Monday Morning Read

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I cringed while watching the Bills game a week ago Sunday after Jets quarterback Mike White was returned to the game after suffering an injury that sent him to the hospital that night and is keeping him sidelined this week. It was the latest example of the NFL treating its players like disposable commodities. Other examples this season include the concussion fiasco involving Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and the Bills and Dolphins playing in a brutal heat and humidity that sent many players to the sidelines with cramps. I could cite more examples, but you get the picture.

Then there’s the off-field shenanigans, the latest being the conclusion by Congressional investigators that Dan Snider, owner of the Washington franchise, is responsible for a toxic workplace for women that the NFL attempted to help him cover up.

Reported The New York Times:

The Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder, aided by N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell, suppressed evidence that Snyder and team executives sexually harassed women who worked at the team over two decades, according to the results of a yearlong inquiry by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

We’ve been told that one reason to build a new stadium for the Bills is because the NFL is such an exclusive club. It’s also an organization that tolerates — indeed, covers up -— for the likes of Dan Snider. One whose owners include men who patronize prostitutes (Robert Kraft) and keep people on their payroll who take up-skirt photos of their daughters (Jerry Jones). To say nothing of blackballing Colin Kaepernick while welcoming back serial sex abuser Deshaun Watson.

Some club.

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Ulysees Wingo, who represents the Masten District in the Common Council, persuaded his colleagues last month to approve a resolution to support the Buffalo school district adopting staggered starting times to alleviate transportation problems. Wingo said the move was supported by the Buffalo Teachers Federation. Problem was, it wasn’t. Council members should have been able to figure that out, as the BTF membership rejected the proposal in October.

Wingo, like the rest of his colleagues, is up for re-election next year. India Walton is said to be considering a run for Wingo’s seat. She carried the Masten District in last year’s mayor’s race.

Ken Kruly has packed a lot of information into his latest Politics and Other Stuff, including speculation that Stefan Mychajliw might be angling for the appointment to replace Joe Lorigo on the Erie County Legislature.

Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49. The Washington Post last week published Cartel Rx, a series that documented what went wrong.

On the labor front, the Poynter Institute writes about the growing willingness of journalists to strike, and a local TV station in Pittsburgh reports on the co-owner of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette trying to shoo away a labor organizer by whacking him with a bag of hamburgers. Meanwhile, the publisher of The Washington Post managed to make a bad situation worse by refusing to answer questions from his staff after announcing layoffs.

Elon Musk banned Twitter journalists whose work angered him, then had second thoughts in the face of blowback. Prior to that, comedian Dave Chappelle tried to do Musk a favor by inviting him on stage during one of his performances. Fans booed him off. Also of note, a story in The Atlantic that proclaimed Musk a ”right wing activist.”

Two polls last week, published by USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, found that Republican voters prefer Ron DeSantis over Donald Trump. Lest you find comfort in this, consider what the Florida governor is saying and doing.  He’s an even darker version of Trump, without the crazy. Elsewhere, Politico wrote about a potential candidate who could provide GOP voters an alternative.

The New York Times published a special section Sunday detailed what a mess the Russian military is and why Putin’s army has struggled against Ukraine troops.

ProPublica published an investigation into Zero Units — Afghans trained, equipped and sometimes joined by American soldiers — who terrorized and killed civilians.

Cubans are fleeing their homeland in record numbers. More than “the 1980 Mariel boat lift and the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis combined,” reports The New York Times.

The post Monday Morning Read appeared first on Investigative Post.

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A pair of extreme new Trump administration rules aimed at functionally banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth could force even more hospitals to close down.

NPR reported Thursday that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) drafted a proposed rule that would prohibit federal Medicaid reimbursement for medical care provided to transgender patients younger than 18 and prohibit the same from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for patients under 19.

Another proposed rule goes even further, blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to youth.

As Erin Reed, an independent journalist who reports on LGBTQ+ rights, explained, this “would effectively eliminate access to such care nationwide, except at the few private clinics able to forgo Medicaid entirely, a rarity in transgender youth medicine.”

The policies are of a piece with the Trump administration and the broader Republican Party’s efforts to eliminate transgender healthcare for youth across the country.

Bans on gender-affirming care for those under 18 have already been passed in 27 states, despite evidence that early access to treatments like puberty blockers and hormones can save lives.

As Reed pointed out, a Cornell University review of more than 51 studies shows that access to such care dramatically reduces the risk of suicide and the rates of anxiety and depression among transgender adolescents.

The new HHS rules are being prepared for public release in November and would not be finalized for several more months.

But if passed, the ramifications could extend far beyond transgender people, impacting the entire healthcare system, for which federal funding from Medicare and Medicaid is a load-bearing piece. According to a report last year from the American Hospital Association, 96% of hospitals in the US have more than half their inpatient days paid for by Medicare and Medicaid.

It is already becoming apparent what happens when even some of that funding is taken away. As a result of the massive GOP budget law passed in July, an estimated $1 trillion is expected to be cut from Medicaid over the next decade. According to an analysis released Thursday by Protect Our Care, which maintains a Hospital Crisis Watch database, more than 500 healthcare providers across the country are already at risk of shutting down due to the budget cuts.

Tyler Hack, the executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a transgender rights organization, said that the newly proposed HHS rule would be “forcing hospitals to choose between providing lifesaving care for trans people or maintaining the ability to serve patients through Medicare and Medicaid.”

“Today’s news marks a dangerous overreach by the executive branch, pitting trans people, low-income families, disabled people, and seniors against each other and making hospitals choose which vulnerable populations to serve,” Hack said. “If these rules become law, it will kill people.”

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