#companies amendment bill

[acquisory]

Companies (Amendment) Bill 2017 – Simplification of Procedures

The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2017 with amendments over the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016 has been passed by the Lok Sabha in July, 2017. These changes suppressed the relevant portion of the Companies Act, 2013.

The major amendments proposed include simplification of the private placement process, rationalization of provisions related to loan to directors, omission of provisions relating to forward dealing and insider trading, doing away with the requirement of approval of the Central Government for managerial remuneration above prescribed limits, aligning disclosure requirements in the prospectus with the regulations to be made by SEBI, providing for maintenance of register of significant beneficial owners and filing of returns in this regard to the ROC and removal of requirement for annual ratification of appointment or continuance of auditor.

The bill has total 93 Clauses by which 92 Amendments been carried out, includes Amendment of Existing Sections, Insertion of New Sections, Substitution of Existing Section with New Sections and Omission of Few Sections.

Overview of the Amendments

The main object is to improve the ease of doing business so that people who want to start a business — even an one-man company (a startup) do not have to go through much formalities, disclosures or forms. So, the idea is to make the law simple so that only lawyers do not benefit and the companies also benefit.

The major official amendments introduced include continuing with the provisions relating to layers of subsidiaries, continuing with the earlier provisions with respect of memorandum, making offence for contravention of provisions relating to deposits as non-compoundable, requiring attaching of financial statement of associate companies, stringent additional fees of Rs 100 per day in case of…

Read more: https://www.acquisory.com/ArticleDetails/49/Companies-(Amendment)-Bill-2017-%E2%80%93-Simplification-of-Procedures

[reasonsforhope]

"In short: Thailand's Senate has approved a bill legalising same sex marriage in the South-East Asian country.

It will afford same-sex couples practical benefits such as being able to have children through IVF and make emergency medical decisions for their spouse.

What's next? The first weddings may take place later this year, 120 days after the law is announced in the Royal Gazette.

Thailand has become the first nation in South-East Asia to legalise same sex marriage, with the country's Senate approving the landmark bill this afternoon.

The legislation was expected to pass after it cleared the country's House of Representatives in a near-unanimous vote in March.

Despite Thailand's bustling gay bars and prominent transgender community making it a mecca for LGBTQ+ tourists, until now local same-sex couples there have been unable to marry.

The law will take effect 120 days after its announcement in the Royal Gazette, so the first same sex weddings may take place later this year.

Couples who have been waiting years have hailed the move as a historic moment that will afford them rights only reserved for spouses.

A Lifechanging Law

Photos of Anticha and Worawan [including the article picture], dressed in floor-length white gowns and trailed by rainbow flags, getting married at Bangkok's first Pride Festival two years ago went viral, but they are still not legally married.

Now they will be able to change that, and Anticha Sangchai is elated.

"This will change my life and change many Thai people's lives, especially in the LGBT community," she said.

"It is a historical moment and I really want to join with my community to celebrate this moment.

"I want to send a message to the world that Thailand has changed. Even though there are still many issues, this is a big step for us." ...

There were an estimated 3.7 million LGBT people in Thailand in 2022, according to LGBT Capital, a private company which models economic data pertaining to the community around the world.

For the young couple from Bangkok, being able to marry also has very real practical implications.

If they want to have children through IVF, Ms Sangchai says they will need a marriage certificate first.

"I am quite concerned about the time because we are getting older every day, and the older you get the more difficult it is to have a healthy pregnancy," she said.

"So we've been really wanting this law to pass as soon as possible."

Cabaret performer Jena is excited Thailand's laws are finally catching up with the nation's image...

She too had worried about the practical implications of being unable to marry.

"For example, if myself or my partner had to go to hospital or there was an accident that needs consent for an emergency operation, without a marriage certificate we couldn't sign it," she said.

She now wants the government to move forward with a law to allow transgender people to amend their gender on official documents." ...

An Economic Boost?

Thailand has long been famous for LGBTQ tourism and there are now hopes this new law could allow the country to cash in on the aging members of the community.

Chaiwat Songsiriphan, who runs a health clinic for people in the LGBTQ community, said laws preventing same sex marriage were the last barrier holding the country back from becoming a gay retirement hub.

[Note: They do not just mean for rich westerners; Thailand as a gay retirement hub would probably appeal most to and definitely benefit LGBTQ people from throughout Asia.]

"Thailand has an LGBTQ-friendly environment since Thai culture is quite flexible," he said.

"One of my foreigner friends, a gay friend, told me that when he's in his country he has to pretend to be straight … but when he comes to Bangkok he said you can be as gay as you want.

"When we talk about retirement or a long-term stay for the rest of their lives, what people need is … food, good healthcare services, transportation, homes.

"I think Thailand has it all at a very affordable price."

He said it could help give the country a desperately needed economic boost.

"This will have a lot of benefits for Thailand's economy because when we talk about retirement it's people literally bringing all the money they have earned for the rest of their working lives to spend and invest here," he said.

He said he, like the rest of the community, was thrilled by the news.

"It's not about a privilege, it's just equality," he said.

"We are we also humans, so we should be able to marry the one we love.""

-via ABC Australia, June 18, 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules

Today (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

It's a breathtaking fraud: SoCal Gas, the largest gas company in America, spent millions secretly paying people to oppose California environmental regulations, then illegally stuck its customers with the bill. We Californians were forced to pay to lobby against our own survival:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article277266828.html

The criminal scheme is spelled out in eye-watering detail in a superb investigative report by Joe Rubin and Ari Plachta for the Sacramento Bee, which names the law firms and individual lawyers involved in the scam.

Here's the situation: SoCal Gas is California's private, regulated gas monopoly. They are allowed to lobby, but are legally required to charge their lobbying activities to their shareholders, and are prohibited from raising customer rates to pay for lobbying.

The company spent years secretly violating this rule, in the sleaziest way possible: working with corporate cartels like the California Restaurant Association and BizFed, the monopoly paid BigLaw white-shoe firms to procure people who posed as concerned citizens in order to oppose climate regulations that are essential to the state's very survival.

The bill topped $36 million – and it was illegally charged to its customers, the Californians whose immediate health and long-term survival these efforts opposed. SoCal Gas refuses to disclose the full extent of the spending, as do its lawyer-procurers, who cite legal confidentiality and a First Amendment right to secretly seek to influence policy in their refusal to disclose their profits from this illegal conduct.

