Last Call For Elon-Gated Musk-Rat

Yes, Elon Musk told his engineers to reconfigure Twitter's "For You" feed algorithm to basically include all of billionaire owner Elon Musk's tweets, because it's his $44 billion toy and there's nothing you can do about it, you loser who doesn't have $44 billion.

Late Sunday night, Musk addressed his team in-person. Roughly 80 people were pulled in to work on the project, which had quickly become priority number one at the company. Employees worked through the night investigating various hypotheses about why Musk’s tweets weren’t reaching as many people as he thought they should and testing out possible solutions.

One possibility, engineers said, was that Musk’s reach might have been reduced because he’d been blocked and muted by so many people in recent months. Even before the events of this weekend, Musk’s long stint as Twitter’s main character, both in the run-up to and aftermath of his $44 billion takeover of the company, had led huge numbers of people to filter him out of their feeds.

But there were also legitimate technical reasons the CEO’s tweets weren’t performing. Twitter’s system has historically promoted tweets from users whose posts perform better to both followers and non-followers in the For You Tab; Musk’s tweets should have fit that model but showed up less only about half the time that some engineers thought they should, according to some internal estimates.

By Monday afternoon, “the problem” had been “fixed.” Twitter deployed code to automatically “greenlight” all of Musk’s tweets, meaning his tweets will bypass Twitter’s filters designed to show people the best content possible. The algorithm now artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000 – a constant score that ensured his tweets rank higher than anyone else’s in the feed.

Internally, this is called a “power user multiplier,” although it only applies to Elon Musk, we’re told. The code also allows Musk’s account to bypass Twitter heuristics that would otherwise prevent a single account from flooding the core ranked feed, now known as “For You.”

That explains why people opening the app Monday found that Musk dominated the feed, with a dozen or more Musk tweets and replies visible to anyone who followed him and millions more who did not. Over 90 percent of Musk’s followers now see his tweets, according to one internal estimate.

Musk acknowledged his bombardment of the timeline on Tuesday afternoon, posting a version of the popular “forced to drink milk” meme in which one woman labeled “Elon’s tweets” forcibly bottle-feeds another woman labeled “Twitter” while pulling her hair back.

 

Joshua, the AI in "WarGames", was right all along some 40 years ago.

Goodbye, Ms. DiFi

It was inevitable considering she'd be in her 90s, but California Dem Sen. Dianne Feinstein is retiring in 2024. leaving a wide-open race to succeed her.

 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will retire from Congress at the end of 2024 after three decades in the Senate and over 50 years in public office, she announced Tuesday.

"I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends," Feinstein said in a statement.

Feinstein, 89, is the oldest sitting senator and the longest-serving senator from her state, having first been elected to the Senate in 1992. She had been under pressure for years from other Democrats in the state to make room for a younger generation of lawmakers. She had also declined the role in the new Congress of president pro tempore, which has traditionally gone to the senior member of the majority party since the mid-20th century.

Her retirement also opens up her Senate seat from California for the first time in decades. A number of House Democrats have either announced 2024 campaign bids for the seat, including Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff. Rep. Barbara Lee also plans to announce a Senate run by the end of the month, a source familiar with the situation confirmed.

Feinstein has worked under five presidential administrations and alongside the two presidents who also served with her in the Senate: Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Biden lauded Feinstein in a statement Tuesday as "a passionate defender of civil liberties and a strong voice for national security policies that keep us safe while honoring our values."

"I’ve served with more U.S. Senators than just about anyone," he said. "I can honestly say that Dianne Feinstein is one of the very best. I look forward to continuing to work with her as she serves out her term."

Feinstein said in her statement that she remains focused on passing legislation to address gun violence, promote economic growth and preserve U.S. lands in her remaining time as a senator. Feinstein said she’s confident Democrats can achieve those goals because of their previous work.

“Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives,” she said. “Each of us was sent here to solve problems. That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years, and that’s what I plan to do for the next two years.”

 

Already we have three California Dems vying for her seat, and I guarantee you that there will be more. We'll see who steps up.

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Con't

Special Counsel Jack Smith is definitely signaling that crimes have been committed in Trump's classified document scandal, straight out asking a federal judge to nullify attorney-client privilege between Trump and one of his lawyers, Evan Corcoran, because of evidence of commission of a criminal act.

 

Federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents are seeking to pierce assertions of attorney-client privilege and compel one of his lawyers to answer more questions before a grand jury, according to two people familiar with the matter, adding an aggressive new dimension to the inquiry and underscoring the legal peril facing Mr. Trump.

The prosecutors have sought approval from a federal judge to invoke what is known as the crime-fraud exception, which allows them to work around attorney-client privilege when they have reason to believe that legal advice or legal services have been used in furthering a crime. The fact that prosecutors invoked the exception in a sealed motion to compel the testimony of the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, suggests that they believe Mr. Trump or his allies might have used Mr. Corcoran’s services in that way.

Among the questions that the Justice Department has been examining since last year is whether Mr. Trump or his associates obstructed justice in failing to comply with demands to return a trove of government material he took with him from the White House upon leaving office, including hundreds of documents with classified markings.

Last May, the Justice Department issued a subpoena for any classified documents still in Mr. Trump’s possession, after he had voluntarily turned over an initial batch of material to the National Archives that turned out to include almost 200 classified documents. In June, Mr. Corcoran met with investigators and handed over more than 30 documents in response to the subpoena.

Another lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christina Bobb, then signed a statement asserting that a “diligent search” had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence and private club in Palm Beach, Fla., and that there were no additional documents bearing classification markings. Ms. Bobb has told investigators and others that Mr. Corcoran drafted the statement, and that she added some caveats to it, seeking to make it sound less ironclad.

But when the F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago in August, agents found more than 100 additional classified documents. The affidavit submitted by the Justice Department to obtain the search warrant said that there was “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction” would be found in the search.

Mr. Corcoran recently appeared before a grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington and is believed to have asserted attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mr. Trump in refusing to answer certain questions related to his representation in the documents investigation, according to three people familiar with the matter.

 

It's the clearest sign yet that federal charges are coming. Whether any will be leveled against Trump himself, well, it certainly seems like it.

 

Again, the case Smith has to bring, and Merrick Garland has to sign off on, has to be perfect. And even if it is perfect, all Trump needs is one MAGA asshole to acquit him...or just one juror bought off or extorted into a not guilty verdict. 

We'll see.

