#congressmen-at-large

[ikiyou]

I too, saw the headlines about this at work today.

"It sounds utterly ridiculous and instantly dismissible"...is the same reaction we all had to Trump's presidential run the first time.

As UNLIKELY as it is to secure the 2/3 necessary vote to change the constitution - why couldn't we change the constitution to write out something "as basic and agreed upon" as equal rights between men and women, for example? (That would be because of the mysoginists) - we STILL need to be vigilant against every attempt, big and small, to eat away at YOUR rights. YOUR democracy. YOU are the president of this country, not whatever fat infant is sitting there sucking his thumb supposedly representing YOU. That infant is NOT representing you, NOR working for you. That infant is only representing himself - this is CLEAR and FACTUAL based upon the melange of biased, unethical, illegal, immoral, unAmerican executive orders he tried to shit through on day one, like a loose bowel syndrome.

He and his cronies will take EVERY lapse in attention they can get to remove your rights.

Some dumb cocksucking fatass proposed a 3rd term at a congregation of more money-grubbing fatassed theives late last year during the end of the elections.

That same weak willied behavior is now trickling into the mentally ill, defected-from-America-as-well-as-reality brains of current cronies speared upon Trump's limp dick.

To give some factual context:

Quote from Axios: "The amendment has virtually no chance of becoming ratified but it is a marker of the depths of fealty the new president enjoys within the House GOP.

And: "The measure is an extreme long-shot: It would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and be ratified by 38 states to be added to the Constitution.

Regarding the details of the amendment: "Ogles' amendment would allow any president to serve a third term if their first two terms were non-consecutive.

"The text of the amendment would still prohibit a third term if the first two were consecutive — prohibiting former Presidents Bush, Obama and Clinton from running again — or a third full term for anyone who has served more than two years of someone else's term. (A/N: None of these cases are fundamentally different. This is a specific ploy just to get Trump an extra term because he's somehow butthurt about it. It's worded so as to encourage YOU, the reader, to think: uh, yeah, yeah I think that might be logical. It is not. Counterpoint: Biden served 1 term and will never serve another. To whom is Tump trying to gain some sort of lost 'equality' to? No one. This is not an attempt to equalize anything. His revenge is against Biden; this ploy is simply a way to get unmitigated power.)

"It is imperative that we provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration," Ogles said in a statement. (A/N: Awww you sissies need 2 terms for that?)

Important context: "Ogles also faces a potential House Ethics Committee investigation for his campaign finances, as one House Democrat who sits on the committee that considers constitutional amendments noted.

"I don't think he wants to talk about the campaign finance fraud that he is accused of and would like us instead to focus on what a committed Trump sycophant he is," said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), a Judiciary Committee member.

A/N: So, as usual, this is an attempt to deflect attention onto something inflammatory.

Wow.

Be vigilant, and believe everything Trump says as his aim. He is not making jokes.

Source

Transcript:

“BREAKING: A constitutional amendment has been filed allowing President Trump to seek a 3rd term in office.

"No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."

It was filed by Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN).

Don’t let this slip by unnoticed. This is not just “one extra term”, it’s a warning shot. It’s a red flag. It’s an omen.

They are slowly turning up the heat in the pan. Do not be the frog who sits denying it’s getting hotter.

One extra term will become two, two will become three, and three will eventually give way to lifelong reign of each president.

Fight. Fight for God’s sake.

Contact your local representative of congress. Convince them we do not want this.

We are going to end up in a dictatorship.

@ikiyou

Please help spread this. I don’t usually get political and I don’t usually ask for assistance but this is important and you have more reach.

[reasonsforhope]

Yesterday [April 30, 2024], a bipartisan collection of US Senators introduced the Fans First Act, which would help address flaws in the current live event ticketing system by increasing transparency in ticket sales, and protecting consumers from fake or dramatically overpriced tickets.

Today, the artists and Congressmen allege, buying a ticket to a concert or sporting event requires negotiating a minefield of predatory practices, such as speculative ticket buying and the use of automated programs to buy large numbers of tickets for resale at inflated prices.

The legislation would ban such practices, and include provisions for guaranteed refunds in the event of a cancellation.

The political campaign organizers, calling themselves “Fix the Tix” write that included among the supporters of the legislation is a coalition of live event industry organizations and professionals, who have formed to advocate on behalf of concertgoers.

This includes a steering committee led by Eventbrite [Note: lol, I'm assuming Eventbrite just signed on to undermine Ticketmaster and for PR purposes] and the National Independent Value Association that’s supported by dozens of artistic unions, independent ticket sellers, and of course, over 250 artists and bands, including Billie Eilish, Dave Matthews, Cyndi Lauper, Lorde, Sia, Train, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, and hundreds more which you can read here.

“Buying a ticket to see your favorite artist or team is out of reach for too many Americans,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

“Bots, hidden fees, and predatory practices are hurting consumers whether they want to catch a home game, an up-and-coming artist, or a major headliner like Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny. From ensuring fans get refunds for canceled shows to banning speculative ticket sales, this bipartisan legislation will improve the ticketing experience.”

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Roger Wicker (R-MS), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Peter Welch (D-VT) also signed on to the Fan First Act.

In the House, parallel legislation was just passed through committee 45-0.

[Note: That's a really good sign. That kind of bipartisan support is basically unheard of these days, and rare even before that. This is strong enough that it's half the reason I'm posting this article - normally I wait until bills are passed, but this plus parallel legislation with such bipartisan cosponsors in the senate makes me think there's a very real chance this will pass and become law by the end of 2024.]

“We would like to thank our colleagues, both on and off committee, for their collaboration. This bipartisan achievement is the result of months and years of hard work by Members on both sides of the aisle,” said the chairs and subchairs of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

“Our committee will continue to lead the way on this effort as we further our work to bring this solution to the House floor.”

“The relationship between artist and fan, which forms the backbone of the entire music industry, is severed,” the artists write. “When predatory resellers scoop up face value tickets in order to resell them at inflated prices on secondary markets, artists lose the ability to connect with their fans who can’t afford to attend.”

