#anti-terror bill

[agentfascinateur]

Canada introducing a bill to suppress criticism of Israel

The amendment to the Criminal Code hides in Parts 2 & 3 in a bill on pedophilia

Proud Zionist Trudeau is rolling back his father's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as the ICJ has to tell Israelis to stop their war... #wrongsideofhistory

[sir-klauz]

A trans picnic event I was going to attend was shot at by someone with a BB gun. I was going to go with my family, including my child n trans sibling, but ended up not doing so. This isn't acceptable. This needs to stop. I'm glad I didn't for the sake of me, my kid, my family, not getting hurt and PTSD from this.

Not only is it going to the toilet, having clothes to wear, some social medias (eyes transphobeland twitter), now it's having a picnic. There's fracturing in the lgbtq+ community directed from transphobic queer people, people who allegedly once marched for rights claiming to hate trans people (people they walked those marches with at the time) suddenly, or there's gay LARP accounts pretending to be gay and spreading transphobic and homophobic rhetoric. Nobody deserves this.

[xtruss]

Criticizing The Illegal Regime of Zionist Terrorist 🐖 Isra-hell? Nonprofit Media Could Lose Tax-Exempt Status Without Due Process

A New Anti-Terrorism Bill Would Allow The Government To Take Away Vital Tax Exemptions From Nonprofit News Outlets.

— Seth Stern | May 10, 2024 | The Intercept

“Scrotums Licker of the Illegal Regime of The Terrorist Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas,” speaks during a news conference in the U.S. Capitol on March 21, 2024. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

It Doesn’t Take much to be accused of supporting terrorism these days. And that doesn’t just go for student activists. In recent months, dozens of lawmakers and public officials have, without evidence, insinuated that U.S. news outlets provide material support for Hamas. Some even issued thinly veiled threats to prosecute news organizations over those bogus allegations.

Their letters were political stunts. Prosecutors would never have been able to carry their burden of proof under anti-terrorism laws, and all the pandering politicians who signed the letters knew that. But next time might be different, especially if nonprofit news outlets, such as The Intercept, manage to offend the government.

That’s because a bill that passed the House with broad bipartisan support in April — after which a companion bill was immediately introduced in the Senate — would empower the secretary of the Treasury to revoke the nonprofit status of any organization deemed “terrorist supporting.” This week, the bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced it as an amendment to must-pass legislation to renew the Federal Aviation Administration’s authorities. While it didn’t make the cut (the Senate didn’t vote on any of the dozens of proposed amendments), it’s likely to make its way to the Senate floor in another form soon.

Funding terrorism is already illegal, but the new bill would let the government avoid the red tape required for criminal prosecutions or official terrorist designations.

You might think actionable support of terrorism is limited to intentional, direct contributions to terror groups. You’d be mistaken. Existing laws on material support for terrorism have long been criticized for their overbreadth and potential for abuse, not only against free speech but also against humanitarian aid providers. A recent letter from 135 rights organizations opposing the bill highlighted efforts to revoke the tax-exempt status of, or otherwise retaliate against, pro-Palestine student groups.

There’s No Reason to believe the press is exempt from overreach. In their recent letters, elected officials called for terrorism investigations of the New York Times, Reuters, CNN, and the Associated Press, relying on allegations that those outlets bought photographs from Palestinian freelancers who covered Hamas’s October 7 attacks.

The feigned outrage originated with a spurious accusation, from an organization ironically calling itself HonestReporting, that those pictures evidenced that the photographers who took them had advance knowledge of the massacre. Otherwise how (other than, say, TV or the internet) would they have known where to go?

HonestReporting then reasoned that the news outlets that bought the pictures may have been in on it as well — because, of course, when an international news giant buys a picture from someone on its vast roster of freelancers, it’s reasonable to impute the freelancer’s alleged sins all the way up the chain.

HonestReporting eventually walked back that convoluted theory, admitting it had no evidence and was merely asking questions. After forcing the news outlets to publicly deny having ties to Hamas, HonestReporting said it believed them.

But that didn’t stop U.S. officials from surmising that the fact some Palestinian freelancers in Gaza had contacts with Hamas officials — which should not be surprising, given that Hamas is the governing authority in the besieged enclave — made anyone who hired them terrorism financiers.

And it gets even worse. One of the letters — signed by over a dozen state attorneys general — floated the theory that the outlets’ reporting could itself evidence support for Hamas. As the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker (another nonprofit news site, operated by Freedom of the Press Foundation, where I work) put it:

The letter also highlighted that “material support” for terrorist groups — both a federal and state crime — can include “writing and distributing publications supporting the organization.” It did not elaborate on what would be considered support, potentially chilling any reporting that does not unequivocally condemn Hamas or unilaterally support Israel.

The attorneys general then warned the outlets that they would “continue to follow your reporting to ensure that your organizations do not violate any federal or State laws by giving material support to terrorists abroad.” The writers continued: “Now your organizations are on notice. Follow the law.”

Many of those same attorneys general recently argued that “First Amendment speech and associational freedoms do not protect persons who provide material support” to terrorism. They failed to mention the Supreme Court’s skepticism that “applications of the material-support statute to speech or advocacy will survive First Amendment scrutiny … even if the Government were to show that such speech benefits foreign terrorist organizations.”

Members Of Congress have set their eyes on news outlets as well. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., parroted HonestReporting’s disinformation in multiple letters, while 15 congressional representatives demanded that the news outlets provide information — potentially including source identities and communications — regarding the freelancers, threatening to issue subpoenas.

