Friday’s official announcement from SCOTUS triggered protests, riots and some scattered incidents of violence. Millions of liberal women and men are enraged; millions of conservative women and men are celebrating. The issue of abortion has divided our nation for 50 years. This battle now moves to the various states and Election 2022.
The director of the Archdiocese of Miami’s Respect Life office said that the organization will not be intimidated by the attack after abortion extremists left threatening graffiti at a Catholic archdiocesan office.
“This threat is similar to those received by numerous pregnancy help centers around the country in the wake of the national news regarding the Dobbs case before the Supreme Court, and the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade,” said Rebecca Brady, the director of the archdiocese’s Respect Life ministry.
Jane’s Revenge has claimed responsibility for 16 acts of vandalism and violence so far, including throwing firebombs into an empty pregnancy center in Buffalo, N.Y., last week. “We have demonstrated in the past month how easy and fun it is to attack,” the group’s latest statement read, adding that, in the future, “those measures may not come in the form of something so easily cleaned up as fire and graffiti.”
USAToday featured Olivia Rodrigo, Lily Allen, Billie Eilish and other singers who took the stage in Glastonbury Festival in England to protest the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. Rodrigo told the thousands watching she is “devastated and terrified.”
Rita Moreno claims she is “frightened” over the SCOTUS ruling and recalls her abortion. “So many women and so many girls are going to die because of this,” she warned.
“This song goes out to the justices: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh. We hate you!”
Olivia Rodrigo
Introducing her next song, Rodrigo said, “This song goes out to the justices: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh. We hate you!”
Phoebe Bridgers led an explicit chant against the “irrelevant” Supreme Court Friday for “telling us what to do with our fucking bodies.”
Rise of Social Conservatives
I was an excellent and top-rated employee at Hawaiian Electric in 2019. My skills and character were a perfect fit for the company’s IT department. They had an extremely talented and professional group. I was the final piece the team needed for a vital mission to upgrade, support and secure the IT backbone across O’ahu, Maui and Big Island.
YOU have been a great asset to our team and it is your personality and humble nature that makes all of us so comfortable working together. We have had contractors on the DBA team before, but never with the synergy and positive energy that you bring with you. I believe you have had the greatest influence in our success and glad that we selected the right contractor. You have definitely made your mark here at HECO and have set the bar very high for future contractors!
Thank you for being you…keep doing what you do…keep that good karma flowing!
Lori Yafuso, IT Department Manager
In January, a permanent position opened. My IT department manager, Lori Yafuso, and teammates urged me to apply. The group had spent some two years searching for the “right” professional. I was the one, they told me.
Overjoyed and delighted I was. For years I had also been searching for an excellent and talented team that needed my skills. The group had adopted me into their hanai family. We had respect for each other. Most importantly, we had love and aloha for each other.
I successfully completed all the steps in the hurried application process. We were busy. The paperwork was done as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, someone forgot to provide me with the company’s internal policy information. This mattered, as I was a legal medical cannabis patient due to injuries and disability.
Hawaiian Electric CEO & President Constance Hee Lau’s policy seemed clear. To be sure, I asked my assigned HR Rep Elizabeth “Liz” Dear on February 14, 2019 if my medication would cause any issues with corporate policy. She told me I would “be fine.”
Ms. Dear did not warn me the company had a prohibition on my medication; she did not instruct me to speak with anyone else. I believed I would be fine.
HR informed me I had been officially selected for the position on February 20, 2019. Our family celebrated the good news; my manager and teammates applauded me. It was an epic day for all us us.
HR directed me to come to work Monday, February 25, 2019, as a permanent employee of Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc. (HECO). I wore with pride my HECO shirt on Friday to celebrate my final day as a contract employee. My coworkers hosted a small celebration for me.
Happy Aloha Friday!
What a weekend our family had. My spirit soared to the top of Mauna Kea. I couldn’t remember ever being this happy. My dream had come true.
Didn’t sleep well Sunday night — was so excited to start my new role at HECO. Seemed a lifetime of career ups and downs brought me to this blessed opportunity.
I was up bright and early Monday morning. My injuries didn’t seem to hurt; and although suffering a mobility disability, it felt like I bounced with a bit more energy at each step. What a fantastic day it was going to be!
Just before lunch, I received a call from HR director Shana Buco. As I anticipated the call would concern completing new employee processing, I was delighted to hear from her, “Aloha Shana!”
Shana FIRED me! She told me my legal medical cannabis prescription violated corporate policy. She told me I was banned from working for the company; that I could not reapply for the position; that could no longer work as a contract employee; and that I needed to immediately exit the building and not return.
