Lovable policy dork and new US Congresswoman Sarah McBride gives a hug to the kid who stole my pink unicorn dress. Yes, I will sue.
How do you do, fellow Wonks! It is I, your friendly neighborhood trans woman who is happy about a thing!
What? What is with those faces? Did something bad happen? No matter! For it is my job to give you the good news, with a spring in my step and a song in my heart and I am going to fucking do that because it is my job, melonfuckers, and I will not neglect my professional duty to be happy about a happy thing. Or three!
Yesterday, for those not in the know, the United States had an election. And during this election the transgenders worked their genderqueer asses off, not only running for election to the local sixth-grade softball team but also to at least 35 political positions around the country. And while we here at Wonkette salute every single one of those eager beavers, a couple stand out for their prominence and their victories.
No trans star shines brighter in, lo, these early morning hours as I write you this, than Sarah McBride. While McBride was not the first trans person to be elected to any ol’ thing, she was not elected to any ol’ thing. She was elected to the actual Congress of the US America. That’s right! We’re talking about the very same federal legislature made famous in Schoolhouse Rock’s song “I’m Just A Bill.”
This is not particularly surprising, as like some San Franciscans we could name, she was very well qualified for the position she sought. Before coming out or even turning 20 years old she worked as a junior staffer for Delaware Governor Jack Markell’s campaign in 2008 and Attorney General Beau Biden’s campaign in 2010. Next she lobbied for adding gender identity to Delaware’s equal protection law and interned at the White House in 2012 before graduating from college. She was on this shit young, I tell ya. And after she came out that year, her story was featured on American University Radio (later rebroadcast on NPR) including an anecdote about Beau telling her that after coming out she “was still part of the Biden family.”
After graduating she went to work as an activist with Equality Delaware and used her relationships to help pass positive bills before she became the first ever out trans speaker at a major party political convention in 2016 — something she’s sure as hell going to do again now. She then went on to write a book (foreword by some dude named “Joe Biden”), work for the Human Rights Campaign as their spokesperson, and then spend the most recent four years representing 50,000 Delawareaniteishers in the state Senate.
With her resumé and the Blue-leaning makeup of the state electorate, she had this. And it showed both during her campaign and in her 57/42 victory. (Which won me five bucks.) And now she’s going to Congress to make sure that Republican dickweasel bigots have to look a trans person in the eye as they ban driving through McDonalds while trans or whatever evil-ass bill they’re proposing next January. She lists her top two priorities as universal healthcare and reproductive rights, with other big ticket items like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the union-friendly PRO Act, curbing climate change, ending mass incarceration and more. She sounds too good to be true, but she’s real and she’s going to be kicking Matt Gaetz ass in just eight weeks.
Still convinced there’s a catch? Like maybe she’s great but replaced someone greater? Worry not: The woman she’s replacing is now your new US Senator from Delaware Lisa Blunt Rochester, making all kinds of demographic firsts from a state previously obsessed with sending only white men to the Senate but which has now elected a Black woman 56/39/4.
Yeah, we could use a lot more Delawares right now.
But if you’ll excuse Hawaii for not being Delaware, there’s also some good shit doing down on the islands. Over the last few decades indigenous Hawaiians have become homeless at a horrible rate — yes, this started long before Lahaina burned to the ground. The primary culprit is a tourism-first legislature full of corporate Democrats who never met a bit of housing they couldn’t rezone for rental to visiting mainlanders. Along with other forces making housing expensive even on the continent, this has made trying to find a place to live in the state a genuine crisis, especially for the people working those low-paying service jobs catering to tourists.
While Kim Coco Iwamoto isn’t the only Hawaiian to notice the problem, she made it her mission to knock off the incumbent Speaker of the Hawaiian state House in the Democratic primary. It took three tries, but this year she managed it and put the game away in the general last night. She only takes over the district of Scott Saiki, not his speakership, and the still pro-corporate Dem majority is certain to elect another tourism-pleasing Speaker, but Iwamoto becomes a trans voice against homelessness and for affordable housing. Iwamoto didn’t start off in politics going straight after Saiki. She was actually the first out trans person ever to hold statewide office anywhere in the US as she was elected to an at-large position on the Hawaii Board of Education and then later appointed to the state Civil Rights Commission. She is experienced and determined, she knows Hawaii politics, and she’s going to get things done.
Our third and final Trans Nice Times! for this morning comes to you from Los Angeles, where for the first time ever a trans-centric non-profit was designated a voting center. You may be used to voting in gymnasiums and churches, but yesterday in West Hollywood if you wanted to drop off your ballot (or fill one out if you hadn’t had a chance to vote from home as is the norm in California these days), your home precinct was The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center where instead of having to to look at posters saying, “Jesus dies a little every time you touch your cooter! Don’t be chewed bubblegum!” as you walk through the lobby to cast your vote, you instead got to see signs saying, “Trans joy **is** resistance!” Won’t that just be a hoot for the two conservatives who still live in West Hollywood?
