#we need an age restriction for congress

[localanimequeerio-17]

In these dark times, I just wanna say: TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS! STOP BANNING BOOKS! STOP POLICE BRUTALITY! STOP THE WILLOW PROJECT! DONT OVERTURN ICWA! GUN CONTROL IS A MUST! MY BODY MY CHOICE! BLACK LIVES MATTER! The state of the U.S (probably the whole world, too) is so shitty right now, and honestly I am genuinely scared for our futures. The core of the U.S is being rewritten and destroyed. It is no longer free, and it hasn’t been for a while.

[fullhalalalchemist]

URGENT: Congress about to pass a mass censorship and surveillance bill under the guise of "protecting children"

May 13 2023

The Senate has been in a "do something!" mode regarding children's online safety. They're using this as an excuse to push for widespread internet censorship and surveillance. The EARN IT Act, has a slimmer chance of passing with widespread opposition and some senators saying they won't vote for it. TLDR;The real threat is actually KOSA (s.1409), the Kid's Online Safety Act, which will mass censor and surveill the entire internet by giving all 50 state attorney generals the power to remove content that is "harmful" for kids, and force you to upload your govt ID online to access the internet. I'll explain how it works below the action items but it's absolutely urgent that anyone who likes having a free and open internet fights back. It's all hands on deck, because this has so much public support it's insane:

HOW TO FIGHT KOSA

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES & THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE

This is a link to the Senate Commerce Committee phone numbers and a call script to read off of. (202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline

Opposition is getting drowned, and these upcoming weeks will be heavy for lobbying and they're using young people to do it. We NEED to show these senators that young people are actually opposed to this and don't want it.

2. Sign these petitions

Open Letter Against KOSA

Petition 1

Petition 2

Petition 3

Petition 4

Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409

3. Spread the word.

The opposition is getting absolutely drowned online. Dove has nearly 100k signatures to push for KOSA. Influencers on tiktok are pushing for this without ever having read the bill. Fucking Lizzo is sponsoring it. If you have twitter, reddit, tiktok, are in any community, SPREAD THE WORD, PLEASE.

Here is a linktree with all the above petitions for easy shargin: Link to linktree

HOW KOSA WORKS

First, KOSA pressures platforms to install filters that would wipe the net of anything deemed “inappropriate” for minors. This means instructing platforms to censor. We saw how these filters impacted websites firsthand with tumblr in 2018, with not only blocking all adult content but also sfw queer content such as suicide hotlines, art archives, wiping out entire blogs because they had queer fandom related posts, etc. Places that already use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ support groups. KOSA would spread this kind of censorship to every corner of the internet. And who gets to decide what is and isn't harmful for minors? Oh don't worry, just every single state attorney general and the FTC, which is appointed by the president. You know, the same attorney generals that just banned gender-affirming healthcare under the guise that it "ruins mental health" of minors. This is why the Heritage Foundation was one of the first to sponsor the bill because they can use it to censor trans content, and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is it's co-author.

Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by forcing websites to use age verification and parental monitoring tools. Yup, that's right. Now every single person who wants to access the internet has to upload their govt ID online to third party apps that get hacked all the time. You queer in a red state? You undocumented? You an activist? Have fun getting all your online activity and metadata attached to your govt ID.  

Over 90+ human and LGBT rights groups agree that KOSA is dangerous and updates to the 2023 version won’t and can’t address the big problems with the bill. This bill has MASSIVE bipartisan support, and the authors Blumenthal and Blackburn (yes, that Blumenthal that's pushing the EARN IT Act, and who also sponsored the RESTRICT Act and SOPA/PIPA if you remember) are using the tragedy of mothers who lost their kids to online harassment and young adults who've been traumatized online to lobby for it, and got Dove the company to use a bunch of influencers to push for this under the guise it prevents eating disorders...I wish I was lying. There are already 30 co-sponsors.

It is all hands on deck. I'm dead serious when I say if this bill is passed it is the beginning if not end of the open and free internet.

[mollyjimbly]

🚨🚨🚨DANGEROUS INTERNET CENSORSHIP/SURVEILLANCE BILLS WILL NUKE THE INTERNET AS WE KNOW IT🚨🚨🚨

WE WILL BE SPIED ON DUE TO NO ENCRYPTION

LGBTQ CONTENT WILL BE WIPED FROM THE INTERNET

SEX WORKERS WILL BE CRIMINALIZED

The EARN IT Act of 2023 threatens to undermine online encryption by punishing companies that provide encryption services. And by repeating the same mistakes as a previous bill called SESTA/FOSTA, it would lead to widespread Internet censorship and crackdowns on marginalized communities. When EARN IT was previously introduced in 2020 and 2022, it was shelved in the face of overwhelming public outcry and opposition from human rights groups. Now, lawmakers are introducing EARN IT for a third time, hoping to pass it and break the internet while we’re distracted.

KOSA claims to make kids safer, but it’s really a dangerous censorship bill that would give the government unprecedented control over the internet. This would put youth in danger by preventing them from accessing potentially life-saving resources. Lawmakers concerned about online safety should reject KOSA and instead work to protect all internet users from abusive tech companies by passing a Federal data privacy law.

Lawmakers claim the RESTRICT Act addresses privacy and security concerns around TikTok. But this is about so much more than just TikTok. RESTRICT gives Biden (and all future presidents!) extraordinary new powers to ban Americans from using entire apps simply by claiming they pose a “threat to national security,” outside of any democratic process. Politicians are pushing this bill to show they’re “tough on China”—but instead of protecting us, this law would lead to an internet censored by the president.

Regressive states across the country are taking away teenagers’ online rights. It started in Utah with two laws that create a mandated social media “bedtime” and give parents complete control over their kids’ accounts, messages, and passwords. Utah lawmakers claim their curfew-and-control bills help children, but these bills actually make children less safe by increasing state and parental surveillance and restricting access to community. To make matters worse, legislation like this is spreading. Arkansas has passed a copycat bill. Louisiana and Texas are trying to follow Utah’s lead, and it’s been introduced federally in Congress.

