#Create Registration Form

[odinsblog]

The website says it will help the viewer register to vote. But once a user clicks “Register to Vote,” the experience he or she will have can be very different, depending on where they live.

If a user lives in a state that is not considered competitive in the presidential election, like California or Wyoming for example, they'll be prompted to enter their email addresses and ZIP code and then directed quickly to a voter registration page for their state, or back to the original sign-up section.

But for users who enter a ZIP code that indicates they live in a battleground state, like Pennsylvania or Georgia, the process is very different.

Rather than be directed to their state’s voter registration page, they instead are directed to a highly detailed personal information form, prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age.

If they agree to submit all that, the system still does not steer them to a voter registration page. Instead, it shows them a “thank you” page.

So that person who wanted help registering to vote? In the end, they got no help at all registering. But they did hand over priceless personal data to a political operation.

Specifically, a political action committee created by Tesla

CEO Elon Musk, one aimed at giving the Republican presidential nominee Trump an advantage in his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee.

“I have created a PAC, or a super PAC ... the America PAC,” Musk said in a recent interview.

(continue reading)

[collapsedsquid]

Maybe the Socialism Party wants to select candidates at its annual convention after a rich and edifying political debate. Too bad, that’s illegal. The state doesn’t care for these smoke-filled room candidate selection processes, it got rid of them back in the Progressive Era. Candidates will be selected inside a state-sponsored ballot box by individual voters. Maybe the Socialism Party wants to select candidates on a statewide basis–deciding strategically which districts to run candidates in, strategically targeting resources to those races, and ensuring ideological unity across the slate. Too bad, that’s illegal. The state thinks local voters should have a voice in who runs locally. Candidates will be selected by party members in whatever district they want to run in. If the six party members in some random rural county want to run one of themselves for mayor, the rest of the party will just have to live with it. Maybe the Socialism Party wants to make sure that only dues-paying party members can vote in elections; they don’t want random people who joined because they heard about the Socialism Party on Twitter determining endorsements, and they especially don’t want some grifter stealing the party’s ballot line by persuading all his friends to join and vote in the primary. Too bad, that’s illegal. The Socialism Party is welcome to collect dues and require political education courses to its heart’s content, but the state says it can’t set up arbitrary barriers so that only insiders get to vote in primaries. The state says that the only thing you need to do to vote in the Socialism Party primary is check the appropriate box on a voter registration form. And so on and so forth, for trivial matters and major ones. Do members of the Socialism Party want to pick candidates through RCV? Too bad, that’s illegal  (except for the few places where it is mandatory). Do members of the Socialism Party want to strip SP elected officials of party membership if they support a war or genocide? Too bad, the state says those elected officials will still be eligible to run and vote in SP primaries. At this point we in the Socialism Party are really in a bad way. We created a party specifically so that we could escape corruption by the liberals and impose party discipline and so forth, but instead we’ve created a system where any state rep candidate who can get a couple dozen people to check a box on a form in any district in the state can run as an official candidate of the Socialism Party and we can’t do a thing about it.

[biggie-chcese]

Rain Code Minibang!!

Hello, hello everyone! After the results of this poll, we ended up with a tie between a minibang and a DTIYS event. I decided to act as the tiebreaker and pick the minibang, so that writers and artists alike can participate!

With that in mind, I've created a short registration form for the minibang, so that I can not only gauge interest, but see who could be paired up for it.

If you're interested, then please fill out the form below!

If you have any questions about the event, please feel free to ask!

[pintadorartist]

Call The HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES to REJECT the SAVE ACT

TLDR: Bill US HR8281, the SAVE Act, is a bill that would require anyone registering to vote in federal elections to provide proof of citizenship, and if passed, could disenfranchise numerous eligible voters who can’t provide the proper documentation when filling out voter registration forms.

While last year it was killed under the Biden Administration and the Democrat-controlled Senate, Republicans this year now have control of the Hosue, Senate, and the Presidency (Although with a slim majority); there are plans by House Speaker Mike Johnson to reintroduce the SAVE act again

However, a specific date hasn't been selected, but I ask that you take some time to tell your Representatives and House leaders to vote no on the SAVE act.

CALL TOOLS:

Fax:

Find your rep:

Use the HOUSE.GOV website by going on there, entering your zip code, and you will find your rep's profile with a link to their website; then, you should be able to see their contact info; I recommend that you call their Washington phone number.

