#name changes

[thatpollguy]

Do you know the reason why your parents/carers gave you your birth name?

Yes

I used to know but I've forgotten now

No

Voting ended onJan 15

[justinspoliticalcorner]

The SAVE America Act could backfire bigly on MAGA

It's a half-baked attempt at election rigging.

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

This weekend, the Republicans thrashed about in the Senate like rotting, mildly electrocuted trout as they attempted to pass the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) America Act — a bill that would disenfranchise millions of Americans in the name of preventing voter fraud that doesn’t exist. Trump has said that the bill is his top priority and that he will “not sign other Bills until this is passed.” (As this newsletter was being finalized Sunday evening, he posted on Truth Social that “I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.’”) He’s also made clear his motivations are purely partisan, boasting that if the bill becomes law, Democrats “probably won’t win an election for 50 years, maybe longer.” As usual, for Trump, the cavalcade of lies and garbage and conspiracy theories is so chaotic that it’s difficult to know where to start with a refutation. But broadly, the bill offers antidemocratic, nonsense solutions to a nonexistent problem. And while the SAVE America Act would certainly harm voters and democracy, it’s not clear it would benefit Republicans. Much of the hesitation in the Senate is because at least some in the GOP realize that dramatically restricting the franchise in the current environment could make a likely blue wave bigger — perhaps by a lot. Even if the SAVE America Act could backfire, though, it’s a horrible bill — and the fact Trump is happily huffing his own tsunami of filth to such an extent that he can’t even minimally parse fairly obvious electoral incentives is a grim. His utter loathing for democracy, truth, and even logic — and continued Republican support for same — is a ominous sign for the country and world.

Big lie upon big liess

The SAVE America Act is rooted in Trump’s longstanding belief that anyone who votes against him must be un-American and illegitimate. Even when he won the 2016 election, Trump claimed he would have also won the popular vote too except that three to five million undocumented people voted against him illegally. (They did not; he was lying.) And of course, Trump continues to claim that he only lost the 2020 election because of fraud. (This is also a flagrant and dangerous lie.) In order to address and compound these falsehoods and conspiracy theories, the SAVE America Act puts in place numerous draconian provisions to supposedly prevent voter fraud, but actually to radically restrict the franchise. Among them:

— Requiring a passport or birth certificate to register to vote, which could in itself disenfranchise 21 million people and would probably upend online registration in many states. — Requiring people to show a narrow range of photo ID at the polls, ruling out student IDs and many tribal IDs. — Requiring voters who vote by mail to submit a photocopy of their ID. — Requiring states to substantially ramp up their use of the Systematic Alien Verification of Eligibility system to identify potential noncitizens. — Establishing criminal penalties for election officials who mistakenly register an applicant to vote, creating massive perverse incentives to disenfranchise people first and ask questions later.

The bill provides no funding to help states transition their systems to deal with the new rules, nor does it provide a phase in timeline, since the whole point from Trump’s perspective is to disenfranchise Democratic voters ahead of the midterms.

[...] Data journalist G. Elliott Morris points out that based on data of who holds US passports, group disproportionately affected by the SAVE America Act include those with lower incomes, those who are not college educated, older people … and Trump voters. A report for the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement suggested that results might vary widely by state. In Georgia, Democrats and Republicans are about equally likely not to have access to proof of citizenship, while in Texas, more than twice as many Republicans lack the needed documents as Democrats. Or, in other words, the SAVE America Act seems, bizarrely, designed to elect James Talarico to the US Senate. Other aspects of the bill also seem perversely targeted at disenfranchising Trump’s base. The bill would force women who have married and changed their names to take additional steps to register to vote to reconcile the name on their birth certificate with the name on their passport. Women tend to lean Democratic (51 to 44 percent in an April 2024 Pew survey). But married women lean Republican (50 to 45 percent). More, it seems likely that Democratic married women are more likely to not change their names at marriage. Most difficult to predict, though, and potentially most devastating for the GOP, is enthusiasm. In the past, Republican voters tended to be wealthier, more educated, and more likely to vote — which is what made voter disenfranchisement efforts attractive from their perspective. But in the Trump era, more educated voters have been rushing to the Democrats in droves. That’s part of the reason why Democrats have done so well in midterms, even when Biden was in office.

[...] Not to be outdone by his sycophants in lowering the tone of the debate, Trump has also repeatedly called on Republicans to add unrelated trans bigotry to the SAVE America Act, urging them to ban trans women from sports and to ban gender affirming surgery for children (which he refers to as “MUTILIZATION”). Republicans dutifully tried to ban trans women from sports in an amendment during debate on the bill; Democrats blocked it.

[...]

Waging war on elections

The SAVE America Act is not going to pass because there are at least a fair number of Republicans who know that if it did it might well disenfranchise huge numbers of their own voters. Nonetheless, having Trump and Mike Johnson and Katie Britt and Dave McCormick and Republican-aligned media indulging in (yet another) orgy of lies and conspiracy theories designed to delegitimize our democracy and electoral system is extremely bad, to put it mildly. At best, the debate about the bill will further and needlessly erode trust in elections, especially among Republicans. At worst, Trump himself will cynically use its failure to claim he needs to put armed ICE agents at the polls or to deny election results. When democratically elected officials refuse to defend democracy, when they celebrate the prospect of winning not by gaining more votes, but by disenfranchising more voters, democracy is in great danger. The SAVE America Act push has demonstrated once again that Trump hates democracy. It shows that most Republicans will not vocally defy him, even when the voters he’s targeting are their own.

