Samar Halabi and her husband, Amjad Muhtaseb, both attended the Republican Party of Texas Convention, which was held in Houston from June 11 to 13, because, as Muhtaseb explained to The Texas Tribune, “We believe in Adam and Eve. We don’t believe in this, multiple genders. We don’t drink. We don’t gamble. We are against pornography.”

Republicans at the event repeatedly told them and other Muslim delegates to leave the country because they’re a terrorist threat. Other attendees tried to boot them from the event. Convention rules prohibited them from kicking the couple out, but party officials promised to create such rules when the convention meets again in 2028.

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Halabi wore a hijab (head covering) at the event. Attendees accused her of being a part of a terrorist organization. When one attendee approached her and told her to leave the country, she turned and wept into her husband’s chest.

The married couple said they are trying to bring more Muslims into the Republican Party. But the Texas GOP has spent a lot of time during recent election cycles speaking out against Sharia Law and the so-called “Islamification” of Texas.

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The state GOP and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) have deemed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, a terrorist threat. Hussein’s father founded the organization’s Houston chapter and also attended the convention as a delegate; there’s no proof substantiating CAIR’s alleged ties to extremist organizations.

Additionally, Abbott signed a law in September 2025 to ban the establishment of an Islamic community in the city of Joesphine (35 miles northeast of Dallas) after numerous state officials and locals said it intended to enforce Sharia law and exclude non-Muslims, claims which the community’s developers denied.

On Saturday at the convention, outgoing state GOP chair Abraham George told two Muslim delegates, “I would strongly advise you to leave our caucus,” adding, “There is a Democrat convention happening in a couple weeks. Join them.”

That same day, Muslim conservative Mohamed Hussein attended a Judeo-Christian Caucus moderated by former Southern Baptist pastor Dr. Rick Scarborough, who is also president of the religious political organization Recover America. Scarborough said Muslims will erode Christian values, lie and hide their meanness to win political power, and then use that power to “cut your head off as believers of Christ.”

State Sen. Bob Hall (R) echoed that sentiment, falsely claiming that Muslims are “required by Sharia to lie” to “stay below the radar of being aggressive.”

At the panel, state Rep. Brent Money (R), founder of the convention’s Sharia-Free Texas Caucus, said political candidates should undergo religious tests and that all Americans should only vote for Christians because, “We’ve proven over 250 years that we’re best … when we’re ruled by Christian men who serve a God that’s bigger than them and that seek the welfare of everyone that’s here.”

Horrified by their statements, Hussein spoke out, saying that Sharia law only provides a religious framework that applies to Muslim daily practices.

“When they tell you that we’re compelled to lie, they are putting your Texan neighbors in an impossible position where nothing that we can say or do can absolve us from the crimes that they are accusing us of. That is not just, the Bible commands you to be just, and that is not American.”

After the panel, Scarborough told Hussein to either convert or leave the country. Hussein then cried in a chair while Scarborough sat next to him and offered to pray to Jesus with him. Muslims pray only to God (Allah) and do not pray to Jesus, seeing him only as a prophet rather than the son of God.

Scarborough later told The Texas Tribune, “If you’re going to embrace the values and the teachings that you’re advocating for, there’s no place in America for you. That’s not assimilation. That’s taking over.”

Hussein expressed disbelief at being told to convert or leave, noting that the convention’s tagline was, “Unity drives victory.” He said he worries that the party’s anti-Islamic rhetoric could foment violence against Muslims. However, he said he will vote for whichever candidate most supports religious liberty and economic prosperity.

“I will vote along those principles, but what I saw at the convention is not conservatism, so I’m going to assess in November and vote along with my values,” he said. “Absolutely, I will be voting for Republicans who denounce this extremism.”

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While researching my forthcoming book, We Refuse to Disappear: Resistance Amid Anti-Trans Education Policy, I heard a story from Alabama that I cannot stop thinking about.

An elementary school student walked into class, looked at a bulletin board that had once displayed a rainbow border, and asked a simple question: “Where did the rainbow go?” The teacher knew the answer. So did every adult in the building.

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Yet no explanation made sense because nothing had actually happened. No law had passed. No policy required the display’s removal. The rainbow had disappeared because educators were already responding to a threat that did not yet exist.

Alabama’s HB 244 never became law. Introduced in 2025, the bill sought to prohibit discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity throughout K–12 schools, ban Pride flags and LGBTQ+ symbols, and further restrict how educators could acknowledge LGBTQ+ students and families. Civil rights organizations, educators, and advocacy groups warned that the bill would intensify censorship and erasure in public schools. Ultimately, it stalled in the legislature.

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Yet by the time lawmakers moved on, classrooms across the state had already begun changing. Books were removed from shelves. Displays disappeared. Teachers altered lessons. Administrators advised staff to avoid controversy. The bill failed. The fear succeeded.

That should concern all of us.

We often talk about anti-trans legislation as though its impact begins when a governor signs a bill. Increasingly, that is not how these policies operate. Their power often emerges long before they become law. A bill is introduced. National organizations amplify it. School boards discuss it. Administrators worry about complaints. Teachers receive warnings to stay neutral. Classrooms begin censoring themselves before anyone is legally required to do so.

Researchers sometimes call this pre-compliance. Educators often call it survival.

The danger is not simply that schools become more cautious. The danger is that fear becomes curriculum. Students notice what disappears. They notice which books vanish, which conversations stop, which histories are no longer taught, and which families are no longer represented. Absence teaches. Silence teaches. Erasure teaches. Long before a student encounters a formal lesson about citizenship, they learn who belongs, whose stories matter, and which identities are treated as controversial.

