I mean if her rallying for Biden means campaigning for him, I honestly think that she particularly has every good reason not to do that. Tlaib is a Palestinian American, and Biden has openly contributed billions directly to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza, going so far as to bypass congress to do so, all while he and nearly every other Dem continue to refuse to acknowledge that Israel’s actions constitute anything “messed up,” much less full-on genocide.

I cannot stress enough that if, in the face of Biden’s continuing contributions to the genocide of her family’s country of origin, it is an ethical impossibility for her to publically endorse him for a second term, that is completely on him, not on her.

Found an article that pinned an update - she was suspended for 45 minutes. Weird.

https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/02/20/x-formerly-twitter-suspends-yulia-navalnaya-s-account

deleted by creator

Though not as high risk as being a logger, a fishing worker, a pilot, a roofer, a general construction worker, any job driving a car or semi, any agricultural laborer, and certain types of maintenance work, among a few others.*

This process is already gatekept, to my knowledge. In my state, changing your legal gender id or name requires going through the courts and a substantial amount of legal paperwork - even if you do so without a lawyer, there are some substantial fees associated with that process. Not to mention if someone wanted to become less identifiable, they probably wouldn’t want to do that in a way that is available as public record. Personally, I’d probably just get a haircut - they’re a lot faster and a lot cheaper.

Additionally, banning everyone - especially banning exclusively trans people - from fixing their documentation is not a reasonable solution to your hypothetical problem, a fact so obvious anyone arguing in good faith almost certainly would have caught it.

I’m currently nonreligious, but there are hundreds of people that have influenced my personal philosophies. But despite the things I believe having come from or been influenced by other people, I still consider my beliefs to be my own. Why should the beliefs of religious or spiritual people be viewed any differently?

Laws like this one (as well as far right fear mongering in general) misrepresent that situation even more than you’d think. Only 800 minors in the country (out of ~80 million depending on how you count, so ~0.001% of all US minors) got any transition related surgeries over the course of 2 years. On top of that, there aren’t a lot of surgeons who do these surgeries, and some of them won’t operate on minors. So because of the limited number of surgeons, trans people often have to travel across at least state lines to get these surgeries, which is why none of this very small population of minors even got their surgeries in Ohio.

These laws are made all the more sinister when you realize half of their content outlaws things that aren’t even happening entirely for the sake of feeding into bigoted fear mongering and dehumanization - “they’re coming for your kids.”

Why would that work? At this point, the majority of people comfortable continuing to vote Republican after an attempted coup, the repeal of Roe, and an avalanche of explicitly harmful and bigoted legislation are die-hard reactionaries and Trump supporters, and the Republican primaries seem to be reflecting that. Nikki Haley is the closest thing we have to a center-right candidate, and her odds of beating Trump right now are pretty slim. The political right has been bleeding public support for a while now, and Trump is the only thing that’s been giving them momentum and wins - dropping him is desirable to at least some of the party, but it probably isn’t an actual option.

And even if they did drop Trump, like… they’re probably not going to course correct at this point. Enacting christofascism and appealing to reactionaries is looking more and more like the only hope for a future the party has left, and they’ll likely continue down that path with or without Trump. “Bringing Trump to justice” is still worthwhile, but on a number of levels, it will not suddenly make the party of the southern strategy electable.

Pretty sure there’s an ocean of difference between Jesus Christ rebuking the literal devil and a politician traveling across state borders to illegally deface a statue as a publicity stunt to fundraise and get an interview on Fox about how he totally “decapitated Satan.” Even if his conviction was somehow driven by religion and not pure vanity (it wasn’t), any form of religious supremacy has no place in society at large, let alone a government building. The law recognizes this, “freedom of religion” is the backbone of this in the US, and I’d hope people understand why it might be a worthwhile and important protection to have and uphold.

Additionally, I have a suspicion that anyone who favorably compares a person who postures as a Christian supremacist to Christ is less the sort of person with an understanding of their religion and more the sort of person who knows how to search for the word “Satan” in their YouVersion Bible app.

