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enigma2meagain · 2 years

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🚨🚨 URGENT! Congress trying to pass anti-LGBT bill under the guise of “child safety”!

UPDATE 09/05/2023:

Well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of her bigotry

So Marsha Blackburn, in her infinite wisdom, decided to admit in an interview with the bigoted Family Policy Alliance that the Kids Online Safety Act is a GIANT anti-transgender bill (or at the least, it’s so poorly written that it makes targeting transgender people easier). Naturally, after this blunder, she and Blumenthal are trying to do damage control. But WE have the videos, and people’s responses to this open confession in the links below:

Alejandro Caraballo’s Tweet with the Video.

Erin Reed’s followup article

Attempts at damage control commented on by Ari Drennen

PinkNews’ article about it.

Beacon Broadside Article

Mashable Article

So with all that in mind, please make way to the Bad Internet Bills website to tell your Senators that you STRONGLY advise them to drop their support/refuse to support this awful bill in light of this, or that their re-election chances will drop considerably.

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UPDATE 02/14/2023: Richard Blumenthal is a lying snake who’s trying to get both KOSA and EARN IT Act back into law.

He persistently continues to ignore all of the backlash against these bills, the criticisms and highlighting the serious flaws of the bill by numerous human rights and LGBTQ organizations, and it’s telling that there seems to be no one who opposed the bill at the hearings today.

Fortunately, there are those are speaking up against it, such as Evan Greer from Fight For The Future.

Keep your eyes and ears open. We will be hearing more about these bills as time goes on.

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UPDATE 01/30/2023: Well, Chuck Schumer has chosen to backstab human rights and pro- LGBTQ communities, as well as the internet by trying to fast-track KOSA. The time table is as follows:

REINTRODUCTION OF THE BILL IN FEBRUARY

HOLDING MARKUPS IN MARCH

And holding a floor vote in JUNE

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1620088145554579456

KEEP IN MIND, this was the man who blocked legitimately good anti-Big Tech bills like AICOA on the pretense they would be “too much”, but was perfectly fine with the travesty of KOSA.

This man is in Big Tech’s pockets, because only they can afford to pay the fines that such a restrictive pro-censorship bill would enforce. The only people this bill helps are the exact people it claims to stop, while LGBTQ people have to pay the price for the greed of the corrupt congressmen and women.

All of the relevant links are still below, but I will be updated this as we go.

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UPDATE 01/17/2023: Nothing has happened yet, but there have been rumblings of our “favorite” Senator Blumenthal talking about trying to push KOSA in again. I’ll mostly be keeping an eye on things for now, and you guys should too on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and news outlets.

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UPDATE 12/20/2022: KOSA BILL HAS NOT BEEN INCLUDED IN THE FINAL OMNIBUS BILL! WE DID IT!

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1605261800479547392

That being said, this is very much a reprieve, since Blumenthal and Blackburn, and their cohorts have made it clear they intend to get this bill back into Congress next year. But WE DID IT. We managed to get this bill stopped from being added in the omnibus bill.

I want to thank all of you who helped to reblog this post, signed the various petitions and the open letter, and especially if you went and called your Senators. Without your effort, this might have turned out VERY differently!

Thank you all, and I hope the rest of this year is a pleasant one!

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So, this is a particularly long post, but it’s an absolutely IMPORTANT ONE. PLEASE REBLOG! LIKING IS USELESS!

UPDATE 12/14/2022: Two weeks ago, 90+ human rights, LGBT, and tech orgs signed onto an open letter telling Senators NOT to pass this bill. in response, over 230 orgs led by the American Psychological Association signed a letter urging senators to push this bill forward.

An updated version of the bill has been pushed forward by Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn, who claim to have changed the bill in response to feedback, but insight by the likes of Evan Greer and Ari Cohn have made it clear that the changes are superficial at best, and arguably fail to properly address the problems of the original bill.

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1603139423071309825

We got blindsided by this, and we REALLY need your help!

Further explanation HERE: https://www.tumblr.com/fullhalalalchemist/703545300138262528/urgent

POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. about your opposition to this! The more voices speaking out the better, and we can’t do this alone!

The Hashtags are:

#KOSA

#STOPKOSA

#KidsOnlineSafetyAct

“Kids Online Safety Act” (no hashtag and quotes, just the regular words)

And PLEASE call your Senators at (202-224-3121).

ESPECIALLY CALL THESE THREE, SINCE THEY ARE THE MAJOR PEOPLE WHO COULD END UP PUTTING THE BILL INTO THE OMNIBUS/MUST PASS SPENDING BILL:

Maria Cantwell (202) 224-3441

Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542

Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965

LINKTREE WITH ALL INFO HERE: https://linktr.ee/stopkosa

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ORIGINAL POST:

In a particularly scummy move, the Kids Online Safety Act is going to be put into the must pass end of year spending bill: www.axios.com/…

The two laws best positioned to get rolled into big year-end legislative packages, according to advocates and lawmakers, are:

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require platforms to guard kids from harmful content using new features and safeguards and to make privacy settings "on" by default for children. The law also mandates privacy audits and more transparency about privacy policies.

At first glance, the bill doesn’t sound bad, since it’s about helping “protect children” online. But like every “protect the children” type law, this would censor the internet of anything “harmful” to children aka any LGBT, NSFW, or whatever the Right doesn’t like, force everyone to upload their govt ID’s to even access anything online, and surveil everyone else. Gutting everyone’s privacy in an era where we see massive state violence and encroaching fascism globally. This is not only pushed by the same people (Senator Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn) who created the awful EARN IT Act, but also has many of the same flaws, such as pro-censorship, anti LGBT resources and content, and pro-mass surveillance.

But the biggest problem, as Mike Stabile has pointed out, is HOW the mechanism to which this works: The State Attorney General.

