#California Business Roundtable
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"Two landlord lobbying groups are petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn New York City’s rent stabilization law, which would allow further countrywide challenges to rent control. Real estate billionaires friendly with court justices are backing the move.
...
Samuel Stein, a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society, an anti-poverty organization in New York, said that if the Supreme Court were to overturn the rent stabilization law, “It’s the end of New York City.”
“Rents would go up significantly around the city,” he continued. “There will be a tremendous amount of displacement. You will have a lot of people leaving New York City, you will have a lot of homelessness, you’ll have a lot of overcrowding.”
A high court ruling wouldn’t just reshape New York, but would also pave the way for legal challenges to the dozens of rent control laws that exist around the country, and many more currently being considered. For example, in 2024, Californians will vote on a ballot measure to repeal the state’s ban on rent control.
At least one group petitioning the court to take the case has substantial ties to both Harlan Crow, the GOP megadonor and Justice Clarence Thomas benefactor, and Paul Singer, the hedge fund billionaire who provided an undisclosed private jet flight to Justice Samuel Alito.
...
The challenge to New York’s rent stabilization law was brought by two major New York landlord lobbying groups: the Rent Stabilization Association (RSA) and the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP).
The two organizations spent a combined $4.7 million lobbying as they pushed to block the passage of a sweeping tenant protection law in 2019. The law, which expanded rent stabilization from just New York City to any locality in the state that chooses to opt in, made it more difficult for landlords to remove units from rent stabilization and added new protections to rent-stabilized units.
Just after the law passed, the groups sued the city and state, arguing that the new law and New York City’s existing 1969 rent stabilization law are unconstitutional.
The lawsuit from RSA and CHIP was dismissed by lower courts, most recently the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals. But the groups claimed that their intention was always to reach the Supreme Court.
...
O Over the summer, a flurry of corporate lobbying groups and conservative think tanks submitted amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to take the case. One of these think tanks has close financial ties to the Supreme Court’s billionaire benefactors.
The ties to Crow, a Texas real estate mogul, are salient as Congress urges the Justice Department to investigate Thomas’s alleged repeated violations of federal ethics laws, in part by accepting a series of undisclosed luxury gifts from Crow over two decades.
...
CHIP and RSA themselves represent major corporate landlords in New York, even as they have often claimed to be the voice of mom-and-pop landlords. (The two groups are reportedly considering merging.)
Major real estate and corporate lobbying groups are urging the high court to hear the case, including the California Business Roundtable, the Real Estate Board of New York, the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Apartment Association.
The Supreme Court will decide on the petition on September 26. If they accept it, justices will decide the case during their 2023–2024 term."
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The first minute of this video shows us a little about the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument and the expansion of Joshua Tree National Park. I like the photo at the beginning of the video, showing us several colleagues with whom I have been working on desert conservation.
Excerpt from the Department of the Interior press release:
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland visited Southern California last week, where she met with federal, state, Tribal and local officials and community members to learn about their vision for conserving the area’s natural and cultural resources and meeting shared clean energy goals through the proposed establishment of Chuckwalla National Monument and expansion of Joshua Tree National Park.
The proposal to establish Chuckwalla National Monument encompasses more than 600,000 acres of existing Bureau of the Land Management public lands within Imperial and Riverside counties in Southern California. The desert landscape holds historic objects and cultural significance for many Tribes in the area, and it provides critical habitat and corridors for wildlife, including the Mojave Desert tortoise and Bighorn Sheep.
The proposal – which has been introduced by members of the California congressional delegation in both chambers of U.S. Congress – builds upon decades of work from Tribes, elected officials, and community members to conserve the greater Chuckwalla landscape and build a responsible clean energy future.
On Saturday, Secretary Haaland – joined by representatives from the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Park Service – heard directly from the community and those who have stewarded the lands for millennia. She held a roundtable with leaders from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Cahuilla Band of Indians, Colorado River Indian Tribes, Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe, Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, and Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians. She also met with local elected leaders, business owners and stakeholders who have helped to shape the proposal.
On Saturday morning, Secretary Haaland hiked Painted Canyon, an area within the proposed monument of cultural significance. She also visited Joshua Tree National Park, where she learned about the park’s efforts to sustain Joshua Trees and other native vegetation, as well as to address the threats of fire to the landscape. Spanning the intersection of the Colorado and Mojave deserts, the national park was first established as a national monument in 1936 by President Franklin Roosevelt, expanded in 1994 and was renamed a national park under the California Desert Protection Act. The park is receiving historic funding from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda for climate restoration and resilience projects.
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APEC Summit: Marcos Spearheads Trade Initiatives
Positive Outlook for the Philippines in San Francisco
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. expressed unwavering optimism on Tuesday, foreseeing the signing of several significant agreements on the sidelines of his participation in the 30th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco, California.
Forging Filipino-Friendly Business Alliances
In his pre-departure speech, Marcos outlined his plans to engage with business leaders and conduct roundtable discussions during the APEC Summit. The primary goal is to attract more foreign investments, promote trade, and present his administration's economic agenda, all with the well-being of the Philippines in mind.
