It’s about grappling with something that hurts

Cesar Chavez is considered a civil rights icon. He is a hero to the labor movement, particularly farm worker’s rights. There are a large number of streets, schools, and other things named for him and in 2024 Obama designated March 31 as Cesar Chavez Day in honor of his birthday. But about three weeks ago the New York Times published a yearslong investigation that revealed Chavez abused women and underage girls. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos discussed the report and the fallout. The allegations by the NYT is more than rumors and unsourced accusations, so can’t simply be dismissed. Since the publication Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the United Farm Workers, revealed she had two pregnancies because Chavez raped her. The children were adopted. The left then had to grapple with what to do. Many issued statements condemning Chavez while expressing grief at the downfall of an important man. Efforts began to rename streets and schools, pull down statues, and cover over murals. March 31 was renamed as Farm Workers Day.

Overall, Democrats accepted the revelations and moved to cancel all gestures honoring Chavez while wrestling with heartbreak. Contrast that with how Republicans deal with sexual abuse allegations on their side of the aisle.

When Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, women came forward with allegations of abuse. Republicans worked to discredit the victims and gave Kavanaugh a lifetime seat on the Court. The nasty guy was found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and there was no Republican condemnation.

But Democrats aren’t distancing themselves. They are taking accountability—a thing that the GOP simply doesn’t believe in. It’s about grappling with something that hurts, but realizing that Chavez hurt people far more. ... Denouncing a man who was a hero to many is hard, and it’s sad, and it’s what has to be done.

Last week an Associated Press article posted on Kos reported:

Transgender women athletes are now excluded from women's events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. ... In the U.S., President Trump signed the executive order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” in February last year, and pledged to deny visas to some athletes attempting to compete at the L.A Olympics. The order also threatened to “rescind all funds” from organizations that allowed transgender athletes to take part in women’s sports. Within months the U.S. Olympic body updated its guidance to national sports bodies citing an obligation to comply with the White House.

Transgender World tweeted the reaction of Sophie Labelle to the IOC’s announcement. That was in the form of a bit of history. Gender policing of Olympic women began in the 1936 Nazi Olympics.

Naked parades in front of a jury, gynecological inspections, chromosomal testing, certifications that only richer countries could issue... These were all attempts at gender policing by the Olympic Committee between 1936 and 1996. One after another, these practices were outlawed. They were all found to be flawed, misleading, humiliating, discriminatory, racist, misogynistic. Since 2003, strict guidelines have allowed intersex and trans women to participate. Despite 20 years of inclusion, there has only been one trans women who competed. She did not win any medal. However the I.O.C. has decided to go ahead and bring back gender policing to ban intersex and trans athletes in time for the Nazi Germany Olympics of 2028. Oops, I mean the United States.

Earlier this week Needham reported on a Supreme Court ruling that went against us. It is especially annoying because the decision was 8-1. In 2019 Colorado adopted a law banning conversion therapy for minors. Kaley Chiles, an evangelical Christian therapist, sued in 2022, saying her free speech rights were being violated.

Here’s the logic behind the decision, such as it is: Talk therapy is simply speech, and telling evangelical Christian therapists that they can’t traumatize children into denying their sexual orientation or gender identity therefore restricts those therapists’ speech.

The idea that a law restricting what she can say in therapy restricts her viewpoint brought Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on board.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the lone dissenter, called out why that’s bulls---, writing, “Chiles is not speaking in the ether; she is providing therapy to minors as a licensed healthcare professional.” Exactly. Colorado isn’t stopping Chiles from speaking out in non-therapy settings about how groovy it is to force kids to be straight. Colorado isn’t stopping Chiles from doing conversion talk therapy with adults who can consent to such a thing. Colorado isn’t even fully banning conversion therapy for minors, because the law applies only to licensed therapists and carves out an exemption for those “engaged in the practice of religious ministry.” All Colorado sought to do was stop licensed therapists from using an inherent position of power to force an objectively harmful treatment on a minor child.