If there is any doubt about the nonprofit bill’s backers’ intentions, consider that five of its House sponsors also signed onto a letter to the Internal Revenue Service asking how it defines antisemitism and insinuating that the IRS should deny tax-exempt status to nonprofits that “promote conduct that is counter to public policy,” even if they’re not accused of supporting terrorism at all.

Nonprofit news outlets are already struggling even without government harassment, but revocation of their tax-exempt status would be a death knell for outlets doing the kind of in-depth investigative journalism that is hardly ever profitable these days. The mere prospect would chill reporting, not only on Israel but also on U.S. foreign policy generally. And that’s not to mention the threat to nonprofit press freedom organizations that journalists depend on to protect their rights (including to not get killed in Gaza).

Unfortunately, this is just the latest piece of reckless, unnecessary “national security” legislation that puts the press at risk. Last month, President Joe Biden ignored civil liberties advocates and signed into law a bill that would allow intelligence agencies to enlist any “service provider” to help the U.S. spy on foreigners.

As Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., explained, the law could “forc[e] an employee to insert a USB thumb drive into a server at an office they clean or guard at night.” And that office could easily be a newsroom, where journalists often talk to foreigners whose communications might interest U.S. intelligence agencies.

Is the government going to immediately start conscripting reporters to surveil their sources, or shutting down nonprofit news outlets that stray from the Israeli military’s narrative? Probably not. But history teaches that once officials are given the power to retaliate against journalists they don’t like, they inevitably will. The prospect of the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act being weaponized against journalism was also once merely hypothetical — until it wasn’t.

And let’s not forget that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee publicly fantasizes about jailing and otherwise retaliating against journalists.

Those who claim a second Donald Trump term would mark the end of democracy need to stop passing overbroad and unnecessary new laws handing him, and future authoritarians, brand new ways to harass and silence journalists who don’t toe the line.

[putri900]

Even i was hoping trump was just going to be only slightly worse than biden but then lo and behold! Out of fucking nowhere, they want to persecute and put every "illegal" in CONCENTRATION CAMPS. And they want to invade mexico. They're still persecuting trans people via legislation. They still had that fucking batshit crazy plan to DISMANTLE the entire democratic process.

So remember that even when your Democrat is basically satan himself, Republicans still figure out how to be satan times 10. Always. They're always going to be worse.

On another, sadder note, i think satan times 10 will win. Because progressives have broadly given up on this new, increasingly shitty status quo, theyll let in something significantly worse. Its not that i even necessarily blame voters when the Democrats themselves make themselves irredeemable, but itd be nice to just hope... that things couldnt get significantly worse.

[lefemmerougewriter]

Flight of the Eagle and the Rise of President Sandiego

Carmen begins her plan to seize power in the most powerful country on Earth. Can Zack and Ivy stop her before it is too late?

Characters: Carmen Sandiego, Zack, Ivy, The Chief, Mr. X (Original character)

Friendships: Zack and Ivy

Romantic pairings: None

Words: 774

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53671957

Wattpad: N/A

Quotev: N/A

A/N: I originally wrote this short fic on my phone a while back, but decided to finish it up before publication. It is a pretty wild ride. I might end up continuing it one day.

The date was January 27, 2000. Explosions rocked the joint session of Congress where President Bill Clinton was giving his State of the Union address. He and his cabinet advisors were incapacitated by the rubble. The designated survivor for an event such of this was Bill Richardson, then the Secretary of Energy. However, he never had a chance. He was quickly kidnapped and disappeared to who knows where. The screen cackled and a broadcast came on every channel. A voice began speaking. It came from a woman dressed in red fedora, coat, and red high-heels. It was the infamous Carmen Sandiego.

"Fellow Americans, you may know me as the infamous thief known across the world. But, like all of you, I am interested in order and bringing the criminals who perpetrated this horrible crime to justice. In a time of great turmoil, we need order, instead of disorder. With my organization and ability, I can bring stability to this country. As of now, I am assuming the office of the Presidency of the United States and will bring the wicked criminals who did this to justice. I would like to say..."

The screen turned off. Ivy and Zack were aghast. How could Carmen engage in such a naked coup to seize power? Didn't anyone else see her plans, that she was a malicious actor? Wasn't it obvious that the explosion in Congress and the kidnapping of Bill Richardson were perpetrated by Carmen? Zack asked what everyone was thinking: "Chief, what should we do now? Everyone thinks that Carmen is a savior, bringing order and stability."

The Chief sighed. "Well, catching Carmen is still our top priority. Gumshoes, I don't trust her cleaned up act. You need to nab her...in the act, and stop this coup d'etat." Ivy took his words to heart. She declared, "Player, C5 us to the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C." The narrator began speaking.

"You are leaving sunny, San Francisco, and going to Washington, D.C., the capital of the U.S.A. The White House was first built in the 1790s but was burned down by the British on August 24, 1814. It was then rebuilt, with work by enslaved and free laborers. Since then, it has been the permanent place of residence for all U.S. presidents, the center of the U.S. government and the executive branch. Next stop, Washington, D.C.!"

Zack and Ivy arrived in front of the resolute desk, surprising Carmen. She was dressed in a red suit, but with wearing her trademark red fedora, and facing away from them. Ivy, putting her hands on the desk, shouted. "Carmen, the buck stops here! You are under arrest for your terrorism, kidnapping, and an illegal coup d’état!"

