DeFlocked

Estimated Read Time: 3.5 to 4.5 minutes

[Political Analysis]

Municipalities are finding that once they are installed, they are very, very hard to remove. As more cities and towns feel the backlash against ALPRs and start taking them down, Flock is saying, "Not so fast!"

Flock ‘Objects to Our Removing Their Equipment’: Emails Reveal Why a Town Put Bags Over Its Flock Cameras

404 Media

Jason Koebler

Jul 22, 2026

For weeks, Verona, Wisconsin tried to get Flock to remove the three automated license plate cameras that its city council had voted to stop using. Flock told city employees not to remove the cameras, and a Flock employee told city officials that they were unsure whether the cameras could be remotely disabled, which led the town to decide to put black plastic trash bags over them until Flock eventually removed the cameras itself, according to emails obtained using a public records request by 404 Media.

The emails give insight into the process cities face while deFlocking themselves after voting not to renew a contract with the AI surveillance company. As we’ve previously reported, multiple cities around the country have decided to put black trash bags over their Flock cameras while they wait for them to be removed; this is in part because, until the cameras are physically removed by Flock, cities are unsure whether they have the legal right to remove the cameras themselves and are not sure whether they can disable their recording operations. The emails show Verona city officials telling each other that they had made multiple requests to Flock to have the cameras removed, and show a work order from Flock in which the cameras were set to have maintenance performed on them rather than being removed.

But there are even more cameras that aren't used by cities—private companies use them, and that raises further questions. For instance, who is responsible if the camera system produces a false positive... who is liable?

A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media that the discrepancy occurred because Verona voted to not renew its contract rather than outright canceling it mid-term. It is clear from emails obtained by 404 Media, however, that Verona city officials wanted the cameras to come down as quickly as possible.

Then there is a question about Flock itself!

Flock Safety Credibility Lost as it Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police Departments, and Public Across the Country

The ACLU documents how an automatic license plate reader company has lied about its operations, signaling a need for reputable governments to avoid working with Flock Safety.

ACLU

Chad Marlow & Jay Stanley

July 2, 2026

During a city council meeting in a suburb of Wisconsin in April, the city of Oshkosh considered whether it should approve a contract to use automatic license plate readers (ALPR) from Flock Safety, a prominent company that provides ALPRs to law enforcement agencies across the country. During the meeting, one city council member asked Flock if the company’s ALPR system created heat maps that could reveal where a particular vehicle had driven over a period of time. Flock’s chief information security officer, who was in attendance, told the council that Flock’s system did not “create a pattern or heat map of an individual’s movement” through the tracking of their vehicles. At the end of that meeting, the Oshkosh City Council approved a contract with Flock. The very next morning, the city learned that Flock had lied.

Later that day, the city council reconvened to discuss what it had learned. Confronting Flock, Oshkosh Deputy Mayor Joe Stephenson said “I don't know how this body can govern if someone tells untruths, mistruths, exaggerated truths. I don't know how I can make a decision or discern what's right or what's wrong, or even the capabilities of this system if you lie to me.”

[…]

This is far from the first time Flock has misled the public and elected officials. The company has demonstrated a pattern of treating legitimate operational questions and concerns not as problems to be solved, but rather as mere public relations issues.

In Colorado, Loveland Police Chief Tim Doran raised concern that federal agents were accessing the town’s ALPR data. Flock responded by telling the chief that federal agencies no longer had access to Loveland’s license plate readers, and had their CEO reiterate to the press that federal data sharing was a non-issue because Flock had no federal contracts. After contradictory information later came to light, the company was forced to admit that it did, in fact, have contracts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security (DHS) for pilot projects that gave those agencies direct access to license data. “We clearly communicated poorly,” Flock’s CEO said, acknowledging that Flock’s “public statements inadvertently provided inaccurate information.”

This doesn’t exactly give you warm, fuzzy feelings.

Flock knew that, despite not being a customer, ICE had indirect access to Flock’s data and system through the company’s state and local law enforcement customers. The issue was never about having direct access to Flock’s data, it was about having any access to the data. But rather than address these data security and control issues on their merits, Flock released a misleading blog which reads as an attempt to confuse the public and create a false sense of security among its potential government customers. Ultimately, Flock was forced to accept that its denials were simply not credible. The CEO admitted Flock was used for immigration enforcement but argued that such matters were not Flock’s problem.

One of the major investors behind Flock is Peter Thiel, who gave $15 million to a single Super PAC backing JD Vance, $1.25 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign, and tens of millions more to conservative PACs. The venture capital mega-donors who fund Flock have poured massive fortunes into the Republican Party.

Metro News out of West Virginia reported that;

“The legal issues with this contract are numerous, but we are starting with how it was awarded in the first place,” Sparks said. “Simply put, the city acted hastily and did not follow its own laws when approving this contract, so it should be considered null and void from the start.”

“City code is clear that a private company cannot use property for commercial purposes,” Sparks added. “If the city wanted to grant Flock the right to use property belonging to the City of Huntington, there’s a proper process by which to do that. That process includes public notice, a public hearing, and other procedural safeguards to make sure that city property is used appropriately.”

[…]

“As other towns and cities are waking up to the egregious abuses of this technology, Huntington officials worked behind closed doors for months to thwart the will of their constituents and push this invasive surveillance on the city,” Baumwell said. “We will not stand by while the city runs roughshod over the will of the people and the privacy rights of every person in Huntington.”

Welcome to the brave new world of Big Brother.

In my town, they installed them on all the roads leading in and out. I also noticed them in the town next to us. When it was mentioned on local Facebook pages, all these people thought it was great to keep the "undesirables" out, complaining about how it was the Democrats' fault that crime was so high!

But here’s the thing: the town has a crime safety grade of A+. The overall crime rate is 55% below the national average. The violent crime risk is about 1 in 521, and the property crime risk is about 1 in 61. This makes the town safer than 100% of major U.S. cities with populations over 50,000, according to the latest data from the FBI and local law enforcement (source: DoorProfit).

Yet Republicans keep lying about crime! The news always starts with "Breaking News!" at the top of their broadcasts, giving the false impression of rampant crime.

The Institution of Justice wrote in 2025;

“News stories from around the nation have shown the dangers of giving officers unfettered access to ALPR cameras, which are now in thousands of local communities,” said IJ Attorney Michael Soyfer. “These cameras collect massive amounts of data about ordinary people’s movements, data that can be mined to reveal habits, patterns, and behaviors. This unusual decision to wade into a lawsuit to defend an ever-growing mass surveillance network should raise alarm bells over how the federal government plans to use this surveillance.” 

Industry players have not been forthcoming about their involvement with the feds. One major ALPR company, Flock Safety, insisted for months that it had no federal contracts. But in response to journalists’ questions, Flock eventually admitted that wasn’t true and that it had been running a “pilot program” with Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In the wake of that admission, Flock announced in August it was ending its partnership with federal law enforcement.

These private companies are not bound by the Constitution. What they are claiming is that they have a right to set up ALPRs alongside public roads, collect data, and sell that data to anyone willing to buy it!

Then we have the misuse of that data!

Police Keep Losing Their Jobs for Using Flock Cameras to Stalk People

Advocates say it’s too easy to abuse automated license plate reader technology.

Mother Jones

Sophie Hurwitz

July 18, 2026

Flock cameras—solar-powered, automated license plate readers, weighing less than 3 pounds and designed to be unobtrusive—can be found on 80,000 street corners throughout the country. The company behind the cameras built an $8.3 billion business empowering officers to track people’s movements. Nationwide, Flock cameras log billions of license plates each month. And now dozens of reports are emerging of police using the cameras not to solve crimes, but to stalk their partners and exes.

