No way to talk about Stonewall without trans people

My Sunday movie was Veselka. It’s a documentary about a Ukrainian restaurant in the Little Ukraine neighborhood of Manhattan. The name means “Rainbow.” The movie describes it as “The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World.” The restaurant was started by Wolodymyr many decades ago, then turned over to his son-in-law Tom. As the story opens Tom is giving control to his son Jason. Jason’s nephew Justin is the fourth generation involved in running the place. Also on staff are Vitali, a manager, and Dima, a grill master, both from Ukraine. We hear their stories. There are also several cooks from Ukraine who seem to be constantly making pierogi. The first complication was the pandemic. When sidewalk dining becomes available their clientele supported them. The second, bigger, complication was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Vitali’s mother tells him no you’re not coming back to Ukraine to fight in the war, as my only child I want you safe in New York. Jason begins a push to make sure his employees have green cards and to begins rescuing their families. He’s delighted that a refugee process that used to take years can suddenly produce results in a month. The restaurant declares for every serving of borscht they will donate to help Ukraine. They have shirts made that say “My Heart Beets for Ukraine.” They also receive donations of supplies of all kinds which they turn over to the area’s Ukrainian church. This is a marvelous example of a small group doing all they can to build up and take care of their community. I recommend it. I’ve known about the movie for quite a while, perhaps shortly after it was released about a year ago. Finding a streaming service took a while – I watched it on Fandango at Home. Alas, I didn’t think about it when I went to New York last summer. Now I want to pay a visit. The movie shows the effects of the war on people – the worry on Vitali’s face when he can’t reach his mother, the stories refugees tell when they come to the restaurant, their bafflement trying to figure out why Putin invaded. It also shows the support Americans showed during the first year of the war. So it is outrageous to now see the nasty guy appears to be siding with Putin. Juliana Kim of NPR reported:

The National Park Service website exploring the history and significance of the Stonewall Uprising has been stripped of any mention of transgender people. The page was also updated to remove the "T" from the previously used acronym "LGBTQ+" — now, referring to the community as either "LGB" or "LGBQ." References to the word "queer" have also been removed.

Those who know LGBTQ history in America know the importance of the Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Uprising in 1969 which ignited the LGBTQ rights movement. Those people also know how central transgender people were to battling police over those few days. Isabella Gomez Sarmiento of NPR reported on the scores of people who gathered outside the Stonewall National Monument to protest the removal of transgender people from the website. Included in the story is historian Nikita Shepard:

There's absolutely no way that you can tell the story of Stonewall and the Stonewall uprising or of the broader history of gender and sexuality without talking about trans people. ... Whatever the Trump administration says, whatever the websites of the, you know, Parks Department says, we have always been here. We are here, and we will continue to be here.

And from Angelica Christina, board director of the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, said:

It is deeply offensive and such a slap in the face for what the National Park Service did in attempting to erase trans people and queer people from their website.

In what is now a regular column on Daily Kos Emily Singer reported on the lame excuses (or approval) various Republicans are giving for the nasty guy’s illegal and unconstitutional actions. This week’s edition is about the claim that the nasty guy can do whatever he wants. Wrote Singer:

Republicans agreed with the false statement that the courts are not allowed to check the president’s power—when that’s exactly what the Constitution dictates.

So, no, Republicans are not going to demand we as a country must uphold the Constitution. Irontortoise of the Kos community quoted a report in Raw Story about Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX):

"There’s an immigrant taking people’s jobs… his name is Elon Musk," the lawmaker wrote. "He’s snatching farms, government jobs (even those in which they manage our national security), and definitely those whose jobs are to root out fraud (inspector generals), & those that are keeping us safe (FAA), meals on wheels workers, head start, and the list goes on, so I’ll be the bigger person and admit to MAGA that I was wrong when I said immigrants wouldn’t take our jobs. You were 1000 percent correct."

Lisa Needham of Kos reported that religious groups are taking the nasty guy’s deportation policy to court, in particular the part that gives ICE agents permission to enter churches to carry out raids. The religious groups are basing their case on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

It prohibits the government from substantially burdening someone’s exercise of their religious beliefs, even if it stems from a generally applicable rule, unless the government shows that the burden is the least restrictive means of pursuing a compelling government interest.

