Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is giving in, for now, to his planned judicial reform. After months of mass protests culminating in a general strike on Monday, far-right plans to take over the national judicial ticket will be shelved until the next legislative session. In an unlikely collaboration between big business and workers, the rest of the people of Israel showed the strength of the protest and the prospect of what more they could achieve, if they wanted to.
Hundreds of thousands of others had already been protesting for weeks in opposition to an even more authoritarian Israeli government. The opposition has focused on Netanyahu’s efforts to give the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) more leverage over the judiciary. The force to influence the way judges are appointed and even overturn judicial decisions. Netanyahu himself would likely be trying to use those forces to get rid of his own corruption charges. protests against Netanyahu’s attempts to capture and cripple the judicial system.
Tensions reached a new high on Sunday, after Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who a day earlier had called on the government to halt his plan to reform the judicial system. Gallant argued that the plan had begun to create divisions in and within society. the Israel Defense Forces that may endanger Israel’s stability and national security. He is the first member of Netanyahu’s cabinet to oppose judicial reform.
After his ouster, the already active protests became one of the largest mass movements in Israel’s history. Massive and spontaneous protests took place in Tel Aviv on Sunday night, with others blocking the main road, as well as several streets and bridges. And in an unprecedented move, Israeli industry unions, in agreement with the business community, introduced a general strike on Monday. The strike was delivered through a large umbrella organization representing more than 700,000 health, transit and banking workers. A diversity of universities, not just students, however, the schools themselves have also joined the call.
Israeli embassies in Dublin in Washington, D. C. , closed Monday along with government workers protesting in Israel. Israel’s consul general in New York, Asaf Zamir, also resigned. Zamir called Netanyahu’s firing of Gallant a “dangerous decision” in his resignation letter. He added that he had “become involved in the policies of the new government. “
The protests are so widespread that even Israeli President Isaac Herzog has called on Netanyahu to suspend judicial review. “The eyes of all the other people of Israel are on you. The eyes of all the other Jewish people are on you,” Herzog said. in a Facebook post on Monday. ” The eyes of the world are on you. In the call for Israeli unity, in the call for committed responsibility, I ask you to prevent the legislative procedure immediately.
Of course, since the snowball protests are part of a broader movement that has opposed Netanyahu’s increasingly extremist government for weeks and months, they are also a reminder that calls for “democracy protection” were not as strong when they came to power. The unfortunate thing about this popular uprising opposed to extremism, in a different exciting way, is that the motion would do well to come actively with Palestinian participation in the struggle not only opposed to Netanyahu, but also opposed to the formula of the acomponentheid that led to such a moment. But some Israeli activists were not allowed to bring even a Palestinian flag to the protests. Some officials involved in the developing protest coalition also refused to appear on the same level as others sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
Thus, while Israeli officials present this mass protest as an effort to maintain Israeli democracy, it would be wise to point out how far from being it still is, even if the masses can prevent Netanyahu; Just as well, how easily they can become a true democracy, if necessary.
Self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk is shown via a netizen named FreeSpeechEnthusiast, who leaked some of Twitter’s heavily monitored source code online.
Parts of Twitter’s source code, the PC code that runs the platform, were leaked on online software developer collaboration platform GitHub. It’s unclear how long the code has been in effect, but the New York Times said it appears to have been publicly held for at least several months. GitHub on Friday complied with a request from Twitter to remove the code.
Musk gave the impression of being offline on Twitter when the leaked code debacle occurred, alternating between sharing pseudo-intellectual minds and memes, and begging others to sign up for Twitter Blue, the platform’s paid subscription plan. But internally, he admitted there were serious problems. In an email sent Friday to Twitter employees, Musk said the company is now worth $20 billion, less than it paid in October.
Companies jealously guard their source code to prevent hackers or potential competition from seeing how a platform works. According to the Times, Twitter has begun investigating who might have leaked the code and suspects someone who left the company last year, to two other people familiar with the investigation.
Although the code was removed from GitHub, it hasn’t disappeared. Don’t you forget when your parents told you that what you upload to the web stays there forever?Well, “once it’s leaked, you can’t completely put back in the bottle,” cybersecurity researcher and representative Lukasz Olejnik told The Washington Post, noting that it’s highly unlikely to know how many other people accessed the code before it got rid of it.
“It is difficult to assess whether an exploitable vulnerability can be detected and used. “
The code was shared through a user called FreeSpeechEnthusiast, who joined GitHub on January 3. On the same day, FreeSpeechEnthusiast made its only contribution to the platform (presumably the Twitter code). He described himself as an “absolutist of free speech,” which means letting the Nazis and Taliban crack down on Twitter.
