I've been trying to avoid dwelling too much on politics

 

"Hail! Hail! Freedonia, Land of the free and the brave."

Around 90 years ago, the 4 Marx Brothers made a movie called "Duck Soup" which lampooned the lead up to war and the absurdity of fighting that war.  I wonder what witticisms Groucho would say if he were still around to see the Orange Snowflake make a mess of America and the world.

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Only a fool would take the GOP speaker of the house seriously when he blamed the House of Representatives' shutdown on Zohran Mamdani's run for Mayor of NYC.  How could a man from an opposition party, not involved in the Federal Government be the cause of the shutdown?  Sadly, this is the level of lunacy that passes for GOP logic these days.

As I see it, we will have some interesting pain points for DC politicians coming up as I write the entry:

• 11/01/25 - SNAP Benefits (Food Stamps) & ACA Healthcare Subsidies End.
  
  This is going to hurt poor people, especially in the GOP run states.  Families will not have the funds to buy enough food for their families, nor will they be able to pay the healthcare insurance premiums coming due in 2026.
   
• 11/04/25 - Election Day.
  
  Although there will be no nationwide election, several local elections may indicate how disenchanted people are with what's going on in Washington, DC and tell us who they blame for the impasse.
  
  
• 11/05/25 - The Shutdown becomes the longest in American History.
  
  It will be over a month since the last full paycheck for virtually all Federal workers (save for the Post office).  Given that most people in America live paycheck to paycheck, and that they are 3 paychecks away from financial disaster, the pain becomes very real for most government workers.
  
  
• 11/21/25 - The day the GOP's Continuing Resolution Bill expires.
  
  This is an interesting date.  The speaker of the house has kept the house out of session, so that the newly elected representative from Arizona can't be sworn in.  Why is this?  He doesn't want the 218th vote to be cast, so that a house resolution makes it to the floor, calling for the Epstein Files to be released.
  
  If the house stays out of session, there is no Continuing Resolution bill for the senate to approve, so the House GOP line that the Senate Democrats must pass the bill to reopen the government.  At this point the speaker has a hard decision to make: Does he keep the house shut down and be THE cause of the shutdown?  Or, does he bring the house members back in session, and see the Epstein File resolution pass?  
  
  

Sadly, the Democrats in the Senate caved before this entry was to go live.  In one sense, this is a good thing, as the GOP didn't decide to "Go Nuclear" and eliminate the filibuster. (I did not support this option, as I was "all in" on the shutdown.)  At least, we'll get some movement towards releasing the Epstein files, now that the congresswoman from Arizona has been sworn in.

 

Poly = Many, Tics = Flesh Eating Insects

 

As I write this, the House of Representatives has just elected a new Speaker - an ultra conservative lunatic. Why do I call him a lunatic?  Anyone who opposes late term abortions to preserve the life of the mother has to be crazy.  His policies, such as a total late term abortion ban, if enacted, will put the lives of many cisgender women at risk.  Even though I am transgender, and never will directly have anything at risk with this policy, I have to fight for those that do - else, I will have no excuse to ask cisgender women for help when these lunatics attack us transgender people.

The previous speaker was elected after 15 votes.  Before the election was over, no actions could be taken by the house.  Due to an action from a radical from the far right, the first speaker was removed from his position, and it took 3 weeks for a new speaker to be elected.  Since they didn't change the rule which allowed the former speaker to be removed, I fully expect that we will see someone invoke it to remove this speaker when the current spending bill expires.  (Will we have a government shutdown or not?  A House without a speaker when the spending bill expires will be a disaster. But I don't put it past the far right....)

So, where am I going with this?

Right now, the "right" is busy fighting amongst its allies.  Moderate "conservatives" are being coerced to give their votes to the radicals. (Look at how Jim Jordan's allies allegedly gave death threats to people who didn't support him for examples of this coercion.)  My congressional representative voted for the current speaker of the house.  This cemented my resolution to be part of the bloc that (hopefully) votes him out next year.

Given that transgender people will continue to be a target of the far right, I expect that attacks against us will resume soon.  This means that we must continue our efforts to get more trans people into positions of power, so that we (and our allies) to check and balance the power of the lunatic right until sanity (hopefully) can be restored to the GOP.

Most of us are not ready to "out" ourselves and be targets for the lunatics on the right.  But we can vote for our allies.  So, it's time to register to vote, and participate in local politics when possible.  As they say, all politics are local.  That's where we can make our first stand against lunacy.   And I intend to do just that....