Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Thank You (2000)
On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to answer the questions, however, and here is today's questions!

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) This week's song begins with Dido complaining about her day, but then she sees a photo of a loved one that reminds her "it's not so bad." What was the most recent photo you took?
I took some photos at a rally on the 17^th in West Hartford.

2) She admits that between a hangover and her finances, she's got a headache. What's your go-to headache remedy?
A dark room, a damp cloth on my forehead and listening to the Eagles.

3) Though her given name is Florian, her family started calling her Dido when she was very young, so she considers it her "real" name. Which is not to say she likes it. She said being christened one name but called another was confusing when she was a little girl. Plus, since neither Florian nor Dido are common monikers, she didn't appreciate the way her names made her stand out at school. "I used to wish I'd been named Claire," she says. Do you like your name? Do you feel it suits you?
Yes, I picked it out.

4) In 2000, the year this week's song was on the charts, AOL merged with media giant Time Warner. In 2022 it was estimated 70% of us check our personal (not business) email daily. That's down from 74% in 2020. How often do you check your email?
Four or five times a day… or more.

5) "Thank You" is this week's song because November 28 was Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for this year?
That it looks like I make my New Years Resolution… to make it to 2025.

6) At the first Thanksgiving, there were no forks. Pilgrims ate with spoons and knives. How many forks were at your Thursday place setting?
One. I’m the one who has to do the dishes.

7) It's estimated that nearly 50 million pumpkin pies are baked for Thanksgiving. Was it on your Thursday menu?
Nope! I had rotisserie chicken, stuffing, gravy, scalloped potatoes, cranberry sauce, and for desert vanilla chocolate chip ice cream from a local dairy.

8) A recent poll revealed that we are a divided country, with cranberry sauce being named both most and least favorite Thanksgiving side dish. Where are you on this controversy?
Well I had it for my dinner, there is nothing like a turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sandwich.

9) The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season and sales. Walmart, Best Buy and Target all advertise heavily on Black Friday. If you could have a $100 gift card from one of those stores, which would you choose? What would you buy?
Amazon.
And right now there is nothing on my radar that I need.


Thanks so much for joining us again at Saturday: 9. As always, feel free to come back, see who has participated and comment on their posts. In fact sometimes, if you want to read & comment on everyone's responses, you might want to check back again tomorrow. But it is not a rule. We haven’t any rules here. Join us on next Saturday for another version of Saturday: 9, "Just A Silly Meme on a Saturday!" Enjoy your weekend!

404 Years Ago (Part II)

PART 2

They say history is written by the victors, but sometimes it is rewritten, and rewritten. The latest rewrite occurred in the 1950s.

‘I Was Teaching a Lot of Misconceptions.’ The Way American Kids Are Learning About the 'First Thanksgiving' Is Changing

Time

By OLIVIA B. WAXMAN 

November 21, 2019

On a recent Saturday morning in Washington, D.C., about two dozen secondary-and-elementary-school teachers experienced a role reversal. This time, it was their turn to take a quiz: answer “true” or “false” for 14 statements about the famous meal known as the “First Thanksgiving.”

Did the people many of us know as pilgrims call themselves Separatists? Did the famous meal last three days? True and true, they shouted loudly in unison. Were the pilgrims originally heading for New Jersey? False.

But some of the other statements drew long pauses, or the soft murmurs of people nervous about saying the wrong thing in front of a group. Renée Gokey, Teacher Services Coordinator at the National Museum of the American Indian and a member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, waited patiently for them to respond. The teachers at this Nov. 9 workshop on “Rethinking Thanksgiving in Your Classroom” were there to learn a better way to teach the Thanksgiving story to their students, but first, they had some studying to do. When Gokey explained that early days of thanks celebrated the burning of a Pequot village in 1637, and the killing of Wampanoag leader Massasoit’s son, attendees gasped audibly.

[…]

But some of the other statements drew long pauses, or the soft murmurs of people nervous about saying the wrong thing in front of a group. Renée Gokey, Teacher Services Coordinator at the National Museum of the American Indian and a member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, waited patiently for them to respond. The teachers at this Nov. 9 workshop on “Rethinking Thanksgiving in Your Classroom” were there to learn a better way to teach the Thanksgiving story to their students, but first, they had some studying to do. When Gokey explained that early days of thanks celebrated the burning of a Pequot village in 1637, and the killing of Wampanoag leader Massasoit’s son, attendees gasped audibly.

But when you tread on history you have to walk lightly because some people hold on to tradition and don’t like the facts.

What really happened back in the fall of 1621 is documented in only two primary sources from colonists’ perspectives. Edward Winslow’s account of the bountiful harvest and the three-day feast with the Wampanoag people runs a measly six sentences, and Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford’s later account is about the same length—evidence, argues historian Peter C. Mancall, that neither colonial leader considered the event worth more than a paragraph. As Plymouth became part of Massachusetts and Puritans gave way to the Founding Fathers, nobody thought much about that moment. When George Washington declared a national day of Thanksgiving in 1789, his proclamation of gratefulness made no mention of anything related to what happened in Plymouth. Then, around 1820, a Philadelphia antiquarian named Alexander Young found Winslow’s account. He republished it in his 1841 Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, with a fateful footnote: “This was the first Thanksgiving, the harvest festival of New England.”

Let us wave the Red, White, and Blue… this is what makes us great! We have Thanksgiving! Lets have parades and marching bands dressed up like Yankee-doodle, pumpkin pie and turkey dinners with all the fixings!

But that’s not what was included in the classroom materials about Thanksgiving that began to be developed in the wake of Lincoln’s proclamation, especially between the 1890s and 1920s, according to former Plimoth Plantation historian James W. Baker’s Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday. The settlers were re-branded the “pilgrims.” An 1889 novel Standish of Standish: A Story of the Pilgrims by Jane G. Austin, which described “The First Thanksgiving of New England” as an outdoor feast, became a best-seller. In 1897, an illustration by W.L. Taylor of a meal like the one Austin described accompanied a piece in Ladies Home Journal that was presented as a factual article about the first Thanksgiving; thanks in part to the growth of the advertising industry at this time, variations of this image spread quickly.

In 1941 Thanksgiving was made a national holiday. Before then it was celebrated at different days in November. The National Archives writes;

To end the confusion, Congress decided to set a fixed-date for the Thanksgiving holiday. On October 6, 1941, the House passed a joint resolution declaring the last Thursday in November to be the legal Thanksgiving Day. 

