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veronika-tserber · 1 year

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Zodiac Signs, Cities & Curious Facts! 🌆

Each city was selected by me from "The Rulership Book" by Rex E. Bills, alongside one fact that matches that particular sign's energy! There are more cities and places that align with the vibration of each sign, but these are the ones I picked for this post. All pictures are from Google Images.

Enjoy this random and (hopefully) fun thread!😁

♈Aries: FLORENCE, Italy

Florence has a unique street festival: The "Calcio Storico" is a traditional street football game played annually there. The game involves four teams representing the four historic quarters of the city, and it's known for its rough and intense style of play!

♉Taurus: LEIPZIG, Germany

Leipzig is known as the "City of Music": Leipzig has a rich musical heritage and is considered one of the world's most important cities for classical music. Famous composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Richard Wagner, and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy have strong connections to Leipzig, and their music is celebrated in the city's numerous concert halls, museums, and festivals.

♊Gemini: LONDON, England

London has a "whispering gallery": The Whispering Gallery in St. Paul's Cathedral is a circular gallery that runs around the interior of the dome. Due to its unique acoustics, if you whisper against the wall on one side of the gallery, the sound can be heard on the other side, over 100 feet away.

♋Cancer: ISTANBUL, Turkey

Istanbul has a famous street for cats: The "Cat Street" or "Kedi Sokak" in Turkish is a narrow street in the historic district of Sultanahmet that is home to dozens of stray cats. The cats are well-fed and cared for by locals, and the street has become a popular tourist attraction.

♌Leo: BERLIN, Germany

Berlin is a graffiti artist's paradise: The city has a long history of street art and is home to some of the most famous graffiti murals in the world. The East Side Gallery, a section of the Berlin Wall that has been turned into an open-air gallery, features over 100 paintings by artists from around the world.

♍Virgo: MOSCOW, Russia

Moscow has a rich literary history: Many famous Russian writers, including Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Anton Chekhov, lived and worked in Moscow. It also has the largest number of public libraries in the world: "The Russian State Library" , which is the largest library in Europe and the second largest library in the world, after the Library of Congress in the United States.

♎Libra: VIENNA, Austria

Vienna has a rich musical history: Vienna has been a center of musical innovation and creativity for centuries and has been home to many famous composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Strauss. Today, the city is renowned for its classical music scene and is home to the world-famous Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

♏Scorpio: TOKYO, Japan

Tokyo has a unique fashion scene: Tokyo's fashion scene is known for its avant-garde and eclectic styles, with Harajuku being the center of youth fashion culture. "Gothic Lolita" is part of Harajuku, and it incorporates darker and more macabre elements into the Lolita fashion aesthetic.

♐Sagittarius: TUSCANY, Italy

Tuscany is home to the oldest university in Europe: The University of Bologna, which is located in Tuscany, is the oldest university in Europe, having been founded in 1088. It is still one of the most prestigious universities in Italy.

♑Capricorn: BRUSSELS, Belgium

Brussels is home to the "Atomium": The Atomium is a unique architectural structure in Brussels that was built for the 1958 World Exposition. It is designed to represent an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times, and it has become an iconic symbol of the city.

♒Aquarius: LOS ANGELES, California

LA is the birthplace of the Internet: The first successful transmission of a message over the Internet occurred on October 29, 1969, between two computers located at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Stanford Research Institute. This event is considered the birth of the Internet.

♓Pisces: GALICIA, Spain

Galicia is home to an ancient spiritual destination: The Way of St. James, also known as the Camino de Santiago, is a famous pilgrimage route that leads to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. Every year, thousands of people from all over the world make the 780 km journey on foot, bicycle, or horseback. Many of them walk the route for spiritual reasons, while others enjoy the physical challenge and the opportunity to meet people from all over the world.

Now, that was a pleasure to put together! How do you feel about the fact/city for your sign? As a Virgo, I'd love to visit the Moscow library, but as a weird/edgy fashion sucker, Tokyo seems like a whole lot of fun! Also, the Aries one made me LOL! Y'all just can't stop fighting, can you? 😂

Which fact/city is your favorite one(s)? Let me know down below! 🖤

- Foxbörn

ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ 1

ᴄʜᴀʀᴛ ʀᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢꜱ

ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴜʏ ᴍᴇ ᴀ ᴄᴏꜰꜰᴇᴇ?

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kp777 · 5 months

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By Jessica Corbett

Common Dreams

Dec. 12, 2023

"Humanity has prevailed," said Egyptian Ambassador Osama Abdel Khalek. "The Israeli aggression on Gaza must end. This bloodshed must stop."

The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution demanding "an immediate humanitarian cease-fire" in Israel's two-month war on Gaza after the U.S. last week used its permanent member status to veto a similar Security Council measure.The resolution also demands "that all parties comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, notably with regard to the protection of civilians," as well as "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access."

The final vote during the General Assembly's emergency special session in New York was 153-10 with 23 abstentions.

"Humanity has prevailed," declared Egyptian Ambassador to the U.N. Osama Abdel Khalek after the vote. "This resolution must be implemented immediately. The Israeli aggression on Gaza must end. This bloodshed must stop."

Tuesday's meeting came after Egypt and Mauritania invoked Resolution 377A (V), which states that "if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately."

Last week's U.S. veto came after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres invoked Article 99, a rarely used section of the U.N. Charter empowering him to bring to the attention of the Security Council "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security," for the first time in his tenure.

Noting Guterres' message to the council as well as a recent letter from the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the General Assembly resolution expresses "grave concern over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population," and emphasizes that "the Palestinian and Israeli civilian populations must be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law."

Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan on Tuesday had urged member states to oppose the resolution, arguing that it would amount to "voting in favor of a genocidal jihadist organization" and hamper Israel's ongoing operation to destroy Hamas.

"A cease-fire is a death sentence," claimed Erdan, who said the effort to pass the resolution made the United Nations "a moral stain on humanity."

Israel's assault on Gaza has killed at least 18,412 Palestinians and injured over 50,100 more, according to local health officials. The war has also devastated civilian infrastructure and displaced 85% of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million residents.

Urging the assembly to support the resolution, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said Tuesday that "the Israeli army is fighting everyone and everything in Gaza—including the U.N."

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the General Assembly that the United States agrees with some "aspects" of the resolution, including that conditions in Gaza are dire, people in the Palestinian territory need more aid, and hostages must be released. However, she also claimed that "any cease-fire right now would be temporary at the best and dangerous at worst."

The United States—which voted against the resolution on Tuesday— gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and Congress is now considering a new $14.3 billion package.

"Today the majority of the world stood together to demand an end to this bloodshed and suffering in Gaza. The United States has once again voted to allow the carnage against civilians in Gaza to continue," said Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières USA, after the vote.

"Today the U.S. failed to show compassion or leadership in the face of continued bombardment of human beings who are trapped in Gaza without food, water, shelter, or access to proper medical care," Benoît continued. "The U.S. is increasingly isolated in its steadfast support of a war that seems to have no rules and no limits, a war that Israel claims is focused on rooting out Hamas but that continues to kill large numbers of Palestinian civilians, mostly women, and children."

"The U.S. is increasingly isolated in its steadfast support of a war that seems to have no rules and no limits."

"Israel has continued to indiscriminately attack civilians and civilian structures, impose a siege that amounts to collective punishment for the entire population of Gaza, force mass displacement, and deny access to vital medical care and humanitarian assistance. The U.S. continues to provide political and financial support to Israel as it prosecutes its military operations regardless of the terrible toll on civilians. It is impossible to deliver humanitarian aid at scale in Gaza under current circumstances," she stressed. "For humanitarians to be able to respond to the overwhelming needs, we need a cease-fire now."

In addition to the resolution, the General Assembly on Tuesday considered two amendments—one from the United States condemning "the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas" on October 7 and the taking of hostages, and another from Austria to add language about Hamas to the line calling for the release of hostages.

Neither amendment got the two-thirds majority support needed to pass. The Austrian amendment vote was 89 in favor and 61 opposed with 20 abstentions while the U.S. amendment vote was 84-62 with 25 abstentions.

The General Assembly's previously approved resolution on Gaza, passed in late October, called for "an immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities."

This post has been updated with comment from Doctors Without Borders.

The work of Common Dreams is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

#u.n. general assembly #israel #hamas #gaza #ceasefire #united states #egypt

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thepastisalreadywritten · 9 months

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Posted by Sumit Arora, 18 July 2023

What is International Moon Day?

International Moon Day is an annual day dedicated to the Earth’s one and only natural satellite, the Moon!

It is held every year on July 20, which is the anniversary of the day on which astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin famously set foot on the Moon in 1969.

The Moon landing is still considered one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

International Moon Day is all about commemorating the Apollo 11 mission while teaching people about the Moon and astronomy.

