#social security laws

[mabbbish]

wonderful day to remember ninjago has a canon highschool au

[alwaysbewoke]

x

[snarp]

ohhhhhh this shit is pathetic

Lawyers: "will the SSA start using email any time soon"

SSA: "oh gosh this modern technology stuff we would LOVE to get in on that"

Lawyers: "does the SSA know about the concept of "law firms""

SSA: "we don't believe in those."

[panicinthestudio]

Further reading:

HKFP: Explainer: How, and why, the gov’t banned protest song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’, May 17, 2024

[agentfascinateur]

Freedom for Vladimir Kara-Murza

Russia can offer no lessons until it lets people speak.

[fake-guns-blazing]

bro look at all this money i don’t even get to keep

[the-bibrarian]

“The EU average stands at 64.3 years for men and 63.5 years for women. In France, the current retirement age is 64.5 years for both men and women, according to the OECD dataset. This means that France has a slightly higher retirement age than the EU average.”

Source : euronews.com

The absolute fucking irony

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

GOP Presidential Hopeful Ramaswamy Sued Over Strive’s Practices | Bloomberg

In separate lawsuits, two former employees at the candidate’s Strive Asset Management claim that the anti-ESG investment firm pressured them to violate securities laws.

Vivek Ramaswamy has been rising in presidential polls partly on the strength of his business accomplishments. Before he started running for the Republican nomination, where polling averages now put him in third place behind Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, Ramaswamy founded and ran a drug development company, Roivant, which he took public in 2021. Then he started an asset management firm, Strive, presenting it as a conservative answer to the ESG movement’s focus on investments’ environmental, social and governance impacts. Strive’s motto, meant as a contrast to ESG, is “invest in excellence.”

But two former employees have filed lawsuits in recent months against the investment firm as well as Ramaswamy and his co-founder Anson Frericks that suggest practices at the company were something less than that. They accuse Ramaswamy and Frericks of aggressively pushing employees to violate securities law and of mistreating staff. They also suggest that the company has struggled to meet lofty growth goals for its “anti-ESG” investments.

Christopher Lenzo, a lawyer for plaintiff Joyce Rosely, said the two suits raised questions about Ramaswamy’s seriousness as an asset manager. Strive “was founded, in retrospect, largely as a PR mechanism for the presidential campaign of Ramaswamy,” he said. “Not a lot of thought was given to running it as an investment firm.”

Neither lawsuit has been previously reported. Ramaswamy’s track record will be in focus during next week’s presidential debate, when DeSantis allies have signaled that he plans to concentrate attacks on Ramaswamy. “Strive intends to vigorously defend itself,” the company said in a statement. “Beyond that, it is our policy not to comment on active litigation.” Tricia McLaughlin, Ramaswamy’s communications director, didn’t comment on the lawsuit. She noted that Ramaswamy, who served as Strive’s executive chairman until earlier this year, left Strive when he decided to run for president. “Strive is completely separate from Vivek and his campaign,” she said.

The first suit, filed in Kansas by a regional sales chief who was dismissed as part of a reorganization in March, also says Ramaswamy misrepresented the company’s finances to employees and investors, exaggerating its growth when pitching venture capitalists and recruiting staff. The former employee, John Phillips, claims he was induced to leave a job at JPMorgan that would have paid him more than $1 million in 2022, based on promises made by Ramaswamy and others that Strive was well financed and that Ramaswamy was dedicated to the company.

In reality, according to the suit, Strive was “undercapitalized,” and Ramaswamy was planning a presidential bid. The suit was filed in June, three months after Phillips claims he was fired by Strive without cause. Strive has filed a motion to dismiss the case.

In the second suit, filed Aug. 8 in a Union County, New Jersey, court, Rosely claims she was fired as co-head of institutional sales in retaliation for raising concerns about sexual harassment at the firm and violations of securities laws. She contends she saw a Strive executive make aggressive sexual advances toward a more junior staffer.

When Rosely, a veteran of State Street and Goldman Sachs, complained to Frericks, Strive’s president, he told Rosely it was “none of his business,” according to her complaint. At the time, Frericks, a former beer distribution executive who went to high school with Ramaswamy, held the company’s most senior position.

Like Phillips, Rosely claims that Ramaswamy and Frericks pressured her to violate securities laws. She says she was asked to use sales materials that improperly promised future returns and urged to allow employees who were not yet registered to sell securities to pitch clients. Rosely also claims she complained about Ramaswamy’s social media posts, which she believed constituted unlawful securities sales.

