Just a note with the video. I won’t be around much this morning. Neither of us slept much we were both up needing food for crashing blood sugar in early morning hours. I never slept until after three, Ron said he was more towards four. But we got up at 6 am, got coffee, cleaned all the counters, put away the clean dishes Ron washed before he came to bed, and then we washed Odie’s feet from the cat litter he gets packed in them and his butt / belly because he is too lazy to lift himself up when he pees so he ends up laying / walking in the wet pee litter. Then I showered, Ron is showering so we can go shopping today. It is bitter cold, feels like 40 degrees. Great for you northern types, the frozen Arctic for us in southern Florida. Ron and I are both in not so great health and we find it is better if we do the shopping as a team, watching out for each other. See you all after if I can still function. Hugs
In this newly found film from the 1950s we learn how one can determine whether or not they are in a cult. Does any of this sound like you?
by Kathleen Romig Director of Social Security and Disability Policy February 20, 2025
Social Security has broad support across party lines, income levels, and generations. After 90 years, Social Security remains one of the nation’s most successful, effective, and popular programs.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has strict controls over who receives a Social Security number (SSN) and what documentation is required to prove identity, U.S. citizenship, and immigration status. The agency assigns a unique Social Security number to each eligible individual, and it pays a single Social Security benefit to each qualifying individual with a Social Security number. Only U.S. citizens and some lawfully present non-citizens may receive Social Security benefits. Social Security’s payment accuracy rate is very high — well over 99 percent — and it has many safeguards against improper payments, including rigorous protocols to stop paying benefits to people who have died.
Misinformation and false statements from President Trump and “Department of Government Efficiency” head Elon Musk claiming otherwise are causing confusion and risk undermining a trusted program that is rigorously administered, and which 69 million people currently rely on and nearly everyone will eventually use.
Here are the facts.
Social Security Number: What Is it and Who Is Eligible?
The Social Security Administration only provides new or replacement Social Security cards to people who meet strict authentication requirements. Applicants must fill out an application for a Social Security card (SS-5) and take or mail original documents to a local Social Security office for processing. Applicants must provide at least two documents that prove age, identity, and U.S. citizenship or lawful immigration status. Almost all U.S. citizens are assigned Social Security numbers at birth through SSA’s enumeration at birth program.
Some non-citizens with lawful immigration statuses may receive Social Security numbers. To receive a work-authorized SSN, non-citizen applicants must prove that they have a current, lawful work-authorized immigration status (such as lawful permanent resident status, also known as having a green card). Social Security cards issued to non-citizens with temporary work authorization are labeled “VALID FOR WORK ONLY WITH DHS AUTHORIZATION.” To receive a non-work SSN, applicants must prove they are lawfully present in the U.S. (for example, on a student visa) and provide the valid, non-work reason for which they need an SSN. Social Security cards issued to non-citizens without work authorization are labeled “NOT VALID FOR EMPLOYMENT.” People who are without lawful immigration status are not eligible for an SSN.
The Social Security number is a unique identifier, meaning that one number is assigned to one individual. It was designed this way to keep track of each worker’s earnings so that SSA could determine eligibility for Social Security and the benefit amount, which is based on a worker’s earnings.
Social Security Benefits: Who Gets Them and How Are They Calculated?
Social Security has a payment accuracy rate of over 99 percent. Only 0.3 percent of Social Security benefits are improper payments, which are typically caused by mistakes or delays.
SSA has many safeguards to ensure accurate payments, including strict documentation and eligibility requirements, quality reviews, and regular reviews of medical eligibility for disability beneficiaries and financial eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients. SSA works with its Office of Inspector General (OIG) to root out rare cases of outright fraud, in which applicants or beneficiaries deliberately falsify information to get or keep undeserved benefits. SSA and OIG team with state and local authorities in Cooperative Disability Investigations to investigate suspected fraud and to prosecute violations of the law.
Only U.S. citizens and some lawfully present non-citizens may receive Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits are based on the earnings on which people pay Social Security payroll taxes. As of 2004, non-citizens must have had work authorization for their earnings to count toward Social Security eligibility and benefits. In addition, the Social Security Act has prohibited the payment of benefits to non-citizens who are not “lawfully present” in the U.S. since 1996.
