From the Editor’s Desk: “The rest is gravy.” I don’t remember where I heard that phrase, but it’s always stayed with me. It means that life has many difficult moments, many trying periods and eras in our lives, but when we can meet them with grace and even some degree of humor, “the rest is gravy.” I feel that way today. I may not tomorrow, but for now I’ve managed to step back and readjust my perspective. The failure of the military parade to instill fear, while rightfully making us laugh and almost (but never quite) feel sorry for the man who needed it to validate his greatness, helped tremendously. So did seeing an estimated 4 million people say, “Oh no, you don’t,” in protests across the country.

There are plenty of reasons to be dispirited in these times, but America has survived many fissures, many fractures. We will survive this. We will have elections. We will have the opportunity to repair at least some of the damage being done. But this regime and its godhead have shown themselves again and again to be not just paper tigers, but tissue paper tigers. A little rain, rows of half-empty bleachers at an embarrassing military parade, an elderly man falling asleep at every presidential event he attends. Seriously? This is what terror looks like? Not today.

BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES

Democratic Lawmakers Murdered in Minnesota

No Means No: No Kings Protests Draw 4 Million

Posse Comiwhat? Trump Plays Dictator in L.A.

Parade Flop: Low Turnout at Trump’s Best Birthday Ever

From the Editor’s Desk: My last coffee at Starbucks

As much as I want to think the cowardly corporate capitulation to the Trump regime and its Christo-fascist power engine doesn’t bother me, going into Starbucks and seeing not one single acknowledgment of Pride stings. This is at the Giant grocery store where I worked for seven years. Every June you knew it was Pride: baristas with supportive T-shirts, Pride merch, even rainbow banners in the store. It was always corporate insincerity, and now it’s all gone. We no longer exist for them. We no longer matter.

Corporate bottom-liners really have abandoned us. This will be my last purchase at Starbucks. I’d rather buy coffee from a business that never pretended to care. I didn’t need the rainbow flags in the first place, but for companies that flew them when they thought there was no risk and now won’t because of screeching haters, I’ll gladly go somewhere else.

What they do?
They smile in your face
All the time, they want to take your place
The back stabbers (Back stabbers)

They smile in your face
All the time, they want to take your place
The back stabbers (Back stabbers)

The O’Jays, Back Stabbers, 1972

BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES

Pass the Popcorn! Musk and Trump In Cage Match to the Death

Musk Threatens GOP Members Who Support Trump Bill

VFW Steps Up, Honors LGBTQ Veterans

Secretary of Drunk Dials Pete Hegseth Orders Renaming of USNS Harvey Milk

Trump Regime Cancels HIV Vaccine Research, Programs

From the Editor’s Desk: It’s a short one this week – I’m on a cruise!

BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES

Trump Limits Kids to Two Dolls Each, Snags $400 Million Plane for Himself
How many dolls can you fit on a flying palace?

GOP to Cut Medicaid by $880 Billion to Fund Tax Cuts for Oligarchs
Home remedies set to make massive comeback

Pop Leo Makes Woke Great Again
Infuriates MAGA with Jesus’ teachings

Episcopal Church Refuses to Help Resettle White South African ‘Refugees’
Meanwhile, Afghanis will be sent back to the loving arms of the Taliban

LGBTQ

Abortion Bans Are Disproportionately Hurting LGBTQ+ People – MSN

HHS Deletes Mental Health Report On Utah’s Transchildren – Advocate.Com

Dr. Fauci Receives Harvey Milk Award, Reflects On Legacy Of Love And Public Health

From the Editor’s Desk: Thank you to everyone who took the survey about the Readlines. All of the respondents wanted them to keep coming (really, they did), so here they are! Meanwhile, take this week’s survey on reading preferences: eBook, physical copy, or audiobook?