Carmen chuckled like conniving hyena. She shook her head. "Oh, Ivy, how wrong you are. While you, and Zack, are here much earlier than I expected, I can use your impolite interruption to my advantage. Guards, take them away!"

Not long after, Ivy and Zack were handcuffed by the surrounding Secret Service personnel and taken away. Carmen began a new speech, again addressed at the American people. It was the perfect excuse for her to take absolute power. Zack and Ivy had played right into her hands, as she had expected. As Zack and Ivy they were taken away in cuffs, the screen crackled:

"Tonight, two individuals tried to arrest me. They wanted me behind bars. But it is them that should be imprisoned. Those two people, Zack and Ivy, are agents of a secret organization, ACME, which might as well be called the American Crime Management Extraordinaires. What we need now is a war on these evildoers. ACME must be crushed. We will hunt them down from the bay of Biscay to the shores of Tokyo. This is something that must be won, it must be victorious. I ask for your blessing in bringing these criminals to justice."

The broadcast ended. Dr. X, one of her closest advisors, was worried. He wasn't sure she was doing the right thing. He asked, "Ma'am, do we really want to destroy ACME? Wouldn't it be better to keep them around?"

Carmen brushed off his question and cackled. "Why, of course, I don't want to destroy them. They are a worthy adversary. The whole thing is a schlep. I just need them as an excuse to stay in power. There is no need to crush ACME. Instead, I will only have individual agents apprehended, using the powerful tool of extraordinary rendition. It is all too easy to commit terrorism, to instill fear for political ends.”

To be continued...

End note: For information on presidential succession, I used webpages from thoughtco, infoplease, politico, refinery29, mvets.law.gmu.edu, senate.gov, popsugar, presidency.ucsb.edu, and bestlifeonline. The Carmen Sandiego speech at the end is somewhat inspired by an Anti-Flag song, “Mind The G.A.T.T.” Also the part about the "schlep" was undoubtedly inspired by that episode of Futurama ("A Taste of Freedom") where Zoidberg's people do a show of force to convince DOOP to back off. This fic is a bit cynical of how easy it is to seize power in this country, but that's part of the point.

[wilwheaton]

The GOP wonders why young people (and others) don't want to vote for them. Some wise scribe assembled this list.

1.) Your Reagan-era “trickle-down economics” strategy of tax breaks for billionaires that you continue to employ to this day has widened the gap between rich and poor so much that most of them will never be able to own a home, much less earn a living wage.

2.) You refuse to increase the federal minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour (since 2009). Even if it had just kept up with inflation, it would be $27 now. You’re forcing people of all ages but especially young people to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities.

3.) You fundamentally oppose and want to kill democracy; have done everything in your power to restrict access to the ballot box, particularly in areas with demographics that tend to vote Democratic (like young people and POC). You staged a fucking coup the last time you lost.

4.) You have abused your disproportionate senate control over the last three decades to pack the courts with religious extremists and idealogues, including SCOTUS—which has rolled back rights for women in ways that do nothing but kill more women and children and expand poverty.

5.) You refuse to enact common sense gun control laws to curb mass shootings like universal background checks and banning assault weapons; subjecting their entire generation to school shootings and drills that are traumatizing in and of themselves. You are owned by the NRA.

6.) You are unequivocally against combatting climate change to the extent that it’s as if you’ve made it your personal mission to ensure they inherit a planet that is beyond the point of no return in terms of remaining habitable for the human race beyond the next few generations.

7.) You oppose all programs that provide assistance to those who need it most. Your governors refused to expand Medicaid even during A PANDEMIC. You are against free school lunches, despite it being the only meal that millions of children can count on to actually receive each day

8.) You are banning books, defunding libraries, barring subject matter, and whitewashing history even more in a fascistic attempt to keep them ignorant of the systemic racism that this nation was literally founded upon and continues to this day in every action your party takes.

9.) You oppose universal healthcare and are still trying to repeal the ACA and rip healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and replace it with nothing. You are against lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs that millions need simply to LIVE/FUNCTION in society.

10.) You embrace white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other groups that are defined by their intractable racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. You conspired with these groups on January 6th to try to overthrow the U.S. government via domestic terrorism that KILLED PEOPLE.

11.) You oppose every bill aimed at making life better for our nation’s youth; from education to extracurricular and financial/nutritional assistance programs. You say you want to “protect the children” while you elect/nominate pedophiles and attack trans youth and drag queens.

12.) You pretend to be offended by “anti-semitism” while literally supporting, electing, and speaking at events organized by Nazis. You pretend to hate “cancel culture” despite the fact that you invented it and it’s basically all you do.

13.) Every word you utter is a lie. You are the party of treason, hypocrisy, crime, and authoritarianism. You want to entrench rule by your aging minority because you know that you have nothing to offer young voters and they will never support you for all these reasons and more.

14.) You’re so hostile to even the notion of helping us overcome the mountain of debt that millions of us are forced to take on just to pay for our post K-12 education that you are suing to try to prevent a small fraction of us from getting even $10,000 in loan forgiveness.

15.) You opened the floodgates of money into politics via Citizens United; allowing our entire system of government to become a cesspool of corruption, crime, and greed. You are supposed to represent the American people whose taxes pay your salary but instead cater to rich donors.

16.) You respond to elected representatives standing in solidarity with their constituents to protest the ONGOING SLAUGHTER of children in schools via shootings by EXPELLING THEM FROM OFFICE & respond to your lack of popularity among young people by trying to raise the voting age.

