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Arizona’s newly elected Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) signed an executive order extending employment protections to state employees and contractors who are LGBTQ+.
As the Human Rights Campaign reports, the executive order, signed on Hobbs’s first day in office Tuesday, directs the state’s Department of Administration to update hiring, promotion, and compensation policies for all state agencies to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and include provisions in all new state contracts to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The executive order goes beyond what is already required under state and federal laws banning employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, pregnancy, and veteran status, to include factors such as sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, culture, creed, social origin, and political affiliation.
KAWC notes that sexual orientation is already covered under a 2003 executive order issued by former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D). But as press aide Murphy Herbert explained, “The order from 2003 arguably allowed the state to consider sexual orientation in hiring so long as it wasn’t the only reason for a hiring decision.”
Hobbs’s executive order, Herbert said, “clarifies that discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited in all state hiring decisions.”
“Gov. Hobbs has been all over the state and she’s been hearing from communities who say that they want a state that reflects the values and a state where they feel seen and safe,” Herbert told KAWC. “This executive order is one step she’s taking to ensure that everyone in Arizona knows that she is the Governor for everyone and that these communities can and will be safe.”
Human Rights Campaign Arizona State Director Bridget Sharpe said that the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization “was proud to work alongside countless other LGBTQ+ organizations and allies to help Katie Hobbs become Arizona’s Governor. She ran on the promise that she would immediately act to stop the attacks on Arizona’s LGBTQ+ individuals and families and use the full extent of her power to protect our community. On her first day in office, she took an important step towards fulfilling that commitment by signing an Executive Order providing non-discrimination for LGBTQ+ state employees and state contractors. This is what it looks like to have a champion for equality in office. We can’t wait to work with the Hobbs administration to move our state forward.”
But Cathi Herrod, president of the conservative lobbying group Center for Arizona Policy, claimed that Hobbs’s executive order may violate the constitutional rights of faith-based agencies.
Last year, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) approved S.B. 1399, which created religious exemptions for faith-based adoption and foster care agencies. “That law should take precedence over any executive order,” said Herrod. “The question is, does the state want to continue to have faith-based agencies providing such critical foster care and adoption services? I think we do.”
Sarah Warbelow, legal counsel for the Human Rights Coalition, conceded that S.B. 1399 trumps the new executive order. However, she explained, Hobbs’s order covers other things that organizations and agencies that contract with the state’s government can and cannot do.
“For example, if the YMCA wanted to contract with the state to broaden summer camps, that new executive order doesn’t say anything about discriminating against the kids who go to those camps,” Warbelow explained. “It does say when you’re hiring those camp counselors, you can’t discriminate on the basis of race or sex, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
Herrod disagreed. “You can’t discriminate and not award those contracts on that basis,” she told KAWC. “Because if they didn’t award the contract because of the religious entity’s beliefs, then they’re violating their constitutional and statutory rights.”
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reasonsforhope · 9 months
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"This week, the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a new rule requiring airlines to make bathrooms more accessible for disabled people. All new single-aisle aircraft will be fitted with fully-accessible lavatories.
Most flights inside the United States are single-aisle and as technology has improved, they are used more frequently for long flights, including coast-to-coast trips that can last as long as six hours. Double-aisle plans are already subject to the regulation but are primarily used for international flights.
Out Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced the new regulations, saying, “Traveling can be stressful enough without worrying about being able to access a restroom; yet today, millions of wheelchair users are forced to choose between dehydrating themselves before boarding a plane or avoiding air travel altogether.” ...
The secretary has made it a priority to improve service on airlines during his tenure. In 2022, six airlines were forced to pay millions of dollars in refunds to hundreds of thousands of customers and were also fined millions for causing the issues. The department’s firm stance on the side of customers has continued through this year after multiple companies have had meltdowns, stranding thousands of travelers.
All planes delivered to airlines starting in 2026 must include several upgrades. Planes already in service will not need to be retrofitted unless the plane is renovated.
