#Kansas-Nebraska bill

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 21, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 21, 2024

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision. By a 7–2 vote, the Supreme Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed the right of privacy under its “concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action.” This right to privacy, the court said, guarantees a pregnant woman the right to obtain an abortion without restriction in the first trimester of a pregnancy. After that point, the state can regulate abortion, it said, “except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.”  

The right to privacy is a “fundamental right,” the court said, and could be regulated by the state only under a “compelling state interest.” 

Abortion had always been a part of American life, but states began to criminalize the practice in the 1870s. By 1960, an observer estimated, there were between 200,000 and 1.2 million illegal U.S. abortions a year, endangering women, primarily poor ones who could not afford a workaround. 

To stem this public health crisis, doctors wanted to decriminalize abortion and keep it between a woman and her doctor. In the 1960s, states began to decriminalize abortion on this medical model, and support for abortion rights grew. The rising women's movement wanted women to have control over their lives. Its leaders were latecomers to the reproductive rights movement, but they came to see reproductive rights as key to self-determination. 

By 1971, even the evangelical Southern Baptist Convention agreed that abortion should be legal in some cases, and by 1972, Gallup pollsters reported that 64% of Americans agreed that abortion should be between a woman and her doctor. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans, who had always liked family planning, agreed, as did 59% of Democrats.

In keeping with that sentiment, the Supreme Court, under Republican Chief Justice Warren Burger, in a decision written by Republican Harry Blackmun, overrode state antiabortion legislation by recognizing the constitutional right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment.  

The common story is that Roe sparked a backlash. But legal scholars Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel showed that opposition to the eventual Roe v. Wade decision began before the 1972 election in a deliberate attempt to polarize American politics. President Richard Nixon was up for reelection in that year, and with his popularity dropping, his advisor Pat Buchanan urged Nixon to woo Catholic Democrats over the issue of abortion. In 1970, Nixon had directed U.S. military hospitals to perform abortions regardless of state law, but in 1971, using Catholic language, he reversed course to split the Democrats, citing his personal belief "in the sanctity of human life—including the life of the yet unborn.”

As Nixon split the U.S. in two to rally voters, his supporters used abortion to stand in for women's rights in general. Railing against the Equal Rights Amendment, in her first statement on abortion in 1972, activist Phyllis Schlafly did not talk about fetuses but instead spoke about “women’s lib”—the women’s liberation movement—which she claimed was “a total assault on the role of the American woman as wife and mother, and on the family as the basic unit of society.”

A dozen years later, sociologist Kristin Luker discovered that "pro-life" activists believed that selfish “pro-choice” women were denigrating the roles of wife and mother and were demanding rights they didn’t need or deserve.

By 1988, radio provocateur Rush Limbaugh demonized women's rights advocates as “feminazis” for whom “the most important thing in life is ensuring that as many abortions as possible occur.” The issue of abortion had become a way to denigrate the political opponents of the radicalizing Republican Party.  

Such rhetoric turned out Republican voters, especially the white evangelical base, and Supreme Court justices nominated by Republicans began to chip away at Roe v. Wade. 

But support for safe and legal abortion has always been strong, and Republican leaders almost certainly did not expect the decision to fall entirely. Then, to the surprise of party leaders, the white evangelical base in 2016 elected Donald Trump to the White House. To please that base, he nominated to the Supreme Court three extremists, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The three promised in their confirmation hearings to respect settled law, which senators chose to interpret as a promise to leave Roe v. Wade largely intact.

Even so, Trump’s right-wing nominees could not win confirmation to the Supreme Court until then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in 2017 ended the filibuster for Supreme Court justices, reducing the votes necessary for confirmation from 60 to as low as 50. Fifty-four senators confirmed Gorsuch; 50 confirmed Kavanaugh; 52 confirmed Barrett.

On June 24, 2022, by a vote of 6 to 3, in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Five of the justices said: “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.” 

For the first time in American history, rather than expanding the nation’s recognition of constitutional rights, the Supreme Court took away the recognition of a constitutional right that had been honored for almost 50 years. Republican-dominated states immediately either passed antiabortion legislation or let stand the antiabortion measures already on the books that had been overruled by Roe v. Wade. 

But the majority of Americans didn’t support either the attack on abortion rights or the end of a constitutional right. Support for abortion rights had consistently been over 60% even during the time Roe was under attack, but the Dobbs decision sent support for abortion as Roe v. Wade established it to 69%. Only 13% want it illegal in all circumstances. Since Dobbs, in every election where abortion was on the ballot, those protecting abortion rights won handily, including last week, when Tom Keen won a special election in Florida, flipping a seat in the state House from Republican to Democratic.

But I wonder if there is more behind the fury over the Dobbs decision than just access to abortion, huge though that is. 

In the 1850s, elite southern enslavers quietly took over first the Democratic Party, and then the Senate, the White House, and then the Supreme Court. Northerners didn’t pay much attention to the fact that their democracy was slipping away until suddenly, in 1854, Democrats in the House of Representatives caved to pressure from the party’s southern wing and passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. That law overturned the Missouri Compromise, which had kept enslavement out of much of the West, and had stood since 1820, so long that northerners thought it would stand forever. 

With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, human enslavement would become the law of the land, and the elite southern enslavers, with their concentration of wealth and power, would rule everyone else. It appeared that American democracy would die, replaced by an oligarchy.

But when the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, northerners of all parties came together to stand against those trying to destroy American democracy. As Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln put it: “We rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach—a scythe—a pitchfork—a chopping axe, or a butcher’s cleaver,” to fight against the minority trying to impose its will on the majority. Within a decade, they had rededicated themselves to guaranteeing “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

I wonder if Dobbs, with its announcement that when Republicans are given power over our legal system they do not consider themselves obligated to recognize an established constitutional right, will turn out to be today’s version of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[batboyblog]

House Election 2024

In the House Republican have a majority of just 4 seats, flip 4 seats and Democrats get a majority and can pass things like national abortion rights, voting rights, bills on student loan debt and medical debt and much more. So here's a list of the key races for control of the House, so look up your district and find a way to get involved.