Just edited the followup reply to clarify what I was trying to say- I don’t think it’s what you thought it was, and I can see how it was unclear

I feel like I might’ve gotten a little off topic with this, but I just see this sentiment of “both parties are the same (so let’s completely abandon electoralism)” so often online right now and I find it so exhausting and unconstructive.

Well, people did stop this in Ohio, specifically. Local organizers recently successfully petitioned to put abortion rights (which Republican representatives had been threatening) on the ballot statewide - voters got it passed, alongside marijuana legalization, all while facing (and continuing to face) significant antagonism and legal backlash from “elected” Republicans in the 2nd most gerrymandered state in the union.

Both parties suck, I’d go so far as to say both parties frequently do outright evil shit, but they are not the fucking same, and even if they were, that has yet stop people from coming together to get involved and improve their communities themselves. Observing politics near exclusively at the federal level tends to obscure that reality. I accept that this sort of doomerism can come from a place of ignorance, so I offer you suggestion: if you want things to get better, go help. Go find out what groups are actively working to induce local- or state-level government reform, or who are working to directly improve the lives of marginalized people in your community, and go help them. You can’t exactly stop fed-level Dems from being useless hypocrites, but you can get involved with groups in your community to help with the work of bringing about positive change - and while that is harder than stewing about the state of things, it actually gets results.

I'm a little more torn over this than others… On one hand, this is the appropriate messaging to force Democrats to actually represent the interests of their electorate, the thing they're specifically elected to do. The phone lines of these politicians should be going off 24 hours a day with callers telling them they will never even consider voting for them again unless they show an appropriate level of change, remorse, and action to stop this. Biden should be receiving that 10x over. Additionally, there are groups of people I will never criticize for refusing to vote - should the white lefty criticize the Muslim for refusing to vote for a leader that does not value the lives of Muslims? Should they criticize the Jew for refusing to vote for a leader who commits genocide in their name?

…and on the other hand, as a queer person who follows politics, I still feel any public refusal to vote Biden on my part must be a bluff. There's too much at stake for me to justify going through with it privately… there's my trans life, yes, but then there's also the lives of my trans and generally queer friends, the freedoms of the women in my life, the lives and freedoms of those groups on the national scale, the ability for anyone to vote at all down the line - privately refusing to vote blue for the presidency would not feel like solidarity (partly because it would make the situation I'm refusing to vote over worse, and also potentially make life in the US for Jews and Muslims worse, as Republicans and Trump specifically have enacted things like explicit travel bans before). It would not feel like praxis to virtue signal my refusal to be complicit in one genocide only to be complicit in the all-to-possible ellimination of democracy at home and a subsequent net increase in genocide and funding for it around the world. Voting for Genocide Joe is not cool or satisfying or even right - it's just the least bad… and honestly for what its worth, the least bad has never looked worse in my life.

Is this a joke? If the IDF had any desire to even pretend that they were interested in protecting civilian life, they would obviously refrain from bombing civilian exit routes 24 hours a day, not 4. And even then, the actual point of this burning olive branch is obvious - the only option Israel offers to Palestinian civilians that isn't certain death is the barely less certain death of fleeing, and after they flee, Israel will settle what remains, as they have done in Palestine for over 70 years.

I pretty much already stated all that. When it's about performing some act, and where "what you don't agree with" impacts the work being performed.

…so if we go with the previous example, a photographer should be allowed to deny service to an interracial couple if they're "not at ease" with seeing them -

"move a little closer", "look this way", "kiss lightly ", etc., etc.

Well the hypothetical protection you're describing would in practice protect and embolden people who hold white supremacist beliefs. I say "embolden" because you know what a racist photographer would do without those protections? They'd either turn them down, or they would take the pictures, take the money, and keep their ugly mouths shut. Because those are better options than fighting a battle they believe they could lose.