The law firms involved are a who's-who of California's most prominent corporate fixers, including Reichman Jorgensen and Holland & Knight. The partners involved have a long rap sheet for anti-climate dirty tricking, most notably Jennifer Hernandez, notorious in climate justice history for an incident where activists claim she posed as one of them, infiltrating a campaign to force corporate despoilers to clean up their pollution in order to sabotage it, while secretly on a wealthy, prominent landowner's payroll.

Hernandez claims to care about the environment and says that her longstanding, corporate-funded, extensive campaigns and lawsuits against state environmental regulations are motivated by concern over their impact on working people. Her firm, Holland & Knight, denies serving SoCal Gas in opposing gas regulations, but it received $594k in ratepayer dollars, and submitted comments opposing the rules on its own behalf. Those comments were nearly identical to the comments submitted by SoCal Gas.

Hernandez also represents an obscure organization called The Two Hundred for Home Ownership in "a flurry of lawsuits" over California Air Resources Board rules on pollution, seeking to overturn the state's landmark climate change regulations.

Two Hundred for Home Ownership was founded by Robert Apodaca, who told the Bee that Hernandez's work for him is pro bono and not funded by SoCal Gas, but his entry into the fray occurred just as SoCalGas was founding an astroturf group called Californians for Fair and Balanced Energy (C4BES), which pretended to be an independent organization, disguising its relationship with SoCal Gas.

Apodaca is also founder of United Latinos Vote, an organization that had been largely dormant for seven years, not receiving any donations, until 2018, when the California Building Industry Association gave it $99k. The CBIA is a large-dollar recipient of donations from SoCal Gas, and its CEO insists that it was not acting on SoCal Gas's behalf when it made its unpredented donation to Apodaca.

The CBIA donation to United Latinos Vote was forerunner to a flood of corporate donations from the likes of Chevron, Marathon and Phillips 66. Shortly after receiving this cash, United Latinos Vote ran a full page ad in the LA Times, accusing the Sierra Club of pushing for anti-gas appliance rules that would harm working class Latino families.

This ad, in turn, featured prominently in advocacy by the SoCal Gas front group C4BES, funded with $29.1m in ratepayer money, which it then spent seeking to link clean appliance rules with anti-Latino racism. A quarter of California's carbon emissions come from home gas use.

SoCal Gas is regulated by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), which tolerated this mounting illegal conduct for many years, even as the company circulated internal memos as early as 2015 discussing its plans to oppose electrification in the state on the basis that it constituted "a significant risk to our business."

But last year, CPUC fined SoCal Gas $10m. Now, CPUC's Public Advocate office has filed a damning, extensive report on SoCal Gas's unlawful conduct, seeking $80m in rate cuts to compensate Californians for the funds misappropriated to protect the company's shareholder interests:

https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M517/K407/517407314.PDF

Additionally, the Public Advocate is demanding $233m in fines for the company's refusal to allow investigators to audit its books and discover the full extent of the fraud.

SoCal Gas is the nation's largest utility, but (incredibly), it's not the dirtiest. That prize goes to Ohio's FirstEnergy, which handed $60m in ratepayer dollars to state politicians in illegal bribes in exchange for coal and nuclear subsidies and cancellation of state climate rules. That scandal led to GOP speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder being sentenced to 20 years in prison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal

There is something extraordinarily sleazy about using ratepayers' own money to lobby against their interests. SoCal Gas and its Big Law enablers have funneled millions in Californian's money into campaigns to poison us and boil us alive, and they did it while using workers and racialized people as human shields.

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/19/cooking-the-books-with-gas/#reichman-jorgensen

Image: Maryland GovPics (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdgovpics/6635539089/

Jackie (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/79874304@N00/197532792

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[jjmcquade-misc]

Some clever points by Rob Schneider As we have seen this week, ONCE AGAIN the Democratic Party is NOT running on any ideas to make American’s lives better, they are once again running on the hatred of one individual, Donald J Trump.

And they are hoping that YOU will HATE him so much that you will forget about the Democrat’s FOREVER WARS that are pushing the world closer to World War III, they are hoping that you forget about your grocery bills being 26% higher since Biden/Harris took office.

The Democrats are hoping that you FORGET all the CENSORSHIP that the Biden/Harris regime did, working with TECH companies to silence Scientists, Doctors and Academics and ANYONE who dared question their Tyrannical COVID POLICIES, VIOLATING THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS OF ALL AMERICANS, FIRING FEDERAL WORKERS, DOCTORS AND NURSES who refused to get an experimental vaccine, FORCING TWO YEAR OLD BABIES TO WEAR MASKS, CLOSING SCHOOLS AND SMALL BUSINESSES, while allowing BIG BUSINESSES to MAKE BILLIONS in profits, putting GIRLS AND WOMEN AT RISK BY ALLOWING NARCISSISTIC MEN TO INVADE THEIR SAFE SPACES AND SPORTS, putting PORNOGRAPHY BOOKS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, pushing the GENDER MADNESS OF CHILD MUTILATION SURGERIES and CHILD STERILIZATION CASTRATION DRUGS (PUBERTY BLOCKERS), REMOVING AMERICA’S ENERGY INDEPENDENCE and once again making our Nation captive to FOREIGN OIL, OPENING OUR BORDER allowing 11 MILLION ILLEGAL NON-CITIZENS INTO OUR COUNTRY, CAUSING MISERY, DEATH AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING, FLOODING OUR CITIES WITH MIGRANTS AND DEATH CAUSING FENTANYL, ILLEGALS FLOWN TO DIFFERENT STATES all being PAID BY U.S. TAXPAYERS.

The Democrats CALLED TRUMP ‘HITLER’ and half the CITIZENS of our country “MAGATS” and DEPLORABLES, INCITING HATRED AND THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF A FORMER PRESIDENT.

The Democrats cry of ‘SAVING DEMOCRACY’ as they DISCARD the 14 MILLION DEMOCRATS WHO VOTED FOR BIDEN IN THE PRIMARY, effecting a COUP, pushing OUT A DULY ELECTED PRESIDENT and much like the SOVIET POLITBURO, INSTALLING THEIR NEW PUPPET LEADER who had the LOWEST APPROVAL RATING OF ANY FORMER VICE PRESIDENT and who has still REFUSED to take ANY QUESTIONS FROM THE PRESS.