“These aircraft must have at least one lavatory of sufficient size to permit a passenger with a disability (with the help of an assistant, if necessary) to approach, enter, and maneuver within the aircraft lavatory, to use all lavatory facilities, and leave by means of the aircraft’s onboard wheelchair if necessary,” the DOT said in a statement.
Accessible faucets and controls, grab bars, accessible call buttons and door locks, minimum obstruction to the passage of an onboard wheelchair, and an available visual barrier for privacy are also required upgrades."
-via LGBTQ Nation, July 28, 2023
Wayyyyyyy fucking overdue but I'll take it!! Also, very nice curb cut effect: We all get to be less miserable on airplanes, and older people don't have to worry as much about airplane bathroom fall risks.
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wyrmswears · 2 months
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administration concept
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deerlyjane · 2 months
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st cassian chamber choir obituary + karnak
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writer-room · 6 months
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Civilian memes post-merge YET AGAIN
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So far we have 3 confirmed realms that house sentient anthropomorphic animals. The Serpentine are the only ones who have been semi-confirmed to have a chance to be related to Chima. So I think it'd be really funny if most of Chima ends up vibing with people from the Wyldness WAYYY better than the Serpentine. Just to be annoying
1, 2, 3
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alwaysbewoke · 2 months
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deadpresidents · 9 days
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American Bonaparte: Napoléon's Great-Nephew in the President's Cabinet
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In June 1815, Napoléon Bonaparte’s bid for continued military glory in Europe was crushed by allied British and Prussian troops at the Battle of Waterloo. Following his surrender, the former Emperor of France had hoped that the British might allow him to live the remainder of his life in exile in the United States. However, Napoléon had already escaped exile once before (from the Mediterranean island of Elba) and once again rallied the French around him in a last-ditch effort to conquer the European continent prior to Waterloo. Unwilling to risk another vanishing act, the British instead banished Napoléon to one of the most isolated places in the world – the remote island of Saint Helena, in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, between Africa and South Africa – for the rest of his life.
Some of the Bonaparte family did eventually reach the United States, however. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Charles Joseph Bonaparte (1851-1921), the American-born grandson of Napoléon’s youngest brother, Jérôme, as the U.S. Secretary of the Navy. A year later, Roosevelt shifted Bonaparte from the Department of the Navy to the Justice Department. For the rest of Theodore Roosevelt’s Presidency, the great-nephew of the man responsible for the Napoléonic code was the United States Attorney General – America’s top law enforcement official – where he helped establish the Bureau of Investigation, better known today as the FBI.
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fishybehavior · 1 month
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Does anyone else find it odd that the manager of the department of reassignment was arresting a fugitive nindroid??
I think someone was trying to show their hand
Or jay used to be field agent and got dragged into this (maybe he owed agents Allen and/or Underwood a favor)
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tomorrowusa · 3 months
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Trump White House staffers were apparently big pill poppers. And we're not talking about generic ibuprofen or Vitamin C.
The White House has its own pharmacy. It's run by the military because the president happens to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces. But during the Trump administration things went awry – as you might expect.
For years, the White House Medical Unit, run by the White House Military Office, provided the full scope of pharmaceutical services to senior officials and staff—it stored, inventoried, prescribed, dispensed, and disposed of prescription medications, including opioids and sleep medications. However, it was not staffed by a licensed pharmacist or pharmacy support staff, nor was it credentialed by any outside agency. The operations of this pseudo-pharmacy went as well as one might expect, according to the DoD OIG's alarming investigation report. The investigation was prompted by complaints in May 2018 alleging that an unnamed "senior military medical officer" was engaged in "improper medical practices." [ ... ] Provigil is a drug that treats excessive tiredness and is typically used for patients with narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and other sleep disorders. Brand-name Provigil is 55 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Between 2017 and 2019, the White House pharmacy spent an estimated $98,000 for Provigil. In that same timeframe, it also spent an estimated $46,500 for Ambien, a prescription sedative, which is 174 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Even further, the White House Medical Unit spent an additional $100,000 above generic drug cost by having Walter Reed National Military Medical Center fill brand-name prescriptions.
