Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 28,801]

7 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

personally, I actually am very much in favor of reaching across and establish conversation. More polarization helps no one.

I never have said that reaching across the aisle is automatically bad. Dialogue with GOOD FAITH opposition (far fewer good faith Republicans now, in thsi Trumpian age, most have been run out of power) is a good thing.

But, openly embracing and campaigning with flat-out evil neo-con warmongers like Cheney and others was a hoorible look.

The Harris campaign made that embrace a central part of their cut and thrust.

So many of my American friends were horrified.

[robsblubot 3,504]

12 minutes ago, Vesper said:

 

Yeah I read it, and I don't agree with the notion that "they will be the ones running in the future." I don't care about that.

Either this was an emergency, and for me it was, so all hands on deck, or it wasn't and we can thinking about the future political career of Liz Cheney.

5 minutes ago, Vesper said:

I never have said that reaching across the aisle is automatically bad. Dialogue with GOOD FAITH opposition (far fewer good faith Republicans now, in thsi Trumpian age, most have been run out of power) is a good thing.

But, openly embracing and campaigning with flat-out evil neo-con warmongers like Cheney and others was a hoorible look.

The Harris campaign made that embrace a central part of their cut and thrust.

So many of my American friends were horrified.

Whoever was horrified and did not go out to vote because of that, shame on them; enjoy 4 more years? of Donal Trump.

[cosmicway 1,323]

16 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

While I agree there are multiple different things at play, I’m just skeptical that embracing the never Trumpers was one of them, so agree to disagree on this one.

He probably means reversing the ancient US policy towards Israel and declaring USA pro-Arab and anti-Israel was the thing to do !
I think this is both impossible and improbable - while at the same time I honestly don't know how many did indeed not vote dem because they are pro-Arab (but voted in the past when things were not so hot).

Anyway about the "never Trump movement" it's something we never even saw and I personally learned the word today or yesterday.
Unless we talk about the meek opposition during the primaries - but his opponents declared support afterwards, all of them.
 

[Vesper 28,801]

OK, I am going to start listing things to blame for the Trump and Republicans' congressional wins.

I will do one at time and space them out (days, maybe weeks) so as to facilate debate on each one.

1. Biden

Biden shares a HUGE part of the blame (and the Dems who covered up and gaslighted on his clear cognitive decline).

Biden should have announced he was not going to run again as soon as he lost the House in 2022 (thus effectively blocking anything major he could get done after that).

Biden, by stubbornly hanging in there, blocked a real Democratic primary, one that would have produced a far better candidate and given them time to present themselves to the voters.

Biden's bootlicking of the zionists (in actual deeds, his words paying lip service to the plight of the Palestinians meant nothing of import, it was just hollow posturing, as he sent billion dollars to the RW ultra zionist Bibi and his genocide/ethnic cleansing-desiring supporters) also fucked Harris.

 

[Vesper 28,801]

4 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

Whoever was horrified and did not go out to vote because of that

I never said they (my yank mates) did not vote.

I am not picking on you, but some here have a real problem with putting words into other peoples' mouths (FAR from limited to just political discussion here).

[cosmicway 1,323]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

OK, I am going to start listing things to blame for the Trump and Republicans' congressional wins.

I will do one at time and space them out (days, maybe weeks) so as to facilate debate on each one.

1. Biden

Biden shares a HUGE part of the blame (and the Dems who covered up and gaslighted on his clear cognitive decline).

Biden should have announced he was not going to run again as soon as he lost the House in 2022 (thus effectively blocking anything major he could get done after that).

Biden, by stubbornly hanging in there, blocked a real Democratic primary, one that would have produced a far better candidate and given them time to present themselves to the voters.

Biden's bootlicking of the zionists (in actual deeds, his words paying lip service to the plight of the Palestinians meant nothing of import, it was just hollow posturing, as he sent billion dollars to the RW ultra zionist Bibi and his genocide/ethnic cleansing-desiring supporters) also fucked Harris.

 

We don't know if a real primary would have produced a far better candidate.
Sometimes the dems produced great candidates from their primaries, other times not.

US policy towards Israel is fixed since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
You -anyone- wanting an anti-Israel alliance with Hamash, Hezbollah, Iran is crazy as well won't happen ever.
However the size of the anti-Israel block of voters eludes me. In the USA there are no pro-communist parties as such, to guide us towards an estimate.