In summary and conclusion, there is still joy in this world, like trans people who kick ass and golden retrievers who know just a little too much English.
Now ain’t that some nice times?
Send this post to a friend who needs to read it! (I thought we all needed this here. -A)
Thanks to Ten Bears for the reminder that others faced a harder struggle and stood their ground in order to create a more perfect union. I will give myself today to absorb it, to be stunned at how we were so misled. How with all the support, money, and him being him, how did Harris lose. Misogyny comes to mind. But we fought for our rights before. We started at the ground, the grassroots and changed minds along with changing who was in charge. The other side learned our lessons and turned them against us. So tomorrow we go back to doing what we must to change the direction the country is going in, to make sure school boards are filled with people who want kids to learn science, learn to treat those different from them with respect and dynasty. We were on the way to a better world, those that did not want that fought back. Now the shoe is back on our feet. We have to make sure it starts at every level and every state. Make sure we are in the community and seen. Make sure we let people know we will not return to the 1850s or even the 1950s. We remember, let’s make sure everyone else does also. Hugs
While much of the contiguous United States is talking about Puerto Rico after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referred to the archipelago as a “floating pile of garbage” at Donald Trump’s campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on October 27, the people of Puerto Rico have another election on their minds: a historic gubernatorial race. For the first time in history, a pro-independence candidate could win the election for the head of the government in the U.S. territory.
Since the mid-20th century, Puerto Rico has been governed by the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP) or the pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party (PPD). While third-party candidates have run, none has been able to garner enough votes to threaten Puerto Rico’s two-party system. But this election season, Puerto Rico’s Pro-Independence Party and its new Citizen’s Victory Movement — an anti-colonial party founded in 2019 — have come together under a coalition called La Alianza de País, or Alianza, and its nominee — Juan Dalmau — has gained enough support in the polls to potentially defeat the two traditional parties.
At the time of writing, Jenniffer González, the candidate from the incumbent pro-statehood party, is leading Dalmau by just about 2 to 8 percentage points, according to NBC News. However, political scientists on the archipelago believe it’s a lead that Dalmau could eclipse on Election Day, especially if young voters make it out to the polls and if older, religious Puerto Ricans cast their ballot for the emerging Christian party Project Dignity’s nominee Javier Jiménez. But Pro-Trump comedian Hinchcliffe delivered Dalmau another advantage: Some long-term PNP voters riled by the disparaging “joke” could reconsider their support as González, Puerto Rico’s current resident commissioner, is a Republican and staunch Trump ally.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF JUAN DALMAU.
For decades, the United States, which invaded and colonized Puerto Rico in 1898, has used fear as a tool to thwart pro-independence movements on the archipelago. While masterminding the lie that Puerto Rico could not exist without its colonial relationship with the U.S., the government on the archipelago, then led undemocratically by non-Puerto Rican U.S.-appointed governors, used violence to ensure it doesn’t.
During a peaceful civilian march organized by Puerto Rico’s Nationalist Party to commemorate the abolition of slavery on the archipelago on March 21, 1937, police opened fire, killing 17 civilians. When the party’s leader, Pedro Albizu Campos was arrested on October 30, 1950 after pro-independence revolts in Jayuya, Utuado, and the governor’s mansion in Old San Juan, he alleged that the state subjected him to human radiation experiments that could have later contributed to his death. In 1948, the legislature passed the Gag Law, which made it illegal to own or display a Puerto Rican flag, sing or write a patriotic song or literature, or convene in favor of Puerto Rican independence. The law wasn’t repealed until 1957.
In more recent years, both the PNP and the PPD have sustained this fear by spreading misinformation about pro-independence parties. During the ongoing gubernatorial race, for instance, González has used political ads to liken Dalmau’s social democracy platform to communism, a popular strategy used by Republicans in the contiguous United States to manipulate the traumas of people who fled authoritarian communist or socialist governments, including those in Puerto Rico’s neighboring Cuba.
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“Puerto Ricans have found that betting on themselves, their community, their land, and their autonomy could be a more fruitful path forward.”
