That Answers That Question

 

I had wondered in the previous post about the following:

Also, and this is important: the way Kennedy speaks about eliminating exposure to a "cause" of autism makes me very concerned about what he thinks about autistic people, that the people expressing aspects of the autism spectrum are broken or less-than.

Well as to that, say no more:

Visiting the FDA on Friday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had several “off -the-cuff” remarks which stunned many staffers present, according to a POLITICO report.

            ****

The most insulting comment, however, came when he used an ableist slur when discussing mental health.

“Because of my family’s commitment to these issues, I spent 200 hours ... with the r------d when I was in high school,” Kennedy said at one point. “So I was seeing people with intellectual disabilities all the time. I never saw anybody with autism.”

Okay, scratch that, because maybe I do have a bit more to say about that.

The Dangerous Playground

 

I just want you to do a thought experiment with me for a little bit. You are a park administrator. The town council has allocated certain funds to build a playground in the park you administrate. They want, specifically, a jungle gym, slide, and swing set--the sorts of things that would be attractive and fun for children. There is already a designated space and it has been partially paved. There is no compelling reason not to use the allocated funds to build the jungle gym, slide and swing set. 

However, you don't especially love the idea of the playground itself on general principles and are trying to save park administration money because you have as yet to be determined reasons and saving money looks great on your personal resume.

So you hire three, let's call them-- "Stooges". They say they are builders, and that's good enough for you, because they seem bright enough. And they use some pre-made kits to get the ball rolling and build something that looks like the promised picture--but there are lots of unused parts. They have no idea how those go together, and assume they are just extras and cart them off. 

They are, actually, reinforcing beams, retaining straps, cement screws--parts intended to ensure the whole apparatus doesn't cave in under the weight of child bodies, fall over in a stiff breeze, or send children flying. But these budget builder fly-by-nights had no idea how anything worked, and now, we have kids approaching a rickety playground of doom. 

Kiddie carnage awaits. 

Congratulations to the Viral Community

 

I know I've never had a really good word to say about Covid-19, HIV, Ebola, any of the avian flus, but I have got to hand it to them--somehow their guy Bobby wound up getting confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I mean, measles, mumps, and rubella? We thought you were down and out, but it looks like you're tipping champagne bottles tonight because we've got us a Wakefield truther. 

Who knows? Maybe smallpox or polio can come on in for a bow, because conspiracy theories and barely informed opinions have just won the consent of the GOP Senate--except for Mitch McConnell, who knows first-hand what polio is about.  But couldn't seem to convey that reality to his GOP brethren and, um cistern (is that what we call Murkowski and Collins? I forget).

I think it's great if people eat more healthfully.  I, unlike RFK Jr, can admit to not having eaten fast food for a very long while. My version of the Mediterranean diet includes a little salumi, though. My oil of choice comes from the olive pit. Good luck on weaning Americans off canola and high-fructose corn syrup (there is a lobby against you). 

But here's my very important problem with RFK, Jr. He's a dumbass who just implied Trump was sent by God. Because Trump had the courage and intelligence to put RFK Jr. in charge of something to do with health. And you know, hearing that, I could almost believe Bobby was born in a manger. 

And raised outdoors his whole life like an ignorant animal. 

The Kennedy Hearing was Ugly

 

When your own family thinks you are a weird conspiracy freak who is uniquely unqualified and literally call you a grifting predator, well, that's probably bad news, right? 

But when quizzing by US Senators demonstrates you don't know Medicare from Medicaid and have not just trimmed your public pronouncements to suit your audience but are a legal grifter profiting off of your own BS (as Sen. Warren demonstrated), well, that hurts to be aired publicly, in so many words, doesn't it? 

Or maybe it doesn't.

This guy gave himself a brainworm from consuming roadkill, admits to dumping a bear corpse in a public park, seems sketchy about how germ theory works, has no medical or scientific background whatsoever, has opinions about the AIDS virus and vaccines that would have been shameful and out of date 25 years ago, let alone today, and yet?

He's got influence in his corner. Why they want him, I don't know. You might think people would want someone who isn't a whole fucking flake in an important position like Secretary of Health and Human Services--

Unless you just aren't that interested in health and will be goddamned if you see it as a basic human service. 