-via Good News Network, May 1, 2024

[lancerslover]

To Love, Honor, and Obey

pairing: senator john f. kennedy/reader

summary: in the late 1950s, your husband, senator john f. kennedy, brings you to dinner with his congressmen colleagues. when you start to tease him under the table, you quickly realize you may have bit off more than you can chew.

warnings: 18+, includes smut, swearing, public humiliation, and maybe dubious consent

word count: 2.7k

When Jack had asked you to accompany him and his brother to a ritzy restaurant downtown to celebrate the bill he passed to increase the minimum wage, you’d eagerly accepted. As much as you cherished your peaceful nights alone with the baby, you’d been missing Jack a great deal. His long hours at the capitol building and regular trips back to Massachusetts in tandem with your new-mother exhaustion meant that, lately, the majority of your interactions consisted solely of you blinking suddenly and blearily awake in the evening to him bunching your nightgown skirt up into your armpits for a quick fuck before he, too, rolled over and passed out. When you woke back up in the morning, naked and sore, he was gone again.

That isn’t to say you disliked these little late-night rendezvous of yours, though. In fact, you had a particularly mouth-watering, albeit hazy, memory from the night just before he’d asked you to dinner—you’d been laying half-asleep on top of him, moaning languidly as you enjoyed the rhythmic jerk of his hips into yours, when suddenly he cupped your face in his big, calloused hand and said, “Look at me, honey,” then reached his climax at the exact moment the two of you locked eyes, rolling his head back and muffling a groan through clenched teeth. You figured it was the total, submissive surrender he saw in your woozy gaze, a look he knew only he would ever see, that really did it for him. These encounters were bound to result in another pregnancy soon, which was yet another reason for you to appreciate them. Jack’s menagerie of siblings loved to half-jokingly remind you that a Catholic marriage wasn’t truly successful until it produced at least five children.

But, regardless of the intermittent fun you and Jack still had, you’d been excited by the prospect of some long-overdue actual conversation between the two of you that this dinner could offer. But once two whole hours had passed after you sat down and you and Jack had hardly said more than a few sentences to each other, you realized how foolish you’d been to hope for anything more.

You were seated at a large booth in the back corner of the restaurant with Jack’s brother Bob, Bob’s wife Ethel, and a few other senators and their wives. As if that wasn’t already enough to steal Jack’s attention away, to your chagrin, your little section had seemed to transform into the social hub of D.C. almost as soon as you all arrived.

You didn’t think you would ever grow accustomed to how similar this supposed democratic utopian city could be to the average American high school—everyone knew each other, and everyone wanted to be seen rubbing elbows with the popular kids. Years ago, your husband had gladly assumed the role of D.C.’s reigning prom king (whether this was fortunate or unfortunate for you, you still weren’t sure), which meant that every five minutes or so, a new politician or CEO would materialize through the thick ring of cigar smoke surrounding your table and practically dive forward to shake Jack’s hand, effusively congratulating him on his new bill. Vice President Richard Nixon had actually pulled up a chair and sat down with you all for half an hour.

You were starting to feel sort of like a sulky child waiting for her father to finish mingling at a party—not only because you were more than ten years younger than your husband and probably more than twenty younger than his colleagues, but the constant whirl of booming voices together with the four-piece band blasting swing music from across the room was more than enough for you to quickly abandon any attempt to get a word in edgewise. For a while now, you’d been silently holding Jack’s hand in your lap and twiddling with his long fingers, praying that your constant touch would serve as a subconscious reminder that it was far past your bedtime. All you’d gotten from him so far, though, were the usual check-up glances he’d brush your way every so often, placating you for a brief moment with his gentle smirk. Despite your grievances, you always flashed him a good-humored smile in return. Above all, your appointed duty as Mrs. John F. Kennedy was to follow his lead and make him look good.

You finally reached your wit’s end, though, when Dean Martin (you weren’t fully certain why he was even in town) strolled up with this rosy-cheeked blonde on his arm. You hadn’t the faintest idea who the girl was—yet another of Dean’s extra-marital conquests, surely—but you certainly clocked how beautiful she was and how she couldn’t have been older than twenty. As she sauntered up to your table, you noticed how Jack raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his seat as if Dean was a waiter who had just arrived with a silver platter. You felt your fingers tighten around his hand.

The first thing the blonde did was, without so much as a glance in your direction, offer Jack her dainty little gloved hand. “Senator Kennedy,” she tittered, “how do you do? It’s such an honor to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.” Then she blurted out a surprisingly topical and informed joke about certain dastardly Republican congressmen and their attempts to squash workers’ unions across the country. Like trained dogs, the table waited mid-motion for Jack to break into an approving smile before they all started to chuckle. Then Jack turned to Bob and, with a stream of cigar smoke shooting from his nose, said, “She’s quite the firecracker, eh?” Bob responded with a wolfish, droopy-eyed grin, and the girl let out a chirpy giggle.

You knew you couldn't expect a man to completely ignore such an attractive woman, especially a man with Jack’s appetite (once, at a dinner party a few months into your courtship, he had drunkenly informed you that he suffered horrible migraines whenever he ever went more than twenty-four hours without intercourse). But still, that didn’t mean you would sit idly by while his depraved mind began to wander.

Dean was in the middle of saying, “Jack, the missus looks dashing as always” and you were smiling graciously as, under the table, you made the admittedly desperate, split-second decision to get Jack’s attention by pulling the hem of your cocktail dress up over your knees.

When you placed his hand down on your thigh, covered now only by a thin stocking, you glanced up to see his ears shift backwards on his scalp in a slight, almost-undetectable expression of surprise. “I can’t believe my luck,” he was telling Dean, and then, without missing a beat, he turned to wink at you before hooking a finger under one of your garter belt slings and snapping it playfully against your skin, sending sparks up your leg.

