#only defense against trump right now

[artarchangel333]

PLEASE CALL YOUR REP

TELL THEM TO SAY NO TO HR 9495

hr9495 is a bill that would destroy our only way to fight against trump and his administration. Please call your house reps. If your house rep is democrat please tell them what I said above. If theyre republican tell them that this would also affect non profits like the Salvation Army! They’re voting on hr9495 this Monday so please call within today and tomorrow. If you can’t call due to not being American or just fear please tell your American friends to call their reps.

CALL THESE REPS SPECIFICALLY CUZ THEY SAID YES TO THE BIL CONVINCE THEM TO SAY NO

[insert-witty-user-name-here]

Quick reminder as we head into Trump’s first week in office. We are about to see an onslaught of executive actions designed to strip of us our rights. We’ve seen this before.

Many of them won’t be legal, many of them won’t take effect immediately, and some of them will be just plain nonsense. Trump alone can’t change the law (yet anyway- that’s Congress) and there is an official government process for enacting most executive actions that works slowly.*

There will be time to fight against these orders—either by stopping them entirely, weakening them, or at least slowing them down.

The purpose of doing so many terrible things at once is to scare us. Is to intimidate us to cede more ground than we need to. Don’t let them.

Stay engaged, stay angry, stay hopeful (or spiteful- me tbh), and—most importantly—stay strategic. Find an organization you trust, follow them, and take action when they ask you to.

(Side note- pick just a few issues to care deeply about and only follow a few organizations you trust. Don’t try to solve everything all the time or consume every piece of news. You WILL burn yourself out and that’s not helpful for anyone. Trust me, speaking from experience. Staying 15% engaged is better than 120% for three months and then 0%).

What we’re seeing right now is a backlash to decades of progress—a dying (and by extension dangerous I’m not gonna lie) breath of those in power desperate to maintain control. They wouldn’t be trying to squash us if there wasn’t something to squash.

TL;DR- there’s gonna be a lot of bad stuff in the news today. Don’t give into panic. There will be time to fight most of it. Stay engaged.

*Unfortunately, there will be some actions the President can control on his own and will take effect immediately. ICE Raids being one of them. Here’s a Know Your Rights factsheet. To learn more and stay informed on this issue, recommend following National Immigration Law Center, CASA, Immigrant Defense Project.

[misfitwashere]

TIMOTHY SNYDER

FEB 5

Imagine if it had gone like this. 

Ten Tesla cybertrucks, painted in camouflage colors with a giant X on each roof, drive noisily through Washington DC. Tires screech. Out jump a couple of dozen young men, dressed in red and black Devil’s Champion armored costumes. After giving Nazi salutes, they grab guns and run to one government departmental after another, calling out slogans like “all power to Supreme Leader Skibidi Hitler.”

Historically, that is what coups looked like. The center of power was a physical place. Occupying it, and driving out the people who held office, was to claim control. So if a cohort of armed men with odd symbols had stormed government buildings, Americans would have recognized that as a coup attempt. 

And that sort of coup attempt would have failed. 

Now imagine that, instead, the scene goes like this.

A couple dozen young men go from government office to government office, dressed in civilian clothes and armed only with zip drives. Using technical jargon and vague references to orders from on high, they gain access to the basic computer systems of the federal government. Having done so, they proceed to grant their Supreme Leader access to information and the power to start and stop all government payments.

That coup is, in fact, happening. And if we do not recognize it for what it is, it could succeed.

In the third decade of the twenty first century, power is more digital than physical. The buildings and the human beings are there to protect the workings of the computers, and thus the workings of the government as a whole, in our case an (in principle) democratic government which is organized and bounded by a notion of individual rights.

The ongoing actions by Musk and his followers are a coup because the individuals seizing power have no right to it. Elon Musk was elected to no office and there is no office that would give him the authority to do what he is doing. It is all illegal. It is also a coup in its intended effects: to undo democratic practice and violate human rights. 

In gaining data about us all, Musk has trampled on any notion of privacy and dignity, as well as on the explicit and implicit agreements made with our government when we pay our taxes or our student loans. And the possession of that data enables blackmail and further crimes.

In gaining the ability to stop payments by the Department of the Treasury, Musk would also make democracy meaningless. We vote for representatives in Congress, who pass laws that determine how our tax money is spent. If Musk has the power to halt this process at the level of payment, he can make laws meaningless. Which means, in turn, that Congress is meaningless, and our votes are meaningless, as is our citizenship.

Resistance to the coup is the defense of the human against the digital and the democratic against the oligarchic. If Musk controls these digital systems, Republican elected officials will be just as helpless as Democratic ones. The institutions that they voted to create can also be “deleted,” as Musk puts it. 

President Trump, for that matter, will also perform at Musk’s pleasure. There is not much he can do without the use of the federal government’s computers. No one will explain this to Trump or to his supporters, of course. 

A coup is underway, against Americans as possessors of human rights and dignities, and against Americans as citizens of a democratic republic. Each hour this goes unrecognized makes the success of the coup more likely.

[opencommunion]

since zionists want to act obtuse about why we're criticizing a superbowl ad, here's an explanation from before the ad even aired. it was openly designed to act as pro-genocide propaganda. fighting antisemitism is a worthy goal but that's not what's happening here:

"The New England Patriots’ 81-year-old owner, Robert Kraft, writes seven-digit checks to the right-wing Israeli lobbying machine AIPAC, but his personal, political, and financial ties to Israel run deeper than the occasional donation. The multibillionaire married his late wife, Myra, in Israel in 1963 when Kraft, then 22, was older than the nation itself. Together they set up numerous business, athletic, and charitable ties to Israel, a record of which is proudly proclaimed on the Kraft company website. In particular, the Kraft Group boasts of its 'Touchdown in Israel' program, where NFL players are given free, highly organized vacations to see 'the holy land' and come back to spread the word about 'the only democracy in the Middle East.' (Not every NFL player has chosen to take part.) Kraft also attends fundraisers for the Israel Defense Forces, currently—and in open view of the world—committing war crimes in Gaza."