Something to Do With Ends and Means

 

The killer of the UHC CEO is apparently Luigi Mangione, although some people online have the idea that being caught with the weapon and fake ID of the shooter and carrying a three-page manifesto is a little too "on the nose".  I don't know what to tell you, folks. The above screen cap is his Twitter profile--he definitely did not have that many followers this morning!

I said the other day: 

I am a bit of a cynic at times, and we might find out that the killer is not actually a folk hero with a wronged loved one, bankrupted by medical bills or brought to an untimely end by denied claims. Some of the populist "death to the bloated ticks!" sentiment may be inauthentic (people do love a viral bandwagon).

The idea that a bright, promising young man was deranged by pain from a back surgery is appealing, but inapt. Many people experience pain and don't resort to violence. He deliberately chose a brutal, individualized solution to what could be potentially resolved by legal collective action based on the valorization of the man of action as a hero/martyr.

If he hoped through his actions to put the health care system on trial, the surprise is that he will be on trial for premeditated murder: full stop. 

Unauthorized Thoughts and Declined Prayers

 

Generally, when a stranger is murdered in cold blood, there's at least a muted "Damn shame!' sort of reaction. If a man with a family dies at the age of 50, why, you can certainly say "That's far too young, that poor man's family!" (Not that he was poor--unfortunate, but not poor.) You don't actually see people writing folk songs about the killer and posting them to social media, or see people back out of the search for the killer. 

What has happened, if one can at all "read the room", is that the murdered CEO has become a stand-in for a parasitical industry. Our health insurance system isn't a "health care system"--it's a promise to pay for protection. Some of your health care bill will be paid. Not all. Your course of treatment can be affected by your insurance company. 

This can and does result in bad (fatal or crippling) outcomes. Of course, people feel some way about that. 

And the result of that feeling may look very cold-blooded. It isn't. It's rather hot, actually.

TrumpWorld Kakistocracy 3: Ill Health and Inhumane Services

 

New possible HHS secretary RFK Jr. has said chemicals in the water could be turning children gay:https://t.co/WM80MbX3nN

— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) November 14, 2024

Lil' Bobby Kennedy is a sad ass conspiracy theorist. I feel bad about what happened to his namesake, you know? But this weird man would be some freak with a sandwich board climbing up on a soapbox in the park if his last name wasn't Kennedy.

He wants to do away with fluoride for the sake of our precious bodily fluids.  This was a ridiculous John Birch Society joke in the goddamned 1960s--how in the hell is it a real thing in the mind of this milkweed seed eyed-motherfucker here in the 21st century? 

Two Messages to Think About:

 

Trump Abortion Bans have had devastating consequences for women across America.

Donald Trump is the architect of this health care crisis. If elected, he will go even further to ban abortion nationwide and strip away reproductive freedom in all 50 states. pic.twitter.com/eglE7Smdrr

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) November 1, 2024

VS.

Sorry we want MALE only voting. The 19th might have to go. 👨🏼#JohnMcEntee #McEntee2028 pic.twitter.com/OJzXadROgo

— McEntee 2028 (@JohnMcEntee28) October 28, 2024

I don't know that it gets any starker than that--do I have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or am I the appendage of male society?

If I was not already a Democrat, this stark comparison would be everything I really needed to know. And it is not a joke--it's a vintage concern in the age of Trump. 

I am not going back.  I don't want any woman to feel like she has to accept she has to go back to when we didn't have choices and we didn't have voices. 

 

TWGB: Fox and the Sour Grapes

 

Media needs to play this clip for GOP candidates and say NOW YOU HAVE HEARD IT--and get them to respond. Because he is using people's names. Real damn people. https://t.co/wGtl0QjSpS

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) October 16, 2024

What would you call the shade Trump painted himself for this? Terror Cotta? The "enemy within"--which Trump has suggested siccing the military on, includes (Democratic) US Congress members. It probably also includes former GOP US Congress members like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. It likely includes certain former White House personnel--his own former White House. IT includes people like Gen. Mark Milley.  And this "enemies list" is not about people who lied about him--oh no. They did something far worse.