The Senate amended the resolution establishing the holiday as the fourth Thursday, which would take into account those years when November has five Thursdays. The House agreed to the amendment, and President Roosevelt signed the resolution on December 26, 1941, establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the federal Thanksgiving Day holiday. The law went into effect the following year.

And so the Christmas shopping season was created!

*****

The Meaning of Thanksgiving, as Told Through Cold War Propaganda

A heartwarming 1950s holiday film about the virtues of capitalism

The Atlantic

By Kathy Gilsinan

November 26, 2014

The Johnsons, a fictional Midwestern family, are in for a letdown one Thanksgiving in the 1950s. Expenses were high the previous month, and while the kids are getting stoked for turkey, it falls to their mom to tell them the truth: There will be no turkey this year. Little Tommy is incredulous: "No turkey for Thanksgiving?" Dick, the oldest, notes that everyone else on the block will have a turkey. "A fat lot we're gonna have to be thankful for," he sulks.

[…]

A Day of Thanksgiving came out in 1951, in the context of the early Cold War, with American troops battling communists in Korea and Senator Joseph McCarthy kicking his investigations of suspected American communists into high gear. As such, the film extolls the virtues of capitalist democracy—even, as in the Johnsons' case, when you can't afford turkey. After all, Thanksgiving, as O. Henry pointed out at the turn of the 20th century, "is the one day of the year that is purely American." And America, per Mr. Johnson, is a set of freedoms and privileges that, by the 1950s, has produced abundance beyond the pilgrims' imaginings. "Do you know," Johnson asks his kids, "that there are some places in the world today where you have to get along without just about everything else" besides life itself?

Without Thanksgiving what would Norman Rockwell have to paint? Without Thanksgiving what would Macy's do?

Of all magazines to right about Thanksgiving, Science News had an interesting take on it.

Why the Thanksgiving myth persists, according to science

Memory often favors a tidy narrative over the messier reality of history

By Sujata Gupta

Social Sciences Writer

November 21, 2023

Ask someone in the United States to name five events important to the country’s foundation and there’s a good chance they’ll mention the Pilgrims.

That’s what researchers found a few years ago when they put that question to some 2,000 people. The Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas and the Civil War topped the list. But coming in seventh place were the Pilgrims, the team reported in 2022 in Memory Studies.

The “Thanksgiving myth” is part of that tale, says coauthor and cognitive psychologist Henry Roediger, also at Washington University. The shorthand for that story, he says, goes like this: In 1621, the Pilgrims and Native Americans “had this peaceful meal and powwow [while] singing kumbaya.”

The two groups did engage in a peaceful harvest celebration in the fall of 1621, history suggests. But historians are quick to point out that the tidy tale ignores context, particularly the deadly diseases and bloody wars that devastated Indigenous populations both before and after the occasion.

[…]

Origin stories like the Thanksgiving one are particularly sticky as they underpin a group’s raison d’être. Fixing or changing the story risks muddying the plot and tearing apart the group, says Van Engen. “The Pilgrims just become right for telling [the] stories … that we want to tell about ourselves.”

[...]

But scholars are starting to grapple with how nations should contend with difficult pasts. “How do you keep a strong national identity and patriotism while at the same time acknowledging the more negative aspects of your history?” Roediger asks. The answer, as evidenced by increasing calls for racial reckonings in the United States and elsewhere, is very much a work in progress.

We must learn from the past! Not only from our roots but from global history, especial from the events in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

For that 1621 Thanksgiving, the complex historic arc goes like this. Up to 90 percent of the Wampanoag population had died from an epidemic brought by a previous wave of European explorers by the time the Pilgrims arrived in December 1620 in what’s now Massachusetts. The weakened community faced threats from an encroaching neighboring tribe. Meanwhile, the Pilgrims, unaccustomed to the new environment and climate, were dying of starvation and disease.

That got the right-wingers howling and started this whole “Woke” business.

The right-wingers picture Thanksgiving as “over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house...” and anyone who tampers with their fantasies watch out.

My thoughts:

Thanksgiving is a rough holiday for some and we have to keep that in mind, for the “haves” it is family, a table overflowing with food, and laughter. For the “have-nots” it can be a lonely time, it can be a time famine and empty plates. We need to be aware of these two diametrical opposites.

Thanksgiving might have been created with an ulterior motive to unify the country and build patriotism but it has warp into something else a time to be with family. But the harvest celebrations are found through out history and in all different cultures.

So enjoy your leftovers. (That is also part of the tradition) 

---

The first Trump administration tried to stop the federal recognition of Mashpee Wampanoag tribe claiming that they were not a tribe! Boston.com wrote...

“The claim that the Tribe of the First Light, the Tribe of the First Thanksgiving was not an original Native American Tribe has always been disingenuous,” U.S. Rep Bill Keating said in a statement. “And the Trump Administration’s sudden attempt to remove their land from trust last March — in the midst of a pandemic — was heartless."

Here is is tribe that sat down whit the pilgrims and have lived on the Cape Cod since before the 

Europeans set foot on North America.

Cultural Survival wrote about Trump back then,,,

On March 27, 2020, in the midst of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Chairman Cedric Cromwell was informed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that the Tribe’s reservation will be “disestablished” as ordered by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, David Bernhardt.

The Mashpee Wampanoag, the People of the First Light, have occupied the same region for over 12,000 years and have faced diminishment of their homelands since colonization. The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts, the very tribe that welcomed the Pilgrims exactly 400 years ago in 1620, is at risk of losing what is left of their homelands due to a determination made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The latest decision is a blow to Tribal sovereignty and undermines the future and sustainability of the Tribal Nation.

 If you look at their land you can see why Trump wanted it. You could build hundreds of 1 million dollar+ homes on it, it is on the south shore of Cape Cod in Mashpee MA

It was federally recognized by the Obama administration and out of spite Trump undid it!

The land in question, which includes 150 acres in the town of Mashpee, Massachusetts and another 170 acres in the neighboring city of Taunton, had been established into trust as of September 2015 by the Obama administration, after years of advocacy work by the Mashpee Tribe. The Obama decision was threatened by the Trump administration in September 2018. The recent Bureau of Indian Affairs order removes the entirety of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s 320 acres of reservation land.

The Boston.com article went on to write that the judge...

