#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.

[pintadorartist]

Musk and Republicans are still pushing KOSA in the SENATE as well

The bill is still being pushed at the end of the year for both chambers of Congress, either as part of an end-of-the-year spending bill or on its own. We need to keep up the pressure to stop KOSA from passing.

This is more pressing with FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson (whose agenda has been revealed to be very transphobic) being selected as Trump's nominee for Chairman of the FTC. If KOSA passes, this will give him and the Trump administration the power to attack online platforms that "harm children," making it harder to share progressive content and organize online.

So this week, keep making calls, emailing, and faxing your Senators and these Senate leaders as well.

In addition to your senators, call the Democrat and Republican Senate Leaders:

Republican Senate Leaders:

Mitch McConnell:

Phone: (202) 224-2541 Fax: (202) 224-2499

John Thune:

Phone: (202) 224-2321

Fax: (202) 228-5429

John Barrasso:

Main: 202-224-6441 Fax: 202-224-1724

Joni Ernst:

PHONE: (319) 365-4504

FAX: (319) 365-4683

Shelley Capito:

Phone: 202-224-6472

Steve Daines:

p: (202) 224-2651 f: 202-228-1236

Democrat Senate Leaders:

Chuck Schumer:

Phone: (202) 224-6542

Fax: (202) 228-3027

Dick Durbin:

Phone: 202-224-2152

Debbie Stabenow:

Phone:(202) 224-4822

Elizabeth Warren:

Phone: (202) 224-4543

Mark R. Warner:

Phone: 202-224-2023

Amy Klobuchar:

Phone: 202-224-3244

Fax: 202-228-2186

Bernie Sanders:

Phone: 202-224-5141 Fax: 202-228-0776

Catherine Cortez Masto:

Phone: (202) 224-3542

Joe Manchin:

Phone: 202-224-3954 Fax: 202-228-0002

Cory A. Booker:

Phone: (202) 224-3224

Fax: (202) 224-8378

Tammy Baldwin:

Phone: (202) 224-5653

Brian Schatz:

Phone: (202) 224-3934

Find Your Senator:

Or you can call the Congressional switchboard today and ask to be connected with each of your Senators’ offices. Demand they vote against this bill: (202) 224-3121

If you don’t like talking to people, you can call after their offices close so you can leave a message

you can also Text RESIST to 50409 to send your message into a fax and email to your senator

Call tools:

FFTF:

Fax:

Here are scripts to use for the calls:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

I am urging you not to include KOSA in any end of year spending bills and to keep it from passing. With Trump ascending into office, this bill will give the FTC power to control speech online. FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson just came out with an agenda that will focus on going after online platforms for displaying LGBT content. With KOSA, this would only give them and republican attorney generals even more power to remove any content they deem “harmful”, which we know is an excuse to censor everything they don’t like. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it. The ACLU is against it. Hundreds of thousands of Gen Z are against it. We know the harms of social media, and we do not want this. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. 

The rewritten bill is still very dangerous, and giving any more power to Donald Trump to silence people he deems his “enemies” is a horrible move. With people like Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk supporting KOSA, this is enough of a sign to not push it forward. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. The updated language threatens encryption. How is this protecting children’s privacy?  KOSA actively harms kids. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION: (pretend you’re GOP)

I am urging you VOTE NO on KOSA, the Kid’s Online Safety Act. Even with the rewritten language, this is still a dangerous bill that will harm children and censor pro-life content on the internet. Even with the new language, this bill still gives state Attorney Generals power to censor any content they don’t like. This bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans, why else do you think Democrats are pushing it so hard? Why else would Biden and Kamala Harris support it?

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 bill let any state attorney general and the FTC to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online? Big Tech is already censoring us. That’s why they support KOSA. This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects children by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship to everyone. 

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. This also exposes everyone else. 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. It censors our freedom of speech. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

——————————————————————————-------------------

Here's the HOUSE version of this post:

Make sure to share this around to get more people involved.

I also ask that if you have an account with these other sites, you share and upvote these posts(they're different posts):

Reddit-

-Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fight For The Future (@fightfortheftr)

-Bsky:

-Twitter:

-Tiktok: (i dont have tiktok so i cant link a kosa video here, my bad)

[mariacallous]

The GOP-controlled House approved its rules package on Friday evening, including provisions targeting transgender and immigrant rights, but notably did not include the trans bathroom ban Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) had proposed.