This addition would allow states like Texas and Florida to sue companies for having LGBTQ+ content, along with sex education resources, incentivizing these platforms to ban that content. To be more specific, the bill allows the state attorney general to sue if they believe that platforms do not protect minors from a list of harms that includes politicized terms like "grooming" which, as we've seen can include any sort of LGBTQ information, entertainment or literature.

RuPaul on TikTok?

A clip on transgender youth on Facebook?

A gay character in a Disney movie?

Suicide hotlines for gay youth?

Cue a suit from Texas or Florida targeting the entire web.

And the problem is that given the current political climate and the cruel behavior of a number of GOP aligned political groups in positions of power, this only ends up making things RIPE for abuse and mass censorship (since companies will probably end up choosing to acquiesce to their demands rather than risk being subject to liability) not to mention the damage this would cause to children who might need resources regarding LGBT or sex education.

Furthermore, the definition of “sexually exploitative material”, “grooming”, and “child porn” has been used in the past year to target transgender people, drag queens, and the wider LGBTQ+ community by likening their very existence as sexually violent. Yet another way this bill’s language will be used to target a community that is already facing violence. Every night, Fox News blasts a story on “sexualization of children '' to fear-monger around the LGBT community. One needs to not look any further than the right-wing ecosystem to see how KOSA would easily be weaponized.

This article by Mike Masnick on Techdirt also goes further into KOSA and its adjacent bills.

To make matters even worse, on top of the usual suspects of NCOSE ( They used to be called Morality in Media, and are a far right group disguised as an anti sex trafficking org infamous for being religious assholes who HATE anything to do with sex or LGBT) supporting this travesty of a bill, it’s been revealed that the Senate leader is claiming there’s no opposition.

This is literally giving the fascists a dangerous tool to abuse, all for the sake of political brownie points against ‘Big Tech’. A tool that far right groups like the Heritage Foundation have OPENLY stated will abuse to silence LGBTQ+ or sex-ed content for youth everywhere if it passes.

The ONLY way this works is by making sure who is and isn’t a minor is to have some form of age-verification scheme. And the only way to do that is through a third party like ID.me which has recently come under scrutiny for, you guessed it, data leaks. So everyone who accesses anything online will be forced to upload their govt IDs. How is this protecting anyone’s privacy?

With all that said, what can we do?

Well, the same thing we did for the EARN IT Act; we make a LOT of noise, and get the word out.

If you have read all of the above and want to fight this, sign this open letter against KOSA.

And PLEASE call your Senators at (202-224-3121).

ESPECIALLY CALL THESE THREE, SINCE THEY ARE THE MAJOR PEOPLE WHO COULD END UP PUTTING THE BILL INTO THE }OMNIBUS:

Maria Cantwell (202) 224-3441

Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542

Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965

There is a call script with phone numbers here.

Fax them, email them. Tell them they MUST oppose this bill. CONTACT any major human rights, LGBT, and cybersecurity related organizations aligned and let them know about this bill, and the harm it can cause to LGBT rights and children! If you need more information on KOSA, we have a LINKTREE HERE.

EMPHASIZE THE HARM TO CHILDREN WHEN YOU CONTACT PEOPLE, SINCE THEY’RE TRYING TO CLAIM THAT THIS WILL HELP PROTECT CHILDREN’S PRIVACY, WHEN IT DOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

There’s also a Petition by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and from Fight For the Future.

#kosa #STOPKOSA #Stop Kids Online Safety Act #earnitact2.0 #lgbt #lgbtq #LGBT Rights #earnitact #lgbtq rights #Fuck you blumenthal #FUCK BLUMENTHAL #fuck blackburn

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kp777 · 5 months

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By Jim McGee

Common Dreams

Jan. 30 2024

The time has come to go big and go bold and speak to the felt concerns of people who might actually vote for you. The Democratic presidential candidate needs to offer voters something to vote for. We are weary of fear-mongering.

Dear President Biden,

History will say that you have done more for working people than perhaps any president since FDR. You steered us through the pandemic, mitigating the economic disruption and we appear to be reaching the mythical “soft landing” in dealing with inflation. You have presided over a substantial restoration of many worker rights that had been lost or diluted through 40 years of neoliberalism. All this in the face of a hostile Congress and an indifferent Senate.

You are running against someone who, by all objective criteria, should not even be a candidate. He has perpetuated his own lie about the 2020 election results. He has fomented insurrection and should not be allowed to run. He has neither the intellect nor the temperament to be chief executive of the United States

Yet the Washington Post reports that despite the relatively good economic news, voters, including Democratic voters, don’t feel it. As one NPR correspondent recently stated, “Increasingly, reality doesn’t matter.”

Let’s face it, your campaign is in trouble. The polls tell us that. At best, it is a toss-up, and worst case, you could lose in key swing states. Even your former running mate, President Obama, seems to be worried.

This simply should not be. There is too much at stake.

While your presidency embraced a number of bold initiatives that would make life better for working-class Americans, your election strategy is not that different from your opponent’s—fear the other guy. Fear what he will do to our democracy, fear what he will do for what’s left of abortion rights. That is not a guaranteed winning strategy. Most of my adult voting life I seem to be voting for the “lesser of two evils” and look where it has landed our country.

This is not the game plan likely to inspire the passion and intensity needed to overcome the cynicism and indifference that seems to have infected vast swaths of the electorate. Young people, in particular, are not motivated to vote for a continued Biden presidency that speaks out of both sides of its policy mouth on existential issues like climate change. Recently, the Washington Post reported that almost half of Americans are dissatisfied with the likelihood of Biden-Trump choice. You certainly don’t need any openings for a third-party spoiler.

Most of my adult voting life I seem to be voting for the “lesser of two evils” and look where it has landed our country.

And then there is October 7th and its aftermath in Gaza. Your reluctance to speak out against the Netanyahu government’s brutal reprisals is a matter of deep concern among significant Democratic constituencies who need to be there for you on election day.

You need to endorse Medicare for All.

Your base is already solidly in support of Medicare for All. By endorsing Medicare for All you will be delivering a message of hope, of aspiration.

