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transformationsproject · 11 days ago

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Today’s Legislative Updates April 22, 2025

Trans rights are still under attack in the United States. Please visit our website linked below to learn about your state and contact your reps. Here's a thread of today's updates:

Bathroom bills deny access to public restrooms by gender or trans identity.

They increase danger without making anyone any safer and have even prompted attacks on cis and trans people alike. Many national health and anti-sexual assault organizations oppose these bills.

Old Bills:

Tennessee sent bill SB0468 to the Senate Judiciary Committee for amendment yesterday.

Arizona passed bill SB1003 through a House floor vote yesterday and sent it for its final House vote.

Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender-affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm.

Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted.

Old Bill:

Texas placed bill SB1257 on the Senate Intent Calendar today.

Drag Bans restrict access for folks who are gender non-conforming in any way.

They loosely define "drag" as any public performance with an “opposite gender expression,” as sexual in nature, and inappropriate for children.

This also pushes trans individuals out of public spaces.

Old Bill:

Montana passed bill HB446 through its second House reading last week and scheduled it for a third reading today.

Educational Censorship and Student Suppression bills force schools to misgender or deadname students, ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make schools alert parents if they suspect a child is trans.

They remove life-saving affirmation and support for trans youth.

Old Bills:

Tennessee’s Senate concurred with the House version of bill SB0937 yesterday and sent it to the governor.

Arizona passed bill SB1002 through a House floor vote yesterday and sent it for its final House vote.

Florida placed bill S1618 on the Senate floor calendar for vote on April 24.

Trans Erasure bills create legal definitions of terms like “sex” designed to exclude or erase trans identity and insert them into various laws. This can have many different effects, depending on what laws are affected.

They can force a male or female designation based on sex assigned at birth.

Some target anti-discrimination statutes, legally empowering trans discrimination.

Old Bill:

North Dakota passed bill HB1181 yesterday and sent it to the governor.

Digital Censorship Bills describe any legislation that potentially targets Queer and Trans media/material for removal.

They typically do this by using vague and broad definitions of "Obscene" or "Harmful to Minors" and then banning such content from being accessible to minors, which often either removes the material entirely or requires age verification methods in order to view.

This includes online censorship bills, library book bans, and other such legislation.

Old Bill:

North Dakota sent bill SB2307 to the governor last Friday.

Most sports bills force schools to designate teams by sex assigned at birth.

They are often one-sided and ban trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Some egregious bills even force invasive genital examinations on student athletes.

Old Bills:

Illinois added a co-sponsor to bill HB4027 today.

Illinois added a co-sponsor to bill SB2079 yesterday.

These are other anti-trans bills that either fit multiple categories or stand on their own.

Old Bills:

Indiana sent bill HB1412 to the governor yesterday.

Oklahoma passed bill SB658 through its House committee yesterday and sent it to the House floor.

It's not too late to stop these and other hateful anti-trans bills from passing into law. YOU can go to http://transformationsproject.org/ to learn more and contact your representatives!

#transgender #lgbtq #trans #activism #lgbt #protect trans kids #trans formations project #anti trans legislation #trans rights

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californiastatelibrary · 28 days ago

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Today kicks of National Library Week! What draws people to the library? Everything! From books and digital resources to job assistance and creative programming, libraries are essential to thriving communities.

National Library Week, April 6–12, 2025, is a time to celebrate the many ways libraries bring people together, spark imagination, and support lifelong learning.

#california #libraries #national library week

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49436 · 4 months ago

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Taking on @batmanisagatewaydrug 's 2025 Book Bingo (along with my wife & housemate, so it's now on our fridge. Taking me back to summer reading lists from the library)

I tend to work down my to-read list in order, unless there's something I really want to get to, so most of this list is 'what's the first thing I'll hit that fills the criteria'. But some books earn the right to skip the line, for one reason or another.

Going for a full board, which means actual bingo might take a minute lol

List below-

Literary Fiction - TBD

Short Story Collection - Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Chain-Gang All Stars was on my top 10 from 2024 so even though short stories and I don't tend to get along, this one I'm excited about. Will also try Drinking From Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu

Sequel - Either A Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik or Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao. A matter of which one I get first; My library doesn't have physical copies of Heavenly Tyrant yet, and my wife owns all of Temeraire, so it might win.

Childhood Favorite - Might be Watership Down by Richard Adams, which is always a banger, but I reread Watership just a couple years ago, so it might be The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander instead, which I read many times with my mom and still have the whole series of.

20th Century Speculative Fiction - TBD

Fantasy - A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson. I read so much fantasy, BUT I already have A Taste Of Honey on my side table. So here we are.

Published Pre-1950 - The Iliad (and The Odyssey) translated by Emily Wilson. Heard a lot of noise about her translation, and haven't read these two since... idk but it's been over a decade. Also going to hop on the Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier train.

Indie Publisher - The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. I read a LOT of indie publishers and Jemisin if one of my all-time favorite writers. I've been putting off this series for a time I can really get into it and burn down all three.

Graphic Novel - Dorohedoro by Q Hyashida. Currently on volume 8, will probably finish the series in the next week or two. Love love love Hyashida's work

Animal on the cover - Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. Despite my aforementioned childhood obsession with Watership Down I never got around to Plague Dogs. Looking forward to it!

Set in a country I've never visited - TBD

Sci-Fi - Another genre I'll read a thousand of in a year. Currently I have Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie on my side table (which I fear may be mid, but time will tell) I'm also VERY excited to read The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

2025 Debut Author - TBD

Memoir - Love Is An Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar. Memoirs aren't usually my thing, but this one made it's way onto my to-read list last year so this is good motivation.

Zine - TBD. Browsing all the other posts from people doing this challenge for recs

Essay Collection - How To Read Now by Elaine Castillo. Literally the only essay collection on my to-read list and it jump scared me. Thought for sure this would a TBD, but How To Read Now should be interesting.

2024 Award Winner - TBD. Will trawl award lists when I have time

Non-Fiction - Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami by Gretel Ehrlich. Specifically chose something that doesn't also count as social justice/activism, which is most of my non-fiction reads. I've found a real appreciation for good non-fiction the last few years (Everyone go read Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox). Learning stuff is cool!

Social Justice/Activism - Everything you Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America by Vegas Tenold. Excited for this one.

Romance - TBD. Tend to read romance that's also another genre (romantasy side eye at myself) so I've inevitably got one on my list. But maybe Akwaeke Emezi will write another romance and sweep me off my feet.

Recipe - Steak wrap pinwheels. My wife has been watching Food Truck Race (lol. lmao even) and one of the contestants made these. Stealing the idea with impunity.

Horror - Fever House by Keith Rosson. I've got a rich vein of horror novels on my to-read list, but this will be one of the first.

Published in the Aughts - TBD I'm old. I read of lot of 00's work.

