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| Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay |
As if we don't have enough to worry about these days from Trump and Vance and Musk, there's now another obvious threat to our national well-being.
Shamelessly loitering in front of grocery stores all across America, these brazen dealers wear green sashes and bring extra muscle along, more commonly known as their parents.
They traffic Thin Mints and Samoas, and few can say no to them, even though they stand four feet six inches tall.
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| Image: Wikipedia |
Get this.
In its efforts to purge DEI content lickety-split, the Defense Department has flagged over 26,000 images for deletion across every military branch. Women and minorities are the main targets of the directive to obliterate photos and online posts that highlight diversity efforts.
Here's the incredible bit. The AP reports that some photos seem to have been flagged because their file included the word "gay." The result? An image of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, is on the chopping block.
If I'd had a little more time, I would've predicted this as the slapstick outcome of the DEI witch hunt. I would've been kidding.
But Pete Hegseth has his people working so hard on this mission-critical task that they made the farce real before I could make it a joke. And I resent that.
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| Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay |
This morning I received an email from eBay whose subject line read "Your closet is calling, Leslie."
It turned out the company wants me to buy clothes. But it's a sign of the times that I first thought eBay was sending emergency instructions to queer people.
Image: Facebook
Ukrainians have spent three terrifying and bloody years holding off invading Russian forces.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised if some war-weary Ukrainians are clamoring today to open a second front: against us. That's one possible result of their president's humiliation in the Oval Office yesterday by a pair of tag-team wrestlers, Donald "The Impotent" Trump and Lambykins Vance.
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| Image: Facebook |
Of course, that's not so hard when you have nothing to spend.
Image by muqadas Muqadas from Pixabay
Sure, because putting his face on a piece of currency nobody will ever use will definitely fill the black hole of need that exists where his soul should be.
Mary L. Trump on the proposal to put her uncle's face on a $250 bill
Source: X
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Naturally I found myself venting about Donald Trump with some friends yesterday. I brought up the Trump voters now expressing anger at Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE at town halls and on social media.
"Why are these people surprised?" I ranted. "He said he was going to do this!"
"It's now hurting them," said Mary. "It was fine when other people were going to be hurt."
I knew she was right, even as I wanted a different answer, something about how these folks hold, say, deeply considered philosophical differences.
Silly me. It really can be as simple as people suck.
Too many Trump voters were simply devoid of compassion. Unable or unwilling to see beyond themselves, they were cool with mass deportations, the suffocation of transgender people and all the rest of it. If they had any compassion, it was eclipsed by fear.
Now that Trump is trampling his supporters, too, all that's left to say is: Welcome to the club you didn't want to belong to. I'd like to think the experience will generate some compassion in you. But then again, I'm the silly one.
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| Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay |
Doubtless Donald Trump, as head of state, is prepared to fly to Rome—and declare himself Pope Donald I.
Image by https://bosskuart.etsy.com from Pixabay
We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture.
Robin Williams
Source: Brainy Quote
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| Image: Wikipedia |
The phrase, attributed to the meek and retiring Napoleon Bonaparte, suggests Trump now officially views himself as being above the law.
Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba. Here's hoping Trump is exiled to the island of Rikers.
Image: Facebook
The transgender flag still flies at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, but something else is missing.
On the National Park Service's Stonewall website, "LGBTQ" has turned into "LGB." Our community has suffered an amputation. Without benefit of anesthetic.
This can only be due to Donald Trump's spastic efforts to wipe out all evidence of trans people from the federal government. If you have another explanation . . . I ain't buying it.
Multiple ironies leap to mind. First, the site meant to memorialize the start of queer liberation now can't say the word "queer," at least not online. Second, the L's, the G's and the B's were also definite outcasts not long ago, but now have achieved enough standing that the government isn't aiming to make them disappear. Yet.
The third irony I see is that gay people often used to ignore the part played by transgender and gender non-conforming folks at Stonewall. The community largely clawed past the racism and classism and gave the likes of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera their due. Now we're watching them be disappeared again.
Some aren't having it. On X, New York's governor decried the sudden removal of trans and queer references as "just cruel and petty."
Protesters gathered yesterday at the Stonewall Inn. A transgender woman told CBS News, "I served in the military. I didn't say I had bone spurs to get out of it."
