Ho hum, 11 Oregon counties want to secede from Oregon and join Idaho, and you know why. NBC doesn't report it this way, but I'm pretty sure these folks want to secede over immigration and transgender folk and STOP TEH STEALZ!!!! more than over feeling “used” by Multnomah County, and anyway when will they realize their real enemies aren't haughty cityfolk but big ag corporations making it impossible for them to make a living? And don’t be intimidated by maps showing the size of the counties that would secede, because fewer than 207,000 people inhabit them; for your reference, Congressional districts typically contain 640,000 residents. All 11 counties sit in Oregon’s already heavily-Republican 2nd district; their secession alone wouldn’t flip that seat, although the state legislature might see secession as an opportunity to redraw the boundaries to make the 5th district more friendly to Democrats. And I’ve just given this process way more thought than has anyone trapped in a feedback loop of masturbatory rage in the 2nd district.
When I hear that Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has declared both his D.C. home and his Arizona home as his primary residence at different times and for different reasons, all I can say is maybe Kyrsten Sinema has a better shot getting re-elected than I thought! Partisan Democrats will tell me this is much ado about nothing, but even though Mr. Gallego appears to have adhered to the letter of the law, good Arizonans won’t just hate that he ever declared D.C. as his primary residence, they’ll also hate that he declared it to get a Veterans Administration loan a year after getting a refi on his Arizona home. And when he says hey, have you seen interest rates lately?, they’ll hate that he bought a $940,000 house with that VA loan, which sure doesn’t seem like the purpose of government assistance. Don’t any of these folks ever give a minute’s thought to how anything they do looks? So many “breaks” you can get in life just aren’t worth it, and if you make over $150,000 a year like Mr. Gallego does, you don’t need them as badly as most folks I know.
Nikki Haley, at a CNN “town hall,” blames the spike in suicidal ideations among teenage girls on – wait for it! – the possibility that there are trans girls in their locker rooms. I’m almost ashamed that I even bothered to look this up, but apparently she referenced a CDC study (CDC, tsk tsk!) saying that nearly a third of teenage girls contemplated suicide in 2021 (a hike from 2019), but you can look at the year 2021 and say maybe the pandemic, which arguably hit schools harder than any other institution, had more to do with that than trans girls in their locker room. You might also note that more Black and Brown girls contemplated suicide than white girls – and you might also imagine that Black and Brown girls had other reasons to contemplate suicide than trans girls in their locker room, like, you know, racism – and of course gay/lesbian/trans/questioning girls also had comparatively high rates. Because we treat these kids like shit, maybe? Anyway, I’ve got good news for you: even if she does another 10 CNN “town halls,” Ms. Haley will never get enough Trumpholes to vote for her.
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