Last Call For Another Hat In The Ring, Con't

Former GOP SC Governor and Trump UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced her entry into the 2024 race to the thunderous nothingness of near universal derision and apathy.

 

Haley has about as much chance of being president as, say, Bobby Jindal. What's Jindal up to these days? Nobody cares.

 

How do I know Haley is doomed? Sippy Cupp thinks she has a real chance, folks!

In her video announcement on Tuesday Haley boasted of the need for “generational change,” an obvious knock on both Trump and President Biden’s ages — Haley is 51, indeed a generation behind both.

That distinction will likely serve her well in creating contrast with her former boss, now a septuagenarian Florida retiree, who’s often sounded very much like a sitcom character out of the 1950s, bemoaning today’s women for straying from the Donna Reed archetype. His obsession with a woman’s place — in the kitchen, doing the dishes and cooking dinner — is well-documented.

Haley’s broken all of the regressive stereotypes Trump routinely leans on to stoke the grievances of his right-wing base. At 38 she wasn’t in the kitchen but busy becoming the youngest governor in the country, and South Carolina’s first female and minority governor. Her family hails from a country Trump has called “filthy,” and he’s repeatedly used a fake Indian accent to imitate Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and an imaginary Indian call center representative.

Her impressive and inspiring immigrant story flies in the face of Trump’s penchant for casting immigrants as “criminals” and “animals” from “sh*thole countries,” undeserving of basic human dignity.

And Haley was raised in the Sikh faith before converting to Christianity as an adult — Trump has repeatedly insulted the Sikh community, mistaking Sikhs for Muslims, throwing Sikhs out of his rallies, retweeting racist and bigoted memes, and conflating Sikhs with Islamic terrorism.

All of this is sure to come up as Trump takes her on as a competitor. If his past performances with women and minorities is prologue, he’ll likely zero in on her looks as he did with Carly Fiorina and her un-American-ness as he did with Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in 2016. He even went after Ben Carson’s Seventh-Day Adventist faith.

But her poise and measured speaking style are also a contrast to Trump and his preferred approach of ranting and raving, uncontrollable blurting and late-night Twitter tirades. In her Tuesday announcement she seemed to send him a preemptive warning, saying, “I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”

All of her background and bio aside, she’s a formidable candidate — a smart and skilled retail politician who’s very popular in her home state of South Carolina. If she can do well there in the Republican primary she’ll be off to a promising start.

 

DeSantis will simply call her "woke". And Trump is busy dreaming of mass executions of those people. 

Republican primary voters want blood and punishment of anyone who isn't a Republican primary voter. Trump and/or DeSantis will give them what they want. Haley will be gone by this time next year, if not much sooner.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

The grand jury evidence in the Fulton County, GA investigation will be made public...well, the parts that aren't directly related to ongoing possible prosecution by County DA Fani Willis of Trump and his inner circle for election interference in 2020, anyway.

 

A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, will make public some parts of a report from a special grand jury that investigated Donald Trump’s actions after the 2020 election in the state, but not specific charging recommendations.

In his order on Monday, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney said that the special grand jury’s introduction and conclusion as well as concerns the panel had about witnesses lying under oath will made be public on Thursday. Some of the information in those sections still may be redacted, the judge noted.

Prosecutors in Georgia have aggressively investigated whether Trump or any of his associates broke the law while trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the closely contested state.

The special grand jury, barred from issuing indictments, penned the highly anticipated final report as a culmination of its seven months of work, which included interviewing 75 witnesses from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham.

No one has been charged in the case yet, and another grand jury would make those decisions now that the special grand jury has presented its findings.

Other findings by the special grand jury won’t be public yet – particularly the parts where the report makes recommendations about potential charges. That’s because some of the people named in those recommendations may not have appeared in grand jury proceedings so far.

“Here, however, for anyone named in the special purpose grand jury’s final report who was not afforded the opportunity to appear before the grand jury, none of those due process rights has been satisfied,” McBurney wrote in the eight-page order on Monday.

“And for those who did appear – willingly or not – only the right to be heard (although without counsel or rebuttal) was protected,” McBurney added.

A media coalition, which includes CNN, is seeking for the full report to be made public.

 

We'll see later this week what that evidence is, but supposedly part of the findings include that several witnesses may have lied to the jury and perjured themselves, and if that's true, the charges are going to come quickly.

We'll see if those charges include those for Trump himself.  Keep in mind, the moment Willis indicts him, Brian Kemp and the Georgia GOP will go directly after her, and almost certainly try to impeach and remove her from office. 

 

There's going to be a cost to not charge Trump, but there will be one for charging him, too.

Welcome To Gunmerica, Con't

Another school shooting, this time on the campus of Michigan State University.

 

A suspect has died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after a mass shooting at Michigan State University that left three people dead and five others injured Monday evening, police said.

“There is no longer a threat to campus,” Interim Deputy Chief Chris Rozman said. “We believe there to only be one shooter in this incident and there is no longer a need to shelter in place on campus.”

The shooting, which spanned two different campus locations, prompted an hourslong shelter-in-place order as hundreds of officers from multiple agencies converged on the campus to search for the gunman.

The first report of shots fired came at 8:18 p.m. ET from Berkey Hall, an academic building on the northern end of campus. Officers responded to the building within minutes and found several shooting victims, including two who died, Rozman said.

The incident unfolded starting at 8:18 p.m. ET at Berkey Hall, where several shooting victims were found, Rozman said. Immediately after, shots were fired nearby at the Michigan State University Union Building, he said.

“Police and emergency responders acted quickly. We tended to the victims at both of those scenes,” Rozman said.

Two of those who died were at Berkey Hall, and the third was at the MSU Union, according to Rozman.

At least five people were taken to a hospital, all of them in critical condition, according to Rozman. Police have not disclosed whether the victims included students.

Hours later, the suspect “was contacted by law enforcement off campus” and “it does appear that that suspect has died from a self inflicted gunshot wound,” Rozman reported.

“This truly has been a nightmare that we are living tonight,” Rozman said. “We are relieved to no longer have an active threat on campus, while we realize that there is so much healing that will need to take place after this.”

Rozman said it remains unknown what motivated the shooting.

 

The difference this time is that Michigan Democrats now control the state legislature along with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and more than just "thoughts and prayers" will be forthcoming.

 

As authorities reconvened in the wake of a mass shooting at Michigan State University that left three dead and five critically injured, elected officials made a pledge for response.

