LGBT group complains to Murcia government after teenager was given report that included line: ‘Current illness: homosexual’
A Pride march in the Valencia region of Spain. LGBTI activists in Murcia want their regional authorities to apologise over a teenager’s treatment at Reina Sofía hospital, saying some in the health service ‘view sexual orientation as an illness’. Photograph: Biel Aliño/EPA
A family and an LGBT collective in south-east Spain are demanding answers and an apology after a 19-year-old gay woman who visited a gynecologist over a menstrual condition was diagnosed with “homosexuality”.
On Monday the woman went to an appointment at the Reina Sofía hospital in the city of Murcia. After being examined she was given a piece of paper that included the line: “Current illness: homosexual.”
The woman’s mother told the online paper elDiario.es that the gynaecologist had asked her daughter whether he could include her sexual orientation in his report, and that she had consented – despite her surprise – as she thought at the time it might be relevant.
“At first, I thought it was funny, but it just isn’t,” said the patient.
The mother and daughter brought the matter to the attention of the local LGBT collective, Galactyco, which has lodged a formal complaint with Murcia’s regional government, the regional health ministry, and the regional health service.
The collective said it was seeking an explanation and an apology, adding that the regional authorities had ignored the patient’s legal rights. It also said the case was far from an isolated incident.
“Our association has received countless reports of degrading treatment because of sexual or gender orientation,” the statement said. “We find it alarming, unacceptable and intolerable that there are professionals today who are responsible for our health, but who ignore the realities of LGBTI people.”
The regional health service could not be reached for comment. But a spokesperson told elDiario.es that it was aware of the incident and that “all necessary measures would be taken to properly establish the facts and to proceed accordingly”.
Initial investigations, added the spokesperson, suggested a mistake appeared to have been made “when the patient’s details were taken”. In any case, they said, the hospital would be offering an apology to the patient.
I just realized today that if you have not been to the web site of Joe My God that the above blurb doesn’t show on the link. It just shows a one line link. I am sad about that because it saved me a lot of work if it displayed properly. But I guess I will go back to the old way. Best wishes. Scottie.
A Calgary-based street pastor and his brother — both known for being pandemic-denying and anti-mask — have been released on bail following their arrest after a protest outside the health minister’s house, their lawyer confirmed Sunday.
Calgary police say there was a protest in northwest Calgary Saturday afternoon, with about 50 people in attendance, and two had been arrested. Defence lawyer Chad Haggerty says the two people arrested were Artur Pawlowski and his brother Dawid Pawlowski.
Haggerty confirmed the two were arrested after gathering outside Health Minister Jason Copping’s home. A video of the protest, posted on an anti-vaccine and anti-mask Facebook account, shows protest attendees in the residential neighbourhood holding signs and chanting while a helicopter can be seen flying overhead.
Video of the arrest, shared on Pawlowski’s YouTube channel, shows police officers arresting the pastor after pulling him over on a busy highway. Pawlowski referred to one of the officers as a “Gestapo Nazi,” echoing his previous criticism of the government’s enforcement of coronavirus worship restrictions.
When sharing a shortened video of the arrest, Ezra Levant of the pro-Pawlowski outlet Rebel News concluded that Calgary Police “could arrest him at his church or home” or “call his lawyer” and “have her bring him in.” Instead, he contends they chose “this showy spectacle, to terrify him and others.”
Artur Pawloski last appeared on JMG when he was first arrested for defying COVID laws. Pawlowski is fond of blaming natural disasters on God’s anger over LGBT civil rights. He first appeared on JMG way back in 2010 when Canada revoked his then-church’s tax-exempt status for violating laws on political activities by churches.
Jason Kenney is the premier of Alberta province.
All Albertans have a right to protest peacefully. That right does not extend to trespassing at private homes and harassing the families of public officials.
LMAO so anti-vaxxers have decided to adopt "irreversible medical procedure" phrasing from anti-transers. Excited to see how increasingly associating the two positions with each other will turn out. https://t.co/i517eiBF6F
As someone who struggles to be active in the smallest degree I agree with this. I feel best when I can do things even through the pain. I have shots in a few weeks in my spine because right now I can not stand long enough to fry eggs at the stove.
The filibuster is not in the Constitution. But each house is allowed to make their own procedural rules. The Senate rules, unlike the House, trying to be a more “deliberative” body (and with fewer members in the early days) allowed unlimited debate on the floor and unlimited “yields” (handoffs to allies). During such speechifying, no other business could be conducted.
