Memes, cartoons, and more information for Wednesday. I couldn’t sleep so I got up and kept adding to the page. It got long.

 

#mash from Nostalgic Gifs

 

Being Liberal ®🗽🇺🇲🇨🇦🇲🇽🇪🇺🇺🇳🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@beingliberal.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T07:00:26.621Z

Remember when Republicans wanted to impeach Bill Clinton because big donors got to stay a night in the Lincoln bedroom? Seems quaint now.

Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:38:44.397Z

If DOGE wants to root out "waste, fraud and abuse" in the healthcare area re: Medicaid, how about they cut out the wasteful, price gouging mafia middlemen in between us and our doctors, the insurance companies, and make Americans' healthcare entirely self funding with one payer?

Emma Vigeland (@emmavigeland.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T23:12:48.995Z

NEW: Fully leaked diplomatic cable directing the implementation of this policy at all US diplomatic and consular posts.

Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) 2025-02-25T20:24:18.312Z

Guess who’s getting a new FAA contract to help privatize air safety?Elon Musk. He’s cutting the FAA and everything else in government — and carving it off for himself.THE WHOLE THING IS A MONEY GRAB

Tristan Snell (@tristansnell.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T22:23:12.908Z

We need more… everywhere! Especially in red states.

Being Liberal ®🗽🇺🇲🇨🇦🇲🇽🇪🇺🇺🇳🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@beingliberal.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T17:31:45.900Z

Medicaid covers:- 21% of Americans nationally- 83 million low-income Americans- 4 in 10 children- 1 in 4 adults with disabilities- Nearly 50% of kids with special needs- 41% of births nationwide- 5 in 8 nursing home residents- 32% of people in Mike Johnson's home state

Emma Vigeland (@emmavigeland.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T16:29:37.906Z

Pedro is the best ❤️

George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T21:57:40.616Z

Queens NY

Being Liberal ®🗽🇺🇲🇨🇦🇲🇽🇪🇺🇺🇳🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@beingliberal.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T13:23:43.836Z

BREAKING — 21 "DOGE" staffers RESIGN in protest1/3 of "DOGE" technical team quit — experts who came to the government from companies like Amazon and GoogleRemember, Elon Musk (and most of his minions) don't actually have ANY technical expertise!"DOGE" in disarray

Tristan Snell (@tristansnell.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T20:59:21.211Z

This is how the Terran empire began in fact.

George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T20:30:05.317Z

Our immigration carceral system is designed to create a permanent underclass of subminimum wage workers who can't speak up about workplace abuse or unionize for fear of deportation. Corporations like DoorDash prefer immigrants to be under threat, and that's who Trump represents.

Emma Vigeland (@emmavigeland.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T03:03:07.895Z

Ok now vote is back on. To be clear this is basically a purely symbolic vote on a framework that won’t pass the senate and should be an absolute lay up

Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T00:46:13.652Z

 

Folks, I just broke this story for @gbhnews State Department erases LGBTQ victims from human trafficking reportwww.wgbh.org/news/news-pr…

Phillip Wd Martin (@phillipgbhnews.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T22:21:17.987Z

 

 

https://x.com/franklinleonard/status/1888007249215545770

This is "The Boardroom" from Donald Trump’s “reality” show “The Apprentice.” Look at the top and you can see where the wall ends because it wasn’t a real boardroom. It was a set built on a soundstage because Trump’s real offices were small and shoddy. The show created an *illusion* of Trump success.

Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T19:31:21.594Z

Of these two, the one bigot above or the classy lady below.  Hate is not good for anyone.  

"Trump Signs Executive Order to ‘Promote the Resettlement of White Afrikaner Refugees’ in the U.S." Trump finally finds refugees he will accept: WHITE ones from South Africa. This is real. Musk trying to help his fellow white apartheid lovers http://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-…

Dean Obeidallah (@deanobeidallah.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T12:25:52.169Z

 

 

https://x.com/JBPritzker/status/1887949566525186554

 

BREAKING 🚨🚨🚨Trump stripping the security clearances of numerous antagonists, including NY AG Letitia James, DA Alvin BraggAnthony Blinken’s security clearances will also be revoked, following the same presidential directive aimed at Biden.nypost.com/2025/02/08/u…

Lauren Ashley Davis (@laurenmeidasa.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T22:29:24.659Z

 

Felon Bans Antony Blinken, New York AG Letitia James, DA Alvin Bragg, And Five Others From Federal Facilities

 

 

 

Our new border patrol

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This man, who might be high on Ketamine at any given moment, talks privately with Putin. He is not elected, nor is he appointed by Congress. He’s ‘outside’ of government.

He has hired a crew of young rightwing nerds and they are now inside every fucking computer system in the government. They work for a Russian agent.

Don’t be surprised when, sometime soon, every system shuts down or worse, every dime of US money is flying into Russian accounts.

It is painful to see that it would be so easy to destroy a big country like America.