However, if they are legally protected by the federal government in communicating to interracial couples they won't provide service to them because they are an interracial couple, can you imagine the actions a now unrepressed fanatic would take? You think you wouldn't see "whites only" on some of these people's websites? And can you begin to imagine the fear and anxiety that would inspire in the people who now have to see those kinds of notices while looking for a wedding photographer? A wedding cake? Who now have to ask every photographer and cake maker if they serve "couples like them" if they don't have a notice? Can you see the parallels?

Legal action that empowers bigots and disempowers those they hate at scale is all it takes to develop a foundation and vocal support for the return of socially acceptable and legally backed discrimination. And you better believe that a foundation is exactly what the far-right politicians that brought about these "protections" view it as, because plenty have signaled openly that they have no interest in stopping legalized queer discrimination here, and will absolutely use this decision to justify going further in the future, the same strategy they use for all their culture wars.

Good point, must not have been that bad, supreme court could really bring that one back with zero consequences, huh?

They were hiding behind over three thousand children? That's the argument youre going to make? And Israel still hasn't gotten all of Hamas? Is Hamas just hiding under piles of children? How the fuck do you look at over 3,000 corpses of children and claim that a significant majority were actually just obscuring Hamas members, you fucking nutjob?

I think you're both right, I'm surprised you disagree. Yes, this problem has existed longed than the Biden administration, but also yes, this administration unsurprisingly continues to perpetuate it. A person leaving the administration because of its support of Israel does not refute that fact, it supports it. I'm not aware of a US president/administration, Democrat or Republican, that has ever supported Palestine, and I'm not under the impression that any of them were somehow forced to hold the positions they did - it has always been a choice.

Also, I don't know what's up with the replies saying the US should force them to stop fighting at metaphorical gunpoint - not only does that support the godawful myth of America as world police, but anyone familiar with this conflict should know that both Hamas and the Israeli government are fighting in the name of supremacist beliefs, and neither have any interest in ceasing until the other side is completely obliterated.

Not a prison alternative:

Family members and first responders are among those who can now file a petition on behalf of an adult they believe “is unlikely to survive safely” without supervision and whose condition is rapidly deteriorating. They also can file if an adult needs services and support to prevent relapse or deterioration that would likely result in “grave disability or serious harm” to themselves or others.

It doesnt really have anything to do with homeless people, either. It reads to me like it's designed to get people into conservatorships and not much else.

WOW does this article bend over backwards to obscure the likelihood that "treatment" is not going to be voluntary. First of all, this is not affected individuals applying for these services, as that would just be social services, a thing that already exists. Here's how this system works:

Family members and first responders are among those who can now file a petition on behalf of an adult they believe “is unlikely to survive safely” without supervision and whose condition is rapidly deteriorating. They also can file if an adult needs services and support to prevent relapse or deterioration that would likely result in “grave disability or serious harm” to themselves or others.

As far as I can tell, this isn't even remotely exclusive to homeless people, and it feels like burying the lead that Cali's homeless population is mentioned at all. This is anyone with a psychotic disorder that can be forced into "treatment" by a badge or random family member who claims they're "deteriorating." If you think that sounds like it's putting people with psychotic disorders at a even more heightened risk of being forced into conservatorships, you'd be right:

A person who does not successfully complete a plan could be subject to conservatorship and involuntary treatment, said Tal Klement, a deputy public defender in San Francisco who is among critics of the new process.

The article immediately moved to muddy this fact by following it up with two paragraphs that start with this sentence:

But the statute also allows the court to dismiss the proceedings if the individual declines to participate or to follow the agreement.

That's all you need to read - "allows" is extremely different from "requires." The court is in no way required to respect the wishes of the affected individual as the article irresponsibly attempts to imply, and as these courts are likely to be biased to view the affected individual as a crazy person and the people that reported them as Good Samaritans "just trying to help," they are probably far more likely to opt for treatment, consensual or not, and this court becomes an excellent method of fast tracking vulnerable people into conservatorships.

Assuming "first responders" make any use of this, maybe this shields a few people from jail, but as cops aren't really opposed to sending people to jail, it's more likely they'll just use this system when they suspect someone of having a psychotic disorder but can't get them for an actual crime, if they bother to use it at all.