YES, the Democrats are hoping that you HATE TRUMP more than YOU LOVE YOUR COUNTRY AND YOUR FREE SPEECH, YOUR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION AND SAFETY AND YOUR FREEDOMS.

Robert Kennedy Jr. supporting President Trump is plainly this: A REJECTION OF THE AUTHORITARIAN AND SERIAL UNDEMOCRATIC ACTIONS OF THE DEMOCRAT MACHINE.

As a fellow American Citizen and Robert Kennedy Jr. supporter, I hope that you will OPPOSE TYRANNY and join us and VOTE FOR DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! Sincerely,

Rob Schneider.

[taikeero-lecoredier]

RECENT UPDATES ON THE BAD INTERNET CALIFORNIA BILLS:

Sadly, both AB1949 and SB976 passed and are now on their way to the governors desk.

We need him to veto them so they dont become Law.

If you havent Heard of the danger of those bills for the Internet , this post explain it thoroughly :

- Post doing a deep explanation on those bills here

I CANNOT emphasize enough how these would have a global effect on the Internet given that most websites and apps originates from California and not all of them could afford either following those bills or moving states.

Now, as the bills are on their way to the governor, we need Californian citizens to voice their oppositions to those bills to the Governor Gavin Newsome HERE

(Non California peeps, we are urging you to share this as well!!! )

Please keep in mind that calling with phone is much,much more efficient.

You can also send faxes with Faxzero

Here are scripts you can use as arguments : (text/alt version below the read more )

Than you for reading. Even if youre not from California, please spread the word anyway ! Make posts,tweets,etc

REBLOGS ENCOURAGED

TEXT VERSION :

AB 1949

Hello, my name is (INSERT NAME HERE) and I'm one of the Senator's constituents from (INSERT CITY HERE). I'm calling to urge the Senator to vote NO on AB 1949, the amendment to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2020. While this bill's intent is to prevent the sharing and sale of minor's information under the age of 18, the method it would intend to do so by is written far too broadly for it to be safely and reasonably implemented.

While this bill retains a safer standard of the business requiring actual knowledge of a consumer being under the age of 18 to be held liable for the sharing or sale of personal information, its wording is still too broad to exclude a default usage of age verification by online businesses in order to protect themselves from liability. Taking measures such as age verification, age assurance, or other data collection and analysis to determine the age of users. Even though measures like this have been proven to be vulnerable to data breaches no matter how secure they proclaim to be. Such as this year's largest discovered breach of AU10TIX, which supplies age verification to companies like TikTok, X, Uber, LinkedIn, Paypal, and many others.

As it stands, this bill is far too broad in its wording and enforcement of its age-specific measures to be considered a safe piece of legislation. Which is why I urge the Senator to vote in opposition to this measure.

Vote NO on AB 1949.

---------------------------

SB 976

Hello, my name is (INSERT NAME HERE) and I'm one of the Assembly member's constituents from (INSERT CITY HERE). I'm calling to urge the Assembly member to vote NO on SB 976, the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act. Although this bill has intent to protect the mental and emotional health of California's youth, the method this bill would intend to use could be counterproductive to that goal, or even endanger them further.

One of this bill's primary measures includes requiring verifiable parental consent to allow websites to display “addictive” feeds to minor users. However, the ways “verify” the identity and age of a responsible parent are often invasive and dangerous. Especially since these methods have proven repeatedly to be vulnerable to data breaches that can leak sensitive information to bad actors. Such as this year's largest discovered breach of AU10TIX, which supplies age verification to companies like TikTok, X, Uber, LinkedIn, Paypal, and many others. To determine if this is necessary at all would also require collecting even more data on minors and non-minors alike to determine who would even require these measures to be set in place. Especially when it would have control over someone's access to a website or application based on the time of day, as this bill would require in order to “reasonably determine” the user is not a minor.

The vagueness of this bill's text at all is dangerous as well. The broad-spectrum definition it gives of “addictive internet-based service or application” could cause an unintended censorship effect where minors and adults alike could be blocked from accessing information purely because some part of a website or application uses a “feed” which could arguably fit the bill's definition of “addictive”

With all of this in mind, I urge the Assembly member to vote in opposition of this measure to protect the privacy and safety of California's minors and adults alike.

Vote NO on SB 976.

[unityrain24]

email i got today not sure if this is news??:

----

Breaking news: a top Democrat in the House has highlighted the problem with the “duty of care” model in the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).1

During the markup last week, Rep. Frank Pallone said, “adopting the duty of care could cause social media companies to over-filter content out of an abundance of caution about legal risk, and as a result some young people could lose access to helpful and even life-saving content.”2

This is exactly what dozens of human rights, civil liberties, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ groups have been saying for years about why KOSA’s duty of care is so dangerous.3

Our grassroots campaign is working and it's getting the attention of top lawmakers. Can you help us continue the fight to ensure that KOSA is only passed if it gets fixed?

Donate

Pallone rightly went on to say that he doesn’t trust Big Tech companies to make determinations about what types of content recommendations cause mental health disorders, noting that our understanding of the science in this area is still evolving.

Here’s what this means:

It’s working. Your phone calls, emails, the videos you’ve made and shared, the small $5 and $10 donations that enable us to run online campaigns, display your comments on billboards in DC4, and keep the media and lawmakers staff as informed as possible about our concerns have made KOSA less likely to pass, at least not without major changes. The top Democrat on the House committee is speaking out against it,  and that wouldn’t have happened without all of our work together.

We still have a ton of work to do. Rep. Pallone’s alternative proposal is to try to address the harms of Big Tech by going after Section 2305, which would lead to many of the same harms he’s worried about with KOSA’s duty of care. So we still have to work to educate his staff and other members on and off the committee, and drive emails and phone calls urging Congress to adopt strong privacy and antitrust protections instead of stalling out again and again with bills like KOSA and EARN IT that raise serious human rights concerns. APRA, the privacy bill that also advanced at the hearing, has some positive features, but there’s a lot of work needed to make it strong enough to actually protect the most vulnerable people.

KOSA could still pass, and we need to keep up the pressure. Despite the surprise blowback KOSA faced at last week’s hearing, the subcommittee still voted to advance it to a full committee vote. That means it’s one step closer to passing, and there is still a very real possibility that it could be snuck into a “must-pass” funding bill like the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). There is a big push from backers of KOSA including full page ads, op-eds in major papers, and several large tech companies have already come out in support of it. We have to take it seriously as an ongoing threat.

