I am wearing Orange—the color hunters wear to tell people not to shoot—to honor the victims of gun violence and to demand bold action. The boldest action we could take is to elect @BetoORourke as Texas Governor. #EndGunViolenceNow
People keep asking me if X or Y policy to fight gun violence is possible.
The answer is short: Nothing is possible without dedicated and determined organization and action. Everything is possible with it. Gov. Abbott has made his stance clear. He’ll deflect and then do nothing.
During the last legislative session Democrats worked hard to build bipartisan support for common sense gun protections only to have careful months of negotiations disregarded when the time came to act.
We don’t need another study. We know the steps to take to keep our communities and children safe from gun violence.
We just need leadership to have an ounce of political courage. We owe it to everyone we’ve lost. We need a governor like @BetoORourke who has the courage to act.
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People getting so worked up over drag shows that are much less sexy than a dance number from Grease.
There are different standards for what constitutes “explicit” for LGBTQ folks and straight cisfolks. The standards are even more disparate when the LGBTQ folks aren’t white.
When you see outrage about drag queen performances, ask yourself, what would their reaction be if you subbed in Olivia Newton John? If it’s fine for Olivia, it’s fine for everyone.
The outrage isn’t about LGBTQ people being too sexual. It’s about them just *being*.
They’re afraid that if children see LGBTQ people living out and proud that those kids may: 1. If cishet, grow up to treat LGBTQ folks like human beings worthy of respect, or 2. If LGBTQ, feel safe and supported enough to come out themselves.
Good article, but it’s missing one piece of the problem. SB 6, which banned most use of medication abortion in Texas, doesn’t even have an exception for when the pregnant person’s life is in danger.
It means if they present at the hospital with ruptured membranes (broken water) too early to deliver safely, their fetus has no chance of survival. If the miscarriage doesn’t progress on it’s own, they’re at risk of sepsis and death. The standard treatment is medication abortion.
Medication is preferable to surgical abortion, because surgical can spread the sepsis-causing bacteria.
But if the fetus (which, remember, has 0 chance of survival at this point) hasn’t “died” yet, then it’s a felony for a medical provider to dispense those medications.
There is no replacement for direct voter contact, and the best form is at someone’s door. In 2020, Dems didn’t just *choose* to not do doors. We lost the ability to do it effectively, because a huge proportion of our voters were not comfortable with us being at their doorstep.
So without even considering the public health impact, our campaigns had to consider whether a knock on the door was more likely to help us or hurt us with a particular voter. This calculation varied in different communities and in different districts.
🧵 I’m thinking about a friend today who told me a few months ago that she and her husband were talking about another baby.
But she’d heard about the SB 8, the six week abortion ban, and was frightened.
“What if something goes wrong with my pregnancy?” #SB8#txlege
Her fear was something would go wrong and she wouldn’t have access to a termination. She has significant pre-existing health issue and strong feelings about not carrying a nonviable pregnancy to term.
I talked her through how SB 8 would impact various scenarios.
I.e. yes termination still available if her life was in danger, yes termination available if cardiac activity from the fetus isn’t detectable, no termination not available if fetus receives “incompatible with life” diagnosis but still has detectable cardiac activity.
Senate Bill 15 has passed the House. Though I voted for this bill, it's not the right tool to fund virtual learning in emergency situations. It limits virtual learners to less than 10% of a school's population and requires that all virtual learners take the STAAR test.
The governor and Texas Education Agency should have provided a fully funded virtual option months ago when schools had time to prepare and stand up programs. This bill is too little too late.
The best scenario is for students to be in the classroom w/ strong safety protocols. But given the rise of pediatric hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and the governor's efforts to block universal mask-wearing, I felt that this bill was the only option left to protect our kids.
🧵 “If you like masks, then nothing’s stop you from wearing one. Just don’t make anyone else.”
What’s wrong with this argument?
Well let’s think about it in terms of an earlier, much simpler and now universally respected public health measure.
Designated latrines.
The idea is pretty simple, and we all take it for granted now.
There are appropriate places to 💩 and there inappropriate places. Appropriate places are segmented away from other activity, particularly eating, and located somewhere that (hopefully) won’t impact water sources.
In modern USA, this is generally done through communal wastewater systems or septic systems. In older societies or less developed areas, it might just be through a shared pit latrine or a shared social understanding of doing your business in certain areas and not others.