Latest news with #CriticalRaceTheory
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge allows two additional groups to intervene in Arkansas ballot referendum case
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A federal judge on Wednesday permitted to additional groups to intervene in a case intending to strike down changes made to Arkansas ballot referendum laws. Protect AR Rights and For AR Kids will now be able to join in the League of Women Voters of Arkansas vs. Jester case. That complaint challenges a host of recently enacted laws by the Arkansas legislature, making it harder for Arkansans to file ballot referendums. Protect AR Rights ballot title to overturn recent ballot title laws rejected by attorney general a second time The motion to intervene was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, Elias Law Group LLP, and Shults Law Firm LLP. 'We're pleased that the court has granted our motion to intervene,' ACLU of Arkansas Legal Director John Williams said. 'This decision ensures that the voices of grassroots groups actively engaged in the ballot initiative process will be fully represented in this case.' Williams added: 'Our clients are already feeling the impact of these unconstitutional laws, and now they'll have the opportunity to stand up in court and defend the First Amendment rights of all Arkansans who seek political change through direct democracy.' Previously, Protect AR Rights had filed to place a question on the Arkansas general election ballot to overturn the new laws. It had been rejected twice by the attorney general's office due to the proposed ballot title being above an eighth-grade reading level, as required by one of the laws passed by the 95th General Assembly. Appeals court reinstates Arkansas ban on teaching Critical Race Theory Protect AR Rights is made up of a coalition of Arkansas Appleseed, Arkansas Citizens First Congress, Arkansas Public Policy Panel, For AR People, the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP and the Arkansas Education Association. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
CBC
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Hundreds attend concert for MAGA-affiliated musician at Toronto church after Vaughan denies permit
Controversial Christian rocker Sean Feucht, known for his affiliation with the MAGA movement, performed at an Etobicoke church packed with hundreds of attendees on Sunday. The concert was originally scheduled to be played in Vaughan's Dufferin District Park. The city denied the show's permit request on the grounds of "health and safety, as well as community standards and well-being." Feucht, who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Congress as a Republican in 2020, is also a missionary and an author who has spoken out against the 2SLGBTQ+ community, abortion rights and critical race theory. Feucht told the audience on Sunday that he was "disturbed" by the backlash from municipalities on the first leg of his tour, but that he'll continue to exercise his rights and freedoms. Several municipalities, including Vaughan, Gatineau, Que. ,and Montreal, have refused permits due to concerns with public safety. A spokesperson from the Montreal mayor's office said the show "goes against the values of inclusion, solidarity and respect." "The place where I got the biggest persecution and resistance was in Canada. That's wild. Not Iraq or Turkey, but Canada," Feucht told the audience on Sunday. He said the tour has been a trending topic on social media, which has brought more awareness to the movement. "More cameras, more news outlets, everyone is talking about worship in Canada. It's provoking a national dialogue," he said The event's attendees came in from across the Greater Toronto Area and as far as Cambridge, Ont., with some saying they were there to support the cause after hearing of the cancellations. Feucht's "brand of Christianity" is worrying given how it is being politicized and is exclusive, instead of being inclusive of all people, said Deana Dudley, a reverend at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto (MCC). MAGA-affiliated musician's Canadian concert permits denied 4 days ago American musician Sean Feucht has had multiple event permits for his Canadian concert tour denied or revoked by cities and Parks Canada, as some oppose his affiliation with the MAGA political movement. Dudley said it was upsetting to see Feucht claim "persecution" of Christians over the denied permits. Government-owned public venues don't always allow religious events to take place there and the MCC has also been denied permissions for that reason, she said. "If he wants to talk about persecution, he should talk to some of the LGBTQ+ refugees that we work with, who have had to flee their home countries," she said. Dudley said her interpretation of Christianity believes God has "unconditional love for all people," while Feucht's controversial stances make the religion feel exclusive for those who agree with those beliefs. It's important to protect people's constitutional rights of freedom of expression and religion, no matter their stance or controversial opinions, said Christine Van Geyn, litigation director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation. "The government doesn't get to pick and choose, except in very, very high and exceptional cases," she said. Instead of shutting down an event, Van Geyn said people should engage with it to share their views and, if possible, protest. By censoring an event, a movement is able to gain notoriety and even more attention, she warned. "This performer has become a martyr for a cause," she said. "That's the reason we're having this conversation. That's the reason everyone knows this performer's name is because of the attempts to silence." The City of Toronto said in a written statement that a permit was not necessary for the event on Sunday as it was held on private property.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