The educators I spoke with in Alabama understood exactly what was happening. As HB 244 advanced, a group of teachers from different schools began meeting off campus in the back room of a public library. They taught elementary students, middle schoolers, and high schoolers. Some worked in social studies, others in English language arts, special education, and the arts. They were not organizing protests. They were trying to figure out how to continue serving students without sacrificing either their professional responsibilities or their humanity.

At one meeting, they compared what was happening in their schools. Bulletin boards had been stripped. Inclusive books had been boxed for review. Administrators across multiple districts were using remarkably similar language: community standards, neutrality, avoid controversy.

One teacher finally voiced what everyone was thinking. “It feels like we’re being trained to erase before we’re told to.” Another educator responded immediately: “That’s the point. Fear is cheaper than law.”

Fear is cheaper than law.

I have spent years studying educational policy and anti-trans legislation, and I cannot think of a more accurate description of the current moment. Legislatures attract headlines. Fear quietly reshapes behavior. Lawmakers increasingly understand that they do not always need laws to achieve their goals. They only need educators to believe punishment may be coming. Once fear enters a system, institutions often begin policing themselves.

The Alabama educators chose a different path. Rather than retreat into isolation, they built a coalition. They created shared folders containing lesson plans, state standards, instructional rationales, and documentation. They compared strategies and developed common language explaining why teaching fairness, belonging, and civic participation remained central educational responsibilities. If one teacher faced criticism, others would stand beside them. If one classroom became the target of complaints, similar lessons would appear elsewhere. Their refusal was not individual heroism. It was collective protection.

That coalition soon found its way into classrooms. One elementary teacher introduced a story about a neighborhood garden in which two mothers appeared among the families. Students discussed fairness, community, and belonging. In another classroom, children explored what makes neighborhoods welcoming. In another, they considered who belongs when we use the word “we.” The lessons were fully aligned with state standards and grounded in civic learning. They also affirmed a truth increasingly under attack: every child deserves to see themselves as part of the community.

Students understood the lesson immediately. One child said fairness meant “when everyone helps.” Another responded that a fair community is one “where nobody is hidden.” The teachers documented these responses because they recognized something policymakers often overlook. Belonging is not separate from civic education. It is civic education. Public schools cannot prepare students for democratic participation while simultaneously teaching them that some people are too controversial to acknowledge.

Yet educators cannot carry this burden alone. Too often, we celebrate teachers for their courage while abandoning them to the conditions that require courage in the first place. We praise resilience while normalizing hostility. We applaud educators for protecting students while expecting them to absorb the consequences of political decisions they did not create. That is not support. It is abandonment disguised as admiration.

No educator can do this work alone. Teachers need librarians, counselors, healthcare providers, families, legal advocates, faith leaders, journalists, unions, community organizations, and administrators willing to stand beside them. Protecting students is not the work of a single profession. It is the work of communities willing to defend one another.

The story of HB 244 is not ultimately a story about a bill. It is a story about what happens when fear enters schools and how educators respond when it does. Alabama’s proposed law never took effect, yet its shadow reshaped classrooms across the state. At the same time, the educators who gathered in that library demonstrated another possibility. They showed that solidarity can interrupt fear, that coalition can counter isolation, and that belonging remains worth defending even when doing so carries risk.

The student who asked where the rainbow had gone was really asking a much larger question: Who gets to belong here?

That question now confronts schools across the country. Alabama’s HB 244 taught us how quickly fear can spread through an educational system. The teachers who refused to face that fear alone taught us something far more important. When educators build coalitions and communities stand beside them, erasure becomes harder to accomplish.

The anti-trans law did not need to pass.

Its fear already had.

Fortunately, so had the refusal.

Dr. sj Miller is an award-winning scholar-activist, Faculty Trainer in the Center for Professional Learning, Professor at Santa Fe Community College, and part-time faculty at the University of Washington. Their work centers on gender identity justice, the pedagogy of refusal, and inclusive educational frameworks. Miller has authored eight books, over fifty peer-reviewed articles, and over thirty book chapters. Miller serves as Senior Associate Editor of The International Journal of LGBT Youth and co-editor of the series Social Justice Across Contexts in Education. Miller has received numerous awards in the fight for gender identity justice, including the 2019 Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity Award from the American Education Research Association. Miller’s forthcoming book, We Refuse to Disappear: Resistance Amid Anti-Trans Education Policy, with Harvard Ed Press, is due out later this month.

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In a post attacking the media for its coverage of his strike on Iran, President Donald Trump referred to CNN host Anderson Cooper as “Allison Cooper” in a seemingly homophobic dig, implying that he is basically a woman because he is gay. The insult also implies that being stereotypically feminine is a bad thing.

“The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it,” Trump wrote. “Only the Fake News would say anything different in order to try and demean, as much as possible — And even they say they were ‘pretty well destroyed!'”

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“Working especially hard on this falsehood is Allison Cooper of Fake News CNN, Dumb Brian L. Roberts, Chairman of ‘Con’cast, Jonny Karl of ABC Fake News, and always, the Losers of, again, Concast’s NBC Fake News. It never ends with the sleazebags in the Media, and that’s why their Ratings are at an ALL TIME LOW — ZERO CREDIBILITY!”

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Cooper was one of several journalists who questioned the president’s claim that his strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities completely obliterated them.

Trump’s homophobic comment toward Cooper came only a day after Cooper and his film crew fled to a bomb shelter while live on-air in Israel due to an alert of an incoming Iranian missile strike.

