Ain't That America XVIII

Oh yes, another week of fascism and racism and criminal activity, but with bright spots of judges stepping up and FBI employees standing down, with a little rant from The Dumb One, Eric … Let’s dish …

That’s Lindsey Halligan, Cankles’ handpicked attorney, whom he met on a golf course, going after James Comey.

Her resume is unique … she’s a beauty contest winner and an insurance attorney who has never prosecuted a single case.

No skills, other than the ability to kiss orange ass.

Koncentration Kamp Kristi DogKilling Cosplaying Noem has said the ICEstapo will be “all over that place. We are going to enforce the law. You shouldn’t be coming to the Super Bowl unless you are a law-abiding American citizen.”

That means Cankles cannot attend.

In 2019 Cankles pledged to boost HIV spending, with the goal of ending the epidemic before 2030, and last year this federal initiative, Ending the HIV Epidemic, demonstrated progress.

Now the GOP wants deep cuts to HIV prevention and treatment funding, with Cankles’ proposed 2026 budget eliminating the CDC’s HIV-prevention division and seeking nearly $2 billion in HIV-related cuts in their federal health spending bill that would increase the total number of new HIV cases by more than 213,300 and the number of HIV-related deaths by over 10,600.

As they said back in the 80s, at least it’s killing all the right people.

KaroLying Leavitt trying to spin the Mormon shooter as a faith hating liberal, and making no mention that the shooter once wore a “Make Liberals Cry Again” Trump 2020 campaign shirt, that he had a Trump/Pence campaign sign on his fence, or that he and his family attended pro-Trump and QAnon/anti-vax demonstrations.

When her lips are moving, she’s either on her needs as Cankles’ Beck-and-Call-Girl or she’s lying.

Speaker Little Mike Johnson is not inclined to bring the House back into session until the Senate passes the House’s continuing resolution and so he has canceled the House session for next week:

“The House will come back into session and do its work as soon as Chuck Schumer allows us to reopen the government.”

Congress is in the hands of the GOP; the Senate is in the hands of the GOP; the White House is in the hands of the GOP; SCOTUS is in the hands of the GOP. And Little Mike Johnson wants you to believe the shutdown is the Democrats fault.

White House Press Secretary KaroLying Leavitt said Cankles is exploring plans to cut federal funding to “war torn” Portland due to what she said was a rise in “Antifa” related incidents. KaroLying is so stupid she doesn’t realize Antifa is not a group, but rather a political philosophy or movement; an anti-fascist movement.

Also she seems unaware that Portland is also home to a great many Republican voters who wonder why they’re being attacked by a bloated gasbag.

The Cankles Regime is preparing a plan that will make it harder for older Americans to qualify for Social Security disability payments, part of an overhaul of the federal safety net for poor, older and disabled people that could result in hundreds of thousands of people losing benefits.

But hey, as long as the rich get richer and we win the wars in Portland and Chicago; priorities.

On Saturday Judge Karin Immergut of the U.S. District Court in Oregon blocked Cankles from using Oregon National Guard soldiers in response to nightly protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland and issued a temporary restraining order blocking the mobilization.

Immergut wrote that she expected a trial court to agree with the state’s contention that the president exceeded his constitutional authority in mobilizing federal troops for local work and likely violated the 10th Amendment.

Cankles restored $187 million of law enforcement funding to New York state last week, reversing a massive cut to the state’s historical budget levels. The cuts eliminated a staggering 86% of New York’s homeland security funding and were opposed by both Republican lawmakers and the state’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul who claimed they were “politically-motivated.”

It’s almost as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing; make the cuts, end the cuts.

This week Koncentration Kamp Kristi Noem was not allowed inside the Village of Broadview Municipal Building in Illinois to use the bathroom. And she whined:

“This is a public building. The Village of Broadview receives at least $1 million in federal funding every year. This is how JB Pritzker and his cronies treat our law enforcement. Absolutely shameful. This is what we have to put up with every single day. All we’re doing is getting criminals and terrorists and heroin and gang members off the streets to make families safer.”

