Tag: legislation

White House Releases Performatively Ridiculous ‘Principles’ For ‘Tech Platform Accountability’ That Include Removing Section 230

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

from the last-minute-homework dept

Fri, Sep 9th 2022 09:50am – Mike Masnick

During the 2020 campaign, there were a few times when candidate Joe Biden insisted he wanted to get rid of Section 230 entirely, though he made it clear he had no idea what Section 230 actually did. When I wrote articles highlighting all of this, I had some Biden supporters (even folks who worked on his campaign) reach out to me to say not to worry about it, that Biden wasn’t fully briefed on 230, and that if he became President, more knowledgeable people would be tasked to work on stuff, and the 230 stuff wouldn’t be an issue. I didn’t believe it at the time, and it turns out I was correct.

White House Releases Performatively Ridiculous ‘Principles’ For ‘Tech Platform Accountability’ That Include Removing Section 230

Doesn’t matter who’s in charge, they both want to cancel each other and censor whatever they determine is disinformation, whether it’s domestic or foreign policy!

Related:

Communications Decency Act – Section 230

Bill Gates and the Secret Push to Save Biden’s Climate Bill

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Bill Gates and the Secret Push to Save Biden’s Climate Bill

Gates started wooing Manchin and other senators who might prove pivotal for clean-energy policy in 2019 over a meal in Washington DC. “My dialogue with Joe has been going on for quite a while,” Gates said. “Almost everyone on the energy committee” — of which Manchin was then the senior-most Democrat — “came over and spent a few hours with me over dinner.”

…

Also at Manchin’s insistence, automakers also will see new strings attached to electric vehicle tax incentives so they will have to be made in North America and, by 2024, can’t use batteries sourced from China. Labor leaders bemoaned that the final package doesn’t contain much support for workers who lose their jobs in the green transition.

…

There’s been such whiplash from 2016 when, as Gates puts it, green spending from the US government “had dropped to near zero.” Six years later, American climate finance has been “reinvigorated,” and Gates now sees innovation “going way faster than I expected. That’s why I’m optimistic that we will solve this thing.”

The working class is going to be thrown under the bus, but at least Bill Gates is happy. 🤷🏼‍♀️

The Mess That Pelosi Made

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

In 2015, Robert Parry, the late investigative journalist and founder of Consortium News, wrote an article titled “The Mess that Nuland Made.” It summarized the aftermath of the 2014 coup in Ukraine that was engineered by Victoria Nuland, who served in Obama’s State Department and is back working for the Biden administration.

Nuland’s coup sparked widespread unrest in Ukraine, Russia taking Crimea, and the war in the eastern Donbas region. The day that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, the title of Parry’s salient article wouldn’t get out of my head. Nuland’s meddling in Ukraine reflected an overarching neocon, deep state agenda, but the chaos that has ensued since will always be her legacy, and her mess.

Now, as China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is lobbing missiles toward Taiwan and holding its largest-ever drills around the island, another woman that is a fixture of the establishment in Washington is to blame: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The Mess That Pelosi Made

‘There Needs to Be a Reckoning’: Republicans Introduce a Bill to Make Feds At-Will Employees

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

‘There Needs to Be a Reckoning’: Republicans Introduce a Bill to Make Feds At-Will Employees

Roy said in a statement that his bill preserves protections against discrimination and whistleblower retaliation. But in the case of discrimination, EEOC would be required to toss all of its policies regarding complaints that originate from federal agencies and apply the same standards it uses in private sector cases.*

…

However, the bill’s purported whistleblower protections suggest just the opposite, Kettl said. OSC only has a 14-day window in which to make nonbinding recommendations on whether an adverse personnel action constitutes retaliation. Another provision requires the deduction of 25% of a federal employee’s retirement annuity if a court finds their appeal to be “in bad faith or frivolous.”

What’s wrong with that?! Why should bureaucrats have special protections that everyday working people don’t?! If they don’t like it, then change it for all workers!

Related:

Following Trump’s Lead, GOP Pushes Bill to Make Federal Workers Fireable ‘At Will’

Google tells Congress the proposed antitrust bill would hinder its censorship efforts

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | June 9, 2022

Google continues to lobby and campaign against legislative efforts aimed at curbing its monopolistic power, this time openly, in a blog post.

Google tells Congress the proposed antitrust bill would hinder its censorship efforts

Related:

Executive Summary: Evaluating 2 Tech Antitrust Bills To Restore Competition Online:

Privacy and security: The bills would create greater incentive for companies to improve privacy and security, while carefully protecting their ability to make those improvements.

National security: In contrast to misleading claims to the contrary, the bills have multiple layers of provisions protecting American national security and do not create significant new risks. Rather, the bills can restore competitive pressure that supports American dynamism and global technology leadership.

Content moderation: The bills preserve platforms’ abilities to moderate content as they see fit. The bills create a very high bar for disgruntled complainants seeking to abuse competitive provisions to advance content moderation grievances.

Definitions of covered platforms: The bills’ definitions of covered platforms offer functional, well-informed ways to get at gatekeeping platforms of most concern, while effectively excluding smaller businesses.