It took a 2/3 vote to stop a debate.
The filibuster arose when Southern conservative senators wanted to block bills, especially in the area of civil rights. Not having the votes, they simply stood and spoke under the rules allowing “unlimited debate” and kept on speaking, handing off (yielding) to accomplices as needed for breaks, and thus preventing any other business from going forward.
Finally, they made a compromise in the Senate rules: they would lower the cloture vote from 2/3 to 3/5 (60 votes in a 100-member senate) and not require senators to actually speak; just invoke filibuster by motion, and allow other business to still proceed on a “two track” basis.
Taking out the hard work of hours and hours of speaking made it easier to invoke and, once Obama became president and McConnell embarked on an unprecedented racist obstruction of the first African-American president, he made a 60-vote supermajority the de facto standard for passing any legislation, with more filibusters during the Obama years than the entire history of all prior administrations COMBINED and then, when he regained the majority, essentially did away with the filibuster for all confirmations and for budget bills (budget reconciliation).
McConnell’s unprecedented ABUSE of filibuster, coupled with the built-in (Constitutional) disproportionate allocation of senate representation, transformed it from a tool for the minority to have a voice in developing legislation, to utter tyranny of the majority, in which senators representing 16% of the population could overrule an overwhelming majority.
There are ways in which conservative Democrats could reduce the power of the filibuster to obstruct and still go on record as having saved the filibuster, and some of the Democrats who have opposed outright elimination of the filibuster (such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona) have indicated that they might be amenable to reforms such as:
a) amend the process; return to the requirement that they actually stand and hold the floor instead of just invoking by motion. When we had this in the past, filibuster was rarely used.
b) redefine filibuster; redefine what is eligible for inclusion in the budget reconciliation process which is exempt from filibuster
c) make voting rights and election security exempt from filibuster
d) limit the number of times filibuster can be invoked
e) require the speaker to remain on topic (no more reading phone books)
f) reverse the burden of invoking filibuster: right now they just make a motion to invoke filibuster and it takes a 60% vote to stop them. Reverse it. Instead of one person invoking filibuster and 60% having to agree to end it, require them to get 40% of the senate to vote to invoke filibuster — make them get the votes. Make them go on record as voting to obstruct something huge majorities of everyday people want (election reform, campaign finance reform, checks to individuals, a livable minimum wage, gun safety reform) and have to defend that in their next election.
None of these proposed reforms are mutually exclusive! You can do any or all or any combination. And there are likely other ways to reform and restructure filibuster without having to go on record as having actually eliminated it.
For those concerned about the “tyranny of the majority,” what we currently have is a “tyranny of the MINORITY.” We can protect minority interests and allow them to be heard without allowing senators who represent 16% of the population to tyrannize the rest of us.
Yesterday I posted Dr. Fauci’s qualifications to make public health suggestions, and to understand the data / science behind those recommendations. Let me make clear that the right wing media doesn’t have those qualifications at all. The people who claim they did their own research are only reading some one else’s summery and the opinions of people not qualified to understand or make those public health opinions. Scottie
What is the Build Back Better bill? What is it? It is the government doing things that benefit the public. That is it. Investing in the country in a way to benefit the people. The wealthy can not have that in any way. They feel the lower incomes are undeserving, the poor shouldn’t have anything or enjoy life. The wealthy feel the government must only do what they want, what they decide is good for businesses, which is a dependent people struggling to survive who will work for any low wage in any bad conditions. This is the truth hidden by claims of inflation and debt. Those things have been disproved. So the truth is the wealthy do not want the government to do things making life better for the public. Scottie
Yet Putin is the one asking for more talks. Putin has not made his invasion when it would have been better for him to do so. Reports are Putin has pulled some troops back from the border. Putin’s goal is defense while the western powers, with the US as part, is becoming more inclusive. Seems to me Biden’s checkers is beating Putin’s chess quite well. Scottie
The lack of tests and their increase in price is driven by demand. The businesses that are worried about a sick work force that wont vaccinate are demanding workers be tested. Need tests to do that. So be happy the economy is opening up and booming under Biden. Be upset with the lack of a vaccine mandate that would help businesses to operate safety. Scottie
But it’s not clear how extensive or significant those interactions were.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) chairs the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection during a Dec. 13 vote. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, said his panel has evidence of interactions between members of the House and the rioters that day but not necessarily of a significant nature.