Horribly hateful people / person the above.

“This isn’t DEI. It’s white Christian Nationalism.” of course it is they’re just using DEI as a cover.

https://x.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1887181299103744025

 

More clips from the Majority Report

Trump Administration Is Now Providing PrEP Abroad, But Not for LGBTQ+ People

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 increased risk 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.”

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This is not why people use they/them pronouns

Let’s talk about Trump’s losing streak in court….

Trans People Are Real and Detransitioning Isn’t That Common – SOME MORE NEWS

Ok the first few minutes are sort of campy and over the top, it is the guy’s style thing I guess.  But then he settles down and delivers the facts and debunks a lot of stuff by showing the actual studies the right wrong claim back them up, but he shows how the studies say the opposite of that the trans haters claimed.  Great info on trans people and the made up faked outrage caused by a small group of trans haters who are making big money off of pushing lies about trans kids and trans issues.  Hugs

Hi. Right-wing politicians, lawyers, and grifters (and some liberals) want to convince you that trans youth are the victims of a social contagion and that the majority of those who transition will detransition. This is a lie that puts all trans people at risk. Get the world’s news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link.

Some Essence of Thought videos on trans issues.

I love Ethel who is a grand young woman.   I have watched her transition from an awkward teenager online who did not understand how to express what she felt inside and watched her blossom as she realized and started living openly as who she was.  She is a wonderful resource for how to combat trans hate and misinformation.  If she gives a stat or makes a claim you can take it to the bank that it is correct as she not only does meticulous research she also documents it all for others to see and read for themselves.  Trans women are simply women, and trans men are simply men.   I look forward to the day we can all drop the word trans, just we need to stop saying same sex marriage and simply say marriage.   Hugs and loves.  

Trump order aims to end federal support for gender transitions for those under 19

https://apnews.com/article/trump-transgender-transition-executive-order-301e4130233b411311978f66f455f1c4

So much for rights for adults to make their own medical decisions.  I guess it is fine for cis adults to have boob jobs and cis adult men can do what they want with their penises but not transitioning people.  Well not women either.  Seems only straight cis males can have control over their bodies and sex organs.

But what I think this is about is how trans people passing for the gender they are upsets fundamentalist men.  It screws with their idea that god created men and women and that is just how it has to be, what you are assigned at birth.  Right now people who do not suffer going through the wrong puberty don’t get the wrong secondary sex characteristics. Look at the changes in boys when puberty hit.  Most boys facial features change and broaden, shoulders get wider, they develop deeper voices, and of course their bodies grow hair along with increasing the size of the sex organs.  All things trans girls do not want their bodies to look like and will fight all their lives trying to change and make go away.  It will be much harder for them to pass as the women they identify as.  It will make them look much less of the idea most people have of how women should normally look.   Much easier for them to be singled out.  Some changes will never be able to mask or make go away.

Same with trans men.  They will be forced to go through female puberty.  They will grow boobs they hate, wider hips, along with other body changes including to their sexual organs.  All things they hate.  Some things will make it harder to transition, again making it harder for them to pass as the men they are. 

And again that seems to be the plan.  It seems to really upset the fundies that they get all hot about a woman that they then realize is a trans woman.  I do know a straight man who had no interest in the male sex organ who started dating an attractive woman, she turns out to be trans who had not had bottom surgery.  As they say, love conquers all and they are living very happily together.      Hugs

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President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the economy during an event at the Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the economy during an event at the Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Updated 9:03 PM EST, January 28, 2025
 

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at cutting federal support for gender transitions for people under age 19, his latest move to roll back protections for transgender people across the country.

“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” the order says.

The order directs that federally-run insurance programs, including TRICARE for military families and Medicaid, exclude coverage for such care and calls on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.

Medicaid programs in some states cover gender-affirming care. The new order suggests that the practice could end, and targets hospitals and universities that receive federal money and provide the care.

The language in the executive order — using words such as “maiming,” “sterilizing” and “mutilation” — contradicts what is typical for gender-affirming care in the United States. It also labels guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health as “junk science.”

On his Truth Social platform, Trump called gender-affirming care “barbaric medical procedures.”

Major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics support access to care.

Young people who persistently identify as a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth are first evaluated by a team of professionals. Some may try a social transition, involving changing a hairstyle or pronouns. Some may later also receive puberty blockers or hormones. Surgery is extremely rare for minors.

“It is deeply unfair to play politics with people’s lives and strip transgender young people, their families and their providers of the freedom to make necessary health care decisions,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson.

The order encourages Congress to adopt a law allowing those who receive gender-affirming care and come to regret it, or their parents, to sue the providers.

It also directs the Justice Department to prioritize investigating states that protect access to gender-affirming care and “facilitate stripping custody from parents” who oppose the treatments for their children. Some Democratic-controlled states have adopted laws that seek to protect doctors who provide gender-affirming care to patients who travel from states where it’s banned for minors.

