Category: Drugs

Texas Professor Suspended For Criticizing GOP Lt Gov

Texas Professor Suspended For Criticizing GOP Lt Gov

Make no mistake, the fascist racist Christian nationalist right Republican Party will not allow any criticism or deviation from the party line.   Hugs

The Texas Tribune reports:

Joy Alonzo, a respected opioid expert, was in a panic. The Texas A&M University professor had just returned home from giving a routine lecture on the opioid crisis at the University of Texas Medical Branch when she learned a student had accused her of disparaging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick [photo] during the talk. In the few hours it took to drive from Galveston, the complaint had made its way to her supervisors, and Alonzo’s job was suddenly at risk.

Alonzo was right to be afraid. Not only were her supervisors involved, but so was Chancellor John Sharp, a former state comptroller who now holds the highest-ranking position in the Texas A&M University System. Less than two hours after the lecture ended, Patrick’s chief of staff had sent Sharp a link to Alonzo’s professional bio. Shortly after, Sharp sent a text directly to the lieutenant governor: “Joy Alonzo has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation re firing her. shud [sic] be finished by end of week.”

Read the full article.

The student who made the complaint is the daughter of GOP state Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who was endorsed by Patrick in the last election. Earlier this year, Buckingham attended the wedding of Chancellor Sharp.

Fearing retaliation, three other students who were at the lecture won’t allow their names to be published, but say that Alonzo mentioned Patrick’s opposition to policies that would mitigate opioid-related deaths.

Per the linked report, Alonzo has brought millions in federal research dollars to the university and was last year named its researcher of the year.

 

Guy Johnson 7 days ago

THIS is censorship! THIS is cancel culture!

Wallace Muenzenberger  Guy Johnson7 days ago

And, so it begins.

Cattleya1  Guy Johnson7 days ago

This is the Fascist State of Texas.

MrPendog  Guy Johnson7 days ago

No… It isn’t cancelling or censorship if the GQP does it, only if one tries to balance or disagree, or, heaven forbid, hold accountable someone who agrees with their Christo-fascist worldview. Remember the Dems are the snowflakes.

madknits 7 days ago

If she leaves, she gets to take all those lovely research dollars with her. I hope she finds a better job at a real university somewhere.

IamSmartypants  madknits7 days ago

Sadly, she won’t get to take the funding she’s already secured, but the major funders will follow her and the chilling effect on academic freedom will make NSF and other foundations the support university research will make it harder for all Texas programs to secure funding.

KnownDonorDad7 days ago
she learned a student had accused her of disparaging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

 

Oh great, a Hitlerjugend was in her class.

madknits  IamSmartypants7 days ago

When one of our faculty members left and went to the Big Flagship University in the capitol, he was able to take much of his funding with him. Unless the rules have changed since then.

Diogenes Onionpants  madknits 7 days ago edited

My experience is that it depends in part on whether the research is tied to the research of an individual or to a lab.

Humanities funding may trail after a researcher (e.g., funding for a project to do archival work for a book), but science funding usually doesn’t because it’s heavily dependent on a team and on infrastructure.

Either way, of course, as madknits notes, the uni gets a cut.

IamSmartypants  madknits 7 days ago

My experience working with academic social researchers has been that the funding stayed with the institution (which typically takes 50% of the total off the top), but it would be great if the dollars stay with the researcher – I hope that’s what happens in this case.

JCF  Capriquario7 days ago

It’s in the story above:

 

The student who made the complaint is the daughter of GOP state Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who was endorsed by Patrick in the last election. Earlier this year, Buckingham attended the wedding of Chancellor Sharp.

 

It’s a fucking TexASS GQP circle-jerk.

jimstoic 7 days ago

Losing a job for criticizing Dear Leader, or, in this case, Dear Lt Leader, is how I picture North Korea, the USSR, Saudi Arabia (at least she hasn’t been cut into pieces in an embassy), or Russia under Putin.

Gregory In Seattle  IamSmartypants 7 days ago

In most states, a lieutenant governor or vice-governor is also the president of the state senate, just like the VP and the US Senate. Usually this is effectively a ceremonial position used only to break ties, with day to day running operations in the hands of a president pro tempore and the agenda set by the majority leader, just like in the US Senate.

As I recall, the Lt. Gov of Texas actually acts as the senate president, overseeing operations and setting the agenda (which has been awkward when he is not in the senate majority party.) In effect, the Executive Branch controls half the Legislative Branch as well, making Texas one of the more fascist states in the country never mind Republican control.

jimbo65 7 days ago edited

Between Texas and Florida, we’ve already progressed into fascism.

SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad7 days ago edited
A third student who also spoke on the condition of anonymity said Alonzo talked about how policies, like the state’s ban on fentanyl test strips, have a direct impact on the ability to prevent opioid overdoses and deaths. A push to legalize the test strips died earlier this year in the Patrick-led Senate despite support from top Republicans, including Abbott.

 

Sounds like she will be fired for making a truthful statement.

On the road  SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad7 days ago

The truth is what they are afraid of.

SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad  On the road 7 days ago

Truth has a liberal bias.

Nic Peterson  SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad7 days ago

Fentanyl kills ‘those’ people so GOPers don’t really care about test strips or narcan. Sure there are a few death among the country club set but you’re always gonna catch a couple of dolphin in the tuna nets. — christian gop logic

SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad  Nic Peterson 7 days ago

You’re exactly right. Use fentanyl to smear Biden, but not really do anything to help, even low hanging fruit like test strips. The deaths are punishment for those people, just like women who die because they can’t get an abortion deserve it for being all slutty and female.

TrollopeReader  SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad7 days ago

but then complains about fentanyl deaths …

Darreth  TrollopeReader7 days ago

Fentanyl is a GQP talking point about how awful the Biden admin is. The GQP has never been about life or liberty. They’re about power and control. Without the control of the news cycles about how terrible fentanyl is they have one less talking point to take control

SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad  TrollopeReader 7 days ago

Abbot claims that his murder balls in the Rio Grande are also to prevent fentanyl deaths, even though the fentanyl that is smuggled across the southern border isn’t carried by migrants crossing rivers, its smuggled in through ports of entry.

TrollopeReader  SkokieDaddy – wiener dog dad 7 days ago

and lots of it discovered by the feds .. to the consternation of MTG, Lauren, etc …

Paddycakes2001  TrollopeReader 7 days ago

Impeach Biden! He’s stopping more fentanyl than Trump did!

Hunter Biden Plea Deal

Know the facts around the #HunterBiden plea deal so we can, once and for all, put it to bed…

Sadistic Conservatives Celebrate Family Fleeing Florida to Protect Trans Child

CNN shared a segment about a family from Florida forced to leave due to anti-trans laws passed by Governor Ron DeSantis that impact their trans teenager. Sick, sadistic conservatives celebrated the family’s suffering and claimed it was funny and good.

Christian Nationalists TERRIFYING Rhetoric is CREEPING into the Mainstream (And its getting WORSE)

Knowles: We’re Coming For The Right To Contraception

Knowles: We’re Coming For The Right To Contraception

This is the same person who played a gay man hooking up with other men who now is super anti-LGBTQ+.   This guy admits men like sex and don’t want the resulting pregnancies.   But he still feels women shouldn’t have sex, that women shouldn’t like sex, or maybe he believes the old stereotype that women just don’t like sex.   He seems to be an entitled white religious guy who don’t care what harm he causes to others as long as it benefits him.    But the truth is the right is coming after contraception and no-fault divorce.    They are serious about returning to a 1950s or even 1850s mentality and public acceptance.  These people are the Christian version of the Taliban or Iranian moral police.  But women like the gays / trans are not going to give up their rights and go into hiding or being submissive just to please stupid males.   Hugs

Media Matters has the transcript:

The culture that treats sex very casually and that suggests that we have a right to sex absent the consequence of pregnancy, is going to be a culture that’s more likely to engage in abortion.

The culture that embraces radical individualism and selfishness and libertinism in one area of sexual matters is going to embrace it in another, and that’s going to result in abortion.

And furthermore, we’re all complaining about the Pride movement, and the Pride movement has become much less popular than it used to be. You’re seeing this in a drop — Gallup polling and the values survey that it gives out showed a significant drop in support for the Pride coalition in just one year.

So, a lot of people are turning on it. A lot of mothers, a lot of parents in schools — it’s how Glenn Younkin won in Virginia. It’s how Ron DeSantis won in Florida.  You go all the way back to the beginning of the sexual revolution. And you go all the way back to contraception.

There were two cases, Eisenstadt and Griswold. First was Griswold in 1965. Then Eisenstadt comes around in 1972, the year before Roe v Wade. And Griswold finds a right to condoms within a marriage.

Where is that in the Constitution? I have no idea. But some libs on the court discovered that magically in 1965. But they said, but — there is no right to condoms outside of marriage. Then seven years later, the court discovers, oh, actually, there was more invisible ink in the Constitution.

And actually, there is a right to condoms outside of marriage. Okay. Maybe you like condoms. Maybe you don’t like condoms. I don’t know where you’re gonna find that in the Constitution.

I think a lot of people are beginning to notice that the contraceptive mentality is the beginning of the Pride mentality. Because the contraceptive mentality divorces sex from the consequences of sex.

