January 26, 2025

Churches have a long history of being safe havens -- for immigrants and others

U.S. churches — once deemed off-limits to immigration authorities due to their "sensitive" status within communities — now face the prospect of federal agents arresting migrants within their walls, under a new Trump administration policy.

The new approach, which President Trump spoke of in a December interview, also applies to schools. The administration said it will trust agents to "use common sense" when enforcing immigration laws.

It's an abrupt about-face for federal policies that had hewn much closer to decades and centuries of tradition. Migrants have long found support systems in houses of worship, including some churches that 40 years ago became sanctuaries for people facing deportation.

In the 1800s, U.S. churches gave safe harbor to enslaved people; during the Vietnam War, they sheltered people resisting the military draft.

Just last week, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, implored newly inaugurated President Trump to "have mercy" on immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. and residents who "may not be citizens or have proper documentation."

A similar pattern spans back to the early years of Christianity, of churches offering people refuge.

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/26/nx-s1-5273652/church-safe-haven-history-immigrants

It's going to be interesting when a pastor or priest stands in the church door.....

January 26, 2025

Bishop Budde was right to speak truth to Trump

By Sophia A. Nelson

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and America’s third president, is why religious freedom is enshrined in the First Amendment. Jefferson started writing about “religious freedom” when America was still a British colony. While serving as ambassador to France, Jefferson wrote letters to James Madison, encouraging him to include religious freedom in the Constitution. In 1777, Jefferson drafted a bill to establish religious liberty in Virginia based on what he deemed the inalienable right to freedom of conscience. In 1779, he proposed it to the Virginia legislature, but it was opposed by the Church of England. The legislature eventually approved it, but only after Jefferson left office as governor.

Jefferson saw religious freedom as essential for a functioning republic. He was right.

In America, we do not have kings or tyrants. We respect each other’s liberty and the right to worship as we choose or not to worship at all. That makes us unique in the world. It draws other people from around the world to the United States. No state-sanctioned religion. No state-sanctioned church. And our priests, bishops, pastors, rabbis, clerics and clergy are empowered by that freedom to preach unfettered the word of God to their parishioners, to the public and, yes, to heads of state who attend their services. That is America at her finest.

Yet, somehow a portion of the Republican Party, including President Donald Trump and his followers, many of whom profess to love the lord and demand the Ten Commandments be displayed in schools, have decided that it is OK to attack a bishop, Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Church of Washington, for her humble and respectful plea to simply show the least of these among us — our fellow citizens — compassion.

I am not sure how we got here, but this level of corrosive destruction and disrespect for our constitutional order is not sustainable. It is unthinkable for a sitting president to demand a bishop apologize to him because he did not like her speech at a church service he was attending. Worse is the number of so-called leaders, from House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to Ambassador Mike Huckabee — avowed Christians — who attacked the bishop as “inappropriate” or worse.

https://www.ajc.com/opinion/opinion-bishop-budde-was-right-to-speak-truth-to-trump/UJB3SWQG6NFCBLNILCECVF4QDE/

Complete zinger of an op-ed, and worth the read.

January 26, 2025

Here's a real rude question

Does Eloon hate women, is he scared of women, or is he basically impotent with ACTUAL women? Because it appears that all or most of his offspring are born by artificial insemination or IVF.

January 25, 2025

Florida Jan. 6 defendant is arrested again after pardon from Trump

A man from Florida whom President Donald Trump pardoned for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was arrested again Wednesday on a federal gun charge.

Daniel Charles Ball was being held in pretrial detention in Washington on multiple charges related to the Capitol attack when a U.S. district judge dismissed his charges. But Ball remained in federal custody on an outstanding arrest warrant from Florida.

Prosecutors alleged that on Jan. 6, 2021, he entered the Capitol and broke a window shutter, before later throwing a device at law enforcement officers that exploded in the Lower West Terrace tunnel of the building.

Ball was one of more than 1,500 people charged in the Capitol attack — including many who were convicted of violent offenses that day — who received pardons from Trump. The president also commuted the sentences of 14 others and put an end to hundreds of pending Jan. 6 prosecutions, including Ball’s.

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/jan-6-florida-man-gun-charge-trump-pardon-rcna189028

Well, well. Raise your hand if you're surprised.

January 25, 2025

Bridgestone announces a tire plant closure in Tennessee with 700 layoffs and other reductions

Tire manufacturer Bridgestone Americas is closing its LaVergne, Tennessee, truck and bus radial tire plant and laying off 700 workers there, the company announced in a news release.

Bridgestone said the closure will help the company “optimize its business footprint” and “strengthen its competitiveness.”

In addition, Bridgestone announced capacity and workforce reductions at its Des Moines, Iowa, agriculture tire plant and additional workforce reductions in U.S. corporate, sales and operations. In Latin America, it plans reductions in workforce and production capacity in Argentina and Brazil.

“Reductions in force are impacting our corporate, sales and operations in the Americas where a realignment of staffing levels is needed in response to the challenging economic environment,” company spokesperson Emily Weaver said in an email. “Of our nearly 44,000 teammates across North America and Latin America, just under 4% of our teammates are leaving the company as part of the voluntary and involuntary workforce reductions.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bridgestone-announces-tire-plant-closure-tennessee-700-layoffs-reducti-rcna189277

Does this sound like "economic improvement"? I ask you.

