Let me start with this from Reverend Irene Monroe's piece at LGBTQ Nation:
However, I am reminded of the tenacity of Mildred Loving, who died in 2008. Mildred Loving, the Black female plaintiff in the landmark 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia, is often overlooked in the pantheon of African American trailblazers celebrated in February during Black History Month.
She gained notoriety when the court decided in her favor that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. Her crime was this country’s racial and gender obsession at the time— interracial marriage. Married to a white man, Loving and her husband were indicted by a Virginia grand jury in October 1958 for violating the state’s ‘Racial Integrity Act of 1924.”
Loving understood the interconnection of struggles and supported the same-sex marriage fight. LGBTQ+ couples carry on her tradition in proving the tenacity of love.
On June 12, 2007, Freedom to Marry joined with several of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations to hold a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, a decision for affirming the freedom to marry as a “basic civil right” of every American.
Lending her support to the commemoration, Mrs. Mildred Loving wrote, “When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn’t to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry.”
Loving continued, “I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. I am proud that Richard’s and my name are on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving and loving are all about.”
We’re in the season for Trump 2.0, but love is always worth the fight. Since the beheading of St. Valentine in Rome in the year 270 A.D., marriage has been controlled by heads of the church and the state — and not by the hearts of lovers. When Emperor Claudius II issued an edict abolishing marriage because married men hated to leave their families for battle, Valentine, known then as the “friend to lovers,” secretly joined them in holy matrimony. While awaiting his execution, Valentine fell in love with the jailer’s daughter, and in his farewell message to his lover, he wrote, “From your Valentine.”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Important moment in history. Of course, Donald Chump wants to erase it. "Donald Chump hates Black people" and he hates LGBTQ+ people and if you're Black and a lesbian like me? He really hates me. He wants to erase us all. Just like the Nazis because that is what Chump and Alien Musk are -- Nazis. See Ann's "Our tax payer money flies a NeoNazi around with his boyfriend Pete Hegseth" and read JD Wolf's MTN report:
MeidasTouch has uncovered a pro-Hitler ad being served on social network X, the platform currently owned by Elon Musk. The unelected head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) recently appeared with Trump in the Oval Office to defend his slashing of federal contracts and agencies. The ad served by X contains a picture of Nazi leader Adolph Hitler smiling with children while wearing a Nazi uniform with a swastika.
Before Elon Musk's purchase, Twitter had policies in place that moderated pro-Nazi content and didn't allow account like this to purchase ads. The X ad from a blue check verified account named Nixon Groyper, an account that contains a slew of racist posts and was created after Musk's purchase of Twitter, admonishes viewers to reconsider supporting Hitler while pushing Holocaust denialism:
Rashida Tlaib, when you're ready to apologize to the country for your lies and attacks on Kamala Harris, I might consider forgiving you. I might not. In the meantime, f.u. for screwing over our country.
Overnight, the second largest city in Massachusetts, Worcester, voted to become a sanctuary city for transgender and gender-diverse people.
Worcester has now become one of the first cities in America to be labeled this designation. The "sanctuary" designation is typically given to cities that pass legislation to protect undocumented immigrants living within the city.
But, Worcester has taken a different approach, ensuring that transgender and gender-diverse residents are safe within city limits. The resolution is not legally binding, but it does recognize that there is necessary access to transgender health care and issues a pledge that the city will not work with any federal or out-of-state authorities to diminish trans rights for those living within Worcester.
We need safety cities now for LGBTQ+ people, thanks, Rashida.
Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
Friday, February 14, 2025. Chump's disapprovals increase even more as he and his minions set out to wreck the United States and fleece the public of every dime they can.
Convicted Felon Donald Chump has thus far eluded accountability, responsibility and justice. As a result, he seems to think that breaking the law is meaningless. So he did a deal with corrupt NYC Mayor Eric Adams. As a trail for him loomed for bribery, a crook got into the White House and a deal was reached. Suddenly bribery and foreign money didn't matter -- not to Chump. And Chump wants charges dropped against Adams to stop the scheduled April trial. This has created a major problem for the Dept of Justice. Rachel Maddow explained it last night on MSNBC.
Rachel was covering events last night. Yesterday afternoon, when Alisa Chang discussed the issue with Ryan Lucas NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, only three were known to have objected to the move to drop charges against Eric Adams -- since Rachel's broadcast the number has risen to eight:
LUCAS: So first off, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, has resigned. She's a veteran prosecutor with a conservative legal pedigree. She clerked, for example, for the Supreme Court Justice - the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who, of course, is a legal icon on the right. The Trump administration had tapped Sassoon to lead the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan last month on an interim basis, but then three days ago, the acting No. 2 official in the Trump Justice Department, Emil Bove, directed her in a memo to drop the corruption case against Eric Adams, a New York City mayor.
Now, Bove said in his memo that this decision wasn't based on the evidence in the case. Instead, he alleges that the case against Adams, who is a Democrat, was politically motivated, even though it was brought during the Biden administration. The memo also says the case should be dropped because it interferes with Adams' ability to help the Trump administration with immigration enforcement.