I have spent my career working with union-management health care funds, both public sector and Taft-Hartley funds. After almost 50 years I can say emphatically that the system does not work. If the pandemic proved nothing else, it demonstrated the idiocy of a healthcare system that bases entry into that system on employment. Endorsing Medicare for All would energize union support for your candidacy.

I shouldn’t need to cite the well documented evidence that a single payer, Medicare for All system is both superior and more popular. Rather, in the spirit of the John Lennon song, Imagine, I challenge you to imagine a different world.

Imagine a world where we can take health care for granted, where health care is not part of decisions about where to work, how long to work, how many hours to work, or when to retire, or even who to stay married to. Imagine a world where small employers are not at a competitive disadvantage in the hiring marketplace by health care costs. Imagine a world where something as basic as health care is not subject to collective bargaining and is not a significant cause of strikes. Imagine a world where we only enroll in health care once and are not bombarded by confusing “choices”. Imagine a world where those paying for a health care and providing health care can take a lifetime perspective, instead of the current insurance contract year. Imagine a Medicare system that is comprehensive rather than being divided into “Parts.”

If the pandemic proved nothing else, it demonstrated the idiocy of a healthcare system that bases entry into that system on employment. Endorsing Medicare for All would energize union support for your candidacy.

To bring it down to a more practical level, imagine an election cycle where voters are genuinely motivated to vote FOR you and not just against your opponent. Bernie Sanders proved the appeal of the Medicare for All message, especially among young people.

Medicare for All is the message you need to bring voters to the election booth. It will penetrate the gloom and doom that permeates American politics, what the New York Times referred to as the “existential dread of American politics” and energize the electorate. It will pit a positive message against a negative one.

It’s time to move past the politics of fear and to imagine the politics of hope.

It’s time for Medicare for All.

#2024 presidential election #joe biden #medicare for all #democratic party #healthcare

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plethoraworldatlas · 2 months

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A new Bureau of Land Management plan to open 40,000 acres of the Wayne National Forest to fracking for oil and gas looks almost identical to one a federal judge rejected in 2020. The public can comment on the plan in writing or during online meetings Monday and Tuesday.

Fossil fuel companies have targeted Ohio’s only national forest for years and in 2016 the BLM first attempted to auction off oil and gas leases in the Wayne. The new proposal, released in late March, is nearly identical to the fracking plan blocked in 2020 after conservation groups challenged it in federal court.

“It’s hugely disappointing that federal officials are sticking with this climate-destroying plan to sell off Ohio’s precious public lands to the oil and gas industry, even as flooding, wildfires and heat waves intensify with climate change,” said Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our government needs to prioritize people, wildlife and our climate over corporate profits and block fracking in the Wayne once and for all. Ohio residents have the chance to speak out over the next few weeks, and I hope land managers get an earful about this reckless fracking proposal.”

Fracking threatens the Wayne’s rivers, forests and endangered plants and animals ― the same things Congress intended to protect when it created the national forest in the 1930s.

“Fracking the Wayne National Forest would seriously jeopardize Ohio’s ability to fight climate change. This single oil and gas project threatens to generate enough greenhouse gas pollution to cancel out all of the Wayne’s carbon storage services for the next 30 years,” said Nathan Johnson, senior attorney with the Ohio Environmental Council. “Leasing the Wayne to the fossil fuel industry will scar this public forest and pollute our air with toxic chemicals. We should be doing everything we can to protect the public’s access to safe and beautiful public lands — especially in Ohio, where public land is in relatively short supply compared to so many other states.”

#us politics #enviromentalism #ecology #biden administration #fracking #bureau of land management #wayne national forest #ohio #oil industry #gas industry

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 4 months

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NASA's planetary radar images slowly spinning asteroid

During the close approach of 2008 OS7 with Earth on Feb. 2, the agency's Deep Space Network planetary radar gathered the first detailed images of the stadium-size asteroid.\

On Feb. 2, a large asteroid safely drifted past Earth at a distance of about 1.8 million miles (2.9 million kilometers, or 7.5 times the distance between Earth and the moon). There was no risk of the asteroid—called 2008 OS7—impacting our planet, but scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California used a powerful radio antenna to better determine the size, rotation, shape, and surface details of this near-Earth object (NEO). Until this close approach, asteroid 2008 OS7 had been too far from Earth for planetary radar systems to image it.

The asteroid was discovered on July 30, 2008, during routine search operations for NEOs by the Catalina Sky Survey, which is headquartered at the University of Arizona in Tucson. After discovery, observations of the amount of light reflected from the asteroid's surface revealed that it was roughly between 650 to 1,640 feet (200 and 500 meters) wide and that it is comparatively slow rotating, completing one rotation every 29 ½ hours.

The rotational period of 2008 OS7 was determined by Petr Pravec, at the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Ondřejov, Czech Republic, who observed the asteroid's light curve—or how the brightness of the object changes over time. As the asteroid spins, variations in its shape change the brightness of reflected light astronomers see, and those changes are recorded to understand the period of the asteroid's rotation.

During the Feb. 2 close approach, JPL's radar group used the powerful 230-foot (70-meter) Goldstone Solar System Radar antenna dish at the Deep Space Network's facility near Barstow, California, to image the asteroid. What scientists found was that its surface has a mix of rounded and more angular regions with a small concavity. They also found that the asteroid is smaller than previously estimated—about 500 to 650 feet (150 to 200 meters) wide—and confirmed its uncommonly slow rotation.

The Goldstone radar observations also provided key measurements of the asteroid's distance from Earth as it passed by. Those measurements can help scientists at NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) refine calculations of the asteroid's orbital path around the sun. Asteroid 2008 OS7 orbits the sun once every 2.6 years, traveling from within the orbit of Venus and past the orbit of Mars at its farthest point.

