Sci-Fi Saturday!
Hear Aldous Huxley Read “Brave New World,” Find Out How “Metropolis” Shaped Modern Sci-Fi, On Open Culture
Sci-Fi Saturday!
Sci-Fi Saturday!
I know there has been a lot of bad press about Crockett but when you look into them it is drummed up fake news stuff. Maybe because as this video hints at because she is a black woman running for office in Texas. I agree with him about her and I have watched her at hearing. I would love her to win. Learn facts over the noise so we can move to a progressive future. Hugs
Erin Reed Feb 25, 2026
Yesterday, anti-transgender activist and columnist Jesse Singal published a piece claiming there were “cracks in the wall” around gender-affirming care (which you can find fully fact-checked here). To make that case, he relied heavily on a statement from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons that bypassed the organization’s normal scientific review process and was advanced under pressure from leadership aligned with the Trump administration, including a president who is a major Republican donor. Singal also invoked the American Psychological Association, suggesting the organization was retreating from its 2024 position supporting transgender care and rejecting claims that gender identity is “caused” by external factors. But a representative for the APA tells Erin In The Morning that the organization stands firmly by its 2024 guidelines supporting transgender youth care and provided documentation indicating Singal mischaracterized its position.
“No, APA’s position has not changed,” says a representative speaking for the APA, attaching a link to their 2024 policy statement which provided broad support for gender-affirming care. “APA continues to support unobstructed access to evidence-based care for transgender and gender-diverse individuals of all ages.”
The 2024 policy statement is to date one of the most significant supportive stances of any medical organization for gender-affirming care. It states that gender-affirming medical care is medically necessary, opposes bans on gender-affirming care, declares that being transgender is not caused by autism or post-traumatic stress, establishes the organization’s support for combatting disinformation on transgender healthcare, and finds that rejection of a trans youth’s gender identity can increase their risk of suicide and harm their psychological wellbeing. The policy was passed overwhelmingly, 153-9, with each voter representing a large subset of the organization’s 157,000 members. Now, the organization says that it is not accurate to claim that there is any regression on support for transgender youth care from the organization.
The organization also disputes Singal’s portrayal of a 2025 letter written by Katherine McGuire to the Federal Trade Commission. In his piece, Singal claims the APA “cautioned that gender dysphoria diagnoses could be the result of ‘trauma-related presentations’ rather than a trans identity,” and noted that “co-occurring mental health or neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder) … may complicate or be mistaken for gender dysphoria,” framing this as evidence that the organization is retreating from its 2024 policy supporting transgender youth care. That interpretation is incorrect, according to an APA representative, who says the letter does not contradict the organization’s 2024 position and does not represent a regression in its support for evidence-based transgender care. (snip-MORE)
And again with the big-money outsiders meddling in state lawmaking:
Erin Reed Feb 23, 2026
Anti-trans organization “Protect Girls Sports in Maine” has announced that it has collected enough signatures to get a combination transgender sports ban and school bathroom ban onto the November 2026 ballot, making Maine the second state this year to announce a ballot initiative targeting transgender people in a blue state after a similar effort in Washington. This comes after Maine Gov. Janet Mills fiercely rejected Trump administration attempts to strongarm the state into enacting such restrictions on its own, under threat of losing school lunch money and more. Now, voters may directly determine the fate of transgender youth in schools across the state after a massive signature drive bankrolled by billionaire Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein, the latest in an attempt by ultra-wealthy conservative donors to export anti-trans discrimination across the United States through direct ballot measures.
“Not only will our initiative become the only citizen-led issue to appear on the 2026 Maine ballot, but we will likely be the first state where voters can protect female sports at the ballot box this November. We will pave the way for the rest of this nation,” said Leyland Streiff, the lead petitioner, about the ballot initiative turn-in. Notably, he remained cagey about bathrooms, which the ballot initiative will also heavily impact, in a possibly strategic angle to hide that the bill is much more expansive than he gives credit for.
The initiative would, according to the summary page, define a person’s sex for school purposes as “a person’s biological status as male or female recorded at birth on the person’s original birth certificate.” It would “require schools to maintain separate restrooms, locker rooms, shower rooms, and other private spaces for each sex,” going beyond sports. It would also create a “private right of action” for a student who “suffers direct injury because of a violation of a provision of the initiated bill,” allowing students to sue if they encounter transgender students in bathrooms at schools or in sports. Lastly, it specifically carves out transgender students in bathrooms and sports from the Maine Human Rights Act.
