#amendment: I am US-American

[nimblermortal]

WOW watching Men in Black 3 in 2022 is a weird experience

Key note: The overt racism is a joke that will be revealed later

Second note: As of 2012, the time the movie was released, it was punishable by a hefty fine to honk your horn in New York City. (Or something like that, I’m not an NYC resident.) In 1969, this was not the case. There is a split-second joke for you in the movie if you know this.

It’s the third movie in a franchise it’s supposed to be god-awful? The trailer looked awful? It ought to be terrible but I think... it might be... the best one in the series? How is this happening? how is this happening to me in the year of our lord 2022, in a decade absolutely plagued by endless crappy franchise sequels?

Someone in the writers’ room was writing J and K as a couple. Obergefell wouldn’t be decided until 2015, but it is definitely there. Which makes the last couple of scenes real odd. Man if I had seen this in 2012 there would have been some fic; as it is I feel like someone hit me with a cricket bat.

[grunge-mermaid]

I THOUGHT LAW & ORDER TORONTO WAS A JOKE HOW IS THIS ACTUALLY A REAL SHOW????

[redgoldsparks]

I am not excited about Harris as a candidate, but I will be voting for her in this upcoming election. This is why→

(full transcript under the cut)

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

“Transgender ideology” to be classified as pornography & excluded from First Amendment protection. Authors who produce & distribute it threatened with prison. Educators & public librarians who share it classed as registered sex offenders. communications & technology firms that facilitate its spread shuttered. -Project 2025, page 5

Delete the terms sexual orientation, gender identity, diversity, equity, & inclusion, gender equality, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, out of every federal rule, contract, grant, regulation, & piece of legislation that exist. -Project 2025 page 5

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

Victimization should not be a basis for an immigration benefit. -Project 2025, page 141

Increase all fees for asylum applications, limit the availability of fee waivers. -Project 2025, page 146

Mandatory appropriation for border wall system infrastructure. -Project 2025, page 147

Deny loan access to those who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents & deny loan access to students at schools that provide in-state tuition to illegal aliens. -Project 2025, page 167

Ensure that only U.S. citizens & lawful permanent residents utilize or occupy federally subsidized housing. -Project 2025, page 167

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

Encourage intelligence agencies not to waste effort collecting surveillance data when they can buy it from private sector facial recognition companies. -Project 2025, page 206

Defund the Corporation for Public Broadcast, specifically NPR & PBS educational programs like Sesame Street. -Project 2025, pages 246-247

The USDA will not be able to place environmental issues ahead of agricultural production. Reconsider the Food Stamps program. -Project 2025, page 290

Labeling regulations that unnecessarily delay the manufacture & sale of baby formula should be re-evaluated. -Project 2025, page 302

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

Eliminate the Community Eligibility Program which allows school districts with high rates of poverty to offer meals to all students without having to qualify each student individually. No longer provide meals to students during the summer unless students are taking summer-school classes. -Project 2025, page 303

No public education employee shall use a pronoun in addressing a student that is different from that student’s biological sex without written permission of the parents or guardians. -Project 2025 page 346

Delete reporting on which educational institutions claim religious exemption from Title IX. -Project 2025 page 357

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

Gut the Office for Civil Rights’ power to prosecute any kind of discrimination in public schools. -Project 2025, page 357

Eliminate the Office of Fossil Energy & Carbon Management -Project 2025 page 377

Eliminate the stand-alone Office of Environmental Justice & External Civil Rights -Project 2025, page 421

Restructure the Office of International & Tribal Affairs into the American Indian Environmental Office -Project 2025, page 421

Eliminate the Office of Public Engagement & Environmental Education -Project 2025, page 421

Pause all action of the Environmental Protection Agency for review. -Project 2025, page 422

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

Center for Disease Control stripped of the ability to suggest that schools embrace masking or vaccination strategies. -Project 2025, page 454

All states will be required to submit detailed information about pregnancies, abortions & miscarriages to a federal database. -Project 2025, page 455

The medication Mifepristone, a life-saving drug used to stop deadly postpartum hemorrhages that’s also used in chemical abortions, will be banned. -Project 2025, pages 458-459

Artificial intelligence should be used to determine what is suitable treatment for those currently covered by Medicare. -Project 2025, page 463

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

Repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which implements government price controls for prescription drugs. -Project 2025, page 465

Funding for abortion travel prohibited under the Hyde Amendment. -Project 2025, page 471

End taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. -Project 2025, page 471

Withdraw Medicaid funds for states that require abortion insurance. -Project 2025, page 472

Hospitals will no longer be willing to perform emergency abortions, even to save the life of the mother. -Project 2025, page 473

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

Rescind the Department of Health & Human Services' ability to impose a moratorium on rental evictions during COVID. -Project 2025, page 492

Rescind large portions of The Endangered Species Act & The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, reinstate Trump’s plan for opening the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska to leasing and development. -Project 2025, page 524

Review & downsize national monuments. -Project 2025, page 532

End the Endangered Species Act’s ability to prevent economic development & de-list many currently endangered species. -Project 2025, pages 533-534

I AM VOTING AGAINST THIS

Make it harder for workers to unionize & easier for employers to retaliate against whistleblowers & organizers. -Project 2025, pages 601-602

TikTok classified as a national security concern & made non-operational. -Project 2025, page 674

Break up National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, including National Weather Service & National Marine Fisheries Service. -Project 2025, page 674

Downsize the Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research; disband its climate-change research work. -Project 2025 page 676

AND SO MUCH MORE. 