They told the truth.  Trump has never been a fan of transparency--even though we can see through him. Russian interference was real and the Trump campaign had multiple Russian contacts, and the perfect phone call wasn't perfect. It was extortionate. 

So, how does Fox News, who was sued by Dominion not so long ago and settled for a really amazing amount of money for lying about the 2020 election, in the person of one Brett Baier, presumed serious interviewer, use this information--that Trump considers various prominent American public servants fair game for being rounded up by the military and punished for being the "enemy within"? 

He whitewashes it to try and make the Democratic 2024 Presidential candidate look like she's being extra. 

No, really. 

TWGB: He'll Dance to Anything

 

Wow. This is a new low, even for Trump.

“It Was a Setup,” “Could have been the parents” Trump tries to blame Gold Star families for the Arlington incident
pic.twitter.com/7eO9CZ3tag

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 31, 2024

Maybe the Gold Star families, who invited him and have signed statements to the effect that they think his being there was cool and totally legal--fucked him over by posting pictures and videos. That's what HE SAID, babies, not me. He tried to suggest the people who were there to back his ass up backed his ass over. So he suggested he didn't know anything about the strategy of his dumb stunt and maybe he was stunted upon. Maybe it was the White House that he was going to claim bailed on a solemn event they totally were clued into.  Kamala Harris called him on it, and now that stunt is supposed to be "he said and she said". 

I'm not here to belittle the Gold Star families because their grief is real and how they feel is real regardless of the facts on the ground. Their loved ones saved people in assisting the evacuation that day and died in a suicide bombing from ISIS-K. Nearly 170 Afghan people also were killed by that blast. The war had been 20 years long. And many servicepeople cycled through that assignment.  They can cast their blame any and everywhere it feels valid. But we all know that serving in the armed services can mean being placed in danger. Their safety was not guaranteed, they guaranteed the safety of others and that was their great sacrifice and why Section 60 is hallowed ground. 

Nothing I can say makes that right. Throughout the war on terror, we have not stopped the tactic of extraordinary violence. The results are appalling and personal. I demur from politicizing it. I have my own ideas about why the withdrawal sucked, but it was a group effort. And yet, for the Abbey Gate tragedy, I still blame ISIS. There was one airport, and there were so many people who were running out of time to be safe.   It was time to leave, and the crowd itself was an exploit. An opportunity for terror. One last kick in the slats before leaving. One demonstration of the ideology that faced the country we tried to rehabilitate into something like a Western image.

The Medical Rabbit Hole

 

President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside his annual physicals, White House physician Kevin O’Connor said in a letter released Monday night addressing visits to the White House by a Parkinson’s disease expert. https://t.co/eXNQBIAePZ

— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) July 9, 2024

The White House released a letter from President Biden's physician explaining that he has no signs of Parkisonism and that has had no neurological exams outside of his regular physicals. You might think that would be enough, but as it happens--nothing is ever enough. James Comer will need to examine what dealings the doctors may have had with the "the Biden crime family."  Armchair experts will determine what news spots show video of "real Biden" and when there is a double with a Biden mask being used (this is a real Qanon thing already).

People will make jokes like "Cannard--there's a quack." Etc. The "fine people" who brought us Swift boating, Benghazi, "but her emails..." etc. just don't sleep. The effort spent "debunking" half the time spreads the bunk. Like Obama's birth certificate didn't "really" end birtherism, once rumor and lies get spread about anything, it's hard to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

There's something for the people who diagnosed Biden from their mainstream media jobs to chew on. 

Meanwhile in Texas

 

Texas radio host @TheRyanHamilton is speaking out after his state’s extreme abortion ban left his wife in serious danger and distress during a miscarriage. Thank you, Ryan for your bravery in sharing your story and speaking up against this cruel ban on essential health care. pic.twitter.com/qqyqYhaBqh

— Center for Reproductive Rights (@ReproRights) June 18, 2024

So, a few weeks ago, the Texas Supreme Court denied a challenge to the oppressive anti-abortion law on the grounds that doctors who tell their patients they won't perform abortions because of the law are just being silly. Seriously. Which I take to mean that goddamn it, maybe the doctors who can perform this care should test the theory and see how bullshit it is. All they have to lose is their...livelihood and well-being. (See George Tiller, etc.) What does this mean for pregnant people in this state?