[…]

But the backlash against Flock and other ALPRs is growing. The technology, activists say, holds potential for misuse. And even when it’s used as intended, some researchers say the company’s data sharing practices lead to privacy rights violations. Throughout 2025, at least 30 municipalities canceled their Flock contracts. Grassroots groups such as DeFlock have built maps showing the public where these license-plate readers are located. (Langley called DeFlock and other activists “terroristic” last year, and apologized this week.) 

And Marlow of the ACLU expects the pushback to keep getting louder. “In these incredibly divisive political times, we’re actually seeing the rare issue that unites Americans: opposition to government surveillance,” Marlow said. “And I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think this movement is only going to grow.”

I think we are on the threshold of fulfilling the 1984 prophecy of Big Brother—but with an oligarchical twist!

[/Political Analysis]

Bitchin & Moaning

The Fourth of July storm came out of nowhere. The severe weather warning was only a Level 2 — Moderate.

I heard some rumbling, and the sky darkened, but then it lightened again, and then—WHAM!

So, being a political year, the Republicans are complaining!

Powerful Fourth of July storm leaves Connecticut damaged, without power on Sunday

By Jessica Bravo, Josh LaBella,

CT Insider

July 5, 2026

Connecticut was struck by severe thunderstorms during Fourth of July festivities on Saturday night that left serious damage throughout the state and tens of thousands of power outages. 

CT Insider Meteorologist Dan Amarante said winds potentially up to 80 mph were moving into the western part of the state around 8 p.m. Saturday. All while this was happening, the National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm warnings from Hartford County to New London County. The NWS then extended the thunderstorm watch they had issued through 11 p.m. Saturday for northwest Connecticut.

Poof! The sky literally opened up! With a microburst, as CT Mirror wrote;

Baseball-sized hail fell in parts of Connecticut during this weekend’s stormy Fourth of July — and it may have set a new state record.

The series of storms, which left more than 100,000 people without power in Connecticut, struck communities from eastern New York to Rhode Island, according to Bryce Williams, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“We had a complex of storms move through the southern half of southern New England on the Fourth of July,” Williams said. “We had a few kind of supercell-looking storms… and behind them we had a strong line of storms which produced quite a bit of wind damage, in addition to some large hail.”

Okay, the scene has been set. Massive storm clouds were billowing overhead until the downburst hit. The Republicans' requests have focused on questions such as whether Eversource had sufficient crews and resources available before the storm and whether restoration priorities and communications with customers and municipal officials were adequate.

Fazio, Elliott criticize Lamont and Eversource on storm response

CT Mirror

by Julia Levine and John Moritz

July 8, 2026

Gov. Ned Lamont toured areas of Litchfield County that were strewn with fallen trees and other debris on Tuesday as his administration and utility officials faced criticism over their response to a series of unusually powerful storms over the Fourth of July weekend. 

[...]

Meanwhile, the two candidates hoping to unseat Lamont in this year’s gubernatorial race — Republican Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, and Democratic Rep. Josh Elliott, D-Hamden — criticized the response from Lamont and Eversource as inadequate. 

Fazio said he visited impacted areas of New Canaan, in his senate district, on Monday and later travelled to Harwinton to tour damage with town officials on Tuesday.

Fazio said there appeared to be a lack of communication between the Lamont administration and local officials, and he criticized the governor for waiting three days to visit impacted areas. He also said he questioned whether Eversource had appropriately monitored forecasts leading up to the storm or had enough crews on standby to respond. 

Before the storm, no one had any inkling of how bad it was going to be. Within an hour, there were people with tablets assessing the damage. Then came the crews with chainsaws and wood chippers. To me, it seemed like a very well-organized recovery effort.

My only complaint was the utilities' reporting of the outage. Just say you don't know when the power will be back on. I looked outside, and everything was flattened! When did they first say the power would be restored? Eversource said it would be back on by 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning... four days later it came back on!

If they had simply come out and said, "This is a major outage, and for some customers it could be days before power is restored," I would have cornered the ice market to keep the food cold.

Updated: Added the second CT Mirror article...

A System Of Checks And Balances

[Political Analysis]

How did a system of over 250 years go so horribly wrong in such a short time? The system's failure was systematic. The collapse was not instantaneous but gradual, kind of like boiling a frog in a pot. You don't realize the water is getting hot until it is already too late.

I believe it all started from day one:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Decades later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and the creation of Social Security sent conservatives into a tizzy. As the presidency and Congress oscillated back and forth between conservatives advocating for less government and liberals aiming to provide for the "general welfare," these two foundational philosophies remained deeply at odds. Ultimately, it was Alexander Hamilton’s views that pervaded. Hamilton argued that the General Welfare Clause grants Congress a separate, broad power to tax and spend for national purposes, as long as it benefits the country as a whole, rather than being restricted strictly to its other enumerated powers. Meanwhile, conservatives maintained their rallying cry: less government!

In the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s, conservatives began plotting their strategy. One of the places where this plan is thought to have come into being was at California's Bohemian Grove, where old money and new money converged. It is believed that the blueprint for the Reagan administration was forged there. These get-togethers were dominated by Wall Street bankers, industrial CEOs, legacy media barons, and traditional Republicans like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. Power was consolidated through corporate boards, Ivy League networks, and quiet, behind-the-scenes handshakes.

Once in office, Reagan went to work dismantling the unions. However, many of the conservatives' grand plans were stymied by the courts. Ever since then, Republicans broke with tradition; instead of appointing politically neutral judges, they began intentionally appointing jurists who leaned hard to the right.

Meanwhile, a technological revolution took place: the dawn of the World Wide Web. Suddenly, the lunatic down the street could easily talk to the lunatic on the other side of the country.

In times of economic stress, the conditions for revolution become ripe. We saw it in the 1890s, the 1930s, and we see it today as the economy fractures into what is now called a "K-shaped" economy. Back in the 1890s, the public targeted the ultra-wealthy as "Robber Barons." By the 1930s, in his famous 1936 Democratic National Convention speech, President Franklin D. Roosevelt re-baptized them as "economic dynasties" and "economic royalists."

Then, the Supreme Court threw its own two cents into the fire. With the landmark Citizens United v. FEC decision, the Court took the reins entirely off of campaign donations. The doors were blown wide open, and the dark money flowed.

The culmination of this long-game strategy came down to the judiciary. When conservative Justice Antonin Scalia passed away unexpectedly in February 2016, Senate Republicans broke traditional norms and refused to hold confirmation hearings for a replacement, arguing that it was too close to the November election. Yet, as soon as Donald Trump won, they quickly placed Neil Gorsuch on the bench in April 2017.

The hypocrisy became absolute when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18, 2020—just 46 days before the next election. Instead of waiting for the voters, the Senate rammed through the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett in just weeks. With that, they successfully secured a captured, ultra-right-wing court.

But winning elections through a hyper-radicalized base was never a guarantee. To lock in permanent minority rule, they turned to aggressive gerrymandering, shifting district boundaries so precisely that the ruling party faced virtually no risk of losing power.

However, faced with Trump's polarizing reputation, strategists knew they needed to do more to guarantee victory. They set out to secure their wins by making it intentionally harder for marginalized communities to vote. The result is a modern incarnation of the Jim Crow "Poll Tax." By pushing for strict identification requirements, they have forced voters to produce documents like a passport (which costs $165 for a new application) or a birth certificate (which requires a notarized fee to obtain). For a low-income worker, these are not administrative safeguards; they are financial barriers to democracy.

For years, we have watched a spineless Republican Congress that is terrified of standing up to Trump, though a brave few are finally starting to show glimpses of a backbone. The public is beginning to see the deep structural corruption surrounding this administration—from the blatant buying of presidential pardons to rampant insider trading.

Consequently, Trump’s poll numbers are sinking, and he is getting desperate. He was impeached twice before but survived conviction in a loyal Senate. Now, the political landscape is shifting, and he and his cronies are visibly worried.