Significance of International Moon Day

• The General Assembly declared International Moon Day, a United Nations-designated international day to be observed annually on July 20, in its Resolution 76/76 on “International cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space” in 2021.

• International Moon Day marks the anniversary of the first landing by humans on the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 lunar mission.

• The celebrations will also consider the achievements of all States in the exploration of the Moon and raise public awareness of sustainable Moon exploration and utilization.

History of International Moon Day

• American astronauts Neil Armstrong, and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin became the first humans in history to land on the Moon on 20 July 1969.

The grand Apollo 11 mission took place eight years after the national goal announcement by President John F. Kennedy to send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s.

• The idea for the mission to send astronauts to the moon started when President Kennedy appealed to a special joint session of Congress in 1961, stating:

“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”

• At the time of Kennedy’s proposal, the United States was still head-to-head with the Soviet Union in advancements in space exploration and, since it was during the time of the Cold War, the proposal was welcomed.

The first unmanned Apollo mission was initiated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), after five years of effort and hard work by their international team of engineers and scientists.

The first mission served as a testing phase for the structural resilience of the launch spacecraft vehicle.

• At 9:32 A.M. on 16 July 1969, the whole world witnessed Apollo 11 take off from Kennedy Space Center with three astronauts on board — Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins.

Neil Armstrong was the commander of the mission.

The spacecraft entered the lunar orbit after three days, on July 19.

The lunar module, Eagle, disengaged from the main command module the next day, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin.

When Eagle touched the lunar surface, Armstrong radioed his historical message to Mission Control in Houston, Texas:

“The Eagle has landed.”

• At 10:39 P.M., Armstrong exited the lunar module and made his way down its ladder.

His progress was being recorded by a television camera attached to the module, transmitting signals back to Earth, where the world was watching with bated breath.

• At 10:56 P.M., Armstrong stepped on the moon’s powdery surface, and spoke his iconic words:

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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Steps from the Capitol, Trump allies buy up properties to build MAGA campus | The Washington Post

At first glance, the flurry of real estate sales two blocks east of the U.S. Capitol appeared unremarkable in a city where such sales are common. In the span of a year, a seemingly unrelated gaggle of recently formed companies bought nine properties, all within steps of one another.

But the sales were not coincidental. Unbeknown to most of the sellers, the limited liability companies making the purchases — a shopping spree that added up to $41 million — are connected to a conservative nonprofit led by Mark Meadows, who was Chief of Staff to President Donald Trump. The organization has promoted MAGA stars like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).

The Conservative Partnership Institute, as the nonprofit is known, now controls four commercial properties along a single Pennsylvania Avenue block, three adjoining rowhouses around the corner, and a garage and carriage house in the rear alley. CPI’s aim, as expressed in its annual report, is to transform the swath of prime real estate into a campus it calls “Patriots’ Row.”

The acquisitions strike some Capitol Hill regulars as puzzling, considering that Republicans have long made a sport of denigrating Washington as a dysfunctional “swamp,” the latest evidence being a successful GOP-led effort to block local D.C. legislation to revise the city’s criminal code.

“So you don’t respect how we administer our city and then you secretly buy up chunks of it?” said Tim Krepp, a Capitol Hill resident who works as a tour guide and has written about the neighborhood’s history. “If it’s such a hellhole, go to Virginia.”

Reached on his cellphone, Edward Corrigan, CPI’s president, whose name appears on public documents related to the sales, had no immediate comment on the purchases, which were first reported by Grid News and confirmed by The Washington Post. “I’ll get back to you,” Corrigan said. He did not respond to follow-up messages.

Former senator Jim DeMint, CPI’s founder, and Meadows, a senior partner at the organization, did not respond to emails seeking comment. Cameron Seward, CPI’s general counsel and director of operations, whose name appears on incorporation documents related to the companies making the purchases, did not respond to a text or an email.

As Congress’s neighbors, denizens of the Capitol Hill neighborhood are accustomed to existing in close quarters with all varieties of official Washington. Walk the neighborhood and you might catch a glimpse of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon, among those who own homes near the Capitol. The Republican and Democratic national committees both have offices in the neighborhood.

But it’s rare, if not unprecedented, for a nonprofit to purchase as many properties in such proximity and in so short a period of time as CPI has assembled through its related companies, a roster with names like Clear Plains Holdings, Brunswick Partners, Houston Group, Newpoint and Pennsylvania Avenue Holdings. The companies list Seward as an officer on corporate filings, as well as CPI’s Independence Avenue headquarters as their principal address.

Now, in what may be an only-in-Washington vista, a single Pennsylvania Avenue block is occupied by Public Citizen, the left-leaning consumer advocacy group, the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank, and CPI, which bought four properties through its affiliates.

In addition to the nine D.C. parcels CPI’s network has bought since January 2022, another affiliated company, Federal Investors, paid $7.2 million for a sprawling 11-bedroom retreat on the Eastern Shore. In 2020, CPI, under its own name, also spent $1.5 million for a rowhouse next to its headquarters, which it leases, a few blocks from the Capitol.

DeMint, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina, started CPI in 2017, shortly after he was ousted as Heritage’s leader amid criticism that the think tank had become too political under his direction. Meadows joined in 2021, after working as Trump’s Chief of Staff. He was by Trump’s side during the administration’s final calamitous days, before and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and as the President’s allies were seeking to overturn election results.

On its 2021 tax returns, CPI reported $45 million in revenue, most of it generated through contributions and grants, and paid DeMint and Meadows compensation packages of $542,000 and $559,000, respectively. Its current offices, a three-story townhouse at the corner of Third Street and Independence Avenue SE, is a hub of GOP activity. During the chaotic lead-up to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s election as House Speaker, dissident Republican lawmakers were observed congregating at CPI.

CPI also provides grants to a cluster of nonprofits headed by Trump allies. Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, for example, leads America First Legal, which received $1.3 million from CPI in 2021 and bills itself as a check on “lawless executive actions and the Radical Left.”

Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who was on the call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger seeking to reverse votes in the 2020 election, runs what the organization bills as its “Election Integrity Network,” which has cast doubt on the validity of President Biden’s 2020 victory.

“The election was rigged,” EIN tweeted last July. “Trump won.”

CLOSE TO THE CAPITOL

At an introductory meeting in December, recalled Gerald Sroufe, an advisory neighborhood commissioner on Capitol Hill, a CPI representative said the group planned to move its headquarters to a three-story building it had bought on Pennsylvania Avenue, next to Heritage’s office. Until the pandemic forced it to close, the Capitol Lounge had occupied the 130-year-old building. The bar had served a nightly bipartisan swarm of congressional staffers and lobbyists for more than two decades.

The CPI official, Sroufe said, indicated that the group planned to use the new Pennsylvania Avenue properties to “expand” its offices and “provide new retail.” But the official made no mention of Patriots’ Row, Sroufe said, or the three rowhouses the group’s affiliates had bought around the corner on Third Street SE. All of the properties are in the neighborhood’s historic district, which protects them from being altered without city review.

“This is much grander than what we were talking about,” Sroufe said after learning from a reporter about the other purchases. “On the Hill, people are always talking about how wonderful it is to be close to the Capitol and Congress. It’s kind of like a curse.”

As in many commercial corridors hit hard by the pandemic, businesses along Pennsylvania Avenue have struggled over the past couple of years. Tony Tomelden, executive director of the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and Professionals, said CPI could energize a strip pocked with vacant storefronts.

“I welcome any business because the only thing opening right now are marijuana shops,” said Tomelden, an H Street NE bar owner who helped open the Capitol Lounge in 1996 and, as it happens, instituted a rule that patrons could not talk politics while imbibing. “If they’re going to pay a lot of money and raise property values, I’m all for it. I don’t care about anybody’s politics as long as they pay their tab.”

In an overwhelmingly Democratic city, finding those who are less sanguine about CPI’s growing footprint is not exactly difficult.

Yet politics is only part of the issue, as far as Krepp is concerned. CPI’s purchases, he said, threaten the area’s neighborhood vibe, as would be the case if any group, no matter its ideological leaning, bought as many properties. “I don’t want to create another downtown on Capitol Hill,” he said. “There’s a glut of available office space downtown. You don’t have to buy up neighborhoods.”

Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), a regular commuter to the Capitol from his home in Montgomery County, sees CPI’s acquisitions in terms more political than geographic.

“It just seems like a massive real estate coming-out party for the extreme right wing of the Republican Party,” Raskin said. “This is a very explicit and well-financed statement of intent. They set out to take over the Republican Party and they’re very close to clenching the power.”

Instead of Patriots’ Row, Raskin suggested an alternative name: Seditionist Square.

“Maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene can be their advisory neighborhood commissioner,” he said.

A ‘PERMANENT BULWARK’ IN D.C.

