Tag: Health

News

Yesterday I was reading Oliver Willis’s Substack (with a great photo of Kal El, as always,) and he’s begun a news aggregator for liberals/progressives called Breaking News USA. Oliver Willis knows of what he speaks, so I’ve bookmarked it to look at every day. Today, I ran across 2 I want to post here today.

  1. I am always up for a dance party!

(Instagram)

Women walking into the bathroom on Capitol Hill Thursday morning found a buoyant dance party in progress: A group of trans artists and activists staged a protest in a women’s restroom in the U.S. Capitol, dancing to the song “Meeting in the Ladies Room” by the all-women pop and R&B band Klymaxx.

Thursday’s dancing protesters include trans actor James Rose, nonbinary influencer Jerome Trammel, comedian Elizabeth Booker Houston, influencer Alexis Rose, transgender model June Raven Romero and activist Hope Giselle-Godsey. A video posted online starts with a panorama of the Capitol building’s interior before panning to a nearby restroom filled with dancing women. Some wear shirts with the colors of the transgender pride flag, pink, blue and white, and slogans like, “Flush the Hate, Not Our Rights” and “Trans People Are NOT Dangerous. You Are!” (snip-MORE)

2. “King Trump Is Not Inevitable”

The campaign is over; the election is done. The cases against Donald Trump—for the theft and improper storage of sensitive and classified government materials; for the effort to obstruct election administration in Georgia; for the attempt to overthrow the government of the United States on January 6, 2021—are wrapping up, unfinished in some cases and never really started in others. His sentencing for the 34 felony counts where he was found guilty of falsifying business records to hide election interference has been postponed indefinitely. In the executive branch, the transition is underway, complete with smiling photo ops and assurances from President Biden that he won’t stifle or undermine the incoming administration the way he was hampered—by the very man Biden is welcoming back to power. Everything is on track for January 20, 2025: the day that Joe Biden will cease to be president, and Donald Trump will be crowned as king.

There is no question that Donald Trump will not be limited by the Constitutional strictures on the presidency. Not only has the Supreme Court granted his absurd and expansive view of executive power as per Trump v. U.S., but Trump has spent the last four years out of office actively campaigning for the right to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants, without consequences. The incoming Republican Congress won its power on much smaller margins than Trump took the presidency, and he is barely two million votes ahead of Harris in the popular vote. Neither the slim and chaotic majority in the House nor the thoroughly Trumpified Senate will reject his whims, either because they’ll agree with his interests or they’ll be too cowardly to object if they don’t. Trump’s early appointments—sex pests and conspiracy theorists, incompetents, lackeys, bootlickers, and sycophants—reveal the nature of what this administration will be. These aren’t people put into place to work for the American people; they will be installed to preserve, protect, and defend the interests of one Donald J. Trump, damn the country.

Yet King Trump, first of his name, is not an inevitability. 

It’s his blatant disregard for the Constitution, the disinterest and disrespect for its limitations, checks and balances, that provides us with one last chance to derail the coming coronation. On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood at the Capitol of the United States and swore an oath to the country, the one every president has taken, as prescribed in Article 2, Section 8 of the Constitution. And on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump broke that oath in an attempt to overturn the election, overthrow the duly-appointed government of the United States, and install himself as dictator. It was, in word and deed, an insurrection. And, despite our republic’s long history of peaceful transfers of power, we have an answer for that, if we will only ask the question.

Does the 14th Amendment apply to Donald Trump? (snip-MORE)

Some good mentions on Bluesky. I recommend leaving The hate zone X and going to BlueSky

I have so much to say about today’s case, legal analysis, and more.But the most powerful thing today was watching Chase Strangio argue in front of the court as the first trans attorney to do so.You could feel history, and nobody will ever take that away.

— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) 2024-12-04T19:57:50.377Z

I just ran into the main plaintiff and their family in the hallway of the Supreme Court in the skrimetti case today, and we all hugged and now I’m in tears in the press room.I thanked them profusely.Trans people deserve equal protection. We deserve to live like anyone else.

— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) 2024-12-04T14:02:24.431Z

This is how it’s done.

— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2024-12-03T16:59:53.015Z

Chase Strangio, first trans attorney to argue at SCOTUS, walks out to cheers.

— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) 2024-12-04T18:13:59.865Z

Chase Strangio walks out of the court to cheers after he becomes the first trans attorney to present a case to SCOTUS.Video too big in size but will post later.

— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) 2024-12-04T18:07:10.757Z

I also can't get over the conservative justices favorably citing European laws about transgender health care when they vociferously refuse to consider other nation's laws and traditions when dealing with issues on which the U.S. is an outlier, like gun violence and the death penalty.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T16:06:24.020Z

Outside of the court right now.

— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) 2024-12-04T18:00:29.517Z
https://bsky.app/profile/erininthemorning.com/post/3lciackx2ys25

Ran into what I assume was one of the far right people in the bathroom line who said “I thought the men’s bathroom was on the other side” at SCOTUS.Thankfully the rest of the line were people who knew me and my reporting and I didn’t even dignify it with a response.

— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) 2024-12-04T14:06:33.342Z

Measure to ban trans Montana lawmaker Zooey Zephyr from women's bathroom failsFor @nbcnews.com: http://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-…

— Jo Yurcaba (@joyurcaba.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T01:36:13.356Z

This should be said everywhere. Allowing discrimination like this against trans people undermines bedrock principles of constitutional rights across the board.

— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) 2024-12-04T16:55:39.764Z

Chris is correct. Everyone stop saying landslide or mandate now. And let’s get to work blocking their most extreme plans.[Repost: https://buff.ly/41pxuOu%5D

— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T19:53:00.921Z

"Repeat after me: there was no 'landslide'. There was no 'blowout'. There was no 'sweeping' mandate given to Trump by the electorate. The numbers don’t lie."My new Guardian op-ed on the new GOP election lie – and why it's important to rebut it! I brought (lots of) receipts:

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) 2024-12-03T16:02:35.233Z

"Trump won the crucial blue wall states… by 231,000 votes? So if just 116,000 voters across those three swing states – or 0.7% of the total – had switched from Trump to Harris, it is the vice-president who would have won the electoral college … and the presidency" – me for the Guardian:

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) 2024-12-03T20:33:21.053Z

“Both Tesla and SpaceX quite likely would not exist as successful businesses if it were not for the use of public funding, either through subsidies, through the electric car industry, or through actual government contracting in the case of SpaceX,” Ramaswamy said in 2022 on a Fox News podcast.

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T18:35:13.044Z

I’m calling her “Two-Face Mace” from now on.

— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T19:06:00.840Z

Be disruptive! What queer history tells us about confronting Trump

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/26/be-disruptive-what-queer-history-tells-us-about-confronting-trump

The paragraph below shows that what happened then is happening again now.  It was scary for me as a teen back then.   Gay people in deep country settings in the backwoods, especially gay teens desperately trying to keep people from finding out.  Especially abused gay kids who felt that abuse was written all over them for people to see.  I was so happy to see that time gone for most of the school kids by the 2010s.  Kids accepted in their class by their peers, the fellow students.  That very acceptance terrified the conservative religious, but I have never understood why?  Why is terrifying and hurting kids so pleasing to them?  But the quote from the article below says it all.  Hugs

The late 1970s was a somber, frightening time in queer history. The rise of a Christian right – branding themselves the “moral majority” – in conjunction with an energized Republican party began a culture war against women, people of color and queer people. The combination of religious rhetoric, nationalism and economic conservatism – Reaganomics, in other words – created a groundswell of contemporary far-right politicking that became the template for our contemporary political world.

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The LGBTQ+ community has been here before – and learned that real change happens when activists are front and center

Aaaahh!

I only got up about 2 hours ago; I was up late again, and stayed abed like a lazy person. I just read this in email, and it really hit the spot for me! Enjoy.

“Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding, the third.”

Marge Piercy

LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back

and neither are allies!