“We have a lot of information about communication with individuals who came,“ Thompson (D-Miss.) told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday.
Thompson clarified that there was not evidence of House members participating in a conspiracy with rioters or offering substantial assistance — at least not yet.
“Now, ‘assisted’ means different things,“ he said. “Some took pictures with people who came to the ‘Stop the Steal‘ rally. Some, you know, allowed them to come and associate in their offices and other things during that whole rally week. So, there’s some participation. We don’t have any real knowledge that I’m aware of people giving tours. We heard a lot of that, but we’re still, to be honest with you, reviewing a lot of the film that the House administration and others have provided the committee.“
Thompson, who said some members of Congress had provided information to his panel, said the committee wanted to hear from Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) about their activities, though he said it was not clear if his panel would or even could subpoena them.
The Mississippi Democrat said that the committee is trying to learn more about the time that day in which President Donald Trump was in the White House before he released a public statement urging for an end to the attacks on the Capitol.
“It’s about 187 minutes,” he told Todd. “We have now determined he was in the White House. We’ve determined that a number of people made attempts to contact him through his chief of staff.“
Thompson added: “The president was told, ‘You need to say directly to your people to go home, leave the Capitol.‘ And so it took over 187 minutes to make that simple statement. Something’s wrong with that.“
New: Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson says on ABC that the investigation has uncovered the insurrection “appeared to be a coordinated effort on the part of a number of people to undermine the election.”
Bennie Thompson says on @CNNSotu they have “significant testimony” the WH “had been told to do something” on Jan 6. Asked if he believes Trump’s actions warrant criminal referral: “We don’t know yet…If there’s a criminal act we believe occurred, we will make the referrral.”
"We have significant testimony that leads us to believe that the White House had been told to do something. We want to verify all of it," says Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. #CNNSOTUpic.twitter.com/G2d9wWaZ87
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of House Jan. 6 committee, says the panel will recommend new legislation to boost intelligence gathering to prevent future attacks on U.S. Capitol.
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (R) on Sunday accused former President Trump of being “at war with the rule of law,” and said that if he repeats the baseless claims of the 2020 presidential election being stolen, he will do so with the knowledge that those words can elicit a violent response.
“I think that that we’re in a situation where people have got to understand the danger of President Trump and the danger that he posed on that day,” Cheney said of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6 while appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“This is a man who has demonstrated that he is at war with the rule of law,” she added. “He’s demonstrated that he’s willing to blow through every guardrail of democracy, and he can never be anywhere near the Oval Office again.”
Trump is planning on holding a press conference on Jan. 6 at his Mar-a-Lago resort. When announcing the event, Trump repeated his claims that the election was stolen and said he would be going over these assertions during his conference.
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (R) on Sunday accused former President Trump of being “at war with the rule of law,” and said that if he repeats the baseless claims of the 2020 presidential election being stolen, he will do so with the knowledge that those words can elicit a violent response.
“I think that that we’re in a situation where people have got to understand the danger of President Trump and the danger that he posed on that day,” Cheney said of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6 while appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“This is a man who has demonstrated that he is at war with the rule of law,” she added. “He’s demonstrated that he’s willing to blow through every guardrail of democracy, and he can never be anywhere near the Oval Office again.”
Trump is planning on holding a press conference on Jan. 6 at his Mar-a-Lago resort. When announcing the event, Trump repeated his claims that the election was stolen and said he would be going over these assertions during his conference.
“Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan also asked Cheney, a member of the select panel investigating Jan. 6, on Sunday if she is concerned that there could be a risk of political violence this week.
“I think that if what he has been saying since he left office is any indication, former President Trump is likely again this week to make the same false claims about the election that he knows to be false and the same false claims about the election that he knows caused violence on January 6,” Cheney said.
“If he makes those same claims he’s doing it with complete understanding and knowledge of what those claims have caused in the past.”