The Republican introduced her controversial ban in November to restrict access to all “single-sex facilit[ies] on Federal property” based on “biological sex.” She admitted to HuffPost the ban specifically targeted incoming Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first transgender woman to be elected to Congress.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who narrowly won reelection to the chamber’s top job earlier on Friday, had reportedly assured Mace that her bathroom ban would be included in the package.

Mace congratulated Johnson on his reelection and did not make any mention of the bathroom ban’s absence from the rules package.

“Speaker Mike Johnson has rightfully been reelected to lead the People’s House once again. His leadership offers a clear path forward to restore safety, security, and accountability in our nation,” she said in a statement.

“We have a mandate to secure our borders, rebuild the economy, and hold Washington accountable. Speaker Johnson understands this, and with President Trump’s leadership, we are ready to fulfill those promises and deliver on the America First agenda.”

Mace spent much of the last weeks of 2024 drumming up support for the ban while using anti-trans slurs and engaging in anti-trans theatrics. After protesters were arrested for staging a sit-in at a U.S. Capitol restroom, Mace loudly read their Miranda rights through a bullhorn at the jail where they were held.

Mace also introduced legislation in September to ban medical providers from offering gender-affirming care for minors. Twenty-five states have passed similar bans, with the Supreme Court set to decide this summer whether such bans are constitutional, determining the future of health care for trans youth.

Mace and McBride did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The rules package, passed at the beginning of each congressional session, sets the rules for the next two years in the House of Representatives. Most of its provisions are uncontroversial.

Notably, this Congress’ package raises the threshold for a “motion to vacate,” the tactic conservatives used to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023. While previously just a single member could introduce such a motion, now nine members of the majority party need to agree.

While Friday’s rules package does not mention restricting access to sex-segregated government facilities, it does take several swings at the rights of transgender people, immigrants and people seeking abortions.

One item in the package would fast-track a bill to amend Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding. The new bill would restrict school sports based on one’s sex assigned at birth, undoing Biden’s Title IX guidance that expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students.

The amendment, introduced by Rep. Gregory Steube (R-Fla.) and cosponsored by Mace, would recognize sex as defined “solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The language mirrors that of dozens of state laws that currently bar transgender students from participating in sports that align with their gender identity and other policies that restrict trans people of all ages from updating their sex marker on government IDs.

The package also fast-tracks legislation that would target abortion providers, prevent sanctuary cities from being able to provide benefits to undocumented immigrants, and bar immigrants convicted of certain crimes from being admitted to the United States.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) criticized the rules package for fast-tracking a dozen bills that target vulnerable communities ahead of the vote on Friday evening.

“This package tries to fool the American people by scapegoating immigrants and trans people in the hopes that it will distract you from the fact that the first move from Republicans in the 119th Congress is to do absolutely nothing to help you and your family build a better life,” Jayapal said.

[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.

[tortoisebore]

diverting from usual content to give you all an un-fun update & PSA about the state of the US atm

a lot of you know that i work in undergrad admission/recruitment communications at my state’s largest university. today in our weekly staff meeting we were told to immediately halt all emails/texts/print pieces related to Black History Month, and everything we send out promoting our annual leadership summit for prospective Black students is now on indefinite pause. the university received a letter from the federal government this week stating that anything “DEI-related” must be eradicated or funding for the school, a top tier-research institution, will be pulled. we’ve been operating under an anti-DEI executive order from our fuckass governor for the last year and fortunately last spring university leadership found loopholes to keep operating as usual—we kept the gender & equality center and the women’s health clinic & the office of diversity & inclusion running under different names & still serving students the same way, but as of today all of that is now under investigation. i can’t even publish the word “diversity” when referring to geography. student organizations and outreach programs to underserved communities in the state are under fire & i’m furious and scared for what this means for young people in my state.

i don’t like to fall into the cycle of fear mongering & i know that blind panic doesn’t do anything to help but oh my god we need to all quickly come to the understanding that nowhere is safe from these power-frenzied nutjobs in office. their policies are in our workplaces and our schools. now is the time to brainstorm ways to combat restrictive, oppressive, & racist legislation in your daily life.

example—i can’t use the word diversity in a postcard to small-town rural students about all the ways they can find belonging at the university i work at, but i can make sure that the photos i use on the card reflect students of all backgrounds—all gender expressions, all ages, all abilities, all ethnicities. i can’t be overt with my resistance without putting my job and my team at risk, but i’m in enough of a position of power where being smart about the ways i use photos and quotes can emphasize a diverse student population & a place of belonging for everyone without directly saying it. and outside of work, i will continue to donate and attend protests and run my mouth about how vehemently i disagree with these pieces of legislation & how the enemy is not my neighbor, it’s the governor and the fuckass state superintendent and the attorney general and congress and the fucking president and all his friends.

with the direction this administration is headed in, i implore you to find small ways to resist in every single facet of your daily life. i implore you to embrace your neighbor and become close with your community and protect them loudly when they need it. i’m begging us all to keep our sights set on who’s really to blame in this moment & over the next four years ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ and please for the love of god fact check everything you read & think critically about what you see online before you speak about it !!!