Good morning! Time to go to work, if we don’t want to go back. First, it is time to call and write our Congress critters to let them know we want no human thrown under the bus in the Republican rush to pick on people they think are less than or “other.” Their majorities in our federal legislative houses are thin; razor thin; so if we will let those legislators know what we want, enough of them will see to at least stemming the damage. They have their ways; plus, the Dem minority numbers are big enough to toss rocks in the works, especially with a few Republicans. For more on this, please see this Substack that Janet passed to me:

https://juliaserano.substack.com/p/planned-action-for-lgbtq-and-allies

For the click-adverse, here’s the snippet from which I’m working here today:

I am but one person and cannot speak for our entire community. But here’s what I propose in the spirit of Queer Nation, who in the 1990s carried out myriad protests under the same banner but with no singular leader or directive.

I propose that on Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024 (the first day that both the House and Senate are back in session), all of us who are invested in this issue and have a platform (whether it be a blog, newsletter, column, podcast, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) publish a piece with the shared title: “LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back.” Yes, I know, it’s a cheesy title, but it holds Democrats accountable to their own talking points and makes it clear that backsliding on LGBTQ+ rights is nonnegotiable for us.

What you write or say or express in your op-ed or article or video or podcast etcetera is up to you. I encourage you to make it personal and feel free to tailor it to your audience. My only request (other than all of us using the same title) is that you implore people to contact their Congressperson and Senators (and perhaps even local politicians) and tell them that 1) you will not tolerate any backpedaling on LGBTQ+ rights whatsoever, and 2) if they fail to strongly stand up against these attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, then you will take your vote elsewhere next election. (snip-More)

https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm , and https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative are where we can write and call our Congress critters. WordPress keeps capitalizing and separating that wonderful compound word, not me, btw. Anyway, there is that. It can be a thing, and it should be, and we can make it a thing. More on that in the Substack linked and snipped above.

So, as to allies going back. For myself, if my friends are somehow rolled back, I will have to resist in different ways than I did in the past, except for the bothering of Congress critters, which continues apace. The past was fun and dangerous and sometimes more fun because it was dangerous but none of us got hurt or even threatened with arrest, unlike some places we read about in history and more recent times. I wrote a whole thing about those experiences, but it seemed to overshadow this, so some other time. Meanwhile, I’m going to schedule this, then copy it to my Substack, then letter blast some Congress critters, then Go To Bed. I’ve stayed up late most of the long weekend, but that doesn’t work well for me, so.

I encourage Scottie and Randy to post something with this title, and to make a call or send an email if they have time. I encourage any other blogger who reads this to please post something with this title, and also to bother your Congress critters about treating people the way they want to be treated, and opposing bills and resolutions that divide and “other” We the People. I hope we all have a great day, and get something done! And, thank you Janet, for passing this along!

Perfect.

Calm My Heart – a #poem

Texas AG sues to shutter ‘nuisance’ homeless center

Texas AG sues to shutter ‘nuisance’ homeless center

This is the hyper Fundamentalist Christian who is radically against trans people and the entire LGBTQ+.  He has made it his mission in political life to push bigotry and hate to anything he thinks the Christian god hates while trying to promote Christianity as a state religion at every turn.  So here he is trying to shut down a homeless shelter.   Really what Jesus would ask his followers to do, right?   No this is not based on religion or faith, this is about profit and who gives him money.  He pushes religious stuff because his main benefactor and political protector is a billionaire fundamentalist Christian preacher who thinks the government should force every person to be a Christian with his views.  And what about the homeless shelter … Well local business don’t like the look or the congestion so more donations to remove them … Get the point.  The point is the wealthy people who support this … Ultra Christian simply don’t like the poor around.  They want them to go away and never be seen.   Hugs.

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Paxton accuses the Austin, Texas, charity of facilitating drug use and violent incidents near an elementary school.

 / November 26, 2024

In this June 22, 2017, file photo, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a news conference in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to shut down an Austin, Texas, homeless center, calling the charity a public nuisance.

The Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center says it’s the largest provider of homeless services in Travis County. According to its website, the center provides a number of services, including physical and mental health care, substance abuse care, harm reduction, housing interventions and benefits enrollment. The center has received over a $1 million from the city of Austin, according to Paxton’s complaint.

“In South Austin, a once peaceful neighborhood has been transformed by homeless drug addicts, convicted criminals, and registered sex offenders,” Paxton says in the complaint, filed in Travis County District Court. “These people do drugs in sight of children, publicly fornicate next to an elementary school, menace residents with machetes, urinate and defecate on public grounds, and generally terrorize the surrounding community.”

In his complaint, Paxton notes the center’s location across the street from an elementary school. The Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on the lawsuit that the school has been forced into lockdown repeatedly due to violent behavior from people receiving services at the center.

Paxton also takes issue with the center allowing a clean syringe distribution program on its property, which he says amounts to facilitating drug use. Part of a “harm reduction” philosophy, clean syringe programs aim to help people who are already using intravenous drugs do so more safely. In Texas, such programs operate in a legal grey area, as they are not authorized by the state and Texas law criminalizes the possession of drug paraphernalia.

“Drug activity and criminal behavior facilitated by this organization have hijacked an entire neighborhood,” Paxton said in a statement. “By operating a taxpayer-funded drug paraphernalia giveaway next to an elementary school, this organization is threatening students’ health and safety and unjustly worsening daily life for every single resident of the neighborhood. We will shut this unlawful nuisance behavior down.”

Paxton seeks an injunction requiring the center to close for a year and prohibiting it from conducting operations within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or youth center. But in a statement, the center’s executive director Mark Hilbelink said the services will continue.

“It is regrettable that Attorney General Paxton took this route, especially during the week of Thanksgiving, but Sunrise intends to keep offering services to people in our community who need them,” Hilbelink said in a statement. “We are committed to being a good neighbor. We will continue to work, every day, to support Joslin Elementary School, our neighborhood, and our entire community.”

He also noted the center is a ministry of Sunrise Community Church and is therefore protected by the First Amendment, the U.S. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“These laws have been tested in court on multiple occasions, always with the same result: churches are protected to do work that is an expression of their religious practice,” Hilbelink said.

Thanks, Dark Brandon!

Thanksgiving dinner is historically affordable this year

Farm data shows [sic] holiday meal staples are collectively at their cheapest, after adjusting for inflation, in nearly 40 years — not including the Covid-hit year of 2020.

By Jing Feng

You may not know it by looking at sticker prices in grocery aisles, but Thanksgiving dinner is more affordable than it has been in years.

The costs of this year’s holiday feast — estimated at $58.08 for a 10-person gathering, or $5.81 a head — dropped 5% since last year, the lowest level since 2021, according to a nationwide survey of grocery prices by the American Farm Bureau Federation, which represents millions of U.S. farmers. But the picture improves further when adjusted for inflation. (snip)

A defining feature of the post-pandemic recovery, and the 2024 election, is the divergence between Americans’ sour views of the economy and its underlying strength. Many shoppers understandably focus on price levels — the dollar value of the things they buy — rather than those purchases’ inflation-adjusted, or “real,” costs. The latter is the true test of affordability, since it reflects an often underappreciated piece of the inflation puzzle: wage inflation.

And indeed, while Thanksgiving food prices are up 19% since 2019, according to the AFBF, federal data shows median household wages growing by about 25% during the same period.

What’s more, “the average American also has to work fewer hours to buy the same meal than in previous years,” the report added. “Wages continued to grow faster following the COVID-19 pandemic, even as inflation cooled. Because average wages rose 4% from 2023 to 2024, it took 9% less work time for us to pay for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner.” (Emph. mine -A)

Snip-there is more, and being a mainstream news outlet, they are both siding the economy by including people’s feelings about it as opposed to the facts, but still. They could have been saying these things for the past year and a half, because I don’t know about where everyone else here lives, but our prices in S. Central KS have been lower again for at least a year and a half now. Prices went through the roof after DJT and Republicans allowed suppliers to do what they needed to to solve the supply chain crisis they made during COVID, and so suppliers raised prices so severely.