"The president could have at any moment, walked those very few steps into the briefing room, gone on live television, and told his supporters who were assaulting the Capitol to stop," Rep. Liz Cheney says of former Pres. Trump's actions on Jan. 6. https://t.co/zo7wSq6hc1pic.twitter.com/sUYg0wGKsi
Liz Cheney: The committee has firsthand testimony now that Trump was sitting in the dining room watching the attack on television pic.twitter.com/L2AgEaC9xl
Rep. Liz Cheney, the top Republican on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, says former Pres. Trump is "clearly unfit for future office, clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again." https://t.co/RiggrVxhOkpic.twitter.com/afEjpBW3sn
Liz Cheney: We have firsthand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence pic.twitter.com/EqdSKvvmRm
An initial review of four counties’ election results — launched after pressure from former President Donald Trump and touted by GOP leaders — showed few discrepancies between electronic and hand counts of ballots in a sample of voting precincts.
Voters cast their ballots at Audelia Road Branch Library in Dallas on the first day of early voting on Oct. 13, 2020. Credit: Montinique Monroe for The Texas Tribune
The Texas secretary of state’s office has released the first batch of results from its review into the 2020 general election, finding few issues despite repeated, unsubstantiated claims by GOP leaders casting doubts on the integrity of the electoral system.
The first phase of the review, released New Year’s Eve, highlighted election data from four counties — Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Collin — that showed few discrepancies between electronic and hand counts of ballots in a sample of voting precincts. Those partial manual counts made up a significant portion of the results produced by the secretary of state, which largely focused on routine voter roll maintenance and post-election processes that were already in place before the state launched what it has labeled as a “full forensic audit.”
On Friday, Samuel Taylor, a spokesperson with the secretary of state’s office, said the review was needed “to provide clarity on what issues need to be resolved for the next elections.”
But Remi Garza, president of the Texas Association of Election Administrators, said there wasn’t anything in the review’s first set of results that raised any alarms for him.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything too far out of the ordinary with respect to the information that’s provided,” said Garza, who serves as the election administrator in Cameron County. “… I hope nobody draws any strong conclusions one way or the other with respect to the information that’s been provided. I think it’s just very straightforward, very factual and will ultimately play a part in the final conclusions that are drawn once the second phase is completed.”
According to the state’s review of the counties’ partial manual counts, which they are already required to conduct under state law, there were few differences between electronic and manual ballot tallies — and counties were able to justify those inconsistencies.
In Collin County, for example, a partial manual count of ballots in three precincts found a vote discrepancy of 17. County officials said the difference was attributable to curbside voters who are allowed to vote from their cars using machines that do not produce a paper record, according to the state’s report.
Dallas County had a vote discrepancy of 10 across seven precincts, but the state’s report says that appeared to have resulted from a data entry error when county officials first reported the results of the partial manual count to the state.
The manual counts showed a mail-in ballot discrepancy of five votes in 10 Harris County precincts, which county officials said was caused by an “an error in the manual counting” of the ballots.
Tarrant County had zero discrepancies in the sample of seven precincts it was required to review.
In November 2020, votes from the four counties under review made up about 4 million — or about 35% — of the 11.3 million votes cast statewide.
Although the secretary of state’s office has dubbed its review a “full forensic audit” of the election, the first phase of the review includes partial manual counts of ballots and security assessments, which all counties are already required to undergo as part of the typical election process. State law requires partial manual counts to be conducted within 72 hours of polls closing after every election.
The second phase, which will take place in 2022, will be an examination of election records “to ensure election administration procedures were properly followed,” according to documentation previously released by the state. That includes reviews of records of voting machine accuracy tests, rosters for early voting, and forms detailing chain of custody for sealed ballot boxes and other election materials maintained by the counties. In its New Year’s Eve report, the state said it would also use these examinations to review the causes for the vote discrepancies captured in the partial manual counts.
The much-hyped four-county review by the secretary of state’s office, the state agency that oversees elections, was announced in September, just hours after former President Donald Trump publicly pressed Gov. Greg Abbott to add election audit legislation to the agenda for the state’s third special legislative session last fall. As part of his baseless effort to cast doubt on the outcome of his failed reelection bid, Trump’s call came despite the lack of evidence of irregularities in the state’s election — and the fact that he won the state.
The official overseeing the review, Secretary of State John Scott, previously helped Trump challenge 2020 election results in Pennsylvania. Appointed to the position by Abbott, Scott said in an October interview with The Texas Tribune that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election and that he has “not seen anything” to suggest that the election was stolen from Trump.
