“Numbers were minimal. Numbers were going to be 100,000 people.” — Trump dodges a question about whether he takes any responsibility for the number of US coronavirus deaths surpassing 50,000 pic.twitter.com/eabDR5Nqvz
DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH:U.S. may cut intelligence sharing with countries that ban homosexuality. Since he only serves in an acting capacity, Grenell’s appointment is set to end in September. But he says he intends to make the most of his time, telling the Times: “The president asked me to do a job and I am going to do the job to the best of my ability.”
TIGER KING: I Ran for Governor of Oklahoma Against Joe Exotic. Joe’s health care policy was socialized medicine, straight out of the Bernie Sanders playbook. His environmental policy was to shut down any businesses that pollute—period. His immigration policy was to sell citizenship: “Charge ’em 60 bucks for a visa. Make ’em spend thousands on citizenship. We don’t want their poor people. We want their rich ones.”
Trump-Pence Admin Moves To Undermine LGBTQ Non-Discrimination Protections in Health Care
Today, HRC responded to the Trump-Pence administration’s latest actions to undermine the rights and welfare of LGBTQ people, putting a vulnerable population at increased risk for discrimination. According to Politico, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is one step closer to finalizing a major change to the federal regulation implementing the civil rights provision, Section 1557, of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to remove explicit protections for LGBTQ people in health care programs and activities by excluding protections from discrimination based on sex stereotyping and gender identity.
“News flash Mr. President — we get sick, we need health care and we should be protected under law. Time after time, the Trump-Pence administration has methodically worked to undermine the rights and welfare of LGBTQ people by rolling back existing protections. Amid a global pandemic — which is already disproportionately affecting LGBTQ people — the Trump administration’s efforts to remove existing non-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community is unacceptable, blatantly offensive, and cruel,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “We cannot accept an administration that continues to treat us like second class citizens. We will fight this policy & fight to get a pro-equality President into office this November who represents all of us.”
HHS’s rushed transmission of this harmful rule for final review by other agencies signals that publication in the federal register is imminent. Section 1557 of the ACA prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in certain health programs or activities. This landmark provision is the first of its kind to include protections from discrimination on the basis of sex in the context of health care. The definition of “sex” has been consistently interpreted by numerous federal courts and agencies — including HHS — to include discrimination on the basis of sex stereotyping and gender identity. The Office of Civil Rights at HHS has been successfully accepting complaints and enforcing the ACA to protect LGBTQ people since 2012. HHS published a final rule implementing the ACA’s civil rights protections to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex stereotyping in 2016. More than 26,000 HRC members and supporters weighed in to express their concerns against this proposed rule in 2019.
HRC recently published a research brief outlining the particular health and economic risks faced by the LGBTQ community during the COVID-19 public health crisis. Many in the LGBTQ community are uniquely vulnerable, as they are more likely to work jobs in highly affected industries, often with more exposure and/or higher economic sensitivity to the COVID-19 crisis, are less likely to have health coverage and are more likely to smoke and have chronic illnesses like asthma. One in five LGBTQ adults already have not seen a doctor when needed because they could not afford it. Black LGBTQ adults (23%), Latinx LGBTQ adults (24%) and all transgender women (29%) are most likely to have avoided going to the doctor because of costs. Read the full brief here.
Fear of discrimination causes many LGBTQ people to avoid seeking health care, and when they do enter care, studies indicate that LGBTQ people are not consistently treated with the respect that all patients deserve. Studies show that 56% of LGB people and 70% of transgender and gender non-conforming people reported experiencing discrimination by health care providers — including refusal of care, harsh language and physical roughness because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. According to a report, 23% of transgender respondents did not see a doctor when they needed to because of fear of being mistreated as a transgender person and a startling 55% of transgender respondents who sought coverage for transition-related surgery were denied.
According to HRC Foundation’s analysis of the 2018 BRFSS, 17% of LGBTQ adults do not have any kind of health insurance coverage, compared to 12% of non-LGBTQ adults. Furthermore, 23% of LGBTQ adults of color, 22% of transgender adults and 32% of transgender adults of color have no form of health coverage. This can lead to avoidance of medical care even when medically necessary and to severe economic hardship when medical care is ultimately accessed.
Congratulations to Kevin and Bailey from South Carolina!