Maine LGBTQ+ organizations fiercely condemned the bill. David Farmer, speaking on behalf of an opponent coalition of LGBTQ+ organizations across the state, called the referendum a “one-size fits all approach to sports participation and bathrooms that will increase bullying and harassment and cost local schools millions of dollars for construction and litigation.” He also called out the billionaire backing of the bill, stating, “This is a cynical attempt by one of the richest people in the world to manipulate voters in hopes of influencing the U.S. Senate race, the race for governor and the races for Congress.” (snip-MORE)
by Amanda · Feb 23, 2026 at 3:00 am · View all 12 comments
Welcome back to Cover Snark! These covers were all sent in by the community!

From Jane Buehler: At first glance (small thumbnail) I thought he was shooting out a laser beam from his chest!
Sarah: That’s an interesting place for a stigmata.
Amanda: Why is he so grainy, like his skin is the texture of a basketball.
Sarah: Wait. WAIT. Whatever this cheetah-print thing is, it is both above and below his pec. What IS that?! Why is it partially encircling his pec? Why is it shooting out pink silly string? WHAT IS THIS.
And this is only the first cover. God help me with this set.

From Jen: My cousin introduced me to you guys a while back. We have a regular cousin chat about your Cover Snark because it cracks us up.
Recently I was at a gift shop and saw this gem. I immediately shared it to the cousin chat and they encouraged me to submit it!
Thanks for giving us all so many laughs.
Sarah: At first glance this looks unremarkable, but the more I looked the tiltier my head got. Why does his chest hair patch match the small patch of hair on his arm? I’m presuming the Yankee’s logo is backwards on purpose but also ????
And her boobs are going in very different directions – unless she’s got one of those bathing suit tops that only holds in one tit and the other is free to roam. I Hate suits like that. Also she’s reading a book called HOWL and that’s very funny.
There are a lot of stylistic choices that I really like, and also some details that I do not get.
Claudia: I have one question — why he doesn’t seem to have eyes?
Sarah: I was wondering that, too! It looks like they got blurred or something? Why does she have features while he does not?
Amanda: Why are we not talking about the fact that he’s a satyr?!
Sarah: A satyr in that shirt!

From Marianne: This popped up in my edelweiss+ pre-approved and I had to embiggen because what was I even looking at? Who wears light beige jeans with their chaps???
Sarah: WHAT is WITH the cowboy-hat-hides-the-faces trend? Do people not like drawing faces? Or is kissing difficult (I imagine it is) to draw?
And WHY would anyone wear light jeans with chaps. I get that it’s a Look, but also it’s a Laundry.
Amanda: It reminds me of when you’re in middle school and you draw people with their hands in their pockets or behind their back so you can avoid it.
Sarah: “Where’s your teal and white cow print cowboy hat?”
“Why?”
“I need it for reasons.”

From Deborah: Is he giving himself a simultaneous breast and pelvic exam under the watchful eyes of Dr Giant Tree Wolf?
Sarah: That’s a very intimidating way to do a breast exam.
Amanda: It also looks like he’s checking his crotch. Perhaps he’s just making sure everything is where it should be.
Sarah: So many cover models do that. Should we be worried? (snip)

God, Team USA is amazing.
“They hate to see two woke bitches winning,” said US figure skater Amber Glenn, who got death threats from America’s least important humans when she dared speak her mind about the vile regime running the United States right now.
The word I want you to keep in mind for this entire post is winning, because winning is the word that differentiates Olympians from the vile MAGA pieces of shit who have spent over a week now BITCHING and MOANING and CRYING and COMPLAINING and BELLYACHING and WHINING and WHINING and WHINING, all because a number of our finest athletes have met their Olympic moments by saying Hey, you know what? I’m proud to be here, but it’s not that easy right now to embrace everything this flag currently represents.
They’re already winners because they’re there, every one of them.
And every MAGA American is an absolute fucking loser.
