Shawty got low low low low blood sugar levels.

I could imagine both scenarios where he moves left or right after the election my comment didn’t necessarily rule one out. Why are you only imagining Talarico moving to the right? And even if he does move rightward, the makeup of the Senate will still be more pro-trans than without him.

Imagine a continuous fart going brrrrrrrppppppp out of your butt. It’s that, but out of Trump’s mouth and Ministry of Truth Social page.

I beg to differ, it is my opinion that not doing so is what got the USA Trump (if that’s what you mean by ‘us here’) twice.

It’s out of self-interest I agree. And now that it affects them, they are skipping the sanewashing on this one issue. If it didn’t affect them, they would be reporting on it like:

White House uses unconventional legal theory to revoke press access

I’ll be frank: I don’t think Paxton winning over Talarico will tell the DNC a single thing with respect to trans rights.

Whereas if Talarico wins, what is preventing him from changing his views in any way, at any point within the next 6 years? A Dem President in 2028, with the support of Congress including Talarico, can codify better protections for all humans, in all states despite any state like Texas’ objections. Paxton as Senator would be an active obstacle to that type of effort.

Can I have a source on the claim that the Equality Act was changed to redefine what it meant so that it could exclude trans people?

If a Musky PAC were to run ads saying how terrible Brown or another candidate would be for trans rights, in the same way Jewish and Arab voters were shown contradictory messages in 2024, would that influence how or whether you vote?

they are copying their talking points to demonize us

To be clear, I think that trans people should compete in sports according to their gender and be conferred the same rights as anyone else. But people that want to limit trans people’s participation in sports for flawed, scientifically refuted reasons while treating them as humans, I don’t think is the same, as wanting to ban them from bathrooms changing driver’s licenses and treating them as subhuman demon freaks. We should not equate the two.

To give a similar example, the fight for gay sex and marriage in Canada was fought over decades, and the stigma remains in small pockets. A progressive Prime Minister decriminalized it in the 1969 while not his entire Liberal Party was openly for it, and it was still in the decades after that a ban on workplace discrimination and in the 2000s when marriage was recognized. So we have to pull in the same direction, allow trans people the same basic rights as anyone else, then talk about competitive and recreational activites like sports later rather than just labelling it all as anti-trans sub-humanization talking points.

But just like Trump found out in Iran, power comes from how much you can get others to go along with your plan. He has power when people capitulate in advance to his illegal and unconstitutional orders. Sure, the way he operates will become more illegal and unconstitutional when you ignore him, that won’t make him powerful so long as nobody listens to him. The journalist boycot in response to the press pass denial was the first thing resembling a spine from the media.

Vote for lesser evil + organize, get loud and make being trans normal in red states. The American system is so screwed up with no ability to dissolve your legislatures before the 4 year cycle. If you live in a state of those races, it would be better to be ignored than your rights taken away. If you need anything go seek the support of a Democrat that is pro-trans from out of your state, with control of Congress they would be able to help you more if your state’s legislators are useless but of the same caucus rather than of a caucus that is actively blocking efforts. Sorry if I sound flippant about it, but I would tell moderate voters the same about a progressive candidate.

If you’re worried about the ratchet affect, the solution I don’t think is to turn the screws further in the direction of the ratchet. The UK example is weird, the Labour Party’s somewhat to blame but I don’t fully lay it at their feet, because their justice system is biased in very old ways, negatively affecting people’s rights to gender expresssion.

The USA has already tried in 2016 the “haha, let Republicans vote for Donald Trump, they’ll see how bad it is when they vote for racism rather than a milquetoast candidate and they will disavow it forever after” method, that didn’t work, only made things a lot worse, he got elected again. Even if you have the long game in mind, not voting appears to send, even if a Republican wins 49% to 47%, a signal that the people mandate that trans people should be hurt, rather than a more neutral signal. States that had been trending red turning blue signals nationally a change in the direction of trans acceptance, regardless of the willingness of the candidate to associate during the campaign with pro-trans advocates or not.

I absolutely see where you’re coming from. Sorry if I made bad assumptions about your opinion because I’m responding to you and the original comment, and in a sense I agree on your assessment but differ on the approach.

The physical crises are coming whether we shut our eyes or not, you are correct. I am maybe a lot more optimistic than many here on how pliable that system could be. My optimistic vision still does hinge on many improbable sounding feats like getting money out of politics, drastically reforming the court amongst other changes. Preparing for the break is fine, but I argue we’d be better off doing that while still trying to bend the system to better handle the break if it happens, and form some strategic alliances with the establishment to get there.

