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Information for anyone who wants to make a donation in support of Ukraine:

Hospitallers - Ukrainian volunteer medical battalion, which provides first aid and evacuates wounded Ukrainian soldiers

Ukrainian charity fund "Come Back Alive"

Ukrainian charity foundation of Serhiy Pritula

United24 - the official platform for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine

Sternenko Foundation (drones for the UAF)

These are the main platforms that most Ukrainians (myself included) regularly use to donate to support our armed forces. Ukraine needs the military aid, because only through victory we can achieve peace. Russia's only goal is to destroy us. If russia is not defeated, there will be no future for Ukraine.

These funds buy vehicles for the evacuation of the wounded, thermal imagers, body armor and everything else our defenders need to survive.

Why you should NOT donate to the Red Cross

Any help, no matter how small, is greatly appreciated. Thank you ❤️

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Image Description.

Facebook post from Matt Norris.

Post reads like a conversation between 2 people:

Prison labor is a problem we need to address soon.

Convicts in prison should have to work like the rest of us.

You mean like slavery?

No, we’re giving them 3 meals and a bed, at our expense, while they just sit around and watch TV. They should have to work!

Right. Like slavery.

It’s not like slavery!

Can they leave?

No.

Can they refuse work?

No.

So how exactly isn’t this slavery?

We DO pay them!

Do we pay in accordance with labor laws?

No. We pay them between 33 cents and $1.41/hour with a maximum daily wage below $5, then take up to half of that as room&board fees and victim compensation.

Right. So like slavery.

BUT.

No.

Image then links to this url.

Below URL image reads “fun bonus fact: enough of our labor market currently relies on labor at these depressed rates, that it has a substantial downward pressure on both wages and job availability in low-skilled sectors. Immigrants aren’t taking your jobs. Slavery is.

End description.

I’d also like to add it’s not just private prisons. It’s also private detention centers where ICE keeps the immigrants.

-fae

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If you like the word “queer” reblog.

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A federal judge says it was illegal for the Trump administration to cancel several hundred research grants issued by the National Institutes of Health.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled Monday it was illegal for the Trump administration to cancel several hundred research grants, adding that the cuts raise serious questions about racial discrimination.

U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts said the administration’s process was “arbitrary and capricious” and that it did not follow long-held government rules and standards when it abruptly canceled grants deemed to focus on gender identity or diversity, equity and inclusion.

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The administration of President Donald Trump swiftly sought to downplay a Thursday incident in which Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was roughly pinned to the ground and briefly handcuffed during a press conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles.

Noem claimed that Padilla did not identify himself as he tried to ask her a question, even though he can clearly be heard saying his name near the start of the incident.

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The only information Ysqueibel Yonaiquer Peñaloza Chirinos’ family has received about him in the past three months came from former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz probably didn’t mean to help. But last month, as part of a propaganda video for the far-right One America News Network, he took a tour of the infamous El Salvadoran prison to which President Donald Trump has sent hundreds of U.S. immigrants for indefinite detention, without charge, trial or sentencing: El Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT. By the time Gaetz arrived, the men Trump had rendered to the prison had already been there for two months.

It happens quickly: The OANN camera pans across a cluster of cells Gaetz says are being used to hold the people Trump sent to El Salvador. Many chant “Libertad!” Some press their hands together in prayer, pleading.

Peñaloza’s face flashes on screen, framed by two metal bars. He looks mournful, almost crying, and does not say anything. But he does what most others are doing, opening and closing his fingers over a closed thumb, making what his lawyers say is an internationally recognized hand symbol for distress — a flashing “send help” request popularized by domestic violence advocacy groups during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Peñaloza’s mother, Ydalys Chirinos-Polanco, spotted him in the video. She already knew he was at the prison — Peñaloza’s olive branch tattoo was visible in the initial March 15 footage of the U.S. CECOT detainees — but she hadn’t seen him since then.

Peñaloza’s only encounter with the law in the United States had been a traffic ticket, she said.

“I felt a lot of pain,” Chirinos recalled to HuffPost on a video call Wednesday, speaking in Spanish and through tears. “But at the same time — a lot of happiness to see that he is alive and that he had the strength to stand up.”

A month later, she hasn’t seen any more of her son.