The right has used the RFRA for a lot of mischief, such as the ruling “holding that the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate violated the religious freedom of the evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby.” The religious groups are saying caring for immigrants is core to their faith, as is such things as running food pantries and preschools. They also say their faith requires them to worship together in person – the same argument used by conservative churches against COVID stay at home orders. All that means is if ICE can arrest people in a house of worship that burdens their ability to exercise their religious beliefs. Their beliefs are already being harmed because so many are scared to come to services. This should be an obvious win for religious groups because the original policy already has lots of exceptions that cover any situation the nasty guy’s lawyers could come up with, such as imminent risk of death or harm, a threat to national security, or of evidence was about to be destroyed. Yeah, courts have sided with RFRA claims, but hard telling what these courts will do. Denise Oliver Velez of Kos posts a column on Caribbean matters each week. In this episode she discussed yellow journalism. In the 1890s the Linotype printers led to a massive surge in newspaper production. And they all wanted as many readers as possible. Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst had rival New York papers. Both wanted the Yellow Kid cartoon. Both used outrageous headlines and sensational articles, which became known as yellow journalism. The USS Maine exploded and sunk in Havana Harbor on Feb. 15, 1898, killing 266. Within days newspapers blamed Spain. Evidence was suspicious or fabricated. Once that idea took hold both Pulitzer and Hearst demanded action and goaded President William McKinley into a military response. Both papers profited from the American hysteria. Velez quoted M. Mallon, writing for the Urban Fictionary

Yellow journalism was so successful because it did not create an unfamiliar narrative, but rather buttressed its audience’s existing perceptions. The ongoing conflict between Cuba and Spain had already captured the American attention, so the public was poised to receive proof to support their ill will [towards Spain]. Because of this, Hearst and Pulitzer managed to deeply influence public opinion, despite the fact that they had fabricated information surrounding the culprit.

Does any of that sound similar to what’s going on today? At the end of the Spanish-American war the US had possession of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. America declared itself to be Puerto Rico’s liberator, and is still in Puerto Rico and Guam. That war also played havoc with Cuban independence. The peace treaty was between Spain and the US and Cuba wasn’t at the negotiating table. The US Navy established a base at Guantanamo Bay even though it was very unpopular with Cubans. So “Remember the Maine” and what it was really about. At the bottom of this post is an 8 minute video that explains the Spanish-American War. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted John Harwood of Zeteo:

Democratic strategists and commentators have spent weeks diagnosing the party’s ills, for good reason: They just lost an election they expected to win. But for the American body politic, that represents the equivalent of examining a sprained ankle while ignoring a gaping chest wound. The gaping chest wound is the moral and intellectual collapse of the Republican Party. The GOP’s descent into nihilism has become so familiar as to almost escape notice. Indeed, the reason Democratic shortcomings attract more scrutiny is that serious-minded people now take for granted that only Democrats remain capable of running our government consistent with the rule of law.

Nice imagery. But if people say only Democrats can run the government consistent with the rule of law, why didn’t they win last November? Was it something about “serious-minded people?” The Economist reported Musk and DOGE won’t get far in cutting the federal budget. “No matter how aggressive DOGE is, its actions are focused on barely more than a tenth of the overall federal budget.” I reply that though the DOGE boys won’t get anywhere near their goal of $2 trillion, they can wreak a great deal of havoc on the lives of Americans to achieve their small gains. Well wait – this article says that DOGE won’t go after Social Security and health care, which make up two-thirds of federal spending, and Musk and his minions have been talking about just that. Seth Masket of Tusk says one reason why Musk is so successful in targeting USAID, the Treasury payment system, and the indirect costs cut at NIH is because Americans are unaware of them and what little they know they don’t like. In the case of USAID Americans have a vastly inflated estimate of how much foreign aid American provides. In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing:

“He who save his country violates no law.” -- Napoleon Bonaparte

That was retweeted by the nasty guy. Harry Sisson added:

Donald Trump just posted this. He’s doubling down on his quote. He wants to be a dictator. He’s not hiding hit.

Back to that quote. First, yeah, it was said by a dictator. Second, I see that and think saved from who and for who? Those are particularly important questions for the nasty guy. Way down in the comments is a tweet from Pete Buttigieg:

If you wanted to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, you would empower the inspectors general. If you wanted more waste, fraud, and abuse, you would fire them.