#defense funding

[trendynewsnow]

Linking EU Funding to Macroeconomic Reforms: Concerns and Perspectives

Linking EU Programmes to Macroeconomic Reforms: A Critical Perspective According to Siegfried Muresan, the MEP spearheading discussions on the EU’s next long-term budget (2028-34), linking EU funding programmes to broader macroeconomic reforms within member states could lead to significant negative consequences for citizens. In a recent interview with Euronews, Muresan criticized leaked proposals…

[antifainternational]

What happens when you defend a drag show from the armed transphobes who threatened to murder attendees? In Texas, first you get arrested on bullshit charges, then a "Christian fascist fraternity" sues you for violating their "right" to attack drag queens and their fans. When two people facing this situation contacted the International Anti-Facist Defence Fund, we stepped in to help them with their legal costs, because we have the backs of anyone willing to protect people from transphobic violence. You should too, here's how: Chris' crowdfunder Aeshna's crowdfunder If you also think that having a standing fund to come to the aid of anti-fascists in emergency situations like this = a good idea, you should contribute to that fund right here!

[violent138]

Gothamites are simultaneously the calmest and best employees during an emergency but also the ones least likely to have read the manual for what to do in case of emergency.

[nerdygaymormon]

[curtvilescomic]

Painkiller Jane cover by Amanda Conner for CBLDF No Justice/No Peace

[cloud9v]

how much would you pay for a bloons slice of life series

[victims-of]

[quietwingsinthesky]

jack harkness/simm master. do what you want with that

i love the idea of Jack and the Master meeting during his minister of defense era, it’s so deliciously terrible to me. great potential. anyway. here’s them.

Here’s what Jack Harkness takes away from his first impression of Saxon: he’s too clean for a politician, especially one settled in so comfortably as Minister of Defense.

It itches at the back of his brain through their few conversations as Saxon smiles at him. “*I’m* sure Torchwood’s funding wouldn’t be better spent elsewhere,” he tells Jack, co-conspiratorial, “and if it were up to me-”

“It is up to you,” Jack says, smiling back. Saxon’s eyes dart down to his lips and up again. Jack leans forward, casting his gaze across the man’s face like he’ll find the secrets he’s looking for in the pull of his lips or crinkle of his eyes. Too clean, too perfect, like a pretty picture of a potential Prime Minister. Jack tries to remember his stated policies, but his mind slides off the information, and it turns to him, grasping at nothing, and tells him that whatever he believes, Saxon believes.

“If only,” Saxon laughs, and it’s warm like a housefire. Jack squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head, and suspicion falls right out. “I heard about the fiasco at Canary Wharf.”

Heard? Jack thinks. How’d you miss it? Saxon reaches across his desk and puts his hand over Jack’s wrist.

“I bet you run a tighter ship than that, Captain,” he says, voice low. “Tell me exactly what their tax dollars are going to, so I can reassure all those worried voters who might just have to think for themselves otherwise.” The words themselves buzz without meaning across Jack’s brain as Saxon’s fingers drum against the pulse at his wrist, too quick to match, too many beats, almost familiar like-

“You are just horrible to look at,” Saxon murmurs. “Nails on a chalkboard. I don’t know how he could stand being around you for even a minute.” Jack’s mind feels slow and thick, and any sentence he manages is a fight of slowly wading through.

“Torchwood… We arm the human race against the future.” Saxon grins wider.

“Do you have a speech prepared?” he releases Jack’s wrist suddenly and falls back into his chair, his whole body language changing from Prime Minister hopeful to lazy predator smelling fresh meat. “He hates whenever I get a taste of his pets. I’ll fuck you for it.”

“What?” Jack’s trying to catch up. Wherever the conversation went when Saxon was touching him is dim in his memory already, and he’s not even able to summon up concern about it.