Lambda Legal promised swift legal action.

Michel Lee Garrett, a trans woman whose teenage child only partially identifies as a girl and uses they/them pronouns, said such policies aim to erase trans people from public life but will never succeed. Her child has not elected to pursue a medical transition, but the mother from State College, Pennsylvania, said she won’t stop fighting to preserve that option for her child and others.

“I’ll always support my child’s needs, regardless of what policies may be in place or what may come … even if it meant trouble for me,” Lee Garrett said.

For Howl Hall, an 18-year-old freshman at Eastern Washington University, taking testosterone not only changed his body but dramatically improved his experience with depression. With that treatment now under threat, Hall said he’s concerned that getting off testosterone would hurt his mental health.

“I would be alive, but I wouldn’t be living,” Hall said. “I wouldn’t be living my life in a productive way at all. I can guarantee that I would be failing all of my classes if I was even showing up to them.”

The push is the latest by Trump to reverse Biden administration policies protecting transgender people and their care. On Monday, Trump directed the Pentagon to conduct a review that is likely to lead to them being barred from military service. A group of active-duty military personnel sued over that on Tuesday.

Hours after taking office last week, Trump signed another order that seeks to define sex as only male or female, not recognizing transgender, nonbinary or intersex people or the idea that gender can be fluid. Already that’s resulted in the State Department halting issuing passports with an “X” gender marker, forcing transgender people to apply for travel documents with markers that don’t match their identities.

Trump said he would address these issues during his campaign last year, and his actions could prove widely divisive.

In the November election, voters were slightly more likely to oppose than support laws that ban gender-affirming medical treatment, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors under the age of 18 who identify as transgender, according to AP VoteCast. About half of voters, 52%, were opposed, but 47% said they were in favor.

Trump’s voters were much more likely to support bans on transgender care: About 6 in 10 Trump voters favored such laws.

“It’s very clear that this order, in combination with the other orders that we’ve seen over the past week, are meant to not protect anyone in this country, but rather to single-mindedly drive out transgender people of all ages from all walks of civic life,” said Harper Seldin, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.

Seldin said the ACLU is reviewing the order “to understand what, if anything, has immediate effect versus what needs to go through continued agency action.”

Even as transgender people have gained visibility and acceptance on some fronts, they’ve become major targets for social conservatives. In recent years, at least 26 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Most of those states face lawsuits, including one over Tennessee’s ban that’s pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Republican-controlled states have also moved to keep transgender women and girls from competing in women’s or girls’ sports and to dictate which bathrooms transgender people can use, particularly in schools.

“These policies are not serving anyone,” said Shelby Chestnut, executive director of the Transgender Law Center. “They’re only creating confusion and fear for all people.”

_________________________________________________

Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Schoenbaum from Salt Lake City. Associated Press writers Carla K. Johnson and Hallie Golden in Seattle and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed reporting.

ZEKE MILLER
Zeke is AP’s chief White House correspondent
GEOFF MULVIHILL
Mulvihill covers topics on the agendas of state governments across the country. He has focused on abortion, gender issues and opioid litigation.
HANNAH SCHOENBAUM
Schoenbaum is a government and politics reporter based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She also covers general news in the Rockies and LGBTQ+ rights policies in U.S. statehouses.

Transgender Navy commander reacts to Trump’s ban on trans service members

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins talks with Navy Cmdr. Emily Shilling about her status as a trans service member after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning transgender service members from serving in the US armed forces

Debunked: 61-98% of Trans Youth Desist During Puberty

As I have written and posted I love Ethel’s videos.  She presents the facts with an easy to listen to rhythm and tone.  She uses facts to present the medical studies and medical science for trans people not emotion, feelings, or guess work.   She presents the sources she uses and gives the details of how the conclusions were reached and the validity of the studies.  Such as to if it is peer reviewed, how large the sample size, and the conclusions of the data match what the person pushing the information is claiming it does. Often Ethel catches bigots simply lying by claiming a study shows negative results when in fact the studies and data present a positive or are completely opposite from what the haters claim. 

Plus for those who would rather read than listen she provides a transcript of the videos she does and again as I mentioned she supplies her sources so others can look up the studies / data themselves to show she is telling the truth.  That is why you never see videos by trans haters such as the TERFs trying to claim she lied.  If you care about the facts and wish to have the information to combat the lies of bigots please check out her other videos supporting trans people and debunking anti-trans lies.  Hugs

Watch all our videos debunking gender ‘critical’ fascism here! –    • Debunking Gender ‘Critical’ Fascism  

Today’s video debunks the myth that between 61-98% of all trans youth desist if we take a ‘wait and see’ approach, exposing the linguistic sleight of hand used by those set on undermining gender affirming care as the only ethical approach. #ProtectTransKids

Hi, welcome to Essence of Thought with me, Ethel Thurston, as your host.