17.) You impeach Democratic presidents over lying about a BJ but refuse to impeach (then vote twice to acquit) a guy whose entire “administration” was an international crime syndicate being run out of the WH who incited an insurrection to have you killed.

18.) You steal Supreme Court seats from democrats to prevent the only black POTUS we’ve ever had from appointing one and invent fake precedents that you later ignore all to take fundamental rights from Americans; and even your “legitimate” appointments consist of people like THIS (sub-thread refuting CJ Roberts criticisms of people attacking SCOTUS' legitimacy).

19.) You support mass incarceration even for innocuous offenses or execution by cop for POC while doing nothing but protect rich white criminals who engage in such things as tax fraud, money laundering, sex trafficking, rape/sexual assault, falsifying business records, etc.

20.) You are the reason we can’t pass:—Universal background checks—An assault weapons ban—The ‘For the People/Freedom to vote’ Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act—The ERA & Equality Act—The Climate Action Now Act—The (Stopping) Violence Against Women Act—SCOTUS expansion.

21.) You do not seek office to govern, represent, or serve the American people. You seek power solely for its own sake so you can impose your narrow-minded puritanical will on others at the expense of their most fundamental rights and freedoms like voting and bodily autonomy.

22.) Ok, last one. You are trying to eliminate social security and Medicare that tens of millions of our parents rely on and paid into their entire lives. And you did everything to maximize preventable deaths from COVID leaving millions of us in mourning.

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/e8DBZLH

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Wellness surveillance makes workers unwell

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

"National conversation" sounds like one of those meaningless buzzphrases – until you live through one. The first one I really participated in actively was the national conversation – the global conversation – about privacy following the Snowden revelations.

This all went down when my daughter was five, and as my wife and I talked about the news, our kid naturally grew curious about it. I had to literally "explain like I'm five" global mass surveillance:

https://locusmag.com/2014/05/cory-doctorow-how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-mass-surveillance/

But parenting is a two-way street, so even as I was explaining surveillance to my kid, my own experiences raising a child changed how I thought about surveillance. Obviously I knew about many of the harms that surveillance brings, but parenting helped me viscerally appreciate one of the least-discussed, most important aspects of being watched: how it compromises being your authentic self:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/may/09/cybersecurity-begins-with-integrity-not-surveillance

As I wrote then:

There are times when she is working right at the limits of her abilities – drawing or dancing or writing or singing or building – and she catches me watching her and gets this look of mingled embarrassment and exasperation, and then she changes back to some task where she has more mastery. No one – not even a small child – likes to look foolish in front of other people.

Learning, growth, and fulfillment all require a zone of privacy, a time and place where we are not observed. Far from making us accountable, continuous, fine-grained surveillance by authority figures just scares us into living a cramped, inauthentic version of ourselves, where growth is all but impossible. Others have observed the role this plays in right-wing culture war bullshit: "an armed society is a polite society" is code for "people who make me feel uncomfortable just by existing should be terrorized into hiding their authentic selves from me." The point of Don't Say Gay laws and anti-trans bills isn't to eliminate gender nonconformity – it's to drive it into hiding.

Given all this, it's no surprise that workers who face workplace surveillance in the name of "wellness" feel unwell as a result:

https://www.ifow.org/publications/what-impact-does-exposure-to-workplace-technologies-have-on-workers-quality-of-life-briefing-paper

As the Future of Work Institute found in its study, some technologies – systems that make it easier to collaborate and communicate with colleagues – increase workers' sense of wellbeing. But wearables and AI tools make workers feel significantly worse:

https://assets-global.website-files.com/64d5f73a7fc5e8a240310c4d/65eef23e188fb988d1f19e58_Tech%20Exposure%20and%20Worker%20Wellbeing%20-%20Full%20WP%20-%20Final.pdf

Workers who reported these negative feelings confirmed that these tools make them feel "monitored." I mean, of course they do. Even where these tools are nominally designed to help you do your job better, they're also explicitly designed to help your boss keep track of you from moment to moment. As Brandon Vigliarolo writes for The Register, these are the same bosses who have been boasting to their investors about their plans to fire their workers and replace them with AI:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/advanced_workplace_tech_study/

"Bossware" is a key example of the shitty rainbow of "disciplinary technology," tools that exist to take away human agency by making it easier to surveil and control its users:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#bossware

Bossware is one of the stages of the Shitty Technology Adoption Curve: the process by which abusive and immiserating technologies progress up the privilege gradient as their proponents refine and normalize dystopian technologies in order to impose them on wider and wider audiences:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

The kinds of metrics that bossware gathers might be useful to workers, but only if the workers get to decide when, whether and how to share that data with other people. Microsoft Office helps you catch typos by underlining words its dictionary doesn't recognize; the cloud-based, "AI-powered" Office365 tells your boss that you're the 11th-worst speller in your division and uses "sentiment analysis" to predict whether you are likely to cause trouble:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

Two hundred years ago, Luddites rose up against machines. Contrary to the ahistorical libel you've heard, the Luddites weren't angry or frightened of machines – they were angry at the machines' owners. They understood – correctly – that the purpose of a machine "so easy a child could use it" was to fire skilled adult workers and replace them with kidnapped, indentured Napoleonic War orphans who could be maimed and killed on the job without consequence:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