There is also still a chance that KOSA could be amended to address our concerns. Senator Wyden has proposed some helpful amendments. One of the good parts of KOSA is its ban on targeted advertising to kids. That could be imported into a strengthened version of APRA, for example, while leaving the harmful duty of care model behind. There are lots of ways Congress can address the harms of Big Tech and protect kids without enabling censorship and surveillance.

So, we gained some ground, but the fight is far from over. If you’ve read this far, you must understand how important this is. If you’re in a position to donate, please click here.

Help stop KOSA

If not, seriously don’t worry about it. We’ve all been there. Thank you so much for being part of this movement demanding Internet policies that don’t throw marginalized people under the bus. We can fight for an Internet where kids aren’t just safe, but have basic human rights, and the ability to speak out and shape the world around them. 

Let’s do it,

Evan at ❤️ Fight for the Future

https://energycommerce.house.gov/events/innovation-data-and-commerce-subcommittee-markup-of-three-bills

https://www.techpolicy.press/house-energy-commerce-subcommittee-markup-of-the-american-privacy-rights-act-kids-online-safety-act/

https://www.stopkosa.com/

https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2024-05-22-listen-to-kids-billboard-outside-house-hearing-raises-up-voices-of-lgbtq-youth-who-oppose-kosa/

https://touchgrass.fightforthefuture.org/unserious-attempt-1-562-to-rollback-section-230/

Fight for the Future, PO Box 55071 #95005, Boston, MA 02205  Don't like these emails? Unsubscribe.

Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Fight for the Future, please click here.

[zvaigzdelasas]

A bipartisan House bill unveiled Tuesday would force ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, to divest the shortform video app or face a ban of the platform in the U.S.

Introduced by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the top lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, is the latest effort to ban TikTok over concerned about potential national security threats posed by ByteDance.

The “Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” specifically defines ByteDance and TikTok as a foreign adversary controlled application. The bill also creates a broader framework that would allow the president to designate other foreign adversary controlled applications. [...]

The bill would give ByteDance more than five months after the law would goes into effect to divest TikTok. If the company does not divest from TikTok, it would become illegal to distribute it through an app store or web hosting platform in the U.S., effectively banning it even among current users.

The bill has more than a dozen bipartisan co-sponsors, with an even split down party lines, according to a committee aide. The aide declined to share the names of specific sponsors.

“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs,” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek told The Hill.

A Republican-backed bill last year attempted to ban TikTok outright but faced pushback from Democrats, who said the effort was rushed and could impede on free speech rights.

5 Mar 24

[spacedustpan]

Hey Tennessee fandom people: the ELVIS Act getting ready to go through. It prevents you from using likenesses of Public Figures and their voices. It's Supposed to target AI of musicians and actors but it's written So Broadly that it can effect things like Political News Reporting, Political Parody, AMVs, Fan Edits, and of course Fan Art. It's not limited to Tennessee households either so a Hollywood company can relocate a headquarters or branch to Tennessee and use Tennessee law to sue people outside the state.

If you care about any of that, then look up your county's/district's representatives in the Tennessee Senate and House and start calling. It's headed to General Assembly.

Specifically the bill says - no one can use a famous person's likeness or voice without that actor's permission for the actors life plus 10 years - .

You can see how likeness and voice can be broadly applied and of course fans would never be able to get permission for fan content.

Surely you can see how this would affect amvs and fan edits on places like Instagram.

It would also affect things like Fan Art for Live Action Series.

This would limit free use for things like parody which would effect comedy too.

It's named after Elvis and claims to be for the entertainment industry but it's written so broadly so that it can be used by public figures in general. So Politicians would be covered under it.

Honestly politicians are trying to get this passed in Tennessee to limit the use of their own likenesses for things like memes because it's a fairly easy state to get ultra conservative bullshit passed.

Here's some more info from Real Clear Policy writer Hannah Cox:

"

Right of publicity laws typically include stringent, clear exceptions and only apply to advertising, merchandise, and fundraising purposes. Those exceptions are for “newsworthy” images in content that provides a “public interest,” which encompasses everything from hard news to documentaries, to satire, to celebrity gossip.

This is a fantastic structure that ensures an individual has a right to their own personhood while also upholding the First Amendment, its protections for free expression and freedom of the press, and ensuring the public has easy, fast access to information.

The ELVIS Act doesn’t include these provisions. As currently written, filmmakers would have to obtain permission from nefarious actors like Jeffrey Epstein’s estate in order to make a documentary about him. The producers of Forrest Gump wouldn’t be able to include all those scenes with historic figures. 

That’s a really good way to protect powerful people from scrutiny. And it would severely stagnate the flow of information online as even obtaining such permissions could take weeks. Additionally, out of fear, many content creators would simply play it safe out of fear of litigation.

The ELVIS Act also does not limit its reach to those living or dead, nor does it restrict its parameters to those with a Tennessee domicile. This seems like an open plea for people to infiltrate the state with ridiculous lawsuits that wouldn’t make it past the first gate elsewhere. It’s almost like the trial lawyers associations wrote this bill instead of Hollywood unions.

But to be clear, this was brought to the Republican legislature by the music industry associations and Hollywood unions - a peculiar entity for conservative lawmakers to be carrying water for to say the least. What these entities really want is an end to Fair Use practices because they’re bleeding money, and instead of making better products or creating new revenue sources, they’re simply being lazy and attempting to restrict the market.

"

--

When you call: You're a concerned republican worried about how limiting AI can hurt small business and how the law should be written more specifically and Exceptions Should be included To Protect Fair Use for Non-Commercial, News, and Parody use, because all are integral to Free Speech.

The Law is Simply Too Broad the way that it's written now and it limits Facebook campaign support for Republicans if they have to get permission from Liberals to use their likenesses. It limits free speech which is integral to preaching God's good word against his disbelievers in a political setting and you won't stand by a politician that limits your freedoms like that. This is America Land of the Free and you'll be damned if you let someone step on you like that. That its Big Government infringing on your rights as an American instead of sensible small government.

--

If you dont live in Tennesse this will still affect you with the ways it's written. It doesn't take much for companies to set up "official" shop in a new state.

It will also ABSOLUTELY be used as the model for a much worse NATIONAL bill if it gets passed in Tennessee. Because Politicians will see that it already succeeded once and HollyWood and the Music Industry are two lobbies FLUSH with cash for bribes and campaign donations.