Historical Fiction - Velvet Was The Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Is the 70's historical? I think the 70's is historical now. One of the final 3 books of Moreno-Garcia's I haven't read, and she's never let me down. Might read another Phryne Fisher Mystery or two as well, because they're quick and fun.

Librarian recommendation - TBD. I love my library and there's a few librarians who know me, will have to ask their opinions. Talking to a person! Not just taking one off the recommended shelf! Wild!

#books books books

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carusolikey · 3 months ago

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So You Want to Fight Fascism?

A handy compilation of resources and guides for getting through a pathetic attempt at suppressing the American spirit of Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness.

As I remain on the path of intentional civil disobedience, I will continue to add sources as I receive / come across them. This will be a dynamic document, constantly updating. Please feel free to share it wide and far and remember, that we are stronger together.

Let's get started!

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (Declassified) by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services

Written during WWII as a means of helping everyday people fight fascism by clogging up the system in simple ways, this guide was declassified by the CIA in 2008. It's now currently available to download for free, via Project Gutenberg.

Upcoming Protests

Advice for Protesting, From an Aging Anarchist

The Protesters' Guide to Smartphone Security

Protests Week of February 3, 2025 @ OPM in DC

February 6th, 11 a.m. - USAid Protest @ US State Dept. in DC

February 6th, 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m. @ Savannah, GA

February 6th, 5 p.m. @ University of Washington Campus

February 6th, 1 p.m. @ University of Minnesota, MN

February 6th, 3 p.m. @ 24th & L Streets, Omaha, NE

Additional Upcoming Protests

February 7th - 15th, 2025

February 16th - May 1st, 2025

50 Protests, 50 States, 1 Day

The Official Website for Future Protests

The General Strike

Historical Significance of the 3.5% Rule in Peaceful Protests

Articles & Reading Material to Defy Fascism

The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide

In January 2017, after being published as a series of spontaneous tweets, this Guide went viral in the US and many other countries, being translated into several languages, from Turkish to Filipino. It was printed on placards during anti-Trump protests, studied at two American universities, quoted by CNBC’s Joy Reid on national TV and recommended by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

Each tweet ended with their trademark signature, “- With love, your Eastern European friends”, and the accompanying hashtag #LearnFromEurope.

On Tyranny - Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Free download of Timothy Snyder's social and political playbook, offering small but significant steps individuals can take to resist autocratic rule.

The Logic of Destruction & How to Resist It

A follow up to On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder.

Robert Reich's Guide for Resisting Neofascism

A top ten list of everyday things to do to protect the vulnerable, organize boycotts, and keep fighting, while continuing to find the joy in the humanity, the bravery, the indefatigable spirit of America.

Starting Somewhere: Community Organizing for Socially Awkward People Who've Had Enough

This book offers readers a crash course in organizing, educating, and agitating in the 21st Century. Written with a mix of incriminating anecdotes, personal retellings, and historical examples, "Starting Somewhere" is a first-person look at radical community organizing for misfits and outcasts committed to saving this planet for some inexplicable reason.

Evaluating Resources & Misinformation

The CRAAP Test is an evaluation method that was designed by librarian Sarah Blakeslee at the Meriam Library California State Universiy, Chico. CRAAP stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy and Purpose. This provides you with a method and list of questions to evaluate the nature and value of the information that you find.

Resources for Civil Servants

Civil Service Strong, a Project by Democracy Forward

People, organizations, and communities across the country are joining together to ensure our civil servants have resources if they are targeted or attacked. Check back as resources come online and for monitoring of threats to the civil service. And, see some of the essential available resources, centralized for the first time.

Hold the Line, Know Your Rights Flyer

Independently created fact sheet based in part on resources compiled by Civil Service Strong. Additional and updated information at civilservicestrong.org (Updated Jan 30, 2025)

The Justice Connection

Justice Connection is moving as quickly as we can to build a network of DOJ alumni who will provide employees with practical support, including:

Legal services in connection with employees’ current or past official position

Help to employees who’ve been doxed or harassed online

Whistleblowing guidance

Job-search assistance for those who feel like they need to leave the Department, or are forced out

We’ll also stand up for DOJ employees and combat the pernicious “deep state” narrative in Congress, and in the public square. And we’ll be responsive to DOJ employees’ evolving needs in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions

This public resource tracks legal challenges to Trump administration actions. If you think we are missing anything, you can email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to Just Security Student Staff Editors, Rick Da and Jeremy Venook, and to Matthew Fouracre.

The Tracker is part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions

The Tracker was first published on Jan. 29, 2025 and is continually updated.

How Do We Live Up to Our Oath?

We swore an oath. Foreign and domestic. That oath feels so hollow right now as it seems we’re stripped of any agency to fight this. I reached out my representative and senators. I’m sharing what I’m seeing with friends and family. None of it feels like it’s anywhere near enough.

Be a good witness.

Things like:

Who directed the action

What you were told

When they directed the action

When you were instructed to perform the action

Where you put things / did things

Preserve original if changing things

There are no “off the record” conversations. Only conversations you make extra notes for. Be a keeper of the facts.

Why? Good people may ask you to do things, and you may have to do them, but understand at some point in the future there will be people trying to fix what was broken or destroyed, and prosecute those that recklessly broke our laws.

When the time comes it will help both efforts. It may also be the only protection available when people look for others to blame.

I'm not a lawyer. You make your own choices, but if you find yourself in shock and uncertain what to do, at least be the best witness you can be in the moment. - u/MuchAppresch

Support Civil Servants as a Civilian

Donate to Unions Pushing Back Against Musk & Trump:

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Reproductive Health Care

Auntie's Medicine Cabinet

Planning Parenthood

Don't Even Get Me Started

When it's time to Plan for C

You've Got Mail - (but don't store it anywhere steamy)

Las Libres - (keep it cool - Article about Las Libres)

Your Auntie misses you. Send her a message, schedule a visit.

Get A CLU - Papa Don't Preach

CDC Reproductive Health Documents

Jessica Valenti of Abortion, Every Day, has been working to download documents that have been deleted on the CDC's website relating to sexual health, intimate partner violence, and reproductive rights. The information has been archived at the link above, and if you'd like to reach out to assist in the continued effort, or provide support, click here. There are currently many people working to preserve data from the CDC, as well as rogue members of the CDC.

CDC Data Hoarding Courtesty of r/datahoarding:

CDC Main, Preserved January 19, 2025

CDC HIV Info, Preserved January 18, 2025

CDC Reproductive Health Info, Preserved December 20, 2024

CDC Adolescent & School Health Info, Preserved January 14, 2025

CDC Injury & Violence Prevention Info, Preserved January 14, 2025

Support for Immigrants

Immigrant Legal Resource Center & National Immigration Law Center

Family Preparedness Plan

Know Your Rights

Printable Red Card in Multiple Languages

ACLU - Know Your Rights

People Over Papers

Anonymous ICE Sightings

Find Strength Through Community

Don't Believe Him - NYT OP-ED, by Ezra Klein

Is Somebody Doing Something?!, by Jay Kuo

Issues to Call Your Lawmakers Regarding

Find Your Senator Find Your Representative

5 Calls

5 Calls makes it easy for you to reach your members of Congress and make your voice heard.

We research issues, write scripts that clearly articulate a progressive position, thus taking the anxiety out of making your calls, figure out the most influential decision-makers, and collect phone numbers for their offices.

