#demand for stricter laws

[townpostin]

Sikh Community Protests Doctor's Rape and Murder in Jamshedpur

Demonstrators demand stricter laws to protect women across India Large-scale protest held outside district headquarters against Kolkata hospital incident. JAMSHEDPUR – The Sikh community in Jamshedpur staged a robust demonstration outside the district headquarters, protesting the recent rape and murder of a female doctor at R.G. Kar Hospital in Kolkata. A significant number of women joined the…

[itwoodbeprefect]

fun fact: after taking 299 days to form the current dutch government, it took less than 18 months for that government to fall, which i guess means that the netherlands has optimized its post-election cycle to fit into a 28-month window, which is only six months more than an elephant pregnancy.

[storm-of-feathers]

u guys think my pharmacy will flag me for drug seeking behavior again if i call them right as they open and explain im pretty much nocturnal and id like them to refill my shit before noon bc thats about when im getting to sleep these days

[morbidology]

In 2004, Ameneh Bahrami was a 24-year-old university student in Tehran, pursuing a degree in electronics. Her life took a tragic turn when Majid Movahedi, a fellow student whose romantic advances she had repeatedly rejected, attacked her with sulfuric acid.

The attack, which occurred in broad daylight, caused catastrophic injuries, leaving her face disfigured and her vision severely impaired.

Following the attack, Ameneh endured numerous surgeries in Iran and Europe, facing immense physical and emotional pain. Her struggle for justice began as she sought retribution against her attacker through Iran's legal system. Under Islamic law, Ameneh demanded Qisas, or retributive justice, which would allow her to seek an eye-for-an-eye punishment by having acid dropped into Movahedi's eyes.

After years of legal battles, in 2008, an Iranian court ruled in favor of Ameneh's request for Qisas, sentencing Movahedi to be blinded with acid. However, in a surprising and profound act of mercy, Ameneh chose to forgive her attacker at the last moment.

In 2011, just before the sentence was to be carried out, she publicly announced her decision to pardon Movahedi. Ameneh Bahrami's story did not end with her act of forgiveness. She continued to raise awareness about acid attacks and advocate for the rights of victims.

Her memoir, "Eye for an Eye," provides a detailed account of her harrowing experience and her journey towards recovery and forgiveness. Through her advocacy, she has worked to bring attention to the prevalence of acid violence and the need for stricter laws to protect women.

[robininthelabyrinth]

A Better Lie - ao3

Fandom: The Untamed Pairing: Jin Guangyao/Nie Mingjue Summary:

Wait. This wasn't the Lan sect, with all its strict rules and stricter morality. This was the Nie. (Meng Yao identifies an opportunity.)

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

It was only a better lie, in the end.

A stroke of luck – or perhaps, of genius.

When he first heard Nie Mingjue’s shout, Meng Yao was still holding the sword he'd just used to kill the Nie commander, but he could feel it slipping out of his nerveless fingers. He could feel his mouth opening with instinctive denials - it wasn't me, it was Xue Yang, I didn't do it - all ridiculous, of course. It was him, and he did do it, and Nie Mingjue was staring at him with those horribly hurt eyes, already starting to fill with tears in a way they hadn't despite the strain of having his home attacked and his precious brother demanded as a hostage by the man who’d killed his father.

That hurt.

Not the tears, of course. Tears, Meng Yao knew well, were cheap. But he found himself displeased by what they meant: by the fact that he’d hurt Nie Mingjue, in a way even Wen Ruohan hadn’t, when Nie Mingjue was a man he’d come to…well, to appreciate. Nie Mingjue, who hadn't cared about Meng Yao's past or his mother even after he’d been told about it, who had given him opportunities beyond his wildest expectations, who – it seemed – had left an active battlefield in order to come find him because he was worried about him...

Nie Mingjue was going to have no choice but to find him guilty, Meng Yao knew. No matter what he said or did, that was Nie sect law, and Nie Mingjue believed in his sect’s laws the way he believed in the sun rising every day. He might be able to commute the sentence from execution into exile if Meng Yao did something brave, if for instance he used his body to shield Nie Mingjue from an attack that would no doubt be forthcoming because they were both literally standing there frozen in the middle of battle, but that was it, that was the best Meng Yao would be able to get. And exiling him would hurt Nie Mingjue, too, maybe even more than execution, because Meng Yao knew that Nie Mingjue loved him, even if the other man hadn't figured it out yet, and having to worry about him suffering would hurt Nie Mingjue even more than knowing he was dead.

And all because he'd broken the rules.

Rules. Hah! 

Meng Yao thought, briefly, about the Lan sect, that bastion of rules and inflexibility. Of Lan Xichen, who had been so kind to him during the classes Nie Mingjue had sent him to attend. Lan Xichen, who was a good gentleman, handsome and sympathetic. Who would make a reasonable second prospect to target now that Nie Mingjue was no longer an option...

No. What was he thinking? That was the brothel madam's voice in his head, not his own, not his mother, who had tried so hard to make him a gentleman rather than a whore.

Meng Yao didn't want to think like that. 

Of course, he didn't want to die, either.

So self-sacrifice and exile it would have to be, even if it hurt them both. Maybe he’d even go after Lan Xichen, too, if that was what it took - if Meng Yao couldn't have the love he really wanted, Nie Mingjue's unquestionable and unconditional affection which had been given to him freely when he had been at his lowest moments, then he might as well put his ambitions above all else. Over love, over morality, over all the stupid hypocritical loophole-riddled rules that nevertheless did not leave a loophole aside for him, because no rule allowed for murdering a man by stabbing him in the back, not even self-defense -

Wait.

This wasn't the Lan sect, with all its strict rules and stricter morality.