Part of why the majority opinion is so bad is it frames the issue as helping the minor person with their own desires to not be queer or trans. And they have those desires because their religious community beats into them that being queer or trans will send them to hell. Robert Ito, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, discussed the increasing difficulties in teaching LGBTQ history. In California some high school history teachers do quite well in integrating our history into their national history courses and other classrooms. It’s a topic important and relevant, especially since more people died of AIDS than died in Vietnam. The effort has been helped by California’s FAIR Education Act, passed 15 years ago. But the law has no penalties for non-compliance and a lot of districts never heard of it so only 37% of self-reporting districts are using FAIR-approved materials across all grade levels. Add to that the nasty guy’s forceful attacks against DEI coupled with people (who may not be parents) who complain to school boards. Then there is the Supreme Court ruling of last June that says parents can opt their children out of LGBTQ instruction. Many teachers become wary of the topic or afraid of the pushback they might get if they start teaching it. So they don’t. Of course, the people hurt most are the LGBTQ students who feel more isolated. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Shanaka Anslem Perera:

JUST IN: You do not fire your Army Chief of Staff in the middle of a war for no reason. You fire him because of what comes next. Pete Hegseth called General Randy George on April 2 and told him to retire immediately. The Pentagon confirmed it within hours. No reason was given.

Randa Slim responded, quoting @fordrs58:

“The question is not why George was fired. Every general in the building knows why. The question is what order is coming in the next fourteen days that required removing the one man in the chain of command who might have said no.”

Pam Bondi has been fired as Attorney General. Glad to see her go, though I doubt her replacement will be any better. That prompted Aaron Blake of CNN to comment:

Attorney general may be the most impossible job in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Trump demands things that are not only ethically problematic, but also that reside somewhere in the space between highly difficult and impossible. Nobody has gotten the balance right.

Bondi served “the shortest tenure for a confirmed attorney general in 60 years.” Dan Pfeiffer, tweeting a discussion of the nasty guy’s recent TV speech to the nation.

The most damning revelation is that the public and the markets have tuned out Trump. Oil prices spiked, and stock markets sank as Trump was speaking. When the public tunes out a 2nd term president, they rarely tune back in.

Another Dan Pfeiffer tweet:

The thing to understand about Pam Bondi’s firing is that she was ousted for incompetently executing on Trump’s corrupt wishes, not resisting them.

In the comments is a cartoon by Mike Luckovich showing Musk telling the world’s poorest “No more free lunch!” while behind him is a huge mound of bags of money marked as “Fed. funds Musk gets.” Dr. Art Garfunky added commentary:

Elon Musk had DOGE defund USAID, the largest humanitarian organization in the world, causing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of deaths from starvation and disease - and Trump GLEEFULLY approved it. It’s the single most evil act in US history.

A tweet by Mehdi Hasan shows a video of Bondi at a Congressional hearing. Hasan added:

Watch shameless sycophant Pam Bondi, who Trump just fired as AG, heap endless and ridiculous praise on Trump. And he still fired her. Amazing. So, so humiliating

. Lady Haha posted a cartoon by Jeff Danzinger. It shows what appears to be a blind man labeled The Draft tapping forward while carrying manacles. Young men, throwing away their red hats, are trying to step out of his way. The caption says, “Young Trumpers Realize They May Face the Draft for Trump’s War.” Just below the cartoons is a comment by learn:

Bondi was fired for not being vindictive enough. From the Republican’s approval they knew she was a bad manager, unqualified for such a large operation and was chosen for putting Trump way before justice. The criticisms about “mishandling” Epstein files meant she wasn’t able to redact and hide fast enough. And her main “failure” was in not effectively persecuting [sic] Trump’s enemies much less forcing indictments. She was fired for not being good at bad.

The solution to most of society’s ills

I really like what my state legislature is doing with its slim Democrat majority. An article by the Associated Press posted on Daily Kos reports:

Michigan lawmakers gave final legislative approval to legislation banning so-called conversion therapy for minors as Democrats in the state continue to advance a pro-LGBTQ+ agenda in their first months in power. The legislation would prohibit mental health professionals from engaging conversion therapy, a scientifically discredited practice of trying to “convert” people are who LGBTQ+ to heterosexuality and traditional gender expectations.

The House had already approved it. The Senate’s approval was 21-15, which included one Republican. It now goes to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Since she’s already called conversion therapy a “dangerous practice,” has done interviews with Michigan’s LGBTQ newspaper, and has a lesbian daughter her signature is pretty much guaranteed. Included in the ban is treatment by a mental health professional that tries to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. It does not include counseling to assist in gender transition.

“Hearing a bunch of straight people in the Senate lecture me about the journey of an LGBTQ person is the exact reason we should be banning conversion therapy,” Democratic Sen. Jeremy Moss, the state’s first openly gay state senator, said on the chamber’s floor Tuesday.