All you have to do is call.

OPM Memo - RE: Defending Women

Summary: "...providing the following initial guidance to agencies regarding the President’s Executive Order entitled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Defending Women)." Interpretation: ✌🏻Truth✌🏻, but not facts. Likely to be weaponized against women, non-binary, trans, and intersex people.

Musk Aides Lock Federal Workers Out of Computer Systems at U.S. Agency

Summary: Article is here. What Musk did is extremely illegal. He and his aides have no business hooking up outside tech to government technology, allowing them access to citizens' dates of birth, Social Security numbers, home addresses, income, government workers' information. This tech allows them to read federal workers' emails and spy in other insidious ways, presumably to ferret out anyone who's not unquestioningly loyal.

David Lebryk Denied Musk Access at U.S. Treasury, Abruptly Departs Position

Summary: "David Lebryk, a career civil servant who oversaw the more than one billion payments that the federal government makes every year, was placed on administrative leave this week after resisting requests from Mr. Musk’s lieutenants... Mr. Musk has been fixated on the Treasury system as a key to cutting federal spending. Representatives from his government efficiency initiative began asking Mr. Lebryk about source code information related to the nation’s payment system during the presidential transition in December... Mr. Lebryk raised the request to Treasury officials at the time, noting that it was the type of proprietary information that should not be shared with people who did not work for the federal government. Members of the departing Biden administration were alarmed by the request.." Elon has not been confirmed for any position within the government, DOGE is not a real department, he has absolutely zero clearance, and has taken no oath of office, unlike the many federal employees currently working to protect our government from threats both foreign and domestic. Tell your lawmakers that he needs to go, STAT.

USAID security officials — John Voorhees and deputy Brian McGill, Placed On Leave After Denying Access to Musk

Summary: "...the administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams... DOGE, eventually did gain access Saturday to the aid agency’s classified information, which includes intelligence reports... It comes a day after DOGE carried out a similar operation at the Treasury Department, gaining access to sensitive information including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems... USAID, whose website vanished Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government and many of its programs." No. Again, Elon has no business in those offices, amongst classified files - he is a threat to national security, and we all know he just wants to drain the national coffers for his own means. Get him out of there.

Senator Chris Van Hollen Wants to Hear From You

Summary: Senator Van Hollen has a direct link to contact his offices about how Trump's Executive Orders are affecting you, if you live in the State of Maryland. Help him fight back against this authoritarian kakistocracy by providing your personal feedback.

The Heritage Foundation's Definition of "Pro-Woman Feminism"

Summary: If you can suffer through this, it praises the feminism of women in 1848, of Antebellum. It's a Christofascist love letter to the subjugation of women, that honestly, I found myself skipping through because it was so disgusting. When you get to the bottom and discover that it was written by a woman, Erika Bachiochi, who describes herself as, "Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Senior Fellow, Abigail Adams Institute, and Author," you might do a spit take. I know I did. Even better, when I perused her "sources" for the article, most of them were pre-1900's, some of them were even 1400-1500's, and a good chunk of them? Her own writings. She used herself as her sources multiple times. Is that good research? Is it? Really? That all of your sources are pre-1900's and the other ones are you, when it comes to defining current feminism? And she had the audacity to besmirch Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the first feminist writers. Bitch, please, GTFO.

United States Renewed Membership in the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family

Cool! We're back in the Geneva Convention, yay! Hold up - check that wording again. Geneva Consensus. Not the same thing at all. Summary: The Declaration has four main objectives: to secure meaningful health and development gains for women; to protect life at all stages; to defend the family as the fundamental unit of society; and to work together across the UN system to realize these values. Allow me to translate: It's a Global Gag Rule and that's a bad thing.

H.R. - Life at Conception (National Abortion Ban)

Summary: Sniveling piece of shit, Eric Burlison (R-MO), introduced this legislation to ban abortion nationally, after his home state of Missouri voted to legalize abortion. Bitter much? Tell him to suck it, and tell your lawmakers they better not.

H.R. 7 - Life Affirming Medical Care for Women

Summary: Extremely offensive resolution attempting to medically regulate women's bodies - could also have implications for the trans community, amongst others. This wording is especially concerning: "Whereas health care for women should also address the needs of men, families, and communities as they relate to women’s health care;" This resolution can catch itself on fire and go back to hell, where it was originally written.

Call or Email the Smithsonian Directly - LGBTQIA2S+ Activism

Summary: Cuban-born queer artist Felix González-Torres piece called "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), a pile of shiny candies in a museum gallery that beckons the observer to grab and eat one, comes with this description: "This is González-Torres's unconventional portrait of his partner, Ross Laycock, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. The candies' combined weight, 175 pounds, corresponds to Laycock's ideal weight before he got ill. Visitors are invited to sample the sweets. As the candy disappears, the pile shrinks in mass and weight, reenacting the debilitating effects of Laycock's illness." This article describes the piece: "When I understood the profound meaning of this installation as an AIDS memorial, and realized how, as the museum keeps replenishing the pile, Felix is giving his partner eternal life, I burst into tears, experiencing the transformative power of art. Felix, who died from AIDS complications in 1996, invites the viewer to participate in his works, which combine a minimalistic aesthetic with a very personal and political stance imbued with identities tied to race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic and immigrant status." But when they viewed the exhibit in DC in December 2024, the candy was laid out in a line, without the context of the description as a portrait, erasing the history of the AIDS epidemic and a big part of LBGTQIA2S+ history.

Digital Security Checklist for Activists

Plain language steps for digital security. For protecting yourself and helping keep your whole community safer.

While this has some good advice, some of the browsers / email options mentioned may have issues. I'm still looking into it. It seems that Firefox is the go-to from most tech resources. Will update as I get additional info.

Google to Change Gulf of Mexico

On Google Maps:

1. Search “Gulf of America” 2. If you find one, scroll down, select “Edit” 3. Select “Place is closed or not here” 4. Select “Does not exist here” OR “Offensive, harmful, or misleading” OR “Other” 5. Select “Submit”

To add “Gulf of Mexico”:

1. Drop a pin 📍 in the Gulf of Mexico 2. In the menu that appears, select “add a missing place” 3. Fill in the form starting with place name, “Gulf of Mexico” 4. For category, select “Outdoors and recreation”, then “Historical 5. Landmark” OR “Park” OR “Tourist Attraction” 6. For “Located Within” leave blank or fill in “Earth” OR “Northern and Western Hemisphere”, etc. 7. Add more details if so inclined, pertaining to the Gulf of Mexico. 8. Add some photo-ops. 9. Submit.*

*Feel free to submit as many times as you like, anywhere you like within the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a small protest, but hopefully one that will annoy Google, Drump, and Melon. Especially if a lot of people do this. You can also apply this method to Denali.