This wasn’t the first time he’d touched you below the belt outside the privacy of your home. He was known to occasionally slip his hand up your dress in the back of a limousine or give your butt an appreciative pat while walking behind you at some social event. You would always gasp and squirm away, your cheeks pinching into a nervous smile. But, luckily for him, the toe-curling embarrassment that normally engulfed you at the mere thought of engaging in public sexual behavior felt strangely dull tonight, like the wipsy, half-formed thoughts you had just before you fell asleep—maybe this sudden shift was, as a matter of fact, a result of how deliriously tired you were.

While Jack continued to talk to Dean, you grabbed his wrist and tugged it a tiny bit further up your thigh. You watched his nostrils flare as if someone had just told him a joke he wasn’t sure he should laugh at.

Once his initial shock at your change of heart regarding public affection wore off, you knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to keep moving his hand further and further up your leg. This would not only serve to keep his focus on you and you alone for the rest of the night, but it would ensure that this wearisome dinner wouldn’t go on for too much longer. You fully expected Jack to take you home within ten minutes of him first touching your leg so that he could properly satisfy his newly-stoked sexual hunger.

But then, your whole body twinged as, in one abrupt movement, he completely overrode your little plan and went to press his knuckle against the fabric covering your labia. Instinctively, you grabbed onto his bicep with the ferocity of someone trying to catch their balance before they fell.

“You alright there, Mrs. Kennedy?” Dean asked.

You snapped your head to look up at him. His bushy eyebrows hooked towards each other in concern.

“Oh,” you said, “yes….” Your forehead flared with heat as you tried to think of an excuse as to why you’d latched onto your husband so abrasively. The sizzling of Jack’s mischievous gaze into the side of your face certainly wasn’t helping. What in heaven’s name was he playing at? Rubbing your panties in the backseat of a car was one thing—but at a crowded restaurant? Right next to Bob and Ethel?

After just a beat too long, you finally decided to tell Dean, “I just—Jack and I just love this song.” Jaw clenched, you forced yourself to turn and beam up at your husband as the band floated through the opening notes of “I’ve Got a Crush on You.”

“Oh, we sure do,” Jack said emphatically, which was jarring when paired with the way he then tilted his head down at you like a professor who’d just caught his student in a fib. You were almost entirely certain the two of you had never before listened to this song together.

Jack was still boring into you with those intense, dark-sea eyes as he angled his knuckle up towards your clit and began rubbing up and down, up and down. Against your will, your stomach seized with pleasure, and you dug your nails into his arm.

By the grace of God, one of the other senators’ wives piped up then, keeping the conversation seamlessly flowing. “Donna and I saw Sinatra perform this song in Vegas,” she said. Once all eyes had swiveled over to her and the table began to discuss this revelation, Jack took the opportunity to lean clandestinely towards you.

“You know better than to start something you can’t finish, kid,” he murmured into your ear. You felt your spine lock up, an instinctive reaction to this particular dark and unpredictable tone of his. You forced yourself to take deep, slow breaths through your nose. Cigar smoke puffed against your cheek and billowed across your eyes as Jack continued, “Is this all because of her?”

You turned, the bridge of your nose skimming across his, in time to watch him cock his head in the direction of Dean’s date. You glanced over toward her, and you were mildly startled to find that she was looking right back at you. With a too-wide smile plastered on her face at whatever one of the other senators was saying, she looked quickly back and forth between you and Jack—at the way he loomed over you while you likely appeared oddly stiff and flustered-looking—before turning sharply away.

You lifted a hand and pressed the backsides of your trembling, manicured fingers against your cheek. As you’d suspected, your skin was burning to the touch and only blazing hotter as your thoughts began to run amok. The blonde couldn’t possibly suspect something was going on under the table, could she?

Meanwhile, Jack took your stupefied silence as a “yes” in response to his question and clicked his tongue in a quiet tsk-tsk. “I thought so,” he said. “I wish you wouldn’t worry about other girls. You’re much prettier than she is.”

“Jack—” You were interrupted by the squeak that popped from your mouth as he increased his pressure on your clit. You clenched your legs around his forearm in a futile attempt to stop him.

“What?” he breathed, undeterred.

When you tried again to speak, your voice sounded small and distant under the sickening throbbing sensations that blared like alarm bells through your midsection. “You’re the devil.”

He gasped softly in mock outrage. “The devil?”

Despite it all, you couldn't help but let out a little wheezing laugh at your own melodrama. “Yes.”

He chuckled, too, and you thought he was about to say something else when one of his senator cronies said, “Isn’t that right, Jack?”

After searing you with a smoky look that clearly meant Don’t think I’m done with you yet, Jack leaned back to rejoin the conversation with startling ease. He puffed on his cigar and, with one relentless hand still tucked under your skirt, said, “Well, I wouldn’t blame Ives one bit for retiring after the year we’ve had.”

You started to wonder how the hell he had possibly been following the senators’ conversation while simultaneously whispering to you, but you didn’t have much time to ruminate; you could feel yourself growing more and more air-headed with each circle his knuckle made on your clit.

As Jack continued to talk, you were almost certain you saw the blonde’s curious eyes follow the length of his arm down to where it disappeared in your lap. A fresh wave of nauseating embarrassment spilled over you, and you were reminded of a particularly debauched dream you’d had a few months ago in which Jack brought you to one of his Senate hearings and instructed you to give him a blowjob while everyone watched. Strangely, you eagerly complied, gagging and sputtering while the old men around you whistled and cheered Jack on. You woke up feeling sick to your stomach, your heart racing, and yet, you also noticed that yours and Jack’s thighs had gotten all wet with your arousal during the night.

You felt your hips twitch with confused, guilty excitement, and you weren’t sure if it was because you were thinking about that dream or because you were now almost certain that the blonde knew exactly what Jack was doing to you down there. It occurred to you that she was likely jealous. She probably wished she had someone like Jack who would take such good care of her, someone so movie-star handsome, someone who could make her wake up in the morning, gasping, from a horrendously dirty wet dream.

Suddenly, you found yourself dangling right over the edge of orgasm.

As soon as you heard Jack stop talking again, you seized the chance to tug on his shoulder and whisper, “Jack, you can’t—I’m about to….” Apparently, you’d never quite left behind your tenure as a prim Catholic schoolgirl because you simply could not get yourself to say the word “come” in front of all these people, even if only Jack could hear it.