“Or I’ll let you fuck me. I like that better. Less work.” Jack narrows his eyes. This, he understands. Too clean, he’d known. Too pretty a wife not to be messing around. Well, he could do worse. For his team, he’d do just about anything.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Martin Pengelly at The Guardian:

Tax filings obtained by the Guardian show how the rightwing dark money impresario Leonard Leo helped fuel the Bud Light boycott in response to ads featuring the transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, an effort that generated threats against Mulvaney, violence against consumers and layoffs by Anheuser-Busch. Uncovered by the watchdog group Accountable.US, the filings for 2022 show the Concord Fund, a group linked to Leo, gave $350,000 to Consumers Defense, an arm of Consumers’ Research, not long before that group played a central role in the Bud Light boycott. Leo is a Catholic conservative activist widely known as the force behind the Federalist Society, which has helped transform the US courts system, ultimately through the installation of three hardline justices on the supreme court that has handed down epochal rulings on abortion rights, presidential immunity and more.

But Leo’s fundraising work ranges wider. Consumers’ Research was formed in 1929 to champion consumers’ rights, but went largely dormant before being revived as a rightwing watchdog. It now claims to lead “the fight against ESG”, or environmental, social and governance policies, in corporate America. It issues “woke alerts” concerning companies it deems to be “putting progressive activists and their dangerous agendas ahead of customers”. Links between Leo and Consumers’ Research are known but have not been directly confirmed. In 2021, Marble Freedom Trust, a non-profit controlled by Leo, received a record $1.6bn donation from Barre Seid, a Chicago billionaire.

That year and in 2022, Consumers’ Research enjoyed huge funding boosts when it received nearly $15m from Donors Trust. That group, linked to Leo, calls itself a “principled philanthropic partner for conservative and libertarian donors”. It has also been called the “dark-money ATM of the right”. The New York Times and Bloomberg previously linked Leo to the sudden funding influx to Consumers’ Research. Leo did not comment.

Consumers’ Research is also known to be a client of CRC Advisors, Leo’s for-profit firm. The tax filings obtained by the Guardian show another direct link.

[...] In spring 2023, Anheuser-Busch paid such a price. It began with a video featuring Mulvaney, a trans influencer. “Happy March Madness!!” she wrote. “Just found out this had to do with sports and not just saying it’s a crazy month! In celebration of this sports thing @budlight is giving you the chance to win $15,000! Share a video with #EasyCarryContest for a chance to win!! Good luck! #budlightpartner.” It seemed innocuous, but rightwing anger, primed by culture-wars battles over trans imagery in business and education, fueled calls for a boycott.

The Guardian has a report out that right-wing dark money influencer Leonard Leo helped fuel funding for the Bud Light boycott.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

In late May, 19 Republican attorneys general filed a complaint with the Supreme Court asking it to block climate change lawsuits seeking to recoup damages from fossil fuel companies.

All of the state attorneys general who participated in the legal action are members of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which runs a cash-for-influence operation that coordinates the official actions of these GOP state AGs and sells its corporate funders access to them and their staff. The majority of all state attorneys general are listed as members of RAGA.

Where does RAGA get most of its funding? From the very same fossil fuel industry interests that its suit seeks to defend. In fact, the industry has pumped nearly $5.8 million into RAGA’s campaign coffers since Biden was elected in 2020.

The recent Supreme Court complaint has been deemed “highly unusual” by legal experts.

The attorneys general claim that Democratic states, which are bringing the climate-related suits at issue in state courts, are effectively trying to regulate interstate emissions or commerce, which are under the sole purview of the federal government. Fossil fuel companies have unsuccessfully made similar arguments in their own defense.

RAGA’s official actions — and those of its member attorneys general — closely align with the goals of its biggest donors.

The group, a registered political nonprofit that can raise unlimited amounts of cash from individuals and corporations, solicits annual membership fees from corporate donors in exchange for allowing those donors to shape legal policy via briefings and other interactions with member attorneys general.

A Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) analysis of IRS filings since November 24, 2020 shows that Koch Industries (which recently rebranded) leads as the largest fossil fuel industry donor to RAGA, having donated $1.3 million between 2021 and June 2024.