Mark my words this will absolutely bleed over into national politics which will be devastating for News Reporting and informing the populace which is ALREADY in awful shape.

[edenmemes]

resident evil: 4 remake starters

❝ man, that stinks. ❞ ❝ this just keeps getting worse. ❞ ❝ you’re still a kid holding onto fantasies of what’s right and wrong. ❞ ❝ i’m gonna let you in on a little secret. just between us. ❞ ❝ the hell is going on? ❞ ❝ hey, we’re a team, right? ❞ ❝ where’s everyone going? bingo? ❞ ❝ you and me are two sides of the same coin. ❞ ❝ that’s just like you. you always had poor judgement. ❞ ❝ ah, so you aren’t heartless after all. ❞ ❝ like i told you, i’m gonna get you home safe. ❞ ❝ i’m not falling for your mind games. ❞ ❝ you proved you can handle yourself. ❞ ❝ you haven’t changed a damn bit. ❞ ❝ you look like you’ve got something to say. ❞ ❝ gotta fix everything myself. ❞ ❝ you can’t run. you got to keep moving forward. ❞ ❝ you’re nothing but an extra in my script. ❞ ❝ i thought you were gonna die. ❞ ❝ i don’t pay you to ask questions. ❞ ❝ there’s no time for resting. ❞ ❝ revenge? you think i’m doing all this...for revenge? ❞ ❝ i need you to trust me, and do exactly as i say. ❞ ❝ you’re too soft to do what’s necessary. ❞ ❝ i know your potential better than anyone. ❞ ❝ you’ve made it all this way, but you haven’t learned a thing. ❞ ❝ maybe you’ll live to meet me again. ❞ ❝ the most important thing in this world is pure, unadulterated power. ❞ ❝ i’ve something to ask you...but i don’t think i’ll get a straight answer. ❞ ❝ you didn’t answer my question. what’re you after? ❞ ❝ you know, you were always an asshole. ❞ ❝ you have a strange sense of humor. ❞ ❝ you are nothing if not unyielding. ❞ ❝ i just wanna feel good about myself. make amends. or something like that. ❞ ❝ just give me a heads-up before you stab me next time, okay? ❞ ❝ it’s okay to be afraid, you know. ❞ ❝ what do you think? people can change, right? ❞ ❝ not looking good, eh, my friend? ❞ ❝ you try to save one person; a hundred others die. ❞ ❝ was that an act of defiance? against me? ❞ ❝ a well-tuned weapon can make up for a lack of skill. ❞ ❝ i’ll let myself out. ❞ ❝ you won’t get away with this. ❞ ❝ be a shame to live the rest of your life wondering ‘what if’ - am i right? ❞ ❝ you have the stench of battle on you. ❞ ❝ so, tell me, why did you come to this horrible place? ❞ ❝ you wanna help? cause i could use it. ❞ ❝ if i could just forget what happened that night, the pain - even for a second... ❞ ❝ i knew i could count on you. ❞ ❝ i think you’d be pretty dashing in it. ❞ ❝ i’m not used to having such good company. ❞ ❝ hey. it’s dangerous outside. ❞ ❝ god damn...i was almost a pancake. ❞ ❝ a lot of people have gone missing around here. and it’s been like that for a while now. ❞ ❝ sorry. i, uh, screwed up. ❞ ❝ i’m so scared. when that happened...i wasn’t myself any more. ❞ ❝ well done. you’ve proven yourself reliable. ❞ ❝ won’t be going anywhere in this thing. ❞ ❝ sorry, didn’t realize that was yours. ❞ ❝ this time, it can be different. it has to. ❞ ❝ everything will work out just fine. ❞ ❝ you missed. that’s not like you. ❞ ❝ come to my rescue, prince charming! ❞ ❝ sometimes it’s more fun not knowing. ❞ ❝ if you do well, i’ll make it worth your while. ❞ ❝ that hurts, you know. ❞ ❝ this is one hell of a gloomy place. ❞ ❝ why help me, though? what’s in it for you? ❞ ❝ oh, well, maybe just untie me then? ❞ ❝ knowledge is power. remember that. ❞ ❝ i can’t tell if that’s meant to be a compliment. ❞ ❝ i’m sure you’ll do your best to help me. ❞ ❝ bill me for the repairs later. ❞ ❝ it seemed like you really wanted to talk. ❞ ❝ you know, those things will kill you. ❞ ❝ you haven’t changed. you just think you have. ❞ ❝ don’t let the smallfry distract you from the big fish. ❞ ❝ quiet type, eh? ❞ ❝ guess you picked the wrong spot to vacation. ❞ ❝ a most warm welcome to my castle. ❞ ❝ bet you’ve been in spots like this before. ❞ ❝ to think you could be this foolish. ❞ ❝ give me a break already. ❞ ❝ i’m sorry. i wish i could do more to help. ❞ ❝ i don’t want to recall what happened down there. ❞ ❝ years haven’t been kind to us, i suppose. ❞ ❝ finally, some peace and quiet. ❞ ❝ who are you? and what are you doing here? ❞ ❝ i’m just an average guy who happens to be quite the ladies’ man. ❞ ❝ you should really be telling me what a good job i did. ❞ ❝ is this the first time you coughed up blood like this? ❞ ❝ so much for helping me. ❞ ❝ so, who are you working for this time? ❞ ❝ you think i’m gonna give up that easily? ❞ ❝ hey, are you sure you’re good? ❞ ❝ i’m gonna get you home safe. ❞ ❝ i have a plan. but you’re going to have to trust me. ❞ ❝ gimme some space. ❞ ❝ i don’t get you. why risk your life like this? ❞ ❝ it’s a little over-the-top, don’t you think? ❞ ❝ they’re coming! get behind me. ❞ ❝ does that hurt? are you in pain? distressed? ❞ ❝ you are really starting to become a giant pain in my ass. ❞ ❝ you know i don’t work and tell. ❞ ❝ you’ve done well to make it this far. ❞ ❝ tell someone who gives a shit. ❞ ❝ happy to help. now you owe me. ❞ ❝ are you just trying to use me again? ❞ ❝ what’re you, my mother? ❞ ❝ i’m definitely gonna catch a cold. ❞ ❝ this artwork...doesn’t it look like it’s telling some kind of story? ❞ ❝ what do we do? there’s no way out. ❞ ❝ what’s wrong with wanting the same for myself? ❞ ❝ it’s a little old fashioned for my taste. ❞ ❝ you’re losing your cool. making mistakes. ❞ ❝ don’t scare me like that. ❞ ❝ you’re slow. and so goddamn weak. ❞ ❝ wow, you’ve really gone all out for me! you shouldn’t have. ❞ ❝ i will send you back to the hell you came from. ❞ ❝ heheh, having a rough day? ❞ ❝ the reaper comes for cowards and the careless alike. which are you? ❞ ❝ i’ve got to think. need to get my head straight. ❞ ❝ i shall leave tomorrow. go far away. ❞ ❝ here’s my question...have you changed? ❞ ❝ we will beat this. together. ❞ ❝ what’s wrong? show no mercy! ❞ ❝ i admit - you’ve done well to stay alive this long. ❞ ❝ this means death. a slow, miserable death. ❞

