Fascism Watch for 3 May 2023: the Rapid Unscheduled Dissemination edition.

The American College of Paediatricians, one of the more successful fundamentalist evangelical pseudoscience hate groups, accidentally dumped all its data onto a visible Google Drive share. From this you get an outline of their history, their authoritarian fundamentalist Christian agenda, the various plans they have to sell “social contagion” but in even cruder forms – describing trans children as literal contageous plague carriers – and lots more, and their attempts with their allies to discredit anti-hate groups like the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

Already posted separately, but in case you missed it: Oregon joined the Sanctuary State Alliance. (Pending signature. But it’ll get signed.)

Texas:

The American College of Paediatricians is so key to generating the fake science used by Republicans to pass bans on trans health care that finding out about this has enabled opponents in Republican Texas to push Texas’s bill banning it back into committee.

In Republican Texas, even talking about abortion can get you punished – at least, if you’re already in prison. The Nation writes up an incident about a former nurse, now inmate, who was punished by guards for trying to explain to other inmates how birth control and abortion actually work.

Republican Texas Governor Abbott’s lying diminishment of the five murder victims murdered because they asked a neighbour not to shoot so much at night was about giving whites permission not to care about the murdered family.

It’s starting in Texas but it sure as hell won’t stay there: Republicans are starting to argue against no-fault divorce, to make it harder for women to leave abusive men. It is, obviously, about control.

Florida:

“Can you say here today you support more mainstream human rights, like gay marriage and sexual orientation of adults? Yes or no?” the reporter asked Republican Florida Governor DeSantis. He refused to answer.

Republican Florida has banned or is in the process of banning trans health care, depending upon your age, but in all cases they leave a window open for what they’re calling “gender-exploratory therapy.” This is nothing more than rebranded “conversion therapy.” Please don’t let people fall for it.

Similarly, Assigned writes that the drive to eradicate trans people from existence probably won’t involve prison camps by name. It’ll involve a ratcheting up of prisons and involuntary-commitment institutions, just as it did in the Soviet Union for anyone LGBT. They’re taking their cues from Russia, now – not that this is much of a reach for them. Prisons are, after all, profitable, thanks to all that unpaid labour.

And don’t pretend it won’t happen on the very personal level. I mean, they’re already trying, and it will get much worse.

Social media:

Elon Musk is threatening NPR, telling them that if they don’t start posting again he’ll take their twiter IDs and hand them to another company. This certainly sounds to me like extortion, though obviously I’m not a lawyer. But any media still being on Twitter at this point is stupid.

In a vaguely amusing turnaround, Pornhub has banned Utah. It’s because of Utah’s new and extremely onerous laws around online content, of course.

Finally, Parker Malloy – who recently finally gave up on Twitter following its promotion of mass murder of trans people and supporters – has a column up that’s worth reading, “Fear Of Right-Wing Outrage Makes Us All Worse Off.”

I can’t wait for this year’s legislative sessions to be over.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.