A hundred years ago, the "Taylorites" picked up where those mill owners left off: choreographing workers' movements to the finest degree in a pseudoscientific effort to produce a kind of kabuki of boss-pleasing robotic efficiency. The new, AI-based Taylorism goes even further, allowing bosses to automatically blacklist gig workers who refuse to cross picket-lines, monitor "self-employed" call center operators in their own homes, and monitor the eyeballs of Amazon drivers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

AI-based monitoring technologies dock workers' wages, suspend them, and even fire them, and when workers object, they're stuck arguing with a chatbot that is the apotheosis of Computer Says No:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

There's plenty of research about AI successfully "augmenting" workers, making them more productive and I'm the last person to say that automation can't help you get more done:

https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/en-us/report/augmented-workforce

But without understanding how AI augments class warfare – disciplining workers with a scale, speed and granularity beyond the sadistic fantasies of even the most micromanaging asshole boss – this research is meaningless.

The irony of bosses imposing monitoring to improve "wellness" and stave off "burnout" is that nothing is more exhausting, more immiserating, more infuriating than being continuously watched and judged.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/15/wellness-taylorism/#sick-of-spying

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Danny, on the run from the GIW decides to take shelter in Gotham because if the GIW have any sense they'd never set foot in there.

Even if Batman and the JL agree with thier opinion on ecto entities (as evidenced by their lack of speaking out against the anti-ecto acts) Batman was notoriously territorial and would have issue with a wildly incompetent government organization throwing missiles around his city all willy-nilly.

With that being said it was probably best for Danny to wear a disguise. Sure, they didn't know Fenton and Phantom were the same person yet but Danny Fenton suddenly turning up in Gotham after going missing in Amity is certainly going to raise some eyebrows regardless of the necklace he had that jammed his ecto-signature and made him untrackable.

Danny started off by going blond. Its something he's always wanted to do and now with ghostly shape-shifting powers he doesn't even have to worry about frying his hair or dying his eyebrows to match. After that all he needed to do was part his hair down the middle, add a lip ring or two and maybe a bit of make up.

Danny stared at himself in the mirror. He looked like a completely different person.

A completely different and very attractive person. He looked good. The newly blond man threw on a green jacket and went out to explore the town. He did not expect to literally bump into the Tim Drake. The Wayne adoptee just stood there mouth opening and closing comically. Did he offend him? Crap. He had promised Jazz he would stay off of the radar of the Waynes and the bats specifically and here he was angering one of them.

Danny decided to book it before it became a scene, ignoring the lovestruck Tim's crys for him to wait.

Back at his apartment Danny quickly changed his look to red hair tied back into a two inch low ponytail, green eyes and freckles that unbeknownst to anyone else was made up from the lesser known constellations.

The coffee at this Cafe smelled amazing! Too bad Danny wouldn't get to try it because the next this he knew freaking Red Hood was behind him asking to talk. Our favorite ghost boy wouldn't be embarrassed to admit he let out a small squeek before bolting out the door yelling, "I'm not even a criminal!"

It took Jason a few seconds to process that the guy he had tried to flirt with ran away in terror. Crap.

Day three and four were blissfully Wayne and bat free, though he did find out that Tim Drake and Red Hood were looking for his two false identities. Joy.

Day five he met the stabby Robin who very valiantly beat up two people who had been following him. Danny didn't even notice he was being followed and thanked the bird for saving him. Danny, who was shape-shifted into a very pretty girl at the moment, offered to buy him something to eat as a thank you. "Danielle" insisted and Robin allowed it. Danielle never noticed the slight pink on Damians cheeks as they went over to one of Damians favorite restaurants.

Day seven he had went out as blondie and got confronted by some girl named Barbara. She was nice and managed to convince him to come to a Cafe with her. He told her his name was David and he ran away from his parents with the help of one of his friends family members and that he was Jewish, which was true...except for the David part. He learned that if you wanna keep your story straight keeping to almost truths was your best bet. She in turn told him about Tim and how he's a friend of hers-uh oh- and that he's been looking all over for him.

Danny-David- tells her he's sorry but he didn't mean to offend Tim and doesn't want any trouble before laying down enough money to cover his half of the bill and the tip and booking it out of there

This repeats with most of the family trying to flirt with him or adopt him into the family when he's out as Danny.

Bruce Wayne approached Danny when he was waiting to board an elevator, "Hel-" was all the billionaire could get out before Danny cut him off "Hell no." And then he just got in the elevator and pressed the close doors button and was gone again.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[Sweden's] accession has been delayed but Turkey raised objections over what it said was the two countries’ protection of groups that Ankara deems terrorists.[...]

Ankara asked Stockholm to toughen its stance on local members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the EU and US also describe as a terrorist group.

Sweden has introduced a new anti-terrorism bill that makes being a member of a terrorist organisation illegal.

Turkish Parliament Votes to Ratify Sweden’s Entry Into NATO - Bloomberg

Turkey’s parliament approved Sweden’s accession to NATO after months of deliberations, leaving Hungary as the lone holdout to the defense alliance’s northern expansion.

23 Jan 24

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

Michigan’s House of Representatives has passed a hate speech bill making it a criminal offence to misgender an individual. Under the new bill, known as HB 4474, offenders will face up to five years in prison or a $10,000 fine if found to be guilty of “intimidation” by “terrorizing, frightening, or threatening” someone with the use of wrong gender pronouns…

[phoenixyfriend]

Suggested topics to call your reps about today, 1/30/24!