In their desperation, the administration's inner circle is testing the absolute limits of executive power. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and border czar Tom Homan have floated the terrifying idea of deploying armed ICE agents or military troops directly to polling places on Election Day. They justify this authoritarian overreach with unproven claims of mass noncitizen voting and the supposed need to stop "leftist terrorists." The true tragedy of our degraded system is that, knowing the nature of this administration, such a catastrophic abuse of power is entirely possible.

Will we wake up on November 4th to the dawn of an authoritarian regime?

The modern plutocrats want to preserve their "champagne wishes and caviar dreams" at any cost, regardless of what happens to the American republic. The water is boiling, the kitchen is quiet, and the feast is served.

Frog's legs, anybody?

[/Political Analysis]

The Devil Is In The Details

[Political Analysis]

"21st Century ROAD to Housing Act" passed the Senate 85–5 and the House 358–32 and is now awaiting  presidential action.

Now, Trump is refusing to sign the bill until his SAVE Act is passed. However, that bill does not appear to have much chance of passing.

There are four ways this can proceed:

1. If Trump signs it, it becomes law.
2. If Trump vetoes it, Congress can attempt to override the veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
3. If Trump neither signs nor vetoes it, the bill automatically becomes law after 10 days (excluding Sundays) while Congress remains in session.
4. However, if Speaker Johnson does not send the bill to Trump, nothing happens. The 10-day clock does not begin.

Right now, no one knows what the Speaker will do.

[/Political Analysis]

You Knew This Was Going To Happen

[Political Analysis]

Is the U.S. backing out of the Iran agreement?

The optics of the Iran war have shifted, leaving Trump with what appears to be a defeat. He has always needed to be seen as the “top dog,” but now he is being viewed as a loser.

The reflection pool has turned green.

The anti-weaponization slush fund was blocked.

Immigration policy was overturned.

The Kennedy Center rebranding failed.

Things have not been going well for Trump.

Now people are calling the MOU a surrender document. Even more damaging for the author of “The Art of the Deal” is the growing sentiment that President Obama’s treaty was better than Trump’s. Trump invested significant political capital in presenting this agreement as a major achievement and an improvement over previous Iran diplomacy, but that narrative is now unraveling.

Criticism is coming from multiple directions: some argue the agreement gave Iran too much, while others say the military campaign failed to achieve its stated objectives. Now he is hearing that he lost the war, and his ego cannot accept that. Even many Republicans in Congress see it as a bitter pill to swallow.

I believe Trump will pivot to domestic issues, targeting groups like the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and other minorities. When he is backed into a corner, he tends to go on the offensive against those with less power to push back.

Expect more posts about “unemployment fraud” on his X platform. You may see crackdowns on blue cities over alleged fraud that is more likely due to administrative or billing errors rather than actual wrongdoing.

You may also see a wave of anti-trans legislation—anything to distract from the situation in the Middle East.

Trump has blurred the lines between politics, personal branding, media presence, and business interests more than any recent president, and this is increasingly becoming a liability for him.

 

---

 

Updated: 9:45AM 

 

 

[/Political Analysis]

One Leader, One Voice!

[Editorial]

In any dangerous, high-stress incident, there must be one leader and one voice.

I was never a police officer, nor did I serve in the military. But I completed 40 hours of HAZWOPER training—hazardous waste operations and emergency response—and one principle was drilled into us from day one: one leader, one voice.

I have watched a number of videos related to the killing of Ms. Good. One thing stands out clearly in my mind.

One officer was telling her to go, while another officer was yelling, “Get out of the car!”

She obeyed the officer telling her to go—and it cost her her life.

How many times have we seen videos of officers yelling contradictory orders with their guns drawn? Adrenaline is pumping. Stress is high. Chaos takes over.

The Missouri Sheriffs’ Association addressed this exact issue in “Stop the Shouting – and Cops Respond”, writing:

“Consider another common occurrence: multiple officers shouting conflicting orders to a suspect believed to be armed. Again, what might the impressions be? Clearly officers are not working as a team. Will allegations arise that they are so emotionally focused they cannot hear each other’s conflicting orders? I once saw a suspect cry out, ‘Don’t shoot me. I don’t know what to do!’ when several officers simultaneously and repeatedly shouted at him to ‘Don’t move!’ ‘Get on the ground!’ ‘Show me your hands!’”

Others with a more refined understanding of human predatory behavior observe that a screaming officer often appears extremely fearful and is compensating by shouting. That fear can make them vulnerable and slow to respond, while a calm officer is actually more dangerous.

At least, that’s what one very dangerous parolee—an Aryan Brotherhood associate named “Cory”—told me just two weeks after his release from San Quentin. He said that when a frightened cop screams orders, it signals fear. A calm cop, on the other hand, commands respect and caution.

Hardened gang members often dismiss shouting officers with comments like, “Yeah, he’s just going typical.” They’ve experienced shouted threats from violent people with little impulse control, for whom violence was the first option, not the last. They are not impressed by yelling. Worse, they may see it as an advantage to exploit.

But Ms. Good was not a hardened gang member.

She was a mother.

So the questions that must be asked are these:

• Was the officer yelling “get out of the car” aware another officer was telling her to go?
• Was the officer telling her to go aware of the conflicting command?
• Where was the Officer in Charge—or was there one at all?
• Were there operational orders for this incident, or was it simply “go raid this address”?
• What training did each officer receive, and when?
• I want to see the training records for everyone involved.

I was certified as an incident commander for hazardous waste accidents. My factory needed someone authorized to sign a Bill of Lading for hazardous chemicals—that person was me. I underwent a week of training, and one lesson was hammered into us repeatedly: one leader, one voice!

Because there must be:

• A clear chain of command
• No freelancing
• No contradictory instructions

So that:

• Everyone knows who to listen to
• Everyone knows not to override the leader

Why?

Because people die from confusion.

That is not politics.

That is safety.

[/Editorial]

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Mini-Post: So Let Me Get This Straight!

Trump wants to "come to the rescue" of the Christians in Nigeria! What about to the rescue of Muslims? What about the violence against mosques here in the U,S.?

Trump threatens to halt all US aid, conduct 'vicious' military attack in Nigeria over Christian persecution

President Trump orders Department of War to prepare for possible action if Nigerian government doesn't stop religious persecution

Alexandra Koch By Alexandra Koch Fox News

November 1, 2025

President Donald Trump on Saturday announced the U.S. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria if its government continues to allow the killing of Christians, and may even go into the country "guns-a-blazing" to "completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists" responsible.

"I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!"

The post comes after the president on Friday designated Nigeria as a "country of particular concern," citing the widespread killings of Christians.

But the real facts as opposed to Trump's facts

But Trump totally ignores the Christian on Muslim violence! PBS News reports that,

Nigeria’s population of 220 million is split almost equally between Christians and Muslims. The country has long faced insecurity from various fronts including the Boko Haram extremist group, which seeks to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law and has also targeted Muslims it deems not Muslim enough.

Attacks in Nigeria have varying motives. There are religiously motivated ones targeting both Christians and Muslims, clashes between farmers and herders over dwindling resources, communal rivalries, secessionist groups and ethnic clashes.

While Christians are among those targeted, analysts say the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, where most attacks occur.

Hey wait! What! What was that? "... the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims ..." Trump never said anything about that! That sure does seem like a touch of Islamophobia to me! And that he is playing to his evangelical Christian base.

The Court Battle Yesterday.

Which was about their First Amendment right to harm us vs. our right not to be harmed!

If you are trans and don't know what I am talking about... then you deserve to have two electrodes connected to your brain, because that is what they wan to do to you! Do I have your attention?

How about if I said this "Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)" do now I have your attention? The case doesn't involve ECT but it is the elephant in the room.

This is all speculation we will not know for sure until they rule (Most likely the end of June) however, we can gain some insight from the questioning and the banter.

