First off, I'm on your side. Always have been. Always will be. So, don't go all cray-cray on me for what I'm about to write.
You've got to stop demonizing friends of your movement because they aren't pure enough for you. Bill Maher is not "disgusting" because he had professional provocateur Milo Yian-schmuck-olous on his show. Maher is not your enemy. He is on your side.
You've got to stop trying to censor speech that you find offensive. Students and academics do the progressive movement no favor when they act like the thought police and work to silence any ideas that they find threatening.
You've got to stop labeling all people who are opposed to your agenda as bigots. There may be other reasons why a shit-load of voters thought Donald J. Trump best represented their interests and thought that your progressive candidates didn't.
Are there racists, bigots and misogynists amongst us who have been emboldened? Absolutely. Do they need to be called out and resisted at every opportunity? Absolutely.
But our current political predicament is much more complicated. Why did so many of those whom progressives find "deplorable" win seats in government?
What are you not hearing because you are hell-bent on not listening?
Please stop calling people who are your natural allies bad names because they don't align completely with your beliefs and concerns.
Please stop calling people who may have their own reasons to disagree with your agenda bad names because that feeds your self-righteousness world view.
Our political discourse has become more course than I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. There is lots of yelling and insulting and demeaning. I've done it too. We need to stop.
Much of the noise is intentionally meant to engender outrage. That gets ratings. It also creates distractions. While everyone has their undies in a knot over this or that umbrage, the people with the real power are free to do their dirty deeds largely undetected or undeterred.
So, dear progressives. Do you want to know how the Right managed to take control of our government? Then start listening.
I was out this evening and DVR’d the debate. I just finished watching it. I’m not going to say who I think won or lost, because I’m not sure there was a clear winner, but if anyone else watched it, I wonder if you saw what I did.
1. CNN’s 30-second response time I get it, there were eight people up there, but 30 seconds is simply not enough time and CNN spent too much of that time, especially during the first hour, on policy and Trump questions. That’s not the DNC Chair’s job. The first hour looked more like a Presidential candidate debate than a DNC Chair debate.
2. Pete Peckarsky I didn’t need to time them to figure out he got the least amount of time. The 30-second rule was rough on him, he spoke more deliberately. But he was an interesting candidate and I liked what he had to say. I would have like to have heard more from him.
3. Sally Boynton Brown If the virtue you value most in a candidate is toughness, Sally Boynton Brown is your candidate. She didn’t take shit from anyone, least of all Dana Bash. Holy crap, she’s the only candidate that I think could actually make Trump cry. But if she doesn’t get the job, don’t worry, she’s a shoo-in for the job of Chief of the Prussian General Staff. She went up several notches with me.
4. Jaime Harrison The candidates hit some home runs tonight but Harrison’s take down of OFA was the one that absolutely left the park. That was awesome. Both him and Sally Boynton Brown’s talk about the state parties was fantastic and he also went up several notches with me. I like him a lot.
5. Keith Ellison He got caught in a “gotcha” moment with that whole Second Amendment thing, but otherwise, he stayed on message and talked a great deal about working people, obliquely taking shots at Perez and the TPP.
6. Tom Perez He seemed under fire all night long. CNN tried “gotcha” on him twice, the first time for his comments about the election being rigged and the second on TPP and he didn’t do great with either one of them. But like Ellison, he mostly stayed on message and because he got a lot of talk time, especially during the first half-hour, he was able to make a lot of good points.
7. Pete Buttigieg He appeared unflappable and was the most Kennedyesque of the candidates up there, seeming poised. But when it came to talking about the problems with state parties, he didn’t seem to have a great answer.
8. Jehmu Greene If Pete Buttigieg was Kennedyesque, Jehmu Greene was FDR. She had a “Happy Days are Here Again” optimism that was infectious. She appeared supremely confident in an ultimate Democratic Party victory. She also had the best shot at one of the other candidates of the night when after Pete Buttigieg talked about attending the women’s march she referred to “photo ops.”
9. Sam Ronan He was the only candidate to say the primary was rigged...until he was challenged by Jaime Harrison, then he fell back like Tom Perez had been trying to do. He was a major outsider coming into this, and I don’t think he did much to help himself, possibly hurt himself by proposing to get rid of superdelegates, to a room of superdelegates.