This was the Nie.

"Sect Leader, dodge!" Meng Yao roared, louder than he'd ever been in his life, mimicking to his best ability the stern grim-faced training master of the Nie sect who everyone listened to without question. 

Nie Mingjue was no exception, obedience to that voice boiled into his bones. He threw himself aside, causing Wen Zhuiliu's sword to miss and come hurtling towards Meng Yao himself. There was a split second where he could decide to just take the blow in some place that wouldn't cause permanent damage, just as there had been a split second for him to pick between throwing his body between Nie Mingjue and the sword instead of shouting him out of the way – a far more dramatic sort of rescue – but just as before, Meng Yao decided against it. 

He was taking a far bigger gamble. 

Meng Yao threw himself down, flat on his face, and Wen Zhuliu's sword went wide over his head. A moment later, as he'd hoped, Nie Mingjue rose up with Baxia in hand and murder in his eyes. Now that he was no longer being distracted by Meng Yao, he was able to see Wen Zhuliu turning towards him with deadly palm extended.

Meng Yao gritted his teeth and threw the Wen sword he'd picked up at Wen Zhuiliu's feet. It wouldn't get either of them much more than split-second of distraction, at best, but when you were fighting against a man like Nie Mingjue, you couldn't afford even that.

A split second later, saber met with palm, and Wen Zhuliu went flying. 

Clutching at his bloodied hand, looking shocked, the other man scuttled away not long thereafter, and with the real leader of the Wen forces humbled - it certainly wasn't Wen Chao they were following, no matter what he might lie to himself and think - the rest of them soon dispersed.

"My brother will not be going to any Wen training camp," Nie Mingjue spat after them, too genteel to follow it up with actual spit the way Meng Yao halfway wanted him to. "Not now, and not ever!"

Behind him, the rest of the Nie burst into spontaneous cheers, bellowing as loud as bulls. Even their guests, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, looked relieved and impressed - Nie Mingjue's fame was going to increase again, it seemed, as soon as they got back to Yunmeng and boasted of how the Nie, at least, certainly did not fear the power of the Wen sect.

"Meng Yao, with me," Nie Mingjue said when he was done with that, which was only as Meng Yao had expected. "Now."

Meng Yao bowed his head and scuttled after him into the receiving hall. Nie Mingjue threw Baxia over to her stand and sat heavily on the Nie sect throne, though not as heavily as he might have if he'd been injured and his sect the loser in the fight just now, burdened by his duty as sect leader and his worries as an older brother. 

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" he asked grimly. Or, well, he thought he was being grim, but Meng Yao could see the fear in his eyes - come up with something clever, Nie Mingjue was quietly begging, even though he would never know that that was what he was doing or admit it to himself if he did, please, please come up with something that means I don't need to kill you for your crimes. Don't taint this day with making me lose you. Don't make me have to lose you...

Meng Yao saluted deeply. 

"This humble Meng Yao admits his error," he said, hoping against hope that this gamble of his would work. "I should not have allowed my enthusiasm for a private duel to overcome my understanding of the bigger picture, putting myself over sect interests."

Nie Mingjue was stunned silent for a long moment. 

Meng Yao waited, hoping so hard that it hurt.

Please, he thought, now the one to beg silently. Please let him focus on the part that I need him to focus on, not the parts I need him to overlook. Please!

"...private duel?" Nie Mingjue finally said, and Meng Yao’s heart surged with elation. "You were – dueling?"

"Yes, Sect Leader," Meng Yao lied, using every ounce of guile he had to hide his joy behind a mask of contrition. "I formally challenged the commander yesterday in the late evening. He had tried to keep me from seeing to the prisoner Xue Yang at your order, contrary to protocol, and in doing so said something very rude about my mother."

That latter part was true, and of course there had been no one else around at the time. The Nie commander had always been good at making sure there weren't when he delivered his nastiest jibes, although he'd made enough milder ones in front of others that people would testify on Meng Yao's behalf if it came to that. 

He didn't think it would come to that. Nie Mingjue wanted to believe him.

"He accepted, but he was drunk at the time, so we agreed to postpone," Meng Yao added, adopting an apologetic tone. "Nevertheless, I admit that I let myself get carried away. A battlefield is no place to carry out private grudges -"

"He turned his back on you despite having accepted a duel with you?!" Nie Mingjue burst out, utterly incredulous, just as Meng Yao had hoped. "What was he thinking?!"

Probably that I was no threat, Meng Yao thought cynically, letting himself whole-heartedly lean into and believe the alternative universe where his lie had been the truth. That was the mark of a truly accomplished liar: the ability to genuinely believe, for however long necessary, that what he said was what it had really been. 

"What an idiot! Disrespectful, arrogant -" Nie Mingjue was raging, but he restrained himself after a moment, forcing himself to calm down. "Meng Yao, you're right, you should have known better than to proceed with a private duel while the sect was under attack. That is irresponsible, even if you got carried away by your feelings, and you will need to be punished appropriately. However, in light of your contributions in today's battle, I think we can reduce the number of strikes to - hm -"

"Two-thirds?" Meng Yao suggested, knowing that Nie Mingjue wanted to say half but couldn't quite bring himself to admit to that level of favoritism. That was the first thing Meng Yao had figured out about Nie Mingjue, in fact: he was dreadfully soft in the face of all he loved, but he desperately wanted to be a good man. And a good man, by the ancestral precepts of the Nie, was a harsh one, a just one, one who saw granting unnecessary mercy as weakness. "I can handle it, Sect Leader. It's only what I should do. As you said, Sect Leader, I should have known better. It was only that I got so angry..."

Meng Yao trailed off purposefully. 

