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.

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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.

TWGB: The Damage Bad People Do

 

JUST IN: Oath Keeper Thomas Caldwell has been accused by prosecutors of keeping a “death list” that included the names of election officials on it (he calls it a benign “doodle pad.”)

In a filing tonight, Caldwell revealed the names on his pad:

Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss pic.twitter.com/HhKA3nDHJ4

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 30, 2022

These regular people doing a commendable job that supports our democracy were placed on a death list. A "doodle pad" about who needs to die for just doing an extremely useful and necessary job. 

Trump's lie could have gotten them killed.

Newsflash, for the idiots who think election workers at any basic site have enough input to finagle an election loss or win: fuck you. Counting is just a cumulative effort. They have no way of knowing within the process where any count stands to know how many votes it would take to shift things another way. There just isn't any dependable way to steal an election by fucking with votes, because polls aren't votes. If they were--Hillary Clinton would have won in 2016. 

The idea that the vote could be finagled with is a conceit made up by the people who want to retcon the election. That is to say--Trump election deniers. Because, and please think about this deeply and truly, if you couldn't win on your own, and didn't know how many votes you would need to win, wouldn't the easiest way to try to win be to just throw out votes that weren't for you after the fact?  That's what the Trump scheme was. He and his friends badgered election officials in Georgia and Arizona, etc., to just not count the votes that were from the people Trump preferred not be counted. 

Now, Oath Keepers are just some variety of thugs, and let's not mistake the people who Trump's permission structure temporarily and feloniously deputized in the heat of the insurrectionist moment for being sheriffs or bailiffs who could cart away the ballots that made Trump an irrelevancy. Trump gave the worst people the best shot at doing their worst.  That's why the insurrection went down the way it did. Every soft-skulled crab felt deputized that day. That's why they did their worst. They thought they were being deputies of Team Trump.  

We are learning that not only did the Secret Service, but also Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli have missing texts from that day. Wow, and how much does it definitely look like not an accident, but an "on-purpose".  Realistically, it's hard to look at the Secret Service reset as anything but a coverup based on the timing. 

I am not even sure how to convey the badness of everything Trump touched in retrospect,  But it looks like Trump's corruption damaged whole government agencies because he put bad people in charge and they, too, acted like his deputies, not like honest people.  And dishonest people can do a lot of damage.

The Biden Administration Makes a Good Decision

 

The Biden admin reassured doctors that they’re protected by federal law if they perform an abortion in an emergency situation — and threatened to fine or strip Medicare status from hospitals that don’thttps://t.co/E93Sm4f2kA

— POLITICO (@politico) July 11, 2022

One of the most heartbreaking things about the anti-choice laws being rammed in place or triggered by the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe was that for many health care providers, the fear of liability in the case of laws that were either without any exception for life of the pregnant person (made by anti-science or anti-woman legislators) or that were very vague regarding the physician's latitude would lead to life-saving healthcare being denied. 

I think there is a likelihood that either a religious-based organization or state AG will challenge this if an appropriate case presents itself, although not being remotely an attorney, I couldn't say how likely it would be to succeed (supremacy clause?) but in the meanwhile this will save lives, and that is what matters. 

I also want to stress that while I have posted how I think the Administration hasn't done what it could messaging-wise, this is the kind of meaningful decision that they should be making; it's just that it feels like it's trailing the SCOTUS announcement and should have been ready within days of it, especially since we were given a sneak-preview into what was going to happen.