President Joe Biden signs into law first federal anti-LGBTQ+ bill in decades
The National Defense Authorization Act has a provision barring the military's insurance from covering gender-affirming care for service members' children.
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It's not ''Biden signs anti LGBTQ+ bill' as the spin would have it. The Republican speaker of the house put in a provision saying Tricare can't cover gender care for the children of service members.
They could either sign this, or have the government shut down and then when Trump takes over in less than a month they put in something far worse.
Chances are something far worse will come to pass at the end of 2025 with the Republicans having controll of all 3 chambers in the next term, but that'll just be ignored because it's not a chance to shit on the Democrats.
Thats not even the whole of it. The only services blocked for coverage are ones not even done for minors as far as I'm aware.
That bill wasn't to fund the government, it was to approve military spending
If it failed to pass it would have delayed new payments to military services, not shut anything down, and it would have lasted at the most 20 days when the new administration is sworn in.
This really seems like a 'take what you can get, because next year you're getting nothing' situation. I can't imagine that these two provisions would have survived next year. And the trans provision would definitely still be included in 2025.
"The deal also includes major overhauls to the military justice system aimed at stemming sexual assault in the ranks. The bill would create special prosecutors outside the military chain of command to handle sex crimes, as well as kidnapping, murder and manslaughter."
"The bill includes a provision backed by House Democrats that blocks states from using private funding for National Guard deployments to other states, aside from natural disaster response. "
They're still exchanging trans rights for those provisions, and if they cared as much as they said they did about them, it would have been a non-starter.
First, do no harm - you wouldn't exchange women's suffrage even if it was for something like Medicare for all, so why is it ok to exchange trans healthcare?
Oh, to live in the ideal of a world of do no harm... Reality is messier unfortunately. You often have to choose between one harm and another.
You can argue whether delaying this harm (which would still have come in January) was worth the benefits that would have been lost from delaying. That's up to you. But to think that you can do no harm is just silly.
I personally don't think a 1-month delay is a worthwhile trade-off for the things we would have lost.
But let's be real about the impact. If you can find a trans person that would have gotten their surgery covered on January 3rd and that is negatively impacted by this, I'm happy to champion their GoFundMe and pay into it myself. I'm sure the Dems that voted for the lesser of two evils could be guilted into it as well.
As in the case with 3rd trimester abortions, the point isn't that it's a common procedure, the point is that care is being denied to people who need it in the most desperate of cases on top of it setting further precedent of government intervening with medical care for arbitrary ideological reasons.
Fascists will point to this as proof that democrats don't actually oppose reactionary policy, just like they point to their support of border walls and immigrant deportation as evidence of 'common sense'
Republicans intentionally raise these issues in order to erode trust in democratic institutions, and when democrats repeatedly cave to these ridiculous demands they prove Republicans right.
Is the perception of good better than doing actual good? I feel like that's your argument but I'm not sure.
No amount of voting or not voting would prevent this travesty becoming law.
Here's a fun thing. My father works a government job, so if the government shuts down, he works for no pay.
:D
(When the GOP stops throwing a temper tantrum, he gets paid)
Yeah man.
They totally didn't renege, again, on their publicly stated principles.
They're just oh-so-powerless and had no choice, not even when they had control of Congress for two years and chose not to do anything then either. It's the Democrats we should definitely be feeling bad for here, because they're just so weak and easy to take advantage of by those cunning, swindling Republicans.
this is always the problem, politics is a nuanced game. Even if you want to solve the problem you have to convince everyone there is a problem and then get everyone on board with how you're going to solve it.
it's not something you can just snap your fingers and do. it's made doubly hard when you have an entire wing of the government and corporatocracy fighting a culture war in order to divide the people so they can't overthrow them.
so does this fly in the face of their publicly stated principles? yes, but it's the best option they have. this is what happens when you let apathy win you get only bad options.
so does this fly in the face of their publicly stated principles? yes,
It doesn't matter. We've observed that their actions are generally contrary to what they say. You may pull the lever for Democrat but all you get are Republican politics.
What you get here is literally Republican politics. It was a R provision. You take this now or come January you get this and 10x it added from the republican wish lists. Want to say no and refuse it, fine, but the calendar marches on and you'll lose either way.
you’ll lose either way
There's that old neoliberal spirit. Always makes my heart warm to watch people tell me that doing nothing's okay because fighting back is just too hard.
Good try, but I was referring to the leftist/tankie division as you well know. The choices as it stood are functionally sign this, keep arguing until the next admin comes online and signs something far worse, or sit on your hands and do nothing for the same result. Those pushing the provision know time is on their side, and so do you.
So you get this bill, or you get theatrics that go nowhere until you get something worse, which do you choose?
Totally.
It's the leftists/tankies' fault, even though they have absolutely no power whatsoever in our political system. I say it's your fault and mine, since we voted Biden and Democrat in 2020 in full knowledge that they were conservatives, as evidenced by everything they've done since Clinton was elected. What's even worse is we rewarded them twice for killing Bernie's candidacy.
The point you're trying to make, in light of the last 40 years of Democrats' politics, isn't reasonable. These lawmakers aren't powerless, they're complicit.
I like to think you're catching the point, but it seems lost still.
I know perfectly well they have no power. The ones that are going to sit there and throw a fit at the Dems though are the leftists who will say the Dems didn't do anything.
The Dems who do have power have to make a choice of take this with the poison pill, or sit and argue, or do nothing and hope the incoming admin won't make it worse when the current R's refuse to move. Which choice would you make?