As expected, Nie Mingjue picked up where he left off. "That's completely understandable," the man from a family and clan known for their uncontrollable rage said, nodding in absolute empathy. "But you must learn to channel your anger into the appropriate time and place. A considerable portion of Nie sect discipline and cultivation relates to that – ah, but you're still at the early stages there, having started as late as you did. Do not worry. Understanding will come in time."

Meng Yao bowed his head to hide his victory. 

He had remembered at the very last second that Nie sect principles did allow for manslaughter under certain circumstances, the way the rigid Lan sect rules did not. A proper duel, the challenge formally issued and agreed on by both parties, could be resumed at any time, and death was always a possibility; acting dishonorably wasn't permitted, so sneak attacks virtually never happened, but you were supposed to act as though you were at odds with a true enemy, never letting your guard down. Turning your back on someone you'd accept a duel with was an insult of the highest caliber. It mocked not only your opponent’s competence and ability, but their bravery - it looked down even upon their honor. 

A provocation that no one could resist.

Least of all someone starting to train in the Nie sect style, and thereby to have trouble controlling their temper!

If Nie Mingjue believed them to have been dueling, then the scene he'd happened upon looked very different. Temporary enemies united in the fight against the Wen, Meng Yao helping in the fight only to be disarmed, but then once the Wen were dead, matters breaking into strife once more: the Nie commander starting the fight back up, perhaps, saying some sneering words instead of helping Meng Yao up, insulting him, turning his back on him in even more blatant insult, and Meng Yao reaching in his unthinking rage to find the Wen sword at hand -

The Nie sect were notoriously emotional. Meng Yao wasn't, being far more inclined to put ruthless logic above all else, but men always judged others by their own measure. Nie Mingjue would evaluate the situation by putting himself in Meng Yao’s shoes, and under such circumstances, even Nie Mingjue might have been hard pressed to stay his hand (though obviously no one would be foolish enough to do such a thing to him, and he was likely to shout a warning anyway just because of who he was). True, it would never have happened, mostly because he would have also have had enough discipline to keep from killing his enemy in the middle of a battlefield. But he could understand it when someone else didn't manage to hold back to that degree. He could understand.

He could forgive.

And that was what mattered.

Maybe I should cultivate myself a reputation as a hair-trigger duelist, Meng Yao mused. Nie Mingjue would probably find that charming. I’d be like some yappy dog that tries to bite enemies three times the size – embarrassing, perhaps, but it would leave me a lot more leeway to eliminate my enemies.

Yes, I think I will do that. Plenty of the Nie already treat me as halfway to being Nie Mingjue's wife; this incident of forgiving a murder will only increase their respect for me, and a few more of the same, under permitted circumstances, will solidify it. The Nie sect has always respected aggression and violence. Showing more of that will make it easier for me to get my way when I really am half-master of the sect, with Nie Mingjue at my side.

And then, when the war with the Wen begins in earnest, it will be the Nie that will come out ascendant - the Nie which have never bowed, the Nie which have kept the rest of the cultivation world free through their own blood and valor, the Nie who everyone will owe for their lives and for the futures. Lan Xichen is an old friend of Nie Mingjue’s, and that Jiang sect puppy just now, Jiang Cheng, looked halfway in love with him after today's performance. They will happily support Nie Mingjue to be Chief Cultivator when Wen Ruohan is gone.

And Nie Mingjue, who hates paperwork so much, will give it all to me.

Jin Guangshan - 

Father -

In the end, you will be the one at the bottom of the stairs, and me at the top. You'll be the one to come begging me, wanting me to take your name, pretending it to be a privilege for me when in truth it will be one for you. You'll be the one groveling and sniffing around for the chance to rub off a little of my honor and status, to add my shine to yours, and the only thing you'll have to trade with is the surname I have always deserved, the one you owed it to my mother to give me. I'll accept it, oh yes, I’ll accept it, because it is mine and always should have been mine. But I’ll accept it at the time that I choose, the place that I choose, the manner that I choose, acting from strength rather than weakness.

You will come to me. Not the other way around.

Yes, that is how it will be.

You and that bitch wife of yours, you who both looked down upon me, who looked down upon my mother who had more value in her little finger than both of you put together: you'll both have to see me bow to her on my wedding day, to see her honored in front of the whole world by a man better than all of you put together. 

Meng Yao smiled. 

"Thank you, Sect Leader," he said. "I will learn. I promise you."

Nie Mingjue had that transfixed expression that always came on him when Meng Yao used that particular smile, the one he usually kept buried deep inside his heart - the cruel, vicious, hungry one, the one that revealed his longing to dominate and devour everything in his path, cherishing only the selected few. The smile Meng Yao had once thought he would never be able to show anyone at all, least of all someone above him, because it revealed too much about what he was really like, not obedient nor submissive in the slightest.

The smile he had thought would only ever be met with repulsion and disgust, and certainly not looked upon with desire, the way Nie Mingjue did whenever he saw it.

"...you can call me by name in private," Nie Mingjue finally said. He looked half-hypnotized by his own fascination, and only grew more so when Meng Yao dropped the humble act and prowled towards him like the snarling vicious beast that he sometimes felt he was under his skin. "If - if you want."

"I do want," Meng Yao purred. "Thank you for the honor, Sect Leader...no. Nie Mingjue."

Nie Mingjue swallowed hard.

"We should celebrate tonight," Meng Yao said.

"...celebrate?"

"Yes, of course. It’s only fair, isn’t it? The whole Nie sect should have a chance to savor our victory. Your victory."

And mine.