EXCLUSIVE: Group launches tip line for DOD employees to report DEI, 'woke' overreach
A West Point graduate and retired U.S. Army captain is launching a tip line for employees at the Department of Defense to report Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and other "woke" overreach. "America's military has suffered from decades of neglect and lowered fitness standards. It's made worse by the taint of woke policies like DEI and Critical Race Theory, which pit our servicemen against one another instead of unifying them to fight as a team," Doug Truax, a former US Army captain and 1992 West Point graduate, told Fox News Digital in a statement. "Our service academies, such as West Point – of which I am a proud graduate – are indoctrinating young officers in extreme, sexualized ideologies, instead of preparing them for combat. Enough is enough," added Truax, who is founder of the Foundation for the Restoration of America. Hegseth Quips '99.9%' Of Dei Initiatives Are Gone From The Military Under Trump's Watch The tip line will be part of founded by Truax, "a project to first expose the bad actors bogging down the culture of America's fighting forces with woke policies and corporatization, then work to reshape the military into the fighting force it needs to be," according to its website. Reports can be made through the website, as well as a telephone hotline. They are also planning to launch similar tip lines for students and faculty at U.S. service academies. Read On The Fox News App President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January ending DEI in the military, saying that "these actions undermine leadership, merit, and unit cohesion, thereby eroding lethality and force readiness. They also violate Americans' consciences by engaging in invidious race and sex discrimination." Trump Dod Creates Task Force To Abolish Dei Offices That 'Promote Systemic Racism' "With we want to help President Trump and Sec. Hegseth throw out the bad apples who've corrupted the Armed Forces," Truax said. "But we need to go beyond de-woking the military toward what I call re-warriorizing the services," he added. "It's time for a culture change, a top-to-bottom transformation to forge elite warriors held to the highest standards of morality and lethality."Original article source: EXCLUSIVE: Group launches tip line for DOD employees to report DEI, 'woke' overreach
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
From MAHA to TACO: A Guide to the Acronyms of Trump's Second Term
President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 28, 2025. Credit - Chris Kleponis—CNP/Bloomberg/Getty Images You may be familiar with POTUS (President of the United States), MAGA (Make America Great Again), and GOP (Grand Old Party), but there's a new acronym that President Donald Trump isn't a fan of. Short for 'Trump Always Chickens Out,' Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coined the phrase shortened as 'TACO' to describe the President's pattern of making major disruptive policy moves, such as levying hefty tariffs on effectively every country in the world, before reversing course after the moves cause panic and economic shock. The shorthand, which has been picked up by others, has clearly ruffled Trump's feathers. 'Don't ever say what you said, that's a nasty question,' Trump shot back when a reporter asked him about 'TACO' on Wednesday. 'To me that's the nastiest question.' 'You call that chickening out?' Trump said. 'It's called negotiation,' adding that he 'usually [has] the opposite problem—they say, 'you're too tough!'' Trump's apparent sensitivity will likely only ensure the acronym's longevity among critics. 'I want to be famous for my dumb joke, definitely, but I also don't want the President to ruin the U.S. economy," Armstrong told Axios. 'And so I'd like to have both of those things, if at all possible.' But TACO isn't the only acronym to take off in Trump's second term. Here's a guide to some of the others to know. 