Both Phillips and Roseley were fired in March, alongside another executive who Rosely says was also complaining about the securities law violations. She claims that Strive told her the firing was part of a reorganization but also that everyone who was dismissed as part of the reorganization was over 40 years old. Her suit alleges that she was the victim of age discrimination, as well as retaliation for raising concerns about harassment and securities law violations.

In April, a month after the dismissals, Matt Cole, Strive’s chief investment officer, was named chief executive officer. In a June memo, Cole acknowledged the departures of “underperforming members of the distribution team.” He also signaled that Strive, which manages exchange traded funds (or ETFs) with about $1 billion in total assets as of Aug. 17, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, would tone down its political rhetoric and focus on promoting “shareholder capitalism” instead of criticizing ESG. The memo, first reported by Semafor, said that growth in the firm’s funds had slowed in 2023 in part because investors had seen the firm as “political over investment oriented.” The memo said growth had resumed and would accelerate in a “‘hockey stick’ fashion” starting in 2025.

[xxxemilyg1996]

*can't work due to a disability

*doesn't have health insurance because can't work

*applies for social security disability income

*get told you need years of medical records to qualify

*can't regularly go to the doctor, because you don't have health insurance

*can't pay out of pocket because you can't work due to said disability

*gets a lawyer, they say you're too young to be disabled and won't represent you

Congrats you've just wasted 2.5 years of your life not being paid or having any money or health care because the government and people who are supposed to sue the government on your behalf would rather you just died instead

[whumpshaped]

WHY would u make a topic entirely centered around specific definitions and words w like literally no other structure than. memorising all these words. and a bunch of definitions from the legislation. what. why would u do that. whats wrong w u

[wartakes]

Make War Criminals Afraid Again (OLD ESSAY)

This essay was originally posted on January 6th, 2020 (IT WAS POSTED BEFORE T H E E V E N T S OF THAT DAY; NEXT ESSAY IS ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED).

I got super mad at some dipshit former Marine officer who said Trump should pardon noted war criminal Robert Bales. That's about it really. (Full essay below the cut).

CW: I know I tend to sprinkle swearing and colorful language in these regardless, but I really go off on this one language wise. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This wasn’t what I wanted to start off this year writing about.

Believe it or not, I had some more tongue and cheek stuff I wanted to show you for the inaugural essay of 2021 that at least might have been more entertaining – if still informative (still have it in the works, but its going to have to wait for a while now).

Unfortunately, it has once again been proven we cannot have nice things, and something in particular has gotten under my skin and that of many other leftists who are or have been involved with defense, the military, or other parts of national security – as well as anyone else who isn’t a leftist or a natsec person but still possesses anything resembling a soul and a conscience.

That something in particular was what some might charitably call an “opinion piece” – though I’d rather call it self-indulgent, racist, right wing masturbation material – that was published by Military.com on January 4, 2021 (“yesterday”, as of the time I’m writing this, fueled by anger and a hasty dinner of fried spam and rice because that was all I had in the pantry I could make quickly to get right to writing).

The op-ed in question was written by written by retired Marine Corps Reserve Lieutenant Colonel David “Bull” Gurfein – I want you to know my eyes rolled so hard from his claimed moniker that my retinas very nearly disconnected – and calls for convicted war-criminal, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, to be pardoned by President Donald Trump. Bales was convicted in 2013 of the murder of 16 Afghan civilians while he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. It is worth noting that, not only was he convicted of the murders by a jury of his military peers, he also plead guilty to that crime and confessed to those murders. Additionally, his case also went through the military appeals process, going all the way to the Supreme Court – which declined to review it.

Despite this, Lieutenant Colonel Bullshit – I think that nickname is more appropriate than the version he would prefer I use – lays out a disjointed series of falsehoods masquerading as “patriotism” in an impressive feat of mental gymnastics that would turn any sane person’s brain into a pretzel, arguing that Bales should be pardoned and released along with a number of other convicted “warriors” that remain behind bars. He does so on the behalf of “United American Patriots”, an organization that specifically advocates for U.S. troops convicted of war crimes – that is, the few that actually have been convicted in twenty years of forever war with numerous wrongs committed along the way.