So gazing into my crystal ball...

SCOTUS Blog:

Majority of court appears skeptical of Colorado’s “conversion therapy” ban

By Amy Howe

Oct 7, 2025

The Supreme Court on Tuesday morning appeared largely sympathetic to a Colorado licensed counselor who is challenging the state’s ban on conversion therapy – that is, treatment intended to change a client’s sexual orientation or gender identity – for young people. In Chiles v. Salazar, a majority of the justices seemed to agree with the counselor, Kaley Chiles, that the ban discriminates against her based on the views that she expresses in her therapy. But several justices suggested that, rather than striking the law down outright, the court should send the case back to the lower courts for them to take a closer look at whether the law passes constitutional muster.

[...]

Chiles, who is a practicing Christian, contends that although she does not try to “convert” her clients, she does try to help them with objectives that may include “seeking to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions” or becoming more comfortable with their bodies. Chiles filed a lawsuit in Colorado, asking a federal court to block the state from enforcing the conversion therapy ban against her.

Okay, I sat through the floor debate for the Conversion Therapy law here in Connecticut and the discussion that day brought up that very fact... therapy and conversion therapy are two different things. It is the difference between being a guide and being a pathfinder. One helps them to learn their path and the other shows them the path to follow.

NBC News reported that,

Drawing a distinction between speech that encourages minors to embrace their gender identities or sexual orientations while prohibiting them from questioning it "looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination," conservative Justice Samuel Alito said.

Yes, but... during the hearing there was never any distinction between guiding a child to find their own and with forcing a child to a path that is not their path.

USA Today wrote,

And some of the justices seemed persuaded by her argument that, under Colorado's restrictions, she can help young people embrace a transgender identity but not help them grow comfortable with the body they were born with.

“Looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” said Justice Samuel Alito.

[...]

One question going into the oral arguments was whether Chiles had been affected enough by the law to be able to challenge it, a legal technicality known as “standing.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that Colorado officials have said Chiles’ description of her counseling doesn’t violate the ban.

[...]

And when Colorado state attorney Shannon Stevenson was questioned by the justices, she was asked about Chiles’ desire to help clients who want to “change their behaviors, expressions, attractions and identity.”

Trying to change someone’s identity would violate the ban, Stevenson said.

“That settles the standing question,” Sotomayor said.

It doesn't look good for us!

We have a lot of support not just from the medical community but from another USA Today article;

 These celebrities spoke out on conversion therapy

Hollywood celebrities have long been outspoken about conversion therapy, a controversial approach that has triggered support and widespread backlash.

From Bowen Yang to Miley Cyrus and a "Mean Girls" funnyman, here are some of the big names who have been open about their own experiences with conversion therapy.

In 2020, actress and pop superstar Miley Cyrus said she stopped going to her church after her gay friends were sent to conversion therapy. "The reason why I left my church is that they weren’t being accepted," Cyrus reportedly told told beauty mogul Hailey Bieber. "They were being sent to conversion therapies."

"Saturday Night Live" star and "Wicked" franchise actor Bowen Yang told People in 2021 he was sent to gay conversion therapy by his parents when he was a teenager. "There was a huge chasm of misunderstanding," Yang told the outlet. "Neither side really understood where the other was coming from, and it led to very dangerous situations overall."

And the list goes to four or five other celebrates. 

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Colorado's lawyer for a summary of the alleged harm conversion therapy causes, sparking a dispute between lawyers for the state and Chiles.

Stevenson, Colorado's solicitor general, said 100 years of research found no support for it. She cited a couple of recent studies, including one of 34,000 people who were 13 to 25 years old and who had gone through conversion therapy, which found twice the rate of suicide attempts.

[...]

“The state can show we’re regulating a treatment and we’re regulating consistent with the standard of care,” Stevenson said. “There is a confirmation, a security that the court can have that there is no other motive going on to suppress viewpoints or expression.”

Barrett said there could be a dispute about treatment.

So... your guess is as good as mine but I'm leaning towards "not good" to "not very good at all"

Extortion!

Trump is trying to extort the Democrats to pass the budget!

Do you remember how Trump swore on a pile of Bibles that he knew nothing about Project 2025... well this is what both of them are planning!

Trump’s shutdown architect: Russ Vought’s plan to deconstruct the government was years in the making

CNN

By PhilMattingly and Jeremy Herb

October 2, 2025

The Trump administration memo that landed in federal agency in-boxes last week wasn’t subtle.

As Washington careened toward a government shutdown, there would be nothing normal about the agency contingency planning which has become commonplace in more than a decade of partisan warfare that’s consumed government funding deadlines.

Instead, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought’s 622-word directive dramatically raised the stakes: Every federal agency would now be required to submit detailed plans for mass layoffs.

Those plans would be triggered in the event of a shutdown — and would only be shelved if Democrats agreed to a Republican funding measure they’d already rejected.

Extortion... you do it my way or else!

Vought has managed to use its expansive suite of bureaucratic tools in a way that almost reverse-engineers its authorities: OMB’s guidance documents are no longer filled with benign instructions and updates. Instead, the more than two dozen memos signed by Vought since his return atop the agency track the full scale of the authority he’s leveraged in pursuit of Trump’s agenda, including eliminating longstanding foundations of agency independence and laying the groundwork for actions explicitly intended to break a law designed to ensure congressionally appropriated funds are spent as required.

Here in Connecticut we have an agency like OMB and it is fierily independent... but Trump has the politized the federal OMB!

But Vought wasted little time when the shutdown started Wednesday, announcing on X that the government was freezing $18 billion in New York City transit projects in a not-so-thinly-veiled shot at Democratic congressional leaders, both from New York. A few hours later, he announced another $8 billion in cuts to green energy projects in 16 states represented by Democrats in the Senate.

As I said at the beginning Trump vowed he knew nothing about Project 2025

On Thursday morning, Trump said he was meeting with Vought to follow through on plans for mass layoffs, taunting Democrats by referencing his role as a co-author of Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint Trump disowned in the campaign but that his administration has often turned to.

“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump wrote on Truth social.

Trump is the Lair-In-Chief! You cannot trust a word that comes out of Trump he will lie if it is to his advantage! Right now the guy who wrote Project 2025 is in charge of the hen house!

Trump eyes cuts to 'Democrat Agencies' in government shutdown

Reuters

By Andy Sullivan and Doina Chiacu

October 3, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump said he will meet with his budget director Russell Vought on Thursday to determine which "Democrat Agencies" to cut, as he looks to inflict pain on his political opposition in the second day of a government shutdown.

"I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity," Trump said in a social media post.

Trump has already frozen federal transit and green-energy funding for Democratic-leaning states and has threatened to fire more federal workers during the shutdown, which began on Wednesday due to a partisan standoff in Congress.

[...]

In the meantime, Trump has made clear he will pile pressure on his opponents by targeting government programs they favor. Democrats have said this amounts to hostage-taking that throws regular Americans out of work and also violates Congress' constitutional authority over federal spending.

However there is some rumbling from the Republicans! In another CNN article they report,

Why some Republicans are getting cold feet about Trump’s shutdown layoff threats

by Aaron Blake

October 2, 2025

Republican Sen. Mike Lee offered some colorful commentary Wednesday night about Democrats and the government shutdown.

“It’s going to harm them,” the Utah senator said. “Because Russ Vought, the OMB director, has been dreaming about this moment, preparing this moment, since puberty.”

He added: “This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare.”

This is about what is good for the country... this is for what is good for Trump!

Fears that Trump would use a shutdown to cut things that “don’t align with the president’s values,” as press secretary Karoline Leavitt previewed Thursday, were a big reason Democrats caved during the last shutdown debate earlier this year.

But this time Democrats decided to try and call the administration’s bluff. And there are signs some Republicans are getting cold feet about the administration making good on its threats.