Now, as Israel wages war against the civilians of Gaza—more than 25,000 Palestinian have been killed with at least 10,000 of them children—Kraft is again flexing his financial and political muscles in order to defend the indefensible. His Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) will be spending an estimated $7 million to buy a Super Bowl ad titled 'Stop Jewish Hate' that will be seen by well over 100 million people. Under Kraft’s direction, the ad’s goal is to create a propaganda campaign to counter the reports and images from Gaza that young people are consuming on social media. 

... The content of the Super Bowl ad is not yet known, but FCAS has afforded Kraft the opportunity to make the rounds on cable news saying things like, 'It’s horrible to me that a group like Hamas can be respected and people in the United States of America can be carrying flags or supporting them.'

This is Kraft enacting the mission of FCAS: fostering disinformation. He is far from subtle: A Palestinian flag becomes a 'Hamas flag,' and people like the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets of Washington, D.C., last month to call for a cease-fire and end the violence are expressions of the 'rise in antisemitism.' Without a sense of irony or the horrors happening on the ground in Gaza, Kraft says he is giving $100 million of his own money to FCAS, because 'hate leads to violence.'

Let’s be clear: What Kraft is doing politically and what he will be using the Super Bowl as a platform to do is dangerous. He appears to think any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. For Kraft, it is Jews like myself, rabbis, and Holocaust survivors calling for a cease-fire and a Free Palestine that are part of the problem. Kraft seems to think that opposition to Israel, the IDF, and the AIPAC agenda is antisemitism.

... Right-wing Christian nationalists, with their belief in a Jewish state existing alongside their conviction that Jews are going to Hell, are welcome in Netanyahu’s Israel and Kraft’s coalition. Left-wing anti-Zionist Jews are not. The greatest foghorn of this evangelical right-wing 'love Israel, hate Jews' perspective is, of course, Donald Trump. Kraft, while speaking of being troubled by events like the Charlottesville Nazi march and the right-wing massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, counts Donald Trump as a close friend and even donated $1 million to his presidential inauguration.

No one who provides cover for the most powerful, public antisemite in the history of US politics should ever be taken seriously on how to best fight antisemitism. No one who funds AIPAC and the IDF and opposes a cease-fire amid the carnage should be allowed a commercial platform at the Super Bowl. But given that the big game is always an orgy of militarism, blind patriotism, and big budget commercials that lie through their teeth, perhaps that ad could not be more appropriate. We can do better than Kraft’s perspective on how to fight antisemitism. Morally, we don’t have a choice."

[contemplatingoutlander]

That the Editorial Board of the premier U.S. newspaper of record is finally warning about Donald Trump is significant. As such, this is a gift 🎁 link so that those who want to read the entire editorial can do so, even if they don't subscribe to The New York Times. Below are some excerpts:

As president, [Trump] wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever — encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law and the Constitution, applauding dictators — and are escalating as he tries to regain power. He plots retribution, intent on eluding the institutional, legal and bureaucratic restraints that put limits on him in his first term. Our purpose at the start of the new year, therefore, is to sound a warning. Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution. [...] It is instructive in the aftermath of that administration to listen to the judgments of some of these officials on the president they served. John Kelly, a chief of staff to Mr. Trump, called him the “most flawed person I’ve ever met,” someone who could not understand why Americans admired those who sacrificed their lives in combat. Bill Barr, who served as attorney general, and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary, both said Mr. Trump repeatedly put his own interests over those of the country. Even the most loyal and conservative of them all, Vice President Mike Pence, who made the stand that helped provoke Mr. Trump and his followers to insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, saw through the man: “On that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution,” he said.

[See more under the cut.]

There will not be people like these in the White House should Mr. Trump be re-elected. The former president has no interest in being restrained, and he has surrounded himself with people who want to institutionalize the MAGA doctrine. According to reporting by the Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan, Mr. Trump and his ideological allies have been planning for a second Trump term for many months already. Under the name Project 2025, one coalition of right-wing organizations has produced a thick handbook and recruited thousands of potential appointees in preparation for an all-out assault on the structures of American government and the democratic institutions that acted as checks on Mr. Trump’s power. [...] Mr. Trump has made clear his conviction that only “losers” accept legal, institutional or even constitutional constraints. He has promised vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin” and threatened with execution. This is particularly disturbing at a time of heightened concern about political violence, with threats increasing against elected officials of both parties. He has repeatedly demonstrated a deep disdain for the First Amendment and the basic principles of democracy, chief among them the right to freely express peaceful dissent from those in power without fear of retaliation, and he has made no secret of his readiness to expand the powers of the presidency, including the deployment of the military and the Justice Department, to have his way. [...] Re-electing Mr. Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to re-engage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate — as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals — the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November.

I encourage people to use the above gift link and read the entire article.

[edited]

[txttletale]

Now I'm curious about the 2cp thing on overwatch. Please talk about it I love reading your takes on those

2cp was an awful gamemode for a bunch of reasons that primarily boil down to stuff about how spawn points work. so in 2cp you've got two points, point a and point b. defenders spawn right by point b, attackers spawn closer to a. if attackers take a, then attacker spawns move forward and they can try to take point b

the practical effect of this is that holding point a is extremely difficult -- you spawn a good map distance away if you die on defense, so if the attackers can get a pick they can almost always take it (overwatch is an incredibly team-dependent game, numbers advantages in teamfights are enormous and trump nearly everything else unless there's major ult or skill disparities).

now the thing is that the winners of a fight probably did more damage and healed more during that fight, so it's very common for the attacking team to then simply be have an ult advantage and be able to run over to point b and roll over the newly respawning defending team. this is a brutal snowball effect that is really oppressive and miserable to play against as defenders.