10. They mostly performed well overall I liked all of them and think each had good moments during the debate. The three frontrunners each had their down moments. Peckarsky didn’t get enough time so couldn’t finish a statement half the time, but I liked what he did say. Greene, Harrison and Brown all went up for me, I like them a lot. The frontrunners didn’t go up or down with me. I didn’t have a strong opinion on Sam Ronan either way, but I thought his backtracking on the primary issue looked weak and to me (but the primary wasn’t rigged so he shouldn’t have said it was in the first place) that overshadowed a performance that wasn’t too bad otherwise.
A little something old school for you ... And a reminder of how the 'do that rules us started ...
A little something old school for you ... And a reminder of how the 'do that rules us started ...
If you want to understand 45, investigate the popular psychology of professional wrestling. If, for no other reason, than that Linda McMahon runs both World Wrestling Entertainment and the Small Business Administration of the United States. Give me a minute for that reason, if for no other.
So, here’s the thing. I stumbled onto something eye opening as I made a comment the other day. I have a theory for explaining 45. This is the Pro Wrestling President. There is no doubt. In fact there is a treasure trove of footage of the Orange one blustering his way across the tv screen.
Donald Trump is an archetypal character. He is at once a persona and a bizarre satire of himself.
I like the writers at AV Club. They offer a thoughtful reflection on nerdhood. This simple piece of observation and television criticism might just offer the secret key to the Trump presidency. They might even have a map to an exhaust port no bigger than a womprat.
Underneath the veiled disdain is an intriguing topic of discussion. Professional wrestling, or sports entertainment, is unlike anything else on television in terms of how it can (or cannot) be categorized.
It’s athletically demanding, but it’s not exactly a sport. It’s fictional, but not necessarily episodic or organized into proper seasons. Some of it’s pre-taped and some of it’s performed live on television.
It’s at once a sporting event, a soap opera, a superhero movie, and a reality show. Perhaps more than any other art form, wrestling, and particularly WWE, actively engages with its own fakeness and explores the notion of what’s “real” in terms of sport and art.
WWE, and professional wrestling more generally, thrives on constructing, exploiting, and engaging with the meaning of reality. It’s part of the appeal; and clearly there’s appeal, becauseWWE Monday Night Rawis consistently one of the highest rated programs on television and actively competes with the goliath that isMonday Night Footballduring the NFL’s regular season. While wrestling is both fake and real at once, how WWE constructs and exploits the notion of what’s real and what’s fake is complicated.
Trump playing “The Donald”
Here’s the thing about the next step in my theory. Trump lives in a world where celebreality is currency. He no more cares about who lost the Heavyweight Championship to Hulk Hogan than he cares what Tiffany thinks about defense spending. He does however recognize a reliable vehicle to boost a Q Score. Trump’s self image is the Trump™ brand. He needs to be so much cooler than everyone else that we pay him money to live in his image.
There’s a word for that … sacrilege … but I digress
Bending the Concept of Reality
Suffice it to say that World Wrestling Entertainment is a well oiled corporate machine. They are better at spinning life into archetypal drama than anyone ever. (in the history of ever) If you can monetize a product, they are. Subscription services, several weekly shows, publications. The list goes on and on.
again, from AV Club
Monday Night Raw, somewhat paradoxically, is the closest the company comes to actually delivering reality television. Where the structure ofTotal DivasandTough Enoughcan be hermetically sealed and controlled,Rawis filled with variables that make it like nothing else on TV.
It’s not just thatRawis shown live every single Monday night of the year, with no off season. There’s also the fact that the wrestlers can be injured, forcing an unexpected change in storyline. There’s the sticky situation of contract renewals and the injection of new talent into the main roster and onto television.
More than those behind-the-scenes situations though,Rawis the real “reality” television because, in 2015, when “kayfabe” (thewrestling termfor something that’s fictional) is essentially dead, the illusion broken a long time ago, WWE is forced to let real life influence the stories they tell.
Something happened on the way to the branding of WWE. It used to be called the WWF (World Wrestling Federation). The WWF (World Wildlife Fund) brought an intellectual property suit against the McMahon family and the McMahons were forced to rebrand as something. They already had a great deal of investment in the WWF name. The concept of WWE was born from these conditions.
The McMahons took a big gamble. They built their empire by gobbling up the competition until they were the only game in town. Believe it or not, there used to be several circuits each with their own “faces” and “heels” and archetypal plotlines. Professional wrestling never got legitimized the way professional football did. Wrestling has always walked in two worlds at the professional level.