Not long after I started The Moral High Ground, the Paris Olympics happened. During those games the MAGA freakout was over the absolutely wonderful opening ceremonies, which totally murdered white American conservative Christian culture by … we forget how, but we’re pretty sure they still bear the scars of that sexy-ass French opening ceremony with the heavy metal and the gender fludity and the joie de vivre. This month, these whining fucking losers have gotten their culture destroyed by Bad Bunny’s flagrant Spanish-speaking behavior at the Super Bowl, and of course by all these Olympians out here, accomplishing things and some of them not even tonguing Donald Trump’s asshole like a good little obedient Nazis!
MAGA goes into these situations already mad, if you haven’t noticed. They go into every situation already mad, because despite all the years they’ve spent bitching about cancel culture and snowflake liberals needing their safe spaces, the reality is that MAGA Americans are the softest, most pathetic clumps of human detritus ever to waste our fucking time making us listen to their grievances.
It is the damnedest thing.
There is this pathological tendency among MAGA Americans to be simultaneously the least valuable players of the entire human race, yet still manage to believe everybody who does things they can’t do is on this earth solely to entertain them. That there’s some unspoken tradeoff wherein God gave all these other people musical brilliance or athletic prowess or [name skill or talent here], therefore they shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions, unless of course those opinions conform with the dominant beliefs of the … least valuable players of the entire human race.
Which they seldom do.
Because winners don’t tend to look at the world the same way losers do.
They’re not eaten up by the same fears, the xenophobia, the hatred, the resentment. They’re not susceptible to politicians who tell them to blame all their problems on people who look different from them, or who are less fortunate.
They’re too busy putting in the work, and then winning. Or putting in the work and coming in second or fourth or really fucking it up, but developing the discipline and the heart to dust themselves off, perhaps heal, and then try again. (My God, bless Lindsey Vonn’s heart.)
I said it during the last Olympics, but it bears repeating that even when MAGA culture wars manage to get close to a place of excellence, it’s remarkable how far from the actual winner’s podium they happen.
(Why is Riley Gaines one of MAGA’s athletic heroes? Because she’s a fucking loser. Maybe if she had been a stronger swimmer she could have taken a better path in life.)
(snip; Substack Note embed that didn’t)
But enough about Riley Gaines, let’s talk more about Olympians!
These Team USA athletes have shown us these past two weeks how they are heroes in their disciplines, but also a number of them by truly representing the best of the USA, speaking calmly, humbly, compassionately, bravely about what it feels like to be competing under the American flag right now, as the nation that’s often been considered the hope of the world is struggling and buckling under a white supremacist, fascist, neo-Nazi regime that seeks to destroy it.
US freestyle skier Hunter Hess said wearing the American flag doesn’t necessarily mean supporting everything that’s happening in the US right now, and that “it brings up mixed emotions.” He continued: “There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t,” and “I just think, if it aligns with my moral values I think I’m representing it.”
Another skier, Chris Lillis: “I feel heartbroken about what’s happening in the United States. I think that as a country we need to focus on respecting everybody’s rights and making sure that we are treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect.”
Amber Glenn: “It’s been a hard time for the [LGBTQ] community overall in this administration. It isn’t the first time that we’ve had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights.…I hope I can use my platform and my voice throughout these Games to try and encourage people to stay strong in these hard times.”
Rich Ruohonen, Minnesotan, curling team:
“First of all, I’d like to say I’m proud to be here to represent Team USA, and to represent our country,” Ruohonen began his statement. “But we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention what’s going on in Minnesota, and what a tough time it’s been for everybody. This stuff is happening right around where we live.
“I am a lawyer as you know, and we have a Constitution, and it allows us freedom of the press, freedom of speech, protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and makes it that we have to have probable cause to be pulled over. What’s happening in Minnesota is wrong — there’s no shades of grey. It’s clear.”
You’re either with the Nazis or you’re against them. Period.
For speaking out, these Olympians, some of the real champions of this country, have been bullied, abused, received death threats. Amber Glenn has gotten it some of the worst, because MAGA trash always beats up women the hardest. She had to step off social media because of a “scary amount of hate/threats,” but even as the hate messages were rolling in — you know, while she was busy doing something worthwhile with her life — she said, “I know that a lot of people say you’re just an athlete, like, stick to your job, shut up about politics, but politics affect us all. It is something I will not just be quiet about.”
And then “They hate to see woke bitches winning,” she said on TikTok, posing with Alysa Liu and their team gold figure skating medals.
But my God, how the histrionics have flowed forth from MAGA!
