Notices by Dan Wentzel 🏳️‍🌈 (danwentzel@urbanists.social), page 4

The City of West Hollywood, California, has launched a new website called "Engage WeHo" to help the community be involved with Long Range Planning. It looks great! #WeHo
#cities #urbanism

https://engage.weho.org/

Since we are “vermin” according to Trump, does that mean he plans on exterminating us if he gets back into the White House? Just as Hitler did to his political opponents and everyone he found undesirable?

No, this is not a hyperbolic question.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/12/trump-rally-vermin-political-opponents/

School lunches should be free. There shouldn't even be something called "school lunch debt".

“Turning the base up too high blows out your Speaker.”

Hard truth about U.S. history:

#TyrannyOfTheMinority is exactly what the founding rich, white, straight, cis, male slaveowners established for the United States, which is why they created an Electoral College that can thwart the popular vote, only allowed rich, white, men who owned property to vote, and counted nonwhites as three-fifths of a person.

We have had to fight for the expansion of the franchise, civil rights, and legal equality to include everyone throughout our entire history.

Look, we tried trickle-down economics for over forty years. It simply didn’t work. The national debt exploded and nothing trickled-down, so now we move on.

Stimulating the economy from the bottom up is clearly more effective. A rising tide should lift all boats, not just yachts.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/

My friend who emigrated to Spain posted that he had to go to the Emergency Room today. Instead of it breaking his bank account, the visit only cost him €16.

We are being ripped off in ways we don't even realize by the US health “care” non-system which is designed to maximize corporate profits by bankrupting patients.

We need a new model and should adopt one of the universal health care models that get much better health care outcomes than ours. #universalhealthcare #medicareforall #USpol

Growing up Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher told us that capitalism went hand in hand with freedom and democracy.

Today we can see that capitalists can quite comfortably walk hand in hand with authoritarianism and fascism to maintain and consolidate their wealth and power.

I will be riding my bicycle 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles with AIDS/LifeCycle in June 2024. Your donation to fight HIV/AIDS would mean the world to me and to the people who receive the lifesaving treatments and services your donation provides.
#hiv #AIDS #AIDSLifeCycle
https://giving.aidslifecycle.org/participant/Dan-Wentzel

@weirdwriter Which is why I tip them monthly.

The corporate news media is finally admitting that Mastodon exists and growing -- but only in order to write an article to accuse it of being rife with child pornography -- blaming platform federation and a lack of centralized moderation and content scanning.

I've honestly never seen even a whiff of such material on Mastodon, although the article in particular blames instances in Japan.

The article is as much an attack on decentralization and federation as on Mastodon.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/24/twitter-rival-mastodon-rife-with-child-abuse-material-study-finds/

Whenever someone mentions that the USA was founded on the slavery of nonwhites, and genocide of the indigenous peoples, all the right people get upset.

We need to keep bringing these inconvenient truths up until these historical wrongs are rectified. #IndependenceDay

A corrupt Supreme Court majority, given lifetime appointments by Presidents who lost the popular vote, operate in secret without a code of ethics, and are turning back the clock on decades of social justice in America. This case wasn’t even real.
—
Supreme Court rules in favor of discrimination against same sex couples
#tyrannyoftheminority #SupremeCourt #LGBTQ #USpol #USpolitics #politics

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-same-sex-couples_n_6481d91de4b025003edbde97

Striking down affirmative action and ending Roe v. Wade didn't happen overnight. For decades, conservatives remained focused, played the long game, held their noses, and voted for imperfect candidates in every election in order to remake the courts.

There is no magic bullet to undo this. Progressives, liberals, and moderates who believe in social justice will have to be as determined and committed to voting over several election cycles.
#USpol #USpolitics #politics #SupremeCourt

@atomicpoet @socialmedianews They will go to BlueSky. Wasn't that the original idea?

Can someone explain #CalcKey to me? I see it is a part of the Fediverse. What does it offer that is different from Mastodon? Do people have accounts at both they same way people do with Pixelfed?

The current Supreme Court lacks credibility. It operates in secrecy without a Code of Ethics, a majority of its members were appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote, and Clarence Thomas’ behavior reveals a culture of corruption. There are solutions if there is political will:
- Code of Ethics
- Require disclosure of all gifts
- Require release of tax returns before and during tenure
- Expand the Court to 13
- Term limits
#supremecourt #politics #USpol

That's it? Thomas "may" be invited to a Senate hearing.

Start issuing subpoenas and appoint a special prosecutor.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/17/clarence-thomas-invite-to-future-supreme-court-ethics-hearing-00092460

KCRW public radio station that carries NPR is leaving Twitter. The exodus of responsible media is finally beginning.

https://www.kcrw.com/news/articles/npr-twitter-state-affiliated-media

Politicians and journalists who fret about the national security threat of TikTok while actively posting and maintaining accounts on Elon Musk's Twitter are engaging in an incredible act of irony without any self-awareness.