WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth...
Women giving birth in the United States are more likely to die than police officers are in the line of duty. And unlike police fatalities, which have hit an 80-year low, maternal mortality has more than doubled since the 1980s. That means a woman today is more likely to die in childbirth than her grandmother was. This is in a country that spends more on healthcare than anywhere else on earth.
The United States is the only wealthy nation where this trend is moving in the wrong direction. Every other developed country has continued improving.
We got worse. And according to the CDC, more than 80% of these deaths are preventable. We're not talking about medical mysteries. We're talking about failures in follow-up care, hemorrhage management, and access to treatment that other countries figured out decades ago.
The same men who flooded my comments this week saying women shouldn't vote are the ones who get to decide maternal healthcare policy. Women are dying at rates their grandmothers didn't, from things we know how to prevent, and the people blocking every solution have decided the people dying shouldn't have a political voice. And they're doing all they can to keep it that way.
National Park Service employees and contractors to trying hard to clean the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. So far the algae seems to be winning. As for the American flag blue paint, it’s starting to peel from the bottom of the pool — a short-lived $14 million paint job.
Okay, I'm gonna be honest.
This gay club looks fabulous.
They've got everything. Sweaty men wrestling, guys on motorcycles in leather jackets, gold everywhere, and the Village People performing.
The problem gentlemen is you think "rapist" means scary man in a hoodie lurking in an alleyway at 3am. Of course you'd block that guy.
But it's the boyfriend you really loved who was angry that you hadn't wanted sex for two days and pinned you for the bed and then felt really bad about it.
It's the really sweet guy backstage who you loved working with for the whole production who knew you only wanted to be friends and then got you drunk at the after party and raped you in a dressing room.
It's the husband who whined and pleaded for sex long after you've said no for hours and refused to take no for an answer until you gave in every night for four years until you realised what it was.
It's the childhood friend who knows your parents and is your brother's best mate who suddenly attacked you when you were 17 and then told you he'd be thrown out of Oxford if you said anything.
It's the kind colleague who offered to drive you home from that conference when there was a train strike and then forced his hands into your pants in a lay-by and then threatened to leave you there at 3am if you didn't stop being a cockteasing bitch.
We're not dumb. We see the constant attempts to make anything short of stranger with a knife made up, regret, our fault really, a matter of the woman not being clear.
We know why you keep trying to make this 'not rape'. Because if coercion, marital rape, pressure, manipulation and exploitation count, then the comforting fantasy that rape is only ever a stranger with a knife falls apart.
So all of you guys who were in my comments last month talking about how food assistance should not include candy and soda but actual healthy foods, I suppose you’re going to call your members of Congress and the White House about this?
LET’S KEEP IT REAL
According to Trump, Black jobs are in factories. And we already know if a Black person is a doctor, lawyer, engineer, executive, professor, pilot, or CEO, he calls it DEI.
Yesterday, Trump was asked why Black unemployment is still 7.3%, far above the national average of 4.3%.
His answer? Don’t worry, Black workers will do well when more factories and car plants open.
Apparently, in Trump’s America, our future is on the assembly line.