Friday, January 03, 2025

Is It...

The economy?
The border security?
The foreign policy?

Nope... guess again what the main issues the the Republicans want to tackle?

The disintegrating highways?
The electrical grid?
Water treatment and waste treatment plants?

Nope!

It is us, the trans community we are the #1 issue!

Do you believe that, with all the problems facing the nation today, the number one issue is the trans community in the eyes of the Republicans.
How the GOP is responding to Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender House member, is a preview of what’s to come.
Politico
By Anthony Adragna
January 2, 2025


[...]

Believing voters in the 2024 elections rejected Democrats’ more inclusive positions on transgender rights, Republicans appear ready in 2025 to double down in support of executive orders and provisions in spending bills that would make it harder for transgender individuals to get health care, serve in the military or participate in school activities. President-elect Donald Trump signaled on the campaign trail that he would pursue new restrictions in the military and in schools, and pledged in December to make U.S. policy reflect that there are only “two genders.”

Rep. Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican who led the push to bar McBride from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol, is showing no sign of letting up. Asked how she would press transgender issues legislatively in the next Congress, she said: “You should look at the bills that I have been filing. That’ll be educational for you.” Mace has offered bills that would restrict bathroom usage for transgender people in places receiving federal funds and impose penalties on doctors performing gender-affirming care.
We at "IT" the full weight and force of the federal government is coming down on us... 0.5 percent of the population!
The push on transgender rights is poised to be one of the marquee health policy and culture war battles that the House GOP takes on next year, with Republican lawmakers showing no sign of softening. Though some Democrats are questioning the party’s stance when it comes to transgender women participating in competitive sports, many are gearing up to fight back.
Yup. We are it! We are the cause for higher taxes. We are the cause of inflation, We are the cause for the crumbling infrastructure! We are causes of all the woe in the world... little ol' us.
The GOP-led House voted earlier this term to prevent members of the military from receiving gender affirming medical care and to ban transgender women from playing in women’s sports. Last month, Republicans insisted on a provision in the annual defense policy bill aimed at restricting medical treatments for transgender children.

Looking ahead, many health experts — particularly those who are concerned about the mental health implications of withholding gender-affirming care — are fearful of Republican-led efforts to deny funding to hospitals that receive Medicaid and Medicare if physicians assist trans youth with transitions. A case is now pending before the right-leaning Supreme Court that could allow states to criminalize gender-affirming care for minors.
They don't really hate, we are just the low hanging fruit like the Jews were in the 1930s. They just don't care what happens to us. Suicide... they will just blame it on us being "Mentally unstable" see we told you they were crazy!

You are being...
"You're being too sensitive."
"You're overreacting."
"It's not that bad."
"You're ungrateful."
"You're uppity."
"You're just trying to cause trouble."
"We are just protecting the children"

We are the distraction to the three ring circus. They are the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz,,, see see, oh look at them! Pay attention to what they are doing behind the curtain.
“To some people, this is the most important issue, I guess,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chair of the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, said of the bathroom debate when the ban was announced. “I kind of look at getting our budget heading in the right direction.”

Updated 4:00PM

The Pink News reported....
House Republicans revealed their proposed rules package for the 119th Congress and it includes a measure to restrict Title IX protections for trans people.
A  little history....

U.S. Supreme Court: 1989 Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins ruling.
Discrimination against an employee on the basis of sex stereotyping--that is, a person's nonconformity to social or other expectations of that person's gender--constitutes impermissible sex discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The employer bears the burden of proving that the adverse employment action would have been the same if sex discrimination had not occurred. 
Stephens, born biologically male, worked as a funeral director for a corporation that operates Michigan funeral homes. Stephens was terminated shortly after informing the owner, Rost, that she intended to transition and would represent herself as a woman while at work. The EEOC investigated Stephens’s allegations of sex discrimination and learned that the Funeral Home provided its male public-facing employees with clothing that complied with its dress code while female public-facing employees received no such allowance. The EEOC sued, alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by terminating Stephens’s employment on the basis of her transgender or transitioning status and refusal to conform to sex-based stereotypes and administering a discriminatory clothing policy. The Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of the EEOC. The Funeral Home engaged in unlawful discrimination against Stephens on the basis of her sex and did not establish that applying Title VII’s proscriptions against sex discrimination would substantially burden Rost’s religious exercise in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Even if Rost’s religious exercise were substantially burdened, the EEOC has established that enforcing Title VII is the least restrictive means of furthering the government’s compelling interest in eradicating workplace discrimination against Stephens. The EEOC may bring the clothing claim in this case because an investigation into the clothing-allowance policy was reasonably expected to grow out of the original discrimination charge. 
U.S, Supreme Court: 2020 Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board ruling,
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 can protect transgender students from school bathroom policies that prohibit them from affirming their gender.
The Pink News article goes on to report...
The proposed rules package – which the incoming Congress is scheduled to vote on this Friday (3 January) – includes a raft of changes to the House’s order of operations such as making it more difficult to remove the speaker of the House, changing the names of committees, eliminate the House Office of Diversity and Inclusion and allowing committees to adopt electronic voting.