Find your House District

Alabama

Shomari Figures (AL-02) Flip

Alaska

Mary Peltola (AK-AL) Hold

Arizona

Amish Shah (AZ-01) Flip

Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Flip

California

Jessica Morse (CA-03) Flip

Josh Harder (CA-09) Hold

Adam Gray (CA-13) Flip

Rudy Salas (CA-22) Flip

George Whitesides (CA-27) Flip

Joe Kerr (CA-40) Flip

Will Rollins (CA-41) Flip

Derek Tran (CA-45) Flip

Dave Min (CA-47) Hold

Mike Levin (CA-49) Hold

Colorado

Adam Frisch (CO-03) Flip

Yadira Caraveo (CO-08) Hold

Connecticut

Jahana Hayes (CT-05) Hold

Florida

Darren Soto (FL-09) Hold

Whitney Fox (FL-13) Flip

Jared Moskowitz (FL-23) Hold

Illinois

Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) Hold

Eric Sorensen (IL-17) Hold

Indiana

Frank Mrvan (IN-01) Hold

Iowa

Christina Bohannan (IA-01) Flip

Lanon Baccam (IA-03) Flip

Kansas

Sharice Davids (KS-03) Hold

Maine

Jared Golden (ME-02) Hold

Maryland

April McClain-Delaney (MD-06) Hold

Michigan

Hillary Scholten (MI-03) Hold

Curtis Hertel (MI-07) Hold

Kristen McDonald Rivet (MI-08) Hold

Carl Marlinga (MI-10) Flip

Minnesota

Angie Craig (MN-02) Hold

Montana

Monica Tranel (MT-01) Flip

Nebraska

Tony Vargas (NE-02) Flip

Nevada

Dina Titus (NV-01) Hold

Susie Lee (NV-03) Hold

Steven Horsford (NV-04) Hold

New Hampshire

Chris Pappas (NH-01) Hold

New Jersey

Sue Altman (NJ-07) Flip

New Mexico

Gabe Vasquez (NM-02) Hold

New York

John Avlon (NY-01) Flip

Tom Suozzi (NY-03) Hold

Laura Gillen (NY-04) Flip

Mondaire Jones (NY-17) Flip

Pat Ryan (NY-18) Hold

Josh Riley (NY-19) Flip

John Mannion (NY-22) Flip

North Carolina

Don Davis (NC-01) Hold

Ohio

Greg Landsman (OH-01) Hold

Marcy Kaptur (OH-09) Hold

Emilia Sykes (OH-13) Hold

Oregon

Val Hoyle (OR-04) Hold

Janelle Bynum (OR-05) Flip

Andrea Salinas (OR-06) Hold

Pennsylvania

Ashley Ehasz (PA-01) Flip

Susan Wild (PA-07) Hold

Matt Cartwright (PA-08) Hold

Janelle Stelson (PA-10) Flip

Chris Deluzio (PA-17) Hold

Texas

Michelle Vallejo (TX-15) Flip

Henry Cuellar (TX-28) Hold

Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34) Hold

Virginia

Missy Cotter Smasal (VA-02) Flip

Eugene Vindman (VA-07) Hold

Washington

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03) Hold

Kim Schrier (WA-08) Hold

Wisconsin

Peter Barca (WI-01) Flip

Rebecca Cooke (WI-03) Flip

If you live in any of these congressional districts (or close to them) you absolutely must sign up to volunteer and help! you! yes you! get to decide what America looks like in 2025, is it gonna be Project 2025 and Trump? or Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and the Democrats protecting your right to control your own body, taking action on the climate and making life more affordable? its up to each of us to do all we can to get to the country we want.

[titleknown]

So, while I've talked about this in other posts, I figured I may as well compile it in one post with this nifty propaganda poster (more on that later)

Long story short, they're bringing back KOSA/the Kids Online Safety Act in the US Senate, and they're going to mark it up next Thursday as of the time of this post (4/23/2023).

If you don’t know, long story short KOSA is a bill that’s ostensibly one of those “Protect the Children” bills, but what it’s actually going to do is more or less require you to scan your fucking face every time you want to go on a website; or give away similarly privacy-violating information like your drivers’ license or credit card info. 

Either that or force them to censor anything that could even remotely be considered not “kid friendly.” Not to mention fundies are openly saying they’re gonna use this to hurt trans kids. Which is, uh, real fucking bad. 

As per usual, I urge you to contact your congresscritters, and especially those on the Commerce Committee, who'll likely be the ones marking it up.

Those senators are:

Maria Cantwell, Washington, Chair

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota

Brian Schatz, Hawaii

Ed Markey, Massachusetts

Gary Peters, Michigan

Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin

Tammy Duckworth, Illinois

Jon Tester, Montana

Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona

Jacky Rosen, Nevada

Ben Ray Luján, New Mexico

John Hickenlooper, Colorado

Raphael Warnock, Georgia

Peter Welch, Vermont

Ted Cruz, Texas, Ranking Member

John Thune, South Dakota

Roger Wicker, Mississippi

Deb Fischer, Nebraska

Jerry Moran, Kansas

Dan Sullivan, Alaska

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee

Todd Young, Indiana

Ted Budd, North Carolina

Eric Schmitt, Missouri

J.D. Vance, Ohio

Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia

Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming

Again, it doesn't work unless you do it en-masse, so make sure to call ASAP and tell them to kill this bill, and if they actually want a bill to allow/get sites to protect kids, the Federal Fair Access To Banking Act would be far better.

Also, this poster is officially, for the sake of spreading it, under a CC0 license. Feel free to spread it, remix it, add links to the bottom, edit it to be about the other bad internet bills they're pushing, use it as a meme format, do what you will but for gods' sake get the word out!

Also, shoutout to @o-hybridity for coming up with the slogan for the poster, couldn't have done it without 'em!

[bootleg-nessie]

Things that will happen in the future (based on my own experiences with time travel):

***FAQs at the end***

*All of these observations are copied directly from my notes in roughly the order I took them in

*Don’t ask about the interchanging use of past/present/future tense, you know how that stuff is with time travel

Women just started all growing three boobs instead of two. Scientists baffled

Genetically engineered catboys (no literally)

The great pyramid of Giza has been converted into a Bass Pro Shop

The entire state of Rhode Island was bought by some rich tech CEO who promptly dug a 500 foot wide trench around the entire state so that it could in fact be an island. It was soon converted into the world’s largest parking lot

Pollution has gotten so bad that fresh oxygen is now delivered straight to most homes via a subscription service

Basic necessities such as food, water, and housing are now provided for free by the government, but only for the top 1% of wealth holders

Insulin now costs twice as much as rent. “Get fucked,” say pharma companies

92.6% of new electronic appliances now have smartphone integration and require a monthly subscription to use

Most billionaires have real estate on earth’s moon

As an ongoing film experiment, Taika Waititi successfully convinced a Nebraska man that he’s been raptured and is now in heaven. He actually got Truman Show’d and now millions of viewers tune in every week to watch God (played by John DiMaggio) manipulate Robert into confronting his own views, battle cognitive dissonance, and face the realization that he might not have been as good of a person on Earth as he thought he was

Carrots have gone extinct, as have highland cows

Species of extinct animals and plants now are being posthumously renamed after the billionaires and elites most directly responsible for killing then off

Researchers discovered a sentient colony of fungus off the coast of Chile, it prefers to go by Fleebo and appears to have a incredibly complex intelligence far greater than any other observed organic being

Nobody knows where Ireland went. It literally just disappeared off the face of the earth one day and nobody bothered to question it. The story couldn’t compete in the news cycle with the recent news about a company in China that made the first real life pokemon. An entire civilization of people gone and I’m the only one who seems to remember it or even care

Fleebo and its offspring have annexed Madagascar and are threatening any retaliation with nuclear warfare and “making The Last of Us a reality.” Nobody knows if Fleebo actually has the capabilities to do this, but after the Lovecraft incident we’re all TOO goddam scared to fuck around and find out

Large snails have replaced cats and dogs as the most common household pet. Snail culture has largely taken over the world, especially Japan

The president of the United States is now decided with an oiled up twerking competition. Most people were hesitant at first but this has produced vastly more competent leaders so now everyone just kinda goes along with it

With the cost of living crisis only worsening with time, selling tattoo space on your body to advertisers has become common as people struggle to afford rent and pay their bills

North and South Korea have reunited into “Korea 2.0”

