Dear President Trump,

The WP ran an article this morning by Katie Shepherd about the abortion bans some states have imposed. It contains information about specific states that I wasn’t able to glean from my far less professional journalistic efforts and I want to set the record straight. First, yesterday evening the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Texas’s ban on medical abortions but upheld the ban on surgical abortions. Also yesterday, the 10^th Circuit Court stayed Oklahoma’s abortion ban while last week the 6^th Circuit Court stayed Ohio’s ban. So there’s some better news on this front than I thought last night. However, I also learned that Mississippi has a covid-19 abortion ban in place so women across that state as well as Alabama, Louisiana, and Iowa are without access to the right to choose what is best for themselves and their families with regard to their reproductive health. Chillingly, those who live in those states and who are being forcibly impregnated are in especially horrid straits.

I promise I will get to something positive by the end of this letter, but I have to comment on what I saw during the clip of Paula Reid (CBS) attempting to engage you yesterday on the lost month of February. She was basically subjected to some of the rudest, most boorish behavior we’ve seen from you yet. Yes, you’ve been awful to other reporters with your disparaging remarks and nasty asides, but oh my goodness it was horrifying to see the POTUS being an absolute fucking jerk on live TV. I started to say that you were acting like a fucking jerk but that would be far too generous – you were simply being a fucking jerk, no “acting like” about it.

I didn’t see clips from the beginning (I may make myself find them later) when you “invited” Dr. Fauci to the podium so he could go through the motions of walking back his Sunday comments about missed opportunities that have likely (definitely) resulted in more infections and deaths. I really don’t want to have to watch him go through that, but I think I need to see it so I can get the tone and have a look at your expressions and so I can aim some strong lovingkindness his way. You see, I believe that he believes he is taking all this shit from you for the team. I think it’s more important to him to stay close in to the center of power regarding public health decision-making in service of the greater good than it is to flip you the bird and say something like “good luck with your pandemic, asshole” no matter how much he might want to do that.

Ok, I promised a positive before signing off and here it is: yesterday evening Laura asked if I’d seen the note a bus driver posted at the bus stop up the street thanking whoever planted the daffodils and tulips along the fence by the stop. I hadn’t because there’s always been a smoking man (it really does seem like cigarette smoke is pouring off of him) waiting for the bus and I’ve stayed well away from him and thus hadn’t seen the note. Knowing that he’s usually out there at the beginning of my walk, I decided to approach the bus stop on the way home and it worked – smoking man wasn’t there and I was able to get a good look at the note. Someone named Lynn wrote it informing the reader that she is a “permanent float” driver who occasionally covers the route and that she is so appreciative to the flower planter that she drove down from Lynnwood (which is quite a ways away) on her day off to attach the note to the fence with plastic zip ties. It’s pretty much the sweetest thing ever and Lynn from Lynnwood is a dear.

May we be safe take in the sweet stuff too.
May we be happy and content bringing happiness and contentment to others.
May we be healthy and strong in the face of the not sweet, toxic stuff.
May we not make peace with the erosion of our rights.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson