#louisiana legislature

[tomorrowusa]

Tuesday is Election Day in many parts of the US.

VOTE! 🗳 🇺🇸

A number of sites provide you with an opportunity to see who is on your ballot and what issues are being contested. They don't include an actual image of your ballot but they do let you know what's on it.

VOTE411 Voter Guide

Sample Ballot Lookup - Ballotpedia

Vote Informed on the Entire Ballot - BallotReady

Of course check the site of your local election authority. In some places it's the county clerk and in others it's a board of elections. The elections mentioned in this post are a small number of those around the US on November 7th.

Because of the GOP SCOTUS overturning of Roe v. Wade, state legislatures now determine whether a state supports reproductive freedom or not. State governments have been badly neglected by liberals for decades — and that situation needs to end.

Both chambers of the state legislature in Virginia are up for election on Tuesday. If both fall under Republican control then the state will join the rest of the South in restricting abortion.

Virginia is not the only state having elections for its state officials.

STATES HOLDING ELECTIONS FOR STATE LEGISLATURE

Virginia

New Jersey

Mississippi

Louisiana

STATES HOLDING ELECTIONS FOR GOVERNOR

Kentucky

Louisiana

Mississippi

There are numerous municipal elections, special elections, ballot measures, and constitutional amendments to be decided on Tuesday.

The biggie is the Ohio constitutional amendment on reproductive freedom. Voters in Ohio have the opportunity to overturn the gerrymandered Ohio Republican legislature's ban on abortion. Vote YES on Ohio Issue 1.

A very local but important contest is the special legislative election in New Hampshire to fill a vacancy in Hillsborough County District 3 (in the Nashua area). Right now Republicans have a one seat advantage in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. If Democrat Paige Beauchemin wins this seat then Republicans will be forced to share power with Democrats in the chamber.

Good candidates for federal office often emerge from state and local government. Before he was elected to the US Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served several terms in the Illinois legislature.

There is no such thing as an unimportant election.

[thereallovebug]

I find this development extremely disturbing. Not because I have a bleeding heart for people who molest little kids. I save my sympathy for their victims. I’m sure most people’s first reaction hearing about this will be, “Good. They have it coming” I get it; these are horrific crimes that are life and soul crushing.

But I’m not here to argue the best way to deal with them. I’m looking at the big picture.

The GOP-led legislature of Louisiana has passed a bill to remove more bodily autonomy from a group of citizens. The governor just needs to sign the bill into law.

Don’t let the word “option” in the title fool you; the option is not up to the prisoner as perhaps a last-ditch effort to “cure” their urges, but up to the judge to impose as a punishment on behalf of the State. So the LA government is prepared to force surgical castration on a select group of prisoners. (And let’s not even get into the anti-trans irony here) BTW, this law will also apply to people who have biological female parts (not exactly sure how that will work, but since the government already decides what goes on in your uterus, this is just the next step).

And here’s an interesting statistic from a quick Google search:

“In Louisiana, Black people constituted 33% of state residents, but 52% of people in jail and 67% of people in prison.” (emphasis mine)

So who is this gonna affect the most? Racism can’t possibly also be a factor in this decision, eh?

Like I said, a lot of people aren’t going to care about this. But it does make me wonder which group of “undesirables” will be targeted next and how, “for the good of the public”?

(Oh, and, FUCK the DEMOCRATIC legislator who sponsored this bill. Girl, you need to switch parties because this kind of shit is not supposed to be what we’re about! 😡)

And for those Americans reading this: we have an election coming up this November and this is a prime example of why down-ticket candidates are important, too. Local and state politicians are just the larval form of national politicians, so please remember to do your research and VOTE.

[toni-onone]

In the last month, the GOP-led state Legislature in Alabama defied a Supreme Court order to create a second majority-Black district, as did the Legislature in Louisiana. In Florida, new education guidelines have been approved by the state Board of Education that require students be told of the benefits people earned because of skills learned as slaves.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the youngest elected member of the House, blasted his home state for the guidelines.

I see the truth is too much for some to give, too close to righteousness huh?

