“Nothing can be done about limiting access to guns,” says only country where gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and teenagers. “Nothing can be done about limiting access to guns,” says only country where gun massacres have become part of the daily news cycle.
Some countries require gun owners to have safety training before buying a gun. Sone require gun owners to have a locked storage box for their deadly weapons.
Not us! We’re special! If toddlers kill their mothers, tough luck!
Aaron Regunburg is running for Congress in Rhode Island this fall, in a special election. I have followed his path since he was the organizer of the Providence Student Union and led a series of creative protests against the use of standardized test scores as a graduation requirement. If he wins, as seems likely, he will be a strong voice in Congress for public schools and against federally-mandated standardized testing.
He is holding a Zoom event on June 27. He asked me to invite you to attend.
Dear Friends,
I want to invite you to an exciting event in support of Aaron Regunberg, my friend who is running for Congress in a special election this year in Rhode Island (it’s the only Congressional election happening in 2023).
I support Aaron because I know he will be a fearless, principled progressive fighting for working families around the country. He will bring the energy we need to combat the climate crisis, stand up for the labor movement, fight for public education, take on corporate power, and work to defend our rights. I know this because he’s done it before — while in the Rhode Island state legislature, he helped pass paid sick days legislation, raise the state’s tipped minimum wage for the first time in 20 years, reform the use of solitary confinement, expand harm reduction strategies, and enact new renewable energy programs. And since then, he has worked with the Sierra Club and the Center for Climate Integrity on climate litigation.
Aaron is holding an end-of-quarter Zoom fundraiser event with some awesome progressive leaders like Steven Donziger and Maurice Mitchell, and I wanted to extend an invitation. We think this race has some national impact — as the only Congressional primary of 2023, a win here could give us some strong progressive momentum going into 2024! So, if you feel so moved, you can sign up to attend the event and support Aaron’s campaign here. Thanks again for your consideration!
As you surely know, any kind of protest against the war is forbidden in Russia. Anyone who dares to speak against the war is immediately arrested and jailed. Even calling the war a war is illegal. Protestors may be sent away for years. In this climate of repression, some bold Russians have found a way to express their anti-war views. The New York Times published some examples of these tiny acts of rebellion. Learn how a fish became an anti-war symbol.
Last year in St. Petersburg, an artist uploaded a few images of tiny clay figurines in a public space to Instagram under the account Malenkiy Piket, meaning Small Protest. In a separate post, he invited others to join him in his silent demonstration.
One of Malenkiy Piket’s first posts.
Since that post, he has received almost 2,000 images containing homemade figurines, many holding posters of protest with curious symbology. Contributors are able to preserve their anonymity by sending private messages in the app to the artist, who then posts their images. At its peak, the account received around 60 images daily, the artist told The Times.
Sending such pictures, even privately, carries enormous risk: Sharing antiwar messages can be a cause for imprisonment. Hiding figurines in public spaces could be captured by surveillance cameras. Police used CCTV footage to track and arrest one contributor in 2022.
“Don’t be silent”
Using strategic ambiguity to protest authoritarian governments is not unique to Russia: pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong held up blank signs as a form of protest, and social media users in China used the candle emoji to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The artist told The Times that it’s important for people to see that Russians oppose the war, too. “Not everyone is with Putin. We know how the media just skips this, cuts out everything that shows people against it.”
The messages in the images
FISH
In 2022, a woman was arrested for writing “нет в***e” in graffiti in a public square, putting asterisks instead of letters in some places. The police believed she had intended to write the word “война” for war, but the woman said she had written “вобла,” a fish native to the Caspian Sea that Russians traditionally eat with beer or vodka.
The story went viral, producing tons of memes and even a song. The woman was eventually fined, but by then, her story had already turned the vobla fish and asterisks into symbols of protest.
Next to a road.
At the base of a sculpture.
Three asterisks, followed by five more. A code among protesters meaning “нет войне” (No to War).
In a bush.
BLANK POSTERS
Blank posters underscore how Russia has criminalized free speech. During the first months of 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, many Russians took to the streets with blank posters, and the police arrested them.
A mouthless monk sitting on a fence.
