TRAITORS: Action Needed! Full List Of Democrats Who Voted To Hand Trump More Power
The law would not require Treasury officials to explain the reasoning behind their decision or for the department to provide evidence.
TWO ACTIONS NEEDED TODAY!
All weak, corrupt and illegitimate regimes target free speech and free access to information because an informed populace asking questions, pointing out inconvenient facts, posing counter narratives and refusing to shut-up is the biggest threat they face. That’s why both political parties are so hostile to free speech. As the empire crumbles they need to shut US up. Don’t let them.
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (11/18/24)
In all tyrannies you have the oppressors and the enablers. The enablers of oppression are not just the obvious ones, like the jack-booted, blank-eyed police and military goons or barely verbal government hacks. They are also found among the supposed opposition; the get-alongers who may make meek statements calling for ‘moderation’ or ‘patience’ but are nothing more than the rolled out shaggy carpet the tyrants strut about on.
No group describes the later better than the Democratic Party. As I recently wrote about the celebrity-clotted Harris/Walz campaign, during times of rising authoritarianism opposition parties are frequently inept, timid and rotted out with their own corruption and hypocrisy. Either passively or actively, they facilitate tyranny.
This was on obscene, blazing display recently as 52 House Democrats voted last Tuesday in favor of the GOP-led Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, which would grant the Secretary of the Treasury complete ability to arbitrarily cancel the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status of organizations without reason or evidence. Most of the alternative media we depend upon for truth, like Democracy Now! and Truthout, Common Dreams are such tax-exempt organizations. Without such courageous groups we would be entirely adrift in the cesspool of corporate media.
The same thing could be done to essential democracy-building and humanitarian non-profit groups providing aid to the impoverished and oppressed victims of our corporate empire in other countries.
And 52 Democrats stepped right up, betrayed their constituents and signed on to doing just that. The details of the bill are in the Newsweek article below, including the list of traitorous Democrats who supported the bill. I have added the states and districts for each. I encourage you to see if your representative or any others from your state are on the list and call TODAY to express your displeasure. If you have the time, call or write a few others. You can easily Google the contact information.
The second threat
Check out the press release below from the FIRE First Amendment free speech group on the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which — if passed — would make speaking out against Zionism equivalent to antisemitism. Despite the fact that Zionism runs counter to the teachings and values of Judaism and many Jewish people and rabbis oppose Zionism, it would be granted protected legal status. This, despite the historical fact that many European Zionists actively colluded with Nazis during WW II to imprison and kill millions of poor and working class Jews.
There have been some recent developments you should know about the legislation and calls to members of Congress need to be made now.
Be clear, both the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act and the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act are direct attacks on our First Amendment right to free speech and a free press. Of all our rights, the First Amendment is the most important, for without it we don’t have the primary tool needed to protect the rest.
All weak, corrupt and illegitimate regimes target free speech and free access to information because an informed populace asking questions, pointing out inconvenient facts, posing counter narratives and refusing to shut-up is the biggest threat they face. That’s why both political parties are so hostile to free speech. As the empire crumbles they need to shut US up. Don’t let them.
Two Non-Profit Resources For Citizens
Track AIPAC let’s you see how much money the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has funneled to your Congressional representative. Link Here
OpenSecrets shows where all the campaign donations for members and candidates for Congress comes from. Following the money will usually explain why memebers of of Congress so often vote against our interests. Link Here
Deceptive Nonprofit Legislation Threatening Free Speech & Information
The law would not require Treasury officials to explain the reasoning behind the decision or for the department to provide evidence.
By Katherine Fung
Newsweek (11/12/24)
Over 50 House Democrats voted to give President-elect Donald Trump's Treasury secretary more power over nonprofit organizations.
The House voted against the GOP-led Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act Tuesday, with 256 representatives voting in favor, shy of the 270 needed to pass the bill. Over 200 Republicans along with 52 Democrats supported the bill, and one Republican joined the 144 Democrats who opposed it.
The bill would give secretaries of the United States Treasury the power to designate nonprofit organizations as "terrorist-supporting" and, thus, strip those groups of their tax-exempt status. The bill's passage would apply the amendments made in it to taxable years after its enactment, including those of the incoming Trump administration.
The current version of the bill, which Representative Claudia Tenney introduced, is paired with a provision that offers tax relief to Americans who are "unlawfully or wrongfully detained abroad, or held hostage abroad."
