The War on Trans People & Other News from OptOut
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This edition of Weekend Picks covers the powerful people who are attacking trans rights for personal and political gain, the influence of Big Pharma, the latest political news from New York, and the environment.
Thanks for tuning in to our growing network of over 100 fully independent news outlets!
Your Weekly Roundup of Corporate Narrative-Free News
The War on Trans People
If there's anything you read, listen to, or watch today, I highly recommend this episode of The Anti-Trans Hate Machine, a series from TransLash that investigates the people, groups, and funding behind one of the Christian right's biggest political issues. In this episode, Imara Jones and the TransLash crew do a deep dive into dominionists like Betsy DeVos and the powerful Council for National Policy. (I was honored to consult with TransLash for this episode! See my Sludge article on the National Christian Foundation, the U.S.'s biggest known funder of hate groups, according to my research.)
TYT Investigates reports that Democratic Rep. Juan Vargas of California attended a National Prayer Breakfast in Ukraine.
The event comes amid mounting concerns about the rise of white, Christian nationalist movements both in the U.S. and overseas, some of which are enabled by political reluctance to scrutinize anything seen as religious. Ukraine’s LGBTQ community has been struggling for official implementation of legally required civil rights, protection against hate crimes, and against legislative attempts to ban “homosexual propaganda."
The Young Turks, Inc.
Big Pharma
Today's edition of Means Morning News is free! Check out Sam Sacks' weekly show on Means TV. This week Sam covers U.S. gymnasts accusing the FBI of protecting their pedophile abuser, a Philly police riot, Starbucks workers and their union-busting bosses, and the vaccine apartheid.
On that note, Sam cites an In These Times article by Sarah Lazare about the U.S. declining to support a proposal to greenlight a Covid-19 vaccine patent waiver so countries locked out of the market can make it themselves.
On the domestic front, three conservative House Democrats are trying to derail a component of the budget that would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. It just so happens that the campaigns of these three lawmakers have raked in Big Pharma cash, The Daily Poster reports.
The threat from Democratic Reps. Kurt Schrader (Ore.), Scott Peters (Calif.), and Kathleen Rice (N.Y.) comes just as the pharmaceutical industry’s top lobbying group announced a seven-figure ad campaign to vilify the Democratic legislation that aims to lower the cost of medicines for Americans now facing the world’s highest prescription drug prices.
Andrew Perez
Exposed by CMD documents how billionaire libertarian Charles Koch's political network continues to attack health care improvements, this time working to block Missouri's Medicaid expansion, which voters approved last year and begins on Oct. 1.
Don Wiener
New York
New York Focus explains that New York's new governor, Kathy Hochul, has nominated a fin tech veteran to lead the Department of Financial Services.
Sam Mellins
In other New York news, THE CITY reports that undocumented immigrants are shut out of federal assistance for damage caused by Hurricane Ida two weeks ago. Record rainfall flooded basements around the city, and many are still dealing with the damage.
Christine Chung
Environment
Anishnaabe lawyer Tara Houska joins The Red Nation podcast from the frontlines to discuss how the Indigenous-led fight against the Line 3 tar sands pipeline is far from over.
The Drilled podcast looks "at the chronic whack-a-mole problem in frontline communities."
Just as one facility gets shut down or cleaned up, another is waiting to take its place. In a lot of ways, the plastic problem itself is a whack-a-mole issue catalyzed by progress in shifting away from fossil fuels in the transport and building sectors. How can policy makers and activists predict and prevent these sorts of problems?
DrilledOptOut is getting ready to launch the app very soon, but we need your donations to help us cover the costs of beta testing so we can improve and maintain this free app. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the OptOut Media Foundation today! Thank you so much.
Thanks as always for following the OptOut network! See you next week.
