Washington Post: Amid anti-DEI push, National Park Service rewrites history of Underground Railroad
Since Trump took office, the park service — an agency charged with preserving American history — has changed how its website describes key moments from slavery to Jim Crow
For years, a National Park Service webpage introduced the Underground Railroad with a large photograph of its most famous “conductor,” Harriet Tubman. “The Underground Railroad — the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War — refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage,” the page began.
Tubman’s photograph is now gone. In its place are images of Postal Service stamps that highlight “Black/White cooperation” in the secret network and that feature Tubman among abolitionists of both races.
The introductory sentence is gone, too. It has been replaced by a line that makes no mention of slavery and that describes the Underground Railroad as “one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement.” The effort “bridged the divides of race,” the page now says.
(Washington Post: more…)
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Rebecca Solnit: Millions Stood Up: April 5 Hands Off Day of Action
I was the closing speaker at the ebullient San Francisco Hands Off rally, and when I got home later I scoured the news for reports on the more than one thousand other rallies. Of course people would show up in the big cities and the bluest places, but what really exhilarated me was to see the turnout in reddest America–Utah, Nebraska, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Idaho–and small communities not known for their protests. People stood up for their principles in the cold in Alaska and the rain in the Northeast and the heat in St. Augustine Florida. I’m impatiently waiting for the Crowd Counting Consortium to give us numbers, but some early estimates say well over three million people showed up.
(Rebecca Solnit: more…)Sarah Jones: Huge Crowds Turn Out In Blue And Red Areas To Protest Trump And Musk
AP: Angry protesters from New York to Alaska assail Trump and Musk in ‘Hands Off!’ rallies
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 5, 2025
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In San Francisco, where Buddy and I joined a protest, what jumped out to me was how many of the signs in the crowd called for the protection of the U.S. Constitution, our institutions, and the government agencies that keep us safe.
…Closer to the Edge: MAYOR MELVIN CARTER’S HANDS OFF RALLY SPEECH: A CALL TO FIGHT WITH LOVE, NOT HATE
Melvin Carter is the mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota—a city committed to progressive values and inclusivity. As the first Black mayor of St. Paul, Carter has worked tirelessly to promote policies that prioritize the safety and well-being of all residents, particularly marginalized communities. His speech at the Hands Off Rally was a powerful call to action in the face of rising political divisiveness, urging the crowd to fight with love, not hate. Below is the full transcript of his inspiring words, a passionate plea for unity, justice, and decency in these tumultuous times.
(Closer to the Edge: more…)John Pavlovitz: Protests Won’t Save America
How the #HandsOff event can catalyze or anesthetize us
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Rallies and protests are awe-inspiring, goosebump-inducing, breathtakingly cathartic moments.But rallies and protests don’t vote and they don’t save democracies.
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We need to remember that transformative activism is found in sustained movements, not in soothing moments, and we need to find our place in the messy and local battles throughout this nation until we actually strike fear into the oppressors and oligarchs, and upend the new order they are constructing where we are truly powerless.Then, we’ll look back on these days not as isolated events that temporarily lifted but ultimately anesthetized us into inaction—but as the beginning of a new revolution that we set into motion.
Hands-on, good people.
Ken Klippenstein: I Went to the Anti-Trump Protest
VIDEO: People I interviewed were united on one thing I wasn’t expecting
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Marisa Kabas: Try that in a small town
ICE disappeared a mother and 3 children. Neighbors of Trump’s Border Czar said hell no.
Principal Jaime Cook describes one of the third graders in her northern New York school as particularly rambunctious. In a phone call with me Saturday evening, she says this particular student loves to sing and loves to dance. But last week this child was handcuffed and taken by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with other family members—two of whom are high school-aged kids. While they all remain jailed in Texas, classmates leave cards on the student’s desk and hang a welcome home banner they hope will be seen.As people across the country assembled Saturday to tell the Trump regime to keep their “Hands off!”, a protest in the tiny town of Sackets Harbor, NY caught my eye. While this one was certainly related to the larger theme of the day, the impetus was much more specific: A worker on a local dairy farm who had no criminal record and was awaiting legal immigration proceedings was disappeared late last month by ICE along with her three children.
(Marisa Kabas: more…)
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Thom Hartmann: Get Out There, Get Active
Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: “The Hidden History of the War on Voting”
(Thom Hartmann: more…)
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Reuters: U.S. aid team fired while in Myanmar earthquake zone, ex-official says
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CleanTechnica: China Just Turned Off U.S. Supplies Of Minerals Critical For Defense & Cleantech
In April 2025, while most of the world was clutching pearls over trade war tit-for-tat tariffs, China calmly walked over to the supply chain and yanked out a handful of critical bolts. The bolts are made of dysprosium, terbium, tungsten, indium and yttrium—the elements that don’t make headlines but without which your electric car doesn’t run, your fighter jet doesn’t fly, and your solar panels go from clean energy marvels to overpriced roofing tiles. They’re minerals that show up on obscure government risk registers right before wars start or cleantech projects get quietly cancelled.
(CleanTechnica: more…)
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NY Times: ‘0 to 1939 in 3 seconds’: Why Anti-Elon Musk Satire Is Flourishing in Britain
Humor and art have been used to mock the powerful in Britain for centuries. Now Elon Musk is on the receiving end.
(NY Times: more…)
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Bulwark: Trump’s Next Target: Poverty-Stricken Kids
Head Start and other early-childhood programs are among those affected by massive cuts to HHS.
(Bulwark: more…)
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NY Times: The Three States That Are Especially Stuck if Congress Cuts Medicaid
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NY Times: Trump’s Tariffs Will Wound Free Trade, but the Blow May Not Be Fatal
Free trade has been so beneficial to so many countries that the world may find a way to live without its biggest player.
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Wired: DOGE Is Planning a Hackathon at the IRS. It Wants Easier Access to Taxpayer Data
DOGE operatives have repeatedly referred to the software company Palantir as a possible partner in creating a “mega API” at the IRS, sources tell WIRED.
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Apple Insider: Security advisor blames iPhone for revealing war plans
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has blamed his iPhone for accidentally inviting a journalist into a secret discussion of a strategic military strike.
Register: Signalgate solved? Report claims journalist’s phone number accidentally saved under name of Trump official
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NY Times: Judge Calls Mistaken Deportation of Maryland Man a ‘Grievous Error’
Judge Paula Xinis, who has ordered that the Trump administration return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, by Monday, also rejected a request to pause that order.