As well as this, the 36-page package also set the stage for fast-tracked consideration of several Republican bills, including amending immigration laws, prohibit any moratorium on fracking and define Title IX protections solely on the basis on biological sex – effectively preventing protection from discrimination for trans athletes.

The section focused on Title IX reads: “…amend the Education Amendments of 1972 to provide that for purposes of determining compliance with title IX of such Act in athletics, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
The only saving grace is that a number of the Supreme Court rulings were based on the Constitution and might block the law.



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How Can You Trust Him?

This is the scary part. The fate of the world are in their hands, presidents have the nuclear codes, on their very word they call in troops to put down insurrections... or start an insurrection. But when ever word that come out of his mouth how can you really believe him.
Within hours of the New Year’s attack in New Orleans, the president-elect simultaneously flunked tests of accuracy, decency and credibility.
MSNBC
Jan. 2, 2025
By Steve Benen


As the public first started learning the details of the deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, Donald Trump’s first instinct was sadly predictable: The president-elect appeared eager to tell Americans how right he was — or at least how right he thought he was.

In a Wednesday morning missive published to his social media platform, the Republican thanked local enforcement, but not before he got a few other points off his chest:
When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before.
The first sentence was wrong on multiple levels. Right off the bat, Trump seemed to be referring to a debate that occurred only in his imagination: There was no grand discussion about whether foreign-born criminals were more dangerous than native-born criminals. He appears to have simply made this up.

What’s more, given the context, the president-elect apparently wanted the public to believe that the suspect in the New Orleans attack was an immigrant. He wasn’t. As NBC News reported, the man accused of killing at least 15 people was a U.S. Army veteran from Texas who was employed by a leading financial services firm.
Do you remember during the election he said that in Springfield, Ohio, migrants are eating pets? His utterances are designed to stir up anger in his base.
First, he flunked a test of accuracy, pushing misinformation within hours of a deadly attack.

Second, he flunked a test of decency, trying to exploit the attack to advance an ugly and misguided agenda.
He is a slimy slug, using anyone or anything to get an edge up on others.
And third, Trump flunked a test of credibility, reminding everyone anew that when tragedy strikes, Americans just can’t count on the incoming president for reliable and trustworthy information.
I worry that he will use a lie to call out the troops for a peaceful protest and bash heads!

And this isn't the first time, USA Today writes,
It also described a sickeningly similar act in New York on Halloween in 2017, nine months into Donald Trump's first term as president. A killer, also acting in the name of the Islamic State terrorism, killed eight and wounded more on a bike path in Lower Manhattan.

Trump, an opportunist with no allegiance to truth, used that 2017 attack on his watch to launch baseless attacks on his political opponents, to cast them as weak on immigration, to leverage terrorism for political gain.
He will lie, cheat, and do whatever he wants to get his way. He cannot be trusted! And he is going to be president again... it just goes to show you how gullible the voters are.


1
: psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator
Back in 2020 did you see the insurrection attempt to stop the certifying of the election by the Trump minions? Did you watch it on televisions when they crawled up the walls to get inside the Capitol building did you see them attacking the Capitol police? Did you see them in the halls of Congress?

Well that is all a figment of your imagination... that never happened! at least that is what they are rewriting history will say...
The Dallas Morning News (TNS)
Jan 2, 2025 


In the four years since mobs of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat, Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have waged an incessant campaign to rewrite the history of one of the most shameful events in modern American history.

Now, as the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising nears, they have sunk to a new and dangerous low by calling for a criminal investigation of former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the main officials who sought to tell the truth about Trump’s role in inciting the insurrection.