It introduces a sterile sexual ethic, which is exactly what gave us the Pride movement. There’s no distinction here. If you can’t read between the lines, the conclusion that one draws is that condoms are kind of gay. To put it as bluntly as possible. Okay?

And people are beginning to realize, okay, if I don’t like this insane, anarchistic view of sex that is totally self-centered and divorced from any ends whatsoever, well, then maybe I gotta rewind it and ask what is the point of sex?

Which is why it’s not gonna be the patriarchy that’s coming for your consequence free birth control. It’s not going to be the men.

The men, frankly, are huge supporters of — of birth control and contraception because it allows them to have consequence-free sex. It’s gonna be those conservative women. That’s who’s coming for it.

 

Givesgoodemail 18 hours ago

“Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

Unbordered American  Givesgoodemail18 hours ago

I’m miserable and god-dammit, you will be too!

Amber LeMay  Unbordered American 18 hours ago

“We’re not happy, ’til you’re not happy!”

Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️  Rebecca Gardner18 hours ago

Control is their goal…
Control of your body and mine.

They’ll call it “choice” or “State’s Rights” and even “freedom” and then legislate those “choices”, “Rights” and “freedoms” away.

BensNewLogin 3 hours ago

I’ve been telling heterosexuals for years that the same people coming after us are going to be coming after them.

Nic Peterson  BensNewLogin3 hours ago

Here is Knowles in his gay sex scene.

Thumbnail
 
Rambie  BensNewLogin3 hours ago

They same ones who bitched about Roe for decades also bitched about “the pill”. It was obvious after Dobbs they’d continue to push as Plan-B is often described as a “contraception” medicine.

AyJayDee2  Rebecca Gardner3 hours ago

Influencers like Knowles are demagogues who prey on the fear and paranoia of people who can’t stand to see us become a country where women and people who are not white, straight or Christian are equal to them by scapegoating women and minorities so that their fans won’t pay attention to the fact that it’s not people of color, Jews, LGBTQ people or women who are screwing them, but the wealthy people who donate to the Republicans and depend on them to ensure they don’t have to pay taxes.

AyJayDee2  Rebecca Gardner3 hours ago

Influencers like Knowles are demagogues who prey on the fear and paranoia of people who can’t stand to see us become a country where women and people who are not white, straight or Christian are equal to them by scapegoating women and minorities so that their fans won’t pay attention to the fact that it’s not people of color, Jews, LGBTQ people or women who are screwing them, but the wealthy people who donate to the Republicans and depend on them to ensure they don’t have to pay taxes.

Gregory In Seattle  Rebecca Gardner3 hours ago

They want to return to the day when women were the property of their menfolk.

Gregory In Seattle  GayOldLady 3 hours ago

It was not until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 that women could get bank accounts or credit cards in their own name, without needing a husband, father, or other male relative on the account as well.

GayOldLady  Gregory In Seattle 2 hours ago

I know. I was raising 3 children as a single mom and couldn’t get credit to buy an A/C for our tiny apartment. In 75′ I met a female banker who understood my dilemma and helped me get a home loan in my name so we could live in decent housing.

BeccaM  Rebecca Gardner3 hours ago

They hate women.

And if you notice, 90% of their anti-trans animus is directed at trans women.

And 100% of their anti-drag animus is directed at men doing female drag.

The common thread in all of this is virulent misogyny.

clay  BeccaM3 hours ago

They even want to punish monogamous women and their children for having non-monogamous husbands. The age of syphilis is ready to return.

Houndentenor  BeccaM3 hours ago

Homophobia and transphobia are just aspects of their misogyny. I don’t know why TERFs don’t get that.

BeccaM  Houndentenor2 hours ago

Yep. Many years ago, I read a sociological/psychological analysis about the connection of misogyny and homophobia, and it centers around the conceit that men “betray” their gender privilege by being perceived as voluntarily giving that up.

Name  The_Wretched18 hours ago

They want to re-introduce slavery, but with the rich enslaving the poor.

Tazzari1  Rebecca Gardner18 hours ago

God told them that everybody else needed reforming.

Gregory In Seattle  Posthumously17 hours ago

The Handmaid’s Tale was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a how-to. But, here we are.

evanedwards18 hours ago

Hey Knowles, it’s because of people like you that a burning hatred of religion is developing. Church attendance and belief in God is plummeting year after year. Keep pushing it and you’ll eventually see a backlash that will make life for the remaining religious practitioners very miserable for a long time.

Gregory In Seattle  evanedwards18 hours ago

That backlash is exactly why Talibangelicals are become more Christian nationalist: mandating their own beliefs as national policy is a very desperate attempt to keep those beliefs relevant. The thing is, this leads to imperial leakage: “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

 

 

 

Liberal Redneck – White House Cocaine


So I guess they found cocaine in the White House. As such, here’s a silly video about it.

