🧵Sorry, this is wrong. Trump did a lot of terrible things and just because they didn't affect you doesn't mean they didn't happen. Trump banned Muslims; created massive anti-LGBTQ policies under the HHS, HUD, Dept. of Ed; rolled back 149 safety regulations on air, food, water.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1835867383791022313

🧵Trump completely eviscerated the State Dept and allowed Mike Pompeo to turn USAID into an evangelical hub for anti-woman and anti-LGBTQ networking for rogue nations as I reported for 2yrs and the US paid for it. Trump also basically ended the civil rights end of the DOJ.
2/

Ryan Wesley Routh, the alleged shooter in today's incident against Trump, is a 60 year old white man with a history of mental illness. He appears to have voted for Trump in 2016 and his Facebook page has COVID conspiracies on it. He is not an immigrant nor is he Haitian. A Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of fence and “engaged” with the suspect, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at a news conference late Sunday afternoon. The suspect fled in a car and was taken into custody after being stopped on the highway.

🧵1/
When I tell you to try not to get #cancer, that's not a glib statement. There are things you can do to protect yourself from killer cancers which are dramatically on the rise among people <50, especially Black men and white women. Wear sunscreen irrespective of race. 🧵2/
Stop smoking. Just stop. It causes so many different cancers, it's just not worth it.
Limit your alcohol consumption. Esophageal cancer is on the rise among <50 and it is a direct result of alcohol and smoking.

🧵1/It's astonishing how many people want to scold sick people and those with #cancer. It always makes me wonder what they think the future holds for them and those they love. The struggle to survive a catastrophic illness is in itself life-altering. Be supportive. Period. 🧵2/
It shouldn't be hard to do this and yet it seems to be. We got meaner and less empathetic during the pandemic when we should have gotten more compassionate. No doubt there will be studies in the coming years on this and on resiliency. But for now we all should do better.

🧵1/
Pretty angry about my #cancer and that cancer numbers are going up, in all age groups, and all we are talking about is immigration, which is a GOP canard and impacts very few Americans in reality, while nearly half of us will get cancer and a third of those die. 🧵2/
What are we doing for #cancer and for people with cancer? Where is the testing? There are tests for like 5 cancers and the rest--including 10 of the next most common-- you are on your own, hoping you have symptoms before stage 4. That's lunacy. Where's the research?

🧵1/
Some thoughts on how to treat friends, family and patients who are battling serious illness, like I am.

When you take away the personal agency and autonomy of sick people you may have the best of intentions, but you are actually causing harm. 🧵2/
Never ever make decisions for someone else's life without their permission. It doesn't matter that you "know" it is what they need and/or want or so you think and you also think they are 'just afraid to ask." They aren't. They just want to make their own choices.

🧵Throughout this election cycle I've been so disheartened by the disconnect between actual voters who I report on and the Very Online interpretation--largely through a yt male prism--of what the election is "really" about. Some of us--though not many--warned against Biden or Bernie as 2020 nominee precisely because this moment would arise.
1/ My concern was 2024 would create a crisis of the sort being manufactured now at a time when the GOP was flexing it's power and voter solidarity. Dems consistently run from conflict instead of addressing it, AND don't vote, which is how we have GOP leadership in the House.
2/

So let me say this: A few dozen MAGAs in my mentions are telling me I'm a "self loathing white person," so let me clarify for those folks and anyone else that my support for Black women like Jasmine Crockett (who has been very supportive of me during my recent illness and bereavement) is my being an ally. I am blessed to have some fabulous Black women in my life and I support many Black women politicians and Black women activists. My mentor for two decades was a Black woman theorist and writer. I grew up with strong Black women Civil Rights activists staying in our house because my parents were Civil Rights workers. I was in college before I truly understood how unusual that was--that a Black woman activist would be sleeping in my bed and I would be sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag while she told me stories about her life in Mississippi. I am grateful to have been raised by anti-racist parents and I have tried to carry on that legacy. So no, I am not self loathing. I am proud to stand with Black women (and my many Black male friends as well!). And you thinking I have to hate myself to lift up and support Black women is a you problem that you should work on because racism continues to wreak havoc on this country.
I wrote this piece about a few weeks back about Civil Rights, my parents' activism, my early childhood in the Civil Rights movement and the long ugly history of bathroom discrimination in America and the harn it's done and does. (Gift 🎁 link)
epgn.com/2024/03/28/the-

🧵I once filed a column from cardiac ICU when I was 30something and my heart just went haywire when I was out on assignment and started beating in the 200s and I passed out and was taken to hospital via ambulance and they had to shock me several times. It is nothing like on TV. 🧵 It's like having a hot iron (remember those?) dropped from a tall building onto your chest. They never show that on TV. It's pretty terrible. It didn't work, so they had to do a coronary ablation, where they try to re-set your heart's electrical circuitry by threading some wires into it.

OMG. This @ABC special #OnTheBrink with Diane Sawyer and @rachelvscott is absolutely gutting and should make everyone enraged that women are being subjected to this. Termination committees are being convened to determine whether women deserve an emergency medical abortion. Insanity.

