Karoline Leavitt tells press 'Jesus didn't have electricity either' - sh.itjust.works

Lemmy

How Texas’ War on Drug Users Fueled an Austin Overdose Disaster - sh.itjust.works

… A small, inexpensive item might have averted some of these deaths. Fentanyl testing strips can be used to check for the presence of the synthetic opioid. With an appearance similar to an at-home COVID-19 test, the strips are dipped in water in which a small amount of the drug has been dissolved. A line indicates if fentanyl is present. But such testing strips are illegal in Texas. They’re considered paraphernalia, and possessing one is a Class C misdemeanor. While the Texas House passed a bill that would have legalized them in 2023, the Senate declined to vote on it. … In 2023, the Legislature passed a law allowing prosecutors to bring murder charges in fentanyl overdose cases. Critics say this discourages people from reporting emergencies, and research shows such laws harm public health. Some who overdosed in Austin last April had shared drugs, putting survivors at risk of being charged. In 2021, the Legislature passed a good samaritan law ostensibly meant to protect people who call 911 to report an overdose. The law created a defense for people arrested for low-level possession, but it has so many caveats—you can only use it once in your life, it doesn’t apply if you’ve been convicted of a drug-related felony, you can’t use it if you’ve reported another overdose in the last 18 months—that you’d need a flow chart to understand it. Critics say the statute’s of little use. …

Why do capitalists support Trump when his policies will likely destroy the economy? - sh.itjust.works

I’m a bit confused why capitalists support Trump when he plans on doing stuff that I think would destroy the economy. Thinking of mass deportations and high, broad tarrifs. I’m not sure if: 1. They just don’t care because they have enough wealth to weather anything. 2. They don’t think Trump will actually do these things. 3. They’re dumb and think it won’t hurt the economy. 4. They plan on trading wealth for more direct power. I.e. becoming oligarchs. 5. They have other ideologies (racism, Ayn Rand-ism, accelerationism, Dark Enlightenment, etc) that they prioritize higher than obtaining as much wealth as possible. Or maybe some combination of the above, or something else entirely. Edit: by “capitalists,” I mean the “elite” like Musk and his other billionaire donors. But I guess it’s a good question for smaller donors as well.

Why Fascism Doesn’t Stick to Trump - sh.itjust.works

On Tuesday, the New York Times published a long interview with Donald Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, who Googled an online definition of fascism before saying of his former boss: Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators—he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure. Also on Tuesday, the Atlantic published a report that Trump allegedly said, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.” The revelations have dominated discussions on Fox News, and prompted two-dozen GOP senators to call for Tr—haha, just kidding. Instead, Democrats and their supporters once again contend with a muted reaction from the media, the public, and politicians, who seem unmoved by Trump’s association with the F-word, no matter how many times Kamala Harris says “January sixth.” One exception was Matt Drudge, the archconservative linkmonger who has been hard on Trump, who ran a photo of the Führer himself. This proved the rule, argued Times (and former Slate) columnist Jamelle Bouie: “genuinely wild world where, on trump at least, matt drudge has better news judgment than most of the mainstream media.” Debates about Trump and fascism have been underway for a decade now, and applying the label seems unlikely to convince or motivate anyone. But the lack of alarm underlines a deeper question that doesn’t require a dictionary to engage in: Why do so few Americans, including many on the left, seem to take seriously the idea that Trump would use a second presidency to abuse the law to hurt his enemies? Maybe it’s because Democrats have studiously avoided confronting Trump about some of the most controversial, damning policy choices of his first term, or the most radical campaign promise for his second. You simply can’t make the full case against Trump—or a compelling illustration of his fascist tendencies—without talking about immigration. Immigration was the key to Trump’s rise and the source of two of his most notorious presidential debacles, the Muslim ban and the child separation policy. Blaming immigrants for national decline is a classic trope of fascist rhetoric; rounding our neighbors up by the millions for expulsion is a proposal with few historical precedents, and none of them are good…

The U.S. Economy - brought to you by Nvidia - sh.itjust.works

DPS director asks Paxton for guidance on sex marker changes - sh.itjust.works

“Judge shopping for me, not for thee”

Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Harris County over new version of ‘Uplift Harris’ program - sh.itjust.works

The Texas Billionaire Who Has Greenpeace USA on the Verge of Bankruptcy - WSJ - sh.itjust.works

“Fossil-fuel billionaire Kelcy Warren is about to land a knockout punch on Greenpeace…”