Author Archives: cleek

Fascism

Boston Children’s Hospital has warned employees about mounting threats and is coordinating with law enforcement after far-right activists on social media began targeting the hospital with false claims about its treatment of young transgender people.

It’s the most recent in a series of attempts to target hospitals for their work with trans youth, adding to an ongoing wave of anti-LGBTQ sentiment that has hit libraries, schools and even a trans-inclusive Los Angeles spa.

The public relations office of Boston Children’s Hospital sent an email to employees with guidance on how to respond to harassment and threats earlier this week, citing an “increase of threatening and aggressive” phone calls and emails sent to the hospital commenting on treatment of transgender patients.” The email was confirmed to NBC News by a current employee.

Boston Children’s Hospital first became the target of activists in recent weeks, when well-followed social media accounts such as LibsofTikTok, which has often promoted “groomer” discourse that falsely linked LGBTQ teachers and parents to pedophilia, began to make a variety of false claims. One allegation said that the hospital offered gender-affirming hysterectomies to children under 18 years old.

Conservative influencers with millions of followers pushed similar false talking points and fanned the flames further. David J Harris, a podcaster and supplement seller, and single-issue activists including Chris Elston, who goes by “Billboard Chris” for the anti-trans statements he wears on sandwich boards, are among the right-wing social media stars who have spread the allegations online.

Last week, fact-checking organizations debunked the claims from right-wing accounts, but many of the same accounts continued to spread the false allegations this week.

But wait... it gets worse!

“Long past time to start executing these ‘doctors,’” a member of a pro-Trump message board formerly known as TheDonald, wrote under a copy of a video featuring a doctor from the hospital. This message board is the same one whose members last week doxed and made violent threats against the judge who signed the search warrant that allowed the FBI to search the home of former President Donald Trump.

The Secrets That You Keep

If Trump took nuclear docs to share with, ex, the Saudis, he would certainly have needed help inside the WH to find the docs that would be of interest to them. Because, Trump himself certainly doesn't know the technology, so he wouldn't know which info the Saudis would want. And he probably wouldn't know where to find such documents in the first place. He would have needed a technical expert with some knowledge of how the government stores classified info in order to get the good stuff. Taking everything would be an option, but that's probably hundreds of boxes of stuff.

But still, that first "If" is important.

Doc-u-drama

Here's the most generous take I can come up with:

One of the myths in Republicanism is that Obama ran off to Chicago with millions upon millions of documents. And it's true, he did! He absolutely did. That probably made Trump think he could and should do the same, and that the National Archives and DOJ were just being partisan when they told him to give the documents back.

What Trump is missing, because the Republican myth ignores this, is that all of those Obama documents were cleared by the National Archive, to go to the Obama Presidential library, where they are still maintained by the National Archive. And that's standard procedure. Trump didn't get the documents cleared, and he has no Presidential library. He just grabbed a bunch of documents and took off. And he thinks that fine because he doesn't live in reality; he lives in the Republican mythology, where the tales say Democrats get away with everything, so he should feel free to be just as lawless.

Updated:
A President can't actually unilaterally declassify nuclear secrets anyway. They always have to go through DoE, first.