Wow. A group that initially included no Jews hatched a plan to make support for Palestine a crime. The US is following their playbook and supporting the mass killing & removal of Palestinians.Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement http://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/u…
Cooking the books? Fears Trump could target statisticians if data disappointsProposed rule change could pave way for president to fire economists whose figures prove politically inconvenientwww.theguardian.com/us-news/2025…
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz criticized President Donald Trump during an interview with MSNBC host Jen Psaki, stressing just why the people who elected Trump to run the country “like a business” were completely misguided.
Walz particularly lamented the impacts of Trump’s ongoing trade war with Canada and Mexico, noting that Trump has a history of scuttling deals and “a proven track record of being an absolute failure.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks at the Al Udeid Air Base, Thursday, May 15, 2025, in Doha, Qatar. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Military commanders will be told to identify troops in their units who are transgender or have gender dysphoria, then send them to get medical checks in order to force them out of the service, officials said Thursday.
A senior defense official laid out what could be a complicated and lengthy new process aimed at fulfilling President Donald Trump’s directive to remove transgender service members from the U.S. military.
The new order to commanders relies on routine annual health checks that service members are required to undergo. Another defense official said the Defense Department has scrapped — for now — plans to go through troops’ health records to identify those with gender dysphoria.
Far Right Federal Judge Rules Gay And Trans People Can Be Discriminated Against In Workplaces
Judge Kacsmaryk, a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas, ruled on the EEOC’s treatment of Title VII employment discrimination claims on gay and trans people.
On Thursday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk—a far-right federal judge in the Northern District of Texas with a record of aligning with the GOP’s most extreme legal positions—issued a ruling declaring that Title VII no longer protects LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination. The decision directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 ruling inBostock v. Clayton County, which held that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is, by definition, sex discrimination. Kacsmaryk’s ruling marks one of the most alarming judicial rollbacks of LGBTQ+ rights in recent memory—and sets up a direct legal challenge to one of the foundational civil rights protections for queer and trans people in the United States.
Montana Court Issues Final Blow to Anti-Trans Health Care Law
A judge found that the law’s premise is not scientific, but “political and ideological.”
A state judge in Montana has permanently struck down SB 99, a law which sought to ban gender-affirming care for Montana youth under age 18.
The court decision is a welcome reprieve for young trans Montanans, who have had the threat of forced detransition hanging over their heads since 2023. The bill would have threatened the licensure of physicians who provided trans-affirming care to this age group and prevented state funds from being used for gender-affirming surgeries, hormones, puberty blockers, and “social transitioning” measures for trans youth. It also would have allowed parents of trans kids to sue medical professionals for providing their children with the proper care.
But these kinds of laws, which are being passed around the country, are highly unscientific. They try to erase the biological reality of gender and sexual diversity to further a far-right gender ideology. As the court ruling declared, “the State’s interest is actually a political and ideological one: ensuring minors in Montana are never provided treatment to address” their gender dysphoria.
“In other words, the State’s interest is actually blocking transgender expression.”
1) The court found overwhelming evidence backing the benefits of gender-affirming care for trans people.
Anti-abortion and abortion rights protesters confront each other outside a Planned Parenthood office in Missouri in 2022.Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch vía AP
One might have thought that last November, when Missourians voted to enshrine “reproductive freedom,” including abortion, in the state constitution, that would be the end of the conversation. In overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the US Supreme Court professed that the question of whether abortion should be legal was now up to states. And the people of Missouri made it very clear: They wanted abortion rights (at least until fetal viability).
Alas, the Missouri Supreme Court doesn’t seem to be inclined to listen.
Thanks to the passage of Amendment 3, Missouri’s criminal abortion ban is gone. But local Planned Parenthood affiliates are still fighting in court to overturn the web of restrictions, known as TRAP laws, that made providing abortions virtually impossible in the state even when Roe was the law of the land. These include a 72-hour waiting period, hallway width requirements for abortion clinics, and a rule that providers must have admitting privileges at a hospital 15 minutes away, to name just a few. In a pair of decisions in December and February, Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang agreed to temporarily suspend enough of those old laws to allow abortions to resume in Missouri while the court case heads to a January 2026 trial.