[whitehotharlots]

Okay, fine, let’s define “wokeness” so you people will shut up about it

Wokeness is amorphous but not nebulous. Like all social phenomena, it exists only to the extent to which it is subject to formal description, and its purveyors are wont to resist any attempts at being pinned down by outsiders (I cannot, for example, think of a single philosopher associated with Postmodernism who did not reject the label--at least not at first). The difficulties with defining human phenomena are compounded greatly while the phenomenon in question is still unfolding, but that does not mean that earnest efforts toward definition cannot be undertaken. Wokeness most certainly exists. It deserves to be delineated, even if its vastness and dominance make it difficult to do so in a manner that everyone (or anyone) finds fully definitive. 

Wokeness should be understood as an immense and rapidly adopted change in the manner through which left-liberals adjudicate morality, righteousness, and even factuality. It applies not just to individual people but to nearly everything: broad social happenings, historical events, places, industries, and matters of scientific fact. It engenders contradictions at an hysterical pace, which actually strengthens the movement, due to the radicalism of its approaches.

Wokeness is best described as a form of Associationist Manicheanism. Whatever falls under its analytical purview is declared either good or bad (never both) not according to the beliefs and ideologies in question, nor to the material consequences thereof, but according to the conceptually recognized identity markers associated with whatever is being analyzed. There are good things and good people. There are bad things and bad people. Good things are good because they are good. Bad things are bad because they are bad. All other forms of adjudication--from direct empiricism, deductive and inductive logic, or even simple cause-and-effect--are subordinated within wokeness, if they are even acknowledged. 

The lack of ideological consistency and dismissal of material analysis naturally leads to a slew of obvious contradictions, which makes wokeness very difficult to pin down even as its presence becomes more and more undeniable. This provides an added bonus to the movement’s purveyors, as their wanton duplicity allows them to claim the lack of existence of something that’s happening right in front of them, an absence of belief in very the causes they champion. (”Why are you freaking out about this? It’s not even happening! And also it is happening and it’s good.”)

The wokes believe that police and prisons should be abolished, but also that we need much stricter gun control and hate speech laws. They believe it a form of severe violence--perhaps even genocide--to not understand the identities of others as they understand themselves, but also that you face a moral obligation to understand yourself as they tell you to. They believe that outsiders should be subjected to brutal criticism regarding their very existence, but also that any disagreement is a form of violence. They think that violent street crime--up to and including rape--should be dealt with via the light hand of “restorative justice,” but also that vague accusations of causing discomfort should be enough to ruin a man’s life and career. They revel in victimhood but deplore fragility, embrace vague “ways of knowing” while demanding absolute clarity and unpassable evidentiary bars of from their ideological enemies, and regard truth as a white supremacist fiction while possessing unshakable certainty in their own worldview. 

There are many, many more examples. These are just ones from the top of my head. 

These contradictions are allowed to stand. They are never acknowledged, let alone addressed. This is because the woke believe there is only one, universal mechanism for (in)validating any belief, action, or assertion: determining its conceptual association with the pre-established Good or the pre-established Bad. They don’t start by asking “is this statement true” or “is this belief harmful.” They can tell everything they need to know by running a quick identity index of the person who made the statement or professed the belief. Sometimes, in the absence of obvious markers of race, gender, or sexuality (or in the case of those markers contradicting the desired (in)validation outcome), they will revert to aesthetic symbols or nominally ideological group affiliations. So, yes, a white Democrat man outweighs a black Republicanman , who outweighs a white Republican man, who is outweighed himself by a black Republican woman, etc, etc, but most issues play out according to partisan lines.

And that’s it. Seriously, that’s it. You can regard it as a bold new era of social progress or as a civilization-destroying scourge. Your opinion does not matter. The point is, this is all a very blunt and very radical sleight of hand in regards to how beliefs, actions, and statements are adjudicated. Its purveyors readily admit to this. Nothing written in this essay is in the least bit deniable. 

Of course, my analysis won’t matter for the reasons outlined above. I am a white (bad) man (bad) who has previously expressed reservations toward left-identitarian activism (very super double bad). Three Bad designations is too much to overcome, no matter how much I profess myself to be on the left or assure my readers I support that broad social goals that wokeness disingenuously claims to be striving toward. But even if I were a black trans woman who was born without legs, this essay would still be dismissed because it would be conceptually associated with the people who criticize wokeness, who are bad. I am bad and this piece is bad. That’s all there is to it. And that means I’m wrong, wokeness isn’t a real thing, but also it is a real thing and it’s so good and perfect that criticizing it makes you bad.  

[noneedtofearorhope]

i understand the appeal of wishing there were and had been stricter rules about masking and vaccination. i mean, we already live under the thumb of so many rules it's hard to add them all up (no really, several attempts to add up US federal laws have been made. it's estimated to be more than 30k tho). and it doesn't seem like we'll shake free of them anytime soon. so we might as well have some which protect us, right?

but i think it's important that we as anarchists and communists to not lose sight of the bigger picture. it's not so much that a lack of rules is what resulted in hundreds of thousands of extra deaths due to covid, and much more that the working class is forced to sell its labor power to make a living. in a world where you dont have to make sure to pay rent to live under a roof, where you dont have to bake 20 loaves of bread just to afford one for yourself, in a world without the state, capital, property, money, markets and all the other trappings, we all could have hunkered down for a couple months and the whole idea of mask mandates would almost be absurd. and in the meantime, instead of giving more power to these same forces so they may turn it back upon some sections of ourselves, we would be better off demanding they give us more free shit.

[mckitterick]

Exhibit A: Cops are worthless

More than 800 police were on duty Wednesday - 600 KCPD cops and an additional 250 from outside cop shops - for the Chiefs Super Bowl win parade and rally at Union Station. Despite their heavy presence, they failed to stop a mass shooting.