Republicans of North Carolina, wanting more extreme gerrymandering in their state, were pushing the “independent state legislature theory,” idea that the Constitution, in giving state legislatures the ability to create laws on how they run federal elections, means that they can do that without the oversight or interference of the state’s governor, courts, citizens, or constitution. The case went all the way to the federal Supreme Court. Stephen Wolf of Kos Elections reported the Court has now ruled. They mostly said, “nope.” Allowing that idea to stand would have played havoc in federal elections, giving state legislatures free ability to gerrymander, suppress votes, meddle in the outcome, even rig the Electoral College results next year. A few of the current justices had signaled they are open to this idea, which is why it got all the way to them. Thankfully, they voted 6-3, with Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett siding with the progressives. That Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch supported the idea legislatures had no oversight in this area is mighty scary. Above I said the justices “mostly” said nope. They added a little bit saying there may be a few circumstances where the legislature should be able to act without oversight by anyone – except themselves. But they’re not going to tell you what those cases are. Which means legislators will make many attempts to determine those unspoken boundaries. Those attempts will happen leading up to the 2024 election. And that means there will be a threat hanging over the election and there will be more cases before the Court. As for the North Carolina gerrymandering case that was the start of all this... The composition of the state Supreme Court has changed and the legislature will quite likely have good luck there. Senator Josh Hawley, Republican from Missouri, wrote a book, “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs.” A Republican wrote the book? Yeah, we know where this is going. I mentioned it perhaps a couple weeks ago, saying little more than it was roundly panned. Terry Rupar, political editor for The 19th in an article posted on Kos discussed the book with Melissa Deckman, the CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute and an expert on the intersection of gender, religion and politics. Some of the ideas they talked about: The book, like conservative Christians have argued for years (decades?), says the strong family with a husband and wife is the solution to most of society’s ills. One advantage of saying it that way is they don’t have to propose any other policy solutions. Yet they are no longer talking about policies, including tax policies, that would shore up families. Instead, they emphasize working harder and individual responsibility to overcome problems that are structural. The book invokes farmers and small business owners, yet Republicans don’t have any proposals for supporting trade schools and community colleges to get people ready for well-paying blue-collar jobs. There is no support for getting more men into taking teaching jobs or mental health jobs, both would be critical in helping young men. The book talks of masculinity but doesn’t talk about toxic masculinity, the men who commit sexual violence and mass shootings. This is a time of gender identity and the blurring of male and female. The book is written in this time, though this discussion doesn’t say how or whether the book mentions it, though I can guess. Young men, especially young men of color, deal with suicide, have a harder time getting into college, and are less likely to have a job as good as their father’s job. That isn’t discussed in the book. At a time when people are moving away from the church Hawley’s book proposes a conservative religious solution. That leaves out progressive people of faith, the people who take seriously the Bible’s directive to welcome the stranger and that it has meaning for the immigration debate. Not surprisingly, the book says little about women and even less about LGBTQ people. Hawley does say good things. Strong marriages are important. Fathers are important. As is responsibility, independence, sacrificing for the greater good, and providing for one’s family. He recognizes that sexual abuse and assault are not manly. But none of the virtues Hawley praises describe the nasty guy, yet Hawley supported his election challenge in 2020.

Few petroleum engineering graduates

April Siese of Daily Kos reported that in 2017 the number of graduates with petroleum engineering degrees was more than 2,300. This year there are 400 graduates. Baby Boomer workers are retiring and there won’t be enough young workers to replace them. Working in Big Oil was a way to earn big bucks, especially when profits are high, as they are now. But Millennials and GenZ link job satisfaction to how a company or industry treats the environment. And a petroleum job is now seen as unappealing. Instead, these kids are studying renewables and sustainability. Big Oil can’t get enough workers? That’s another way to shut them down. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported recent polls show the approval rating of the Supreme Court continues to decline and now showing more disapproval. Also, in generic ballot matchups independent voters continue their shift to Democrats. Aysha Qamar of Kos reported a new Arizona law has made it illegal for people to make video recordings of police officers within eight feet of them. In addition to being Constitutionally suspect it also erodes police accountability and trust. Arizona House Democrats tweeted, “Republicans want cameras on teachers & kids but not police.” Ron Filipkowski, who is an attorney, historian, and former Republican, tweeted:

Based upon one complaint that the state’s new anti-CRT law was violated at a staff training seminar, OK Gov Kevin Stitt announces today he is launching an investigation of the Tulsa Public School system.

To which Ruth Ben-Ghiat added:

Authoritarianism requires the creation of legal frameworks that then allow political enemies to be harassed and silenced on a grand scale.