Arkansas Trans Ban Unconstitutional: Judge Declares 311 Statements Of Fact In Ruling

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/arkansas-trans-ban-unconstitutional

This is a great article if you want the truth and statements of facts that debunk the lies and myths of the right.  This is a wonderful article.    Easy to read and the words of the judge are included.     Hugs

Over 311 statements of fact were established in the Arkansas gender affirming care ban case. Not a single fact was found in the state’s favor, and several major talking points were debunked.

 

The crux of Judge Moody’s ruling lies in the substantial 311 individual statements of fact, many of which decisively dismantle arguments made against gender affirming care. These facts apply to issues from the rarity of detransition to the vital medical benefits that gender affirming care offers transgender youth. The statements also rule on the credibility of the state’s experts as well as the plaintiff’s experts. The court found the plaintiff’s experts to be extraordinarily credible, while the state’s experts were deemed to be considerably lacking in credibility and motivated more by religious beliefs than sound policy. Even religious organizations lobbying for anti-transgender laws, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, are probed within these factual statements.

 

Legislative and media discussions surrounding bans on care for trans youth have primarily concentrated on the health risks and benefits of gender-affirming care. After considering numerous witnesses, hundreds of pages of expert testimonies, and briefs filed by medical organizations, the judge definitively concluded that banning gender-affirming care would inflict severe, irreparable harm on transgender youth. One particularly striking fact, Fact 258, was evidenced by Dr. Dan Karasic, a psychiatrist with over three decades of experience treating gender dysphoria. He alerted the court that “not all adolescents with gender dysphoria will survive to 18 if they are denied gender-affirming medical treatment.”

 

A frequent assertion put forth by advocates for anti-trans care bans is the presumption that transgender youth will eventually regret their transition and detransition. Facts 219-224 determined conclusively that this is not the case. For example, Dr. Karasic pointed out that out of the thousands of patients he has treated, not a single one chose to detransition. While a handful did stop taking their medication, it was primarily due to a lack of family support or their insurance discontinuing coverage, not a change in their self-identified gender.

Judge Moody later dissected the notion that levels of “desistance and regret” warrant prohibitions like Arkansas’s ban on gender-affirming care. He stated:

To the contrary, the evidence proved that there is broad consensus in the field that once adolescents reach the early stages of puberty and experience gender dysphoria, it is very unlikely they will subsequently identify as cisgender or desist.

And the one I love and will keep posting.

3) The Witnesses Are Not Credible

 
stating their opinions were “more rooted in ideology than in science.”

There is so much more at the link above.   Hugs

THIS TRANSPHOBIC CHRISTIAN IS… QUITE LITERALLY THE WORST | NOAHFINNCE

PRAY FOR NOAHFINNCE!!!! WELL LAYDEES AND GENTLETHEMS… THIS IS QUITE A LOT TO UNPACK. THIS TRANSPHOBE.. THINKS I… NOAHFINNCE AM A BIG BAD SCARY TRANS PERSON… AS THEY ALL DO.

From the NYTimes:

Hank: NO MORE WoW!!!a day ago

From the NYTimes:

Douglas Berman, a professor of law at Ohio State University and a sentencing expert, read the court papers unsealed on Tuesday morning and said that it was difficult to assess from the filings whether Mr. Biden received a sweetheart deal.

The crimes to which Mr. Biden is pleading guilty, Mr. Berman said, are ones that the average person is rarely prosecuted for because they are usually only brought along with more serious offenses.

In Mr. Biden’s case, they include a charge stemming from lying about drug use on the government form used for his purchase of a handgun. Current and former officials say tens of thousands of Americans, out of the 25 million who buy guns each year, lie on their forms and are not prosecuted.

Prosecutors had pored over Mr. Biden’s finances, including examining two years of unpaid taxes. But in 2021, Mr. Biden paid the I.R.S. the full amount that his accountants estimated he owed, and paid off his liens.

By making the payments, former officials said, Mr. Biden complicated the ability of prosecutors to charge him with tax evasion because juries often question why the government has indicted someone who has paid his taxes. That left prosecutors with the options to charge Mr. Biden with filing his 2017 and 2018 taxes late — something that Mr. Biden’s lawyers argued to prosecutors are often handled without criminal charges and that in this case were handled as misdemeanors.

“If these are the only offenses, most prosecutors are going to say it’s not worth a federal case — they would say: Let’s not make a federal case of it for the average person because it’s not worth it to bring a case unless there’s reason to be concerned that there’s a public safety issue or the trust that everyone is treated equally under the law is at stake,” Mr. Berman said

Let’s talk about Hunter Biden’s charges….