Please let me know if you have anything that deserves to be added to this list. Obviously, fascists DNE.

The WINS

This section is dedicated to the good news - to knowing that every little thing we do to push back matters.

Women win court ruling blocking Trump’s order to house trans women in men’s prisons

Trump's transphobic order is now blocked nationwide, thanks to three trans inmates and an LGBTQ+ advocacy org. A district judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to forcibly de-transition and house transgender female inmates in male jails and prisons, calling Trump’s order a violation of Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The judge’s order is the second recent legal ruling in favor of trans inmates who oppose Trump’s order, and it applies to all trans inmates nationwide, The Hill reported.

House Dem Proposes Bill Named After Musk Ending Federal Contracts for Special Government Employees

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wash.) introduced a bill Wednesday named Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy (ELON MUSK) Act seeking to ban special government employees from obtaining federal contracts. “Elon Musk gets more than $20 billion in contracts from the US government and bought his way into a new role in the government where he can direct even more money to himself. Enough,” Pocan wrote in a post on the social platform X, which Musk owns. ”My new bill, the ELON MUSK Act, will end this grift!” Here's hoping, Mark. Here's hoping.

#anti-fascism #activism #resistance #u.s. politics #pro-choice #immigrants make america amazing #reproductive choice #reproductive health #trans lives matter #lgbtqia2s+ rights #black lives matter #anti-genocide is not a character flaw #Greenland is not for sale #we are stronger together #Panama canal belongs to Panama - Period #Enough with the Tariffs Already #Someone Please Take His Sharpie Away

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 month ago

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Mike Luckovich

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 20, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 21, 2025

It seems as if the Trump administration is rushing to tear apart as much as it can as opponents of its wholesale destruction of the United States government organize to stop them.

Today, members of the “Department of Government Efficiency” team showed up at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which helps to fund libraries and museums across the country and whose elimination Trump called for in an executive order last week. They sent employees home, swore in a new acting director in the lobby, and proceeded to cancel contracts and grants.

Even as this dismantling was going on, District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander was blocking the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing data at the Social Security Administration and ordering them to destroy copies of any personal information they have already accessed. “The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” Hollander wrote. “It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.”

Also today, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who said the government could not use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify sending migrants to a prison in El Salvador, appeared to be out of patience with the government’s obfuscation of what actually happened in the process of that rendition last weekend. Boasberg’s order today laid out that he had repeatedly asked the government to provide information about the flights but that the government had “evaded its obligations,” providing only general information about the flights and appearing to cast about for further delays.

“This is woefully insufficient,” Boasberg wrote. He required that the government explain by March 25 why its failure to return the flights as ordered did not violate the court order to do so. Far from backing down, the administration appears to be considering escalating its fight with the courts. Devlin Barrett of the New York Times reported today that lawyers in the Trump administration believe the 1798 Alien Enemies Act Trump used to deport migrants also permits federal agents to enter people’s homes without a warrant, an assault on the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

The Trump White House and its MAGA supporters appear to be trying to cement their power to control the government by undermining the rule of law and the judges who are defending it. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt yesterday called Judge Boasberg a “Democrat activist,” although he was originally appointed by President George W. Bush, and badly misrepresented Boasberg’s order. She also attacked Boasberg’s wife for her political donations.

In Talking Points Memo this morning, David Kurtz recorded how MAGA supporters Elon Musk and Laura Loomer have attacked Boasberg’s daughter, and in Rolling Stone, Andrew Perez and Asawin Suebsaeng noted that that the Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi, accused Boasberg of “attempting to meddle in national security,” adding: “This one federal judge thinks he can control foreign policy for the entire country, and he cannot.”

Last month, Vice President J.D. Vance wrote that “[j]udges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” trying to obscure that it is the role of courts to determine whether or not the power the executive is claiming is, in fact, legitimate. On the Fox News Channel, “border czar” Tom Homan said: “I don’t care what the judges think.”

Kurtz noted that Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has promised hearings on the many injunctions against the Trump administration. Kurtz also noted that angry Trump supporters have called in bomb threats against judges who have stood against Trump’s excesses, including Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and have sent anonymous pizza deliveries to the homes of judges and their relatives as a way to demonstrate that “we know where you live.”

Perez and Suebsaeng reported that the White House’s strategy is to “move fast” before courts can stop them. In the end, one source close to the president told them that the president’s ultimate power over judges comes from the fact that they do not command an army, while he does. “Are they going to come and arrest him?” the advisor asked, apparently confident that the answer is no.

The attack of Trump and his MAGA supporters on the courts and the rule of law has illustrated how quickly the United States is sliding from democracy to authoritarianism. “Honest to god, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky told Amanda Taub of the New York Times. Along with his colleague Daniel Ziblatt, Levitsky wrote How Democracies Die. “We look at these comparative cases in the 21st century, like Hungary and Poland and Turkey. And in a lot of respects, this is worse,” Levitsky said. “These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding.”

President Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine the courts, and thus the country’s legal system, appears to have kicked the alarm about the dismantling of the U.S. government into a new phase. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times ran op-eds today from law professors detailing the lawlessness of the Trump administration and warning that the courts will not be able to stop Trump and his administration from their authoritarian takeover of the government.

In the New York Times, Georgetown University professor of law Stephen Vladeck has faith that the courts will try to rein Trump in, while in the Washington Post, Harvard Law School professor Ryan Doerfler and Yale University professor of law and history Samuel Moyn are less convinced that the judges Trump himself appointed will stand against him, but all three of them warn that stopping Trump will require the people to demand “far more aggressive oversight from members of Congress,” as Vladeck puts it. Doerfler and Moyn wrote that “real resistance must take place in Congress, at government workplaces, and in the streets.”

That the courts are in the position of trying to stop a president who is ignoring the Constitution reflects that Republicans in Congress appear to have taken off the table impeachment, the political remedy the Constitution’s framers put into our system for such a crisis.

There has been remarkably little pushback from Republicans about the changes being made to the country in their names, but the news that dropped on March 18 that the administration is considering giving up a key role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has sparked public objection from Republicans who care about the nation’s global role. Since NATO organized, the role of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, known as the SACEUR, has been filled by an American.

Now the Trump administration is considering relinquishing that position as part of a massive restructuring plan that could save up to $270 million of the Defense Department’s $850 billion annual budget, or about 0.03% of it. The U.S. is also considering stopping its expansion and modernization of U.S. Forces Japan, which would save about $1.18 billion, according to Courtney Kube and Gordon Lubold of NBC News, but would weaken the cooperation designed to counter China.

