Tag: Civil rights

Activism, Crazy Republicans, Embarrassing Republicans, Equal rights, Ethics, Extremism, Fake patriotism, Fake Religiosity, Firearms, Gun violence, Human rights, Intolerance, Magical thinking, politics, Religion, Religious hypocrisy, Separation of Church and State, Trump Insanity, Women

Oklahoma is just the beginning of what life will be like under Republican rule

by Anne Landman • June 13, 2022 • 25 Comments

In late May 2022, Oklahoma once again passed the nation’s worst abortion ban, making it the first state to effectively end women’s right to have an abortion, and making this article, that I first published on May 20, 2019, even more relevant.

Oklahoma Republicans just passed a mind-blowingly strict law that makes abortion illegal in virtually every circumstance, effectively terminating the right of women in the state to control their own bodies and reproductive fate.

Oklahoma wasn’t alone in this, either. Other Republican-dominated states are also enacting extremely strict laws that effectively make abortion illegal, with some banning the procedure as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Republicans base these laws on their belief that a fetus is a fully legal person entitled to all the rights and privileges that all legal American citizens enjoy.

But if actually put into effect, what do these beliefs really portend for life in America?

Trump campaign threatens KREX

by Anne Landman • April 2, 2020 • 7 Comments

KREX received a cease-and-desist letter (pdf) from President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign threatening the station over a political ad it ran called “Exponential Threat” produced by Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC.

The ad juxtaposes a montage of the many dismissive comments Trump made about the Coronavirus pandemic earlier this year with an animated chart showing the rising number of infections in the United States. It ends by saying: “America needs a leader we can trust.”

The Trump campaign sent the threatening letter to television stations across the country, suggesting it would sue the stations for defamation and urge the Federal Communications Commission to revoke their FCC licenses.

What to do if ICE comes knocking: Know your rights

by Anne Landman • July 14, 2019 • 0 Comments

On the same day Trump’s raids on immigrant families are scheduled to start (today), Trump issued a series of tweets that make his racism very clear:

“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly…… ….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how……..it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”

Trump and his administration are working to create terror in immigrant communities throughout the U.S. by directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carry out sweeping “family op” raids across the country on undocumented immigrant families who have been in the United States for years.

Rep. Jared Polis to open Grand Junction office Sat., Jan. 6 at 10:00 a.m.

by Anne Landman • January 2, 2018 • 1 Comment

Rep. Jared Polis

House Rep. Jared Polis is running for Colorado governor and will officially open his Grand Junction office this coming Saturday, January 6 at 10:00 a.m. at 421 Colorado Ave.

Polis is a new-age candidate. He is an entrepreneur who started several successful internet businesses. He is the first openly gay parent in Congress and a champion of education. Polis has served on the Colorado State Board of Education, and served a single six-year term until his district was eliminated. He created a foundation that gives annual Teacher Recognition Awards. In 2004, Polis established the charter school, “New America School,” a high school that primarily serves older immigrant youth ages 16–21.

Read the fine print: Republican “tax reform” bill injects religious dogma into the tax code

by Anne Landman • November 5, 2017 • 21 Comments

You don’t typically think of a tax reform bill as a vehicle to push a religious agenda onto the rest of the country, but Trump’s “tax reform” bill does exactly that.

Buried deep inside the Republicans’ proposed “tax reform” bill is a provision conferring rights on “unborn children,” which the bill defines as “a child in utero…a member of the species Homo Sapiens, at any stage of development.” The provision appears on page 93 of the 429-page bill, in a section amending the rules on “529 plans,” which are tax-free investment accounts that allow families to save for a child’s college education. People have long been able to set up 529 plans for children that don’t yet exist, but changing the wording of the law intentionally enshrines recognition of the unborn into federal law, something anti-abortion activists and supporters of fetal “personhood” have long sought to do.

Trump’s tax reform bill is full of tricks

Cidney Fisk Sues the Delta County School District

by Anne Landman • September 26, 2017 • 13 Comments

Cidney Fisk, speaking at California Freethought Day last fall

Cidney Fisk filed a lawsuit (pdf) Monday, September 25, 2017, against the Delta County Joint School District 50J for sabotaging her grades and college scholarship opportunities because of opinions she expressed publicly while in their school system, and due to her atheistic beliefs. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for economic and emotional distress.

Cidney appeared on the front page of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel on April 1, 2016, criticizing the Delta County School District (DCSD) for persistent Christian proselytizing on school grounds during school hours. After she was quoted in the paper, her counselors threatened to tank her college scholarships and her teachers gave her failing grades. Cidney was an A+ student throughout her time in high school, was on the debate team, served in student government as treasurer, wrote for the school paper and had amassed over 400 hours of community service by the time she was a senior.

Local Public Discussion Tonight about Charlottesville, Racism and the Difficulties Local Minorities Face, Hosted by Black Lives Matter GJ

by Anne Landman • August 16, 2017 • 0 Comments

Local KKK flier

Are you disgusted and distressed with Donald Trump putting neo-Nazi hate groups on the same moral footing as the people opposing them? Disgusted with the outright bigotry being manifested in our country?

Many local residents are.

As more fliers promoting the KKK turn up around the Grand Valley, racist supremacists cause violence and death in Charlottesville and hate is increasingly manifested more freely even right here in Mesa County, Black Lives Matter-Grand Junction is opening up its monthly meeting to everyone tonight so citizens can air their thoughts on the recent acts of hatred being displayed in Charlottesville and even in our own town.

