All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[The Cool Thatguy]

Everything Trump touches dies:

Facebook scrambles to escape stock’s death spiral as users flee, sales drop

This might be a rare public service by Trump, then.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

This might be a rare public service by Trump, then.

Depends on your point of view. I like Facebook and belong to a goodly number of fun groups there.

[AnakinFlair]

There's no conspiracy in that at all, I think Russia are certainly one of the few top suspects, arguably the biggest one. I just don't know if it makes sense for them.

There were reports of Russian Navy units in the area of the explosions around the same time last I heard.

[hyped78]

Not them….HIM. It’s Putin driving that train, and the government following his orders.

Totally. This ends when he's gone, one way or the other.

[Gray Lensman]

There were reports of Russian Navy units in the area of the explosions around the same time last I heard.

One thing people forget to account for is to separate Putin from Russia long enough to ask if breaking the pipeline is a good thing for him. It does remove the desire for any oligarch to get the gas flowing again completely off the table, while blaming the West for it.

Remember, Putin's biggest need is to stay in power and avoid a Romanov retirement. Everything else for him comes after that.

[hyped78]

One thing people forget to account for is to separate Putin from Russia long enough to ask if breaking the pipeline is a good thing for him. It does remove the desire for any oligarch to get the gas flowing again completely off the table, while blaming the West for it.

Remember, Putin's biggest need is to stay in power and avoid a Romanov retirement. Everything else for him comes after that.

You have a very good point there

[Catlady in training]

I doubt NATO will let them in while they are engaged in war against Russia (unfortunately)

Yeah, being in an active war is an obstacle. I think it's mostly a message to Putler that they are no longer willing to compromise on his conditions. They were willing to make some concessions back at the start of the war, but russia was not negotiating in good faith, so it went nowhere. Zelensky also said that he will no longer negotiate with russia while Putler is president.

[Tendrin]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...dicine-surgery

When Mae Sallean was a teenager, her body and mind began to slip away from each other. Her body and face began to sprout thick hair, her voice dropped, and she felt dissociated from her physical form. Something had gone wrong, and she could not reconcile the person she was with the person the world perceived her as. The disconnect left her profoundly depressed and deeply lonely.

Mae knew, somewhere deep down, that she needed to be a girl. She lacked the language for it. In Mae’s heavily religious Texas community, the existence of queer people was barely acknowledged, and trans people, she says, were only seen “in pornography and on Maury.” But she knew, all the same.

When Mae was 15, her mother discovered a secret box full of women’s clothing that Mae wore when no one else was at home. Though very Christian, Mae’s mother didn’t freak out. She wanted to help. So she found a Christian counselor for Mae. The counselor, who had no formal training, tried to convince Mae that being trans was one of the worst things she could be and that if she didn’t change her ways, she would go to hell.

“He framed it on the same level as pedophilia,” Mae says. “That was the number one thing that stuck from those meetings until I started transitioning: I am on the same level as a pedophile.”

Now for the most important point:

The conversation about trans kids right now is fundamentally broken Because it is led, by and large, by cis people, it focuses on the potential regret children and adolescents might have after transitioning, and ignores the social, physical, emotional, and psychological costs of not transitioning. It ignores the reams of studies that underline the need to support trans kids. It ignores the lived experiences of many trans people, who despair that they were kept from transitioning as youths.

Until this year, this conversation about trans kids had mostly been carried out in the media, with publications from the New York Times to the Atlantic to the Los Angeles Times publishing stories that suggested medical practitioners aren’t doing enough to vet potential transitioners under the age of 18.

Lawmakers were listening, and the 2022 legislative session introduced a new spate of bills aimed at stopping children from accessing trans-affirming health care, among plenty of other anti-trans legislation, especially against an incredibly small number of trans kids playing sports in school. In all, 34 states have considered anti-trans legislation in some form.

Steps taken by the state of Texas to prosecute providing health care to trans kids as child abuse mark the most extreme end of this push. Entered as supporting evidence for Texas’s measure? A recent piece on trans kids from the New York Times.

The whole article is very good.

[CaptainEurope]

Now, I see lots of people on twitter calling it a death threat against McConnell. I think that is unfair and incorrect. Trump would never dirty his own hands. This is clearly not a death threat - it is incitement to murder.

[worstblogever]

Gohmert's gotta Gohmert, it seems.

Comparing the FBI offices to "Sodom and Gomorrah", is Louie's latest move. It's less of a stochastic terror trigger, but still bats*** to claim there's all sorts of sexual activity happening at the Bureau. Well, he did also compare them to the Gestapo, so there's that.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Now, I see lots of people on twitter calling it a death threat against McConnell. I think that is unfair and incorrect. Trump would never dirty his own hands. This is clearly not a death threat - it is incitement to murder.

While adding some racism for shits and giggles regarding McConnell's wife to boot, a former member of Trump's cabinet.

[Tendrin]

He's playing the Stoch Market again.

[SquirrelMan]

He's playing the Stoch Market again.

Is it still stochastic terrorism when he is naming a single person? How is he not in prison yet?

[Tendrin]

Is it still stochastic terrorism when he is naming a single person? How is he not in prison yet?

Yes, of course it is. That's how George Tiller died.

[hyped78]

Yeah, being in an active war is an obstacle. I think it's mostly a message to Putler that they are no longer willing to compromise on his conditions. They were willing to make some concessions back at the start of the war, but russia was not negotiating in good faith, so it went nowhere. Zelensky also said that he will no longer negotiate with russia while Putler is president.

After these sham referendums and annexations, I think all remaining willingness to compromise has gone out the window