But before Jack could even react, Ethel poked her head out from around his shoulder like an adorable little gopher.

“Y/N,” she said, her mouth melting into a cartoonish, open-mouthed frown, “you don’t look too good, sweetheart.”

The muscles in your body flash-froze as all eyes, once again, turned on you. You knew the proper thing would be to respond somehow, but you kept your lips firmly sealed, paranoid that some kind of wanton moan would tumble out if you opened them. The big, hot water balloon in your lower stomach was stretching, getting ready to pop. Telepathically, you begged Jack, Please, please don’t make me come.

At the very last moment, as if he’d been listening to every single one of your thoughts, Jack yanked his hand away. Eyes fluttering, you planted both hands on the cushion underneath you to steady yourself, feeling suddenly like you’d just finished a sprint. Thankfully, you heard Jack take all the attention off of you as he announced to everyone, “I think Mrs. Kennedy and I are both a little tired. It’s about time for us to head home.”

[tanadrin]

Honestly, I *don't* want to mix things with proportional representation. I see proportional representation as an excellent way of increasing the importance of dealings between politicians and reducing the incentive effects of the voters. But in my ideal world I'll need to negotiate with people who do like proportional representation, and this system is a compromise I could get behind. Plus you can plug and play any three different electoral systems for different compromises.

First past the post is a bad, undemocratic electoral system. First past the post privileges large parties by making small ones unviable, and distorts the composition of parliaments by wasting votes. It can be gerrymandered in a way proportional representation cannot be. It produces highly unrepresentative outcomes. It is a bad electoral system! All good voting systems are to some degree inclined to more proportional results.

I've never heard the accusation that PR "increases the importance of dealings between politicians," but look. I don't know how else to put this. That is a stupid objection. Just absolutely boneheaded. You haven't thought about this at all, I reckon.

People hate on "politicians" as a generic class, but it's like hating on lawyers as a generic class. You need politicians. You want politicians. You want people whose specialized job it is to read legislation, fight about what should go in it, represent your interests, and come to balanced compromises about those interests. People percieve politics as messy, venal, and corrupt, and it can be all those things, but guess what? The alternative to career politicians is part-time citizens who don't know what the fuck they're doing, have no expertise in the legislative process, and therefore are at the mercy of lobbyists who can walk them like a dog because they're naive and inexperienced.

There's this especially (but not exclusively) American pathology that is a suspicion of government that works too well. This peculiar notion that if only we sabotage government a little bit it will keep tyranny in check and make politicians more honest... somehow. But filling government with random yahoos doesn't get you a noble collegium of Tocquevillian citizen-lawmakers, it gets you a pack of Marjorie Taylor Greens and Lauren Boberts. You know--morons. Americans will support all these ballot initiatives that fuck up government on purpose, like term-limiting legislators and keeping their salaries low so only rich people can afford to go into politics (and even then are only willing to do it as a stepping stone to other gigs), and vote for people who promise to make government work even worse by cutting the budget and lowering taxes, and then have the absolute gall to whine about how badly the government works. My fellow Americans, you did that on purpose.

(And there's this weird paradox where Americans all loathe Congress. Who keeps voting these creeps in? Well. You do. Congresscritters are generally pretty highly approved of by their own constituents. The stereotype of lazy, stupid, venal politicians always seems to apply to the other guys.)

And you will also note that since the abolition of things that used to facilitate deals between politicians in the U.S. congress--since the abolition of earmarks and chummy socials between congressmen and the post--generally, since the post-Gingrich upheaval in the House--it has gotten harder to pass even necessary, basic legislation, because it is harder to make the basic compromises necessary to keep government functioning. Having three separate legislatures that each can claim a different sort of democratic mandate isn't a recipe for good legislation, it's a recipe for paralysis and constitutional crisis.

[darkmaga-returns]

Schiff and Swalwell should join former Deputy Attorney General Rod ‘Rat’ Rosenstein and Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as the initial examples made by the Trump administration.

Roger Stone

Dec 23, 2024

The Department of Justice’s inspector general issued a report last week examining the ethical and legal implications of the DOJ's snooping on media and congressional employees throughout the Russia-gate investigation. The report was largely ignored by fake news media despite its apparent implication of high-level Democrat officials in potentially criminal acts.

A critical section of the IG report notes that California Democrat Congressmen Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, referenced as Member 1 and Member 2 in the report as confirmed by The Federalist, were investigated as suspects for leaking classified information to drag President Trump through the mud and paint him as a Russian agent in the biased. At the time, Schiff led the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), with Swalwell serving as a member, and they reportedly abused their power at this prestigious committee to damage their political opposition.

According to the report, a Democrat whistleblower had a guilty conscience over Schiff and Swalwell’s immoral deeds and voluntarily opened up to the FBI, telling the federal law enforcement agency that he “suspected that Member 1 had previously leaked classified information and that Member 2 wanted to influence public opinion via the release of classified information.” This is allegedly how Schiff and Swalwell worked in tandem to manipulate public opinion and trick the unsuspecting public into believing the patently false Trump/Russia collusion story.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Look, every time there's some "Texas wants to secede!" Bullshit, here's a few points to remember.

1. We can't and won't. There was already one war about this. It's grand standing virtue singaling big boot nonsense.

2. You shouldn't want that. Texas is full of diverse, wonderful people who have been largely voter suppressed and disenfranchised. "Eh fuck em" is a shit political stance.

3. US Republicans *do not want this* and *will not let it happen either.* Do you honestly think that Republicans could remain a relevant political party in the US if they lost the 38 Electoral college votes, 2 senators, and the (on average) 25 congressmen (average 11 democrats, so a net gain of +14) that Texas sends to Washington?

They'd never win another presidential election again.