Germany has split up into East and West Germany again

Belgium and France have been annexed by West Germany and renamed “Wester Germany” and “Westest Germany” respectively

The entirety of Florida is now underwater. Most of Kansas is too for some reason that scientists refuse to explain because they’ve “sworn an oath to the eldritch gods” and that “much worse things would happen” if they did

The melting ice caps in Antarctica unveiled a lost civilization of intelligent creatures descended from a species of lungfish, predating human civilization by millions of years. They planned on hibernating for another 10-15 million years to observe the course of evolution on Earth and are very very angry at humans for waking them up prematurely and ruining all of that with global warming

The politically correct term for lungfish people is “Dipnoid” but most people refer to them by a variety of slurs, such as “finwalker” and “kelp muncher” (not that they even eat kelp)

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has now increased to nearly half the size of what was formerly known as Canada and has been colonized entirely by pirates (the flag is actually pretty cool). The pirate nation has the 17th largest economy in the world and is projected to surpass the United States in GDP

Africa is about 2% smaller. Nobody knows why. Most people point to Fleebo, who denies having any involvement

All human-Dipnoid interaction was promptly banned by most world governments, except for the GPGPRP (Great Pacific Garbage Patch Republic of Pirates), whom the Dipnoids rely upon extensively for trade

Scientists have used DNA from fossils to recreate other species of humans. We now live alongside them like we did for thousands of years before everyone besides Homo sapiens went extinct. Racism is at an all time high

Class C and above robots are now legally recognized by most progressive countries as people

The United States government has been exposed for secretly funneling billions of dollars into the GPGPRP and using it to fund terrorist operations all over the world.

A new major religion revolving around Dave Grohl has skyrocketed in popularity. Grohilsm is now the world’s largest religion, second only to Fleeboism

Scientists discovered a new continent in the Pacific Ocean, and then promptly lost it again. Most people are convinced this was just an elaborate practical joke, but scientists “swear it definitely happened”

For a brief period of about 30 years, everything in George Orwell’s 1984 happened almost exactly as written in the book. Literally 1984

It was revealed that Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself. He actually faked his death and spent the next few years in a drug-fueled episode of psychosis making sock puppets in a cave in Italy and then molesting said sock puppets until he died from a sock puppet related illness

Bigfoot was discovered off the coast of Georgia doing cocaine with a congregation of alligators. When questioned, he said he normally lives in Montana and was only there on vacation. He is now a celebrity, and has been featured in a number of tv shows and films, two of which he won an Oscar for. Last I checked, he was a washed up actor living in Hollywood with a reanimated Neanderthal woman

The GPGPRP raided most of England’s museums with the object of “doing exactly what they did for the last few centuries” England was understandably furious, but the rest of the world found it rather amusing

England declared war on the GPGPRP, which it promptly lost after hackers brought down the entire country’s military overnight. Much like in the 21st century, England is the world’s laughing stock

The entirety of Luxembourg relocated itself to the moon

Russia attempted to take over most of Eurasia. In retaliation to the full global effort to stop them, they launched nukes at the world’s 600 most populous cities outside of its current territory. Most of the warheads were stopped in time, but a few major metropolitan areas got hit pretty badly, including Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Mexico City, and Istanbul. Japan was understandably super pissed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked for a second time

In the wake of the nuclear holocaust, Canada assumed control over what was formerly Russia and assimilated many of its citizens and leaders into its own society and government. Under the new rule of formerly Russian leaders, Canada became a puppet state for the second coming of Russia. It annexed much of the United States, Mongolia, China, and a handful of other countries, becoming “the world’s first megacountry.” Crungolaska now controls a majority of the northern hemisphere

As part of a practical joke by Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks was actually marooned on a desert island like in Castaway. He lasted less than a week before he died. When I left this era of the future, Adam Sandler was serving a lifetime sentence in prison for murder

Fringe groups of crows with above-average intelligence have started popping up around the world. So far they have been observed forming small communities, crafting relatively complex tools, using rudimentary speech, performing rituals, and creating music

Aliens visited earth and had a formal meeting with many of our world leaders, but decided to leave us alone for a few thousand more years because humanity is “not yet mature enough to handle the responsibilities of interstellar travel.” They have incentivized us with a the blueprints for an Alcubierre Drive and a means to produce the exotic matter to fuel it once they deem us as being ready

The original colony of settlers on Mars has declared independence, officially becoming the first country not on Earth

We sent Tom Cruise back to space but this time we just left him there

The tether for the space elevator broke. The town known as Vatorville, famous for being the location of the takeoff point of the elevator shuttle on Earth, was completely decimated as tens of thousands of miles of steel cable came crashing back down. There were no survivors

Most people in first and second world countries have mandatory microchip implants that serve as a personal ID

Last Thursdayism has been largely denounced by quantum physicists. Current theories now revolve around “Next Thursdayism,” the belief that the entire universe was created in the future and that we all exist as a memory in the past

Synthetic organ farms for transplants and research have become a massive industry worth billions of dollars. However, there is still a huge black market for organically grown human organs, as they’re much cheaper to acquire and aren’t taxed at the exorbitant rates that lab-grown organs are

China dug a hole all the way to the center of the Earth. Turns out it’s hollow and there are people living inside. Who knew?

A university reconstructed the entire city of Rome as it was in its early days during the Roman Empire. It’s actually pretty historically accurate, except for the fact that there’s a lot less sex because it’s run by a bunch of sweaty history nerds

After Rome 2 resulted in the creation of a cult revolving around the Roman god of the dead that gained traction as a minor religion, Pluto was officially reinstated as a planet by NASA when cultists picketed their headquarters every day for nearly 3 years straight. “Fine, we’ll give these fucking virgins what they want so they’ll finally shut the hell up,” said NASA’s administrator in chief

In a display of the biotechnical prowess of Disney’s Imagineers, all the animatronics in Disney’s Hall of Presidents were replaced with clones of the originals, which went about exactly as well as you’d expect. After reports of the presidents hurling a series of racial slurs and other obscenities at the first black family to enter surfaced, the project was shut down almost immediately after it had opened. Minority admission to Magic Kingdom plummeted to 2.3% of its numbers from the previous year, making it the second whitest place on earth after a taylor swift concert

Plastic now makes up about 3% of every organism on earth by weight

Public officials are now required by law to take shrooms before running for office

Trees are considered a rare and highly sought after commodity, and are usually only owned by public institutions and the rich (the vast majority of oxygen farms use algae to produce oxygen)

FAQs:

FAQ: What time period(s) did you go to?

A: I have no fucking clue. The world stopped using the Gregorian calendar in 2063 after a gamma ray burst hit the sun. The GRB led to stellar ablation, which changed the length of a year on Earth. The sun would continue to lose mass at an accelerated rate for several more years, with the length of the year changing slightly from year to year. The world adopted a variety of different calendars which kept being updated frequently and were often super confusing and contradictory. I traveled to about a dozen different points in time, which based on my best estimates spanned within a few millennia of the current date.

FAQ: How did you obtain a time machine?

