Iowa is rushing the HF 274 bill through quickly. It will criminalize librarians and prohibit minors from using any library that has “obscene material” in its collection.
This bill is being rushed through the process so the public does not have much opportunity to comment.
Ultra-conservatives want to block access to any library by people under 18 years old if the library contains anything that the far right considers “obscene.” Including materials about same-sex relationships or transgender people. This law would block all minors from access if the library owned a book like this.
For the record: “There are no obscene materials in public or public school libraries in the United States. This is a moral panic brought forth by the right over books they don’t like and that represent voices, stories, and perspectives outside of the rigid white, straight, able-bodied, cis gender, Christian boundaries.”
This is why no qualifications were necessary for this professional wrestling performer to become the Secretary for the Department of Education.
Her job is to dismantle it.
His first task for her: “I want Linda to put herself out of a job,” Trump said.
That’s because our misguided idiot president thinks the Dept. of Education has been infiltrated by “radicals, zealots, and Marxists.” When, really, it’s the radicals and zealots that want to close it.
Thursday night, the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of Russell Vought to lead the U.S. Office of Management & Budget. He was one of the primary architects of Project 2025, and he is now in charge of White House budget!
If you haven’t been paying attention, “Project 2025 is a White Christian Nationalist federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity. Project 2025’s largest publication, ‘Mandate For Leadership,’ is a 900-page manual for reorganizing the entire federal government agency by agency to serve a conservative agenda.
“Project 2025 includes a long list of extreme policy recommendations touching on nearly every aspect of American life, from immigration and abortion rights, to free speech and racial justice. A number of its recommendations rely on support from the executive branch and from Congress. Many other initiatives are outright unconstitutional.”
Democrat senators called Vought “Trump’s most dangerous nominee” because he helped craft this radical agenda and now will be in a place to control and implement it.
Democracy Forward read through it and broke it all down in May 2024, well before the election. Here is their explanation:
“What we discovered was a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism over people.
From attacking overtime pay, student loans, and reproductive rights, to allowing more discrimination, pollution, and price gouging, those behind Project 2025 are preparing to go to incredible lengths to create a country only for some, not for all of us. Project 2025 is among the most profound threats to the American people.
If these plans are enacted, even without congressional approval, 4.3 million people could lose overtime protections, 40 million people could have their food assistance reduced, 220,000 American jobs could be lost, and much, much, more. The stakes are higher than ever for democracy and for people.
These threats aren’t hypothetical. These are their real plans.
The Heritage Foundation and the 100+ organizations that make up the Project 2025 Advisory Board have mapped out exactly how they will achieve their extreme ends. They aim to carry out many of the most troubling proposals through an anti-democratic president and political loyalists installed in the executive branch, without waiting for congressional action. And, while many of these plans are unlawful, winning in court is not guaranteed given that the same far-right movement that is behind Project 2025 has shaped our current court system.”
It’s not about “indoctrination.” It’s about teaching things SHE doesn’t approve of.
“Sanders’ proposal to fire professors over ‘indoctrination’ drew criticism from civil liberties and faculty groups. Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, called it a ‘grossly hypocritical false narrative.’
“Sanders is doing a disservice to Arkansas students by suggesting she will deny due process for faculty with ideas she disagrees with,” Wolfson said. ‘Maligning a system that is an engine of innovation and bedrock of our democracy hurts Arkansas students.'”
Some uplifting news: In their 80s, these South Korean women learned reading and rap!
“Wearing an oversized bucket hat, silver chains and a black Miu Miu shirt, 82-year-old Park Jeom-sun gesticulates, her voice rising and falling with staccato lines about growing chili peppers, cucumbers and eggplants.
“Park, nicknamed Suni, was flanked by seven longtime friends who repeated her moves and her lines. Together, they’re Suni and the Seven Princesses, South Korea’s latest octogenarian sensation. With an average age of 85, they’re probably the oldest rap group in the country.
“Born at a time when women were often marginalized in education, Park and her friends were among a group of older adults learning how to read and write the Korean alphabet, hangeul, at a community center in their farming village in South Korea’s rural southeast. They were having so much fun that they started dabbling with poetry. They began writing and performing rap in summer last year.”
“This school year, Illinois will become just the fifth state in the nation to prohibit corporal punishment in all schools.
“Legislation that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law this month bans physical punishment in private schools while reiterating a prohibition on the practice in public schools implemented 30 years ago.
“When the ban takes effect in January, Illinois will join New Jersey, Iowa, Maryland and New York in prohibiting paddling, spanking or hitting in every school.
“State Rep. Margaret Croke, a Chicago Democrat, was inspired to take up the issue after an updated call by the American Association of Pediatrics to end the practice, which it says can increase behavioral or mental health problems and impair cognitive development. The association found that it’s disproportionately administered to Black males and students with disabilities.”
“Authors have expressed their shock after the news that academic publisher Taylor & Francis, which owns Routledge, had sold access to its authors’ research as part of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) partnership with Microsoft.”