STOP CSAM wouldn’t actually stop CSAM. Instead, it would make CSAM cases harder to prosecute—like SESTA/FOSTA before it—while reducing privacy protections in ways that would harm vulnerable people. Like EARN IT, STOP CSAM undermines end-to-end encryption, a technology that’s vital for LGBTQ+ youth, survivors of interpersonal violence and stalking, abortion seekers and providers, and activists. Weakening E2EE as a means to funnel more information to law enforcement also sets an alarming precedent for government surveillance. All of us, including children, need to be able to communicate in the digital age without our conversations being spied on.

ALSO WE CAN TACKLE ALL OF THEM TOGETHER, LINKS BELOW

DISCORD THAT YOU CAN JOIN

[liminalweirdo]

If you are not in the US, you can sign the above petition.

KOSA is censorhip and targets LGBTQ+ and trans youth.

If you are in the US, the resources will help you find your reps so you can call or email them.

change is possible, but activism is called activism because you must act. Don't wait for others to do it for you.

Scripts for email, fax, or telephone below the cut:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

Hi, I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, s.1409. Nearly 200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it in 2022 and 2023 because of how dangerous it is. The new language does NOT meet any concerns brought up, in fact many organizations were ignored. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. When you look online through social media, you will find thousands of posts by Gen Z who are opposed to this bill. We do not want this. 

The rewritten bill would still allow any state attorney general, and now the FTC, to sue any website for “harmful” content. When you have Republicans calling anything LGBT “sexual exploitation” or anything about race “CRT” to successfully ban books and teachers, then they will use any justification to censor the internet. The Missouri attorney general used “mental health” successfully to ban gender-affirming care with backed up research. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. Furthermore, updated language threatens encryption the same way the Earn It Act does. How is this protecting children’s privacy? 

KOSA actively harms kids by taking away educational resources they need right now. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION:

I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, s.1409. This is a dangerous bill that will harm children. Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The rewritten bill would still allow any state attorney general, and even thr FTC, to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online and continue to censor people? This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects people by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies, which would put them in further danger. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

[havegaysex]

Why are you telling people to vote for the guy committing genocide :/

because voting is not an endorsement it's harm reduction.

Trump is going to be at best doing the same as Biden and likely much worse for Palestinians and all the countries suffering from American Imperialism than Biden is.

Republicans want to bring back child labor and get rid of social security, medicare, Medicaid. As someone who is surviving on Medicaid and social security I don't want those taken away. The Republican majority house already put a lot of limits on food stamps in this past term and I don't think we'll still have food stamps if we get a republican Congress and a Republican president.

They've made it pretty clear that if they get a republican Congress and a Republican president they're going to enact project 2025 and call a conference of states and try and take our rights back to the days when only wealthy white men had any rights when women and racial minorities had no rights, they want to make it illegal for LGBT+ folks to safely exist in public and get lifesaving healthcare.

In short

Do I support every single thing Biden has done as president?

No.

Do I like him?

Not particularly. But I'm still voting for him because apathy is not a choice.

Do I think that Joe Biden having another term means that we can actually make more progress for labor rights, trans healthcare, abortion access, advancement of the rights and protections for disabled people and so much more?

Yes absolutely.

Do I think that the genocide in Gaza needs to end and the United States needs to stop sending weapons to israel?

Yes, I think that un restricted flow of humanitarian aid into Palestine needs to happen, the siege needs to stop, and the country of Israel and the United States need to be held accountable at an international level. I think that the soldiers of the IDF/IOF need to be held accountable for their war crimes and pillaging that they continuously post evidence of on social medias. I'm trying to put a read more here so ce I've put a few linked articles and quotes from them.

A quote from the article below:

"While our map focuses solely on high school aged youth (age 13-17), some states, such as Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina, have considered banning care for transgender people up to 26 years of age. "

I've seen lawmakers in some states try to make it felony punishable by life in prison to get your trans child healthcare to keep them alive because they want to make it illegal for us to exist and a legal for anyone who helps us exist.

some quotes from the article above:

"Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president’s second term — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024. With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers. “We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” said Paul Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and a former Trump administration official who speaks with historical flourish about the undertaking. “This is a clarion call to come to Washington,” he said. “People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’” The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending. Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the “administrative state” from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing. The goal is to avoid the pitfalls of Trump’s first years in office, when the Republican president’s team was ill-prepared, his Cabinet nominees had trouble winning Senate confirmation and policies were met with resistance — by lawmakers, government workers and even Trump’s own appointees who refused to bend or break protocol, or in some cases violate laws, to achieve his goals. While many of the Project 2025 proposals are inspired by Trump, they are being echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans. And if Trump wins a second term, the work from the Heritage coalition ensures the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business. “The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” said Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official involved in the effort who is now president at the conservative Center for Renewing America. Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired. Biden had rescinded the executive order upon taking office in 2021, but Trump — and other presidential hopefuls — now vow to reinstate it."

"There’s a “top to bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice, particularly curbing its independence and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. It calls for stepped-up prosecution of anyone providing or distributing abortion pills by mail."

Personally I think that voting for Joe Biden is better than someone who wants to enact this stuff on day one. It's like they read handmaid's tale and want to make that the reality of this country.

"Chapter by chapter, the pages offer a how-to manual for the next president, similar to one Heritage produced 50 years ago, ahead of the Ronald Reagan administration. Authored by some of today’s most prominent thinkers in the conservative movement, it’s often sprinkled with apocalyptic language." Ronald Reagan is a big reason we have a lot of problems we have today with our economy and with a lot more things. The people that supported Ronald Reagan do not need another term in office.

A quote from the article linked below:

"Trump has given no indication that he would be more sympathetic to Palestinian claims, nor that he would place more pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire. “The approach of the United States would be that Israel needs to win this war, it was attacked brutally,” Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, describing how Trump would act. Friedman is now a campaign surrogate for Trump."

Personally I think Trump telling Israel to finish the job is indicators that another Trump presidency doesn't mean that weapons would stop being sent to Israel from United States

I fail to see how another term of Donald trump will be any better for the victims of the ongoing genocide in Palestine than President Joe Biden.

i think our system is absolutely messed up and broken but I don't think abstaining from voting is going to actually help.

[dimonds456]

ATTENTION MINORS

I know you guys have been seeing the posts going around about Earn-It and KOSA and things of the like, and talking about how bad those things are. And you're right, they're really, really bad. But, you're not old enough to help participate in helping out, right, since you're a minor? 