One person, local KKFI radio DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan, was killed. An additional 22 people were injured, with three still in critical condition. About half the victims are children.

It's believed that the shooting occurred because of a dispute between teenagers who missed each other at least 23 times, not because of terrorism or extremism.

In the wake of this mass shooting - during a run of ever-increasing gun violence (though other crimes are dropping) - Kansas City residents are demanding stricter gun laws. But Missouri state law doesn't allow cities to pass gun-related laws (to stop KC from doing so, specifically), and Missouri has famously lax gun laws.

Cops do almost nothing to protect citizens, and nothing to prevent crime.

They exist merely to punish perpetrators, which has very little effect on violence, especially when state law essentially allows anyone to possess whatever weapons they wish, at any age, regardless of gun safety education, stability, or maturity.

Lots more info on the local NPR news site: X

[deadoveater]

Death penalty, time-bound trial, publication curbs: All about West Bengal’s anti-rape ‘Aparajita’ Bill

The Bill was passed unanimously in the West Bengal Assembly, a rare moment of cross-party support in a politically-charged state.

Article updated: September 3, 2024

The article:

In a move aimed at enhancing the safety of women and children, the Mamata Banerjee-led government has passed the ‘Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws and Amendment) Bill 2024.’ This legislation was a direct response to the brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor at R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, which has sparked nationwide protests and demands for stricter laws against sexual violence.

The Bill was passed unanimously in the West Bengal Assembly, a rare moment of cross-party support in a politically-charged state. However, the passage was not without contention. During the debate, Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari proposed several amendments aimed at enhancing accountability among law enforcement officials. While some were accepted, others were rejected, leading to heated exchanges between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the opposition. The Bill comes into effect on September 5, 2024.

Key Provisions

Death Penalty for Rape: The Bill proposes capital punishment for those convicted of rape if their actions result in the victim’s death or leave her in a vegetative state.

Time-Bound Investigations and Trials: One of the most notable changes is the stipulation that investigations into rape cases must be concluded within 21 days of the initial report. This is a substantial reduction from the previous two-month deadline. Extensions are allowed, but only with written justification by a senior police officer.

Fast-Track Courts: To ensure swift justice, the draft legislation mandates the establishment of special courts dedicated to handling cases of sexual violence.

Aparajita Task Force: The Bill calls for the creation of a specialised task force at the district level, headed by a deputy superintendent of police. This task force will focus on investigating cases of rape and other atrocities against women and children.

Stricter Penalties for Repeat Offenders: The legislation proposes life imprisonment for repeat offenders, with the possibility of the death penalty if the circumstances warrant it.

Protection of Victims’ Identities: The Bill includes provisions to protect the identities of victims, ensuring their privacy and dignity during the legal process.

Penalties for Delaying Justice: It introduces penalties for police and health officials who fail to act promptly or tamper with evidence. This aims to hold authorities accountable for any negligence in the judicial process.

Publication Restrictions: The Bill imposes strict penalties for unauthorised publication of court proceedings related to sexual offenses, with potential imprisonment of 3 to 5 years.

[roakkaliha]

finnish politicians love to demand stricter immigration laws as a response to the white supremacist finnish youths growing increasingly violent

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan E. Greve at The Guardian:

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, is pushing ahead with his plan to hold votes on four separate foreign aid bills this week, despite threats from two fellow Republicans to oust him if he advances a Ukraine funding proposal. Shortly after noon on Wednesday, the rules committee posted text for three bills that would provide funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The text of a fourth bill, which is expected to include measures to redirect seized Russian assets toward Ukraine and force the sale of TikTok, will be released later on Wednesday, Johnson said in a note to members.

The legislation would provide $26bn in aid for Israel, $61bn for Ukraine and $8bn for US allies in the Indo-Pacific. The Israel bill also appeared to include more than $9bn in humanitarian assistance, which Democrats had demanded to assist civilians in war zones like Gaza. Johnson indicated final votes on the bills were expected on Saturday evening, interfering with the House’s scheduled recess that was supposed to begin on Friday. If the House passes the bills, they will then be combined and sent to the Senate to simplify the upper chamber’s voting process. In February, the Senate approved a $95bn foreign aid package that included many of the same provisions outlined in the four House bills, and the upper chamber will need to reapprove the House package before it can go to Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.

In a statement, Biden called on the House to quickly approve Johnson’s proposal, saying, “The House must pass the package this week and the Senate should quickly follow. I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: we stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed.” Johnson will almost certainly have to rely on Democratic votes to get the bills approved, as House Republicans’ majority has narrowed to just two members after a series of resignations. Mike Gallagher, a Republican representative of Wisconsin, had planned to resign on Friday, but his spokesperson told Politico that he “has the flexibility to stay and support the aid package on Saturday”. Some prominent Democrats were already signaling their support for the package on Wednesday, increasing the likelihood of its passage.

“After House Republicans dragged their feet for months, we finally have a path forward to provide support for our allies and desperately needed humanitarian aid,” said Rose DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House appropriations committee. “We cannot retreat from the world stage under the guise of putting ‘America First’.” In a concession to hard-right Republicans, Johnson said in his note to members that the House would also vote on Saturday on a border security bill. The text of the legislation will be posted late Wednesday, Johnson said, and it will include many of the policies outlined in HR 2, a Republican bill with many hardline immigration measures. The House already passed HR 2 last year, but it was never taken up by the Senate. The Democrats who control the Senate remain adamantly opposed to the bill, so a similar proposal faces little hope of passage in the upper chamber. Despite that concession, hard-right Republicans were already expressing displeasure with Johnson’s plan on Wednesday, arguing that any Ukraine aid must be directly linked with stricter border policies.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is advancing foreign aid proposals onto the House floor for a vote despite threats from his hard-right flank (especially on Ukraine aid funding).