In their false version, perpetrated in a new report by one of Trump’s congressional allies and encouraged by the president-elect, the guilty parties are Cheney and the key witnesses to the House panel that laid out Trump’s role in instigating the riot in which five died and hundreds were injured, including many law enforcement officers.
It is all a figment in your imagination... repeat after me... you only saw a peaceful protest. You only saw a peaceful protest... There was no violence... The police office didn't get killed!
It’s the latest sign that Trump meant it when, during the recent campaign, he vowed “vengeance” against those responsible for investigating or prosecuting him, including an array of federal and state prosecutors and the members of the select House committee on which Cheney was one of two Republican members.

He also said he plans to pardon all or most of those convicted of various crimes for their roles in the uprising, often referring to them inaccurately as “patriots.”

Similar calls for “vengeance” have been expressed by Pam Bondi, Trump’s choice for attorney general. After Trump was indicted last year in Georgia on charges of trying to overturn the election, she said on Fox News, “The investigators will be investigated.”
It was a frameup by the Democrats... repeat after me... It never happened!... It was just another peaceful day at the Capitol.
But while his months of legal delaying actions enabled Trump to prevent the government from holding him legally responsible for his acts, he cannot escape moral responsibility for what may have been history’s singularly most selfish effort to flout the rules of American democracy.
You know what? The voters didn't give a f**k about all the lies, all the violence, all the bull... they just wanted Trump to fix the economy, it is besides the point that he is the one who give trillions to his billionaire friends and screwed us. He is a conman and can talk the spots off of a leopard.
At the NYC gay bar, there was a rickety staircase that took you to the bathroom. Here, an American flag was hung on the wall—one in which the red and blue stripes were replaced with the rainbow colors of Pride. A picture of this symbolic banner is now giving me a sense of comfort, as I think about how much has changed since artist Gilbert Baker hand-stitched the first Pride flag in 1978. As Kamala Harris said in her concession speech: “Sometimes the fight takes a while—that doesn't mean we won't win.”
We did it once and we can do it again!

online polls

*****

I do think that Trump will in his vengeance against all things LGBTQ+ he will go after the Stonewall Inn it might not be right away but he will eventually do it. Further more I see Trump using federal troops to "Quell" a riot that is no more than a peaceful protest against him.

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Thursday, January 02, 2025

We're Happy! Imagine That!

A poll was a few years ago found an amazing thing... we're happy! What does that show about all the negative things that the Republicans say about us? How can it be true if we are happier?

This popped up on Facebook yesterday...
Even though trans people face hardships, transitioning has made them happier with their lives, according to a new survey.
The Advocate
By Trudy Ring
March 23 2023


While anti-transgender politicians and activists are promoting the idea of transition “regret,” most Americans who’ve transitioned are happy about it, according to a new poll.

“Most trans adults say transitioning has made them more satisfied with their lives,” reports The Washington Post, which conducted the poll in partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The poll “is the largest nongovernmental survey of U.S. transgender adults to rely on random sampling methods,” the Post notes. “More than 500 people who identify as trans answered questions about their childhoods, their feelings and their lives post-transition.”

It found that among those who present themselves as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, 78 percent said they have become happier with their lives since transitioning. More than 40 percent said they were much happier.

“Living doesn’t hurt anymore,” TC Caldwell, a 37-year-old Black nonbinary person who lives in Montgomery, Ala., told the Post. “It feels good to just breathe and be myself.”
If you listen to the Republicans you would think that transitioning was the worst thing since the Edsel.
“I was floating on a cloud when I first transitioned,” said Tim McCoy, a 72-year-old white trans man living in Syracuse, N.Y. “I just thought that was the answer to all my problems. I felt wonderful, but after I had transitioned for about five years, the depression came back. Transitioning has definitely made my quality of life better, but it’s not the answer to everything.”
The right-wing conservatives parade out their pets who had detransitioned. But tell what is really wrong if a child decides that transitioning is right for them? So they spent a few transitioning so what? It is the right-wingers that are making a mountain out of a molehill, and I think they are doing more damage to the child by parading them around as their "Poster Child."

The poll by the Washington Post-KFF poll...
The Post-KFF poll is the largest nongovernmental survey of U.S. transgender adults to rely on random sampling methods. More than 500 people who identify as trans answered questions about their childhoods, their feelings and their lives post-transition.