A federal judge in 2020 blocked the U.S. Interior Department from revoking the tribe’s reservation designation, saying the agency’s decision to do so was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law.” The Trump administration appealed the decision, but the Interior Department on Friday moved to dismiss the motion.

Now we know Trump has a heart of gold and would never do anything "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion" No, he would do it out of meanness, revenge, and vindictiveness, but never capricious. 

404 Years Ago (Part 1)

This is a reprint from last year, I figured it was fitting as I drive home today...

---

The Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod and most of the history that we learned about it is wrong.

The New York Post has this article about the Pilgrims…

Pilgrims’ descendants defend their ancestors — and the history of America
By Peter W. Wood
November 21, 2020

Rebecca Locklear, 64, a 12th-generation Cape Codder, is a descendant of four of the families who arrived on the Mayflower in November 1620. She worries that society today, “is put into groups that are supposedly in a struggle against one another, rather than looking for commonality” — a view that opposes “the more open, inclusive society that the signers of the Mayflower Compact envisioned.”

[…]

Locklear and Whitaker both wrote to me after they read my recent New York Post essay, “This American Lie.” In it, I argued that The New York Times’ 1619 Project — which links the beginning of our country to the arrival of the first slaves on our shores in 1619 — is completely wrong. Instead, the Pilgrims’ signing of the Mayflower Compact in 1620 is a more accurate root of our nation, which is built on the idea that “all men are created equal.” Even before the Pilgrims and dozens of non-Pilgrims (or “Strangers” as the Pilgrims called them) stepped ashore in Plymouth, they set aside their deep divisions and voluntarily joined together to sign the Compact, agreeing to govern themselves with “just and equal laws.” After settling in Plymouth, this group lived in peace alongside their Native American neighbors, the Wampanoags, in a treaty that was unbroken for more than 50 years. In 1621, the autumn harvest meal between the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoags marked the first ever Thanksgiving feast in America.

Yes, the Mayflower Compact was an important document but they brought over slaves and indentured servants. And they didn’t live in peace with the indigenous population… Did you ever hear of the King Phillip War and the Pequot War?

First off the Mayflower wasn’t just carrying Pilgrims, there were also Brownists or Separatists who were fleeing England on board the Mayflower.

The Mayflower compact is a significant historical document, the "wave-rocked cradle of our liberties", as one historian evocatively put it. Signed by the Pilgrims and the so-called Strangers, the craftsmen, merchants and indentured servants brought with them to establish a successful colony, it agreed to pass "just and equal laws for the good of the Colony" ¹

The Mayflower first stop in “New World” (which was really only the “New World” if you came from Europe because the indigenous peoples lived here for tens of thousands of years.) wasn’t Provincetown, they first stopped in Newfoundland to resupply, probably at Renews in Newfoundland. And they were actually heading for the Hudson River where they had a charter from the Virginia Colony to settle.

The Pilgrims had slaves and indentured servants (a fancy word for slaves).

Just as their brutality has traditionally been downplayed, the Puritans' embrace of slavery has been ignored. Not only did the colonists import African slaves, they exported Native Americans. By the 1660s, half of the ships in Boston Harbour were involved in the slave trade. At least hundreds of indigenous Americans were enslaved. ¹

Provincetown was a known harbor, fishing fleets from England, France, Portugal, and Spanish ships all stopped there to resupply and get fresh water. The Grand Banks are only a couple of hundred miles offshore.

In an article in the Cape Cod Times they write...

Myth: The Pilgrims were the first Europeans to land in Southern New England and to interact with the Native people.

The commonly told version of the 1620 Mayflower landing is that the Pilgrims were the first Europeans to step onto the shores of Massachusetts. According to historic accounts, however, Europeans had been visiting New England since at least the late 1400s. The Basques, English and French had a thriving fishing industry off the coast of Maine and New England. The first documented European to make contact with either the Narragansetts or the Wampanoags in Southern New England was Italian explorer Giovanni de Verrazano, who, in 1524, while sailing for the French, traveled up Narragansett Bay and traded with the Native people he found there. ⁶

The BBC article also mentioned earlier contacts with Europeans,

It's also a mistake to view the arrival of the Mayflower as the first interaction between white settlers and indigenous North Americans. Contact with Europeans had been going on for at least a century, partly because slave traders targeted Native Americans. When the pilgrims came ashore, a few members of the Wampanoag tribe could even speak English. ¹

While sitting out in Provincetown harbor they realized that they didn't have a charter to settle there and there were no laws governing them. So they got this idea… The Mayflower Compact.

Quickly, the Pilgrim leadership drafted a rudimentary constitution to “combine our selves together into a civil body politick”—which would, through democratic process, enact “just and equal laws…for the general good of the Colony.”

[…]

In reality, the signing was probably more of an informal affair, Pickering says. “The document was carried from person to person: ‘Here—sign this!’ There was also a bit of coercion involved. You weren’t getting off the boat until you signed.” ²

And they were not good neighbors… They stole the Wampanoag food!

Oh look somebody buried corn in clay pots!

To narrow it down to the outermost areas of Cape Cod, the Nauset tribe, which was part of the Wampanoag Nation, would likely have been watching and wondering what the intentions of the Mayflower occupants were, Peters said.

[…]

“Certainly the Nausets didn’t write down (that) they were watching the Mayflower come ashore, but we absolutely know that they would have. You can’t pull that boat up to the coast and people not notice,” he said. “And for them, it must have been such an odd sight to all of a sudden see women and children step off the ship …”

[…]

The text also describes how the exploring party came across “heaps of sand” under which they found baskets of “fair Indian corn” and ears of corn of varying colors. The Englishmen dug up the food stores and stole them.

After stealing their food the Nausets said enough…

“I think they would have thought about that very carefully, and I think they were careful in how they responded,” he said. “Ultimately, they did respond in the ‘first encounter’... you know, shoot some arrows at them to say, ‘OK, time for you to move along. We don’t want to take the risk of having Europeans hanging around here.’ That ultimately pushed them over to Plymouth, which was just a short ride in the shallop for them to get there.” ³

The Wampanoag tells their story for the 400 anniversary of the Mayflower…

The Wampanoag have lived in southeastern Massachusetts for more than 12,000 years. They are the tribe first encountered by Mayflower Pilgrims when they landed in Provincetown harbor and explored the eastern coast of Cape Cod and when they continued on to Patuxet (Plymouth) to establish Plymouth Colony.