Kate Cox, who had to flee Texas to receive vital reproductive care: I'm actually pregnant. It's a very exciting time. But it's a hard feeling. There's so much happiness, but I'm scared at the same time. I live in a state with an extreme abortion ban. If I have an emergency with… pic.twitter.com/r4V1C3abhq

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) June 21, 2024

Concern that they will not receive life-saving care if needed, or that they will face the prospect of their life saved, but reproductively-impaired or maimed by sepsi sor other effects of a pregnancy gone wrong. This is not a pro-life stance at all--merely pro-abusing women for capricious reasons.

Kitchen Karen is Back With a Handmaiden Origin Story

 

Today, I’m proud to introduce the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) Act along with @SenMarcoRubio, @SenKevinCramer, and a group of @SenateGOP colleagues.

You can learn more here: https://t.co/L1mZmoYoQ5 pic.twitter.com/kAmX2Up7Yr

— Senator Katie Boyd Britt (@SenKatieBritt) May 9, 2024

Do you want the government to track your periods and judge you based on the length of time your uterus can hold a very sacred fetus? Would you like to be referred to a totally not-a-whole-bunch-of-doctors crisis group telling you how to just stay pregnant until you pop....something out, regardless of your whole ability to raise or care for a baby, and also deal with whatever the physical/emotional, and/or-financial state you are in when you do give forth your sprog?

If that is the incredibly weird and uncomfortable level of government/religious oversight of your very personal business you would deeply prefer not to have--please vote Democrat, thank you.

OK, I have more to say about this:

And When There is No State to Go To?

 

Simone: If you had to travel to another state to get an abortion, it’s not the worst thing in the world. Hopefully this is very rare occurrence in your life… Buying a bus ticket to go somewhere to get it is not the worst thing in the world. pic.twitter.com/EmaCoft18T

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 9, 2024

This is the glib, dismissive way that abortion bans are spoken about by people who have simply never had to think about reproductive health care in a personal, urgent way. 

A bus ticket? Well, across how many states? How long would that journey take? How soon/when/for how much time will one be able to get off work for? Will one also have to pay for lodgings, depending on the distance? Does one's state have a law that limits travel (this is proposed in several states) Will one need someone else's assistance in obtaining travel? Will the patient and/or the accomplice face felony charges for trying to get abortion services? 

Will these circumstances open up one's private, personal business to other people's investigation and judgment? (Depending upon one's community, it can be hard to schedule a sudden trip without some people speculating why one left.) 

Fleeing the Texas Death Panel

 

Kate Cox, the 31-year-old Texas mother whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis, has left the state to obtain an abortion after a battle with Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) over whether she can legally terminate her pregnancy. pic.twitter.com/WN2P9qWrX9

— The Recount (@therecount) December 11, 2023

The decision to leave Texas to obtain an abortion was correct: the Texas Supreme Court denied her right to an abortion under the state laws medical exception:

The court ruled that the lower court made a mistake in ruling that the woman, Kate Cox, who is more than 20 weeks pregnant, was entitled to a medical exception. 

In its seven-page ruling, the Supreme Court found that Ms. Cox’s doctor, Damla Karsan, “asked a court to pre-authorize the abortion yet she could not, or at least did not, attest to the court that Ms. Cox’s condition poses the risks the exception requires.” Texas’ overlapping bans allow for abortions only when a pregnancy seriously threatens the health or life of the woman. 

“These laws reflect the policy choice that the Legislature has made, and the courts must respect that choice,” the court wrote.

There's a kind of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" catch for doctors, here. They can make "good faith" emergency decisions, but it has to be an emergency-emergency (death's door, apparently) in order to avoid professional penalties. This was the clarification sought, and per Texas Hold'em in the Uterus rules, she wasn't nearly close to death enough. Based on the arguments of state lawyers, you just can't believe dumb old doctors or dumb old women about these things, because they will just use the exception not in good faith, but to get an abortion anyway. (You know, claiming they have a real emergency in the same way women make claims about having been raped--subject to being told they are making it up. In other words, subject to how misogynistic the system wants to be: and given this law even exists, you pretty much know how it is.)