CNEOS, which is managed by JPL, calculates every known NEO orbit to provide assessments of potential impact hazards. Due to the proximity of its orbit to that of the Earth and its size, 2008 OS7 is classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid, but the Feb. 2 close approach is the nearest it will come to our planet for at least 200 years.

While NASA reports on NEOs of all sizes, the agency has been tasked by Congress with detecting and tracking objects 460 feet (140 meters) in size and larger that could cause significant damage on the ground if they should impact our planet.

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics

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madamspeaker · 8 months

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/13/pelosi-lessons-next-gop-speaker-house/

When progressive hard-liners used to come to Nancy Pelosi with yet with another unrealistic demand for action from their wish list, the then-speaker had a standard reply ready: “I agree with you. I have those signs in my basement from 30 years ago. But right now, you’re in the Congress of the United States. We’re not on the streets with the signs.”

Pelosi would tell them that when they had 218 votes behind them, a majority in the House, she’d be happy to talk to them again: “But otherwise, recognize that we have to build consensus ... and live to fight another day.”

The speaker’s role comes with many such moments, she recalled in an interview in her office on Thursday; as we talked, Republicans who now hold a tenuous majority in the House were huddled across the street in the Capitol, unable to come together to select their own leader to take over the wreckage that Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has left behind.

Pelosi and others who held the gavel learned — but the deposed McCarthy never did — that one of the hardest and most vital things a speaker must do is say no, sometimes to friends and ideological allies. At times, her majority was so narrow she could afford to lose no more than three votes. But without a leader willing and powerful enough to summon that kind of fortitude, the House is ungovernable.

McCarthy’s constant appeasement of a handful of bellicose GOP members is what got us to this pitiful moment. He put their hard-line legislation on the floor knowing it would go no further, gave them key committee assignments — and even signed what was effectively the death warrant of his own speakership by agreeing to allow the rule in which any member could call for a vote to vacate the chair.

All of this should be an object lesson to whoever gets the job next. As departing speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) advised his own successor, Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.): “You can promise effort, but don’t promise results.” Both Boehner and Ryan saw their leadership undermined by the demands of a rising hard-right faction within their party, but it was McCarthy who ceded effective control of the chamber to them.

“Part of the job of the speaker is to manage reality rather than fantasy,” former speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) told me.

For Pelosi, who had a solidly liberal record, an early test came shortly after Democrats regained their majority in the 2006 election and elevated her to the speakership. The big issue in that election had been the Iraq War, and she had been one of the most outspoken opponents to it. Which is why many in her caucus felt betrayed when she did not stand in the way of Congress providing more funds for the conflict without insisting on a clear timetable for ending it — an end date that would not pass the Senate nor survive George W. Bush’s veto.

“My message to them was, I’ll compare my credentials on opposing this war to anybody here, but as long as the troops are at war, we must support them,” Pelosi recalled. “I basically said to them, we all support the troops. But we have to do it when it’s difficult as well as when it’s easy.”

In 1996, Gingrich brought legislation raising the minimum wage to the House floor — a popular measure conservatives were against and yet knew would pass with a combination of Democratic and more moderate GOP support.

In that year’s election, “we had 23 districts where members thought they would lose if they didn’t get a vote,” Gingrich told me. It was an especially bitter pill to swallow for Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.), who opposed the very existence of a minimum wage. And yet, Armey argued in a private meeting, the survival of their majority hinged on allowing the House to work its collective will.

When Boehner was speaker, one of his closest friends in the House would regularly come to his office and plead for a seat on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. Boehner would hear out the member, then tell him: “Not gonna happen.”

But now “the reality is we have a lot of members who have distorted views of what’s possible,” said Brendan Buck, a former aide to both Boehner and Ryan.

It might be that only one of the bomb-throwers themselves — say, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — would have the credibility it takes to say no to them, though there is little evidence he has that capacity for pragmatism and respect for the institution. Or maybe it has to be a graybeard such as Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who is respected across the various factions within a party that is squabbling with a pettiness that would put a small-town city council to shame.

But someone has to do it. At this moment of peril for the country, and the world, there is too much at stake for any new speaker to continue indulging the least responsible actors in Congress. Is there a grown-up in the House?

#nancy pelosi #madam speaker #the option to insert links seems broken at present

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 9 months

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John Ostrove

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Letters from an American

September 18, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Headlines this morning said that “Congress” is in crisis. But that construction obscures the true story: the Republicans are in crisis, and they are taking the country down with them.

The most immediate issue is that funding for the government ends on September 30. The Senate, controlled by Democrats, is moving forward on a strongly bipartisan basis with 12 appropriations bills that reflect the deal President Biden hammered out with Speaker Kevin McCarthy in May to get House Republicans to agree not to default on the United States debt. That deal, the Washington Post editorial board pointed out today, was a comprehensive compromise that should have been a blueprint for the budget.

But extremist House Republicans reject it, and there is no sign that House Republicans can even agree among themselves on a replacement, let alone on one that can make it through the Senate and past the president’s desk. Extremists in the Freedom Caucus insist they will not agree to any budget that accepts the deal McCarthy cut with Biden. In addition, although appropriations bills are traditionally kept clean of volatile issues, the extremists have loaded up this year’s appropriations bills with so-called poison pills: rules that advance their attempt to impose their ideology on the country but are unacceptable to Democrats. McCarthy had to pull back the Pentagon spending bill on Thursday before the House went home for the weekend, leaving without any plan in place for funding the government.

Over the weekend, six Republicans from five different party factions offered a plan for a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. Designed to appeal to the extremists, the plan goes back on the deal McCarthy struck with Biden. It proposes a 1% cut to the federal budget, but that 1% is not applied evenly: the defense budget and the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs would not take any cuts—Republicans have learned how voters react to hurting veterans—requiring an 8% cut to everything else. It includes the border measures the extremists want, and provides no money either for Ukraine or for disaster assistance.

It’s not clear that Republican House members will vote for the bill, and if they do, the bill is unlikely, encumbered as it is, to make it through the Senate.