& now the absolute worst thing that can happen here--especially common at lower levels of play--is for one defender to be 'staggered' (ie, die a while after the others) during or immediately after point a being captured. this means that on top of a probable ult advantage, the attackers have a numbers advantage. very frustratingly this is very likely to happen when one of your teammates decides they are going to heroically go and 1v6 the enemy team while the point is 99% captured--unless you're communicating and coordinating there is no way to stop someone from dooming your team with a play like that. even in higher level play where nobody would do something so silly there's ways for attackers to deliberately stagger enemies (a very famous one is popping dvas mech and slowly meleeing baby dva to death)

HOWEVER, if this snowball doesn't happen, the fact that point b spawns are right next to the point leads to another very obnoxious play pattern--stalling. it is nearly impossible unless you get off ap erfect 6-man ult combo to wipe the whole defending team in such a way that you can take point before one of them respawns and jumps on it. there's no point capture progress at all as long as one defender is still on the point, so (and this was true at higher levels, where people were better at stalling, and at lower levels, where people were worse at killing stallers) the defending team will all swap onto heroes with strong defensive or mobility-heavy kits and just run around the point like headless chickens trying to stall capture until more teammates respawned--and because the attacker spawns are so far from the point by comparison, getting even one kill during the staling process can swing a decisively won fight back around into a loss. i've seen games where the attackers win a fight on point b with 2+ minutes to spare and then the defending team stalls until overtime. just truly mind-numbing tedious toxic play patterns encouraged by the map design

and to top it all off, point capture progress only 'counts' for tiebreaking if you get more than 33%--which means that if you, as the first attackers during the first or any tiebreaker rounds, don't manage to get to 33% capture progress on point A, you can be left in a situation where it's impossible to win and you're playing for a draw--truly the most demoralizing experience imaginable, some of the least fun i've ever had playing video games. im so glad they blew it up

[robertreich]

5 Facts About Trump’s Indictments

Trump’s defenders are still lying about his indictments. Here are 5 crucial facts you can share with whoever in your life needs to hear them.

1. President Biden did not indict Trump.

Four different grand juries — made up of ordinary citizens — indicted Trump after being presented with evidence they found compelling enough to warrant criminal prosecution.

The reason we have grand juries is specifically to help make sure no one gets prosecuted out of a personal vendetta.

2. This isn’t about “free speech”

In all four cases, Trump has been indicted because of what he allegedly did, not what he said. Lots of crimes involve speech, but that doesn’t stop them from being crimes. Even Trump’s hand-picked attorney general, Bill Barr, recognizes this defense is nonsense.

3. It doesn’t matter whether Trump believed the election was stolen

There’s plenty of evidence that Trump knew he lost the election fair and square. His claims of massive fraud were rejected by his own campaign manager, White House lawyers, and his hand-picked Justice Department officials. 

And privately, Trump seemed to admit that he either knew or didn’t care that his claims were false, allegedly criticizing VP Pence for being “too honest,” and allegedly admitting to his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that he lost and wanted to cover it up.

But even if Trump really did believe the election was stolen, that doesn’t give him the right to allegedly commit a criminal conspiracy to try to steal it back.

4. Trump has received preferential treatment because of who he is.

Trump’s defenders complain about a two-tiered justice system.

They’re right about that, but not in the way they claim. Trump has been given special privileges most criminal defendants would never get.

In all four criminal cases, he has been released without bail. He has repeatedly been spared the indignity of a mugshot. He has not had his passport suspended or had limits placed on his ability to travel — even though two of his criminal cases involve direct threats to national security, and even though he has used social media to issue insults and threats against potential witnesses, behavior that would cause many criminal defendants to be held without bail pending trial.

5. Trump was in legal trouble long before entering politics

Some of Trump’s defenders claim the sheer number of criminal charges and civil suits he’s now facing is proof that he’s being targeted for political reasons. But you have to remember that Trump was the subject of about 4,000 legal actions before ever running for president. From his fraudulent Trump University scam to federal lawsuits over racist housing discrimination, Trump has spent his life in court because of his own shady behavior.

Trump is being prosecuted now because, as four grand juries have found, the strength of the evidence against him merits it. If we fail to hold him fully accountable under the law, the precedent will embolden future presidents to break the law, jeopardize national security, incite insurrections, and possibly even overturn an election.

The principle that no one is above the law is only true if we make it so.

[englandsgirl18181234]

I'd say sorry for the sudden political spam but I'm really not. We finally have a good option and we need to grab it with both hands and run with it as far as we fucking can. So here's some facts that people seem to be ignoring when they say you shouldn't vote for Harris.

Harris was not a fucking cop, she was a district attorney and attorney general. Stop fucking saying otherwise, it's misinformation and you need to understand that.

Harris is documentedly pro LGBTQ+. When she was elected Attorney General, she co-sponsored legislation to ban the gay and trans panic defense which passed. She also officiated the first same-sex wedding in California after Section 8 was overturned 20 years ago.

In her entire time as District Attorney she never sought the death penalty. She also created the San Francisco Reentry Division, with the first of its kind reentry program Back On Track for first-time nonviolent offenders. 200 people graduated from it with less than 10 percent going on to commit another crime, compared to the 53 percent of California drug offenders that would do so in less than 2 years after release.

When she was elected to Attorney General of California, she introduced the Homeowner Bill of Rights, considered one of the strongest protections nationwide against aggressive foreclosure tactics.

In 2015, Harris's California Department of Justice became the first statewide agency in the US to require all of its police officers to wear body cameras.

So to reiterate:

Fucking vote for Harris.

Voting third party right now is not the fucking way. All it's gonna do is split the fucking votes that we need to keep Trump out of office. None of the third party candidates have the numbers to actually beat Trump. It's not going to fucking happen, stop saying it will because you're lying to yourself and others.

Not voting at all is even fucking worse than voting third party and you're an idiot if you think otherwise. Not voting isn't a fucking protest like some idiots are spouting. It's not making a fucking point. It is giving the fuck up and being a coward about it. It is actively choosing to not make things better when you have the fucking chance and I am disgusted that people actually think it's a good idea when we are on the verge of a second term for a literal traitor and convicted felon that actively thinks disabled and LGBTQ people should die.

