Trump Regime Rolls Back LGBT Healthcare Protections on Anniversary of Pulse Massacre

The Trump/Pence regime is truly perverse- hateful might be a more accurate description - as it deliberately takes actions to send messages to its ugly base and simultaneously reminds those his base hates are constant targets. First, Trump announces a rally in Tulsa - the site of perhaps the most brutal attack on blacks post Civil War - to take place on Juneteenth, the date when blacks celebrate the of the announcement of their freedom in Texas at the end of the Civil War. Then yesterday, on the fourth anniversary of the Pulse night club massacre of LGBT individuals, the foul regime rolls out its new regulations that end LGBT protections in the health care realm and  give a green light to homophobes that they are free to discriminate and/or refuse services to LGBT individuals, particularly transgender individuals. Trump apologists will no doubt whine that the timings were coincidences, but rest assured that Stephen Miller (a look alike for Hitler's Joseph Goebbels) and other Trump henchmen know exactly what they are doing.  The two happenings are messages to white supremacists and homophobic Christofascists that Trump is their man.  A piece in The Advocate looks at the gutting of LGBT healthcare protections (thanks to Democrats on July 1st, Virginia will have state laws banning such discrimination).  Here are highlights:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Friday announced changes to the Affordable Care Act that reverse protections for transgender people added by the Obama administration in December 2016. The previous changes to Section 1557 of the ACA had defined gender as “one’s internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.” Today’s announcement signaled a return to the original text of the law.

“Today’s rule attempts to gut the robust nondiscrimination protections under the Health Care Rights Law, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA),” Winnie Stachelberg, executive vice president for external affairs at the Center for American Progress, said in a written statement. “This move by the administration to undermine anti-discrimination protections in health care for LGBTQ people, women, people with limited English proficiency, people with disabilities, and others, including those who face multiple forms of discrimination, is unconscionable at any time.”

The new language also removes antidiscrimination protections for the groups of people Stachelberg noted, and allows for wide-ranging exemptions from providing services related to abortion if health care workers have faith-based objections.

Lynn Dawson, associate director of HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told NPR that changes will be felt beyond basic health care issues. She says insurance companies might be able to raise premium prices for LGBTQ+ people, and trans patients might find limited remedies through the legal system.

"Because of limited access to litigation, I think that it's fair to state that the ramifications [of this rule] could be pretty significant," she lamented.

Several LGBTQ+ groups, other civil rights groups, and medical organizations issued statements condemning the administration's action, and the Human Rights Campaign plans to sue over it.

Today, the Human Rights Campaign is announcing plans to sue the Trump administration for exceeding their legal authority and attempting to remove basic health care protections from vulnerable communities including LGBTQ people. And, to add insult to injury, the administration finalized this rule on the anniversary of the Pulse shooting, where a gunman killed 49 people in an LGBTQ nightclub,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “LGBTQ people get sick. LGBTQ people need health care. LGBTQ people should not live in fear that they cannot get the care they need simply because of who they are. It is clear that this administration does not believe that LGBTQ people, or other marginalized communities, deserve equality under the law. But we have a reality check for them: we will not let this attack on our basic right to be free from discrimination in health care go unchallenged.

“It is particularly brazen of Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and the President to undermine health care access at a time when the nation is confronted by the coronavirus,” said Andy Marra, Executive Director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund. “Today’s published rule demonstrates this administration would rather promote discrimination in health care than deliver a comprehensive and evidence-based response to the pandemic. We look forward to challenging these reckless regulations alongside our partners to ensure trans protections remain intact.”

In my view, Trump and many in his regime are pure evil. 

Elite Washington Schools Snub Trump's Mistress of Lies

Perhaps there remains some small measure of justice as the nation hurls towards disaster under the regime of Der Fuhrer.  It seems, according to Page Six and some other sources that despite Kellyanne Conway's efforts, elite schools around Washington, D.C., want nothing to do with Conway's children.  Since Donald Trump wants to destroy public education as evidenced by his Secretary of Education nominee, Betsy DeVoes, it is fitting that Conway might have to place her children in public school or settle for some church affiliated school high on toxic theology and short on quality science and fact based education. I have no malice towards Conway's children - none of us get to choose our parents - but Ms. Conway is hopefully learning that there are consequences to selling one's soul to the service of a narcissistic, sexual predator pathological liar.  Conway forgets that less than 27% of voters supported Der Fuhrer and that no election land slide occurred except in the mind of that psychopathic liar and is sycophants.  Here are highlights from Crooks and Liars:

This is a Page Six story, so we look at it with the usual amount of skepticism we have for DC gossip. But after all her whining that she wasn't going to take a White House job because her children needed their mom at home (Re-launching the mommy wars to garnish sympathy from Stuart Varney, Kellyanne? Nobody cares.), it now appears poor Kellyanne Goebbels Conway can't seem to get the DC elite public schools to bend to her will.

She really did say this:

“My children are 12, 12, 8, and 7, which is bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea for mom going inside [the White House],” Conway said. “They have to come first and those are very fraught ages.” She then implied that the same standards should apply to all mothers who are seeking high-level jobs. When male colleagues suggested Conway take a White House job, she said, “I did politely mention to them that the question isn’t, ‘Would you take the job?’ … but ‘Would you want your wife to?’ And you really see their entire visage change. It’s like, oh, no, they wouldn’t want their wife to take that job.”

The struggle is real, Kellyanne. No one around DC wants Kellyanne or her children infesting their schools. Yes, I know, they are innocent children and shouldn't be punished because their mother is a soulless, vapid, shallow, narcissistic, lying liar or all liars who talks out of both sides of her mouth while also sucking the life out anyone in her path.

So here is the story: Page Six reports that Sewer Rat Barbie is worried that her kids will get blackballed from DC elite schools because, get this, they are *prejudiced* against President Trump. Yes, prejudiced. Oh my, she is feeling discriminated against because of who she is and that is so hard, right? How unfair it is to her children to be banned from things purely because of something out of their control, like their parent's beliefs or heritage, right?

The irony is delicious, coming from a party and candidate that literally only wins elections because of voter suppression, gerrymandering and racism. Oh, and her candidate quite literally ran on a racist campaign. But she feels discriminated against? Of course.

I expect the schools have no problem with Conway children attending but would rather Kellyanne stayed away from the PTO meetings.

And given her history of lying, it's entirely possible that Kellyanne floated this story herself in order to remind everyone what a great mom she is and how persecuted her President Trump's White House is by the Beltway insiders, boo hoo.

Meanwhile, Kellyanne is reaching out of her *friends* at her kids' current private school for help finding a placement for her children.  Welcome to the swamp, Kellyanne!