Bullshit is making UAP’s final push for pardons after likely seeing that the writing is on the wall for Trump despite all of his attempts stealing an election that saw him lose by several million votes – to Joe fucking Biden no less. I can see why. War criminals have had no greater advocate in a President than Trump, who in his one term has pardoned convicted murderers Army First Lieunteant Clint Lorance and Army Major Matthew Golsteyn, as well as reversing the demotion of Navy SEAL Master Chief Edward Gallagher – the demotion being the only punishment Gallagher received for a murder that even other Navy SEALs were disturbed by. There have been a number of other war criminals lining up aside from these three notables, all hoping to get the Trump treatment to wash them of their sins.

So, knowing that, I can’t say I’m surprised that Bullshit is pushing for Bales to get the same hero treatment that Lorance, Golsteyn, and Gallagher have all received. But fact that he has the gall to advocate for it, so forcefully and openly, for someone convicted of a crime that is so egregious and horrific, is what makes this attempt so sickening – as well as the fact it would get published in anything other than, say, the Daily Stormer. It drives home everything that is so thoroughly fucked up about civil-military relations and the military in general in this country today.

Why This Really Matters

I’m not going to go through Bullshit’s article and refute his sad excuse for an argument point by point. Frankly, it doesn’t deserve it, and if you have any shred of decency left, you’ll know that he’s wrong without needing someone at me to tear his argument apart to show you how.

What really has me incensed about this is the fact I have to write this at all – let along the prosecutor who convicted Bales, who offered his own reasoning why Bales should remain behind bars and any pardon would be a miscarriage of justice. The fact we have to even consider that Trump might pardon Bales before he leaves office – if he’s not too preoccupied with any last-minute coup ideas. The fact that a military officer – retired, reserve, active duty, or otherwise – would think that this is a good and decent position to take, write an entire-ass op-ed about. The fact that anything resembling a reputable source of news – something Military.com just barely counted as before today for me – would think it was moral and ethical to give a piece of shit like this a platform to argue for something so abhorrent. That’s what has me steaming mad.

All that being ranted, there is one specific point from Bullshit’s piece that I want to latch onto that has me especially livid and I think really gets to the core of “something is very, very wrong with this country and its military” point I’m trying to make out of all of this. To cap off his cavalcade of fuckery, Bullshit concludes on this note:

To maintain good order and discipline within our armed forces, the president must send a clear and resounding message to its commanders, prosecutors and investigators that our nation will not tolerate our warriors’ rights being violated. Supported by the Constitution, the president must confidently take action to rectify the injustices faced by the eight warriors listed above by dismissing with prejudice the charges, disapproving the findings and sentences, providing full and unconditional pardons, and/or commuting the sentences for those still imprisoned.

Full disclosure: I have never served in the military. For the longest time, I was just an interested enthusiast when it came to the military, war, and national security. I have never been in combat, nor any situation that I could reasonably compare to it. That being said, eventually I moved up to being a student of these topics, and finally became a civilian practitioner of them. Over time I have built up a knowledge base on these issues through my own study, experience, and interactions with current and former military personnel from all branches of the armed forces and from multiple countries – some of whom are now close friends.

So, it is with all that in mind, in response to Bullshit’s conclusion, I scream into the internet at the top of my lungs the following:

THAT’S NOT HOW THAT FUCKING WORKS. THAT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF HOW THAT FUCKING WORKS AND YOU DAMN WELL SHOULD KNOW THAT YOU PATHETIC FUCKER.

To be an officer and to say with a straight face that we need to pardon war criminals in order to maintain “good order and discipline” makes me angry on a level I did not think was possible, even after the experiences of 2020 that radicalized me to the point I started writing these essays. You don ‘t maintain discipline by implicitly telling your troops that they can murder non-combatants and get off the hook for it scot free because “‘Murica.” That is exactly the type of attitude that – along with other factors – only encourages a lack of discipline and a lack of respect for rules and regulations among the troops where it has been allowed to take root. You can draw a gigantic red line right between a lack of command discipline and a lack of discipline among subordinate troops (as if you  need the bright red line there to make the connection). All you accomplish with an attitude like that is an endless feedback loop of declining standards of acceptable behavior. That’s what turns a professional military into nothing more than an armed rabble. If you asked just about any military officer or NCO that I worked with or was friends with they would say the same thing in some shape or form.