[…]

Chapter 1: Captured: 1614

In 1614, a European explorer kidnapped twenty Wampanoag men from Patuxet (now Plymouth) and seven more from Nauset on Cape Cod to sell them as slaves in Spain. Only one is known to have returned home: Tisquantum, who came to be known as Squanto. This tragic and compelling backstory to the colonization of Plymouth has been long overlooked comes to life in the exhibit’s dramatic images and video impact statements.

[...]

Chapter 3: The Great Dying – 2016

God’s Will or Unfortunate Circumstance?

Between 1616 and 1619 Native villages of coastal New England from Maine to Cape Cod were stricken by a catastrophic plague that killed tens of thousands, weakening the Wampanoag nation politically, economically and militarily. ⁵

And then came the Mayflower.

As for the first "Thanksgiving" the indigenous peoples were not invited but can a running.

Myth: The Pilgrims and Wampanoags came together in November 1621 for a Thanksgiving feast.

There’s a lot to unpack with this one, and not just because it forms the basis of our country’s Thanksgiving Day story.

First, while the Puritans did have “days of Thanksgiving” they were literally the opposite of a big, fun, family feast. They were usually days of fasting and prayer that maybe would be broken with a larger meal.

Edward Winslow, in his writing about the first few years in Plymouth titled “Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims in Plymouth,” does mention a celebration marking the settlement’s first successful harvest, probably held around October 1621. Given the context, it certainly wasn’t a huge deal but it would later become one in modern America.

According to Winslow, despite the fact that the Wampanoags had allowed the Pilgrims to live on their land, provided them with aid and taught them how to successfully grow native crops, the Wampanoags were not invited to this celebration. They arrived only after the Pilgrims started shooting their guns into the air. Believing themselves to be under attack, the Wampanoags head sachem, Massasoit, showed up at the settlement with about 90 warriors expecting war. Instead, they found a celebration and they decided to stay, with their hunters bringing in five deer as a contribution. Rather than a happy celebration of camaraderie and partnership, the feast that would serve as the basis of the traditional Thanksgiving myth was actually quite a tense affair, fraught with political implic

The Pilgrims and the Mayflower have been romanticized and the truth has been swept under the rug and glossed over and now on the 400 anniversary of their landing in the “New World” is still trying to be whitewashed and the Trump is creating of the 1776 Commission to continue to whitewash history.

1. Mayflower at 400: What we all get wrong about the Pilgrim Fathers

2. 400 years on, the Pilgrims get a reality check

3. A nation created, a nation diminished: Pilgrims’ arrival in Provincetown 400 years ago spawned a clash of cultures

4. “OUR”STORY: 400 YEARS OF WAMPANOAG HISTORY

5. Pilgrim myths: Don’t believe everything your kindergarten teacher told you

---

 

A new Part 2 will be posted this afternoon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For many people Thanksgiving and the Holidays are an especially lonely time, they might have been estranged from their family since they came out to them or their families and children have disowned them and for them Thanksgiving is a time when they feel their loss the greatest. Thanksgiving is a time where we reflect on all that we have been thankful for the year but for those of us it could also be a time a great sadness while they see others around them celebrating during the holiday seasons. So let us open our hearts and doors to them and invite them to the table.

I want to thank all the military men and women who are away from their loved ones this holiday... thank you for your service.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the lighter side... I leave you with some Thanksgiving cartoons and what would Thanksgiving be without "Alice's Restaurant" and "WKRP" turkey drop.

 

And of course the two favorites!

What would Thanksgiving be without Alice's Restaurant!

Sadly...

Alice Brock, inspiration behind Arlo Guthrie's classic "Alice's Restaurant," dies at 83

And WKRP's turkey drop!

And So It Begins

Another bill have been introduced in Congress to wipe out our identities!

Senate Bill Would Fully Erase Transgender Identity in U.S.
Senator Roger Marshall's bill would legally prohibit recognition of a person's gender that doesn't align with their assigned sex at birth.Metro Weekly
By John Riley
November 26, 2024

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) has introduced a bill that would erase transgender identity from the law.

The “Defining Male and Female Act of 2024” seeks to enshrine gender-specific definitions of various words into law, including the terms “girl,” “boy,” “father,” “mother,” “female,” and “male.”

The bill defines sex as fixed at birth and binary, and defines gender, in certain contexts, as a synonym for sex, while expressly not including gender identity or gender expression.

Under the bill, “male” and “female” are defined as individuals who naturally have — or would have, but for a congenital anomaly — a reproductive system that produces, respectively, sperm or eggs for fertilization.

The bill states that “rare disorders of sexual development are not exceptions to the binary nature of sex,” and that “in no case is an individual’s sex determined by stipulation or self-identification.”

Once again the Republicans are trying to put people in boxes when Mother Nature abhors boxes.
The bill also states that maintaining sex-segregated facilities or sports leagues based on physical differences between the sexes shall not be considered “unequal treatment under the law,” which appears to be an effort to protect against lawsuits brought by transgender advocates.
So tell me are they going to checking every woman’s DNA who enters a bathroom? Or are they just going to pick on women who don’t look feminine?

The Daily Wire writes;

The “Defining Male and Female Act of 2024” would enshrine in law the biological differences between men and women. The proposed legislation, which is backed by a handful of conservative organizations, says the definition is required to combat “increasing confusion about the definition of sex as a biological truth.”

Marshall reiterated that goal to The Daily Wire.

“As a physician who has delivered over 5,000 babies, I can confidently say that politicizing children’s gender to use them as pawns in their radical woke agenda is not only wrong, it is extremely dangerous. I didn’t think we would need legislation to tell us that there are only two sexes: male and female, but here we are,” Marshall said.

So tell me doctor… how many of those babies did you test their DNA? So how do you know that of those 5,000 were AIS babies or  Alpha-5-reductase deficient babies? So tell me how can you lie and say that all of the 5,000 babies are boys and girls?

Marshall’s bill notes that “every individual is either male or female” and that “in no case is an individual’s sex determined by stipulation or self-identification.” It defines a female as “an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization.”

Doctor I don’t know how to tell you this but you are full of BS! You are just parroting the Republican mantra from the 1950s!

There is a Latin phrase that I remember at times like this it say… "Ne permittas bastardus te deprimere"

“Don’t let the bastards get you down!”

Running Scared.

You can expect other companies to be running  scary of the bigots who will be running the country.