A sticker attached to a lamp post on Bolotnaya Naberezhnaya, Moscow.
By a river.
By a road.
ANTIWAR FLAG
Recognized as an antiwar symbol, the white flag with a blue stripe in the middle was created by Russians who opposed the invasion of Ukraine and disapproved of Putin’s government.
A Ukrainian flag is sometimes paired with an antiwar flag.
Paper figurines stuck to a graffitied wall.
Both flags are again represented in the embrace of these crying figurines, atop a memorial stone.
A fence outside of a Russian government building.
THE CROSSED OUT Z
Members of the Russian army emblazon their tanks and trucks with the letter Z to differentiate themselves from Ukrainians in the field. Many of Malenkiy Piket’s images show the letter Z crossed out.
This figurine wears Ukraine’s colors.
On a park bench.
Attached to a wall.
PEACE
About a hundred images shared by Malenkiy Piket show the peace sign.
At the foot of a statue in a public square.
On the ground.
At the Moskva River, across from Moscow’s Red Square.
Tom Ultican was a computer scientist before he became a high school teacher of advanced mathematics and science in California. Now that he is retired, he is a scholar of the corporate reform movement, whose goal is to privatize public schools.
In this illuminating post, Ultican analyzes a documentary called “The Right to Read,” which he compares to the propaganda film “Waiting for Superman.” Behind the film, he writes, is the whole apparatus of the corporate reform movement, armed with derogatory claims about public schools and a simplistic cure for literacy.
He begins:
The new 80-minute video “The Right to Read”was created in the spirit of “Waiting for Superman.” It uses false data interpretations to make phony claims about a non-existent reading crisis. Oakland’s NAACP 2nd Vice President Kareem Weaver narrates the film. Weaver is a full throated advocate for the Science of Reading (SoR) and has many connections with oligarch financed education agendas. The video which released February 11, 2023 was made by Jenny Mackenzie and produced by LeVar (Kunta Kinte) Burton.
Since 2007, Jenny Mackenzie has been the executive director of Jenny Mackenzie Films in Salt Lake City. Neither Mackenzie nor Burton has experience or training as educators. However, Burton did star on the PBS series “Reading Rainbow.” He worked on the show as an actor not a teacher.
One of the first media interviews about “The Right to Read” appeared on KTVX channel 4 in Salt Lake City. Ben Heuston from the Waterford Institute answered questions about the new film and the supposed “reading crisis” in American public schools. Heuston who has a PhD in psychology from Brigham Young University claimed that two-thirds of primary grade students in America read below grade level. That is a lie. He is conflating proficiency in reading on the National Assessment of Education Performance (NAEP) with grade level and should know better.
Ultican shows the graphs of NAEP scores over the past thirty years: reading scores have been unchanged for 30 years. The rhetoric about “the crisis in reading” is a hoax.
Misinterpreting the data shown above is the basis for the specious crisis in reading claims. It is known that students develop at different rates and in the lower grades the differences can be dramatic. That explains some of the low scoring. All but a very small percentage of these fourth grader will be reading adequately when they get to high school.
America’s leading authorities on teaching reading are frustrated. Their voices are being drowned out by forces who want to monetize reading education and privatize it.
Ultican names names and identifies corporate sponsors. Somebody expects to make a heap of money from this latest manufactured crisis.
“If the come for me in the morning, they’ll come for you at night.” I heard that phrase recently and eventually found it attributed to Angela Davis. I was never in her fan club, but the statement is profound, not unlike the famous quote “First they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionists so I didn’t care.” Translation: when anyone’s freedom is curtailed, we are all endangered.
It’s easy for hateful politicians like Ron DeSantis to target trans kids and deny them the treatment recommended by their doctors, because transgender people are a tiny number and have few defenders. Drag queens are also a target for those who want to restrict freedom because they too are a tiny minority without a political constituency to defend them.
Closet fascists experienced a setback in Florida, when a federal judge put a temporary block on the state’s law meant to make drag queens disappear. Drag queens are performers; their acts are meant to entertain. Drag has been on the stage for hundreds of years, maybe longer.
