Notices by Maria (mariahill@progressivecafe.social)

@yuhasz01 @TonyStark "Entitlement" has been made a dirty word. You are ENTITLED to receive Social Security payments in your old age or if you become disabled for having worked for more than 10 years (or meeting other requirements such as being a surviving spouse or dependent child or someone who did; not an exhaustive list of ways you can qualify). This is a good thing, not a bad thing.

@TonyStark Ways to complete a sentence starting with "No good choices"

...for your health care under the 2025 Concepts of a Plan

...among the judges the Federalist Society will allow Trump to appoint

...among the things working and middle class people will be able to afford once the Trump tariffs go into effect

It's hard to decide who the worst person associated with the Trump campaign is, but you probably can't go wrong if you say it's Musk (who worked illegally under a student visa while not actually enrolled in school and lied to immigration, offenses for which American citizenship can be revoked, which has nothing to do with this story about his weird lottery, but it's always worth mentioning Republican rules-for-thee, not-for-me).

https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-weighs-challenge-elon-musks-1-million-voter-giveaway-2024-11-04/

New Republican voter suppression tactic: mail voters forms asking them to delete their own voter registrations, scaring them into thinking they are no longer eligible to vote.

The system to check if you're registered in a former state works. I just checked in my last state and I've been deleted from the rolls, not that I'd have considered going back to vote there too. Who would other than a Trump staffer?

Such a slimy operation.

https://www.goerie.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/10/30/erie-pa-republican-activists-mailed-voter-registration-cancel-forms/75828840007/

This is the Handmaid's Tale future waiting for us in every state if Republicans get their way. You can't have a safe, legal abortion. If you self-medicate, the hospital will call the sheriff on you and you'll get hauled off to jail.

It's only 2024 though, and federal judges still let you sue when Texas does it. This one is even a Trump appointee, but we'll still be much safer with VP Harris-nominated judges.

https://apnews.com/article/texas-abortion-arrest-0a78cbb8f44cc24c3c9c811e1cc2b4d3

@MJ @TonyStark "League of clowns" is a good description of the Republican Party right now.

@TonyStark Joy Ann Reid was enjoying making fun of the “Black jobs” line with Maryland Governor Wes Moore earlier this week. I hope every one of those racist lines bites Trump in the ass with voters of all backgrounds.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is the first governor to create a hotline for voters and election workers to report threats of physical violence. Shapiro says he's responding to the assassination attempt. Hopefully other governors will follow Shapiro's lead on this. Everyone should be able to be safe from political violence.

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/pennsylvania-launches-hotline-for-voters-and-election-workers-to-report-threats/

I'm not a lawyer, but I know that it's a bad idea to take legal advice from your adversary.

Mike Johnson wants Democratic voters to think that there's some issue with running anyone but Joe Biden. There isn't. The convention hasn't happened yet. The Heritage Foundation has written a memo about lawsuits but who are they going to sue? The delegates pledged to Biden-Harris for voting for Kamala Harris? I think Marc Elias, a lawyer for the Democrats, has this one covered.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/07/21/joe-biden-drops-out-election/gop-legal-challenges-00170014

Swing district Republicans voted against Biden's infrastructure law, but now that it's election time, want credit for the federal dollars creating jobs in their districts. Imagine if Republicans in Congress just voted to get things done for the country instead of claiming it's bad to have roads, bridges, public transportation, high-speed internet, and clean water.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/10/house-republicans-infrastructure-funding-vote-no-00162361

According to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, religious freedom means being able to prevent other people's access to contraception, so he had to veto a bill that would have enshrined rights.

He also vetoed bills ending tax breaks for the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the issuance of new Confederate license plates.

This is what you get when you elect Republicans, no matter how affable or moderate they pretend to be before an election.

https://apnews.com/article/youngkin-virginia-general-assembly-vetoes-skill-games-771aaae0d34b31bbd7008d8e396c71b6

It must be hard to be an airline, biting the hand that bails you out in bad times.

Look at how mad the airlines are that they've been told not to bait-and-switch.

No one told them they can't charge fees, only that they have to disclose those fees and the full cost of travel.

Let's hope the Fifth Circuit has a consumer-friendly moment for a change.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/major-airlines-sue-biden-administration-over-fee-disclosure-rule-2024-05-13/

Trump can't pull the USA out of NATO. Included in the NDAA, passed by Congress in December 2023 and signed by President Biden, was a provision requiring congressional approval. Congress, including Republicans, didn't want Trump to do this.

Regardless, whether or not Trump knows that he can't, we don't need a bellicose president or candidate threatening our allies that we'll abandon them, or worse, inviting Russia to attack.

Smart leaders know the value of allies.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/politics/us-out-nato-second-trump-term-former-senior-adviser/index.html

@CarlG @TonyStark

Biden not nominating anyone to the Supreme Court is a counterfactual.

Perhaps Clarence Thomas could find himself no longer a justice through retirement due to not wanting anyone to keep looking into his malfeasance and Biden could nominate a second in his second term despite the irregularity of stepping down while the other party's president is in power.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/kbj/

@TonyStark Ruth Marcus wrote a good column about the three presidents and free speech. I don't agree with everything in it ("from the river to the sea has always sounded pretty genocidal to me and the group in West Philly was also chanting "from water to water, Palestine will be Arab" and what is that supposed to mean for Jewish people living in the Levant?)

Overall, though, you can agree that Gay got the testimony wrong and also Stefanik is acting in bad faith.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/11/upenn-liz-magill-removal-wrong/

@TonyStark I probably need to say, once again, that it is my desire to see Jewish people, Arab people, Muslim people, Israelis, and Palestinians, in whatever combinations they identify, living peacefully in the land that is contested as Israel and Palestine. No one killing anyone else over it, no one subjugated by anyone else.

Happy #caturday and #chagsameah.

@FortunateFool @TonyStark @msmp “We just murdered and kidnapped people. We didn’t sexually assault them!” - Hamas, apparently

@TonyStark We'll have to get rid of a net five more by voting them out in a year, unless the rotten ethics of a few more become this blatant.

You couldn't make this up: an antisemite accidentally commits a hate crime against a group of antisemites. In Indianapolis, a woman thought a Radical Hebrew Israelite school – a group that is antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ, misogynistic, etc. – was an "Israel school" (i.e., Jewish school) so she drove her car into it.

Just today's reminder that Jewish people and facilities are indeed being targeted. (And even if another group hates me, I don't want their kids hurt.)

https://apnews.com/article/indianapolis-building-car-drove-woman-arrested-36d4d8ee1deb3b412e82a8b8b2a863a7