[unhonestlymirror]

*sighs in Lithuanian*

What is wrong with that?

1)"Not everyone's flavour of ice cream." Yeah! Definitely not Lithuanians'. Yk why?

This lady's name is Loreta Asanavičiute, she liked to sing in the folklore ensemble, she was an accountant, and she was killed on January 13th, 1991, in Vilnius. She was 23 years old. Defending the independence of Lithuania, together with other citizens of Vilnius, she stood guard at the Television Tower, protecting it from capture. Being run over by the tracks of a russian tank, she died in the Red Cross Hospital from her injuries, which caused slow, continuous bleeding.

I wonder if the artist mentioned above would have guts to show this art to the parents of this girl? Many people, whose loved ones were killed by russians, are still alive and in their mind, surprise-surprise! My professor had to suture the lungs of one guy, who also was heavily injured that day by russians. Op, would you have guts to come to Lithuania and show this art to Lithuanians, to my professor, for example? I don't think so. People like op really don't think about minor stuff like other people's mass murders by russia... or they're just cowards.

2)Drawing drunk Lithuania hugging russia... Op, I know you're from Brazil, so I won't demand a lot of knowledge about the history of Europe from you - but you still should know that one of favourite russian tactics towards the occupied lands is to make locals drunk. They imported simply gigantic quantities of vodka to get people drunk, so that they would become stupid and controllable. It was like this for CENTURIES, so many old families and clans in Eastern Europe have even stricter laws about alcohol consumption than in Shariat. Alcoholism in Eastern Europe is not a "fancy funny gopnik feature" - it's a huge historical tragedy, it's just less popular than Holodomor and Holocaust because the consequences weren't sudden. Seriously, if you drew Muslim people as pigs, it would be less offensive.

3)Lithuanians really don't like Belarus, for a lot of reasons. And when people try to sew Lithuania and Belarus together, the more they popularise idea of "Lithuania being in love with Belarus" - the angrier it makes Lithuanians, thus, causing them discriminating Belaruthians even more, thus, making Belaruthians (a LOT of whom lives in Lithuania) feel really unsafe. PLEASE don't make our lives miserable.

In conclusion: you like a problematic ship and you know that it can harm real people? Create your own private Tumblr community! It is possible! It is free! Or just find an already existing one - and DON'T post publicly Lithuania/russia, especially tagging these countries. Because countries are very much real. I wish I was Brazilian, so I wouldn't have to care about being suddenly raped and murdered by russians.

Improve your taste and knowledge, op, and have a long and boring life.

[memoriae-lectoris]

For Jews who remained in Europe it was not just sheitels but the entire Jewish population that was to come under threat during the Second World War.

In the context of starvation, forced labour and imminent death Jewish women had neither the time nor the resources to maintain sheitels or even their own hair. Many suffered the humiliation of being stripped and having their heads shaved on arrival in Nazi labour camps, soon losing trace of their clothing, possessions and hair, all of which were recuperated for recycling on an industrial scale.

After the war, when many survivors were stranded in displaced persons’ camps in American zones of Germany, attempts were made to revive a number of Jewish customs that had been forcibly abandoned during the war. Records show that Orthodox rabbis went to considerable lengths to ensure that kosher food was prepared in the camps and to enable Jewish rituals to be maintained. This included making ten thousand skull caps for men out of old army parachutes and ordering 250 kilograms of hair from Italy for making into sheitels for women. The demand for wigs was boosted by an offer from the Klausenberger Rebbe, a revered spiritual leader, to provide $100 as a wedding present to each camp bride who agreed to maintain an Orthodox household on marriage and to cover her hair.

Whilst women’s sheitels may seem a curious priority given the perilous hardship of the times, the argument was that it was important to reconnect survivors to Jewish customs, so as to give them a psychological boost and restore their dignity and faith.

In America it was not until the 1960s and 1970s that sheitel-wearing began to regain popularity, boosted once more by the fashions of the day, for this was the era of the bouffant fashion wig. This time the sheitel got rabbinical backing from the prominent Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who was keen to fight the trend towards assimilation by promoting stricter levels of religious observance. His arguments in favour of the sheitel were far reaching both in America and throughout the Jewish Orthodox world. He argued not only that head-covering was a Jewish legal requirement but also that the well-being of a woman’s children depended on it. Sheitels were preferable to headscarves because women would not be tempted to take them off in public.

Recognising that religious and moral arguments might not be enough to induce women to wear them, he also pointed out that high-quality wigs could be even more beautiful than a woman’s own hair and could enable Jewish women to blend in with wider society whilst at the same time obeying Jewish law and maintaining a distinctive Jewish identity. Far from encouraging the purchase of cheap synthetic wigs, he urged new brides to invest in beautiful high-quality wigs and offered interest-free loans on sheitels for young couples.

[cheonmaneechan]

You know, hanging out on tumblr long enough will make you realize that the artisan class so to speak really is reactionary lol. Just the worst takes and politics on earth from those people as soon as anything even remotely related to their petty bourgeois craft is involved, like it's consistent. Like you really get why some of them will donate to ao3 every year instead of to anything or anyone else more needing of it and demand stricter copyright laws in the same breath.

[safetycar-restart]

Oh yeah, we need to talk about Mick kneeling for you!!!

I feel like it wouldn't be an everyday thing, but it would happen often. Mick wants to be a good boy and kneel, staring at you with those beautiful eyes and overall being perfectly behaved. You realize that for Mick, kneeling (and then doing nothing) is the perfect way to relax and clear his mind. That's why you usually work, maybe answering emails, with Mick kneeling on a cushion between your legs, stroking his hair every once in a while and smiling sweetly at him.