I am glad that Mrs. Cox did not wait around for the Texas death panel to see if she would die or not, but I fear for what real harassment might be in her future in this kind of culture and for what all this means for women in similar physical jeopardy who do not have the means to leave. Also, I fear that for anti-abortion zealots, this will only increase their resolve to enforce "fugitive womb" laws and create penalties for women seeking abortions--even if for their own lives and health. 

James Ho's Very Unaesthetic Decision

 

I guess there was no reason at all to expect a better comment in the mifepristone case from James Ho, seen in the picture above being sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas at billionaire Harlan Crow's house because why the heck not?  

But while the overall decision is mixed (the abortion pill remains available with some notable restrictions, such as ordering it by mail) I just need to point to the language of Judge Ho's creepy dissent:

In his concurrent opinion, Ho wrote that the doctors will also suffer an “aesthetic injury” if the pills remain on the market.

“Unborn babies are a source of profound joy for those who view them,” he wrote. “Expectant parents eagerly share ultrasound photos with loved ones. Friends and family cheer at the sight of an unborn child. Doctors delight in working with their unborn patients — and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted.”

Prego fetishists love to see the rounded bellies of pregnant women--do they have standing? I experience an aesthetic injury when I see pregnant people's human rights to make health care choices for themselves violated as a person who theoretically (although probably requiring a late-life miracle like Sarah in the Bible) could still get pregnant myself. Where's my consideration? I experience profound discomfort when I see people forced to experience labor at unwanted pregnancies or to carry pregnancies that will negatively affect their well-being. (Should I go looking for some pro-cancer motherfuckers who find tumors beautiful to go ruin oncology? Of course not. Should a lover of gigantic breasts have veto power over breast reductions--"aesthetic injury!" I mean, why not mandate implants for their sake? If we're imposing upon people, after all.) 

Are we just giving every SOB with an opinion credit for it these days? I consider the poor baby-lover who is sad about abortions as being like the dingus white-supremacist child's opinion of being "traumatized" by diversity: tough actual shit. You live on a planet where people have actual lives that ain't yours, buddy--cope. 

And yeah, a lot of doctors love those unborn babies, but also know very well why abortions are necessary and should stay safe and available. Wanted children are a joy. But we know that pregnant people are discriminated against, that they are targeted for violence and murder by partners, that they may have pre-existing conditions including substance abuse and mental illness that make safely carrying a child (and not running afoul of laws that make murderers of women for activities that could harm fetuses) very difficult. Some patients are prone to miscarriage and fetal abnormalities. Sometimes pregnancies are not a joy. It is possible to celebrate both choices, to honor a patients' will in all cases. 

Zealots and ideologues are poor judges. I think that really, a safe and easily available method for ending a pregnancy is something that should remain lawful with little restriction. And no one should have standing over what happens with a pregnancy until viability but the pregnant person. 

(Nota bene--Josh Hawley's wife Erin of the ADF was counsel in this lawsuit. She is what I would call a "sister-shafter"--she does not give one fuck about female-bodied human rights.)

The Weak Dictator DeSantis

 

I keep thinking I want to write something about Desantis (because he is uniquely awful as a 2024 GOP candidate and as a governor) but it just always feels like there is more Trump news. It's hard for even a dedicated, intentional troll to maintain headlines of any kind when your primary opponent is a) a former president and b) keeps getting indicted and stuff. So, in the midst of avoiding writing yet another damn TrumpWorld post, I thought I'd just catch up with Ron. 

Trump likes to tout that he's rising in the 2024 polls, but it's more the case that DeSantis, his nearest competitor, has fallen and possibly can't get up. The Florida governor's campaign "reset" just saw his campaign manager replaced with his state COS. He fired about a third of his campaign staff, but some campaign aides got jobs working for his state office.  

Some of his aides must have really shown quite the work ethic. His campaign does feel like it's chock-full of hustlers. 