[b33viemm]

STOP KOSA "KIDS ONLINE SAFETY ACT", THE MASSIVE ONLINE CENSORSHIP BILL

"there will be no room to call for a free palestine, congo, sudan, or yemen when imperialists control what stays on the internet. there will be no room for sharing queer joy, safe binding and tucking guides, or tutorials on how to safely navigate kink when queerphobes and puritans decide what kinda of relationships and identities are "acceptable". there will be no room for anticapitalism, protest organizing, pirating, or sharing anti-establishment resources when the establishment can erase whatever ideas are too threatening to them to stay. there will be no room for those who do not or can not conform.

the government will now have access to protest organizer's information (and your information), including their full name and home address.

the bill will largely target: TRANS AND QUEER CONTENT LGBTQ+ adults and minors seeking help and community, people looking for abortions, people organizing protests, anyone using their free speech to voice concerns about injustices, fan artists people reading fan fiction people sharing and enjoying their k1nks and smut (in art or writing), wanting to post things with safety and privacy

By the time you read this, the Senate might have already passed the bill into the House (feb 26th), but we still have time. MAKE NOISE.

all the letters and petitions ive been able to find, plus 2 articles. please sign, call your reps, email them, fax them.

A MASTERLIST WITH MORE RESOURCES (ARTICLES, CALL/EMAIL SCRIPTS, PETITIONS, MORE INFO, EARN IT ACT, COOPER DAVIS ACT, CONGRESSMEN CONTACT, ORGS)

1. ARTICLES:

POST WITH CONTACTING REPRESENTATIVES; LETTERS

POST WITH PETITIONS

@anti-kosa-bill-links

[infraaa]

KOSA 101

Let’s talk about this. This is something I haven’t seen a lot of in my end, and this new bill may be troubling to not just us as a whole, but content creators. So, this isn’t just exclusive to AO3 anymore. This can go as far as places like Wattpad, Quotev, DeviantArt, and here.

So, to put it bluntly, if you give a fuck, listen.

What is KOSA?

KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act,) is a bill within the United States that was initially created last year with the aim of protecting youth (considerably age 16 and under,) from viewing harmful content online. It has since been updated and reintroduced by Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN.) Now, on surface level, it may seem like this has a good outlook, right? Not in the slightest. This bill, while it may not be passed yet rather introduced, may take an extreme to protect youth and monitor all. Yes, I said monitor.

Not only is NSFW content bound to be flagged, which may totally censor a lot of creators not just on this platform but others, a wider band that is under this new bill is LGBT+ content. According to Senator Blackburn of Tennessee, who is KOSA’s co-author, even education on race discrimination was viewed as “dangerous to kids,” and this soon branches out to race, gender, and sexuality discrimination. This also extends out to anxiety, depression, eating disorders, etc. The bill puts itself in the hands of State Attorney Generals in order for them to use tools of censorship against our rights and safety— not just for the youth, but for adults too, as we may face (giving an example,) hurdles trying to obtain things like legal documents.

How does KOSA work?

KOSA works by acting as a censor and self filter for the internet. By the hands of Attorney State Generals, they ultimately decide what is harmful to kids online. Though, this is a dual edged sword. This would also present the loss of access to information that a large sum of people may not deem dangerous. This again extends outward towards things like depression, substance abuse, etc— complex topics without a clear agreement on causes or solutions. This means that it could also filter, and possibly censor medical information, extending outward to trans medical care as well, which may lead on to silence the transgender community further. This is a very bad thing.

There would still be features like Age Verification, but it also filters legal speech. What I mean by “there will still be features,” to give an example, Tumblr has a tab in settings where you can add your birthday, which in turn verifies how old you are. Tiktok has this feature as well. About filtering legal speech, any kind of media or information that has to do with societal ills that is held on a platform, for example, Tumblr, will enable that platform to be held liable for holding that information. But… it may seem like I’m getting off topic, aren’t I?

So let’s swing back around…

KOSA has the ability to hurt creators on several different platforms. This gives the United States Government unlimited range of control over the internet.

This linktree has at least four different petitions open for you to take action against the bill, and to contact your congressmen and women. There’s also a discord server that’s dedicated to stopping KOSA from passing.

By doing this, you are spreading your voice. You are helping millions of people nationally— creators, artists, writers, everyone.

And finally, don’t just like this post. Reblog it— it helps it spread and gain exposure.

Let’s put an end to KOSA.

[uboat53]

Hey look, Biden pardoned his son and the media is going wall-to-wall in its coverage. Yeah, this is exactly what's wrong with our country right now. SHORT RANT (TM)?

WHAT HAPPENED?

So, for those who missed it, President Biden has officially pardoned his son Hunter. Media coverage of this is wall-to-wall today, it's the front page story on every single national news website. But, of course, that's not the whole story here or I wouldn't be calling it "what's wrong with our country".

Obviously it's getting reported as unequal justice, but let's look at what led to it in the first place. As reported at the time, the firearms charges that he was charged with and convicted of are charges that are almost never charged if they are the only ones that can be proven. In other words, far from being unequally pardoned of common crimes, the younger Biden is being pardoned of crimes that no ordinary person would have been charged with in the first place.

Let's face it, Biden wouldn't have needed a pardon if his dad hadn't been president. I'm a father myself and, if my kid was facing jail time as a result of something I did and I had the power to undo that, I'd undo it without a second thought and who cares about the consequences. Good luck finding a headline or even a full article in the American media today that provides all of that detail.

THE COVERAGE

The most responsible coverage reports this in the context of how it will provide an example for Trump to point to about how justice in this country is unequal/political, which, sure? Of course, that coverage (1) doesn't mention the context that I described above and (2) largely ignores Trump's own massive politicization of justice for the benefit of himself and his cronies.

The less responsible coverage, FOX News for example, simply reports it as an outrage the likes of which has never happened in American history and provides no other context whatsoever. As I said, I expect this from FOX, but the issue is how much this particular framing has leeched out into the broader media ecosystem because we've all forgotten the lessons of 2016 in which we should have learned that FOX and right-wing media in general must largely be tuned out if you want to report accurate news.