“As parents we tell our kids, it’s gonna be okay. We say that all the time,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said, her voice full of emotion. “But the truth is words are not good enough. We must act and we will.”

Whitmer said she spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden and “he pledged his support and the thoughts of an entire nation.”

All of the victims in the shooting were MSU students, Deputy MSU police chief Chris Rozman said.

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Lansing, represented Oxford High School when that school endured a mass shooting a little more than one year ago, in November 2021.

“I am filled with rage that we have to have another press conference to talk about our children being killed in their schools,” Slotkin said. " I would say that you either care about protecting kids or you don’t. You either care about having an open honest conversation about what is going on in our society, or you don’t. But please don’t tell me you care about the safety of children. If you’re not willing to have a conversation about keeping them safe in a place that should be a sanctuary.”

Michigan Republicans ignored the Oxford shooting 16 months ago and that was a factor that helped to lose them the legislature. Now the Democrats are in charge. 

We'll see what legislation comes from this tragedy.

Last Call For Lake Of Fire

Professional Republican election loser and perpetual victim Kari Lake is failing upwards to bigger and better things as she runs for Trump's VP in 2024 in Iowa, and she just might be the performative clown Trump's looking for in a running mate.

 

For two days, Kari Lake traversed this state with a clear message. She falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. She baselessly insisted that votes were rigged against her in her run for Arizona governor last year. And she warned without evidence that future races will be compromised.

“If you lose, lose with dignity. You shake the other person’s hand and walk away,” she told a crowd of approximately 200 at a reception hall on Friday, describing advice from her father on how to gracefully accept defeat. “I didn’t lose, so I’m not doing that.”

Lake, who lost in November by more than 17,000 votes to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), is waging a new campaign without conceding the last one. The former television news anchor is traveling the country as one of the most vocal standard-bearers of an animated if wounded election denialism movement as she weighs a run for U.S. Senate and hears encouragement from some to set her sights on national office.

That movement has persisted in some quarters of the Republican Party despite candidates such as Lake experiencing pivotal losses in last year’s midterms after running openly on denying the results of the 2020 election. During a pair of stops Friday and Saturday in Iowa, Lake drew enthusiastic crowds here and in Ankeny. She walked onstage to Lenny Kravitz’s “American Woman.” She shook hands with supporters. She signed autographs. When an audience member here shouted, “Trump VP!,” Lake giggled at the outburst and repeated it.

“Trump VP,” Lake said, speaking of the former president, who in his third run for the White House has continued to make false claims about his 2020 election defeat. “I love President Trump. I will do everything in my power to get that man elected.”

Yet not everyone who came to see Lake was keen to hear her rehash past elections, and others in the party have been sharply critical of her rhetoric, seeing her as a part of a Trump-era scourge at the ballot box that cost the GOP winnable races last fall and could doom its chances in 2024. Her trip to this early presidential nominating state underlined tensions in the party between those who want to move away from the cause and others determined to keep it alive. 

Dwain Swanson, 88, said he has watched Lake’s interviews on Fox News and Newsmax with interest, drawn by her charisma and his belief in her claim — included in a lawsuit rejected by a judge — that hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots did not follow the chain of custody. While he felt she is too inexperienced for the White House, Swanson said he felt she deserved to be Arizona’s governor. “She wasn’t defeated,” he said.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Lake said everyone she met in Iowa agreed with her election claims. When pointed to some people who had raised doubts about election denialism, she called a reporter “brainwashed.”

“Everyone who talked with me in that line said keep fighting,” she said, referring to the hordes of people who queued for selfies with Lake, “because they are stealing elections in Arizona and other states. And because of that, what we want as Americans isn’t happening.”

 

So yes, Republicans like Lake are running openly on the fact they can't win elections. 

The real issue is what anyone expects Lake to do about it, and the answer is "why have them at all?"

And when that dawns on you that this really is the GOP point of view...

 

You'll understand why she's not at home watching Real Housewives like most election losers.

I Fought The Law And The Law Won, Con't

Republicans are increasingly declaring war on county prosecutors and district attorneys who exercise prosecutorial discretion by refusing to enforce unconstitutional abortion laws, eliminating them through new legislation, impeachment, gubernatiorial fiat, state courts, or in some cases complete state takeover of the jurisdiction.

GOP lawmakers see a major flaw in their states’ near-total abortion bans: Some local prosecutors won’t enforce them.

Republicans in Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Texas — frustrated by progressive district attorneys who have publicly pledged not to bring charges under their state’s abortion laws — have introduced bills that would allow state officials to either bypass the local prosecutors or kick them out of office if their abortion-related enforcement is deemed too lenient.

In Texas, one of several bills lawmakers are pushing would allow the state attorney general or a private individual to ask a court to remove a district attorney who fails to prosecute abortion-related offenses and other “crimes of violence.” They also plan to introduce a bill to allow any resident to bring civil claims against anyone suspected of “aiding and abetting” an abortion.

In Georgia, legislators want to create a prosecutorial oversight commission that could discipline or remove local prosecutors who demonstrate a “willful and persistent failure to perform his or her duties.”

A bill introduced in the South Carolina House would give the state attorney general the power to prosecute abortion cases — something currently under the purview of local district attorneys.

And in Indiana, proposed legislation would allow a legislatively appointed special prosecutor to enforce laws when a local prosecutor declines to do so.

The mounting tension between Republican lawmakers and local prosecutors over abortion is one part of a broader fight over diverging approaches to criminal justice — seen in recent battles over drug laws, property crimes and other offenses. As more prosecutors, particularly in progressive metropolises in red states, win elections by breaking with the decadeslong tough-on-crime mindset and running as a check on GOP lawmakers, conservative state officials say they now need to rein in their excesses.

“Whatever issue we’re talking about — whether it’s marijuana, abortion, enforcing homicide statutes, enforcing whatever the law is — the law is on the books, and the law is supposed to be applied equally across the board among our citizens,” said Republican Indiana Sen. Aaron Freeman, who is sponsoring the special prosecutor bill. “If we’re just going to basically ignore the Constitution and our republic and just do whatever the hell we want, well, that’s a society that scares the hell out of me.”

GOP officials are also exploring nonlegislative tactics. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, a Democrat, over his public pledge not to bring charges under the state’s 15-week abortion ban. Warren sued in federal court to be reinstated, and while the judge agreed that DeSantis’ action violated the state’s constitution, he ruled that only a state court could reverse the governor’s decision.