WRONG.

Minors out there who are concerned about these issues: YOU CAN HELP US. KOSA and CSAM specifically are acts to create widespread censorship and invasion of privacy to "protect kids," so if anything, your younger voices are stronger than ours! 

I've compiled some resources for you guys to help out. Note that if you sound old enough, you do not have to disclose your age if you don't want to. The point is that there is a public outcry, not that you're under 18.

If you don't know what the bills are or what they do, here's a Doc that explains all that with links to different reading material where you can learn all about it there (note: as of posting this, the Restrict Act is not currently updated. Check back in the future for updates to the doc). 

The two we really need to worry about right now are KOSA and CSAM. 

KOSA is a bill being passed that would effectively let the government censor anything they want online, which can and will include minority voices, LGBTQ content, and anything they deem "unsafe" for kids (such as the suicide hotline).  

CSAM is another law that preaches about protecting kids, but would actually be used to spy on everyone. It's a trojan horse. 

There are a couple more, which are all covered more in-depth here on this site (scroll down):

Here's a few more resources for you guys, and then I'll get into how you guys can help!

KOSA

CSAM

EARN-It

(Light flash warning for this one, just in case)

RESTRICT Act

Alright, with all the reading out of the way, let's get into what to do.

How YOU can help!

Minors: you are not helpless. You are not powerless. The point is that there is a public outcry, and the fact that you are so young could be an advantage to stopping bills like KOSA and CSAM. 

If your voice can pass as an adult's, YOU CAN CALL. If you don't think your voice can pass, YOU CAN EMAIL, TEXT, SIGN PETITIONS, and honestly, you MAY STILL be able to call. 

Here's how calling works. It's gonna be scary the first time around, I know, but you've got this.

First: find out who your representatives are. This website right here makes that very easy. Go to the dropdown for your state and find it, and your two reps should automatically pop up.

Next, see if they're a Republican or a Democrat. This should be in parenthesis next to their names. Here's Michigan's and Mississippi's reps as examples of what that looks like:

How you phrase your words will differ depending on the party they're in, this is important.

Next, you'll see under their names an address, phone number, and some bibliography. (I kept using the Michigan ones cuz I was already on their page, so if you're from Michigan, here's the numbers right here.)

Let's get ready to call now.

Now, when I say "call," I don't mean exclusively by phone. You can also fax them or email them. 

Here's a website you can use to fax them.

To find their email address, google it. [Name] email, and if they've got one, it should pop up there. 

Now, the hard part: actually calling.

Before we go any further, reminder that these people are just that: people. They're not idols, they're not gods, they're not worth any more than you are. Dehumanize them as much as you need to in your head. They're not scary, they're human. 

Now, for each bill, you can either make it all separate or keep all your words in one email, as it were. How you want to do this is up to you. But, if you're feeling lost for words, there are also scripts you can use as a base. 

Here's an email to a Democrat about KOSA, for example:

And this one has emails for both sides:

The long and short of it goes like this:

Your name and something about you (I'm a retail worker) (I'm a minor) (I go to [name] school)

Explain why you're calling (I urge you to stop [bill])

Explain why the issue matters to YOU. (I am a minor, and pushing this law would do irreparable damage, not help us. Here's a bit of why.)

Ask the representative you're calling to help 

Thank them for listening. 

Keep it courteous- they'll be more likely to listen to you if you're calm and collected. I know emotions are high right now, and it's okay to let desperation in, but don't yell or scream at them, you'll only drive them away from trying to stop anything. 

More than likely, you won't be speaking to that rep directly, but the message should still be clear and reach them. 

If you're faxing or emailing, there's more room to go off about issues in more depth, since there isn't someone on the other end of the line. You can say as much as you'd like, but still try to keep it polite. 

You guys are powerful, and your young voices can add to this fight. You do not have to be an adult to call something unjust. Stand with us. Together, your voices will make us stronger.

[dies-in-bi]

OKAY PEOPLE!!!!! This is VERY important! I have reblogged a post explaining this in more detail and please have a look!

Here is a link to the petition.

https://chng.it/L8FQ6pMtNQ

More info under read more.

Youth Internet users, millennials, and Gen Z advocates, we must band together to prevent the passage of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), preserving our free and open Internet! Stand with the ACLU and Fight for the Future against a bill that jeopardizes our online privacy and legitimizes targeted censorship.

In 2022, senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn introduced an alarmingly repressive new internet censorship bill – the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which presents a direct threat to the plethora of helpful online resources for minors. KOSA, or S.3663, would grant the federal government an immense breadth of control to censor websites containing content that officials deem “inappropriate.” As evidenced by the continuous attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, queer visibility, and discrimination education, crucial havens on the Internet could be subject to complete censorship. Senator Blackburn herself has continuously condemned education about racism as “dangerous for kids.” KOSA’s restrictions would be entirely at the jurisdiction of state attorney generals, many of whom could impose personal political beliefs upon the Internet at large. In order to prevent unfettered homophobic, transphobic, or racist censorship, we must urge our senators to oppose this bill in Congress!

The Internet provides essential tools for minors’ entertainment and education. KOSA would force platforms to filter content heavily, which would likely fall upon crucial LGBTQ+ support sites, suicide prevention pages, and abuse awareness. While such sites contain adult themes, they often aid in the necessary education and safety of minors utilizing the Internet. KOSA increases the use of age verification and parental monitor tools. Most platforms rely on self-selected age confirmation, and there is no accurate system without entirely jeopardizing individual privacy. Pushing the Internet to somehow accurately censor information for minors alone is an impossible task. Instead, we would see widespread censorship for both minor and adult users.

For many millennials and Gen Z, media and fandom spaces provide us with a special community, cultivating a safe environment with fanfiction, edits, or conversations. A National Library of Medicine study found that many LGBTQ+ youth primarily find mental health resources online. However, right-wing politicians are determined to condemn any LGBTQ+ messaging as predatory and harmful to children, even as queer minors largely benefit from digital solidarity and creativity. Even beloved sites such as ArchiveOfOurOwn (AO3), Wattpad, Tumblr, and Twitter could be heavily restricted or taken down. But we as Gen Z are not a monolith, and neither are the incoming generations. Censorship that is safe for one child may be life-threateningly restrictive for another. Pushing for constant age verification and filtration of messaging will invade children’s Internet privacy, resulting in far more harm than good.

