Paulâs opinion column is far from the first Times piece to be cited in anti-trans legislation. In April 2023, Missouri announced an emergency order imposing new restrictions on gender-affirming care for people of all ages, citing a New York Times piece about gender-affirming care that was widely criticized as biased and inaccurate. (The emergency rule was later withdrawn.) Lawmakers in Texas and Alabama have also cited the Timesâ coverage in support of proposed anti-trans legislation.
âThere is such a direct pipeline from these New York Times pieces to the ways in which these laws are being defended in court and then ultimately upheld,â Strangio said in their video. âThe risk of harm to trans people from these pieces is not theoretical.â
Linkage
Things Katy is reading.
The NYTâs Latest Op-Ed on Trans Kids Has Already Been Cited in an Anti-Trans Legal Brief
in ThemA Dementia Patient Is President Because It Doesn't Matter Who The President Is
If you were still laboring under the delusion that it matters who the US president is, the fact that an actual, literal dementia patient has held that office for three years now should dispel that notion once and for all. The US empire has been marching along in exactly the same way it was before Biden took office, completely unhindered by the fact that the person whoâs supposedly calling the shots is in a state of degenerative neurological free-fall.
Literally anyone could hold that office and it would make no meaningful difference in the way the US empire is run. A coma patient could be president. A jar of kalamata olives could be president. The position which Americans hold elections over in the belief that it could bring positive changes to their country and their world is nothing but a figurehead.
Which is a bit of a problem for Americans who would like to change certain aspects of their governmentâs behavior, like for example the backing of an active genocide in Gaza. Whose conscience do they work to appeal to if the person they were told is in charge actually isnât? Who do they vote for if the people who really call the shots arenât even on the ballot?
UT: Cisgender Student Under Police Protection as Trans Panic Rages On
in Assigned MediaOnly two weeks ago Assigned Media shared a story originally reported by the Salt Lake Tribune about a junior varsity cisgender basketball player whoâd been publicly accused by an enraged parent of being trans. Last night a new story in the Salt Lake Tribune, about an entirely different cisgender athlete, shows the escalating violence of the moral panic over transgender participation in sports.
A picture of this student was shared by a far-right state school board member, Natalie Cline, who insinuated she was transgender, which in turn incited threats against the girl from Clineâs follower base. She is now under police protection, and the post has been removed.
Bank of Canada says housing affordability is about boosting supply, not lowering interest rates
in CBC News"Housing affordability is a significant problem in Canada but not one that can be fixed by raising or lowering interest rates," Macklem said during a speech in Montreal on Tuesday.
Macklem said the real issue is that housing supply has fallen short of housing demand for years.
"There are many reasons why: zoning restrictions, delays and uncertainties in the approval processes and shortages of skilled workers. None of these are things monetary policy can address," he said in his address to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations.
Macklem admits the emergency low interest rates during the COVID-19 pandemic helped fuel the run-up in home prices during that time. And the central bank's own research shows that "shelter inflation" continues to drive inflation.
Whatâs to blame for high home prices? Fed Chair Powell says âthere hasnât been enough housing builtâ
in Fast CompanyDuring the presser, Nancy Marshall of Marketplace asked Powell, âHow closely are you watching rent and housing prices as you elevate whether and when to cut rates? It seems like housing prices are not coming down as quickly as you expected.â
Standing at the podium, Powell responded [to hear for yourself, go to the 42-minute mark], saying that the Fed isnât directly âtargetingâ home prices, and insinuated that the real culprit for elevated home prices is that âthere hasnât been enough housing built.â
âIt will be the end of democracyâ: Bernie Sanders on what happens if Trump wins â and how to stop him
in The GuardianIt is âbeyond patheticâ, he writes in the book, that a phoney corporate hack like Trump should be able to present himself as the âchampion of the working classesâ, while the Democratic party stands back and cedes territory to him. He caricatures the Democratic promise to voters as, âWeâre pretty bad, but Republicans are worseâ, and warns that is simply not good enough.
Which brings us to Biden.