 

"Small government" Republicans certainly have no problem with tying the hands of local prosecutors when it comes to abortion bans that harm or even kill women, but God forbid a local sheriff or constable refuse to enforce a gun safety law, right?

 

The law, and who it is enforced against, is whatever Republicans say. And when Republican states eventually start filling prisons with women who had miscarriages or abortions in other states, it'll be what these Republicans say, too.

Last Call For We Don't Need No Education, Con't

The College Board, having been caught red-handed in bowing to Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Stop Woke Act by gutting its proposed African American Studies AP course in order to try to satisfy the ridiculous, unconstitutional and immoral standards of Republican racism, now realizes that if it wants to have any credibility left with other states and students that it will now have to fight back.

 

THE COLLEGE BOARD, the group that publishes Advanced Placement (AP) exams, accused Florida’s Education Department, under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ leadership, of “slander” over comments that its proposed curriculum for a pilot AP African American Studies course “lacks educational value.”

The College Board also refuted reports that it caved to DeSantis and his administration’s criticism and made changes to its program. DeSantis has said Florida would not allow the course to be taught in the state unless significant revisions were made. This is in part due to Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” legislation that went into effect this past summer banning the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) to the state’s K-12 students. DeSantis last year signed into law another bill, nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, barring teachers in Florida schools from discussing gender and sexuality. This is all part of a larger right-wing movement to demonize discussions of race, sexuality, and privilege.

“There continue to be conversations and misinformation, and we felt the urgency to set the record straight and not wait another day to do so,” a College Board spokesperson said, per the Tampa Bay Times.

The board in a statement released late Saturday said that it “deeply regret[s] not immediately denouncing the Florida Department of Education’s slander, magnified by the DeSantis administration’s subsequent comments, that African American Studies ‘lacks educational value.'”

The statement continued, “Our lack of clarity allowed the narrative to arise that political forces had ‘downgraded’ the role of… contemporary movements and debates in the AP class. The actual pilot course materials teachers used were completed on April 29, 2022 — far prior to any pushback.”

The College Board also denied being in contact with the state of Florida regarding the content of the AP African American Studies course. “This is a false and politically motivated charge. Our exchanges with them are actually transactional emails about the filing of paperwork to request a pilot course code and our response to their request that the College Board explain why we believe the course is not in violation of Florida laws,” the organization wrote. 

 

While it's far past time for the College Board to apologize, and it never should have so openly failed Black students in the first place, the actual villain here remains Ron DeSantis and the Florida GOP for its continuing efforts to eliminate Black history from the state's schools and curricula. 

Something to keep in mind.

 

 

Going Off The Rails

The story of a train derailment last week near East Palestine, Ohio is getting more and more bizarre, and more and more dangerous by the day. The Norfolk Southern train was carrying potentially dangerous chemicals and an axle broke, spilling cars and chemicals all over the place. The train caught fire, residents were evacuated, a controlled burn of vinyl chloride was conducted, and resident are now back.

And here's where things really start to go off the rails.

Days after a train carrying hazardous materials went off the tracks in northeastern Ohio, burst into flames and stoked fears of a “potential explosion,” authorities assured evacuated residents that it was safe to return to town.

More than a week after the derailment, Maura Todd is not convinced.

The headaches and nausea her family experienced at their house last weekend and the pungent odor that reminds her of a mixture of nail polish remover and burning tires told her otherwise, Todd said.

On Saturday, she was making plans to pack her bags and move away from East Palestine, Ohio, to Kentucky with her family and her three miniature Schnauzers — at least temporarily, Todd said.

“I’ve watched every news conference and I haven’t heard anything that makes me think that this is a data-driven decision,” Todd, 44, told The Washington Post. “We don’t feel like we have a whole lot of information.”

After the derailment, federal and local officials repeatedly told residents that the air quality was safe and that the water supply was untainted.

But more than a week after the Norfolk Southern train derailed — causing an explosion that sent flames into the air and a cloud of smoke across parts of the village, and leading authorities to release a toxic plume — residents told The Post that they had yet to see a full list of the chemicals that were aboard the train when it lost its course.

Without much information, residents and experts told The Post that they question whether it’s safe to return to their homes a week after contaminants flowed into local streams and spewed into the air. In some waterways, dead fish had been spotted, a state official confirmed at a news briefing, and residents returning to homes in a neighboring Pennsylvania town were advised by state officials to open their windows, turn on fans and wipe down all surfaces with diluted bleach.

“The biggest question remaining is what, if anything, is still being released from the site, first and foremost,” said Peter DeCarlo, an environmental health professor at Johns Hopkins University. “If there are still residual chemical emissions, then that still presents a danger for people in the area.”

It was 9 p.m. on Feb. 3 when 50 cars of a 141-car Norfolk Southern train derailed, igniting a large blaze near the hazardous chemicals that kept firefighters away for days. The derailment, which caused no injuries, probably was caused by mechanical issues on one of the rail car axles, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said.

The incident caused further alarm nearly 48 hours after the crash, when changing conditions in a rail car caused authorities to warn of a possible “major explosion.” Officials on Monday conducted a “controlled release” of vinyl chloride to prevent a blast, and on Wednesday they allowed residents to return.

Some nights, resident Eric Whitining told The Post, the air smells like an “over-chlorinated swimming pool” and his eyes burn. He returned to his house the day authorities lifted the evacuation order. He can’t move his family of five out of their home, so he says he has no choice but to stay put and follow authorities’ instructions.

“For a small town, we have to trust them, because what else do we have to do?” Whitining said. “We have to trust that they are not lying to us.”

 

When  NewsNation correspondent Evan Lambert tried to ask questions at Ohio GOP Gov. Mike Dewine's press conference addressing the evacuation order, he was beaten and arrested by DeWine's State Police goons.

A reporter was pushed to the ground, handcuffed and arrested for trespassing while covering a news conference about the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in Ohio.

NewsNation posted video of correspondent Evan Lambert being arrested Wednesday in the gymnasium of an elementary school in East Palestine where Gov. Mike DeWine was giving an update about the accident.

Lambert was held for about five hours before being released from jail, NewsNation reported.

“I’m doing fine right now. It’s been an extremely long day,” Lambert said after his release. “No journalist expects to be arrested when you’re doing your job, and I think that’s really important that that doesn’t happen in our country.”

 

Now the fears are that burning the vinyl chloride, while preventing a devastating explosion, has now contaminated hundreds of square miles of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. 