RAQUEL REICHARD
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But Puerto Ricans are increasingly reconsidering the story the ruling governments on the archipelago and in the U.S. have been telling them. Amid recent back-to-back financial, natural, and political disasters, many have come to the conclusion that their colonial relationship is actually holding them back from prospering in their own homeland. From its 2015 financial crisis, which led the U.S. Congress to create the undemocratic fiscal control board that cut budgets and caused job losses, and the 2017 hurricanes, which revealed devastating state corruption, to the ousting of then-Governor Ricardo Rosselló, which helped many islanders recognize and utilize their own power, many Puerto Ricans have found that betting on themselves, their community, their land, and their autonomy could be a more fruitful path forward.
This growing sentiment was on display on November 3 during Alianza’s Festival of Hope at Lot 4 near the Pedro Rosselló Convention Center in Santurce, where more than 50,000 people holding Puerto Rican flags and green and white Patria Nueva flags gathered to support Dalmau and the Alianza movement. Among them were party leaders like Dalmau, Ana Irma Rivera Lassen (running for resident commissioner), Manuel Natal Albelo (running for mayor of San Juan); U.S. Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez (D-New York); and popular music artists like Rauw Alejandro, Residente, iLe, and Bad Bunny, who closed out the event announcing his official endorsement of Dalmau.
“I dream of a prosperous and dignified Puerto Rico like the one we deserve. That my people have the quality of life we deserve, a better quality of life. I dream of a Puerto Rico where the education of our boys and girls is a priority and not a dirty system of corruption. I dream of a Puerto Rico where young people do not have to leave to fulfill their duties. I dream of a functional and accessible health system for the love of God. I dream of a road where I don’t have a tire blow out every time I go outside. I dream of something as basic as not having the power go out every day in my country,” Bad Bunny said in a 20-minute long speech. “I dream of a people who are awake and who recognize the strength we have, that here the people rule, that here you, we, the people rule and not the political parties.”
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“I dream of a people who are awake and who recognize the strength we have, that here the people rule, that here you, we, the people rule and not the political parties.”
BAD BUNNY
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While it was the first time the artist, who went on to perform his song “Una Velita,” publicly endorsed Dalmau, this election year he has been vocal about local politics. In June, the rapper, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, announced a buy-one-get-one-free concert ticket deal for his Most Wanted Tour stops in Puerto Rico to locals who showed their voter registration card. The initiative aimed to improve voter turnout. For decades, the archipelago had impressively high voter turnouts of 73% to 89%, but starting in 2016, it dropped to 55% as Puerto Ricans grew increasingly apathetic about the traditional parties. Additionally, in September, Bad Bunny purchased billboards across San Juan that criticized the pro-statehood party and has consistently used his social media accounts to spread educational information about Dalmau and his anti-corruption platform.
At a time when Trump’s camp refers to Puerto Rico as a “pile of garbage” — essentially calling the archipelago’s people who make up the land trash, repeating language that has been used by the U.S. colonial state to dehumanize Puerto Ricans for more than 100 years — Puerto Ricans are eager to support a government that could, if even symbolically, actually challenge that colonial power.
Ahead of Puerto Rico’s November 5 gubernatorial election, we spoke with islanders about the historic support for a pro-independence candidate and what an Alianza governorship could symbolize and accomplish.
Mayra Díaz-Torres
Why do you think there is so much support for Juan Dalmau?
For me it’s important to talk about the context. After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico has experienced great sorrows. Puerto Rico has experienced natural and political onslaughts. Not long after the storm, we dealt with the blows from then-Governor Ricky Rosselló, and the entire PNP, which represents a corrupt class — that withheld first-aid goods even though there were people dying. I think that from all of this heartbreak and all of this rage that we experienced from Maria and the aftermath of that hurricane, that corruption we endured from the PNP and the PPD, too — the failures of this two-party system has elevated us. I’m hopeful that it has brought us as a people to rage and to turn our hurt into solutions. And I believe that’s the result of this revelation, one that Indigenous and Afro-descendants have always talked about, that we have been domesticated, and that there is no greater form of domestication than colonialism. Puerto Rico has been a colony of the U.S. for more than 100 years.
Most recently, look at the Trump rally, where the comedian [Hinchcliffe], who by the way is a pendejo, and others have tried to tell us that the way they speak about us and treat us are all jokes and that we have to lighten up, to have a better sense of humor. But that’s not true. That’s the systemic racism and colonialism we’ve experienced for many years. And I feel like this anger and pain — especially in the last five years from the colonial, racist, and anti-democratic Financial Oversight and Management Board (La Junta) — is pushing us to restore our dignity, humanity, and utilize our power.
What would a pro-independence governorship symbolize for Puerto Rico?
For me, the idea that a pro-independence candidate could win the governorship in Puerto Rico is historic. As a colony, we have a lot of trauma and a lot of fears that the United States have told us and that the criollo class here has repeated to us: the lie that we aren’t anything without the United States. This language is abusive. This is what a man who abuses and violates a woman tells her: “You can’t exist without me.” This is the language that an abusive father tells his children: “You are no one.” Thinking about this cycle of violence we have experienced under colonialism for hundreds of years, seeing us in this moment brings me enthusiasm. I’m trying to be cautious, but I am enthusiastic. Yes, there are things we need to look at and preoccupy ourselves with, but I think this election is historic for us as a country.
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“This colonial fallacy that we are nothing without the United States doesn’t work on us anymore. It’s a mantra that has kept us subjugated.”
MAYRA DÍAZ-TORRES
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Of course, though, when the leading parties see that the people they want to oppress are finding their dignity and realizing this treatment is criminal, the ammo, the response to that, is to create fear. And I think the traditional parties are inciting fear around independence because historically in Puerto Rico conversations around independence have been criminalized. They don’t want us to know or accept Puerto Rico’s history struggling for independence. We have rebelled, many times, in many decades, and under many contexts. There has been state prosecution against pro-independence movement leaders in an effort to thwart the revolution and criminalize even the idea of independence, from Pedro Albizu Campos to the Ponce massacre. Historically, we’ve seen this ideology be treated as criminal, something to not be taken seriously, and now we’ve seen the traditional parties taking advantage of that narrative to stir fear in this moment. But fear doesn’t work on us anymore. This colonial fallacy that we are nothing without the United States doesn’t work on us anymore. It’s a mantra that has kept us subjugated.
What would you say to someone fearful of pro-independence leadership in Puerto Rico?
Liberation is coming. It’s unavoidable. Because no nation can be subjugated forever under imperialism. People are leaving Puerto Rico, not because we want to but to seek opportunities, because these opportunities are not available to us here due to the policies of the PNP and the PPD. The aftermath of Maria taught us so much. We know that despite more than 100 years of colonialism, we have so much love for our country, our culture, and our people. I think that if you consider that love we have for ourselves and for our land, a land they’re trying to displace us from, I think we are moving. I think this is a critical moment. There’s going to be fear and hardships, but we haven’t succeeded under this colonial regime. Yes, we have cultural prominence globally; we are talented. But we are not happy. We are struggling. This isn’t just about status; it’s also about great corruption from the traditional parties. Liberation is destined. Every nation deserves and needs freedom to prosper.
Ale Figueroa
Why do you think there is so much support for Juan Dalmau?
We are at a turning point. I work as a digital strategist to transform the narrative for societal change, and this has been a long time coming. It may seem like it’s coming out of the blue, but it’s something that has been simmering since about the 2008 election, when the plan was set into motion to make Puerto Rico be in the service of millionaires, billionaires, and Wall Street, at the expense of locals.
A group of people, an entire society, have been promised things that just never arrived. Growing up, we were told, “you take these steps, and it’ll lead to success.” But millennials are the first generation in Puerto Rico to really encounter dystopia and lies. We never saw prosperity. We never saw this future that they boasted about and benefited from in the past. It’s taken a toll on our ability to even be part of our own community and participate in our own country. The impacts of colonialism means that everyday people will have to say goodbye to their homes, communities, and families, just so they can find a means to survive. We are a generation that is split, that is fragmented, and is dispersed throughout the world. It is not untrue that there are more Puerto Ricans living outside of Puerto Rico than on the islands, and that is a testament to the sacrifices that people have had to make while still being deeply connected to their culture and communities.
What would a pro-independence governorship symbolize for Puerto Rico?
It symbolizes a change. I think if we are honest we know that nothing can change overnight, even if we have a pro-independence governor in power. That decision is ultimately not up to the people of Puerto Rico because of our colonial situation with the United States. Ultimately, who decides whether or not Puerto Rico becomes independent or a state of the U.S. union is the United States Congress.
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“If what we create and bring to the world is this rich in these conditions, I can’t begin to imagine how incredibly beautiful and magical it is for ourselves and the rest of our global community for us to thrive, and for people like us across the world to thrive. “
ALE FIGUEROA
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But I think it means something a lot more meaningful, something that will take generations to build upon, but it is the promise of something new. It’s the promise of being able to — and for the first time in our history — finally have a say and decide what we want. It is an opportunity for Puerto Ricans to know and understand that our future is in our hands and that we have complete authority and autonomy for ourselves without intervention. And we deserve a future where our people and communities can thrive. If what we create and bring to the world is this rich in these conditions, I can’t begin to imagine how incredibly beautiful and magical it is for ourselves and the rest of our global community for us to thrive, and for people like us across the world to thrive.
What would you say to someone fearful of pro-independence leadership in Puerto Rico?