Like the heroin dealers that were sleeping in their homes the other night when ICEstapo raided and threw mothers and children into the streets?

Fuck off, Fraulein.

Once again Cankles’ effort to curtail birthright citizenship was declared unconstitutional when a three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston upheld an injunction won by Democratic-led states and immigrant rights advocates that stopped Cankles’ executive order from taking effect.

In  July the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a nationwide injunction blocking Cankles’ order from taking effect on the grounds that it violated the citizenship clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Cankles’ now wants the appeal heard by SCOTUS.

An FBI agent was relieved of duty for declining to arrange a “perp walk” of the bureau’s former director, James Comey, in front of news media cameras after Comey was federally charged last month.

Comey was charged on September 25 with making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation as part of Cankles’ Butt-Hurt Retribution Tour.

This is the Resistance at work; stand your ground.

A Chicago delivery guy has gone viral for yelling “F*ck Trump! I am not a citizen!” at ICE Agents, then narrowly escaping as about a dozen officers gave chase in full tactical gear. The agents are heard yelling, “Get him!” as they start running after the man who escaped on his bicycle.

US District Judge Royce Lamberth has ruled that the U.S. Agency for Global Media [AGM] cannot implement a reduction in force eliminating 532 jobs for full-time government employees.

Kari “Loser” Lake, the agency’s acting CEO, announced in late August that the job cuts would take effect Tuesday but the judge’s ruling preserves the status quo at the agency until he rules on a plaintiffs’ underlying motion to block the reduction in force.

Judge David Campbell of the Federal District Court in Arizona, who was temporarily assigned to handle the case in Nevada, has disqualified Sigal Chattah, that state’s top federal prosecutor from handling cases, a rebuke to Cankles’ attempts to circumvent federal appointment procedures put in place by Congress.

Campbell said that Chattah was “not validly serving as acting U.S. attorney” and that her involvement in cases “would be unlawful.”

Chattah is a Republican activist and a Cankles supporter who was previously a lawyer for the state Republican Party. She was also the party’s unsuccessful candidate for attorney general in 2022.

The Supreme Court has ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her post pending oral arguments in January on whether Cankles has legal cause to fire her.

The court’s move is a blow to Cankles, who has repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked federal courts to allow him to terminate Cook from the Fed’s Board of Governors without delay.

Cankles has cited claims that Cook committed mortgage fraud—the same mortgage fraud committed by three members of his Junk Drawer who are still employed—as his reason for firing her.m

A pornographic blog linked to Virginia Lieutenant Governor candidate John Reid shared content from accounts that fetishized Nazism and sexual violence. Reid has denied ownership of the blog even though it was hosted on Tumblr under the name JRDeux, the same handle he uses on Instagram and TikTok.

Oh, and JRDeux deleted his blog right after the report came out.

Huh.

Vice President JD CouchF*cker Vance dismissed criticism of AI-generated videos that Cankles posted to social media of Representative Hakeem Jeffries in a mustache and sombrero that have characterized as racist.

Vance said Cankles was “joking” and “having a good time” because racism is fun.

Cankles is once again saying the Associated Press lost the case on the renaming of The Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America—it’s the Gulf of Mexico, by the way, and has been for almost 500 years.

Fact: No judge in the ongoing lawsuit said what Cankles claimed they did. First, a Cankles-appointed district court judge sided with the AP and issued a preliminary injunction against Cankles’ restrictions, calling them a violation of the First Amendment. Then, on appeal, two judges on a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court sided with Cankles and ended most of the injunction but these two judges, both Cankles-appointed conservatives, never declared that “the name is Gulf of America” nor that the AP’s decision to use “Gulf of Mexico” was “not appropriate.”

The full DC Circuit court subsequently declined to overrule the panel but also did not make any statements about the AP’s language decisions. And the lawsuit is not over; the appeals court has not yet heard oral arguments on the merits of the case.

PS It’s The Gulf of Mexico.