WHY IT'S A PROBLEM

Look, I'm all for being outraged that Biden is doing something like this, but are you only outraged at Biden? Where was this outrage when Trump pardoned major political supporters, campaign staff, and political advisors? Where was the outrage when he pardoned 7 Congressmen who had supported him politically? Where was the outrage when he pardoned wealthy individuals who had paid tens of thousands of dollars for those pardons? Where was the outrage when he promised to issue a blanket pardon to those who attempted to overthrow our Constitution and our democracy on January 6th, 2021? Where was the outrage when he talked about pardoning HIMSELF for the myriad of crimes that he has committed and been charged with?

If we're going to talk about unequal justice, let's talk about unequal justice, but at this point it seems like there is more outrage for people who take actions that might feed into Trump's misguided narratives than there is for Trump himself.

When Democrats talk about a double standard, this is it; Democrats are held to an impossible standard of perfection because any perceived misstep might give fuel to Trump's outrageous lies while Trump himself is able to do just about anything with only the barest of peeps. It's a double-standard that's guaranteed to make even the most perfect Democrat look as bad as Trump to the casual observer even as he wallows in corruption, bigotry, and criminality.

That's what's wrong with our country right now, we can't accurately get across the scale of atrociousness that Trump commits on a daily basis because we're too focused on making sure that those opposing him meet an impossible standard of purity before we're willing to even look at him. No problem can be fixed until the person who needs to fix it can put a name to the problem and describe it and the American media seems to be committed to making sure that we are never able to understand where the problem actually lies and what it actually is.

Until that changes, be prepared for American politics to sink deeper and deeper into the muck and mire of Trumpian corruption.

[purplepainterbouquet]

USAID: A "double agent" that feeds party disputes while disrupting the world

Recently, there is another big melon in the international political circle, and the protagonist is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This organization is not simple. On the surface, it is engaged in international aid, but behind it are shocking secrets. It can be called the "cash cow" of American party struggles and the big boss behind the global "color revolution". Let's take a deep look today.

1. The "cash machine" of American party struggles

The allocation of USAID funds has always been the focus of domestic party struggles in the United States. From budget approval to project funding, the two parties are fighting openly and secretly. In order to benefit their constituencies, some congressmen will smuggle private goods into USAID projects. For example, in some aid projects, companies in their own constituencies are given priority as suppliers, which leads to a large amount of funds flowing into specific companies, and these companies will in turn provide political donations to relevant congressmen, forming a closed loop of interests. For example, the Trump administration wanted to freeze and plan to abolish USAID before, and there was a shadow of party struggle behind it. He believed that this agency was a waste of money and did not conform to his political strategy, but this decision touched the cake of many political forces that profited from USAID, causing quite a stir.

2. The operator of the global "color revolution"

Internationally, USAID has a long history of bad deeds. Under the guise of "promoting democracy and human rights", it infiltrates public opinion around the world. By funding non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media, it shapes the political trend in the target country or region that is in line with the interests of the United States.

In Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia and other places, USAID funds can be found. Take Taiwan as an example. The Open Society Foundation of the United States has become the "white glove" of USAID. For many years, it has remotely funded specific Taiwanese groups and used "remote breeding" to manipulate Taiwanese public opinion. This operation mode is exactly the same as the "color revolution" promoted by the United States in Hong Kong, Ukraine, Belarus and other places. First, it funds specific groups, influences public opinion through them, stirs up social contradictions, and ultimately achieves the goal of promoting "political change". Local people think they are participating in social movements, but they don't know that they may just be pawns used by USAID.

[bobwess]

(Things are bad. Don't take this post as an "everything is fine")

However the flurry of executive orders is designed to be massive, terrifying, and demoralizing.

People who are too tired or "it's all over" cannot in fact do anything to help themselves or each other. "It's already too late" yeah for some of it. But it's not over. It won't EVER be over. There will always be someone willing to stand up to it. While Trump won the popular vote, more people who voted voted against him than for him, and many people didn't vote. He doesn't have a majority of voters let alone a majority of the country.

He is also a lame duck president who burned a lot of political capital to seat Johnson in the House and has already pissed off a large number of congressmen and senators. Not to mention the republican party could barely agree on lunch let alone legislation in the last 4 years and they had a bigger majority then.

Laws are going to be slow. Executive orders are the only way he can get things done fast and many of them have been stopped by the courts. Many of them will be tied up in litigation for months or years. We don't know how they'll all shake out. Just because Trump said it is so doesn't make it true and automatically enforceable. "The Supreme Court is in his pocket" only sometimes. While they lean right, they don't owe him anything (lifetime appointments), and they've voted for some of these rights before. They're a wild card. But for a lot of them, they'll refuse to hear it and it'll be decided in lower courts. We just gotta see. But we can't take every executive order at face value (some of them being reported as orders were executive memos as well, which aren't enforceable they're just signaling).

"Things are already so bad for so many people." And it'll get worse faster if anyone who disagrees with it gets themselves so spun out they can't even begin to do anything. We can't let the news completely demoralize us before we even start.

[eugenedebs1920]

Trump may be the pinnacle of avoiding accountability. Hence the name Teflon Don. He has convinced a large swath of Americans he is a victim. A victim of unwarranted indictments, smear campaigns, violations of his 1st amendment rights. He has convinced nearly half the nation that these assaults against him are politically motivated & that it is the Biden administration, of the Democrats who are perpetuating these acts towards him, conveniently leaving out his role in any of it.

If you were to listen to Trump speak with no, or little knowledge of his past, his presidency, or events that occurred towards the end of his presidency and beyond, you would think he was martyr, unjustly persecuted by a oppressive and cruel regime. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Democrats had no hand in his inability to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. They did not force him to create a fake electors scheme, they did not force him to continuously lie & fan the flames of anger in his followers, they did not make him incite an insurrection on the capitol to stop the certification of a constitutionally mandated procedure, they did not make him take state secrets, war plans, nuclear secrets, & classified information after he knew his presidency was over, they did not make him refuse to return those documents when asked to by the FBI. Dems did not make Trump pay off a porn star he had sex with by committing business fraud through his lawyer to hide the infidelity from the American voters. There was no push by Democrats to make Trump sexually assault E. Jean Carroll, then habitually defame her in the worlds loudest bully pulpit. Democrats did not force the Trump foundation, a charity in which they defrauded their donors and recipients. There was no forcing the Trump organization to over inflate their assets & under inflate their gains & commit tax fraud. Democrats had no part in these crimes. It was Trump and Trump alone who partook in this criminality.