KOSA claims to solve the uptick in the youth crisis regarding mental health issues, but instead gives the government unparalleled control over the Internet. According to the Pew Research Center, 81% of American teenagers use social media. Social media is one of many reasons that we – as younger generations – suffer from stress, depression, and other disorders. However, overwhelming Internet surveillance and censorship of essential resources will not aid children’s mental health. Rather, we need to provide funding for public mental health care, focus on creating better federal privacy laws for all Internet users, and allow for the free dissemination of online resources. Social media is here to stay, but there are far more ethical ways to protect children than blatant censorship.

We must take action together! Join us in:

Urging senators Blumenthal and Blackburn to wholly rescind their support for the Kids Online Safety Act and redirect their attention to a comprehensive federal Internet privacy bill instead.

Raising awareness to gain the attention of our state senators (calling, emailing, signing this petition), thus compelling them to oppose KOSA on the Senate floor.

Aiding the ACLU, Fight for Future, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in lobbying against KOSA through digital, offline, and financial support.

Protecting our free and fair Internet, so that all users can find essential information without government censorship!

KOSA will not achieve widespread safety for kids. Instead, it will threaten our right to privacy and prevent the dissemination of essential safety resources for various youth groups. Unite with us to sign this petition and put an end to unclear, repressive Internet censorship laws like KOSA

[sakebytheriver]

I hate American leftists so much 🤦‍♀️

How can I get the giant government to listen to my itty bitty teeny tiny voice?

Oh i know! I'll refuse to do the only thing our government actually offers us to have our voice explicitly heard by the people in charge, this will surely create the change I am looking for and lead to a revolution and not just completely silence myself and take my entire existence as an American citizen out of the equation! I am so smart 😁

Look, I'm not here to tell you that all you should be doing in your activism is voting, that would be goddamn stupid, and I am NOT goaddamn stupid, but you know what else is goddamn stupid? Taking an arrow out of your quiver when you're in the middle of a battle and just snapping it over your knee and saying 'you know what I don't need this arrow I have so many others'

There were generations of people who fought to give you this right, there are people who DIED to give you this right, and there are people in the government making sure that you CAN'T vote every single day, because they know better than anyone how powerful a fully voting populace can be

You think the Republicans are just doing voter supression for fun? Is that what you think? You think they purge the voting databases of ethnic and black sounding names only because they're racist? You think they make these horrible gerrymandered districts and restrict the number of voting booths or limit the ways a person in their county can vote because they're just bored? No! They do voter suppression because they know for a fact that enough people voting for a certain thing can change the landscape of our entire country

Stacy Abbrams literally focused all of her political power on Georgia and phone banking and registering people to vote and because of that the state went blue for the first time in a longass time. They've even found that the amount of voter suppression done in Texas basically prevented the state from also going blue. Can you even imagine if the Republicans lost TEXAS??????

Electoral politics fucking suck, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that they're the rainbow which will lead us to the pot of gold at the end of it, most of the democratic politicians we have to vote for are basically conservatives in any other country and half the time they betray the people who voted for them in the hopes of monetary gain (Krysten Sinema, Joe Manchin) but when the other side of the aisle is fascism that knows for a fact if every citizen in the country was registered to vote and got a ballot in their mail automatically every election season they would never win a seat ever again, it is on YOU to exercise your right to vote because if you fucking don't it's the difference between a Trump presidency and Biden one and considering how much destruction Trump was able to cause in only just four years of neofascism and the amount of actual change and progression (especially in workers rights) that the absolute neoliberal poster boy Biden has achieved I'm very happy in my choice to vote every single election, local too, because you all always forget about local politics and think the only time and the only way to vote is for the president or the senate/congress 🙄 but you know what? Local politics and the people you elect to those positions will have more effect on your day to day life than any president ever will and you should also 100% be voting in those elections

People DIED to get you the right to vote and you cast it aside as if they did NOTHING

You should feel shame for spitting on the graves of activists who never got the chance to make their voice so heard as you do in this day and age, you say you want revolution, but all you're doing is calling the old ladies who picked themselves up and marched their ways to the polls and made sure you don't have to live under neofascism for another four years stupid for exercising a right that human beings once again literally DIED to give you

Sorry, but you're the stupid one

And also I doubt you're actually out there doing any community activism other than complaining about people who vote

[sunnymegatron]

Authentic Kink & BDSM Community Lessons w/ Mollena Williams-Haas Ep 204 (Pt. 2)

  How do you live your authentic kink life when your needs don't match up with the BDSM community status quo? In part 1 (ep 203) Mollena Williams-Haas told us how returning to the leather community after parting ways sparked an unexpected journey of healing and growth. In this discussion, Mollena shares practical advice for digging past the stereotypical BDSM “supposed to’s” in order to identify your needs and honor them. D/s relationships are about making life better for both doms and subs -- but how exactly do we go about that? Mollena has some helpful answers … 

Mollena Williams-Haas Bio

Mollena is a writer, actress, BDSM Educator, Storyteller, sobriety fiend since March 2007, and Award-Winning Executive Pervert. Owned & collared by renowned contemporary composer Georg Friedrich Haas, she serves as his beloved slave, submissive, wife, servant, and Muse. February 2016 saw a groundbreaking piece about their relationship featured in the New York Times. They are also both the subject of the documentary The Artist and The Pervert.

As a two-time leather title holder and kink educator, Mollena's viewpoints on Kink-related issues are frequently sought after by sources like The New York Times, Newsweek, Essence, Ebony, etc. A frequent guest expert on Dan Savage’s “Savage Lovecast,” Tristan Taormino’s “Sex Out Loud”, and Margaret Cho’s “Monsters of Talk” podcast, she’s even spoken about Kink at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Mollena is also the co-author of the “Toybag Guide: Taboo Play” and “Playing Well With Others: Your Guide to Discovering, Exploring and Navigating the Kink, Leather and BDSM Communities”. 