Someone is still going to be President. Full stop, that is how elections fucking work. THERE IS STILL GOING TO BE A PRESIDENT. There is still going to be a president whether you vote or not. And our only real options right now are Harris or Trump. So use your fucking vote to make things better in the only way we can right now.

Yeah, there are things Harris needs to change and things she isn't on the right side on. But Trump is worse in every possible fucking way. So we need to lock this down and push for improvement, not decide shit is hopeless and fucking give the bad guy the win now that we finally have a fucking shot!

You didn't want to vote for Biden? Great, you're not! Now take the fucking miracle that just dropped into our fucking laps and run with it!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

Reading the complaint in Donald Trump’s lawsuit against pollster Ann Selzer over her 2024 poll that found Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa, it’s hard not to give in to thoughts of how comically obscene it is. The suit stretches the interpretation of the relevant law — Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act — well past the breaking point. It leans heavily on “facts” that are nothing but Trump quoting Trump about being mad. It spends a good deal of time citing hard-right outlets like Breitbart as if they are neutral. It’s hard not to laugh at how absurd it is. But then you remember that ABC just gave Trump a total of $16 million rather than fight the paper-thin defamation lawsuit he brought against them. And that even after ABC knuckled under, Trump still has lawsuits against CBS, Simon & Schuster, and CNN. And then you also remember that Trump has stated he’s going to use all his might — and that of the government — to bury media he doesn’t like. All of this makes trying to rationally assess whether the lawsuit will succeed nearly impossible.

Trump can afford to go scorched earth whether his claims have any merit or not. He has bottomless wealth, particularly regarding legal fees, as he’s made his donors cover at least $100 million of them so far. He’s utterly unconcerned about whether something is true, and he seems to have a never-ending stream of lawyers willing to step up even though several have ended up facing sanctions, criminal charges, or both. Put simply, he has no incentive to back down, ever. All that being said, the lawsuit against Selzer is still straight-up trash, even if it’s trash that somehow manages to succeed because of the unique blend of horrible characteristics exclusive to Trump.

The nonsense is the point

Trump is alleging that Selzer, her Selzer & Company polling company, the Des Moines Register (the paper that published the poll), and the Register’s parent company — media behemoth Gannett — broke Iowa’s consumer fraud statute. To demonstrate this, Trump would have to prove actual fraud — as in that Selzer, the paper, and the publisher knew or should have known that the poll was fraudulent and that they intended people would rely on that fraud. But Trump doesn’t argue anything like that. What he does instead are include random quotes slamming Harris from places like Breitbart and a list of other times Selzer got poll predictions wrong.

[...]

Bullying the press into submission

So what happens now? Regrettably, the answer isn’t necessarily the same for all the defendants here. Gannett has already removed lawsuit from the Iowa state courts to the federal courts. There’s nothing particularly odd about that as such — cases can be shifted to federal court when the parties are in different jurisdictions and the damages claimed exceed $75,000. However, this also puts any loss Gannett would suffer in federal district court in Iowa as getting appealed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, where only one of the 11 current judges was nominated by a Democrat, and then on up to the exceedingly Trump-friendly US Supreme Court. To be fair, it isn’t clear that Iowa state courts would handle this case well either, and it may be that Gannett thinks that the federal courts, which deal with media lawsuits more often, are a better bet. But the one thing that is clear is that Gannett is also only looking out for Gannett. The notice of removal filed by the company is only on their behalf. The other defendants get dragged along, but Gannett is not, at least as of yet, providing a defense on behalf of Selzer, her company, or the Register. The party with the shallowest pockets and the least ability to withstand the juggernaut of endless Trump litigation is Selzer, which makes it hard for her to be the face of taking a hard line against Trump’s war on the media.

Donald Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register is a gross attack on the freedom of the press.

[qqueenofhades]

Hwy dod we even need to send more money to Ukraine tho like we’ve already supported them plenty! But let Europe pull their weight and we can go back to spending that money on American policies

Do you read like, any news outside Tumblr, any Ukrainian perspectives, any basic analyses of the conflict, any rationale from Democrats or Congress, or anything? Because, in brief:

Ukrainians are currently facing a full-scale genocide. It has been going on for over a year and Russian military leadership has every plan to continue until fruition. If they stop resisting, there will be no more Ukraine or Ukrainians. So all the "appeasers" or "realists" insisting that Ukraine should "give up land for peace" (which notably worked so well with Czechoslovakia and Hitler in 1938) are basically deciding that it's fine to let the genocide be carried out, if it's even minorly inconvenient for us. Putin and cronies have repeatedly stated that if they are successful in taking Ukraine, they will go further. This is the exact scenario that leads to the "escalation" and/or WWIII that various people keep wringing their hands over. It is far more just and safe for Ukraine to be supported now and to stop that before it gets even worse.

America is not actually giving over buckets of black cash, regardless of what various bad-faith takes claim. They are handing over weapons valued at various amounts of money, along with some financial and budgetary aid. A lot of these weapons are older and would cost more to decommission than they cost to give to a sovereign democracy fighting for its life against an imperialist autocratic neighbor. This is some tiny amount like 5% (if that) of America's bloated military budget. And again: it's actual weapons valued at a certain dollar amount. These cannot be spent on American domestic policies.

The idea that helping Ukraine is directly coming out of our own pockets or preventing us from spending as needed on our own needs is propaganda. It is not good to repeat it.

I wrote this post the other day about why Putin is trying so hard to break American/Western support for Ukraine, and why the hard-right MAGA has enabled him in it. Putin's Russia is the motivating nexus, coordination, and funding center for Russian/European/American far-right theocratic fascism. This whole "America Only" is the exact rationale that appeals to said far-right domestic fascists and gives Putin and other imperial expansionist kleptocrats the justification to just throw away post-WWII international order and declare that any larger and more powerful state can systematically eradicate any neighboring country, claim its territory, destroy its government, kill its people, and get away with it. Because why would they stop, if there aren't any consequences and they are rewarded for it?