A: I think it was the 17th or 18th of June, 2055? That night, a large sci-fi looking box thingy roughly the size of a VW Bus appeared a few hundred yards away in the open field in front of my house. I tried to take a picture of the box, but for some reason the closer I got, the more the image on my camera started to become fuzzy, and by the time I got close enough to take a decent picture, the camera had stopped working altogether. I pulled open a door to reveal a corpse inside that was charred beyond recognition, who appeared to have suffocated and/or burned to death during a fire that damaged most of the interior. I also noticed a number of strange tumors and growths on the body. I pressed a random button on the remains of what I believed to be a control panel, expecting nothing to happen, but the door closed automatically and I suddenly lost consciousness. When I came to, I exited the box, expecting to still be in the field in front of my house, but instead found myself a ways outside of a small snowy village that based on my best estimates, was somewhere in northern Asia around 2-3 thousand years ago. The villagers started coming after me with spears, so I quickly ran back to the box and pressed another button, hoping it would return me to from whence I came. This time, the people I found (who were thankfully much nicer and spoke a dialect of English that I could mostly understand) told me that it was the year 506 of the PGRB-Δ4 calendar (the calendar that the United Territories was using at the time). I repeated this maybe a dozen more times trying to get home until I landed in 2023, which as far as I could tell, was the closest I had gotten back to my original time so far. It was at this point that I decided to stay and seek medical attention, as I was rather concerned about some nasty new growths on my arms and legs similar to that which I had seen on the corpse.

FAQ: Where is the time machine now?

A: No idea. It disappeared a few days after I landed in 2023. My best guess is that some poor sap found it and ended up sometime else.

(I never ask for likes/reblogs but I literally spent fucking WEEKS on this one so if you liked it pls show me some love <3)

[politijohn]

Anti-Trans Legislation: Feb 25-Mar 3 in Review

The following bills were introduced:

Two schooling bills, Florida S1320 and H1223, were pre-filed.

Georgia HB653, an under-18 healthcare ban, was introduced. 

Iowa HSB208, a school-based bathroom bill, was introduced and passed in its subcommittee. 

Iowa HB482, a school-based bathroom bill, was introduced and referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Iowa HSB214, an under-18 healthcare ban, was introduced and had a House subcommittee hearing.

Iowa SSB1197, an under-18 healthcare ban, was introduced and had a subcommittee meeting.

Iowa HJR8 was introduced and referred to the House Judiciary Committee. This is a joint resolution attacking marriage.

Iowa HSB222, a schooling/parental rights bill, was introduced and referred to the House Education Committee yesterday.

Maine LD930, a sports ban bill that specifically targets trans girls, was introduced and referred to the Joint Judiciary Committee.

Missouri HB1332, a tax bill that would punish institutions for providing gender-affirming healthcare, was introduced and read.

Missouri HB1364, a drag ban bill, was introduced and read for a second time.

Ohio HB68, a "SAFE" act, was introduced and referred to the House Public Health Policy Committee.

Texas HB2862 and HB3147 were filed. These prison bills would prohibit incarcerated trans and gender diverse folks from being housed in facilities consistent with their gender identity.

The following bills progressed:

Bathroom bills: (A bathroom bill denies access to public restrooms by gender or trans identity. They increase danger without making anyone any safer and have even prompted attacks on cis and trans people alike. Many national health and anti-sexual assault organizations oppose these bills.)

Arizona SB1040, a school-based bathroom bill, passed in the Senate and crossed over to the House.

Arkansas SB270, which would make it “criminal indecency with a child” for trans folks to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, was re-referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Idaho SB1100, a school-based bathroom bill, had a second reading and was filed for a third reading.

Idaho S1016, which already passed in the Senate, had its first reading in the House and was scheduled for a second reading.

Iowa SF335, a school-based bathroom bill, passed committee and renumbered as SF482.

Heathcare bills: (Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender-affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm. Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted.)

Florida S0952, the “Reverse Woke Act,” was referred to the Senate Health Policy Committee.

Georgia SB140, an under-18 healthcare ban, had a second reading.

Indiana SB0480, an under-18 healthcare ban, passed in the Senate and crossed over to the House.

Kansas SB233, which already passed in the Senate, was referred to the House Health and Human Services Committee. This is also an under-18 healthcare ban.

Nebraska LB574, again an under-18 healthcare ban, was placed on general file, meaning it is now on the floor. 

Oklahoma SB129 passed in committee and will head to the Senate floor. A reminder that this bill had an emergency added, so it would immediately go into effect if it passes.

Texas HB776, an abortion and under-18 healthcare ban, was referred to the House Public Health Committee. 

Utah HB0132 returned to committee yesterday after it failed in committee in January. This is also an under-18 bill.

Public performance bills: (also known as "drag bans" restrict access for folks who are gender non-conforming in any way. They loosely define "drag" as any public performance with an “opposite gender expression,” as sexual in nature, and inappropriate for children. This also pushes trans individuals out of public spaces.)

Arizona SB1698 passed in committee and is headed to the Senate.

Arkansas SB43 was signed by the Governor. This is the drag ban bill that was largely amended to only cover public nudity.

Montana HB359, which already passed in the House, had its first reading in the Senate.

Oklahoma SB503, an obscenity bill, passed in committee.

South Dakota HB1116 an "obscenity bill" that prohibits "lewd or lascivious content," which already passed in the House, passed in committee.

Tennessee SB0841 had its action deferred until 3/14.

Texas HB708 was referred to the House State Affairs Committee.

Schooling bills: (Schooling, or so called “parental rights” bills force schools to misgender or deadname students, ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make schools alert parents if they suspect a child is trans. They remove life-saving affirmation and support for trans youth.)

Arizona SB1001 passed in the Senate and was transmitted to the House.

Arkansas SB294 is headed to its final vote in the House.

Florida H1069 was sent to another education subcommittee in the House.

Indiana HB1608 passed in the House and crossed over to the Senate where its first reading is scheduled for Monday.

Iowa HSB222 passed in its subcommittee.

Missouri HB1258 had a second reading.

Oklahoma SB503 passed in committee this morning and is headed to the Senate floor.

Tennessee HB1269 was referred to the House Finance, Ways, & Means Committee.

Utah SB0283, an anti-DEI bill for higher education, passed in its Senate Revenue and Taxation Hearing and is now headed to its second committee.

Sex designation bills: (Sex designation bills make it harder for trans folks to have IDs, such as birth certificates, that match their gender identity. They can force a male or female designation based upon sex assigned at birth. Some ban a non-binary “X” marker or require surgery to qualify for ID updates.)

Montana SB458,passed in committee and will head to the Senate floor.

Tennessee SB1440 passed in committee and will head to the Senate floor.

Sports ban bills: (Most sports bills force schools to designate teams by sex assigned at birth. They are often one-sided and ban trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity. Some egregious bills even force invasive genital examinations on student athletes.)

Arkansas HB1156 was re-referred to the Senate Education Committee. 

Florida H0999 was sent to another education subcommittee. 

Wyoming SF0133, which already passed in the House, passed in the Senate and will now head to the Governor for signature.

Other anti-trans bills:

Kentucky HB470 passed in committee. This bill defies our categorization system; it's a healthcare bill, but also functions as a bathroom, sports, name change, and a sex designation bill; it packages anything attacking trans youth. A live-tweet of the hearing is here, as can the many Kentucky residents who testified against it.