Then 7/10 happened to produce exactly this effect.
If you are Hamash-Iran then you know Biden is your enemy and Trump is also your enemy.
So you choose Trump hands down and you want him badly, because he is divisive in America, in Europe, in NATO.

Edited November 11 by cosmicway

[Vesper 28,801]

Congress Is About to Gift Trump Sweeping Powers to Crush His Political Enemies

The House is set to vote Tuesday on a bill that would let the administration destroy nonprofits it claims support terrorism.

https://theintercept.com/2024/11/10/trump-nonprofit-tax-exempt-political-enemies/

 

Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire for revenge.

On the campaign trail, he joked about being a dictator on “day one” in office, pledged to jail journalists, and threatened to retaliate against political foes who he felt had wronged him.

Now, just days after he secured a second term in the White House, Congress is already moving to hand a resurgent Trump administration a powerful cudgel that it could wield against ideological opponents in civil society.

Up for a potential fast-track vote next week in the House of Representatives, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, also known as H.R. 9495, would grant the secretary of the Treasury Department unilateral authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit deemed to be a “terrorist supporting organization.”

The resolution has already prompted strong opposition from a wide range of civil society groups, with more than 100 organizations signing an open letter issued by the American Civil Liberties Union in September.

“This is about stifling dissent and to chill advocacy, because people are going to avoid certain things.”

With Trump set to return to office, it’s more urgent than ever to beat the legislation back, said Kia Hamadanchy, a senior policy counsel at the ACLU.

“This is about stifling dissent and to chill advocacy, because people are going to avoid certain things and take certain positions in order to avoid this designation,” Hamadanchy told The Intercept. “And then on top of that you have a president-elect who’s spent a lot of time on the campaign trail talking about punishing his opponents and what he wants to do to student protesters — and you’re giving him another tool.”

It’s unclear how Democrats will view the bill in light of Trump’s return to power. A spokesperson for Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, who did not oppose a previous version of the nonprofit provision, told The Intercept Doggett is likely to vote against the measure following Trump’s reelection.

The current version — which was introduced by Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., and co-sponsored by Brad Schneider, D-Ill., and Dina Titus, D-Nev. — is paired with a provision that would provide tax relief to American hostages held by terror groups and other Americans unjustly imprisoned abroad.

Hamadanchy said combining the two provisions was likely a ploy to push the nonprofit-terror bill through with as little opposition as possible.

“They attached it to a super popular bill that everyone likes because they want to make it hard for people to vote ‘no,’” Hamadanchy said. “The reality is that if they really wanted the hostage thing to become law, they’d pass that by itself.”

No Evidence Needed

Under the bill, the Treasury secretary would issue notice to a group of intent to designate it as a “terrorist supporting organization.” Once notified, an organization would have the right to appeal within 90 days, after which it would be stripped of its 501(c)(3) status, named for the statute that confers tax exemptions on recognized nonprofit groups.

The law would not require officials to explain the reason for designating a group, nor does it require the Treasury Department to provide evidence.

“It basically empowers the Treasury secretary to target any group it wants to call them a terror supporter and block their ability to be a nonprofit,” said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council Action, which opposes the law. “So that would essentially kill any nonprofit’s ability to function. They couldn’t get banks to service them, they won’t be able to get donations, and there’d be a black mark on the organization, even if it cleared its name.”

“That would essentially kill any nonprofit’s ability to function.”

The bill could also imperil the lifesaving work of nongovernmental organizations operating in war zones and other hostile areas where providing aid requires coordination with groups designated as terrorists by the U.S., according to a statement issued last year by the Charity & Security Network.

“Charitable organizations, especially those who work in settings where designated terrorist groups operate, already undergo strict internal due diligence and risk mitigation measures,” the group wrote. “As the prohibition on material support to foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) already exists, and is applicable to U.S. nonprofits, this proposed legislation is redundant and unnecessary.”

If it proceeds, the bill will go to the House floor in a “suspension vote,” a fast-track procedure that limits debate and allows a bill to bypass committees and move on to the Senate as long as it receives a two-thirds supermajority in favor.

