bcl05

They pin this on mental health and then vote against helping patients with mental health issues. The republican party is morally completely bankrupt. The dems are incompetently working to try and make things better (and are thus deserving of a lot of criticism - for their incompetence), but they are not actively working to make things worse. I don't see how anyone who votes for the GOP sleeps at night.

We are a sick country. Our culture is so flawed that this happens and people do nothing. It's gross.

This kid is awesome

The GOP position ignores basic biology and is intentionally, unnecessarily, stupidly, cruel to women.

What makes MTG so breathtakingly dumb is that she is advocating choice while advocating taking away choice. It’s hard to argue logic with people this idiotic.

Cover of the May 14 Lancet (one of the most widely read and prestigious medical journals):

That should be awesome. Those women are heroes.

Don't think they got played.

I'd be willing to bet it was Alito or one of the conservatives that leaked this. That way they get to make that the story, not the fact that they are gutting basic human rights and using a ridiculous argument that because the founders didn't recognize women as equals, we shouldn't either.

I hadn't thought of that and it's obvious in retrospect. Its also so dumb and cruel. I don't see how it hurts anyone to allow people to go through the hassle to change their birth certificate.

I've been thinking about this stupid OK law, and I wonder if it is more to stigmatize and marginalize parents who identify as non-binary or trans and disallow their use of their chosen signifiers on the birth certificate. I could read more about it, but its too depressing, cynical, and cruel.

There are some babies that are born with ambiguous genitalia or genitalia that don't match their chromosomal sex. I am a geneticist, and see them regularly. While the vast majority of newborns can be accurately assigned a biologic sex at birth, that is definitely not the case for everyone. I assume this law is intended for the exceedingly rare performatively liberal parents who would rather put non-binary pronouns on their newborn (whom I think are rather silly, but also harmless), but the collateral harm to patients and families who are biologically ambiguous or complicated might be significant.

Mercy rule?

Wow. This is someone I want to run through a wall for. More like her please.

Every single policy promoted by the current version of the republican party seems laser focused on either making rich people richer and poor people poorer, or on increasing the suffering of the most marginalized and vulnerable members of our communities. Often both. I don't love Biden's approach to a lot of things, but at least he's not that.

I’m really liking Frandsen on the broadcasts so far.

I really, really like these cherry blossom uniforms. I think they would be even better if the front of the jersey said "DC" instead of "WSH." Fedde looking sharp so far...

Wow. He’s worth the price of admission all by himself.

That Ruiz throw was sweeeet…

Sure, there are tons of options. No one knows (including/especially any of us) which would have led to a better/best outcome. Everything is on a razor's edge with this, and the idea that there was ever a clearly right option that we ignored is just silly. I also would disagree with the idea that we've done "nothing." I'd probably agree that we haven't done enough, but I don't pretend to know what enough would look like. I strongly suspect that some terrible suffering in Ukraine was pretty much inevitable and that Putin does not seem bound by reason or empathy, so I don't know what levers we could have pushed to prevent this all from happening. I feel like people are furious about the outcome (which is the right response), but not at the right people.

I'm not sure what Biden could have done differently to prevent these atrocities. I wish we could do anything to reduce it all, but I don't think there was ever an obvious step he should have taken that would have clearly made things better and not worse. Once Russia decided to invade and basically become medieval butchers (which was plausible, but not in any way absolutely certain at the outset), I'm not sure what we could have done to stop the suffering of Ukraine. The whole thing is brutally depressing and terrible. I don't really see that it should be partisan. I do see only one party actively supporting Putin and spreading the misinformation and lies that come from the Kremlin. I don't see how that's Biden's fault, though.