'DEI is DOA,' Trump's son Don Jr. posted on X in March, referencing the medical acronym for 'dead on arrival.' It's a common refrain among Republicans and supporters of the President's push to dismantle diversity-related policies across the federal government and private sector. Whereas Trump's first-term Administration focused most of its attacks on 'CRT' (Critical Race Theory), his 2024 campaign and current Administration have made 'DEI' a main target and scapegoat. What started in the 2010s as a nickname for an internet-viral shiba inu and morphed into a 'meme coin' became an official initialism in November when then-President-elect Trump announced the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The initiative, aimed at slashing federal spending, has overseen mass layoffs and sweeping cuts to government programs in the early months of Trump's second term. Musk, who announced on Wednesday that he is exiting the Trump Administration, has long hyped up the Doge meme, including naming a SpaceX satellite 'DOGE-1,' and boosted the cryptocurrency, including when he changed the then-Twitter logo to the dog-image meme. Amid a dispute over deportations with Colombia's President Gustavo Petro in January, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform an AI-generated image of himself wearing a fedora with the letters FAFO in red on a sign next to him. 'This is awesome,' Musk said, resharing the image on X. Trump had previously reshared a post by right-wing internet troll that said '5 days until FAFO' alongside an image of Trump, on Jan. 15, five days before Trump's second-term inauguration. The acronym, which stands for 'f-ck around, find out,' has been adopted 'as a slogan' by far-right groups, according to Merriam Webster, but is also widely used across the ideological spectrum 'as an expression of schadenfreude' about someone receiving negative consequences for their actions. The Times of London dubbed it 'Fafo diplomacy' when Trump pressured Colombia to quickly reverse its opposition to accepting deportation flights after Trump threatened to hike tariffs on the nation's exports. MAHA is a spin on Trump's tried-and-tested slogan 'Make America Great Again'—only with a focus on health. It took off in 2024 after Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—known for his fringe and sometimes disinformation-based views on health including vaccine skepticism—suspended his presidential campaign and threw his support behind Donald Trump. Trump nominated Kennedy to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Kennedy has since continued to use the slogan for government initiatives. 'Are you or your loved ones suffering from illnesses such as TDS, also known as Trump Derangement Syndrome?' begins a satirical ad released by Kennedy's former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, in late August, days after Kennedy suspended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. (Trump even promoted the video on his Truth Social platform.) 'It's a horrible, horrible terminal disease. It destroys the mind before the body, but the body eventually goes,' Trump said of TDS at a Moms for Liberty event in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2024. While the phrase originated during Trump's first presidential campaign in 2016, TDS has become an increasingly popular diagnosis Trump and his supporters like to give his critics. Five Republican state senators in Minnesota introduced a bill in March to codify TDS and categorize 'verbal expressions of intense hostility toward' Trump as a mental illness. The bill defines TDS as 'the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies' of Trump. It also lists symptoms as 'Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior.' 'This is possibly the worst bill in Minnesota history,' Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, a Democrat, said. 'If it is meant as a joke, it is a waste of staff time and taxpayer resources that trivializes serious mental health issues. If the authors are serious, it is an affront to free speech and an expression of a dangerous level of loyalty to an authoritarian president.' Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio, on May 15 also introduced a bill in Congress to direct the National Institutes of Health to study TDS. 'Instead of funding ludicrous studies such as giving methamphetamine to cats or teaching monkeys to gamble for their drinking water,' he said, 'the NIH should use that funding to research issues that are relevant to the real world.' Contact us at letters@
Time Magazine
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Time Magazine
From MAHA to TACO—A Guide to the Acronyms of Trump's Second Term
You may be familiar with POTUS (President of the United States), MAGA (Make America Great Again), and GOP (Grand Old Party), but there's a new acronym that President Donald Trump isn't a fan of. Short for 'Trump Always Chickens Out,' Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coined the phrase shortened as 'TACO' to describe the President's pattern of making major disruptive policy moves, such as levying hefty tariffs on effectively every country in the world, before reversing course after the moves cause panic and economic shock. The shorthand, which has been picked up by others, has clearly ruffled Trump's feathers. 'Don't ever say what you said, that's a nasty question,' Trump shot back when a reporter asked him about 'TACO' on Wednesday. 'To me that's the nastiest question.' 'You call that chickening out?' Trump said. 'It's called negotiation,' adding that he 'usually [has] the opposite problem—they say, 'you're too tough!'' Trump's apparent sensitivity will likely only ensure the acronym's longevity among critics. 