West Virginia HB3042, a “religious freedom” bill, passed in the Senate and is headed to the Governor for signature. 

Texas SB559, a “religious freedom” bill, passed in committee and will head to the Senate floor.

[mckitterick]

Aurora deep into southern Midwest!

After Friday night's less-than-stellar experience hunting for a good spot to watch the aurora near LFK (short answer: there is none), tonight we decided to drive north a couple hours to get deeper into the aurora zone, and a little east to reach truly dark skies and skirt the clouds creeping across Kansas and Nebraska. Still pretty far south in the grand scheme of things (northern Missouri), but the darkest skies we've seen in a long time.

At first we parked as planned near a nature preserve in what is billed as a town (really just a handful of houses), but the northern view from there looked over a house that sits beside Loud Frog Land:

So when the sky began to dance (see this image), we drove a bit farther along hilly, winding country blacktop until finding a little gravel turn-around.

Just as we set out our folding chaise lounges, the sky really heated up, and for about 20 minutes it was amazing:  

This image and the top one (by @bugs-are-buddies using her Android S22 Ultra) are much better than from mine (Note9); thanks, darlin'.

My tripod-mounted DSLR was a bust, though I managed to snap the below Moon image once I got the telephoto lens working - had to turn the autofocus on and off again to manually focus at all (always the same story with tech), so we missed imaging the burst of aurora action with that machine.

(Left image is me fiddling with the camera by the light of the Moon and the aurora's fading glow.)

We stuck around for a while after the dramatically waving red-pink-green curtains diminished from their peak, hoping the huge Coronal Mass Ejection had more to offer, but things tapered off around Cassiopeia. And it was getting cold. So home we went.

The drive back was dinner of nut bars and pears, and introducing my sweetheart to some 1990s bangers on le Wedding Trip Jag's awesome speaker setup.

Two nights of dramatic aurorae - visible as far south as Kansas! Wow!

I hope you got a chance to catch some of the Sun's beautiful assault against Earth's skies. Ad Astra!

[follow-up-news]

New federal court rulings are narrowing the Biden administration’s enforcement of a rule for protecting LGBTQ+ students from discrimination and allowing critics to limit it even further school by school. A federal judge in Missouri blocked enforcement of the rule in six additional states, bringing the total to 21. The decision Wednesday from Senior U.S. District Judge Rodney Sipple, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, applies in Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. It comes just a week before the rule is to take effect. Sipple’s ruling followed one last week by U.S. District Judge John Broomes in Kansas, who blocked enforcement in that state, Alaska, Utah and Wyoming but also in individual schools and colleges across the U.S. with students or parents who are members of three groups opposing the rule. Broomes, an appointee of President Donald Trump, gave one group, Moms for Liberty, an extra week — until Friday — to submit its list of affected schools and said it could include ones for members who joined the group after his initial July 2 order. Republican officials seeking to roll back transgender rights hailed Sipple’s ruling as a victory for cisgendered girls and women, having framed the issue as protecting their privacy and safety in bathrooms and locker rooms. They’ve also argued the rule is a ruse to allow transgender females to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams, but Sipple said it would not apply to athletics.

[tacticalhimbo]

May Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Map

[Image ID: A color-coded map of the United States of America, with the states varying in colors. The map's key is titled 'Anti-trans Legislation Risk'.

States that are a near-black red color are labeled 'Do Not Travel' and only includes Florida at this time.

States that are dark red are labeled 'Worst Active Anti-trans Laws', and include Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Montana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

States that are red are labeled 'High Risk Within 2 Years', and include Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.

States that are orange are labeled 'Moderate Risk Within 2 Years', and include Alaska and Wyoming.

States that are light teal are labeled 'Low Risk Within 2 Years', and include Arizona, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

States that are teal are labeled 'Safest States With Protections', and include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Washington, D.C. / END Image ID]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Since the last map, several states have adopted severe laws. Florida stands out, falling into an entirely new category labeled "Do Not Travel." The state enacted a transgender bathroom ban and a law that eliminates 80% of all transgender adult care. It also introduced provisions potentially endangering the custody of trans youth with affirming parents. The cumulative effect of these bills warrants Florida's new risk category. Equality Florida, a large statewide LGBTQ+ organization, concurs and warns that the state may be unsafe for LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies in their own travel advisory.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Read more using the source link of this post, and consider supporting Erin for her hard work in managing this data.

[adriennejosephines]

So I know that we are past the golden age of BRF (and especially Prince Harry) fanfic, but I've had this overwhelming idea swirling in my head for months: what if there was a third Wales brother. I finally had the time to flesh out the idea and draft a bit! Please let me know what you think. Even if I don't post it, I'll probably keep writing it to flex my creativity muscles. Tell me what you think!

Christopher noticed the petite blonde crouched over one of the small display tables. He watched her reach into her purse and rummage around looking for something. Ten seconds later her hand emerged victorious with a pink Sharpie held tightly in its grasp. His eyes widened as she uncapped the Sharpie and opened the front cover. Christopher frowned as he watched the woman scribble something inside the book then place it back on the table. He couldn’t bear it anymore and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, you shouldn’t be writing in books,” he said in his posh British accent.

The blonde turned around startled. “Seeing as how I wrote this book, I think it’s fine if I sign it,” she drawled and turned the book to the back cover.

He grabbed the book from her hand and scanned the back cover. He ignored the blurb and his eyes went straight to the author photo on the bottom of the book. Sure enough, it was a smiling photo of the blonde standing in front of him. He took a few moments to read the blurb next to her author photo.

Mallory Hill was born and raised in the Midwest. She earned her BA in English from the University of Nebraska where she also played volleyball. She lives in Kansas with her dog Cleo and is usually found reading or coaching a youth volleyball team. She is also the author of Not Unlike Us.

He looked up quickly at the woman- at Mallory.

“So you’re a real published author?” is all he said.

“Yep, published two books and have a third currently being drafted,” she said, turning back to the table and the neat stacks of books which all had the same colorful cover.

“That’s honestly super cool,” Christopher replied, intrigued.

She shrugs. “It pays the bills. What about you? I’m guessing you’re not an author.”

He couldn’t tell if the last sentence was a barb at him or not. The brunette quickly blinked while trying to figure out just how to explain what he did.

“I, uh, work for my family business,” he stated.

“Hmm. I never could work for my family. We’d be at each other's throats in ten minutes. Too many opinions,” she said.

He noticed how her voice seemed to take on a fond note at her last sentence. The prince wondered if she truly meant her first sentence then.

The blonde author glanced at her watch. “Shit! I’ve got to go. Nice to meet you?”

The last notes of her goodbye almost took on a questioning state.

Mallory rushed off before he could hand her the book back. Christopher glanced at it again and only briefly hesitated before taking it up to the register. Once he had checked out, the man tilted his head down and rushed out to the waiting car. It seemed as if his plans for the afternoon had suddenly changed with the appearance of the author and her book.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Ann Telnaes :: @AnnTelnaes : "Remember, the Trump company is run by the 2 adult sons who are also involved politically with the GOP and using the presidency for financial gain"

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 4, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 05, 2024

To some fanfare, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign today launched Republicans for Harris, which will kick off with events this week in the swing states of Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Their goal, campaign officials told Zeke Miller of the Associated Press, is to make it easier for Republican voters put off by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to back Democratic presidential nominee Harris. Curiously, though, in their embrace of the nation’s growing democratic coalition, Republicans crossing the aisle in 2024 are returning to their party’s origins.