There’s a reason they call Eric ‘The Dumb One’ and here’s why:

“They came after me like I was a dog. They tried to impeach my father two times. You know, they went after him for a Russia hoax that did not exist, that was paid for by Hillary Clinton. The FBI and the DOJ spied on my father’s campaign. They de-platformed him. They weaponized every attorney general and every district attorney around the country. They indicted him 91 times, 34 times in a bogus trial in New York City. They posted his mugshot. He’s the most recognizable person in the world. They posted his mugshot even though they didn’t need to. It totally backfired on him. They gagged him over and over and over! They raided his home! They raided Mar-a-Lago! They tried to get him divorced! They tried to separate our family! They tried to go after our employees! They attacked us. They tried to bankrupt our company. They de-platformed us! They stripped every bank account away from me and the [Cankles] Organization that you can imagine.”

Someone is desperately trying to stay in the will.

Two insiders in the Department of Defense, one who works directly with Pete ‘DUI Hire’ Hegseth’s  office and the other indirectly, say that in the last few weeks Pull-Up Pete has been erupting in tirades, raging at staffers and obsessing about matters related to his security:

“There’s a manic quality about him. Or let me rephrase, an even more manic quality, which is really saying something.”

Hegseth insisted on pushing through the name change to the Department of War months earlier than his staff was ready, berating those who tried to delay the announcement. They also say he has had tirades in response to legal advisors’ and congressional members’ suggestions that the military’s recent killings of alleged Venezuelan narcotraffickers on boats in the Caribbean broke international law.

He’s just the guy you want overseeing the nation’s nuclear arsenal, right?

DOGE poster boy Edward “Big Balls” Coristine shared details of the carjacking that made headlines but one key detail differs from police reports. Coristine recalled being attacked at around 3AM:

“I was walking one of my friends back to her car and as we were walking to the car, there’s a group of 10 guys right across the street. And as we get to the car and she begins to fumble for the keys, they start shouting at us and really quickly I knew something was really off about the situation.”

And yet in a statement released on two days after the incident, authorities announced the arrests of two 15-year-olds, one male and one female, both from Hyattsville, Maryland who were charged with carjacking. Big Balls is more like No Balls.

But we have balls and we have voices and votes and the ability to use them …

The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same …

This week openly gay Congressman Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat, posted a story to Twitter—I refuse to call it X—that emphasized just how different things were for LGBTQ+ people not even three decades ago … and how much the same things are today.

Pocan has a framed pair of rubber gloves in his office due to an incident that occurred in 1995, when he and 49 other out gay elected officials were invited to the White House:

“While serving alongside now-Senator Tammy Baldwin on the Dane County Board of Supervisors in 1995, we were invited to the Clinton White House for a celebration of openly gay elected officials.

We headed to Washington and after some sightseeing, finally got to take a tour of the White House. As we came through the metal detectors, we noticed the security personnel wearing rubber gloves.

This took place shortly after the Oklahoma City Bombing, so we assumed security was taking extra precautions to protect themselves from increased radiation.

Not thinking much of it, we continued through the afternoon of meetings where we ultimately discovered the real reason for the gloves.

The security officials were wearing gloves out of fear that they would contract AIDS from one of the openly gay elected officials visiting the White House.

In 1995, there was still a lot of ignorance surrounding the AIDS epidemic and LGBTQI+ individuals on a larger scale.

Later that evening, Vice President Gore made a point to come around and shake all of our hands, demonstrating that this was not the official position of the Clinton White House.

A few weeks later, I received a signed letter from the president apologizing for what we had encountered at the entrance.

It’s been more than 25 years since that historic meeting of out elected officials at the White House. I held onto the invitation and the apology letter — neither of which said the word “gay” — and still have them framed in my office with a pair of those rubber gloves.

This year as we celebrate LGBTQI+ History Month, I look at them and remember how much progress we’ve made and the work we still have to do.

Whether it’s a pair of gloves, or a slew of educational gag orders seeking to ban conversations on sexual orientation and gender identities, our work to protect LGBTQI+ individuals will not be done until equality is finally and fully realized.”