The New York Post can’t fucking stop whining. Wrote their editorial board, “If you don’t want to represent your country, stay home from the Olympics. That’s the message that ungrateful athletes need to hear, after they tore into America in front of the international press.”
Ungrateful athletes. Ungrateful to whom, please, bitchass MAGA losers?
In another article, they outsourced the whining to MAGA nobodies and zeroes on the internet:
“This privileged athlete’s comments clearly show that he puts himself far above his country in this competition,” one user on X wrote. “His comments are an insult to Team USA and the spirit of the Olympics.”
“When you wear the Stars and Stripes, you represent ALL of us — not just the parts you like,” another commenter wrote.
“’Mixed emotions?’ Then stay home and let someone who loves this country shine.”
Another fumed that Hess’ “whole purpose in being there is to REPRESENT the USA,” adding that if he has mixed feelings, “there are other skiers that would love to be there.”
But other skiers didn’t make the cut, and guess who else didn’t? Literally every MAGA trash American punching out mad tweets with their diabetes fingers.
Of course, MAGA’s professional whiners, its elected politicians and pundits, have been doing everything they can to goose the culture war outrage for their little piggies.
“YOU chose to wear our flag. YOU chose to represent our country. YOU chose to compete at the @Olympics,” [Rep. Byron] Donalds (R-Fla.) wrote on X. “If that’s too hard for you, then GO HOME. Some things are bigger than politics. You just don’t get it.”
GOP Senator Rick Scott wants athletes caught expressing wrongthink to be “stripped of their USA Olympic uniform.” JD Vance said some shit but we couldn’t hear it over all the people booing him everywhere he went in Milan.
“Shut up and go play in the snow,” said GOP Rep. Tim Burchett, perhaps easily the stupidest member of Congress, at least on the House side. (Can’t definitively call him the stupidest in the whole building, not while Tommy Tuberville and Ron Johnson are still in the Senate.) He was mad about Hunter Hess’s remarks.
And of course, Stupid Hitler, 2016 election popular vote loser, 2020 total election loser, and 2024 couldn’t-even-get-50-percenter, called Hess a “total loser,” lied and said Hess said he “doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics,” and whined that he “shouldn’t have tried out for the team.”
Madame Miserable Megyn Kelly referred to Amber Glenn as “another turncoat to root against” on Twitter.
Raymond Arroyo, the little circus-cast-member-looking MAGA milquetoast who goes on Laura Ingraham to say Black guys love Trump because of how they love sneakers and mugshots, told Laura it’s “borderline treason” what Hess said. (He was also really upset that British skier Gus Kenworthy peed in the snow and spelled out “FUCK ICE.”)
Jesse Kelly: “I’m openly rooting against every one of these people. I hope they fall and embarrass themselves and come in dead last. Man, sports sucks now.” So very upset and angry.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s daughter Evita Duffy-Alonso: “I don’t know why we don’t start vetting these Olympians before they actually start to represent us overseas for their patriotism.”
Sure, Jan.
There is just no shortage of sad, whining, butthurt comments from these brokedicks, messages of hate from America’s Nothings to America’s Somethings, MAGA Cletuses and Karens whose grandchildren don’t call them on Christmas, but who yet sincerely believe they’ve got something valuable to say to our very finest Olympians. My God.
Here are two more, then I will stop giving these creeps airtime:
“I’d rather us lose with patriots, than win with traitors.”
“Hey kid, you’re not doing this Country a ‘favor’ by repping us. In fact, by doing what you’ve done… you’re NOT representing us. Take the uniform off. We don’t need ya.”
We don’t need them … for what? Do these people think they’re in some kind of relationship with America’s Olympians? Bless their hearts.
Notice, please, how these human fistulas all seem to think Olympians are there to serve them, to entertain them. All these mouthbreathers, incels and shut-ins, whining on Twitter and on Fox News that these winners refuse to represent them personally.
As if these nutsacks and walking participation trophies pounding out their messages with Cheeto dust on their scaly hands are somehow characters in our Olympians’ stories? LOL.
Here’s a cold hard truth:
They don’t represent you, MAGA, not really. Because they’re winners, and you’re fucking losers.
They’re winners, and you’re stupid, inbred cows, the absolute worst this country has to offer, the most rancid shit that ever lab-leaked out of the back entrance of God’s imagination factory while His little elves were out on a smoke break.