Shana told me I presented a danger to coworkers, the company and general public. Quelle horreur !!!
My Body Not My Choice in Hawai’i
Women around the nation are furious today. “My body; my choice,” they chant. Ladies, now you understand how I feel. Enraged are you? Yes, I am enraged … more than simply angry, I was suicidal. I stood perched on the ledge of my 25th floor apartment.
How could I go on living? The termination was career ending. How could I face my family and friends? I had shamed them all.
My grief overwhelmed me. I loved my teammates and work. It wasn’t simply a job … my work defined me. My work gave me purpose and raison d’être.
My coworkers were also family. They were my ‘ohana and all I had on this tiny island. I fell into deep, ugly and desperate depression. Loneliness, isolation and frustration engulfed me.
Darkness inundated me. Horrible thoughts pierced my soul and deluged me with hatred and rage. The company refused to speak with me, “Go Away!!! You are a drug criminal,” was their message.
It’s my body, but not my choice for me. Doctors had suggested powerful opioid medications. I have background in public health and am uniquely trained by the CDC and University of New Mexico School of Medicine to avoid opioids.
I’m certified to assist patients and individuals to find safer alternatives to opioid medications, as well as counsel those who suffer addiction or rescue those who overdose.
Recent CDC data documents the estimated overdose deaths from opioids increased to 75,673 human beings in the 12-month period ending in April 2021, up from 56,064 the year before.
Why would anyone use opioids? At Hawaiian Electric, under CEO Lau, I would not have been fired had I used opioid medication rather than cannabis. My body, but not my choice!
Social conservative women at Hawaiian Electric took my job; they denied my LEGAL right to use medical cannabis, which is more safe and less addictive than opioids. My body; not my choice!
Women are angry today. I’ve been angry since the termination. Hawaiian Electric still punishes me for being frustrated, hurt, embarrassed, humiliated and suicidal. It appears they have urged lawyers not to assist me and employers not to hire me.
Hawaiian Electric has blackballed me for speaking out politically for social change. They condemn me for writing:
How Does It Feel to be SO WRONG and CRUEL? This is a Democratic-state. YOU FIRED ME for using legal medical cannabis — refusing to test for intoxication — pushing us toward opioids. Criminal!!!
The company claims I was threatening for criticizing their attorneys after they forced me to stop use of my medication “cold turkey” and then cut off attempts to negotiate a resolution to this emotional and physical pain:
You chose not to be civil and professional with me. You drew First Blood. I’m just a simple peasant who loved his job, manager and team. You could have negotiated with me or us. You thought you could silence me. l’m just warming up. I have an army of over 25,000+ patients on medical cannabis in the 808 that you ban from working at HEI.
Shame on you! You don’t even know the difference between THC-COOH and Delta 9 THC. Not wise to bring a coco puff to to a gun fight.
Women demanding abortion call to burn this nation to the ground. They threaten violence with their graffiti. One man was arrested on his way to kill a SCOTUS justice. Abortion is an emotional issue, and social conservatives claim over 70 MILLION developing babies have been murdered since Roe in 1973.
However, for working politically to secure the rights of the currently 35,000+ disabled, injured and sick patients in Hawai’i to have the choice to use a less addictive and more safe medication, I have been ostracized and shunned. Medical cannabis, like abortion, is an emotional issue — and one which has also steeped our nation in controversy for some 50 years.
My body, but not my choice in Hawai’i
Veterans DIE Because of Hawaiian Electric Policy
While Rita Moreno claims “so many women and so many girls are going to die because of this,” Hawaii’s U.S. Senator Brian Schatz warned the nation years ago that Veterans are dying because they cannot get access to medical cannabis.
The senator’s bill, officially called the Veterans Medical Marijuana Safe Harbor Act, creates a temporary five-year window for veterans to use medical cannabis. It also would direct the VA to research how medical cannabis impacts veterans trying to manage chronic pain and if it could help reduce opioid abuse.
The U.S. Congress fails to act. Veterans are dying. Women do not fight for Veterans. They did not stand up to social conservatives, although some 90% of Americans support medical cannabis.
A May 2022 NPR poll showed two-thirds of Americans opposed overturning Roe v. Wade. Women failed to care for others; now they lose to social conservatives as well.
And that’s the real problem in America. We are individual and self-interested. By not caring for each other and refusing to work together on progressive issues, more citizens have lost rights that are important to them.
I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our sisters is that they take their feet off our necks.
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Ko’olau of Kaua’i. I am the Defiant One
“I Believe We Can”
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