Kevin isn’t sure whether he or Bailey sent the other a like first, but one thing is for sure and that’s that they were made for each other, as they recently got engaged! He writes: “Well it started when she sent me a like or I sent her one, we aren’t sure about that part
The world is in a long-distance relationship right now
Nicholas Ley
I have spent the better part of a year writing about my experiences in long-distance relationships (six years’ worth to be exact). I’ve written about how difficult they can be, how they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, and how, ultimately, they can allow for both partners to grow immensely. Now the whole world is suddenly in one.
Yesterday, I was asked by a friend, “would you say long-distance is harder during corona?” And my response was, “it’s the same.” And it’s true; absolutely nothing about my long-distance relationship has changed due to the state of the world. While virtually everyone in the world is newly and unfamiliarly separated from those they love, I sit here and say, “welcome to my life!”
That gnawing dread of separation anxiety, the unsolvable mystery of when your next visitation will be with those you cherish most, the fear that those you love are moving on without you; these are the cornerstone anxieties of long-distance relationships. And I’m here to tell you, you’re going to get through it. I’d say at least half my time in LDRs was spent not knowing when I would see my partner again. And those, truly, were the hardest parts. A long-distance relationship isn’t so bad when you know, definitively, when you’re going to see your partner again. But it’s in those periods of time without a plane ticket, without a plan or itinerary that it feels like the agony just goes on forever. And, trust me, I know how you feel: this is the hardest time. It’s in these seemingly endless maws of alone time that you start to question your value and worth.
“What am I worth when I can’t be around to prove it?” “Why does this person even bother to stay with me?” You question the way you spend your day-to-day and ask yourself if you’re “doing enough.”
We’ve all seen the flood of quarantine content promoting everyone’s self-improvement journeys. Sometimes, it can feel like if you’re not participating in online yoga classes or workout routines or working on your novel, then you’re just not winning at quarantine. And while I certainly do not want to poo-poo those influencers whose lives and incomes revolve around a relationship with their followings, I have to point out the difference between you doing these things for yourself versus doing them for others. To this day, I find myself wanting to broadcast my accomplishments to my Instagram story with the hope that my boyfriend who lives on the other side of the country will see it and validate it. At the behest of my therapist, I then proceed to do ten pushups as a sort of “punishment” for this thinking. But it’s more than just a self-imposed slap on the wrist for a selfish, insecure mindset. It’s a tactic to take a step back, a step inward, and ask myself, “is this a healthy validation that I’m seeking? Or am I trying to prove something?” And usually, by the end of those pushups, I have my answer.
Just because you’re not physically seeing your friends and loved ones during this time, there is not suddenly some cosmic pressure on you to prove your worth to them. Your friends are your friends because of your inherent awesomeness. Remember: you are half of every successful relationship that’s ever happened in your life.
Another conversation with another friend offered further insight into the similarities between my LDR history and the current social landscape. “It feels like every conversation is about the same thing,” he said. “Every conversation turns into a grim one about the sad state of the world.” The same can oftentimes be said of long-distance relationships. When you’re not there to provide a physical comfort to your partner, the importance of phone conversations seems to suddenly heighten. There’s this pressure to fill every second of a phone conversation with something “meaningful.” And when that doesn’t happen, all you can think about are the ways you’re failing. A mental maze I find myself navigating is how to be the picture of perfect mental health and emotional fortitude during conversations with my cross-country partner. The logic goes: If I’m not there to provide sex or cuddles or cook meals for them, suddenly, the pressure to put all my eggs in the emotional comfort basket mounts. And what ends up happening is I don’t share my problems. I’ve managed to convince myself that by revealing any cracks in my psyche, I remove the one thing I have left to offer. And so we bottle things up. We speak in generalizations. We become afraid to share. And the growth stops.
“How’s your quarantine going?” “Oh, you know, getting by.” “Yeah, it’s crazy. I hope this ends soon.” And the conversation peters out in a wash of morbid generalizations. Neither party wants to admit how they’re really feeling or how the separation may be getting them down that day. I know you don’t need me to tell you this but it’s okay to admit that you’re feeling bad. It’s okay to admit that you are not the dictionary definition of fortitude and stability. Your loved ones aren’t going to suddenly stop talking to you because you’re not being their rock all the time. If anything, they’re going to appreciate your vulnerability because vulnerability is human. Vulnerability is sexy. Vulnerability demonstrates trust. This leads me to my final point.