While shocking, it still makes sense that Bullshit would say this, given the type of people he advocates for – aside from the usual right-wing motivations of racism, imperialism, or the favorite right-wing celebrity past time of grifting for donation money – among others. After all, officers are meant to be responsible for the troops under their command and the actions that they take – including any war crimes. Bullshit seems like the type of officer who would want to avoid having to deal with that reality, so its much easier to simply say that the crime never happened, or that we don’t have all the facts, or that it wasn’t a crime and the murderer was wrongly convicted and that the victims were in fact “bad guys” and the murderer is really a hero, etc. etc. Anything in the book to avoid having to reap what you sow, evidentially. That’s what this all feels like: grasping any possible way to avoid repercussions for your actions because you’ve been led to believe you are physically incapable of doing any wrong.

It Shouldn’t Be Like This

If you’ve read any other of these essays I’ve written so far, you know that I think war is a reality we have to accept, and that the military is a necessary institution – even under an ideal, democratic socialist government. However, even with that in mind, we can’t have a properly functioning, professional military under any form of government if the message is sent that you can commit heinous acts with no repercussions. Bullshit, as an officer, should know that. Any of the officers and NCOs that his sad excuse for an organization has advocated for should know that. The President of the United States of America – the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces – should absolutely know that. If we are pardoning people like Bales – or even treating it as an acceptable point of view – we cannot have a military that isn’t sick to its core. It will only contribute to the numerous other maladies that poison the culture of the military and keep it from fulfilling its ideal purpose of protecting the people rather serving the interests of the few.

Its not just the military that the attitude that Bullshit and others like him takes towards war criminals poisons, but the relationship between the people and the military and the political atmosphere of the country as a whole. It sends all sorts of messages, none of which should be acceptable.  It sends the message that troops are beyond reproach and capable of doing no wrong. It sends the message that the life of one American is more important than the lives of 18 people from a country that you can’t find on a map – but they’re brown, speak a different language and pray to a different God so that makes it ok because they’re clearly subhuman. If that isn’t enough, it sends the message that the lives of certain Americans matter more than others – as long as you believe the right things, say the right things, look the right way, and so on. It sends the message that violence like that Bales committed is fine as long as the right people are in charge or you have the right people on your side – which feels apt to say, just as a whole coterie of right-wing supporters are due to march on our nation’s capital to defy election results. This are just some of what pardoning Bales would signal – all of it terrible.

I don’t know how to wrap this up properly, so I’m just going to end it by stating the obvious:

This isn’t how things should work.

We can’t let it be the way things work.

Things not only should be different, they have to be different.

We have to make things different, or there really is no hope at fixing this country and making the world a better place.

Don’t let this be the way things are.

[themagical1sa]

Regarding the SIM Card and Social Media Registration Act

because people still reblog these posts on it, and it's time I personally update everyone about it.

For those unaware: the SIM Card and SocMed Registration Act was a bill initially intended as counteraction against trolls and spreaders of misinformation on social media.

It was, however, found to be unconstitutional, criminalizing the right to anonymity and pseudonymity on the Internet and is a violation of Filipinos' rights to privacy, freedom of speech, and freedom of association (Democracy.Net.PH).

c. For using fictitious identites to register SIM cards or social media accounts. — The penalty of imprisonment of no less than six (6) years, or a fine of up to Two hundred thousand pesos (₱200,000.00), or both, shall be imposed upon anyone who uses a fictitious identity to purchase and register a SIM cards or social media account.

This is a direct violation of the 1987 Constitution, particularly Article III Sections 3 (1) and 4.

Above is a screenshot of Microsoft Edge from my laptop. The tab is showing a webpage from the Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. The text shown is from Article III, the Bill of Rights, but the highlighted text are Sections 3 (1) and 4. They read, “SECTION 3. (1) The privacy of communication and correspondence shall be inviolable except upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order requires otherwise as prescribed by law,” and “SECTION 4. No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.”

With this in mind, it was imperative that word spread of how dangerous the Act was and to have the then-President Rodrigo Duterte veto it.

It was vetoed on April 15, 2022.

This was, as @katsurolle said, "half a win for online anonymity." It was only vetoed because the this bill would also endanger and penalize paid political trolls in the Philippines.

Half a win as it was... there was a collective sigh of relief from the Filipino people.

This half-victory had been only short-lived.

Four months into presidency, President Bongbong Marcos signed a revised SIM Card Registration bill into law on October 10, 2022.