“For the United States to give up the role of supreme allied commander of NATO would be seen in Europe as a significant signal of walking away from the alliance,” retired Admiral James Stavridis, who served as SACEUR and head of European Command from 2009 to 2013, wrote to Kube and Lubold. “It would be a political mistake of epic proportion, and once we give it up, they are not going to give it back. We would lose an enormous amount of influence within NATO, and this would be seen, correctly, as probably the first step toward leaving the Alliance altogether.”

House Armed Services Committee chair Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) issued a joint statement saying they are “very concerned about reports that claim [the Department of Defense] is considering unilateral changes on major strategic issues, including significant reductions to U.S. forces stationed abroad, absent coordination with the White House and Congress. We…will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress,” they wrote. “Such moves risk undermining American deterrence around the globe and detracting from our negotiating positions with America’s adversaries.”

Their concerns about protecting their power to have a say in U.S. foreign policy and to make sure that policy serves the American people are unlikely to be assuaged by events tonight.

Eric Schmitt, Eric Lipton, Julian E. Barnes, Ryan Mac, and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that the Pentagon has scheduled a briefing tomorrow for billionaire Elon Musk on the U.S. military’s top-secret plans for any potential war with China. As the reporters noted, this information includes “some of the nation's most closely guarded military secrets.” Musk’s largest Tesla factory is located in China—Chinese lenders contributed $2.8 billion to it—and as Joshua Keating of Vox explained two days ago, China is the only EV market where Tesla sales are continuing to increase. Keating also pointed to a Financial Times report that Chinese investors have been funneling money into Musk’s other businesses.

After the New York Times story broke, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said: “The Defense Department is excited to welcome Elon Musk to the Pentagon on Friday. He was invited by Secretary Hegseth and is just visiting.” About an hour later, the reporters note, he posted on X: “This is 100% Fake News. Just brazenly & maliciously wrong. Elon Musk is a patriot. We are proud to have him at the Pentagon.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth chimed in: “This is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans.’ It’s an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production. Gonna be great!”

Then Trump added: “The Fake News is at it again, this time the Failing New York Times. They said, incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential ‘war with China.’ How ridiculous?’ China will not be even mentioned or discussed. How disgraceful it is that the discredited media can make up such lies. Anyway, the story is completely untrue.”

Shortly after Trump posted, Alexander Ward and Nancy A. Youssef of the Wall Street Journal confirmed the story, adding that their sources told them that Musk had asked for the briefing. They also reminded readers that Musk “has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close partner of China, the country that has supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Minnesota governor Tim Walz told Rachel Maddow tonight he was “speechless.” “I don’t know how to convey…how far out of the norm this is…. These are closely guarded secrets because our national and our global defense depends upon them…. I don’t understand where…are the Republicans? Where are Lindsay Grahams? Where are these people who know how this works? To not be terrified of where this is at…. Sharing our most guarded secrets on global conflict with a truly unstable private citizen who has no authority…. This is chilling…. Republican senators need to put a stop to this and pull this back.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Mike Luckovich #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From an American #Government #the US Government #hostile takeover #House Armed Services Committee #MAGA attack on the courts #Rule of Law #judges #politics #resist

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 3 months ago

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By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Feb 1, 2025

I do not much like the destruction of books. As a form of protest, it conjures sinister images from the past, most notably the Pathé news reels of brownshirts and students gathered around a pyre in Berlin’s Opernplatz under the watchful eye of Joseph Goebbels. The Nazis had raided libraries, universities and other private collections to harvest works by political dissidents, sexologists, “degenerate” artists and any others deemed to be “un-German”. Books by Left-wing authors such as Karl Marx, Bertolt Brecht and Rosa Luxemburg were publicly incinerated, along with fictional works by the likes of Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce. This was philistinism in its purest form.

The symbolism of a burning book is, therefore, the repudiation of the very notion of freedom. And yet this same freedom means that we must be able to burn books if we so desire. The Nazis, of course, were destroying the property of others, an authoritarian act designed to eliminate whole branches of thought. This is not to be conflated with an individual who chooses to vandalise his or her own property. The trans activists who burn J.K. Rowling’s books and post the footage online are making fools of themselves, but they are also exercising their right to do so in a free society.

This is a distinction worth bearing in mind when we consider the murder of anti-Islam campaigner Salwan Momika, an Iraqi man who had been awaiting a verdict in Sweden for the crime of “agitation against an ethnic or national group”. Momika had publicly burned a number of copies of the Quran during the summer of 2023. He was shot dead during or just before a live stream on TikTok at his home in Södertälje on Wednesday. The details are as of yet unclear, but there are suggestions that the assassination may have involved a foreign power.

Momika had been granted temporary residence in Sweden in 2018, although his frustration with his adopted country’s lacklustre commitment to freedom of speech led him to seek asylum in Norway in March 2024. After just a few weeks, the Norwegian authorities had him deported back to Sweden. According to Momika, the prosecutor in his trial had been seeking his extradition back to Iraq because of his criticisms of Islam. Back in August, he had posted the following on X: “Sweden and Norway have identified me as a threat to their security. Yes, I am a threat to the Islamization project of the West, which is being pursued by your Leftist communist government that is deceiving the citizens and making the country Islamic. So I have come to awaken the people and thwart the Islamization project of the West, and I will not be afraid of you.”

In cases of this kind, it has become depressingly inevitable that commentators will seek to blame the victim. After the publication of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses in 1988, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa calling for the author’s murder. Instead of taking a united stance against a foreign regime threatening the life of a British citizen, pundits and politicians engaged in endless debates about whether Rushdie had brought this on himself. Crime novelist John Le Carré stated that “there is no law in life or nature that says great religions may be insulted with impunity”, and that “there is no absolute standard of free speech in any society”. It should go without saying that powerful theocrats do not require protection from the hurtful words of novelists.

Last month was the 10th anniversary of the massacre at the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Initially, world leaders were united in their condemnation of terrorists who had butchered cartoonists for drawing satirical caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. Thousands gathered at vigils and held placards bearing the words “Je Suis Charlie”. PEN America — an organisation devoted to the principle of free expression — created a “courage award” for Charlie Hebdo. That was until dozens of members of PEN, including writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Junot Díaz, signed an open letter in protest. Charlie Hebdo, they claimed, had mocked a “section of the French population that is already marginalized, embattled and victimized”. This was, of course, to misidentify the target. The cartoonists weren’t “punching down” at the Muslim minority, but rather “punching up” at the authoritarianism of institutionalised religion.

We never seem to learn that appeasement of religious extremists only makes them stronger. Our collective failure to take a firm stance for artistic liberty in the Rushdie affair has made it more difficult to uphold the principle today. That Momika was on trial in the first place suggests that Sweden’s commitment to freedom of expression has been subordinated to the creed of multiculturalism. According to the BBC, following Momika’s campaigns in 2023 the Swedish government had “pledged to explore legal means of abolishing protests that involve burning texts in certain circumstances”. Yet Momika’s copies of the Quran were his own property, and he was free to dispose of them as he wished. We might take the view that his method of protest is insensitive or provocative, but in a free society such behaviour is a matter of individual conscience.

