Shaneel Lal today:

Trans activist Shaneel Lal believes their Young New Zealander of the Year award may receive some online backlash, but said the win is a result of hard work, not to, “fill a diversity quota”.

Lal, 22, who was an instrumental figure in the fight to have conversion therapy banned in New Zealand, was celebrated at the 2023 New Zealander of the Year awards at Auckland’s Cordis Hotel on Thursday night.

Shaneel Lal writing in the NZ Herald five days ago:

Aucklanders and New Zealanders from many parts of the country showed up and showed out.

Keen-Minshull’s minute group of supporters were outnumbered by counter-protests who attended wearing the trans flag colours and carrying signs in support of trans people and condemning Keen-Minshull’s transphobia. Keen-Minshull left Albert Park without saying a single word.

Auckland – I cannot thank you enough. Yesterday, you made me feel like I belong. You made me feel like I can live as my true self in this city. You showed me that I do not need to go back into hiding.

The cops are doing what now?

Hey. How about a day of WOMEN visibility?

But no, don’t be stupid. Women are horrible. No one wants women being visible. Trans people are the only decent people…along with men of course.

Kellie-Jay in The Spectator:

The turn towards violence came in Melbourne at our largest gathering. The police had done a pretty fine job of protecting women with buffer zones between us and the rabid trans activists. But this gathering included competing groups of woman-hating losers: trans incels to the left of me and Nazis to the right, and here we were stuck in the middle and blamed by the media and politicians for the Nazi salute that occurred. I’ve been asked following that incident whether I have sympathies with the far right, but seriously, who does? It’s a vile ideology and frankly anyone convinced by it in 2023 is pathetic. John Pesutto, the leader of the Liberals in Victoria, repeated dangerous lies about me and suspended Moira Deeming MP from his party for her association with me.

Much liberal, very freedom of thought and utterance.

This storm gathered pace and in New Zealand it was magnified a hundredfold. There was a case brought to the high court to try to stop me entering the country and their media started a constant spew of lies, insisting I was a dangerous anti-trans Nazi. At the border I had a two-hour interrogation and search, one hotel cancelled my reservation, and in another a threatening note was slid under my door while I slept. I had been told I would be protected by the police. That couldn’t have been further from the truth.

It’s interesting (though tragically not surprising) that the news media worked up the mob by telling lies about her.

The big event, the one that has been in the news, was in Auckland, and the minute I arrived I felt rising fear. As the car pulled up I could see the thousands gathered to oppose me. My security gathered around me and we pushed through the hateful mob to the centre, where the local organisers and attendees were who had come to speak. Where were the police? Not one officer was in that crowd; not one officer was there to protect the brave women who turned up. Within seconds a man had tipped tomato soup all over my head. I continued to live-stream. But over the next few minutes the mob took on a life of its own. A frenzy grew until it was a deafening swell, a modern-day ‘Burn the witch’. Men started ripping down the barriers and charging forward. ‘The police aren’t coming,’ said my head of security. ‘We have to get you out.’ This meant placing me in the centre of my security and some stewards, women who had volunteered to help, pushed through the baying mob. As we moved, we stumbled. I knew that a body on a floor is fair game and ripe for stomping and kicking. When we eventually got to the outer edge of the park, the police did step in and helped get me to a car. They took me to the nearest police station where I was guarded for six hours before I had an escort of three officers to the airport. They didn’t leave until my plane took off.

There you have it – the police abandoned her to the screaming [yes, fascist in the literal sense] mob. It’s beyond belief.

That day I was told emphatically by each police officer and security that had I fallen I would have been killed. Women were injured that day, women who you may never hear about. You will never know their names. They didn’t get to hop on a plane and leave; they have to stay and live in a country that has told them their lives are not worth protecting.

It’s a horror.

Rubashkyn is on the lam.

Information on Rubashkyn’s charge was first reported by Newsable, which received a statement from Rubashkyn where he again claimed the assault and suggested he was comfortable facing justice.

“I did assault her and I will do it again,” he said. “And if I need to be 10 years in prison I’m happy to be 10 years in prison.”

But despite his words, Rubashkyn fled New Zealand shortly after being made aware that police were planning on issuing a warrant for his arrest on charges of assault.

So he’s confident that the NZ police won’t tell the NY police about his flight from the law?

During the space, Rubashkyn made a number of anti-lesbian, racist, sexist, and violent remarks, including that trans-identified males were the “first victims” of the Holocaust.

