Let it not go unsaid that if we lose John Oliver we’ll lose one of the best sources of investigative journalism that we have left.

I ask you to act with courage. Protect health care. Protect food access. Protect the lives of disabled and transgender people who depend on these programs. Anything less is complicity.

The power lies in your hands to stop this cycle of destruction.

You cannot claim to protect vulnerable Americans while simultaneously dismantling the programs that keep us alive.

This is not about fiscal responsibility. It is about whether you will allow fearmongering and discrimination to dictate the federal budget.

Now, while local clinics like Seattle Children’s and Mary Bridge shut down gender-affirming services under political pressure, you are threatening to cut deeper. fearmongering and discrimination to dictate the federal budget.

I write to you with urgency as a disabled trans elder. Medicare and Medicaid are my lifeline, and I am terrified of what Congress is preparing to do with them in the appropriations bill.

We already saw cuts to Medicaid and EBT when Build Back Better was gutted.