The full text of Project 2025 is available at static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf I am very grateful to stopproject2025comic.org which produced a series of very readable comics to help explain many sections of Project 2025. Some of the language in this post is taken directly from their transcripts. (You can read many of their comics here on tumblr @stopproject2025comic) Please vote against Project 2025. Our tattered democracy, healthcare, clean air & water, workers rights, reproductive rights, civil rights, intellectual freedom and more are at stake. 

[uncanny-tranny]

To my fellow US Americans: If you are planning on arming yourselves because of the election results and what might be on the horizons, I urge you to be a responsible gun owner.

Take as many classes as you can. Get certified in gun safety, even if it's not required to own a gun in your state. Get a gun safe. A good gun safe. Lock your gun up. Don't leave it armed. Don't wave your guns or gun-owning status around and don't pose with guns like they're toys. I'd say not to make gun buying an impulse purchase, either. You are investing in something that holds great potential risk to yourself and others - treat it like a responsibility.

I'm not here to argue about if Americans ought to exercise the second amendment in the way it currently exists. That's not the point - we have always had the second amendment, and I doubt it's going anywhere. I am more interested in making sure we don't see a surge in accidental, negligent gun ownership.

As a queer person in the US, I can understand the mindset behind people's spiked interest in arming themselves. I'm not arguing against that. As a child of gun owners, I know just how huge a responsibility it is to own a gun, and I hate the general attitude we Americans have about guns. Please don't contribute to that. If you own a gun, it is you inherent responsibility to take care of that gun (which is why I can't own a gun yet - I don't have the resources to pour into proper ownership).

[travelbasscase]

Actually if we want to use founders' intent, they didn't know nor could they imagine assault rifles.

The guns they knew about and presumably were intending the well-regulated militias (yknow, not everyday citizens. People in militias. Regulated ones. Not Bob across the street with a shotgun in his liquor cabinet) to have were flintlocks and such. Long-barreled things with bayonets. Ones that you have to reload constantly and make the musketballs yourself in your fireplace like Pa Ingalls.

The founders didn't intend for you to have an AK-47 or a Smith & Wesson revolver. They intended for you to have muzzle-loading muskets, or maybe a pistol sword.

If you want to have a blunderbuss or a musketoon, knock yourself out, so long as you're in a well-regulated militia. But George Washington wouldn't approve of you having a Maxim gun in your hall closet.

okay but. banning a certain kind of gun wouldn’t infringe on someone’s 2A rights, bc it’s not saying you can’t own guns it’s saying you can’t own this kind. i mean, we already have regulations and laws about that with civilians owning things like tanks and bazookas and the like. like. the 2A doesn’t specify what kind of arms. so as long as you can still keep and bare other kinds of arms, banning assault weapons isn’t infringing on your right to own guns. does this only make sense to me bc I’m missing something?

[metanarrates]

the bill (post that outlines it from last week) has been signed into law.

the slight good news: the language of the bill has been amended so that children can no longer be criminally charged for using a bathroom or locker room that aligns with their gender identity.

the bad news: literally almost everything else about the bill is the same. adults can still be charged.

in addition to everything highlighted in my earlier post, I would like to highlight that the law will charge transgender adults with trespass if “the individual enters or remains in the changing room under circumstances which a reasonable person would expect to likely cause affront or alarm to, on, or in the presence of another individual." in other words, if a transphobe is alarmed by a trans person existing in a restroom, and the judge agrees, that's a trespassing charge. maximum penalties for trespassing under utah law go up to six months in jail and a $1000 charge.

I don't think I need to explain the violence that trans people, particularly trans women, face in jail, especially if they are sent to a men's prison as a trans woman. I also don't think I need to explain the poverty that the trans community experiences as a result of systemic discrimination, and how devastating a fine can be to a poor person. and even without the charge, being harassed by both civilians and cops who will demand that you prove your gender is traumatizing and humiliating. even though this law does in fact only extend to buildings that are publicly funded (such as government offices, schools, possibly the salt lake city airport,) this will also embolden transphobes to harass trans people in other places. make no mistake, this law is violence.

additionally, the law also can give out charges of lewdness and voyeurism, both of which are sex crimes. being placed on the sex offender registry can be DEVASTATING for a person's job opportunities, ability to find housing, and basic rights to privacy. in addition to the already devastating housing and employment issues faced by ex-convicts, this would make life practically unlivable for anyone convicted.

