January 13, 2026

Music honcho L.A. Reid settles with ex-recording executive who accused him of sexual assault

(Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — Grammy award-winning music producer Antonio “L.A.” Reid reached a settlement Monday with a former record company executive who alleged in a lawsuit that he sexually assaulted her and ruined her career. The terms of Reid’s settlement with Drew Dixon were not made public. Smiling with her family and lawyers outside court, Dixon said, “I’m excited to get back to making music.” She called the litigation an “arduous process.” Her mother, former Washington, D.C., Mayor Sharon Pratt, called it an “excruciating journey.”

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Dixon worked for Reid when he was Arista’s chief executive. She alleged that he sexually assaulted her twice in 2001 and later cut her budget and sidelined artists when she rebuffed his continuing advances. Dixon left Arista in 2002 and contends that her “meteoric trajectory” in the music business was cut short by Reid’s harassment. Musicians John Legend and Aku Orraca-Tetteh and recording executive Roy Lott were among the witnesses who had been set to testify on Dixon’s behalf, according to her lawyer, Kenya Davis.


Reid left Epic Records in 2017 after a former female assistant accused him of sexual harassment.

Dixon sued Reid in 2023 under New York State’s Adult Survivors Act, which had provided sex abuse accusers a one-year window to sue even if the statute of limitations has passed. “I hope my work as an advocate for the Adult Survivors Act helps to bring all of us closer to a music business that is safer for everyone,” Dixon told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan. “And in a world where good news is often hard to find, I hope that survivors today see a ray of light peeking through the clouds.”

link to article: https://apnews.com/article/la-reid-dawn-dixon-sexual-assault-harassment-acd04873f5e8de5cc768acdbb87f9b53

December 21, 2025

I bought a Hygiene Center for Christmas (Rick Steves)

*Rick Steves really does restore my faith in humanity.....


(from his official FB page)

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans. Then, about a month ago, I learned that the only hygiene center in my neighborhood was being shut down. The property was being sold...destined to be developed.

For an entire community of my down-and-out neighbors, this hygiene center is the only place to take a shower, wash clothes, repair a bike, or get a sweater, blanket, or hot meal…while also enjoying a little bit of community. And tragically, once a center like this is gone, it’s hard to imagine it popping up somewhere else in these NIMBY times.

It's an invisible need… an invisible center… helping invisible people. Meanwhile, I’m haunted by the invisible impact of the insatiable greed that’s so widespread (and sadly, celebrated) in our multi-millionaire and billionaire class. So, I purchased the center and the land it sits on — the best $2 million I can imagine spending.

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This is my Christmas gift to my homeless neighbors, to the volunteers who get great joy from helping them…and, yes, to myself. Merry Christmas to all!

(Read more) https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1470722191091033&set=a.280202056809725

November 15, 2025

New Docs Show DHS Gathering Driver's License Data in Voter Fraud Crusade

(Mother Jones) The Trump administration is quietly undertaking an effort to expand a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tool used for citizenship verification to include driver’s license and passport information—personal data it plans to utilize in its voter fraud crusade.

You’ve probably never heard of the DHS system known as SAVE (or Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements), which the agency has historically used to confirm individuals are citizens and therefore eligible for government assistance. But if the Trump administration gets its way, SAVE will soon know a lot about you.

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But late last month, DHS indicated in a public notice posted to the federal register that it planned to build out the program even further, by adding the ability to search driver’s license information from all 50 states. The federal government could accomplish this either by requesting access to the driver’s license data from each state individually, or perhaps by relying on national data compiled by a private law enforcement nonprofit. DHS says SAVE will soon have access to the US passport database, too.

According to US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), the division of DHS that oversees SAVE, the expansion is an effort to verify voter eligibility more efficiently. Non-citizen voting has been an obsession of Donald Trump’s ever since he falsely claimed that he lost the popular vote in 2016 because three million undocumented immigrants voted in California. “[W]e are reinforcing the principle that America’s elections are reserved exclusively for American citizens,” USCIS spokesperson Matthew J. Tragesser says. But experts are concerned by SAVE’s expansion from a tool used to ascertain the status of an immigrant applying for public benefits to what is effectively an amalgamated database that can research hundreds of thousands of voters at once. They say it could be used to spread misinformation about the frequency of non-citizen voting, which studies show is incredibly rare, or even to try and remove eligible voters from state voter rolls based on the weaponization of faulty data.