I would ask them if they think it’s worth it to continue going through what we’re going through to the point of normalizing, to the point of expecting future generations to not believe that they deserve better. I’d ask them to take a chance on themselves and their futures, not because this would be independence for Puerto Rico but because it would mean independence for us to finally have a seat at the table, to be represented, and make the decisions we want to make when the time comes, while still keeping our mouths fed, our bodies clothed, our families sheltered, and our culture and our people thriving.
Aliana Margarita Bigio-Alcoba
Why do you think there is so much support for Juan Dalmau?
The Patria Nueva project as well as the Alianza de País continue to gain momentum because people see in Juan Dalmau and the rest of the candidates a hopeful, inclusive vision for Puerto Rico. This campaign is driven by a clear path toward a Puerto Rico for all — not just for tax dodgers and gentrifiers.
Unlike others, Dalmau has shown his dedication by engaging directly with communities through forums and town halls, positioning himself as the people’s candidate and the best choice for Puerto Rico’s future.
What would a pro-independence governorship symbolize for Puerto Rico?
I was born and raised in a household that supported statehood for Puerto Rico, and I saw what assimilation did to my parents. They shared stories of not being allowed to have a Puerto Rican flag in their rooms, cars, or school notebooks. Showing love for your country was frowned upon, labeled as “terrorist” or “communist.” These are the effects of colonialism; it’s not just political — it’s personal.
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“Many former statehood supporters now support Dalmau because his campaign with La Alianza de País proposes an Asamblea Constituyente, one that would include everyone, offering Puerto Rico a respectful, dignified, and binding decolonization process.”
ALIANA MARGARITA BIGIO-ALCOBA
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Now, at 26, watching my loved ones support Dalmau and the possibility of an Alianza de País victory brings immense joy and a show of radical hope.
What would you say to someone fearful of pro-independence leadership in Puerto Rico?
I’d encourage people to review our history, to resist the collective amnesia the powerful try to impose on us.
The status of Puerto Rico won’t be resolved through non-binding plebiscites with Congress. Many former statehood supporters now support Dalmau because his campaign with La Alianza de País proposes an Asamblea Constituyente, one that would include everyone, offering Puerto Rico a respectful, dignified, and binding decolonization process.
November 5, 1872 Susan B. Anthony and a few other women in Rochester, New York, voted in the presidential election, all of them for the first time. Susan B. Anthony She wrote later that day to her fellow suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “If only now—all the women would work to this end of enforcing the existing constitution—supremacy of national law over state law—what strides we might make . . . .” Anthony’s vote went to U. S. Grant and other Republicans, based on that party’s promise to consider the legitimacy of women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Read Susan B. Anthony’s speech On Women’s Right to Vote
November 5, 1949 The Peace Pledge Union in Great Britain set up the Non-Violence Commission to study nonviolent resistance and how the ideas of Gandhi could be used to reach the Union’s goals of getting U.S. troops out of Britain and to end production of nuclear weapons there.
November 5, 1969 Bobby Seale Bobby Seale, a founder of the Black Panther Party, was sentenced to four years in prison on sixteen counts of contempt of court during the federal Chicago Eight trial in Chicago; he was charged for his insistent claims to the right to choose his own lawyer, or to represent himself. After the Chicago Eight verdict, the contempt charges were withdrawn.
November 5, 1982 36 were arrested in a demonstration at Honeywell, Minnesota’s largest defense contractor. The “Honeywell Project,” a local campaign against the arms maker, dogged the company for over three decades, at times with success. It continues today, targeting Alliant Technologies, the arms-making branch of Honeywell that was spun off in the 1990s. Protests at Alliant continue today. Alliant is the manufacturer for the Pentagon of artillery shells made with depleted uranium (DU or U-238, a by-product of uranium enrichment) which have been used extensively in Iraq and Kosovo. The Defense Department denies any health effects from use of DU (though army manuals warn soldiers of its toxicity), and contests accusations of DU’s role in Gulf War Syndrome. More about the Honeywell project from War Resisters’ international
November 5, 1987 Govan Mbeki, an early leader of the African National Congress, was released from South Africa’s Robben Island prison after serving twenty-four years (for treason). He served his sentence alongside Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and many others who fought apartheid. Govan Mbeki His son, Thabo Mbeki, was elected in 1998 (and force to resign in 2008) to succeed Mandela, who was the first president elected following a new constitution which granted the right to vote to the entire non-white population, comprising 85% of the country’s population. Read more about Govan Mbeki
November 4, 1811 A group of men in Bulwell, near Nottingham, England, armed with hammers, axes and pistols in the dark of night, broke into the workshop of a master weaver named Hollingsworth and smashed six weaving machines the men thought threatened their jobs. They and their supporters opposed the industrialization that had turned home-based sustainable textile work into factory work with significant loss of jobs through mechanization (and those at much lower wages), as well as the attendant air and water pollution. Luddites smashing loom. They called themselves followers of the probably fictional General Ludd and continued their attacks for months, with over a thousand knitting machines destroyed. In response, thousands of troops were sent to stop the rebellion, and Parliament passed a law making destruction of weaving machines a hanging offense. Luddites has since become a term used for those who oppose technology.