I'll emphasize again that this endangers the trans community, particularly the transfem community, but I am also scared for black women, gnc people, and intersex people, all of whom are also vulnerable to gender policing and gender-based harassment. I am terrified at how openly this law gives leeway for civilians to act as vigilantes and for cops to demand to know what a person's genitals look like. I am terrified at the escalation of hate crimes and harassment that this will likely prompt.

please show up for the utah trans community. in the next few days, I will put together a list of trans people's gofundmes in the state. I would appreciate it if you would share that as well. chances are, we're going to need a lot of financial help in the future, especially if some of us end up choosing to flee the state.

as always, death to the american police state and all it enables.

[sgiandubh]

Chain of fools

Promo season seems to always reactivate #BestOfFans' predatory instincts. Today, one of the people I was mildly 'following' on X, knowing she was a very decent, half-clandestine shipper had the naivete to share a pic taken today with C. Lo and behold, the KGB across the street immediately started the screeching. I would have granted them a pass, were it not for the very curious angle they chose to present things, this time:

Most, if not ALL of the women involved in that conversation were born and lived their entire lives in a country where democracy was never completely obliterated. They have no idea, nor direct experience of what a dictatorship looks and sounds and feels like and yet they look and sound and feel exactly like The Pravda, circa 1951, where enemies of the people (including Americans, so basically... themselves?!) were currently called 'reactionary/ imperialist vipers'. Replace shipper by 'enemy of the people' and voilà:

'Because she's a known shipper enemy of the people and has been one for a long time. All smiles around Cait and on SM and her tumblr page she's a snake like the rest of her ilk.'

Most, if not ALL of the women involved in that revolting conversation can recite by heart The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag:

[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance]

'With liberty and justice for all'. This includes the freedom of speech, set into stone by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which reads:

[Source: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-1/]

You think I am overreacting? In that case, I wouldn't be the only one. It took me exactly three minutes to find on Google a short, but very interesting blog post about the metaphor of the snake being used as a dehumanizing tool in many totalitarian regimes' official rhetoric and media. I will quote it briefly, leaving the rather ironic references to current US politics aside. I find it very interesting and enlightening, for a certain pervasive mentality, in some regions of this fandom:

[Source: https://www.dangerousspeech.org/libraries/beware-of-snakes-a-common-dehumanization-trope]

I have written it before and I probably will write it again, but the Eastern European I am feels unsettled and worried about this. It is not only unsavory, it is violent and denotes a totalitarian way of thinking I am very surprised to find in the minds of these mature women, who lived in complete freedom for all of their lives.

Oh, and by the way. Given that particular 'enemy of the people''s active and very public commitment to charities supported by C (you know, as in raising money for WCC and so on...), I am absolutely sure C knows very well who she is. And I wonder what were they expecting from her, in a work-related context nonetheless, even if (the premise is perfectly absurd, as C does not give a fuck about fandom wars) C would not stand shippers.

By the same token, why would C offer anything more than a vague, borderline formulaic birthday reference while talking to the press, knowing fully well each and every word she utters would be immediately dissected to death and weaponized by the factions of this fandom?

Ironically, their knowledge about Eastern Europe is about zero. I just had to LOL (not really), reading this very serious and concerned dialogue between Marple and The Vulgar Canadian Journo. The Canadian was pissed off about Maril showing up, as she is supposed to, for promo, in NYC:

It's not STAZI, madams, but STASI - short for Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, or Ministry for the State Security. Each and every USSR satellite state had one, but both of these arrogant and superficial Westerners make it sound like a harmless gossip and propaganda machine. In reality, the STASI, along with its sister institutions, was a supremely powerful, merciless apparatus that crushed tens and tens of thousands of lives, encouraged hatred and denouncement (for money, political protection and social climbing) even within the same family. And I personally remember the day where an agent of the local STASI, the Securitate, picked me up from school, walked with me for almost one hour until he left me on my doorstep, in a cruel attempt to make me denounce Shipper Mom. I was nine years old. I will never forget, nor forgive. I felt raped. You don't care and you could never understand, of course, but for the love of God, keep off such complicated tropes you have no idea about.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 2, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 03, 2024

Today is the one-hundredth anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act, which declared that “all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided, That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.”

That declaration had been a long time coming. The Constitution, ratified in 1789, excluded “Indians not taxed” from the population on which officials would calculate representation in the House of Representatives. In the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, the Supreme Court reiterated that Indigenous tribes were independent nations. It called Indigenous peoples equivalent to “the subjects of any other foreign Government.” They could be naturalized, thereby becoming citizens of a state and of the United States. And at that point, they “would be entitled to all the rights and privileges which would belong to an emigrant from any other foreign people.”

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, established that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” But it continued to exclude “Indians not taxed” from the population used to calculate representation in the House of Representatives.

In 1880, John Elk, a member of the Winnebago tribe, tried to register to vote, saying he had been living off the reservation and had renounced the tribal affiliation under which he was born. In 1884, in Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution did not cover Indigenous Americans who were living under the jurisdiction of a tribe when they were born. In 1887 the Dawes Act provided that any Indigenous American who accepted an individual land grant could become a citizen, but those who did not remained noncitizens. 

As Interior Secretary Deb Haaland pointed out today in an article in Native News Online, Elk v. Wilkins meant that when Olympians Louis Tewanima and Jim Thorpe represented the United States in the 1912 Olympic games in Stockholm, Sweden, they were not legally American citizens. A member of the Hopi Tribe, Tewanima won the silver medal for the 10,000 meter run. 

Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, and in 1912 he won two Olympic gold medals, in Classic pentathlon—sprint hurdles, long jump, high jump, shot put, and middle distance run—and in decathlon, which added five more track and field events to the Classic pentathlon. The Associated Press later voted Thorpe “The Greatest Athlete of the First Half of the Century” as he played both professional football and professional baseball, but it was his wins at the 1912 Olympics that made him a legend. Congratulating him on his win, Sweden’s King Gustav V allegedly said, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.”  

Still, it was World War I that forced lawmakers to confront the contradiction of noncitizen Indigenous Americans. According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History, more than 11,000 American Indians served in World War I: nearly 5,000 enlisted and about 6,500 were drafted, making up a total of about 25% of Indigenous men despite the fact that most Indigenous men were not citizens. 

It was during World War I that members of the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations began to transmit messages for the American forces in a code based in their own languages, the inspiration for the Code Talkers of World War II. In 1919, in recognition of “the American Indian as a soldier of our army, fighting on foreign fields for liberty and justice,” as General John Pershing put it, Congress passed a law to grant citizenship to Indigenous American veterans of World War I. 

That citizenship law raised the question of citizenship for those Indigenous Americans who had neither assimilated nor served in the military. The non-Native community was divided on the question; so was the Native community. Some thought citizenship would protect their rights, while others worried that it would strip them of the rights they held under treaties negotiated with them as separate and sovereign nations and was a way to force them to assimilate. 

On June 2, 1924, Congress passed the measure, its supporters largely hoping that Indigenous citizenship would help to clean up the corruption in the Department of Indian Affairs. The new law applied to about 125,000 people out of an Indigenous population of about 300,000.

But in that era, citizenship did not confer civil rights. In 1941, shortly after Elizabeth Peratrovich and her husband, Roy, both members of the Tlingit Nation, moved from Klawok, Alaska, to the city of Juneau, they found a sign on a nearby inn saying, “No Natives Allowed.” This, they felt, contrasted dramatically with the American uniforms Indigenous Americans were wearing overseas, and they said as much in a letter to Alaska’s governor, Ernest H. Gruening. The sign was “an outrage,” they wrote. “The proprietor of Douglas Inn does not seem to realize that our Native boys are just as willing as the white boys to lay down their lives to protect the freedom that he enjoys." 

With the support of the governor, Elizabeth started a campaign to get an antidiscrimination bill through the legislature. It failed in 1943, but passed the House in 1945 as a packed gallery looked on. The measure had the votes to pass in the Senate, but one opponent demanded: "Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind us?"

Elizabeth Peratrovich had been quietly knitting in the gallery, but during the public comment period, she said she would like to be heard. She crossed the chamber to stand by the Senate president. “I would not have expected,” she said, “that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights.” She detailed the ways in which discrimination daily hampered the lives of herself, her husband, and her children. She finished to wild applause, and the Senate passed the nation’s first antidiscrimination act by a vote of 11 to 5. 

Indigenous veterans came home from World War II to discover they still could not vote. In Arizona, Maricopa county recorder Roger G. Laveen refused to register returning veterans of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, including Frank Harrison, to vote. He cited an earlier court decision saying Indigenous Americans were “persons under guardianship.” They sued, and the Arizona Supreme Court agreed that the phrase only applied to judicial guardianship.  

In New Mexico, Miguel Trujillo, a schoolteacher from Isleta Pueblo who had served as a Marine in World War II, sued the county registrar who refused to enroll him as a voter. In 1948, in Trujillo v. Garley, a state court agreed that the clause in the New Mexico constitution prohibiting “Indians not taxed” from voting violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments by placing a unique requirement on Indigenous Americans. It was not until 1957 that Utah removed its restrictions on Indigenous voting, the last of the states to do so.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act protected Native American voting rights along with the voting rights of all Americans, and they, like all Americans, are affected by the Supreme Court’s hollowing out of the law and the wave of voter suppression laws state legislators who have bought into Trump’s Big Lie have passed since 2021. Voter ID laws that require street addresses cut out many people who live on reservations, and lack of access to polling places cuts out others. 

Katie Friel and Emil Mella Pablo of the Brennan Center noted in 2022 that, for example, people who live on Nevada’s Duckwater reservation have to travel 140 miles each way to get to the closest elections office. “As the first and original peoples of this land, we have had only a century of recognized citizenship, and we continue to face systematic barriers when exercising the fundamental and hard-fought-for right to vote,” Democratic National Committee Native Caucus chair Clara Pratte said in a press release from the Democratic Party.

As part of the commemoration of the Indian Citizenship Act, the Democratic National Committee is distributing voter engagement and protection information in Apache, Ho-Chunk, Hopi, Navajo, Paiute, Shoshone, and Zuni.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt: “Match is technically also a Luthor”. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

Match slants his eyes back to Luthor, who still just looks indulgently amused and does not seem inclined to correct his . . . whatever Lena is. She called him “Father”, but since Luthor’s also referred to himself as both Superboy’s and his father, that isn’t necessarily trustworthy intel. 