The Republican Party itself began as a coalition that came together to stand against an oligarchy whose leaders were explicit about their determination to overthrow democracy. As wealth had accumulated in the hands of a small group of elite southern enslavers, those men had turned against American democracy.  “I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much-lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that ‘all men are created equal,’” South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond said. 

Enslaver George Fitzhugh of Virginia rejected the other key principle of the Declaration of Independence: that everyone has a right to a say in the government under which they live. “We do not agree with the authors of the Declaration of Independence, that governments ‘derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,’” he wrote in 1857. “All governments must originate in force, and be continued by force.” There were 18,000 people in his county and only 1,200 could vote, he said, “[b]ut we twelve hundred…never asked and never intend to ask the consent of the sixteen thousand eight hundred whom we govern.”

Enslavers like Hammond and Fitzhugh believed that some people were better than others and had the right—and the duty—to impose their will on everyone else. If they did not, men like Fitzhugh believed, poor men and marginalized people would insist on being equal, receiving the value of their work and living as they wished. 

Under this dangerous system, Fitzhugh wrote, “society is insensibly, and often unconsciously, marching to the utter abandonment of the most essential institutions—religion, family ties, property, and the restraints of justice.” He defended human enslavement as the highest form of society, since paternalistic Christian masters would care for their wards, preventing a world of “No-Government and Free Love.”

The elite enslavers came to control the Democratic Party and, through it, the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. The Whig Party tried for decades to make peace with the increasingly extremist southern Democrats, and as they did so, the party splintered, with those opposed either to human enslavement or the spread of human enslavement to the West—those were actually not the same thing—creating their own upstart parties. 

And then, in 1854, with the help of Democratic president Franklin Pierce, elite enslavers managed to push through the Senate a bill to organize the two giant territories of Kansas and Nebraska in such a way that they would be able to spread their system across the American West. The new slave states that would form there would be able to join forces in the House of Representatives with the southern slave states to outvote the northern states that rejected enslavement. Without a brake on their ambitions, the enslavers would be able to spread their worldview across the nation. From their position at the head of the United States, they expected to spread their slave-based economy around the globe.

But their triumph was not to be. With the bill under debate in the Senate, Democrat Amos Tuck of New Hampshire—the state Pierce hailed from—wrote: “Now let Frank Pierce consummate his treason, if he dare. There is a North, thank God!... We have…rebuked treason, condemned the Nebraska Bill, and discarded the President.” Tuck noted that the Democrats were losing “their best men. I think they (the leaders) can never recover from the consequences of having tried to betray their country.” He looked forward to “bringing out in future the true characteristics of our people, so long belied by the most unworthy demagogues….” 

Tuck was not alone. The day after the House of Representatives began to debate the Kansas-Nebraska bill, Whig representative Israel Washburn of Maine invited about thirty antislavery representatives to meet at the rooms of his friends, Massachusetts representatives Thomas D. Eliot and Edward Dickinson (whose talented daughter Emily was already writing poetry), in Mrs. Crutchett’s select boardinghouse in Washington, D.C. The men who called the meeting were northern Whigs, and the men who came to it entered the elegant room as members of a variety of political parties, but they all left committed to a new northern organization that would stand against the spread of slavery into the West. They called themselves “Republicans,” hoping to invoke Thomas Jefferson—who had called his own political party Republican—and recall the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

When the House passed the bill on May 22 and Pierce signed it on May 30, the anti-Nebraska movement took off. Conventions across the North called upon all free men to fight together “for the first principles of Republican Government and against the schemes of aristocracy, the most revolting and oppressive with which the earth was ever cursed or man debased.” There were 142 northern seats in the House of Representatives; in the midterm elections that year, voters put “anti-Nebraska” congressmen in 120 of them. Anti-Nebraska coalitions elected 11 senators and swept Democrats out of state legislatures across the North.

In 1855, Pierce insisted that Americans opposing the spread of human enslavement were trying to overturn American traditions, insisting that the United States was a white man’s republic and that the Founders had intended to create a hierarchy of races. 

But those coming together to oppose enslavement denounced Pierce’s recasting of American history as “False all through!” As for the Founders, Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill wrote, “their ‘one guiding thought,’ as they themselves proclaimed it, was the inalienable right of ALL men to Freedom, as a principle.” 

When Democrats tried to call those coming together as Republicans “radicals,” rising politician Abraham Lincoln turned the tables by standing firm on the Declaration of Independence. “[Y]ou say you are conservative—eminently conservative—while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort,” he said, addressing the Democrats who remained determined to base the United States in enslavement.

“What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by ‘our fathers who framed the Government under which we live’; while you with one accord…spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new…. Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated.”

When voters elected Lincoln president, the fledgling Republican Party turned away from a government that catered to an oligarchy trying to overturn democracy and instead reinvented the American government to create a new, active government that guaranteed to poorer men the right to be treated equally before the law, the right to a say in their government, and access to resources that had previously been monopolized by the wealthy.

The present looks much like that earlier moment when people of all different political backgrounds came together to defend the principles of the United States. In today’s moment, when someone like J.D. Vance backer billionaire Peter Thiel says, “Democracy, whatever that means, is exhausted,” and the Republicans’ Project 2025 calls for replacing democracy with Christian nationalism, it makes sense for all people who care about our history and our democratic heritage to pull together. 

Today, Olivia Troye, who served on national security issues in the Trump White House, said, “[W]hat is happening here with the Republican Party… is dangerous and extreme. And I think we need to get back to the values of…observing the rule of law, of standing with our international allies and actually providing true leadership to the world, which is something that Kamala Harris has exhibited during the Biden Administration.” 

As Lincoln recalled, when people in his era realized that the very nature of America was under attack, they “rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach—a scythe—a pitchfork—a chopping axe, or a butcher's cleaver. We…are rapidly closing in…. “ And, he said, “When the storm shall be past,” opponents “shall find us still Americans; no less devoted to the continued Union and prosperity of the country than heretofore.”

Indeed, when the storm passed in his day, Americans found that the magnitude of the crisis they had weathered and the rise of entirely new issues meant that old party lines had fallen apart and people reorganized along entirely new ones. Famously, Lincoln’s secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, who in 1860 had worked for the election of extremist Democrat John C. Breckinridge, stood heartbroken by Lincoln’s bedside as he breathed his last and blessed him, saying: “Now he belongs to the ages.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[batboyblog]

trans people are allowed to be frustrated with the state of the world what the fuck are you on. how are trans policies in michigan supposed to help trans kids in florida. do you see what im saying here. and bidens words arwnt worth shit if he doesnt actually do anything

Of course they should be frustrated I'm frustrated, who wouldn't be frustrated?

this is not about that, it's fine to say "the world really sucks right now" "this is shit" yes I totally fucking agree

it's when it goes off into "and there's nothing to be done" "no one else cares" "we are without friends and allies" "no one is doing anything" LIES! LIES! from the mouth of hell! lies that give aid and comfort to the enemy! PLAGUE! WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PLAGUE AND YOU BEHAVE LIKE THIS!

this ask is full of so much horseshit that needs to get unpacked I almost didn't but fuck it someone might read what I say.