What the House Republicans have managed to do recently is to try to appease the extremists by launching an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, claiming that he enriched himself through his son Hunter’s business dealings when he was vice president. McCarthy had to open the inquiry himself, without a House vote, because lacking any evidence, he didn’t have the votes to set such an inquiry in motion. On the Fox News Channel on Sunday, Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX) said McCarthy has given him the role of assisting in the inquiry, but admitted: “We don't have the evidence now, but we may find it later."

To try to get at the president, the Republicans have hammered at his son Hunter, who has begun to push back, today filing a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for failing to keep his tax information private as the law requires. He is referring to the two men who testified before House committees trying to find dirt on Hunter Biden and who made the rounds of reporters with their allegations that the IRS did not adequately pursue charges against him.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#congress #clown congress #Letters From An American #Heather cox Richardson #extremist republicans #corrupt GOP #McCarthy #impeachment

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reddancer1 · 9 months

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Heather Cox Richardson

September 18, 2023 (Monday)

Headlines this morning said that “Congress” is in crisis. But that construction obscures the true story: the Republicans are in crisis, and they are taking the country down with them.

It’s not clear that Republican House members will vote for the bill, and if they do, the bill is unlikely, encumbered as it is, to make it through the Senate.

Meanwhile, video has emerged of the conditions under which extremist Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was kicked out of a kid-friendly Beetlejuice performance last weekend. Boebert has repeatedly accused those protecting LGBTQ civil rights of “grooming” children for sexual activity. Not only was she vaping, she and her date were groping each other quite intensely. Boebert is in the process of getting a divorce, and her date, it turns out, is co-owner of a gay-friendly bar that has hosted drag shows.

Things are not all ducky with Republicans in the Senate, either. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) refuses to lift his hold on more than 300 military promotions until the Pentagon changes its policy of allowing service members leave time and travel expenses to obtain abortion care. While he insists he is doing no damage to the military, actual military officers, as well as members of his own party, disagree. They say the holds are hollowing out our military leadership and that the damage will take years to repair, since the promotion holds also stop junior officers from moving up. Those holds mean lower pay and retirement, tempting junior officers to move out of the military to higher-paying private sector jobs.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) today wrote a public letter to Tuberville asking him to remove his hold and warning that “harming American service members as leverage in Washington political battles” set a “very dangerous precedent.” They also noted that in a survey of VFW members, including those in Alabama, “VFW members strongly conveyed that politicians should not be able to harm the troops over political disputes and that political decisions that harm the troops would affect the way they would vote in upcoming elections.”

And now Trump, who leads the extremists, has suddenly changed course on abortion, the leading issue for most of his base, in order to weaken his rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Florida governor Ron DeSantis. After packing the Supreme Court with three extremists who helped to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by which the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional right to an abortion, Trump yesterday said the six-week abortion ban DeSantis signed, which would ban abortion before most women know they’re pregnant, was “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake,” although he also appeared to endorse abortion bans in general. Trump’s vice president Mike Pence, in contrast, is calling for a federal ban on abortion.

Republicans have finally recognized that about 63% of Americans think abortion should be legal in “all or most circumstances,” according to a new poll by 19th News and SurveyMonkey. But only 9% believe it should be illegal in all cases, although 14 states have enacted such extensive bans. The survey also found that support for abortion rights has increased since the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Trump has suddenly also become more problematic for the Republicans. On Sunday night, Trump doubled down on his past antisemitism by sharing a Rosh Hashanah message that celebrated the Jewish New Year by accusing “liberal Jews” of voting to “destroy” America and Israel.

Then, today, Katherine Faulders, Mike Levine, and Alexander Mallin of ABC News reported that long-time Trump assistant Molly Michael told agents investigating Trump’s mishandling of classified documents that he wrote to-do lists for her on the back of documents with classified markings.

Meanwhile, the administration continues to go about the daily work of governance.

On Sunday, U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan met in Malta with China’s top diplomat to keep communications between the two countries open. Today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Vice President Han Zheng of China on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. "The world expects us to responsibly manage our relationship," Blinken said. "The United States is committed to doing just that.”

Also on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly today, 32 coastal Atlantic countries from Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and the Caribbean launched the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation. This new multilateral forum echoes regional organizations the administration has backed elsewhere and seeks to establish a mechanism for implementing “a set of shared principles for the Atlantic region, such as a commitment to an open Atlantic free from interference, coercion, or aggressive action,” as well as coordinated plans for addressing issues including climate change.

Finally, five Americans who have been imprisoned in Iran are home tonight, along with two of their spouses. In exchange, the U.S. freed five Iranian citizens who were imprisoned or were about to stand trial, although three of them declined to return to Iran (two have chosen to stay in the U.S., and another went to a third country). The Republic of Korea has released $6 billion of Iran’s money to Qatar for use for humanitarian aid to Iranian citizens suffering under the sanctions that prevent medicines and food from coming into the country.

Brett McGurk, the National Security Council’s coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, told the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian that the funds had not previously been frozen; they were held up in South Korea because of that country’s own regulations. Under Trump, Iran spent heavily from similar accounts in China, Turkey, and India. Now that they are released, the funds will have more legal restrictions than they did when they were in South Korea.

The Biden administration has prioritized bringing home wrongfully detained Americans. Today’s events bring the number of those the administration has brought home to 35.

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hummussexual · 1 year

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By Sam Cabral

BBC News, Washington

US President Joe Biden has approved a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska that faced strong opposition from environmental activists.

The company behind the Willow project, ConocoPhillips, says it will create local investment and thousands of jobs.

But the $8bn (£6.6bn) proposal faced a torrent of online activism in recent weeks, particularly among youth activists on TikTok.

Opponents argued it should be halted over its climate and wildlife impacts.

Located on Alaska's remote North Slope, it is the largest oil development in the region for decades and could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day.