[itgetsbetter]

These high school students in Louisiana staged a queer play on the steps of the capitol building to protest anti-LGBTQ+ bills

“What do you you say to a little kid who prays to the same God you do, when they ask God how much longer until they’re allowed to be themselves?”

After the tragic loss of one of their fellow GSA club members, these Louisiana students wanted to channel their grief into activism.

They were awarded one of our Changemakers grants, and used the funds to create the Q-Center for LGBTQ+ students at their school, hosted a Day for Queer Students, AND hired Broadway director Jimmy Maize to help them script a short play to perform in front of lawmakers.

They performed their show, “The Capitol Project,” in front of the Capitol building and shared their personal stories. State Senator Royce Duplessis, one of the only legislators who stayed to watch, asked, “How do we expect kids to stay in a state like this when laws are being passed that basically say to them, we don’t care about you?”

At the end of the play, adults in the audience passed the mic to tell them over and over: "I’m here to fight with them, every step of the way."

Let's make more of this happen! If you have an idea like this to support LGBTQ+ youth in your own community, apply now for one of our Changemakers grants of up to $10,000 at itgetsbetter.org/changemakers by May 5th!

[femmchantress]

Our state legislature is trying to basically end the Louisiana branch of the film industry by removing all the incentives to film and host productions here and it’s so fucked, like all the industry folks I know are in an absolute panic

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rosemary Westwood at NPR:

A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events. Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop. NPR has confirmed the policy was discussed at this meeting, and at two other meetings held within the department's Office of Public Health, on Oct. 3 and Nov. 21, through interviews with four employees at the Department of Health, which employs more than 6,500 people and is the state's largest agency.

According to the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear losing their jobs or other forms of retaliation, the policy would be implemented quietly and would not be put in writing. Staffers were also told that it applies to every aspect of the health department's work: Employees could not send out press releases, give interviews, hold vaccine events, give presentations or create social media posts encouraging the public to get the vaccines. They also could not put up signs at the department's clinics that COVID, flu or mpox vaccines were available on site. The new policy in Louisiana was implemented as some politicians have promoted false information about vaccines and as President-elect Donald Trump seeks to have anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And some public health experts are concerned that if other states follow Louisiana, the U.S. could face rising levels of disease and further erosion of trust in the nation's public health infrastructure.

[...]

A blow to public health practice

Staff at Louisiana's health department fear the new policy undermines their efforts to protect the public, and violates the fundamental mission of public health: to prevent illness and disease by following the science.

[...]

Experts fear consequences of undermining trust in vaccine

Last year, 652 people in Louisiana died of COVID, including five children. Louisiana currently is tied with DC for the highest rate of flu in the U.S. In 2022 alone, flu killed 586 people in Louisiana. Every health department staff member, former staff member, public health official and vaccine expert contacted by NPR repeated the scientific consensus that vaccines are safe, effective, and essential for preventing illness, hospitalizations, and deaths.

[...]

Policy change follows new governor's election

Until becoming Louisiana governor in early 2024, Republican Jeff Landry served as the state's attorney general for eight years. During the pandemic, he criticized the state's COVID response and filed lawsuits over federal and state vaccine mandates. On Dec. 6, 2021, Attorney General Landry spoke at a state committee hearing against adding COVID to the childhood immunization schedule. At his side was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who presented false claims about COVID vaccines. This year the Republican-controlled legislature passed five bills — all signed by Gov. Landry — and two resolutions aimed at loosening vaccine requirements, limiting the power of public health authorities and sowing doubt about vaccine safety.

Gov. Landry also appointed Dr. Ralph Abraham, a family medicine doctor, to be the state's surgeon general. That position co-leads the Department of Health, and is tasked with crafting health policy that is then carried out by the departmental co-leader, the secretary. [...] Abraham said masking, lockdowns and vaccination requirements "were practically ineffective," that COVID vaccine adverse effects have been "suppressed," that "we don't know" whether blood from people who've been vaccinated is safe for donation and that "we hope and pray" COVID vaccines don't increase the risk miscarriages.