Other large donors include:

• American Petroleum Institute (API), the oil and gas industry’s largest trade association

• Southern Company Services, a gas and electric utility holding company

• Valero Services, a petroleum refiner

• NextEra Energy Resources, which runs both renewable and natural gas operations

• Anschutz Corporation, a Denver-based oil and gas company

• American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a major trade organization

• Exxon Mobil, one of the largest fossil fuel multinationals in the world

• National Mining Association, the leading coal and mineral industry trade organization

• American Chemical Council, which represents major petrochemical producers and refiners

Many of these donors are being sued for deceiving the public about the role fossil fuels play in worsening climate change: many states — including California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island — as well as local governments — such as the city of Chicago and counties in Oregon and Pennsylvania — have all filed suits against a mix of fossil fuel companies and their industry groups. In the cases brought by New York and Massachusetts, ExxonMobil found support from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in defense of the corporation.

Paxton has accepted $5.2 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry over the past 10 years, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets and reviewed by CMD.

Fossil Fuel Contributions to the Republican Attorneys General Association Includes aggregate contributions of $10K or more from the period November 2020 to March 2024.

Note: This funding compilation does not include law firms, front groups, or public relations outfits that work on behalf of fossil fuel clients, many of which use legal shells to shield themselves from outright scrutiny. For example, Koch Industries, through its astroturf operation Americans for Prosperity, has deployed a shell legal firm in a major Supreme Court case designed to dismantle the federal government’s regulatory authority.

CARRYING BIG OIL’S WATER

This is far from the first time RAGA members have banded together to try to defeat clean energy and environmental regulations. In 2014, the New York Times initially reported on how RAGA circulates fossil fuel industry propaganda opposing federal regulations.

The Times investigation revealed thousands of documents exposing how oil and gas companies cozied up to Republican attorneys general to push back against President Obama’s regulatory agenda. “Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns,” the investigation found. That effort, which RAGA dubbed the Rule of Law campaign, has since morphed into RAGA’s political action arm, the nonprofit Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF).

Since then, RAGA’s appetite to go to bat for the industry has only grown.

In 2015, less than two weeks after representatives from fossil fuel companies and related trade groups attended a RAGA conference, Republican AGs petitioned federal courts to block the Obama administration’s signature climate proposal, as CMD has previously reported. Additional reporting revealed collusion between Republican AGs and industry lobbyists to defend ExxonMobil and obstruct climate change legislation.

There was also the 2016 secret energy summit that RAGA held in West Virginia with industry leaders, along with private meetings with fossil fuel companies to coordinate how to shield ExxonMobil from legal scrutiny. Later that year, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey — aided by 19 other Republican AGs — successfully brought a case before the court that hobbled Obama’s signature climate plan.

Morrisey is currently leading the Republican effort to take down an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation that targets coal-fired power plants.

Often, the attorneys general bringing these cases share many of the same donors who backed the confirmation of Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, as pointed out by the New York Times.

And in 2021, Republican attorneys general from 19 states sent a letter to the U.S. Senate committees on Environment and Public Works and on Energy and Natural Resources hoping to persuade senators to vote against additional regulations on highly polluting methane emissions, a leading contributor to global warming.

Since 2022, RLDF’s “ESG Working Group” has been coordinating actions taken by Republican AGs against sustainable investing. Communications from that group obtained by CMD show that it was investigating Morningstar/Sustainalytics and the Net-Zero Banking Alliance. Republican AGs announced investigations into the six largest banks for information on their involvement in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance later that year.

LEGACY OF RIGHT-WING ACTIONS

It’s not only about fossil fuels. Attorneys general who are members of — and financially backed by — RAGA have a long track record of pursuing right-wing agendas. In Mississippi, Attorney General Lynn Fitch helped bring the legal case that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade. In Texas, Paxton has attempted to overturn the Affordable Care Act and sued the federal government over Title IX civil rights protections, and safeguards for seasonal workers, among other policy irritants to the far Right. With support from fellow Republican AGs, he also led one of many efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In recent years, other pro-corporate major donors have included The Concord Fund, which is controlled by Trump’s “court whisperer” Leonard Leo, Big Tobacco, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform.

[random2908]

Frustrating when a VC-funded company gets credit for being the "first" and the "leader," when they had a sub-component demo the same week we had a full-system demo. Like, we are easily 5-10 years ahead of them, it's ridiculous; their approach isn't even yet proven to work. But they get science youtubers talking about them.

