Meme Dump

Happy Juneteenth Freedom Day ... But The March Goes On

This particular National holiday’s origin story began Galveston, Texas, which was at that time the western-most area of the country, when Union soldiers arrived to tell enslaved Black Americans of their Emancipation on June 19, 1865.

Now, those enslaved people had technically already been freed two-and-a-half years earlier when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but slaveholders in Texas kept the information to themselves, extending the period of violent exploitation of enslaved African Americans.

But in 1865 the news spread: freedom, and the following year, in 1866, a celebration was had in Texas on that same date, June 19th … Juneteenth … to finally recognize freedom from slavery in the United States.

Of course, here we are in 2026, one-hundred-sixty years later, and we know Black Americans still aren’t entirely free; think of George Floyd and Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice and Eric Garner and Breonna Taylor and Michael Brown and Freddie Gray and on and on we could go … think of the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act and the current regime ending DEI—Diversity, Equity and Inclusion—in government.

We still have much work to do to free all Americans, of every race and color and gender and sexual orientation.

We need to free People of Color from the abuses of police and the criminal justice system and some in our own government that work to deny them the right to vote.

We need to free Women from having the government control their bodies.

We need to free Educators to teach American history, all of it, even the ugliest parts; every step forward and every step back in American history.

We need to free Parents to be able to raise their own children as they see fit; to let their children read the books of their choosing; to let the parents make healthcare choices for their own children.

We need to free our Trans Brothers and Sisters to live their lives as they identify; to be fully themselves, to be respected by all of us.

We need to free the LGBTQ+ population from continued harassment and violence by rightwing agitators and politicians trying to turn the clock back to the closet.

We are, none of us, free, until we are all free, and there is still work to be done. 

Juneteenth was signed into law as a federal holiday by President Joe Biden on June 17, 2021.

In 2025, the current president, vowed to end diversity, equity and inclusion in government and there was confusion about whether Juneteenth would stay on the federal calendar. That all changed when the current president dropped Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day from a list of days people can access national parks for free though he added his own birthday to the list.

So, celebrate Juneteenth, not matter what this regime says; recognize the meaning and the history, American history of this day.

Happy Juneteenth!

Before Stonewall There Was Compton's Cafeteria

In the LGBT+ community, Stonewall is often seen as the turning point in the fight for our rights but there was another riot, on the other coast, about three years earlier. It was known as the Compton's Cafeteria Riot and it occurred in the summer of 1966 in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.

George Compton owned several cafeterias in San Francisco from the 40s through the 70s, but it was the Compton’s in the Tenderloin where many transgendered people would gather. In those days—the 40s, 50s, and 60s—transgendered people were unwelcome in gay bars, so they began to meet at other places throughout the city and since Compton’s was open 24-hours, it made the perfect meeting spot.

At that time, transgendered people were commonly referred to by themselves, other gays, and non-gays as Hair Fairies, and because cross-dressing was illegal at the time, police could use the mere presence of transgender people in a bar as a pretext for making a raid and closing the bar down. However, like Stonewall, this hot summer night in 1966 would prove to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

That night, police were called to Compton’s because, allegedly, a group of transgendered people were being especially boisterous. The management felt they needed to go and called the police. One officer, accustomed to manhandling transgendered people, attempted to arrest a transwoman and she was not having it; she threw her coffee in the officer's face and it was on. Dishes and food were thrown; furniture was upended. The large plate glass window that fronted Taylor Street was shattered. As police called for reinforcements, the riot spilled out into the street where a newsstand was set on fire and a police car had all its windows broken. Many were arrested that night, but like Stonewall, it wasn't over.

The next evening more transgendered people showed up at Compton’s, along with the L, G, and B’s in the gay community. Militant hustlers and street queens, members of Vanguard, the first known gay youth organization in the United States, which had been organized with the help of radical ministers at Glide Memorial Church, came along as well. A lesbian group of street people, the Street Orphans, also went to Compton’s that night.

It was a more civil demonstration that second night, with the community simply picketing the cafeteria whose new policy was not to allow transgendered people service. And, as happens, when it became apparent that their quiet march was getting them nowhere, the group, before disbanding, shattered the newly installed plate-glass windows of the cafeteria again.