Donald Trump’s Tweet from Early This Morning (which he quickly deleted)

by Anne Landman • August 15, 2017 • 0 Comments

Early this morning, just days after a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing a woman, President Trump retweeted an image of a Trump train running over a CNN reporter. The image was originally posted by an “alt-right” conspiracy theorist and Trump fan. Trump quickly deleted the post after it sparked criticism as being highly inappropriate just days after the Charlottesville violence.

Here is the tweet Trump sent to his nearly 36 million followers:

Atheism, Diversity, Equal rights, Ethnic/Minority, Fake patriotism, Human rights, politics, Religious hypocrisy, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Weird Grand Junction Stuff

Grand Junction’s Satanic Invocation a Success, More Diversity Likely Coming Soon

by Anne Landman • August 3, 2017 • 1 Comment

Grand Junction, Colorado’s first Satanic invocation went off without a hitch yesterday evening, with an audience of about 50 interested onlookers and five out of seven city council members present.

The audience and was quiet and respectful as the speaker made the following statement to Council:

Don’t Be Fooled: Saying the Pledge of Allegiance, Now a Religious Oath, is Always Optional

by Anne Landman • September 9, 2016 • 5 Comments

The text of the original Pledge of Allegiance, as it existed until 1953. In 1954, Congress added the words “under God” to it, effectively changing it from a purely patriotic statement into a religious statement.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s recent refusal to stand during the playing of the national anthem has spurred debate over coerced and often perfunctory recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance.

In reaction to the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, people started reciting the Pledge more frequently, on more occasions and in more venues than ever before. Many U.S. public schools starting requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily. Mesa County’s District 51’s student handbook (pdf, at page 35) says students get an “opportunity” and have the “right” to say the pledge, but it never expressly says in a neutral manner that students also have a legal right not to say it. Rather, the manual practically sneers at students who choose not to say the pledge by using language that infers such students are likely to be disruptive and disrespectful in doing so:

“If you feel, based on personal convictions or religious beliefs, that you do not want to recite the Pledge or salute the flag, we ask you to remain respectfully silent, not interfering with the
rights of others to recite the Pledge and salute the flag.”

Corporations Flee ALEC — Will More Follow?

by Anne Landman • April 10, 2012 • 0 Comments

ALEC protest in Arizona in 2011

Kraft Foods, Coke, Pepsi, Intuit and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have all pulled their support of the controversial corporate bill mill the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Now Common Cause, a nonprofit public interest advocacy organization, is circulating a petition urging McDonalds, State Farm Insurance and Johnson & Johnson to cut their ties to ALEC. ALEC has been revealed as a driving force behind so-called Shoot-First laws that led to the Trayvon Martin killing and increased citizen vigilantism, “Voter ID” bills that deny millions of U.S. citizens a right to vote and attacks on public schools that divert taxpayer money to charter and private schools. ALEC is a members-only group that exposes state legislators to corporate lobbyists several times throughout the year at conferences and gatherings at tony beach-front spa and golf resorts. Legislators pay a small fee to belong to ALEC, but corporations pay tens of thousands of dollars to become members. Corporate members gain direct access to legislators at ALEC-sponsored events. You can read more about ALEC at ALECExposed.org.

Ethics, politics

Republicans Circumvent Democracy in Michigan

by Anne Landman • April 6, 2012 • 0 Comments

A judge has ruled that Republicans in control Michigan’s House of Representatives have been violating their state’s constitution by failing to hold recorded votes on bills. Instead, the House Speaker has been asking members of the legislature stand to indicate their support for a new law taking immediate effect, and no official count was conducted. Democrats had been asking for votes to be officially recorded, but Republicans refused and kept using so-called “standing votes.” The Democrats sued the Republicans in court, and a Circuit Court judge ruled that Republicans have been violating the state’s constitution by failing to acknowledge Democrats’ repeated requests for recorded votes. The judge issued a restraining order against House Republicans ordering them to hold recorded votes whenever a minimum of 22 Democrats request one. The state’s constitution requires a roll call be conducted whenever one fifth of the House members request one. On another front, the city of Detroit narrowly escaped coming under the state’s new emergency financial manager law enacted in 2011, known as Public Act 4, which allows the state to seize control of financially troubled cities, install an “emergency manager” of the governor’s choosing, terminate city contracts and block elected city officials from making any decisions. So far, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has appointed emergency managers in four Michigan cities: Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Flint and Pontiac.

Main source: Detroit News, April 2, 2012

Ethics, Safety, Secrecy

Justice for Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr.

by Anne Landman • April 2, 2012 • 0 Comments

By now millions of people know about of the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida. Far fewer, though, know about the equally, if not more tragic killing of Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr. an elderly veteran with a heart condition who lived in White Plains, New York, who was killed by police in his own home last November. Around 5:30 a.m. on the morning of November 19, 2011, Chamberlain, 68, unknowingly triggered the medical-alert pendant he wore around his neck while he was sleeping. The medical alert company contacted Chamberlain’s apartment through a speaker box in the dining room to ask if he was all right. When Chamberlain didn’t respond, the company called 911 and told police they were responding to a medical emergency, not a crime. The police arrived at Chamberlain’s house and knocked on the door. Chamberlain woke up, went to the door and told the police that he was fine and that he didn’t call them. The police insisted on gaining entry to Chamberlain’s home, though, insisting that they wanted to see that he was all right. Chamberlain kept refusing to open the door and asking them to leave. Finally, after about an hour of this standoff, the officers, uttering racial slurs and expletives, broke down Mr. Chamberlain’s front door. Once inside, they fired a taser at Mr. Chamberlain. The taser prongs apparently missed Mr. Chamberlain and one of the officers shot Mr. Chamberlain in the chest, killing him.