Now, it is highly unusual for department leadership to interfere like this in a case. Former prosecutors say that it's shocking. Sassoon says in a letter to the attorney general that the law doesn't support dropping the case. She cannot, in good faith, move to do so, and so she has decided to quit over it.
CHANG: Wow. OK. Has the Justice Department said anything about any of this?
LUCAS: The Justice Department, I contacted. They did not respond, but I did obtain an 8-page letter from Bove to Sassoon in which he says that he accepts her resignation. He also accuses her of losing sight of her oath by suggesting that she has the discretion to interpret the Constitution in a way that is inconsistent with the policies of the attorney general and a democratically elected president.
Now, in this letter, Bove also says that two of the prosecutors who worked the Eric Adams case are being placed on leave. He says that those two prosecutors and Sassoon will be investigated by the Office of the Attorney General and the department's internal unit that handles allegations of misconduct. Just an aside here, one of those line prosecutors is a U.S. Army veteran and a winner of two Bronze Stars.
Donald Chump and his minions want to circumvent the law. They think is they threaten and bully, they can get their way. Chump, it might have worked on your wedding night but no one following this story is in love with you and willing to endure marital rape. Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) explains:
Reacting to the explosive legal drama playing out in New York where an acting U.S. attorney resigned rather than drop corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a former member of Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said it could have a major ripple effect across the country.
Late Thursday, interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon and five other officials resigned when pressured by the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department, Emil Bove, to drop the case.
That set off explosive accusations of a quid pro quo deal between Donald Trump's DOJ and Adams' lawyer that has the legal community reeling.
Lawrence O'Donnell addressed the issue last night.
Convicted Felon Donald Chump does not want -- or know -- how to make America great. He only knows how to turn it into Chump land how to steal from the American people and hand the money over to his fellow grifters.
Did someone say Alien Musk?
I'm not really big on foreigners -- triple citizenship makes you a foreigner -- slamming our system and our processes. Especially when, every time they open their mouths, they demonstrate how they never bothered to learn a damn thing about the third country they decided to pretend was home. Yes, we are talking about Alien Musk. Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) reports:
Elon Musk wants a federal judge to be “fired” after Donald Trump’s administration was ordered to restore public health data that was removed from government websites.
The removal of public health data created a “dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, halt or hamper key health research, and deprive physicians of resources that impact clinical practice,” plaintiffs wrote.
On Tuesday, Bates — who was appointed by President George W. Bush — ordered the restoration of those websites and blocked the administration from making changes.
Washington, D.C. – Following Senate Republicans voting to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the following statement:
"Putting Kennedy in charge of the nation’s public health is a huge mistake. When dangerous diseases resurface and people can’t access lifesaving vaccines, all Americans will suffer. And thanks to his serious, unresolved conflicts of interest, RFK Jr.’s family could continue getting richer from his anti-vaccine crusade while he’s in office.”
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Military families protesting the Defense Department's anti-DEI push heckled Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on his arrival at United States European Command headquarters in Germany on Tuesday.
The Defense Secretary signed an order restoring the name of a storied special operations forces back to a confederate general undoing the Biden administration's efforts to remove names that fought against the liberation.
Hegseth must be drinking wine before beer because things are just not going his way. As Ann noted, he was protested in Germany -- by US military families. Things did not get batter after that. MB Mack (LATIN TIMES) reports:
Middle school students on a U.S. military base in Germany walked out in protest during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's visit, opposing the Pentagon's removal of diversity programs in military schools.
Since President Donald Trump's return to office in January 2025, his administration has swiftly moved to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across the federal government, including the Department of Defense (DoD).
On Tuesday, 55 students at Patch Middle School staged a walkout and gathered in the courtyard for approximately 50 minutes to protest recent Pentagon actions targeting diversity programs in Department of Defense schools, Stripes reported.
The demonstration coincided with Hegseth's visit to Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, where he was attending meetings at U.S. Africa Command and U.S. European Command.
President Donald Trump's favorable rating among Generation Z voters has dramatically fallen since the 2024 election, according to a poll.
A survey from The Economist/YouGov released Wednesday revealed the president's net favorability rating among those aged 18-29 is minus 18 points. This is a drop from the plus 19 favorable rating he scored among this demographic in the days following November's race.
Donald Trump's press secretary warned that "nobody has the right to ask the president questions" after the White House blocked an Associated Press (AP) journalist from an event over the news agency's continued use of the "Gulf of Mexico" in its coverage.
The organisation said it was given an ultimatum over its editorial decision to refer to the oceanic basin by its original name “while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen" — the Gulf of America.
New York Times White House correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman confronted Trump White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt over DOGE czar Elon Musk, asking if President Donald Trump has complied with a conflict of interest law.
Haberman’s reporting has been immensely influential by virtue of her deep experience reporting on Trump and a network of Trumpworld sources that give her up-to-the-minute insights. But after his election to a second term, as her NYT bio states, “Now I am covering his second, nonconsecutive term as president after his election win.”
Let's wind down by noting that Joy Reid interviewed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries yesterday on MSNBC.
The following sites updated: