Simply very bad news. Precisely what Project 2025/Agenda 47/Republican National Platform said they want to do. I’m sorry; I don’t like to bring bad news. But people need to prepare. This is written in editorial/opinion style, but facts are within and there are citations. For people like us who need time to prepare for austerity, it’s news we ought to read.
Also, there are Senator names included for who we should write to regarding this bill. That’s our last chance. Shutdown is on Republicans, not Democrats, no matter how they try to deflect. We need to tell the Dem senators to speak what’s in this bill, every chance they get, and to refuse to vote in favor, pointing at Republicans the entire time.
There are parts in the article complaining about Democrats and their choices, etc., et. m. Read it if you want (you’ll have to click through for it,) but it won’t help anyone to read more complaining about Democrats. We the people need to energize Dem. Senators to speak out, and to vote no. Especially the speak out portion; Sen. Mark Kelly does that especially well, and is among those the author of this piece feels is wavering. I intend to start first thing in the morning, and I hope all of us will devote some time to this. It’s vital.
Without the luxury of Republicans falling apart, Democrats in the Senate need to decide whether to prevent a dangerous and harmful budget that shrinks the power of Congress in the government. Since operating on principle goes against their “adults in the room” mindset, they are wavering on what to do. But it should be an open-and-shut case.
A normal continuing resolution funds the government at the same level as the previous budget. This bill does not. It cuts non-defense discretionary spending by $13 billion below last year’s level, while increasing military spending by $6 billion. It zeroes out funding for programs that fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse. It cuts health care funding for clinics and hospitals, emergency preparedness for communities, clean water projects and tribal assistance. Meanwhile, it adds money for mass deportations, just as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has illegally detained a green card holder for his political beliefs.
Most of the budget cuts are achieved by removing earmarks, which members of Congress put in to direct projects. But usually when earmarks are removed, the money goes back to the agency to decide how to distribute it. This maneuver cuts the earmarks and the money.
The House Republican bill also fails to fix a carryover of a $20 billion rescission to IRS money from the Inflation Reduction Act, effectively doubling that cut. This was kind of pre-ordained when Democrats punted on this in a prior continuing resolution last December, but it still means that practically all of the IRA’s funding for greater enforcement of tax collection is now gone.
The bill not only adds $6 billion to the Department of Defense’s enormous budget, but adds $8 billion in “transfer authority” that allows the agency to shift spending where they deem important, a flexibility no other agency gets.
While Republicans tout a $6 billion increase in veterans health care in the bill, they neglect to mention the removal of a $23 billion appropriation to the Toxic Exposure Fund to implement the PACT Act, which cares for veterans exposed to burn pits and other cancer-causing chemicals. While there’s an extra $2.2 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund, there’s no additional money to support the rebuilding in southern California after the January wildfires.
But most important, the bill grants an open invitation to Trump and Elon Musk to continue to ignore Congress and toss out disfavored spending. Vice President JD Vance, while selling the deal to House Republicans, stated outright that “Trump would continue cutting federal funding with his Department of Government Efficiency initiative and pursue impoundment — that is, holding back money appropriated by Congress.” This has been reiterated by others in the Trump administration.
In fact, the House Republican bill gives the president more leeway to move money around. It appropriates money for things that Musk has eliminated, meaning that money can operate as a floating slush fund for Trump’s priorities, as long as the courts don’t roll back the illegal impoundments.
… The Trump administration is saying that they will sign a bill appropriating specific funding, and then go about cutting funding anyway. If you’re a member of Congress, you’re being told that your work product doesn’t matter, that the constitutional power of the purse doesn’t matter, and that there’s no guarantee that anything you pass will actually reach the people you serve.
I can see why Republicans would take this deal: they want budget cuts but know they don’t have the votes for them, so they’re plenty happy to outsource that to the president, even if it turns Congress into a separate and unequal branch of government. But why would Democrats willingly submit to a fake budget on paper that can be so easily circumvented? As Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on X, “The Republican spending plan will supercharge Musk’s theft from working people to pay for billionaire tax cuts. Senate Democrats must stop it.”
…
So far, only Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has committed to voting yes. But as Josh Marshall has documented at Talking Points Memo, a number of Senate Democrats have stated no position on the bill, leaving their options open. In general, senators have been hedging their bets until forced to make a decision. That time has come.
Credible sources indicate that the most likely Democrats to offer up the remaining seven votes to avoid a shutdown are Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Michael Bennet (D-CO), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Mark Warner (D-VA).
Hi all. I love Erin Reed and her substack Erin In the morning. I don’t subscribe to many but I do hers. Here is something for all those that say European countries are reversing on gender affirming care or cite the horrible bias of the debunked Cass review. Hugs.
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The recommendations, released by the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany, come at a time when US politicians erroneously claim that Europe is “pulling back” on transgender care.
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In recent years, U.S. politicians have selectively framed European healthcare policies to justify restrictions on transgender care, seizing on a handful of conservative policies to claim that “Europe is pulling back.” The most extreme example, the United Kingdom’s Cass Review, has been wielded to justify a near-total ban on puberty blockers and even cited in U.S. Supreme Court arguments. But new medical guidelines from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland tell a different story. These countries have reaffirmed the importance of gender-affirming care for transgender youth and issued sharp critiques of the Cass Review, calling out its severe methodological flaws and misrepresentations.
The guidelines, released Friday in German, span more than 400 pages and represent the collective expertise of 26 medical and psychotherapeutic professional organizations, along with two self-representation organizations from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Their stated goal is “to provide guidance to all professionals in the healthcare system who deal with young transgender and non-binary people for the best possible professionally informed care based on the current state of medical knowledge.”
Transgender medical guidelines and associated medical organizations recommending them.
From the outset, the guidelines explain the importance of gender affirming care, stating that there are “no proven effective treatment alternative without body-modifying medical measures for a [person with] permanently persistent gender incongruence.”
Importantly, the guidelines were developed with those who are experts in the fields of gender affirming care having a voice at the table, unlike the Cass Review: “Current guidelines, which are published by medical societies, were predominantly developed by clinical experts for the field of application and are based on an integrated synthesis of the assessment of available evidence and the broadest possible expert consensus.”
The guidelines directly recommend puberty blockers and individualized, prioritized care for transgender youth undergoing physical changes.In the section on puberty blockers, the guidelines state with a strong recommendation: “If, in individual cases, the progressive pubertal maturation development creates a time pressure in which health damage would be expected due to longer waiting times to avert irreversible bodily changes (e.g. male voice change), access to child and adolescent psychiatric or psychotherapeutic clarification and medical treatment optionsshould be granted as quickly as possible.”
The guidelines also deliver a strong critique of the Cass Review, the report currently being used to justify bans on gender-affirming care in the United Kingdom and leveraged in other countries to further restrictions. German medical societies deem the Cass Review largely inapplicable to their own guidelines due to its numerous methodological shortcomings. One of their sharpest criticisms focuses on the lack of transparency regarding those who advised and produced the review, as well as the limited expertise of those involved.
“Medical professional societies were not recognizably involved in the preparation of the report. A so-called “Assurance Group” was appointed, but it was explicitly not involved in the development of recommendations for the Cass Review. There are reports that an “Advisory Board” was also established. The composition and specific contribution of this “Advisory Board” are not documented (Ruuska et al., 2024; Cass, 2024),” read the guidelines.
They also criticize the Cass Review and NHS’s recommendation of “psychotherapy” for gender dysphoria as without evidence and as potentially harmful: “Psychotherapy is recommended for co-incident disorders, for which there is already an indication due to the co-incident disorder itself. However, it is also recommended or the ‘management of [GD] associated distress.’ None of the studies included in the review in question were able to show a reduction in gender dysphoria through psychotherapy.”
The new German, Austrian, and Swiss guidelines mark a significant advancement for transgender healthcare in those countries, reinforcing a growing trend in Europe toward expanding, not restricting, access to gender-affirming care.They join the ranks of nations like Spain and France, which have taken more progressive stances on transgender rights, including medical care. More importantly, they dismantle the false narrative that Europe is “pulling back” on transgender care.In reality, it is the United States that stands as an outlier, with its regressive policies placing it far to the right of much of the Western world.
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If DOGE wants to root out "waste, fraud and abuse" in the healthcare area re: Medicaid, how about they cut out the wasteful, price gouging mafia middlemen in between us and our doctors, the insurance companies, and make Americans' healthcare entirely self funding with one payer?
Guess who’s getting a new FAA contract to help privatize air safety?Elon Musk. He’s cutting the FAA and everything else in government — and carving it off for himself.THE WHOLE THING IS A MONEY GRAB
Medicaid covers:- 21% of Americans nationally- 83 million low-income Americans- 4 in 10 children- 1 in 4 adults with disabilities- Nearly 50% of kids with special needs- 41% of births nationwide- 5 in 8 nursing home residents- 32% of people in Mike Johnson's home state
BREAKING — 21 "DOGE" staffers RESIGN in protest1/3 of "DOGE" technical team quit — experts who came to the government from companies like Amazon and GoogleRemember, Elon Musk (and most of his minions) don't actually have ANY technical expertise!"DOGE" in disarray
Our immigration carceral system is designed to create a permanent underclass of subminimum wage workers who can't speak up about workplace abuse or unionize for fear of deportation. Corporations like DoorDash prefer immigrants to be under threat, and that's who Trump represents.
Ok now vote is back on. To be clear this is basically a purely symbolic vote on a framework that won’t pass the senate and should be an absolute lay up
This is "The Boardroom" from Donald Trump’s “reality” show “The Apprentice.” Look at the top and you can see where the wall ends because it wasn’t a real boardroom. It was a set built on a soundstage because Trump’s real offices were small and shoddy. The show created an *illusion* of Trump success.
Of these two, the one bigot above or the classy lady below. Hate is not good for anyone.
"Trump Signs Executive Order to ‘Promote the Resettlement of White Afrikaner Refugees’ in the U.S." Trump finally finds refugees he will accept: WHITE ones from South Africa. This is real. Musk trying to help his fellow white apartheid lovers http://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-…
BREAKING 🚨🚨🚨Trump stripping the security clearances of numerous antagonists, including NY AG Letitia James, DA Alvin BraggAnthony Blinken’s security clearances will also be revoked, following the same presidential directive aimed at Biden.nypost.com/2025/02/08/u…
This man, who might be high on Ketamine at any given moment, talks privately with Putin. He is not elected, nor is he appointed by Congress. He’s ‘outside’ of government.
He has hired a crew of young rightwing nerds and they are now inside every fucking computer system in the government. They work for a Russian agent.
Don’t be surprised when, sometime soon, every system shuts down or worse, every dime of US money is flying into Russian accounts.
It is painful to see that it would be so easy to destroy a big country like America.
Horribly hateful people / person the above.
“This isn’t DEI. It’s white Christian Nationalism.” of course it is they’re just using DEI as a cover.
It is nice to know that despite the religious right hate media which includes Fox Entertainment, that people are not buying the current demonization of the LGBTQ+ community. But if we don’t get loud and vocal and our democratic leaders don’t develop a spine and support the LGBTQ+ community our acceptance levels will keep sinking. Hugs
It’s no secret that queer rights are on a backslide in the United States — and American citizens aren’t happy.
In an annual survey by Gallup conducted just before Donald Trump took office, Americans were asked about their satisfaction with various aspects of the country’s culture and politics. That included “the acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the nation,” which only 51% of respondents said they were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with. That’s the lowest satisfaction rating in that area since 2013, and an 8 percentage point drop from 2017 at the start of Trump’s first term.
Respondents were also asked about their satisfaction with “the acceptance of transgender people in the nation.” To that, only 38% of respondents said they were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied.”
Notably, the satisfaction varied by political party. Republicans reported that they were largely satisfied with the country’s treatment of gays and lesbians (55%) while Democrats reported dissatisfaction (44%). Both parties expressed dissatisfaction with America’s treatment of transgender people (though potentially for different reasons), with only 42% of Republicans and 31% of Democrats satisfied.
Beyond queer issues, Americans’ overall satisfaction is sitting at 38%, a record low that’s been maintained since 2022.
Scottie's Playtime 