Despite the danger, Cooper continued his journalistic duties, telling viewers, “We have about a 10-minute window to get down into a bomb shelter, and we’ll continue to try to broadcast from that bomb shelter, and even if we can, on the way down.”

Cooper spoke with viewers as he and his co-hosts, all impressively calm, walked through a hotel to descend to the basement.

“This is the first time today that we have had an alarm like this,” he said. “It’s obviously something that many here in Tel Aviv have gotten used to over the last 10 or 11 days since this began. We saw one alarm shortly after the first strikes on Iran by the United States. This is the first one we’ve had this morning.”

The live feed cut off as they descended into the shelter, but once they arrived, they continued to broadcast. Cooper explained it was a “luxury” to have a 10-minute warning before a strike because that window doesn’t exist when rockets are coming from Gaza.

Trump is facing anger from every side of the aisle for his decision to attack Iran and put the United States at risk. Even some of his staunchest allies, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), have publicly expressed their extreme disappointment in the president for breaking his campaign promise to keep the United States out of another war. He’s been heavily criticized for prioritizing his ego and desire to show strength over the safety of Americans.

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A gay couple leaving a restaurant during a night market event was taunted, chased, and then beaten by at least one man in a group shouting homophobic slurs.

The attack happened in Caldwell, Idaho, a small city west of the capital in Boise, Idaho6 News reports

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The couple was enjoying dinner at the Acapulco restaurant in Caldwell when they attracted the attention of a group of men who began directing homophobic slurs at them, they said. The couple got up and left, but the men followed them through the back entrance. They said they were chased through a parking lot behind the Mexican restaurant and onto railroad tracks just off the small town’s main street, where they were jumped and beaten.

Juan Olvera said he was punched to the ground, kicked, and left with a swollen black eye, cuts, and bruises. Eric Reed was punched in the mouth and suffered a gaping hole in his lip requiring six stitches.

Both men said they were terrified.

“I literally thought I was going to die, and I don’t even know how to explain the fear I have right now. We haven’t left the house for the past few days,” Olvera said. “What’s going to happen to the next person? Are they going to kill them? I literally felt they were going to kill us for being gay. It’s a scary thing to live through, and I never would wish this on anyone.”

“I just feel so scared that this could happen to my partner and me, and just seeing my partner’s face afterwards,” he said. 

Police were quick to apprehend one of the suspects in the attack. Pedro Villarreal III, 55, of Caldwell, was detained and charged with misdemeanor battery. 

Idaho does not have a hate crime designation based on sexual orientation.

“It covers crimes that involve national origin, things of that nature, but unfortunately, sexual orientation is not one of those that is actually covered under Idaho statute,” said Lt. Jeffrey Peterson with the Caldwell Police Department.

“It is frustrating,” said the surprisingly sympathetic small-town cop. “We’re here to serve the citizens of Caldwell and Idaho, and unfortunately, when we’re unable to give them the justice that they feel that they need, under the application of the law, it is frustrating.”

“It’s difficult when the law ties their hands in these types of cases,” he added.

Olvera and Reed said they’ve been together for 15 years and have never experienced this kind of homophobia. The gay mixed-race couple described themselves as “conservative,” according to KTVB7 News.

“As politics continue to clash, everybody needs to put that away and remember we’re all Americans in the end. All of us bleed the same, and we’re all Americans,” said Olvera.

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Jafer Karausta — a 19-year-old social media influencer from Cambridge, England — came out to his Muslim mom on video. Her refusal to accept him left both of them in tears.

He spent the rest of the video explaining to her that he can’t change his sexual orientation and promising never to date another man for the rest of his life. Since posting the video, he has expressed thanks for the outpouring of support from viewers.

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After telling his mom, she says, “Really? I’m very upset about it. I cannot accept this. It’s not right. I don’t want to see you with another boy…. You should hide who you are… Promise me you’ll never get another boy or live with them.”

Karausta admits he’s upset by her response, but promises not to date, saying he’ll be single for life because he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with anyone anyway. He also said that he sometimes wears wigs and plays with makeup to express his feminine side, but promises not to do so anymore after his mother expresses disapproval in the video.

His mother repeatedly asks him whether he can change his sexual orientation, and he repeatedly says he cannot because sexuality “a majority of it is biological.” She later questions whether he’s gay because of the number of gay people he’s exposed to on the internet; he then says that’s not the case and that he has known about his sexuality since age five.

Nevertheless, his mother still blames herself because she used to dislike the gay people she works with and because she raised him in a bad environment. She also says, “If a nice girl comes around,” or if he really wants to, perhaps he can change his sexual orientation.

“Like, I want to change, but I know you can’t change your sexuality…. That’s not how it works,” he explains to his mother. “I’ve always wanted to change. I would stay up every single night, praying that I would be straight, and I’d wake up straight…. I would do that, since I was literally 10 years old, I would pray for that, and it never worked. There’s nothing that you can do…. There’s no changing that. You can’t change your sexuality. I’m like, almost certain of it.”

He eventually says that he thinks he is seeking male affection because the only men in his life, his older brother and father, were both abusive. He later reveals that his sister Yasmin already knows but that he never came out to his father (and never will) because his father is abusive and “crazy.”

He also says he doesn’t wish to visit his relatives in the island nation of Cyprus because they already “hate” him and won’t accept his sexuality. His mother repeatedly says that “You don’t see gay people” in Cyprus — though Karausta explains that gay people definitely exist there because gay people exist everywhere. His mother encourages him to hide his sexuality from his relatives, and he promises to.