The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the bill as "a new tool [the Trump administration] could use to stifle free speech, target political opponents, and punish groups that disagree with them."
In a blog post urging members of Congress to kill the bill, Kia Hamadanchy, ACLU's senior policy counsel, said, "The freedom to dissent without fear of government retribution is a vital part of any well-functioning democracy, which is why Congress must block H.R. 9495 before it's too late."
Under the bill, once an organization is notified about its "terrorist supporting" designation, it would have 90 days to appeal before it is stripped of its 501(c)(3) status.
The law would not require Treasury officials to explain the reasoning behind the decision or for the department to provide evidence.
Trump has begun filling his cabinet but has not announced who will lead his Department of Treasury. Billionaire investor John Paulson took himself out as a possible pick on Tuesday, suggesting that investor Scott Bessent or Trump's transition co-chair Howard Lutnick could succeed current Secretary Janet Yellen.
The bill comes as the war in Gaza continues into its 13th month. At least 43,603 Palestinians have been killed and another 102,929 wounded since the war broke out on October 7, 2023, last year, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel on the day of the Hamas-led attacks, and more than 200 people were taken hostage. [As is obvious, the official numbers of deaths and injuries are fraction of the actual casualties. In early July ‘24 The Lancet Medical estimated the number of deaths at 186,000. And that was four months ago. - MT]
Opponents of the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act have warned that the proposed broad authority to deem an organization as supporting "terrorism" has raised fears that the power will be wielded against nonprofits that are pro-Palestinian.
Unchecked powers
Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat who lost his primary race earlier this year and will be leaving Capitol Hill come January, warned Tuesday that the bill "will sink us further into authoritarianism."
"It is an extremely dangerous bill that would give the government unlimited power to stop the work of humanitarian groups and target political enemies. All without transparency or evidence," Bowman, who is among the most vocal pro-Palestinian voices in Congress, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Bowman's primary race was largely seen as a referendum on his criticisms of Israel. Pro-Israel groups dumped nearly $15 million into the race in an effort to oust Bowman.
"The unchecked powers granted by H.R. 9495 are ripe for abuse and any member of Congress who votes yes on it cannot honestly claim to support peace, justice, and freedom of speech," Bowman said.
Actor Cynthia Nixon, a former candidate for New York governor, also called the bill a "five alarm fire" and urged her followers on X to persuade their members of Congress to block it.
Opponents have warned that passing the bill would kill a nonprofit's ability to function, as it could prohibit their ability to fundraise, prevent them from getting banks to service them and imperil their work in war zones or other hostile environments.
"Charitable organizations, especially those who work in settings where designated terrorist groups operate, already undergo strict internal due diligence and risk mitigation measures," the Charity & Security Network said in a statement last year. "As the prohibition on material support to foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) already exists, and is applicable to U.S. nonprofits, this proposed legislation is redundant and unnecessary."
Here is the full list of Democrats who voted to support the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act:
Colin Allred (TX/32nd)
Nikki Budzinski (IL/13th)
Yadira Caraveo (CO/8th)
Ed Case (HI/1st)
Kathy Castor (FL/14th)
Jim Costa (CA/21st)
Angie Craig (MN/2nd)
Henry Cuellar (TX/28th)
Sharice Davids (KS/3rd)
Don Davis (NC/1st)
Debbie Dingell (MI/6th)
Lois Frankel (FL/22nd)
Jared Golden (ME/2nd)
Vicente Gonzalez (TX/34th)
Josh Gottheimer (NJ/5th)
Josh Harder (CA/9th)
Jahana Hayes (CT/5th)
Steny Hoyer (MD/5th)
Marcy Kaptur (OH/9th)
Greg Landsman (OH/1st)
Susie Lee (NV/3rd)
Mike Levin (CA/49th)
Kathy Manning (NC/6th)
Lucy McBath (GA/7th)
Grace Meng (NY/6th)
Gwen Moore (WI/4th)
Jared Moskowitz (FL/24)
Frank Mrvan (IN/1st)
Donald Norcross (NJ/1st)
Frank Pallone (NJ/6th)
Jimmy Panetta (CA/19th)
Chris Pappas (NH/1st)
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA/3rd)
Pat Ryan (NY/18th)
Adam Schiff (CA/30th)
Brad Schneider (IL/10th)
Hillary Scholten (MI/3rd)
Kim Schrier (WA/8th)
Brad Sherman (CA/32nd)
Elissa Slotkin (MI/7th)
Eric Sorensen (IL/17th)
Greg Stanton (AZ/4th)
Haley Stevens (MI/11th)
Marilyn Strickland (WA/10th)
Tom Suozzi (NY/3rd)
Emilia Sykes (OH/13th)
Shri Thanedar (MI/13th)
Norma Torres (CA/35th)
Ritchie Torres (NY/15th)
Juan Vargas (CA/52nd)
Gabe Vasquez (NM/2nd)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL/25th)
Oppose This Frontal Attack On Your Free Speech!