The Washington Post reported on the incident in 1995 and noted that Secret Service Director Eljay Bowron regretted the “unfortunate actions” of the Secret Service agents, saying it was “not the policy of the Secret Service to wear gloves merely based on known sexual preference,” and promised a “special training session directed specifically at these matters.”

Refusing to touch people in normal and socially accepted ways has long been one of the many microaggressions faced by LGBTQ+ people, whose bodies have often been labeled disgusting or toxic. More than half of the LGBTQ+ respondents to a 2009 Lambda Legal survey on medical discrimination said that they had experienced microaggressions in a medical setting that included, among others, “health care professionals refusing to touch them or using excessive precautions.”

Sidenote: back in the 1990s Carlos was trying to get life insurance and took a physical as part of the process. His doctor called him and told him he needed to come in for a talk. Carlos arrived at the office, the last appointment for the day, and the nurse talked to him from behind the glass partition—he thought it was because the office was closing. He sat and waited to see the doctor and when he was finally called in he sat across the desk from his doctor scarcely looked at him and said:

“I’m sorry, Mr. Harris, you have AIDS and there’s nothing I can do for you.”

And that was it; nothing can be done for you. Carlos got up and left the office while a nurse came in with gloves to clean the chair he sat in, the part of the desk he touched. In the waiting room a nurse was cleaning the doorknobs and the counter and where he sat while waiting to see the doctor.

On the upside, Carlos instantly found a doctor who deals with HIV and was prescribed medications; after we moved to South Carolina, he found a doctor here who is managing his HIV. He is, and has been, undetectable for thirty-plus years.

And these Don’t Say Gay laws and anti-trans laws and banning drag laws are still doing that today, making us feel like we don’t belong, like we are somehow dirty and dangerous and riddled with disease and not worthy of being touched.

The march goes on …

LGBTQ Nation

Bobservations

We watched the SAG awards last weekend and when Parasite won for Ensemble Cast the man who accepted spoke Korean, but had a translator onstage, Carlos said,

“I’d like to learn another language.”

“Try English.”

I’m lucky he has a good sense of humor and loves me.

California Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu says a lawyer for _____ lapdog and co-conspirator, California Republican Congressman Nunes threatened to sue him if he did not apologize for saying Nunes had conspired with Lev Parnas, an “associate” of Rudy Giuliani.

But then came Parnas on The Rachel Maddow Show saying _____ “knew exactly what was going on” with Ukraine and that he had personally spoken with Devin Nunes.

And that same night, Nunes slithered over to Fox News and admitted that he had talked to Parnas but didn’t recall the name.

He thought it was a different ‘Lev.’ Seriously.

I guess in Utah they don’t like comedy with their rubbers?

The state’s Republican Governor Gary Herbert blocked the state health department from distributing condoms with suggestive packaging slogans that were part of a new HIV prevention campaign. The wrappers have labels like …  Greatest Sex on Earth … SL, UT [Salt Lake, Utah] … and This is the Place over a drawing of a bed, among others.

Erin Fratto, of the Utah Department of Health’s Prevention Treatment and Care Program, says the new condoms are a way to destigmatize HIV in Utah, and get everybody talking about sexual health.

About 100,000 condoms were to be distributed as part of a federally funded campaign called “The H is for Human” but in Utah the H is clearly for Humorless.

U.S. Attorney General, and _____’s personal bitch, Billy Barr says the FBI would have to meet more rigorous standards before opening any future counterintelligence investigations into presidential campaigns.

Yup. He’s making it harder for the US intelligence community to investigate election interference, rigging, and cheating.

Deplorable.

We have an opioid crisis in this country, or so says _____, but then why is he diverting $3.5 billion from counterdrug programs? And if he wants the strongest military in the world, why is he taking $3.7 billion from military construction?

The wall. That’s all. He’s diverting money from other programs to build his Racist Wall when most of us would rather see him behind that kind of wall.

A year ago, Disney bought 21st Century Fox closed, and now they are making some changes.

They’re dropping the ‘Fox’. Yup, the Fox moniker has been dropped from the studio’s 20th Century and Searchlight labels, which will now be branded as, simply, Searchlight Pictures and 20th Century Studios.