And that same contact page should also list their fax number.

I also recommend that you call the HOUSE Leadership as well

CALL Scripts:

Hello, Senator [Senator Name], my name is [YOUR NAME], and I am calling to express my strong opposition to H.R. 22, the so-called "SAVE" Act.

While this bill is framed as a measure to combat voter fraud, it is, in reality, a voter suppression effort that creates unnecessary barriers to voting and disenfranchises millions of Americans.

If passed, the SAVE ACT would affect:

Up to 150 million Americans who do not have a passport.

Approximately 69 million women citizens who do not have a birth certificate with their current legal name on it.

Elderly Americans are the least likely to hold passports.

One of the foundational values of our democracy is the idea that every person is entitled to a vote – a say in the direction of our nation.

Rather than advancing harmful legislation like the SAVE Act, I urge you and congress to focus on protecting and expanding voting rights by supporting measures such as the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Petitions:

[probablyasocialecologist]

Emails and legal memos originating from a hack of the Israeli justice ministry show that officials feared that the country’s advocacy efforts in the US could trigger the US law governing foreign agents. The documents show that officials proposed creating a new American nonprofit in order to continue Israel’s activities in the US while avoiding scrutiny under the law. A legal strategy memo dated July 2018 noted that compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara) would damage the reputation of several American groups that receive funding and direction from Israel, and force them to meet onerous transparency requirements. A separate memo noted that donors would not want to fund groups registered under Fara. Fara requires people working on behalf of a foreign government to register as foreign agents with the US justice department. In listing reasons for avoiding Fara, the memo says that the law compels registrants to “flag any piece of ‘propaganda’ that is distributed to two or more parties in the US, with a disclaimer stating that it was delivered by a foreign agent and then submit a copy of the ‘propaganda’ to the US Department of Justice within 48 hours”. To prevent Fara registration, and the stigma and scrutiny associated with it, the legal advisers suggested channeling funds through a third-party American nonprofit. Liat Glazer, then a legal adviser to Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs, writes that even though the nonprofit would not be formally managed from Israel, “we will have means of supervision and management” – for example, through grant-making and “informal coordination mechanisms” including “oral meetings and updates”. The discussions around circumnavigating Fara focused on a “PR commando unit” formed by the strategic affairs ministry in 2017 to improve Israel’s image abroad. The group, a private-public partnership, was originally known as “Kela Shlomo” (which translates to “Solomon’s Sling”) before being rebranded as “Concert” in 2018 and “Voices of Israel” in 2021. Its initial mission was to undermine the BDS movement targeting Israel with boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns in protest of its policies towards Palestinians.

17 August 2024

[ghostinthegallery]

Necron characters rated on how likely they would be to fall into an MLM/Pyramid Scheme

Szarekh- 9/10 Dude gets desperate whenever he has a strong enough goal. Clearly susceptible to persuasion and magical thinking. Not great at thinking through consequences.

Imotekh- 0/10 Immediately does the math and figures out the scam. Creates the 40k FTC to hunt down and destroy all MLMs out of pure spite

Trazyn- 7/10 but he inexplicably does incredibly well at it. Top seller. Gets his pink Cadillac within a week

Orikan- thinks he's immune which is why he's a 10/10 Will ride this sinking ship to the bottom of the ocean. His sanctum is soon filled with essential oils and leggings

Zahndrekh- 3/10 Seems like an easy mark so people try to recruit him constantly. He acts interested and he's so charming it takes ages after they leave for the MLMer to realize they've sold him nothing and at some point he registered them to vote?

Obyron- steely glare/10 He holds the voter registration forms

Anrakyr- 4/10 but if he does fall for one he will actually go on the record and agree to be interviewed for the take-down documentary

Phillias- undercover FTC agent/10

Szeras- 9/10 because he'll sell out and agree to become an "expert consultant" or whatever and say the shady health oils actually work

Oltyx- 2/10 Refuses to start at the bottom of any pyramid, he knows he was born to be at the top

Yenekh- 8/10 But he's just in it for the product discounts.

Zultanekh- 1/10 but pray to whatever God will listen that he never becomes a part of one because he will use his boisterous yet sensitive personality to drag the whole empire into the pyramid

Lysikor- Founded the MLM

[iron-coin]

Reasons why Blumbridge slaps -

Blumbridge refers to the ship Regulus Black/Dolores Umbridge.