Walmart’s DEI rollback signals a profound shift in the wake of Trump’s election victory

AP News

By  ALEXANDRA OLSON and CATHY BUSSEWITZ

November 26, 2024

Walmart’s sweeping rollback of its diversity policies is the strongest indication yet of a profound shift taking hold at U.S. companies that are re-evaluating the legal and political risks associated with bold programs to bolster historically underrepresented groups.

The changes announced by the world’s biggest retailer on Monday followed a string of legal victories by conservative groups that have filed an onslaught of lawsuits challenging corporate and federal programs aimed at elevating minority and women-owned businesses and employees.

The retreat from such programs crystalized with the election of former President Donald Trump, whose administration is certain to make dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs a priority. Trump’s incoming deputy chief of policy will be his former adviser Stephen Miller, who leads a group called America First Legal that has aggressively challenged corporate DEI policies.

We are going to be seeing a lot more companies running scared… afraid of what is going to be coming… fascism.

The Trump administration is also likely to take direct aim at DEI initiatives through executive orders and other policies that affect private companies, especially federal contractors.

“The impact of the election on DEI policies is huge. It can’t be overstated,” said Jason Schwartz, co-chair of the Labor & Employment Practice Group at law firm Gibson Dunn.

With Miller returning to the White House, rolling back DEI initiatives is likely to be a priority, Schwartz said.

A political winter is coming there are going to dark days ahead!

My Prediction: Trump Picks

You know the quality of Trumps picks many of them will probably not pass mustard even with a Republican controlled Senate.

So I predict…

How Trump can install his controversial Cabinet picks — with or without the help of the Senate
CBS News
By Kaia Hubbard
November 19, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has selected for some of the top roles in his administration controversial picks who may not win universal support from Republican senators. He can only afford to lose a few Republicans in the confirmation process, but he's opened the door to the possibility of forgoing the traditional route altogether, utilizing a Constitutional power known as recess appointments to effectively bypass the Senate — and swiftly approve his nominees.

The possible strategy, raised by Trump in a post on social media last week, has generated mixed reviews among senators, who would stand to forfeit their key advice and consent role. And the president-elect made it something of a litmus test for Senate leadership as Republicans won majority control in the November elections.

Thanks to his Supreme Court ruling he is above the law we are going to see Trump ignore the laws because the only way to stop him is to impeach him something a Republican Congress will never do.

So my prediction is that Trump will thumb his nose at Congressional approval.

---

Update" 11/28 @ 2:00AM

The Hill writes in a Opinion piece...

The Trump transition team may think it has a game plan to install controversial nominees in Cabinet jobs, but the conservative Supreme Court is likely to block it.

The regular order would be for the Senate to take up the nominees on inauguration day and quickly confirm them. Several of Donald Trump’s picks, however, are already under fire for lack of qualifications or questionable personal behaviors.

[...]

The Trump team probably doesn’t realize that conservative justices believe that use of recess appointments to avoid Senate advice and consent is a perversion of the constitutional order.

[...]

“I would hold that the recess-appointment power is limited to vacancies that arise during the recess in which they are filled, and I would hold that the appointments at issue here — which undisputedly filled pre-recess vacancies — are invalid for that reason as well as for the reason that they were made during the session. The Court’s contrary conclusion is inconsistent with the Constitution’s text and structure, and it further undermines the balance the Framers struck between Presidential and Senatorial power. Historical practice also fails to support the majority’s conclusion on this issue…  For the reasons just given, it is clear that the Constitution authorizes the President to fill unilaterally only those vacancies that arise during a recess, not every vacancy that happens to exist during a recess.”

What’s enormously significant here is that Scalia was joined in his opinion by the court’s most conservative members at the time: Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. To remain consistent, they would have to oppose recess appointments to fill vacancies existing before the recess.

May we live in interesting times!

Activism!

[Tool Box]

On Friday I wrote about activism… the Inside and Outside games. Today I want to delve other types of activism. I want to state up front, the is no one right way to be an activist and sometimes a broad approach is best.

There are many logical steps for activism… first rule is what is your target? What are your goals… to get heat in an apartment building or to get legal protections for a minority. They require to different approaches. Would you close down a city because a landlord hasn’t gotten the heat fixed? Or would a better tactic be a sit-in in the company offices?

So let the method be determined by your goals. Maybe is a city passes a law saying trans people have to the bathroom of their birth gender. Well maybe some good methods might be something like they used in the civil rights movement. In the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina where the police came in an arrested the protesters… but there was a line of people who would take their place when they got arrested. As the police arrested one person another came in and sat in the “White’s Only” counter. Maybe that might work with us… a line of trans women going into bathrooms where they are arrested. Or another tactic might be have all trans guys go into women’s bathrooms. (Have all trans guys go into women’s bathrooms in the Texas state capitol. Have one trans guys in each bathroom.)

So in this case…
Target: State legislature.
Goal: Blocking anti-trans legislation.
Method: Having a trans guy in every women’s bathroom in the capitol.

So there is an article in the New York Times in the article, Transgender Activists Question the Movement’s Confrontational Approach they write,

Now, some activists say it is time to rethink and recalibrate their confrontational ways, and are pushing back against the more  all-or-nothing voices in their coalition.

“We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Transgender Equality. “We cannot vilify them for not being on our side. No one wants to join that team.”

They cite tactics, especially on social media, that became routine for devoted backers of the movement: Attempts to police language, such as excising the words “male” and “female” from discussions of pregnancy and abortion; decrying the misidentification of a transgender person as violence; insisting that everyone declare whether they prefer to be referred to as he, she or other pronouns.

There is room for all views, there is no one right way. There is room for radicals and there is room for those who want to go slow, but… but there no room for those who deny our existence and limit our rights.

Your homework (Hey! You didn’t think that you get off scot-free? Activism means work!):

• Read the first two chapters in the Community Tool Box
• Read Rules for Radicals

I created a tag for this series… “Tool Box” where I will write tips to becoming an activist.

[/Tool Box]

My Prediction: Trump And The Law.

I am going on record to state that this Trump administration will be the most corrupt administration ever! The Supreme Court gave him the go ahead to do anything he wants.

Trump Refuses to Disclose Who Is Funding His Transition
He is the first president-elect not to sign an ethics agreement that sets fundraising limits and transparency
The Rolling Stone
By Peter Wade
November 24, 2024

True to character, Donald Trump is already flouting ethics laws and norms even before he takes office as president in 2025. The president-elect is accepting secret donations to fund his transition while refusing to sign ethics pledges or deliver an ethics plan mandated by the Presidential Transitions Act. The transition also has not signed an agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that would allow the agency to do background checks on Trump nominees.