In a post from a couple weeks ago Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported on a continuing trend of conservatives saying parents who take children to such places as Drag Queen Story Hour are committing child abuse and should have their children taken away. The parents should perhaps even be put in jail. Add in all the rhetoric about LGBTQ people falsely accused of being pedophiles and groomers coupled with America’s gun fetish things could get deadly for LGBTQ people and their parents and others who love them. The next day Marissa Higgins of Kos reported Proud Boys, a hate group, gathered around the Pine Valley Library in North Carolina to yell at parents and kids entering for a Pride story time. Reports are unclear whether the Boys were just in the parking lot or had gotten as far as outside of the room where the event was held. Either way many kids were terrorized. And the far right is getting good at terrorizing kids. In a more uplifting story Lilly Quiroz of NPR’s Life Kit talked to Milena Gioconda Davis about sex education for queer kids. These kids may not be tied to existing gender narratives and can explore outside the norms and patterns. Sex can be anything that brings pleasure coupled with arousal. It doesn’t need to end in orgasm. Get to know your body and what pleasure feels like to you and what doesn’t. Understand your own sexual needs and wants. Take the messages from the world and see if they fit. If they don’t fit, get rid of them. Now when you add another person to the mix you already have a guidebook on what is and isn’t pleasurable you can share with that person. Since that guidebook can change and since consent is important share that guidebook frequently. Also listen to what is and isn’t pleasurable for the other person. Most sexually transmitted diseases are treatable so they are not a mark of shame and they do not mean your sex life is over. In a post that’s been in my browser tabs for nearly four months Ortiz discussed a new peer-reviewed study that looks at the cost of the harm done by debunked “conversion therapy.” The cost of just the therapy is about $650 million a year. The cost of the harms associated with the therapy – the substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts – is estimated to be another $8.58 billion. Research from the Trevor Project found that youth who were subjected to such therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide than those were not. And 40% of LGBTQ kids have considered suicide. Traumatizing kids who attend LGBTQ events, declaring parents who approve of LGBTQ people should have their kids taken away, and Don’t Say Gay bills only make more of these kids consider suicide.

Only a blip

I will be taking three trips this summer. The first one starts Wednesday. My performance group is going on a two day tour. We are giving a home concert tomorrow night (more like a dress rehearsal), then a concert in central Pennsylvania on Saturday and another south of Cleveland on Sunday. Between the home concert and the PA concert I’ll be spending time with my brother near Pittsburgh. That means I don’t have to depart Detroit at 6:00 am Saturday morning, though I do have to be on the road that early Sunday morning.

All that to say I won’t be posting the rest of this week.

On to the little things that have been accumulating in my browser tabs.

E. Jean Carroll published an account of the nasty guy raping her back in the mid 1990s. She is the 22nd woman to accuse the US President of sexual assault.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville and others note how much this rape story is not front page news in every newspaper across the country. It did not get discussed in the Sunday morning talk shows. The careers of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and many others were ended by such scandals. But the President? Silence.

Which prompted Mikel Jollett to tweet:

A sitting US President is credibly accused of RAPE by a famous writer and there are NO front page headlines in the @NYTimes. A woman manages her emails poorly: [NYT front page showing the headline: “New emails jolt Clinton Campaign in race’s last days.”]

As the nasty guy inflames tensions with Iran and threatening then calling off an attack, Polly Sigh tweeted:

Just a terrifying reminder as Trump does whatever the hell he's doing with Iran, that not only has the Pentagon been without a permanent leader for 6 months, but there has also been a mass exodus of senior Pentagon officials over the past 6 months. A perilous time to have temps running the Pentagon. An acting Secretary of Defense won't have all of the decision-making power they need when the nation is at war in several countries and conducting major military operations in dozens.

The Washington Post reported that federal officials and GOP campaigns have been staying at nasty guy properties, bringing his private businesses $1.6 million in revenue. McEwan says this should be a scandal, but it will only be a blip. This self-enrichment alone should be enough for impeachment.

Yahoo Finance reports that Amazon had a profit of $11.2 billion in 2018. Taxes paid: zero. I’ve written before that one becomes a billionaire by exploiting and oppressing others. By not paying taxes Amazon is oppressing others by underfunding schools and the social safety net (and that’s just a start).



Jim Hightower through his Hightower Lowdown discusses the USMCA, the United States Mexico Canada deal that is to replace NAFTA. Yeah, there are some really nice things in the deal. One is some new great worker protections.

But the deal also had a great deal of input from Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Food and other corporations. Those worker protections are great – but the deal provides no way to enforce them.

So labor leaders are now telling their members about the deal. The good parts are worthwhile. Let’s keep them. And talk to your Congress person about revising the rest.



