Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Monday, November 13, 2023

News bits: DJT's plans (again); The drug epidemic is changing


It’s Official: With “Vermin,” Trump Is Now Using Straight-up Nazi Talk | He’s telling us what he will do to his political enemies if he’s president again. Is anyone listening?

Three peanut gallery comments about that article:
1. Not just “political enemies”. American citizens. It’s time to stop tiptoeing. We’ve seen this enough times in history that alarm bells should have been blaring about this guy for a long damn time. He should be in prison based on historical precedent. He’s going to hurt millions. Period. Stop him. 
2. Project 2025 is absolutely a Nazi style takeover of Democracy and they are doing it openly. SummaryFull PlanGood video explaining. Take this seriously, they are preparing for this right now. This is not a drill. 
3. Voter suppression in a few states is all it takes. Be very concerned.
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A Monster’: Super Meth and 
Other Drugs Push Crisis Beyond Opioids

Millions of U.S. drug users now are addicted to several substances, not just opioids like fentanyl and heroin. The shift is making treatment far more difficult.

Rachel, 35, her hair dyed a silvery lavender, ran to greet Dr. Helmstetter. She takes the medicine buprenorphine, which acts to dull her body’s yearning for opioids, but she was not ready to let go of meth.

“I prefer both, actually,” she said. “I like to be up and down at the same time.”

The United States is in a new and perilous period in its battle against illicit drugs. The scourge is not only opioids, such as fentanyl, but a rapidly growing practice that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labels “polysubstance use.”

Over the last three years, studies of people addicted to opioids (a population estimated to be in the millions) have consistently shown that between 70 and 80 percent also take other illicit substances, a shift that is stymieing treatment efforts and confounding state, local and federal policies.

“It’s no longer an opioid epidemic,” said Dr. Cara Poland, an associate professor at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. “This is an addiction crisis.”

The non-opioid drugs include those relatively new to the street, like the animal tranquilizer xylazine, which can char human flesh, anti-anxiety medications like Valium and Klonopin and older recreational stimulants like cocaine and meth. Dealers sell these drugs, plus counterfeit Percocet and Xanax pills, often mixed with fentanyl.

The incursion of meth has been particularly problematic. Not only is there is no approved medical treatment for meth addiction, but meth can also undercut the effectiveness of opioid addiction therapies. Meth explodes the pleasure receptors, but also induces paranoia and hallucinations, works like a slow acid on teeth and heart valves and can inflict long-lasting brain changes.  
The Biden administration has been pouring billions into opioid interventions and policing traffickers, but has otherwise lagged in keeping pace with the evolution of drug use. There has been comparatively little discussion about meth and cocaine, despite the fact that during the 12-month period ending in May 2023, over 34,000 deaths were attributed to methamphetamine and 28,000 to cocaine, according to provisional federal data.  
“Treating someone for opiates is relatively easy,” said Dr. Paul Trowbridge, the addiction medicine specialist at the Trinity Health Recovery Medicine clinic in Grand Rapids, .... But meth, he said, “is a monster.”

Aw geez. Another apparently intractable major problem that’s gone out of control. What a horrible mess.
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As we all know, another government shutdown deadline is coming soon. This Friday actually. As usual, the CARRRP (corrupt authoritarian radical right Repub Party) has its act together, its ducks in a row and its oars in the water and is itchin’ to get ’er done, whatever ’er is. The are 5 groups of CARRRPs squabbling among each other. They are in full blown bickering mode, so that  part of the plan is proceeding nicely. What does the CARRRP Christian nationalist Mike Johnson want? Apparently, he wants to piss everybody off. The WaPo reports:
After attending three meetings with Johnson, Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) eventually blurted out: “What do you want?”

Joyce and the Republican conference got their answer Saturday. Johnson ultimately decided to move forward with a stopgap funding proposal meant to appease the hard right while trying not to alienate the centrists. [Note: There are no centrists in the CARRRP, only radicals and extremists] The result was a two-tiered funding schedule that does not include other demands from across the GOP conference, like steep budget cuts, a border security proposal and funding for Israel or Ukraine.

Instead of appeasing just one ideological faction, the proposal has angered the hard right, puzzled the middle and was mocked by the White House. But it may attract enough support, including from Democrats in the House and Senate, to land on the president’s desk this week.  
The ADF consists of nearly 400 staff members and over 3,200 allied attorneys. “The whole point is to have a Christian takeover of the government,” says Paul Southwick, a lawyer who litigates, often against the ADF, on behalf of queer students who have experienced discrimination at religious colleges. “In ADF’s eyes, God has dominion over the church, but he also has dominion over the state.”
If some Dems vote for whatever the CARRRP barfs up, it will likely be one of those one-way ratchet toward kleptocratic dictatorship* the Repubs so desperately want to install on all of us, for our own good of course. 

* Some form of deeply corrupt, deeply immoral-evil autocracy, plutocracy and/or Christian theocracy. Guess that’s what ’er is.
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Rolling Stone recently reported about the life of lies, deceit and bigotry that the rabid, morally bankrupt Christian nationalist and pro-dictatorship Mike Johnson mindlessly lives:
Inside the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Anti-LGBTQ Org Where 
Mike Johnson Spent Almost a Decade

The organization pushed to overturn Roe v. Wade. They also have their sights set on rolling back LGBTQ rights

THE ALLIANCE DEFENDING Freedom (ADF) has been busy this year. Its senior legal council, Matt Sharp, has been on the move, parachuting into different state courthouses to testify or voice support for some of the record-shattering 501 anti-LGBTQ bills that have been introduced in legislatures this year — more than 70 of which have passed into law.

The bills, which share many of the same themes and in some cases the exact same language, have been described as part of a coordinated effort by Republican lawmakers to intensify LGBTQ issues as a key wedge in the culture war ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Johnson comes with quite a resume. He defended Donald Trump at both of his impeachment hearings, helped plot the Jan. 6 attempted coup, and holds hardline positions on everything from abortion to LGBTQ rights. He worked for the ADF from 2002 until 2010, penning op-eds against marriage equality and endorsing briefs filed by the ADF meant to criminalize sexual activity between consenting adults. He now controls the business of the House of Representatives, including which members chair congressional committees and which bills receive floor votes. He’s also second in line for the presidency. 

“ADF zooms into courtrooms domestically and around the world, provides the testimony, and then they spill their talking points, perpetuating false narratives and citing junk science around trans healthcare. The dangerous part is it works and it gives these bills a legislative credibility they don’t deserve,” says a spokesperson for Accountable for Equality, a nonprofit aiming to educate the public about the efforts of anti-LGBTQ extremists.
The ADF? Even the name of the organization is a blatant lie. What a nice guy. /s 

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