Also, if nothing else, Lena clearly doesn’t know his assignment or understand his purpose here any better than he does, so that also implies her to be a poor source of intel. 

“Am I her replacement bodyguard?” he asks Luthor skeptically, because admitting he doesn’t know something is better than making a mistake. 

Probably. 

“Right now, you’re her babysitter,” Luthor replies dryly, then pauses and amends, “Or she’s yours. I’m still unclear on your capacity for long-term independent function, to be honest, and I wouldn’t trust the opinions of the idiots who plagiarized you even if I had bothered to read them. We’ll fit in some independent cognitive tests at some point this week, I suppose.” 

“. . . ‘cognitive’ tests,” Match repeats blankly. “Cognitive” is the last thing the Agenda ever cared about testing him on, because he isn’t supposed to be–he isn’t thinking about anything. Obviously. 

Physical tests would make sense. Combat assessments, physical readings, DNA scans; that kind of thing. 

. . . then again, he supposes Luthor already knows everything that’s in his DNA, doesn’t he. 

Assuming the Agenda “plagiarized” him well enough, anyway. 

“To start, yes,” Luthor says. “For now, if anything goes wrong, the security system will alert me. Don’t let her eat too much sugar. Or eat too much sugar yourself.” 

“. . . I have no idea what ‘too much’ sugar is for either of our metabolisms,” Match says. 

“I’m sure you can google something,” Luthor says, giving him a wry look. 

“I have no idea what that is either,” Match says. He doesn’t like admitting not knowing things, for obvious reasons, but also there is no possible way that Lex Luthor can’t pronounce “googol” correctly, and also he can’t imagine how a googol would even be relevant to whatever the hell Luthor is saying anyway. 

“Hm,” Luthor says, his eyes narrowing slightly. Match does not let his hackles raise. “I should’ve murdered more people in that lab, apparently.” 

“Google Search is a web-based service operated by the American multinational corporation Google LLC as the most popular search engine globally and most-visited website in the world,” Lena informs him promptly, ineffectively pulling at his hands again and using her full weight in a entirely fruitless attempt to get him to move. “It has a share of ninety-two percent of the search engine market and its parent company’s current net worth is valued at 1.97 trillion dollars.” 

. . . that seems like something that should’ve been covered in his uploads, yes, Match thinks, eyeing her warily. Assuming she’s actually correct, anyway, which–again, she’s been a poor source of intel so far. 

. . . is that even normal information for a kindergarten-aged child to have, either way? Especially one who’s not even intelligent enough to realize how futile trying to drag a telekinetic metaweapon twice her size around without any enhancements of her own is? Match has no idea.

[homucifer-ryotan]

This is Marsha Blackburn's reasoning for creating KOSA in a nutshell. Not realizing that not every teenager who learns about trans people online is gonna beg to get surgery (proof: I learned about trans people online when I was 15 or 16. Not once did I get a desire to change my gender, I was and still am fine with being cis). And even if they do, they can't do it without legal permission from their parents.

However since Marsha thinks she knows than better than younger trans people and their parents, KOSA will not only violate American's first amendment, but everyone else's online privacy (not just LGBT people's online privacy by the way) will be negatively affected. (Not to mention this.)

Please don't stop calling. Use everything below here, especially if you are an American.

[jjmcquade-misc]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr Says:

"Bayer is essentially bribing both Republican and Democrat congresspeople to insert an extraordinary provision into the Farm Bill that would give the German company immunity from lawsuits over its pesticides, especially Roundup. If these products are as safe as the pesticide companies claim, then why do they need a liability shield? This bill violates the Fifth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Tell me, are you as outraged by this as I am?"

Let's MAHA.

For 40 years, Monsanto’s RoundUp has clearly caused dozens of diseases to explode in lockstep.

Now Monsanto wars with the constitution as they lobby for a license to kill.

A new provision seeks to create a liability shield to defend Monsanto from Americans harmed by pesticides.

By overriding state laws, this bill will enable Monsanto to make billions in profits without regard for the lives of Americans.

This provision is a direct attack on our Constitutional bill of rights: 5th Amendment - Due Process: Denies Americans rights to fair hearings. 10th Amendment - States’ Rights: Ends the power of states to protect their citizens.

14th Amendment - Equal Protection: Creates an unfair legal advantage for corporations over individuals.

Millions of Americans are dying before their time.

Monsanto says this bill is necessary because growing food is a toxic endeavor.

This is completely false.

Europe uses a tenth of the poison we do.

For all time until very recently, we’ve never grown food with poison. In reality, with technology and knowledge, it's never been easier to grow our food responsibly.

Let’s reject the notion that our food must be toxic.

VOTE TRUMP 2024

[rockyp77mk3]

Right my side lost and your side won. I am trying to understand but I want to know what is the big difference between the Progressives and conservatives? Why do Progressives piss off conservatives so much? We only want equality and fairness.

Thank you for the question. These questions are deceptively simple but they require somewhat complicated answers. I will try.