The SAVE America Act could end up instead backfiring on MAGA cultists championing the bill.

[tomorrowusa]

Cartoonists have their takes on Trump's name changes of federal agencies.

From Matt Davies...

From Bill Bramhall...

I hope Trump doesn't expect all these name changes to outlast his lifetime. 😆

Indeed, Trump himself won't last forever; his deteriorating health is a reminder of that. And he's going to be quite disappointed with what everyone discovers when he goes.

'It will be ugly': Conservative paints picture of what will be unearthed when Trump dies

History will learn about the shell companies, the overseas accounts, the backroom deals where American policy was auctioned off like a Mar-a-Lago dinner table.

[redux-iterum]

Hi! Here to distract from Teethgate with a naming/lore question!

In the wake of Tornface's naming, I got curious and wondered what happened if a leader got injured and wanted a name change. Obviously Crookedstar is named after his jaw, but that was done (presumably) when becoming a warrior, but I'm asking specifically in terms of a cat that is already a leader.

In my mind I'm thinking "obviously they can, but it's rare," so in that case, who does the renaming? Do the seer and the leader travel to the mother again? Is there a "regular" seer ceremony at home? Does the leader just declare it? What's the protocol?

Sorry if this has been asked before but I quite literally woke up with this question on my mind a couple weeks ago.

This has not been asked before, actually! Very interesting question.

It does have a simple answer, though: the seer will do the ceremony at the Mother, asking for her blessing for the leader to be reborn as Twistedstar or Deadstar or whatever their name will be. There's no special requirements after that - the seer has done their job and there's never really been a sign for "fuck no he can't change his name" - but it's considered good luck and proper manners for the leader to have a moment alone and speak to the spirits, just like with their original ceremony, before the seer collects them and the two head home. Some may linger a bit longer, but most don't.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Saskatchewan: parental consent needed for student name, pronoun change - Vernon Morning Star

Province wants to standardize pronoun and naming policies

The Saskatchewan government says schools must now seek parental consent when children under 16 want to change their names or pronouns.

Education Minister Dustin Duncan said Tuesday that the province wants to standardize pronoun and naming policies, as they varied from one school division to another.

A similar move earlier this year in New Brunswick was faced by intense opposition by LGBTQ groups.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[columbossluttywaist]

I HAVE A QUESTION so I am. transgender

and I have been using my chosen name at school (whoopee!) but I'm thinking about changing it again. now I had a friend who went through like five different names before settling on his current one but he was only out to me and like two other people so it wasn't a big deal for him to change it.

now I am also moving away and won't have to deal with changing my changed name at school (whoopee!)

but☝️my parents know I go by my chosen name and they've gotten used to it even though I'm not out to my siblings yet

so if I change it, my parents will have to get used to another new name which is 😬 yikes

do I keep my current name or switch to the new one?

[myqueenmarceline]

By Any Other Name

Summary: A peek into the life of Frankie and Andi as kids.

Warnings: none, this is pure fluff!

Thank you to @nebula-gaster for beta reading :)

Read it here on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71462886

Or below the cut:

“Frankie?”

Frankie stopped petting Space Tapir and looked up. Her friend stood in front of her, shifting from side to side. It looked like something was wrong, so she sat up, lifting Space Tapir up and holding her in her lap.

“Hey. What’s up? You look… mad?” Frankie hoped she hadn’t done something wrong. A lot of people kept on telling her how she screwed up all the time, but so far things had been different between them…

“Do you think you could call me Andi from now on?” Andi’s words cut through the air. “It’s short for, uh, Andrea. But I don’t know if I want to be called the full name yet. Just Andi is good for now.” She began to fidget with the loose sleeves of her overshirt. She looked… scared. Was she really scared of Frankie?

Frankie stood up, cradling Space Tapir in one hand and reaching out to touch Andi’s arm. “Okay, sure! That’s a cool name, but not as cool as Francesca.” She winked, and she felt Andi relax a bit.

“You’re right, Francesca is pretty cool. But things would get crazy if we were both called that. Also, can you help me tie this?” Andi gestured to a red scarf that hung loosely around her neck. “I want it to look more like a bow, but every time I try, the ends are uneven.”

“Sure! Just hold her for a second.” Frankie handed Space Tapir over, and grabbed both ends of the scarf. “First, you have to hold it up and measure it so that the sections are even. Then, this part goes over, this one goes under, you fold here…”

After a few seconds, she’d tied Andi’s scarf into a neat bow on one side, resting on her shoulder. She picked up a metal pot from the counter and turned it, letting Andi admire herself in the reflection.

“Like this?”

Andi touched the bow gently, then finally smiled. “Yeah, that’s good. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Frankie glanced over at the clock, even if it had stopped working last week. That was fine; she knew it was still her break time. “Hey, do you want to go to the docks and see if anyone left some scraps behind?”

“Sure, why not? As long as we keep away from the guards this time. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Andi turned and gently put Space Tapir down on the floor where she’d been sitting before. She was so smart. As much as Frankie loved spending time with her animal friends, it would be fun to come back and have a new adventure to tell Space Tapir about.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll be safe. Let’s go!” Frankie grabbed Andi’s hand and pulled her over to the door, then turned around. “Bye, see you later!”

Frankie waved, and for a moment, her friend brightened up into her usual pink and waved back.