On the news front: another week, another all-you-can-eat horror show from a regime determined to make America a place to escape from. So far they’re succeeding spectacularly. – Mark

QUOTE FOR THE WEEK

“Rivers do not drink their own water; trees do not eat their own fruit. The sun does not shine on itself and flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves. Living for others is a rule of nature. We are all born to help each other.” – Pope Francis

BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES

Wisconsin Judge Arrested, Pam Bondi Declares War on Judges
The ‘I Voted for the Felon’ crowd cheers

Pope Francis Died at 88
On Easter Sunday, no less

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Drunk Dials More Military Secrets
They’ll keep blaming the deep state until there’s no state left to blame

Kristi Noem Cashes Out: Purse Gets Stolen with $3,000 Large
Whatever she’s paying for there’s no paper trail

SNL’s Bowen Yang Calls JD Vance a Pope Killer on the View
And I am now a superfan

CLICK FOR THE SURVEY

Let us know if you like The Weekly Readlines arriving in your virtual mailbox every week. Our imaginary reporters and one tireless editor would like to know. I’ll be adding more surveys in the coming weeks and even having some fun with them! – Mark

QUOTE:

“It is not for nothing that among the accusations listed in the Declaration of Independence is the charge that the king is guilty of “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences.”

– Jamelle Bouis, New York Times

From the Editor’s Desk: The cruelty and vengeance of the Trump regime is matched only by its incompetence. A week after trying to slap Harvard around and having the nation’s richest university slap back, the regime now claims it was all a misunderstanding. The lesson for all of the universities, law firms, media and others who have genuflected before the mad king is that when a thug wants your lunch money and you tell him no, he’ll walk away empty handed.

BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES

Sen. Chris Van Hollen Meets With Kidnap Victim In El Salvador
Finally a leader

Heckler Gets Taser Treatment at Marjorie Taylor Green Townhall
Political violence as entertainment

Trump Administration’s FEMA Cuts Off North Carolina Aid
Didn’t those folks vote for this? Dry my tears

Hungary Passes Constitutional Amendment To Ban LGBTQ Public Events – NBC News
Coming to an America near you

U.S. AND BEYOND

LGBT Community Center in Sacramento struggles amid federal budget cuts – YouTube

‘We Are All Afraid’: Murkowski Says Fear Of Retaliation From Trump Administration Is ‘Real’

The Bright Side: Mongolian LGBTQ Youth Use Art To Fight For Recognition – France 24

From the Editor’s Desk: Not long ago, when people said, “It can’t happen here,” we believed it. But now it sounds like parents telling their children there’s nothing under the bed just before a claw reaches up and pulls them under. That sound you hear is the crunching of their bones. It can happen here, and it is happening here. The police state has arrived. The American Stasi now abducts people off the street for their ideas, and uses the labels of sympathizer, terrorist or just gang member to obliterate their Constitutional rights. Meanwhile, for most of us our daily lives look normal, as if none of this is happening to us. But it is. All it takes now is calling us gang members, and we will vanish. We will be herded into psychological detention centers, if not literal ones, relegated to pockets of passivity while the United States as a country we recognize is obliterated. Take your pictures now. – Mark

BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES

Trump Tanks World Economy, Cashes In, Tanks It Again
A child this destructive would be sent to a reformatory

CDC’s Cruise Ship Inspectors Laid Off Amid Bad Year For Outbreaks
Washy washy! Bonus points if you know what that means

State Dept Launches “Anti-Christian Bias” Snitch Line
Snitches and witches everywhere now

Social Security Admin Will Only Communicate with the Public on X
The agency has been taken hostage and no witnesses will be left alive

From the Editor’s Desk:

Photo: the late Sylvia Rivera

The beauty of battle scars

You may know by now that the ‘T’ was removed from LGBT on the Stonewall Monument’s web page (surely they will rescind its designation altogether soon). I met Sylvia Rivera before her death. I interviewed her. We attended the same church, MCC New York, whose pastor, Rev. Pat Bumgardner, married me and my husband. Sylvia was the trans activist who was at Stonewall, along with others. She was a bottle-thrower and a fire starter. The idea that our progress, now under attack, happened without transgender people is a lie, and the hope some of us have that we’ll be spared without the ‘T’ is delusional. They are coming for us all, even if it’s one letter at a time. Throwing anyone under the bus will only get you crushed by the wheels.

BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S TOP STORIES

In this continuing nightmare …

Trump Cabinet picks continued to be confirmed, one horrible nominee at a time.

The erasure of LGBT Americans continued to accelerate, with the removal of our lives from government websites and once-great institutions.

The Trump administration continued to do Putin’s bidding, much to the delight of the Kremlin.

And President Elon Musk and his merry band of tech boys continued to infiltrate every data system in the United States government.