A professional stage performer since age 5, Mollena’s credits include The Wiz and co-starring with Danny Bonaduce in underground cult-classic America’s Deadliest Home Video. Her short film, IMPACT, won “Cinekink’s Best Experimental Film." Mollena’s latest performance piece and movie is Hyena, a collaboration with her husband. Mollena also appeared on Sex with Sunny Megatron on Showtime. Her latest endeavor is The Kink Doula. (Mollena's Full Bio: http://www.mollena.com/about/ )

  Episode 204 Helpful Links & Resources

Part 1 of this discussion, Episode 203 https://sunnymegatron.com/mollena-williams-haas-bdsm-leather-community/

All That and Mo, Podcast hosted by Mollena Lee Williams Haas https://allthatandmo.com/

Kink Doula https://kinkdoula.com/ 

Mollena Lee Williams Haas Website http://www.mollena.com/

Mollena Lee Williams Haas Facebook https://www.facebook.com/mollena

Mollena Lee Williams Haas Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mollena_lee_williams_haas/

Mollena Lee Williams Haas Twitter https://twitter.com/mollena

Mollena Lee Williams Haas Patreon https://www.patreon.com/MollenaLeeWilliamsHaas

Mollena on RISK! Episode 442 “Slave” https://soundcloud.com/riskshow/slave-by-mollena-williams-from-episode-442-slave

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[kikenhanna17world]

Eugène Ionesco 1976 "In 1959, when I had the honour and pleasure of being invited by the International Theatre Institute to take part in its Congress in Helsinki, I spoke about the New Theatre, which is now no longer new and which at that time was known as the Avant-garde Theatre. I concluded my message by saying: the avant-garde is freedom. This definition, or proclamation, was regarded by most of the representatives of both eastern and western countries as being subversive and dangerous. Since then, a great deal has changed. In those days, men of the theatre still restricted themselves either to bourgeois realism or to a more or less socialist realism and were afraid of imagination. Realism of one kind or another still prevails in drawing-room theatre and in the ideological theatre but all the new and interesting developments during the past fifteen years or more have transcended various forms of realism and constraint. Many of us have condemned realism for the simple reason that reality is not realistic and because realism is just one school, style and convention among others and has also condemned the ideological theatre because the ideological theatre is itself a constraint, a prison, and the prisoner of ideas, doctrines and assumptions towards which the playwright is not allowed to adopt a critical attitude. Truth is to be found in the imagination. The theatre of the imagination is a theatre of genuine truth and is genuinely documentary. No document is ever honest or free for the simple reason that it is slanted in order to serve a particular purpose. The imagination cannot lie. It reveals our psychology, our abidding or passing anxieties, the concerns of man in every age and of the present time, the depths of the human soul. A person who does not dream is a sick person. Dreams perform an essential function and the function of the imagination is no less essential. An artist whose freedom of imagination is threatened becomes alienated. The great revolutionaries and their precursors were dreamers - by which I mean Utopians. But as soon as Utopianism becomes a state, an obligation, a law, it turns into a nightmare. The dream, as one great psychologist has said, is a drama of which we are simultaneously author, actor and spectator. The theatre is a construction of the unfettered imagination. Every one of us needs to be an inventor. It is the joy of invention which has induced me to write plays. To use one's imagination and powers of invention is not an aristocratic pastime. Each one of us is a potential artist. The popular, committed, slanted, regulated Theatre, decreed by the representatives of the State, by politicians is not popular theatre but an unpopular concentration camp theatre. The popular theatre is the theatre of the imagination, the truly free theatre. Political ideologists have been keen to take over the theatre as a tool which they can use to their own advantage. But art is not, or ought not to be, a matter for the State. Any restriction on creative spontaneity is a sin against the human spirit. The State is not synonymous with society but politicians want to use and supervise theatrical creation for propaganda purposes. Indeed, the theatre is potentially an ideal tool of propaganda, of what is termed 'political education', that is to say of misdirection and brainwashing. Politicians should merely be the servants of art and of dramatic art in particular. They should not control it and, above all, should not censor it. Their sole task should be to make it possible for art and especially dramatic art to develop freely. But imagination frightens them. This is why government censorship is rife in certain countries. Woe betide governments which are afraid of the opposition; they are unsure of themselves. Certain governments in other countries, particularly in the West are more liberal than the opposition and it is the opposition which imposes censorship; the representatives of this kind of opposition have a taste for power, a passion for dictatorship and for enforcing conformism. They bring direct moral pressure to bear and use ideological and moral blackmail. In many cases such pundits are more hidebound and intolerant than their governments, with the result that artists in such countries are therefore driven to self-censorship. Woe betide the oppositions which are afraid of antioppositions and woe to those artists who, in the name of so-called revolutionary or counterrevolutionary ideologies, obstruct creative emancipation and the free flowering of the imagination; the individual citizen is at liberty to bestow his political allegiance as he sees fit. But as an artist who tends to challenge everything, he must remain free. This is why it is a matter of urgency for dramatic artists and authors in all countries to depoliticize the theatre or rather to pay no heed either to the State or to the pundits who wish to secure their allegiance. Art, as the saying goes, knows no frontiers. The theatre should have no frontiers either. Transcending ideological divergencies, caste, race, national outlook and individual countries, the theatre should be a universal country, the meeting place of all men who share the same anguish and the same hopes revealed by the imagination, and should be neither arbitrary nor realistic but an expression of our identity, our continuity and our oneness. No orders to creators! No instructions from governments! "

[themmatennant]

That octogenarian shouldve left AGES ago! now all other democratic candidates have been left in the dust. this is stupid, no one ever had a chance bcs it would always be biden v trump if biden was running. and biden pulls out right when it gets shown that his ineptitude is too great for this poition? he cares more about bad press than he ever did about his job, because if he did, he would have tried to convice congress not to overturn roevwade. people have been begging for him to leave the race! i get that hes too old to hear without those infomercial hearing aids (im not making fun of HoH ppl yall are awesome, just joseph robinette bidens age) but he could at least reach far enough in his barely conscious brain to remember put them so as to listen to the american ppl for once! AND AT THE RIGHT TIME. i get that the vote is way in november but if he had pulled out earlier, than there would be chances for real more valid candidates to run, not ones THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT JUST LIKE CHOSE INSTEAD OF LETTING US VOTE ON THE CANDIDATE AGAIN?? So Ill say one more thing, our new dem candidate Kamala better do us right. For the first time in like twelve years, she should give rights BACK. be part of a new system that doesnt take them away. Republicans are coming after gay marriage now, abortion is illegal or made so restricted and weirdly ruled that its practically not a thing in too many states.