Related

Criticizing Israel? Nonprofit Media Could Lose Tax-Exempt Status Without Due Process

It is already very illegal to provide material support for terrorism. And material support laws have been used, at times aggressively, to bring criminal charges against people and groups accused of supporting proscribed terrorist groups abroad.

The new bill on terror designations for tax-exempt nonprofits, however, would slash through the pesky red tape — constitutional checks and balances — of due process, presumption of innocence, and other protections afforded to defendants accused in criminal court of providing material support to terror groups.

Pro-Palestine Groups at Risk

In the past year, accusations of support for terrorism have been freely lobbed at student protesters, aid workers in Gaza, and even mainstream publications like the New York Times. In unscrupulous hands, the powers of the proposed law could essentially turn the Treasury Department into an enforcement arm of Canary Mission and other hard-line groups dedicated to doxxing and smearing their opponents as terrorists.

With very few guardrails in place, the new bill would give broad new powers to the federal government to act on such accusations — and not just against pro-Palestine groups, according to Costello.

“The danger is much broader than just groups that work on foreign policy,” said Costello. “It could target major liberal funders who support Palestinian solidarity and peace groups who engage in protest. But it could also theoretically be used to target pro-choice groups, and I could see it being used against environmental groups.

“It really would be at the discretion of the Trump administration as to who they target.”

Costello added, “It really would be at the discretion of the Trump administration as to who they target, with very little recourse for the targeted organization.”

An earlier version of the bill passed the House in April by a vote of 382-11.

Related

How the ADL’s Anti-Palestinian Advocacy Helped Shape U.S. Terror Laws

While the April bill languished in committee in the Senate, the language of the current resolution is virtually identical. Pro-Israel pressure groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, and the Republican Jewish Coalition have all lobbied on the bill, records show. (None of the three groups immediately responded to requests for comment.)

In addition to the open letter from the ACLU and 125 other religious, human rights, and civil liberties groups, more than 40,000 people have signed a petition asking members of Congress to oppose the bill.

Whatever concerns might have arisen since Trump’s return to office, some of the Democrats pushing the measure are citing the hostage provision to justify their position.

A spokesperson for Titus, the new bill’s co-sponsor, told The Intercept, “The congresswoman continues to support the bill because it brings tax relief to Americans wrongfully detained overseas and held hostage.”

“Not Aware of Any Limitations in the Bill”

In April, much of the opposition to the first iteration of the bill came from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who have broken with their parties’ leadership on support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Among the Democrats, opponents of the bill included all the members of the progressive Squad. Across the aisle, Rep. Thomas Massie, R–Ky., a tea party alum with a libertarian bent who has broken with GOP support for Israel, also voted against the measure.

This time around, dissent might not be limited to the 11 members who voted “nay” in April.

Doggett, the Texas Democrat who will likely vote against the bill, did not vote on the April version of the provision. He came to his decision this time around after raising concerns at a mark-up hearing held on September 11.

At the hearing, Doggett asked a number of pointed questions of Robert Harvey, the deputy chief of staff for the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan committee of experts tasked with explaining the bill to members of Congress.

“As I understand it, all the Treasurer has to do to deny tax exemption is to mail a notice to the organization involved saying: ‘You’re a terrorist supporting organization, we have found you are providing material support, and you’re denied your exemption?'” Dogget asked.

“That’s correct, Mr. Doggett,” Harvey replied.

“And does the bill require the Treasury to disclose the reasons for denying the tax-exempt status?” Doggett asked.

“I don’t believe they have to disclose,” Harvey said.

“They don’t have to provide any evidence that they relied on?” Doggett said.

“They don’t have to provide any evidence that they relied on?”

“Not that I’m aware of, Mr. Doggett.”

Finally, Doggett asked Harvey a question that he wryly described as far-fetched.

“I would just ask you — and I don’t think this a realistic possibility — let’s suppose we had an administration that vowed to wreak vengeance on its opponents,” Doggett said. “To prosecute lawyers, political operatives, illegal voters, and corrupt election officials to the fullest extent of the law, and impose long prison sentences on them; someone who believes that those who don’t clap for him are traitors; someone who believes that someone who worked to bring him to justice in the courts or worked tirelessly to assure his defeat — would there be any limitation on that president’s Treasury secretary on designating a ‘terrorist supporting organization’ and strip that organization of its nonprofit status?”

