like some Roman emperor at the Colosseum watching enslaved men try to stave off lions. The man who wanted law enforcement to shoot protesters “in the knees” is probably bummed he couldn’t just replicate that.

But if you can’t have lions, six UFC fights are the next best thing. Granted, UFC fighting is very popular in the United States and across the world. I’ve read various accounts this week contending that UFC fighting has supplanted hockey as the fourth-most-popular sport on television, behind the big three of football, baseball, and basketball. I’ve also read that its popularity may have peaked; here’s a 2025 piece by a sportswriter who has followed “combat sports” for 15 years, showing that the number of matches is in steep decline. “The United States, long the backbone of [mixed martial arts], has seen a sharp decline in activity,” wrote John S. Nash. “In 2009, more than 6,266 professional fights took place across the country. This would be the pinnacle for American MMA contests. By 2024, that number had dropped to just over 3,027—a 52 percent decrease.”
And they don't mince words;
But inside his little MAGA cocoon on Sunday night, he’ll be a manly man, presiding over watching other manly men spill each other’s blood for the leader’s greater glory. It’s the most undemocratic pageant one could imagine, a fact that—given that scant 16 percent support—the people know in their bones. In fact, this is exactly what fascism is: grotesque, violent spectacle that repulses most of the population but drives the fervent worshippers to a frenzied state and tries to bully its way into being synonymous with what it means to be a real American.


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Come On Folks! How Ridiculous Is This

These guys just can see how stupid this is, their eyes are blinded by the hate for us.
A federal judge seemed skeptical about an Idaho law set to take effect soon that will make it a criminal offense for transgender people to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
By James Dawson (Boise State Public Radio News)
June 8, 2026
You probably are thinking "Yeah, yeah, another anti-trans law!" but keep reading.
The law, which is set to take effect July 1, would make the first offense a misdemeanor, with subsequent offenses committed within five years a felony.

ACLU of Idaho lawyer Emily Croston, who represents transgender plaintiffs in the case, said the law is unconstitutionally vague and unenforceable in the real world.

“Are we just going to look at folks as they enter a restroom and determine whether or not we think they look enough like a man or a woman? That’s ridiculous,” Croston said.

[...]

Idaho District Court Judge Amanda Brailsford repeatedly questioned the state attorney general’s office over these points.

Deputy Attorney General Michael Zarian acknowledged it will be tough for law enforcement to determine whether a crime has been committed.

“It might be difficult on the spot for a police officer to decide. But, if anything, that works in the plaintiff’s favor,” Zarian said, suggesting that fewer people will ultimately be charged.

Brailsford also asked how police will interpret out-of-state identification from states that list a person’s gender identity as their given sex.

At some point, Zarian said making these determinations will be “easy” by using DNA testing to find out a person’s chromosomal makeup.
All very good questions!

The Advocate reports that...
Idaho Solicitor General Michael Zarian told the judge enforcement should be straightforward “because there is DNA testing.” But that suggestion raises significant questions about privacy rights and what level of suspicion would be required before Idaho authorities could demand that someone submit to genetic testing — a tool more commonly associated with investigating serious crimes such as rape and murder.

Zarian went on to tell the judge that a person would not necessarily need to consent before such testing could occur, though he said he doubted anyone would be expected to submit to testing on the spot.
Stop right there... "Say what?" Did he say what I think he said?

Tell me how do you think a cis-gender woman will think about that? That has to prove her womanhood... what an insult! But these Republican men didn't even think about that in their haste to "punish" trans people. But that doesn't trans men in women's bathrooms!
Advocates have long warned that bathroom bans are difficult to enforce without encouraging people to scrutinize the appearance of strangers in public restrooms. Critics say such laws can subject both transgender and cisgender people to harassment when others incorrectly assume someone does not belong in a particular facility.

Such incidents have already occurred. In 2025, a Black cisgender lesbian in Arizona said sheriff’s deputies confronted her in a Walmart restroom after someone mistakenly believed she was transgender. Most notably, U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado confronted a cisgender woman in a Capitol restroom after mistakenly believing she was transgender U.S. Congresswoman Sarah McBride of Delaware.
Blinded by the hate! In their rabid attack on anything trans they don't think of the ramifications. They have blinders on they are so focused on us. Look at what they did in Kansas, they took back all the driver licenses from trans people. They knew the optics of the bill wasn't good to so they ramrodded it through with very little public debates in hearings nor on the floor of the legislature... i.e. They tried to sneak it though.