Sanders describes Biden, whom he has known since he was elected to the Senate in 2007, as a likable and decent man. But he has a clear message for the sitting president: step up to the plate or the future of the United States, of the world, is in peril. âThe challenge we face is to be able to show people that government in a democratic society can address their very serious needs. If we do that, we defeat Trump. If we do not, then we are the Weimar republic of the early 1930s.â
A 7,000-Pound Car Smashed Through a Guardrail. Thatâs Bad News for All of Us.
in SlateThe new study comes from the University of Nebraska, which received funding from the U.S. Army to examine the impact of electric vehicles on guardrails. The university is a natural location for such research; its Midwest Roadside Safety Facility designed and tested the metal barriers known as the Midwest Guardrail System that are a familiar sight along American highways. The MGS is a beam with a dip running horizontally in the middleâif you think of a guardrail, youâre probably picturing one. âItâs the most frequently used guardrail system, because itâs the cheapest to install and maintain,â said University of Nebraska engineering professor Cody Stolle, noting that all 50 states use it.
The current version of MGS was developed to withstand cars weighing a maximum of 5,000 pounds, but many of todayâs SUVs and trucks exceed that threshold. A Cadillac Escalade, for instance, now weighs over 6,200 pounds, and the latest model of the Ford F-150, the most popular vehicle in America, can tip the scales at almost 5,700 pounds. You donât really want to hit a guardrail with a vehicle like that, but electrification can make things even dicier. Electric cars often weigh around 30 percent more than a gas-powered counterpart, because big vehicles require enormous batteries to propel them hundreds of miles between charges. The goliath-like GMC Hummer EV weighs a staggering 9,083 pounds, 2 tons more than a gas-guzzling H3.
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Itâs worth highlighting that this study isnât really about the merits of EVs. After all, you can buy an EV that weighs less than 5,000 pounds. You just canât electrify your favorite already-large carâor even buy a hulking gas-powered carâand expect guardrails to work as intended.
Inquiry into price gouging and unfair pricing practices
for Australian Council of Trade Unions ACTUThis report concludes that business pricing has added significantly to inflation in recent times.
âProfit pushâ or âsellers inflationâ has occurred against a background of high corporate concentration and is
reflected in the surge of corporate profits and the rise in the profit share of Gross Domestic Product. There
is much support for the view that prices have added much to inflation. This is to be found in research from
OECD, IMF, BIS, European Commission, European Central Bank, US Federal Reserve Bank, Bank of England
and many think tanks globally and locally and many detailed research studies. Claims that the rise in profit
share in Australia as explained by mining do not hold up. The profits share excluding mining has risen and
energy and other prices associated with mining have been a very significant contributor to Australian inflation.
In a world built by plutocrats, the powerful are protected while vengeful laws silence their critics
in The GuardianWhy are peaceful protesters treated like terrorists, while actual terrorists (especially on the far right, and especially in the US) often remain unmolested by the law? Why, in the UK, can you now potentially receive a longer sentence for âpublic nuisanceâ â non-violent civil disobedience â than for rape or manslaughter? Why are ordinary criminals being released early to make space in overcrowded prisons, only for the space to be refilled with political prisoners: people trying peacefully to defend the habitable planet?
Thereâs a simple explanation. It was clearly expressed by a former analyst at the US Department of Homeland Security. âYou donât have a bunch of companies coming forward saying: âI wish youâd do something about these rightwing extremists.ââ The disproportionate policing of environmental protest, the new offences and extreme sentences, the campaigns of extrajudicial persecution by governments around the world are not, as politicians constantly assure us, designed to protect society. Theyâre a response to corporate lobbying.
Evidence Undermines âRapid Onset Gender Dysphoriaâ Claims
in Scientific AmericanThe American Psychological Association and 61 other health care providersâ organizations signed a letter in 2021 denouncing the validity of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) as a clinical diagnosis. And a steadily growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that it does not reflect transgender adolescentsâ experiences and that âsocial contagionâ is not causing more young people to seek gender-affirming care. Still, the concept continues to be used to justify anti-trans legislation across the U.S.
âTo even say itâs a hypothesis at this point, based on the paucity of research on this, I think is a real stretch,â says Eli Coleman, former president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Coleman helped create the organizationâs most recent standards of care for trans people, which endorse and explain the evidence for forms of gender-affirming care.