Answers at this point are non-existent. Norfolk Southern has given East Palestine $25,000 (yes, twenty-five thousand, for a company that made billions last year in record profits) and they're expecting this to all just go away now.

Something tells me it won't.

Sunday Long Read: The Cost Of Fame

I remember growing up hearing about stories of how child actors in my favorite movies and TV shows had rough lives, even tragic ones. Decades later in the era of internet stardom and viral engagement, the cost of fame for kids and families still can be ruinous. Our Sunday Long Read comes from Atavist Magazine's Nile Cappello with the story of Johna Ramirez, whose daughter Liana and son Jentzen became internet stars in their own right, and how the family crashed hard into the reality of being preyed upon by an even bigger internet star and her entourage in the YouTube world.

 

Hollywood is the last place you’d expect to meet Johna Kay Ramirez. She doesn’t come across as cutthroat. Thin, with auburn hair and warm eyes, Johna is thoughtful when she speaks and quick to apologize when she goes on a tangent. She’s the kind of person who knows that “bless your heart” is often a veiled insult. Hollywood, with all its glitz, glam, and high drama, became part of Johna’s story because of her children.

Born and raised in the Great Plains, Johna met Nelson Ramirez at a department store in Enid, Oklahoma; she sold shoes, he worked in menswear. They married, and in 1991, when Nelson got a job as a tech recruiter in Texas, the Ramirezes moved to Austin. Johna did video production for a local news station, then worked for a state agency. In 1998, when the Ramirezes had their first child, a daughter they named Liana, Johna became a stay-at-home mom. A son, Jentzen, came along eight years later.

Liana caught the entertainment bug first. What started as recreational dance classes quickly evolved into a passion for the performing arts. Liana loved being under bright stage lights, and Johna was proud to watch her precocious toddler blossom into a talented young girl. Liana appeared in local dance and theater productions, and by the time she was 13, her ambitions had surpassed the scope of what Austin could offer. She dreamed of being on the Disney Channel, of making it big in Hollywood. If Selena Gomez, a half-Latina teenager from Texas just like her, could become a star, Liana was sure she could, too. She had the talent and she had Johna, her chauffeur, line-reading partner, meal deliverer, videographer, and number one fan. “I knew how much my daughter wanted this, how much it meant to her,” Johna said. “So whatever I could do, whatever skills I had, I would use them to help.”

In September 2011, Johna snapped a photo of Liana at an airport gate. Her smile is all teeth, and a black bow holds back a portion of her curly brown hair. Mother and daughter were on their way to Los Angeles for Liana’s first Hollywood audition. The role was in a production of A Snow White Christmas, a stage musical. If cast, Liana would appear with Neil Patrick Harris, then a fan favorite on TV’s How I Met Your Mother, and with Lindsay Pearce of The Glee Project.

The audition was held at the Westfield Culver City mall on a Saturday morning. Kids and their guardians hustled inside and waited near a stage situated between Macy’s and Victoria’s Secret. Liana received her audition number and practiced the dance routine she’d be performing. She breezed through the first cut and kept going. In the final round, she danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” At the end of the number, right as the audience began to applaud, Liana looked over at her mom, beaming.

Johna announced the good news on Facebook. “She nailed it and she got a role as a dancer,” Johna wrote. “Can you hear us screaming?” Back in Texas, the Austin American–Statesman ran a piece about Liana. “Teen heads to Hollywood to dance in her dramatic debut,” the headline read.

The Ramirezes decided that Nelson would stay in Texas, where he had recently started his own business, while Johna took Liana and five-year-old Jentzen to California for the duration of the production. They would be joined by Johna’s mother, Martha, who would help with child care and managing Liana’s obligations. Johna drove her kids and mom to Los Angeles, a more than 20-hour trip mostly through dry, flat rattlesnake country. She’d never taken a leap like this—never lived somewhere like Los Angeles, been around serious entertainment people, or parented without Nelson. Johna was leaving her comfort zone in the rearview mirror.

She was surprised by how much she liked Los Angeles. Within a few days of arriving, she and Martha had their first celebrity encounter, an exchange with Kiefer Sutherland over potatoes at a Whole Foods. The city’s traffic was a pain, but they managed to sightsee, visiting the Hard Rock Cafe and Universal Studios, where Jentzen posed with actors dressed up as Dora the Explorer and the donkey from Shrek. Liana stayed busy with the stage production, and Johna spent long hours at the theater, watching as her daughter rehearsed and had costume fittings. Liana would appear in 32 performances over two months, working straight through the holidays.

When the show wrapped, the Ramirezes reunited in Austin. Within a year, however, they decided to resume living as a split family. The musical had led to auditions and bookings for Liana, and she needed to be closer to LA to take advantage of them. Johna relocated to California full-time with her kids and tended to their day-to-day needs, while Nelson provided financial support from afar. Liana made appearances on Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, and the prime-time network shows Criminal Minds and The Goldbergs.

As it turned out, Liana wasn’t the only family member who had star potential. With a smattering of freckles and a megawatt smile, Jentzen drew attention from casting directors, talent, and other industry insiders when Johna brought him on set with his sister. “You’ve got to put him in commercials,” stage moms told Johna, pinching Jentzen’s cheeks and ruffling his shaggy brown hair. He was in the sweet spot for child actors: old enough to memorize lines, but still young enough to be considered cute. Soon Jentzen was building out his own IMDb page, appearing in web series, short films, and the Lifetime movie Babysitter’s Black Book.

For Johna, Jentzen’s success further validated her decision to move to Los Angeles. Every parent hopes that a child will find their thing. Other families travel to soccer tournaments, move across the country to train with gymnastics coaches, or spend thousands on STEM camps where kids learn to code and build robots. Liana and Jentzen didn’t just like acting—they were good at it. Plus, their budding careers allowed Johna to spend time with them, whether that was backstage at rehearsals, stuck in gridlock on the 101, or putting together audition tapes at home. “It wasn’t just something they did,” Johna said. “It was something we all did together.”

Without auditioning for it, Johna had been cast in a new role: “momager.” She played it well, surprising even herself with how easily she toggled between cooking meals and attending movie premieres. She learned how to advocate for her kids’ needs and when to say no on their behalf.

As Jentzen approached his teenage years, he began kicking around the idea of getting into YouTube. A child actor’s presence on social media was increasingly important to casting agents and directors. Johna, whose experience with social media was limited largely to updating her Facebook account, wasn’t convinced. “I just didn’t know what we’d post,” she said with a shrug.