So the McMahons created the concept of “Sports Entertainment” and declared themselves the world’s preeminent producer of the product. And you know what? The fans bought it all the way. The rubes have been on to professional ‘rasslin being fabricated for quite some time now. So the secret was out. It was still fun as hell to watch.
The McMahons have always focused on spectacles and brand. And they loved “The Donald”. Mr Trump is the type of larger than life, blustery persona that has proven to thrive in the WWE. He was in on the joke, playing the role of the super rich cool guy. Yanno, the pussy grabber. Here’s the problem. I don’t know how many Trump voters really thought they were going to get “The Donald”. And I’m fairly sure those voters don’t care either way.
I Will let AV Club sign off on the wrestling part ...
So, to answer the question posed above, the one every wrestling fan has heard before. Yes, I know the fighting and characters are “fake,” but in so many other ways wrestling, and the constructed reality of its most rewarding and compelling storylines, is as real and human as can be.
and say this about the surreality of the trump white house
45 knows quite a bit about manipulating popular personae. He is a master campaigner and often seems to be at his happiest when making a spectacle. He is a newer brand of professional wrestler archetype. He’s in on the joke right? That makes it an ironic comment on the nature of reality, or something.
The only thing I know is that the Venn diagram of WWE fans and Trump voters would drop your jaw. And that could be an important thing to know in winning the popular debate, or at least in engaging in it successfully.
Remember, 3 meters may be the size of the exhaust pipe but we used to blast womprats that size back home all the time.
On Day 33 we heard Phil Ochs in "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" mention those who remain with us only in spirit: Medgar Evers, JFK, Malcolm X, and singer Pete Seeger. Two years later we lost RFK and Martin Luther King. It wasn't until Obama in 2012 that Democrats had another nominee win more than 50% of the vote. Our problem is in finding candidates that both centrists and progressives will support.
John Stewart tells a story about working with Bobby Kennedy on the last whistlestop campaign, scant days before the assassination. John had only recently met Buffy Ford, who would be the love of his life, his co-star, and mother to his children. We see her here with an eye patch, the result of a 1996 operation to cure her cancer (the cost of which brought John out of retirement). In 2008, at 66, John died of a stroke on Buffy's birthday.
In 1968 the Stewarts shared the last car of the train with Bobby and Ethel. A cynic might say it was an old school political precursor of the bait-and-switch: John and Buffy would sing songs to attract crowds and then Bobby would come out and give a speech. As they pulled out of one station a boy on a bike followed them, pedaling furiously to keep pace. Bobby leaned over the railing and, when the lad managed to catch up, gave him some sound advice: "Never run for President!"
Shoot out the moon in a midnight sky.
Shoot out the sun in a blackbird's eye.
Shoot out a dream and don't say why.
So it's up to you and I
To beat our arms against the sky
And keep it flying.
Maria had a store on the boulevard.
For the barrio boys she worked real hard.
When the bullets fly in East LA
A bullet took her out today, out today.
Chorus:
Are they shooting down the Angels, yeah?
You can bet your life they are.
They're irresistible targets
They're irresistible targets
They're irresistible targets
For any shooting star
1968 it has that ring
Of RFK - Martin Luther King
Where a dream went down
On a hotel floor
Dreams are what we're living for, living for.
(Repeat Chorus)
Shoot out the moon in a midnight sky.
Shoot out the sun in a blackbird's eye.
Shoot out a dream and don't say why.
So it's up to you and I
To beat our arms against the sky
And to keep it flying.
Keep it flying.
Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions made their attack on the rights of transgender students official Wednesday evening, rescinding an Obama directive allowing them to use bathrooms consistent with their gender. The New York Timeswrites:
In a joint letter, the top civil rights officials from the Justice Department and the Education Department rejected the Obama administration’s position that nondiscrimination laws require schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice.
That directive, they said, was improperly and arbitrarily devised, “without due regard for the primary role of the states and local school districts in establishing educational policy.”
Remember what a big deal Trump made of saying "L-G-B-T-Q" on several occasions during the campaign—yeah, lot of good that does when you hire homo-hater Jeff Sessions to run your Justice Department. Social conservatives like Tony Perkins are overjoyed with the announcement—it's really important to them to single out queer folks for discrimination, even and especially if they’re students and particularly vulnerable.
Education secretary Betsy DeVos reportedly fought Sessions on the matter, but when Sessions went running to Trump to tattle on DeVos, Trump sided with him. Sorry Betsy, at the end of the day, you're still just a woman in a White House rife with misogyny.
