A majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives rejected the bill on Tuesday out of fear that it could grant President-elect Donald Trump the legal tools with which to target his ideological foes, but Republicans are swiftly pressing ahead.

“This bill was designed to criminalize organizations and activists who oppose the U.S.’s unconditional support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the slaughter of Lebanese civilians,” read the statement, which was signed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, American Muslims for Palestine, and others. “We will continue to stand firm in protecting all organizations’ freedom to speak and operate without fear of political retribution.”

With pro-Israel groups lobbying for the bill, it gained popularity among House Democrats, in part due to a provision providing tax relief to Americans held hostage abroad.

Ultimately, 144 Democrats voted no, along with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., barely meeting the threshold to block the bill from fast-track passage. Voting in favor were 204 Republicans and 52 Democrats. The narrow loss — with so many Democrats supporting the bill, opponents had no votes to spare — provoked outrage from supporters of the bill like Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., who had spoken in favor of it prior to the vote.

  • P_P
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    6 hours ago

    The U.S. is reconfiguring itself into a dictatorship. What a time to be alive.

    The hour must be later regarding to climate change than we all imagine.

    • WeUnite
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      27 minutes ago

      We must do everything we can to stop this. Please try contacting three of your friends who you think will listen but don’t know what’s going on and let them know. Kremlin propaganda is trying to get us to fight each other and undermine the US. So far it’s been working but we have the power to stop it.

    • SoylentBlake
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      2 hours ago

      We’re a good 50 years ahead of public projections.

      In all the Kyoto numbers, the part that corporate media always left out was that militaries were exempted from the tallies.

      America’s military produces almost the same amount of pollution as the rest of the country, all its people, industry and businesses combined.

      Besides knowing our actions would lead to climate change over 100 years ago, and having every opportunity to pivot from their winning positions to lead the way, the wealthy of the world have played reckless and wontonly with our lives, our children’s lives and the billion and billions of descendants yet to come

      We can see for ourselves, every institution or apparatus, be that state or otherwise, is designed to oppress, distract and exploit us. Instead of using the technology we have discovered to benefit society writ large (which means less and less work - all tech is about making work easier, life more pleasurable or healthier) and then let ideas and art and culture arise from that raised base, they e chosen to slow progress as much as possible and tighten their grip around our throats - because that is the guaranteed outcome with them on top. Regardless of their advanced starting point, even they know they don’t deserve control of Spaceship Earth, and they’re terrified we decide to remove them from the wheel.

      I vote throwing their entire bloodlines out the airlock and cleaning the genepool, but that’s just me, and I’m just one voice of many. I suppose both defenestration of their assets and bodies, couples with forced chemical castration/sterilization could accomplish the same, and at that I could be 'suaded, maybe if it comes with ostrazarion to St Helena or quarantined and embargoed down in the Florida keys or the azores. Some kind of low rising remote island. I’d give them less than a week until their power grid is permanently down and sewage is fermenting into typhus and dysentery. A fitting end for em, the whole lot have the moral character of an excrementsl.

  • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Sounds like a freedom of speech violation, assuming the Supreme court…

    You know what nevermind

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Those support numbers are terrifying. I see no beneficial reason to allow this for any citizen. It only helps Trump be king, and clearly 204 Rubes and 52 DINOs want that

    • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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      5 hours ago

      Wouldn’t THAT be an interesting turn of events… Trump gets into power and the first thing he does is revoke the charitable status of all churches that don’t give him a 10% cut….

        • SoylentBlake
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          2 hours ago

          If L. Ron Hubbard can do it, if Joseph Smith could do it, if Jim Jones could do it, well, I think W.H. ithom can do it too.

          • whithom@discuss.online
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            31 minutes ago

            Do you want to be in my church? We don’t believe in taxing the worker, or paying for healthcare.

            • SoylentBlake
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              10 minutes ago

              I’ve joked with my wife for a decade now that my dream job would be a cult leader.

              Let’s see…Knowledge is our birthright. The technology, our tools, the products of said birthright, should be communally freely available, library like. I want to check out an excavator for a few days. Or a hot air balloon.

              Civil government should be prioritized around helping the citizen accomplish their goal with the best knowledge and practices currently known and previously known. Every inspector should be more mentor/advisor than authoritarian or disciplinarian.

              Personal property, not private property.

              Love is love, no one cares who you fuck. Sexuality is a spectrum and it can change over your lifetime, and that’s ok. You do you, and whoever you want too, boo. it’s a boring conversation, there’s only 3 basic options, how many times we need to rehash this shit? fuck everybody. I mean that dismissively, sarcastically, exasperatedly, figuratively AND literally.

              …what else… keep it going.

  • ME5SENGER_24@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Push that shit as quick as possible….so Biden can veto it and require more votes for it to pass. Any Republican move at this point and Biden has one response, VETOOOOO!

    Unless it serves the greater good I hope he kills everything they put in front of him, the same way they continue to kill basic human rights

  • ArbiterXero@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I misread the title and thought this was about killing the poor, and I was less surprised than I should be.