In a statement on Friday, Isabel Longoria, election administrator for Harris County, said the Harris County clerk’s office “processed, checked, and balanced a fair and accurate election in November 2020.” After conducting a hand count of mail-in ballots from the 2020 election, Longoria said her office “found no notable concerns.”
“Conducting a hand-count on a scale as large as the November 2020 election is an intensive process,” Longoria said. “The process included manually sorting 179,174 ballots by precinct, followed by a hand-count for 10 precincts that were designated by the Secretary of State. Despite this challenge, our team was able to match the count with a discrepancy of only five ballots.”
The state’s progress report for phase one of its audit also included data related to regular maintenance of the state’s massive list of registered voters — it surpassed 16.9 million in November 2020 — that goes beyond its four-county review. But some of the figures highlighted by the state either appear to be faulty or remain unverified.
For example, the secretary of state’s office noted it had sent counties a list of 11,737 records of registered voters it deemed “possible non-U.S. citizens.” But the Tribune previously reported that scores of citizens, including many who registered to vote at their naturalization ceremonies, were marked for review.
Although it has yet to finish investigating the records, the state also included an unverified figure of 509 voter records — about 0.0045% of the 11.3 million votes cast in November 2020 — in which a voter may have cast a vote in Texas and another state or jurisdiction. The state said the work of reviewing those records to eliminate those that were “erroneously matched” because of data issues wouldn’t be completed until January.
The state also highlighted the investigation of 67 votes — about 0.0006% of the votes cast in the 2020 general election — cast by “potentially deceased voters.” This review also has not been completed.
In its report, the secretary of state emphasized that the removal of ineligible or deceased voters from the voter rolls “in and of itself does not indicate that any illegal votes were cast.”
“These maintenance activities are prescribed by state law to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the statewide voter registration list,” the report reads. “Voter list maintenance is performed on a regular and ongoing basis in Texas to prevent ineligible voters from casting ballots and to prevent individuals from casting ballots using another person’s voter registration information.”
The state has a shoddy history of reviewing the voter rolls for ineligible individuals. In 2012, the state settled a lawsuit over its flawed effort to remove dead people from the rolls in which thousands of Texans received letters asking them to prove they were alive. The state’s first effort to scour the rolls for supposed noncitizens in 2019 produced a botched review that jeopardized the voting rights of tens of thousands of naturalized citizens, which it was forced to abandon after being sued in federal court.
Disclosure: The Texas secretary of state has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
FYI protesters in Canberra at Old Parliament house are a 'sovereign citizen' group with overlapping members in the 'freedom' movement. They've been turning up for the past few weeks. They posted this "trespass" notice on the building doors this week pic.twitter.com/ZDBNDNEbpu
More footage of people watching as a fire consumes the front entrance to Old Parliament House in Canberra. Police and other agencies will have lots of footage to work with as they investigate. https://t.co/xwbhlpB5zM
Do you notice how low the bar is going? Be grateful for a library…. as billionaires in space have all our money?
Trump predicted to his cult the market would crash if he were not re-elected.
He lied. The scare tactic was obvious. The fear was the obvious message. The cult lives on fear.
Show the cult these market numbers and they will refuse to admit they got played.
The cult can’t admit Trump is a tremendous loser because then they would have to internalize they are tremendous losers.
The Fox News article doesn’t mention what DeSantis was doing the other 13 days when he failed to make any public appearances.
While Florida has been exploding with record COVID-19 cases six days in a row.
58,013 single day record in a 24-hour period.
He is either unwilling or unable to respond to his constituents during a Pandemic.
Either way Florida deserves better.
God forbid we give 3% less to the military and save humankind.
I take issue with the phrase “health-care system”. It’s misleading. In the 1st place, it’s not a system. A system is something that’s designed to achieve a particular end, in a coordinated way, usually as efficiently as possible. (Think computers or automobiles.) In the 2nd place, it’s not about care, it’s about capitalism.
What we have in lieu of a true health-care system (you know, the kind that every other industrialized democracy on the planet has and loves) is a haphazard scattering of profit centers concentrated in areas where the money is, with vast swaths of the nation under- or unserved. By contrast, the US Postal Service and the public schools are true systems that serve every square centimeter of the country. (And yes, the metric system too is a true system, well and intentionally designed, not like ACHU, the Accidental Collection of Heterogeneous Units that the US alone in the world still clings to.)