I know you shouldnt put faith in politicians so I don't. But she can keep corrupt and cruel lawmakers from entering/staying in office causing the persecution towards children of the trans community, and help stop racially and religiously motivated hate crimes and extreme police brutality and corruption. I know it cant be all solved in four years, but she can fucking try to fix it. And we as america need to finally side on the Israel Palestine conflict, because kamala herself has spoken against Israel's murder of innocent civilians. she has shown that she sides with Palestine. OBVIOUSLY ITS NOT IN AN ANTISEMITIC WAY! Acknowledging cruelty, regardless of the race or historical inhumanity against the current offender, should know no backlash

[shortstack-21]

Disability Rights RANT AND ITS TIME TO ADVOCATE:

To those who do not understand what dismantling the department of education (DOE) will do to students like me relied on IEPs and the IDEA program which is governed by the DOE. Let me give you a lesson so sit back and read on. Class is in session and I want you to realize why I am fearful for the future of my disabled community.

So first, what does IDEA stand for? Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA governs how states and public education systems provides service intervention, special education and related services for those with disabilities.

Now, what does that entail? Well for me it was providing an aide who assisted me in transferring out of my chair for bodily functions as I couldn’t do that for myself, when I had my spine surgery it provided a home educator who helped me continue my education while I was homebound, and set me up for success with Texas Workforce Solutions formerly known as DARS. I got to graduate and then move forward with my education. I received a Bachelors in Mass Communication (focused in Public Relations and journalism) and hell yeah I’m about to use it for advocacy.

Here are just four important components of the IDEA:

1. Least Restrictive Environment (LRE): Ensuring the environment where these students will learn is ACCESSIBLE

2. Free Appropriate Public Education: This requires states to provide a free education and not discriminate against disabled students

3. Individualized Education Plan (IEP): This is a document that describes a child’s set education goal, and outlines the services the district will provide to help said student reach these goals. Without this, I never would have succeeded in school.

4. Procedural Safeguards: This guarantees for parents and their children with disabilities, and provides options for resolving disagreements. My parents would know this as they had several meetings to ensure they met my needs

Now, when did all this begin and what is the developmental timeline? 

1975: (EAHCA) Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed by congress. This gave rights to disabled students who by STATE law were discriminated against access to education

1990: EAHCA was renamed to IDEA and amended to include children with autism and traumatic brain injury as eligible to receive these benefits.

1997: IDEA was amended to expand the definition of disabled children to include developmental delayed children between three and nine years of age.

2004: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) amended IDEA, aligning it with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

2009: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) included $12.2 billion in additional funds for IDEA

2015: Congress reauthorized the IDEA.

In the Law, Congress states: “Disability is a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right of individuals to participate in or contribute to society. Improving educational results in children with disabilities is an essential element of out national policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full precipitation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities.” This is federal law.

No STATE should have the right to take this away. Hell, it shouldn't even be debatable! Making this federal law means NO GOVERNMENT can deny a child with disability an education. The (DOE) Department of Education has been the governing body of IDEA. If it is dismantled, what will take over as a governing body if the DOE is gone? 

So far I haven’t seen a plan for this and that terrifies me. I will fight tooth and nail so the disabled students that come after me can have access to FREE education without being discriminated against.

Why do you think I am talking about this?

We all say “oh, the government wouldn’t do that!” I will tell you, “Oh, yes they will.”

Newsflash the republican party has stated over and over again they want to get rid of Obama care that is the Affordable Care Act. I feel like I have to state that as on X many people are now realizing that the ACA and Obama care are the same damn thing! Trump during his last presidency wanted to go after Obama care but the acting senate which was democratic ruled stopped it from going anywhere. That was in 2017. In 2020 Trump went to the supreme court in which the court dismissed the case. We now have both the house and senate republican majority ruled. I have the receipts for those who refuse to see this as a problem. This upcoming administration has been unclear on what the plans are for the ACA. It is inconsistent and I will be watching closely so stay tuned for a disability rights rant and call to action. But they have made it abundantly clear DOE is what they will go after.

If this were truly about values we’d be standing up to ensure this does not happen otherwise thousands if not millions of disabled Americans will suffer. So, I pray that you will do the good work and actually stand up for once. Disabled people NEED you to help fight for them. Be the voice for the voiceless. For those who are here now and are SCARED of losing their healthcare and right to an education. Call your representatives, get out and advocate, donate to organizations who support Disability Rights. DO SOMETHING.

We are the one minority that anyone can join.

Let that sink in.

We are the one minority that anyone can join at any point in their lifetime and before the ACA you could be discriminated against by insurance companies for just having a pre-existing disability. Pregnancy was even seen as a pre-existing condition. I don’t want to go back to that and neither should you. Disabilities are expensive and anyone could have a disability. Sometimes a tree falls on you while running (Yeah, I’m looking at a certain Governor) or you are in a car accident that paralyzes you or you get so sick to the point it starts doing permanent damage to your brain/body.

Disability doesn’t discriminate.

WE ARE THE ONE MINORITY THAT ANYONE CAN JOIN AND IT DOESN’T DISCRIMINATE

Okay, my TED talk is over.

[dankusner]

Allred is the right choice for Texas in the U.S. Senate

U.S. SENATE | COLIN ALLRED

Mere hours after supporters of then-president Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Sen. Ted Cruz was among 17 Texas Republicans who voted against certifying Joe Biden as president.

Asked a year later whether he believed Biden legitimately won the election, Cruz skirted answering.

A straight answer shouldn’t be so hard.

If Cruz is an election denier, that alone should disqualify him from re-election to a third term in the U.S. Senate on Nov. 5.

Denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election is a threat to democracy and deniers have no place in Congress or the Oval Office.

But Cruz long ago relinquished the mantle as a serious public servant focused on Texans’ priorities, opting instead to pander to the extreme elements of the Republican Party and the party of Trump.