When he later asks what she’s thinking, she asks if he knows how gay men have sex. (He replies that he does.) She then admits that she’s worried that he’ll contract diseases (though he replies that he could also contract diseases from heterosexual intercourse). She also worries that he’ll be lonely and not have a family. He says he doesn’t want a family because he’s gay.

He repeatedly says his gayness doesn’t matter and that it doesn’t change anything. He also says he will never meet a boy because he has no friends.

Near the end of the video, he asks her, “Do you see me any different than you did before?”

“No,” she says, “because you’re my son.”

She also asks him not to upload the video, worried that his relatives will see. He replies that if relatives see, they can think whatever they want, because it will only reflect on him, not on her.

“I want to post myself online because this is what I want to do,” he explains. “I want to do this full-time. This is what I want so badly. Like, this is what I’ve wanted for so long. I want to make videos of my life so people feel seen and acknowledged and entertained.”

He then reassures her that posting the video online won’t matter because he will only post it on his YouTube and not his other social media accounts, and it will only get 100 views. The video has over 288,000 views as of June 16.

Since posting the video, he admitted, “My mum’s response was incredibly difficult to hear, and it was one of the hardest moments of my life. At the same time, sharing my story has allowed me to connect with so many people around the world who have had similar experiences, and the support I have received has been overwhelming,” The Tab reported.

“Although the situation with my family has been painful, I hope that by sharing my experience I can help others feel less alone and encourage more understanding and acceptance. Seeing the response to my video has reminded me that there are so many people out there who genuinely care and want to support others.”

While some YouTube commenters said it’s sad that he promised never to date anyone just to make his mother more comfortable, others noted that Karausta is still a young person trying to immediately comfort his distressed mother, and that they may come to feel differently over time.

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A cisgender Washington state high school wrestler is suing state officials, her school district, and others, claiming that a transgender opponent sexually assaulted her during a match.

Last week, anti-LGBTQ+ Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a lawsuit on behalf of Kallie Keeler and her mother, Stephanie Brown. The lawsuit claims that during a December 2025 high school girls’ wrestling tournament sponsored by the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA), Keeler was forced to throw a match to end an alleged sexual assault by her transgender opponent.

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The complaint alleges that the unnamed opponent, who is misgendered throughout, “sexually assaulted [Keeler], shoving his fingers through her spandex clothing, digitally penetrating her vagina, and holding the position for several seconds.”

“To stop this, [Keeler] allowed [her opponent] to pin her,” according to the complaint, resulting in a fourth-place finish in the tournament.

Keeler and Brown claim tournament officials did not make them aware that the then-15-year-old would be competing against a transgender wrestler, and if they had, Keeler would have declined to compete.

As part of its lawsuit, ADF provided video of the match, recorded by Brown. In the three-minute video, Brown can be heard cheering her daughter on, but at no point does she sound alarmed by what she is seeing. At one point, Keeler’s opponent’s arm can be seen between Keeler’s legs. Keeler then appears to look directly at her mother, who can be heard saying, “I don’t know what she said or why her face looked like that,” while laughing.

According to the lawsuit, Keeler allegedly “cried to her mom that her opponents’ fingers are ‘in my c***hie!’” She can’t be heard in the audio in the video, though.

Notably, the referee, who is clearly visible in the video, did not stop the match.

According to Hemant Mehta, multiple wrestlers, wrestling coaches, and parents of youth wrestlers he spoke with for his The Friendly Atheist newsletter told him they saw nothing abnormal in the video.

One experienced wrestler told Mehta that they did not “see any sexual assault whatsoever” and that every move in the video was executed as they were taught.

“There’s a leg lift on a turn that was high on the thigh, but it was pretty clearly just an exhausted wrestler using poor technique,” another wrestler told Mehta.

A female wrestling coach explained that “oil checking” — a joke term for when a finger ends up between an opponent’s cheeks — is a common mishap in wrestling matches, “especially when you’re attempting to lift the opponent’s leg from around the thigh to step through and turn them (which is a very common technique).” But she told Mehta that when she watched the video, “nothing seemed malicious or intentional.” She also went on to note that “no one said anything to the ref, or went to the officials’ table after the match to make a complaint, which is typically what you do if you have a problem as serious as they’re claiming.”

According to ADF’s lawsuit, Keeler intended to tell her mother about the alleged assault immediately after the match, but was too upset to do so. At that point, a coach from another District team informed them that Keeler’s opponent was trans.

The following Monday, Brown sent an email to her daughter’s school complaining that Keeler had unknowingly wrestled a transgender girl and reporting the alleged assault. As Mehta notes, the lawsuit claims that the Puyallup School District took no action following Brown’s report.

Brown and Keeler then took their story to local journalist Brandi Kruse, whose reporting went viral among anti-trans advocates. In February, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Puyallup School District based on Keeler’s allegations.

Still, as Mehta notes, the WIAA has taken no action over the incident, and Pierce County prosecutors declined last week to file criminal charges in the case, according to local NBC affiliate KING 5.

ADF announced its lawsuit last week, with president and CEO Kristen Waggoner posting about it on X — and anti-trans advocate J.K. Rowling reposting.

However, according to Mehta, multiple anti-trans X users posted comments on Waggoner’s post, which included video of the match, criticizing the allegations.

“Conflating an otherwise normal wrestling match as sexual assault simply because of the identity of your opponent is absurd,” one user commented.

“While I hate this trans ideology s**t more than anyone, this wasn’t sexual assault,” another wrote. “If you are using this video as evidence, it just shows a wrestling match.”