I’ve been doing two subjects per call recently; one is almost always about the events in the middle east, and then one is domestic policy. I’m including a bit of verbiage you can use as basis for what you say (if you agree with me), for a few of these.

BOTH SENATE AND HOUSE:

Foreign Policy: Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, this arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked.

Warn Congress to reaaaaally think about whether a strong response to the incident in Jordan, currently attributed to an Iraqi group backed by Iran, if we're truly looking to avoid a wider regional war as claimed. There is already growing unrest in Yemen and the threat of another civil war, fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now the situation with the Islamic Resistance. Caution them against an overreaction of the kind that the US has a tendency towards.

FOR THE SENATE: Urge your senator to put their support behind Bernie Sanders and his motion to restrict funding to Israel until a humanitarian review of the IDF’s actions in Gaza has been completed.

FOR THE HOUSE: Urge your representative to put their support behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s petition for the US government to recognize the IDF’s actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and put a stop to it.

Domestic Policy

House of Representatives:

Expansion of the child tax credit. The House of Representatives is currently voting on whether or not to expand the child tax credit that was instated during COVID-19. This credit offers a return on taxes for individuals with children, but currently does not apply to families that are too poor to qualify. During COVID, this tax credit was expanded to include those families, and child poverty fell to record lows, but as it was a temporary measure, those children are getting left behind again. Given the effectiveness the expansion of this tax regulation showed in the past, it would be a net positive for the country as a whole to codify it more permanently.

Other things coming up in the next week if you think your rep might be receptive:

H.R. 6976: Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act: Vote no. This act is discriminatory and enforces harsher penalties on immigrants than in legal citizens. While DUIs are a significant issue, enacting stronger guidelines on a small portion of the population that is already at risk from discriminatory police action is not a solution.

H.R. 6679: No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act - Vote no or dismiss if possible. Terrorism is already considered a reason to reject immigrants. This bill is pointless peacocking. You have better things to do with your time.

H.R. 6678: Consequences for Social Security Fraud Act - Vote no. This proposed act is discriminatory and enacts unduly harsh sentences against minorities. The system already has punishments for fraud; this specific act is unnecessary.

H.R. 5585: Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act - Are you sensing a pattern? It's discriminatory! Evading law enforcement on a motor vehicle is already illegal, you do not need to ADD IMMIGRATION PENALTIES.

Senate:

Abortion rights. Domestically, for the senate, push for abortion rights.

Specific things coming up in the next week if you think your Senator might be receptive:

H.R. 6914: Pregnant Students’ Rights Act - Call to ask that the resolution EXPLICITLY include abortion access, or otherwise vote against. This passed the house on strict party lines; other than a handful of abstentions, the vote was all republican for and all dems against. The text of the proposal is explicitly anti-abortion.

H.R. 6918: Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act - same as above, it was very partisan in the house vote, though less explicitly anti-abortion in the text. Nonetheless, it focuses explicitly on protecting funding to "pregnancy centers," which are often anti-choice and dedicated to pushing patients towards keeping a baby they don't want.

DOMESTIC POLICY, BOTH BRANCHES OF CONGRESS: Border policy is currently being hotly debated and negotiated. A very strong policy in favor of the Republican party is the status at the moment. Even some democrats are in favor of it due to small border communities being ill-equipped to handle large numbers of migrants, and states usually removed from the situation getting migrants bussed in from Texas despite telling Texas to knock it off. Despite some Republicans saying that they have gotten everything they could want out of the current deal, the party at large is refusing to pass it as the politics of the debate are more useful to the coming election than actually passing policy. This is also causing delays in passing the federal budget.

I... don't actually want to tell anyone WHAT to think of the border policy since I do not have any real knowledge on the budget impacts and resources dictating the actual problems (nor the racism or xenophobia, that part is obviously bullshit). I can recognize that too some degree, there is a genuine issue of manpower and budget restriction impacting the ability to house and process immigrants.

However, DREAMers are not being considered in the current deal, the delays in the deal are impacting the federal government and threatening a partial shutdown, and people are STILL getting hurt and even dying at the border.

I would focus on protection for DREAMers, chastising the Republicans for deliberately delaying the budget in order to use the border as a reelection premise instead of actually working on the policy they claim to want (emphasize that they are going to lose votes for focusing on reelection at the expense of their people), and protection for children, parents with those children, and nonviolent migrants in general.

[sexhaver]

“If Biden loses, civil rights in the US will be destroyed” either forgot or just plain didn’t pay attention to the Stop Cop City protesters who were arrested on RICO/terrorism charges, huh ?

Libs told us Trump being president would bring our imminent death in 2016 and it didn’t happen. I’m South Asian & lesbian, and they’re not gonna scare me into voting for Biden. Is there any horror a Democrat could generate, egg on, participate in, or fund that would justify not voting for them ? Or must we all just be punished into genocidal complicity on threat of death, imprisonment, spanning domination ? Biden-supported Zionism is a supremacist ideology, and actively funding and enabling a genocide that many Evangelical “end times” fanatics believe will bring about the Rapture and then censuring critics in universities of said genocide is ALREADY christofascist. We’re here in the Christofascist theocracy (abortion outlawed, 549 anti-trans bills), right now, fulfilling the Pentacostal/evangelical interpretation of Revelations. Now, under Biden’s admin. The US bombing Muslims and Arabs into oblivion under the leadership of every single Democrat president for the past 50 years based on religious and racial caricatures makes it already a Christofascist theocracy. “If the left sits out just because Biden is committing genocide, then we will end up with a right-wing president who will commit genocide”, why can’t white radlibs & liberal Zionists just own it and admit that they’re racist & islamophobic and that American lives matter more than Palestinian ones ?

