alyaza [they/she] @ alyaza @beehaw.org

internet gryphon. admin of Beehaw, mostly publicly interacting with people.

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you can obviously post about this but please find a better source for it than Breitbart

guys, is it a good sign when people say things like “The reliability impacts of this could be very serious. I mean the lights go out. Unplanned outages.” about a decision that doesn't need to be made in the first place

critical consensus across the board for this one is quite sour: currently sitting at a 42 on Metacritic and even the best reviews only have it in the 70s

that's for you to figure out and is, respectfully, not my problem or the problem of anyone else's moderating this instance. you've been told what is expected of you; you can take that or leave it.

an encrypted messaging app with a handful of people you categorically trust to never tell on you or in any way implicate you in future criminal behavior, not a federated Reddit clone where you have no control over who sees your message, when, on what terms, and with what associated data. like, don't be stupid—and at the very least, if you must publicly agitate in this way, don't say this on a place where your words could have ramifications for people who aren't large corporations and don't have the money to get roped into legal trouble

aside: Hearing Things is very cool, and you should subscribe to them. they're a genuine worker-cooperative, as far as i know

it's fine to believe this is the appropriate remedy but this is not the time and place to write that down, have some basic opsec

this is good, and its outcome will have significant implications for the NLRB (and agencies like it generally):

The outcome of this legal battle has significant implications beyond the NLRB. It raises concerns about the broader threat to independent regulatory agencies and the precedent it could set for future administrations. While partisan shifts in agency leadership are normal, removing a duly confirmed Board Member in direct violation of the law is unprecedented and jeopardizes the stability of the NLRB’s mission to uphold workers’ rights.

i love Faiz but it's really as simple as "he cannot speak or animate a room to save his life and he's clearly better working on infrastructure side of things than leading a political party". there's a reason he was Bernie's senior advisor and not a public face of the campaign (and before that an aide to Nancy Pelosi).

(oh, and that doesn't even touch on Reid Hoffman and George Soros backing Wikler with a fucking PAC for an insider-baseball race like this)

i mean no offense but if we're worried about the "Democratic establishment" it should probably give people pause that the vast majority of Democratic establishment leadership supported Ben Wikler, while the majority of Ken Martin's support was from the "grassroots" state party infrastructure:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Democratic_National_Committee_chairmanship_election#Endorsements

Dick Durbin, Senate Minority Whip (2005–2007, 2015–2021, 2025–present) from Illinois (1997–present)[66]

Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader (2017–2021, 2025–present) from New York (1999–present)[69]

Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader (2023–present) from NY-08 (2013–present)[70]

Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (2007–2011, 2019–2023) from CA-11 (1987–present)[72]

(also, there is literally no ideological difference between most of these people. do you think Ben Wikler for example is pro-DSA? lol)

The biggest problem with concrete is that the resource investment is front loaded.

the biggest problem with concrete is we use too much of it and it's severely environmentally destructive; just on its own, for example, its manufacture contributes anywhere between 4 and 8% of all CO2 emissions, and most of that is from the production process and not from secondary aspects like transportation.

this is not the place to be litigating this.

the tendency to just post bills that have been introduced without context is frustrating; actual reporting on the subject makes it clear this is not going to pass and even other Republican lawmakers are deeply skeptical of its legality and constitutionality (because it's neither):

House Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, vice chairman of the Judiciary B committee (one of two House committees that the bill has been referred to), expressed deep skepticism about Keen’s bill.

“I’m concerned about the constitutionality of some of those provisions,” he told the Mississippi Free Press on Jan. 24.

The Republican lawmaker explained that he had not personally reviewed the bill, but he stressed that determining the legality of immigrants was above the jurisdiction of the state to begin with.

“That’s within the purview of the federal government,” he said, adding he supports local law enforcement referring detainees to federal immigration services. But “the state doesn’t need to get in the business of enforcing federal immigration law,” he concluded.

this is to say nothing of bounty hunters, who would actually enforce the law and have not been consulted on this bill because it's not serious. the primary value of the bill is earned media stochastic terrorism, which is aided by posting it without this context. (this is an issue with trans-related bills too and has been for years.) please don't aid in that--contextualizing this stuff is especially important now that organizations and people might need to triage their battles.

notably, Chicago Teachers Union have an agreement with Chicago Public Schools that states, among other things, "ICE agents are not permitted to enter CPS school grounds or to obtain or review CPS records, unless they provide to CPS administration their credentials, the reason they are requesting access, and a criminal judicial warrant signed by a federal judge. CPS shall not admit ICE agents based upon an administrative warrant, ICE detainer, or other document issued by an agency enforcing civil immigration law." -- that is likely most of the reason this was rebuffed, and even more of a reason to organize a union or lobby your current union to bargain for sanctuary protections like this. they won't stop a fully uncaring ICE, but they will make it much harder to do raids and give people more recourse against them

It would be interesting to see their reaction to the bill. And how fast an exception could be added.

i'm sure Republicans will carve that out--but even if they don't, it's not like unions are a major source of police power. police can de facto strike without ever calling a labor action (which they especially do in traffic enforcement, or whenever they might face accountability from governments for abusing the monopoly on violence), and police unions are extremely sectarian, self-interested and infight-y.

Which raises the question: doesn’t killing accessibility programs violate the Americans with Disabilities Act? To my knowledge, the ADA is still very much in force.

most likely: yes, but conservatives largely disapprove of the ADA and think it is an onerous government regulation, so they are in favor of dismantling and gutting it by any means necessary. this should be thought of more as a feature, not a bug

various resources worth breaking out, as noted in the article:

• the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) Know Your Rights Explainer
• the The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) Know Your Rights cards; available in 15 languages

Is there a webpage or public link with this? I want to share it widely but I don’t want to crash someone’s Google Docs account.

no, but it is a file hosted by Choose Democracy's "What if Trump Wins?" initiative, so rest assured it's not just some random person's account. there's other resources on both websites also

it should be noted this is almost entirely motivated by unions helping to kill several Republican referendum efforts in Utah last year. see here for more information on that:

First, there was Amendment D, their attempt to grab more power over citizen-led initiatives. It was a classic overreach, and it flopped spectacularly when lawmakers forgot to follow some very basic constitutional procedures—like publishing it in newspapers statewide. Oops. (We wrote a whole substack about it here)

Then came Amendment A, their big plan to strip a 100-year-old constitutional earmark protecting public education funding. Same deal as Amendent D, Utah Education Association (UEA) sued, pointing out that lawmakers, once again, failed to follow the rules. Instead of admitting their mistake, lawmakers doubled down, deciding that the real villains here were... teachers.

So, what did lawmakers do after these double face plants? They could’ve taken a moment of self-reflection, maybe a little “live, laugh, learn” energy. Instead, they decided the real problem wasn’t their incompetence—it was the people who caught them. Enter HB267, their petty revenge plot against public sector unions, because when you can’t follow the rules, the next best thing is punishing the teachers who can.