But maybe that’s not true where everyone lives, either.

Thanksgiving by Nancy Beiman

(I love this toon on GoComics. The artist/author writes on Substack, and this one is especially nice. -A)

It should be every day. Read on Substack

American Thanksgiving is on Thursday, November 28. Grandma Heckel is visiting the FurBabies. This is only fair since she hosted the dinner last year and had the Buffet family visit for Canadian Thanksgiving this year. Grandma likes turkey.

Kate wasn’t allowed to make the pies last year. She was just an influencer.

FurBabies, November 19, 2023

Grandma did like it.

The Dog Family had a Friendsgiving with Mrs. Oldman and Buster.

FurBabies, November 21, 2023

Since Grandma is visiting, Mrs. Oldman is celebrating the holiday elswhere this year, possibly in Mexico. (I like to think that all of the off camera characters are living ordinary lives when I don’t have the ‘camera’ on them; we get glimpses when they do something funny.)

FurBabies is seen from the point of view of the Dog Family and Kate. The parents and Grandma never appear in the strip, so I had to find a situation that would allow us to guess their reactions to an unanticipated event. Luckily I found a great ‘human interest’ story about a dog and an Item that was perfect for the occasion.

Plans for the formal dinner began on Monday, November 25. Grandma likes dressing up. We see Shawm and Stella ‘suit up’ for a rehearsal, then cut to a night scene. Grandma Heckel is staying in Kate’s bedroom, which she shares with Sirius and Floof. Everyone has to find a new place to sleep. Sirius is not happy with his options. Sirius finds the Item on November 27, so I won’t reveal it here. I was happy with the results. We also see where Shawm and Stella sleep every night.

https://www.gocomics.com/furbabies/2024/11/26

The situation resolves on November 30, which then conveniently transitions into the Holiday strips. There’s a bit of repetition with variation when Kate once again tries to send a text to Santa. Things do not work out as planned.

Real life is like that, except it isn’t usually funny. (snip)

“Farmers Freaking Over Deportations”

by God

Whoops! Read on Substack

Dear Humans,

Jesus here.

As someone who has always taught inclusion, loving thy neighbor, and supporting marginalized groups, I’ve been deeply concerned about Trump’s mass deportation proposals that he spoke frequently about during his Presidential campaign.

To many in his uninformed and racist voter base, they hear about the proposal and think it’s a great idea.

What they don’t realize is how it’ll affect – among many things – their food supply.

You see, farmers depend on undocumented immigrants to manage their crops, because it’s a grueling job that most Americans don’t want to take. Immigrants, however, are looking for any life they can start in America and are willing to take on the job.

They’re also freakin’ tough-as-nails types of people!

We’re still nearly two months away from Trump returning to office (Sigh), and already, key U.S. agricultural organizations are advocating for the exclusion of farmworkers from mass deportation attempts.

Reuters spoke to numerous farm groups who said they are already working to ensure their workers are exempt from any deportations.

Should Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ idea go through (And let’s be clear: It would be a VERY difficult task – it’s basically his new ‘Build the Wall’ proposal), that would mean that about HALF of the two million farmworkers in the United States would be deported.

It’d be like a Thanos snap – it would have HUGE implications for the American food supply.

When all those workers disappear, the food would disappear too. And if you thought eggs were costly now, just wait until you lose half of your workers who are employed on farms and meat processing plants.

A More Jesus-y Plan

What Trump’s incoming administration should be doing instead of instilling fear in the American people is giving these undocumented migrants a path to citizenship. These people who live in America not only work tough jobs, but they also contribute to the American economy by supporting businesses that they visit. That in turn generates tax revenue for America.

EVERYONE benefits from having immigrants in their country.

In The Parable of the Good Samaritan, I taught that your “neighbor” is not limited to those within the same community or background but extends to anyone in need. I encourage Humans to cross cultural boundaries to show kindness and mercy. (snip)

Love, Jesus