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota has been especially blunt.

[...]

“There’s the political ramifications that could cause backlash,” Cramer told CNN’s Manu Raju, adding: “I just don’t like squandering that political capital.”

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine called the administration’s targeting of $18 billion in infrastructure projects in New York – home to the top Democrats in both the House and the Senate – “totally unacceptable.”

[...]

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told Reuters that the administration needs to be “really careful with that, because they can create a toxic environment here.”

And even Senate Majority Leader John Thune has seemed to throw up a caution flag.

Asked Thursday by Politico whether Vought’s efforts were muddying the political waters, the South Dakota Republican responded: “The only thing I would say about that is yes, and we don’t control what he’s going to do.”

You know when you hitch your wagon to a wandering star sometimes it drags you where you do not want to go! WHEC writes...

But now, Paul of Kentucky has been the lone Republican to join Senate Democrats in opposing a short-term funding measure backed by GOP leaders that would keep government funding generally at current levels through Nov. 21. In explaining his vote, Paul said the measure “continues Biden spending levels” which Trump had previously pledged to roll back.

Can you say, "Two faced"

Trump’s budget director, Russ Vought, has also taken a new tack now that he is back in the White House. While Joe Biden was president, Vought directed a conservative organization called The Center for Renewing America and counseled Republicans in Congress to use the prospect of a shutdown to gain policy concessions.

Yet this week, he charged that Democrats were “hostage taking” as they demanded that Congress take up health care policy.

[...]

Some Republicans are sympathetic to the Democratic demands for an extension of the tax credits. If they allowed to expire, there will be large rate increases for many people who purchase their health care coverage on the marketplace. It would add financial stress to key Republican constituencies like small business owners, contractors, farmers and ranchers.

When Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, floated a one-year extension to the health care subsidies during a Senate floor vote Wednesday, it attracted attention from Democrats and Republicans alike.

[...]

There’s also a growing unease with how the Trump administration is leading Republicans through the shutdown. GOP lawmakers feel they hold the political advantage in the fight, but some are beginning to express doubts as the president and his budget director prepare to unleash mass layoffs and permanent program cuts.

It should be an interesting next couple of weeks! If the shutdown goes another week or two we will be in this for the long haul.

Mini-Post: You Know What Would Look Good On Trump's Wall?

The Nobel Peace Prize!

All that gold to blend in with all that other gold.

Okay, lets take a look through Trump's colored lens... how does he see himself? One clue...

Trump Rages Over Media Coverage of Putin Meeting

Politizoom

By Jason Miciak

August 17, 2025

The ever-unhappy Donald Trump is furious over the fact that the media, even Fox News, has been almost uniformly reporting that his Anchorage meeting with Vladimir Putin was an abject failure. None of this is surprising. Trump is never happy with any coverage that is in any way critical. What is somewhat surprising is that Trump believed the meeting to be worth the risk even if he came away with nothing, not even a ceasefire, never mind anything permanent. He should have been better prepared for the aftermath or, even better, have had things settled even prior to the meeting, leaving nothing to chance. Still, he is raging over what he sees as totally unfair coverage that fails to adequately set forth his achievement. Trump posted to Truth Social:

“It’s incredible how the Fake News violently distorts the TRUTH when it comes to me. There is NOTHING I can say or do that would lead them to write or report honestly about me. I had a great meeting in Alaska on Biden’s stupid War, a war that should have never happened!!!”

You see Trump desperately wants to end the war... Why? Consider these past headlines,

• Cambodia Nominated Trump for a Nobel. It Has Its Eyes on Another Prize
• Critics Demand Pakistan ‘Revokes’ Decision to Nominate Trump for Nobel Peace Prize After U.S. Strikes on Iran
• Netanyahu is playing Trump with his ridiculous Nobel peace prize nomination

Axios writes,

For years, Donald Trump has been obsessed with presidential power, revenge against his enemies — and winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Why it matters: Now Trump's administration is aggressively pushing him for a Nobel — the obsession that has eluded him. That was a subtext to Friday's Oval Office blowup with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zoom in: Talk of the prize is increasingly shaping how administration officials talk about the president at a time when he's seeking to end the fighting in Ukraine and Gaza.

You know, Trump the king of the deal!

You know. The guy who made all these business deals that resulted in bankruptcies!

You know. The guy with 34 felony convictions!

You know. The guy with the ego bigger than his head!

This is one of the drivers for Trump with the super-sized ego, Trump the narcissist. I think that is what Trump pinnacle, everything boils down to stratifying his ego and the foreign leaders and play him like Putin just did.

---

Update: 10:00AM

I removed the meme about Trump being removed from the list of nominees... see comments below.

Sorry Charlie... ops Donald

Editorial: Crazy As A Fox!

[Editorial]

Trump seized power on August 11, 2025 mark that day down on you calendar. Add thirty days to the day and circle Wednesday September 10, 2025. Why that date? Because the law allows Trump to seize power only for 30 days!

Why now? Why not in some other month? Simple… Congress is not in session! Congress could order him to stop but if they are not in session well they can’t order him to stop, can they?

The emergency? Since Trump’s first term, homicide levels in D.C. are about the same. Violent crime is also roughly on par with where it was then. The main difference is property crime, which is higher now — mostly due to a spike in car thefts. So I want to know: what exactly is the emergency?

It is a simple as that… he’s cagey alright!

The mayor of Washington DC said according to PBS,

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, questioned the effectiveness of using the Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.

See you in thirty days. For the rest of the story.

[/Editorial]

---

Just after I clicked on "Publish" this pops up in my feeds!

FBI Releases 2024 Reported Crimes in the Nation Statistics

So I asked to ChatGPT to analyze it and this is what it reported back...

Yes, the FBI has released its 2024 crime statistics, and the data reveals a significant nationwide decline in both violent and property crimes.

📉 Key Findings from the 2024 FBI Crime Report

Violent Crime: Decreased by 4.5%, marking the second consecutive annual drop. Notably, murders and nonnegligent manslaughters fell by 14.9%, reaching their lowest level in nine years. 

Reuters, 

Property Crime: Declined by 8.1%, with significant reductions in burglaries (8.6%) and motor vehicle thefts (18.6%). 

Reuters

Hate Crimes: Decreased by 1.5%, though they remain among the highest levels recorded in over 30 years.

Law Enforcement Assaults: Despite the overall crime decline, assaults on law enforcement officers reached a 10-year high, with 85,730 officers assaulted and 64 feloniously killed. 

Reuters

🗓️ Implications for Washington, D.C.

These national trends suggest that Washington, D.C. is experiencing a reduction in crime, aligning with the broader national decline. However, specific data for D.C. would provide a clearer picture. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program compiles official data on crime in the United States, published annually in the "Crime in the United States" series. 

Absurdity

Do They Even Think This Trough?

They are like little automatons... does not compute... does not compute!

Okay the nationwide bans are out so now what?

Suppose Trump bans funding to college library if their libraries have any text books on abortion! Big Liberal Colleges on the east and west coasts sue! The courts agree that is discriminatory and unfreeze the funds. So say all of New England and New York, California, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon get their books funded but all the states get cutoff from the funds? What a nightmare that will create!

One of the other side affects it will cost a hell of lot more in legal fees and that is what Trump wants the cost of litigation to skyrocket!

NJ attorney general: Universal injunctions still possible after Supreme Court ruling

The Hill

by Elizabeth Crisp

June 30, 2025

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D) argued Monday that sweeping injunctions blocking the Trump administration’s policies could still be achieved, despite a Supreme Court ruling against them last week.

“[The Supreme Court] said very clearly: States still may need nationwide relief if, in fact, the harms that we experience as states … the consequences to states are enormous; so, they asked lower courts to consider that question,” Platkin, one of the state attorneys general who has advocated on behalf of the injunctions, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan in an interview. “I think we will very clearly be able to meet the standard that even this Supreme Court set out for states to meet should we need nationwide relief.”