For 15 years, Margarita has worked in Environmental Services for a hospital. That means she’s the housekeeper. She cleans the floors of vomit, blood and the bodily waste that we don’t want to think about, smell or see. She’s 62 years old but looks much older. She has arthritis in her knees and her back hurts, but she works long hours, 6 days a week. Her family needs what she earns to help pay the bills. She is my English student.
My other English student, Abeba, explains why Margarita arrives late for class. “It’s a long way from the other wing of the hospital,” she says.
Abeba hopes that by studying English, one day she will be able to pass the Nursing Assistant exam. She also works hard as a housekeeper in the hospital. She wants a better job.
On this night, Margarita walks into the room and begins to cry. Tears roll down her cheeks as she explains that she has not slept in four nights. She’s exhausted. She has a headache. Her arthritis is particularly painful. She wants to drop out of class. She tells me that it’s too much for her with her full-time hospital job and taking care of her family when she gets home. Now her tears have turned into sobs. It’s hard to understand her.
“He says I’m a criminal. I’m no criminal.”
Margarita is referring to Donald Trump. She is frightened. She is an immigrant from Mexico. Her niece and nephew are Dreamers.
“They think I’m a criminal.”
She cries harder. Even though Washington is a Sanctuary State, she’s terrified her family is not safe. She again says she can’t sleep. She can’t stop crying.
Abeba is from Ethiopia and has beautiful, large brown eyes with thick eyelashes.
“Who do they think will clean the hospital?” Abeba asks. “Who will pick the fruit? They will miss us when they get rid of us.”
My hatred for Donald Trump swells within me. I get up and close the door to the classroom. I give them both a hug. We sit there hugging and crying together for several minutes.
I tell them that the majority of Americans love them. I tell them that thousands of people marched for them in protest to what Donald Trump has done. I tell them that I go to our Senator’s office every Tuesday to fight for their rights, because I know they can’t take time off from the hospital to come with me. I tell them that I have made calls today to the Senate for them, that I have sent emails on their behalf to Congress, but I don’t think there is anything I can say that will take away their fear. I know that they will still have trouble sleeping tonight, because I will have trouble sleeping tonight too.
Bullies go after the weak. They go after Margarita and her family, because they think that the weak can’t fight back. They go after Abeba and her family because they think that no one will care.
But I care. My friends care. We will fight for Abeba, and Margarita, as well as the other immigrants we have yet to meet, who also live in fear, and who are also too terrified to sleep tonight.
It just felt like more eyes should see this. I’ve never read Laurie Penny before, but I will certainly read her again. Excellent observations and writing in this piece.
What she accomplishes here is, to me, a great mix of observation, smart analysis, caring, and humor.
What happens when a movement of gamers recognizes they’re not players, but pawns?
By Laurie Penny
Have you heard the one about the boy who cried Fake News?
This is a story about truth and consequences. It’s a story about who gets to be young and dumb, and who gets held accountable. It’s also a story about how the new right exploits young men — how it preys not on their bodies, but on their emotions, on their hurts and hopes and anger and anxiety, their desperate need to be part of a big ugly boys’ own adventure.
It’s a story about how so many of us have suffered the consequences of that exploitation. And it’s a story about how consequences finally came for Milo Yiannopoulos too — the worst kind of consequences for a professional troll. Consequences that nobody finds funny. Consequences that cannot be mined for fame and profit.
As I write, Yiannopoulos, the fame-hungry right-wing provocateur and self-styled “most dangerous supervillain on the Internet,” is fighting off accusations of having once endorsed pedophilia. Former friends and supporters who long tolerated his outrage-mongering as childish fun are now dropping him like a red-hot turd: His book deal has been canceled, CPAC has disinvited him as a speaker, and today he resigned from his job at Breitbart. I’ve been following Yiannopoulos’ tour for months, and I can absolutely confirm that he means almost nothing he says, that he will say almost anything for attention, and that none of that matters to those who face violence and trauma as a result. Yiannopoulos has cashed in hard on the cowardice of American conservatives, exploited their complete allergy to irony. Now it’s payback time.
The piece goes on to describe Yiannopolous, from the point of view of the writer, who knows him but “we are still not friends, because I’m not friends with anyone who puts my real friends in danger for fun and fortune.” She describes what he said that lead to his downfall, and shares his Facebook apology. Then she continues:
Yiannopoulos protests that, this time, he really didn’t mean it, that his words have been taken out of context, that child sex abuse is real, and that he understands that words have consequences for victims.