'I want to be famous for my dumb joke, definitely, but I also don't want the President to ruin the U.S. economy," Armstrong told Axios. 'And so I'd like to have both of those things, if at all possible.' But TACO isn't the only acronym to take off in Trump's second term. Here's a guide to some of the others to know. DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) 'DEI is DOA,' Trump's son Don Jr. posted on X in March, referencing the medical acronym for 'dead on arrival.' It's a common refrain among Republicans and supporters of the President's push to dismantle diversity-related policies across the federal government and private sector. Whereas Trump's first-term Administration focused most of its attacks on 'CRT' (Critical Race Theory), his 2024 campaign and current Administration have made 'DEI' a main target and scapegoat. DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) What started in the 2010s as a nickname for an internet-viral shiba inu and morphed into a ' meme coin ' became an official initialism in November when then-President-elect Trump announced the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The initiative, aimed at slashing federal spending, has overseen mass layoffs and sweeping cuts to government programs in the early months of Trump's second term. Musk, who announced on Wednesday that he is exiting the Trump Administration, has long hyped up the Doge meme, including naming a SpaceX satellite ' DOGE-1,' and boosted the cryptocurrency, including when he changed the then-Twitter logo to the dog-image meme. FAFO (F-ck Around, Find Out) Amid a dispute over deportations with Colombia's President Gustavo Petro in January, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform an AI-generated image of himself wearing a fedora with the letters FAFO in red on a sign next to him. 'This is awesome,' Musk said, resharing the image on X. Trump had previously reshared a post by right-wing internet troll that said '5 days until FAFO' alongside an image of Trump, on Jan. 15, five days before Trump's second-term inauguration. The acronym, which stands for 'f-ck around, find out,' has been adopted 'as a slogan' by far-right groups, according to Merriam Webster, but is also widely used across the ideological spectrum 'as an expression of schadenfreude' about someone receiving negative consequences for their actions. The Times of London dubbed it ' Fafo diplomacy ' when Trump pressured Colombia to quickly reverse its opposition to accepting deportation flights after Trump threatened to hike tariffs on the nation's exports. MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) MAHA is a spin on Trump's tried-and-tested slogan 'Make America Great Again'—only with a focus on health. It took off in 2024 after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. —known for his fringe and sometimes disinformation-based views on health including vaccine skepticism —suspended his presidential campaign and threw his support behind Donald Trump. Trump nominated Kennedy to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Kennedy has since continued to use the slogan for government initiatives. TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) 'Are you or your loved ones suffering from illnesses such as TDS, also known as Trump Derangement Syndrome?' begins a satirical ad released by Kennedy's former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, in late August, days after Kennedy suspended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. (Trump even promoted the video on his Truth Social platform.) 'It's a horrible, horrible terminal disease. It destroys the mind before the body, but the body eventually goes,' Trump said of TDS at a Moms for Liberty event in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2024. While the phrase originated during Trump's first presidential campaign in 2016, TDS has become an increasingly popular diagnosis Trump and his supporters like to give his critics. Five Republican state senators in Minnesota introduced a bill in March to codify TDS and categorize 'verbal expressions of intense hostility toward' Trump as a mental illness. The bill defines TDS as 'the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies' of Trump. It also lists symptoms as 'Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior.' 'This is possibly the worst bill in Minnesota history,' Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, a Democrat, said. 'If it is meant as a joke, it is a waste of staff time and taxpayer resources that trivializes serious mental health issues. If the authors are serious, it is an affront to free speech and an expression of a dangerous level of loyalty to an authoritarian president.' Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio, on May 15 also introduced a bill in Congress to direct the National Institutes of Health to study TDS. 'Instead of funding ludicrous studies such as giving methamphetamine to cats or teaching monkeys to gamble for their drinking water,' he said, 'the NIH should use that funding to research issues that are relevant to the real world.'