The transition has missed deadlines in September and October despite transition team leaders Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon promising to sign memorandums of understanding with the Biden White House that would facilitate the outgoing administration’s collaboration with Trump’s transition team. According to The New York Times, the Trump transition has privately created an ethics code and conflict-of-interest guidance for transition staff, but those documents do not include a legal requirement — a statement regarding how Trump will handle conflicts of interest while in office.

“This failure undercuts the fundamental purpose of presidential transition laws,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote in a letter to the Biden administration on Thursday. She added, “In effect, President-elect Trump is undermining his administration’s ability to manage urgent national security threats, health and safety threats, and serious conflicts of interest starting on day one of his presidency.”

HEY! The Supreme Court gave him the green light to thumb his nose at everything… any laws he doesn’t like… FU! The selling of favors… go right ahead! You don’t like it impeach me! I dare you, impeach me! And you watch what he does to New York state! We have elected a dictator.

 

---

 

It almost seems like one of the requirements for an appointment is to be charged with sexual misconduct!

 

Perplexity AI when asked that question replied...

  Overall, at least five individuals associated with Trump's Cabinet nominations have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, reflecting a pattern in Trump's selection process that often includes individuals with similar accusations against them.

For references it gave:

• Several of Trump’s Cabinet picks — and Trump himself — have been accused of sexual misconduct
• The growing list of sexual misconduct allegations against Trump’s picks 
• What to know about sexual misconduct allegations against Trump administration picks

Searching The News…

And I found this from Amnesty International about us…

Stop the hate before it’s too late: Thoughts on Transgender Day of Remembrance from Amnesty researcher Shreshtha Das 

By Shreshtha Das

November 20, 2024

A throng of chants and loud affirmations that ‘trans rights are human rights’ and ‘not one more trans life will be lost’ set the scene for a demonstration on trans rights that I recently attended. In a never-ending escalation of attacks against the rights of transgender people to autonomy and dignity, it felt jubilant to be surrounded by people coming together to loudly reclaim space and the right to make decisions about our own lives and bodies.  

It’s been a dangerous year for trans rights, with many countries rolling back protections for transgender people and others introducing harmful legislation, affecting access to healthcare and legal gender recognition, among other pivotal areas. In the Unites States of America alone, the American Civil Liberties Union, has tracked that there are currently 132 active items of anti-trans legislation that have been tabled and 46 bills that have already been passed.

The author goes on to write how around the world social media is becoming our lifeline to the community but at the same time it is being used for hate speech.

The horrifying nature of these attacks is not confined to digital spaces alone. The online-offline continuum of gender-based violence means that threats online can often translate into offline consequences, including physical violence. I remember starkly in my conversation with Lucien* about her being cautious to not take threats on social media platforms lightly, and with good reason! She recounted receiving an online threat of physical harm and an attack on her brother followed soon after. Since she was living with her family at this point, she believed her brother might have been mistaken for her by the assailant and was attacked as a follow up to the online threat. 

Some forms of TfGBV [Technology-facilitated gender-based violence], like disinformation and smear campaigns, also create an environment whereby transgender people are portrayed in negative and harmful ways. This contributes to fostering a climate whereby harmful stereotypes, bias, prejudice and discrimination against LGBTQ people results in and normalizes violence against them in both online and offline spaces.   

Simultaneously, TfGBV has been found to force LGBTI people to deactivate their accounts, delete and/or censor posts, unfollow accounts that post LGBTI content for fear of being outed, and limit the content they share. This has in turn forced LGBTI people to isolate, further adding to feeling of loneliness and distress, and leading to poorer mental health.  

I don’t know about you but I have a huge footprint on line and it is scary, between news interviews and legislative testimony my physical location can be found. On my blog I censure anything with my last name, but when I was interviewed they used my full name and the same thing with my testimonies.

One time after I testified a reporters called my home phone and it freaked me out.

 

The New Feminist writes,

The data highlights deeply troubling patterns of systemic violence. A vast majority of victims—93%—were Black trans people or trans people of colour, and nearly half (46%) were sex workers. This intersection of racism, xenophobia, and anti-sex worker bias exposes the layers of discrimination that put marginalised trans individuals at heightened risk. “Behind these numbers are real lives—people our societies have failed to protect,” TGEU’s [Transgender Europe and Central Asia] executive director Ymania Brown emphasised.

[...]

The role of political and religious figures in perpetuating anti-trans hate speech was another concerning trend identified by the report. These figures, alongside disinformation campaigns on social media, create a hostile environment where violence against trans individuals becomes normalised. TGEU points to the lack of robust hate-crime legislation that protects gender identity and expression as a key enabler of this violence.

The government knows all the trans people by the changes to passports, driver licenses, change to Social Security, birth certificates… we have a paper trail!

Gay Sons

If you search the news for “transgender” all that comes up is politics so I have to go and dig through topics that I have had on the back burners… are we more likely to have older brothers and sisters?

Gay people often have older brothers. Why? And does it matter?
NPR Heard on All Things Considered
By Selena Simmons-Duffin
April 15, 2024

This is something I learned years ago through gay bar chatter: Gay people are often the youngest kids in their families. I liked the idea right away — as a gay youngest sibling, it made me feel like there was a statistical order to things and I fit neatly into that order.

When I started to report on the science behind it, I learned it's true: There is a well-documented correlation between having older siblings (older brothers, specifically) and a person's chance of being gay. But parts of the story also struck me as strange and dark. I thought of We the Animals, Justin Torres' haunting semi-autobiographical novel about three brothers — the youngest of whom is queer — growing up in New York state. So I called Torres to get his take on the idea.

Well I am a younger sibling, so this for me this holds true.

Rooted in a dark past

The first research on this topic did indeed begin in the 1940s and '50s, during that era of investigations into what causes homosexuality, to be able to cure it. At the time, the queer people whom scientists were studying were living in a world where this facet of their identity was dangerous. Plus, the studies themselves didn't find much, says Jan Kabátek, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Of course… it is rooted in the fact that they were looking for ways to wipe us out!

No matter in what culture, in what country the findings were the same.