Putin has repeatedly interfered in American elections to help Trump and the Republicans. That should tell you something about who he sees as most favorable to his interests and what he would do again if allowed to emerge victorious.

Europe IS actually pulling its weight! They just brought all 27 defense ministers to Kyiv, they have been working on Ukraine's accession talks, they have committed all types of weapons (including the long-range missiles that the US still won't clearly authorize), they've committed a new tranche of 5 billion euros in long-term assistance, etc. But the whole "we should pull out of NATO and leave Europe to fend for itself" was a key isolationist and xenophobic Trump idea. We can see what that led to.

American aid is vital to Ukraine's continued existence as a sovereign country, period, and it is in American interests to continue to provide it as agreed upon. Not least because such an egregious betrayal of a democratic ally would empower the fascists of the world, both Russian and American, and because as noted, if this conflict was not stopped and got bigger, it would then involve American troops. It is a moral, democratic, political, and ethical imperative. This is not a difficult call or a complicated situation, regardless of what the Online Leftist tankies and the MAGA-world nutcases (because horseshoe theory) want you to think.

Слава Україні.

The end.

[tlbodine]

Tips for Talking to Conservative Friends & Family

In the wake of the election, with the holidays around the corner, some of you may be wondering how to deal with friends, family members, coworkers, etc. who voted for Trump and/or who espouse his policies.

This guide is by no means meant to be authoritative and won't work in every circumstance. I accept no responsibility for what happens if you use any scripts and it goes horribly awry. But I did want to share some of my personal experience in this vein, as someone with a great deal of conservative people in my life whom I generally love and respect and would like to maintain a civil relationship with (and, hopefully, bring them back to center if not my side). I've had decent luck with these strategies in the past.

First: Only engage if it is safe to do so.

Do not get into political discussions that might endanger your job, your living situation, your access to care, or your physical and emotional safety. However, do engage if you are able to do so safely and your doing so might help someone in a more vulnerable position. What the fuck is privilege for if not using it to protect people?

Second: Identify your goal.

Do you want to de-escalate a situation so someone can get out of immediate danger? Do you want to establish a boundary? Or do you want to actually attempt to convert someone over to your side? Each goal has different tactics. Be realistic with yourself about what you're going to accomplish. If you do not have a close relationship with the person, you are extremely unlikely to change their mind about anything, and it's frankly not worth the effort. Let someone who is close to them do that work. De-escalate, set a boundary if possible, and gtfo.

But if you do have a close relationship -- if this person generally likes and respects you -- then you might have a shot at challenging their views.

We're going to assume a scenario where you're dealing with people you know and who you can generally count on not to be immediately aggressive. Somebody else will be better-equipped to talk about strategies for dealing with protests and people on the street etc.

De-Escalation & Setting Boundaries

This is your first line of defense against family members acting shitty. If someone tries to start a debate, makes an off-color joke or comment, or is otherwise behaving inappropriately, try:

Let's not talk about this over dinner.

I don't think this is appropriate conversation right now.

That's an awful thing to say.

I don't understand that joke, can you explain why it's funny?

I'm sorry, I won't listen to any more of this (leave the room)

That's not okay.

What you want to do here is make an appeal to correct standards of behavior. You want them to feel ashamed for acting out of line. In order to make this work, it is essential that you:

Remain calm and keep an even, light-but-firm tone of voice. It needs to be clear that you're not joking around, but you also cannot sound upset. (Yes, this is really hard. I'm sorry.) Practice your very best "I'm not angry, just disappointed" tone for maximum effect. If you can manage it, eye contact and a neutral or even slightly concerned or sad expression will make it even better.

Avoid insulting or attacking them. Do not say things like, "Stop being an asshole" or "I can't believe you're acting like this" no matter how much you want to. Do not say "That's racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic." These types of replies, no matter how accurate, will make them defensive, and defensive people shut down and stop listening. If you come off as angry, that gives THEM permission to be angry right back. But if you come off as the normal one, them getting angry makes them look like a dick.

Do not laugh. Avoid the urge to chuckle nervously or joke it off. It WILL feel uncomfortable. It WILL be awkward as fuck. That's the point. They are misbehaving by violating a standard of appropriate behavior, and you are setting down a boundary. The awkwardness will fade and, frankly, they'll often start behaving better pretty much immediately.

Follow through on your consequences. If you say, "Dad, if you continue to bring up Trump, I will not call you anymore," you have to stick to it. Holding firm to your boundaries is HARD AS FUCK but if you don't do it then all you do is teach them that they can wear you down. Think of it like training a dog. Consistency is key.

You're not going to change anybody's closely-held beliefs with this strategy, but you WILL make a case for what is allowable around you. If you model this behavior, and encourage and embolden other people you know to do the same, you might be surprised. A lot of times, people's inappropriate behavior is a boundary-testing mechanism -- they tell the racist joke because they want to see if they can get away with it -- and if you shut them down, they often just...stop. Or at least retreat into their little hole to talk to fellow gremlins instead of you.

Challenging Views, Changing Minds

Okay. You actually want to engage them in conversation. You want to challenge their views and help them change their opinion. How do you do that?

Again, it's essential that you remain calm. If you can't have this discussion without getting heated, it's not the time to have the discussion. If they start to get heated, be prepared to de-escalate and walk away: "I cannot continue this conversation with you right now. Let's talk again some other time when we've cooled off."

But if you can keep calm, here is what actually works (sometimes):

Listen to them. No, really. Hear them out.

Help them feel heard by empathizing with them. Repeat back your understanding of what they said and how that must feel.

Remind them that for other people, THEY are feeling xyz emotion, too.

Ask them questions. Instead of telling them they're wrong, ask questions that will lead them to draw that conclusion themselves.

Make appeals to emotion rather than starting with facts and logic. You'll know what kind of emotion to draw on because you've been listening to them and empathizing. Hint: almost always, bigotry (at the personal level) is rooted in fear.

If this is going well, THEN you can start citing some sources, statistics, and facts.