“As a former highschool [sic] wrestler I agree with not letting males wrestle females, but nothing in this video constitutes sexual assault,” another commenter wrote on June 11. “There’s [sic] isn’t a single move or action that wouldn’t have been done if it was male v male or female v female.”

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Math teacher Christian Shearhod went viral for his passionate lesson on acceptance that helps students understand what is and is not “gay.”

Shearhod, who is straight, was addressing how the term is often used as an insult against people who do not conform to gender expectations. “‘This is gay! That is gay! Everything is gay!’ I hear it all day, but do y’all know what it means?” he asked the class.

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A student responds: “You like the same gender as yourself.”

“Exactly!” he responds.

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He then turns to a PowerPoint presentation and begins asking his students if various things are gay.

“Painting your nails, is it gay?” he yells.

“No!” the kids yell back.

“Wearing pink, is it gay?”

“No!”

He asks about wearing crop tops, holding hands with your friends, liking Barbie or My Little Pony, and wearing dresses. The kids enthusiastically shout that none of those things are gay.

Shearhod shows the students a picture of a man in a pink dress and asks, “Do you think he feels bonita?” The class yells in agreement.

He concludes by asking if “boys who like boys” and “girls who like girls” are gay, and everyone excitedly yells, “Yes!” The next slide displays a little girl and her two dads, and everyone applauds.

“Can y’all believe that some people look at this and they don’t like that?” he asked. “So hateful, you know what I mean? This is beautiful. And being gay is…”

“Okay!” the class responds.

The video has amassed over 415 thousand views on TikTok and over 900 comments.

“I hope this teacher gets everything good in life,” one person wrote. “what a freakin great example to give those kids.”

“I love how you make such a potentially explosive topic into such a fun and easy to understand lesson :)” wrote another.

A third person called Shearhod , “THE BEST TEACHER TO EVER EXIST!!!!”

@mr.shearhod

Is it gay!??

♬ original sound – Christian Shearhod

Shearhod has 1.8 million followers on TikTok and 1.3 million on Instagram. He posts videos on LGBTQ+ inclusion, gender equality, student advocacy, immigration rights, and the like. He has also been outspoken about how it angers people that he still identifies as straight while his partner is a trans woman.

He also regularly posts videos with his son. In 2023, he went viral for taking the then-three-year-old to get a manicure after his teacher told the child that only girls could paint their nails.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NBC OUT (@nbcout)

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Out MS Now host Rachel Maddow pointed out in a Monday segment how suspicious it is that Donald Trump has continued to block the opening of a critical new bridge connecting the United States and Canada.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge connects Detroit, Michigan, to Ontario, Canada, across the Detroit River, making international travel between the two significantly easier. Experts say it could be huge for the economies on both sides of the bridge, as the current route across the river is far less efficient, and many businesses rely on partners on both sides.

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And even though the bridge is complete, Trump won’t let it open.

“The White House insists that categorically, just because [Trump is] president, he can’t have a conflict of interest. It’s like dividing by zero. Doesn’t make sense!” Maddow said.

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“There is a competing bridge a little way down the river,” she pointed out. “A privately owned, very old, very congested toll bridge that will likely lose some of its traffic because of competition.” She then explained that the wealthy family that owns it made a $1 million donation to Trump’s super PAC earlier this year.

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” she said, acknowledging the “very practical consequences” of having a “shamelessly corrupt” president.

“Heaven forbid a MAGA donor be inconvenienced… Because that, to a corrupt administration, is way worse than literally tens of thousands of people a day being deprived of the use of this… state-of-the-art, brand-new, beautiful bridge.”

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The nonbinary ranger who was fired for displaying a large trans flag at Yosemite National Park last year has had their lawsuit against the federal government dismissed by a judge. The dismissal came not on the merits of the case, but on a technicality, which requires them to wait on a response from the office of the special counsel before they can appeal.

Dr. SJ Joslin told the New York Times that this “isn’t a ‘win’ for the federal government.” They went on to lament that “this just slows down the process of allowing justice to be served for the American people and slows down allowing National Park Service employees to be effective stewards of public lands.”

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Joslin had petitioned the court to reinstate them in their job, order the government not to pursue a criminal investigation into them for an action purportedly protected by the First Amendment, and issue a preliminary injunction enabling them to return to work while the case was decided.

US District Judge Jennifer Thurston ruled that, as a probationary employee, Joslin was required to follow the process in the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA). Under that policy, they must file a complaint with the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC).

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Joslin has already filed with the OSC, but a response to their case is not expected until August. In the meantime, OSC denied the request to put Joslin’s termination on hold until a final decision is issued. While Joslin may be able to return to the courts if the OSC upholds their termination, Judge Thurston has said they cannot do more until that decision is reached.

In her ruling, the judge noted that the government claimed Joslin’s firing was not related to the potential free speech issue surrounding the display of the trans flag, but rather focused on the technical matter.

“The government has another more fundamental and more persuasive point: under the laws that Congress has passed, and under the legal precedent that a federal trial court must follow, this Court does not have authority to decide whether Joslin was fired for unconstitutional or illegal reasons, nor to block a hypothetical criminal case against them.”

The judge also denied the preliminary injunction, as such an injunction would have to be predicated on an expectation that Joslin would win their case. As that case is being dismissed, the injunction cannot be issued.

In May 2025, during off-work hours, Joslin led a group of activists (including Pattie Gonia, who is currently fighting a copyright lawsuit from Patagonia) to hang a 55-foot transgender Pride flag from El Capitan.

Joslin has said that the protest came in the face of the Trump administration’s campaign against trans and gender diverse people through a series of executive orders and a renewal of his trans military ban.