Hollywood podcaster "reporting" on Hamas and the IDF from L.A. while real journalists like myself are covering the actual conflict. Yet folks like his narrative more--even as they blame "the media" for real reporting: They don't like what we tell them and how awful it is. In reality IDF has razed northern Gaza and Netanyahu told hostage families his priority is attacking Gaza, not rescuing the 160 hostages still held. Thousands are demanding Netanyahu's resignation.

Now I am flat out sobbing. Vivian Silver was such a remarkable person. So dedicated to making the world better. Oct 4th she was leading a peace march--she founded Women Wage Peace. Oct. 7 she was abducted by Hamas from a closet where she was hiding. Vivian Silver worked constantly with/for people in Gaza. She drove Gazans to Israeli hospitals. She fought for wage increases. She was dedicated to a two state solution and put herself out there every day. She embodied tikkun olam.
May her memory be a blessing and a revolution.

Last night I read this lovely post by @LibyaLiberty who so generously opened her a space to people who disagree with her on Israel-Hamas and it was such an aspirational post. And I already admired Hend who I have followed for years and who I am fortunate follows me.
1/🧵 Hend is doing a better job of living her faith than I am. She blesses people all the time. She challenges people without being too sharp or too harsh. I am failing Jesus every day because I am in a state of rage over the complexity and the clarity of this war.
2/🧵

Elijah McClain was a young sweet Black man with disabilities. He played violin. He loved cats. He was murdered horribly on camera and we all witnessed it. Another of his killers went free Monday because people with disabilities and young Black men are always suspect to police. More than half of all victims of police killings are people with disabilities. Black men are 7% of the population and 40% of victims of police violence. The intersection of disability and Blackness raises the odds of being a victim. It's a crisis.
namiillinois.org/half-people-ki…

The list of MSM journalists of longstanding who have given Trump a pass is disturbingly long. Every time a new one is revealed, the same people get outraged and the same people don't care. Yet the books get sold,the ratings go up. Which means a lot of that outrage is for show.
1/ No one gets cancelled. Rather the opposite: they get advanced to new positions and to better book deals. Legacy media and access journalism are inseparable. No one stopped watching Chuck Todd, they just complained about him.
2/

This relentless effort to show us both sides of issues that only have one actual side is exhausting. IT'S NOT JUST RHETORIC, IT'S HUNDREDS OF LAWS.

How a Gay Republican Sees the Rise in Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric on the Right nytimes.com/2023/09/04/opi… tbh, how f*ing dare Brad Polumbo, Republican podcaster, claim that "both sides over-reach." Are you out of your mind? Where's the "over-reach" on the often tediously and maddeningly centrist Democratic side? People are literally being killed and this guy thinks it's ok to be GOP.

THREAD
Another woman on here with #cancer died tonight,leaving a husband & child. Her cancer was metastatic, just everywhere. Her tweets over the past weeks were hard to read. Cancer is so terrible. We absolutely must do more to lower the body count & lessen the suffering.
1/🧵 The Wife suffered so much the last year of her life. For months we didn't know what was wrong with her and I was using all my journalistic skills to get a dxd for her. Then I found that specialist and he told us she'd be dead in two weeks without intervention. Gobsmacking.
2/🧵

How on earth did I get sucked into reading that grotesque piece in Current Affairs when actual real life gay, lesbian and trans people are being murdered? And it doesn't make you a "prickly academic" to rewrite the history of Matthew Shepard's brutal murder like you're freaking Ron DeSantis claiming slavery was a job corps program. It makes you a homophobic toady catering to the worst elements in this country. JFC stop this crap, really. It's not an academic exercise. You know who thinks that piece is terrific and is promoting it? The Daily Wire who wants queer and trans people "eradicated" and Breitbart which remains one step behind Daily Stormer when it comes to LGBTQ people. So you're not edgy, you're a collaborator.

#New
This should be a front-page story nationally. Marion city police and the county sheriff’s office shut down a newspaper.
AND THE RAID KILLED THE 98 YEAR OLD PUBLISHER.

Raid on Kansas newspaper is an intolerable overreach by police | Editorial
1/
kansas.com/opinion/editor… Police raided the offices of the Marion County Record and the home of its owners, Eric Meyer and his mother, Joan. Police seized company-owned and personal computers and cell phones, and photographed personal documents on tables in the Meyer home.
2/
kansas.com/opinion/editor…

So I just read a series of tweets from a woman upset that she was ostensibly fired from her doctor's practice for abusing the trans receptionist, who she told offended her by....existing and having a trans flag at her desk. The woman wants an attorney to help her.
1/ So y'all realize that this is what you want public services to do to LGBTQ people? This woman could have just not said she felt the flag was offensive to and targeted her as a woman (WHUT?!). What's her legal standing? She created a hostile situation in a doctor's office.
2/

Jack Shafer is getting ratio'd for this, though it's doubtful those commenting have actually read it. I did so you don't have to. Whenever incumbents have been primaried they've lost. Start there. But Shafer's premise is that Biden will "prove" he can take on a debate.
1/

https://twitter.com/jackshafer/status/1675899934304870404

Biden already proved that. It's why he's POTUS. Also, Biden's opponents are, to be kind, not serious candidates for president or anything else. Biden debating them would actually make him look weak and desperate, neither of which he is.
2/