The Compton Cafeteria riots were a big deal in San Francisco in the 60s but have been largely forgotten over these last forty years. It wasn't until a documentary, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria, that the story was reborn, and retold. On June 22, 2006, a memorial plaque was placed in the sidewalk in front of the cafeteria site, which is now the Oshun Center, a free clinic for women.

It may not have been as big as Stonewall, but it was just as important, and may have lit that fuse in New York City three years later.

Meme Dump ... Happy Pride

Happy Pride: Sir Lady Java

In the Los Angeles club scene of the 1960s, Sir Lady Java—a dancer, comedian and drag queen—was a two-shows-a-night fixture. But two shows a night wasn’t all she did; Java—who passed away in 2024—was not just a performer, but also a pioneering activist—even though her work for the LGBTQ+ community and laws that restricted drag performance is not always taught as a part of LGBTQ+ history much less American history.

As a Black gender non-conforming woman, Java was at the intersection of discriminatory policing targeting both Black and brown communities and queer communities in 1960s Los Angeles and across America in cities like San Francisco and Chicago and St. Louis that welcomed diversity.

Born in 1940, Java moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles as a child with her family, and transitioned at a young age with the help, support and love of her mother. After graduating high school, Java became part of the vibrant Black performance art scene in L.A. and took on stand-up comedy and go-go dancing gigs at nightclubs across the city. But while she was taking the nightlife scene by storm and was featured in magazines like Jet, Ebony and Sepia, she was also the focus of increasing surveillance from the LAPD.

First introduced in 1958, the notorious Rule #9 of the local municipal code dictated that no bar owner could employ anyone who performed as the opposite sex to the one they were assigned at birth. For Java, the consequences of that law reached fever pitch during a run of performances in October 1967 at the Redd Foxx, a Black-owned nightclub which catered to a wide audience—the club was took the stage name of its owner, comedian and actor John Elroy Sanford.

Now, Sanford applied for a permit that would enable Java to perform, but the LAPD denied the permit, mentioning “female impersonators” which is how Java referred to herself. But her decision to live openly as a woman at that time is part of what made her trailblazing and her use of the phrase “female impersonator” encapsulated a variety of identities that today we might think of as transgender woman or cross-dresser.

After the permit was refused, Java held a protest arguing for her right to work, and the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] backed her efforts to try to overturn Rule #9 but California’s state supreme court wouldn’t hear the suit; due to the way Rule #9 was framed, the plaintiff had to be a bar owner rather than a performer, and the ACLU couldn’t find a bar owner willing to see the lawsuit through.

And while Java’s case was unsuccessful in court, her protest did raise awareness and visibility, and two years later, the rule was overturned via a separate lawsuit. In many ways, those challenges have continued to the present day. It was only in 2021 that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling protecting LGBTQ+ employees from discrimination and yet that same year we saw a number of bills rolling back transgender rights across the United States, largely targeting transgender youth access to healthcare and participation in sports.

And today we continue to face an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ policies and bad-faith legislation, especially toward our trans brothers and sisters. We must remember that the rights and spaces we have today are the result of decades of struggle and resilience by people like Sir Lady Java.

There’s a couple of old sayings about history that if we don’t learn from it, we are doomed to repeat it, and another that says history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. While we’ve made strides in codifying LGBTQIA+ rights, many of the issues Lady Java fought against—discrimination, erasure, and marginalization—are still with us as the federal government seeks to strip transgender and gender nonconforming people of legal recognition and protection.

Our history is important, especially in a society that does not see our history and culture as worth teaching. We need to remember, and speak about, our Black queer and trans elders who fought so that we could have the rights and visibility we do today. Their stories are not “old stories”—they’re a battle plan for the future—as we face the butchering of transgender legal protections.

We must look back at the courage of people like [from left to right] Sir Lady Java, Stormé Delarverie, a biracial, lesbian drag king, and Marsha P. Johnson, a key figure in the 1969 Stonewall uprising, and advocate for unhoused and transgender youth.

