Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Come on, man.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

The words do not have to be perfect.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republicans in disarray!

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Holy Cow! Breaking News in the Mar-a-Lago Documents Case!

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Holy cow-ski!  Tomorrow should be interesting, to say the least.

Updated to add more info: (Politico)

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War for Ukraine Day 391: The Cost II

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Gonna be a short(er) update tonight. I’m feeling much better – not so run down – but it’s another busy week.

I want to start tonight and, frankly, focus on this reporting from Ellen Barry and Antoine d’Agata of The New York Times on Ukrainian Soldiers and Post Traumatic Stress. I’m going to put a few excerpts above the jump, but I highly recommend you click across and read the whole thing.

The soldier cannot speak about what happened to him.

It’s been a month since “the tragedy,” as he calls it. When the subject arises, he freezes and looks at the floor. He gulps for air. He cannot say it.

His doctor, a motherly woman, speaks for him: There were four of them. They were stationed near the front line, in eastern Ukraine, and on that night they shot a Russian drone from the sky. A small victory. Then its wreckage hurtled down, hunks of ragged metal slicing into the men below. He was the only one left standing.

In the numb hours that followed, someone came to collect the others — one dead, two wounded — and he was left to hold the position alone through that freezing night and into the next day.

The soldier cannot speak about what happened to him.

It’s been a month since “the tragedy,” as he calls it. When the subject arises, he freezes and looks at the floor. He gulps for air. He cannot say it.

His doctor, a motherly woman, speaks for him: There were four of them. They were stationed near the front line, in eastern Ukraine, and on that night they shot a Russian drone from the sky. A small victory. Then its wreckage hurtled down, hunks of ragged metal slicing into the men below. He was the only one left standing.

In the numb hours that followed, someone came to collect the others — one dead, two wounded — and he was left to hold the position alone through that freezing night and into the next day.

Each war teaches us something new about trauma. In World War I, hospitals overflowed with soldiers who screamed or froze or wept, described in medical texts as “moral invalids.” By the end of World War II, a more sympathetic view had emerged, that even the hardiest soldier would suffer a psychological collapse after sufficient time in combat — somewhere, two experts from the surgeon general’s office concluded, between 200 and 240 days on average.

Russia’s war in Ukraine stands out among modern wars for its extreme violence. Its front lines are close together and barraged with heavy artillery, and rotations from the front line are infrequent. Ukraine’s forces are largely made up of men and women who, until a year ago, had no experience of combat.

“We are looking at a war that is basically a repetition of the First World War,” says Robert van Voren, who heads the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry, which provides mental-health support in Ukraine. “People just cannot fight anymore for psychological reasons. People are at the front line too long, and at a certain point, they crack. That’s the reality we have to deal with.”

I’ll put some of the quotes specifically from the patients and their care givers after the jump. But before we get there I think it is important to remember that war is corrosive. Even a just one in defense of one’s home, family, and fellow citizens against a brutal, genocidal re-invasion. We often celebrate the resilience and fortitude and determination and ingenuity of Ukrainians in general and the Ukrainian military in specific here in these updates. But all of that resilience, fortitude, determination, and ingenuity comes at an exceedingly high price. And that price is not just being paid now, it will be paid well into the future. We need to realize and not forget that the price being paid and the debt being accumulated to be paid later is higher than it would be because of the decisions of our, our allies, and our partners senior leaders in how to respond to the re-invasion. Our, our allies’, and our partners’ strategic choices are being paid for with Ukrainian blood and treasure.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s update from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:

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It’s Like Infrastructure Week, Only Better

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Worst Week Ever, on repeat, is way more fun than waiting for Infrastructure Week!

Seems like we are looking at either tomorrow or next week for the Alvin Bragg indictment.

If you’re on edge, waiting and wondering, think for a moment about how much less fun Trump is having as he waits and wonders.

Speaking of being on edge, is it too much to hope that these guys are all on edge, too?

Open thread.

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The Devil has been Busy…

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I’ve been meaning to get a post up to cover the insane onslaught of anti-trans bills from the last few weeks, but it’s been exhausting to keep up!

First of all, @erininthemorn is doing the heavy journalistic work that most major news sources have been ignoring. She deserves a damn medal for her work, and I highly encourage you to follow and support her independent journalism. It’s been extremely frustrating that trans issues are falling under the radar when so much has been happening. Two years before Roe v. Wade was struck down, I was chatting with a trans friend about how there were 87 anti-trans bills in state legislatures, and how upsetting it was that pro-choice advocates and cis-women couldn’t see that if trans people were losing their bodily agency, that abortion and women’s bodies were next on the docket… Now we are in a veritable ocean of legislation targeted at both, and we have to remember that these fights are linked.

The Devil has been Busy... 2

This is still in effect a year later, as it was first blocked by a lower court, but then the TX Supreme Court rapidly overruled that judgement… This has been the foundation for the recent bounty hunter laws. The ACLU has a great article about Texas’ attempts to Tear Parents and Trans Youth Apart One Year Later…

And in recent cruelty, HB150 passing in Kentucky, “combines Don’t Say Gay policies, forced outing, pronoun bans, and a gender affirming care ban for trans youth has one last cruel wrinkle: it tells doctors exactly how they are to medically detransition the trans teens under their care. It passed the House and was immediately rushed to the Senate for final passage, where it passed 30-7 on a nearly party line vote.”