The poll builds on a growing but limited body of research. In 2015, the National Center for Transgender Equality polled 27,715 trans people from the United States and its territories, and the nonprofit is in the middle of analyzing data from a much larger pool of respondents who filled out the volunteer survey last year. That project, along with two federal health surveys and a random-sample poll conducted by the Williams Institute, have offered significant insight into the community, but trans people say additional data is needed.
Okay notice "to rely on random sampling methods" so the U.S. Transgender Surveys were community-based survey and not random samples.
Most trans adults say they knew when they were young that their gender identity was different from the sex they were assigned at birth. About a third (32 percent) say they began to understand their own gender identity when they were 10 or younger, and another third (34 percent) realized it between the ages of 11 and 17.
Hey! The Republicans know this and they think that they can eradicate us by preventing us from transitioning but what they are really doing is creating a life of misery. 

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Welcome To The New Year. 1984

An Interesting Trend.

The right-wing MAGA avoids the mainstream media and listens to FOX and other right-wing media podcasts. It was the liberals who listen to the mainstream media outlets like ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS.
Public takes ‘time off’ from politics
Survey finds many tune out TV news after Nov. election
AP News
By David Bauder and Linley Sanders Associated Press
January 1, 2025


 As a Democrat who immersed himself in political news during the presidential campaign, Ziad Aunallah has much in common with many Americans since the election.

He’s tuned out.

“People are mentally exhausted,” said Aunallah, 45, of San Diego. “Everyone knows what is coming and we are just taking some time off.”

Television ratings — and now a poll — illustrate the phenomenon. About two-thirds of American adults say they have recently felt the need to limit media consumption about politics and government because of overload, according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Smaller percentages of Americans are limiting their intake of news about overseas conflicts, the economy or climate change, the poll says. Politics stand out.

Election news on CNN and MSNBC was taking up too much of Sam Gude’s time before the election, said the 47-year-old electrician from Lincoln, Nebraska. “The last thing I want to watch right now is the interregnum,” said Gude, a Democrat and no fan of President-elect Donald Trump.

The poll found that about 7 in 10 Democrats say they are stepping back from political news. The percentage isn’t as high for Republicans, who have reason to celebrate Trump’s victory. Still, about 6 in 10 Republicans say they’ve felt the need to take some time off too, and the share for independents is similar.

The differences are far starker for the TV networks that have been consumed by political news.
But on the other side of the divide, it is a different story.
At Fox News Channel, a favorite news network for Trump fans, the post-election average of 2.68 million viewers is up 13%, Nielsen said. Since the election, 72% of the people watching one of those three cable networks in the evening were watching Fox News, compared to 53% prior to Election Day.

A post-election slump for fans of the losing candidate is not a new trend for networks that have become heavily identified for a partisan audience. MSNBC had similar issues after Trump was elected in 2016. Same for Fox in 2020, although that was complicated by anger: Many of its viewers were outraged then by the network’s crucial election night call of Arizona for the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, and sought alternatives.

MSNBC had its own anger issues after several “Morning Joe” viewers became upset that hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visited Trump shortly after his victory last month. Yet while the show’s ratings are down 35% since Election Day, that’s a smaller drop than the network’s prime-time ratings.
"And that's the way it is, January 1st, 2025”

Walter Cronkite ended his news show night with that tag line, but things were different back then. Networks ran the news as a cost center… as a service of the public. Now it is a profit center… they have to pay their own way. And it has drastically change the news programs and now everything is about ratings!

They go for the blood and guts, they go for what will sell the most ads, they go for what will improve their ratings.

When the marriage equality was being heard around the country who did the media interview?  The affirming churches who would have agreed with the saying it was a good thing for all? Or did they bring the fire and brimstone churches?

As the song “Dirty Laundry” says,
We can do "The Innuendo", we can dance and sing
When it's said and done, we haven't told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!
That is what the news is at night now what can sell the most ads.
The poll indicates that Americans want less talk about politics from public figures in general. After an election season where endorsements from celebrities like Taylor Swift made headlines, the survey found that Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of celebrities, large companies and professional athletes speaking out about politics.
Politics makes my head hurt! It makes me think!
“It would be nice if you could get both sides, and more research,” she said.
Watch PBS Newshour! You don't get it in a half hour news show.
“It’s kind of their own fault that I’m not watching,” he said. “I felt they spent all this time talking about the election. They made it so much of their focus that when the main event ends, why would people want to keep watching?”
They want to watch the “dirty laundry” politics make there head hurt!