Texas and the Cruelty of "Pro-Life" People

 

Texas women are telling their stories about their troubled and forced pregnancies under their state's strict anti-abortion laws, through tears and even vomit. They are testifying that they do not feel safe to be mothers in Texas, because it is not a safe state to be pregnant if abortion care does not exist there. It is a brutality that they have to tell these deeply personal stories under derisive and uncaring questioning under the assumption that the state's penalizing of fertile women for the heartbreak of reproductive mishap is not responsible for their misery is appalling, but worse is that they did undergo unnecessary injury, expenses, pain and suffering, because surgical options they could have had were made inoperable for them. 

Texas has a shitty record for maternal mortality. Let's get that upfront. Infant mortality as well. An actual pro-life position might well include trying to improve these stats with better health care access. But the rate of uninsured, access to hospitals for rural folks, and cost of getting medical care in Texas isn't a priority. I mean, not for the supposedly pro-life psychopaths in charge like Abbott, Patrick and Paxton. 

Figuring out ways to punish women and doctors for even having abortion as an option, apparently is. 

They Want to Ban Abortions Federally!

 

News: @LindseyGrahamSC will introduce a national abortion ban in the Senate tomorrow.

Unless something really unexpected has happened, this will be a 15-week ban. Very interesting that it’s being cast as a “late term abortions act” 👀 pic.twitter.com/WMUVO3ys8l

— Caroline Kitchener (@CAKitchener) September 13, 2022

Fifteen weeks is definitely not a late-term abortion ban; I don't care what language they want to use about it. That's not "very interesting"--that's Republicans lying. Republicans do lie about abortion: would you like to see a big old lie made just today?

The Family Research Council decided to lie and say that "Abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of the mother." This is a big steaming lie. Ectopic pregnancies. fetal hydrocephaly, and the continuations of cancer therapies where the treatment is contraindicated for pregnancy spring to mind. They are vicious liars, but of course, they would be. This is child abuse promoter James Dobson's little corner of the culture war, which can boast George Rekers and Josh Duggar among its more notorious membership. and is fronted by Tony Perkins who somehow counts as a daywalker among these values vampires. 

Lies about things like maternal mortality show that these people don't care about the lives of people who become pregnant. Lies about fetal heartbeats (for a version of "heart" that doesn't yet even have chambers) and "pain-capable" fetuses are gratuitously imposing the qualities of born persons on pregnancies to try to create a separate life for that which depends solely on the body of a whole other, sentient person. 

I want to be hopeful about the turnout we saw in Kansas against a deadly stupid abortion ban, and to read into the voter registration numbers that show record female participation as a wholly good thing.  But if this is a real thing Senate Republicans are thinking of doing to turn out their base--

I hope they get good and screwed to the ever-loving wall over it. Because they are telling us that they don't want the Dobbs' ruling's concept of states' rights (itself a dodgy, shitty construction saying some people can just be freer to self-determination based on geography) but want to just deny female-bodied people the right to end a pregnancy based on some arbitrary deadline that politically sounded good to them and had nothing to do with our bodies, needs, economic status, or any of the other things that affect us as people. Because who are mere child-bearers anyways?

This is hostility to people who want to determine their reproductive future. I give them hostility in return. A thousandfold. 

UPDATE: The bill is worse than others Graham has put up before, with a 20-week gestation. The GOP can claim there are exceptions for rape and the life of the mother, but these are worse than useless.  See this part:

The History of Labor Day

Greeting fellow workers! Hope you treated yourself and considered your value today!

UPDATE: Did you know approval and appreciation of unions is on an upswing? My personal guess is it has a lot to do with COVID-19 when we collectively experienced crises related to the fragility of our employment status, the need for health benefits and paid leave, and absolutely treacherous workplace safety. Work is political. People work to earn a living, but work is not one's whole life. Supporting your fellow workers to make workplaces better improves productivity and helps the business thrive by decreasing turnover, burnout, and improving employee service. It's a good thing!

UPDATE: We often talk about how the labor movement put an end to child labor (conditionally) but the labor movement also protects aging workers by making retirement more comfortably possible. 

Note--an important part of the end of child labor is free, compulsory education. A free and fair society means that our children have the means to grow up and fend for themselves because they have the knowledge to do so. A free and fair society means we don't write off people because they are no longer productive workers.