SSA only pays one Social Security benefit to each qualifying Social Security number holder. A person may receive a Social Security benefit based on their own work history or based on their relationship to a worker — for example, the surviving spouse of a deceased worker. Beneficiaries who are eligible in multiple ways (for example, as both a worker and a surviving spouse) only receive one benefit that is reduced under the “dual entitlement rule,” which caps the total benefit amount at the highest single benefit for which the person qualifies. In no case does the same individual receive multiple Social Security benefits, nor does SSA pay Social Security benefits to people without SSNs.
SSA has rigorous protocols to stop payments to beneficiaries who have died. State vital statistics agencies report deaths to SSA via the Electronic Death Registration system, typically within days. SSA also collects death data from funeral home directors, family members, and financial institutions. Across all sources, the agency receives nearly 3 million death reports each year, preventing over $50 million in improper payments each month. To catch any deaths that may have escaped reporting, SSA regularly checks to be sure its oldest beneficiaries are using their Medicare benefits — if not, they verify that the beneficiary is still alive. And in the extremely rare cases where benefits are paid to people over 100 years old, SSA has a policy to stop payments by age 115.
Only 0.1 percent of Social Security benefits are paid to people over 100 years old. DOGE head Elon Musk has been circulating a table he claims shows Social Security beneficiaries at very old ages, but he is grossly mischaracterizing its contents. These numbers appear to be drawn from SSA’s Numident database, a record of every Social Security number application since the program started. The Numident typically does not contain death dates for people born before 1920 — before Social Security was established and long before electronic records were kept. A 2023 OIG report explains that “almost none” of the people born before 1920 in this dataset are being paid benefits. As a result, SSA explained that adding death dates to these very old records would be “costly to implement [and] would be of little benefit.”
What is it with these religious bigots who think their god gives them the right to force everyone to believe / live as they claim to do. They are the first to demand their rights to worship / live as they wish. What gives them the idea the rest of us don’t want the same right. They were the first to attack the Taliban for forcing everyone in the country to worship / live by their version of Islam. Yet now they demand to be the US Christian Taliban. I do not understand their hate. They pick one or a few passages in the OT to clobber others while ignoring all the rest. They don’t stone their rebellious children, they don’t follow the other things in Leviticus and they do not follow anything Jesus said about caring for others. Hate, dominance, and vengeance is all they care about. The Old Testament god gives them that. And pleae notice the bill is titled Increasing Penalties for Child Pornography … it goes against all porn. Just like innocent drag queen story hours were attacked to protect the children from seeing people in costumes reading stories. Hugs
Alongside SB593, Deevers, who is also a pastor at Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Elgin, Oklahoma, introduced legislation to abolish abortion, prohibit drag performances in front of minors, ban divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, and provide tax credits to couples who opt into “covenant marriages” or have multiple children within the bounds of marriage — just to name some highlights.
An Oklahoma state senator has introduced legislation that would ban all pornography, with criminal penalties of up to 10 years in prison for the “production, distribution or possession” of any pornography, according to a press release from the Oklahoma Senate. SB 593, proposed by Senator Dusty Deevers on January 21, is part of a slate of eight bills by the legislator to “restore moral sanity” to the state of Oklahoma.
The bill, entitled “Increasing Penalties for Child Pornography and Prohibiting Pornography in Oklahoma,” goes far beyond the scope suggested in its title. While it does advocate for raising the penalty for the possession, distribution, or production of child pornography from 0-20 years up to 10-30 years, the bill has gone so far as to prohibit pornography entirely.
“Pornography is both degenerate material and a highly addictive drug,” Deevers said in the press release. “It ruins marriages, ruins lives, destroys innocence, warps young people’s perception of the opposite sex, turns women into objects, turns men into objects, degrades human dignity, and corrodes the moral fabric of society. Any decent society will stand against this plague with the full weight of the law.”
Deevers’ description of pornography as a “highly addictive drug” directly echoes the words of the authors of Project 2025,who, in the foreword to the over 900-page blueprint for a very different America, linked pornography to both child abuse and trans identity.
