#democracy dies in darkness.....

[prontaentrega]

germany getting out in the group stage is a win for argentina but spain passing to the next stage is a loss for all of latin america

[contemplatingoutlander]

It has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris for president

Isn’t this what a newspaper is supposed to do?

I love that The Washington Post satirist Alexandra Petri took it upon herself to endorse Harris for her paper after Bezos pulled the plug on the editorial board doing so. This is a gift🎁link, so feel free to read the entire article. Below are some excerpts:

The Washington Post is not bothering to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. (Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin and the founder and executive chairman of Amazon and Amazon Web Services, also owns The Post.) We as a newspaper suddenly remembered, less than two weeks before the election, that we had a robust tradition 50 years ago of not telling anyone what to do with their vote for president. It is time we got back to those “roots,” I’m told! Roots are important, of course. As recently as the 1970s, The Post did not endorse a candidate for president. As recently as centuries ago, there was no Post and the country had a king! [...] But if I were the paper, I would be a little embarrassed that it has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to make our presidential endorsement. I will spare you the suspense: I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them. Let me tell you something. I am having a baby (It’s a boy!), and he is expected on Jan. 6, 2025 (It’s a … Proud Boy?). This is either slightly funny or not at all funny.  [...] Well, that world [the baby will be born into] will look very different, depending on the outcome of November’s election, and I care which world my kid gets born into. I also live here myself. And I happen to care about the people who are already here, in this world. Come to think of it, I have a lot of reasons for caring how the election goes. I think it should be obvious that this is not an election for sitting out. The case for Donald Trump is “I erroneously think the economy used to be better? I know that he has made many ominous-sounding threats about mass deportations, going after his political enemies, shutting down the speech of those who disagree with him (especially media outlets), and that he wants to make things worse for almost every category of person — people with wombs, immigrants, transgender people, journalists, protesters, people of color — but … maybe he’ll forget.” “But maybe he’ll forget” is not enough to hang a country on! [...] I’m just a humor columnist. I only know what’s happening because our actual journalists are out there reporting, knowing that their editors have their backs, that there’s no one too powerful to report on, that we would never pull a punch out of fear. That’s what our readers deserve and expect: that we are saying what we really think, reporting what we really see; that if we think Trump should not return to the White House and Harris would make a fine president, we’re going to be able to say so. That’s why I, the humor columnist, am endorsing Kamala Harris by myself! [color/ emphasis added]

How far The Washington Post has fallen into the "darkness" it used to work so hard to ward off to help keep our democracy alive.

[edited]

[brostateexam]

lol

lmao even

[shinelikethunder]

[porterdavis]

What are they hiding?

The Department of Justice today announced it would monitor the polls in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states to make sure they comply with federal voting rights laws. Although the federal government has monitored certain polls since 1965, officials in the states of Florida, Missouri, and Texas promptly announced they would not permit Department of Justice officials inside polling stations.

Heather Cox Richardson

[geeky-politics-46]

As if you needed another reason not to vote for Trump, here it is... all the stories here that you enjoy reading could be subject to new laws that could put your favorite writers in prison or at the very least subject to criminal action.

Project 2025 is by a conservative think tank & it is literally all the most dystopian ideas you can think. Like there are literally plans in it to suspend or get rid of parts of the US Constitution & The Bill of Rights. It is also what they are pushing to pass if Trump is elected in November. These are the plans they want to put in place and are already at work writing so Trump can rubber stamp.

There have been many articles about other horrifying parts of Project 2025, but a new revelation that strikes close to home as a smut writer is their plan to redefine & criminalize pornography. Including artwork that depicts nudity (think Michaelangelo's David) and books that depict sexual physical contact. That would put many of us on this site & others like AO3 at risk.

This is just the tip of the iceberg & there are plenty more heinous & inhumane things in Project 2025, including making homosexuality and being transgender illegal & providing gender affirming support punishable by incarceration. The people behind Project 2025 & The Heritage Foundation are telling you exactly what they plan to do. Believe them.

If you care about the people on this site and their work, please take them into consideration in Nov. Is Joe Biden my favorite person? No. Do I think some of his policies are wrong? Yes. Will I still be voting for him in November? Absolutely, because democracy is literally on the line this fall.

[rosielindy]

Follow and support Democracy Docket to counter these types of attacks on voting rights happening all across the country!

[wallisninety-six]

made a slight edit so it better reflects the world

ID: The logo of The Washington Post's "Democracy Dies in Darkness" logo, with "in darkness" crossed out and replaced with "behind a paywall." Democracy Dies Behind a Paywall.

[defiantart]

[kodoandsangha]

Project 2025 and how they're going to strip healthcare from everyone

I know everyone is focused on Gaza. The genocide happening there is unconscionable.

But, back here, in the States, where most of us live, there's this. This is the plan starting January 1. This is just ONE section - Health and Human Services.

I'm currently involved in a grassroots project to present the entirety of the 923 pages in this form to get the information out. Their plan is literally Gilead.

I want to be clear that nowhere in their policies, goals and rhetoric does it account for what happens to all of us when these things happen.