While they were plotting to repeal Obamacare for millions of Americans, Trump staffers were getting brand name stimulants and sedatives cheap and sticking US taxpayers with the bill.
They were handing out baggies of drugs to staffers going on trips overseas.
The staffer told OIG investigators that ahead of overseas trips, the staff would prepare packets of controlled medications to be handed out to White House staff. "And those would typically be Ambien or Provigil and typically both, right. So we would normally make these packets of Ambien and Provigil, and a lot of times they’d be in like five tablets in a zip‑lock bag. And so traditionally, too, we would hand these out. ... But a lot of times the senior staff would come by or their staff representatives... would come by the residence clinic to pick it up. And it was very much a, 'hey, I’m here to pick this up for Ms. X.' And the expectation was we just go ahead and pass it out."
Trump wanted to send the US military into Mexico to go after drug kingpins. But he was running his own out of control drug dispensing operation financed by tax money.
The Department of Defense Inspector General's report detailed how Schedule II drugs were poorly inventoried and monitored. (emphasis added)
The Code of Federal Regulations requires that registered pharmacies maintain inventories and records of Schedule II controlled substances separately from all other pharmacy records.16 In our site visit to the EEOB Clinic, we concluded that the clinic maintained the controlled substance inventory records in a binder on hand‑written paper logs, stored in the EEOB clinic’s medication dispensing area. The inventory records showed that White House Medical Unit stocked four different types of Schedule II opioid pain medications (fentanyl, hydrocodone, morphine, and oxycodone), as well as medications from Schedules III through V, such as stimulants and sedatives. However, White House Medical Unit kept the records for its Schedule II medications in the EEOB’s inventory binder together with records for all other controlled medications and not maintained separately as required by the CFR.
So the Trump White House pharmacy also included opioids which were not properly kept track of. The Trump drug mill was a microcosm for his administration as a whole.
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After Ohio rail disaster, Buttigieg is silent on restoring the safety standards Trump repealed
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When a freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed near East Palestine, Ohio, bursting into flame and sending up clouds of poisonous vinyl chloride smoke and gas, our immediate concerns were for the people in harm’s way and the train crew:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/us/train-derailment-fire-palestine-ohio.html
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp
But those immediate concerns were soon joined by a broader set of worries: that the entire rail industry presented a systematic danger, and the Ohio derailment was a symptom of a much deeper pathology that endangered anyone who lives near one of the rail corridors that crisscross America.
The rail industry is the poster child for corporate power, and rail barons were among the first targets of Gilded Age trustbusters who saw the rail monopolies as a threat to the prosperity and wellbeing of Americans, as well as the integrity of the American political system itself.
40 years of neoliberal “consumer welfare” antitrust — starting with Reagan and continuing through every administration since — has seen the American rail sector achieve levels of concentration that meet and exceed the corrupt, untenable degree of the late 19th century.
Like the original rail barons, the current crop (including the self-styled cuddly billionaire Warren Buffett), have gutted rail investment, skirted on safety, maimed and abused their workforce, smashed their unions, and placed the entire US supply chain in a state of brittle precarity:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/04/up-your-nose/#rail-barons
Like all monopolists, the rail industry has been able to capture its regulators, trampling evidence-based policy and replacing it with rules that benefit shareholders at the expense of the public, labor, and customers.
https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526
This regulatory capture is an inevitable consequence of market concentration. When an industry is composed of dozens of small- and medium-sized firms, they are unable to converge on a single story about which rules regulators should favor them with: some of those companies will want things the others don’t, and each will vie to produce evidence disconfirming the others’ claims.