At baseline, the chance that someone will be gay is pretty small. "Somewhere around 2 to 3% — we can call it 2% just for the sake of simplicity," Semenyna says. "The fraternal birth order effect shows that you're going to run into about a 33% increase in the probability of, like, male same-sex attraction for every older brother that you have."

The effect is cumulative: The more older brothers someone has, the bigger it is. If you have one older brother, your probability of being gay nudges up to about 2.6%. "And then that probability would increase another 33% if there was a second older brother, to about 3.5%," Semenyna says.

But still the Republican conservatives still think it is a choice! Why? Because it would go against all their religious persecution, if it is a choice then they can scream… “You’re going to hell!”

Queer and Lefty | Opinion
Outsfl
By Jesse Monteagudo
22 April 2024

According to a 2003 study by Canadian scientists, lesbians and gay men are more likely than others to be left-handed.

Putting together the results of previous studies that involved more than 23,000 men and women, the scientists concluded that the odds of being left-handed are 39% higher in homosexuals than in heterosexuals. Broken down by gender, they found that gay men are 34% more likely to be left-handed and lesbians are 91% more likely to be left-handed. “This is one more piece of evidence that sexual orientation is at least partly determined in the womb,” said Ray Blanchard, head of the Clinical Sexology Program at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health and one of the authors of the study published in the July 2003 issue of Psychology Bulletin. Blanchard and his associates followed that with a 2006 study that suggested that left-handed men without older brothers (like myself) are more likely to be gay than non-right-handed men who have older brothers: “the odds of homosexuality [are] higher for men who have a non-right hand preference.”

But they still think it is a choice! That is why they push "conversion therapy" because we can be “cured!”

In the animal kingdom...

So You Think Being Transgender is Unnatural?
A Birding Naturalist

by Aaron N.K. Haiman
June 18, 2019

 

Homosexuality has been observed in just about every species it has been looked for. Transgender animals may not be widely known, but that may just be a matter of less interest in looking for them and/or writing about them.

There are certainly some animal examples that represent various forms of transgender animals in nature. One is the California Sheephead (Semicossyphus pulcher) which is a fish that is born female, and then can become male later in life. Another example is found in the Green Frog (Rana clamitans) that reverses sex in response to various external factors, and this has been observed in other amphibians as well. But both of these examples are in lineages of animals that are pretty distantly related to us humans.

 

Well, research published a couple of years ago in the African Journal of Ecology is an example much closer to us. In a paper by Gilfillan et al. from the University of Sussex, five lionesses in Botswana have been observed to grow manes, regularly roar and scent mark, mount other females, and display other very male-like behaviors such as killing the cubs of rival prides which females lions just about never do but is very common for male lions.

 

The Republicans stick their heads in the sand to the truth.

My Prediction: Marijuana!

I predict that the Trump administration will push for enforcing the national laws on marijuana!

Trump’s New Attorney General Pick Opposed Legalizing Medical Marijuana In Florida

Marijuana Moment

By Ben Adlin

November 22, 2024

Only hours after embattled former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) withdrew his name from consideration for attorney general, President-elect Donald Trump announced that former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) would be his new pick for the nation’s top law enforcement role.

Compared to Gaetz, who has widely known pro-legalization stance on marijuana—and had even vowed to “go easy” on the cannabis industry if he got the job—Bondi’s record on the issue is far less pro-reform.

As Florida’s AG, for example, Bondi opposed efforts to legalize medical marijuana.

[...]

In 2018, for example, Bondi as attorney general filed an appeals brief in state court defending the legislature’s ban on smoking medical marijuana, with her office citing “harms to patients and those exposed to secondhand smoke” as “ample reasons to exclude smoking from the statutory definition of ‘medical use.'”

I foresee a clampdown on states rights to allow medical and recreational use of pot at the very least that it will remain a cash business. MJ Biz Daily reports that,

With six weeks left in 2024, Washington, D.C.-based cannabis lobbyists and federal marijuana reform advocates already have entered “wait until next year” mode.

Despite friendly signals from President-elect Donald Trump and unfinished business from an exiting Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, there is little hope for long-anticipated bills such as cannabis banking reform to advance in the lame-duck session, according to marijuana lobbyists, advocates and industry players.

“Our position for most of this year is to not expect anything of the lame-duck” session, said Morgan Paxhia, a principal of cannabis hedge fund Poseidon Asset Management in San Francisco.

Before Election Day, there was some hope – and perhaps a chance – for Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who called the SAFER Banking Act for a committee hearing in September 2023, to enact the bill by attaching it to other must-pass legislation.

However, sweeping Election Day success by Republicans means congressional Democrats have other priorities between now and Jan. 3, 2025, the last day of the current Congress.

As usual Trump sends mixed signals...

What Can We Expect From Trump On Cannabis Reform?

Forbes

By Dario Sabaghi

November 18, 2024

Donald J. Trump’s victory in November’s Presidential election coincides with a pivotal moment for the U.S. cannabis reform, as efforts to reschedule the substance could significantly reshape the future of the industry, with him potentially having a say.

During his campaign, Trump expressed support for rescheduling cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, which would acknowledge its medical value and ease the business tax burden. He also supported providing banking access to the cannabis industry and backed a Florida ballot measure to legalize recreational use, though it ultimately failed.

But given Trump’s controversial cannabis policy records during his first term, it is difficult to predict whether he will continue to support these initiatives. Therefore, understanding how Trump might influence cannabis reform in his second term is crucial for anticipating the future of the industry in the United States.

Forbes goes on to write...

However, what concerns Jeffrey Miron, senior lecturer at Harvard and director of economic studies at the Cato Institute, is not so much the economic impact of Trump’s administration on the cannabis industry but the conservatives’ proposals to potentially use the military for border enforcement and against Mexican cartels, marking a significant escalation in drug and immigration policy.

Did Trump just say what he thought the voters wanted to hear?

The Truth Comes Out.

Our lives are just for Republicans to use to get attention! They don’t care how it hurts us as long as it gets them on the “Front Page” above the fold.

Nancy Mace’s Ex-Aide Exposes Real Goal of Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill
Nancy Mace has been on the warpath over her lone transgender future colleague.
The New Republic
By Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
November 21, 2024

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace’s bathroom crusade is nothing more than a shallow stunt for attention, at least according to the lawmaker’s former communications director.

Mace has spent the majority of her week advancing a bill with the aim of banning one person from using toilets on Capitol Hill—Representative-elect Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress.

