Republican who signed anti-trans sports bill into law suggests gender-affirming care is child abuse

While conservatives have fanned faux hysteria about trans girls participating in girls’ sports teams, they’ve gotten a distressing amount of people on board for anti-trans rhetoric. Normalizing exclusion, discrimination, and “othering” always leads us… Daily Kos

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Biden goes nuclear on the filibuster, Republicans but his ploy runs into Democratic resistance

President Biden, in a major speech Tuesday, called for blowing up the Senate filibuster rules to fight what he says is a Republican assault on American democracy, but Sen. Joe Manchin III is again poised to derail the president’s plans. Mr. Biden, who served as a senator for 36 years, … The Washington Times stories: White House

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Joe Biden signs annual defense policy bill into law

President Biden on Monday signed into law the annual defense-policy bill, capping months of partisan back-and-forth over a litany of hot-button issues as the legislation made its way through Congress. The final version of the $ 770 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorizes a nearly 5% increase in military spending … The Washington Times stories: White House

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The Coronavirus Turned a Rural County Into a Battleground for Millionaires

Joni Reynolds often wonders how things in Gunnison County got so out of hand. How did she, the top health official of a sparsely populated county deep in the Rocky Mountains, end up the target of national fury, and frightened enough to sleep with a gun on her nightstand? Joni and her husband, Dennis, moved to Gunnison in 2015 to be closer to nature: the smooth waters of the Blue Mesa Reservoir; the craggy, snow-capped peaks of the Rockies; and the yellow aspens dotting the landscape in autumn. The 61-year-old…

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Democrats Stare Into the Abyss

Since mid-summer, Democrats have been trapped in a downward spiral of declining approval ratings for President Joe Biden, rising public anxiety about the country’s direction, and widening internal divisions over the party’s legislative agenda. The next few weeks will likely determine whether they have bottomed out and can begin to regain momentum before next year’s midterm elections. Roughly since the rise of the Delta variant sent COVID-19 caseloads soaring again, the White House and congressional Democrats have faced a debilitating slog of dashed hopes and diminished expectations. Weeks of negotiation…

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