Oh, I am not just a conservative. I am a Constitutional Conservative which means that the Constitution is considered the supreme law of the land. It is the guide against which all legislation, taxes, regulations, and issues are judged. It applies equally to all and is therefore a protection for all. It can only be changed by amendment and is not subject to any foreign law or restrictions even those promoted by the UN.

Since I like checklists I will try to answer your questions in some kind of order.

Problem solving. When presented with a problem Conservatives try to solve it using known facts and reason. Progressives tend to use spending and regulation. I have never witnessed a Progressive try to solve a problem (Or perceived problem) in any other way than raising taxes or sponsoring legislation that further truncates our individual rights.

Control. Progressives seem to love control, either being in control or being controlled in every aspect of life. They want to tell or be told what people can own, how far people can succeed in life, what people can think, what people can eat, what people can drive, and lets not forget what people should do with the very money they earn. In that last one Progressives are content to confiscate wealth through taxes for redistribution to their liking. Conservative just want to be left alone. We want to keep most of what we earn, we want to enjoy our enumerated rights unfettered by social pressure or governmental overreach. We would like government to literally get the Hell out of our lives.

Lack of tolerance. When a progressive gets an idea they believe it to be so good that it must be shared with (Inflicted upon) others even at the point of a governmental bayonet. Socialism for instance, also limiting 2ND Amendment rights, private property rights, etc. Conservatives don't care what you want to do as long as we are left alone to do what we want to do. If you don't like guns, fine, don't own one. If you want to be a socialist fine, get fifty of your closest friends and create a commune, I wish you luck. Do what ever you like, just leave me and my rights alone.

Happiness. Conservatives seem to be relatively happy. Progressives aren't happy unless they are angry or upset about a situation that either happened over 100 years ago or is an isolated incident, or is just something with which they don't agree. Progressives aren't always right but they are always certain. In that pseudo certitude they are willing to trample any and all rights. Individuals be damned the cause is all.

The US is always wrong. No matter the issue Progressives will unerringly take the side of anything that goes against the US. Progressives will support despots, terrorist groups, rouge nations, and criminal politicians as long as those support the inherent anti US sentiment of the hard left. Conservatives acknowledge that the US makes mistakes, sometimes hideous mistakes but at our core we are generally damn good. For example, if Kamala had won you won't see too many Conservatives wanting to leave the US. We are Americans and will stay and fight to the last.

Equality. Progressive want an equality of outcome. A guarantee that all people will have the same success. They call this "Equity". Conservatives believe that equality means that all people will have a fair chance at success. That hard work, effort, and inventiveness will pay off. You can't ensure outcomes only starting points.

There are more but you get the idea. By the way, Progressives don't piss us off all that much, we just don't want you in charge.

[mariacallous]

Americans love to focus on presidential campaigns. The House of Representatives and Senate receive some attention every now and then, but our political love affair tends to center on the race for the White House. When congressional elections gain some attention, it usually happens during the midterms when political junkies don’t have much else to talk about.

But this is a mistake. Congress matters. The outcome of congressional elections during a presidential campaign is crucial to shaping the first two years of an administration, the period when the opportunity for legislating is greatest. In the coming months, the fate of the Democratic Party agenda—regardless of who wins the presidency—will depend as much on how power is distributed on Capitol Hill as who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Even after a mandate election, just one chamber of Congress can be sufficient to check a new president’s agenda. This was the story in 1980. The election was devastating to Democrats. Ronald Reagan, who was a key figure in the modern conservative movement that took hold in the 1970s, promised to move the national agenda sharply to the right after the one-term presidency of Jimmy Carter. And then, for the first time since 1954, Republicans won control of the Senate with a majority of 53 seats.

The saving grace for Democrats that year was the House, where they remained on top. While Reagan defeated Carter in an Electoral College landslide, 489-49, Democrats exited Election Day with a 243-seat majority. Though the number of conservative Democrats had increased, the caucus as a whole was quite liberal compared with the Republicans. Under the speakership of Tip O’Neill, the lower chamber became the last bastion of liberalism. Using this as a base of power, Democrats were able to veto many of Reagan’s boldest initiatives while continuing to push forward their own agenda, even as the chances for passage were minimal.

The impact of a Democratic House was evident in both domestic and foreign policy. Republicans were forced to back away from many of their most ambitious plans to slash the social safety net. When the administration moved to reduce Social Security benefits for early retirees in 1981, O’Neill mobilized a coalition as he warned that the president aimed to dismantle this popular program. Republicans were shaken. Rep. Carroll Campbell was frustrated with the electoral impact: “I’ve got thousands of 60-year-old textile workers who think it’s the end of the world. What the hell am I supposed to tell them?” Democrats also approved a budget that raised taxes, a move that was anathema to Reagan’s acolytes. In 1983, the administration worked with congressional Democrats to shore up the financial strength of the program. The Democratic majority would be bolstered in the 1982 midterms, which took place in the middle of what O’Neill called the “Reagan recession.” The political scientist Paul Pierson showed in Dismantling the Welfare State? the limited progress Reagan made on cutting most major programs.