On its 2021 tax return, CPI said its mission is to be a “platform” for the “conservative movement,” and to provide “public policy” training for “government and nonprofit staffers” and meeting space for gatherings and policy debates.

Although not required to identify donors, CPI reported seven contributions in excess of $1 million, including one of more than $25 million. Trump’s Save America political action committee gave $1 million in 2021, according to campaign finance records. Billionaire Richard Uihlein, a major Republican donor, gave $1.25 million a couple of years ago through his foundation, records show.

A CPI-related entity, the Conservative Partnership Center, rented space to two political action committees as of early January, the House Freedom Fund and Senate Conservative Fund, according to campaign finance records. CPI also received $4,000 from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who has recorded his “Firebrand” podcast at the group’s studio, as has the host of the “Gosar Minute,” Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.), according to the group’s annual report. Greene paid CPI $437.73 for “catering for political meetings” in 2021, the records show.

“No one stood up to the Left as courageously as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene,” CPI declared in its 2021 annual report, hailing her as a “hero” who “endured sexist fury that always lurks just beneath the progressive surface.” The report described Boebert as a “gun rights advocate” who “wants to protect our environment more than anyone else.”

It was in CPI’s 2022 annual report that the group briefly referred to its expansion plans, writing that it has strengthened “its ability to serve the movement by beginning renovations to Patriots’ Row on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“In 2022, the Left tried to drag America further into a dark future of totalitarianism, chaotic elections and cultural decay,” the report asserts in an introduction from DeMint and Meadows. “The Washington establishment, per usual, did nothing to stop them. But neither the Left nor the establishment could stop the culture and community we’re building here at the Conservative Partnership Institute.”

“With our expanded presence in D.C.,” they add, “we’re launching CPI academy — a formal program of training for congressional staff and current and future members of the movement.”

“Even if we can’t change Washington, we can create a permanent bulwark against its worst tendencies.”

A SPATE OF SALES

CPI began its expansion in 2020, purchasing the rowhouse next door to its headquarters and christening it “The Rydin House” for Mike Rydin, a construction magnate and prominent conservative donor. When Federal Investors bought the Eastern Shore property, the group named it “Camp Rydin.”

On Capitol Hill, several property owners who sold their buildings to CPI-linked companies were surprised to learn that the buyers were connected to a group led by Meadows and DeMint.

“I did not know,” said Jacqueline Lewis, who sold a townhouse on Third Street SE to 116 Holdings for $5.1 million in July. The company’s officer, according to its corporate filing, is Seward, and the principal address it lists is the same as CPI’s headquarters. A trust document related to the transaction is signed by Corrigan, CPI’s president.

Brunswick Partners, which lists CPI and Seward as contacts on its corporate filing, bought the neighboring rowhouse for $1.8 million in January, according to property records. Brian Wise, the seller, said he did not know of the company’s CPI connection. An attorney who approached him and his wife, he said, “asked if we were willing to sell and we agreed on a price. It was a business sale.”

Keith and Amanda Catanzano also were unaware of CPI when they sold a garage in the alley behind Third Street SE to Newpoint for $1 million in June. Newpoint lists Seward as an officer and the same mailing address as CPI. “We had no idea,” said a woman who answered the phone at a number listed for the Catanzanos before hanging up.

Eric Kassoff, who sold the former site of the Capitol Lounge to Clear Plains, said he knew of the company’s CPI ties before the $11.3 million deal was finalized in January. He also sold the group a carriage house behind the building for $400,000.

Kassoff said he did not want to lease the space to a fast-food restaurant or a convenience store. He said CPI’s political leanings were not a factor in his decision to sell to the organization.

“Why would I have any issue selling my property to proud Americans?” asked Kassoff, who described himself as an independent. “We need to get past the labeling and demonizing and talk to each other, and that’s true in politics as well as commerce. If we were all to take that position we wouldn’t have much of a country left, would we?”

Although the Capitol Lounge closed more than two years ago, vestiges of its past remain on the building’s exterior, including a rendering of Benjamin Franklin beneath a quote concocted by the bar’s founder, Joe Englert: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

James Silk, the bar’s former owner, said he left behind memorabilia when he vacated the building that could be suitable for the new owner: Richard M. Nixon campaign posters still hanging on the walls of what the owners cheekily dubbed the Nixon Room (located across from the Kennedy Room).

“Nixon is finally with his people,” Silk said. He laughed and added: “Nixon was a Republican, right?”

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longwindedbore · 9 months

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“No man is above the law, and no man is below; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked for as a favor.”

—- President Theodore Roosevelt, in his annual message to Congress, 1903

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mariacallous · 7 months

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As the Israel-Hamas war escalated this week, WIRED looked at the conditions that contributed to Israel's intelligence failures ahead of Hamas' initial attack last Saturday, as well as the hacktivism and digital mayhem that has subsequently sprung up around the kinetic war. The situation has led to a torrent of misinformation across global discourse, particularly on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), where fake photos, old videos, and video game footage have exploded on an unprecedented scale.

X’s Trust and Safety team claims it has been working to address the situation, but company CEO Elon Musk has been “posting through it,” sharing conspiracies and engaging with QAnon discourse on the platform. The chaotic situation on X has been difficult for the average user to keep up with. In one case, a graphic Hamas video that Donald Trump Jr. shared on the platform actually turned out to be legitimate, even though it seemed at first look like it might have been part of the broader deluge of misinformation. And beyond just X, rumors of a “Global Day of Jihad” on Friday unleashed a dangerous wave of disinformation across digital platforms—one that threatened to cross into real-world violence.

With the trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in full swing this week, WIRED took a deep look at the day someone stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the ill-fated cryptocurrency exchange as it was declaring bankruptcy. And new evidence released by researchers this week indicates that the stolen FTX funds went through a chain of intermediaries that eventually led to Russia-linked money launderers.

As chaos in the United States House of Representatives continues over Republicans' inability to deal with far-right hardliners and elect a new speaker, WIRED reported that Republican Party leaders have imposed cell phone bans in an attempt to keep backroom dealmaking under wraps. The United Nations' top internet governance body may host its next two annual meetings in countries known for repressive digital policies and abusive information control, which risks normalizing internet censorship. And white supremacist “active clubs” are gaining traction in part through communication on the messaging app Telegram.

Meanwhile, Google announced this week that it will make the more secure password replacement known as passkeys the default login option for its personal account holders as part of the company's efforts to promote adoption of the technology. And a new internet protocol vulnerability known as “HTTP/2 Rapid Reset” impacts virtually every web server around the world and will take years to stamp out, exposing some sites and digital services to denial of service attacks long-term.

And there's more. Each week we round up the security and privacy news that we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Vietnam Used Predator Spyware to Target US Congress

Notorious high-end commercial spyware like Pegasus and Predator has been used over the past decade to target human rights activists, protesters, and journalists. But a foreign nation using it to target the smartphones of US members of Congress represents a rare and brazen new appearance of those notorious tools. On Monday The Washington Post, along with a consortium of more than a dozen international media outlets, revealed that the Vietnamese government used that Predator spyware, distributed by the surveillance firms Cytrox and Intellexa, to target at least four members of Congress—representative Michael McCaul and senators Chris Murphy, John Hoeven, and Gary Peters—as well as Asia-focused experts at US think tanks and several journalists that include CNN’s lead national security reporter, Jim Sciutto.

In the hacking campaign, those individuals were targeted in replies on X (formerly known as Twitter) that included links to websites that would have infected their iOS or Android phones with the Predator spyware. That tactic appears to have been both reckless and unsuccessful: Anyone else who saw the tweets and clicked on the link would have been infected too, and the highly public nature of that infection attempt helped researchers and reporters to analyze the scope and targeting of the campaign. The attempted espionage was timed to US government meetings with Vietnamese officials, and it appears to have been aimed at understanding US intentions in the meeting, particularly related to relations with China.

The media consortium, along with security researchers from Amnesty International and Google’s Threat Analysis Group, were able to show Vietnam’s connection to the Predator hacking campaign through documents they obtained that detail the Vietnamese government’s contract with Intellexa in 2020, and later an extension of the deal to allow the use of the Predator software. The internal documents went so far as to capture the response of Intellexa’s founder, Israeli former military hacker turned entrepreneur Tal Dilian, when the deal was announced: “Wooow!!!!” Vietnam’s government would later target French officials with Predator before this year’s campaign targeting US congressmen.

Hamas Raised Millions in Crypto Ahead of Attacks

Despite efforts by Israel and other nations to cut off funding to Hamas in recent years, the group raised millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency before the past weekend’s attack that killed more than a thousand Israelis. An analysis by The Wall Street Journal found that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah had collectively raised hundreds of millions in crypto over the past several years, with $41 million going to Hamas specifically. Given that the Journal learned of that funding in part through Israeli seizures of crypto accounts, however, it’s not clear how much of that money was frozen or seized versus how much might have actually been successfully laundered or liquidated by Hamas and other groups.