“Mr. Doggett, that requires me to do some speculation,” Harvey replied. “But I am not aware of any limitations in the bill.”

[Vesper 28,801]

2 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

We don't know if a real primary would have produced a far better candidate.
Sometimes the dems produced great candidates from their primaries, other times not.

Odds are high that it would have structually produced a better-situated candidate.

AND it would have removed the very unpopular Biden, the EASILY attacked Biden, from years of targeting (in re the 2024 election) by the Republicans.

107 days (how long Harris had) is hardly long enough to seperate from him (and she was his VP, which made it doubly hard).

I absolutely believe that in a regular length primary there is no way Harris would have ended up the Dem nominee for POTUS.

[cosmicway 1,323]

2 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Pro-Palestine Groups at Risk

In the past year, accusations of support for terrorism have been freely lobbed at student protesters, aid workers in Gaza, and even mainstream publications like the New York Times. In unscrupulous hands, the powers of the proposed law could essentially turn the Treasury Department into an enforcement arm of Canary Mission and other hard-line groups dedicated to doxxing and smearing their opponents as terrorists.

With very few guardrails in place, the new bill would give broad new powers to the federal government to act on such accusations — and not just against pro-Palestine groups, according to Costello.

“The danger is much broader than just groups that work on foreign policy,” said Costello. “It could target major liberal funders who support Palestinian solidarity and peace groups who engage in protest. But it could also theoretically be used to target pro-choice groups, and I could see it being used against environmental groups.

“It really would be at the discretion of the Trump administration as to who they target.”

Costello added, “It really would be at the discretion of the Trump administration as to who they target, with very little recourse for the targeted organization.”

An earlier version of the bill passed the House in April by a vote of 382-11.“

Praising criminal activities is already a federal crime.
Last week in Athens there was someone with a bomb.
Exploded in his hands by mistake, killed him and almost demolished a house.
In the house the police found a stash of weapons.
The man was in Germany before and some of his acompliishes who were arrested were also moving between Germany-Switzerland-Netherlands.
So yesterday in Berlin there was a demonstration in favour of those arrested !
But the German police just dispersed them, no arrests were made.

 

[Vesper 28,801]

3 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

Praising criminal activities is already a federal crime.

no it is not

not in the US

First Amendment and all that

[cosmicway 1,323]

4 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Odds are high that it would have structually produced a better-situated candidate.

AND it would have removed the very unpopular Biden, the EASILY attacked Biden, from years of targeting (in re the 2024 election) by the Republicans.

107 days (how long Harris had) is hardly long enough to seperate from him (and she was his VP, which made it doubly hard).

I absolutely believe that in a regular length primary there is no way Harris would have ended up the Dem nominee for POTUS.

It's not the rule that primaries produce great candidates and anyway we always call the subsequent election winners "great" and the losers "not great".
So in a real primary Kamala maybe was going to win, maybe would n't even put herself up for nomination. How would I know ?
But Biden was criticized by the dems only for his health situation - the mental fatigue. For nothing else.

[cosmicway 1,323]

2 minutes ago, Vesper said:

no it is not

not in the US

First Amendment and all that

So if I make a club of the friends of Jack the ripper it is allowed ?

[Vesper 28,801]

Just now, cosmicway said:

So if I make a club of the friends of Jack the ripper it is allowed ?

of course

[Vesper 28,801]

2 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

It's not the rule that primaries produce great candidates

you are injecting a positing I never stated (and also changing the narrative)

I only said a better canadidate (and then added, in a second reply/post, a better positioned one)

I never said the result would be a 'great' candidate

[Fulham Broadway 16,844]

“Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” ― Mark Twain

[cosmicway 1,323]

16 minutes ago, Vesper said:

you are injecting a positing I never stated (and also changing the narrative)

I only said a better canadidate (and then added, in a second reply/post, a better positioned one)

I never said the result would be a 'great' candidate

The election result is the make or break.
Dukakis, Mondale, Kerry, Hillary, Harris bad.
Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama good
Anyways assuming Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama were really great and the others who failed, were not how do you know a primary the last summer would produce someone like them or someone "better positioned" ?
It is arbitrary.