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Florida law that he says is aimed at limiting the rights of drag performers.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell of Orlando wrote in his order that “this statute is specifically designed to suppress the speech of drag queen performers.”
“In the words of the bill’s sponsor in the House, State Representative Randy Fine: “…HB 1423…will protect our children by ending the gateway propaganda to this evil — ‘Drag Queen Story Time,’” Presnell’s ruling said.
Fine, a Republican from Brevard County, declined to comment.
The court battle was initiated by the Hamburger Mary’s restaurant in Orlando over a law that contains penalties for any venue allowing children into a sexually explicit “adult live performance.” The law includes potential first-degree misdemeanor charges for violators.
“Of course, it’s constitutional to prevent the sexualization of children by limiting access to adult live performances,” said Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed the law in May. “We believe the judge’s opinion is dead wrong and look forward to prevailing on appeal.”
Hamburger Mary’s filed a lawsuit in May against DeSantis, the state, and Melanie Griffin, secretary of Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation. DeSantis and the state have since been dropped as defendants, with Griffin remaining.
The downtown restaurant’s lawsuit argued the law would have a “chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of the citizens of Florida.”
Hamburger Mary’s, which opened in 2008, has hosted drag performances that include bingo, trivia and comedy. After the law was signed, the restaurant restricted children from drag shows and then lost 20% of its bookings, according to the lawsuit.
Presnell’s order prevents the state agency from enforcing the law pending the outcome of a trial. He also denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Dana Milbank, a regular columnist for the Washington Post, writes here about the bizarre behavior of House Republicans, who have no agenda other than impeaching Biden, censuring Adam Schiff, and punishing anyone else who doesn’t share their Trump-worship. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert got into a tiff on the House floor about whose impeachment resolution would be introduced first. Greene reportedly called Boebert a “little bitch,” for being first to offer a Biden impeachment resolution.These petty, vindictive people are our nation’s “leaders.”
Milbank wrote:
A couple of weeks before the midterm elections, Kevin McCarthy assured voters that House Republicans, if given the majority, wouldn’t be so rash as to go on an impeachment binge.
“I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all,” he told Punchbowl News at the time. “I think the country wants to heal,” he added, and avowed that he didn’t think anybody in the Biden administration merited impeachment proceedings.
The voters gave Republicans a chance, awarded them narrow control of the House. And now Republicans are starting their impeachment binge.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) rose in the House Tuesday evening after the last vote. “For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Colorado seek recognition?” asked the presiding officer, Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.).
The gentlewoman sought recognition to unveil a parliamentary maneuver that would force a vote within 48 hours on H. Res. 503, “Impeaching Joseph R. Biden Jr., president of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.”
No impeachment proceedings. No investigation. No evidence. No crimes. Not so much as parking ticket. Just a willy-nilly, snap vote to impeach the president, because Boebert dislikes Biden’s immigration policies. In her mind, “President Biden has intentionally facilitated a complete and total invasion at the southern border,” she charged on the House floor.
At this, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) flew into a fit of jealousy because Boebert had thought to use the maneuver (called a “privileged resolution”) to force an impeachment vote before Greene got a vote on her articles of impeachment against Biden. Boebert stole her impeachment articles, Greene whined to reporters, calling Boebert that name that every kindergartner fears: “Copycat.”
Congresswoman Jewish Space Lasers then confronted Boebert on the House floor and called her a “little b—-” who “copied my articles of impeachment,” according to a Daily Beast account that Greene confirmed.
But Boebert was unmoved — because she’s on a mission from God. She filed her impeachment resolution because “I am directed and led by Him … by the spirit of God,” she told the evangelical Victory Channel.
God could not be reached for comment…
McCarthy had tried to stall his caucus’s drive for impeachment by setting House committee chairmen loose to launch a series of overlapping probes into whatever catches their fancy. At least three committees are investigating Hunter Biden. At least three committees are auditioning impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. At least three committees are probing imagined “censorship” of social media by the administration. Multiple committees are pursuing fanciful conspiracy theories involving public health officials and the supposed “weaponization” of the FBI, the Justice Department and the rest of the government by the “deep state.” And, of course, the committees investigate anybody — Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg — who investigates Trump.