Will Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York need to sue to get a nationwide ban?

“Notably, it was a rhetorically very strong opinion, but it actually was quite a middle of the road opinion for what the administration wanted,” he said.

The case that prompted the court’s decision centered on an executive order Trump signed earlier this year to restrict birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to immigrants.

Trump is pissed off that the court keeps blocking him... well maybe if he didn't keep writing unconstitutional orders the courts might not block him.

“Look, I think it’s important to remember what the Supreme Court did not do on Friday,” Platkin said. “They didn’t opine on the merits of birthright citizenship because everyone, for the last 157 years, has understood that babies born on U.S. soil since the Civil War have been treated as citizens.”

Was making it harder for nationwide bans harder a plum that they tossed to Trump to placate him over not getting his birthright citizenship ban?

The New Super Highway!

It is not an underground railroad any more but rather a four lane highway! It is not just trans people fleeing Republican states but a whole migration!

Meet the new American refugees fleeing across state lines for safety

Americans have often moved between states for opportunities. Now they’re being forced to uproot themselves to escape hostile forces under Trump

The Guardian

By Ed Pilkington

24 Apr 2025

America is on the move. Hundreds of thousands of people are packing up boxes, loading U-Hauls, and shipping out of state in an urgent flight towards safety.

They’re being propelled by hostile political forces bearing down on them because of who they are, what they believe, or for their medical needs.

All are displaced within their own country for reasons they did not choose. They are the new generation of America’s internal refugees – and their ranks are growing by the day.

Here, we profile families who have joined America’s swelling class of internal refugees. They represent just five stories among many others which might have been included: librarians fleeing book bans, professors forced out by ideologically-motivated college education boards, and most recently, the thousands of federal employees fired by the Trump administration.

This isn't something new, it has been going on for a while... GLAAD wrote back in 2021,

In response to the state-level attacks on trans youth, business leaders, medical associations, sports associations, and leading women’s and LGBTQ advocacy groups have spoken out in opposition to anti-trans bills. In addition, public polling shows that the bills are overwhelmingly unpopular—even among Republican voters. When North Carolina passed the anti-trans ‘bathroom bill’ HB2, the worst anti-LGBTQ law in the nation when it passed in 2016, the state faced a projected $3.76 billion in economic losses, according to a 2017 Associated Press analysis. That economic threat is being echoed today, as corporate leaders and consumers alike express concern over discriminatory state laws that interfere with corporate diversity and inclusion policies and consumer interests. See below for detailed corporate statements and public polling.

And it is even getting more pronounced in the last couple of months and bans don't work in today's techno world.

Study shows banning books can boost demand and visibility

A new study shows banning books in one state often increased demand for them in other states where they remained available.

By: Scripps News Group

Jul 24, 2024

New research into book bans in the U.S. shows that when states ban books from circulation, demand for them increases in states where they are not banned.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University sought to measure the effects book bans had on demand for the affected titles.

They studied a data set of more than 17,000 titles, which included more than 1,500 banned books, as tracked by the American Library Association and PEN America.

Banning a book resulted in a 12% increase in circulation where it wasn't banned.

Banning a book in one state increased its circulation 11% in states with differing political leanings that had not banned the book.

Banned books that had relatively high visibility on social media were read more frequently.

Okay, you want to read a banned book... go to an online library and down load an ebook! You want to have an abortion... go to a tele health doctor and order your meds from Canada or New Zealand!

Who wants to go to colleges that only teach half of classes... missing are the medical classes on abortion and trans healthcare!

States with abortion bans saw greater drops in medical school graduates applying for residencies

AP News

By  LAURA UNGAR

May 9, 2024

Fewer U.S. medical school graduates are applying to residency programs, but the drop is more striking in states that ban abortion compared with other states.

Figures released Thursday by the Association of American Medical Colleges showed continuing declines after the group first spotted the difference in an analysis last year.

“It looks even more pronounced. So now, I’m looking at a trend,” said Dr. Atul Grover, a co-author of the latest report.

The number of applicants to these post-graduate training programs dropped slightly across the board from spring of 2023 to spring of 2024, with larger decreases seen in states with abortion bans. Those states saw a drop of 4.2% from the previous application cycle, compared with 0.6 % in states where abortion is legal.

Similarly, states with abortion bans saw a 6.7% drop in OB-GYN applicants year over year, while states without abortion restrictions saw a 0.4% increase in OB-GYN applicants. The group only looked at graduates from U.S. medical schools, not those from osteopathic or international medical schools.

The patients wouldn't notice any changes at first but they are accumulative! As the shortages increase so will waiting time for appointments! The Los Angles Times reported that,

It wasn’t a stretch to predict that the strict abortion bans in states such as Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas would have demographic effects — driving residents out of those states and reducing migration from abortion-protective states.

New research has validated that prediction and put meat on its bones. Most notably, economists at Georgia Tech reported in a paper published this month that by mid-2023, the 13 states with total bans had suffered a combined net loss of an estimated 36,000 residents per quarter, or more than 144,000 per year.

Over two years, that amounts to a net loss of more than one-third of a percent of the combined population of about 80 million in the 13 states with abortion bans.

For me this is a worrying trend, political scientists call it “ideological self-sorting.” Over time, this makes red states more conservative and blue states more liberal. Back in 2021 Forbes wrote about this trend...

America is on the move like never before. Some would say at a tectonic level and for many the driver is as much political as it is economic. The top five states seeing a mass exodus are all Democrat-controlled. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Illinois lost a combined 4 million residents between 2010 and 2019.  Conversely, a recent study by U-Haul reported that the top five states to see the greatest influx of new residents include the Republican-led states of Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio and Arizona.

“With a focus on creating the best possible environments for businesses, workers and families to succeed, states led by Republican governors are seeing more and more people become residents,” said Republican Governors Association Deputy Communications Director Mike Demkiw. “People are desperate to escape the heavy handed, regulation ridden big government approach pushed by liberal governors.”

But the opposite is also true! They are fleeing states that are heavy handed in personal freedoms. They are fleeing to states that recognize "My body, my choice!"

I see this as a worrying trait... it will end up dividing the country even more between states with an authoritarian government and states with a liberal governments, but it is even more than a political divide... Blue have more environmental regulations, a more liberal educations systems, but it also goes to the quality of life. Liberal states have more libraries, more parks, and better healthcare, their quality of life is better!

This ideological sorting is going to only get worst over the years, it will all boil down to will the voters in conservative get fed up with all the social constraints and move to the left or will the divide lead to a new civil war this time between conservative states verses liberal states? Instead of going to war over slavery we will be going to war over abortion and trans rights!

The New Mason-Dixon Line

There is a difference between the old south and the north, a big difference in education and the results of that difference was…

Nikki Haley doesn't cite slavery as cause of the Civil War after question at campaign stop
She responded it was about “basically how the government was going to run."
ABC News
ByNicholas Kerr, Abigail Cruz, Averi Harper, and Kelsey Walsh
December 28, 2023

Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley did not cite slavery as a cause of the American Civil War on Wednesday night when a town hall attendee asked her what she thought led to the bloody conflict.

The former governor of South Carolina -- the first state to secede from the Union in 1860 -- instead said at the event in Berlin, New Hampshire, that the catalysts were “basically how the government was going to run” and “freedoms and what people could and couldn't do."

The Republican candidate then turned the question around on the person who posed it.

[…]

“I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And we will always stand by the fact that I think the government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people,” Haley said. “It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn't need to tell you how to live your life. They don't need to tell you what you can and can't do. They don't need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom.”

The questioner told Haley they thought it was “astonishing” she gave an answer that did not mention slavery.