When Mick has had a long, not necessarily emotional day, he grabs his special cushion and you immediately understand what he wants. At times like this he often rests his head on your thigh and falls asleep.

But if we talk about sexy times, Mick likes to kneel and show you that he deserves you (obviously, but it's hard to get quit that mentality out, you're working on it), so he kneels in front of you, between your legs and tries not to squirm so much, but always ends semi hard. Especially when he's looking desperate and you put your fingers in his mouth. Saliva dripping from his chin??? The sexiest image of my week.

Ooh but if we talk about Toto. God. Probably kneeling for Toto makes Mick fall into subspace really fast. Mick with a glassy look, seeing Toto with his big eyes. Something about the feeling of Toto's big legs caging him causes a short circuit in his brain, you're going to have to help him stand up later because he can't function on his own!

We know Toto is stricter with Mick during scenes, but even Tpto can't resist the urge to put his dick in Mick's little mouth. He can't help it!! So kneeling down with Toto almost always ends up into cockwarming or blowjobs. But it's okay, because Mick with saliva running down his chin!!!

The only way Toto won't end up with his dick stretching out Mick's mouth is if there's something planned after Mick kneels. If not, Toto won't be able to help it... and neither can you, to be honest. And Mick neither!!! He really likes things in his mouth!!!

-🌻 (live from my law classes lol)

There's something about law classes that just create the best thoughts ever oh my god because I love this so much. It's so damn good? I'm assuming this is poly!mick/toto which means its d/s au, let me know if I'm wrong about that. But yeah no this is INCREDIBLE.

Firstly, I definitely agree that it wouldn't be an every day thing. Mick loves kneeling, it's very calming for him, but I also think it's very intense for him?

In a lot of ways, kneeling can actually be more intense than regular scenes? He can enter subspace quicker and reach a much deeper subspace when he's kneeling. There's something about the calmness of it, the feeling of your hand on his hair, his cheek against your thigh, that just lets him drop so easily and so deep.

So it doesn't happen often, because he'll often be floaty for hours afterwards, all soft and subby and in need of your full attention. So he can't afford to do it every day.

But when he's had a hard day and he needs to just unwind, then it's amazing.

I love the idea of him having a special pillow for kneeling!! Especially because him getting his special pillow is his way of asking if he can kneel. He struggles to express his needs and while of course you're trying to get him more comfortable with expressing himself, that's not something he should be learning with something as important as when he needs to kneel.

And yes he LOVES to kneel with Toto!! He drops so deep with Toto too.

One of his favourite things ever is just to kneel between toto's legs, and it must be between his legs. Mick will cry if Toto even suggests he kneels next to his legs. Mick MUST be between them. He wants his head to rest on Toto's inner thigh. This is a requirement.

Mick actually tends to be a little more demanding when he kneels for Toto? With you he'll be your good boy, only opening his mouth if you ask him if he wants to suck on something. But with Toto he'll actually whine and open his mouth, sticking his tongue out and refusing to settle until Toto gives him something to suckle on.

Toto always pretends to be all strict and refuse Mick, but that only ever lasts for a few minutes before he's giving Mick something to suckle on. Usually he'll start with his fingers.

But listen, Toto is only human.

Eventually he's going to give in and let Mick suckle on his cock instead. And then Mick is as happy as can be, warming toto's cock and drifting in subspace.

His absolute FAVOURITE is when he's kneeling for one of you and the other joins. Like if he's kneeling for Toto, preferably warming his cock already, and you come home and just sit next to Toto? You cuddle into toto's side? Amazing. He drops so deep then, so happy and safe and with his two Doms.

And also, I think he might kneel as comfort for you and Toto?

Mick struggles with words and expressing himself a lot, especially when he sees you or Toto are upset. He has no idea what to do! He wants to help but he doesn't know how!

So he grabs his special pillow and kneels next to you or Toto, staring up to you and trying to look as sweet and subby as he can. That's how he deals with it. You can't be upset when there's a sub kneeling for you, that's the rule! You can't!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 2, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 3, 2024

The new year has hit with news flying in from a number of quarters. 

At home, minimum wage increased in nearly half of U.S. states; it has been 14 years since the last increase in the federal minimum wage, the longest stretch since 1938 according to the AFL-CIO. NPR correspondent David Gura quoted Goldman Sachs’s chief equity strategist to note, ​​”The S&P 500 index returned 26% including dividends in 2023, more than 2x the average annual return of 12% since 1986.”

Representative Bill Johnson (R-OH) today submitted his resignation, effective January 21, to become the president of Youngstown State University. This shaves the Republican majority in the House of Representatives even thinner. With the recent expulsion of George Santos (R-NY) and resignation of Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the Republicans will control just 219 seats, permitting them a margin of only two seats to pass legislation when the House returns on January 9. 

The Republican House has been one of the least effective in history, and it has its work cut out for it in the new year. The first phase of the continuing resolution Congress passed in November to fund the government expires on January 19, ending funding for transportation, housing, energy, agriculture, and veterans’ affairs. The second phase expires on February 2. Much of the 2018 Farm Bill that covers food and farm aid expired in 2023. As of yesterday, January 1, the items usually covered in farm bills fall under a hodge-podge of fixes, with some old provisions from the 1930s and 1940s going back into force.

Also outstanding is the measure to provide supplemental funding for Israel, Ukraine, and the southern border between the U.S. and Mexico, as well as providing humanitarian assistance for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. 