[...]

A slippery slope to future disease outbreaks

Experts told NPR they feared a policy that undermines COVID, flu and mpox vaccinations could have a spillover effect, reducing public trust in vaccinations overall, including those given to children to prevent a host of dangerous and deadly illnesses. "I believe that we will see measles cases. I believe we will see whooping cough cases. I believe we will likely see meningitis outbreaks," said Hood. In the Nov. 14 meeting, a staff member asked whether the ban on promoting vaccines applied to children's immunizations, but the answer was noncommittal, according to an employee with knowledge of the meeting's details. "My understanding was it's not clear to what extent we might be able to promote childhood vaccinations," the staff member said. (The Louisiana Department of Health's statement to NPR said the changes in policy and messaging do not apply to childhood immunizations.) Nationally, vaccination rates for serious childhood diseases have been falling in recent years, including in Louisiana.

[...]

The rise of public health officials promoting misinformation

Louisiana isn't the only state where public health officials have recently announced controversial decisions and repeated false or discredited health theories. Florida's surgeon general has made false claims about COVID vaccines, undermined school vaccine mandates for the measles and said local officials should stop adding fluoride to water supplies.

The consequences of anti-vaxxer extremism and anti-public health sentiments being normalized by Republicans: Louisiana bans the state's Department of Health from promoting COVID, flu, or mpox vaccines.

[contemplatingoutlander]

States caught unprepared for Trump’s threats to FEMA

FEMA is canceling plans to award states grants to help prepare against future disasters. Federal funds given to states after disasters strike could also be in jeopardy.

Torrential rain fell on Eastern Kentucky in July 2022, turning creeks into rivers that roared through the valleys and hollows, wrecking hundreds of homes and killing 45 people. Since then, the state has been trapped in a cycle of seemingly never-ending disasters, exhausting storm-weary residents in impoverished small towns. “Our families are hurting and suffering, and our businesses are being hit and hit again,” said Kristin Walker Collins, chief executive of the nonprofit Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky.

The Trump administration is doing away with FEMA bit by bit. Right now they are ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program that has provided billions of dollars in grants to states

to repair levees, elevate flood-prone homes and shore up drinking water systems. The program was built on research showing it is many times less expensive to protect against future damage from natural disasters than to pay for repairs and rebuilding afterward.

A FEMA spokesperson gave this reason for why BRIC is ending:

“BRIC was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” she said in a statement. “It was more concerned with climate change than helping Americans effected by natural disasters.”

This is another example of how Trump's unconscionable war on anything to do with "climate change" is going to cost American lives and far more money repairing property damage than if Trump had just continued the BRIC proactive program of shoring up infrastructure to prevent unnecessary damage during extreme weather events.

That Trump wants to live in denial about climate change won't make it go away.

But regarding FEMA, Trump doesn't want to stop there:

The president has said he wants to eliminate FEMA and shift responsibility for disaster response to the states — which experts said are unprepared to respond to catastrophic disasters without federal assistance. [...] Some emergency management experts say the president’s proposal to shift the financial responsibility of responding to those disasters to states could prompt chaos in state capitals and city governments, forcing messy political fights about how to pay for disaster relief and fund preparedness offices.

It shouldn't be surprising, that two of the three top states for FEMA aid since 2003 are red states:

Among states, Louisiana ($22 billion), New York ($17.6 billion) and Florida ($13.6 billion) received the most in public assistance funds over the past two decades, mostly for damage caused by hurricanes, according to the analysis. [color emphasis added]

Red states could be in major trouble without FEMA, since GOP legislatures typically don't believe in raising taxes for needed services. Some of those states, like Wyoming, have such small populations that they might not be able to meet state disaster relief needs on their own, even if they raise taxes.

In the light of Trump and the GOP's determination to cut taxes for the obscenely wealthy, Trump's plans to cut back on FEMA are particularly cruel.

This is a gift 🎁 link, so you can read the article without a paywall.

[loxlia]

Hey, if you’re in Iowa, please reach out to your state government representatives. This is a terrifying and obviously fascist push to censor libraries and suppress information.