Read more at link: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/dhs-gathering-drivers-license-save-voter-fraud-crusade/

October 4, 2025

How Artist Mary Cassatt's Painting "Mother and Child" became "Woman With a Sunflower"

This video from the National Gallery of Art explains how her painting was really about the 19th Amendment.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/k0Hh2NJAVXI

September 12, 2025

How Getting a Library Card Is a Salute to Democracy

(NonProfitQuarterly.org) Public libraries have always been an accessible institution for many Americans, located just around the corner and respected for their wealth of books and knowledge. But now, more than ever, we can appreciate how fiercely libraries strive to represent our values in their pursuit of authentic democracy. From the stories on their shelves to the workshops they host, public libraries aim to serve their communities. They expand civic engagement to everyone, including young children and marginalized groups, who choose to use the library’s services. It is not an opportunity one should take for granted—especially if they are feeling powerless or misrepresented in federal politics.

The simple act of getting or renewing a library card can have a large impact on your local library. Not only can it boost local government funding, keeping the library’s resources flourishing for everyone, but it displays strong community support. “At a time when people are more divided and disconnected than ever, libraries remain places where anyone—regardless of background, politics, or income—can walk through the door and feel a sense of belonging,” Brooks Rainwater, the president and CEO of the Urban Libraries Council, told NPQ.

“A library card and the library itself is more than access to books. It’s a statement of belief in community and democracy.”

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Linehan stressed the importance of getting a library card, calling it a “profoundly civic act” that serves as the most valuable investment in a library. She said that a public library embodies what American democracy should look like, and thus, having a library card symbolizes support for the practice in its truest form.

Read More: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/how-getting-a-library-card-is-a-salute-to-democracy/

May 8, 2025

'JD Vance is wrong,' new Pope Leo XIV once posted on social media

Not exactly a maga fan, pretty sure trumpy is not pleased.....

(The Advocate) Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost has criticized the extreme policies of the Republican administration. Prior to stepping onto the Vatican balcony Thursday as the first American to lead the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV — formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost — was quietly signaling dissent from some of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance's policies, particularly on immigration.

"JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others," the soon-to-be pope's post read. The op-ed argued that such a hierarchy distorts scripture and is incompatible with Jesus’ teachings, which expand love beyond borders and bloodlines.

Another of those posts, dated April 14, was a repost of condemnation by Washington Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar, who called out Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for laughing during an Oval Office meeting about the deportation of a U.S. resident. The tweet linked to Menjivar’s influential essay in the Catholic Standard, where he described the U.S. government’s immigration crackdown as a campaign of “shock and awe,” likened it to Christ’s Passion, and warned Catholics not to remain silent in the face of suffering. “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?” Menjivar wrote, invoking Saint Óscar Romero and directly challenging Catholics who approve of or ignore the human toll of deportations.

https://www.advocate.com/news/pope-leo-trump-vance-criticism

April 19, 2025

Legal group sues Costa Rica alleging the rights of 81 children deported by Trump were violated

(Associated Press) MEXICO CITY (AP) — A group of human rights lawyers is suing Costa Rica, alleging the Central American nation violated the rights of dozens of migrant children by detaining them in a rural camp for nearly two months after they were deported from the U.S. in February.

The children, some as young as 2, are part of a group of hundreds of migrants from mostly Asian countries — Afghanistan, China, Russia and others — who were deported from the U.S. as part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to ramp up deportations.

Many had hoped to seek asylum in the U.S. and expressed fear over returning to their own countries. Instead, they were dropped in Costa Rica and Panama, where they don’t speak the local language.

Critics described it as a way for the U.S. to export its deportation process, while human rights groups have warned that the two countries were turning into a “black hole” for deportees.


Read More: https://apnews.com/article/costa-rica-us-migrant-children-lawsuit-a05a3a5d0e7813c6431ded08439d9e49

February 18, 2025

Leonard Peltier Begins a New Chapter on Tuesday

(Native News Online) Leonard Peltier will begin a new chapter in his life on Tuesday morning. He will be released from the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman in Florida. He will be flown home to the Turtle Mountain Indian reservation, where he will spend the rest of his life.

Incarcerated for almost 49 of his 80 years on Mother Earth, he was granted a presidential commutation by President Joe Biden. It was not the pardon that many of Peltier’s supporters wanted, but nonetheless, his release from prison into house confinement is a welcome end to a horrific chapter.

Peltier’s chapter of lengthy incarceration unfolded on June 26, 1975, at Jumping Bull Ranch in Oglala, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

It remains one of the most controversial and disputed incidents in modern Native American history. The deadly confrontation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) resulted in the deaths of two FBI agents and one Native American activist. What followed was a series of judicial proceedings marred by misconduct, leading to the conviction of Leonard Peltier, a member of AIM, in what has widely been considered an unfair trial.

Read more at link: https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/leonard-peltier-begins-a-new-chapter-on-tuesday

February 8, 2025

Thank you for all the lovely hearts!

I feel like a lucky duck!

February 8, 2025

I'm with the banned!

So I went in to get my new library card (my old one was somewhere lost in time) and was thrilled to get one that says "I Read Banned Books" in big letters across the front with red flames that reference historic book burnings! I wonder if governor Ron DeSatan knows that Broward County is giving him the middle finger....