November 4, 1956 Two hundred thousand Russian troops with 1000 tanks stopped an anti-Stalinist uprising in Hungary and installed a new pro-Soviet government. Although civilians had set up barricades along all the major roads leading to Budapest, the Soviet air force bombed the capital and troops poured into the city in a massive dawn offensive. Hungarian Army and National Guard troops participated in the resistance; only Communist Party functionaries and security police fought alongside the Warsaw Pact troops. The help promised from the U.S. to protect and aid the anti-Stalinists never came. 20,000 Hungarians ultimately died as a result (as well as 4000 troops), and ten times that many left the country permanently. Hungarian ‘freedom fighters’ temporarily forced back Soviet tanks and troops. Soviet tanks in Budapest. Pictorial history of the Hungarian Uprising
November 4, 1984 The first free elections in Nicaraguan history were held. Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista Front claimed a decisive victory (70%), defeating six other parties, in the country’s first elections since the revolution the Sandanistas had led five years previous. The high-turnout election (83%) was monitored by 400 independent election observers who said the election had been fair. Read more
November 4, 1995 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was fatally shot minutes after speaking at a peace rally held in Tel Aviv’s Kings Square in Israel. The rally in Kings of Israel Square Yitzhak Rabin Read more
November 4, 2008 The first African American ever nominated by a major political party as candidate for president went before the electorate. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and his Democratic vice-presidential running mate, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, faced Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin; independent candidates Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez; Green Party candidates former Representative Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente; and former Repepresentatives Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root.
Significant acceleration in the upper-ocean circulation of the equatorial Pacific Ocean over the past 30 years is impacting global weather patterns, according to a new study.
West-east near-surface current trend between 1993–2022. The blue colors show increased westward currents; red colors show increased eastward currents. The largest trends are observed in the central tropical Pacific Ocean (black box). Current velocity data from three equatorial moored buoys (yellow diamonds) provide a subsurface view on long-term upper-ocean current velocity trends. Credit: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2024JC021343
The acceleration is driven by strengthening atmospheric winds. The oceanic currents are becoming stronger and shallower. Among the effects are increased frequency and intensity of El Niño and La Niña events.
The study is published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.
Researchers used data collected between 1993–2022 from satellites, mooring buoys and ocean surface drifters.
They reanalysed wind data and satellite altitude measurements to create a high-resolution gridded map of ocean currents over time.
Among the findings is the roughly 20% acceleration of westward near-surface currents in the central equatorial Pacific.
North and south of the equator, currents going toward the poles have also accelerated. Currents going to the north pole have intensified by 57%, and the currents heading southward have increased 20%.
“The equatorial thermocline – a critical ocean layer for El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) dynamics – has steepened significantly,” says first author Franz Phillip Tuchen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Miami’s Ronenstiel School of Marine Atmospheric and Earth Science.
“This steepening trend could reduce ENSO amplitude in the eastern Pacific and favour more frequent central Pacific El Niño events, potentially altering regional and global climate patterns associated with ENSO.”
The new and comprehensive study provides a benchmark for climate models which have had limited success in accurately representing Pacific circulation and sea surface temperature trends.
The research helps explain why, for example, global mean sea surface temperatures have risen but parts of the tropical South Pacific have seen a cooling trend of more than –0.5°C over the past 3 decades.
November 3, 1883 The U.S. Supreme Court, in its decision Ex Parte Crow Dog, declared Native Americans were ultimately subject to U.S. law, “not in the sense of citizens, but . . . as wards subject to a guardian . . . as a dependent community who were in a state of pupilage.” However, the Court acknowledged the sovereignty of tribal authority in the particular case at hand. The Congress, however, essentially overturned the Court’s decision two years later. Chief Crow Dog, 1898 More on Ex Parte Crow Dog
November 3, 1917 Bolsheviks, the followers of Vladimir Lenin, took control of the capital, Moscow, and the Kremlin, the fortress-like grouping of government buildings and churches at the center of the capital city, as the Russian revolution succeeded.
November 3, 1969 President Nixon announced the “Vietnamization” program to shift fighting by U.S. troops to U.S.-trained Vietnamese troops. “We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable.” The last U.S. troops didn’t return home until 1975.
