aleph

In a rare interview with an aid worker in Gaza, Casey Harrity (Save The Children team leader) describes the aftermath of the attack on the school and the general conditions on the ground:

"80 verified killed in this attack, possibly more ... Still bodies that have been dismembered under rubble.. There were children living in this shelter.. We must stop the attacks against children"

"What we know is that there were women and children living in this school as a shelter. We've seen that. We cannot verify Hamas activities"

"This is the worst I've seen.. I've worked in Syria.. Iraq.. Other places.. You cannot compare human suffering.. But we're seeing a new level of depravity in this country"

"We cannot see attacks against children be the new normal"

Short Summary

The article delves into the unsettling ideological influence of Curtis Yarvin, a software developer known for extreme views on societal restructuring. Yarvin advocates for dystopian solutions like converting unproductive people into biodiesel and virtualizing them into permanent solitary confinement, ideas that have attracted influential figures like Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance.

Peter Thiel, a tech billionaire, and Vance, a former Silicon Valley insider and now a Republican senator, are closely aligned with Yarvin's concepts. Thiel, particularly, has funded Vance's political career, elevating him into positions of influence within the GOP. Yarvin's philosophy, labeled neoreaction or NRx, promotes authoritarian governance and dismantling traditional governments in favor of corporate-controlled micro-states called "patchworks."

Vance, shaped by his time in San Francisco and mentored by Thiel, echoes Yarvin's radical ideas, advocating for extreme measures like political purges and the replacement of civil servants to consolidate power. His rise within Republican circles, backed by Thiel's financial and strategic support, underscores a growing convergence of tech wealth and political power aiming to reshape American governance along authoritarian lines.

Green Party candidate Jason Call has posted a thread on X. The key points are:

~ The duopoly is going all out to deny third party voices this year

~ The Stein campaign has qualified for Federal Matching Funds, but Congress robbed the fund and Treasury is refusing to pay us $270,000. It is unconscionable and unprecedented….

~ What are Federal Matching Funds? When you file your taxes each year, you’re asked “do you want $3 to go to the Presidential Matching Fund?”

~ It is essentially a fund reserved to help campaigns be more competitive against the flood of big money interests

~ The Jill Stein is the only campaign (other than Mike Pence, no longer active) that has met the threshold for this funding

~ And while the FEC has said we qualify for the match - a payment of $270k at this point - we are being denied that payment

~ Here’s what we are being told: Since the duopoly candidates have rejected that funding for the last 16 years, that $3 per IRS filing grew to over $400 million

~ And this year, Congress decided to “appropriate” those funds for other uses. They took $320mil and gave it to the Secret Service…

~ They took $25mil and gave it to the Justice Dept. They took $55mil for “election security” (ironically securing elections from 3rd parties it seems)

~ Right now we are being denied our earned primary matching funds because there is a “shortfall”

~ What we have earned amounts to 1.5% of what’s in the fund. And they are saying there’s a shortfall? Here’s their reasoning:

~ “We need to wait until the major parties have their convention so we will know if they are going to apply for the funds” Excuse me?

~ Use of matching funds for the general election takes priority over use of funds for the primary, but the only campaigns that can qualify for those funds are the duopoly campaigns

~ The two major parties have not used matching funds for 16 years due to the imposed spending limits

~ But this year, Congress robbed the fund (and if you are a taxpayer and have checked that $3 box, you should be righteously pissed off about this misappropriation)

~ And the Treasury is saying “sorry, we don’t have the money, we might need it for the general”

~ But understand this is a political hit. Congress appropriated that money right when we were messaging that we were about to hit the threshold.

~ The FEC is not the responsible party here. They qualified us, said we were good to go. This is coming from higher up, politically motivated to shut down our traction

~ And it has. It has stifled our momentum. This, and the bullshit lawsuits to keep us off the ballot

~ Democrats say they are defending democracy, but this is how they are doing it. Political trickery and lawfare

~ They are limiting the choices of voters when voters (not BlueMAGA of course, they are cheering on the chicanery) are fed up with the garbage forced on us by the duopoly

~ The Green Party takes no corporate money. We are following the rules. And the playground bullies are continuing to rig the system for the war machine and other corporate interests

~ This is not democracy. It is not justice.

TIL that in 2018, thousands of Gazans peacefully demonstrated against Israel's siege of the territory.

In response, IDF forces opened fire on the demonstrators with live ammunition. Some they shot to kill, others they shot in the leg, crippling them for life. Others they shot with rubber bullets and tear gas. They shot women, children, the elderly, paramedics, and journalists.

A UN Commission found that Israeli soldiers likely committed war crimes or crimes against humanity. Investigating from March 30 to December 31, 2018, the Commission reported 183 Palestinian protester deaths from live ammunition, including children, medics, and journalists. Over 6,000 were injured by gunfire.

An oldie but a goodie.

'If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.'"

Pardon me, but what is this horseshit?

“The use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history” gets the prize for the most oblivious statement I've seen all week.

As a new user, I'm enjoying Mastodon's vibe so far but the one thing that is a letdown is the trending hashtags. I've been checking them regularly over the past couple of weeks and it seems like they're pretty much always like this.

Even on days with big news stories, people on Mastodon are only talking about what day of the week it is like company employees on some internal message board?

Is there anything that can be done to liven them up a bit?

Every day, they seem to be pretty much the exact same.

Coming from the bird site where you could actually get a gauge on what was happening in the world right now, Mastodon's trending hashtags seem so ... banal?

Hi, everyone. The author here claims a couple of things I'd like people to check out:

1. That European countries are generally reluctant to endorse gender reassignment treatments due to insufficient evidence

2. That there are no large scale studies / reviews that find good evidence in favor of gender reassignment treatments

Thanks in advance!