Similar effects were evident with foreign policy. Reagan’s hawkish posture toward the Soviet Union had been defining as he rose in national prominence during the 1970s. He railed against Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Carter for practicing the policy of détente, easing relations with the Communists, while ramping up rhetoric against the Soviet Union, calling it an “evil” empire in moralistic terms that presidents had traditionally avoided. He also curtailed negotiations over arms agreements and increased support for anti-communist operations in Central America.

House Democrats responded in force. In 1982, 1983, and 1984, they passed the Boland Amendments, which curtailed Reagan’s ability to provide support to the government of El Salvador and the anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua, the Contras. The global nuclear freeze movement also found strong support on the Hill as a number of members supported resolutions for limitations on nuclear arms production. “I can’t remember any issue, including Watergate, that has moved so many people so quickly,” Democratic operative Robert Squier noted in 1982.

None of this meant that Reagan could not achieve big changes. After all, the president pushed through a massive supply side tax cut in 1981 that made deep inroads into the finances of the federal government and began a path of ongoing cuts that privileged wealthier Americans and business. Scared to oppose him, many House Democrats voted for the cuts of their own accord. Reagan increased the defense budget, and his administration used illegal methods to direct support to Central America. And House Democrats couldn’t stop the enormous impact that Reagan had on pushing national rhetoric toward the right, either. Nonetheless, House Democrats played a pivotal role in restraining conservatism while protecting the liberal legacy of the New Deal and Great Society.

The reverse has also been true. Some congressional elections are extraordinarily dramatic. For all the attention paid to the legendary political prowess of Lyndon B. Johnson, the fact that the 1964 election produced massive Democratic majorities in the House (295) and Senate (68), while shifting the balance of influence within the party away from conservative southerners toward the liberal North, was instrumental to the passage of the Great Society legislation: Medicare and Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act, higher and secondary education funding, immigration reform, and more all became possible because of the size and structure of the Congress that Johnson was able to work with. “The once powerful coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats appeared to have been rendered impotent, or nearly so,” the New York Times noted in 1964. Once the 1966 midterms revived the conservative coalition of southern Democrats and midwestern Republicans that had ruled Capitol Hill since 1938, Johnson’s window for legislating closed.

Most recently, there was the 2020 election. One of the most important outcomes was Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock winning in Georgia, giving Democrats two Senate seats and effective control of the upper chamber. As soon as they won, the Biden administration’s fortunes changed dramatically. With unified control of Congress, Biden’s path to legislative success opened. Although the administration would have to struggle to placate the demands of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Biden kept his party united enough to move a series of major bills on COVID-19 relief, infrastructure, and climate change. In so doing, he racked up an impressive record.

When Biden was still at the top of the Democratic ticket, one of the greatest sources of concern for Democratic legislators such as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff was that he was making a Republican Congress almost inevitable. Democrats in many parts of the country watched as their polling numbers plummeted.

With the energy and momentum that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have brought to the campaign, the odds for Democrats to win control of the House and possibly the Senate have vastly improved.

As much as Democratic voters will be focused on raising money, canvassing, and promoting their presidential candidate, they would do well to devote as much energy to key congressional races—whether the seats in Long Island that Republicans picked up in 2022 or Senate races in states such as Montana and Ohio.

Johnson always understood how Congress controlled his fate. In 1968, when Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler told the president, “You are the master of the Senate and always have been,” Johnson responded: “I’m not master of a damn thing.” As a veteran of Washington, Johnson always understood that his legacy would ebb and flow based on the composition of the Congress.

This time around, Democratic control of one or two chambers will be pivotal, regardless of who wins. If Donald Trump is reelected as president, congressional power will be essential to impede his inevitable efforts to aggressively deploy presidential power and dismantle the administrative state.

If Harris wins, on the other hand, congressional power will be essential to ensuring that she can use the limited window she would have to expand on and strengthen the legislative legacy of Biden—and to start tackling new issues aimed at exciting an emerging generation of voters.

[mossadspypigeon]

okay welcome to “chaya is done with anyone saying trump is good for jews or israel.”

here’s the uh scoop on what his appointees have done for and against jews and israel:

note: THIS IS NOT ABOUT ANY OTHER POLITICAL TOPIC. DO NOT REBLOG TELLING ME I SHOULD CALL OUT ANYTHING ELSE. I AM TALKING ABOUT JEW HATE RIGHT NOW. I AM TALKING ABOUT JEWS. not everything is about you!!! GIVE US A FUCKING MINUTE.

OKAY? okay. good talk.