Jo Yurcaba, writing for Bustle wrote of a watershed moment. Twenty-three candidates for the Democratic nomination for president were at a Planned Parenthood forum on reproductive rights held in South Carolina. A non-binary person asked candidate Julián Castro how he would expand sexual reproductive health care access for trans people. A person who is non-binary is one who thinks of themselves as either both male and female or neither male nor female. Before answering Castro did something wonderful, he asked the person what pronouns they preferred. This is a really big deal for trans and non-binary people. It says I want to honor you for who you are. That a candidate knows to ask the question is also a big deal. This guy gets it. Castro’s answer to the actual question was pretty good too!



An NBC News report says, “An estimated 10,000 LGBTQ youth have been spared from conversion therapy due to state bans, report finds.”

Leah McElrath tweeted:

EXCELLENT NEWS!

But, remember, this torture of #LGBTQ folks (it’s not “therapy” — it’s literal torture) is supported by Mike Pence.

And you can bet there is something in the works at a federal level to try to supersede state bans.

Claire Rudy Foster writes for Catapult about his transition to male (the article is in the first person so I’m not sure which pronouns Claire prefers). He wants a lower voice and maybe a beard, but masculinity is scary.
https://catapult.co/stories/hormone-replacement-therapy-masculinity-sweetness-foster

In my mind, masculinity was linked with lack. Men were greedy because they were deprived of intimacy and pleasure, the rich experiences women share with one another. Grown men didn’t cuddle. They didn’t laugh until they cried, or eat an entire bag of caramels because their feelings were hurt. They didn’t know the balm of hearing their friends say “you are so lovable” when their hearts were aching. A man’s role was to take power, control his emotions, and tell everyone else what to do. To me, trading estrogen for testosterone meant agreeing to live behind a thick, unbreakable pane of glass, separated: both policing the rest of the world and unable to enjoy it for yourself.

His father was like that. So were most of the men and boys he knew. He remembered a man who was different, his grandfather. There was a model to grow toward. Claire saw what male supremacy does to men.

Not a hard choice

All remaining Supreme Court decisions, marriage equality included, are to be handed down tomorrow or Monday. I think there are five big decisions to go. Sources I've seen say the marriage issue will probably come out Monday. Maybe, just maybe you can start planning your wedding on Tuesday.



There is a lot of news of various governmental bodies, groups, and businesses deciding to remove or no longer sell the Confederate flag. Good news! Melissa McEwen of Shakesville notes these actions won't rid us of the image completely (nobody is yet calling for it to be criminalized for being on pickup trucks). McEwen also notes removing this symbol will not eradicate racism or white supremacy. But it is a potent symbol and removing it from a state capitol is important.

Alas, there are some who are trumpeting a flag more evil than the Confederate Stars and Bars – the rainbow gay pride flag.



Yeah, Donald Trump announced he is a candidate for president. I didn't read or listen to his announcement, though apparently it contained a great deal of Mexico-bashing. In response Dalton Ramirez of Mexico City created an easy way to do some Trump-bashing. He created a Trump pinata. Yes, a pinata is the figure hung from someplace high at which children swing sticks to break it open to spill out the candy.



The Satanic Temple has filed a lawsuit in Missouri against harmful abortion restrictions. The Temple says the laws have no legitimate secular purpose and violate their member's First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion. They argue that when life begins is a religious question and the state has no business proselytizing religious beliefs. I'm very interested in how this might play out.



A state jury trial in New Jersey has declared gay "conversion therapy" to be fraudulent. The group JONAS had been offering conversion therapy and some of its customers sued under the state's Consumer Fraud Act. There are two false premises in the group's promotional material: (1) Gay people are broken and need to be fixed. (2) Their therapy actually does that fixing. But this therapy has been extensively discredited and shown to be harmful. Hopefully, the case will lead to more lawsuits or states (or Congress) banning such therapy. There's still the big idea to counter – a homophobic culture that drives people to seek conversion therapy.



The Global Sustainability Institute along with the UK Foreign Office and Lloyds of London insurance and others have issued the results of new research. Using system dynamics modeling they saw, based on plausible climate trends and a total failure to change course, by mid-century the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses. This would result in an epidemic of food riots, as food production falls short of consumption, and a collapse of global society. This isn't a "will happen" but a "will happen if we don't do something." So let's start slashing carbon pollution and start adaptations to minimize the impact. "It isn’t really that hard a choice."

Failed reparative-therapy

Matthew Murray, the gunman in Colorado Springs who recently opened fire in Ted Haggard's New Life Church and killed several people, apparently was gay. He was filled with rage because (1) he did everything he was supposed to as part of the reparative-therapy program and was still booted out, (2) the church forgave Ted Haggard but not him, and (3) after all that work Jesus failed to cure him of his homosexuality.