Ironically, Musk announced earlier this month his goal of making parts of Twitter’s code public. The goal is essentially to open it up to peer review, so other people can check and report defects. Obviously, FreeSpeechEnthusiast hit him.
Since taking the reins, Musk has embarked on a ruthless cost-cutting mission, laying off nearly 75% of Twitter’s staff, auctioning everything off at the company’s San Francisco headquarters and simply not paying rent. But advertisers are abandoning the platform en masse because of its lax content moderation policies, that’s obviously not enough.
As thousands of employees went on strike this week, evidence continues to mount that the hard work movement has recovered in the United States. It is a component of something bigger.
Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the number of unionized workers in the U. S. is a growing number of unionized workers in the U. S. The U. S. population increased to 200,000 between 2021 and 2022. And that expansion was entirely due to staff of color. There was an increase of 231,000 unionized workers of color last year, while white unionized staff decreased to 31,000. In addition, of all racial and ethnic groups, black staff continued to lead unionization rates, at 12. 8 percent, higher than all unionized staff.
While the overall percentage of staff represented through a union still stands at just over 11%, far less than decades ago, union election requests rose last year to 53%, the number since 2016.
According to BLS data, the industries that experienced the most unionization were state government; manufacture of durable goods; arts, entertainment and recreation; and transport and storage. What about the states with the most unionization? California, Texas, Ohio, Maryland and Alabama.
All this to say that monolithic conventions about who constitutes the “working class” want radical change.
Indeed, the diversity of the motion can be noted in the nature of industry union action in recent months. This week, staff at more than a hundred Starbucks stores across the country went on strike to protest the company’s alleged anti-union plans. Another union representing 30,000 Los Angeles universities, adding janitors, cafeteria employees, bus drivers, special education aides and more. Not to come with the country’s hundred thousand or so rail employees who almost went on strike last year, until the government itself imposed a contract on them.
Conservatives, both Republicans and Democrats, occasionally believe it’s mandatory to focus on “kitchen table issues” rather than getting into “social” issues. The latter, of course, are another way of saying issues of identity and race (much like the term “awake,” but perhaps less likely to incite outrage). But union knowledge shows once again that issues of identity and workers’ rights are deeply connected. After all, unionization and workers’ struggles are direct mechanisms for achieving greater gains. racial and social equality; People’s ability to live a dignified and fulfilling life is intrinsically connected to their ability to enjoy fundamental social and civil rights in their own lives.
For ethical reasons, each and every politician and journalist acknowledges these facts. And for any politician involved with electability alone, the good news is that the effects adhere to ethics anyway.
In November, several Democrats who refused to oppose the economic to the social won, even in battleground states. This includes others such as Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. . And for examples of how those political successes turn into political successes, look at nothing but the sacred and pontificate in the Midwest.
In 2018, Governor Whitmer promised to repeal the “right to work” law for workers. And after voters re-elected her by wide margins, and won a majority in either state chamber for the first time in decades, she complied Friday, signing a bill to repeal anti-union legislation. Just a week earlier, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a bill granting free breakfasts and lunches to all public school students, particularly designed for food-insecure families, many of whom are marginalized and other people of color (perhaps a more direct link between social and so-called “kitchen table” issues).
As more and more people become familiar with the contradictions of capitalism, from the derailments of destructive exercises to the rapid collapse of monetary establishments (all as a result of corporate-bought deregulation), we would possibly be at some other point in the long history of hard. work for which a resurgence is possible. But that moment will not be helped by a media and political apparatus that seeks to crush the hard-working movement, rather than embrace it for the broad and varied coalition that it is.
Michigan is forming its first Democratic trio in decades. On Friday, it was the first state in 58 years to repeal so-called “right to work” laws.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the bill Friday after the legislature sent it to her earlier this week.
The bill marks a massive shift for the labor movement. Indiana was the last state to repeal such a law in 1965, only to be reinstated through Republicans in 2012. That same year, Michigan passed its anti-union right-to-work law and since then, the state has lost about 40,000 union members.
Michigan’s repeal comes amid a resurgence of the hard work movement, as the union club grows across the country, as well as hard work movements like walkouts. This would possibly bode well for organizers in other states to reverse the anti-worker law. Twenty-six other states have right-to-work laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Right to work legislation erodes the strength of unions by allowing staff to waive union dues while continuing to reap the benefits. The legislation, strongly supported by Republicans and their friends in corporate lobbying, consequently weakens union membership, treasuries and overall organizing capabilities. Conservatives present it as a pro-business argument: that companies will decide to pass laws that stimulate economic growth. The explanation for why corporations would do this is implicit in this calculation: to be able to better exploit their staff. at the expense of its rear line.