“Trans women were the first victims of Nazism. Trans women were killed before the Jews were sent to concentration camps,” he said, continuing: “In the 1930s, Nazis relied on TERFs to promote hate… TERFs became holders of concentration camps for females. TERFs were quite instrumental in the system that the Nazis built for making more babies… to keep Nazi Germany growing.”

Nope. Not a word of that is true. Slaaaay.

This doesn’t sound good at all.

Deep ocean currents around Antarctica headed for collapse, study finds

Cold water that sinks near Antarctica drives the deepest flow of the overturning circulation—a network of currents that spans the world’s oceans. The overturning carries heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients around the globe. This influences climate, sea level and the productivity of marine ecosystems.

“Our modeling shows that if global carbon emissions continue at the current rate, then the Antarctic overturning will slow by more than 40 percent in the next 30 years—and on a trajectory that looks headed towards collapse,” says Prof England.

…

With a collapse of this deep ocean current, the oceans below 4000 meters would stagnate.

“This would trap nutrients in the deep ocean, reducing the nutrients available to support marine life near the ocean surface,” says Prof England.

So everything that lives on the nutrients will starve, so everything that lives on everything that lives on the nutrients will starve. I have a feeling that’s a lot of animals, including human ones.

Huh. Has SWR ever painted a train to signify inclusion of women?

It seems that suddenly the trans movement has bumped up against a boundary.

Twitter says it has removed thousands of tweets showing a poster promoting a “trans day of vengeance” protest in support of transgender rights in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of Trust and Safety, said in a tweet Wednesday that the company automatically removed more than 5,000 tweets and retweets of a poster promoting the event.

“We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them. “Vengeance” does not imply peaceful protest. Organizing or support for peaceful protests is ok,” Irwin wrote in the tweet.

But trans activists don’t know from peaceful protest. They feel entitled and aggrieved, and they’ve been warmly encouraged to feel that for a good few years. Don’t talk to them about peaceful protest when there are women still walking around who freely say they don’t believe trans women are women.

But trans activists were quick to point out that “trans day of vengeance” is a meme that has been around in the trans community for years and is not a call to violence — and said Twitter is misguided in its reasoning behind removing the tweets in support of the protest.

On its website, the group organizing Saturday’s protest said it does not condone violence.

…

“Vengeance means fighting back with vehemence,” the protest’s organizers wrote on their website. “We are fighting against false narratives, criminalization, and eradication of our existence.”

Uh huh, “with vehemence” like getting people fired and shunned, trashing women’s sports, going off like a siren every five minutes, demanding the whole world pay attention to your non-existent plight…and when you’re in the mood, plain old everyday violence. Just ask Fred Sargeant.

Important business.

LAUREN BOEBERT WAYLAID a congressional hearing on crime in the nation’s capital on Wednesday by repeatedly grilling D.C. City Council Member Charles Allen on what she insisted were efforts to decriminalize public urination. 

“Did you or did you not decriminalize public urination in Washington D.C.,” Boebert asked.

“No we did not,” replied Allen.

“Did you lead the charge to do so?” Boebert rephrased. 

“No, the revised criminal code left that as a criminal charge,” Allen answered. 

Did you “lead the charge” – what a dopy question.

The exchange continued for some time, with Boebert asking different variations of “Do you support peeing in public?”and Allen attempting to clarify that taking a piss on the sidewalk remains illegal in D.C. 

“The legislation that you are referring to, that came from the criminal code reform commission, changed public urination from a criminal to a civil offense. The council then changed that [back] to maintain it a criminal offense, at the request of the mayor,” Allen explained when able to get a word in. 

…

Boebert has personal experience with crime related to indecent exposure. In 2004, her husband, Jason Boebert, pleaded guilty and served jail time after exposing himself to two women at a bowling alley, one of whom was underage. 

Well yeh but that’s completely different. Completely.

Have the sick bag nearby.

You know…if all this nonsense they tell the kids is true, why don’t the kids already know it? Why haven’t their parents been telling them it all along? Why are they being told it only now when they’re eight or nine years old? Why don’t they already know all about it via their parents’ many trans friends? Why don’t they already know about it from their own friends whose parents are trans? Why don’t they know about it from their trans classmates? It couldn’t be because it’s all bullshit could it?

Sigh.

I see this, so must investigate.

What? Who? What?

Oh. Josselyn Berry is the press secretary to Katie Hobbs, the governor of Arizona. Yes that’s a good look, offering to shoot feminist women who don’t believe men can be women. Solidarity forever yadda yadda.

Update: she’s resigned.

Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ spokesperson has resigned amid controversy over a social media post suggesting violence posted hours after the deadly shooting at a Nashville school on Monday.

The Governor’s Office confirmed Wednesday that Press Secretary Josselyn Berry resigned from her job and Hobbs accepted the resignation.

Any apology I wonder?

The controversial tweet included a clip from the 1980 movie “Gloria,” featuring actress Gena Rowlands with a handgun in each hand pacing forward a few steps. “Us when we see transphobes,” Berry wrote in the post sharing the image.

Berry posted earlier in the day Monday about transgender rights and progressive politics, saying if you “work in the progressive community and are transphobic, you’re not progressive.” It is unclear what she was referring to.

And of course as always it’s unclear what she means by “transphobic.” It’s not “phobic” to think people can’t change sex.

The AP put out a fake news warning.

CLAIM: A photo of a person holding a sign featuring pink, blue and white guns and the words “trans rights… or else” shows the shooter who killed six people at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The person who took this photograph confirmed it was captured in Oklahoma City before news of the Nashville shooting was widespread. It does not show the shooter.

THE FACTS: The photo circulated widely online after the police chief identified the shooter as transgender in a late afternoon news conference on Monday. Police had previously identified the shooter as female.

“This is the trans shooter, Audrey Hale,” read one tweet shared thousands of times. “The Feds are in the middle of trying to scrub ALL of her social media & pictures from the internet.”

The tweet claimed the shooter was a “terrorist” who wanted to kill Christians, “as the sign makes clear.”

However, the person holding the sign in the image is not the shooter who opened fire at The Covenant School, killing three students and three adults.

So. Not a photo of the shooter. But. Is a photo of someone threatening mass shooting.

Oli has images of the shirt.

Now that’s what I call a grift.

Guy puts on a dress, gets $26,000.

Good move.

The government is planning on banning a cosmetic surgery called hymenoplasty across the UK.

It attempts to recreate a woman’s hymen, which in some cultures is linked to virginity, and has been described as a form of honour-based abuse. The procedure will be criminalised, as will virginity testing.

…

Hymenoplasty is available in clinics and can cost up to £3,000. The procedure recreates a thin membrane known as the hymen which partially covers the entrance to the vagina. It is often done as a way to “repair” a hymen.

Because without that there hymen all you’ve got is a slut.

A woman’s hymen can tear for all sorts of reasons and not just through sexual intercourse, for instance through playing sports or using tampons.

The practice of hymenoplasty is linked to conservative cultures which place a high value on virginity, with the expectation a virgin should bleed after sex on her wedding night. The WHO says virginity testing is practised in at least 20 countries. It involves an intrusive vaginal examination to check if the hymen is intact.

It’s not virginity per se, it’s female virginity. Nobody cares about male virginity – in fact for males it’s shameful to be a virgin. This is because children are women’s fault.

Aleena, whose name we have changed, said she was raped and then, as a teenager, faced years of pressure from her family to get the procedure.

Some “family.”

Another cleanup on aisle 10.

Several Agatha Christie novels have been edited to remove potentially offensive language, including insults and references to ethnicity.

Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries written between 1920 and 1976 have had passages reworked or removed in new editions published by HarperCollins to strip them of language and descriptions that modern audiences find offensive, especially those involving the characters Christie’s protagonists encounter outside the UK.

To be honest this doesn’t really outrage me all that much. Agatha Christie wasn’t a giant of literature, she was a popular mystery writer.

The updates follow edits made to books by Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming to remove offensive references to gender and race in a bid to preserve their relevance to modern readers.

Or, a bid to make it possible to read their books without flinching. Dahl is far more of a literary writer than Christie or Fleming, and I do think that makes a difference. I think I can explain why, too: Christie and Fleming are telling stories; the language is just the medium. Literary writers care about the language as well as the stories.

Among the examples of changes cited by the Telegraph is the 1937 Poirot novel Death on the Nile, in which the character of Mrs Allerton complains that a group of children are pestering her, saying that “they come back and stare, and stare, and their eyes are simply disgusting, and so are their noses, and I don’t believe I really like children”.

This has been stripped down in a new edition to state: “They come back and stare, and stare. And I don’t believe I really like children.”

But what if the racist language is there to tell us something about Mrs Allerton?

H/t Nullius in Verba

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on More than viz.