[Vesper 28,801]

you can nationalise the impact of the things discussed in this article (and to show the delusional state of Democratic Underground, the owners, for the past year or so, came out and made a very rare statement that ANY pushback against male to female trans in any women's sports was automatically transphobic and hate speech and the posters who raised any concerns (for example, that it was anti biological female and/or that it was poltically a disastrous stance to take, which it was BOTH IMHO, especially as even the majority of Democrats do not want M to F trans athletes competeing in girls/womens sports) would be banned instantly

 

How “wildly successful” anti-trans ads fired up Texas voters for Republicans

The barrage of ads focused on trans kids playing youth sports motivated the Republican base as Democrats struggled to respond.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/08/transgender-ads-motivate-texas-republicans/

 

In the final weeks of a heated reelection campaign, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz released a television ad with a simple message — “Boys and girls: They’re different.”

In the ad, Cruz accused his Democratic challenger, Colin Allred, of wanting boys to play on girls’ sports teams. Allred released his own ad vehemently denying the claim. Neither mentioned that the Texas Legislature had already banned student athletes from playing on teams that didn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth.

Even before the votes rolled in, the fact that Texas’ senate candidates were arguing about youth sports, rather than the economy, immigration or the future of democracy itself, was a Republican victory. For years, conservative political strategists had been pushing the party to hammer Democrats on what they see as “extreme” stances on gender.

Many of the ads focused on trans children playing on youth sports teams. But they also tried to pin Democrats for supporting policies that allow young people to medically transition, and narrow instances in which taxpayer dollars were used to pay for gender-affirming care for inmates or members of the military, all of which the Republicans would like to see banned.

The day after a red wave swept Texas and the nation, these strategists, as well as political scientists and advocates on both sides of the aisle, say focusing on these social issues seems to have mobilized the Republican base.

“This election was when the dam broke,” said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, a right-wing political advocacy group. “Republicans have now figured out how to win parts of the culture war where Democrats are out of step with the American people.”

Schilling’s group spent $18 million on anti-trans ads nationally, of more than $200 million conservative groups spent messaging on this issue. He said Texans were particularly primed to act on this messaging — “warmed up,” as he put it — because the state Legislature has led the way on restricting trans student athletes and access to gender-affirming care.

Democrats have struggled to develop a unified stance on trans issues, leaving them flat footed in the face of this barrage of messaging from Republicans. This intra-party conflict was on full display in Texas, where Allred’s response ad drew support from moderates and condemnation from progressives.

After the routing from Republicans, Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of Texas’ Democratic Party, told KUT that “there are going to be long term political consequences” to making trans issues more central. Other party leaders vehemently disagreed, with one saying Hinojosa was “dead wrong.” If the party was going “to tack further right and throw trans kids under the bus in the process,” party messaging chair Kolby Duhon said on X they would resign at the next meeting. On Friday, Hinojosa stepped down after 12 years leading the state party.

Hinojosa later apologized, saying he was “committed to fighting against the very rhetoric that has caused trans people across this country to grapple with the fear of simply existing because of the hate spewed by Donald Trump and TX Republicans.”

A long arc 

Republicans have been putting Democrats on the defense over gender and sexuality as far back as the 1970s, when anti-gay activist Anita Bryant launched the “Save Our Children” campaign.

“The idea that gay men and lesbians want to recruit people's children to become homosexuals was essentially what they said back then,” said Andrew Proctor, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. “I think that there's a very clear, direct thread to the same rhetoric [today], but reframed within the context of transgender people.”

After the U.S. Supreme Court allowed same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, conservatives began to coalesce around the anti-trans issue, focusing initially on prohibiting trans people from using bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity. In 2016, blowback to North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill” cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in canceled sporting events, conventions and business deals, and helped unseat the Republican governor.

That was a turning point for messaging, Schilling said.

“We couldn’t get any politicians to talk about bathrooms in the wake of North Carolina,” he said. “So then we pivoted to the sports issue… It’s been wildly successful.”

Less than 1% of Americans identify as trans, and the subset of trans kids trying to play on sports teams is even smaller. While these ads raise the specter of young kids losing out on athletic opportunity at the expense of their trans peers, the few real-life examples that conservatives can point to are almost all at the college or professional level. Even then, no university in Texas has any record of a trans athlete playing on one of their sports teams, the Austin American-Statesman found in 2023.