In response to the weekend’s attacks, the Israeli government and the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, both announced that a new round of Hamas crypto accounts had been frozen. Though crypto has helped Hamas and other groups move funds across borders, its traceability on blockchains has presented a challenge for designated terrorist groups. In 2021, for instance, Hamas asked its supporters to stop making donations via cryptocurrency, due to the ease of tracking those transactions and unmasking contributors.

Exxon Used Hacked Documents to Counter State Investigations

Last year, Reuters reporters Chris Bing and Raphael Satter published an investigation into Aviram Azari, an Israeli private investigator who is accused of using mercenary hackers to gather intelligence on the critics of major corporations involved in lawsuits against them.

Now, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, where Azari has been convicted on criminal charges, have filed a sentencing memo that notes that activists’ communications stolen by Azari’s hackers were later used by Exxon in the company’s attempts to head off investigations and lawsuits by state attorneys general. The memo still doesn’t name Exxon as Azari’s client, but it implicitly suggests a link between the company and Azari: Prosecutors point in their memo to leaks of climate activists’ private emails to media, which were later cited by Exxon in their responses to state attorney generals as evidence of underhanded tactics by activists as they tried to prove that Exxon knew and covered up the role of fossil fuels in climate change. A Massachusetts lawsuit against Exxon that resulted from the state’s investigation is ongoing.

Magecart Cybercrime Crew Skims Cards With New 404 Trick

Internet giant Akamai warned this week that the infamous Magecart hacker crew, long focused on credit card fraud, has developed a clever new technique for spoofing credit card payment fields. The hackers managed to hide their malicious scripts in the 404 “page not found” error pages of ecommerce sites, then trigger those pages to load a spoofed payment field that impersonates a checkout page to steal credit card information. “The idea of manipulating the default 404 error page of a targeted website can offer Magecart actors various creative options for improved hiding and evasion,” warned Akamai researcher Roman Lvovsky. Akamai noted that the technique was used on the website of significant brands in the food and retail industries but declined to name them.

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reasoningdaily · 8 months

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Gov. Greg Abbott will have to remove the floating buoy barrier he deployed in the Rio Grande without federal permission by the end of next week, a judge ruled Wednesday.

It’s a victory for the U.S. Justice Department, which has contended that Abbott violated federal law by deploying the barriers near Eagle Pass without first getting clearance from the Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps has oversight of all navigable waterways in the United States.

BACKGROUND: Texas scrambles to reposition buoy barrier in Rio Grande before court hearing

Abbott said he would appeal the ruling. "Texas is prepared to take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court,” the Republican governor posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Just minutes after posting that message, his attorneys officially filed their appeal.

Abbott’s attorneys had argued that the barriers were not the type of structure that needed review by the Army Corps. In addition, they claimed that the Rio Grande, despite being one of the largest rivers in America, doesn't count as a navigable waterway because it doesn't include commercial shipping.

Judge David A. Ezra wasn’t moved by either argument, granting the Justice Department’s request that Abbott remove the barriers by Sept. 15.

Ezra said Congress determined long ago that the Rio Grande was navigable and no other body can change that designation.

"Once a water is found to be navigable by Congress, it remains so until Congress, not the courts, declares otherwise," Ezra wrote.

In addition, Ezra disputed the state's claim that the buoys were not subject to the federal Rivers and Harbors Act, saying the "floating barrier interferes with or diminishes the navigable capacity."

READ MORE: Republicans invoke Noah’s Ark in court to defend Greg Abbott’s border buoys

Abbott has featured the buoys as his latest phase of Operation Lone Star, the border security program that has also sent thousands of National Guard troops to the border, shipped migrants to other states, and deployed miles of razor wire along the Rio Grande to deter border crossings.

Abbott said he’s taking action along the border because of the federal government's inability to stop migrant crossings into Texas. Over the last two years, border patrol has encountered more than 4 million people along the entire southern border with Mexico. That is double the number of encounters from the previous two years.

Abbott has used those numbers to justify his border patrol program, which is costing taxpayers nearly $5 billion annually.

“I will do whatever I have to do to defend our state from the invasion of the Mexican drug cartels and others who are trying to come into our country illegally,” Abbott said last month in a speech to Republican officials. “I will protect our sovereignty.”

While there has been a surge along the border over the last two years, federal data shows the numbers have generally been improving over the last several months. Combined June and July showed the lowest number of border encounters since 2020, when Donald Trump was still president.

#Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered to remove buoys from Rio Grande #floating barrier wall #texas #abbott #fuck greg abbott #white supremacy #white lies #mx #mexico #human rights watch #immigration #us fuckery #usdoj

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viking369 · 7 months

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TERF Alert

The American Anthropological Association and Canadian Anthropology Society recently canceled a session from their joint annual meeting. The title of the session was “Let’s Talk about Sex Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology”. It was canceled as being anti-trans and contrary to current research without being supported by countervailing research. Of course the panel members immediately started screaming, "Help, help, we're being oppressed," and Reich Wing media jumped all over it.

Let's take a look at the panel and their topics. Silvia Carrasco was going to talk about how violence against women can't be properly addressed without focusing on biological sex. Kathleen Richardson was going to talk about how including trans women is erasing gender disparity in IT (Apparently arguing the number of trans women in IT is statistically significant. Right.). Michèle Sirois was going to talk about how the Canadian surrogacy industry exploits poor women (OK, trans women can't be included in this group, but a large number of cis women can't be included as well, whether biologically because they are not reproductive, or economically because they are not poor. Frankly, the problem she is studying is far less biologically based than economically based. Surrogacy is another of a broad range of mechanisms for exploiting disadvantaged groups.). Also on the panel was Elizabeth Weiss of the Heterodox Academy, an "advocacy" group founded to combat the sham issue of conservatives being excluded from academe (It was cofounded by Jonathan Haidt and Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz. Haidt co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind, a by-the-numbers rant decrying the "suppression" of free speech on college campuses and trotting out the usual Reich Wing straw men of "trigger words" and "safe spaces" while conveniently ignoring the real message of "You no longer get to shovel hate just because you're a cishet, white, Christian male, and if you try, you're going to get blowback." Rosenkranz testified to Congress against the nominations of Loretta Lynch as AG and Sonia Sotomayor to SCOTUS and is regularly cited by Alito and Thomas.). Carole Hooven of the American Enterprise Institute was supposed to speak but withdrew prior to the cancelation.

Organizing this panel was Kathleen Lowrey, whose recent publications include "Trans Ideology and the New Ptolemaism in the Academy", an extended whinge about her sacking as undergraduate programs chair in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta for her anti-trans views (or as she puts it, her "gender critical feminist views") masquerading as intellectual commentary, and "Gender Identity Ideology Conquers the World: Why Are Anthropologists Cheering?", an extended whinge about cancel culture. She is routinely platformed on the anti-trans Canadian site Gender Dissent, and she was principal organizer of the anti-trans hate group Women's Declaration International (fka Women's Human Rights Campaign).

It is quite apparent, then, the panel was canceled because it was platforming political rants and not scholarly research. This is a problem in the social "sciences" that is only getting worse (For nearly a half-century I've been of the firm opinion that "social science" is an oxymoron. There is no meaningful way to apply the crux of the scientific method, control and variable experimentation, to any significant issue in any of the social studies. Being degreed in two such fields [history and political science] and regularly called on to work in another [economics/finance], I have some idea. One of the purposes of scientific research is to predict how things will behave. Put X load on this material, it will break. Combine these chemicals, and you will get a reaction producing Y. While data in the social studies can be used successfully to create occurrence models ["This is what happened."], they are far less successful at creating causation models ["This is why this happened."] and abysmal at creating predictive models ["This is what is going to happen."]. For example an economist will say, "If price goes up, demand will go down. Unless there are other, not terribly measurable factors at work such as elasticity, utility, oligopoly and collusion, logistic disruption, etc., etc., etc."). "Scientists" in the social studies sound increasingly like "creation scientists" (speaking of oxymorons), decrying their research being "canceled" while conveniently omitting mention of their research ignoring or misrepresenting all current work while clinging to anachronistic theories, methods, and data (and nondata). People like those on this panel push their political agendas while ignoring actual research by actual scientists.