Invite them to share THEIR sources with you.

Thank them for doing such a good job at being calm and discussing this with you, reaffirm your close relationship, and encourage them to come talk to you about this at any time. It's very possible that you are the only person they might feel safe bringing this stuff up to now and you want to keep that channel of communication open.

Very often (not always, or often), conservative-leaning individuals are people who lack the education or knowledge that left-leaning people do. They may be accustomed to being insulted, yelled at, and made to feel stupid. They are conditioned to believe that folks on the left are smug, holier-than-thou, stuck-up assholes. Whatever you can do to poke a hole in that perception will simultaneously make it easier to talk to them AND cause them to question that rhetoric the next time they encounter it.

This tactic won't always work. It probably won't work at all the first conversation. It's something you'll have to chip away at over time. But sometimes, it's worth it.

And if it's not? Well. As they say.

[mariacallous]

For American companies grousing about new cybersecurity rules, spyware firms eager to expand their global business, and hackers trying to break AI systems, Donald Trump’s second term as president will be a breath of fresh air.

For nearly four years, president Joe Biden’s administration has tried to make powerful US tech firms and infrastructure operators more responsible for the nation’s cybersecurity posture, as well as restrict the spread of spyware, apply guardrails to AI, and combat online misinformation. But when Trump takes office in January, he will almost certainly eliminate or significantly curtail those programs in favor of cyber strategies that benefit business interests, downplay human-rights concerns, and emphasize aggressive offense against the cyber armies of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

“There will be a national security focus, with a strong emphasis on protecting critical infrastructure, government networks, and key industries from cyber threats,” says Brian Harrell, who served as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s assistant director for infrastructure security during Trump’s first term.

From projects whose days are numbered to areas where Trump will go further than Biden, here is what a second Trump administration will likely mean for US cybersecurity policy.

Full Reversal

The incoming Trump administration is likely to scrap Biden’s ambitious effort to impose cyber regulations on sectors of US infrastructure that currently lack meaningful digital-security safeguards. That effort has borne fruit with railroads, pipelines, and aviation but has hit hurdles in sectors like water and health care.

Despite mounting cyberattacks targeting vital systems—and despite this year’s Republican Party platform promising to “raise the security standards for our critical systems and networks”—conservatives are unlikely to support new regulatory mandates on infrastructure operators.

There will be “no more regulation without explicit congressional authorization,” says James Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Harrell says “more regulation will be dismantled than introduced.” Biden’s presidency was “riddled with new cyber regulation” that sometimes confused and overburdened industry, he adds. “The new White House will be looking to reduce regulatory burdens while streamlining smart compliance.”

This approach may not last, according to a US cyber official who requested anonymity to discuss politically sensitive issues. “I think they’ll eventually recognize that the efforts focused on regulation in cyber are needed to ensure the security of our critical infrastructure.”

“Regulation is the only tool that works,” Lewis says.

Some Biden cyber rules might be overturned in court, now that the Supreme Court has eliminated the deference that judges previously gave to agencies in disputes over their regulations. John Miller, senior vice president of policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, a major tech trade group, says it’s also possible that Trump officials “might not wait for the courts” to void those rules.

Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, predicts that the Trump administration will emphasize cooperation and incentives in its efforts to protect vulnerable industries. He points to a House GOP plan for water cybersecurity standards as an example.

Trump’s election also likely spells doom for CISA’s work to counter mis- and disinformation, especially around elections. After Trump lost the 2020 election, he fired CISA’s first director for debunking right-wing election conspiracy theories, and the conservative backlash to anti-misinformation work has only grown since then.

In 2022, Trump outlined a “free speech policy initiative” to “break up the entire toxic censorship industry that has arisen under the false guise of tackling so-called ‘mis-’ and ‘dis-information.’” Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and X whom Trump has tapped to colead a “government efficiency” initiative, enthusiastically shared the plan last week.

CISA has already dramatically scaled back its efforts to combat online falsehoods following a right-wing pressure campaign, but Trump appointees are almost certain to smother what remains of that mission. “Disinformation efforts will be eliminated,” Montgomery predicts.

Harrell agrees that Trump would “refocus” CISA on core cyber initiatives, saying the agency’s “priorities have mistakenly bordered on social issues lately.”

Also likely on the chopping block: elements of Biden’s artificial intelligence safety agenda that focus on AI’s social harms, like bias and discrimination, as well as Biden’s requirement for large AI developers to report to the government about their model training.

“I expect the repeal of Biden’s executive order on AI, specifically because of its references to AI regulation,” says Nick Reese, a director of emerging technology policy at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump and Biden. “We should expect a change in direction toward less regulation, which would mean less compulsory AI safety measures.”

Trump is also unlikely to continue the Biden administration’s campaign to limit the proliferation of commercial spyware technologies, which authoritarian governments have used to harass journalists, civil-rights protesters, and opposition politicians. Trump and his allies maintain close political and financial ties with two of the most prolific users of commercial spyware tools, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and he showed little concern about those governments’ human-rights abuses in his first term.

“There’s a high probability that we see big rollbacks on spyware policy,” says Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. Trump officials are likely to care more about spyware makers’ counterterrorism arguments than about digital-rights advocates’ criticisms of those tools.

Spyware companies “will undoubtedly receive a more favorable audience under Trump,” Feldstein says—especially market leader NSO Group, which is closely affiliated with the Trump-aligned Israeli government.

Dubious Prospects

Other Biden cyber initiatives are also in jeopardy, even if their fates are not as clear.

Biden’s National Cybersecurity Strategy emphasized the need for greater corporate responsibility, arguing that well-resourced tech firms must do more to prevent hackers from abusing their products in devastating cyberattacks. Over the past few years, CISA launched a messaging campaign to encourage companies to make their products “secure by design,” the Justice Department created a Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative to prosecute contractors that mislead the government about their security practices, and White House officials began considering proposals to make software vendors liable for damaging vulnerabilities.