“The ‘right to work’ is a lie designed to undermine workers’ rights and drive down wages,” said Sean M. O’Brien, Teamsters CEO. Today, Michigan elected officials revered their state’s proud history of hard work in rejecting this harmful and misleading anti-union legislation. “
Whitmer promised in 2018 to repeal the anti-worker law. And after the electorate re-elected her by wide margins in November and gave her equivalent majorities, she is now delivering on her promise.
“Now that staff rights have been restored, Michigan is once again leading the way in the country by showing what is imaginable when prioritizing the families they lead,” said Janella James, executive director of the Michigan Nurses Association. “We have Governor Whitmer and the Legislature to thank for listening to the staff and putting our state on a better path. Today marks the beginning of a new bankruptcy in Michigan’s history.
Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a major law on transgender rights in Kentucky on Friday, one of the nation’s most extreme measures.
The bill passed the House and Senate last week in an unprecedented sprint, most commonly along partisan lines. like next week.
If signed into law, Senate Bill 150 would ban all gender-affirming care for trans minors in Kentucky and require doctors to eliminate the transition of all minors in their care. This would prohibit talking about sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools at all levels except trans bathroom students who match their gender identity, and allow teachers to refuse to use pronouns a student likes.
“Senate Bill 150 for too much government interference in non-public fitness issues and deprives parents of the freedom to make medical decisions for their children,” Beshear said in a statement.
“I also veto Senate Bill 150 because my religion teaches me that all young people are young of God and that Senate Bill 150 will endanger Kentucky youth,” she continued, mentioning studies that have shown a link between receiving gender-affirming care and lower levels of depression and suicidal mind in LGBTQ youth. “Senate Bill 150 will lead to a backlog of suicides among Kentucky youth. “
The ACLU of Kentucky described the bill when it was passed as “the worst anti-trans bill in the country. “
“This damaging bill and others like it across the country are nothing more than a desperate attempt to solve political problems by attacking others who just need to live their lives,” acting CEO Amber Duke said in a statement. for meaningful and informed public debate and engagement. The shameful procedure exposed at Kentucky House undermines public trust in government.
The bill was quickly approved by the House and Senate in a record one-day sprint. Another anti-trans bus measure gave the impression of being dead in the water on Wednesday night. But the next morning, Republicans resurrected and expanded the bill, forcing it to pass despite long and emotional opposing arguments from Democrats and trans rights activists.
To recap: After GOP discord threatened HB 470, lawmakers resurrected SB 150, gave six minutes notice for a hearing, rushed through a hearing on anything that is NOT publicly available, and can now approve it as a matrix. . . Right now. Zero transparency. #KYGA23
Kentucky is just the latest state in which lawmakers are seeking to limit LGBTQ rights. Just this week, Florida introduced an anti-trans law so broad and excessive that it may also prevent other people from seeking breast cancer remedy. Meanwhile, Georgia has passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors and criminalizing medical personnel who provide such care.
The Republican-led House of Representatives on Friday approved its so-called “Parenthood Bill of Rights,” 213-208. Conceived as positive legislation, the law actually aims to control teachers and school staff and thus prevent the independent education of students. .
The sweeping bill calls on school districts to release formula data and provide parents with lists of reading cloths that can be kept in school libraries. Such practices have already been tried in places like Florida. or even catalog each e-book into a central formula to determine compliance with your district’s restrictive standards.
The law also implies (wrongly) that parents are never heard in schools. It encourages school districts to network decision-making, allow parents to use school boards, and inform parents about violent activities occurring on school property. Practices that are no longer unusual in the bill, Republicans are formulating their maximum sweeping demands in what appears to be a moderate bill.
On the contrary, the bill’s nod to school board meetings appears to be an implicit endorsement of the attacks the school has already suffered. School forums and teachers across the country have expressed considerations about freedom in the classroom, and even about their own lives. Republican officials, a strong minority, attacked schools and protested everything from covid-19 protective precautions to school supplies.
In 2021, the National Association of School Boards sent a letter to Biden’s management requesting an investigation into violent threats against school board members. They described the threats as potentially “tantamount to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes. “After receiving the letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the Justice Department to conduct an investigation. Since then, House Republicans have sought to discredit the letter and the investigation.