We need to know where we come from so we can fight to be where we want to be, where we have a right to be.

Bobservations

So this is about the Absentminded Professor Carlos AKA The Chocoholic and how he makes me laugh.

See, the other night he asked if I wanted some hot chocolate and I said sure. So he sets about making it but then calls me to the kitchen because he says we’re out of chocolate. I say we can’t be out because there’s an unopened box in the cupboard and another box with a little bit of chocolate left inside.

“I only have the one with very little chocolate.”

“Well, the full box was under the open box the other day.”

“All I have is the open box.”

So I go into the kitchen and look up on the shelf where the cocoa powder goes and there’s none there. And then Carlos holds up the open box and says:

“This is all we have.”

“Yesterday there was an unopened box and an open box on that same shelf. Are you sure you didn’t use–”

And my eyes drop down to the counter where a pristine unopened box of cocoa powder sits, waiting to be used in hot chocolate and I point it out to him.

“You’re gonna write about this on your blog, right?”

“No, sweetie pie, I would never—”

Let’s keep this our secret.

From December 2009, this is Tuxedo Sunday, with that handsome boy posing on the bed in the guestroom.

He did love a camera pointed his way …

As we start Pride Month here are a few reminders before anyone rants …

Veterans and members of the Military get two months … May and November.

Straight Pride isn’t a thing because straight people were never oppressed, refused legal rights, or murdered for being straight.

Trans men are men, and trans women are women.

Your religion is meant to guide you, not everyone else.

No one is forcing you to attend Pride events; it’s not a hostage situation so if you don’t want to go, don’t go. Just mind your own business.

Carry on …

Minneapolis law enforcement authorities, along with the Texas Rangers, apprehended ICEstapo agent Christian Castro last week and arrested him for shooting an INNOCENT Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis in January.

As ICEstapo agents do, Castro lied about the shooting then fled Minnesota for Texas. He now faces four felony charges of aggravated assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

I hope they lock him up in one of their detention centers for life and I hope they get him on state charges so Cankles cannot pardon him or pay him off from the slush fund.

Former Oklahoma Republican Assistant District Attorney Kevin Etherington, who served Payne and Logan counties, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for child pornography charges.

Court documents state investigators seized three SD cards, three flash drives and a laptop from Etherington’s home with over 153 photos and videos of girls under 9 years old being abused in a Google Drive that belonged to Etherington.

NOT TRANSGENDER!! 

NOT A DRAG QUEEN!! 

NOT AN IMMIGRANT!!

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals dealt Cankles and DUI-hire Hegseth a defeat on the first day of Pride Month when they ruled that kicking out trans troops is unconstitutional and driven only by fear and hatred.

Happy Pride!!

Meanwhile, while many of us celebrate Pride, in Arkansas where it’s still the 1950s Governor Sarah Huckleberry Sanders has declared June to be “Fidelity Month” in her state, a time to “encourage renewed dedication to virtue, commitment, responsibility and shared moral foundations.”

This is rich coming from a former Cankles Press Secretary who propped up an adjudicated rapist, sexual predator, and accused child molester with three marriages and countless affairs in his lifetime.

You cannot make this shiz up.

Award-winning broadcaster Scott Pelley spent nearly four decades at CBS News, reported from war zones, covered presidents, anchored the network’s evening newscast, and became one of the defining faces of 60 Minutes. 

CBS News terminated Pelley this week after he publicly accused Bari Weiss, the network’s editor-in-chief, of "murdering" 60 Minutes and questioned the qualifications of newly installed executive producer Nick Bilton.

Bye CBS.

Just a thought … you don’t get four cognitive tests in eighteen months unless the doctors are monitoring your dementia.

Roche Kilian is an actor, a model, a social media influencer, and says he’s only here to motivate, inspire and lead by example … for example, Would You Hit It?

Ain't That America XXXV

War rages but he says it's over ... we've won, he says, while asking the entire world to help us ... gas prices are up, so he removes sanctions from the country we're fighting ... the President shows himself to be the dumbest person in any room ... Hegseth lies ... and we’re going into debt faster than ever before …

Cankles has declared “the death of Iran”—even though more troops and more bombs and more money are being spent on the war—and now says the Democratic party is America’s “greatest enemy.”