First off I brought up Michigan because it was claimed no straight allies were useful or doing "fuck all" clearly untrue if we look at Michigan (and else where but lets stay focused) and as Harvey Milk taught us, hopelessness is the ally of oppression, if people don't believe it can get better they stop fighting, gotta give 'em hope. So clearly right now at a time when trans rights are under attack, in some places they're also making gains and that can happen in your state too.

You see Michigan had a Republican governor till 2019, but in 2018 after years of organizing and working (and voting) progressive forces managed to elect Gretchen Whitmer. In 2022 She was up for re-election against a woman named Tudor Dixon who made attacking LGBT people, trans kids in sports, and drag show central parts of her platform, she was defeated. But what's more till the 2022 election Republicans had a majority in both the MI Senate and State House. Hard work lead to Democrats flipping a handful of seats to get a majority in both and now they can pass things like expanding trans civil rights.

My point is Michigan could EASILY be passing its own "Don't Say Gay" bill, could easily be banning trans health care for minors, easily EASILY, those are the policies Michigan Republicans ran on last year, and they were the majority before the election. Hard work, organizing, showing up, beat them and we get the reverse of all that hate.

flipping a whole state government is a lot, and in some Red States that might not be doable. But take Nebraska, where state Senator Machaela Cavanaugh's heroic filibuster looks like it's gonna derail anti-trans legislation, she's only able to do that filibuster because the Republican majority is one seat shy of a super majority. They need 33 votes to end her filibuster, there are 32 Republicans. Because all the Democrats have her back the Republicans can't shut her down and the bill will die because the Democrats can filibuster it to death.

In Kansas the Democratic governor has vetoed an anti-trans law, in Kentucky the Democratic governor is expected to veto their anti-trans laws. In Utah in March 2022 the Republican Governor Spencer Cox vetoed an anti-trans sports bill (he's since supported an anti-trans bill this year) Now I bring these up because in each state Republicans have a super majority that can override the veto, they over turned Cox's 2022 veto, and are expected to in Kentucky. So if you live in a red state and you think "oh we can't flip the whole state!" you can flip one or two or 3 state house seats and make ALL the difference.

Finally on trans kids in Florida right now not after some future election. Four organizations are suing the state of Florida to block its hateful anti-trans health care rule, Southern Legal Counsel, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Human Rights Campaign. Again the charge was "trans allies fucking suck at their job" well one of these orgs isn't even an LGBT organization at all (Southern Legal Counsel) the others are LGBT groups supported by thousands (millions in the case of HRC) of dollars from allies across the country. These are the groups leading the fight in Florida right now to block this shit in court right now, trans allies.

FINALLY FINALLY on Biden, you can't say "basically the only people who has gotten upset over this are trans people" and claim that no one else said anything when the President of the United States of America did a WHITE HOUSE interview and called transphobia evil and transphobic laws "close to a sin". Either you want people talking about this problem or talking about it is meaningless which is it?

besides which Joe Biden is the most aggressively pro-trans President America has ever ever had and is most likely the most pro-trans head of state on earth right now, he's head and shoulders ahead of most European left wing parties on this issue rn. Don't take my word for it, let's see what America's largest LGBTQ rights org has to say and they're careful to point out more can be done, always more can be done. But people telling you Biden does nothing or only does bad things are not your friend they are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Did you know Joe Biden is the first President to EVER appoint a trans person to a senate confirmed position? That he was an early endorser and supporter of the first openly trans person elected to state government Danica Roem? that the first trans state Senator, Sarah McBride got her start in politics working in the White House for Vice-President Biden? Biden is a historic friend and ally of trans people he's boosted trans people into office and supported trans polices. Change is possible progress is possible don't give in to defeatism and cynical both sides bullshit.

[mariacallous]

When Bill Lee donned a cheerleader uniform, fake pearls and a wig as part of high school senior year antics, he probably didn’t think the goofy costume would come back to bite him. But, more than 40 years later, the now governor of Tennessee is at the forefront of efforts to ban the innocent costumes he and his friends once wore, waging a battle that strikes at the heart of our first amendment freedoms.

Since the beginning of this year, at least 32 bills have been filed in Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia targeting drag performances, with more on the way.

Tennessee was the first to pass its bill into law last week, barring “adult cabaret performances” on public property or in places where they might be within view of children. The bill bans, among other things, “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest, or similar entertainers”. Violators may face misdemeanor or even felony charges.

In Texas, at least four different bills would put venues that host drag performances in the same category as adult movie theaters and strip clubs.

Driving support for these bills is discomfort and distaste for expression that defies conventional gender norms. The growth of library Drag Queen Story Hours – programs that feature drag performers as a way to provide “unabashedly queer role models” for kids – have led some to question whether young children should be exposed to those who defy traditional gender patterns.

Participation in Drag Queen Story Hours is voluntary – libraries decide whether to program these events and families choose whether to attend them – but some critics seem to regard their very existence as deviant or dangerous. This reaction is part of a wider backlash against the increased visibility of transgender and non-binary identities. States and communities have banned books featuring transgender characters and prohibited teaching about transgender identities in school.

Though the history and cultural role of drag goes well beyond current tensions over transgender issues, this form of performance and display has now come into the crosshairs. Drag performances have been targeted with violence and are now the subject of state laws to limit or even outlaw them.

Anti-drag legislation varies from state to state, but tends to share some common provisions. Most bills define a drag performer as someone performing while using dress, makeup and mannerisms associated with a gender other than the one assigned to them at birth. A number of bills include lip-syncing within their definitions and many specify that the person must be performing for an audience.

Some bills would designate any establishment that hosts drag performances as an “adult” or sexually oriented business, often making it illegal for such businesses to be located within a certain distance of schools or residential areas.

While the details of the legislation may change from state to state, most of these bills represent a broad and dangerous chilling of Americans’ right to free speech. The US supreme court has repeatedly found that clothing choices are a constitutionally protected form of expression under the first amendment.

The Tennessee law’s reference to “prurience” – defined as something intended to arouse sexual interest – should limit the sweep of the law so it doesn’t affect things like children’s story hours. But, inevitably, concerns over the intent and enforcement of the law will cast a chill over shows, jokes or comedy bits that might be anywhere close to the line. That chilling is intentional: by targeting drag performances, lawmakers intend to intimidate transgender and non-binary performers and shows into hiding.

The breadth of the bills is staggering, and many would risk chilling expression that goes well beyond the drafters’ purported goals of protecting children or limiting displays that may border on the obscene.

Productions of Shakespeare plays like As You Like It or Twelfth Night – both of which feature cross-dressing characters – could run afoul of some of these bills, as might a singer performing the musical version of Mrs Doubtfire. Sandy Duncan’s performance as Peter Pan would be banned under several of these bills. Movies like White Christmas, Tootsie, Some Like It Hot, Bridge on the River Kwai and South Pacific – all of which feature comic performances by men wearing women’s clothes – could be off-limits for screenings in schools or libraries.

Even Governor Bill Lee’s decades-old dress-up could lead to serious legal repercussions under the law he just signed, if it were to be interpreted and enforced broadly. If students wore similar costumes today on the grounds of a public high school, and then went on to make a sexual joke in front of a small group, their behavior might be criminalized.