November 3, 1972 Five hundred protesters from the “Trail of Broken Treaties,” a Native American march, occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices (part of the Department of Interior) in Washington, D.C., for six days. Their goal was to gain support from the general public for a policy of self-determination for American Indians. Read more about the occupation: Read the Indian Manifesto:
November 3, 1979 Five members of the Workers Viewpoint Organization (later the Communist Workers Party) which had organized a “Death to the Klan” rally, were murdered and ten others injured when the rally was attacked by 40 Ku Klux Klan members and Nazis in Greensboro, North Carolina. The political organization had been joined in the march by a group of local African-American mill workers. At the time of the shootings, not one police officer was present. Two all-white juries acquitted the murderers despite the fact that the whole incident was on videotape. But in 1985 a federal jury found two policemen, a police informant/Klan leader, and five Klansmen and Nazis liable for the wrongful death of one of the demonstrators.
November 3, 1985 The Rainbow Warrior bombed Two French agents of the DGSE (Secret Service) dramatically changed their pleas on charges related to the bombing and sinking of the Greenpeace’s ship, Rainbow Warrior, and pled guilty. The ship was attacked in Auckland (New Zealand) harbor in anticipation of sailing to Moruroa Atoll to interfere with French nuclear weapons testing. It was the first act of terror ever committed in New Zealand. Read more
The stakes in United States v. Skrmetti are even higher than most Americans realize and could have wide-reaching consequences if the court rules to keep the ban on gender-affirming care in place.
This piece was published in partnership with The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, and policy. Sign up for their newsletter here.
A Supreme Court case that will decide whether Tennessee can continue to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth could imperil the ability of all Americans to make decisions about their health care, experts say. The outcome depends on how far the court is willing to stretch its ruling that overturned federal abortion rights.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the court has agreed to take up the question of whether gender-affirming care bans for trans youth are unconstitutional, in response to the Biden administration petitioning on behalf of trans youth and their families in Tennessee — one of 26 states that has bannedsuch care for minors. The outcome of the case will grant much-needed clarity in a political landscape that has thrown the lives of trans people across the country into turmoil, as hospitals turn patients away, pharmacies deny prescriptions and families travel hundreds of miles to find care.
But with the case set for oral arguments on December 4, the stakes are even higher than most Americans realize, legal and policy experts say. Tennessee has banned gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, for a specific demographic — trans youth — while allowing those same treatments for cisgender youth. If the Supreme Court allows the state to keep its ban in place, that could imperil everyone’s access to health care.
“What the state of Tennessee is arguing is really dangerous for any person who has any sort of medical condition,” says Ezra Young, a civil rights lawyer and constitutional scholar. Tennessee is dictating what medical treatments people should or should not be allowed to have, Young said; that goes well beyond states’ authority to regulate medicine, specifically because giving health care to trans people is not a public health concern.
“The state can make sure that the doctor you see has a medical degree and has an active medical license, for instance,” he says. “What the state can’t do is micromanage the medical decision-making of patients or doctors, and that’s for good reason. Bureaucrats or lawmakers aren’t medical experts.”
Yet in half of U.S. states, Republican lawmakers have banned or restricted medical care that many trans people need to live, over the protests of the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, and other leading medical groups. Federal judges have attempted to block these bans from taking hold, finding them to be likely unconstitutional. Appeals court judges have disagreed and overturned those decisions. Now, the Supreme Court will have the final say.
“If we don’t win here, it’s going to be open season on any health care related to transgender people,” says Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. If the Supreme Court holds that banning gender-affirming care is not discriminatory, then trans people would no longer be protected under the Affordable Care Act, he argues. States and private insurers would be able to exclude gender-affirming care from coverage plans.
“It would be devastating. I mean, absolutely catastrophic,” Minter says.
Ultimately, the outcome of this case will have a wider impact beyond gender-affirming care. A Supreme Court ruling endorsing Tennessee’s argument that the state can ban safe medical care — just because it disagrees with who that treatment is being given to — would enable the government to control people’s health decisions and enact other blatantly discriminatory policies, legal experts say.
“I think this case has bigger and broader implications than a lot of people realize, even frankly within the legal community,” says Michael Ulrich, an associate professor of health law, ethics and human rights at Boston University’s School of Public Health and School of Law. If the Supreme Court agrees with Tennessee’s ban, there’s nothing stopping states from banning or restricting other kinds of health care, he said — like what gets covered under Medicaid.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s office, representing the Biden administration, will split argument time before the Supreme Court with Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.