Sure, they technically compete under the same flag these dorks are always humping with their erections whenever that Lee Greenwood song comes on, but that’s about the extent of the connection.
Because they’re winners, and MAGA are fucking losers.
Lord, the New York Post was even forced to admit that in one of its pathetic articles, that Hess has been all over winners’ podiums at the World Cup and the X Games. That Lillis won gold in 2022 in Beijing. That Glenn is the reigning and three-time US figure skating champion.
Whining that these winners should be pulled from the team? Pffffffft. What, so some kind of 176th-place MAGA athletes can take their places? They think these woke Olympians are taking jobs MAGA would get otherwise?
Maybe Secretary Shitfaced Hegseth can teach them some of his Sit And Be Fit kettlebell swings to get their training started.
Whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. That’s all we ever hear from these people.
And to make a picky point here, but no, pedophile-loving MAGA piss troughs, these athletes don’t hate their country. They hate what these MAGA fascists are doing to their country, as they’re trying to seize permanent power and turn the United States into a shithole that only reflects MAGA’s darkest and most perverted shortcomings, and yanks us all away from the light we’re striving for. They hate MAGA’s vile, inferior vision for a United States that’s nothing but a humping blanket all their most pathetic fucking fears, weakness, grievances and hatred, and a vehicle for retribution against all those who don’t have to live that way because they aren’t total fucking losers like MAGA.
So yeah, I guess Olympians really aren’t competing for the MAGA version of America that’s drenched in the piss-stench of failure. Reckon most of ‘em are too nice to say that, though.
One final thing: As Parker Molloy notes, what these Olympians have said is actually pretty tame, comparatively, and you can really see how far the fascism has encroached comparing this year’s statements to past years under Trump. An example is 2017 Lindsey Vonn, who said “absolutely not” to the prospect of visiting Trump’s White House. What about just before these Olympics? “I’m not going to answer that question because, I’m just not going to answer it,” she said. “I want to keep my passport.” Unfortunately not a crazy thing to say.
I am of course sure MAGA is thrilled at how these Olympics have gone for Vonn.
That said, I do think it’s swinging back the other direction. I think six months ago, nine months ago, these athletes might not even have said the things they’ve said. But then ICE started cold-blooded murdering Americans in the streets and building concentration camps and the Epstein Files just kept leaking out and the fascists are trying to ban James Talarico from saying words on Stephen Colbert, and, and, and.
People are fucking pissed. And I think decent Americans have gotten their groove back, and are much more full of the sense these days that we are going to win.
Speaking of winning:
If you saw the women’s free skate on Thursday, you already know. If you didn’t, LA LA LA LA LA SPOILERS.
After one painfully unfortunate mistake in Amber Glenn’s short program — which waddling MAGA spectators also celebrated — she was pretty much out of medal contention in 13th place, but came back to have the free skate of her absolute life, and climbed all the way to fifth in the final standings.
And then it was Alysa Liu’s turn. She was third after the short program, but she just … did something incredible. She skated to “MacArthur Park,” and she just floated and bounced across that ice like she didn’t have a care in the world. She was flawless. You knew you were seeing something special, the way the commentators just shut. up.
More than anything it was so fun. This woman, my God she is cool.
“THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT!” Liu shouted as she came off the ice. [It has been pointed out in the comments that she actually said “That’s what I’m FUCKIN’ talking about!” and that it was censored in subsequent broadcasts. This makes Liu even cooler. – Ed.] She won the US’s first women’s individual figure skating medal since 2006, the first American gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002.
Two winners.
Oh yeah, and again, the American skaters won the team gold. Which includes Amber Glenn.
“They hate to see two woke bitches winning.”
Fuck yes they do.
Cope forever, losers.
Bigotry and racism pure and simple. It was once illegal in the US. But under Stephen Miller and tRump it is flourishing and supported. We must fight for acceptance and tolereance for those who are not white. So many gains since the 1960s are being erased illegally. Imagain being a kid, a preteen and having a bunch of masked men stop you and threaten you. Hey we keep being told that ICE is going after the worst of the worst to protect the public. Tell me what horrific crime could that child have done that would harm the public? According to ICE, he was not white and that is dangerous enough to the white racists who make up ICE and support them. Hugs