That corporate-accountability push is unlikely to receive strong support from the incoming Trump administration, which is almost certain to be stocked with former business leaders hostile to government pressure.

Henry Young, senior director of policy at the software trade group BSA, predicts that the secure-by-design campaign will “evolve to more realistically balance the responsibilities of governments, businesses, and customers, and hopefully eschew finger pointing in favor of collaborative efforts to continue to improve security and resilience.”

A Democratic administration might have used the secure-by-design push as a springboard to new corporate regulations. Under Trump, secure-by-design will remain at most a rhetorical slogan. “Turning it into something more tangible will be the challenge,” the US cyber official says.

Chipping Away at the Edges

One landmark cyber program can’t easily be scrapped under a second Trump administration but could still be dramatically transformed.

In 2022, Congress passed a law requiring CISA to create cyber incident reporting regulations for critical infrastructure operators. CISA released the text of the proposed regulations in April, sparking an immediate backlash from industry groups that said it went too far. Corporate America warned that CISA was asking too many companies for too much information about too many incidents.

Trump’s election could throw a wrench in CISA’s ambitious incident-reporting plans. New appointees at the White House, DHS, and CISA itself could force agency staff to rewrite the rules to be more industry-friendly, exempting entire swaths of critical infrastructure or eliminating requirements for companies to report certain data. Trump’s team has months to revise the final rule before its required publication in late 2025.

BSA’s Young expects Trump’s team to scale back the regulations, which he says “take a very broad view of the authority CISA believes Congress granted it.”

The current rule is “particularly vulnerable to a court challenge” because it exceeds Congress’s intent, ITI’s Miller warns, and Trump’s team “may direct CISA to scale it back” if the agency doesn’t “proceed cautiously” on its own.

New Urgency

One area where Trump might pick up the baton from the Biden administration is the government’s use of military hacking operations and its response to foreign adversaries’ cyberattacks.

Under Biden, the military’s US Cyber Command has scaled up its overseas hacker-hunting engagements with allies. But Republicans have pressed Biden to respond more muscularly to Chinese, Russian, and Iranian hacks, and Trump is likely to embrace that approach—particularly after picking representative Mike Waltz, an advocate for cyberattacks on Russia, North Korea, and Mexican cartels, as his national security adviser.

“A much more aggressive stance will be taken against China, which is sorely needed,” Harrell says, predicting that Chinese hackers penetrating US critical infrastructure “will be held to account.”

Montgomery agrees that Trump may “adopt a more aggressive approach” to national cyber defense, including giving the National Guard “a more significant role” in protecting domestic infrastructure.

Montgomery also says he expects more frequent and more muscular offensive operations by Cyber Command, which Trump elevated to a full combatant command during his first term. He predicts the Trump administration will “look more favorably” on creating a separate military cyber service, which the Biden administration opposed, and “take a more skeptical view” of the joint leadership of Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, which the Biden administration supported.

Trump could also harness other tools to constrain China, including authorities he created during his first term to block the use of risky technology in the US. “The Trump administration will look at the full set of policy levers when deciding how to push back on China in cyberspace,” says Kevin Allison, a consultant on geopolitics and technology.

[nerdygaymormon]

The United States' Uniform Code of Military Justice criminalized sodomy until 2013, at which point only forcible acts (rape) were a crime. Service members who were discharged under the former rules can have their dishonorable discharges upgraded and receive lost pay & benefits.

This is the latest of many actions by Biden for the LGBTQ community.

Joe Biden wasn't always on board with queer rights, over his 50+ years in political office his views have advanced along with the forward march of LGBTQ+ rights. What changed his views is getting to know & work with LGBTQ+ individuals.

In 1996 as a senator, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which allowed states to not recognize same-gender marriages performed in a different state and banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. In 2012, as vice president, Biden declared his support for same-sex marriage, which was considered a water-shed moment in the push for marriage equality.

As President, he has a long record of support, including extending protections against discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity, repealing Trump era policies like the ban on transgender military service, and about 15% of the people he has appointed in his administration identify as LGBTQ. Some other notable accomplishments are automatically granting US citizenship to children born overseas to a gay couple if their parent is an American citizen, applying Title IX protections to LGBTQ students, updating passports to include nonbinary gender markers, and signing the Respect for Marriage Act to protect same-sex and interracial marriages.

Even as states continue to pass anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ laws, it's been heartening to see the president speak out against those laws and use the federal government to add some protections.

[palestinegenocide]

274 Palestinian lives don’t matter to the Biden administration

This week provided further evidence – if any were lacking — that anti-Palestinian bias is simply a rule of American politics, and today maybe the leading rule.

Yesterday Israel killed 274 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp while freeing four Israeli hostages, and the U.S. promptly hailed the “rescue”. It is beyond question that this was an indiscriminate massacre, but Joe Biden saluted the Israeli action, and so did Secretary of State, without a mention of Palestinian lives.

“As if we needed more proof of how little this administration values Palestinian lives,” Khaled Elgindy wrote.

Mainstream reporters are horrified, but politely. After the last outrage earlier this week, when Israel killed dozens of Palestinians in a school, a reporter asked at the State Department: “People might find it very puzzling that you have the leverage of $3.8 billion of defense supplied to the Israelis per year, and you cannot compel this situation to change.”

The State Department said the U.S. has prodded Israel, and there’s been progress. “We have seen them [the Israelis] take improvements over time.”

So the U.S. keeps pouring money and weapons into Israel, and the Democratic base believes overwhelmingly that it’s a genocide, and Biden keeps saying he wants a ceasefire, but won’t apply any pressure to achieve it.

Republicans are at least more honest about their policy. Nikki Haley—a possible running mate for Trump —visited Israel at the end of May and wrote “Finish them” on an Israeli shell. Even as the death count in Gaza crossed 36,000.

This disdain for Palestinian life is consistent throughout the American establishment. Variety reported this week that a Hollywood marketing guru warned her employees that they should hit “pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.”