Agreement Anticipation in Key Sectors
Marcos anticipates the signing of agreements in priority sectors such as energy, improved weather monitoring, and health—crucial areas for the prosperity and well-being of the Filipino people.
Elevating Filipino Presence on the Global Stage
Expressing his expectations, Marcos highlighted the key sectors involved, including nuclear energy, artificial intelligence for weather forecasting, health sciences, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and satellite connectivity, all contributing to the Philippines' global prominence.
Team Philippines in Full Force
Joined by his economic team and a high-profile business delegation, Marcos will participate in the 30th APEC Leaders' Meeting from Nov. 15 to 17. This collective effort aims to explore new partnerships and expand existing ones for the benefit of the Philippines.
APEC CEO Summit: Showcasing the Philippines' Sustainable Vision
Marcos has been invited to deliver keynote remarks on "intentional equity in sustainability" at the APEC CEO Summit. This platform serves as an annual gathering for top chief executives from the Asia-Pacific region, showcasing the Philippines' commitment to sustainable and inclusive growth.
Private Sector Engagement for Filipino Progress
Numerous engagements are planned with private sector representatives from the APEC Business Advisory Council. These discussions will focus on utilizing public-private partnerships to fulfill the Philippines' agenda in innovative and sustainable development, finance, and economic and business reform.
Advocating for the Philippines' Interests
Marcos aims to persuade fellow Asia-Pacific leaders to bolster food, energy, health, and digital partnerships—issues directly impacting the Filipino populace.
Regional Collaboration for a Sustainable Future
This year's APEC Summit theme, "Creating a Sustainable and Resilient Future for All," aligns with Marcos' administration's commitment to transform the Philippines toward a sustainable future. A future that ensures stability, comfort, and security for every Filipino.
Engaging with the Filipino Diaspora
Excitement surrounds the prospect of President Marcos meeting Filipino communities in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. These cities, with substantial Filipino populations, play a crucial role in bilateral relations.
VP Duterte as the Guardian of Philippine Interests
As President Marcos undertakes his APEC duties, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Z. Duterte will serve as the government caretaker, ensuring that Philippine interests are safeguarded during this crucial period.
Sources: THX News & Philippine News Agency.
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#APECCEOSummitsustainabilitykeynote#APECSummitPhilippinestradeinitiatives#Asia-Pacificpartnershipsandinvestments#FerdinandMarcosJr.economiccollaborations#PhilippinesAPECSummitagreements#PresidentMarcosFilipinocommunitymeetings#PresidentMarcosSanFranciscomeetings#RegionalcollaborationinAPEC#SaraDutertegovernmentcaretakerrole#SustainablefutureAPECSummit
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SK Hynix Memory Technology: Recent Developments
SK Hynix is going to demonstrate their most recent developments in memory technology at the Intel Innovation 2023 conference.
Intel Innovation 2023 was held on September in the city of San Jose, California, in the western United States. On September, SK hynix made the news that it had presented its most current memory technologies and products during the event.
Since 2019, Intel has served as the host organisation for the annual IT exhibition known as Intel Innovation. The event is being held with the intention of getting the business partners and customers of the technology company together in order to talk about the most current innovations in the industry.
SK hynix presented its advanced semiconductor memory solutions, which are essential in this day and age of generative artificial intelligence (AI), at the event that was held this year in the San Jose McEnery Convention Centre. The slogan that was used at the event was “Pioneer Tomorrow With the Best,” and it was utilised in conjunction with the exhibition.
The DDR5 RDIMM, a DRAM module for servers that uses 1bnm manufacturing technology, and the HBM31, which allows the high-speed performance of AI accelerators, were the goods that attracted the most interest. Both of these products enable high-speed performance.
You may purchase one of these items directly from the website of the firm. SK Hynix has been able to position itself as a pioneer in the area of AI memory thanks, in large part, to the HBM3 technology, which is one of the company’s key innovations. SK hynix plans to launch mass production of HBM3E (Extended) in the year 2024, which will help the business to further fortify its position in the industry and give it an advantage over its competitors.
In the meanwhile, DDR5 RDIMM with 1bnm, which is the 5th generation of the technology utilised for the 10nm process, also gives remarkable performance. This version of the technology is known as 1bnm. In addition to delivering unrivalled data transmission speeds of more over 6,400 megabits per second (Mbps), this low-power technology also enables customers to simultaneously reduce expenses and improve ESG performance.
Visitors at the SK hynix booth were given the chance to see the company’s DDR5-based 96 gigabyte (GB) CXL2 memory module products while they were there. The presentation discussed the application scenarios for CXL, such as those involving AI acceleration systems, and highlighted the benefits of the technology in terms of performance, reliability, security, and maintenance.
The particular characteristics of the technology that were highlighted in the display were its performance, its dependability, and its upkeep. Other things that were on display were DDR5 modules for use in servers and personal computers, as well as LPDDR5X (low power double data rate 5 extended) modules, which are designed specifically for use in mobile devices.