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - March 20, 2023

🌱 - Okra to the Rescue and Other News You Can't 'Lettuce' Miss This Week

1. 4 day work week being pushed in Congress

Progressive Democrats, led by Rep. Mark Takano of California, are pushing for a four-day workweek to give Americans more time for leisure outside of work. The proposed Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to require overtime pay for any employee working more than 32 hours in a week at a rate of time and a half.

More than 70 British companies have started to test a four-day workweek, and halfway through the six-month trial, most respondents reported there has been no loss in productivity.

2. Governor Walz signs universal school meals bill into Minnesota law

Minnesota just became the fourth state in the US to provide breakfasts and lunches at no charge to students at participating schools! The bill was signed into law by Governor Tim Walz on Friday, and it's set to ease the burden on parents who struggle to provide meals for their children.

The new legislation will cover the cost of meals for all students, regardless of household income. This means that families who don't qualify for free and reduced meals but who struggle to pay for food will also be covered. The bill is also meant to prevent "lunch shaming" practices, where children are denied food or given substitutes that indicate their family is struggling financially.

3. Texas Researchers Use Okra to Remove Microplastics from Wastewater

Researchers from Tarleton State University in Fort Worth, Texas discovered that food-grade plant extracts from okra have the power to remove microplastics from wastewater. Polysaccharide extracts from plants like fenugreek, cactus, aloe vera, tamarind, and okra were found to be effective non-toxic flocculant alternatives to remove microplastics from water.

Polysaccharides from okra and fenugreek were best for removing microplastics from ocean water, while a combination of okra and tamarind worked best for freshwater. Furthermore, plant-based flocculants can be easily implemented in existing water treatment facilities.

4. In the northern California snow, stranded cows are getting emergency hay drops

The recent wave of unprecedented snowfall in California has left cattle stranded and starving. When rancher Robert Puga ran out of hay, neighboring Humboldt County officials put together an emergency rescue operation called "Operation Hay Drop." State, federal, and local officials airdropped stranded cattle bales of hay to feed them.

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal went to the Coast Guard with the idea of a helicopter rescue, and by midday Sunday, March 5, Operation Hay Drop was underway. So far, Operation Hay Drop has been a success, said rancher Puga. The mission covers about 2,500 head of cattle over several miles.

5. Make-A-Wish Foundation no longer considers Cystic Fibrosis to be automatically qualifying due to improvements in life outcomes for patients

Given the ongoing life-changing advances in cystic fibrosis, beginning in January 2024, cystic fibrosis will no longer automatically qualify for a wish.

6. 1st woman given stem cell transplant to cure HIV is still virus-free 5 years later

In 2017, a woman known as the "New York patient" underwent a stem cell transplant to treat both her cancer and HIV. Now, about 30 months later, she has been virus-free and off her HIV medication, leading some researchers to suggest that she may have been cured of HIV.

The New York patient, received stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood that also had the HIV-resistance genes. However, it's important to note that there is no official distinction between being cured and being in long-term remission, and the medical team is waiting for longer-term follow-up before making any definitive statements.

7. Cheetahs Back in Wild in India After Seven Decades

Namibian cheetahs have been successfully reintroduced to India after the world's fastest land animal was declared extinct in the South Asian country more than 70 years ago. Two cheetahs, Obaan and Asha, were released into the wild of Kuno National Park after being brought to India last September.

The species is being reintroduced on an experimental basis as part of a major prestige project for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India aims to bring in about 100 of the big cats over the next decade. The African cheetah is a different subspecies from the extinct Asiatic cheetah, which once roamed the sub-continent in great numbers.

Lastly, I recently opened a Youtube channel. Subscribe for a weekly compilation of feel good videos.

- - -

That's it for this week :) If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Let's carry the positivity into next week and keep spreading the good news!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

CDA 230 bans Facebook from blocking interoperable tools

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then TOMORROW (May 3) in CALGARY, then SATURDAY (May 4) in VANCOUVER, then onto Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the most widely misunderstood technology law in the world, which is wild, given that it's only 26 words long!

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

CDA 230 isn't a gift to big tech. It's literally the only reason that tech companies don't censor on anything we write that might offend some litigious creep. Without CDA 230, there'd be no #MeToo. Hell, without CDA 230, just hosting a private message board where two friends get into serious beef could expose to you an avalanche of legal liability.

CDA 230 is the only part of a much broader, wildly unconstitutional law that survived a 1996 Supreme Court challenge. We don't spend a lot of time talking about all those other parts of the CDA, but there's actually some really cool stuff left in the bill that no one's really paid attention to:

https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/supreme-court-decision-striking-down-cda

One of those little-regarded sections of CDA 230 is part (c)(2)(b), which broadly immunizes anyone who makes a tool that helps internet users block content they don't want to see.

Enter the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and their client, Ethan Zuckerman, an internet pioneer turned academic at U Mass Amherst. Knight has filed a lawsuit on Zuckerman's behalf, seeking assurance that Zuckerman (and others) can use browser automation tools to block, unfollow, and otherwise modify the feeds Facebook delivers to its users:

https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/gu63ujqj8o

If Zuckerman is successful, he will set a precedent that allows toolsmiths to provide internet users with a wide variety of automation tools that customize the information they see online. That's something that Facebook bitterly opposes.