The legislation has even broader impacts for transgender people. Under some draft laws a string quartet with a transgender violinist might not be able to perform chamber music. A trans chef talking about their new cookbook could be restricted to venues designated as “adult businesses”.

It’s perfectly fair for parents to want to decide how and when their young children engage with questions of gender identity. But the drive to protect children from witnessing people whose dress defies traditional gender binaries must not become the basis for draconian restrictions impinging upon the free expression rights of children and adults alike.

Whether it’s youthful pranks, beloved plays, historical costumes or adult performances, the ability to dress up and play characters unlike yourself is core to artistic expression. In the name of curbing drag, legislatures across the country are dragging down first amendment freedoms for all.

[titleknown]

Do you think Section 230 is pretty much going to be passed? I've been thinking about leaving the internet completely over this.

...Well, like many things, the answer is "It's Complicated,"

Firstly, for the most part, efforts to screw up Section 230 aren't direct repealing all of it so much as carve-outs that majorly weaken it, in ways that could still deeply screw up free speech.

The recent Kids Online Safety Act/EARN IT Act is being pushed for, and while it's not in committee, given the former was sent to the Commerce Committee last time and the latter to the Judiciary Committee, they're probably gonna send it next time, and you're probably going to want to call your senators if they're in said committee to tell them to kill those bills.

The membership of the Commerce Committee:

Maria Cantwell, Washington, Chair

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota

Brian Schatz, Hawaii

Ed Markey, Massachusetts

Gary Peters, Michigan

Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin

Tammy Duckworth, Illinois

Jon Tester, Montana

Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona[a]

Jacky Rosen, Nevada

Ben Ray Luján, New Mexico

John Hickenlooper, Colorado

Raphael Warnock, Georgia

Peter Welch, Vermont

Ted Cruz, Texas, Ranking Member

John Thune, South Dakota

Roger Wicker, Mississippi

Deb Fischer, Nebraska

Jerry Moran, Kansas

Dan Sullivan, Alaska

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee

Todd Young, Indiana

Ted Budd, North Carolina

Eric Schmitt, Missouri

J.D. Vance, Ohio

Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia

Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming

The membership of the Judiciary Committee:

Dick Durbin, Illinois, Chairman

Dianne Feinstein, California

Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota

Chris Coons, Delaware

Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut

Mazie Hirono, Hawaii

Cory Booker, New Jersey

Alex Padilla, California

Jon Ossoff, Georgia

Peter Welch, Vermont

Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, Ranking Member

Chuck Grassley, Iowa

John Cornyn, Texas

Mike Lee, Utah

Ted Cruz, Texas

Josh Hawley, Missouri

Tom Cotton, Arkansas

John Kennedy, Louisiana

Thom Tillis, North Carolina

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee

So yeah.

I may as well add, If you've got the misfortune to be calling a Republican, be sure to bring up how KOSA will be used as a way for Big Government to spy on people via mandated age verification, and how EARN IT will be used to censor conservative speech.

That'll get the bastards attention. And no matter what you do, don't shut up about it, because silence means the fuckers win, just look at FOSTA/SESTA...

...Tho, in better news, the questioning in those Supreme Court suits tackling Section 230 seem to show that the justices are at least reluctant to try and do much to 230, very specifically because of how much it could fuck up.

Which begs the question, if even these fucking demons know why fucking with Section 230 is a godawful idea, what excuse do these senators have?

Point is, the efforts to undermine it aren't all at once so much as gradual and insidious. Call your senators folks, and stay vigilant.

[transformationsproject]

Trans rights are still under attack in the United States. Please visit our website linked below to learn about your state and contact your reps. Here's a thread of today's updates:

A bathroom bill denies access to public restrooms by gender or trans identity. They increase danger without making anyone any safer and have even prompted attacks on cis and trans people alike. Many national health and anti-sexual assault organizations oppose these bills.

Kansas HB2427 has been introduced and sent to the education committee.

Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm.

Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted.

Arkansas SB199 has been sent back to committee for a Feb 20 hearing. Missouri HB419 and North Dakota’s HB1301 & HB1254 passed committee and moved to the floor.

Public performance bans, or "drag bans," restrict access for folks who are gender non-conforming in any way. 

They loosely define "drag" as any public performance with an “opposite gender expression,” as sexual in nature, and inappropriate for children. 

This also pushes trans individuals out of public spaces.

Minnesota HB1903 was introduced and sent to the public safety committee. 

Arizona SB1698 had a hearing yesterday. It passed committee and moves to the floor.

Schooling / Parental Rights bills force schools to misgender or deadname students, ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make schools alert parents if they suspect a child is trans.

They remove life-saving affirmation and support for trans youth. 

Parental rights bill Ohio HB14 was introduced and sent to the civil justice committee. Nebraska LB277 is on the floor. This is a “Religious Freedom” bill that is worded to potentially allow for anyone to discriminate against queer and trans people on the basis of a "sincerely expressed religious belief". Indiana HB1407 passed a 2nd reading, and is onto a 3rd. 

Sex designation bills make it harder for trans folks to have IDs, such as birth certificates, that match their gender identity.

They can force a male or female designation based upon sex assigned at birth.

Some ban a non-binary “X” marker or require surgery to qualify for ID updates

Oklahoma HB1449 moved to the public health committee. North Dakota HB1297 and HB1474 passed committee, and moved onto the floor.

Most sports bills force schools to designate teams by sex assigned at birth. They are often one-sided and ban trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Some egregious bills even force invasive genital examinations on student athletes.

New Mexico HB3492 was introduced and sent to the health and human services committee. Ohio HB6 was introduced and sent to the higher education committee. Kansas HB2238 & Missouri HB183 passed their committees and are on the floor. North Dakota HB1249 has entered the senate.

In other bills that either fit multiple categories or stand on their own, we have:

Kansas SB255 was introduced Wednesday and now moves to the education committee. This bill would prohibit trans students from staying in overnight accommodations on school trips that are consistent with their gender identity. This is like a bathroom bill, but for lodging. North Dakota HB1205, a book ban, has passed its 2nd reading, and is onto its 3rd. In positive news, we can confirm that all VA anti-trans bills are dead. 

It's not too late to stop these and other hateful anti-trans bills from passing into law. YOU can go to http://transformationsproject.org/ to learn more and contact your representatives.

[arpov-blog-blog]

..."This year hasn’t been quite so busy, but as of July 21, 366 laws with voting restrictions had been proposed and 29 had been enacted.

All but one of those 29 new laws1 came in states where Republicans have full control of the lawmaking process: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana,2 Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. Five of the laws include provisions that tighten voter-ID requirements, 11 include provisions that interfere with election administration and 13 have at least one provision that targets mail voting.

As of July 21, according to the Voting Rights Lab, 834 bills had been introduced so far this year expanding voting rights, and 64 had been enacted. What’s more, these laws are passing in states of all hues. Democratic-controlled jurisdictions (Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island and Washington) enacted 33 of these new laws containing voting-rights expansions, but Republican-controlled states (Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming) were responsible for 23 of them. The remaining eight became law in states where the two parties share power (Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia)."