Hello Friday, folks! The weekend is here. If you need to do last-minute shopping for holiday events, make sure you wear a mask and wash your hands! The only time I ever hope that there is a hell is when I think about rich people like Sen. Joe Manchin whose self-absorbed cynicism is so grotesque that they are willing to allow children to slip into poverty to service their ego. Oh, and millionaire insider trader David Perdue is back.

To most of us, Kanye West’s short-lived presidential run was just one more sideshow to the existing circus surrounding everything former President Donald Trump touched in 2020.

West was largely dismissed, and some even felt that perhaps he was going through a mental health crisis and tried to simply look the other way at much of what he said and did, dismissing it as symptoms of an illness.

In a devastating development for thousands of children and parents who were forcibly separated and traumatized by the previous presidential administration, the Justice Department has ended settlement talks with families who have filed legal action against the federal government. The department claimed in a statement that while parties were “unable to reach a global settlement agreement at this time,” it was still open to future talks.

Calls for the resignation of a Massachusetts city council member continue after the discovery of an anti-Asian Halloween costume she once wore. Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) activists in Malden, Massachusetts, are urging Jadeane Sica to step down after a photo from 2019 resurfaced last month showing the woman wearing an Orchids of Asia T-shirt and a bamboo hat while holding a bottle of lotion, NBC News reported.

As Republicans continue to find fresh energy to push discriminatory anti-trans legislation, following the news can feel pretty frustrating and depressing. With that in mind, it’s important to celebrate every win we can. A recent example comes to us from the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri, where an openly trans former student was awarded more than $4 million in damages on sex discrimination charges, as reported by The Los Angeles Blade.

It’s Thursday. Guess who’s standing in the way of voting rights and the child tax credit? Yes, the same two duplicitous Democratic senators who have spent 2021 peddling GOP talking points. Republican officials have a plan for ending the pandemic: Do nothing and then attack trans children’s rights.