But the focus on this issue in politics has impacted public opinion. While more than 70% of Texans say they support laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination, almost the same amount oppose allowing trans people to play women’s sports.

“Voters have busy lives, and they have lots of stuff going on, and you don't want to start getting into the weeds and the nitty gritty of everything,” Schilling said. “You want to keep messages very basic and to the point, and this women's sports issue, it's a self-evident truth.”

Donald Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas who has studied the salience of gender issues among voters, said this fear campaign likely didn’t recruit new voters to the Republican cause, but instead mobilized a base that might otherwise have been more apathetic.

“Crime is terrible. The world is falling apart. Immigrants are flooding over the border. Oh, and you have this horrible threat of these trans people trying to play girls sports,” he said, characterizing the Republicans’ general message. “We know that's an effective tool for turnout.”

Haider-Markel’s research has shown that when people are educated about the trans community and the reality of gender-affirming care, they show higher levels of support and less negativity toward trans people.

“But if the only information people are receiving is this threat messaging, then they are going to certainly be less supportive on these issues,” he said. “And Democrats have not had a real answer.”

In addition to the youth sports angle, Republicans have also hammered Democrats for using taxpayer dollars to pay for inmates to medically transition. The federal government is required to provide medical care to prisoners, and in some cases, after long legal battles, inmates in state and federal custody have been able to have gender-affirming surgeries.

National Republicans targeted Vice President Kamala Harris on this front, running an ad saying “Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.” But they also ran similar ads against U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in South Texas. While Gonzalez ended up narrowly defeating his Republican challenger, former U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, the region as a whole swung sharply for President-elect Donald Trump this cycle.

Delanie Bomar, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said focusing on taxpayer dollars seemed to really resonate.

“South Texans feel left behind by skyrocketing inflation and a porous open border, so when they learn that taxpayer funds are going towards anything other than directly delivering for South Texas families that are struggling, you have a potent issue that rightfully motivates voters,” Bomar said in a text.

A mandate to Republicans

Up to this point, efforts to restrict the lives and health care of trans people have largely been contained to conservative statehouses. But now, with Republicans dominating the federal government and a voter base fired up after a season of anti-trans ads, conservatives are hoping the issue will gain national traction.

“Donald Trump was elected in small part, at least, to help fix the gender issue with our kids [and] get this stuff out of our schools, like what he's pledged to do,” Schilling said. “He was very clear and open with the American people about what he wanted to do when he got in office, and so I would be shocked if he doesn't do anything on this.”

But Proctor said these social issues tend to have less staying power once the race is over, and it may go the way of abortion — an issue that Republicans ran on for years before they actually did much.

“I don't know where it falls on their agenda,” he said. “And then there may still be the perception that it's distracting from the main goal of making people's lives more affordable.”

In Texas, however, this sweep is expected to be seen as a mandate to the Legislature to keep pushing anti-trans legislation. Last session, Texas banned gender-affirming care for minors, which advocates like Johnathan Gooch, with Equality Texas, worry could be expanded to adults. They’re also preparing for efforts to further restrict what schools can teach kids about gender and sexuality.

“As intense as it's been over the past few years, and as much ground as the queer community in Texas has lost, there's still a lot to lose,” he said.

Already, Equality Texas has heard from trans Texans worrying about increased restrictions under the Trump administration, as well as day-to-day danger they may face after an election season spent demonizing them. And with Trump in the White House, the LGBTQ+ community has lost a powerful check on Texas legislators’ policies.

“There was always hope that no matter how bad it got here, there'd be the Justice Department to swoop in,” he said. “Those hopes have been dashed.”

Edited November 11 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,801]

14 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

The election result is the make or break.
Dukakis, Mondale, Kerry, Hillary, Harris bad.
Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama good
Anyways assuming Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama were really great and the others who failed, were not how do you know a primary the last summer would produce someone like them or someone "better positioned" ?
It is arbitrary.

of course it would have produced someone better positioned, from a structual standpoint.

The nominee would have been exposed to the nation and would have had to garner broad-based support just to win the primary.

They would have had to 'go through the wars' and would have been forged in the fire of the struggles to win the nomination.

Instead, Harris was just parachuted in with 107 days to go.