I get the feeling that those organizing and supporting this aren’t going to be satisfied with “vengeance” that is purely rhetorical. Unlike the “violence” of “misgendering” and “deadnaming” that they’re always decrying, the vengeance they’ll be looking for isn’t going to be limited to saying mean things. Trans activists have threatened and used physical violence for years. It’s always been there. It’s always been in one direction. Against women. Claims of “trans genocide” are just another tool of escalation and justification, the hyperbolic paranoia and explicit emotional blackmail allowing them to excuse whatever they do as “self defence.” If your opponents are Nazis, you get to do what you like. Pour soup on a Nazi? Great! Hilarious! Punch a Nazi? Go right ahead! Nazis are bad! Kill a Nazi ? She’s a NAZI! Why not? She gets what she destrves. Once you’ve successfully dehumanized your opponents, you’ve removed them from your society’s circle of concern, and few will come to their defence. And some will help you do your dirty work, and be proud to do so.

One of the online graphics I’ve seen in conjunction with posts about this event says TRANS RIGHTS OR ELSE, with a black ground sporting silhouettes of assault rifles in the colours of the trans flag. This is a definite threat, and represents a distinct escalation from pink and baby blue baseball bats. Someone with a baseball bat can only attack one person at a time, and they have to be very close to do so. Assault rifles are weapons of mass murder from a distance.

Trans activists are priming the pump. The combination of suicidal ideation and imminent genocide that they’ve been feeding their audience is vicious enough to start with; add in a call for the extraction of “vengeance” by a fearful population with a high proportion of psychological comorbidities that has ready access to firearms of all kinds, and you’ve got a recipe for inevitable disaster. If this isn’t an example of stochastic terrorism, I don’t know what is.

And who will be the prime targets for this vengeance? At whom is this angry, frightened, delusional, armed mob being aimed?

Women.

Women have always been the scapegoats, the enemies, the targets. Why on Earth would trans activists change their tune now? By defending their rights, women stand in the way of what some men want. Never mind that there is no chain of logic linking the writings of gender-critical feminists with male violence against trans identified males. It’s the TERFs’ fault. They wish harm to trans people. Always. “Exclusion” is harm. Always.

But women aren’t the logical target, they’re the easy target. Most have been socialized to put the needs and feelings of others before themselves. I think some of the rage and fury we see trans identified males (and their allies) exhibit is the result of miscalculation; believing that women will always be nice and give way, they are unprepared when any woman stands firm to defend her rights and the rights of all women. They are the nails that refuse to be hammered down. The solution? Hammer them harder.

With this “Day of Trans Vengeance” women who say no will face heightened risks for defending their rights. That they’ve been painted as TERFs, and bigots, and Nazis will make it that much harder for them to do so. They’re up against more than just the trans activists, too. The ground has been prepared for righteous trans violence for some time, by both unwitting and very knowing enablers. It’s been a steady drip, drip, drip (sometimes a whole fucking tsunami) of lies and distortions, all of which erode women’s rights, and their ability to articulate and argue for them. Women’s facts and arguments are all ignored; trans activists’ lack of arguments are papered over. But who needs facts and evidence, especially when they’re all against you? “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” Trans activists have had lots of allies fighting for them, and against women, on multiple fronts. Every thoughtless repitition of the unevidenced onslaught of anti-trans violence and murder. Every story claiming outright, blanket “bans” on health care for trans identified people, of “bans” on trans identified athletes in sport have helped genderists make it look like it’s Germany in 1932. Every refusal to spell out what women are fighting for rather than imputing bad faith and anti-trans prejudice. Every claim of “transphobia” against feminists trying to protect women’s boundaries. Every acceptance as unquestioned fact of the groundless, malicious accusations of “transphobic” hatred and bigotry against women like JK Rowling and Kelly-Jay Keen. Drip, drip, drip, until we’re neck deep in bullshit and misinformation, afraid to speak the truth.

With this latest ratcheting of rhetoric, it will be a miracle if no women are injured or killed as a result of this call for “vengeance.” And if there are any women who fall, there will be excuses and rationalizations. The violence will be condemned, but there will be a “but.” And that “but” will consist of how the victims were really to blame because they were wicked, would not bow down, would not submit, and said “No.”

Meanwhile this guy also hasn’t been arrested.

Word is he succeeded in fracturing her skull.

Many people who were there say the police were absent. Normal procedure would be to have a buffer zone between the protesters and the counter-protesters, with physical barriers as well as cops. None of that was present in Auckland. The cops basically told the trans two thousand “go right ahead.”

Originally a comment by John Wasson on Plastics.

The ubiquity of plastics is incredible.