Then, eight years after arriving in Hollywood, the Ramirezes saw a promising ad, known as a breakdown, on LA Casting, a website that film, TV, and online productions use to enlist talent. A breakdown typically includes a description of the project, the parts to be cast, and the pay rate, along with information about how to audition. The breakdown the Ramirezes saw was for something called the “Piper Rockeele Show,” which was planning to shoot a YouTube video on the Venice Beach boardwalk. Described as taking inspiration from the movie Grease, the shoot would involve a tween character named Chase brushing off Piper, the show’s eponymous star, to look cool in front of his friends. Chase seemed like a good fit for Jentzen; the listing offered $1,500 for eight hours of work, a very good rate.

The Ramirezes weren’t familiar with Piper Rockelle—her name was spelled wrong in the breakdown—but an internet search led to a tween girl with a YouTube channel boasting hundreds of hours of video content, including original songs, makeup tutorials, and staged pranks and challenges like “24 Hours HANDCUFFED to my ‘BOYFRIEND.’ ” Jentzen showed Johna his iPhone screen. “Mom, she’s got a lot of subscribers,” he said—more than two million.

Johna didn’t have a problem with Jentzen participating in another kid’s social media content. It was easier than striking out on his own in the wilds of YouTube. Jentzen replied to the ad and was asked to come in for an audition.

The day of the tryout, the Ramirezes had another appointment across town and were running late. Johna tracked down a number for the person, a voice coach, who’d posted the breakdown on LA Casting. According to Johna, the coach assured her there wouldn’t be a problem. “They really wanted him at the callback,” he said. “They really liked him.”

It is one of many moments that now haunt Johna. “Can you imagine if we would have missed the callback?” she said, shaking her head. “How maybe life would’ve been different?”

More than three years later, Piper Rockelle’s popularity has exploded. She has more than 25 million followers across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fan pages dedicated to her. Piper has staged live meet-and-greets and musical performances around the world, and she sells her own line of merchandise. She lives in a pink and purple house worth $2.3 million in Sherman Oaks, previously owned by the actress Bella Thorne.

But all is not well in Piper’s world. Her own momager, Tiffany Smith, is being sued by 11 former members of the Squad, the name given to the circle of child actors who appear in Piper’s videos and ostensibly are her friends. Two of the plaintiffs are cousins of Piper’s. The kids allege that, when they were in the Squad, Smith verbally, physically, and in some cases sexually abused them. They also claim that Smith knowingly produced exploitative content featuring her daughter and other minors. “Smith would often boast to Plaintiffs and others about being the ‘Madam of YouTube’ and a ‘Pimp of YouTube,’ and that she ‘makes kiddie porn,’ ” states the lawsuit, which was filed in January 2022. Smith’s boyfriend, Hunter Hill, and Piper Rockelle Inc. are also defendants in the suit. Hill, who works behind the scenes to produce Piper’s YouTube videos, is accused of conspiring with Smith to “sabotage” the plaintiffs’ careers after they left the Squad.

Johna knows the plaintiffs and their parents personally. She doesn’t doubt their claims. However, she isn’t part of the lawsuit. For the past few years, Johna has been fighting a legal battle of her own. It began after Jentzen auditioned for Piper’s team, and it has pitted her against Smith as well as her own family. Today, according to Johna, all she wants is to have a relationship with her children again.

This story is based on interviews with Johna and Nelson Ramirez; two of the plaintiffs’ mothers, Steevy Areeco and Angela Sharbino; and the plaintiffs’ attorney, Matthew Sarelson. It draws on hundreds of pages of court documents, personal communications shared by sources, and the trove of social media content produced by Piper and the Squad. Smith and Hill did not respond to requests for comment. They have denied the allegations against them.

 

It's a tragic story indeed. Just because everything's moved into the digital age of influencers and followers, doesn't mean the old warnings about Hollywood aren't true.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

Turns out Trump did indeed hire an analytical firm to"find the election fraud" in December 2020 and when they find no evidence of it, he buried their findings and has lied about the election for more than two years now.

Former president Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign commissioned an outside research firm in a bid to prove electoral fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The campaign paid researchers from Berkeley Research Group, the people said, to study 2020 election results in six states, looking for fraud and irregularities to highlight in public and in the courts. Among the areas examined were voter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, the people said. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court.

About a dozen people at the firm worked on the report, including econometricians, who use statistics to model and predict outcomes, the people said. The work was carried out in the final weeks of 2020, before the Jan. 6 riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump continues to falsely assert that the 2020 election was stolen despite abundant evidence to the contrary, much of which had been provided to him or was publicly available before the Capitol assault. The Trump campaign’s commissioning of its own report to study the then-president’s fraud claims has not been previously reported.

“They looked at everything: change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted,” said a person familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private research and meetings. “Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it.”

The findings were not what the Trump campaign had been hoping for, according to the four people. While the researchers believed there were voting anomalies and unusual data patterns in a few states, along with some instances in which laws may have been skirted, they did not believe the anomalies were significant enough to make a difference in who won the election.

The research also contradicted some of Trump’s more conspiratorial theories, such as his baseless allegations about rigged voting machines and large numbers of dead people voting.

A person familiar with the findings said there were at least a dozen hypotheses that Trump’s team wanted tested.

“None of these were significant enough,” this person said. “Just like any election, there are always errors, omissions and irregularities. It was nowhere close enough to what they wanted to prove, and it actually went in both directions.”

 

It means Trump knew the election wasn't stolen, and that he went ahead with his January 6th coup plot anyway.

Another piece of strong evidence that, when combined with the rest of the January 6th report, proves Trump tried to overthrow the government.

He should be in prison already.

A Red Alert For Twitter Blue

The reason why mega-billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter is simple: he wants to spread the worst of hate speech on his platform, and wants to get rich doing it.

 

Elon Musk’s restoration of 10 Twitter accounts that were banned under the platform’s previous management has generated enough engagement since they returned to the platform to likely generate $19 million in advertising revenue annually, a nonprofit dedicated to countering hate speech online has concluded.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said the 10 accounts were among hundreds thought to have been restored under a “general amnesty” that Musk announced in late November.

The report comes as Musk is working to generate revenue for the company, which he has said is in dire financial straits despite the layoffs of thousands of employees and the suspension of payments for a number of services including rent on Twitter’s downtown San Francisco headquarters. Twitter’s advertising revenue in December was 70 percent lower than the previous year, according to data from Standard Media Index, an advertising research firm.