Meanwhile, if you want a thorough takedown of Women's Declaration International, I suggest you check Susan Duffy's blog:

And if you want to see what real scientists are discovering in gender research, you might want to start here:

youtube

#TERF #Kathleen Lowrey #Women's Declaration International #Youtube

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newstfionline · 7 months

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Sunday, September 24, 2023

As the world’s problems grow more challenging, the head of the United Nations gets bleaker (AP) At the annual meeting of world leaders last year, the U.N. chief sounded a global alarm about the survival of humanity and the planet. This year, the alarm rang louder and more ominously, and the message was even more pressing: Wake up and take action—right now. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ assessment, delivered in his no-nonsense style, aimed to shock. We are becoming “unhinged,” he said. We are inching closer to “a great fracture.” Conflicts, coups and chaos are surging. The climate crisis is growing. Divides are deepening between military and economic powers, the richer North and poorer South, East and West. “A new Rubicon” has been crossed in artificial intelligence. Guterres has spoken often on all these issues. But this year, which he called “a time of chaotic transition,” his address to leaders was tougher and even more urgent. His message to the presidents and prime ministers, monarchs and ministers gathered in the vast General Assembly hall was unambiguous and stark. “We seem incapable,” Guterres said, “of coming together to respond.”

Surveillance of Indian diplomats in Canada led to allegations around Sikh killing, official says (AP) The allegation of India’s involvement in the killing of a Sikh Canadian is based on surveillance of Indian diplomats in Canada, including intelligence provided by a major ally, a Canadian official told The Associated Press on Thursday. The official said the communications involved Indian officials and Indian diplomats in Canada and that some of the intelligence was provided by a member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to Canada. The official did not say which ally provided intelligence or give details of what was contained in the communications or how they were obtained. The revelation came as India stopped issuing visas to Canadian citizens and told Canada to reduce its diplomatic staff as the rift widened over allegations by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of suspected Indian involvement in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh separatist.

White House preparing for government shutdown as House Republicans lack a viable endgame for funding (AP) The White House on Friday directed federal agencies to get ready for a shutdown after House Republicans left town for the weekend with no viable plan to keep the government funded and avert politically and economically costly disruption of federal services. A federal shutdown after Sept. 30 seems all but certain unless Speaker Kevin McCarthy can persuade his rebellious hard-right flank of Republicans to allow Congress to approve a temporary funding measure to prevent closures as talks continue. Instead, he’s launched a much more ambitious plan to try to start passing multiple funding bills once the House returns Tuesday, with just five days to resolve the standoff. McCarthy signaled his preference for avoiding a closure, but a hard-right flank of his House majority has effectively seized control. The standoff with House Republicans over government funding puts at risk a range of activities—including pay for the military and law enforcement personnel, food safety and food aid programs, air travel and passport processing—and could wreak havoc with the U.S. economy.

Election emotions (Yahoo News) What’s the No. 1 feeling that comes to mind for Americans when thinking about the upcoming presidential election? “Dread,” according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll. The survey of 1,636 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Sept. 14 to 18, offered respondents seven emotions—three positive, three negative, one neutral—and asked them to select any and all that reflect their attitude toward the 2024 campaign. Dread, the most negative option, topped the list (41%), followed by exhaustion (34%), optimism (25%), depression (21%), indifference (17%), excitement (15%) and delight (5%). In total, a majority of Americans (56%) chose at least one of the three negative feelings (dread, exhaustion or depression), while less than a third (32%) picked at least one of the three positive feelings (optimism, excitement or delight).

Mexico Feels Pressure of Relentless Migration From South America (NYT) At a Mexico City shelter, the nun in charge made another difficult announcement to the mothers and children arriving Wednesday: There was no more space. Five hundred migrants were already crammed into a facility built for 100. Near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, frustrated people stormed a refugee aid office on Monday after waiting weeks for appointments to receive the necessary documents that allow them to travel farther north. And in Tijuana, nearly all of the city’s 32 shelters were at full capacity this week, as people from nearly 70 countries waited for a U.S. asylum appointment or a chance to sneak across the border. Similar scenes are playing out across the country as Mexico’s immigration system strains under a tide of people desperately trying to go north. The relentless surge has led to a hodgepodge response in Mexico ranging from shutting down railways heading north to the busing of people to areas with fewer migrants. American officials are also contending with a new wave of unlawful border crossings that is straining government resources and leaving local officials scrambling as thousands of migrants are released from federal custody. On Wednesday, thousands of people crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, leading the mayor to declare a state of emergency and a deployment of 800 active-duty military personnel to help process the arrivals.

Costa Rica’s homicide rate rises in deadliest year ever (Reuters) More than 656 people have been killed so far in Costa Rica’s deadliest year on record, official homicide data showed on Friday, though the government expects this figure to soar past 900 by the end of this year. Costa Rica, which has for decades been recognized as the safest Central American country, saw more homicides in six of its seven provinces, with the capital San Jose seeing the highest increase—double those in the same period last year. Authorities have reported crimes such as torture, gang murders and assassinations carried out by highly-trained hitmen, similar to crimes committed by Mexican cartels. They attribute two-thirds of such killings to turf war gangs for control over drug trafficking operations in the country, a strategic location between producers in Colombia and consumers in the United States and Europe.

U.S. will send Ukraine long-range missiles, after delay (Washington Post) The Biden administration plans to provide Ukraine with a version of ATACMS long-range missiles armed with cluster bomblets rather than a single warhead, according to several people familiar with the ongoing deliberations. The cluster-armed ATACMS, with a range of up to 190 miles, depending on the version, could allow Ukraine to strike command posts, ammunition stores and logistics routes far behind Russian front lines and dug-in defenses. Biden moved during the summer from a firm and long-standing “no” to saying the issue was “still in play.” Although the administration backed away from initial concerns that Kyiv, which has asked for hundreds of the long-range weapons, would use them to strike inside Russian territory, the Pentagon still worried that drawing down enough ATACMS from relatively small military stockpiles to make a difference on the Ukraine battlefield would undercut the readiness of U.S. forces for other possible conflicts.

For South Korea’s Senior Subway Riders, the Joy Is in the Journey (NYT) The subway rumbled toward its final stop north of Seoul. Along the way, hordes disembarked, with the determined, brisk gait of those with somewhere to be. By the end of the line, many who remained on board were noticeably older—nodding off, gazing out the window, stretching their shoulders. Lee Jin-ho had taken two subway lines for more than an hour from his home to the last stop, Soyosan, on a steamy August day. He ambled about a hundred yards beyond the station, rested briefly in the shade—and then got right back on the train heading south. An 85-year-old retired interior designer, Mr. Lee is one of Seoul’s throngs of subway-riding seniors, who take advantage of the country’s longstanding policy of free fares for people older than 65 and spend their days riding the trains to the end of the line, or to nowhere in particular, and sometimes back again. On long summer days—with Seoul’s temperatures averaging highs of more than 87 degrees in August—the air-conditioning is robust, the people-watching is engrossing and the 200 miles of subway tracks in the city are almost limitless in their possibilities for urban wanderings. Older adults who ride free of charge make up about 15 percent of Seoul’s annual ridership. The riders have become such an established part of the city’s fabric that they have a nickname—“Jigong Geosa,” derived from the phrase “free subway”—and the lines and stations frequented by them are well known.

#headlines #news

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months

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The real choice isn’t “pragmatism” or “idealism.” It’s either allowing these trends to worsen – destroying what’s left of our democracy and turning our economy into even more of a playground for big corporations, Wall Street, and billionaires – or reversing them. And the only pragmatic way of reversing them is through a “political revolution” that mobilizes millions of Americans.

Robert Reich (via azspot)

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 2, 2024

On February 25, 1901, financier J. P. Morgan’s men filed the paperwork to incorporate a new iron and steel trust, and over the weekend, businessmen waited to see what was coming. Five days later, on March 2, the announcement came: J. P. Morgan was overseeing the combination of companies that produced two thirds of the nation’s steel into the United States Steel Corporation. It was capitalized at $1.4 billion, which at the time was almost three times more than the federal government’s annual budget.

While the stock market was abuzz with news of the nation’s first billion-dollar corporation, Vice President–elect Theodore Roosevelt was on his way from New York to Washington, D.C., where he and his family arrived at 5:00 in the evening. The train was an hour behind schedule because the crowds coming to see the upcoming inauguration, scheduled for Monday, March 4, 1901, had slowed travel into Washington.

Two days later, President William McKinley took the oath of office for the second time, and Roosevelt became vice president.

McKinley was a champion of big business and believed the role of government was to support industry, dismissing growing demands from workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs for the government to level the economic playing field that had tilted so extraordinarily toward a few industry leaders. McKinley had won the hard-fought election of 1896 handily, but by 1900, Republicans were so concerned about the growing demand for reform that party leaders put Roosevelt, who had won a reputation for standing up to business interests, on the ticket, at least in part because they hoped to silence him there.

Roosevelt hoped he could promote reform from the vice presidency, but he quickly discovered that he couldn’t accomplish much of anything. His only official duty was to preside over the Senate, which would not convene until December. He was so bored he asked the chief justice of the Supreme Court if it would be unseemly for him to enroll in law school to finish his degree. (Horrified, the justice offered to supervise Roosevelt’s studies himself.)