Hill alum Natalie Johnson torched her old boss for what she saw as a transparent media grab, posting on X that the attacks on McBride were little more than Mace’s “ploy to get on Fox.”

So what that we get tossed to the wolves.

[Chorus]
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're stiff
Kick 'em all around
Dirty Laundry by Don Henley

That is all we are to the Republicans, somebody to kick around and get on the front page.

The Republican communications strategist then argued that a real effort to protect women would involve preventing Matt Gaetz—who up until last week was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct with a minor—from being confirmed as Donald Trump’s attorney general.

“‘Protecting women’ in Congress would be introducing a bill to bar Matt Gaetz, a sexual predator with an affinity for underage girls, from ever walking those halls again, rather than dropping a messaging bill that’s sole goal is getting on TV,” Johnson wrote.

They know who the real predators are! They just have to look in the mirror!

---

Then we have Republicans stirring up animosity agains us over lies!

GOP lawmakers reveal a heightened legislative focus against 'irreversible' gender surgery on minors
The transgender industry could exceed $7.8B by 2030, according to the American Principles Project
Fox News
By Aubrie Spady
November 20, 2024

Republicans are gearing up for a trifecta of control in Congress next year with a heightened focus on legislation against transgender medical procedures on minors.

During a Senate panel on Wednesday afternoon, lawmakers discussed the future of legislative action in Congress, such as bans on biological males competing in women's sports, restrictions on gender-related surgery on minors and cessation of taxpayer funding of these types of procedures for children, and expanding parental consent requirements.

The discussion was hosted by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and was led by Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project (APP). Schilling interviewed Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., and Paula Scanlan, a swimmer who shared her experience of competing alongside Lia Thomas, a transgender athlete on the women’s team at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hey you want to guess how many Gender Confirming Surgeries were done on minors last year? Zero. Nil, naught, nought, and aught. Zilch! The way Republicans talk you would think that there was a line going out the door.

Marshall, a former medical doctor, discussed his efforts to "shut down the gender industrial complex."

Notice “former medical doctor.” Dr. Oz… “former medical doctor.”and there are 26 Republicans are “former medical doctor.” And I wonder how many of them treated trans patients.

So the hand writing is on the we can expect anti-trans healthcare legislation coming out of Congress. And I would expect it to be right there at the top of their agenda… before the crumbling bridges, the over burdened air traffic controllers, before the antiquated sewer treatment plants, the electric grid that was built in the fifities and before fixing the dilapidated infrastructure.
 

Down Your Throat!

Whether you are a Christian or not. They talk about us being in their face but what about cramming religion down your throat and not just any religion but only Christian religion.

Bible-Based Lessons for Public Schools Get Final Approval in Texas

The state’s board of education narrowly voted to allow schools to start using the reading and language arts curriculum next fall if they choose.

New York Times

By Troy Closson

November 22, 2024

Texas education officials on Friday approved a new elementary school curriculum that draws from the Bible, the final step of a contentious effort to expand religious instruction in the state.

The reading and language arts curriculum, which will be optional for schools, could serve as a model for conservative Christian leaders in other states. Its approval came as Oklahoma’s superintendent seeks to compel all educators to teach from the Bible, and as Louisiana fights in courts to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms.

Starting in August, the new Texas curriculum, for kindergarten through fifth grade, will be available to districts. The state serves more than two million elementary students in its public schools.

The curriculum incorporates into English lessons stories from the Bible such as Jesus and his Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the Prodigal Son and the Old Testament tale of Esther.

What about Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, and non-religious people?

Texas is not alone, all the recent rush to make little Christians out of Omar or Ismael? Or out of Aadesh and Bahula?

Oklahoma superintendent spars with CNN host over Bibles in schools: Liberals 'don't have to like it'

Ryan Walters currently faces a lawsuit over his mandate for public schools to incorporate the Bible

Fox News

By Lindsay Kornick 

November 18, 2024

Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters got into a heated back-and-forth with CNN host Pamela Brown over public schools using the Bible in lessons.

The "CNN Newsroom" host opened her segment with Walters asking him about the backlash over his mandate to incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments into public schools, amid an ongoing lawsuit against it.

"I have continued to hear the gaslighting from the left, frankly, even from this network, pushing lies about what's going on across America," Walters said. "President Trump has a clear mandate. He wants prayer back in school. He wants radical leftism out of the classroom, wants our kids to be patriotic, wants parents back in charge with school choice. We're enacting upon that agenda here in Oklahoma. That's what our parents want. Every county in Oklahoma voted for President Trump. His agenda is crystal clear, and we're going to enact it in the state of Oklahoma."

I’m more Christian than you! See I crammed Trump’s Bible… oh wait! They wouldn’t let me buy Trump’s Bible so we have to use another Bible!

Indoctrination in Idaho public schools? Christian nationalist group says, ‘bring it on’

Idaho Statesman
Opinion BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD UPDATED

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

Talk about indoctrination in public schools. Idaho’s resident Christian nationalist organization, the Idaho Family Policy Center, is circulating a petition to “call upon the Idaho State Legislature to pass legislation so that daily Bible readings — without instruction or comment, and with appropriate conscience protections — will once again take place in every state-funded public school.” To justify its bill, the Idaho Family Policy Center quotes William H. Clagett, R-Shoshone, president of the Idaho Constitutional Convention, as saying, “[T]o exclude the children of the state from access to this great reservoir of moral principles and political maxims of daily duty [found in Scripture would do] a great injustice to the state at large.”

Now wait until you see their twisted logic to justify the Bible in schools...

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” You no doubt will hear the inane argument, “See, the Constitution doesn’t say anything about a state legislature requiring the reading of the Bible in school.” Poppycock. Why did the framers of the U.S. Constitution add that amendment, the very first words of the very first amendment, no less? They didn’t want the government telling its citizens what religion to follow. They wanted every citizen to have the freedom of their own religious convictions without government interference.

And the Supreme Court will probably back them up! They will probably find some technicality to weasel out from under the US Constitution like they did the state of Washington, NPR reported back then…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with a high school football coach who claimed the right to pray on the 50-yard line after each game, joined by those players who wanted to participate. The 6-to-3 decision was the latest example of the court's conservative supermajority requiring more accommodation for religion in public schools and less separation between church and state.

They have said over and over, that they want to make us a Christian Nation! And they are doing it by cramming religion down our throats… talk about “Grooming!”