But when an industry dwindles to a handful of cozy giants whose C-suites are stuffed with company-hopping executives who’ve done time at every major company in the sector, they converge on a single fairy tale about the best way to regulate their industry, and convert their regulators’ truth-seeking exercises into rigged auctions that they handily win:
https://locusmag.com/2022/03/cory-doctorow-vertically-challenged/
That’s what happened during the Trump years, when rail lobbyists secured the repeal of a long-overdue, hard-won safety regulation that would have required rail companies to replace the Civil-War-era brakes on their rolling stock with modern electronically controlled pneumatic brakes (ECPs):
https://jacobin.com/2023/02/rail-companies-safety-rules-ohio-derailment-brake-sytems-regulations
The repeal cost millions in lobbying dollars, but it was worth it. Shortly after the ECP rule was scrapped, Norfolk Southern handed millions in bonuses to its execs and did billions in stock buybacks, while laying offf thousands of workers:
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/10/25/norfolk-southern-implements-massive-buyback-progra.aspx
Elections, we’re told, have consequences. After Biden won the 2020 presidential election, he made a string of excellent appointments — people like FTC chair Lina Khan, who hit the ground running with detailed plans for making sweeping, consequential changes that would blunt corporate power, reverse-Trump era abuses, and correct the dysfunctions that created a political base for Trump:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby
But other Biden appointees arrive in office with much less ambition. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has spent his tenure as King Log, failing to take action on spiraling airline cancellations, confining his major enforcement action to fining foreign airlines while ignoring the out-of-control abuses of America’s domestic carriers, except for the also-ran airline Frontier, which accounts for less than 2% of domestic travel:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/16/for-petes-sake/#unfair-and-deceptive
There are striking similarities between the structural defects in the airlines and the rail companies: both are highly concentrated sectors who have laid off senior staff, attacked unions, and blown billions in public money on stock buybacks and executive bonuses, even as their service degraded.
Both industries have been sharply criticized by experts and industry veterans, who’ve called for specific regulation. In the case of the airlines, SWA pilots and flight attendants had sounded the alarm about antiquated scheduling systems; for the rail companies, it’s experts like Grady Cothen, formerly a top safety expert at the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), who told Congress that without action on braking systems, “[there] will be more derailments, more releases of hazardous materials, more communities impacted”:
https://www.congress.gov/event/117th-congress/house-event/LC69424/text?s=1&r=9
Despite these warnings, and despite the near-misses and smaller disasters that led up to the 100-foot-tall fireball over Ohio, Buttigieg’s DOT has not moved to reinstate the Obama-era brake safety rule, deferring to the monopoly rail owners self-serving claim that there is no need for such a move:
https://jacobin.com/2023/02/department-of-transportation-train-brake-regulation-ohio-derailment/
Indeed, the FRA is currently considering a rule that would further weaken braking rules, reducing obligations to inspect, test and certify braking systems:
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FRA-2019-0072-0005
The rail labor unions — the best source of independent expertise on the daily operation of the freight system — say that this would be a disaster: “Following through with a final rule would only deliver yet another financial windfall to rail carriers by eliminating inspections, testing and repairs, and deferring routine maintenance”:
https://www.goiam.org/news/territories/tcu-union/carmen-division-tcu/rail-labor-files-joint-comments-on-fras-nprm-2/
Serving as Transportation Secretary to the President of the United States of America makes you one of the most powerful people in the history of the human race. The Secretary’s powers, while not unlimited, are extensive. The American people need a DoT that works for them, not one that weakens safety rules:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge
Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pete_Buttigieg_January_2020.jpg
CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
James St John (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/27110172823/
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
This week (Feb 13–17), I’ll be in Australia, touring my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We’re doing a remote event for NZ tomorrow (Feb 13). Next are Melbourne (Feb 14), Sydney (Feb 15) and Canberra (Feb 16/17). More tickets just released for Sydney!
[Image ID: A locomotive steaming away from a nuclear explosion. The face of the logo has been replaced with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's, in the style of Thomas the Tank Engine.]
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Under Donald Trump’s leadership, the West Wing operated more like a pill mill than the White House, at least according to a January report by the Department of Defense inspector general, which capped a six-year investigation into the administration’s medical practices.