There's an idea floating around that Dolores Umbridge would have attended Hogwarts the same time as Regulus Black, and I've seen a couple of posts on it, many by @plecotusauritus and today as I was soaking some sunshine, I thought to myself: why not, actually. And here you go, a mini essay on why Umbridge and Black were secretly lovers, or could-have-beens, or perhaps Umbridge is actually harboring an assumed-dead Black scion during OoTP.

All in good fun :-) Feel free to add your own reasons!

A. They're passionate about their interests and hobbies. Pair this up with good decor taste, and you've got Regulus’s room with clippings of Voldemort, his path to a better Wizarding World, and a beautifully painted Black Family crest, and green interiors. Why won't you pair that up with Dolores' setup of her offices - both at Hogwarts and at the Ministry - where she has the prominent theme of pink, and florals and of course, her special interest: cats and teapots?

Which brings me to my next point:

B. They have clear ideas of what they want to look like. I'm talking the colour schemes they've figured out for themselves.

Pink for Dolores, and not just any pink, it's the in-your-face pink, to portray the image of a saccharine, feminine witch, a purposefully deceptive image once you hear her vocalise her decidedly unsweet agenda.

Now, Regulus has a lot less screen time so we cannot be clearly sure if his passion for green and silver runs as strong so as to appear prominently in his daily attire, but from the glimpse of his room, and the fact that he's, well, a Slytherin, you bet he flashed his House colours as much as he could. Perhaps to rub it in the face that he was a true Black, honoring their traditions and respecting his forefathers.... unlike a certain brother of his.

C. Vocal about their agenda. Remus cannot get a job because of her draft of the Werewolf Legislation. Her reign at Hogwarts seeks to let people know that following Umbridge's rules are the only way to live. Regulus definitely lets his superiority over muggleborns in school known, and considering what Kreacher says of him in Deathly Hallows, his becoming a Death Eater is to seek out glory and power over those inferior.

D. Okay, the most interesting part, CANON will support me on this ship. Hear me out. Umbridge wears the Slytherin locket Regulus died for! It's practically fate the way it wound into HER hands, all the way from Grimmauld Place. The tragedy??? Plus in a world where Regulus didn't die and the locket wasn't a horcrux, you bet that he would give it as a courting gift.

E. Of course Umbridge denies that Voldemort is back!! (In An AU where Regulus is alive) She doesn't want her boy to be in trouble!!!!

F. Dolores' bloodthirsty approach (literally) and abuse of her authority contrasts against Regulus’s search for autonomy after Voldemort violates the rules of magic by creating a horcrux, and his failure to find authority over Muggles. So, Dolores being successful in pushing out the Muggleborn Registration act makes her all the more attractive to Regulus.

And, in a world where Voldemort didn't exist, if Regulus took a career in the Ministry, a workplace romance with an ambitious and cunning woman sounds like an easy setup for a good story.

There can also be a parallel drawn between the two on how they are less attractive than other characters, Umbridge described as a "toad" and Regulus as "rather less handsome than Sirius"...

In conclusion, to me, it seems like the strong dominance of Umbridge's character will balance the quiet resilience of Black's. And that maybe, amongst the felines covering Umbridge's decorative plates, one of them is the feline Animagus form of Regulus Black.

[fatehbaz]

Goldstein and Mahmoudi point to what, on appearance, is a relatively new phenomenon: namely the use of digital technologies in contemporary forms of surveillance and policing, and the way in which they turn the body into the border. [...] [T]he datafication of human life becomes an industry in its own right [...] [with the concept of] “surveillance capitalism” - a system based on capturing behavioral data and using it for commercial purposes [...] [which] emerged in the early 2000s [...].

In contrast, scholarship on colonialism, slavery, and plantation capitalism enables us to understand how racial surveillance capitalism has existed since the grid cities of sixteenth-century Spanish Mexico (Mirzoeff 2020). In short, and as Simone Browne (2015, 10) has shown, “surveillance is nothing new to black folks.” [...]

[S]urveillance in the service of racial capitalism has historically aided three interconnected goals: (1) the control of movement of certain - predominantly racialized - bodies through means of identification; (2) the control of labor to increase productivity and output; and (3) the generation of knowledge about the colony and its native inhabitants in order to “maintain” the colonies [...].