And if you aren’t in Iowa—spread this around and keep an eye on your own state legislature to see if they’re trying to push this kind of blatant fascism through. Louisiana tried last year and thankfully failed, but I guarantee other states are going to try this.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

"The sacrosanctity of slave property in this war has operated most injuriously to the Confederacy," the assistant secretary of war said bluntly in July 1863. And so it had. "The planter is more ready to contribute his sons than his slaves to the war," the Mobile Register declared in outrage during one impressment campaign. It was a damning accusation, and one that at this distance seems palpably true. Slaveholders offered more opposition to slave impressment than to conscription. F. S. Blount, chief impressment agent in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana, talked of his failures to get enough slaves "to complete a road so vitally important to the protection of the very individuals, whose highest patriotic impulses never ascend above their own Petty ... schemes for the accumulation of wealth." "You cheerfully yield your children to your country, how you refuse your servants?" one broadside blasted. Slavery, as it turned out, was a form of property that dangerously attenuated citizens' allegiance to the state and submission to its authority. Planters colluded with their slaves in thwarting impressment agents, giving them passes or running them into the woods at the first approach of government agents. They took oaths of allegiance in occupied territory to hold onto their slaves and guided Yankee detachments back to their plantations to repossess their worldly wealth in cotton and slaves. They attacked military commanders who did not make it a priority to protect their property or prevent its escape, and they demanded that politicians represent their interests against the demands of the War Department and the Davis administration. For some, any state would do--Union, Confederate, Brazilian--if it adequately protected their property in slaves.

Slaveholders, it seems, were more concerned with property than nation. Do historians' robust assertions of the strength and endurance of Confederate nationalism take that into account? How else are we to explain the actions of a group insane enough to take a region and all its people into a perilous war, but not patriotic enough to do what it took to fight it? Everywhere in the C.S.A. the policy on slave impressment was resisted. In some places that resistance reached a scale that could only be called massive civil disobedience. In Georgia and North Carolina, legislatures battled the tyranny of the federal government on behalf of slaveholders' inalienable rights of property in slaves. In South Carolina, that struggle went to extremes as planters who had long been "ready with excuses for not furnishing labor to defend Charleston" stacked the legislature with their own and then wrote legislation designed, as Brigadier General John S. Preston charged, "as an explicit declaration that this State does not intend to contribute another slave or soldier to the public defense." As chief of the Bureau of Conscription, Preston, himself a Carolinian, had been out trying to procure "men and labor for the public defense." But there was no military situation so dire as to prevent quibbling. In 1863 Preston had managed to get only 450 of the 2,500 slaves requisitioned by the Engineer's Department, while the governor and legislature ignored the War Department's urging to pass relevant legislation. And again in 1864, even as General Sherman advanced toward Charleston, he could not get the 2,500 men called for. Then in late 1864, with Sherman's legions virtually at the gates, the legislature of South Carolina passed two acts--one asserting ultimate state authority over conscription and another over impressment--so in conflict with the instructions of the War Department that Preston denounced them as "treason to the Confederate States." "May you be endowed with strength and wisdom to overcome enemies stronger than yankee armies--the folly and wickedness of our own people," Preston wrote his president. Planters would not sacrifice the very property they had created the government to protect.

stephanie mccurry, confederate reckoning: power and politics in the civil war south; bolding mine bc ijbol 😂😂😂😂😂

[toni-onone]

Really Louisiana? As bad as the roads are, among other things and this is your priority? Do y’all even give a little of a crap about us residents/ taxpayers? You know we the people, this is spitting in our faces; wow. This is unacceptable.

[whencyclopedia]

Notes on the State of Virginia

Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) is the only full-length work by Thomas Jefferson (l. 1743-1826) published in his lifetime and was written in response to questions from France regarding the thirteen states that formed the United States at that time. Among the topics Jefferson addresses is slavery and the supremacy of Whites over Blacks.

Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia began as a response to the questions submitted by François Barbé-Marbois (l. 1745-1837), then diplomat and ambassador to the United States (and best known for negotiating the Louisiana Purchase in 1803), to the thirteen states of the new country of the United States of America.