As another election nears, the principal question for Texas voters is who can be a good leader who will act on behalf of their best interests in the U.S. Senate.

The unequivocal answer is Colin Allred, and we recommend voters choose him over Cruz on Nov. 5.

With his history of public service as a voting rights lawyer and three-term congressman, Allred is what Texas needs at this moment: a fresh new start and a responsible leader.

Cruz, who declined an invitation to meet with us, is not that.

He’s a tired act, seduced more by a culture wars mentality intent on owning the libs and fanning inflammatory rhetoric on social media than on passing meaningful legislation for Texans.

It’s not just Republicans who engage in that sort of nonsense, but Allred isn’t cut of that cloth.

With his command of public policy, he would bring a measured and balanced perspective to governing, one focused on finding bipartisan solutions appealing to a broader tent, not just extremists.

Allred supports issues that Texans who feel disenfranchised by Cruz can get behind:

strengthening protections for women who must travel out of state to get medical care after the overturn of Roe v. Wade abortion rights protections;

ensuring access to contraceptives and IVF treatments;

advocating sensible gun reforms such as raising the minimum age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle and supporting “red flag laws” that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

Allred said Cruz is “singularly responsible” for Texas’ abortion ban because he worked to appoint extremist judges to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In fact, Cruz has repeatedly let Texans down, from voting against the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act to boost semiconductor research, development and production, to opposing the post-Uvalde gun massacre gun reforms contained in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

And who can forget that with Texas in the throes of a deadly and devastating winter storm in 2021, Cruz jetted off to Cancun.

“Ted Cruz has had, you know, 12 years to show us how he would go about serving Texas,” Allred said in an interview with the Editorial Board.

“And to me, it resulted in almost no accomplishments of note. (It) resulted in, I think, a litany of culture wars.”

Allred supports comprehensive immigration reform that would include securing the border, offering a path to citizenship for undocumented migrants brought to the U.S. as young children, and increasing resources for training and equipment for the Border Patrol and communities along the border.

For all of their railing against problems at the Texas border, which they use as a campaign issue, Senate Republicans and Cruz killed a groundbreaking immigration and border security bill in February.

The bipartisan $118 billion immigration package would have granted emergency authority to restrict border crossings when migrant encounters reached certain levels and it proposed $20 billion in new funding for border security.

Cruz called the bill weak and said it would not secure the border.

For Cruz and fellow Republicans, maintaining the status quo to wield as an election season cudgel was the better alternative.

Texans need a new leader in the Senate who can get things done. Their pick for U.S. senator should be Colin Allred.

[eimearkuopio]

Has a conversation with an old man on the bus a few weeks back where he talked about my generation's ignorance of traditional knowledge like it was our fault. Bitch I learned everything that anyone tried to teach me. I just sometimes learned it more slowly, or too shallowly (and he told me that he spent part of his career lecturing in pedagogy at a regional University, but also he was old enough that he might have missed the memo about that kind of outcome being the teachers' failure), or drew a different conclusion from the one my teachers thought I would draw. Point is, I told him (politely!) that for my generation, it's more important to be able to determine what knowledge is relevant or interesting, and to acquire it without losing the signal in a morass of noise, than to have memorised vast scripts by rote. We're in a new age. (That age has its own challenges which have yet to be fully recognised, like the limited lifetime of digital records, the challenge involved in digitising old records in a timely fashion, Moore's Law... But none of that is going to matter if we don't get our act together as a species and stop poisoning our planet and our collective self.) Resources like this should be disseminated and made available, their use supported wherever possible, while still crediting and compensating their creators. This knowledge matters! But because it's no longer necessary for day-to-day survival, it stands at risk of being lost - or rather, of being restricted to the parts of the world where it is still a part of everyday life, but even those places are more and more at risk of becoming monocultures that retain only one small part of their repository of knowledge, and forget the rest in favour of a purely ingressive search for profit. (Even when the behaviour is framed congressively - "buy these traditional crafts for 100x the cost of making them to support communities in the developing world" - it's not actually congressive because those communities should not need to engage in price gouging to survive in the first place!)

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won’t radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that’s generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these “self-sufficiency” skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the “good old days,” a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here’s a complete list of the safe resources I’ve found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it’s like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

“Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy” by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs – in this case, indigenous American beliefs – can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the “Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline”

Note: the “crunchy to alt-right pipeline” is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use “crunchy” spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

“The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline” by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it’s a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I’ve personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

[head-post]

Escalation spiral around Ukraine keeps winding

The situation surrounding the war in Ukraine continues to evolve, triggering military changes from mobilisation training in the US to the formation of a Russian special army for fighting in Ukraine.

The American think tank CNAS proposed to conduct mobilisation training in the US and raise the mobilisation age to increase the size of the US army. The last time the US conducted mobilisation was during the Vietnam War. Taking into account the experience of the Ukrainian conflict, CNAS experts developed recommendations for US government agencies to improve mobilisation training.

For more than 50 years, the US Army has been exclusively contractual. The current rules provide for mobilisation of men from the age of 20, with registration for mobilisation from the age of 18. Under the law, the US National Security Council must organise mobilisation exercises in the US government every two years.

The military registration system should also obtain more detailed information on potential recruits when they register, as it now only requires first name, last name, date of birth, address, and national insurance number. CNAS advises that information on education level, skills, and chronic diseases should also be added at the time of registration.

According to CNAS, it would take up to 193 days to process the data for 500,000 recruits. However, according to the think tank, integrating recruits into the US professional army could lead to both operational and cultural challenges.

Repealing ban on military contractors

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden’s administration is moving to lift the actual ban on the deployment of US military contractors to Ukraine, according to CNN. The move aimed at helping Ukraine’s armed forces maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems, an administration official stated.

We have not made any decisions and any discussion of this is premature. The president is absolutely firm that he will not be sending US troops to Ukraine.

Officials report that once approved, the change will be enacted this year. It would allow the Pentagon to award contracts to US companies to work in Ukraine for the first time since the outbreak of the war in 2022. That policy appeared to expand again last week when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated that Ukraine could launch a counter-strike anywhere along the Ukraine-Russia border using US weapons. Meanwhile, Biden’s recent authorisation to use NATO weapons to strike Russian territories led to a missile strike on civilians in Sevastopol, Crimea.