---

Identification documents and practices can, like so many other surveillance technologies, be traced back to the Middle Passage [...]. [T]he movement of captives was controlled through [...] slave passes, slave patrols [...]. Similar strategies of using wanted posters and passes were put in place to control the movement of indentured white laborers from England and Ireland. [...]

Fingerprinting, for example, was developed in India because colonial officials could not tell people apart [...].

In Algeria, the French dominated the colonized population by issuing internal passports, creating internal limits on movement for certain groups, and establishing camps for landless peasants [...]. In South Africa, meanwhile, the movement of the Black population was controlled through the “pass laws”: an internal passport system designed to confine Black South Africans into Bantustans and ensure a steady supply of super-exploitable labor [...].

On the plantation itself, two forms of surveillance emerged - both with the underlying aim of increasing productivity and output. One was in the form of daily notetaking by plantation and slave owners. [...] Second, [...] a combination of surveillance, accounting, and violence was used to make slave labor in the cotton fields more “efficient.” [...] [S]imilar logics of quotas and surveillance still reverberate in today's labor management systems. Finally, surveillance was also essential to the management of the colonies. It occurred through [...] practices like fingerprinting and the passport [...]. [P]hotographs were used after colonial rebellions, in 1857 in India and in 1865 in Jamaica, to better identify the local population and identify “racial types.” To control different Indian communities deemed criminal and vagrant, the British instituted a system of registration where [...] [particular people] were not allowed to sleep away from their villages without prior permission [...].

---

In sum, when thinking about so-called surveillance capitalism today, it is essential to recognize that the logics that underpin these technologies are not new, but were developed and tested in the management of racialized minorities during the colonial era with a similar end goal, namely to control, order, and undermine the poor, colonized, enslaved, and indentured; to create a vulnerable and super-exploitable workforce; and to increase efficiency in production and foster accumulation. Consequently, while the (digital) technologies used for surveillance might have changed, the logics underpinning them have not.

---

All text above by: Sabrina Axster and Ida Danewid. In a section from an article co-authored by Sabrina Axster, Ida Danewid, Asher Goldstein, Matt Mahmoudi, Cemal Burak Tansel, and Lauren Wilcox. "Colonial Lives of the Carceral Archipelago: Rethinking the Neoliberal Security State". International Political Sociology Volume 15, Issue 3, September 2021, pages 415-439. Published June 2021. At: doi dot org slash 10.1093/ips/olabo013. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[kutner-elegist]

Merry Kutnermas Secret Santa 2024

You can sign up on this Google Form.

Information

I know I'm calling it Kutnermas, but it's not Kutner-exclusive! Anything House MD goes.

Registration closes at 23:59 December 18th (UTC-05:00)

Once registration closes, you will be matched with your secret santa as well as your recipient at random.

Between 00:00 Decemper 19th and 23:59 December 20th, you will receive the information of your recipient. Be sure to have your messages (tumblr DM) enabled.

It is secret santa, so you can't reveal to your recipient you're their secret santa until the gift delivery.

The deadline to deliver the gift is 23:59 December 31st (UTC-05:00). Be sure to have asks/submissions/messages enabled on your tumblr so that you can receive yours.

If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, message me on tumblr or add mizzyunknown on Discord.

Gift Suggestions

Look through your recipient's blog to get a feel of what they might enjoy.

A hard requirement won't be enforced, but please create something thoughtful and original.

Gift ideas: one-shot fanfic, poetry, commentary, web weave, gifset, fanart, meme/image edit, video edit

But it can be anything!

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XIII (federal 2025): Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia

Running where: for the Senate in NSW, QLD, and VIC, and in the House divisions of Parkes (NSW), Lingiari (NT), and Durack (WA)

Prior reviews: federal 2022, VIC 2022, NSW 2023

What I said before: “Their policy platform is really simple stuff: a community that wants to be taken seriously and not treated paternalistically. They seek the space to address their own issues on their own terms.” (VIC 2022)

What I think this year: The Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (IAPA) first contested the federal election in 2022, having been formed in the remote NSW town of Wilcannia, and then endorsed independent candidates at Victorian and NSW state elections because they did not yet have registration at state level. They also contested the 2023 federal by-election for Fadden (QLD), placing seventh in a crowded field of 13. I am pleased to see the IAPA is back contesting this election, with many candidates familiar faces from those prior campaigns, and I'm especially glad that they have been able to expand their efforts to contest two seats covering remote areas in NT and WA. I will be curious to see how much support they obtain in those seats at polling places for predominantly Indigenous communities.