.

[girlactionfigure]

🟣 Wed morning - ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

▪️IRELAND OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZES STATE OF PALESTINE.. Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris officially announced the recognition of a Palestinian state. Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez: We will recognize a Palestinian state on May 28.  The Prime Minister of Norway, who also said they will recognize: "The goal is to establish a Palestinian state based on the Palestinian Authority. We believe that a two-state solution is in Israel's interest."

▪️ISRAEL WITHDRAWS AMBASSADORS.. Foreign Minister Israel Katz ordered the immediate return to Israel of the Israeli ambassadors in Ireland and Norway for consultations against the background of these countries' decision to announce their recognition of a Palestinian state: "I am sending a clear message today - Israel will not be complacent against those who undermine its sovereignty and endanger its security."

▪️AID FROM PIER - PENTAGON, HAMAS GOT IT.. (Pentagon Spokesperson, CNN) None of the aid from the temporary pier the US constructed off Gaza has been delivered to the civilian population.  Pentagon spokesperson: initial aid brought into Gaza was “intercepted by ‘some people’ who took that aid off those vehicles.”

▪️MERON DECLARED A CLOSED MILITARY ZONE.. IDF Home Front Command has declared the Mount Meron area (and village) a closed zone to avoid people coming for Lag B'Omer celebrations typically held in huge numbers at the Tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai at the top of Meron village.  (Lag b’Omer is Saturday night-Sunday this year.)  The closure starts at 11 p.m. tonight and until Monday, May 27, at noon.

Hezbollah has repeatedly attacked Mount Meron, which is located some 8 km (5 miles) from the Lebanon border, launching large barrages of rockets at the mountain and village, as well as guided missiles at the Israeli radar base that sits atop it.

▪️WHO CHANGED THE LAST DEAL? CNN SAYS - EGYPT.. CNN: Egyptian intelligence secretly changed the details of the cease-fire proposal that Israel, the US and Qatar agreed to - which led to Hamas's unacceptable cease-fire proposal earlier this month. "We all felt they had misled us," said a source.  The head of the CIA, Bill Burns was "furious and embarrassed”.

▪️GAZA ISRAELI TOWNS?  Prime Minister Netanyahu in an interview with CNN: "Gaza resettlement was never on the agenda and I said it openly, even though some of my partners don't like it.”

(( The calculus at the time: Gaza Israeli villages required heavy IDF protection and cost soldier lives every month under constant attacks by the Gazans, with a relatively small Israeli population of just under 10,000 - much of Israel society felt the ongoing cost in lives was terrible given the small Israeli population and world optics.  

What Israel and the leadership failed to realize is those villages and the defense efforts thereof was preventing developing Gaza into a full anti-Israel war posture. ))

♦️JENIN (Samaria) COUNTER-TERROR.. major operation going for 24 hours so far, with ongoing gun battles and explosives at the fighters and vehicles.  Airstrikes!

♦️RAFAH (Gaza).. while reading statements from US media that “Israel has accepted the US’s recommendations for a more careful attack plan with civilian protection in Rafah”, we are also seeing videos from Rafah and the statement “During the night, IDF forces launched a massive attack from the air, sea and land while advancing towards the center of Rafah city” and that that a 5th combat brigade has entered Rafah.

There are now 10 combat brigades in Gaza, 5 brigades in Rafah, 3 in Jabaliya and 2 in the corridor in the center of the strip.

⭕ HAMAS fires ROCKETS at SDEROT, no alarm!

⭕ HEZBOLLAH fires ROCKETS at Ma'ayan Baruch, Dafna, Malkia.

******

Minister of Finance, Smotrich, following the recognition of a Palestinian state by 3 European countries:

I do not intend to transfer the liquidation funds to the PA anymore, from now until further notice,

I do not intend to extend the indemnification to the correspondent banks at the end of next month.

##

The meaning of this: the collapse of one of the PA's main sources of funding.

The PA will have difficulty paying salaries to its officials.

[beardedmrbean]

The son of one of the founders of Hamas has blasted the terror group’s student supporters in the United States, accusing them of participating in Hamas’ brutal crimes and declaring they “need to go to a mental asylum.”

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, made the remarks as he appeared on “Dr. Phil Primetime” last week to debate two anti-Israel student activists from the University of Michigan.

“It’s very disappointing to see Americans supporting Hamas and thinking that Hamas is a cool thing, while Hamas does not respect any of those followers,” Yousef said on the April 2 episode.

The Hamas defector said the bloodthirsty terrorists would “torture them and massacre them with no mercy.”

Yousef went on to explain how the militants refer to their American supporters as “useful idiots.”

Yousef, who defected to Israel in 1997 and became a spy for the Shin Bet intelligence agency, insisted that anti-Israel protesters “don’t know what they’re supporting.”

He called Hamas a “monster that has been hijacking an entire society and endangering the entire Middle East, pushing the world toward a global war.”

“What’s happening is insanity,” he continued. “Those pro-Palestine need to go to a mental asylum.”

Yousef said he knew what he was talking about because he spent time in prison with Hamas leaders.

“I was born there and part of that culture, part of that religion,” he explained.

“Some people hear about Hamas or they see an avatar of a Hamas fighter carrying a rifle, a ‘freedom fighter,’ and they think it’s a fancy idea to support such a monster.”