Because they're VC-funded, they have a marketing/press department.

And because we're an employee-owned company working off of government contracts, well, most government contracts get slapped with an ITAR label (an old Cold-War-era law saying basically sharing scientific information counts as illegally selling arms/munitions). So if you want to publicize your work, including your company's products, you have to appeal that label. (Universities have specifically negotiated a blanket exemption, so if you spend your whole life in academic science you might never even know about this.)

(My previous employer filed those appeals several times a year in order to do press releases and publish journal articles and apply for patents. I think every single information-release appeal they filed went through, because there's no reason any of this stuff should be labeled as arms--it's literally the same stuff universities are doing. My current employer is afraid to, which I think is wrong-headed; at worst they'll just say no, and anyway, our non-restricted competitors are giving fucking lab tours to youtubers.)

[davidzoltan]

Governor Tim Walz, I am proud of you for raising such a clearly loving and passionate son. He has done proud by you, but I am sorry that his disability has been used as a weapon against others, especially by those that aren't as interested in charting an equitable future for him and all his disabled colleagues, myself included, around the country.

Vice President Kamala Harris, your campaign and those in the party you now, by default, lead, have put a young man with at least one disability central to your attacks on our mutual enemies, and yet the policies in your speech last week do not reflect disability justice.

For starters, the only explicit policy you mentioned that touches on the needs of disabled people are "protecting Social Security and Medicare". We don't need it protected. We need it expanded. We need to be making explicit that equity for disabled people means lifting the tax cap on Social Security completely and instituting a progressive Social Security tax. That expansion of income must then be used to ensure a Living Wage For Social Security rather than keeping us in abject poverty. Also, ending policies that result in well over four in five applications for SSDI to need to go through a lengthy and draining appeal process.

It also means backing Improved Medicare For All. If you aren't willing to extend that far, then at the very least, it is time to introduce a public option to ensure that we are able to expand benefits through a larger insurance pool including more benefits for disabled folks, control prescription and other medical prices for more people, and bring us another step closer to universal coverage.

Next, it should go without saying that any policy that needlessly increases the likelihood of creating disabilities for people is ableist from the start. That means a more hawkish war footing is counter to disability justice. We already have the most lethal fighting force in the world many times over. If the military were a tenth of its size, it would still be the most lethal even then while also greatly expanding available funding for programs that help every American, disabled folks included.

And in the specific, you must impose an arms embargo on Israel to stop the genocide in Gaza. I'd go a step further and demand that you also impose a funding embargo as funding a genocide is hardly any better than enabling one with weaponry. We have all seen the reports and the tragic media that show the Palestinians disabled by Israeli forces using American weapons. And as a Jew as well as a disabled American, I say not in my name.

And that's just to speak to top level of items in your speech. There needs to be an entire disability justice analysis of the platform you're still writing and a disability justice plank as part of that platform.

I hope you will listen. I am forced to vote for you right now as the alternative would literally either kill me or force me to flee the country. But I currently have none of the joy that your campaign seeks to create. I volunteer my labor often (because I can't be hired by any campaign lest I put the very federal and state benefits that keep me alive in danger), and I would be willing to discuss with your team further so that hopefully we can seek a better path forward together.

But for now, the least you owe Tim's son and every disabled person that has seen themselves in the mouths of Democrats everywhere without supporting our needs is to show solidarity with us in the days to November 5th.

[lynxfrost13]

Praps if I’m good I’ll post not only about Frau Wasserlinse!! But also the very prestigious and totally not falling apart Vinetan Defense Freighter crew and additional operations

[remembertheplunge]

10/16/2024

I'm going to be doing the Alcatraz to San Fransisco Yacht Harbor swim on October 23, 2024 as part of a fund raiser for Full Picture Justice, formerly known as Community Initiative Resources (CRI) . They are a mitigation team that does extensive record and back ground search for clients in some of my big cases. They also do community outreach to those adversely affected by the criminal justice system which is the reason for the fund raising. Anything you can give will be much appreciated. I will be blogging about the swim and keeping you posted. Thank you.