In 1779, as secretary of the French legation to the United States, Barbé-Marbois was tasked with organizing consulates in each state and, in 1780, submitted a series of questions to the governors of the states on their respective understanding of each one's geography, government, history, laws, military, resources, and other aspects of each region.

At this time, Thomas Jefferson was the governor of Virginia, and he responded with the work that eventually became Notes on the State of Virginia. The work's 'chapters' are, therefore, given as 'queries' in answer to each of Barbé-Marbois' questions. Query I deals with the boundaries of Virginia, Query II with its rivers, and so on through Query 23, along the way addressing physical features, climate, religion, government, commerce, laws, etc.

The work is interesting on many levels but has become famous (or infamous) for Jefferson's observations on slavery, the superiority of Whites over Blacks, and, in Query XIV (on laws), his dismissal of the African American poet Phillis Wheatley (l. c. 1753-1784), whose Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, had made her famous in 1773. Jefferson characterizes her work as mere mimicry because, according to the prevailing understanding of the time, Black people were incapable of writing poetry, much less the kind of verse Wheatley was so admired for.

Reception & Influence

Notes on the State of Virginia not only influenced Europeans' views of the United States but also those of its citizens and, notably, passages from Query XIV (14) and Query XVIII (18) on slavery. Jefferson opposed slavery as a barbaric and financially imprudent institution, but he was also opposed to emancipation, favoring colonization (sending Blacks back to Africa) as the best means of resolving the 'peculiar institution.'

Abolitionists of the time derided Notes on the State of Virginia, and its passages on slavery were denounced by them for decades after Jefferson's death. The Black abolitionist David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829), to give only one example, claimed Jefferson's beliefs on race, reflecting a broader racialized belief system, had to be challenged if emancipation were ever to be realized and Blacks regarded as the equals of Whites.

Pro-slavery advocates were equally stirred by Jefferson's passages on race and the superiority of White people and, as with the abolitionists, continued to draw on Notes on the State of Virginia up through the mid-19th century. T. R. Dew's A Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832 was heavily influenced by Jefferson's views, sometimes paraphrasing his lines. This work, by Thomas Roderick Dew (l. 1802-1846), then professor of history and political law at The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, was written in response to debates over emancipation and colonization in the Virginia State Legislature in the wake of Nat Turner's Rebellion of August 1831. Dew's arguments, echoing Jefferson's, ended the debate in favor of retaining slavery in the state.

In the present day, Notes on the State of Virginia is generally regarded as a racialized sales pitch to France, reflecting poorly on its author, who later became the third president of the United States and, earlier, had penned the Declaration of Independence.

Read More

⇒ Notes on the State of Virginia

[shituationist]

The right-wing in Louisiana has been pretty successful in convincing dumb people that not getting in the way of people doing something to themselves means forcing people to do something. For example, in the gender affirmative care "debate", right-wingers have convinced the simple-minded that allowing minors to take puberty blockers is the equivalent of forcing children to undergo sexual reassignment surgery. The debate in Louisiana, as one conservative lawmaker actually pointed out in dissent to his colleagues, rhetorically hinged on the idea that there were many children undergoing SRS, an epidemic of it, even, when in fact no example could be found of such a thing happening in Louisiana ever.

That didn't stop the reactionary legislature from banning gender affirmative care for minors in toto. And the rhetoric has been so successful that to even suggest that transgender minors should be allowed to access care that demonstrably improves their lives means, to enough people, that you want to forcibly and coercively castrate people's children.

It might reflect the conservative presumption that minors are not people endowed with bodily autonomy and rights, but the property of their parents, who are alone tasked with making decisions for them. Those who advocate for giving more autonomy and liberty to teenagers are accused of wanting to abuse teenagers - as if allowing transgender teenagers to choose, for themselves, to halt the effects of puberty is the equivalent of forcing those teenagers to - because parents feel as if they're being forced to accept that their child is not simply theirs to do with as they please.

