This is the blog of a historian named Charlotte (she/it/they), known across the Internet as PhD, DSc, MD, PT Discworld. Officially a PhD! (also received a Professor of Thaumology from Unseen University, Ankh Morpork). She has interests in goth music, science, academia, Doctor Who, Discworld, and various other topics. Trans as fuck. GNU Terry Pratchett
Oh my fucking God. They completely demolished the entire east wing. The whole thing is rubble now. Trump just tore down half of the White House.
(picture from the article linked above)
This was supposedly done in preparation for construction of his self involved ballroom project, but he had claimed before that no changes would be made to the existing building structure. And now half of this unbelievably historic building is gone.
i’m reblogging these pictures because…yeah, in the most literal way possible, one-third of the White House, the USA’s most famous, iconic and symbolic historic building, was just completely fucking obliterated
He succeeded in doing what the 9/11 terrorists tried to.
Explaining the potential end of federal Medicaid funds for trans healthcare
So at about 10pm yesterday, 05/21/25, the House Rules Committee made a “manager’s amendment” to the big budget bill they are attempting to pass
The point of this amendment was to appease the hardline conservatives who want bigger cuts, without alienating more moderate Republicans who would stand to lose re-election if more drastic cuts were made
One of these changes was to strike the term “for minors” from a section detailing a ban on federal money for Gender Affirming Care.
This means that if the budget passes in its current form, the federal government would stop providing money to help state medicaid plans cover Gender Affirming Care.
This would not ban states from covering Gender Affirming Care themselves for Medicaid recipients, and solid blue states would likely all do so. But this puts red and purple state trans people on medicaid at risk of losing coverage for both hormones and surgery. Currently, some red states already provide no Medicaid support for Gender Affirming Care.
This provision may be subject to the Byrd Rule, a Senate rule that disallows provisions in reconciliation bills considered “extraneous.” We have seen many similar Republican culture war provisions struck out previously for this reason.
If the Senate parliamentarian decides the Byrd Rule doesn’t apply here, the second line of defense would be the courts. While there is currently a fierce legal debate over the validity of restrictions on Gender Affirming Care for minors, challenges to Gender Affirming Care for adults have fared far worse in the courts, including attempts to cut funding to cover our care.
So right now…I honestly don’t know where this leaves us. If you are on Medicaid in a deep blue state, or are not on Medicaid and won’t have to rely on it anytime soon, you should be fine. As for trans Medicaid beneficiaries elsewhere…prayer circle for the Senate parliamentarian and if not them then the courts to help us.
It has to go through the Senate, where this and other culture war provisions of the bill might be removed by the parliamentarian.
For instance, in 2017 the parliamentarian stripped a provision explicitly refusing to cover medical care at Planned Parenthood specifically. They are trying that exact provision this time, and it will likely be removed again.
That being said, this does not mean she will look at this shit about trans care the same way. We shall see.
In addition, there is very likely court action to follow if this passes in its current form.
And if it does pass…it further solidifies the divide in this country between blue states and everywhere else, because those blue states are going to become the only ones that keep gender affirming care accessible through state Medicaid and ACA plans.
Documenting the Damage: 100 Harmful Policies from the First 100 Days of Trump’s Second Term
The second Trump administration has had the busiest first 100 days of any US presidency in nearly a century. Since January, I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet documenting 900+ policy changes and political developments. I then bundled many of the most important changes into 100 topics areas and wrote a summary of each of them, providing a semi-comprehensive account of the tremendous changes to US politics which have occurred.
Folks, this is an incredible piece of journalism reflecting a tremendous amount of research, effort, and thought.
It’s completely free, brilliantly made, and I am incredulous that it had been so narrowly shared on Tumblr.
I am in awe of what Brett has done here. Please click through and read at least some of this because I think people are really missing out on what an incredible tool this is.
It’s a quick reference, it’s an archive (it’s SO rich in sources and references), it’s an explainer, and it is a point-by-point means of de-normalizing the trump administration to anyone in your life who thinks things aren’t that bad.
Part of what both trump admins have done, and that the second one has been very, very successful at, is running a shock and awe campaign of things that are so overwhelming and awful that people check out because they can’t maintain attention for the continual hammering of information. What Brett has done here is an absurd feat of attention, keeping on top of the tidal wave and breaking it down so that we can see the actions of the administration in plain black and white without the feeling of being pummeled by increasingly panicked news stories.
There are a ton of things to panic about, to take immediate action about, to be outraged about - you shouldn’t feel guilty about missing an HHS rule change while you’re protesting ICE or having your gender erased - but part of why this document is so impressive is that it DID keep track of those changes and rollbacks that are blips in the news cycle, and it did so pretty much in real time. The fact that it was completed so soon after the first 100 days is staggering, and it’s so incredibly useful to have this as a reference NOW instead of as a retrospective five years after the fact.
Really. Seriously. This is so fantastic. Please take a look at it.
It’s not comforting, it IS alarming, and it is nonetheless one of the most approachable and motivating in-depth pieces of political journalism I’ve ever seen.
the government deleted its covid-19 information websites and replaced it with this
every single covid.gov url in existence, relating to testing, health protocols, etc. just redirects to the words “Lab Leak” now
Covid was a biological weapons engineered by china to kill millions of people but taking precautionary measures was unnecessary because it hurt the economy. Donald Trump is a hero who saved the world by developing a vaccine and also the vaccine doesn’t do anything. The enemy is too strong but also weak