The victim-blamers have been predictably vocal. Within hours of the news of Momika’s murder, television personality Bushra Shaikh posted the following on X: “Some of you may disagree but the public desecration of any holy book should be viewed as a hate crime and the offender should face consequences”. She later clarified that by “face consequences” she was not supporting murder, but rather the principle that the “government decides on the punishment”. And yet Shaikh’s logic defeats itself. Her post has been widely interpreted as hate-filled and authoritarian. Does this mean that, if the government were to designate the public advocacy of blasphemy laws a “hate crime”, she would be content to be prosecuted?

Those who endorse authoritarianism, in other words, are laying a trap for themselves. If we look to the state to punish our detractors, where does that leave us when the values of those in power no longer align with our own? Momika has been blamed for the riots and the international diplomatic rows that ensued following his campaigns, but the peaceful protester is not responsible for those who break the law in response. Last summer, the Guardian published a piece that presented his Quran-burning as evidence of a “racism crisis”. One of the Swedish Muslim interviewees was quoted as saying: “I understand you are allowed to think and feel what you want, this is a free country, but there must be boundaries. It’s such a pity that it has happened so many times and Sweden doesn’t seem to learn from its mistakes.”

Those of us who still believe in liberal values will baulk at the suggestion — and the implied threat — in claiming that we are mistaken to support freedom of expression. Moreover, there is nothing racist about burning a copy of the Quran. Islam is a belief-system, not a race. The criminalisation of “Islamophobia” makes about as much sense as prosecuting citizens for “Marxistophobia” or “Freemarketcapitalismophobia”. Had Momika burned a copy of The Communist Manifesto, would there be calls to modify the law to see him incarcerated?

Increasingly, Western societies are pandering to religious zealots who are willing to resort to violence to achieve their aims. Members of the ruling class are undeniably afraid. During Prime Minister’s Questions in November 2024, the Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, Tahir Ali, asked Keir Starmer whether he would establish “measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions”. Starmer replied: “I agree that desecration is awful and should be condemned across the House. We are, as I said before, committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia in all its forms.” A better response would have been: “Blasphemy laws are incompatible with the values of a free country.”

It is undeniably the case that Islamic theocracies are intolerant to dissent, but we have only ourselves to blame if we capitulate to pressure from foreign powers to undermine our commitment to secularism. Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan, for instance, blamed the radicalisation of Islamic terrorists on the French president Emmanuel Macron’s tolerance for the right of citizens to blaspheme against Islam. In October 2020, he tweeted: “President Macron has chosen to deliberately provoke Muslims, incl his own citizens, through encouraging the display of blasphemous cartoons targeting Islam & our Prophet PBUH.” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey even cited Momika’s Quran-burning in an attempt to scupper Sweden’s bid to join Nato in 2023.

But blasphemy only makes sense to the faithful. Stéphane Charbonnier (known as “Charb”), the cartoonist and editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo who was among the victims of the 2015 atrocity, addressed this point in an “open letter” completed just two days before his death. “God is only sacred to those who believe in him,” he wrote. “If you wish to insult or offend God, you have to be sure that he exists… In France, a religion is nothing more than a collection of texts, traditions, and customs that it is perfectly legitimate to criticize. Sticking a clown nose on Marx is no more offensive or scandalous than popping the same schnoz on Muhammad.”=

This is the spirit of secularism — the French tradition of laïcité — that other countries in the western world should emulate. The problem is not the complaints from those who seek the implementation of sharia in democratic nations, but those in power who fail to reject such demands unequivocally. The murder of Salwan Momika should be a wake-up call for the West. Continued appeasement will only guarantee further bloodshed. For all the short-term risks of defending free speech, our long-term security depends upon it.

"Why can't you just comply with our authoritarian religious codes?"

Because you want me to. Your religious codes are for you, not me.

This is literally terrorism. We are supposed to be afraid of what will happen to us if we don't submit to Islamic totalitarianism. That is reason enough to not just resist, but actively oppose and defy Islamic totalitarian demands.

#Andrew Doyle #Salwan Momika #islam #islamic violence #this is islam #quran #quran burning #islamic terrorism #blasphemy #blasphemy laws #Charlie Hebdo #religion #religion is a mental illness

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terrainofheartfelt · 27 days ago

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What's up nerds [affectionate] in the US it is National Library Week and today is Right to Read Day which means it is a great time to check out some banned books and call your representatives xoxoxo

#kick censorship right in dick

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cozypunkprints · 2 months ago

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2024 reading recap

(Yes I know we’re 3 months into 2025 leave me alone)

I think I’m going to start blogging about the books I read as a way to keep myself accountable to actually read more. I’ve unfortunately fallen victim to That Darn Phone in recent years. The middle schooler who read a stack of fantasy novels a week would be ashamed of me.

In 2024 I read 29 books, including re-reads.

I did a lot of re-reading this year. 16, or 55% of the books I read in 2024 were re-reads. Going to try to read more new-to-me books in 2025.

In 2024 I read 9 Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, or 29% of my total books, 6 of which were re-reads.

I also re-read 4 Murderbot novels by Martha Wells and read the new one twice, and re-read all three The Locked Tomb books by Tamsyn Muir.

2 of the books I read in 2024 were nonfiction (a measly 7%) and one was a graphic novel. All the rest were fiction novels. Going forward, I should really read more non-fiction.

Favorites from 2024:

Piranesi by Susanna Clark (re-read)

I check this out every summer break from my local library. One of my favorite books of all time. Equal parts haunting and comforting, I absolutely devour it every time I read it. It feels deeply reductive to describe it as dark academia, as it’s so much more than that, but I guess it’s dark academia?

Hail Mary by Andy Weir (re-read)

This and the Martian are two of my favorite sci-fi novels. I hear we’re getting puppet practical effects Rocky in the movie and I’m tentatively excited.

The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins

A fast paced and tense yet tender novel about a world post climate-disaster and post hard-won recovery. This novel sort of subverts the classic “teenagers save the world” story by painting a searing portrait of what saving the world costs, as well as its aftermath. The novel cuts back and forth between Emi Vargas, born post climate-crisis into what seems like a utopia, albeit an imperfect one, and her parents experiences and sacrifices during the great transition. When the past collides with the present, Emi’s family is in danger of being torn apart. A portrait of generational trauma, enormous prices, and a world that will never truly be fixed but is still worth fighting for. Anyone who likes solar-punk, eco-punk, or is just in need of some hope that doesn’t feel like toxic positivity should read this.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Classic, beautiful, sad queer novel about butch identity and resilience. What else is there to say that hasn’t been said far better by someone else? Everyone queer should read this novel, especially lesbians. Next year: more queer non-fiction and more books by non-white lesbians.