As far as I know, no bricks were thrown at the protest, just brickbats. And the politicians in attendance were for us, not against us. Things have changed a great deal since 1969. Which is precisely what scares many Americans, and part of what propelled Trump to victory.
We have our work cut out for us in 2025, to stop the reversal of what began in 1969. If you want to make a party out of it, wear 1969 fashion to the next protest. I didn't look good in it then—I was six—and I don't now, but I'm willing to take one for the team.
Image: Facebook
Trump appointed gay Log Cabin lapdog Ric Grenell as interim head of the Kennedy Center. Grenell has no background in management or the arts, and LGBTQ people despise him. He's George Santos only even more smarmy and corrupt.
Paul Rudnick
Source: X
The following isn't a joke, something I have to point out often these days.
"At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture," Donald Trump posted yesterday on Truth Social. "We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!"
Image by Donna Williams from Pixabay
The Washington Post offered four possible explanations for Donald Trump's "shocking" assertion that the U.S. will take over Gaza.
It's a distraction, or a negotiating ploy, or he wants to be seen as crazily unpredictable or he's become an imperialist.
Remember when Republicans accused Barack Obama of being "unpresidential" for wearing a tan suit?
Image by Мирас Толеуханов from Pixabay
Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.
Darren Beattie, just appointed to a top State Department job
Source: CNN
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| Image by heblo from Pixabay |
He'll be hearing from my divorce lawyer in the morning.
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| Image: Pixabay |
One of his main targets? Transgender people.
On his first day in office, he issued an order stating the U.S. recognizes two sexes, thus denying the existence of trans, nonbinary and intersex people. That day he also put the kibosh on DEI programs across the federal government, hurting all queer people and other marginalized groups.
Last week, Trump reinstated his previous ban on transgender people in the military. A line from his order reads, "For the sake of our Nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service must be reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty."
Trans people aren't mentally fit, you see. Of course, neither is the new defense secretary, but never mind.
The executive order winningly called "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation" restricts federal funding for gender-affirming care for trans minors and some adults. Next came the order barring schools that receive federal funding from allowing students to identify with the appropriate name and pronouns.
It's been a full-on assault, a Heritage Foundation wet dream.
I'm one who believes in the pendulum effect, that social trends swing back and forth. But right now it feels as though we're swinging so far to the right the pendulum looks more like a wrecking ball. And that guy giddily operating the crane shouldn't have access to anything bigger than a Tonka.
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Bob Menendez has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Democrats send their criminals to jail.
Republicans send theirs to the White House.Here's a whoops we all saw coming.
You'll recall that following the November election of openly transgender Rep. Sarah McBride, Rep. Nancy Mace raised a ruckus about trans women using female bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol. Speaker Mike Johnson then mandated that restroom access be determined solely by the gender assigned at birth.
It's taken a nanosecond for egg to land on Republican faces.
On Thursday, a male reporter saw Rep. Lauren Boebert "bursting out of the House Women's restroom during this afternoon's vote series." She complained to security of "a guy" in the bathroom. Boebert went to the House floor to round up Mace, and the matched pair of Dolores Umbridges stormed into the bathroom. Seconds later, they came back out and returned "quietly to the floor."
Boebert later said, "I made an error regarding a mistaken identity. I apologized, learned a lesson, and it won’t happen again."
The hell it won't. As long as the self-appointed potty police are on patrol, this sort of thing will happen again and again, to everybody's embarrassment. Reportedly the duo thought the person was McBride herself. Imagine being that cisgender woman they confronted? Imagine being so hot to make political points by snagging a transgender offender that your eyesight deserts you?
I'd like to know whether the Un-dynamic Duo missed any votes while conducting this charade of a crusade. Actually, now that I think about it, this could be an effective method of keeping the reactionary pair from voting. We should arrange a constant stream of cisgender, androgynous women, both gay and straight, occupying the bathroom so that Boebert and Mace are always too absorbed with monitoring the stalls to cast any actual votes.
Hey, they assigned themselves this task. Just because they screwed up royally, they can't stop now. America expects them to be conscientious commode cops. It's a tough job, but these two are clearly suited to spending their days perched outside the restroom, trying to deny entrance with crossed toilet brushes.