But then, in September, an unemployed steelworker assassinated McKinley, and Roosevelt became president. “I told McKinley it was a mistake to nominate that wild man at Philadelphia,” one of McKinley’s aides said. “I told him what would happen if he should die. Now look. That damned cowboy is president of the United States.”

Two months later, on November 13, J. P. Morgan and railroad magnates brought together the nation’s main railroad interests, which had been warring with each other, into a new conglomerate called the Northern Securities Company. Even the staunchly big business Chicago Tribune was taken aback: “Never have interests so enormous been brought under one management,” its editor wrote.

Midwestern governors, whose constituents depended on the railroads to get their crops to market, suggested that their legislatures would find a way to prohibit such a powerful combination. Northern Securities Company officials retorted that they would simply keep all business transactions and operations secret. When Roosevelt gave his first message to Congress in December, industrialists watched to see what the “damned cowboy” would say about their power over the government.

They were relieved. Roosevelt said the government should start cleaning up factories and limiting the working hours of women and children, and that it should reserve natural resources for everyone rather than allow them to be exploited by greedy businessmen.

But Roosevelt did not oppose the new huge combinations. He simply wanted the government to supervise and control corporate combinations, preventing criminality in the business world as it did in the streets. He asked businessmen only for transparency. Once the government actually knew what businesses were up to, he said, it could consider regulation or taxation to protect the public interest.

Senators and businessmen who had worried that the cowboy president would slash at the trusts breathed a sigh of relief that all he wanted was “transparency.” According to the Chicago Tribune, the “grave and reverend and somewhat plutocratic Senators immediately admitted in the most delighted fashion that the young and supposedly impetuous President had discussed the trust question with rare discrimination.”

But they were wrong to think Roosevelt did not intend to reduce the power of big business. In early January 1902, Minnesota sued to stop the Northern Securities Company from organizing on the grounds that such a combination violated Minnesota law. While the Supreme Court dithered over whether or not it could rule on the case, the Roosevelt administration put the federal government out in front of the issue. In February, Roosevelt’s attorney general told newspapers that the administration believed the formation of the Northern Securities Company violated the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act and that he would be filing a suit to keep it from organizing.

Businessmen were aghast, not only because Roosevelt was going after a business combination but also because he had acted without consulting Wall Street. When J. P. Morgan complained that he had not been informed, Roosevelt coolly told him that that was the whole point. “If we have done anything wrong,” said the astonished Morgan, “send your man [the attorney general] to my man [one of his lawyers] and they can fix it up.” The president declined. “We don’t want to fix it up,” explained the attorney general. “We want to stop it.”

“Criticism of President Roosevelt’s action was heard on every side,” reported the Boston Globe. “Some of the principal financiers said he had dealt a serious blow to the financial securities of the country.” For his part, Roosevelt was unconcerned by the criticism. “If the law has not been violated,” he announced, “no harm can come from the proposed legal action.”

In late February, the Supreme Court decided it would not hear the Minnesota case; on March 10, the United States sued to stop the organization of the Northern Securities Company.

In August 1902, Roosevelt toured New England and the Midwest to rally support for his attack on the Northern Securities Company. He told audiences that he was not trying to destroy corporations but rather wanted to make them act in the public interest. He demanded a “square deal” for everyone. As the Boston Globe put it: “‘Justice for all alike—a square deal for every man, great or small, rich or poor,’ is the Roosevelt ideal to be attained by the framing and the administration of the law. And he would tell you that that means Mr Morgan and Mr Rockefeller [sic] as well as the poor fellow who cannot pay his rent.”

In 1904 the Supreme Court ruled that the Northern Securities Company was an illegal monopoly and that it must be dissolved, and by 1912, Roosevelt had come to believe that a strong federal government was the only way for citizens to maintain control over corporations, which he saw as the inevitable outcome of the industrial economy. He had no patience for those who hoped to stop such combinations by passing laws against them. Instead, he believed the American people must create a strong federal government that could exert public control over corporations.

In a famous speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, in 1912, he called for a “new nationalism.”

“The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being,” he said. He warned that “[t]here can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains…. We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may know…whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public.”

Roosevelt had come to believe that a strong government must regulate business. “The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power,” he said.

After all, he said, “[t]he object of government is the welfare of the people.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #letters From an American #history #T.Roosevelt #bllionaires #corporate greed #income inequality #democracy #political influence #American History #Robert Reich #the purchase of the SCOTUS #welfare of the people

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rabbitcruiser · 9 months

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Colorado was admitted as the 38th U.S. state on August 1, 1876.

Colorado Day

Colorado Day is celebrated annually on August 1. The holiday commemorates the admittance of Colorado as a state of the Union on August 1, 1876, thanks to an Act of Congress signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. Before the Spanish started settling in Colorado as far back as 1598, Native American tribes had inhabited the area for about 14,000 years. In March 1907, the state legislature officially passed a law designating August 1 as Colorado Day; thus, the holiday started holding on August 1, 1907.

History of Colorado Day

About 14,000 years ago, several Native American tribes, including the Ancestral Puebloans, Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Shoshone, and Ute nations, inhabited Colorado. The first European contact was by the Spanish conquistadors, one of whom — Juan de Onate — founded the Spanish province of ‘Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico’ on July 11, 1598. Eventually, Colorado became a part of this province, and the regular trade between the Spaniards and Native Americans who lived there became known as ‘Comercio Comanchero,’ meaning ‘Comanche Trade.’

In 1803, the United States made a territorial claim to the eastern part of the Rocky Mountains, which the Spanish, who claimed sovereignty over the territory, contested. In 1846, the U.S. went to war with Mexico, winning and claiming the Southern Rocky Mountains for American settlement. However, it wasn’t until a few years later that settlement began in earnest due to the ‘Pikes Peak Gold Rush.’ On June 22, 1850, a man called Lewis Ralston discovered gold in a stream flowing into Clear Creek; he immediately named the stream ‘Ralston’s Creek.’ In 1857, gold seekers began flooding the territory to search for gold — this led to the beginning of the “Pikes Peak Gold Rush.” Three years later, an estimated 100,000 people had come in search of gold, which caused a population boom. However, they settled for silver, hard rock gold, and other minerals when the gold eventually got exhausted.

On February 28, 1861, Colorado became a U.S. territory by an Act of Congress signed by President James Buchanan — this happened during the infamous secession of the Southern States that led to the American Civil War. On August 1, 1876, President Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado to the Union as the 38th State, 28 days after the Centennial Celebration of the United States, earning it the moniker “Centennial State.” ‘Colorado Day’ was first celebrated in 1907.

Colorado Day timeline

1598 Entry of the Spanish

The Spanish conquistadors begin the first European settlement in Colorado.

1850 Ralston Discovers Gold

Lewis Ralston discovers gold in Clear Creek.

1858 Gold Rush Begins

The ‘Pike’s Peak Gold Rush’ begins.

1861 Colorado Becomes a U.S. Territory

Colorado is a U.S. territory after President James Buchanan signs an Act of Congress.

1876 Colorado Becomes a State

Colorado gets admitted as the 38th State of the Union by a signed proclamation of President Ulysses S. Grant.

Colorado Day FAQs

Who’s the current leader of Colorado's government?

The current governor of Colorado is Jared Polis, who has been in office since 2019.

What is the population of Colorado?

Colorado is home to approximately 5.8 million people.

What is Colorado known for?

Colorado is well known for its beautiful landscapes, wildlife, and various outdoor activities the state offers, such as mountain biking, horse riding, and skiing.

Colorado Day Activities

Say “Happy Colorado Day!”

Study the U.S map

Learn more about Colorado

Celebrate by wishing all Coloradans a ‘Happy Colorado Day!’ Send a goodwill message to all Coloradans you know or post a kind message online.

Study the map of the United States and try to locate Colorado. If you don’t have a physical map, tons are available online.

There’s so much rich and fascinating information about the state of Colorado. Conduct some research and even plan a future visit. Begin from our “facts” section and explore further!

5 Random Facts About Colorado

Colorado was ahead on women’s rights

Four states meet in Colorado

Colorado holds a world record

Another world record!

Home to America’s highest suspension bridge

On November 7, 1893, women won the right to vote in Colorado, becoming the first Union state to achieve this.

Colorado borders Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, making it possible to be in all four states simultaneously!

At 1,002 feet deep, the Mother Spring aquifer is the world’s deepest hot spring.

Spanning several 100 square miles, the Grand Mesa in Colorado is the world’s largest flattop mountain.

At 1,053 feet, the Royal Gorge Bridge is the country’s highest suspension bridge.