“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare,” the foreword to the document reads. “It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed.”
Alongside SB593, Deevers, who is also a pastor at Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Elgin, Oklahoma, introduced legislation to abolish abortion, prohibit drag performances in front of minors, ban divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, and provide tax credits to couples who opt into “covenant marriages” or have multiple children within the bounds of marriage — just to name some highlights.
Mike Stabile, the director of public policy at the Free Speech Coalition, said the proposed bill was really an attempt to encroach on free speech in a statement to USA Today.
“Porn is the canary in the coal mine of free speech, and the trial balloon used by governments to pass laws that can censor speech more broadly,” he told the outlet. “No matter how people feel about adult content, we should all be concerned about the proposed government crackdown on speech.”
Deevers’ attack on pornography comes less than a month after age verification laws effectively made porn inaccessible in 16 U.S. states, mostly in the regional South.
At the time that many of these bans went into effect, Aylo, the parent company to PornHub, told Mashable that it has “publicly supported age verification of users for years” but that the kind required by these bills is “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous,” as well as a threat to users’ security.
A contributor to Project 2025 was recorded last year stating that age-verification laws are a “back door” to broader porn bans.
Legislators in several states have introduced similarly bizarre bills criminalizing sexual freedom in the short time since Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency for the second time. Last week, Mississippi state senator Bradford Blackmon introduced the “Contraception Begins at Erection Act,” which would make it illegal for a person to “discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.” The bill suggested a fine of $1,000 for a first offense, $5,000 for a second offense, and $10,000 thereafter. In a statement to local affiliate WLBT, Blackmon said the bill was meant to act as a counterpart to contraception and abortion bills.
“All across the country, especially here in Mississippi, the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman’s role when men are fifty percent of the equation,” he told WLBT. “This bill highlights that fact and brings the man’s role into the conversation. People can get up in arms and call it absurd but I can’t say that bothers me.”
Mathew Rodriguez is the former senior news editor at Them. In the past, he has been a senior culture editor at The Atlantic, as well as a staff writer at Out Magazine, INTO, and Mic. His writing has been featured in Slate, Teen Vogue, The Village Voice, MEL Magazine, and more. He … Read more
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.
The goal is to erase gay people because super Christian Rubio agrees with the hateful that LGBTQ+ need to die or go away. They are not human people like good straight cis people are. So lets protect the straight people and hope the icky gays get the aids virus. That is their view, not mine, yours, or real Christians who follow Jesus’s command to love and care for people. Hugs
But Rubio’s waiver itself stated that “gender or DEI ideology programs” and “transgender surgeries” — e.g., any overseas programs or organizations that support trans people — should not receive aid during the “pause,” and that any programs not specifically named in the waiver “may not be resumed without express approval.”
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The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is still barred from providing PrEP to LGBTQ+ people around the world, according to recent State Department documents, placing millions of people at elevated risk of HIV exposure.
Shortly after President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign aid in January, Rubio issued an additional “emergency humanitarian waiver” on February 6 which appeared to allow HIV medications to be distributed abroad during that time. That waiver ostensibly meant that pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP — the antiretroviral drug that prevents the transmission of HIV — would be distributed through PEPFAR. But Rubio’s waiver itself stated that “gender or DEI ideology programs” and “transgender surgeries” — e.g., any overseas programs or organizations that support trans people — should not receive aid during the “pause,” and that any programs not specifically named in the waiver “may not be resumed without express approval.”
Now, a new State Department document, dated February 6 and published online by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) confirms that PrEP “should be offered only to pregnant and breastfeeding women,” whereas anyone else “who may be at high risk of HIV infection or were previously initiated on a PrEP option can not be offered PEPFAR-funded PrEP” (emphases in original) during the aid freeze.
Among the “high risk” populations currently blocked from receiving PrEP through PEPFAR is LGBTQ+ people — particularly men who have sex with men (MSM) and trans people, two demographics with an increasedrisk of exposure to HIV. UNAIDS estimated this week that more than 3,000 new HIV infections have occurred worldwide as a result of the Trump administration’s aid freeze.