Facebook has a long history of attacking startups and individual developers who release tools that let users customize their feed. They shut down Friendly Browser, a third-party Facebook client that blocked trackers and customized your feed:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/once-again-facebook-using-privacy-sword-kill-independent-innovation

Then in in 2021, Facebook's lawyers terrorized a software developer named Louis Barclay in retaliation for a tool called "Unfollow Everything," that autopiloted your browser to click through all the laborious steps needed to unfollow all the accounts you were subscribed to, and permanently banned Unfollow Everywhere's developer, Louis Barclay:

https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html

Now, Zuckerman is developing "Unfollow Everything 2.0," an even richer version of Barclay's tool.

This rich record of legal bullying gives Zuckerman and his lawyers at Knight something important: "standing" – the right to bring a case. They argue that a browser automation tool that helps you control your feeds is covered by CDA(c)(2)(b), and that Facebook can't legally threaten the developer of such a tool with liability for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or the other legal weapons it wields against this kind of "adversarial interoperability."

Writing for Wired, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University speaks to a variety of experts – including my EFF colleague Sophia Cope – who broadly endorse the very clever legal tactic Zuckerman and Knight are bringing to the court.

I'm very excited about this myself. "Adversarial interop" – modding a product or service without permission from its maker – is hugely important to disenshittifying the internet and forestalling future attempts to reenshittify it. From third-party ink cartridges to compatible replacement parts for mobile devices to alternative clients and firmware to ad- and tracker-blockers, adversarial interop is how internet users defend themselves against unilateral changes to services and products they rely on:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Now, all that said, a court victory here won't necessarily mean that Facebook can't block interoperability tools. Facebook still has the unilateral right to terminate its users' accounts. They could kick off Zuckerman. They could kick off his lawyers from the Knight Institute. They could permanently ban any user who uses Unfollow Everything 2.0.

Obviously, that kind of nuclear option could prove very unpopular for a company that is the very definition of "too big to care." But Unfollow Everything 2.0 and the lawsuit don't exist in a vacuum. The fight against Big Tech has a lot of tactical diversity: EU regulations, antitrust investigations, state laws, tinkerers and toolsmiths like Zuckerman, and impact litigation lawyers coming up with cool legal theories.

Together, they represent a multi-front war on the very idea that four billion people should have their digital lives controlled by an unaccountable billionaire man-child whose major technological achievement was making a website where he and his creepy friends could nonconsensually rate the fuckability of their fellow Harvard undergrads.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Image: D-Kuru (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MSI_Bravo_17_(0017FK-007)-USB-C_port_large_PNr%C2%B00761.jpg

Minette Lontsie (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_Headquarters.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[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

[learnwithmearticles]

KOSA Update

Following up on a previous post about the KOSA bill - a bill that would drastically change how the internet functions, in some ways enforcing the collection of private information and restricting access to educational material based on anyone’s belief that it might be harmful to children.

As of March 2024, the bill has gone through revision to reduce the ability to target marginalized communities. However, the language used in the bill is still broad and would be ultimately harmful to children and adult internet users.

Press releases like that of the American Civil Liberties Union invoke the First Amendment to highlight both the bill’s continued call for requiring or incentivizing age verification and its goal of censoring many different topics of conversation in online spaces.

If the U.S. government seeks to control, censor, and otherwise interfere with the world of the internet, then it would have to be a government program akin to public education or certain libraries. Let that government take over the responsibilities of running and funding the internet in that case if they want that power. Otherwise, the internet does not fall under federal jurisdiction.

In response to reaching out regarding this bill, one Congressman wrote that platforms like TikTok have come under scrutiny for “leaving users’ data vulnerable to access by the Chinese Communist Party, by collecting personal information on children in violation of federal law”. This Congressman does not state in this response whether he supports the KOSA bill in particular, but we hope that he is aware that this proposed bill would, by federal law, necessitate the collection of personal information of minors if websites are to follow its requirements. Additionally, TikTok’s data collection is comparable to that of other sites such as Instagram and Facebook, which are just as able to be infiltrated by political enemies of the U.S.

This update is not about the U.S. government’s ultimatum to the company ByteDance that will likely end in a U.S. ban on TikTok. Still, that news is relevant to internet users, especially those who value choice and self-determination.

In the aforementioned Congressman’s response, he also mentions the Privacy Enhancing Technology Research Act (H.R. 4755). That bill, passed in 2023, calls for organizations like the National Science Foundation to conduct and support research into technologies for mitigating privacy risks. Bills like this one are far more conducive to achieving online safety than the proposed KOSA bill. It seeks to enhance our understanding of data handling and online privacy, while the KOSA bill is more so blindly punching towards a problem that we do not yet have a clear view of.

As before, resources to further learn about and speak out against the bill are below.

Resources:

1.https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/revised-kids-online-safety-act-is-an-improvement-but-congress-must-still-address-first-amendment-concerns

2.https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act

3. https://www.stopkosa.com/

4. Privacy Enhancing Technology Research Act

5. KOSA Bill Post-Revision6.https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/analyzing-kosas-constitutional-problems-depth#

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Thom Hartmann

Kevin Roberts, who heads the Heritage Foundation (largely responsible for Project 2025) just implicitly threatened Americans that if we don’t allow him and his hard-right movement to complete their transformation of America from a democratic republic into an authoritarian state, there will be blood in the streets.

“We’re in the process of taking this country back,” he told a TV audience, adding: “The reason that they are apoplectic right now, the reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning. And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

He’s not wrong. America has been changed as a result of a series of corrupt rulings by Republicans (exclusively; not one of these rulings has been joined by a Democratic appointee) which have changed America’s legal and political systems themselves.

As Roberts notes, this is really the largest issue we all face, and our mainstream media are totally failing to either recognize or clearly articulate how radically different our country is now, how far the Republicans on the Court have dragged us away from both our Founder’s vision and the norms and standards of a functioning, modern democratic republic.

First, in a series of decisions — the first written by that notorious corporatist Lewis Powell (of “Powell Memo” fame) — Republicans on the Court have functionally legalized bribery of politicians and judges by both the morbidly rich and massive corporations.

This started with Powell’s 1978 Bellotti opinion, which opened the door (already cracked a bit) to the idea that corporations are not only “persons” under the Constitution, but, more radically, are entitled to the human rights the Framers wrote into the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments).

Using that rationale, Powell asserted that corporations, like rich people (from the Buckley decision that preceded Belotti by two years), are entitled to the First Amendment right of free speech. But he took it a radical step farther, ruling that because corporations don’t have mouths they can use to speak with, their use of money to spend supporting politicians or carpet-bombing advertising for a candidate or issue is free speech that can’t be tightly regulated.