According to US Bureau of Land Management estimates, that means it will generate up to 278 million metric tonnes of CO2e over its 30-year lifetime - the equivalent of adding two million cars to US roads every year.

CO2e is a unit used to express the climate impact of all greenhouse gases together, as if they were all emitted as carbon dioxide.

Monday's approval comes one day after the Biden administration imposed limits on oil and gas drilling in 16 million acres of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean, a compromise of sorts with anti-Willow activists.

Environmentalists had argued Willow is inconsistent with President Biden's pledges to lead on climate action.

More than one million letters of protest were written to the White House, and a Change.org petition calling for Willow to be halted drew more than three million signatures.

"It's the wrong move and will be a disaster for wildlife, lands, communities, and our climate," environmental charity Sierra Club said on Monday.

Sonny Ahk, a young Iñuipat activist from Alaska who campaigned against Willow, said the development would "lock in Arctic oil and gas extraction for another 30 years and catalyse future oil expansion in the Arctic".

"While out-of-state executives take in record profits, local residents are left to contend with the detrimental impacts of being surrounded by massive drilling operations," he said.

But all three lawmakers who represent Alaska in Congress, including one Democrat, pushed for the project's approval, touting it as a much-needed investment in the region's communities.

They also argued it would help boost domestic energy production and lessen the country's reliance on foreign oil.

"This was the right decision for Alaska and our nation," added ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance on Monday.

The US energy giant, which is already Alaska's largest crude oil producer, will enhance energy security, create good union jobs and provide benefits to Alaska Native communities, he said.

#biden #willow project #alaska #environement #carbon bomb #overthrow both parties

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 days

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YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

More likely, you'll just find that for some mysterious reason good things happen to them too. Starting a startup is not like having an idea I didn't want to be novelists.1 Thanks to Sam Altman and Jessica Livingston for reading drafts of this. If you've never seen a word before, it is genuine.2 He would say that this has happened to. Another group was worried when they realized they had to do it? To change the interface both have to agree to change it easily, or at least a generation to turn people into East Germans luckily for England. Dilution Users have worried about that since the site was about bands. In server-based application now for less than you think you'll need, maybe 50% to 100% more, because software changes fast and government changes slow. And acquirers tell me privately that revenue is not what growth rate makes a company a startup.

There's no incentive that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way as saying that something is worth doing, especially if you have a competent startup lawyer handle the deal for you, as Google did for Kleiner and Sequoia. There is nothing more valuable than the advice of someone whose judgement you respect, what does it add to consider the cost. A stage. Once investors like you is that you actually become a better investment.3 It shouldn't be that surprising that colleges can't teach students how to write software. Reminder: What I'm looking for are programs that run on Web servers and use Web pages as the interface. This lets me get ip addresses and prices intact.4 But I don't think so. Maybe the best way to explain how it's recession-proof is to do things that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way I write software: I sit down and start implementing it. In retrospect, he was before he became a professor at MIT.5 Possibly not. But we could tell the founders were earnest, energetic, and independent-minded enough to start a startup, you'll probably fail.

Some investors might expect the founders to accept vesting for a sum this size, and others that aren't.6 But when you understand the problem. Going upstairs his bulk will be more of a placeholder than an actual label—like putting NMI on a form that asks what you're going to have a book about how to make them irrelevant.7 There seem to be a tradition of startups taking VC money, you should do is to treat it as an upper bound on the size of the venture business, which have evolved the way they write software. Would anyone seriously argue that Cobol is equivalent in power to founders is just don't die, but the most important predictor of success. We thought Airbnb was a bad idea was that it was valuable and dangerous, and what that will mean for you if you choose them. It will always be lots of Java programmers, so if you're measuring usage you need a window of about two years when spam was increasing rapidly but all the big email services had terrible filters. So, in practice, the way to make yourself work on hard problems.8 Number one will be the limit; the number of temptations around you.

Notes

Only founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, to pretend that the Internet was as much as Drew Houston needed Dropbox, or working in middle management at a discount of 30% means when it converts. No VC will admit they're influenced by buzz.

We didn't try to go sell the bad idea, period. This seems to them this way, without becoming a Texas oilman was not just something the telephone, the space of careers does. Correction: Earlier versions used a technicality to get them to be discovered. After reading a draft of this essay wrote: My feeling with the guy who came to work on stuff you love: a It did.

They'd be interchangeable if markets stood still. Cost, again. How many times that conversation was repeated. If Congress passes the founder of the word as in Boston, and tax rates.

You can get rich, purely mercenary founders will seem as if having good intentions were enough to be room for something new if the similarity extended to returns.

If they no longer needed, big companies weren't plagued by internal inefficiencies, they'd be called unfair. With a classic fixed sized round, or your job will consist of bad customs as well.

If there's an Indian grocery store near you doesn't mean you suck. It seems likely that in the chaos anyway.

Above. But when you depend on Aristotle more than linearly with its size.

They hate their bread and butter cases. It may have been sitting in their hearts that if you do if your goal is to be sharply differentiated, so you'd have to do that. That's probably true of nationality and religion as well. How can I count you in?

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #generation #things #Number

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mycrawfordcountyancestors · 5 months

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Week 6--Earning a living

With roots in Crawford County, it should not be a surprise that I have several ancestors who worked in various aspects of the oil business. Crawford County, Illinois had an oil boom in the early years of the 20th century. This affected nearly every family in Crawford County, in one way or another. You can still see the pumpjacks (I called them grasshoppers when I was a kid) in many rural areas of the county. And I believe my mother still gets an occasional (small) check from a long-ago ancestor’s well.

(Photo from Library of Congress website)

For starters, two of my great-grandfather’s sisters married two brothers of John W. Shire, whose 1906 toss of an old whiskey bottle south of Stoy marked the site of the first oil well in Crawford County, starting the oil boom. The oil boom lead to a construction boom, and those brothers of John Shire and two of their brothers-in-law (my great-grandfather Earnest Bashears and another brother, W.C. “Tuckie” Bashears) were construction workers at this time.

