Throughout the recent fascist/GOP quest to "protect" children they don't care about, and women's sports they don't watch, trans people have warned that the war on gender affirming care applied to everyone and represented an attempt to literally eliminate trans people from public life, perhaps even existence itself. In response, Very Serious PeopleTM who are also covert transphobes, have insisted that this position is alarmist and we couldn't possibly know cryptofascist lawmaker's ultimate intentions. Well maybe, they should simply ask Republicans? In a late January story that wasn't widely reported in mainstream media, it turns out that GOP lawmakers from Michigan and Ohio met on Twitter spaces and more or less gave the game away entirely:

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/ohio-michigan-republicans-in-released

"After this exchange, Representative Shriver continued by arguing adults consenting to gender-affirming care should not be allowed, going as far as to compare it to consent for "self-mutilation" and "euthanasia." He then repeated, "we have to be looking at the endgame simultaneously, maybe even using that to move the window to say that this isn't just wrong 0-18, it's wrong for everyone and we shouldn't be allowing that to happen."

Representative Click confirmed the plan, stating, “ We have to take one bite at a time, do it incrementally.”

The conversation did not stop there. Prisha Mosley, an anti-trans detransitioner and right-wing political figure, lauded the discussion, "I did want to say that I've kind of been waiting for a state or a representative or anyone to be brave enough to address that... you cannot consent to a lie. Most of these doctors are straight up lying about the effects and saying it'll magically cure every bad feeling you've ever had and that you can magically change sex."

At the end of the conversation, Representative Schriver states that they should "ban this for all people," to which Representative Paquette responds, "We’ll chat offline about all this good stuff."

Folks, I dunno how many times we have to go over this but the plain truth is that whenever fascists who support child labor and want to make poor kids go hungry tell you they're doing something "to protect children" you need to immediately recognize that this is a lie, and start looking for the bigger picture being concealed behind that rhetoric. The reactionary Pig Empire Right could not make it any clearer that what they're after here is the persecution and ultimate elimination of trans people - and denying gender affirming care recognized as necessary and even life-saving by virtually every qualified medical body in the so-called Western world is absolutely part of that strategy. These nazis mean to end us; trans folks know it, and if cis people were being honest, they'd admit they know it too.

#TransRights #Fascism #GOP #Pogrom #Michigan

Hey, remember when Rashida Tlaib, my least-hated U.S. politician and the only Palestinian-American representative in Congress, was censured for sharing a video that called for freedom "from the river to the sea" in support of Gazans being targeted for literal genocide by the IDF? What do you think GOP congressman Tim Walberg will get for *checks notes* boldly declaring we should nuke Gaza like "Nagasaki and Hiroshima" and then calling for the U.S. to end all humanitarian aid to millions of people literally suffering from an engineered famine in Gaza?

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3257349/republican-congressman-suggests-dropping-nuclear-bombs-gaza-and-ending-humanitarian-aid

"The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also weighed in, saying “this clear call to genocide by a member of Congress should be condemned by all Americans who value human life and international law”.

“To so casually call for what would result in the killing of every human being in Gaza sends the chilling message that Palestinian lives have no value,” CAIR executive director Dawud Walid said.

“It is this dehumanization of the Palestinian people that has resulted in the ongoing slaughter and suffering we see every day in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Look, Walberg's minions can cry about it being a metaphor all they like, but the fact is the video evidence available online and the fact that he suggested the same solution to ending the war in Ukraine, makes it very clear that it wasn't. There really isn't a whole lot of room to parse quotes like "we shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid" and "it should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick." This was definitely Timmy boy signaling to his cracker base (which hates Michigan's urban Muslim population) his willingness to "kill 'em all" while backing his party leader's (Trump) longstanding policy position of starving Palestinians out of Gaza by blocking U.S. aid to one of the most vulnerable populations on Earth; in the middle of an IDF genocidal campaign of collective punishment against Gazans no less.

Of course, given that murdering Palestinians en masse is officially a bipartisan policy position in American politics and the GOP doesn't do accountability in its own party, I'm willing to bet you a fresh Tang sandwich that absolutely nothing will happen to Walberg in response.

PS: sorry about the Tribune link but most of the major national "liberal" media outlets were hiding this story behind a paywall when I was searching it up online late last night.

#Gaza #Genocide #USPolitics #Michigan #GOP