It is meant to reduce cybercrime — spam and scam texts, more especially.

According to Office of the Press Secretary officer-in-charge Cheloy Garafil, the SIM Card Registration Act aims to provide “accountability in the use of SIM cards and aid law enforcers to track perpetrators of crimes committed through phones.”

The signing of the measure will likewise “significantly boost government initiatives against scams committed through text and online messages, which have become more prevalent this year.”

This, however, brings forth a new concern: data leaks.

Scam texts in the Philippines have been containing the receiver's names, and it's been very likely that private information on the internet has been leaked.

I have more that go as far as July.

There are certainly many issues that need to be resolved first, but as far as the SIM Card Registration Law is concerned, its execution is well underway. Globe Telecom's subscribers have already been receiving a text that looks like this:

Hi! Get ready to start your Globe Prepaid SIM registration journey on December 27, 2022. For more info, please visit https://glbe.co/simregfaq

I just hope the SIM Card Registration Law will be as effective as national goverment officials claim it to be.

Thank you to everyone who spread awareness of the SIM Card and Social Media Registration Act — I'm very grateful.

That will be all, and thank you for reading.

[snarp]

They'd scheduled the speakers from furthest-right-leaning (noncommitally-smile-grimacing SSA senior officials calling the "30,000 people/year die while their disability claims are being processed" situation a "customer service" problem) to furthest-left-leaning (volunteer lawyers for people who have been mistreated by the SSA + severely-disabled woman who has been mistreated by the SSA), to ensure that the people with the most-serious grievances didn't speak until 2/3 of the room had left for lunch. Will be interested to learn if AppalRed gets any new volunteers.

[cardboxshelter]

After so much abuse me and my colleagues endure we reached the fuck it we ball era

no one will do unpaid overtime after hearing so much shit and humiliation

But I'm still deep in debt and I will still need to find a new job probably :')

[panicinthestudio]

Further reading:

HKFP: Gov’t seeks to ban protest song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’, including from internet, June 6, 2023

HKFP: Protest song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ dominates local iTunes top 10, hours after gov’t sought ban, June 7, 2023

HKFP: ‘Too early’ to say if ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ ban would result in Google withdrawal, data scientist says, June 13, 2023

[omarfaruk]

Musk’s lawyer tells Twitter staff they won’t be liable if the company violates the FTC consent decree

Following a warning shot from the FTC to Twitter yesterday, TechCrunch has obtained an internal email sent by Elon Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, to all remaining employees — in which he seeks to calm staffers’ concerns by claiming that they do not have individual liability for upholding the requirements of the FTC consent decree.

We’ve reproduced the full text of the email (sic) below — which was sent by Spiro to Twitter staff at 5:21PM, November 10:

Elon – questions have arisen today regarding the consent decree in effect at the time you took over the company.

We have our first upcoming compliance check with the ftc since taking over and we will handle it.

The only party to the decree is Twitter- not individuals who work at Twitter. It is Twitter itself (not individual employees) who is a party and therefore only Twitter the company could be liable.

I understand that there have been employees at Twitter who do not even work on the ftc matter commenting that they could to to jail if we were not in compliance- that is simply not how this works. It is the company’s obligation. It is the company’a burden. It is the company’s liability.

We spoke to the FTC today about our continuing obligations and have a constructive ongoing dialogue.

We will of course remain in compliance with the consent decree and the legal department is handling it and happy to answer any questions

Thanks

Alex

The 2011 consent decree required Twitter to establish and maintain a program to ensure and regularly report that its new features do not further misrepresent “the extent to which it maintains and protects the security, privacy, confidentiality, or integrity of any nonpublic consumer information.”

In a note (first reported by The Verge) posted in Twitter’s internal slack and visible to all employees, a departing internal attorney said that in fact, individual engineers do engender “personal, professional and legal risk,” seemingly in contradiction to what Spiro sent in the above email.

On Thursday, key Twitter executives including the company’s Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, as well as its Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner, Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty, and Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran all abruptly departed the company. The FTC noted that they are watching with “deep concern” the ongoing situation at Twitter in light of the consent decree.

The FTC fined Twitter $150 million earlier this year after finding a breach of the settlement related to user data provided for security purposes being used for ad targeting.

We’ve reached out to the FTC for clarification regarding the consent decree and individual employee liability and will update you if we receive more information.

Credit: techcrunch.com