Exit polls in the midterms showed voters cared most about inflation and abortion, followed by guns, crime and immigration. Yet the House majority just passed a bill to expand access to a common mass-shooting weapon and is now moving tax cuts that would aggravate inflation. There’s talk that House Republicans next month will take up bills further restricting abortion access — that is, if they can find time between impeachment votes.
Since any legislation to impeach the President requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate, this bill is obviously cheap grandstanding. But House Republicans choose to devote their time and energy to such displays of petty vengeance. Pathetic.
Congressman Adam Schiff replied in the House chamber to the vote to censure him for his role in investigating Trump, including his leadership of the first Trump impeachment trial. The House voted 213-209 to censure him. Watch his five-minute speech. He was censured for doing his job as a member of a Congress.
As Jay Kuo explains in this post, censure is rare, administered for financial or ethical improprieties. A censure vote against Schiff was taken twice. The first time it failed, because 20 Republicans opposed it (some may have thought it was a dumb idea, but most were bothered because it would have fined Schiff $16 million for daring to lead the charge against Trump). The second vote passed for two reasons: 1) the $16 million fine was dropped, and 2) Trump threatened to primary any Republican who opposed it. Trump still terrifies House Republicans.
Schiff is running for the Senate in California. After watching his speech, I went to his website and contributed to his campaign.
Over the next 24 hours, they kept rephrasing their statement over and over, to make clear that they weren’t actually endorsing Hitler or taking inspiration from his quote. After a few contortions, they sort of clarified what they meant, I think. Your local public school is controlled by the government, so your local public school is a manifestation of Nazism.
This would be funny if it weren’t so stupid.
Ninety percent of Americans went to public schools. Are we assume then that ninety percent of Americans are fascists? Are all of us public school graduates controlled by the evil U.S. government? By Biden? Trump? Obama? Bush 1 or 2? Clinton? Reagan?
Did we get controlled when we were in school or later? For me, that means my mind went into control-mode during the era of Truman and Eisenhower. Which one am I controlled by? Or is it both?
It’s especially ironic for Moms4L to accuse anyone of “mind control” since it is they who are enthusiastically censoring what teachers may teach and banning books. If anyone is promoting mind control, it’s Moms for Liberty! It’s they who have adopted the tactics of the Storm Troopers.
A note to Moms for Liberty:
The goal of public schools is to teach children to think for themselves. The goal of religious schools is indoctrination.
Since Ron DeSantis pushed through the “Don’t Say Gay” law (“Parental Rights in Education”), library books about anything related to gay subjects have been removed from school libraries. This week, the authors of the children’s book “Tango” sued the Lake County district in Florida for banning their book; they were joined by several students in the district.
“Tango” is a true story written for young students about two male penguins in a zoo who adopted an egg and raised the baby as their own. There is nothing remotely sexual about the story. It’s a sweet and touching story.
A group of students and the authors of a children’s book about a penguin family with two fathers sued the Lake County school district and the board of education Tuesday, saying that restricting access to the book in school libraries was unconstitutional.
The suit argues that the picture book, “And Tango Makes Three,” was targeted on ideological grounds, as a result of new legislation that has led to a spike in book removals. The state law, known by its opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” bans instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.
In an attempt to follow the statute, the school district, Lake County, restricted access to 40 titles, the vast majority of them books that deal with LGBTQ issues and themes.
The lawsuit by the authors of the book seeks to make it available again and to have the law found unconstitutional.
“Our book has been banned because Tango has two dads,” said Justin Richardson, who wrote the book with his husband, Peter Parnell.
The book is based on the true story of a pair of male penguins at the Central Park Zoo, Roy and Silo, who incubated and hatched a baby chick. Zookeepers named the chick Tango.
The picture book, aimed at 4- to 8-year-olds, has won multiple awards. It has also been banned or restricted in many districts around the United States after parents and residents objected to the book’s depiction of a family with same-sex parents.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, said the Lake had “cited no legitimate pedagogical reason for its decision.”
No doubt, DeFascist will say that the book was not banned. It was removed from circulation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 