CCDH’s chief executive, Imran Ahmed, linked the drop off in ad revenue to the decision by Musk to restore the formerly banned accounts. “Our research shows that there is a depressingly banal answer to why Elon Musk would reinstate the accounts of self-professed Nazis, disinformation actors, misogynists and homophobes — it’s highly profitable,” he said.

Musk did not immediately respond to request for comment. Twitter’s communications department was eliminated in layoffs last year.

The CCDH uncovered multiple examples of advertisements from major national brands, including Amazon, Apple TV, the NFL and Fiverr, that appeared next to content from the 10 extremist influencers. In one instance, an ad for Wendy’s appeared next to a tweet by Stew Peters, an anti-vaccine influencer with 168,000 followers, where he referred to the vaccine as a “BioWeapon” and claimed people have been “murdered” by it.

In another example, an ad for the streaming service Peacock appeared next to a tweet from Anthime Gionet, an influencer known as Baked Alaska, who was recently sentenced for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The ad appeared next to a tweet where Gionet asked his followers whether he should “say the n-word.”

Brand advertisements also appeared next to tweets about election fraud, vaccine conspiracy theories, false statements about Ukraine and bio weapons, and tweets denigrating women in business, CCDH said.

Twitter’s drop-off in advertising revenue has been attributed in part to concerns that such juxtapositions would damage brands. “A lot of brands are scared of Twitter given Elon’s rhetoric,” said Brendan Gahan, chief innovation officer at Mekanism, an advertising agency. “He’s created an atmosphere that makes Twitter feel very unsafe for brands.”

 

Musk's "business plan" for Twitter seems suicidal until you factor in rehabilitating the worst of his new friends in anticipation of 2024 and all the advertising dollars he plans to make on the political circuit, and all the favors he'll have available to collect in the future from those Republicans that his platform helps to elect.

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

Increasingly, the GOP solution to America's increasing diversity is gerrymandering that leaves majority Black voters concentrated into a few precincts where the rest of the state can be safely ruled by white voters. The few instances where Black voters have concentrated power enough to elect Black Democratic leaders are now being systemically dismantled by subjecting those locations to state rule instead of local.

This is especially true in the South, where Black folk make up 20% of the population of a state rather than single digit percentages in other states.

 

Racial tensions in Mississippi echoed in Missouri Thursday, as Black Democratic lawmakers accused the state’s Republican House leadership of racism for shutting down a Black lawmaker’s speech and passing a bill that could strip power from the Black woman elected as prosecutor in St. Louis.

The discord in the Missouri House came just days after a similar situation in Mississippi, where Black lawmakers denounced the majority-white, Republican-led Legislature for voting to take power away from local leaders in the predominantly Black city of Jackson.

Like in Mississippi, Missouri’s legislature has a largely white Republican majority. Most of the Black lawmakers represent the state’s two largest urban areas of St. Louis and Kansas City.

Missouri Republicans have made anti-crime legislation a priority this session, often highlighting high crime rates in St. Louis as an impetus. The House passed legislation by a 109-35 vote that would allow Republican Gov. Mike Parson to appoint a special prosecutor to handle violent crimes in areas with high homicide rates, such as St. Louis. The bill also would expand mandatory minimum sentences for persistent felony offenders, among other things.

State Rep. Kevin Windham, a Black Democrat from St. Louis County, was reading aloud a news article about the Mississippi situation during the House debate when some white Republican lawmakers objected that his speech had nothing to do with the Missouri legislation.

House Speaker Dean Plocher ruled Windham out of order, halting his speech. Windham’s microphone was turned off. House Majority Leader Jon Patterson then made a motion to shut off debate on the bill, which the Republican majority voted to do — leaving other Black Democrats standing without getting a turn to speak.

 

Black voters elected Black leaders in Jackson,Mississippi and after the state's GOP all but assured that the city's water crisis would only get worse, Republicans then had the excuse they needed to put the city under receivership.

In Missouri, a Black prosecutor is being stripped of her power because of criminal justice reform.  Again, the solution is to put Black citizens under statewide white control because "they know best".

 

In Nashville, Tennessee, the state GOP legislature has introduced dozens of law punishing local Black government leaders in retaliation for the city withdrawing Nashville's consideration as host for the 2024 GOP National Convention.

In Tennessee, the latest statehouse backlash stems back to last summer when Nashville’s metro council spiked a plan to bring the 2024 Republican National Convention to the city. Progressive leaders argued that hosting the massive Republican gathering would go against the city’s values. Others expressed hesitation toward tying up so many city resources — particularly for an event that residents largely wouldn’t attend.

For GOP leaders, who had spent months lobbying and wooing party officials on why Music City should host the convention, Nashville had crossed yet another line. Warnings began trickling in that consequences were imminent.

Nashville continued to attract political ire after council members began discussing whether to cover expenses for employees who cross state lines to get an abortion. That’s because Tennessee’s abortion ban — which was enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — currently has no explicit exemptions.

Lawmakers have been swift in filing bills that offer retribution. Legislation has been introduced that would slash Nashville’s 40-member city council in half. A separate bill would give the state control of the governing board for the city’s airport, stadiums and other landmarks, while another proposal would remove Nashville’s ability to charge the tax that funds its convention center. Republicans then introduced a bill that would block cities from using public funds for reimbursing employees who travel to get an abortion.

Advocates have raised alarm at lower-profile bills, like the proposal to eliminate all police oversight boards in Tennessee. Nashville has one, and lawmakers already restricted it under a 2019 law. Some Republicans have proposed a bill that would rename a portion of Nashville Rep. John Lewis Way to Trump Boulevard.

Specifically, the effort to cut Nashville’s abnormally large city council has sparked some of the fiercest concerns, as advocates warn that doing so will undo representation of minority communities and erode council members’ ability to address constituent needs.

“When people reach out to us about trash pickup, about deaths in their family, about needing things and resources, these are individuals that we are in community with,” said Delishia Porterfield, who has served on Nashville’s council since 2019. “And when you raise the number of constituents that we as council members serve, not only do you make our jobs harder, but you make us further from the people that elected us to serve.

Nashville has a combined city-county government has operated under a 40-member council — significantly larger compared to even more populous cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco — since 1963, when leaders were wrestling with consolidating the city with the surrounding county, and others were working to ensure Black leaders maintained a strong representation inside the southern city.