Now if we could just drop the rightwingnut racist news channel.

Not surprised at all to learn that GOP Senator Susan Collins has surpassed Senate Majority Leader Moscow Mitch McConnell as the most unpopular U.S. Senator.

Collins’ net approval rating has dropped 10 points since the end of September, leaving her with a 52% disapproval rating.

Worse than Mitch? Wow, Susan, you must be so proud.

Mena Massoud was born in Cairo, but raised in Markham, Ontario, Canada. The 28-year-old … 28? … god I’m old … actor is best known for the role of Aladdin in the Disney live-action remake of "Aladdin," directed by Guy Ritchie.

In my house he’s best known for that smile and the fact that he can change a tire and look hot doing it.

Just sayin’.

Stories of Pride: Jade Elektra is Unforgettable

Last week at the 2019 Toronto AIDS Vigil, local drag queen Jade Elektra, AKA HIV+ activist Alphonso King, Jr.,  took the stage to deliver a message. And it wasn’t that Jade would become the first drag performer to ever sing live at the event, it was the song she sang and the message she delivered.

She sang the Nat King Cole classic, “Unforgettable,” but made the tiniest of changes to the lyrics:

“Undetectable.”

Jade says the song, and the idea to sing it that night, started as a joke with her husband:

“I started singing it and decided to say ‘undetectable’ instead. It wasn’t until he insisted that I sing it for an upcoming show that I realized that the original lyrics worked on a different level with the word change.”

And after performing the song publicly once or twice, Jade was invited to sing at the annual AIDS Vigil, and even she was stunned by the reaction:

“Looking out over all those faces was amazing. And hearing their reaction to the first word was magical! My fear melted away and it was on to channeling Marilyn Monroe as much as possible. Because after all, I may be HIV positive, but Jade is a sexual being and unapologetic about it. I hadn’t decided what I was going to say in the instrumental break, so I just let what came to mind come out.”

And this is what she said during that break:

“You know, for people who are living with HIV, we finally have the science to back up what I kind of knew about a decade ago. That ‘undetectable’ means you are ‘untransmittable.’ And hopefully, this will help us fight the stigma associated with being positive.”

It’s no longer an instant death sentence; it’s no longer something to feel ashamed of; it’s a condition, a manageable condition; it’s not something to fear or hide. You can live openly and honestly, and love openly and honestly, and be a sexual being, openly and honestly.

And Jade is absolutely ‘unforgettable’ for delivering that message.

LGBTQ Nation

I Didn't Watch But ...

….I read about it, and read his lies, and, well, this one disgusts me most of all.

During his propaganda speech, _____ said he would end AIDS in 10 years:

“In recent years we have made remarkable progress in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once-distant dream within reach. My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans to make the needed commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years. Together, we will defeat AIDS in America.”

Clearly, like everything he does, he will do this alone because over a year ago, in December 2017, _____ fired his entire Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS with no warning … he defunded National Institute of Health [NIH] vaccine research … and his budgets have all included cuts in the funding to fight HIV/AIDS.

And yet he says he’ll end AIDS.

Oh, and let’s not forget that closeted gay man Michael Elisabeth Pence once said that he was in favor of taking money allocated  to care for people with HIV/AIDS and giving it to organizations that provide gay conversion therapy … and for the second year in a row he failed to even mention the LGBTQ community in his World AIDS Day speech for the second year in a row.

And yet these two bigots and homophobes expect us to believe they’re going to ‘end’ AIDS.

Fuck off.

Is Publix Anti-LGBT or Just Cheap?

When we lived in Florida Publix was our go-to supermarket; when we moved to South Carolina, we still shopped Publix, even though it was a thirty-minute drive one way to do so. Eventually, that got old, and we began shopping in town at a Food Lion and now I’m kinda glad about that.