[reasonsforhope]

"Two years ago, the biggest battles in state legislatures were over voting rights. Democrats loudly — and sometimes literally — protested as Republicans passed new voting restrictions in states like Georgia, Florida and Texas. This year, attention has shifted to other hot-button issues, but the fight over the franchise has continued. Republicans have enacted dozens of laws this year that will make it harder for some people to vote in future elections. 

But this year, voting-rights advocates got some significant wins too: States — controlled by Democrats and Republicans — have enacted more than twice as many laws expanding voting rights as restricting them, although the most comprehensive voter-protection laws passed in blue states. In all, 39 states and Washington, D.C., have changed their election laws in some way this year...

Where voting rights were expanded in 2023 (so far)

Unlike two years ago, though, we’d argue that the bigger story of this year’s legislative sessions was all the ways states made it easier to vote. As of July 21, according to the Voting Rights Lab, [which runs an excellent and completely comprehensive tracker of election-related bills], 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).

That said, not all election laws are created equal, and the most comprehensive expansive laws passed in blue states. For example: 

New Mexico adopted a major voting-rights package that will automatically register New Mexicans to vote when they interact with the state’s Motor Vehicle Division, allow voters to request absentee ballots for all future elections without the need to reapply each time and restore the right to vote to felons who are on probation or parole. The law also allows Native Americans to register to vote and receive ballots at official tribal buildings and makes it easier for Native American officials to get polling places set up in pueblos and on tribal land.

Minnesota followed suit with a law also establishing automatic voter registration and a permanent absentee-voting list. The act allows 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote too. Meanwhile, a separate new law also reenfranchises felons on probation or parole.

Michigan enacted eight laws implementing a constitutional amendment expanding voting rights that voters approved last year. Most notably, the laws guarantee at least nine days of in-person early voting and allow counties to offer as many as 29. The bills also allow voters to fix mistakes on their absentee-ballot envelopes so that their ballot can still count, track the status of their ballot online, and use student, military and tribal IDs as proof of identification. 

Connecticut became the sixth state to enact a state-level voting-rights act, which bars municipalities from discriminating against minority groups in voting, requires them to provide language assistance to certain language minority groups and requires municipalities with a record of voter discrimination to get preclearance before changing their election laws. The Nutmeg State also approved 14 days of early voting and put a constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot that would legalize no-excuse absentee voting.

No matter its specific provisions, each of these election-law changes could impact how voters cast their ballots in future elections, including next year’s closely watched presidential race. There’s a good chance your state amended its election laws in some way this year, so make sure you double-check the latest rules in your state before the next time you vote."

-via FiveThirtyEight (via FutureCrunch), July 24, 2023

[partisan-by-default]

A Texas lawmaker has filed a bill that would reclassify two drugs used for reproductive health as controlled substances, which would place further restrictions on their access.

The proposal mirrors a law in Louisiana that went into effect Oct. 1 that treats mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances in state law. While the drugs are used in medication abortions, they have other applications such as treating life-threatening hemorrhaging.  

Texas state Rep.-elect Pat Curry, a Republican from Waco, has filed legislation, House Bill 1339,  that is comparable to the Louisiana law. Some health care providers have criticized Louisiana’s measure over its stricter storage and documentation requirements. Physicians have said the additional steps could place patients’ lives at risk.

Both Louisiana and Texas have strict abortion bans in place. Both states bar the procedure in almost all instances.

The Texas Legislature convenes for its next lawmaking session Jan. 14. 

Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed the new law, Act 246, in May, despite 270 doctors signing a letter against it. Mifepristone and misoprostol have been pulled off obstetric hemorrhage carts in hospitals and are now stored in passcode-protected cabinets outside of labor and delivery rooms.

[momkat]

If you are in the USA today, go VOTE!!!

So many people only vote in presidential elections when it is the smaller more local elections that have so much control over your lives!!! The president is not a king and can effect NOTHING if they have a hostile congress!! Congresspeople come from smaller local government offices! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

If you don't show up to vote against, then you are voting for. A mediocre candidate who votes FOR you in office most of the time is still better than a hostile candidate who will vote against you while in office. If you can't vote for, then at least vote against!