Founded in 2003 to combat the international spread of HIV, PEPFAR reported distributing antiretroviral treatments to over 20 million people worldwide in 2024, including 2.5 million new PrEP users. In 2022, PEPFAR spent 8.9% of its budget, or approximately $20.1 million, on services for MSM and trans people, according to an analysis by the health policy research organization KFF. A further $28 million went to provide HIV prevention and treatment services for sex workers.
Trump and Rubio’s aid freeze has also already resulted in PEPFAR-assisted programs shutting their doors. The Kenyan “Fahari ya Jamii” initiative, a five-year HIV prevention project founded in 2022, shut down more than 150 clinics and placed more than 700 workers on unpaid leave following the freeze last month, as the Washington Blade reported February 5.
The freeze is part of Trump’s larger war against the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal agency which distributes civilian foreign aid and partially funds PEPFAR. Amid the administration’s purge of “woke” terminology — including the terms “gender” and “LGBTQ” — from government websites, the USAID site was still entirely offline at time of writing. The agency was also the subject of a House committee hearing on February 5, during which Rep. Nancy Mace repeatedly used a transphobic slur to denigrate U.S. support for LGBTQ+ programs abroad.
Global health organizations have condemned the Trump aid freeze particularly as it relates to HIV prevention, warning of dire consequences already taking place. The international watchdog group Human Rights Watch wrote this week that even a temporary pause on PEPFAR programs “could be devastating” for countless people around the world. The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) and Journalism Development Network, Inc. filed a joint lawsuit against Trump, Rubio, and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought on February 10, alleging the administration’s aid freeze is illegal and unconstitutional. On February 11, a group of USAID contractors and non-governmental organizations filed another such lawsuit, alleging that the freeze had already caused “irreparable damage.” The administration is already fighting a third lawsuit brought by a group of USAID employees last week, which led a federal judge to issue an injunction against the furloughing of USAID workers on February 7.
“[W]ith this new guidance, the Trump Administration is choosing politics over science, discrimination over compassion, and ultimately, death over life,” AVAC representatives wrote in a statement last week. “The February 6th guidance […] is not only a dangerous deviation from sound public health policy — it is a death sentence for thousands of people at risk of HIV globally,” the organization wrote, adding, “This decision appears to be less about public health and more about an ideological agenda that seeks to police morality rather than protect lives.”
Even as right wing media is desperately trying to erase the gains made by the LGBTQ+ communities here and in the UK, worldwide we see more and more acceptance for LGBTQ+ people. Maybe there are no rabid Christians trying to force the entire country to worship their version of god based on their church doctrine. Those people do what we first did, they got out among the people, they stood up to be counted, they were vocal on social media. We better get back out there. Send the best speakers to these places to correct and spewed misinformation / lies. They wore shirts with their pride on them. I am going to buy a few as soon as I get paid. I need new shirts anyway. Hugs
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On the heels of legalizing same-sex marriage, Thailand’s Public Health Ministry is now allocating 145.63 million baht (roughly $4.3 million) toward funding health services, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT), for transgender citizens.
The Southeast Asian country’s National Health Security Board approved the funding during its 2025 budget planning. The Bangkok Post reports that these health services are expected to provide care for around 200,000 trans people out of the country’s estimated trans population of 314,808. Deputy government spokesman Anukool Pruksanusak said in a statement that the Public Health Ministry’s coverage of gender-affirming healthcare aims to reduce national health disparities by emphasizing both physical and mental healthcare for “sexually diverse individuals,” per the Bangkok Post.
Earlier this week, thousands of queer Thai couples tied the knot as Thailand officially began recognizing marriage equality on January 22, making it the first Southeast Asian country and the third Asian country overall to do so. Under the legislation, same-sex couples are entitled to the same legal, financial, and medical rights afforded to married heterosexual couples, including inheritance and adoption rights.
“This marriage equality law marks the beginning of Thai society’s greater awareness of gender diversity, and our embrace of everyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, or religion — our affirmation that everyone is entitled to equal rights and dignity,” Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said in a recorded statement played at a mass wedding in the Thai capital city of Bangkok on January 22, according to CNN.
Scottie's Playtime 