Removed by mod

Yes, the issue with the war in Iran is that it hasn’t been waged correctly. Im John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty.

You’re taking the part where I’m being charitable and accepting the other person’s (and your) premise that a war under Harris is inevitable for the sake of argument, and twisting that into as if I was arguing for it, which is incorrect. I will engage no further with you on this.

I can respect your position on that screwing up a war hard to create a deterrent and disincentive, it’s an interesting one. To me that (and arguments that he’s done more to reduce oil consumption than any environmental activist) are silver linings than reasons to direct your vote on the future one way or another.

We had an international coalition going into Afghanistan

As a Canadian, “my country” got involved there but we got burnt pretty bad I’d say, whatever the result was.

I’d rather see no war, despite Harris labelling Iran as the greatest adversary, I still don’t think it’s forgone conclusion that Harris would start a war, but I’ll assume she does for the sake of steelmanning your argument. I’m not a time traveler so I can only speculate the alternatives, but Trump instigated war not just once but twice with Iran. He’s giving American money away to dictators and allowing right wing propaganda campaigns to foment. He’s done nothing to help suffering Iranians, if Harris were to involve the US militarily, she would at least provide some forms of aid to try to mitigate the regime’s massacaring people and restore communication between people stuck their and the worldwide Iranian diaspora. It’s even hard for me to speculate how long a Harris-initiated war would be, but there would definitely be a stronger push to come to a nuclear deal quicker rather than this on-off style untrustworthy negotiation with Trump, and unlike him Harris would care about any unsanctioned action getting approval from Congress, which if it is ®-controlled would keep a short leash within the War Powers Act.

So overall, I will still push back on the argument that always springs up around American election-time that Harris/Dems will be equally bad therefore don’t vote, but I’ll entertain a nuanced argument that one supports a thing Trump did, intentional or not, over a at least somewhat hypothetical action Harris might take.

One could possibly imagine turning a blind eye to Palestinian suffering coupled with nice sounding words of sympathy, but there’s virtually no way the USA under Harris would have engaged twice in military adventurism in Iran. Even if she as President had a stroke causing her to take Bibi’s bait and start a war with Iran, she wouldn’t have alienated beforehand every single potential ally through tariffs and belligerent rhetoric, that most nations would provide the USA some token support which would keep it from being as disastrous for the USA as it is.

I have to say Trump is a fairly unique distillation of every aspect of American society that Americans don’t like to admit they have. He has plenty of vain, self-serving sycophants under him that could take his place, but I will say there are very few who have the same mix of incompetence, shamelessness and charisma draw for a certain populace.

Seriously, Democrats should really play this up…

Republican PACs are flooding your state with cash to get its candidate elected, and they’re spending that money to put as many lies in your ear as possible. Where’s the same Republicans’ money to lower your gas prices, grocery bill and input costs for your livelihood?

Are you near or far sighted at all, if so how was that experience?

Are you using only the base horizontal strap, or did you get the ergonomic gear add-on with the overhead strap and other stuff? Some reviewers were saying that it was only bearable with the extras.

Try our Argentinian mystery meat! 30% off!

Yes, any Middle East issue is complex and unrest has been ongoing for centuries, but at least mass displacement, killing children and other innocent people, destruction and blockading of humanitarian resources, and incursion into sovreign territory should be condemned, don’t you think, Ed? And the words “Free Palestine” are not anti-Israel, no one seemed to have a big problem with any of Macklemore’s words, until some billionaire ten days later phoned him up about it.

As a general point the judge would agree with what you wrote.

“These reasons and judgment should not be viewed, however, as any kind of blanket determination that a transgender or gender-diverse inmate who is designated as a [dangerous offender] cannot be transferred to an institution that aligns with their gender identity, and that may happen eventually for Ms. Cooper. Each such case will depend on their unique circumstances.”

Just in this specific circumstance, and at this point in time, the judge assessed and ruled accordingly in this case. My focus of this comment is not to debate the case (your argument has merit) but to highlight the difference in care for the rights of both parties in a similar Canadian trial, though of course not everybody got what they wanted. In the American case, even the states’ lawyers were scratching their heads with the unprompted bigotry coming from the judges out of left field.