[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

[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! "

[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

Hyena Teaser Trailer https://youtu.be/UrAJji7qdwk

The Artist and the Pervert Trailer https://youtu.be/ko_6bGeADGU

The Artist and the Pervert Documentary on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Artist-Pervert-Georg-Friedrich-Haas/dp/B08NC5C1PK

The Restrict Act Bill S. 686 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text 

ResistBot  https://resist.bot/petitions

Find & Contact your Legislators https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/s686/comment 

Chat GPT https://chat.openai.com/chat 

Sunny’s Free Kink Negotiation & Scene Planning Mini-Workbook https://sunnymegatron.gumroad.com/l/negotiationwb

Sunny Megatron TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@sunnymegatron

American Sex Podcast Discord Community http://bit.ly/discordasp

American Sex Podcast Patreon http://patreon.com/americansex

  Episode 204 Sponsors & Discount Codes

*by using our links & codes you can help support our work while saving a few bucks too—win/win!

40% off Beducated’s yearly pass https://beducate.me/pd2317-sunny and use code SUNNY

Get 20% off + free shipping at Manscaped.com with code SUNNY http://manscaped.com

Go to http://GreenChef.com/sunny60 and use code sunny60 to get 60% off plus free shipping

Pleasure Podcasts Network https://www.pleasurepodcasts.com/

Sunny’s On-Demand BDSM Classes & Coaching:  https://sunnymegatron.gumroad.com/

15% off most items from Stockroom https://bit.ly/sunnystockroom15 with code SUNNY

–To support American Sex Podcast/Sunny Megatron & help offset the cost of providing no-charge education: http://patreon.com/americansex 

Check out our latest episode!

[pintadorartist]

KOSA Is being pushed

There is a HUGE push to pass KOSA right now at the end of the year.!

Really Quick summary: Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn "rewrote" KOSA to appeal to the right more. They worked with ELON MUSK to push this bill in order to "protecting kids". Tomorrow, many organizations are bringing groups of parents to speak to Congress. This is coming at a time when the FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson admitted their agenda is straight transphobia:

There are TWO ways KOSA can be passed right now. Either from the House of Representatives or by attaching it to an end-of-year spending bill. They will try both.

Republican leadership(Scalise and Johnson) are surprisingly what is stopping thia from going through. They wont admit it out loud but they dont like the bill.

WE NEED TO PUSH BACK NOW!! Those phones need to ring OFF THE HOOK tomorrow while they meet with their parents.

So call, call, and call/email/ and fax your House Representative and tell them to vote no to KOSA TOMORROW! this is an all-hands-on-deck situation.

Here are the call tools:

FFTF Call tool that should cycle you through different reps:

Find your Representative here:

In addition to these House reps, call these reps as well, they are leaders and are very important regarding the fate of this bill:

Republican:

⭐Steve Scalise

        (202) 225-3015

⭐Mike Johnson

        (202) 225-2777

Democrat:

⭐Hakeem Jeffries

            (202) 225-5936

Ayanna Pressley

(202) 225-5111

Ilhan Omar

(202) 225-4755

Jamaal Bowman

(202) 225-2464

Cori Bush 

(202) 225-2406

Here are scripts to use for the calls:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

I am urging you not to include KOSA in any end of year spending bills and to keep it from passing. With Trump ascending into office, this bill will give the FTC power to control speech online. FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson just came out with an agenda that will focus on going after online platforms for displaying LGBT content. With KOSA, this would only give them and republican attorney generals even more power to remove any content they deem “harmful”, which we know is an excuse to censor everything they don’t like. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it. The ACLU is against it. Hundreds of thousands of Gen Z are against it. We know the harms of social media, and we do not want this. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. 