Regardless of what the Supreme Court says, a core principle of our Constitutional Republic is the notion that NO one is above the law. That all must, & will, be held accountable for their actions in a court of law. This includes congressmen, the wealthy, senators, the poor, and the president of the United States.

Trump can play the victim. He can whine and lie constantly (and he does). He can pretend he is an innocent target to a powerful entity that is coming after him without merit and by no fault of his own.

This is a complete distortion. Trump committed these crimes, & unlike his claims of a rigged election, there is evidence to back it up, proof that he engaged in this lawlessness.

Trump thinks the American people are dumb. That we can’t see what is in front of our face. That we can be manipulated by a two but conman but, wee see through his deception. We see through the lies. We are not as ignorant as he thinks we are.

There will come a day when Trump must answer for the crimes he engaged in. Until then he will cry & blame others for his misdeeds. It will not negate his guilt. A time will come. Let’s hope it’s soon so America can begin to heal from the assault committed against her.

[bogleech]

I had a dream last night that you made a sexy pin-up girl that was a colony of carnivorous plants, but she wasn't cartoony or stylized. It was just a bunch of anatomically correct carnivorous plants arranged to look like a lady- no parts added, no parts subtracted. I think the only stylized part was that plants, in full or in part, were scaled up or down to sell the illusion. I remember the torso was a sundew with two large stalks/dewdrops as 'boobs' and that her backside was the opening of a pitcher plant as a 'bustle'. Her head was a venus flytrap. And when I say 'made' I mean literally constructed. The main bulk of the dream was that I was running around a hedgemaze, you were just off to the side in one of the larger chambers with your creation trying to convince some guy not to put his dick in the pitcher plant or it would melt off. The plant lady was alive but she'd only giggle and never spoke. It was like a weird cameo.

yeah that guy can just HIT THE ROAD bc my daughter gets only good quality wholesome meats* not just any trashy junk!!!!

*congressmen but mostly mcnuggets

[whencyclopedia]

War of 1812

The War of 1812 (1812-1815), referred to by some contemporaries as the Second American Revolution, was fought between the United States and the United Kingdom. Often remembered only as a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars, the war had some long-term impacts like the reduction of Native American political power and the strengthening of US and Canadian national identities.

Causes

Briefly summarized, the main causes of the War of 1812 include:

Unresolved tensions between the US and UK left over from the American Revolution.

Seizure of US merchant vessels and impressment of US sailors by the Royal Navy.

Rise of an intertribal Native American confederacy led by the Shawnee chieftain Tecumseh, backed by British agents.

The influence of the 'War Hawks', a clique of Democratic-Republican congressmen intent on driving Britain from North America, with desires of annexing British Canada.

Of these causes, the most important was the matter of impressment. Since 1793, Britain had been at war with France and often stopped and seized American vessels suspected of trading at French ports. While the French were also guilty of attacking American shipping, the British were seen as more egregious for the added layer of impressment; claiming that many American sailors were actually deserters from the Royal Navy, the British would routinely impress these sailors 'back' into service. The United States viewed this as an attack on its sovereignty, especially after American sailors were killed in the Chesapeake-Leopard affair of 1807. An outspoken group of congressmen called 'War Hawks' – notably including Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun – began to call for a 'Second War of Independence' and demand Britain be chased off the North American continent. While few openly called for the annexation of British Canada, this was certainly an outcome desired by many of the 'War Hawks'.

The Americans also accused the British of supporting a confederacy of Native American nations rising in the northwest. This confederacy was largely the work of two Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, who believed intertribal cooperation to be the only means of resisting US encroachment on their lands. The British agents in the region supported Tecumseh; they considered an independent Native American state an excellent buffer between the US and Canada. Hoping to crush this growing threat, Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory set out to destroy the confederacy's headquarters at the village of Prophetstown. While encamped outside the town, Harrison was attacked by Tecumseh's warriors at the Battle of Tippecanoe (7 November 1811). Harrison won the battle and destroyed Prophetstown, with Tecumseh's Confederacy allying itself closer to the British.

By 1812, it was clear that the US and UK were on the brink of a war that few people actually wanted. In June, Britain decided to back down by revoking the Orders in Council that allowed for the impressment of US sailors. But it was too late – unaware of that development, US President James Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war against Britain on 18 June 1812, which was granted. This was a risky move, as the US Army was small and untrained, and its navy was hardly equal to the mighty Royal Navy. But many Americans were unconcerned, predicting a quick and easy conquest of Canada; in the words of former president Thomas Jefferson, the invasion of Canada would be nothing more difficult than 'a mere matter of marching' (Wood, 677).

Continue reading...

[flotuslover53]

Hey.. I'm that quora guy from earlier, I was scrolling for a little while before i found stuff that I think will pique your interestxdd

What did JFK think of Richard Nixon?

Congressmen John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1947.

JFK is age 29 (one month shy of 30). Nixon is age 34.

JFK liked and admired Nixon. Their friendship continued throughout JFK’s life.

“On New Year's Eve 1959, two days before he announced his candidacy for the presidency, Kennedy made an admission to his neighbor, journalist Charles Bartlett, that was so startling Bartlett wrote it down the following morning: "Jack says if the Democrats don't nominate him, he's going to vote for Nixon."

“Few men had observed Nixon's gifts - his ambition, his perseverance and his intellect - from the intimate vantage point afforded Kennedy. In early 1947, a civic group in the steel town of McKeesport, Pa., asked their congressman, Frank Buchanan, to invite the two congressional freshmen with the brightest futures to come debate the Taft-Hartley labor bill. Buchanan picked Kennedy and Nixon, both just elected after naval service in the Pacific.”

“On April 21, 1947, the first Kennedy-Nixon debate was held in the ballroom of the Penn McKeesport Hotel, with Kennedy getting the more sympathetic proposition. Some of the blue-collar steelers booed Nixon's warnings about encroaching union power.”