Trust is the single-most important thing in a long-distance relationship.
So many things are folded into it: trust that your partner isn’t being unfaithful, trust that you two are spending your time apart in meaningful ways, trust that there is something greater on the other side. All of these things are contributing to the greater societal malaise right about now. There is a lack of trust in what has made everything great up until now. In the darkest times of my long-distance relationships, I lose trust in my partner and in myself. In moments of weakness I allow myself to give in to the dark side of ‘what-if.’ “What if we never see each other again?” “What if they’re moving on without me?” “What if I’m not growing right now?” Trust that you and everyone around you is, indeed, growing.
News flash: the world hasn’t stopped turning just because of COVID-19. Sometimes, it can feel that way. It’s really easy to give in to this notion that all life on Earth has ceased motion because we’re not around to witness it. In the long-distance relationships we all find ourselves in right now, we become too focused on the emptiness of the space between us rather than seeing what fills it. We’ve all seen how things around us have changed, some for the better. Air quality around the world is improved. There is a greater focus on health and science. Friends and families are coming together in new and meaningful ways. I can say with sobering honesty that I’ve kept in better touch with my close group of friends than I did before social distancing.
Maintaining a long-distance relationship (romantic or otherwise) takes effort. Maintaining a healthy sense of self takes effort. I know I can’t just tell you that it’s all going to be okay and that will suddenly make everything better. But when it comes to your friends, families, and lovers, take heart in knowing that we are all growing in both immense and subtle ways that are equally wonderful. Trust that, just because you can’t be with the ones you love right now, they’re not forgetting about you. It’s once you’ve become aware of and accepted this fact for yourself that you can become at peace with this long-distance relationship with the world. You can treat yourself with kindness and patience. You can work on the things you’ve been meaning to work on without a sense of vanity or need for validation.Share your progress or lack thereof over your next Zoom call and ask for help if you need it. And when we all finally see each other on the other side, I promise, we’re going to be even better together than we ever thought possible.
Nicholas Ley is a writer, performer, musician and DJ living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Instagram @alittlenickley and Twitter @AlloftheNick.
Trump Claims His Comments About Using Disinfectant to Treat COVID-19 Were ‘Sarcastic’: WATCH
President Donald Trump claimed Friday he was being “sarcastic” when he suggested a day before that disinfectants could be ingested or injected to treat COVID-19.
“I was asking a sarcastic, & a very sarcastic question, to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it.” — Trump tries to rewrite history, says he was speaking “sarcastically” when he mused about disinfectant injections being cure for Covid. pic.twitter.com/bWRU8EV6FZ
“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
Earlier Friday, the White House attempted to walk back insane suggestion.
“President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement. “Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”
Asked about his comments about injecting disinfectant, Trump says, “I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you, just to see what would happen.” That’s just a lie. Here’s the transcript. pic.twitter.com/uLx0KnPTZ6
More from the Washington Post: The question, which Trump offered unprompted, immediately spurred doctors, lawmakers and the makers of Lysol to respond with incredulity and warnings against injecting or otherwise ingesting disinfectants, which are highly toxic. “My concern is that people will die. People will think this is a good idea,” Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, told The Washington Post. “This is not willy-nilly, off-the-cuff, maybe-this-will-work advice. This is dangerous.” … Even before the president’s musings, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Monday found U.S. poison control centers were seeing a surge in calls about exposure to cleaners and disinfectants amid the coronavirus outbreak. Between January and March, there were 45,550 calls — a 20.4 percent increase from the same period last year.
More below.
Please don’t poison yourself because Donald Trump thinks it could be a good idea.
A reminder to all Americans- PLEASE always talk to your health provider first before administering any treatment/ medication to yourself or a loved one.
Your safety is paramount, and doctors and nurses are have years of training to recommend what’s safe and effective.
— U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) April 24, 2020
We shouldn’t be drinking or injecting disinfectants. Let’s not further overwhelm our medical professionals—and let’s not take medical advice from someone who tried to convince America that the coronavirus was a hoax.
ALERT: We have received several calls regarding questions about disinfectant use and #COVID19.
This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route.
— Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MDMEMA) (@MDMEMA) April 24, 2020
Secret #CelebDragRace starts FRI 4/24 at 9:30/8:30c on @VH1 after #DragRace followed by #Untucked!
: We have received several 
Nigga please FYDAUAMPUFDHB