The Trump Administration is now restricting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using words like "science-based" and "evidenced-based."

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget. 

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” 

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered. 

The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

Does your country feel any dumber yet? 

Well if not, just wait, it's about to.

The citizens in the Alaska community of Barrow have decided to return to their traditional roots and change the name of their town to something you will never be able to pronounce.

Courtesy of Yahoo: 

A slight majority of voters in the largely Inupiat city of Barrow approved efforts to change the community's name to Utqiagvik (oot-GHAR-vik) in their local election Oct. 4. The vote was tight, with 381 in favor of the name change and 375 against it. 

"Basically, it reinforces the cultural identity of the people," said Mayor Bob Harcharek, who is not Native. He noted that early day missionaries set up schools in the area where students were forbidden to speak in their native language and were punished if they did so. "It caused some social psychological problems." 

Barrow City Council member Qaiyaan Harcharek, the mayor's son, introduced a local ordinance in August that began the process ratified by voters. The younger Harcharek is Inupiat on his mother's side. 

"We are now in an era where the reclamation of tradition is critical to the perpetuation of identity as Iñupiat," he wrote in an email Friday to The Associated Press. "The people of Utqiagvik voted to regain our traditional name. Hopefully, it signifies the beginning of a decolonizing revolution. Regaining our traditional names is just one step towards that healing!"

As you can imagine this decision is not going over well with folks who run businesses with the name "Barrow" over the top, nor with many of the non-native residents.

However it is hard to blame the people of Utqiagvik for wanting to get back some of the heritage that was beaten out of them by the early missionaries.

As I have shared before what happened to the native children in Alaska was horrific and essentially constituted the wholesale destruction of an entire culture.

The children were torn from their families, and sometimes sent as far away as Arizona, to be "properly" educated in the ways the white man.

As a result many of the children returned to Alaska villages unable to speak the language, knowing nothing about how to survive in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, and stripped of any sense of self worth.

Alcoholism and drug use became an epidemic, and many of these villages still have no recovered.

So yeah, Utqiagvik (oot-GHAR-vik) is hard as hell to pronounce. But tough shit, learning to do so is really the very least we can do to show respect for a people who have managed to survive frigid temperatures, famine, pestilence, and of worst of all, the arrival of the Christians.

Bill Maher's New Rules from Friday night's show.

The entire segment is pretty good, but what Maher says about the importance of Democrats getting control of the language used in politics is a must see.

"What's the difference between drilling for oil and energy exploration? Nothing, except one sounds like something assholes do, and one sounds like Indiana Jones."

"What's the difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design? Not IQ points."

Stress of Fiscal Cliff negotiations reached climax days before deal as John Boehner tells Harry Reid to "Go f**k yourself."

Courtesy of Politico:

House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday. 

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal. 

“Go f— yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present. 

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?” 

Boehner repeated: “Go f— yourself.” 

The harsh exchange just a few steps from the Oval Office — which Boehner later bragged about to fellow Republicans — was only one episode in nearly two months of high-stakes negotiations laced with distrust, miscommunication, false starts and yelling matches as Washington struggled to ward off $500 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts.

I LOVER this kind of stuff because it demonstrates the kind of raw emotion that often drives these negotiations. By the way I would just like to point out that House Speaker Boehner said this to the Majority Leader only days before completely capitulating and handing the Senate everything they wanted.

But hey I guess it make Boehner feel all manly to curse at Reid right before he fell to his knees and gave in like a prison bitch.

By the way I found this great gif that to me eloquently sums up the Teabaggers attempts to derail or modify this bill.

Yep, that about sums it up all right. (Oh it can also be used to illustrate Sarah Palin's career path as well.)

The term "Liberal" no longer a dirty word. Yet another reason to be thankful for President Obama.

Courtesy of The Week:

A full 25 percent of voters in this month's election identified themselves as liberals, according to exit polls, a marked increase from 22 percent in 2008. (Conservative is still a more popular identifier, with 35 percent of voters claiming that label.) Still, the "L" word is more popular than it has been since 1976. Conservatives managed to turn "liberal" into an insult in the 1980s, and when Republican icon Ronald Reagan won re-election in 1984, only 17 percent of voters confessed to being liberal. Today that number has ballooned to 25 percent. Why are a growing percentage of Americans calling themselves liberal? Here, three theories: 

1. Obama made being liberal cool again President Obama has "talked about government in a way that many Democrats haven't in recent years," forcefully making the case for a more active role for public agencies in American life, says Aaron Blake at The Washington Post. Obama "may not call himself a liberal," but that's how people see his policies. "Thus, Obama supporters are less reticent to embrace that label." 

 2. Conservatives have been unfairly tarred It's not that Americans are suddenly gung-ho about liberal politics, says Gary Bauer at Human Events. Voters are still filled with "strong skepticism about whether Obama will be able to accomplish Americans' goals." The Obama campaign simply managed to drive people away from Mitt Romney with a relentless barrage of negative ads smearing him — and, by extension, conservative politics — as "uncaring and disconnected." 

3. America really is changing "Some of the fastest-growing demographics in the country happen to be the ones that are trending toward the 'liberal' label," says Blake at The Washington Post. That includes "non-religious people (rising from 18 percent liberal in 2004 to 24 percent today), college graduates (from 48 percent to 53 percent) and Hispanics (from 10 percent to 13 percent). Young people, of course, have always been pretty liberal; the label's increasing appeal to these groups means it is gaining steam."

I think that both reason one and reason three can be given credit for the surge in liberal pride. As for reason two? I call bullshit on that, as all that was done was to bring the things the conservatives were doing behind the scenes out of the shadows. So if ANYBODY can be blamed for damaging the conservative label, it was conservatives.

You know I am actually old enough to remember when the term "liberal" became a slur directed at people on the left. I also remember that many of our most visible representatives barely put up a fight. They quickly caved under the onslaught from the Right and stopped using the term to describe themselves, essentially surrendering their very identity to a group who, for all intents and purposes, were using the elementary playground tactics of name calling to shame their opponents into submission.

Personally I never succumbed to that, and have always referred to myself as a liberal. I will use the term progressive to describe my personal philosophy, but as a term of description Liberal always seemed to fit me the best.

And I am VERY pleased to see it return to a place of honor within our political conversations.