The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler

One of the non-fiction books I read this year. It’s about the literacy problem in America, and makes a case for high-content curriculum as a solution. An interesting look at education inequality and the flaws of American public schools. I found it really validating for a lot of the things I either experienced in public school or saw my sibling experience. A lot of it is sort of insider-baseball-y literacy theory (I only picked it up because my mother, a dyslexia tutor, had it lying around.) However I think that made it a good reminder of just how complicated literally everything is. Behind every system you can think of is a whole world of theory and practice and people who have put their whole lives into making this one part of society work. In a time when our public institutions are under attack, that’s a very important reminder. It’s a fairly quick and readable read and quite interesting.

Against the Grain: a deep history of the earliest states by James C Scott

The other non-fiction book I read. Against the grain is about new evidence regarding the rise of agriculture and the accompanying rise of inequality and the nation state. While dry at times, it makes a pretty good argument agains the idea of oppression and inequality as natural and inevitable states of humanity. This is the only book on this list that I read for a class.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

This was my favorite discworld novel of the year. I had read part of it when I first got into Pratchett and was too young to really click with it. This time I got the hype. Holy shit did I get the hype. This is both a very fun and humorous adventure and a sincere manifesto against corporate greed and for public services, in the form of a fantasy world’s defunct post office. Also did anyone else catch that the greedy con-man idiot has his office in Tump Tower? Seriously can’t recommend this one enough, and you should be able to get into it without reading any other disc world.

Honorable mentions:

Nimona by ND Stevenson

The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo (seriously so lovely and super quick reads)

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Previously mentioned Pratchett, Wells, and Muir. I wouldn’t have re-read them if they didn’t absolutely slap.

Wasn’t sure about:

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

Definitely beautifully written at times, though not the type of highbrow literary-fiction poetry-prose I usually go in for. It’s a story about a girl who’s sent to earth by aliens to report back. On the one hand, it’s definitely doing “autistic/queer coded character is an alien/robot” very hard. On the other hand it seems very self aware and deliberate about that? As an autistic who felt like an alien, the portrait it painted of profound loneliness and isolation felt very real to me. Maybe a little too real, and it wasn’t necessarily a hopeful story. I really really wasn’t sure how to feel about the ending. Overall worth reading and quite memorable, but it could definitely be triggering for some people, so be careful. I’m sure there’s a list of trigger warnings out there somewhere, and if not, message me and I’ll do my best.

Didn’t love:

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armsfield

I see this one get so much hype, and it has every element and theme that should have made it a hit for me. And yet, it just didn’t speak to me. There were definitely elements that were memorable and it’s not a bad book by any means, but the main character and her relationship to her wife just didn’t compel me. I think if we’d spent more time with Leah pre-eldritch horror I’d have been more invested. Idk.

Anyway, apologies for the crazy long post. This probably isn’t interesting to anyone except me but tumblr is kind of the social-media-as-diary website so who cares.

Going forward I’m going to review books as I read them. If you’ve read any of these and want to chat/discuss I’m very open to that, especially ones that don’t have a big fandom on tumblr.

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spine-label-bracket · 4 months ago

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We here at spine-label-bracket seek to find the best spine label genre sticker available for use in public libraries in the United States, from an arbitrary set of labels that aren't used in the public library where we work. But we need you! Which sticker is the best? Which is the most exciting, evocative, immediately recognizable, nostalgic, or funny? We invite you to contemplate these humble labels. Our askbox is open for questions, concerns, suggestions, thoughts, &c.; if you have a fond memory of browsing your local library's labeled book spines, please share! Read below the cut for bracket outline and posting dates for the first round.

[Blog avatar is the national library symbol, via the American Library Association, and familiar to many from street signs; CC BY-NC-SA.]

Round 1!

The first four categories will go live next week, and then the second four the week after.

(January 5 - January 11, 2025) Comics Brodart "Manga" vs. The Library Store "Manga" Demco "Comics" vs. Brodart "Graphic Novels"

Romance Demco "Paranormal Romance" vs. Brodart "Paranormal Romance" Demco "Romance (rose)" vs. Demco "Modern Romance"

Young Adult Brodart "Teen" vs. Demco "Teen" Demco "Modern Young Adult" vs. Brodart "Young Adult"

Western & Adventure The Library Store "Western" vs. Demco "Western (cactus)" Demco "Flare Adventure" vs. Brodart "Adventure"

(January 12 - January 18, 2025) Horror Demco "Silhouette Horror" vs. Demco "Retro Horror" The Library Store "Horror" vs. Brodart "Horror"

Mystery Demco "Mystery" vs. Brodart "Crime" Demco "Retro Mystery" vs. Demco "Mystery (footprints)"

Sci-Fi Demco "Science Fiction (Red/White)" vs. Demco "Science Fiction"

Fantasy Demco "Flare Fantasy" vs. The Library Store "Fantasy" Brodart "Fantasy (black)" vs. Demco "Fantasy (wizard)"

#this is the royal we haha this blog is run by tumblr user girderednerve known library wonk :)#public libraries #tumblr bracket

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transformationsproject · 1 month ago

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Today’s Legislative Updates April 3, 2025

Trans rights are still under attack in the United States. Please visit our website linked below to learn about your state and contact your reps. Here's a thread of today's updates:

Bathroom bills deny access to public restrooms by gender or trans identity.

They increase danger without making anyone any safer and have even prompted attacks on cis and trans people alike. Many national health and anti-sexual assault organizations oppose these bills.

Old Bills:

Arkansas sent bill SB486 to the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday.

Tennessee deferred any action on bill HB0571 until next week on April 9.

Idaho’s governor signed bill H0264 yesterday. This bill goes into effect on July 1.

Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender-affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm.

Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted.

Old Bills:

Arkansas’ House amended bill HB1916 yesterday and sent it for a third House reading.

Georgia’s House passed bill SB185 yesterday and sent it to the Senate for approval. If approved, the bill will go to the governor next.

Georgia passed bill SB39 through its committee yesterday and sent it to the House floor.

Texas left bill HB778 pending in its committee yesterday.

Texas passed bill SB1257 through its committee yesterday and sent it to the Senate floor.

They remove life-saving affirmation and support for trans youth.

Old Bills:

Tennessee deferred any action on bill HB1270 until next week on April 9.

Tennessee removed bill HB1262 from the Education Committee calendar yesterday. This bill is likely dead.

Tennessee’s Senate passed bill SB0937 yesterday and sent it to the House.

Texas’ Senate passed an amended bill SB689 yesterday and sent it to the House.

Mississippi’s Senate approved the conference committee version of bill HB1193 yesterday and sent it to the governor.

They can force a male or female designation based on sex assigned at birth.

Some target anti-discrimination statutes, legally empowering trans discrimination.

New Bill:

Maine filed trans erasure bill LD1432 last Tuesday. This bill seeks to remove gender identity as a protected class.

Old Bills:

Tennessee deferred any action on bill HB1271 until next session yesterday. This bill is likely dead.

Texas’ Senate passed an amended bill SB406 yesterday and sent it to the House.