Mary Jo DiLonardo “Microplastics Found Near the Top of Mount Everest” November 20, 2020

Rowan Jacobsen, “An Ocean Plastics Field Trip for Corporate Executives”, Outside August 8, 2019

There may be some progress replacing ‘plastic’ made from fossil.

Clare Watson “Scientists Created a New Recyclable Plastic Not Made From Crude Oil” 29 March 2023

Allison Christy and Scott Phillips describe making a new type of plastic based on poly(ethyl cyanoacrylate) or PECA, which is prepared from the monomer used to make Super Glue.

Small-scale lab experiments replicating industrial processes suggest roughly 93 percent of the new plastic could be recycled into clean starter materials – even when the plastic is mixed in with other unprocessed plastic waste, paper, and aluminum.

Alice Klein “New type of plastic may be infinitely recyclable”

Eugene Chan et al (Colorado State U) PBTL from bicyclic tholactones has excellent strength, toughness and stability to make packaging, sports equipment, car parts, construction materials. Recycled (on its own after separation from other plastics) by heating to 100 C in presence of catalyst for 24 hours breaks into original building blocks. (Science Avances, doi.org/d845)

New Scientist Aug. 29 2020 p. 20

On the other hand,

Sami Grover “Undercover Tape: How Exxon Is Lobbying to Make Plastics the Norm” August 13, 2021

Exxon is working hard to promote plastics recycling as a strategy to divert attention away from bans and regulations.

The polymer industry in the U.S. is pretty much integrated with the petrochemical industry.

Lloyd Alter “Fossil Fuel Companies Are Fueling a Global Plastics Binge; What Will We Do With It All? ” Updated October 11, 2018

Fossil fuel companies are building hundreds of new “cracking” facilities to make 40 percent more plastic.

And remember the classic lines in “The Graduate”

Amanda Marcotte points out how mass shootings are commercials for Trump:

[Republicans] are, after all, a party still completely in the thrall of Trump, whose main campaign message is that America is a hellscape beyond redemption, and that the only viable response is about “retribution.” Last Saturday, his “burn it all down” message assumed a new metaphorical meaning, as he held a rally in Waco, Texas, on the 30th anniversary of the FBI’s standoff with a group of doomsday cultists who ultimately chose to die by fire rather than surrender their illegal weapons. Trump’s speech was a cut-rate version of the apocalyptic ravings of Waco cult leader David Koresh, full of talk of how the country is “failing,” our society has “collapsed” and the upcoming presidential election is its “final battle.” The trappings of the rally, which opened with a video montage of the Jan. 6 insurrection, only enhanced the Armageddon messaging. 

Armageddon! Apocalypse! Trump or The End!

Mass shootings, which are both legitimately terrifying and attention-grabbing, are a boon to a party that thrives on fear and anguish. Unlike most of the terror porn churned out by right-wing media, the horror of Monday’s shooting in Nashville was all too real: The shooter blowing out windows and stalking hallways. The fleeing children. The weeping parents. The cops rushing the building to take the killer out. Unlike antifa riots or the fictional fires burning down American cities, that actually happened. 

It’s no wonder the immediate Republican response to mass shootings is to fight like hell to block anyone who tries to slow down the mayhem. This isn’t not just about the political power of the NRA anymore — the gun lobby has lost much of its financial clout. But Republicans believe that mass anxiety benefits them, so anything that keeps the public on edge is a political win. Most of the time, they have to make up the threats to scare people. Not with mass shootings, though, which are real and occur day after day, week after week in America. 

I wish I could think she’s wrong.

The police are very politely begging Eli Rubashkyn to turn himself in for a friendly chat, because they just really really don’t want to arrest him.

Police are investigating “alleged offending” at an anti-transgender event in Auckland over the weekend, after supporters and counter protesters clashed.

Of course, as always, “an anti-transgender event” is inaccurate and highly inflammatory.

Thousands gathered at the Albert Park rotunda on Saturday to protest British activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s Let Women Speak event.

That’s much more accurate. Thousands gathered to scream DO NOT LET WOMEN SPEAK.

About 150-200 people turned out in support of Keen-Minshull, who goes by Posie Parker, but they were drowned out by close to 2000 people rallying in support of trans rights.

Inaccurate again. Close to 2000 people rallied in support of trans takeover and dominance and silencing of women.

So then, they grudgingly admit, someone threw tomato juice on Keen-Minshull.

Counter protestor, Eli Rubashkyn, said she’s been told by police that it’s likely they will apply for a warrant to arrest them on Wednesday.