The “Parents’ Bill of Rights” will move to Biden’s desk, but by passing the sweeping legislation, House Republicans are stepping up animosity toward teachers who are already overworked and underestimated. In addition, they are further nationalizing the attack on educational freedom that has already taken position from Florida. and Texas to Michigan and South Carolina.
In the early hours of the morning, a Manhattan man found himself facing the harshness of what it would mean for him to be arrested.
Earlier Friday, former President Donald Trump, twice impeached and the subject of criminal investigations, posted a warning in Truth Social that “death and destruction” can occur if he is accused of paying porn actress Stormy Daniels in cash, an alleged ploy. made to cover up the couple’s affair that happened just months after Trump’s wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron.
“What kind of user can blame another user, in this case a former president of the United States, who was given more votes than any sitting president in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the nomination of the Republican Party, of a crime. . . Trump began in his tirade, “when everyone knows that NO crime has been committed, and they also know that the potential death and destruction in such a false accusation can simply be catastrophic for our country. “
“Why and who would do such a thing?Just a degenerate psychopath who hates the United States!
Trump’s threatening messages follow an ongoing right-wing crusade to discredit Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, tasked with investigating Trump’s role in silent pay. Even members as important as Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik have anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, hinting that Bragg is a puppet of George Soros for continuing the investigation. Now the attacks have intensified and Trump has called Bragg a “degenerate psychopath” and a “Soros-backed animal. “
While previous protests called by Trump had attracted a negligible handful of loyalists, Trump’s most recent calls demonstrate an escalation of concern and despair, especially given his history of inciting violence.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified Thursday before the House Commerce and Energy Committee on questions about the app’s knowledge privacy policies.
Biden’s management ordered TikTok to sell its U. S. operations. U. S. to a U. S. -based company. or be banned nationwide, raising national security concerns. TikTok and the broader U. S. factor The US-China is one of the few issues on which the two sides appear united.
Chew answered, though rarely had time to answer, questions from Democrats and Republicans about the privacy of knowledge, content moderation, child protection and possible ties to the Chinese Communist Party. But he also asked a lot of strange questions.
Here are some of the craziest things members of Congress said at the five-and-a-half-hour hearing.
1. North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson asked, “Is TikTok the home Wi-Fi network?”
“Only if the user turns on the Wi-Fi,” Chew replied, visibly confused. “Sorry, I don’t perceive the. . . “
Hudson: “So if I have [the] TikTok app on my phone and my phone is on my home Wi-Fi network, does TikTok work on that network?”
Chew: “You’ll want the network to connect to the Internet. “
2. Texas Rep. Randy Weber said, “TikTok indoctrinates our youth with divisive, awakening, and pro-CCP propaganda.
That’s the phrase, yes.
3. Rep. Buddy Carter perceived face filters.
Carter asked if TikTok uses phone cameras to frame ID or facial knowledge, to which Chew replied that the app doesn’t collect that information. The only facial knowledge TikTok uses is to identify where users’ eyes are if they wear a clear to see if they are wearing sunglasses, he said. This knowledge is stored only on the user’s device and is deleted when they prevent cleaning.
“Why do you want to know where the eyes are?”Carter asked.
4. La rep. Kat Cammack asked about a video a TikTok user commented on.
Cammack shared an excerpt from a TikTok video in which the user hinted that he was looking to attack the committee meeting. The Florida Republican said the video had been online for 41 days, before the hearing date was made public, and demanded to know why. has not been removed despite violating TikTok’s content policies.
The video had very little engagement and a single comment, meaning it would have taken longer for TikTok moderators to locate and report it. It started getting more attention online after Cammack shared it. Within minutes, while the hearing was ongoing, the account was banned. .
5. Several Texas representatives complained about “Project Texas. “
TikTok has already announced a plan it calls Project Texas to move all of its data from the U. S. to the U. S. U. S. Servers at Texas. La social media company say this will protect U. S. data. UU. de any risk to national security.
But several Texas representatives questioned the name. ” Change the name of your project,” August Pfluger said. Texas is not the right name. We stand for freedom and transparency, and we do not need your project.
While not the main factor for the audience, Pfluger’s comments are ironic given that Texas has taken several steps in recent weeks to limit its residents’ ability to their own bodies and access data online.
Not to be outdone in their preference to attack human lives, Republicans will also eliminate protections against endangered species for gray wolves and grizzly bears.
