Dr. Flowers @AlliFlowers@talkedabout.social

The Department of Veterans Affairs is expanding in vitro fertilization benefits regardless of marital status and will allow the use of donor eggs, sperm and embryos for the first time.

https://t.co/T1ITi587m2

NAACP calls on Black student-athletes to boycott Florida public colleges over anti-DEI policy https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/naacp-boycott-florida-colleges-black-athletes-dei-policy-rcna142549

Bravo!!!!

#NAACP
#black
#Florida
#desantis
#BoycottFlorida
##DEI
#Athletes
#FloridaColleges
#studentathlete

Ok wait…

Hang on…

One moment…

Nancy Mace defends her endorsement of sexual abuser Trump saying she cannot be questioned about her defense because she’s a survivor of sexual abuse

Make this republican brainrot make sense.

CW: sexual violence being discussed

Katie Britt really opened up a can of worms! She never asked the victim if she could use her story! Plus many of the facts #KatieBritt used were incorrect!

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/03/10/karla-jacinto-alabama-senator-katie-britt-gop-response-state-of-the-union-address-controversy-romo-nr-vpx.cnn?cid=ios_app

@randahl The Geneva says If civilians are intentionally being put in harms way via perfidy or human shields, those doing that are the ones committing the war crime, not the ones attacking them in an attempt to get to the military element. If anyone hates seeing dead kids, then they should probably be mad at the side not following the rules of war, which were formulated and specifically designed to minimize the dead kids. In a typical war The Center for Civilians in Conflict estimates a 9:1 civilian:combatant kill ratio. Israel is currently 2:1 ratio -- an unprecedented achievement in war. If Israel wished to perform a genocide the war would have been completed by Oct. 8th. Hamas can surrender and return the hostages at any time. Given that it hasn't done that, I don't know what you expect to happen. The presence of civilians is not a get out of jail free card for terrorists.

Geneva Convention: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/publications/icrc-002-0173.pdf
Self-defense in international law (cliff notes): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-defence_in_international_law
9:1 ratio: [https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.d](https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm)

Breaking: In anticipation of Trump needing to pay yet another civil judgment for defamation, New York judge orders Trump to set up lockbox to allow all monies paid to him by Putin go directly to E. Jean Carroll.

LOL. Jimmy Kimmel just read Trump’s post slamming him in its entirety, closing with “I’m surprised you’re watching. Isn’t it past your jail time?”

Kansas Republicans call for resignations after attendees at a party fundraiser took turns wielding a bat to strike an effigy of President Biden. https://www.kake.com/story/50551360/donors-at-kansas-republican-fundraiser-take-turns-swinging-bat-at-president-biden-effigy

When a person calls for a permanent ceasefire without simultaneously calling for a return of Jewish hostages to Israel that tells me something about that person that I wish I didn't know but can't unknow now.

The state of the world is truly depressing. What am I doing living in the United States of America surrounded by these MFing haters?

#israel

"We must say enough — enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again. He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What's right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.

You are decent. He is not who you are.

Can we be confident that he will not continue to try to cheat in [this] very election? Can we be confident that Americans and not foreign powers will get to decide, and that the president will shun any further foreign interference in our Democratic affairs?

The short, plain, sad, incontestable answer is no, you can't. You can't trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country. You just can't. He will not change and you know it.

What are the odds if left in office that he will continue trying to cheat? I will tell you: 100 percent. A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way."
~Adam Schiff

In case you missed it. State of the Union Cold Open - SNL

Scarlett Johansson made an unexpected appearance in this week's cold open sketch. Saturday Night Live wasted no time in mocking this week's State of the Union speech focusing most of its attention on the Republican rebuttal which this year came from 42-year-old Alabama Senator Katie Britt. Starting at 2:29 to end.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cCfLpuLdF8Q&si=cS2LxDe_OQiGHAqx

P.S.: Sometimes it's easy to believe our elders were hyperconservative, and there's an old trope that every generation believes it invented sex.

Just to strike yet another blow against ageism and stereotyping, here's Barbara Stanwyck at 58 in "The Big Valley" (when I first encountered her work), and another when she was 18 and working as a dancer for the Ziegfeld Follies (and modeling on the side). Now that I'm 62, I can guarantee that the exact same person resides inside both images. Hopefully we learn and grow, but our sense of self, including our passions, never goes away. Please remember that next time you're talking to Grandma.

Stars Wars and Doctor Who both feature villains transparently based on Nazis, and I’m coming around to the idea that Doctor Who had the more socially useful model: Imperial officers / stormtroopers come off as evil but maybe kind of badass, whereas Daleks more accurately portray fascists as stupid and cheap and just gratingly skin-crawlingly annoying.

The idea that something as obnoxious and ridiculous as a Dalek can also be dangerous and utterly evil is…a useful lesson.

Realizing as I wrote the previous post:

Doctor Who is remarkable, unusual among its peers, for its 60 years of near-total non-interest in machismo and militarism. Though the show is often violent, the violence is usually something the baddies do, and always miserable and unfortunate — a failure of some kind, something to mourn. It’s a show where the only things that are ever •badass• are intelligence, courage, and kindness.

Trump again claims E. Jean Carroll made false accusations about him.

he has got the RNC and MAGA to loot.

america's enemies are happy to bail him out.

this makes him feel strong.

Seems the GOP “housewife” and her bosses cherry picked a sex-trafficking event from 20 years ago and decided to try to blame Joe Biden for it.

Lesse’ — who was president 20 years ago…who was it..?

Hmmm…. Wait a minute. It’ll come to me.

Oh yeah!

It was Republican GEORGE W BUSH.

So, not only was Bush responsible for 9/11, wars of convenience, and the Great Recession, but clearly, by their own accounting, sex-trafficking that went unchecked on his watch. #sotu

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/09/katie-britt-seems-to-have-taken-some-liberties-with-that-trafficking-story-she-told/

Journalist catches Sen. Katie Britt in an 'out and out lie' in her State of Union response

A journalist caught Sen. Katie Britt in a blatant lie during her State of the Union response. She claimed that certain crimes took place in the United States, but the journalist pointed out that they actually happened in Mexico.
And guess what? These crimes occurred between 2004 and 2008, while Biden wasn't even Vice President until 2009. Can you believe that?

https://www.rawstory.com/katie-britt-out-and-out-lie/

If you don’t pronounce “Pirates” to rhyme with “Pilates”…

What are you even doing with your life?

My 6YO continued:

6YO: So can they marry a boy or a girl?
ME: Anyone can marry a boy, a girl, or a non-binary person, or whatever. As long as they are an adult, and they aren't already married to someone else.
6YO: So I could marry a girl or a boy?
ME: Yep.
6YO: That's cool.

Yes this conversation happened today, and my two older kids learned about the gender spectrum and marriage equality in a similar way when they were that age.

It's only a big deal if YOU make it a big deal. Love and freedom to be who you are is really easy to understand when you're a kid, and no one has piled baggage on you.