The reporter got lost in the pronouns there – Rubashkyn is both she and them. Funny how StuffNZ call Rubashkyn “counter protester” as opposed to attacker or assaulter or misogynist bully. But don’t worry, it gets worse.

Rubashkyn said she has been receiving “constant” death threats following the protest and calls for her deportation.

That is, receiving “constant” death threats and calls for deportation.

Police asked Rubashkyn to contact them about “fronting the matter”.

Asked. Not told, but asked – as if it were a favor. He assaulted a woman on camera and has been bragging about it ever since, and they asked him to drop by for a talk.

“The situation is likely to escalate unnecessarily if you become the subject of an arrest warrant,” a communication to her said.

In another message, police said: “This matter needs to be dealt with soon to remain low key. If we don’t get any traction, police may have no option but to issue a warrant for your arrest.”

And that would never do. He must be treated with the utmost courtesy and affection, because he is MOST OPPRESSED.

“We don’t need to make this a big deal, we just need to get it done. Please reach out to me.”

We don’t need to make this a big deal. It was just some bitch you threw tomato juice on, it’s no biggy, all we want to do is have a conversation so that we can tell the public you did nothing wrong.

In a statement, police said they made “several attempts” on Tuesday and Wednesday “to locate a person of interest in relation to a publicised assault at Albert Park on Saturday.

“That person is aware that police would like to locate and talk to them about the incident, and ask them to come forward so the matter can be dealt with appropriately.

“There is currently no warrant to arrest this person.”

WHY NOT????

H/t Rob

Republican-run Southern states reject federal funding for hospitals. That’s nice for the non-rich people who live there.

Since its opening in a converted wood-frame mansion 117 years ago, Greenwood Leflore Hospital had become a medical hub for this part of Mississippi’s fertile but impoverished Delta, with 208 beds, an intensive-care unit, a string of walk-in clinics and a modern brick-and-glass building.

The Delta was where slavery was at its worst. It’s where Parchman is. It’s where Emmett Till was tortured to death. It’s where Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered. Fertile for cotton but horrible for the people forced to work in the fields.

But on a recent weekday, it counted just 13 inpatients clustered in a single ward. The I.C.U. and maternity ward were closed for lack of staffing and the rest of the building was eerily silent, all signs of a hospital savaged by too many poor patients.

It’s nearly out of money; it’s going to close.

Rural hospitals are struggling all over the nation because of population declines, soaring labor costs and a long-term shift toward outpatient care. But those problems have been magnified by a political choice in Mississippi and nine other states, all with Republican-controlled legislatures.

They have spurned the federal government’s offer to shoulder almost all the cost of expanding Medicaid coverage for the poor. And that has heaped added costs on hospitals because they cannot legally turn away patients, insured or not.

Republican legislatures don’t want to let poor people have Medicaid. They want them to go without it.

Opponents of expansion, who have prevailed in Texas, Florida and much of the Southeast, typically say they want to keep government spending in check.

They want to let poor people die.

Who will mow their lawns and scrub their toilets then is a puzzle, but Republicans stand on principle, the principle of making sure people stay mired in poverty.

In Mississippi, one of the nation’s poorest states, the missing federal health care dollars have helped drive what is now a full-blown hospital crisis. Statewide, experts say that no more than a few of Mississippi’s 100-plus hospitals are operating at a profit. Free care is costing them about $600 million a year, the equivalent of 8 percent to 10 percent of their operating costs — a higher share than almost anywhere else in the nation, according to the state hospital association.

Expanding Medicaid would uncork a spigot of about $1.35 billion a year in federal funds to hospitals and health care providers, according to a 2021 report by the office of the state economist.

Yebbut they’d have to spend it on poor people.

And it would guarantee medical coverage to some 100,000 uninsured adults making less than $20,120 a year in a state whose death rates are at or near the nation’s highest for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, kidney disease and pneumonia. Infant mortality is also sky-high, and the Delta has the nation’s highest rate of foot and leg amputations because of diabetes or hypertension.

Health officials blame those numbers in part on the high rate of uninsured residents who miss out on preventive care.

So it’s their own fault then.

Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, and key G.O.P. state lawmakers argue that a bigger Mississippi program is not in taxpayers’ best interest. The governor says the state’s $3.9 billion surplus would be best used to help eliminate Mississippi’s income tax.

“Don’t simply cave under the pressure of Democrats and their allies in the media who are pushing for the expansion of Obamacare, welfare and socialized medicine,” Mr. Reeves said in his annual State of the State address in January.

Ugh god, that’s enough. I’m so sick of this heartless crap.