In an email, Ashlee Margolis said, “Anyone saying Israel is committing a ‘genocide’ is someone we will pause on working with, as that is simply not true…. While Jews are devastated by the loss of innocent lives in Gaza, we are feeling immense fear over the rising Jew Hatred all over the world.”

So again, Palestinian lives just don’t matter, next to Jewish fears.

This special degraded status for Palestinians has become an area of study for Palestinian intellectuals. Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights lawyer and doctoral student at Harvard, wrote a lengthy legal argument for a new term for the Palestinian condition.

“The law does not possess the language that we desperately need to accurately capture the totality of the Palestinian condition. From occupation to apartheid and genocide, the most commonly applied legal concepts rely on abstraction and analogy to reveal particular facets of subordination,” Eghbariah wrote –and offered the idea of “Nakba” as a legal concept to encompass that subordination.

But Eghbariah’s argument was censored, first by the Harvard Law Review, in “an unprecedented” move against a fully-edited essay, as the Intercept reported. Then, in an even more unprecedented fashion, by the Columbia Law Review this week, whose board of directors, which includes alumni with ties to the Biden administration, actually shut down the entire website when Eghbariah’s piece went up. (In the ensuing controversy, they have now restored the site).

In the eyes of the world, Palestinians only count when they are dying. That is what Qassam Muaddi wrote at our site this week, in an essay titled, “Against a world without Palestinians.”

Over the years, learning our Palestinian history, I began to notice that in order to be acknowledged by the rest of the world, we Palestinians always had to die…. It is as if in order to exist without justification, Palestinians had to intimately deal with death — they could master it, put up the best show of it, but they always had to die.

Qassam went on to explain that all that builds Palestinian character, including culture and stories, has no place in the world as it is. It must always be dismissed as terrorism or something less than human.

He actually ends that essay with hope, that the global discourse of Palestine is finally changing.

And the next day, another 274 Palestinians were killed, with full U.S. support. And Democrats wonder why democracy is in crisis.

[redhoodie1723]

Yeah let's also cancel Lewis Hamilton for meeting and having conversations with Putin... Yeah... Also maybe Seb too because he was also there???? Yeah... Right...some of you have never had a job where you had to talk positively about someone you didn't like or approved just for the sake of keeping that job.

idk which time ur talking about hamilton and putin meeting up and making friends, as the only time i can find that they've interacted was at the 2015 russian grand prix where putin was giving out the race trophies. hamilton, vettel, and perez were all on the podium for that race. correct me if im wrong and theres another time theyve met, but thats literally all i can find.

now, first of all, there's a big difference between having to interact with a political figure on a race podium, and choosing to interact with them freely out in the paddock, taking pictures with them, and praising them in additional interviews. there's also a big difference between being polite to the current leader of the country you're in that is known for killing/imprisoning people who speak out against him, and actively supporting an ex-leader who has (as far as we know) never actually killed someone for not being supportive.

if you ask me, it would've been unsafe for hamilton or any of the drivers on that podium to speak out against putin at that moment or act impolitely. on the other hand, the biggest trouble norris could get in for not praising trump and taking pictures with him is maybe a talking too back at the mclaren HQ. like, lets be real, it would be ridiculous and insane of mclaren to fire norris after all the time/resources theyve put into his development, especially now that its finally starting to pay off. it would be like shooting themselves in the foot, a move thats generally reserved for ferrari's strategy team or sauber's pit stops.

furthermore, you are simply assuming that norris' job wouldve been at risk in this situation. not once has it been implied that he was threatened or coerced into this situation. its even less likely that that has happened since piastri hasn't made any comments or taken any pictures with trump as far as i can find. for all we know, it could've been norris' idea to do all that. so, not exactly the strongest defense here.

and even if he had been forced into the corner and told to take pictures and play nice, he also took it a step further to compliment trump in other interviews saying it was an "honor" and there's a lot to "respect" about trump. hamilton has never come out saying any of that about putin. in fact, he has come on the record since then condemning putin and his actions. can you tell me where norris has come out condemning trump and his actions? no? that's funny.

[crossdreamers]

Facebook, Threads and Instagram open the gates to anti-LGBTQ haters

Facebook, Instsgram and Threads now give transphobic and homophobic haters close to free reign on their platforms.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Threads and Instagram, has announced a significant shift in its content moderation strategy by ending its third-party fact-checking program and introducing a community-based model similar to X's Community Notes.

Meta is using anti-trans terms

The company will also allow users to invalidate trans and gay people using mental illness narratives.

A Meta representative said:

“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”

In other words: Meta will now allow for hateful content targeting both trans and gay people. Note also the use of the term "transgenderism". No one, expect, transphobic TERFs and right wingers, use the term "transgenderism".

Meta will also end its policy of downplaying political content in its algorithms, ensuring that more anti-LGBTQ propaganda will be visible in the feeds of users. And with no fact-checking, we would guess anything can get through.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that this change aims to "get back to our roots around free expression," emphasizing a reduction in censorship and errors associated with previous moderation efforts.

A moral collapse

Zuckerberg is now down on his knees worshipping Trump and the MAGA-movement. This represents a complete ethical collapse on his part.

Critics argue that relying on community-driven moderation may lead to the spread of misinformation, as the effectiveness of such systems in accurately assessing content is still under scrutiny.

Sure, but the main takeaway her us that Meta now signals to the world that the company thinks it is OK for transphobes and homophobes to harass and invalidate LGBTQ people, their sexualities, their identities and their safety on these platforms.

This will also, for most LGBTQ people, mean that they will have to use these platforms without any defense against haters. It is not that they were not filled with hate speech already. The point here is that LGBTQ-people could always try to use the codes of conduct to reign in the most active bullies. No more.

It seems to us that the only main social media platforms that tries to protect LGBTQ people are Bluesky and Mastodon.

See also: Meta's moderation rollback sparks celebration and despair Meta Now Lets Users Say Gay and Trans People Have 'Mental Illness' (Archived here) Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook & Instagram will be more like X in 2nd Trump term Meta’s New Policies Fuel Concerns Over Transgender Harassment