Digital Censorship Bills describe any legislation that potentially targets Queer and Trans media/material for removal.

This includes online censorship bills, library book bans, and other such legislation.

Old Bill:

Iowa classified bill HF864 as unfinished business yesterday. This bill is likely dead.

Most sports bills force schools to designate teams by sex assigned at birth.

They are often one-sided and ban trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Some egregious bills even force invasive genital examinations on student athletes.

Old Bill:

Alaska added a co-sponsor for bill HB40 yesterday.

These are other anti-trans bills that either fit multiple categories or stand on their own.

Old Bills:

Arkansas’ House amended bill HB1615 yesterday and sent it for a third House reading.

Texas sent bill HB4425 to the House State Affairs Committee yesterday.

Missouri passed bill SB272 through its committee yesterday and sent it to the Senate floor.

North Carolina’s House passed bill H83 yesterday and sent it to the Senate.

It's not too late to stop these and other hateful anti-trans bills from passing into law. YOU can go to http://transformationsproject.org/ to learn more and contact your representatives!

#protect trans kids #trans #activism #lgbtq #transgender #anti trans legislation #lgbt #trans formations project #trans rights

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months ago

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Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 2)

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

This week, I'm serializing the first chapter of my next novel, Picks and Shovels, a standalone Martin Hench novel that drops on Feb 15:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

The book is up for presale on a Kickstarter that features the whole series as print books (with the option of personalized inscriptions), DRM-free ebooks, and a DRM-free audiobook read by Wil Wheaton:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/picks-and-shovels-marty-hench-at-the-dawn-of-enshittification

It's a story of how the first seeds of enshittification were planted in Silicon Valley, just as the first PCs were being born.

Here's part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/09/the-reverend-sirs/#fidelity-computing

And now, onto part two!

Rivka Goldman was the only woman in Sales Group One, this being the group that serviced and supported synagogues and their worshippers. She’d traveled all around the country, sitting down with men who owned garment factories, grocery stores, jewelry stores, delis, and other small businesses, training their “girls” in the use of the Fidelity system. It could handle business correspondence, company books, payroll, and other functions that used to be handled by four or five “girls”—who could all be replaced with just one.

Rivka was the only woman, and often it wasn’t she who made the sale, because the men who owned these businesses talked to other men. It was her male colleagues in Sales Group One who closed those sales and pocketed the commissions, but Rivka never complained.

“She was very good at it,” the rabbi told me. “She had a knack for computers, and for explaining them. The girls she trained, they learned. When they had troubles, they wanted to talk to her.”

Sister Maria-Eva Fernandez led a very large, all-woman team that ran mostly autonomously within Sales Group Two, a group that exclusively serviced parochial schools across the U.S., with a few customers in Central America. She was a product of these schools—she’d graduated from Christ the King in Denver and gone straight from there into the order, doing some student teaching before finding her way to Fidelity Computing via an internal talent search that filtered down to the convent from the archdiocese.

Like Rivka, Sister Maria-Eva was a natural: she could patiently train school administrators, their secretaries, department heads, and even individual teachers on the use of the Fidelity system. A couple of schools—fat with money from wealthy patrons—had bought entire classrooms’ worth of machines, creating programming labs for ambitious high-schoolers, and they were universally a success.

“We valued her, we praised her, we sent her to the national sales conference to lead workshops and share her expertise,” Father Marek said. “She was a star.” He spat the word.

Elizabeth Amelia Shepard Taylor didn’t have to go on a mission, but there was never any question but that she would. Her family had been prominent in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for over a century, and, as the eldest of eleven kids, she had a familial duty to set an example.

She had hoped for a posting in Asia—she’d studied Cantonese and Japanese in high school—but instead she drew San Jose, California. She staffed the Mission House, helping the boys who knocked on doors all day, serving as den mother, big sister, and the object of innumerable crushes.

She’d found a women’s computing club via a notice at the local library and had taken turns with four other women—two her age, and two retirees—prodding at a pair of Commodore PET computers, learning BASIC. Her letters home to her family were filled with the excitement of discovery and mastery, the esoteric world of assembly language that she’d dived into with the help of books and magazines from the library.

When her father heard that Fidelity was recruiting, he wrote her a letter. The same day she’d received it, she’d written a letter to Fidelity Computing Ltd., typing it up on the used ZX80 she’d bought at a swap meet (“for the Mission House”). It arrived at Fidelity in a #10 envelope, three neatly printed pages with the rough edges of fanfold paper that had had its perforations separated. The last page was all code examples.

She was promised a job by return post, starting the day she finished her mission, and she never ended up going back to Salt Lake City—just got a Caltrain train to the Daly City station and met with a Bishop Clarke’s personal assistant, a young man named John Garn who had done his mission in Taipei and chatted with her the whole way to the office in Taiwanese, which she laboriously parsed into Cantonese.

“She whipped Sales Group Three into a powerhouse,” Bishop Clarke said, with a sad shake of his head. “We went from last to first in under a year. Outsold the other two divisions combined, and we were on track to doubling this year.”

The three women had met at the annual sales conference, a huge event that took over the Fort Mason Center for a long weekend. Most of the event was segregated by sales group, but there were plenary sessions, mixers, and keynote addresses from leading sales staff that helped diffuse the winningest tactics across the whole business.

“We think they met in a women’s interfaith prayer circle,” Rabbi Finkel said. Father Marek made another of his disgusted grunts, which were his principal contributions to the conversation. Rabbi Finkel inclined his head a little in the priest’s direction and said, “Not everyone agreed that they were a good idea at first, but the girls loved them, and they created bonds of comity that served them well.”

“We don’t have a lot of turnover,” Rabbi Finkel said. “People like working here. They do well, and they do good. People from our faith communities sometimes feel like the future is passing them by, like their religion is an anchor around their necks, keeping them stuck in the past. A job here is a way to be faithful and modern, without sacrificing your faith.”

The bishop nodded. “When they turned in their resignation notices, of course we took notice. As Rabbi Finkel says, we just don’t get a lot of turnover. And of course, these three girls were special to us. So we took notice. I met with Elizabeth myself and asked her if there was anything wrong, and she refused to discuss it. I asked her what she did want to discuss and she went off on these wild tangents, not making any sense. I wrote a letter to her father, but I never heard back.”

“Rivka is a good girl,” the rabbi said. “She told me that she still loved God and wanted to live a pious, modest life, but that she had ‘differences’ with the teachings. I asked her about these ‘differences,’ but that was all she could say: ‘differences, differences.’ What’s a difference? She wants to uncover her hair? Eat a cheeseburger? Pray with men? She wouldn’t say.”

Father Marek cleared his throat, made a face, glared. “When Sister Maria-Eva ignored my memo asking her to come see me, I called her Mother Superior and that’s when I discovered that she’d left the order. Left the order! Of course, I assumed there was a man involved, but that wasn’t it, not according to her Mother Superior. She had taken new orders with a . . . fringe sect. It seemed she was lost to us.”

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