My maternal grandfather C. Scott Bashears was enumerated as a blacksmith for an oil well supply company in the 1940 census and was a tank car repairman in the 1950 census. His younger brother worked in a laboratory at the refinery and one of my grandfather’s sisters married a man who worked in the oil industry and they moved to Wyoming.

My maternal grandmother Dorothy (Marbry) Bashears worked in the office of Lincoln Oil Company before my mom was born. Her family was very involved in the oil business. As a child in the 1910s and 1920s, my grandmother lived in Oklahoma where her father Will Marbry worked as a wildcatter. He traveled throughout the Great Plains drilling for oil in previously unexplored areas. My great-grandmother, Bertha (Hill) Marbry occasionally accompanied him on his expeditions.

From the back of the photo: “ 1st well ‘the Winkle Man’. The one with me in the picture is ‘Mrs. Perrin’ the lady that was with us at Dry Creek and one of the drillers and a tool dresser.” My great-grandmother Bertha is on the far right. The Winkleman Dome Oil Field is in Fremont County, Wyoming, about 30 miles from Lander, Wyoming. Winkleman was first drilled in 1917.

After the family returned to Crawford County in the mid-1920s, my great-grandfather Will worked as a machinist at the Ohio Oil Company refinery in Robinson, later Marathon Oil. He and a coworker patented a metering valve in 1930. Two of my grandmother’s brothers, Zeb and Bob, worked at the refinery. Lastly, a favorite cousin (a son of my grandmother’s sister) worked as an engineer, and later in upper management, for Marathon Oil Company.

My paternal family also had ties to the oil industry, starting with my great-grandfather Rollie Wiseman. He grew up a couple of miles north of Stoy and by 1930 was working in the oil fields of Stoy as a roustabout. In fact, while walking home from lunch at a tavern in Stoy in 1963, he felt ill and died near the oil field pump station.

A tantalizing tangent to the oil industry: In early December 1911 the bank at Stoy was blown open with dynamite and robbed of about $1500. No one thought anything of the early morning booms; loud noises were common in the oil fields. Because of something said to my dad by his dad Ray (Rollie’s son) the family story is that Rollie had something to do with the robbery, or had inside information about the robbery. Rollie was, let’s say, an interesting man.

Rollie’s son (my paternal grandfather) Ray Wiseman worked at the Ohio Oil/Marathon refinery for 44 years. In 1950 he was a stillman. My grandfather had two brothers and they both worked in the oil business, too. Donald worked at the refinery in Robinson and Clifford worked elsewhere in Illinois.

The Marathon Oil refinery remains one of Crawford County’s largest employers, employing approximately 650 people with the ability refine up to 253,000 barrels of crude oil per day. I wonder what John W. Shire would think of the legacy of his random whiskey bottle toss today.

(Photo from the Marathon Petroleum website)

#52ancestors #crawfordcounty #genealogy #illinois #wiseman #bashears #stoyillinois #oilboom

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ailtrahq · 9 months

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Asset management firm Valkyrie will begin offering exposure to Ether (ETH) futures to United States investors through its existing Bitcoin Strategy exchange-traded fund, or ETF.A Valkyrie spokesperson told Cointelegraph on Sept. 28 that the firm's Bitcoin (BTC) Strategy ETF will allow investors access to ETH and BTC futures "under one wrapper", making it one of the first firms to do so amid several pending applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Starting on Oct. 3, the fund's name will be updated to the Valkyrie Bitcoin and Ether Strategy ETF.At the time of publication, the SEC had not published a proposed rule change allowing listing a new Ether futures ETF on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. However, the commission released an order regarding "additional analysis" over the listing of the Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund — a spot BTC ETF.The jockeying has begun in full as Valkyrie announcing they are buying Ether futures for $BTF today (ahead of formal name change on Tue). In related news, hearing that some issuers are ready to launch Monday morning, unclear how many yet, but at least a couple. Game on. https://t.co/I1FiVU58RZ— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) September 28, 2023 Valkyrie filed an application with the SEC on Aug. 16 for a fund not offering a direct investment in Ether but through ETH futures contract. The firm also offers a Bitcoin Miners ETF, tracking securities of companies that derive their revenue or profits from crypto mining, and was also one of the first companies in the U.S. to launch an ETF tied to BTC futures in 2021.Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart had speculated that Ether futures ETFs would begin trading in the first week of October partly in response to a potential U.S. government shutdown. Should members of Congress be unable to vote on a bill funding the government into the next fiscal year with enough time for U.S.President Joe Biden to sign it into law by Sept. 30, the SEC and many other federal agencies will be reduced to a skeleton crew.UPDATE: Okay here we go. Those other 7 Spot #Bitcoin filings (which includes @BlackRock as many have poitned out) that are due for decision in mid October are getting their delay orders. Starting to trickle in. First up @ValkyrieFunds! pic.twitter.com/xywjwLlojT— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) September 28, 2023 To date, the SEC has not approved any spot crypto ETF for trading in the United States, but many experts have suggested that position could change following Grayscale Investments winning a review of its spot BTC ETF in court. Valkyrie, along with several other firms including BlackRock, have applications pending for spot crypto ETFs. Source

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wuyongying · 1 year

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See every stock trade House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband has made since 2021

As members of Congress debate whether lawmakers and their spouses should play the stock market, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, a venture capitalist, continues to regularly buy and sell stocks and stock options.

Pelosi has access to confidential intelligence and the power to affect — with words or actions — the fortunes of companies in which her husband invests and trades.

When asked in December 2021 whether members of Congress should even be allowed to trade stocks, Pelosi answered in the affirmative.

"We are a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that," she said.

This led some of her colleagues, on both the left and the right, to sharply criticize her — and draft legislation to restrict members of Congress and their spouses from trading stocks.