The IAPA’s focus is firmly on the Indigenous communities whose interests they formed to promote and their goals are often rather simple things that reflect the unacceptable level of disadvantage many Indigenous people experience. Their focus is on an “Indigenous voice IN parliament”, seemingly a riff on the Uluṟu Statement’s call for a Voice TO parliament. There are, of course, Indigenous MPs in parliament, but the IAPA wants representation from a party devoted to Indigenous issues specifically. One of the main reasons the IAPA was created was to address environmental damage to Baaka (the Murray-Darling river system), which has profound spiritual significance as well as practical importance to the Indigenous peoples who live along and with it. This year the party’s “Healthy Rivers, Healthy People” policy also explicitly names the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River), which sits within the WA electorate of Durack, where they are fielding a candidate. This policy goes with two others emphasising the protection of sacred sites and management of water resources.

You will not be surprised to learn the IAPA wants to end the removal of Indigenous children from their families, with much greater support to be provided for in-home support instead, and that they want to stop the incarceration of Indigenous children. They promote a policy of prevention not punishment, with an emphasis on stopping youth offending to break the cycle of young people whose damaging experiences of incarceration lead to a lifetime of going in and out of prison.

IAPA’s approach to housing issues is a bit different from many parties, and it is informed by their distinctive purpose. Rather than discussing urban zoning, first-home buyers, negative gearing, or any of the usual suspects, their policy is about Indigenous housing especially in regional and remote areas. Their emphasis is straightforward and reflects the appalling housing conditions of some remote communities. They want provision of “basic services, materials, facilities and infrastructure; habitability; affordability; accessibility; legal security of tenure; and location and cultural adequacy”.

I said in 2022 that a lot of the IAPA's requests are so basic that they are depressing in how starkly they highlight the challenges and disadvantages experienced in many Indigenous communities, especially in remote areas. That remains true, as the housing policy shows, but happily they are also able to celebrate a couple of gains since their first platform was formulated. One is the introduction of an Indigenous crisis support line, 13YARN, which received over 70,000 calls in under three years (especially during the Voice debate) and one of the co-designers was recently awarded NSW Aboriginal Woman of the Year, Gamilaroi woman Marjorie Anderson. The IAPA is also glad that the federal government has acquired the copyright to the Aboriginal flag from corporate owners, although they qualify this with a note that “like the continent itself, the Aboriginal flag is not rightfully or morally owned by the Australian Government”.

The IAPA's Senate how-to-vote card for Queensland recommends preferences to Socialist Alliance, Legalise Cannabis, Australia’s Voice, Fusion, and the Greens, in that order. For Victoria, they haven’t issued a similar card but urge their voters to “please include a progressive party likely to win [in] the 6th spot, otherwise you may accidentally contribute to the election of a racist party”. It’s interesting they make no specific recommendation for Labor despite the Albanese government holding the Voice referendum.

Recommendation: Give the Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia a good preference.

Website: https://www.indigenouspartyofaustralia.com/

[gallavichsummercamp]

🏕️ One Week Left to Register! 🏕️

This year, Gallavich Summer Camp will be bringing the 🔥 Heat 🔥 Don't miss out on the fun! Bunks are forming now, so you can sign up indie or with friends. Writers, artists and betas all welcome! Details of the event can be found on our pinned post here.

Registration form is available here - come on out and create with us!

[webfarmhouses-blog]

Web designer in Jodhpur

Creative Web Design

We are a web designing company that has a team of skilled and experienced web designers and developers who can create stunning and functional websites for any type of business or domain. We offer a variety of web designing services, such as custom web design, web development, web hosting, SEO, and maintenance. We also provide you with a free web design consultation, where we can discuss your goals, needs, and preferences, and provide you with a web design proposal that suits your requirements and expectations.