Why We Love Colorado Day

Colorado Day commemorates the state’s history

Colorado Day is for celebration

Promotion of tourism

Colorado Day commemorates and reflects on the state’s history. It’s also an opportunity to educate those who know little about Colorado’s origins.

This day also allows Coloradans to celebrate their state — whether native Coloradans or foreign residents. Embracing our roots is vital!

State days promote tourism, which boosts the local economy. Publicizing the beautiful attractions and natural sights in Colorado encourages more people to visit.

Source

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nicklloydnow · 1 year

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“In 1926, the havoc wreaked by rail strikes led to the federal government passing the Railway Labor Act to give itself the power to impose labor settlements on the rail industry. The Biden administration used this authority to broker a tentative labor agreement that would ensure a 24 percent pay increase by 2024, annual $1,000 bonuses and a freeze on rising health care costs. But workers would be permitted only one paid personal day and no paid sick leave. Of 12 unions voting on the deal, four of them — representing 56 percent of union membership in the industry — refused to ratify it. Biden signed the legislation into law on Friday.

The railroad barons refuse to permit sick days because they have stripped the railroads down to skeleton crews in a process known as precision scheduled railroading, or PSR. In essence, no spare labor is available, which is why the reduced labor force is subjected to such punishingly short periods of time off and onerous working conditions.

Class struggle defines human history. We are dominated by a seemingly omnipotent corporate elite. Hostile to our most basic rights, this elite is disemboweling the nation; destroying basic institutions that foster the common good, including public schools, the postal service and health care; and is incapable of reforming itself. The only weapon left to thwart this ongoing pillage is the strike. Workers have the collective power to slash profits and cripple industry, which is why the ruling class has gone to such lengths to defang unions and outlaw strikes. A rail freight strike, it is estimated, would cost the U.S. economy $2 billion a day, with daily losses increasing the longer a strike continued.

The few unions that remain — only 10.7 percent of the workforce is unionized — have been largely domesticated, demoted into obsequious junior partners in the capitalist system. As of January 2022, private-sector unionization stood at its lowest point since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. And yet, 48 percent of U.S. workers say they would like to belong to a union.

(…)

“We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are,” Wendell Berry wrote. “Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so, and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.”

All the advances we made in the early 20th century through union strikes, government regulation, the New Deal, a fair tax code, the courts, an alternative press and mass movements have been reversed. The oligarchs are turning American workers — as they did in the 19th century steel and textile factories — into serfs, kept in check by onerous anti-union laws, militarized police, the world’s largest prison system, an electoral system dominated by corporate money and the most pervasive security and surveillance apparatus in human history.

The rich, throughout history, have subjugated and re-subjugated the populations they control. And the public, throughout history, has awakened to the class war waged by the oligarchs and plutocrats and revolted. Let us hope that defying Congress, freight railroad workers carry out a strike. A strike will at least expose the fangs of the ruling class, the courts, law enforcement and the National Guard, much as they did during labor unrest in the 20th century, and broadcast a very public message about whose interests they serve. Besides, a strike might work. Nothing else will.”

“The conditions faced by workers in the retail, retail support and logistics industries are harsh and often punishing during the holidays, as they are expected to work long shifts, extra hours and face expectations of fast turnaround. Public facing retail workers are also at risk of abuse and even assault from customers, who find themselves frustrated when problems with supply chains and understaffing lead to less-than-optimal customer service.

In addition, most workers do not have adequate pay. And all this, while many workers in non-unionized sectors lack a voice at work and may be paid as little as $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage. While large employers like Amazon set a $15 minimum wage that pressured other employers to raise their wages, many retail workers in the U.S. still make less than $15/hour, including the majority of big box and discount retail workers, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. These low wages continue despite the difficulties that employers face in recruiting and retaining workers in our tight labor market.

(…)

Workers face challenges to creating a more humane system during the holidays, but they are not solely victims. In fact, workers continue to fight back through organizing, job actions, coalitions with community groups and work with unions.

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) has worked to strengthen the bargaining position of workers in the broader retail industry through various organizing projects. This includes the international day of action, Make Amazon Pay, during which workers in Amazon warehouses all over the world engaged in actions ranging from walkouts to protests. Eighty unions in 32 countries (including many European countries where workers have better protections) participated in actions targeting Amazon. Workers organized another dozen actions in the United States, including protests in front of Jeff Bezos’s penthouse in New York City, and a picket line at the Bessemer, Alabama, facility.

In addition, RWDSU continues to work with community groups and workers centers to improve the lives of warehouse and other non-unionized workers, through efforts such as New York State’s Warehouse Workers Protection Act, which passed the state legislature in June 2022. This historic legislation would create baseline workplace protections and safety standards for all larger warehouse employers. As Chelsea Connor, director of communications from RWDSU told Truthout, “RWDSU has a long history of working to protect non-unionized workers. We have been working and we continue to work with community groups to improve the conditions for all workers.”

(…)

While Teamsters and other unionized workers enjoy protections under their contracts, this has not necessarily trickled through the industry. UPS drivers, who are Teamsters members, have gained many protections for themselves over the years, including the right to opt out of forced overtime. Unionized workers can freely speak up at work, push back against speed ups, and voice concerns about health and safety. But this is not the case across the industry. As Rand Wilson, a longtime organizer with TDU, told Truthout, “Workers with pretty identical conditions at an Amazon facility, without a union contract … they do what they are told or they can get fired.””

“Outside the south entrance of the hospital, nurses held a press conference, speaking out against their employer after their paid-leave benefits for bereavement, jury duty, and military service were terminated.

(…)

According to a Maine State Nurses Association release, no other employees at the hospital lost these benefits. A spokesperson for Maine Medical Center confirmed no changes to paid time off, including leaves, were made for employees not covered by the union's collective bargaining agreement.

(…)

Many speakers at the event said the decision to terminate their benefits was "illegal" as it related to labor laws.

(…)

This news comes as the capacity at Maine Medical Center is almost full. One factor is a lack of beds at long-term care facilities in Maine, meaning patients stay at the hospital waiting for a bed. The hospital spokesperson said there are about 70 patients waiting for discharge to a long-term facility on any given day.”

#unions #syndicalism #hedges #chris hedges #kang #susan kang #railroad #rail workers #retail #retail workers #working class #class #blue collar #maine

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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A group of 14 House Democrats are voicing fears that House Republicans’ reversal of security rules enacted after the January 6 attack could allow one of their Republican colleagues to threaten the life of President Joe Biden or other attendees in the House chamber during next week’s State of the Union speech.

Mr Biden is set to deliver his annual message to Congress on Tuesday, 7 February. It will be his second State of the Union speech to Congress and his first since Republicans took control of the House by winning a majority in last year’s midterm elections.

One of the first acts of the new GOP majority was to eliminate the magnetometers that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered US Capitol Police to erect at each entrance to the House chamber in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Although members have always technically been prohibited from wearing firearms in the chamber, some claimed to have had their weapons on their person during the attack.

In a letter to House and Senate leaders, the group of House Democrats said they were writing with “urgent concern for the safety and security of the President, other dignitaries, and guests” at next week’s joint session of Congress.

“The GOP House Majority’s new rules have made the safety and security of the House Chamber, the very seat of American Democracy, at risk to infiltration and violence with reckless changes to necessary preventative measures. As both of our chambers come together to hear a message from the President on the state of our Union, we are concerned for the safety and security of those present,” said the members, a group which includes Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who formerly chaired the House January 6 select committee.

The members pointed to past attempts by members to [sneak] secret firearms onto the House floor, other members declaring their intent to do the same, and a newly-elected GOP member sending inert grenades to colleagues as gifts as evidence that the House remains “vulnerable to multiple fronts of attacks both from inside and outside Congress”.

“Considering the ability of Members of Congress to carry firearms in the capitol complex outside the House Floor, removal of magnetometers from the entrances to the House Floor, and with record threats against the lives of Members of Congress, the security of the House complex is today precarious,” they said.

They added that they are “urgently” requesting information on what steps leadership is taking to secure the chamber before next week’s event, and said they are “amenable” to a “closed-door briefing” on the matter.

Because the State of the Union is designated as a National Security Special Event by the Department of Homeland Security, the US Secret Service — not the US Capitol Police — will be in charge of security for the Tuesday night joint session.

A Secret Service spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.

#us politics #news #the independent #2023 #conservatives #republicans #gop #118th congress #us house of representatives #state of the union #biden administration #president joe biden #magnetometers #us secret service #rep. bennie thompson #National Security Special Event #department of homeland security

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theculturedmarxist · 1 year

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By Kit Klarenberg

Ever since foreign-backed riots broke out in Iran in mid-September, Western news outlets have frequently drawn attention to the role of Psiphon, a free, open-source smartphone application and computer program that allows users to circumvent restrictions on websites and online resources in helping troublemakers organize and coordinate their activities, and send and receive messages to and from the outside world.