"What do you want me to say about slavery?” she responded before pivoting and asking for the next question.

Education! Education! Education! It is all about what they were taught in K-12.

You remember that Florida was banning books on slavery well there is a reason for that and it goes back to before the Civil War. The British Daily Mail writes,

The books are under review based on several state laws that restrict classroom topics revolving around race, gender, and sexual orientation, including the Stop WOKE Act and the Parental Rights in Education law - dubbed by detractors as the 'Don’t Say Gay' bill.

[…]

Last month, DeSantis and his administration added to their campaign against lessons branded woke by rejecting an AP African American studies course in public schools because it is 'inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.'

In the Republican controlled states we see topics on race just glossed over slavery as the cause of the Civil War, was the north’s refusal to enforce the federal slave laws. They cite the Fugitive Slave Act where the northern states refused to return run away slaves as the cause of the Civil War. But the thing what was the root cause of the civil war… slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act was about… slavery. The north felt that the Fugitive Slave Act forced them to accept slavery, that by returning run away slave to their “owner.”

So when Nikki Haley gave that answer, that was what she was taught. Southern schools warp the history of the war but that is not the only thing they twist, just look at the protests of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and how that gets taught. I believe that Nikki Haley not answering with slavery was wrong, the war was fought to end slavery, most northerners were against slavery but some did “own” slaves.

---

Do you see any similarities between the civil war’s Fugitive Slave Act and now?

Possibly with the abortion laws and the Republican states trying to get medical records from liberal states or like Texas suing a Washington state hospital for medical record of a trans child. With Republican states banning healthcare for us and they fleeing to northern states.

Are we seeing history repeating itself? Are the Republican states going to be suing other states for medical records from states like Connecticut that bans that practice for medical records pertaining to reproduction health?

One of the reasons I believe why this influx of law suits is happening now is that the conservatives believe that Trump’s courts will back them up.

What Is The End Game In Republican Education Goals.

[Political Analysis]

Back under Trump the Secretary of Education made major reforms in educations. Chalkbeat writes…

Days earlier, she had struggled to answer basic education policy questions during her confirmation hearing. Her confusion, the evocative details — in response to one question, she said schools may need guns to protect against grizzly bears — and a surge in protest and civic activism against President Trump turned DeVos into a household name.  

She has held onto that symbolic power. To many educators, her name remains a shorthand for feelings of frustration and disrespect. Her face became a staple of Democrats’ political ads nationwide, even though education policy was rarely central to the races. And when it became clear that Joe Biden would win the presidential election, the responses from many teachers came quickly: bye, Betsy.

[…]

The Republican Party believes in doing away entirely with federal loans. College tuition, and its consequential debt, is rising uncontrollably. At this point, it is rising far above the rate of inflation. College debt in America, as of 2012, had exceeded the amount of credit card debt. Republicans believe federal loans exacerbate this problem by their lack of transparency, and the fact that they are often more expensive than private loans. For these reasons, republicans believe that the federal government should no longer issue student loans. Greater private sector participation in loans would drive tuition costs down. The party believes that the federal government should, however, serve as an insurance guarantor for private sector loans.

One of the Republicans long term goals is to ax the Department of Education. The New Republic (A progressive website) wrote…

The Republican Plan To Devastate Public Education in America
Conservatives talk about “school choice.” What they really want, though, will result in the end of public education for the poor, and disfavored minorities like LGBT people.
By Brynn Tannehill
August 11, 2022



Republicans, and white conservatives, have long been hostile to public schools. School desegregation drove white evangelicals to become the strongest Republican demographic. Ronald Reagan promised to end the Department of Education in 1980. Trump put Betsy DeVos in charge of the Department of Education, precisely because she was a leading proponent (and funder) of defunding public schools, and funneling it to religious schools. During her confirmation hearings it became clear that she knew nothing about education, and provided plagiarized and laughably bad answers to questions, asserting that teachers need guns to ward off grizzly bear attacks.

Republican candidates talk about “school choice” and putting God and prayer back in schools. What they really want, though, will result in the end of public education for the poor, and disfavored minorities like LGBT people.

Let’s face it, the Republicans don’t want an educated proletariat, they believe that only the bourgeoisie should be educated.

Their plan looks like this: Parents are given a voucher for several thousand dollars that comes out of the state education budget. The money can be spent on tuition for charter or private schools, microschools (collective homeschooling), or regular homeschooling. Republicans say the “money goes to the kids.”

In reality, it reduces money going to public schools to a point where the schools will be dramatically underfunded.

The voucher program was designed to fail, to cut middle income public support for schools. First private schools can cherry pick the brightest student and toss back to public schools, second this leads to a downward spiral of public schools from more dropouts and less students going on to college. And third, less funding for public schools.

How School Voucher Programs Hurt Students
Time
By Joshua Cowen
April 19, 2023

In recent months, state legislatures across the country have broadened efforts to subsidize private school tuition with taxpayer dollars. New proposals for these programs—collectively called school vouchers—have appeared in more than a dozen states and passed as major priorities for Republican governors like Kim Reynolds in Iowa and Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas. Since 2021, Arizona, Florida, Utah and West Virginia have also created or expanded voucher plans. Meanwhile, a handful states like Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Wisconsin have run voucher programs for years. But do school vouchers actually work? We need to focus on what research shows, and what that means for kids moving forward.

As an analyst who has studied these and other forms of school choice for nearly two decades, I’m in a good position to give an answer. And based on data from existing voucher programs, the answer is almost unambiguously negative.

Let’s start with who benefits. First and foremost, the answer is: existing private school students. Small, pilot voucher programs with income limits have been around since the early 1990s, but over the last decade they have expanded to larger statewide initiatives with few if any income-eligibility requirements. Florida just passed its version of such a universal voucher program, following Arizona’s passage in the fall of 2022. In Arizona, more than 75% of initial voucher applicants had never been in public school—either because they were new kindergartners or already in private school before getting a voucher. That’s a problem because many voucher advocates market these plans as ways to improve educational opportunities for public school children.

That is exactly what the Republicans have hoped to archive and they knew that would happen.

But DeVos has acknowledged the poor track record for vouchers—at least when it comes to academic impacts. Asked about the dismal results of the Louisiana voucher plan while she was a public official, DeVos avoided detailed comment, but her answer back then was as good a summary as any that a voucher expert like me could provide. That program, she said, was “not very well-conceived.”

That goes for school voucher plans today, currently spreading across the country.

Why else to be pushing something that you know doesn’t work except to cripple public schools. It is not just K-12 that they are going after but also stopping the proletariat from getting educated!

Hearings, subpoenas, crackdowns: Inside House Republicans’ long-term plan to ‘defund’ elite universities

•     House Republicans have a long-term plan to strip elite universities of government funding and federal student loan dollars, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., told a group of business leaders during a private Zoom call last Friday.
• “The hearing was the first step,” said Banks. “The second step is the investigation, the subpoenas, gathering all of the documents and the records,” he said. “Third, that’s when we defund these universities.”

CNBC
By Brian Schwartz
December 18 2023


House Republicans have a long-term plan to strip elite universities of government funding and federal student loan dollars, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., told a group of business leaders during a private Zoom call Friday.

Banks, an ally of former President Donald Trump, sits on the House Education Committee. The panel recently launched investigations into Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. The probe announcements followed a Dec. 5 hearing at which leaders of Harvard, MIT and Penn struggled to clarify their positions on antisemitic speech on campus.

Banks told the business leaders the hearing was the first step in a larger effort to take on Ivy League schools. An audio recording of the call was provided to CNBC by an attendee who requested anonymity in order to share a private conversation.

“The second step is the investigation, the subpoenas, gathering all of the documents and the records from these universities to prove the point,” said Banks. “That they’re not just allowing this behavior to occur, they’re fostering it and creating an unsafe environment for Jewish students on their campus because of it,” he said.