Vote LOCAL!

School Board – Your local School Board is responsible for:

Content of your sex education including gay sex & safety, and all the sexual variants that real people have.

whether gay marriage can be talked about in school

whether a child gets called their chosen name vs their dead name in class.

all policies about trans kids, including anti-bullying policies

whether or not your school has to tell parents that you are identifying as queer. (If a kid is not telling their parents that they are some form of alt/queer/non-b THERE IS A REASON FOR IT. Schools telling these parents can result in abuse, shaming, being kicked out of the house, being 'beaten straight' etc.)

Access to gender affirming care in the clinic or counselor's office

Book bans – school book bans are often used as a step/justification for book bans at the local library.

The content of your history class. Whitewashing slavery. Whitewashing Nazi Germany. Whitewashing colonialism.

And much, much more. In addition, School Boards are often a stepping stone to larger offices. The progression is: School Board, City/County board, State office, National office. If you want state and national officials to support you, you have to grow them at the LOCAL LEVEL!!!

City/County Government:

How much money schools get. (And therefore can effect/dictate policies.)

How much money cops get. (And therefore can effect/dictate policies.)

How much money public services (firemen, local health services, libraries etc) get.

Local government regulations & laws (i.e. being arrested for 'indecency' because you are in drag.)

And again, don't forget that these are the 'feeder' offices that lead to government offices. These people go on to state offices!!

Your STATE Legislature is responsible for:

All abortion policies. Since Roe v. Wade has been tossed there is no federal prevention against any abortion policies.

All sexual health policies. From birth control to sex changes. Their laws can range from sensible to inhumane.

All CIVIL RIGHTS policies that are not explicitly guarded and monitored by the federal government are left up to the states. Take a look at Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Arizona, etc. if you want examples.

And, of course, they can dictate policies to smaller municipalities (see City/County).

The most likely State office that leads to the presidency is Governor or a state. If you want better presidents, you need better governors!

Gerrymandering:

“But...but, but... I am gerrymandered so it doesn't make a difference if I vote!!” It DOES! If you are in a gerrymandered district and the crazy left wing crusader wins with a landslide because you DID NOT VOTE, then their party will keep putting in crazy right wing crusaders! If the vote is closer, EVEN IF YOU LOSE, their party is more likely to put in a more centrist candidate because they don't want to risk losing the seat. In addition, voting records are used to determine 1) the NEXT time areas are redistricted and 2) To show severe gerrymandering to courts to OVERTURN gerrymandered districts and force a redistricting. Right now there are people who are wining court case after court case to force redistricting of gerrymandered states and they are using voting data to do so!!! VOTE!!!

Please re-post this. Please blaze this. Please pass it on. PLEASE VOTE!

[darkmaga-returns]

December 8, 2024Image by Alberto Giuliani

Guest post by Paul Gardiner

Regardless of a presidential pardon, Dr Anthony Fauci remains subject to possible prosecution for violations of state criminal codes that he (and other named officials) allegedly committed during the Covid-19 pandemic. On behalf of hundreds of aggrieved families of lost loved ones during the pandemic, extensive legal briefs requesting criminal investigations of alleged state crimes have been submitted by the Vires Law Group, West Palm Beach, FL, to attorneys general in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. View the Texas filing here.

This article identifies some of the huge financial payments (bonuses) paid to hospitals during the pandemic. Further, it is believed that these payments served as motivation to encourage the extensive use of the toxic drug remdesivir as well as end-of-life ventilators for many Covid-19 patients. Additionally, the coercion of attending physicians (and nurses) by hospital administrators and other officials to “go along” with toxic treatments of Covid-19 patients is described.

Regarding remdesivir, the recent testimony of Dr. David Martin before members of the Oklahoma state legislature (view here for short video) is daunting to say the least. His testimony is a strong indictment of those who supported and administered remdesivir, a drug publicly known to be highly toxic, causing kidney and other organ failure contributing to or causing a patient’s ultimate death.