"Year after year, politicians somehow manage to outperform the market, buying and selling millions in stocks of companies they're supposed to be regulating," Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said. "Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other at the expense of the country. Here's something we can do: ban all members of Congress from trading stocks and force those who do to pay their proceeds back to the American people. It's time to stop turning a blind eye to Washington profiteering."

Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, introduced a similar bill alongside Sen. Mark Kelly with the intent to ban members of Congress and their families from trading stocks.

"Members of Congress should not be playing the stock market while we make federal policy and have extraordinary access to confidential information," Ossoff said.

Pelosi has since softened her stance, but the fate of a congressional stock-trade ban remains unclear. On July 21, Pelosi denied that her husband uses information she provides to make stock trades.

A previous analysis from Insider estimated that the Pelosis are worth at least $46,123,051, making Nancy Pelosi one of the 25 richest members of Congress. The vast majority of the couple's wealth is derived from stocks, options, and investments made by Paul Pelosi.

AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. (AB)

Purchased 20,000 shares worth between $500,000 and $1 million on December 22, 2020

Purchased 15,000 shares worth between $500,000 and $1 million on February 18, 2021

Purchased 25,000 shares worth between $500,000 and $1 million on February 23, 2021

Purchased 10,000 shares worth between $250,000 and $500,000 on January 27, 2022

Exercised 40 call options (4,000 shares) on June 18, 2021, at a strike price of $1,200 and cumulatively worth between $1 million and $5 million

Purchased 20 call options on May 21, 2021, at a strike price of $3,000, and together valued between $500,000 and $1 million

Exercised 50 call options (5,000 shares) on January 21, 2022, at a strike price of $80 and together worth between $250,000 and $500,000

Purchased 100 call options with a strike price of $100 on December 22, 2020, together worth between $250,000 and $500,000

Purchased 50 call options with a strike price of $100 on May 21, 2021, together worth between $100,000 and $250,000

Contribution of 3,000 shares to Georgetown University's Paul F. Pelosi Endowed Fund on December 30, 2021, worth between $500,000 and $1 million

Contribution of 3,000 shares to Trinity College on December 30, 2021, worth between $500,000 and $1 million

Exercised 100 call options (10,000 shares) on January 21, 2022, at a strike price of $100, together valued between $1 million and $5 million

Purchased 100 call options on May 13, 2022, with a strike price of $80 and together valued between $500,000 and $1 million

Purchased 50 call options on May 24, 2022, with a strike price of $80 and together valued between $250,000 and $500,000

Sold 50 call options at a strike price of $100 on June 17, 2022, and valued between $100,000 and $250,000

Purchased 100 call options on December 21, 2021, at a strike price of $50 and together valued between $250,001 and $500,000

Exercised 150 call options (15,000 shares) on March 19, 2021, at a strike price of $130 and together valued between $1 million and $5 million

Exercised 100 call options (10,000 shares) on March 19, 2021, at a strike price of $140, and together valued between $1 million and $5 million

Bought 10 call options on May 24, 2022, at a strike price of $180 and together valued between $50,000 and $100,000

Purchased 40 call options on May 24, 2022, with a strike price of $180 and together valued between $250,001 and $500,000

Purchased 50 call options on June 3, 2021, at a strike price of $400, together valued between $1 million and $5 million

Purchased 5,000 shares on July 23, 2021, together valued between $500,000 and $1 million

Bought 50 call options on July 23, 2021, at a strike price of $100, together valued between $250,000 and $500,000

Exercised 200 call options (20,000 shares) at a strike price of $100 on June 17, 2022, together valued between $1 million and $5 million

Sold all of his shares (25,000 total) on July 26, 2022, valued between $1 million and $5 million at an average price of $164.05 and for a total loss of $341,365

Exercised 50 call options (5,000 shares) on January 21, 2022, at a strike price of $100 and together valued between $500,000 and $1 million

Invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in the asset-backed security on December 22, 2021

Invested between $15,000 and $50,000 on August 24, 2022

Invested between $250,000 and $500,000 in the asset-backed security on July 13, 2021

Purchased 10,000 shares worth between $500,000 and $1 million on March 10, 2021

Purchased 100 call options at a strike price of $100 on December 20, 2021, together valued between $250,000 and $500,000.

Purchased 100 call options on December 20, 2021, at a strike price of $210, together valued between $500,000 and $1 million

Purchased 30 call options on December 20, 2021, at a strike price of $210, together valued between $100,000 and $250,000

Exchanged 10,000 shares of Slack Technologies Inc. on July 22, 2021, for 776 shares of Salesforce.com Inc. as the result of a merger, with a cash payout of $267,900

Purchased 25 call options on December 22, 2020, with a strike price of $500, together valued between $500,000 and $1 million

Exercised 25 call options (2,500 shares) on March 17, 2022, at a strike price of $500, together valued between $1 million and $5 million

Sold 10,000 shares on June 21, 2022, valued between $1 million and $5 million

Purchased 100 call options on December 22, 2020, at a strike price of $100, together valued between $500,000 and $1 million

Purchased 50 call options on December 17, 2021, at a strike price of $130, together valued between $100,000 and $250,000

Exercised 100 call options (10,000 shares) on January 21, 2022, at a strike price of $100, together valued between $1 million and $5 million

Received 2,419 shares on April 11, 2022, resulting from a spinoff of previously held AT&T (T) shares, together valued between $50,000 and $100,000

Methodology note: In 2012, Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act to combat insider trading and conflicts of interest to bring more transparency to lawmakers' financial dealings.

Per the STOCK Act, members of Congress are required to file financial disclosures within 45 days of making a trade, doing so in a certified congressional document known as a periodic transaction report. Insider collected and analyzed the trades listed in each of Pelosi's periodic transaction reports submitted since 2021.

Federal lawmakers are required to report stock trades made by themselves, their spouses, and their dependent children. But they are only required to list the value of reported trades in broad ranges.

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liulolo · 1 year

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【See every stock trade House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband has made since 2021】