In his absence, the U.S. government has worked to remove Peñaloza, who is Venezuelan, from domestic immigration court entirely. Six days after Gaetz’s prison tour, an immigration judge granted the Department of Homeland Security’s request to dismiss Peñaloza’s case. As far as the United States immigration court system is concerned, he does not exist.

At least 24 people sent to CECOT have had their immigration cases dismissed in their absence, Michelle Brané, the executive director of Together & Free, a nonprofit working to identify and track CECOT detainees, told HuffPost. The actual number may be higher — and it is unclear how many cases have pending dismissal requests from DHS that have not received rulings from immigration judges, who are technically Justice Department employees rather than members of an independent court system.

Some immigration judges are pushing back. Last week, one such judge denied a DHS motion to dismiss a CECOT detainee’s immigration case, saying the Trump administration had “essentially rid itself of its opposing party.” But that is a rare exception to the trend.

The dismissal of immigration cases for the CECOT detainees is yet another example of the Trump administration working to erase any trace of them in the United States, even though hundreds had ongoing legal cases here when they were disappeared.

Without that legal toehold in the U.S. immigration system, CECOT detainees risk falling not only outside the purview of U.S. law but outside of any legal recognition whatsoever.

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The Fox by Anke Eissmann

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I hate Axios so I'm not providing a direct link lol, but you can see the article title if you want to look it up for yourself.

5 million people protested yesterday! I know what people are going to say, because I've seen it already: "This is all performative nonsense because these people should have voted for Harris instead."

I understand that, but consider:

The people protesting Trump are obviously angry at him and most of them are likely to be liberals/left-leaning people who voted against him in the first place! There may be a handful of people who voted for him joining the protests because they've since been disillusioned since November, or people who joined the protests after sitting out the election, but they're likely in the minority. There's significant overlap between Harris voters and anti-Trump protesters

What happened in November can't be undone. The only way to go now is forward, and of course, it's better to have large protests against the fascist administration than not!

The protests came at a time when the Trump administration is trying to intimidate protesters in LA with the National Guard and the Marines, and it's great that Americans around the country took to the streets and told the fascists that they weren't afraid of them, and wouldn't be deterred from voicing their dissent. The administration must not be emboldened by public apathy or fear

Relatedly, the narrative from the media and this administration after November was that Trump had a "mandate" and total cultural victory over America. These protests prove that is not true

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Tears Unnumbered by Jenny Dolfen Thus ended Nirnaeth Arnoediad, as the sun went down beyond the sea. Night fell in Hithlum, and there came a great storm of wind out of the West.

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Full of admiration for the righteous and brave people of Minnesota in this hour of darkness and violence

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No Kings protest, Virginia ❤️

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“Yes, we will have peace. We will have peace, when you and all your works have perished—and the works of your dark master to whom you would deliver us. You are a liar, Saruman, and a corrupter of men’s hearts. You hold out your hand to me, and I perceive only a finger of the claw of Mordor. Cruel and cold! Even if your war on me was just—and it was not, for were you ten times as wise you would have no right to rule me and mine for your profit as you desired—even so, what will you say of your torches in Westfold and the children that lie dead there? And they hewed Háma’s body before the gates of the Hornburg, after he was dead. When you hang from a gibbet at your window for the sport of your own crows, I will have peace with you and Orthanc.”

— Théoden, The Voice of Saruman

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So there's a post going around complaining about American Imperialism and Pride, blaming queer Americans for other countries doing Pride stuff in June.

And I've chosen not to reblog it for a lot of reasons.

First off, it's blaming American Queer people for making Pride "international." This ignores the history of the movement. The whole reason it's called "Pride" comes from the people who were celebrating the anniversary of Stonewall. The reason this term (and the June date in some places) was adopted in other cities in the US, let alone countries, was as a show of solidarity as a movement. This was a choice made by marginalized people in those other places, and not an act of "imperialism." While this was starting, we were fighting to have any kind of "Pride" events in the US to begin with.

The OP says that they're in aotearoa, and claims their pride should be in July, not June, because they earned their rights. They acknowledge that the official pride months in New Zealand (which differ by state) are in February and March -- but it misses the god damn point.

Pride isn't about having won anything. No one won any rights at Stonewall, nor was any historic legislation passed that day.