In May, we told you about the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act. After languishing for months, now the unconstitutional bill may get smuggled into a must-pass defense bill without a standalone debate or vote.
It's a serious threat to free speech. Let us share why, and give you the chance to tell your senators to reject this bill that will punish people for speech totally protected by the First Amendment.
Going by the name alone, it sounds great. Combating anti-Semitism is an important goal.
But when you dig into the details, the effects of the bill are chilling: It requires the Department of Education to adopt an unconstitutionally vague and overbroad definition of anti-Semitism that would pressure schools to investigate and censor students for speech protected by the Constitution.
TAKE ACTION: TELL YOUR SENATORS TO STAND UP FOR FREE SPEECH
The definition includes a list of examples — but those examples include core political speech protected by the First Amendment. Should college students who compare Israeli government policy with that of the Nazis be investigated by their school? Should they be censored for holding Israel to "double standards"?
You can condemn what people say. But the government shouldn't throw out the First Amendment to silence students for saying it.
You can't protect Americans by chipping away at their ability to speak out. FIRE is 100% dialed in to stop any threat to Americans' free speech rights. If this bill is passed, we aim to challenge it in court.
Our country is built on the idea that we all have the freedom to share our opinions. There are only very narrow exceptions to our free speech rights — and having "double standards" isn't one of them.
The bill uses a definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance which was created to collect data on European anti-Semitism, not to police student expression. Even the definition's author agrees laws like this are a bad idea.
The bill won't effectively address anti-Semitic discrimination. But it will chill core political speech about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on our nation's campuses — the places where difficult conversations and debates are supposed to flourish. FIRE's latest College Free Speech Rankings found that it's already difficult to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Fully 55% of students say so — the highest ever recorded on any issue. (See what students at your favorite campuses say.)
Congress has other ways to address anti-Semitic discrimination on campus without suppressing free speech. This isn't the solution. In fact, administrators are already citing the overbroad definition in the bill to suppress campus free speech.
Imagine how much worse it will be when that definition is the law of the land.
But you can help stop it. Contact your senators today and urge them to reject this threat to free speech.
Tenured Jewish Professor Fired For Anti-Zionist Posts
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (11/18/24)
What about feeling 'unsafe' living in a nation where your Constitutional right to free speech, free press and freedom to read what you want is under direct threat?
To claim Judaism is the same as Z*on*sm is to slander Judaism. Note the scale and nature of the multiple attacks that were launched against this professor. College administrators were getting hundreds of robocalls.
As we live in a time of increasing censorship and state tyranny, I especially urge you to listen to Professor Finkelstein’s closing comments.
Electronic Intifada (11/17/24)
45-minutes
“I didn't have the best year, but I'm in the United States. I'm living what is a pretty safe and comfortable life. I lost my job, but I actually haven't really lost that much and I think we just have to keep our eye on Gaza. We have to keep our eye on the occupied West Bank. We have to keep our eye on Lebanon and remember that we owe Palestinians we owe folks in Lebanon.
“We owe folks who are actually being annihilated We owe them our attention. We owe them our time. We owe them our work. This is what it means to be a person who is paying attention; to realize that we have sacrifices to make because at least here in the United States everything that I have is the result of extraction and theft. I might not be directly involved in that, but we're living very comfortable lives in the US in comparison to people who are living through genocide, so I keep that in mind.”*
— Professor Maura Finkelstein
* Comments lightly edited from original transcript. — MT
Trump Pledges CRACK DOWN On Pro-Palestinian Free Speech!
The Jimmy Dore Show (11/17/24)
12-minute video
absolutely disgusting. not only are they funding the murder and starvation of Palestinians with taxpayer funds, they are forcing people to cheer for it. The USA is rotten to the core, irredeemable.
The usury based economic system needs to be replaced with a humanitarian alternative which appears impossible in a world where the prevailing ideology is based on satisfying greed.