But on Tuesday, the state supreme court overturned Zhang’s rulings, ordering her to reconsider the temporary block on the TRAP laws using a different legal standard. As a result, abortion providers have once again been forced to halt their work, rendering the constitutional right to abortion effectively moot, for now. For the second time since 2022, abortion clinics had to call pregnant people this week to let them know their scheduled abortions had been canceled, the Associated Pressreported.
“This decision puts our state back under a de facto abortion ban and is devastating for Missourians and the providers they trust with their personal health care decisions,” Emily Wales and Margot Riphagen, leaders of the two Planned Parenthood affiliates that operate in Missouri, said in a joint statement. “We will continue to fight for their freedom to the constitutionally protected health care they voted for.”
Planned Parenthood lawyers have already filed a brief asking Zhang to re-issue her preliminary injunction under the new standard and block the TRAP laws again. But even if Zhang agrees, and abortions do resume again in Missouri in a few weeks—or after a January 2026 trial—abortion rights in the state will remain far from settled.
That’s because, two weeks ago, Missouri lawmakers voted to put yet another constitutional amendment on the ballot—this one repealing the reproductive freedom amendment and banning virtually all abortions. Voters will see that question on their November 2026 ballots—or sooner, if Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe decides to call a special election.
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So I read all the advice on my stepper work out post. I did listen … sort of. I wish right now I had listened to the advice better. Several people said to do 2 minutes and then 12 hours later or the next day to do 2 minutes more.
Today was the day I wanted to do legs, tomorrow will be arms with light weights, as Sunday is the day for heavy ones. So I did two minutes like people advised. I waited 30 minutes and did not feel any issues, so I did another 2 minutes. Then I sat down at my desk and sharpened the house knives. It took a while. Then I made supper in the deep frier of breaded chicken strips and french fries. By the time I got halfway through frying the food, I was struggling to bend my legs as my thighs felt like tree trunks. I did not tell Ron as I put the food away and came into my office. I had already taken my evening morphines, muscle relaxers, and 800 mg Ibuprofen. And my legs still hurt. They ache.
I am sitting at my desk and my legs feel like they can’t fit inside my pant legs. As I sit they are better bent as if I stretch them out it hurts more.
Ok I goofed, you all can say I told you so. I thought since the first two minutes did not seem to cause pain I could do another 2 minutes. I know it was suggested at least 12 hours before doing more. I can clearly see I will have to do that at least if not wait longer. I guess I want to get healthier faster and I can see there is not going to be a shortcut with this. This is going to take far longer than even I had thought it would.
So I will wait two days, then do 2 minutes on the stepper then put it away for the next couple of days. Then do two more minutes. As several said and Ten Bears reminded me he had advised me about before, this is a slow process that I can not make go at the speed I would wish it to. Not and do it correctly and keep from being in pain. I just took a 15 mg instant morphine my legs hurt so bad. Ok I fucked up … again. But I just wanted my leg muscles to fill out again so I can walk and do stuff. Hugs
So below I will add the pictures of the torture device my husband insisted I needed. We have not been walking like we used to. There seems to always be a reason why but my husband worries about how thin my legs have gotten and that I have started to have swollen ankles and feet sitting at my desk so much. So
we got this device.
Now comes the punishment part. The first time I tried it I did 3 sets of 5 minutes of stepping, rested 10 minutes between sets. Two or three hours later as I was doing the dishes my legs started to really hurt and get stiff. I couldn’t bend my legs. My thighs were swollen. I was in agony so bad I couldn’t finish the dishes. I have not used it since. Can anyone tell me the proper amount of time to use it and how many minutes to rest between and how many sets to do. Thanks. I do want to get healthy and build back up my legs that have atrophied but I don’t want to die doing it. Hugs