So I recommend using the phrase “health-insurance industry”, because it’s more accurate. Scottie
The re-using of N95 masks is key, and will be important in preventing N95 shortages, lessening burden on delivery services, & more. The package insert may say "single-use only, discard after using," but they have to say that. This rotation method is sound. https://t.co/tk8EqWbFi6
— Alan @GammaCounter@mastodon.social (@GammaCounter) January 1, 2022
Everyone realizes that even if Omicron stays “mild,” we’re probably talking about *billions* of cases of long COVID worldwide, right?
Somehow these simple rules are intangible for half of our country
Hey @JonHaidt, you wrote in 2009 that you believe advances in genomics will show genetic ethnic differences in moralized traits. You expected these discoveries between 2012 and 2017. The science hasn't supported your views or expectations. Care to retract?https://t.co/QcQDzmrrMKpic.twitter.com/A1ndAJHLNP
I had a hypothesis that some of these psychometric cognitive tests would exclude some questions where African-Americans scored higher than Euro-Americans. Turns out it's true.
A lot of things work certain ways by design. I wonder how frequent this is. (Kidder and Rosner, 2002) pic.twitter.com/Umvzjii7uC
I know an older highly devote Catholic lady that goes to church 4 times a week, sometimes more. She was telling me one day she knows there is a god. I corrected her that she feels there is a god, but she again stated as a fact she knows there is a god. I replied she thinks there is a god. Nope she knows, so I asked her to show me the proof of her god and she replied she feels her gods presence around her all the time and she thinks that she sees his work in everything around her. But of course she couldn’t show me the proof of what she knew. Scottie
The fact is the inflation we are seeing right now is profit taking price gouging. Watch CSNBC and see all the CEO’s and market people crowing about how much money they are making and bemoaning the fact the feds might be cutting off the faucet that gives them free money to prop up their stock values. Biden’s polices would help the people with out putting more unearned free money in the pockets of the wealthy. So of course corporate media, especially the right wing corporate media hates them. Scottie
So the right is now going to deny their favorite phrase and what they mean by it like a little kid who got caught saying a dirty word. Grow up. Scottie
The right wing media is desperate to paint Dr. Fauci as some incompetent out of his field like Paul Rand or Sean Hannity along with all the right wing opinion hosts. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., was the NIH AIDS Coordinator before being appointed as the first Director of the Office of AIDS research when the office was established in 1988. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Fauci received his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College in 1966. He then completed an internship and residency at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. In 1968, Dr. Fauci came to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In 1974, he became Head of the Clinical Physiology Section, LCI, and in 1980 was appointed Chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation. In 1984, Dr. Fauci became Director of NIAID–a position that he still holds – where he oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious and immune-mediated illnesses, including HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, illness from potential agents of bio-terrorism, tuberculosis, malaria, autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.
Dr. Fauci has kept up 16-hour workdays during most, if not all, of his career. That obviously leaves very little time for sleep and relaxing, but instead offers more time to be involved in the medical community. This includes being a member of:
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Philosophical Society
American College of Physicians
American Society for Clinical Investigation
Association of American Physicians
Infectious Diseases Society of America
American Association of Immunologists
American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
Dr. Fauci also serves on the editorial boards of many scientific journals and was an editor of “Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. To add to his incredible rap sheet, Fauci has authored, co-authored, and edited more than 1,300 scientific publications and textbooks.
Compare this to his detractors and the people who think a few hours on Facebook and YouTube equal his understanding of Covid public health measures. Scottie
You are correct Al, the country did elect Joe Biden as President, fair and square. The idiot trump lost and instigated an insurrection against the very nation he swore to protect. President Biden got to work to make life better for all citizens, not just those who overwhelmingly voted for him. Here are a few accomplishments under President Biden’s first-year watch:
The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
$1.9 trillion Covid relief deal, cutting child poverty in half.
Getting 73percent of American adults vaccinated with at least one dose.
An economy where the unemployment rate has dropped to 4.2 percent.
The average number of Americans filing for unemployment over the last four weeks is the lowest since 1969. When President Biden took office, over 18 million were receiving unemployment benefits. Today, only 2 million are still receiving unemployment
Having competent federal judges appointed and confirmed.
When President Biden took office, “46% of schools were open. Today, 99% of schools are open.