What we do in Web Design

Our web designing services are the services that provide web designing solutions for clients who want to create or improve their online presence. It involves the use of various elements such as colours, fonts, images, graphics, animations, and interactions to convey the message and purpose of the website to visitors. Web designing services can help clients with various aspects of web designing, such as Consultation: Our web designing services can help clients understand their goals, needs, and preferences, and provide them with expert advice and guidance on how to achieve them . Strategy: Our services can help clients develop a clear and effective web design strategy that aligns with their brand identity, target audience, and business objectives.Design: We help clients create a unique and attractive web design that reflects their vision and personality, and that engages and impresses their visitors.Launch: Our services can help clients launch their website to the public, and provide them with web hosting, domain registration, and security services.

Our Design Technology

At Web Farm House, we understand that web design is not just about making a website look good. It is also about making it work well, communicate effectively, and provide value to the users. That is why we use the latest web design technology to create websites that are:

Visually appealing: We use web graphic design to create stunning and consistent visual elements for your website, such as colours, fonts, images, icons, and animations.

Easy to use: We use user interface design to create intuitive and interactive elements for your website, such as buttons, menus, forms, and navigation.

Functional and reliable: We use web development to code and program your website, using languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and others. We follow the principles of web standards, web accessibility, web performance, and web security, to ensure the quality and reliability of your website.

Our Work Process

At Web Farm House, we follow a systematic and collaborative work process to create your website. Our work process consists of four main phases: Discovery, Design, Development, and Delivery:

Discovery: This is the phase where we get to know you and your project. We will ask you some questions about your goals, needs, preferences, budget, and timeline. We will also conduct some research on your industry, competitors, and target audience. Based on the information we gather, we will create a project proposal and a contract for you to review and approve.

Design: This is the phase where we create the visual and interactive elements of your website. We will start by creating a sitemap and a wireframe, which are the blueprints of your website’s structure and layout. We will then create a mockup, which is a prototype of your website’s appearance and functionality. We will present the mockup to you and ask for your feedback and approval. We will make any revisions as needed until you are satisfied with the design.

Development: This is the phase where we code and program your website. We will use the latest web development technology to create a website that is functional, reliable, and compatible with different devices and browsers. We will also test and debug your website to ensure its quality and performance. We will show you the progress of the development and ask for your feedback and approval.

Delivery: This is the final phase where we launch and maintain your website. We will upload your website to your chosen hosting service and domain name. We will also provide you with a user manual and a training session on how to use and update your website. We will also offer you ongoing support and maintenance services to keep your website running smoothly and securely.

We will also listen to your feedback and suggestions and make any changes as needed. We will work with you as a partner and a friend, not just as a client and a vendor. we value your input and satisfaction throughout the work process. We will communicate with you regularly and keep you updated on the status of your project.

Our Web Designing Services

Our is provides web design services for clients who want to create or improve their online presence. We help clients with various aspects of web designing, such as consultation, strategy, design, development, testing, launch, and maintenance:

Static web design

Liquid web design.

Adaptive web design.

Dynamic web design.

Responsive web design.

Single-page web design.

Why Choose Us?

We are a One-Stop Solution for delivering the best web design and development services. We render customized and affordable web design facilities to suit your requirements. Choose the best plans for building a responsive web design according to your needs:

Excellent technical support

Core PHP &Codeigniter + MySQL.

Secure and Reliable coding.

Satisfactory Customer Support.

SEO-friendly web development.

[stevensaus]

Just saying...

So it looks like you can register for free to reserve a seat for a right-wing "American Comeback Tour" event at Purdue tomorrow.

Incidentally, you can create identities to test registration forms pretty easily with Linux.

Also you can get disposable email addresses from https://www.emailnator.com/

[avagiftexchange]

The AvA Community "Secret Gift Exchange" 2023 Registration is OPEN!

Hello Hello! Welcome to the 2nd Annual Animator vs Animation Community "Secret Gift Exchange"!

For those who don't know, the AvA Gift Exchange is a celebration event centered around creating and sharing gifts across our lovely community! This is the 2nd year I'm hosting something like this and I'm excited to see what wonderful things people create this year! 8D

[What is a "Secret Gift Exchange"?]

If you are interested in participating in this event, please follow the link below and fill out the registration form!

Registration will be open from

November 20th to November 27th at 11:59 pm EST

For more Updates, please follow:

@avagiftexchange

https://avagiftexchange.tumblr.com/

This will be where I'll be making any important updates in the Future!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nobody

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 2, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 03, 2024

Today, Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported that there is reason to believe that when Trump’s 2016 campaign was running low on funds, Trump accepted a $10 million injection of cash from Egypt’s authoritarian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It is against the law to accept direct or indirect financial support from foreign nationals or foreign governments for a political campaign in the United States.

In early 2017, CIA officials told Justice Department officials that a confidential informant had told them of such a cash exchange, and those officials handed the matter off to Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was already looking at the links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. FBI agents noted that on September 16, Trump had met with Sisi when the Egyptian leader was at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. 

After the meeting, Trump broke with U.S. policy to praise Sisi, calling him a “fantastic guy.” 

Trump’s campaign had been dogged with a lack of funds, and his advisers had begged him to put some of his own money into it. He refused until October 28, when he loaned the campaign $10 million.

An FBI investigation took years to get records, but Davis and Leonnig reported that in 2019 the FBI learned of a key withdrawal from an Egypt bank. In January 2017, five days before Trump took office, an organization linked to Egypt’s intelligence service asked a manager at a branch of the state-run National Bank of Egypt to “kindly withdraw” $9,998,000 in U.S. currency. The bundles of $100 bills filled two bags and weighed more than 200 pounds. 

Once in office, Trump embraced Sisi and, in a reversal of U.S. policy, invited him to be one of his first guests at the White House. “I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sissi,” Trump said. 

Mueller had gotten that far in pursuit of the connection between Trump and Sisi when he was winding down his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He handed the Egypt investigation off to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D C., where it appears then–attorney general William Barr killed it. 

Today, Brian Schwartz of CNBC reported that Elon Musk and other tech executives are putting their money behind a social media ad campaign for Trump and Vance, and are creating targeted ads in swing states by collecting information about voters under false pretenses. According to Schwartz, their America PAC, or political action committee, says it helps viewers register to vote. And, indeed, the ads direct would-be voters in nonswing states to voter registration sites.

But people responding to the ad in swing states are not sent to registration sites. Instead, they are presented with “a highly detailed personal information form [and] prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age,” handing over “priceless personal data to a political operation” that can then create ads aimed at that person’s demographic and target them personally in door-to-door campaigns. After getting the information, the site simply says, “Thank you,” without directing the viewer toward a registration site.

Forbes estimates Musk’s wealth at more than $235 billion. 

In June the Trump Organization announced a $500 million deal with Saudi real estate developer Dar Global to build a Trump International hotel in Oman. 

In January 2011, when he was director of the FBI, Robert Mueller gave a speech to the Citizens Crime Commission of New York. He explained that globalization and modern technology had changed the nature of organized crime. Rather than being regional networks with a clear structure, he said, organized crime had become international, fluid, and sophisticated and had multibillion-dollar stakes. Its operators were cross-pollinating across countries, religions, and political affiliations, sharing only their greed. They did not care about ideology; they cared about money. They would do anything for a price.

These criminals “may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military,” he said. “They are capitalists and entrepreneurs. But they are also master criminals who move easily between the licit and illicit worlds. And in some cases, these organizations are as forward-leaning as Fortune 500 companies.”

In order to corner international markets, Mueller explained, these criminal enterprises "may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called 'iron triangles' of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat."

In a new book called Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, journalist Anne Applebaum carries that story forward into the present, examining how today’s autocrats work together to undermine democracy. She says that “the language of the democratic world, meaning rights, laws, rule of law, justice, accountability, [and] transparency…[is]  harmful to them,” especially as those are the words that their internal opposition uses. “And so they need to undermine the people who use it and, if they can, discredit it.” 

Those people, Applebaum says, “believe they are owed power, they deserve power.” When they lose elections, they “come back in a second term and say, right, this time, I'm not going to make that mistake again, and…then change their electoral system, or…change the constitution, change the judicial system, in order to make sure that they never lose.”

Almost exactly a year ago, on August 1, 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted former president Donald J. Trump for conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges stemmed from Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A grand jury is made up of 23 ordinary citizens who weigh evidence of criminal activity and produce an indictment if 12 or more of them vote in favor. 

The grand jury indicted Trump for “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the government”; “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified”; and “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.” 

“Each of these conspiracies,” the indictment reads, “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “This federal government function…is foundational to the United States’ democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.” 

The case of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump was randomly assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2014 and confirmed 95–0 in the Senate. Trump pleaded not guilty on August 3, after which his lawyers repeatedly delayed their pretrial motions until, on December 7, Trump asked the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether he was immune from prosecution. Chutkan had to put off her initial trial date of March 4, 2024, and said she would not reschedule until the court decided the question of Trump’s immunity. 

