Ohio Hates Gay People
It's cool to fire them for being gay because we think it's a choice.
Donald Trump deservedly gets tons of shit for trashing America’s institutional norms. But don’t sleep on what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has done in the pursuit of a conservative judiciary branch. He capitulated to a career racist criminal who, deep down, he knows is wildly incompetent and unfit for the office.
It’s also good to know every Republican not named Mitt Romney have now given the president carte blanche authority to suborn American foreign policy to extort a fake investigation of domestic political rivals.
I look forward to their rubber state of approval when President Bernie Sanders starts deporting political rivals to CIA black-op sites that have been converted into re-education camps.
TAXPAYER MONEY FUNNELED TO QUACK DOCTOR
It’s legal in Ohio for a business to fire somebody for the crime of being homosexual. We are also one of two states that hasn’t banned gay conversion therapy, a militant Christian’s word salad-ass phrase for a debunked medical practice of trying to shame the gay out of people.
This means our state Health Department is paying a quack Georgia doctor who believes in this horse shit as much as $450 per hour to stand in the way of trans people attempting to change their birth certificate.
From Jake Zuckerman of ohiocapitaljournal.com:
The Ohio Department of Health hired a conversion therapy advocate to serve as its expert witness in a civil rights lawsuit filed against the state, despite the medical world’s rejection of the practice.
ODH lawyers retained Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist from Georgia, at rates reaching $450 per hour, to support the state’s refusal to change the listed sex on the birth certificate of four transgender people.
Ohio and Tennessee are the only two U.S. states that do not allow such changes, court filings state.
Van Meter is the president of the American College of Pediatricians, a group of physicians who splintered off from the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2002. Van Meter said the new group formed when the AAP established a position that same-sex couples can raise children with no adverse effects on their well-being.
Ah, very good! Why be an actual doctor when you can travel the country getting paid $450 an hour to use your medical degree as a weapon against gay and trans people?
These are the kind of low-traveling freaks our unfuckable government trolls get in bed with because they revile gay and trans people and think of it as a “lifestyle choice.” We can’t even get gay conversion therapy banned in this state because of it. That’s how regressive our government is on the issue.
BEHOLD, THE MAGIC OF ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE
We live in the richest country in the world, which makes sense that we have cancer patients depending on hand-me-downs from former cancer patients to stay alive.
From fox8news.com:
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Patients no longer needing oral cancer therapy drugs can donate them to a new repository in Ohio that will distribute them to patients unable to afford the cost of such medications.
The State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy and the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute on Tuesday announced formation of the repository program at the cancer hospital’s outpatient pharmacy in Columbus.
The program will accept donations of the unneeded medications from patients, pharmacies, hospitals and nonprofit clinics. They will then be dispensed to patients at the cancer hospital.
Like everything involving the state government and people getting something “for free,” I’m sure this will involve a labyrinth of bureaucratic paperwork to obtain.
This is what counts as innovative health policy in Ohio. And anyone that doesn’t support single-payer healthcare needs to explain why they fuck they’re standing in our way on this issue. Because I don’t read stories like this and feel the warm-and-fuzzies. I get sick that it was even required in the first place.
A RARE PIECE OF GOOD LEGISLATION IN THE STATEHOUSE
The Ohio Legislature is a consistent parade of terrible public policy. So it’s always a rare treat when you see some sensible, humane legislation emanate from an institution staffed by sewer people.
From Rob Sneed of wkbn.com:
FRANKLIN COUNTY, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio lawmakers proposed legislation that could change the way Ohio jails place inmates who are at risk of withdrawal from alcohol and drugs.
In 2008, singer Sean Levert, son of R&B hitmaker Eddie Levert of the O’Jays, died inside the Cuyahoga County jail.
It was found that he died from complications after being denied a prescription of Xanax.
State Sen. Nickie Antonio and members of Levert’s family met at the statehouse. Lawmakers are working to make sure that never happens again.