“When the city was consolidated, and the size increased to 40, there was a promise that we would have more Black representation,” said Democratic Rep. Harold Love Jr., whose father was among the first Black members to be elected to the newly expanded city council in 1963.

“So for me, there are some deep historical ties to the size of metro council when it comes to Black and minority representation that I hope my colleagues would understand,” he said. 

 

Your GOP colleagues understand perfectly. You will never have the power to resist them again. They will take everything from you. It's the new Jim Crow, and the Roberts Court will never stop it.

Last Call For The GOP Disqualifying Equality

Republicans are increasingly moving towards the criminalization, incarceration, and eventual extermination of America's transgender folks, and they're not hiding this fact in the least.

 

South Dakota is set to be the latest state to ban gender-affirming health care for transgender youth after state senators on Thursday voted to send a measure barring minors from accessing certain medications and procedures to Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, who has signaled she will sign the bill into law.

South Dakota’s House Bill 1080, introduced in January by state Republican Rep. Bethany Soye, seeks to prohibit state health care providers from “knowingly” prescribing puberty blockers or hormones or performing surgeries that “validate” a minor’s sex if it is inconsistent with the sex they were assigned at birth.

The bill includes exceptions for intersex youth, minors diagnosed with sexual development disorders, and minors that require treatment for an infection, injury, disease or disorder that has been “caused or exacerbated by” gender-affirming medical intervention.

Health care professionals who continue to provide treatment will have their medical licenses revoked, according to the bill, although physicians that have initiated a course of treatment for a minor patient prior to July 1 may “systematically reduce” that treatment through Dec. 31.

An amendment proposed Thursday by Sen. Tim Reed, one of just four Democrats in the South Dakota Senate, would have allowed transgender minors to have access to puberty blockers, which he said can help alleviate a child’s anxiety about their gender “so that counseling can begin.”

“Blockers have a place helping families navigate through an extremely difficult situation,” Reed said Thursday. “We need to be able to give these kids a chance.”

Reed’s amendment failed to pass with the support of just nine senators.

 

What trans folks are telling us is that Republicans will not stop with outlawing gender-affirming care for kids. We're already up to young adults age 25 in Utah and SC, and then it will be everyone, either explicitly, or more likely, by shutting down clinics and center that provide this care through de facto regulations, the way Texas and other states did with regulating abortion clinics to death.

Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah signed a bill on Saturday that blocks minors from receiving gender-transition health care, the first such measure in the country this year in what is expected to be a wave of legislation by state lawmakers to restrict transgender rights.

The law prohibits transgender youth in the state from receiving gender-affirming surgery and places an indefinite ban on hormone therapy, with limited exceptions.

Mr. Cox, a Republican, said in a statement that banning these treatments was necessary until more research could be done on their long-term effects.

“While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures,” the governor said.

Leading medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have rejected claims that gender-affirming care is harmful to transgender children or adults.

 

If you're noticing the same "Well we can't trust doctors, they lie to us!" justification for criminalizing gender-affirming care that Republicans are using with vaccines (and soon, medical abortion care for FDA-approved drugs that have been around for decades) it's because it's deliberate.

It goes "We have to protect X!" followed by "The science isn't settled!" followed by "The science is wrong, this has to be stopped!" followed by legislation criminalizing doctors, nurses, health care workers, clinicians, and everyone else involved.

Kentucky Republicans plan to follow suit.

 

Republican lawmakers are proposing bills aimed at how LGBTQ topics should be handled in Kentucky’s schools.

Republican lawmakers filed House Bill 173 Tuesday and Senate Bill 102 was filed Wednesday. The bills have nearly identical language. Senator Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, also filed Senate Bill 150, a similar bill.

He says SB 150 proposes three things.

One, it would require a district to notify parents when a student seeks out mental or physical health services. Two, a district must give parents a two-week notice and an opportunity to review materials for any curriculum related to human sexuality. Three, the bill proposes it would provide First Amendment protections to staff and students by ensuring no one is compelled or required to use pronouns that do not conform to a student’s biological sex.

“The time to protect our students is long past due in the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” said Sen. Wise. “As the former Education Committee Chairman, I’ve heard from parents, I’ve heard from administrators, those inside and outside of public education and from my own constituents, saying they are concerned where are educational priorities line up in Kentucky.”

 

Going after trans folks in order to "protect kids" is there to generate legal precedents and religious objections into state laws so that protections for marginalized groups can be dismantled across the board, for women, for Black, Hispanic and Asian groups, for other gay/lesbian folks, for non-Christian religions, and everyone else.

 

As I have tirelessly said for the last several years, the Republican goal is to eliminate the Civil Rights era and dominate America with white male Christian theocracy. Everyone else will be a provisional citizen as long as they remain "one of the good ones".

 

As Jamelle Bouie says, they're starting with trans folks. The rest of us are next. 

Over the past year, we have seen a sweeping and ferocious attack on the rights and dignity of transgender people across the country.

In states led by Republicans, conservative lawmakers have introduced or passed dozens of laws that would give religious exemptions for discrimination against transgender people, prohibit the use of bathrooms consistent with their gender identity and limit access to gender-affirming care.

In lashing out against L.G.B.T.Q. people, lawmakers in at least eight states have even gone as far as to introduce bans on “drag” performance that are so broad as to threaten the ability of gender-nonconforming people simply to exist in public.

Some of the most powerful Republicans in the country want to go even further. Donald Trump has promised to radically limit transgender rights if he is returned to the White House in 2024. In a video address to supporters, he said he would push Congress to pass a national ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and restrict Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals and medical professionals providing that care.

He wants to target transgender adults as well. “I will sign a new executive order instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age,” Trump said. “I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth.”

There is plenty to say about the reasoning and motivation for this attack — whether it comes from Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida or Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas — but the important thing to note, for now, is that it is a direct threat to the lives and livelihoods of transgender people. It’s the same for other L.G.B.T.Q. Americans, who once again find themselves in the cross-hairs of an aggressive movement of social conservatives who have become all the more emboldened in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year.

This is no accident. The attacks on transgender people and L.G.B.T.Q. rights are of a piece with the attack on abortion and reproductive rights. It is a singular assault on the bodily autonomy of all Americans, meant to uphold and reinforce traditional hierarchies of sex and gender.

 

This is the wall we all have to defend, lest we all become the targets. They will not stop at eliminating trans folks. We have to stop them here and now.