“Boarding the overnight Capitol Limited train back to D.C., the 29-year-old Kennedy and the 34-year-old Nixon drew straws for the lower berth. Nixon won, but the bed went largely unused as the awkward grocer's son found an unexpected common denominator in the handsome playboy heir to one of America's great fortunes.”

"We sat up late talking," Nixon recalled. "Neither of us was a backslapper, and we were both uncomfortable with boisterous displays of superficial camaraderie. He was shy, and that sometimes made him appear aloof. But it was shyness born of an instinct that guarded privacy and concealed emotions. I understood these qualities because I shared them."

“In 1950, Nixon planned his run for the Senate against Hollywood actress-turned-Democratic Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas, longtime mistress of Texan Lyndon Johnson. During that campaign, Douglas branded Nixon with an epithet that would stick for life: Tricky Dick.”

“In the infamously mean-spirited race, Nixon got a psychological and a financial windfall from an unexpected source.”

“Kennedy dropped into Nixon's office and handed an envelope to administrative assistant Bill Arnold. "This man brought a personal check for $1,000," Arnold would recall. "He explained that the check should be used in Nixon's campaign for senator." Kennedy's contribution amounted to approximately one-third of the average American's annual income.”

“After Kennedy's 1952 election to the Senate, Nixon offered a different sort of help. The membership chairman of the exclusive, all-male Burning Tree golf club in Maryland got a letter from the new vice president: "I have known Senator Kennedy for a number of years as a personal friend and I feel he would make an excellent addition to the membership."

“In the Senate Office Building next to the Capitol, Kennedy was given Room 362. Nixon was right across the hall in Room 361. For eight years, there would be an easy camaraderie not just between Kennedy and Nixon but also between their secretaries. Kennedy's assistant Evelyn Lincoln would recall, "Rose Mary Woods and I were very friendly."

“In the summer of 1963, he took his wife and two daughters on a six-week overseas vacation. In a hotel room in Rome, Nixon picked up the ringing phone and heard the operator say that the president was calling. Five days after making his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, an ebullient Kennedy was in town.”

"Sounding happy and relaxed, he said that he heard we were in Rome and just wanted to say hello," Nixon said.”

“It was the last time Nixon and Kennedy spoke.”

Is it true? Thats beyond me XD But it's cool nonetheless.

Wow thank u for this!! I can confirm at least most of these are true.

The story about them sharing a bunk on the train after their first debate is from this article which I would recommend to everyone who is interested in the Kennedy/Nixon dynamic. They really had the most perfect meet-cute!!

It's also true that JFK gave Nixon $1,000 for his campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, as he says in this interview. The money came from JFK's father, but as Nixon says, he wouldn't have received the check unless JFK also supported him. (This video has some other very cute anecdotes in it, I've rewatched it so many times hehe)

Nixon and Kennedy did have offices directly across from each other, and as my source I'll just show this adorable cartoon Nixon gave to JFK:

I'm also extremely sure that the Rome story is true, and I'm also sure I've seen it mentioned in multiple sources, but for some reason the only source coming to mind right now is this fictionalised horror story about Nixon I read a few months ago where the phone call between them was included in one scene. (I'll look for a better source on this lol)

I love all these little anecdotes about the JFK/Nixon friendship, even though they may not have been the closest of friends it's fascinating to me that they had this longstanding relationship that lasted over a century and spanned just about the entire time that the two men were involved in politics. Truly they were drawn together by fate so many times!!

[wahbegan]

I never like blaming single people for...not that it makes me hate people like Hitler or Andrew Jackson or Ronald Reagan or John Calvin or Oliver Cromwell or King Leopold or honestly pick a fucking European Monarch any less, they could all eat my fucking trench knife, but i do feel like laying the blame for massive world-changing things solely at their feet is lazy and dangerous.

Let's demonstrate with the Hitler scenario, cause that one's the easiest. The Holocaust did not happen because Hitler was the most evil man who has ever lived. The Holocaust happened because violent antisemitism, eugenics, racism, and various other forms of racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination were so fucking intense and so normalized, The Allied Powers had effectively fucking broken Germany after WWI with the bill for reparations, the board was set, the pieces were in place, fear and hatred and desperation were at dizzying heights, and Germany became a perfect place for political extremism to take hold. Hitler was not the Devil. He was just some fucking guy. If it wasn't him, it would have been someone else. Oh, sure, the details may have varied, may have been fucking worse because for all that the man gets hyped up, oration was really the only thing he was competent at. But something like it was bound to happen. Then, of course, there's the small matter that Adolf Hitler did not walk house to house killing 6 million Jews and...estimates are all over the god damned board for non-Jews killed in the Holocaust, i've seen as low as 5 million and as high as 11, i think it largely depends on what the person in question counts as part of the Holocaust, but you take my meaning. Anyway, he did not walk house to house killing all those people with his bare hands. The Holocaust happened because things were set in motion. Because normal people participated, collaborated, looked the other way, ignored what was happening, aided and abetted it, didn't believe it was happening.

Ronald Reagan, *terrific* fucking lad, wasn't he, but he did not wave his magic President Wand and dictate American fiscal policy for the last 40 years by himself, did he? Even after everything, the man is STILL beloved by so many people, Ronald Reagan is a national fucking hero. Andrew Jackson put his filthy signature at the bottom of the Indian Removal Act, but it was Congressmen elected by Johnny and Janey Normal White Neighbor who wrote the thing up.

And this is the problem. When we say Reagan did this, Jackson did that, Hitler committed the Holocaust because he was some kind of grotesque evil no one could possibly understand, we remove ourselves from history. We act as if the world is governed by the whims of distant madmen we have no control over, we act as if these things are stories with villains, we remove our own agency and make it seem apart from reality.

We make it seem like it could never happen again.

People will dismiss any and all comparisons to Hitler out-of-hand as unrealistic and juvenile because they've built up this mythologized fiction in their head of Hitler as some kind of legendary psychopath who enslaved Germany to his will with his army of faceless minions.

He was just...some fucking guy. Who was good at public speaking and loved his country.