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| Image by ArtWithPam from Pixabay |
This appeal for money, crafted before Trump took office, includes a poster-sized letter that reads "Dear President-elect Trump: In case you had any doubt, WE ARE THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION. And we're not moving to Canada."
I like that line so much I wish I'd written it.
But it immediately reminded me how even my adult nieces have talked of fleeing to Germany, where we have roots, as a result of Trump's return to the Oval Office. That's a deeply sad state of affairs.
And ironic. Emigrating to Germany to escape potential fascism in America? Mein Gott.
I did indeed re-up with the ACLU today. While I don't agree with all of the group's positions, this is no time to be fussy. The ACLU fought Trump hard the first time around, and boy, do we need that again. My problem is I lack the money to support all the organizations standing against the Trump agenda.
Perhaps it's time I opened a fake university.
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| Image by cmccarthy2001 from Pixabay |
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| Image: Katie Rainbow at Pexels |
A more accurate title would've been "Erasing Transgender People for Fun and Profit."
The premise of the order is that women need protecting from all those men who claim to be women so they can gain access to women's shower facilities. It's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.
Nevertheless, to thwart the "ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex," this country's new firm leader has given us a new firm policy: "It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality."
Bull pucky.
I know too many transgender people too well to buy the lie that they're somehow making up their gender dysphoria. This executive order and all the anti-trans campaigning that led to it are about fear, ignorance, power and religious extremism, not gender extremism.
The conservative flunkies who wrote this order were thorough. It seeks to wipe out acknowledgement of trans people at the federal level in a variety of ways, from insisting passports "accurately reflect the holder's sex" to forcing all government agencies to remove any statements or policies that "promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology."
The list goes on. But no matter how much Trump panders to his fans, transgender people have always been here, and they aren't going away. They're simply, cruelly, being marched back into the closet.
All under the pretense of protecting women. As a woman, I know that transgender women don't threaten my personal safety. It's Trump, the assaulter in chief, and a number of his wannabe cabinet members who do.
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| Image by Waldryano from Pixabay |
So America and the planet survive the next four years, I'm pleading for divine assistance from Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, the Great Spirit, Yahweh, Isis, Zeus, Odin and the spirit of Betty White.
Image by LORRAINE DAY from Pixabay
Special counsel Jack Smith's final report lays out in no uncertain terms federal prosecutors' position that Donald Trump -- who is set to be inaugurated president in less than a week -- would have been convicted on multiple felonies for his alleged efforts to unlawfully overturn the results of the 2020 election, had voters not decided to send him back to the White House in the 2024 election.
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| Image by Hüseyin Sevgi from Pixabay |
The longtime authoritarian leader bemoaned rising divorce rates and people getting married later in life. And he blamed queer people, portraying the LGBTQ movement as part of a foreign conspiracy aimed at undermining his country.
He can't blame me. At the last meeting, I argued it was Liechtenstein we should undermine, but does anyone listen to me?
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| Image by Htc Erl from Pixabay |
You probably didn't hear that Meta's accompanying new guidelines on hate speech allow Facebook and Instagram users to call LGBTQ people mentally ill.
Surprise!
As Zuckerberg and other tech titans rush to prostrate themselves before the incoming presidential weenie, some of us are getting crushed in the unseemly stampede. In his remarks on Tuesday, Zuckerberg cited "recent elections" and "a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech."
And hate.
According to NBC News, Meta guidelines now read, "We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality."
I find myself imagining the Meta employees in Silicon Valley as they crafted that statement. They knew they were serving up dangerous lies in the service of pandering. Did they experience migraines? Ulcers? Frogs, locusts and boils?
I assume the bottom line here is the bottom line: Meta will make money from bigots and idiots blissfully free to call queer people crazy.
I don't have to tell you that we fought that label for a long time. We thought we were done. Now we have to fight it again. Yet another result of the Trump victory, the gift that keeps on giving.
Image: Facebook
The upcoming documentary on Melania’s life will cover her charitable works, her service to her country, her appreciation of the arts and her deep and lasting friendships. It has a running time of just under 2 seconds.
Paul Rudnick
Source: X