When Yousef then took part in a debate with University of Michigan students Salma and Zaynab, he accused them of wearing keffiyehs — traditional Palestinian scarves — to distract from the fact that they have no legitimacy to speak on behalf of the cause.

“On what authority do you speak?” he asked, rhetorically. “You only speak on the authority of Hamas propaganda.”

Zaynab interjected, asking why he believed she was simply reciting Hamas talking points.

“Because if you were a decent human being, you can say that the thousands who were killed on Oct. 7, that was a crime against humanity. It was a genocide,” Yousef shot back.

He went on to say that the student activists are proving that Hamas wants to completely destroy Israel.

“We have the problem with the pro-Palestine [people] who are actually giving Hamas cover. They are participating in the crime,” he told the young women.

“I think enough is enough, and now it’s proven — and you’re helping Hamas prove it to the world — that Palestine depends on the destruction of the state of Israel,” he continued.

“You cannot even condemn Hamas and say what they did on Oct. 7 was an act of a savage group.

“And this is not acceptable, and we are not going to agree to it. And I tell you something: For the next 10, 20 years, the Palestinian people will pay the bill that Hamas has caused and most likely in blood.”

Even Dr. Phil took aim at the student activists after they refused to say whether they condemned the terrorist attack.

“There are some things that are just fundamental human decency, and when I ask you if what happened on Oct. 7 is something you condemn, and you say, ‘Well, you have to look at that by looking at hundreds of years of conflict.’ No, you don’t,” the TV show host said. “That’s either right or it’s wrong — and I don’t need a hundred years of conflict to know it was wrong,” he said to raucous applause. “Let me tell you something,” Dr. Phil continued, “when someone comes over a fence and goes into someone’s house and burns their infant in its crib, I don’t give a damn why they did it — it’s wrong.”

[gsirvitor]

“Note how they aren't saying what the shooter did was wrong, only that she should've purged her social media accounts prior to killing the children.”

It’s almost like we shouldn’t focus on the fact the shooter was trans because it will just inevitably result in more anti trans bills being passed (the whole reason the shooting occurred in the first place).

You’re at the very beginning of a vicious cycle that’s completely avoidable if you just stop oppressing trans people.

Stop oppressing trans people, boom, no more trans acts of terror.

Honestly I'm at a loss for words.

Why shouldn't we focus on the murderer's identity and political leaning? Why shouldn't we vilify the Trans movement for not only radicalizing people like the murderer, but for running constant apologetics for said murderer?

No this wasn't inevitable, the bills for protecting children from the Trans movement wouldn't have affected the murderer as she was 28 years old when she decided to go on her murder spree, if this was about protecting potential "Trans kids," (which don't exist) then she wouldn't have made children her target.

Trans people are no more oppressed in the west than any other group, you aren't oppressed because we refuse to give you undue privileges and access to our kids.

Stop being psychotic narcissists, get some proper mental help, boom, no more trans acts of terror.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Tuesday, Gov. Janet Mills of Maine signed LD 227, a sanctuary bill that protects transgender and abortion providers and patients from out-of-state prosecution, into law. With this action, Maine becomes the 16th state to explicitly protect transgender and abortion care in state law from prosecution. This follows several bomb threats targeting state legislators after social media attacks from far-right anti-trans influencers such as Riley Gaines and Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok. An earlier version of the bill failed in committee after similar attacks in January. Undeterred, Democrats reconvened and added additional protections to the bill before it was passed into law.

The law is extensive. It asserts that gender-affirming care and reproductive health care are "legal rights" in Maine. It states that criminal and civil actions against providers and patients are not enforceable if the provision or access to that care occurred within Maine’s borders, asserting jurisdiction over those matters. It bars cooperation with out-of-state subpoenas and arrest warrants for gender-affirming care and abortion that happen within the state. It even protects doctors who provide gender-affirming care and abortion from certain adverse actions by medical boards, malpractice insurance, and other regulating entities, shielding those providers from attempts to economically harm them through out-of-state legislation designed to dissuade them from providing care.

The bill also explicitly enshrines the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s Standards of Care, which have been the target of right-wing disinformation campaigns, into state law for the coverage of transgender healthcare.

The bill is said to be necessary due to attempts to prosecute doctors and seek information from patients across state lines. In recent months, attorneys general in other states have attempted to obtain health care data on transgender patients who traveled to obtain care. According to the United States Senate Finance Committee, attorneys general in Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, and Texas attempted to obtain detailed medical records "to terrorize transgender teens in their states… opening the door to criminalizing women’s private reproductive health care choices." The most blatant of these attempts was from the Attorney General of Texas, who, according to the Senate Finance Committee, "sent demands to at least two non-Texas entities." 

[...] Despite these threats, legislators strengthened both the abortion and gender-affirming care provisions and pressed forward, passing the bill into law. Provisions found in the new bill include protecting people who "aid and assist" gender-affirming care and abortion, protections against court orders from other states for care obtained in Maine, and even protections against adverse actions by health insurance and malpractice insurance providers, which have been recent targets of out-of-state legislation aimed at financially discouraging doctors from providing gender-affirming care and abortion care even in states where it is legal.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) signs gender-affirming care and abortion sanctuary state bill LD227 into law despite the best efforts of right-wing anti-trans extremists such as Riley Gaines, Courage Is A Habit, and Libs of TikTok who sought to thwart its passage and signature into law.