Lambda Legal had this to say about the law and you will be surprised who's opposed to the law,
“This law is a dangerous and discriminatory effort to push transgender people out of public life,” said Barbara Schwabauer, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “If you cannot use the restroom at work, you cannot go to work. If you cannot use the restroom at school, you cannot go to school. H.B. 752 undermines the freedom of our clients to live their lives with dignity, and we will do all we can to block it completely.” 

The Idaho Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association opposed H.B. 752, noting there is no “clear or reasonable way” to determine a person’s sex at birth during a field contact without engaging in “invasive and inappropriate” questioning or searches.  

Analyses of public safety data have found policies inclusive of transgender people’s access to public accommodations have no impact on rates of harassment or violence, but policies restrictive of their access have increased transgender people’s already heightened risks for harassment and violence. Transgender people are four times as likely as their cisgender counterparts to be victimized by violence.
The police chiefs know that this is a bad law.

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Fight Or Flight

Families are making tough decisions.

In states that are losing their minds over trans people, many families are fleeing to sanctuary states, while others are preparing to fight City Hall.

Transgender Arkansans and their families weigh moving or staying in the face of restrictions.
Families look at states with laws protecting gender-affirming medical care after Arkansas ban reinstated
Arkansas Advocate
By: Tess Vrbin
June 9, 2026


Key points
  • Arkansas in 2021 became the first state to enact a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. The law also prohibits Arkansas doctors from referring minors elsewhere for such care.  
  • The ban, Act 626, was struck down by a federal judge in 2023 who had blocked its enforcement two years earlier. The ban was reinstated by federal appeals judges last year after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar Tennessee law.
  • The Williams Institute says nearly half of transgender adults have moved or considered moving from states with laws targeting them.
Sabrina Jennen’s family has deep roots in Arkansas, but she said moving to Maryland three years ago brought them a sense of safety they didn’t have in the Natural State.
I have even looked into fleeing to Canada
State and national trends
Nearly half of transgender adults in the United States have moved or considered moving from states with laws targeting them to states with safer legal and social environments, according to a survey last year from the Williams Institute, a research center on gender identity and sexual orientation at the UCLA College of Law.

“For those transgender people who do pursue relocating, service providers, businesses, and state and local governments should both consider the costs of losing members of their communities and support and welcome those who are making new homes,” the Williams Institute states.
I just don't understand how they can lie, and even worse, how people sit back and let it happen!
Fear, abuse and eroding rights have forced many trans people to leave the US – can they claim asylum in the Netherlands?
The Guardian
Helen Pidd and Eli Block
Mon 19 Jan 2026


Ter Apel, a small, unassuming Dutch town near the German border, is a place tourists rarely have on their itinerary. There are no lovely old windmills, no cannabis-filled coffee shops and on a recent visit it was far too early for tulip season.

When foreigners end up there, it is for one reason: to claim asylum at the Netherlands’ biggest refugee camp, home to 2,000 desperate people from all around the world.

Some, like the Eritreans and Somalis, are fleeing war; the Syrians insist it remains unsafe for them to return home after the fall of Assad. But in the last year they have been joined by a curious new cohort: a bunch of Americans, who say they have feared for their lives ever since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Their presence has surprised many of the camp’s residents. “My dream is to go to America or the UK. America for me is the paradise,” said Usama, a 21-year-old Libyan-Algerian hanging around the main gate. “You can work, you can make a million if you have a good idea. Why they come here?”

It is a fair question. Last year, 76 Americans claimed asylum in the Netherlands, according to the Dutch asylum and immigration ministry, up from nine in 2024. Unlike the UK, the Netherlands does not rent out hotels or houses for asylum seekers, instead housing them in fenced-off camps, officially called reception centres, dotted around the country.
What does it say about the United States that people are fleeing it, and worst still people are cheering them leaving!

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A Dystopian Movie?

[Editorial]

I woke up this morning and was watching the news coverage of the weigh-in at the Lincoln Memorial when the announcer's tone gave me a sudden flashback to The Hunger Games. The symbolism of a government-associated setting, the large public spectacle, the cheering crowds, and the normalization of combat as entertainment—all amplified by the announcer's echoing voice—triggered a distinct sense of déjà vu.

The theatrical build-up, the booming voice of the presenter, and the ominous presence of the "Cage" all felt like elements lifted straight out of a dystopian novel. Are we watching modern-day Gladiators at the Colosseum?

Has our government under Trump truly become a dystopian reality?

[/Editorial]
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