Jessica Corbett at Common Dreams writes—'Outrageous' and 'Reprehensible': Trump Gives Taxpayer-Funded Groups Green Light to Discriminate Against LGBTQ People:
From taxpayer-funded foster care and adoption agencies to programs that serve individuals struggling with substance abuse and youth homelessness, grantees of the Department of Health and Human Services got a green light from the Trump administration Friday to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
HHS awards hundreds of billions of dollars in grants annually. The department claimed that the proposed rule (pdf), which took effect immediately, "would better align its grants regulations with federal statutes, eliminating regulatory burden, including burden on the free exercise of religion."
Critics of the administration's ongoing assault on LGBTQ rights, meanwhile, raised concerns about the rule's consequences. On Twitter, the advocacy group Lambda Legal called the administration's move "reprehensible" and warned that "the impact of this rule is enormous."
"This is a remarkable instance of the Trump administration's flagrant disregard for both the regulatory process and the law," Lambda Legal noted. "They announced they simply won't follow the nondiscrimination protections on the books—effectively evading the rulemaking process altogether." [...]
Noting that the rule "would allow taxpayer-funded child welfare agencies to turn away foster parents because they are LGBTQ or otherwise fail to meet a religious litmus test," the ACLU declared that "religious liberty is not a license to discriminate" and "the needs of children in our foster care system must come first."
HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.” ~~Ban Ki-moon, Address to the 66th U.N. General Assembly, 2011
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2008—Internet surpasses newspapers as source for campaign news:
The internet is now second only to television as a primary campaign news source for Americans, according to a new survey released by Pew Research.
Many more Americans are turning to the internet for campaign news this year as the web becomes a key source of election news. Television remains the dominant source, but the percent who say they get most of their campaign news from the internet has tripled since October 2004 (from 10% then to 33% now).
While use of the web has seen considerable growth, the percentage of Americans relying on TV and newspapers for campaign news has remained relatively flat since 2004. The internet now rivals newspapers as a main source for campaign news. And with so much interest in the election next week, the public's use of the internet as a campaign news source is up even since the primaries earlier this year. In March, 26% cited the internet as a main source for election news, while the percentages citing television and newspapers remain largely unchanged.
The editorial commentary here is being generous to newspapers; the internet doesn't simply rival newspapers in this study, it surpasses them by 4 percent, and demographics are most certainly breaking in the newer medium's favor. Nearly 50 percent of 18-29 year olds claim the internet as their first or second news source (behind television), and only 17 percent named newspapers. Even in the next oldest co-hort, 30 to 49-year-olds, 37 percent named the internet compared to 23 percent for newspapers. It's not until the over-50's are broken out that newspapers overtake the internet as first or second-choice source for election news.