In February the appeals court decided he was not immune. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which waited until July 1, 2024, to decide that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as part of his official acts. Today the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Chutkan, almost exactly a year after it was first brought.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Shuham at HuffPost:

When she was working as an election official in Arizona years ago, Tammy Patrick encountered voters who supported what was then the state’s new “proof of citizenship” law for voter registration — only to realize that they had been disenfranchised by it. “They’d say, ‘I voted for that!’” she recalled of the voters, many of whom were “snowbirds, older people, who didn’t have the wherewithal to get [the correct documents] because the documents didn’t exist anymore.” “It was heart-wrenching,” Patrick said.

At the time, Arizona was the only state in the nation with a documentary proof of citizenship requirement for voters, and thousands of people have since lost out on the right to vote in state elections. Kansas, which later also tried its own citizenship requirement for voter registration, saw similar results. “Kansas did that 10 years ago,” Kansas’s Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab told The Associated Press in December of his state’s own requirement, which prevented tens of thousands of voter registrations and was ultimately blocked in court in 2018. “It didn’t work out so well.” Nonetheless, despite data showing tens of millions of Americans don’t have ready access to proof of citizenship documents, Republicans are now pushing hard to require those records nationwide for voter registration. They haven’t been able to make it happen yet. But two efforts, one each from the White House and congressional Republicans, have made the prospect of a national proof of citizenship requirement a real possibility.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed the executive order “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” In addition to ordering a slew of changes to voting machine standards and information-sharing arrangements between the federal and state governments, the order ― which is not a law ― instructs the Election Assistance Commission to change its national mail voter registration form to require documentary proof of citizenship. In Congress, the so-called SAVE Act would similarly mandate proof of citizenship documents. The bill passed the House last year and is scheduled for a vote in the House this week, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). Though neither effort is a law right now, they both present significant risks to millions of voters. The Trump White House has in its first two months asserted unprecedented executive authority over the federal government, even on matters legally outside its purview, like trying to shut down entire agencies created by Congress, and it’s not clear how far Trump is willing to take his power grab.

Millions At Risk

As things stand, would-be voters swear under penalty of law on registration paperwork that they are citizens, and state officials have various methods to confirm that citizenship, including by checking against Social Security data and state databases. But Republicans’ efforts to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote ― a push that gained political support from widespread lies about non-citizen voting ― would change that. And if voters needed to provide documentary proof themselves, millions would be at risk of disenfranchisement.

Over 21 million voting-age American citizens don’t readily have access to documentary proof of citizenship, and over 3.8 million lack any of those documents at all, one 2023 survey from the Brennan Center for Justice and several other groups found. The impact would be felt across political and demographic lines: While poor voters, voters of color and indigenous voters are less likely to have certain documentation, states with high levels of passport ownership generally vote blue ― and Republican women are more likely to report taking their husbands’ last names, which complicates the process, the Center for American Progress noted in January. Both the White House efforts and the SAVE Act are also strangely vague when it comes to what documentation is required. Both mention passports as an acceptable proof of citizenship, but half of American citizens don’t have a valid passport. They both also mention the REAL ID Act of 2005, though so-called “REAL ID” cards don’t actually list citizenship status on them, and non-citizens can obtain REAL IDs. Both also list military IDs, but only if they specify citizenship. If not, the SAVE Act requires further documentation. The SAVE Act notes birth certificates can be used in conjunction with government-issued photo IDs; Trump’s order makes no mention of birth certificates at all, though it does say photo IDs can work when “accompanied by proof of United States citizenship.”

[...]

Trump’s Executive Order Is A Dramatic Attempted Power Grab

On top of its proof of citizenship requirement language, Trump’s executive order is alarming simply because it exists at all. American elections are almost entirely run at the state and local level, and any national rule changes must generally be approved by Congress. Trump’s apparent belief that he can simply declare changes to the nation’s elections represents an extremely aggressive assertion of presidential power. In the order, Trump instructs both independent agencies and Cabinet officials to pursue various investigations of (and vast changes to) the election system, including regarding election machine certifications and information-sharing between states and the federal government.

The SAVE Act is a massive abomination of a proposal that would disenfranchise millions of voters if it passed.