When students miss class for medical reasons, they provide a note that they are under a doctor's care, not the condition. I suspect these professors aren't silent about their feelings on abortion, so probably no student has ever told them they are having one.
Despite the school being in Austin, the lawsuit to not have to excuse students who get abortions was filed 400 miles away in Amarillo so that Judge Kasmaryk will hear it. No need to wonder how he'll find.
I've seen funny sports fan gear, [Insert City] vs. Everybody. You can hate your team's rival, but in reality it's MAGA vs. Everybody. Even other Republicans.
Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, told Republicans to find a legislative fix to a late convention date and put Joe Biden on the November ballot. Previously, all states put both major party candidates on the ballot, including Ohio with Romney (2012) and Trump (2020).
You have the freedom to do exactly what Ron DeSantis wants you to do. Nothing Orwellian to see here by the red, white, and blue lights on bridges in the state.
We don't have a "reich" of any kind in this country, at least not yet. Trump's website mentioned it three times today before it was deleted 18 hours later, then blamed it on a staffer's cut and paste.
In a game of "I'm rubber, you're glue," a spokesperson instead called Biden the extremist and accused him of being the one hanging out with antisemites.
This Jewish person is voting for the one who doesn't "accidentally" post Nazi language (for so many reasons).
Trump doesn't know what he wants his contraceptive policy to be. Should states be able to restrict it? This morning he thought yes, just like states can now outlaw abortion. This afternoon he said he wasn't for banning it, and neither is the Republican party. Sure, and I'm not trusting them either.
Vote for Republicans and who knows what you'll get. #ElectDemocrats and you'll get expanded health care, not restricted.
@MariaHill He doesn’t know what he believes because it changes every 15 seconds. And he already bragged about appointing the SCOTUS justices who ended abortion rights across the country.
Nobody should ever trust Trump or anyone around him.
According to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, religious freedom means being able to prevent other people's access to contraception, so he had to veto a bill that would have enshrined rights.
He also vetoed bills ending tax breaks for the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the issuance of new Confederate license plates.
This is what you get when you elect Republicans, no matter how affable or moderate they pretend to be before an election.
Democrat David Trone adequately represents the only competitive House district in the state, but I’m glad his privately-funded campaign didn’t buy the Senate primary. Angela Alsobooks is the choice of Maryland Democrats.
Republican Larry Hogan may be anti-Trump, but he’ll vote however Mitch McConnell’s successor wants. Alsobrooks will be a reliable vote for Maryland’s interests. Plus the Senate needs Black women’s voices. Enough with Maryland’s all-male delegation.
@MariaHill Governor Hogan is anti-Trump in name only. It's not just that - as you said - he'll toe the party line. His ads during the campaign said it all - he was literally including lines from the Trump playbook about secure the borders and build the wall.
And don't get me started on who he voted for as POTUS in 2016 and 2020.
The man has all the backbone of 20-minute cooked spaghetti when it comes to his party.
The Alabama attorney general thinks that not only should his state be able to outlaw abortion completely, but that he should be able to restrict women from traveling elsewhere for their abortion care too. A federal judge said no, people have the right to cross state lines, and refused to dismiss the Yellowhammer Fund's lawsuit.
Some state officials will do anything to control people. Democrats nominate and confirm judges who won't let them.
The Atlantic has some of the best coverage on campus protests. The first link is by Jill Filipovic, criticizing other media for its misrepresentation. She notes that some media whitewashes pro-Hamas demands while conservative media ignores that some students are generally anti-war and not there because they are antisemitic. Some of the counter-protesters, especially the violent ones, have their own opportunist reasons rather than pro-Israel ones.
Iddo Gefen is a Columbia grad student from Israel. He believes Netanyahu “will go down as one of the worst leaders in the history of the Jewish people.” He grew up in Israel during the Second Intifada. Hearing cries of “intifada revolution” on campus concerns him. He recognizes it as protected speech, but worries about what violent rhetoric does for public discourse as well as for achieving peace. (He says it benefits the far-right in the USA and Israel.)
@MariaHill Peaceful protests are part of a healthy democracy; bigotry and threats are quite another and may fall under protected speech but that doesn’t make it immune from criticism.
Everyone has a right to protest and schools and the public have a right to judge those actions.
Most of this is just removing attention from the actual issue at hand as well as numerous domestic issues. If that’s the intent, it’s not a great one. If it isn’t, that’s the effect it is having.
My iPhone didn't remind me that it's Jewish American Heritage Month, which seems to be an oversight considering all of the other months on the calendar. You can learn about it here. I like reminders, whether they're the other months for my heritage or not. I like celebratory days and months of all kinds.
Happy JAHM whether you're Jewish or an ally. Visit the free Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia if you get the chance!
These guys again. Though the policymakers of the federal judiciary are trying to stop judge-shopping, indicted Texas AG Ken Paxton and right-wing Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk will ignore that in order to make sure LGBTQ+ people aren't protected.
Paxton wants to stop Title IX protections from covering students based on gender identity and not just biological sex.
Ken Paxton shouldn't get to pick a judge guaranteed to issue an injunction that will apply to the whole USA.
@MariaHill Since my mood is Level 10 cranky, I’ll point out to the readers that Matthew Kacsmaryk was nominated to his position by Donald Trump in 2017 and sworn in for the position in 2019.
@TonyStark Anyone thinking about not voting for Biden for whatever reason should keep in mind that it's a binary choice about who will decide whether LGBTQ+ people and women/trans/non-binary people get to make decisions about our bodies or whether judges like Kacsmaryk do. And whether Trump names Kacsmaryk or someone just like him to SCOTUS if there's a seat in the next four years or if Biden does.
Also, whether a Republican or Democratic senate confirms those judges & fed appointees.
It's inexplicable why Americans would trust Trump more than Biden on the economy. The plans his advisers put forward would increase our cost of living. There has been global, not just American, inflation, during the years Biden has been president. Ours has been better than many other countries thanks to Democratic policies rather than ones that favor the rich or austerity ones. Putting Republicans in charge again will not help the middle or working classes.
Non-Muslim nominees to the federal bench are not asked to condemn terrorism, and Mangi's hearing is a callback to how Republicans treated Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her confirmation hearing.
Joe Manchin won't support Mangi because of bullshit "bipartisanship," and two Democratic senators say he's anti-police (echoing McConnell), so despite Mangi's excellent qualifications and support from diverse groups, the first Muslim nominee to the federal bench won't serve.
@MariaHill
Truly awful treatment of an extremely qualified nominee. The one thing we could count on from Manchin was voting for judicial nominees and now he’s screwing up even that. And WTF is up with Nevada?
The Republican chief deputy whip and five other far-right members of Congress put forward a bill to rename Washington Dulles International Airport for the guy under 88 counts of indictment. It won’t get a vote in the Democratic Senate and President Biden must be rolling his eyes at the idea of signing it. Democrats might be willing to name a federal prison for Trump, as Gerry Connolly suggested.
This is Republicans’ idea of what the country needs.
@MariaHill I really don’t want to fly into Putin’s Puppet National Airport but Republicans will do just about anything to avoid doing real work on the economy, the environment, housing, jobs, healthcare, immigration, actual crime, or anything else I can come up with that would help the largest number of people here.