It's a cult. As if we needed any more evidence. https://wapo.st/4k2WssY Congressional Republicans want to put Trump on the $250 bill. And rename Washington's metro to WMAGA. Bunch of bootlickers...
CNN has an article on the anti-gay Republican agenda, including (most from this month alone): 1. The administration threatening to sue California over one trans athlete 2. Getting rid of the LGBT+ suicide hotline 3. Ignoring Pride month and officially calling it Title IX month instead 4. Having removed the T from LGBT on the Stonewall memorial and government websites 5. Kennedy Center dropping Pride events, including a performance of the Gay Men's Chorus, and the President suggesting drag shows are "un-American" 6. DeSantis dropping reference to LGBT+ in his remembrance of the Pulse Nightclub massacre 7. Harvey Milk's name being removed from the Navy ship
They also want to rename Metrorail the Trump Train. When I told my wife about this proposal she asked if it was from The Onion.
FWIW, I read an interesting post a few days back, in which they theorized that, as with many major societal changes, the current reactionary position corresponds to their last effort to opposse positions that have become the norm, so, while it feels like we're going backwards, we are actually closer to victory than it appears. IOW, if bigots and racists didn't feel like they were "cornered" - meaning that their world views are inadmissible to the majority, they would not be fighting with such fervor. Now, I don't think that the post is completely wrong, but I have theorized myself that in the western world we have been going backwards in many fields starting in the 1980s, maybe earlier, and one of the main causes was the failure of the USSR and other socialist countries. According to my theory, the threat of nuclear war, plus the ideology supplied by the Red Menace, kept our elites "honest", meaning that they not only had to be very careful about their foreign policy, but they also had to keep their populations relatively happy and prosperous, or risk that they adopt more socialist stances. After the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellites, the US elites experienced more "freedom" to pursue more aggressive foreign policies, and they started to cut back on the working class gains, with the additional benefit of being able to paint many of those victories as "socialism". Finally, I don't think that either theory is perfect and there are a lot of holes and multiple arguments for and against, but I do believe that the next decade or so is going to be critical for the world's future, and that right now, at least in the US, the humanist-progressive side is in a bad position.
Some of the allowed success of the Civil Rights movement was attributed not only to the Cold War but that combined with newly independent nations in Africa and Asia creating a desire to look better on the world stage than the USSR.
And the success of multiple anti-imperialism movements, both, inspired the CRM and scared the US ruling class.
Add on to gay rights with women's rights. Specifically abortion. While this is Texas, specifically, it has larger implications. https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-sepsis-maternal-mortality-analysis Start here: Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion in 2021, ProPublica found in a first-of-its-kind data analysis. The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found. Next (example in the article): The standard of care for miscarrying patients in the second trimester is to offer to empty the uterus, according to leading medical organizations, which can lower the risk of contracting an infection and developing sepsis. If a patient’s water breaks or her cervix opens, that risk rises with every passing hour. Sepsis can lead to permanent kidney failure, brain damage and dangerous blood clotting. Nationally, it is one of the leading causes of deaths in hospitals. While some Texas doctors have told ProPublica they regularly offer to empty the uterus in these cases, others say their hospitals don’t allow them to do so until the fetal heartbeat stops or they can document a life-threatening complication. More on the sepsis problem. In 2021, 67 patients who lost a pregnancy in the second trimester were diagnosed with sepsis — as in the previous years, they accounted for about 3% of the hospitalizations. In 2022, that number jumped to 90. The following year, it climbed to 99. ProPublica’s analysis was conservative and likely missed some cases. It doesn’t capture what happened to miscarrying patients who were turned away from emergency rooms or those like Barnica who were made to wait, then discharged home before they returned with sepsis. But, wait, there's more. Surprising only those in Texas (and other places) against abortion, there are mental health issues. This is a research paper. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2833846 Question Is there an association between abortion restrictions and mental distress in Texas? Findings In this cross-sectional study of 79 609 individuals, the implementation of severe abortion restrictions in 2021 was associated with an increase 6.8 percentage points frequent mental distress among females in Texas compared with males and an increase of 5.3 percentage points among females in Texas compared with females in states that had not yet passed severe restrictions. Meaning These findings suggest that Texas’s abortion restrictions were associated with increases in mental distress among females of reproductive age, especially among younger individuals who may have less ability to overcome barriers to abortion care.
It'll be amazing watching Mike Lawler and Susan Collins be surprised when a hospital in their constituency closes.
Susan Collins amazingly votes No but this self-serving POS gets carveouts for Alaska as the rest of the country gets hosed by the Big Ugly Bill. F her with a moose antler. https://bsky.app/profile/factpostnews.bsky.social/post/3lswbv7oges2d
Collins voted no when her no vote didn’t matter. She knew it was 50-50 w/o her vote. She deserves no credit.
There's no fighting in the war room! https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lsxdkqxb7i23 Why do we even bother. Like parties on 2 entirely different planets
Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky spelled it out rather plainly but, whatevs. LIST: These Kentucky, Indiana hospitals could be impacted by Medicaid cuts | whas11.com Looking at the list, entire regions (cough cough Appalachia cough cough) are going to be impacted. But as Mitch McConnell once said, voters will "get over it" losing Medicaid.
Yet another edition of NRGAF (No Republican Gives A F*ck) https://bsky.app/profile/propublica.org/post/3lszlcwma4723
We all f******. House voted the bill. Tens of millions are going to go hungry, have no healthcare, and die. The rest will have their QoL deteriorate and less money.