But sources knowledgeable on the matter paint an even more dramatic image than that, describing the nation’s highest office as “awash in speed,” reported Rolling Stone.
Common pills included modafinil, Adderall, fentanyl, morphine, and ketamine, according to the Pentagon report. But other, unlisted drugs—like Xanax—were equally easy to come by from the White House Medical Unit, according to sources that spoke to the magazine.
At least two senior staffers would regularly mix the depressant with alcohol, a potentially life-threatening combo, to deal with the stress of working with a highly erratic boss.
“You try working for him and not chasing pills with alcohol,” one source told Rolling Stone.
While other presidents were known to take a mix of drug cocktails to fight off back pain (like JFK) or bad moods (like Nixon), no previous administrations matched the level of debauchery of Trump’s, whose in-office pharmacists unquestioningly handed out highly addictive substances to staffers who needed pick-me-ups or energy boosts—no doctor’s exam, referral, or prescription required.
“It was kind of like the Wild West. Things were pretty loose. Whatever someone needs, we were going to fill this,” another source said.
Ultimately, the unmitigated access to controlled substances fostered an environment that would have been considered highly illegal and problematic anywhere else in the nation—if it weren’t inside the very office that helps craft those regulations.
“Is it being done appropriately or legally all the time? No. But are they going to get to that end result that the bosses want? Yeah,” said another, referring to the high demands of the office.
Meanwhile, pharmacists described an atmosphere of fear within the West Wing, claiming they would be “fired” if they spoke out or would receive negative work assignments if they didn’t hand pills over to staffers.
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Elsie Carson-Holt at LGBTQ Nation:
Arkansas is being sued by transgender, intersex, and non-binary residents over a recent policy change that prevents people from being able to change the gender marker on their driver’s license and eliminates the option “X”, which signifies that the the license-holder is nonbinary.
Residents have been allowed to self-select the gender markers on their licenses since at least 2010, but a new policy changes that. In March, the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration implemented an emergency rule that removed the “X” option and required that people provide an amended birth certificate to change the marker on their license. Amending a birth certificate requires a court order and proof of gender-affirming surgery, making it very difficult for many transgender people to obtain. The suit was filed Tuesday in Pulaski County Circuit Court in Arkansas by the ACLU of Arkansas. The organization says that it wants to stop the enforcement of the new policy and have it overturned, as it does not follow administrative procedures and there is no emergency taking place, despite the fact the ruling is an emergency ruling by the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.  In a press release, the ACLU said that “this emergency rule was implemented without any documented justification or compliance with the procedural requirements of the Arkansas Administrative Procedures Act, which stipulates a 30-day public notice and comment period unless there is an ‘imminent peril to public health, safety, or welfare’ or a need to comply with federal law.” 
Trans, gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, and intersex Arkansans are suing over the new policy revoking the ability to change the gender marker on their driver’s license and eliminates the option “X” as a gender marker.
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maulfucker · 10 months
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Phantom Menace college au where Padme is an exchange student and Qui-Gon is a professor and Obi-Wan is his assistant and at the end Maul gets Qui-Gon fired so Obi-Wan pushes him down some stairs the next time they meet on campus
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heavenshrdepartment · 5 months
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Your staff are hot.
- @dukedagonetohell
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Yes. Unlike Hell, our central heating system is working.
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deadpresidents · 5 months
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Did Kissinger live longer than any other secretary of state?
Yes, but not by too big of a margin. Kissinger was 100 years, 186 days old when he died. George P. Shultz, who was Reagan's Secretary of State, was 100 years, 55 days old when he died in 2021.
I'm going to have to look more carefully and may be wrong, but I actually think Kissinger and Shultz are the longest-living Cabinet Secretaries from any department and the only ones to reach 100. That would mean that the only two centenarians to serve in the Cabinet both served in President Nixon's Administration (Shultz was Labor Secretary and then Treasury Secretary under Nixon). Incidentally, Kissinger was the last surviving Cabinet member from the Nixon Administration. I think there are only three still living from the Ford Administration.
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