Citizens United, another all-Republican decision with Clarence Thomas the deciding vote (after taking millions in bribes), expanded that doctrine for both corporations and rich people, creating new “dark money” systems that wealthy donors and companies can use to hide their involvement in their efforts to get the political/legal/legislative outcomes they seek.

Last week the Republicans on the Court took even that a huge step farther, declaring that when companies or wealthy people give money to politicians in exchange for contracts, legislation, or other favors, as long as the cash is paid out after the deed is done it’s not a bribe but a simple “gratuity.”

So, first off, they’ve overthrown over 240 years of American law and legalized bribery.

Last week they also gutted the ability of federal regulatory agencies to protect average people, voters, employees, and even the environment from corporations that seek to exploit, pollute, or even engage in wage theft. This shifted power across the economic spectrum from a government elected by we the people to the CEOs and boards of directors of some of America’s most predatory and poisonous companies.

Finally, in the Trump immunity case, the Court ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution under criminal law, regardless of the crimes they commit, so long as they assert those crimes are done as part of their “official” responsibilities. And who decides what’s “official”? The six Republicans on the Supreme Court.

These actions — corporate personhood, money as speech, ending the Chevron deference to regulatory agencies, and giving the president life-and-death powers that historically have only been held by kings, shahs, mullahs, dictators, and popes — have fundamentally altered the nature of our nation.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the significance of this, or its consequences. We no longer live in America 1.0; this is a new America, one more closely resembling the old Confederacy, where wealthy families and giant companies make the rules, enforce the rules, and punish those who irritate or try to obstruct them.

In America 2.0, there is no right to vote; governors and secretaries of state can take away your vote without even telling you (although they still must go to court to take away your gun).

They can destroy any politician they choose by simply pouring enough cash into the campaign system (including dark, untraceable cash).

The president can now go much farther than Bush’s torturing and imprisoning innocent people in Gitmo without legal process: he can now shoot a person on Fifth Avenue in plain sight of the world and simply call it a necessary part of his job. Or impoverish or imprison you or me with the thinnest of legal “official” rationales.

America 2.0 is not a democracy; it’s an oligarchy, as I wrote about in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy. The South has finally — nearly — won the Civil War.

While it will be months or more likely years before all of these new powers the Republicans on the Court have given the president, rich people, and corporations begin to dawn on most Americans, they will, step-by-step transform this country into something more closely resembling Hungary or Russia than the democracies of Europe and Southeast Asia.

The only remedy at this late stage in this 50+ yearlong campaign to remake America is a massive revolt this fall at the ballot box, turning Congress — by huge majorities — over to Democrats while holding the White House.

If we fail at this, while there will be scattered pockets of resistance for years, it’ll be nearly impossible to reverse the course that America’s rightwing billionaires have set us on.

There has never been a more critical time in the history of our nation outside of the last time rich oligarchs tried to overthrow our democracy, the Civil War. Like then, the stakes are nothing less than the survival of a nation of, by, and for we the people.

[nats-revival]

Not they tryna reenact KOSA… anyway yall, here’s why KOSA is bad!!

If you don’t already know, KOSA, or Kids Online Safety Act is a bill that was proposed to keep children safe on the internet. You might ask ‘why is this bill bad if it’s in favor of supporting the safety of children online’? Well, according to stopkosa.com, it puts pressure on platforms to add even MORE filters on anything they think is inappropriate for children. This is especially harmful for LBGTQIA+ youth because the knowledge about this topic would be censored, as well as knowledge on suicide prevention and LGBTQIA+ support groups. Do you see how this an issue? For those children who are wanting to learn more about these topics they’d be turned away because of this bill. It would also be likely that it’ll allow the shutdown of websites that allow them to learn about race, sexuality and gender.

This bill would also add more internet surveillance for all users across all social media platforms. It would expand the use of age verification and parental monitoring controls. These things in itself are already very invasive, but doesn’t take into consideration the children who live in unsafe environments where they are domestically abused and/or are trying to escape these situations. To add my two cents onto this, I strongly believe that the KOSA bill is an unnecessary violation of our first amendment rights (if you’re American), and doesn’t really make the internet any more safer. It actually makes it more unusable for youth. Hypothetically, if this bill were to be passed, then this would make social media unusable for literally anybody. To censor content from the youth about wanting to learn about their identity is extremely harmful. Blocking them from accessing resources that may prove as helpful in their scenarios is outlandish and unneeded. We try to shelter our youth so much to the point where we try to boil them down to only being with their parents want them to be and also not being able to let them learn and explore about other things that they may want to identify themselves with. This is very harmful.

This is a list of companies who are saying no to KOSA ..

• Access Now

• ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

• Black and Pink National

• Center for Democracy & Technology

• COLAGE

• Defending Rights & Dissent

• Don’t Delete Art

• EducateUS: SIECUS In Action

• Electronic Frontier Foundation

• Equality Arizona

• Equality California

• Equality Michigan

• Equality New Mexico

• Equality Texas

• Fair Wisconsin

• Fairness Campaign

• Fight for the Future

• Free Speech Coalition

• Freedom Network USA

• Indivisible Eastside

• Indivisible Plus Washington

• Internet Society

• Kairos

• Lexington Pride Center

• LGBT Technology Partnership

• Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition

• Media Justice

• National Coalition Against Censorship

• Open Technology Institute

• OutNebraska

• PDX Privacy

• Presente.org

• Reframe Health and Justice

• Restore The Fourth

• SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change

• SWOP Behind Bars 

• TAKE

• TechFreedom

• The 6:52 Project Foundation, Inc.

• The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center

• Transgender Education Network of Texas

• TransOhio

• University of Michigan Dearborn – Muslim Student Association 

• URGE

• WA People’s Privacy

• Woodhull Freedom Foundation

There is something you can do to stop the KOSA bill from being passed! On the website I linked, there is a petition. All you have to do is fill out the information and it’ll send off an email for you. The email reads as follows:

I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk. KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources. KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity. There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data. KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.

The website also gives you like a format of what you can say if you chose to call your representatives. If after reading this post, you feel inclined to do something then I would say just go ahead and do it. My first time learning about KOSA was today immediately after seeing the post I felt inclined to send my lawmakers an email. Please try to help when you can and this will only take a few minutes so I think this is something that you can consider. This post is getting a little long now, so I’ll stop here. There are more resources online if you would like to learn more about the cons of this KOSA bill, thank you for reading.