Do you remember when ABC, CBS, and NBC used to do "Whitepapers" on news topic... but it cost money, the only shows that comes close is 60 Minutes and PBS has Frontline. 60 Minutes has its roots in 1968!  

They are bring everything down to the lowest common denominator.

That is why they voted for Trump to fix the economy and they completely ignore the fact that the reason we are where we are now with the economy, it started with Reagan cutting taxes for the rich, and the millionaire became billionaires. Then Trump cut the taxes on the billionaires and they because the mega billionaires! And now Trump is going to balance the budget on the very back of the people who voted for him and he is leading us down the road to an oligarchy and fascism.

But people now want everything condensed down to 30 seconds... other wise it is boring!

My new motto: "Ne permittas bastardus te deprimere"

“Don’t let the bastards get you down!”
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Oh How He Doesn't Like It.

He laughs it off but you can see that he doing a slow burn.
President-elect Donald Trump has poked fun at Democrat attacks on his ally and major donor Elon Musk's influence over his incoming administration.
Leading Britain Conversation
By Chay Quinn 
22 December 2024


Speaking at Turning Point's AmericaFest, the incoming President said amidst a rant about his pledges for his second term: "And we will create the new Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk. And no, he's not taking the presidency.

I like having smart people. You know, they're on a new kick. Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. All the different hoaxes. And the new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk.

[...]

Later in the speech, So we want to thank him, but, no, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I'm safe. You know why he can't be. He wasn't born in this country. But the fake news knows that now. He's a great guy, and we want to have him".
Is that steam coming out of Trump's ears?

Trump is rushing to remind the media that he is the captain of the GOP, not Elon Musk.

The “President Musk” rhetoric gained steam among Democrats after the billionaire helped kill the continuing resolution to keep the government open, voicing his opposition long before the president-elect did.
Is their bromance going south?
“It’s not Donald Trump asking for this, it’s very clearly President Elon Musk asking for this,” Representative Dan Goldman said Wednesday on The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell. “The fact that Donald Trump has been completely AWOL during these negotiations to the point where only after Elon Musk publicly tweets about his displeasure about this budget deal, all of a sudden, Donald Trump, chief of staff to Elon Musk, comes trotting in and blows up the deal.”

There’s no telling just yet how much of a rift this has caused between the two men, as Musk seems to be a long-term fixture in Trump’s inner circle. But if this kind of public one-upping continues, who knows how long this bromance will last. 
And Trump is not liking it one bit! Politico writes that Trump said,
President-elect Donald Trump is setting the record straight: He’s calling the shots, not Elon Musk.

“No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you,” Trump said with a laugh at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix on Sunday, his first major speech following the November election. “And I’m safe. You know why? He can’t be. He wasn’t born in this country.”
Keep in mind that Musk spent over $200 million to get Trump elected... I imagine Musk want a return on his investment.
Some congressional Democrats raised concerns about Musk’s influence over congressional Republicans, and have taunted Trump by alleging that Musk is the one in charge. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, put out a video calling Trump “vice president” to “President Musk.”
And Trump's ego just can't stand it!



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Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Happy New Year!

This is a reprint from last year... so tell me what has changed?
Nope… I am not going to do that this year it has been too negative and I think we all know that. We have become a political pawn in an election that has seen no other like it. Where Republican state after state have passed horrible anti-trans laws and gone after us like the Lavender Scare in the 1950s.

Around the world fascist leader are getting elected in part by demonizing us, the LGBTQ+ peoples

There were a couple of bright spots like defeating anti-trans athlete bills here in Connecticut.

The old curse and blessing holds true today… “May you live in interesting times.”

Gazing into my crystal ball: I see more of the same this year. Insurrectionists denials. The elections were rigged. That the Republicans are being persecuted by the Democrats. The usual garbage that the Republicans spew.

I see these 14th Amendment cases going to the Supreme Court and I see the court upholding the election bans against Trump. I also surprisingly see the many anti-trans healthcare laws and anti-trans athlete laws being ruled in our favor. Maybe it is wishful thinking but I foresee the courts voting 5-4 in our favor.

I see here in Connecticut a bill to ban the banning of books, preventing books being banned because that are about protected classes. Such as because of marital status, race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

I think that the Doomsday Clock will move closer to Midnight.
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