Speaking to the Associated Press at the time, Joslin said, “I was really hurting because there were a lot of policies coming from the current administration that target trans people, and I’m nonbinary.” They described it as a way to “tell myself… that we’re all safe in national parks.”

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The act was not illegal, with many National Parks having “First Amendment areas” where no permit is required for a small demonstration of 25 or fewer people. El Capitan is located within one of those areas, and the group of activists was small.

There were also no policies against such a display at Yosemite at the time. However, the day after Joslin and their team unfurled the trans flag, Ray McPadden, the Yosemite acting supervisor, updated the rules to ban “any banner, flag, or sign larger than fifteen square feet” from any of the park’s “natural or cultural feature[s].”

On August 12, Joslin received a letter firing them for “failing to demonstrate acceptable conduct” during their 2-year probationary period, citing the demonstration. They asked for evidence that the display was in any way against the policies of the time, but never received it. They were later notified that they and two of their coworkers were under criminal investigation over the incident.

In February, Joslin filed their lawsuit against the federal government, challenging their termination and the alleged criminal investigation, claiming that both infringed on their First Amendment right to free speech. The lawsuit targeted the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and NPS acting director Jessica Bowron.

In the complaint, Joslin’s lawyers noted, “For decades, climbers at Yosemite National Park have expressed messages — political and non-political — from the iconic rock formation El Capitan.” However, “For this transgression, Dr. Joslin was summarily fired and then, in a significant escalation, criminally investigated. This vindictive campaign violated Dr. Joslin’s First Amendment and Privacy Act rights and continues to chill their expressive conduct and speech.”

The lawsuit also cites the Trump administration’s campaign against the trans community. Joslin told The Hill in May, “Yes, I lost my job for this flag. But this wasn’t the first way that the Trump administration had been scaring us into silence as federal workers.” Clayton Bailey of the Civil Service Law Center, which serves as co-counsel on the case, said that, “If Dr. Joslin had hung a flag the administration liked, they would be working at Yosemite today.”

Despite the dismissal, the judge has left room for Joslin to return to court in the future. She notes that if OSC upholds the termination, Joslin might have limited options. At the same time, the decision does not address the First Amendment aspect of the case. Instead, Thurston dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning that the matter may be revisited in a subsequent lawsuit.

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The city of Key West, Florida, has been forced to end a Pride-themed art initiative due to the state’s anti-DEI law.

On Friday, the Key West Business Guild wrote on social media that the city attorney had “confirmed what many feared and sadly what we anticipated: Florida’s new Senate Bill 1134 effectively ended the Rainbow Arch project before it could even begin.”

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The city launched the project in response to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) crusade against rainbow crosswalks throughout the state. After DeSantis’ wrath against LGBTQ+ people reached Key West and included his administration painting over a rainbow crosswalk in the dead of night, city officials proposed replacing the symbol of inclusion with a large rainbow arch downtown, declaring, “All Are Welcome Here.”

But according to the Business Guild, the city attorney said the project was against state law “because its purpose was to celebrate diversity, inclusion, and the freedom of LGBTQ+ people to live openly and authentically.”

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In April, DeSantis signed S.B. 1134, which bans local governments from using taxpayer dollars to fund or promote DEI efforts. The bill defines DEI as any effort to “promote or adopt training, programming or activities designed or implemented with reference to race, color, sex, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation,” but it includes exceptions for events or programs related to federal holidays or individuals and groups honored by monuments, memorials, and museums authorized by state law.

The law – described by Equality Florida senior political director Joe Saunders as “a sledgehammer aimed at cities and counties that dare to recognize and address the diversity of the people they serve” – also allows any city or county resident to sue their local government for perceived violations, while local elected officials could be removed from office.

The Guild explained that the arch could not even have been grandfathered in if it were built before the law officially takes effect on January 1, 2027, because it would require ongoing funding from the city to maintain.

“Let’s be clear about what this means,” the Guild wrote. “The Rainbow Art project was not canceled because of a lack of community support. It was not canceled due to a lack of funding. It was not canceled because the project was flawed. It was canceled because a new state law targets initiatives associated with diversity, equity, inclusion, and LGBTQ+ visibility.”

“For years, the Rainbow Crosswalk and the proposed Rainbow Arch Project represented something bigger than paint, steel, or public art,” the group continued. “They were symbols that told LGBTQ+ residents, visitors, families, and young people that they belong here. That they are welcome here. That they are part of the fabric of our community.”

The Guild also emphasized its continued commitment to “equality, visibility, and belonging” and said they are “determined to do everything possible to restore our symbol of visibility and acceptance.”

Last July, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged governors to remove any political messages, artwork, and markings from intersections that are not directly related to pedestrian or driver safety. He wrote on social media, “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”

Later that month, DeSantis signed a law banning “nonstandard surface markings, signage, and signals that do not directly contribute to traffic safety or control can lead to distractions or misunderstandings, jeopardizing both driver and pedestrian safety.” 

Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue confirmed the true motivation behind the campaign to remove the crosswalk art while praising the law.

“Florida’s proactive efforts to ensure we keep our transportation facilities free & clear of political ideologies were cemented into law by @GovRonDeSantis,” Perdue posted to socials. “Great to now have our federal partners also aligned behind this same common-sense policy.”

GOP officials claim the crosswalks distract drivers, but data says otherwise.

The Bloomberg Philanthropies 2022 Asphalt Art Safety Study found that crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists drop 50% at painted intersections.