In the process, Psiphon has received untold amounts of highly-influential free advertising, and some Iranians - along with residents of West Asia more widely - will no doubt have been encouraged to download the software.

However, not a single mainstream source has hitherto acknowledged the spectral origins of Psiphon, let alone the malign aims it serves, and sinister purposes to which it can be put by its sponsors in the American intelligence community.

Psiphon was launched in 2009. Avowedly intended to support anti-government elements in countries the company considers “enemies of the internet”, the resource employs a combination of secure communication and obfuscation technologies, including VPNs, web proxies, and secure shell protocols (SSH), which allows users to effectively set up their own private servers that their own government cannot monitor.

Over Psiphon’s lifetime, it has been funded and distributed by a variety of spook-adjacent organizations.

For example, it was for several years promoted by ASL19, which was founded by an Iranian expat Ali Bangi in 2013 to capitalize on the vast US funding flowing for “internet freedom” initiatives in the wake of the Arab Spring.

A June 2011 New York Times probe into Washington’s “internet freedom” push concluded that all these endeavors serve to “deploy ‘shadow’ internet and mobile phone systems dissidents can use to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya.”

Bangi’s proximity to the US government was made abundantly clear when in 2016 he attended the White House’s annual celebration of Nowruz, invariably a coming-out party for elite state-sponsored "regime change" activists.

Such high-level appearances, along with his status as a permanent fixture at tech conferences and digital rights events, cemented his place as a “rock star” figure within the Iranian diaspora community.

Bangi was nonetheless forced to resign from ASL19 in 2018, after he ended up in court in Canada on charges of sexual assault and forcible imprisonment.

A resultant profile in technology industry magazine The Verge alleged that he had fostered a culture of widespread drug use, sexism, harassment, and bullying within the organization, with female employees a particular target of his ire. On several occasions, he was aggressive and even violent towards staff.

With Bangi and ASL19 out of the picture, in 2019, Psiphon began receiving millions from the Open Technology Fund, created seven years earlier by Radio Free Asia (RFA), which in turn was founded by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1948 after it was officially authorized to engage in “black operations”, including propaganda, economic warfare, sabotage, subversion, and “assistance to underground resistance movements.”

In 2007, the CIA website ranked RFA and other “psychological warfare” initiatives such as Radio Free Europe and Voice of America among “the longest-running and most successful covert action campaigns” it ever mounted.

Today, RFA is an asset of the US Agency for Global Media, which is funded by the US Congress to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Its CEO has acknowledged that the organization’s priorities “reflect US national security interests.”

OTF was one of the several initiatives that spun out of Washington's aforementioned “internet freedom” push.

Individuals intimately involved in making this desire a reality are under no illusion as to the true raison d’etre they are serving. In February 2015, Jillian York, an OTF advisory board member, stated she “fundamentally” believed “internet freedom” was “at heart an agenda of regime change.”

OTF, being the brainchild of a US intelligence-created “psychological warfare” platform, illuminates a key purpose of Psiphon - ensuring citizens of countries in the crosshairs of ongoing US-led "regime change efforts" can continue to access Western state propaganda.

A November 2019 US Agency for Global Media factsheet on “tools supported by OTF” gives top-billing to Psiphon.

“OTF provides USAGM networks with assistance to protect their content online and ensure it is resistant to censorship. For example, when USAGM news sites were abruptly blocked in Pakistan, OTF created mirror sites to ensure USAGM content remained available for key audiences…OTF provides emergency support to independent media outlets and journalists facing digital attacks to get back online and mitigate future attacks," it states.

A May 2020 OTF report on “highlights and challenges” of the year to date likewise notes that “veteran circumvention tool provider” Psiphon ensures USAGM-published content - which includes Voice of America Farsi - can reach audiences in countries where it is banned.

Similarly, a dedicated section of the BBC website, following the British state broadcaster’s prohibition in Russia, in March offered an explanatory guide to how local residents can download the app via Android, Apple and Windows.

Should users “find it difficult” to access Psiphon via established app stores, they are invited to send a blank message to a listed email address to receive “a direct and safe download link.”

In Iran, such utility is no doubt similarly invaluable given the fact that hostile media such as the BBC and RFA paint an utterly one-sided picture of the unfolding unrest, framing violent, incendiary actions by anti-government elements as peaceful, while wholly ignoring far larger pro-government popular demonstrations.

Another core Psiphon strength from the perspective of Western power is that it funnels all user data to and through centralized servers owned by the company itself.

While individuals’ activities on the network might be shielded from the prying eyes of their own government, Psiphon can track what sites they are visiting and their communications in real-time.

This allows foreign actors to keep an unblinking eye trained on protesters and protest movements, and to respond accordingly.

Psiphon’s meddling in Iran is now a long-established matter of public record. Back in 2013, the company published a blog hailing the “particularly big impact” it had made in the country, “coinciding with their (Iranian) presidential election.”

While acknowledging Tehran had “always been a big challenge for us,” Psiphon boasted that its software “stayed available” consistently during this time, despite repeated efforts to “severely throttle” operation.

That none of this background has emerged in any of the fawning mainstream puff pieces on Psiphon is shocking, but unsurprising.

Afterall, Western news outlets stand to materially benefit from a US-run protection racket projecting their agitprop to countless millions of people in secret.

And in becoming actively complicit in a US "regime change" operation, mainstream journalists are all less likely to acknowledge the reality of what’s happening in Tehran, why and who stands to materially benefit from the government’s ouster. That, however, is a far-fetched dream of Western powers. Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPresss News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, Electronic Intifada, Grayzone, and ShadowProof. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.

(The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

#psiphon #download psiphon 4 for windows #psiphon pro #iran #tehran #cia corruption #cia #mintpress #mint news

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mariacallous · 6 months

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Some of the United States’ largest civil liberties groups are urging Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer not to pursue a short-term extension of the Section 702 surveillance program slated to sunset on December 31.

The more than 20 groups—Demand Progress, the Brennan Center for Justice, American Civil Liberties Union, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice among them—oppose plans that would allow the program to continue temporarily by amending “must-pass” legislation, such as the bill needed now to avert a government shutdown by Friday, or the National Defense Authorization Act, annual legislation set to dictate $886 billion in national security spending across the Pentagon and US Department of Energy in 2024.

“In its current form, [Section 702] is dangerous to our liberties and our democracy, and it should not be renewed for any length of time without robust debate, an opportunity for amendment, and—ultimately—far-reaching reforms,” a letter from the groups to Schumer says. It adds that any attempt to prolong the program by rushed amendment “would demonstrate blatant disregard for the civil liberties and civil rights of the American people.”

The letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg Law, cited reporting by WIRED and CQ Roll Call. Schumer did not respond to a request for comment.

As WIRED has previously reported, surveillance under the 702 program may technically continue for another six months, regardless of whether Congress reauthorizes it by the end of December. The program was last certified by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April 2023 for a full year. “Transition procedures” codified in the statute permit surveillance orders to “continue in effect” until they expire.

The 702 program is controversial for its collection of communications of “US persons.” The program legally targets roughly a quarter million foreigners each year, gathering the content of their text messages, emails, and phone calls, but collaterally intercepts an unknown but presumably large amount of American communications as well. This interception takes place with the compelled cooperation of US telecommunications companies that handle internet traffic at stages along global networks.

The program includes procedures for intercepting, storing, and querying the information in ways that are designed to “minimize” the odds of Americans’ rights being violated, but the rules are also subject to various exemptions. A top criticism of the 702 program is that it permits the Federal Bureau of Investigation to access the calls and emails of US citizens without a warrant and without evidence they’ve committed a crime.

The 702 program was last reauthorized in 2018 following a similarly contentious debate. The program currently permits the National Security Agency to target foreigners under an array of circumstances related to counterterrorism, espionage, and nuclear proliferation, though is also prominently used today to investigate and combat cybercrime and drug trafficking.

On November 7, a bipartisan, bicameral coalition of US lawmakers introduced a comprehensive privacy bill called the Government Surveillance Reform Act, led in part by veteran Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden. Among other provisions aimed at restricting warrantless surveillance and the collection of location data by police, the bill would impose several reforms of the 702 program, ensuring the FBI obtained a warrant before querying the database using “US Person” identifiers.

The GSRA is widely supported by the civil liberties groups whose letter advises Schumer against a short-term extension of Section 702.

“I plan to vote against any continuing resolution that extends FISA Section 702 without meaningful reforms," Wyden tells WIRED. "Massive surveillance programs that violate Americans’ privacy should not be rushed through without reform or review. Congress must have a real debate about reforming warrantless government surveillance of Americans. Therefore, the administration and congressional leaders should listen to the overwhelming bipartisan coalition that supports adopting commonsense protections for Americans’ privacy and extending key national security authorities at the same time.”

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