The rewritten bill is still very dangerous, and giving any more power to Donald Trump to silence people he deems his “enemies” is a horrible move. With people like Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk supporting KOSA, this is enough of a sign to not push it forward. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. The updated language threatens encryption. How is this protecting children’s privacy?  KOSA actively harms kids. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION: (pretend you’re GOP)

I am urging you VOTE NO on KOSA, the Kid’s Online Safety Act. Even with the rewritten language, this is still a dangerous bill that will harm children and censor pro-life content on the internet. Even with the new language, this bill still gives state Attorney Generals power to censor any content they don’t like. This bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans, why else do you think Democrats are pushing it so hard? Why else would Biden and Kamala Harris support it?

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 bill let any state attorney general and the FTC to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online? Big Tech is already censoring us. That’s why they support KOSA. This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects children by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship to everyone. 

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. This also exposes everyone else. 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. It censors our freedom of speech. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

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

Please make as many calls as possible today and tomorrow; you are not powerless; you have a voice, and in these times, it's more important than ever to use it;

I also ask that you share this around as well, make as many people around aware of this as possible. Thank you.

[mariacallous]

There’s a viciously haphazard feel to these opening weeks of Donald Trump’s second term.

Elon Musk seems to have complete authority to slash and burn as he sees fit. Government agencies are being stripped of their core missions and reconfigured instead to serve as weapons. A staggering number of federal employees have been fired. But the throughline for these actions is the same — an assertion of unfettered presidential authority.

Trump is consolidating power within the White House, and while the scope of his actions is unprecedented, the idea underpinning them is not. It’s the unitary executive theory, albeit on a wild amount of steroids, and it’s already showing up in various administration court filings defending Trump’s illegal power grabs.

The unitary executive theory says that the president has complete authority over the executive branch. It’s been kicking around since the Reagan years but really came of age under George W. Bush. During the war on terror, torture enthusiast and Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo argued that there were “no limits on the executive's judgment” regarding using military force. So, no check, no balance, no limits.

Bill Barr, who served as attorney general in Trump’s first administration, is a longtime fan of the theory. Barr believes it is unconstitutional for Congress to limit the president’s control over executive branch personnel in any way, a radical view that vests all hiring and firing authority in the president only.

To understand why that’s so extreme, we must go back 90 years to a 1935 United States Supreme Court case, Humphrey's Executor v. United States. There, Franklin D. Roosevelt removed William Humphrey from the Federal Trade Commission. Humphrey was a Republican appointee, first appointed by President Calvin Coolidge and reappointed by President Herbert Hoover. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t aligned with Roosevelt’s goals, so Roosevelt fired him. However, in the law establishing the FTC, Congress limited the ability of the president to remove commissioners to situations of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” none of which had happened.

Congress took further steps to ensure the independence of the FTC commissioners. They are nominated to fixed terms, and no more than three may be members of the same party. This means that each administration will always inherit some commissioners from previous presidents and that the commission will always have bipartisan membership. This is in direct contrast to Cabinet-level agencies, where the president gets to install partisan leadership.

In holding that Roosevelt did not have the right to remove Humphrey, the Supreme Court found that in creating the FTC, Congress had intended to create “a body of experts who shall gain experience by length of service — a body which shall be independent of executive authority except in its selection, and free to exercise its judgment without the leave or hindrance.” To perform its duties, the commission needed to be free from executive control.

The FTC isn’t the only agency arranged like this. There are nearly two dozen independent regulatory agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Consumer Product Safety Commissionm (CPSC). Under the Trump administration’s roided-up version of the unitary executive theory, Humphrey’s Executor was wrongly decided, and restrictions on the ability of the president to remove members of those bodies are unconstitutional.

In fact, that’s exactly what acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote earlier this month to Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. In a brief one-and-a half-page letter, Harris decreed that the removal protections for the FTC, NLRB, and CPSC, specifically, are unconstitutional. Harris, a former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, also told Durbin that the administration intends to ask the Supreme Court to overrule Humphrey’s Executor.

The letter to Durbin isn’t the only place where the administration is laying out its unitary executive vision. One week after taking office, Trump removed Gwynne Wilcox from the NLRB. Wilcox, a Biden appointee, had been confirmed by the Senate in 2023 for a five-year term. NLRB members, however, can only be removed after notice and hearing, and then only for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.” The late-night email firing Wilcox did not detail any neglect or malfeasance.