I think America’s greatest enemy is a fascist, narcissist, child rapist, racist grifter spending another $200,000,000,000 to try to distract from the Epstein Files.

 

Speaking of Iran, gas prices in the U.S. have only continued to rise this month, leading the Cankles Regime to roll out numerous policies aimed at bringing costs back down like making a deal with Iran for their oil.

Wait, the country you’re fighting is on your short list to get more money from the US for their oil? Money they can use to continue fighting?

 

A US official confirmed that the USS Boxer and two other amphibious assault ships, along with roughly 2,500 Marines of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, are bound for the Middle East. The week prior, US officials confirmed that the USS Tripoli and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit had also been ordered to the Middle East. This will add about 5,000 Marines and thousands of sailors to the region where the US is engaged in a war with Iran where the US already has about 50,000 troops in the region.

All for a war that every single day Cankles declares to be over.

Oh, and because of war and tariffs and an inept regime, the National Debt has soared by $2,800,000,000,000 during Cankles’ reign of terror.

 

White House Liar, KKKarolying Leavitt posted a link to a White House press release, claiming that “Americans agree” about the war. Luckily, X doublechecked the information and found that faux-christian Leavitt was lying, and posted:

“The polls listed do not show “Americans agree that Operation Epic Fury is an overwhelming success.”

But, of the 9 polls:

6 include only MAGA and/or Republican respondents.

1 includes only “likely voters.”

1 shows merely a plurality.

1 shows 50/50 approval and that 515 now feel less safe.

Leavitt needs to be schooled on the phrases “overwhelming success” and “good Christian.”

 

Defense Secretary and DUI hire  Pete Hegseth met privately with the families of six service members who died in Iran and said the message he got was consistent and supportive:

“What I heard through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve was the same from family after family. They said, ‘Finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done.’”

One of the people he met was Charles Simmons whose 28-year-old son, Tech. Sgt. Tyler Simmons, was among the six crew members killed, and Simmons recalled his exchange differently:

“I can’t speak for the other families. When he spoke to me, that was not something we talked about.”

Clearly Pete must have been drunk during the exchange?

 

But there was some good, and funny, news ...

 

Sean Hannity and Sarah Huckleberry Sanders are raising Cain because a restaurant asked Huckleberry and her party to leave their establishment. I guess they’ve never heard of the saying that all businesses have the "Right to Refuse Service to Anyone."

And to be fair it doesn't look like Huckleberry misses many meals so perhaps they were doing her a service.

 

A federal judge in Oregon ruled that Health Secretary and heroin addict Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overstepped his legal authority when he declared that providers of gender-transition medical treatments for minors “do not meet professionally recognized standards.”

The decision, a setback for the regime, gives temporary relief to hospitals, clinics and health professionals who provide such treatments.

 

And then the Senate rejected an amendment to the Save America Act that would have barred transgender females from playing in girls’ and women’s sports, a provision that Cankles had demanded be included in the legislation.

The vote to advance the amendment required 60 votes under Senate rules but failed to reach that number, with 49 Republican votes in favor and 41 Democrats against it. Several members of both parties were absent.

 

Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume blasted Cankles for his nasty comments about the death of former special counsel Robert Mueller. After news broke of Mueller’s death at 81, Cankles posted to Truth Social:

“Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”

Hume posted to X:

“This is the kind of stuff [Cankles] does that makes people not just oppose him but hate him. There was no need to say anything.”

People are saying things like, ‘Can you imagine if Obama said such a thing? Or Biden?’

No, we cannot imagine because those two are human beings and honorable statesmen while Cankles is a sexual predator, child rapist, racist, fascist con artist and thief.

There is no comparison.

So what can you do …

The Funny Papers

Benjamin Slyngstad, Bill Bramhall, Jack Ohman, Gary Huck, Matt Wuerker, Ted Littleford, Michael de Adder, Rick McKee, Tim Campbell, Max Espinoza, Steve Cousineau, John Buss, Trevor Irvin, Randy Bish,