Summary

Scary vague thing:

Investigate, expose, and remediate any instances in which HHS violated people’s rights by:

Colluding with Big Tech to censor dissenting opinions during COVID

Colluding with abortion advocates and LGBT advocates to violate conscience-protection laws and the Hyde Amendment

P. 488

Public health entities (CDC, NIH, ACL, OASH)

Can’t prescribe any behavior (meaning masking/quarantine would never have happened) (454)

Can’t use fetal cells for research (454, 461)

No mask/vaccine mandates in hospitals (475)

LGBTQ

CDC - No data collection on gender identity (456)

Medicare - No national coverage determination for Gender Reassignment Surgery (474)

Allow discrimination

in healthcare

Reverse ACA’s prohibition on discrimination against gender identity and sexual orientation in health programs/activities (475)

Withdraw Ryan White guidance (aims at reducing barriers to HIV care, medication, and support for transgender people living with HIV) (485)

OASH will withdraw support for gender-affirming care (490)

Allow LGBTQ folks to be discriminated against in healthcare (remove Biden protections - 495) and intend to have the DOJ bring the discrimination protections to the supreme court (496) which could potentially set a precedent.

In adoption (477)

Possibly take children away from LGBTQ couples if they didn’t conceive them? “married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them” (489)

Prioritize faith-based education programs & grants (that don’t acknowledge LGBTQ folks’ existence) (480, 481)

Reproductive rights

Programs/education

CDC - Implies the Division of Reproductive Health and the 6|18 initiative will be cut (454)

Fewer doctors trained in abortions - Make abortion training opt-in rather than opt-out in all medical schools (485)

No “approved curriculum” or “evidence-based lists” in Teen Pregnancy Prevention or Personal Responsibility Education Programs (477)

Deal with STDs and unwanted pregnancy by focusing on abstinence and strengthening marriage (490)

Remove the experts - Install pro-life advocates in the Health Resources & Services Administration advisory committee (who makes the mandates around abortion) and cut ties with American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (484)

eliminate the HHS Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force and install a pro-life task force (489)

Foreign aid - Require foreign non-government orgs to certify that they wouldn’t perform/promote abortion as a condition of receiving funding. (493)

Protections

Remove protections from the woman and enforce protections for born-alive infants (including criminal consequences) (474)

Make it harder for people to understand how/where their protected health information is protected (rescind guidance - 497)

Drug/contraception access

FDA - Reverse approval of chemical abortion drugs (458)

Limit pills to 49 days gestation, in-person dispensing, report all adverse events (459)

Reduce access to contraception - Allow insurance providers to morally object to providing contraception on nonreligious grounds (it’s already allowed for religious grounds) (483)

Male condoms will no longer be mandated coverage (485)

No more Ella (week-after-pill) in the contraceptive mandate (485)

Make access harder - Withdraw OCR’s pharmacy abortion mandate guidance which prohibits discrimination when providing abortion meds (496)

Travel

Prohibit abortion travel funding (eliminate the section 1115 waivers that allow funds to help cross state lines) (471)

No abortions for refugees (478)

Government funds

No funds for Planned Parenthood (471) 

prohibit family planning grants from going to entities that perform abortions or provide funding to other entities that perform abortions (491)

Cut up to 10% of medicaid funds from states that require abortion insurance coverage (CA, IL, Maine, MD, NY, OR, WA, Vermont, Hawaii, Connecticut) (472)

Oversight

Track every abortion in every state (455)

New mission statement “furthering the health and well-being of all Americans ‘from conception to natural death.’” (489)

Require health care workers to report abortion pill complications (459)

Medicare

Use AI to detect fraud (463)

Lots of regulations impacting healthcare system reporting/fund-access/insurance pool etc.

Would be good to get someone in healthcare to analyze, I’m betting these gut the ACA

“Separate the subsidized ACA exchange market from the nonsubsidized insurance market” (469)

Eliminated programs

Medicare Shared Savings Program (465)

Inflation Reduction Act (465)

Medicaid

Add work requirements and lifetime caps (468)

Eliminate benefit requirements/mandates and middle/upper income recipients (468)

Cut up to 10% of medicaid funds from states that require abortion insurance coverage (CA, IL, Maine, MD, NY, OR, WA, Vermont, Hawaii, Connecticut) (472)

Child/family welfare (some overlap with lgbtq, copied in here)

Combine child support with visitation support court (implied via example, 479)

Prioritize faith-based HMRE (healthy marriage & relationship education) programs & grants and don’t pressure them to conform to “nonreligious definitions of marriage” (480, 481)

“in cases where the father or mother does not make a sincere or serious effort to be involved in the child’s upbringing, termination of parental rights for children in foster care should be swift” (482)

Eliminate the Head Start program (482)

Potentially (implied) cut programs related to bullying prevention, children’s safety, health disparities, early childhood support, poisoning and SUID prevention. (486)

Take children away from LGBTQ couples if they didn’t conceive them? “married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them” (489)

Housing

“Rescind legal analysis that authorized HHS to impose a moratorium on rental evictions during COVID” (492)

[theyreoutofcontrol]

Literally voting in fascism

[astralleywright]

the most important election in american history is happening soon. don't let anyone tell you that your vote doesn't matter, because even a single person can make a difference. get to the polls and cast your vote for laudna at the chicago live show

[kuromi-hoemie]

Joe Biden is going to make it illegal to throw your stems away. if you smoked all your nugs you will be required by law to grind up your stems and smoke those too. if you're smoking stems only you're supposed to use the rolling paper that burns unevenly

[onekisstotakewithme]

best recent clothing purchases/gifts

i got a $40 pair of Levis at Winners the other day, and they hit.

I got myself an it's a wonderful life shirt from Life is Good that everyone needs to see:

[rosielindy]

I’m an older woman with no children. All my extended family voted to destroy America. Anyone have ideas why I should even give a fuck about this country anymore? Seems like there’s nowhere left to run to…