The United States v. Skrmetti case is focused on whether Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The state insists that its ban has nothing to do with sex and that it does not target trans people. Instead, the law “sets age and use-based limits,” Tennessee’s attorney general argues. Minors can still access hormones and puberty blockers for medical purposes, as long as those treatments are not being used as part of a gender transition or to alleviate gender dysphoria. The state claims such a distinction is not based on sex because “neither boys nor girls can use these drugs for gender transition.”
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. This ruling overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that had guaranteed the right to an abortion since 1973. When writing the majority opinion in Dobbs, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito briefly addressed a theory that suggests abortion could be covered under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. This idea is not part of Roe, or at issue in Dobbs, but was invoked in a separate “friend of the court” brief. Alito dismissed it, saying that state regulations on abortion do not discriminate based on sex.
“So that’s what the state of Tennessee is now latching on to, this passing reference, this brief statement in Dobbs, and they’re pinning their whole argument on it,” says Minter. “Everything hinges on it.”
In Dobbs, Alito wrote that abortion cannot be protected under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, citing the arcane Geduldig v. Aiello — a case about pregnancy-related disability benefits — and Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, a case dealing with the rights of anti-abortion protesters. These rarely cited cases found that state regulations on abortion and pregnancy, or opposing abortion, are not sex discrimination. Tennessee is now using this framework to argue that “any disparate impact on transgender-identifying persons” caused by its law does not single trans people out for discrimination in ways covered by the 14th Amendment.
If the state’s gender-affirming care ban is found by the Supreme Court to be discriminatory under the 14th Amendment, it is subject to heightened scrutiny — a more rigorous review to determine whether a law is constitutional or not. In that scenario, Tennessee is more likely to lose.
Using abortion case law to support bans on gender-affirming care is especially dangerous, experts say. Tennessee is taking the Supreme Court’s own decision in Dobbs out of context, according to lawyers who have worked in LGBTQ+ rights cases for decades. And, if the justices read Tennessee’s law, it is obvious that banning gender-affirming care for trans people is discriminating based on sex, they say.
The United States v. Skrmetti case is focused on whether Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The state insists that its ban has nothing to do with sex and that it does not target trans people. Instead, the law “sets age and use-based limits,” Tennessee’s attorney general argues. Minors can still access hormones and puberty blockers for medical purposes, as long as those treatments are not being used as part of a gender transition or to alleviate gender dysphoria. The state claims such a distinction is not based on sex because “neither boys nor girls can use these drugs for gender transition.”
But, although the question before the court has become more specific, this ruling still has the potential to broadly set back LGBTQ+ rights.
Tennessee argues that the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers is sex-based discrimination prohibited under the Civil Rights Act, has nothing to do with this case. But going down this road leads to more questions, Ulrich says: Is discriminating due to sexual orientation also not considered sex-based discrimination?
“Then you can see just a proliferation of discriminatory laws that are coming out thereafter,” he says. “That’s a really dangerous proposition for the entire LGBTQ+ community and it’s setting us back significantly.”
Sruti Swaminathan, an ACLU staff attorney who has been counsel in this case from the beginning, said United States v. Skrmetti will test how far the Supreme Court is willing to stretch its Dobbs decision. They are well aware that the outcome of this case could curtail bodily autonomy for everyone. And taking this challenge before a conservative-majority Supreme Court has stoked fears among trans people of worst-case scenarios.
“We’re already at the place where half the country has banned this care. We need to not let the 6th Circuit decision stand idly and be utilized in the way it has,” Swaminathan says.
But Tennessee’s tactics, and the consequences that they could have during a time when laws targeting reproductive and transgender health care are proliferating, still worry them.
“I’m terrified. What we learned from Dobbs is that these attacks won’t stop with abortion,” Swaminathan says. “Banning abortion seems to be one pillar of an effort to write outdated gender norms into the law.”
U.S. v. Skrmetti began as a lawsuit against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Tennessee’s argument in this case illustrates a larger coordinated effort to attack abortion access alongside gender-affirming care, says Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that tracks LGBTQ+ legislation.
States across the country have attempted to define sex based on reproductive capacity at birth. These efforts open transgender people up to discrimination and ignore the realities of intersex people, as well as cisgender women with conditions like primary ovarian insufficiency. Proponents of gender-affirming care bans inaccurately portray the effects of hormone replacement therapy on trans people’s reproductive ability by conflating the treatment with sterilization.
This Supreme Court case exemplifies a much larger argument that’s been a through line across attacks on transgender care and trans issues across the country, Casey says: What is sex, and who is protected when we think about that?
“Many of these state actors and politicians and extremists are clearly very invested in the concept of sex and defining sex in a very restricted and extraordinarily old-fashioned way that focuses only on people’s reproductive capacity, and then they use that argument in whatever context they can to advance the policies that would match that worldview,” he says.
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