January 25, 2025

Recent school shooters appear to have crossed paths in online extremist groups

Two teenagers who carried out deadly shootings before killing themselves at their respective high schools in attacks roughly a month apart from each other appear to have crossed paths online, according to a new joint report from ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch.

The first shooting took place on 16 December at the Abundant Life Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. Two people – a teacher and a 14-year-old student – were killed by the shooter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, before she killed herself.

On Wednesday morning, Solomon Henderson, a 17-year-old student at Antioch high school in the Nashville area, killed a fellow student after firing 10 shots in a school cafeteria. Henderson then died of a self-inflicted gunshot.

Extremism researchers who have been studying the online profiles of the two shooters in the aftermath of their attacks believe the two interacted online – specifically in extremist groups that the researchers say radicalize the young teenagers to commit violence. In these online circles, members glorify violent attacks and share tips on how to perpetrate acts of violence, along with promoting white supremacist, antisemitic beliefs.

There is no indication Henderson and Rupnow planned their different attacks and suicides together. But in the weeks before her attack, Rupnow reshared on X a post from Henderson that wished a happy Veterans Day to a man who killed 15 people in a mass shooting at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/25/school-shooters-online-extremist-groups

This is odd. Initially I had thought this to be possibly an "intimate partner" murder-suicide, with the other kid just getting in the way. Apparently it was not at all.

January 24, 2025

Now that he's pulled Fauci's security, I am seriously worried

How long before he pulls it from all the former presidents? We know how much he hates (= is jealous of) Obama and even Biden, but what about Clinton? And what about even Shrub?

I'm not so much worried about the enemy without, either. I'm much more worried about the enemy WITHIN. Any of his crazies could do any damn thing at any damn minute. You think they couldn't? Give 'em an inch....

January 24, 2025

Immigration red cards: The internet rallies to protect undocumented community

In the wake of Trump's sweeping promises to "reform" the country's immigration processes, crackdown on "illegal immigrants," and repeal birthright citizenship (among several other terrifying promises to deport people en masse), the internet is arming their undocumented community members with the power of constitutional knowledge.

After signing multiple executive orders and shutting down the CBP One app, Trump is set to sign his first immigration bill, mandating the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with crimes, but migrant advocates and their allies are focusing on people in immediate need first. And their primary order of business is to get as much information, predominantly through widely-used immigration "red cards," into the hands of undocumented people as possible — all while waiting out how Trump's anti-green card decisions play out in court.

Red cards (tarjetas rojas) are assertively eye-catching Know Your Rights resources popularized and disseminated by Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), a national nonprofit immigration resource hub.

The simple paper cards act as a defense against illegal entry and search by government entities, helping "people assert their rights and defend themselves in many situations, such as when ICE agents go to a home," the ILRC explains. Individuals are encouraged to refrain from speaking or opening the door to immigration agents if they are approached, instead offering the multilingual red cards as a response asserting their legal rights and requests.

Red cards include an assertion of one's right to remain silent and the following text in the non-English language of your choice:

Do not open the door.

Ask to see a warrant signed by a judge.

Do not answer any questions.

You have the right to remain silent.

Do not sign any documents.

Ask for a lawyer.

https://mashable.com/article/ice-immigration-red-cards-how-to-help-undocumented-people

Keep it going! Help our brothers and sisters!

January 24, 2025

'Setting us up for catastrophe': alarm at Trump attack on federal disaster agency

Donald Trump has suggested paring back or even dismantling the federal response to major disasters, a move that would cut off aid that has largely helped support Republican-leaning states that voted for him in last year’s US presidential election.

Trump said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had “not done their job for the last four years” and that there would be “a whole big discussion very shortly, because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems”.

In an interview with Fox News, the US president said of Fema that “all it does is complicate everything” and that even states who resoundingly backed him, such as Oklahoma, should be primarily left to deal with the aftermath of major storms, floods and fires.

“I love Oklahoma, but you know what? If they get hit with a tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it,” Trump said. “And then the federal government can help them out with the money. Fema is getting in the way of everything.”

Shifting the burden of disaster aid to the states, an idea outlined by the rightwing Project 2025 manifesto before the election, would hit Republican-leaning states hardest, federal spending figures suggest.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/23/trump-fema-natural-disasters

I predict this could lose him votes in the House and Senate. I could be wrong though.

January 24, 2025

Franklin Graham Accuses Bishop Who Criticized Trump Of Having 'Sexual Political Agenda'

Rev. Franklin Graham slammed Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde for a "sexual political agenda" after she pleaded with President Donald Trump to "have mercy" on "immigrants and LGBTQ Americans."

During a Wednesday interview on Newsmax, Graham criticized the bishop's Tuesday homily at the National Prayer Service with Trump.

"She was wrong to do that," the reverend insisted. "That was really a national forum, a national stage pulpit that she was standing in. And for her to use that for her own political agenda was wrong."

"She is a socialist, activist, LGBTQ+ agenda, and that's, you know, so she's just wrong," he continued. "So these are activists, and no question, they hate Trump. I don't know why they hate Trump. Trump stands for truth."

Graham claimed media outlets wanted to paint Trump as a "liar."

https://crooksandliars.com/2025/01/franklin-graham-accuses-bishop-who

Frankie, even your daddy would be ashamed of you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Matthew 7:3