This time, the same shtick fell flat as a burst tire on the freeway, and the pile-up is getting ugly. The reason it fell flat is that, for all that the American right likes to show off pet homosexuals to prove its modernity, it turns out that it still hates gays. Christian conservatives worldwide are still unconvinced that LGBT people deserve human rights, and the old false slurs — that gay men abuse children and ignore the age of consent — still hit home.
It is horribly ironic that of all the disgusting nonsense Yiannopoulos has said — about women, about Muslims, about transgender people, about immigrants — it is only now that the moderate right appears to have reached the limits of what it will tolerate in the name of free speech. The hypocrisy is clarion-clear: This was never, in fact, about free speech at all. It was about making it OK to say racist, sexist, transphobic, and xenophobic things, about tolerating the public expression of those views right up to the point where it becomes financially unwise to do so. Those suddenly dropping Yiannopoulos are making a business decision, not a moral one — and yes, even in Donald Trump’s America, there’s still a difference. If that difference devours Yiannopoulos and his minions, they will find few mourners.
I added the bold emphasis above. She describes something I’ve been thinking but unable to articulate.
As I read social media everyday, I am struck by the volume of unflattering nick names the liar in the oval office has acquired. I am going to list some of them here because they are so inventive and hilarious. Come on in and have a laugh at Lord Cheeto.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
From Busta Troll: Commander Candycorn/Butternut Bigot/Big Loompa/
The MangoMussolini/Trumplestiltskin/the giant orange traffic cone-in-chief/
The Trumpinator
From an Instagram-Greeks called him Malaka Trump which he said means the Great Trump. It doesn’t. (Google it)
From Patrick Quilter via Facebook: SCROTUS" So-Called Ruler of the United States
From a caller to the Randi Rhodes show: Dolt 45
Everywhere: Twitler
From Juanita Jean: Cheeto Jesus/Twitter Finger/Jesus Liar/
From various sources on the net: F*ckface Von Clownstick/Like Godzilla with less foreign policy experience/Failed mail-order meat salesman/The Human Corncob/K-Mart Caesar/Genghis Can't/The Talking Yam/Mango Mussolini
Here’s Samantha Bee, reeling out 43 names in 2 minutes.
The haters called Obama things like Obummer, and the obligatory “n” word but he never inspired the true name calling that a lot of us have resorted to to avoid using the sh*tgibbon/prezbannon’s name or title. I want an app that changes his name in whatever form it is encountered to any one of these names listed. This guy is universally despised around the world and at home. It makes me feel better to call him names. I guess I am not all that adult either but my hands are normal sized for a woman.
Let us not forget the support we have had in our oh so productive lives.
Let us not forget the support we have had in our oh so productive lives.
Perfectly stated
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN AMERICAN
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joes employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It's noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.
Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
It’s surprising enough to hear of a government project ending on time, but the fact that they reached their goal years in advance is incredible. The largest county in Washington State recently released a report saying that King County may be the first major American metro area to a major milestone in the international crusade against HIV/AIDS.
The report says they were able to reach the UNAIDS/World Health Organization three-pronged goal for addressing HIV/AIDS — years ahead of schedule. This goal is also known as the “90-90-90 by 2020” for its target statistics and deadline. The targets, which are considered “ambitious” by UNAIDS itself, are as follows:
By 2020, 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status. By 2020, 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy. By 2020, 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.
The only nation in the entire world that’s reached 90-90-90 is Sweden, which makes King County’s accomplishment a pretty damn big deal. Getting this far has been far from easy, but the folks in charge of Seattle metro really worked hard — and it shows. As Plus Magazine reports:
“King County continues to be a global leader in public health,” King County's Dow Constantine told reporters in a statement. “The progress we’ve made toward ending AIDS in our community is the result of decades of hard work by our staff, strong community partnerships, and state and federal funding. We will continue to work together to end this epidemic in our region once and for all.”
A major part of the county’s strategy was their Public Health Department's work to make HIV testing easily accessible and routine, especially for those at high risk. Another priority was to provide outreach and assistance to people living with HIV who might not have access to the care they need.
The organization also reached out elected leaders, academic partners, and the Washington State Department of Health to help achieve these goals. Their efforts paid off.
Imagine if Republicans spent even a fraction of the energy they spend taking health care aware from poor people and women on the 90-90-90 initiative. We’d actually be making progress in creating a better, healthier America by preventing new infections and improving care for people with HIV/AIDS.