It also reported a 25% decrease in conflicts between drivers and pedestrians, a 27% increase in drivers immediately yielding to pedestrians, and a 38% decrease in pedestrians crossing when the walk signal was not lit at intersections involving public art. The data also revealed that injuries resulting from crashes drop 37% in painted intersections.  
 

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People are reacting strongly to images of Donald Trump appearing excessively fatigued as he met with French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday for the G7 summit.

“Trump looks like death warmed over,” independent journalist Aaron Rupar wrote while sharing a picture of the two presidents shaking hands.

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Shortly after Sunday night’s White House UFC fight, Trump hopped on a plane and flew to Europe to meet Macron at Évian-les-Bains, near the Swiss border, for the G7 summit. Macron, who is hosting the summit, even postponed it so that Trump could attend the UFC fight on his birthday.

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But observers noted that Trump didn’t appear to be in great shape when he arrived in France, noticeably struggling to keep his eyes open while meeting with Macron, The New Republic noted.

The same outlet noted that Trump’s hands were swollen and bruised again, a chronic issue for Trump over the past year. “If this is what the public is seeing, how much worse is Trump doing in private?” TNR’s Hafiz Rashid wrote.

“The WH is trying to project Trump as the president who never stops working, going right from the UFC thing to Paris and nailing down the Iran agreement when others were sleeping,” posted author and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild. “In reality, he looks and sounds totally spent. How much longer can they keep the plates spinning?”

While the UFC fight may have kept him up late the night before his meeting with Macron, people have pointed out that it appears Trump slept through at least part of it.

There is no confirmation that he was actually sleeping and not just blinking really hard, as some Trump supporters claimed.

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Vice President JD Vance now says it was “boneheaded” of him to call several prominent Democrats “childless cat ladies.”

In his new book Communion, Vance said that the comments were “One of the dumbest things I ever said.”

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He was referring to statements he made on Fox News in 2021 on Tucker Carlson’s show where he said that the U.S. is run by “Democrats” and “corporate oligarchs” who are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the voices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

He then named three examples: Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

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“And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?” Vance asked.

Less than a month after Vance’s comments, Buttigieg announced on social media that he and husband Chasten were in fact in the process of becoming parents. In September 2021, they announced that they had adopted fraternal twins Penelope Rose and Joseph August.

Moreover, Harris was already a mother to her two stepchildren.

But now Vance is walking back that insult: “It was a boneheaded comment, intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating.”

Vance discusses the episode in a part of the book where he talks about how it’s “okay to admit error.” He said that he intended his comments to be about how “our society is becoming pathologically hostile to having kids” but that he “could have made that point much more effectively, and with the benefit of showing a little charity to the many Americans who — some for reasons beyond their control —­ don’t have children.”

Buttigieg said as much in 2024, noting that he and his husband were going through a difficult – and private – adoption process when Vance made his comments.

“The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey,” Buttigieg said at the time on CNN. “He couldn’t have known that, but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children.”

Vance’s book discusses his “faith journey” from Protestant to atheist to Catholic, according to NBC News. The book reportedly has a chapter about how Pope Francis died the day after he encountered Vance.

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The French legislature observed a minute of silence for a teenager who was killed in a potential homophobic hate crime last month.

Two men, ages 20 and 27, allegedly attacked a 19-year-old identified only by the first name Noahm in the media late at night on May 29 in the city of Metz in northeast France. Noahm died on June 2 in the hospital due to his injuries.

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“I yelled, I screamed as loud as I could,” one of Noahm’s friends who witnessed the attack told the local news outlet ICI Lorraine Nord. The friend said that their group encountered another group that accused Noahm and his friends of filming them.

“They hit [Noahm] once and he fell to the ground,” the witness said. “Even after he was on the ground, they continued. They hit his head. After that, they let out all their hatred, calling Noahm ‘pédé’ and ‘pédale’ [homophobic slurs], and flipped him off. It was a homophobic hate crime, pure and simple.”

Several LGBTQ+ organizations immediately denounced the attack as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime, as did prominent French politician Jean-Luc Mélanchon, who called it a “homophobic attack” on X.

On June 9, the National Assembly – the lower chamber of the French legislature – was scheduled to observe a minute of silence for Lyhanna, an 11-year-old who was found dead earlier this month and whose death has led to demonstrations across the country.

“The nation’s emotions also ran very high after the murder of Noahm, victim of a real lynching in the streets of Metz,” said National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet (RE) on June 9 as she introduced the minute of silence for both victims. “Noahm was 19. He was just going home from a night out with friends.”

“In our Republic, no one – absolutely no one – should be insulted, harassed, killed for being who they are, for loving.”

Braun-Pivet didn’t mention the alleged homophobic nature of Noahm’s killing, so a deputy – a member of the National Assembly – pointed it out.

“Madame President, because words are important, please permit me to say on this floor that Noahm was killed because gay, because of homophobia,” said Deputy Marie-Charlotte Garin (Ecologist), getting applause from her colleagues.

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At Pride in Metz this past weekend, Noahm’s cousin Nabil said, “His story reminds us why Pride still exists and why it’s still necessary,” earning applause, AFP reports.

Two suspects were arrested in connection with Noahm’s death. They were held on charges of “murder aggravated by state of intoxication,” which is not a hate crime, leading to outcry against prosecutors. A third suspect, age 19, was brought in for questioning and later cleared.

Describing his death as the result of “an attack obviously motivated by his gender expression and perceived homosexuality,” the organization Inter-LGBT denounced the lack of media attention on Noahm the day after the minute of silence.