For the past two years, Biden has been insisting that all Americans, especially US troops, stay away from the Ukrainian front lines. As a result, US-provided military equipment heavily damaged in the fighting needed to be moved out to Poland, Romania, or other NATO countries for repairs. US troops also reportedly helped the Ukrainians with more regular maintenance and logistics, but only from afar via video chat or secure phone, the sources stressed.

Administration officials began seriously reconsidering restrictions on US contractors, as Russia “continued to make gains on the battlefield and US funding for Ukraine stalled in Congress,” the officials noted. One advanced system that officials say will likely require regular maintenance is the F-16 fighter jet, which Ukraine is due to receive later this year.

Silencing attack on Sevastopol

Most Italian media outlets are glossing over the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ (AFU) attack on Sevastopol, Crimea. The move aimed at maintaining the illusion that NATO was only sending defensive weapons to Ukraine, Italian politician and Five Star Movement (M5S) member Alessandro Di Battista stated in his YouTube channel.

There is certain news that cannot be censored. You can’t hide the way the Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol killed people – people like us who were sunbathing on the beach.

However, according to Di Battista, the news item is missing from most Italian newspapers. He pointed out that it proved the corruption of European publications, particularly Italian ones. The politician also argues that the silence prevents sympathy for the Russian children and maintains the belief that NATO is only supplying Kyiv with defensive weapons.

On 23 June, the AFU struck Sevastopol with five US-made ATACMS missiles loaded with cluster munitions. Russian air defence systems managed to intercept four of the missiles, but the detonation of the fifth one in mid-air resulted in numerous casualties among Sevastopol civilians. According to the latest reports, 153 people were injured and four were killed.

The Russian Defence Ministry stated that the US was equally responsible for the strike as the Ukrainian authorities, since the flight assignments for the ATACMS missiles were input by US specialists based on American satellite reconnaissance data. Moreover, Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin discussed the situation around Ukraine against the backdrop of the Sevastopol attack in a phone conversation.

Belousov “pointed to the danger of further escalation in connection with the ongoing deliveries” of US arms to Ukraine. Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder noted that the US and Russian ministers last spoke in March 2023, when Sergei Shoigu headed the defence ministry.

Ryder stated that the conversation took place at Austin’s initiative, but did not specify the reason for the call. The spokesman also noted that the US did not want civilian casualties and would discuss the issue with Kyiv.

Read more HERE

[austinenglish-23]

To End Youth Vaping as an On-Ramp to Addiction, Close Legal Loopholes and Rigorously Enforce the Law

Gottlieb, M. A. (2023). To End Youth Vaping as an On-Ramp to Addiction, Close  Legal    Loopholes and Rigorously Enforce the Law. American Journal of Public Health (1971), 113(5), 472–473.

The peer-reviewed article that I will be using in my Critical review assignment touches a little bit on the political aspects that involve the problem of youth vaping and the name of the article is “To End Youth Vaping as an On-ramp to Addiction, Close Legal Loopholes and Rigorously Enforce the law” (Gottlieb, M. A. 2023).

In the article, the Author talks about one of the ways that youth vaping became a problem: Loopholes. The market for vapes was first introduced in early 2007 and at this time, there were no state laws or anything that were in use for the sales of these products (Gottlieb, M. A. 2023). The FDA quickly recognized this and began to put a pause on the distribution and importation of the products and shortly after this, approval was needed. Companies did not like this and began to file Lawsuits against the FDA but while this was happening, in 2009 Congress passed an act called the “Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” and this allowed the FDA to have total control of the tobacco product industry (Gottlieb, M. A. 2023).

The one thing about this act is that the FDA had to set rules and guidelines “ to deem them to be tobacco products”. It took the FDA about six years to complete this and over that time companies began to rapidly produce these products and the sales grew sevenfold during this time. Companies started making flavors that were fruity and appealing to taste buds and they would be Socially and Physiologically more compelling to them

(Gottlieb, M. A. 2023).

Soon after this, new companies began to come into the market, a popular one being a JUUL device introduced in 2015. These products had two times the nicotine concentration than other company's devices and quickly became 75% of the market (Gottlieb, M. A. 2023). JUUL sales were so high that the “US surgeon general characterized youth vaping as an epidemic”(Gottlieb, M. A. 2023). When the year 2020 rolled around the FDA announced that “POD-based flavored products were not permitted to be sold” and this included JUUL’s most popular flavors “Mint” and “Mango”. The reason for this was because these flavors appealed so much to the younger generation and the other flavors they had were menthol and tobacco (Gottlieb, M. A. 2023).

Now we are gonna talk about the Loopholes in this whole legal battle. The FDA put a BAN on POD-based flavored products in their rules but said nothing about single-use flavored products, also known as “disposables”. So a new company soon took action known as “PUFF” and high schoolers soon took action to this and “the use of flavored disposables increased 10-fold among youths” (Gottlieb, M. A. 2023). The FDA was not happy with this and began to issue warning letters to companies such as “PUFF” because these products were not authorized by the FDA to be sold and is kind of closed this loophole (Gottlieb, M. A. 2023).

After all that mess, “PUFF” found another loophole and claimed that the products they sell are not derived from tobacco (Gottlieb, M. A. 2023) and quickly came back to the market. Another problem was that online sales were occurring and you could technically buy a vape under the restricted age, but the “Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes to Children Act” cut off all sales Online of products. I found this article the best because I didn't realize how many legal loopholes these big companies were utalizing.

TIMELINE:

-Vapes introduced in 2007/FDA didn't know

-The FDA quickly recognized this and began to put a pause on the distribution and importation of the products and shortly after this, approval was needed

-In 2009 Congress passed an act called the “Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” and this allowed the FDA to have total control of the tobacco product industry.

-6 Years to establish rules and guidelines fully-sales grew sevenfold

-JUUL came to market in 2015 with double the concentration of nicotine and took over 75% of the market

-FDA Banned JUUL's Sweet flavored pods "Mango and Mint"

-PUFF bars came to market and the use of disposables increased 10-fold among youths

-The FDA tried banning PUFFS Flavors but it was considered a synthetic substance, and that is was not derived from tobacco.

-PUFFS came back to market

- “Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes to Children Act”