It was a god damned riot.

Pride is about the fight. It's about the day we decided to fight back.

Pride is about celebrating our ability to fight for our own existence.

If you don't want to celebrate it in June? Fine. I genuinely don't care when you choose to celebrate the fight -- I just care that you're fighting and I'm happy to stand alongside you. If you think people need to learn more about queer history in your country too? Awesome. I'd love to learn it. Share some resources or try teaching us.

But this weird attitude that it's somehow American Queer people's fault that your own community decided to adopt the anniversary of a riot in the US is just insane to me. They chose it to show solidarity, because when we fight for us, we're fighting for you too and vice versa. Especially in a year when American Queer people are fighting for their lives more than they've had to for a long time with the attacks on the Trans community, it feels pretty fucked up to equate those getting stepped on by the boot with the boot itself.

And maybe that poster is just young and hasn't thought about it. Maybe they're just frustrated that their nation's own queer history isn't more widely known. But this is also the exact kind of thing that gets fed into communities like this one in an attempt to divide it.

Don't fucking fall for it.

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Rachel Leingang at The Guardian:

Millions of people are expected to protest against the Trump administration on Saturday at roughly 2,000 sites nationwide in a demonstration dubbed “No Kings”, planned for the same day as the president’s military parade and birthday. Interest in the events has risen since Trump sent national guard and US Marine Corps troops to Los Angeles to tamp down mostly peaceful protests against ramped-up deportations. “We’ve seen hundreds of new events on the No Kings Day map since the weekend,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, one of the groups behind the “day of defiance”. “We’ve seen hundreds of thousands of people register for those events.”

A website for the protest cites Trump’s defying of the courts, mass deportations, attacks on civil rights and slashing of services as reasons for the protests, saying: “The corruption has gone too far. No thrones. No crowns. No kings.” Actions are set for the country’s largest cities and small towns, dotting the map from coast to coast – part of a strategy to show that opposition to Trump exists in all corners of the US. No Kings is not hosting an event in Washington DC, intending to take the focus off the military parade and show the power of the people outside the nation’s capital. Philadelphia will host a flagship march instead, and a DC-based organization is hosting a “DC Joy Day” in the district that will “celebrate DC’s people, culture, and our connections to one another”. “We did not want to give him the excuse to crack down on counter-protesters in DC,” Levin said. “We didn’t want to give him the narrative device to say we’re protesting the military. Instead, we wanted to make him look as small and weak as he is, and protest everywhere else in the country.” In early April, the “Hands Off” protests drew a few million people to more than 1,300 locations. Levin expects No Kings to be bigger, despite Trump’s threats to meet protesters with “very big force”, which the White House has since tried to soften. Trump, in a press conference this week, said people who protested the military parade “hate our country” and were “going to be met with very big force”, though he said he wasn’t aware of any planned protests against the event. The press secretary Karoline Leavitt later said Trump “supports peaceful protests”. Asked about the No Kings protests during a White House event on Thursday, Trump said: “I don’t feel like a king. I have to go through hell to get things approved.” Organizers have expanded capacity for pre-protest trainings, given the increased security concerns after Trump’s actions in Los Angeles. On a “know your rights” call led by the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday, a host said, at one point more than 18,000 people were on the call. Questions included whether to attend if you were a legal immigrant with a green card or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) status, how to respond if violence erupted, and what to do about potential agitators.

Tomorrow, millions of Americans opposed to Tyrant 47’s anti-American regime will be protesting at No Kings/No Tyrants events across the nation in blue, purple, and red locales.

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First case of US Marines detaining a civilian in LA and it's an Army vet who had gained US citizenship through the military and was on his way to a Dept of Veterans Affairs office. He wasn't even part of a protest.

You couldn't make this shit up if you tried.

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After Nirnaeth Arnoediad by Marya Filatova

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HEY GUYS

Who wants to help ruin Trump's birthday?

Yup you heard that right. On June 14, Trump is planning on having a pretty big military parade to be all like "I'm such a powerful king" and in response there's going to be HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of protests against his regime telling him to sit his ass back down.

The link below has more information and a map of currently planned protests. There's options in every single state. Even if you can't go, share this information, and consider reaching out to organizers of local protests to see if they need any logistical help. Chances are, they'll appreciate it.