“We are profoundly angry at this loss of life, at the lack of reaction of certain elected officials and media outlets, which are often very fast to take up such stories,” the statement read. “We are disgusted that, once again, despite the testimony of people who witnessed the crime, the aggravating circumstance related to sexual orientation was not taken into account by prosecutors.”

“Noahm was the victim of a hate crime. We expect authorities to shine a light on all aspects of this murder,” the group continued. “We appreciate the minute of silence observed in the National Assembly, but we are concerned that there was no mention of the victim’s homosexuality.”

The next day, prosecutor David Touvet expanded the investigation to include the possibility that Noahm was killed in a hate crime. Noahm’s family’s attorney said this was because of “serious and consistent clues,” while the suspects’ attorneys accused prosecutors of capitulating to public outcry around Noahm’s death.

A source with the prosecutor’s office told France Inter that they estimate the investigation will take 18 months to two years to complete.

The LGBTQ+ organization SOS Homophobie said that an estimated 1,800 anti-gay attacks occurred in France in 2025.

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Nicki Minaj can’t take a joke.

Trevor Noah, who hosted the Grammy Awards this Sunday in LA, made a joke about her meeting with Donald Trump last week, part of her transformation into a QAnon-believing MAGA supporter.

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“Nicki Minaj is not here, she is not here,” Noah said, getting applause from the crowd. “She is still at the White House with Donald Trump discussing very important issues.”

Then he did a Trump impression: “Actually, Nicki, I have the biggest a*s. I have it, everybody’s saying it, Nicki. I know they say it’s you, but it’s me. WAP, WAP, WAP. Look at it, baby.”

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Minaj apparently didn’t like that joke, lashing out at Noah on X: “Trevor refuses to come out the closet when everyone in the industry knows his boyfriend. Allegedly.”

She included a picture of herself wearing a hat that said, “Nicki was right about everything!” and pictures of Jay-Z with Aaliyah and Beyoncé when they were minors in the 90s. It’s unclear what those pictures have to do with Noah, who moved to the United States in 2011.

Noah does not identify as LGBTQ+.

Minaj continued in her anti-LGBTQ+ tweetstorm yesterday, writing a post that said she believes “your favorite artist has been practicing rituals in a satanic cult where they take babies from other countries & mutilate & kill them as a form of a blood sacrifice to their God. You see, when your master is satan, you must constantly shed blood. However, the JIG IS UP.” This is the story that QAnon followers believe, and they usually assign Hillary Clinton, Tom Hanks, or other celebrities or Democrats to the role of leader of the secret Satanic pedophile cabal. QAnon is a conspiracy theory with no evidence to support it.

Minaj then wrote that “the LGBT has also started seeing through the veil & it has them pissed off.” She said that Democrats are “getting the gay vote by default” and said that gay people “should be able to choose every 4 years like everyone else.” That is already the case. There is no legal requirement that LGBTQ+ people vote for Democrats; it’s just that Democrats tend to be much better on issues important to LGBTQ+ people.

It’s notable that Minaj, despite her claimed opposition to sexual abuse, has thrown her support behind Trump, who a jury found had sexually abused author E. Jean Carroll when he forcibly penetrated her in a department store changing room.

Also, Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, is a registered sex offender, having served four years in prison for attempted rape. He was arrested in 2020 because he failed to register as a sex offender when he moved to California with Minaj and was sentenced to a year of house arrest.

Trump also raged at Noah over a joke Noah made about Trump’s longtime friendship with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“That is a Grammy that every artist wants almost as much as Trump wants Greenland,” Noah said at the awards show. “Which makes sense, I mean, because Epstein’s island is gone, he needs a new one to hang out on with Bill Clinton.” Epstein owned an island in the Caribbean where he would allegedly take other wealthy men to abuse trafficked women and girls.

“Noah, a total loser, better get his facts straight, and get them straight fast,” Trump posted to Truth Social, denying that he had ever been to Epstein’s island. “It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$.”

“Get ready Noah, I’m going to have some fun with you!”

Noah is not married and has said that “society has deemed me a loser” because of that.

“Being married is like you’ve served,” he said on his What Now? podcast in 2024. “There’s a certain honor that comes with it. If you’ve never been married, there’s this weird thing that people do to you where they treat you like you’re not a serious person in life.”

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Jackson Lahmeyer, a Republican U.S. House candidate and founder of “Pastors for Trump” who is married with five kids, reportedly sent sext messages to a former Miss Oklahoma Caitlin Simmons Key who had worked for him as a fundraiser, The Daily Mail reported in a June 14 article. Trump has endorsed Lahmeyer as a “MAGA warrior” ahead of his June 16 primary election.

Lahmeyer has previously said that Black Lives Matter was started by “witchcraft-practicing lesbians” and published an October 24, 2024, statement on X saying that the “Antichrist will be a HOMOSEXUAL of Jewish descent,” the satirical left-leaning website Wonkette reported.

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In the text messages, Lahmeyer texted Key from a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, saying she looks “skinny and cute.” When she asked why he was texting her from there, he sent her a selfie and a message stating, “I like texting you LOL.” He later asked what she was doing and when she said she was taking a bath, he sent her a heart eyes emoji. He later said he’d give her a “late invite” to visit his hotel room. In later messages, she told him that they couldn’t get involved unless he got divorced.

When Lahmeyer’s wife, Kendra Lehmeyer, found out about the alleged texts, she contacted Key with messages that said, “You are a home wrecking whore. Did you enjoy ruining our family?” Key subsequently reported the texts to The Daily Mail. Jackson Lahmeyer is one of 10 Republicans running for the U.S. House seat.

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