The bill is named after Sean and requires that state jails have protocols in place when they admit inmates who are at risk of withdrawal from drug addiction, alcohol, and certain prescriptions.
Back in 2012, I found myself in Franklin County Jail (aka “The Workhouse)” after a series of bad decisions that started with me drinking Lady Bligh at 7:30 a.m. in a parking lot before Ohio State played mighty Central Florida.
It’s like Day 2 of one of the worst weekends of my life and I’ve been transferred to a general population cell. My foot is still busted open and bleeding profusely. I knocked on the door for a guard and tell him I need to go see a nurse because I think I need stitches. He laughed at me and said, “This is a jail, not a hospital. Better put more toilet paper around that wound so you don’t get a staph infection.” Then he walked away.
Needless to say I support any policy that makes correction officers look at prisoners as human beings and not diseased cattle. Addiction is no joke and should be taken as seriously as anyone who confessed to having cancer. That somebody had to die before somebody took notice of this issue is the true tragedy.
OHIO POLITICAL LEADERS AGREE: FUCK YOUR CAUCUS
It’s been three days since the Iowa caucus debacle and we still don’t have the full results despite everyone knowing Bernie Sanders won the damn contest.
If there is one good thing to come out of this clusterfuck, it’s that we finally might get rid of the caucus system entirely. Ohio’s political leaders say it’s time.
From Rick Rouan of dispatch.com:
Ohio Democratic Chairman David Pepper and Ohio GOP Vice Chairman Bryan Williams agreed Tuesday that the few remaining states using caucuses to choose candidates need to move to primary elections.
During a forum sponsored by The Associated Press, Pepper and Williams said caucuses that force voters to declare publicly for a candidate suppress voter turnout.
“Even the perfectly run caucus ends up creating a narrower electorate and leaves a lot of people out,” Pepper said.
Caucuses invite a “survivor island” campaign and bring an “intimidation factor” that dissuades people from participating because the gatherings do not have a secret ballot, Williams said.
“Their time has come and gone. Ohio has a superior process in open primaries,” he said.
It’s such an insane way to vote. I can’t express that enough. And I thought the idea of a secret ballot was supposed to be sacrosanct? How many people in abusive relationships have been forced to support a candidate just to keep their abuser happy?
I cannot believe it took America humiliating itself on a world stage for us to realize how nutty this process is. Then again I shouldn’t be surprised considering I write a daily newsletter that deals with depressing shit like this all the time.
WEB NAZI FROM WORTHINGTON DISAPPOINTED TO LEARN HIS FOLLOWERS ARE CHEAP DIRTBAGS
One of Worthington’s most notorious products has come to the sad realization that it’s hard to monetize naked ethno-nationalism in 2020.
From Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin of the Neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer:
I’ve given 30-day notices to most of the staff, because even after I told you people that the site lost $50,000 last year, fewer than 60 of you decided to send money, for a total of less than $5,000. The costs for January were more than $10,000.
This is absurd. A site this size should be able to function comfortably with a modest staff.
But hey, if people don’t want to send money, we’ll do things differently. We’re going to downsize, and basically, I’ll be the only writer. There will obviously be many fewer articles, but that’s just the deal.
Whether we keep the race war section is up in the air presently, but Roy Batty and Adrian Sol have been laid off. Pomidor is no longer going to be writing long articles, and will instead be doing filler news bits.
It is impossible to communicate how depressing this is for me personally. I thought that we were promoting an agenda here that people believed in, but it seems that virtually all of you do not believe in this enough to send $5.
What I love about web nazis is they cry whenever they get the slightest pushback to their heinous bullshit. Oh, boo hoo, nobody wants to buy criminal cybercurrency to finance my bastion of white supremacy. Get a real job like the rest of us, bum.
THOSE WMDs. I am 35 and running faster than ever… The wrong way to fight the opioid crisis… Private equity gremlins are destroying America… Qassem Suleimani and how nations decide to kill… Texans don’t want any more Californians.