During these hearing the House Republicans seem to ignore the First Amendment, they hammered the college presidents for not stopping the peaceful anti-Israeli protests. The Republicans shredded the First Amendment.

Banks’ frank description of lawmakers’ plans offers a previously unreported window into at least some members of Congress’ long-term goals with regard to at least two Ivy League universities and MIT, another elite university. The House Education Committee chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said in an interview on NewsNation that the committee is also looking at Columbia University and Cornell University.

We don’t want any of those liberal college!

Restrictions on tenure and academic freedom have college professors eyeing the exits
Center for Public Integrity via USA Today
By Matt Krupnick
December 19, 2023

College professors once regarded Wisconsin as one of the safest places to work, with the right to be tenured baked into state law. Then, in 2015, the state removed that right and sent dozens of instructors running toward the exits.

Karma Chávez was among those departures from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Like her, many of the people who left were people of color or queer. After the change, Chávez said she started looking for a new job in another state immediately and landed at the University of Texas, Austin, where she chairs the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies.

Now, as she watches Texas politicians chip away at tenure protections and academic freedom in that state, Chávez has realized “there’s nowhere to run.”

“When it comes to higher education, I don’t know if there are any safe places,” she said. “If they can come after Wisconsin, they can come after anywhere.”

Texas, where a professor was suspended this year for criticizing the lieutenant governor in a lecture, is part of what many in the academic community say is an alarming, concerted attack on higher education spreading across the country.

Why are these bills being passed? The answer fits right in with the right-wing propaganda!

State Sen. Brandon Creighton, a Republican from the Houston suburbs who authored Texas laws banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices at Texas colleges and universities and watering down faculty tenure, declined to answer questions about the bills or their potential effects. One would ban diversity, equity and inclusion offices at Texas colleges and universities, while the other would water down faculty tenure.

We don’t want those liberal professors teaching the students to think for themselves!

Professors in Georgia said the 2021 policy making it easier to fire tenured faculty at the University System of Georgia has already altered the feel of the state’s campuses. Top talent has fled elsewhere, and some professors have avoided controversial topics, said Brian Magerko, a professor of digital media at Georgia Tech.

The same thing is happening with OB/GYN and trans healthcare providers are fleeing the states, med students are not going to colleges in those states with abortion and trans healthcare bans. 

---

Just look at what the right-wing conservatives are pushing in the field of education, right out the John Birch Societies play book.

What got me started on this topic was an article on NBC Nightly News,

Mother Jones writes back in 2018,

People turned to the New York Times and the Washington Post, Fox News, and even the Constitution for answers. But few sources were as widely consulted as “Do You Understand the Electoral College?” a five-minute video hosted by retired lawyer and television pundit Tara Ross. Her genial lecture, illustrated with colorful cartoons and pop-up text—”pure democracies do not work”—can be found at Prager University, an online video portal curated by the conservative talk-radio host Dennis Prager. The Electoral College video had about 850,000 views before the election, says Allen Estrin, Prager’s producer and consigliere. “Two weeks later, it had 50 million.”

[…]

Since 2012, PragerU has posted nearly 300 similarly digestible videos. Some of them dabble in topics like parenting or financial advice, but most cover core conservative doctrines. Delivering tidy arguments without the Limbaughesque acid reflux, they have accrued, collectively, just over 1 billion views—nearly 700 million in 2017 alone, according to marketing director

[…]

At PragerU, police are not biased against black men, and man-made climate change is debatable. You’ll find takes on animal rights (against), the $15 minimum wage (against), the gender wage gap (doesn’t exist), and why the South turned Republican (nothing to do with race). Prager has hosted a few dozen videos himself, including “Just Say ‘Merry Christmas,'” his take on the “war on Christmas” genre, and “He Wants You,” an apologia for men who ogle women. He personally approves every item, edits every script, and courts “faculty,” including heavy hitters such as Dinesh D’Souza, Steve Forbes, and former White House press secretary Dana Perino. Some presenters, like Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, are credentialed. Others, like comedian Adam Carolla, merely speak with the confidence of people who are.

So who are behind PragerU?

Among the major contributors are Dan and Farris Wilks, fracking billionaires who want to bring Christianity into public schools. (PragerU’s Educators Program encourages K-12 teachers and college professors to use “our curriculum as a teaching supplement.”) The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, another funder of right-leaning educational initiatives, has given a substantial sum, too.

In other-words… Oligarchs.

So where are we now?

Should Oklahoma teachers use PragerU content? Advocates weigh in on newly-announced partnership
Fox 25 KOKH
By TOM FERGUSONThu
September 7th 2023,

A new partnership between Oklahoma schools and conservative nonprofit PragerU is sparking fierce debate.

PragerU is a media group that puts out digital content the organization describe as pro-American and an alternative to, “dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education.”

The content includes educational videos meant for kids. While some are welcoming this coming to Oklahoma classrooms, others aren’t so happy.

Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R) shared his enthusiasm for the partnership in a video related to the announcement that, “we want them to know about American exceptionalism, want them to know about those founding documents, want them to understand what made this country great.”

[…]

However, one advocate for Muslims in Oklahoma argued PragerU's content is biased against members of his faith community and others.

“PragerU is definitely skewed towards a certain political, and Christian-nationalistic, white-savior message that is not beneficial for minorities of any background here in Oklahoma," asserted Adam Soltani, the executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

He added that, “as a Muslim and as a father here in Oklahoma, I would want Ryan Walters to know that he is really playing with the lives and the emotions of people in our state.”

Education Week reports…

PragerU, Creator of Controversial Social Studies Videos, Now Has a Toehold in Schools
By Sarah Schwartz
August 31, 2023

As the school year starts, a controversial set of social studies materials are making headlines: videos from the conservative media company PragerU.

The company, which describes itself as an “educational media platform dedicated to promoting pro-American values,” creates free, online videos for children that cover a range of history, civics, and science topics. Some have hundreds of thousands of views.

The materials came under fire after the Florida Department of Education approved them in July for use in classrooms as supplemental resources. PragerU leaders say that the channel provides an alternative perspective to what they see as liberal biases in schools and universities.

But historians and researchers who study right-wing media say that the videos spread misinformation—and are qualitatively different from other social studies materials that teachers might use in schools.

“PragerU is not a university,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. “It is a political propaganda machine, and it promotes mistruths about climate change, slavery, and a whole host of other things.”

And for the last word… Southern Poverty Law Center says, now I want you to remember these video are being shown to K-12.

More troubling, Tripodi discovered, are the connections some PragerU presenters have with white nationalist thinkers. In her report, Tripodi highlights Dave Rubin, host of an immensely popular (nearly 18 million views) PragerU video titled “Why I Left the Left.”

[…]

Tripodi writes, “the implications of creating a dense network of extremist thinkers allows for those who identify as mainline conservatives to gain easy access to white supremacist logic. Leveraging the thoughts of someone like Stefan Molyneux can have disastrous consequences considering that Molyneux regularly promotes ‘alt-right’ ‘scientific racism’ on his own YouTube shows. The fact that such rhetoric is ultimately connected to the presenter of one of PragerU’s most widely circulated videos is alarming since Molyneux’s ideas of ‘natural law’ were used by the founders of the US to justify the subordination of African slaves, Native Americans, and white women.”

They are also going after the mainstream media.

Tripodi’s report also takes issue with a series of PragerU videos “aimed at discrediting mainstream media”: “Can You Trust the Press?,” “What is ‘Fake News’?” and “Why No One Trusts the Mainstream Media.” She writes, “By the end of the study the positions of PragerU and those I interviewed became indistinguishable. Time and again, I was told [by the study participants] that mainstream media are ‘fake’ because coverage is based on feelings instead of fact-based evidence.”

They call us “Groomers” but who are the real groomers?

 

 [/Political Analysis]