At a House hearing Thursday, Rep. Lauren Boebert discussed her bill for removing protections for the gray wolf and said the animal “made a full recovery. “, or FWS, acted inappropriately when it removed the gray wolf from the endangered species list under Trump.
Boebert went on to claim that the endangered species law has been “weaponized through extremist environmentalists to obstruct non-unusual multipurpose activities with which they disagree. “Meanwhile, his push to remove protections for the gray wolf has been applauded by organizations such as the National Rifle Association and hunting advocacy groups.
Boebert also saw a smart time to display photographs of human fetuses and ask his colleagues if they would “put young children on the endangered species list. “Boebert’s analogy was numerically heavy, regardless of his private perspectives on abortion: more than 330 million people in the country.
For states that circumvented protections, hunters moved forward and wiped out species that are still recovering. In 2021, Idaho and Montana passed laws to circumvent restrictions on wolf hunting; As of February 2022, at least more than 500 wolves had been killed since the legislation was passed, out of a total population of around 2600. The alarming rise has also halted studies on how wolves shape ecosystems.
Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale pressed the FWS to also remove the grizzly bear from the endangered species list, which the FWS is doing. Like the gray wolf, the grizzly bear has recently begun to return, and not to the same extent. As before, overhunting and habitat loss caused by humans. Grizzly bears are lately classified as “threatened” of extinction.
“Rep. Boebert and Rep. Rosendale demonstrate how disconnected House Republicans are in pushing those cruel and excessive spending against wolves and grizzly bears overwhelmingly opposed by Americans,” said Stephanie Kurose, senior policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Rep. Boebert continues to mock Colorado voters, who have made it clear that they need the wolves to return to their state. Meanwhile, it was noted that Rep. Rosendale poses with neo-Nazis. They should not be taken seriously on any subject. , let alone the long-term of two of America’s most iconic wildlife species.
Rosendale also filed a bill to undermine coverage in national forests by allowing the Ministries of Agriculture and Interior not to revise land control plans when new data becomes available, such as when a species or habitat is designated as endangered. or if the weather replaces induces situations that introduce a source of concern.
“Days after the U. N. weather report’s stern warning about humanity’s disastrous path, Republicans can’t even make the slightest effort to cover their clear agenda,” said Randi Spivak, director of public lands at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Instead of those non-serious bills, they focus on protecting our remaining mature and mature forests, which are one of our most underutilized equipment for extracting carbon dioxide from the air. “
The vicious absurdity of the American formula of “justice” is exposed.
Earlier this month, at least 35 other people were indiscriminately detained at a music festival organized by protesters in Cop City, a giant police education center under structure that allegedly razes Atlanta’s Weelaunee forest. Twenty-three of them were charged with domestic terrorism.
The arrested protesters are accused of engaging in vandalism and arson at a structure site more than a mile from where the music festival was held. Although all have been charged with domestic terrorism, there is no evidence that they were involved in illegal activities.
On Thursday, Georgia’s DeKalb court held the bail hearing for those arrested. Of the 10 defendants at Thursday’s hearing, 8 other people were denied bail and two were “granted” $25,000 bail with conditions. to the audience. The reasons others were denied bail were shocking, according to Hannah Riley, communications director for the Southern Center for Human Rights, which was following the hearing.
One person, the sole caregiver of his elderly uncle with dementia, was denied bail because he was from New York and therefore under threat of flight, Riley said. Another was denied bail because there was no evidence that they were in the immediate vicinity of the site, they were “part of the team” because they were dressed in black.
Other reasons used to deny the link included that they were muddy and rainy (they were all in a forest and it had rained) and had the criminal aid number (common practice protests).
Another user was a law student arrested in a food truck who would have been forced to leave law school if he had not obtained bail. Due to lack of evidence, the individual was released on $25,000 bail and ordered to wear an ankle monitor, refuse to participate in prolonged protests, avoid contact with other defendants and his passport.
While Republicans make erroneous comparisons of “if you can arrest a former president for employing a fictitious corporation to pay silent money to a porn actress, believe what you can do to them,” they, along with much of the Democratic Party, back a militarized policy. A police state that recklessly arrests protesters (and even credible bystanders) and sentences them to excessive bail and even jail time.
Democrats promised a “new civil rights law” and efforts for due process, human rights protections and civil equality, provided the electorate gives them a majority in the Senate. Still, there hasn’t been much news from the match about what happened in Cop City. Democratic Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock had very little to say about violent police action, or even the police killing of activist Manuel Esteban Páez Terán (also known as Tortuguita), the first known forest defender killed by police.