Wilcox sued to be reinstated, a move that is dicey. That’s because there’s no question her firing is intended as a test case to get in front of a rightwing Supreme Court that is friendly to Trump’s maximalist vision of presidential power. Indeed, the administration’s brief in the federal district court makes no argument that Wilcox’s firing was permitted under the removal language in the National Labor Relations Act. Instead, it argues that the Supreme Court has already significantly limited Humphrey’s Executor in other cases and that the removal restrictions in the NLRA are an unconstitutional restriction on presidential authority.

While Wilcox’s case is proceeding through the lower courts, a different illegal removal is already up at the Supreme Court. Sort of.

On February 7, Trump removed Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) appointed by President Biden in 2024. That agency, created by Congress after Watergate, protects federal employees from discrimination and retaliation and provides a secure channel for federal whistleblowers to come forward.

Under the law, the OSC head is appointed to a five-year term and can only be removed for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” — the same language in the FTC statute. But Trump’s removal of Dellinger came via a one-line email that didn’t provide any rationale for the firing. Dellinger sued and was temporarily reinstated to the position for 14 days by a lower court judge, a decision the DC Circuit Court of Appeals declined to overturn while the case proceeds. The administration raced to the Supreme Court, arguing that the two-week temporary restraining order was essentially the death of liberty, raising “grave issues of democratic legitimacy and electoral accountability.”

So, at this stage, all the parties are fighting over is the existence of the TRO. For now, the Supreme Court has punted on the question, leaving the TRO restoring Dellinger in place because it was already set to expire on February 26. But the Supreme Court will eventually have to tackle the underlying question of whether Trump can fire Dellinger without cause despite a statute explicitly saying cause is required, just as it will have to someday tackle whether Wilcox could be removed.

SCOTUS learns to love autocracy

Ultimately, Trump will need at least five of the right-wingers on the United States Supreme Court to agree to his expansive view of presidential power. A few short decades ago, that would have been impossible.

Back in 1988, Justice Antonin Scalia was the sole dissenter in Morrison v. Olson, which upheld a law where Congress gave authority to the judicial branch to appoint an independent counsel with the power to examine alleged wrongdoing in the administration and who could only be removed for cause. Scalia’s dissent argued that the law violated the separation of powers by placing any limits on the president’s ability to remove an executive official.

Unfortunately for democracy, in the ensuing years, enthusiasm for the unitary executive — at least when the executive is a Republican — now comes standard for rightwing Supreme Court justices.

In 2020’s Seila Law case, the Court’s then-five GOP appointees relied on the unitary executive theory to hold that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CRPB) was unconstitutional. In creating the CFPB, Congress had given the agency a single head, rather than a multi-member board. The agency head could only be removed for cause. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts found that the arrangement violated the separation of powers by insulating the head of the agency from the political whims of the president. Additionally, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have already explicitly called for Humphrey’s Executor to be overturned.

As an unelected billionaire and some feral DOGE boys are busy taking a chainsaw to the whole of government, it’s grimly hilarious to read Roberts’s concern-trolling in Seila Law over how the CFPB director was “neither elected by the people nor meaningfully controlled (through the threat of removal) by someone who is.” Roberts said that without a boss or the electorate “looking over her shoulder,” the CFPB director’s power was simply too vast, as she could “dictate and enforce policy for a vital segment of the economy affecting millions of Americans.”

We’ll have to wait and see if Roberts’s deep concern for the electorate holds when cases about the authority of Elon Musk — unelected, unaccountable, unremovable — inevitably hit the Supreme Court.

In practical terms, if Trump gets the Supreme Court to agree that he has unfettered power to remove members of independent regulatory agencies, their independence is over. No more will there be balanced, bipartisan boards. No more will those agencies ever issue decisions that don’t reflect the president's policy preferences. No more will Congress be able to create any new regulatory body with any independence from the president.

One last thing, and it might be the worst thing: The unitary executive theory also imbues the president with sole and complete power to start or stop criminal prosecutions. That’s a worldview that comes in handy for a president like Trump, who sees the Department of Justice as a weapon to prosecute his perceived enemies, whether they’ve committed crimes or not. If you combine that with the expansive immunity the Supreme Court already gifted Trump, you have a future where Congress can never exert any oversight over the executive via passing a special counsel law. So, there would be no way for the administration to ever be investigated again, at least in any meaningful fashion.

Trump is going to keep behaving as if he has already been granted unitary executive authority beyond anything else previously imagined. Here’s hoping this rampage, this wild shift in the balance of power in American democracy, irks the right-wingers on the court enough that they’ll choose to rein him in.

[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