And it’s become very very clear that what is happening across out country is an intentional, well-planned campaign of hatred that is not based in science or healthcare, but is about making it difficult and shameful to be transgender…

Inside the Secret Working Group That Helped Push Anti-Trans Laws Across the Country

Leaked emails give a glimpse of the religious-right networks behind transgender health care bans.

On a Saturday afternoon in August 2019, South Dakota Republican state Rep. Fred Deutsch sent an email to 18 anti-trans activists, doctors, and lawyers withthe text of a bill he planned to introduce that would make it a felony for doctors to give transgender children under 16 gender-affirming medical care. “I have no doubt this will be an uphill battle when we get to session,” Deutsch warned the group. “As always, please do not share this with the media. The longer we can fly under the radar the better.”

The message was one in a trove of emails obtained by Mother Jones between Deutsch and representatives of a network of activists and organizations at the forefront of the anti-trans movement. They show the degree to which these activists shaped Deutsch’s repressive legislation, a version of which was signed into law in February, and the tactics, alliances, and goals of a movement that has sought to foist their agenda on a national scale.

The emails demonstrate close collaboration between groups working behind the scenes to push bills banning transgender health care, including ADF—which has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people in Europe—and the ACPeds—which has opposed adoption by gay couples and supported conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth. In recent years, ADF has drafted legislation banning trans children from using school restrooms or playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. (Both groups are also staunchly anti-abortion; ADF, which drafted the Mississippi abortion ban at the heart of the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, is currently representing ACPeds in a closely-watched lawsuit to ban an abortion pill, mifepristone, nationally.)

“These are groups who we know are not interested in the best-practice care for trans kids,” says Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign. “These bills are coming from national organizations whose purpose is to harm LGBTQ people.” 

More than half of transgender and nonbinary kids have considered suicide, according to a 2021 survey by the Trevor Project, and 93 percent say they worry about state laws denying transgender people access to gender-affirming medical care. This treatment approach—which typically includes puberty blockers for pubescent children, cross-sex hormones for teenagers or adults, and, almost exclusively for adults, surgeries—represents a broad medical agreement that such care can be crucial for supporting trans kids’ wellbeing. Gender-affirming care is supported by the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, and other major medical organizations. And studies have found that it is associated with better mental health outcomes over both short and longer-term periods

Highly recommend you read the whole article! 

More soon, but this is as far as I can play in the anti-trans waters today without getting overwhelmed <3

The Devil has been Busy…Post + Comments (108)

Repub Venality Open Thread: Ron DeSquamous, Man of the (Wheezing) People

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Ron DeSquamous, Man of the Ohio People - STOCKPILE

We all had a good laugh over DeSantis’s recent ‘Assigned Floridian at birth, Identifies as a Rust Belter‘ claims, but this is no joke.

On December 14, 2020, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, wearing a mask, watched expectantly as a FedEx truck backed up to a loading dock at Tampa General Hospital. The truck carried precious cargo: boxes of the very first COVID-19 vaccines. With a flourish, DeSantis signed the FedEx manifest. “Today, we will have shots going in arms,” he proudly declared.

At the time, Republicans across the country were eager to share credit for a singular feat in President Donald Trump’s otherwise disastrous handling of the pandemic: the record-speed development of COVID-19 vaccines that offered hope of a return to normal life. 

By the end of last year, however, DeSantis’s vaccine cheerleading was a distant memory. On December 13, almost exactly two years after the FedEx delivery, he petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to let him empanel a statewide grand jury to investigate COVID-19 vaccine makers, particularly Pfizer and Moderna. “It is against the law to mislead and misrepresent, particularly when you’re talking about the efficacy of a drug,” DeSantis said, comparing the vaccine push to the profiteering that drove the deadly opioid epidemic.

In January, the grand jury went to work looking for dark intent or false claims behind the lifesaving vaccines. It is slated to report its findings by January 2024. That would be just in time to potentially influence the outcome of the Republican presidential primaries, in which DeSantis is widely seen as a leading challenger to Trump, even though he hasn’t yet officially declared his candidacy…

Those familiar with DeSantis’s inner circle say his vaccine stance is indeed driven by politics, not science. “There’s no medical people involved in this,” someone with knowledge of DeSantis’s advisers says. “It’s all political people. Now a couple of those TV doctors, those people are in his orbit, but this is not engineered by the scientific side of the house.” His goal, insiders say, is to tack to Trump’s right and peel off anti-vaxxers whose votes could prove decisive in the Republican presidential primaries next year. 

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Tuesday Midday Open Thread

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It’s a start.

Also, I live with a panther, a baby bobcat and a lion. Here’s Zander, my house lion, contemplating not killing me, if proper treats are offered.

Tuesday Mid-Morning Open Thread

This is a totally open thread. What’s everyone up to this afternoon?

Tuesday Midday Open ThreadPost + Comments (171)