The U.S. was the only G7 country [U.S., U.K., Canada, Japan, Germany, France, and Italy] to surpass pre-pandemic output by Q2 2021 and keep growing. No other G7 country had reached pre-pandemic output by end of 3Q 2021.
Of course, not everything President Biden wanted to do in the first year was accomplished. However, for a First-year President, inheriting a country in the middle of a pandemic, it’s not a bad record. And what have Republicans been focused on? Denying voting rights to minority citizens, lying about the 2020 election, and denying reproductive rights to women. Not a good look for Republicans, Al. Scottie
Why does trying to help people, cut child poverty, and mitigate a deadly pandemic pure anathema to Al Goodwyn and his little nihilist troll supporters? Oh yeah, that’s right, because it’s the Democrats doing it. The Trumpublican goal is, quite simply, total power achieved through hatred, fear, anger, ignorance, and cruelty. And nihilists like the previous poster is a perfect example of that.
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/a3855050fc6c5bd8f1d7f3efbd632bb3/Early%20Voting%20Day%201%20Dallas%20MM%20TT%2017.jpg)
Scottie's Playtime 
The filibuster is not in the Constitution. But each house is allowed to make their own procedural rules. The Senate rules, unlike the House, trying to be a more “deliberative” body (and with fewer members in the early days) allowed unlimited debate on the floor and unlimited “yields” (handoffs to allies). During such speechifying, no other business could be conducted.
It took a 2/3 vote to stop a debate.
The filibuster arose when Southern conservative senators wanted to block bills, especially in the area of civil rights. Not having the votes, they simply stood and spoke under the rules allowing “unlimited debate” and kept on speaking, handing off (yielding) to accomplices as needed for breaks, and thus preventing any other business from going forward.
Finally, they made a compromise in the Senate rules: they would lower the cloture vote from 2/3 to 3/5 (60 votes in a 100-member senate) and not require senators to actually speak; just invoke filibuster by motion, and allow other business to still proceed on a “two track” basis.
Taking out the hard work of hours and hours of speaking made it easier to invoke and, once Obama became president and McConnell embarked on an unprecedented racist obstruction of the first African-American president, he made a 60-vote supermajority the de facto standard for passing any legislation, with more filibusters during the Obama years than the entire history of all prior administrations COMBINED and then, when he regained the majority, essentially did away with the filibuster for all confirmations and for budget bills (budget reconciliation).
McConnell’s unprecedented ABUSE of filibuster, coupled with the built-in (Constitutional) disproportionate allocation of senate representation, transformed it from a tool for the minority to have a voice in developing legislation, to utter tyranny of the majority, in which senators representing 16% of the population could overrule an overwhelming majority.
There are ways in which conservative Democrats could reduce the power of the filibuster to obstruct and still go on record as having saved the filibuster, and some of the Democrats who have opposed outright elimination of the filibuster (such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona) have indicated that they might be amenable to reforms such as:
a) amend the process; return to the requirement that they actually stand and hold the floor instead of just invoking by motion. When we had this in the past, filibuster was rarely used.
b) redefine filibuster; redefine what is eligible for inclusion in the budget reconciliation process which is exempt from filibuster
c) make voting rights and election security exempt from filibuster
d) limit the number of times filibuster can be invoked
e) require the speaker to remain on topic (no more reading phone books)
f) reverse the burden of invoking filibuster: right now they just make a motion to invoke filibuster and it takes a 60% vote to stop them. Reverse it. Instead of one person invoking filibuster and 60% having to agree to end it, require them to get 40% of the senate to vote to invoke filibuster — make them get the votes. Make them go on record as voting to obstruct something huge majorities of everyday people want (election reform, campaign finance reform, checks to individuals, a livable minimum wage, gun safety reform) and have to defend that in their next election.
None of these proposed reforms are mutually exclusive! You can do any or all or any combination. And there are likely other ways to reform and restructure filibuster without having to go on record as having actually eliminated it.
For those concerned about the “tyranny of the majority,” what we currently have is a “tyranny of the MINORITY.” We can protect minority interests and allow them to be heard without allowing senators who represent 16% of the population to tyrannize the rest of us.
Yesterday I posted Dr. Fauci’s qualifications to make public health suggestions, and to understand the data / science behind those recommendations. Let me make clear that the right wing media doesn’t have those qualifications at all. The people who claim they did their own research are only reading some one else’s summery and the opinions of people not qualified to understand or make those public health opinions. Scottie