House Republicans refused to pass that measure unless it included their own extreme anti-immigration measures, but they have refused to participate in efforts to hash out legislation, clearly preferring to keep the issue hot to use against the Democrats in 2024. Since President Joe Biden took office, he and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have asked Congress for additional funding for Customs and Border Patrol officers and additional immigration courts, but despite Republicans’ own demand for such legislation, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) wrote to Biden in December demanding that he impose stricter immigration rules and build a border wall through executive action. Today, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) echoed the idea that Biden, not Congress, should deal with the border.

Meanwhile, Emily Brooks and Rebecca Beitsch of The Hill reported today that about 60 House Republicans are planning to visit the border in Texas to emphasize the issue. They are also preparing to impeach Mayorkas on the grounds that he has failed to meet the requirements of the Secure Fence Act, “which defines operational control of the border as a status in which not a single person or piece of contraband improperly enters the country.” As Brooks and Beitsch point out, “not a single secretary of Homeland Security has met that standard of perfection.” House Republicans plan to hold hearings on impeaching Mayorkas, but Homeland Security Committee chair Mark Green (R-TN) has suggested to the Fox News Channel that the articles of impeachment are already written. 

At the intersection of domestic and foreign affairs, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), whom federal prosecutors have already indicted for using his office to work for Egypt, was charged again today with using his political influence to work for the government of Qatar. This is a big deal: at the time, Menendez was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a key position in the U.S. government. Two Republican operatives are pleading guilty to evading lobbying laws in their own work for Qatar; their activities appear to have been much more limited than Menendez’s. 

The turn of the new year has also produced lots of news in foreign affairs. 

On February 4, 2021, just after Secretary of State Antony Blinken took office, Biden spoke at the State Department and said “the message I want the world to hear today” is that “America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy.” In a New York Times article from December 31, Peter Baker, Edward Wong, Julian E. Barnes, and Isabel Kershner emphasize that Biden and his team have been engaged constantly in diplomacy with Israel, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. Since the October 7, 2023, attack by Iran-backed Hamas on Israel, Biden has spoken with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu 14 times and visited Israel; Blinken has traveled to the region three times and visited Israel five times. 

On December 22, in the Christian Science Monitor, Arab political journalist Taylor Luck and correspondent Fatima AbdulKarim reported that Arab Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan, the U.S., and the European Union have created “[a] massive postwar reconstruction plan…for the besieged Gaza Strip.” The plan is to “rebuild the coastal strip, unite and overhaul Palestinian governance, and create a Palestinian security force in Gaza to ensure Palestinian and Israeli security.” 

Arab diplomats insist the reconstruction of southern Gaza, including alleviating suffering, rebuilding housing and infrastructure, and restoring jobs, must be “rapid”; Gulf states have set $3 billion a year for ten years as the first budget. The plan calls for a “revamped and revitalized” Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza and the West Bank with current president Mahmoud Abbas as a figurehead and an apolitical unity government running affairs. 

The plan is still developing, but already the main obstacles are Israel’s governing coalition, led by Netanyahu, who refuses the ideas of a two-state solution and of a Palestinian Authority in charge of Gaza, and Hamas, which Gulf states as well as the U.S. reject as a participant in the future governance of Gaza. Other Iran-backed militias also oppose such a solution. 

From the beginning of the Hamas-Israel war, the Biden administration has been very clear that its first goal was to make sure the conflict didn’t spread, with Lebanon’s Iran-allied Hezbollah and other proxy militias joining in fully. Biden immediately sent two carrier groups to the region and promised “to move in additional assets as needed.” On October 10 he warned: “Let me say again—to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t. Don’t.”

The New York Times piece by Baker, Wong, Barnes, and Kershner revealed that Biden and his national security team, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security advisor Jake Sullivan, also warned Netanyahu against launching a preemptive strike on Hezbollah. Israel and Hezbollah have been attacking each other with drones, missiles, and air strikes along the countries’ border. 

Meanwhile, Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen have attacked ships in the Red Sea, which is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, handling about 12% of global trade and about 8.2 million barrels of crude oil and oil products every day. On December 31, four small boats attacked the Hangzhou, a container ship from the Danish shipping giant Maersk sailing under a Singapore flag, and then fired on the U.S. Navy helicopters that responded to the Hangzhou’s distress call. The helicopter crews sank three of the boats, killing their crews; the fourth fled. 

Today, Iran sent a naval frigate to the Red Sea, and Maersk announced it would stop using the Red Sea route until further notice. Hezbollah media said that an Israeli drone strike in Beirut, Lebanon, killed Saleh Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of its military wing. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate.

Also today, in response to calls from Israeli cabinet members for the resettlement of Palestinians outside Gaza, the U.S. State Department issued a “rejection” of both the language and the idea. “We have been clear, consistent, and unequivocal that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel. That is the future we seek, in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, the surrounding region, and the world.”

And in today’s Washington Post, Lebanon’s former prime minister Fouad Siniora and former Lebanese lawmaker Basem Shabb noted that “[d]espite the ferocity of the bombing and the great loss of innocent civilian lives in Gaza, the conflict remains largely contained to an Israeli-Palestinian confrontation—and more specifically, is broadly understood in the Arab world to be a conflict with Hamas, a non-state actor,” but warned the conflict must not spread. They noted that in November, “[i]n a first, 57 Arab and Islamic countries…called for a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on a two-state solution,” the same concept embraced by the Biden administration.    

“In response to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, the Arab world responded with denunciation—but, more importantly, with diplomacy. No military threats were issued by any of the Arab states toward Israel,” the Lebanese lawmakers pointed out. They urged Israel to embrace the two-state solution “and, in doing so, usher in a new era in the Middle East.”

Lots of pieces moving around the board on this second day of January 2024.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON