OMFG, just fuck Texas, that is all!

Clinics across the region say they're struggling to accommodate the surge in demand from patients from Texas, the nation's second-most-populous state. And they're fearful that many more states could implement similar laws if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns decades of precedent guaranteeing abortion rights.

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1083536401/texas-abortion-law-6-months

Texas praises itself for protecting the unborn, but that protection simply doesn't continue for at-risk children after they're born. In March, the judge in the 11-year federal lawsuit against the state found that nine employees of The Refuge, a Texas-contracted facility in Bastrop meant to care for female foster children who are victims of sex trafficking, were sexually and physically abusing the same 11 to 17-year-old children.

One staff member sold nude photos of two children, using the proceeds to purchase drugs and alcohol that were then supplied to the children. In June, the judge said Texas had not properly punished or shut down unsafe child care placement, and she planned to levy “substantial fines” for failing to comply with her orders to fix its troubled foster care system.

The underfunded, understaffed, ineffective, dangerous system could well be irretrievably broken since the abuse continues. This month, a Texas child protective services worker was fired after being caught on video telling a 14-year-old girl, who had asked for food, that she should consider becoming a prostitute. (Texas Tribune, NBC)

Speaking of fuck Texas, just fuck Italy and it's new fascists ILLDouchebag!

Italy Does Not Know How To Party (No, They Don’t)
First, they came for the underground ravers, and I did not speak out – Because I was not an underground raver. Then they came for the concertgoers, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a concertgoer. Then they came for the birthday partiers, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a birthday partier. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me. 

Thanks for that beautiful and strangely topical poem, Martin Niemöller! Anyways, Italy’s new right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has declared that her young government is making a very old-person move –  she’s announced that Italy will be making staging unlicensed raves a crime. The official name of the crime is “invasion for dangerous gatherings,” with unlicensed gatherings of 50 or more people being punishable by up to 6 years in prison. The government’s new idea was inspired by a 48-hour-long rager held in an abandoned warehouse in northern Italy which may have annoyed the neighbors.

In other Italy news, Halloweekend featured a sight possibly spookier than a 2-day rave – a rally featuring 2,000 black-clad supporters of former fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, complete with fascist hymns and salutes. Meloni, a supposedly former supporter of post-fascist politics in her youth, said that the rave and the racist rally were “completely different things,” and that the new law would not apply to such rallies. In other other Italy news, Meloni also recently appointed a deputy minister known for a picture of him wearing the Nazi swastika on his right arm. (BBC)

 

Republicans are not stopping at overturning Roe v. Wade.

Multiple states are considering legislation that would trap desperate young girls in states without access to abortion care -- including rape victims -- and scare off with the threat of imprisonment anyone who would seek to help them.

These proposed travel ban bills deny women the opportunity to go to a freedom state like California, taking away the right to travel that’s guaranteed by the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

They also come on the heels of a report showing that nearly 65,000 rapes have resulted in pregnancy in the 14 states with total abortion bans since Dobbs.

65,000!!!!