It seems that Publix has chosen to deny its nearly 200,000 employees health insurance coverage for pre-exposure prophylaxis [PrEP], a medication that is highly effective at preventing HIV. To be fair, no one seems to know if Publix refusal to cover PrEP through their insurance program is just to save a few bucks, or if their refusal is some sort of cockeyed faith-based hate, but either way it's not a good look for the supermarket chain.

This all began when David Holland, a doctor serving as director of the Fulton County PrEP clinic in Atlanta, was unable to get a Publix employee PrEP through the company’s health insurance. He called the insurance provider directly and discovered that the refusal came from the employer, not the insurance provider; Publix does not want PrEP covered under their insurance program.

When Publix headquarters was asked about it, they released a statement saying their “generous medical and prescription coverage” covered “numerous medications … used in the treatment of HIV,” adding, “There are some medications that have coverage limitations or require prior authorization.”

Maybe so, maybe not; two things come to mind, the first of which is that Publix is a billion-dollar corporation and they could provide access to PrEP through their insurance if they wanted to do so; and secondly, providing just one PrEP prescription to an HIV-negative employee is far cheaper than providing a lifetime of medications and healthcare to an HIV-positive employee.

I mean, it doesn’t get simpler.

But Publix is a ultra-conservative company that has made donations to anti-LGBT GOP political candidates, funded campaigns against legalized cannabis and has a score pf Zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s analysis of workplace fairness, in addition to being accused of multiple instances firing openly gay employees.

I guess the idea that they refuse to cover PrEP expenses in their health insurance is just part of the way they do business … the business of discriminating against the LGBT community.

Hornet

World AIDS Day and My Amazing Husband

Today, of course, is World AIDS Day, though I am waiting for the time we won't need to acknowledge it other than to remind  ourselves of what once was our lives, but last night, in Columbia, they held a Keep the Promise/End the epidemic event at the statehouse.

And my husband spoke on behalf of the Hispanic community in our state, which,sadly, is raked 8th in new HIV cases in this country.

And, because of his eyesight issues, and because it was dark by the time he spoke, the emcee of the event introduced him  and then helped Carlos walk to the podium to speak. His speech was entirely in Spanish except for the first line:

"I am have failing eyesight but I still have my vision."

In the audience, an elder queerling was snapping pictures and getting teary eyed.

Just sayin'.

I am so proud of my husband.

ISBL Asshat of the Week: Georgia GOP Representative Betty Price

Look, I know it’s Georgia, but still ... Georgia State Representative Betty Price, a Republican ... because of course ... has suggested that we quarantine people living with HIV.

Yes, she did. Price—a medical doctor who should have her license revoked, and the wife of Tom Price, the former Secretary of Health & Human Services—actually asked about quarantining people with HIV because of the burden it puts on the state. She also said:

“My thinking sometimes goes in strange directions, but before you proceed if you wouldn’t mind commenting on the surveillance of partners, tracking of contacts, that sort of thing. What are we legally able to do."

Surveillance of partners? Tracking? It seems as if this “doctor” who apparently knows next to nothing about HIV is suggesting some kind of Big Brother government to monitor people with HIV and anyone with whom they come in contact.

"And I don’t want to say the quarantine word, but I guess I just said it. Is there an ability, since I would guess that public dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition. So we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. What would you advise or are there any methods legally that we could do that would curtail the spread.”

Price was told that state healthcare officials already work with people newly diagnosed with HIV to identify sex partners so they can be notified, as well as link people with HIV to care. Her question about a quarantine went unanswered, as most idiotic questions often do. And yet, if you think the idea of surveilling people with HIV, and tracking their partners, and quarantining them, is abhorrent, wait until you hear what she said next:

“It seems to me it’s almost frightening the number of people who are living that are potentially carriers, well they are carriers, with the potential to spread, whereas in the past they died more readily and then at that point they are not posing a risk. So we’ve got a huge population posing a risk if they are not in treatment.”

Well, gosh darn it; if the medical field, and researchers, didn’t find a way to help people with HIV stay alive! They have ruined the world for all of us.

It’s a shame they didn’t suggest finding a way to quarantine the stupid, because Betty Price needs to be kept away from society.

Asshat ... of the Week.

Project Q