(i will also include good shit if they have any lmao. only two of them do)

marco rubio.

the only things i agree with the man on are a. taking out hamas and b. the antisemitism on college campuses bill he helped introduce. he has said some weird dog whistles:

but this was a good choice:

from the forward, which i will link later:

“Rubio surprised pro-Israel backers with his April vote against emergency funding to Israel because it lacked border enforcement measures. Rubio excused Trump after he repeatedly accused American Jews of disloyalty to Israel and suggested they must hate their religion if they vote for Democrats.”

religion lol

HAHAHAHHA GAETZ:

he’s also a RAPIST.

and this beautiful fucking moment lmao:

PETE HEGSETH HAHA

need i say more

kristi noem

one decent thing:

she also signed an anti bds bill and has pointed out antisemitism, BUT she’s pentecostal so that likely explains why she wants israel around:

yup.

idk it’s sad that she’s decent one a single issue when so many progressives can’t even pass that bar. it’s for selfish reasons, but yay she signed and ratified the antisemitism bill woo

don’t ask me my feels on anything else with her.

ratcliffe

the man is a hawk even for me, and i want hamas GONEEEEE

tulsi gabbard:

a. praised assad. like HELLO????

b. jew hate dog whistles:

fun.

she also has other shit she’s said that i dont appreciate:

lee zeldin is an EMBARRASSMENT. moving on.

elise stefanik destroying antisemitic college presidents endeared her to me:

she also wants to cut funding to UNRWA, which is always A+.

fucking furhhr huckabee

another “i only support israel bc prophecy for jesus” evangelical

selecting him for a traditionally jewish role is not the flex trumpy thinks it is.

AH YES ROBERT F KENNEDY HAHAHA

ANYWAY YAY WOO YAY fhrbhf UGHHHH

[puhpink]

I am an American

Trump has won the 2024 election: so what now? It's not over until we say it is. We're not going back. Like all presidents, Trump is not god. It is time to begin fighting. Project 2025 is real and it is on the horizon, but I'll be damned before I allow my country to be ripped from me.

I am more American than Trump will ever be. In my viens are the calloused hands of my ancestors who fed America. In my blood are the memories of the people before the US. I'm more than Trump ever will be, and so are you.

Trump will not win the soul of America, and here's why: Missouri voters have written abortion rights into their state consitution, aiming to allow abortion up until viability. Many may remember that Missouri had given their electoral votes to Trump: it is important to remember that not all those who voted for Trump agree with all his policies. As KOMU news reports, even religious organizations have voted on Amendment 3, to protect the freedoms of Missouri voters. (Click here to read more, it's really fascinating!) Arizona passed Prop. 139, which enshired abortion rights until viability, rewritting the previous 15 week abortion ban that was in place after the overturning of Roe v Wade. The proposition offers an amendment to Arizona's state consitution protecting the rights to abortion, after the efforts and shared expirences of many hard-working women. (Click here to read more, Ashley Ortiz's shared expirence was heartbreaking.) New York has voted to place Equal Rights within their consitution as well: updating language to possibly include protections for transgender women and minors looking for gender affirming care without parental approval. It also explictly protects abortion rights, stating that pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes cannot be discriminated against. (Click here to read more, though, it doesn't go as far in depth as other articles.) Colorado has passed Amendment 79, which not only strengthens abortion rights, but allows for public spending to be spent on abortion medical costs. This means that Medicaid and government insurances will be able to pay for abortions. (Click here to read more, which includes a brief history of abortion in Colorado.) Montana voters approved a ballot to change the state's consitution to protect and uphold abortion laws, no matter what changes the state's future governments may want to enshrine. This does only hold until viability, however. (Click here to read more, which includes a link to an article that gives information on other states that included abortion right on their ballots.) All is not lost. They cannot get rid of us. Be loud, be angry, do not sit by and despair. This is our fucking country, and they cannot and will not take that away from us.

[tanadrin]

you were talking about this earlier but personally i'm a big fan of the parliamentary sovereignty/not having an explicitly delineated list of rights thing the UK's got going on. i think the danger of having something dumb in the constitution like the US's second amendment or lochner-era mandated libertarianism is worth theoretically aligned judges not being able to overturn dumb laws a few years before they're unpopular enough to remove democratically.

i am a bit sad the UK doesn't have an instrument akin to the first amendment, mind, but maybe you could shove something like that more through the door of how the british government probably couldn't get away with indefinitely postponing elections than simply declaring speech a "human right" amongst many others. the government shouldn't be allowed to do things that specifically make it impossible to contest for power, but everything else is fair game, basically.

The problem with parliamentary sovereignty is that it makes it trivially easy to do monstrous shit, as Rishi Sunak’s whole “international law is for beta cucks” shtick is proving. Like the fact it is trivially easy to convert the UK system into a dictatorship isn’t a far off theoretical concern, and when I say the UK is more democratic but less free, I mean it is less free in important and frightening ways. There was a story out of the UK about a woman being questioned by police bc of her Skyrim mod list, because when you don’t have any entrenched basic rights protections it is trivially easy for your government to give force to the most meddling, puritanical, oppressive impulses of your electorate.

The first amendment is extremely good. Every country should have one. All time achievement of the American political system. And I think your comment reveals a deficit in the understanding of how common law systems like the US and UK function; although courts can do a lot of heinous shit in interpreting the law, they cannot use “freedom of speech” as an excuse to postpone elections. Meanwhile the UK parliament could pass a law with a simple majority declaring the PM Dictator for Life and it would be perfectly legal.

So idk. I think written constitutions are great, and most of the justifications for not having one are obviously proved silly by comparison to peer countries, and are just small-c conservatism coming to the fore.