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It’s become kinda impossible to rank bad news weeks over the past several years, but this one sure is up there. There’s at one major good news in here, two good newses if you’re a fan of gay animals.
Queer as in F*ck You
+ Queer animals are everywhere. Science is finally catching on.
+ The proud boys (not gonna capitalize it) have failed in their attempt to ban Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe and Pheobe Kobab from Chicago schools.
+ Pride tattoos are a symbol of resilience for queer people and their families.
+ From Rent to A Strange Loop: Reflecting on queer representation on Broadway.
+ The hidden (gay) life of a Christian-college professor.
+ I’m sorry I missed this new in Monday’s round-up. A gunman went on deadly rampage at gay bar in Oslo, killing two people and injuring 21 others.
+ When this 40-year-old woman came out, her 11-year-old daughter said, “Everyone’s a lesbian now!”
+ How two trans women ran a legendary underground surgical clinic in a rural tractor barn.
+ An expert on Russian law says pleading guilty might be Brittney Griner’s best strategy.
Saw This, Thought of You
+ Deleting your period tracker won’t protect you.
+ Support Dick’s Sporting Goods while helping local community cats.
+ The best phones with an actual headphone jack.
+ Even exceptions to abortion bans pit women’s lives against their doctors’ fears.
+ As NYC enters coronavirus plateau, health officials push for extension of Long COVID services. (The CDC says some queer people are more likely to deal with Long Covid than straight people, although there’s no other demographic breakdown in their analysis, like income or access to early intervention/treatments.)
+ Why corporate diversity fails Black women.
+ Pokémon Go developer Niantic is rolling out its Campfire social network.
Political Snacks
+ Ketanji Brown becomes the first Black woman Supreme Court Justice. (Finally!!)
+ Supreme Court curbs EPA’s ability to fight climate change.
+ SCOTUS’ EPA ruling isn’t the only legal threat to the environment.
+ The Supreme Court’s crisis of legitimacy.
+ It’s hard to overstate the danger of the voting case the Supreme Court just agreed to hear.
+ What went down on the June 28th primary elections.
No matter your apathy towards what Biden has or hasn’t done. He asked for a filibuster exception to codify abortion, same-sex rights, contraception, and all things privacy. Manchin and Sinema said no. So don’t tell me there’s a work around. Don’t tell me to stop blaming them. An EO would get shredded in court so fast the ink would still be wet from Biden’s signature and then what? We. Need. More. Democrat. Senators. Period. We need to hold the seats up for re-election and gain others, like Val, Fetterman, etc. We need blue governors and state reps too.
This isn’t a joke. We are a cat whisker away from losing everything we hold dear. We need a net gain of 4 senators to make the DINOS Manchin and Sinema irrelevant. The filibuster will be removed. They will codify all privacy protections and more. AND THEY WILL EXPAND THE COURT. They will. It’s not a talking point now because it’s not popular among moderates who he needs badly to remain Dem loyal. Lose the moderates and it’s over.
Once we gain enough seats, Nancy will get an expand the court bill passed. The Senate will vote to eliminate the filibuster and pass the bill putting it on Biden’s desk. He will sign it. He will. My father-in-law worked with Biden ages ago and he said, “If there’s one thing I know about Joe, if he gets a bill from his party, he will pass it.” So vote your backsides off and get people in there to get him these bills!!! If we don’t vote. Welcome to a world that makes nightmares seem like children’s stories.
The good news is that there’s a decent chance of picking up the seats in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. There’s an outside chance of picking up North Carolina or Ohio, but realistically only if the loss of Roe v Wade turns into a significant bump in the polls. (You’d think it would, but there’s no guarantee.) The bad news is that the seats in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada aren’t entirely safe.
A net gain of 2 seats would result in 48 “safe” Democrats (probably; depends on who’s elected), the 2 traitor Dems, 2 Independents who are more liberal than a lot of Democrats, and 48 Republicans. With Harris as a tiebreaker we wouldn’t need to worry Manchin and Sinema. More is better, obviously, but even with various freedoms on the line, it’s not likely that we’ll get more than two.
really appreciate these comments.
Thank you for laying it out like this! The simplistic “go vote/please donate” messages have been tone deaf and unhelpful, but they’re not entirely wrong either. In part because most people have the mistaken impression that Democrats “control” the Senate (which implies that they can do whatever they want/need to get done whenever). And Democrats haven’t done much to correct that impression.
The fact is, while they successfully stopped Republicans from keeping control in 2020 and do get to set the agenda, they don’t have the votes to get anything meaningful or bold done especially with Sinema and Manchin gumming up the works.
I wish they would actually start being explicit about what they can and can’t do with the current numbers, instead of milquetoast language that makes it feel like they’re sitting on their hands except to fundraise. They’re not doing themselves any favors with the current strategy especially with so many people in crisis.
I’d like to be optimistic, but how can a SCJ who doesn’t know what “woman” means legislate a woman’s right to control her body?
Her opponents Alito and Gorsuch and Roberts and Thomas and Kavanaugh and Coney Christofascist Barrett know exactly what a woman is — and they’ve succeeded in rolling back our rights.
Meanwhile Planned Parenthood is telling women what to write on their protest signs to be “inclusive”. Bless their fucking hearts, I guess, but they’re going to lose if they try to tell women what to say and how to say it.
Thank god for lesbianism — it’s the very best birth control.