In addition, employees of the company gathered for a roundtable discussion on the topic of how data-driven innovation may be accomplished via the utilisation of DDR5 and CXL memory. During the course of the event, members of SK hynix’s DRAM Product Planning department Jinpyung Kim and SK hynix America’s DRAM Technology
Planning department Brian Yoon provided an explanation of how DDR5 and CXL technologies are positioned to play a significant role in the era of artificial intelligence and big data, respectively.
“We will continue to showcase our advanced technologies to strengthen partnerships with our customers and further solidify our position as a global technology company that leads the way in various markets,” said Sungsoo Ryu, head of DRAM Product Planning at SK hynix. “We will continue to showcase our advanced technologies to strengthen partnerships with our customers and further solidify our position as a global technology company that leads the way in various markets.”
“We will continue to showcase our advanced technologies in order to strengthen partnerships with our customers and further solidify our position as a global technology company that leads the way in various markets.”
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Light Broadens On-demand Cannabis Shipment Service With Ios Application
A member of the National Marijuana Roundtable, the government bipartisan lobbying initiative to improve marijuana plan nationwide, American Weed Co is the very first marijuana business in the country concentrated on legislating cannabis for every Expert. American Weed Firm introduced on Veterans Day eve with a private launch event headlined by professional legalisation symbols Rebelution, the event included an acoustic established by the legend Matisyahu and also was kicked off by the band Cydeways. This has in turn led to rising problems over long expiration dates, the possible ingredients in these items conveying these along with the potential long-lasting health impacts, according to leading starch firm text Group. The Philippines federal government has revealed a ban on all prepackaged refined foods containing high trans-fats levels as part of its purpose to completely remove their visibility by 2023. We would love to give thanks to the veterinary and husbandry team at ONPRC who provided exceptional care for the pets used in this study, in particular Dr. Lauren Drew Martin, Dr. Heather Sidener, Travis Hodge, Mike Reusz, and Trent Crowley. Furthermore, we want to give thanks to the Integrated Genomics Lab as well as Genetics Profiling Shared Resource, as well as the Bioanalytical Shared Resource/Pharmacokinetics Core at OHSU.
How to get weed delivered to your door – DU Clarion - DU Clarion
How to get weed delivered to your door – DU Clarion.
Posted: Sat, 11 Jun 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
National Institute of Substance Abuse Medication Supply Program. & Hansen, A. M. Enhancement of developmental toxicity impacts of chemicals by gestational stress. & Smith, C. Results of delta 9-THC, the major psychoactive component of marijuana, during pregnancy in the rhesus monkey. Novel detection of placental insufficiency by magnetic resonance imaging in the nonhuman primate. Practical imaging of the nonhuman primate placenta with endogenous blood oxygen level-dependent contrast. Maternal marijuana usage in pregnancy as well as youngster neurodevelopmental outcomes.
Weed Wacked: Florida Man Busted For Growing Virtually 1,000 Cannabis Plants In Colorado
Skendaj claims Eva prepares to bring its shipment solution to the United States as well as is in conversations with dispensaries in California. It's increasing $30 million to go into the US market, where simply four states permit house delivery or marijuana; California, Michigan, Massachusetts and Arizona, according to Leafly. Recreational use marijuana was legislated in Canada in 2018, and there are no such curbs on weed shipment elsewhere in Canada, experts claim. Alberta and also Ontario have allowed home distribution since March. Customers in Toronto and also Ontario are obtaining their weed in under a hr, according to Leafly, the cannabis firm collaborating with Uber. The NCV Wire Service by New Cannabis Ventures intends to curate premium quality material and info about leading marijuana firms to aid our viewers filter out the sound and also to remain on top of one of the most important cannabis organization information.
Many More Marijuana Stores Could Soon Pop Up in Red Bank – Here's Why - TAPinto.net
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Many More Marijuana Stores Could Soon Pop Up in Red Bank – Here's Why.
Posted: Mon, 28 Nov 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Trimming agents are used to water down medications and also are less costly than the medicine itself. These enhance revenues for the vendor as they market a more affordable product marketed as a high-grade one. You might want to utilize weed for leisure functions, medical purposes, or leisure. Whatever the function is, you will certainly need various products for each and every; for instance, delta-8 oils are one of the most fit for medical requirements.
My Solutions
So exactly how did we choose 3 specific organizations out of a huge range? There are lots of factors we took into consideration while making our checklist. Hollyweed not only has a few of the best items on the market, but they are also really transparent about just how they run their company. Therefore, consumers understand exactly how the items they are purchasing are made and also just how organic they are. You can find all the info on the resources of their components on Hollyweed's website. Exhale Wellness has actually obtained positive views online for weed and all its hemp-based products.
Skendaj claims that clients have not griped regarding the 90-minute guideline in Quebec because previously the most effective on offer had actually been next-day distribution.
While there are, naturally, heavyweights in the space like Weedmaps and also Eaze, boutique delivery services are beginning to crop up also, geared for the new age of fashionable consumers who have actually advanced with the marketplace, and also now, recognize their crap.
The iOS system enables consumers to promptly accessibility and go shopping the business's marketplace with their mobile platform at their convenience.
Available in Extra Solid, Ultra Strong, and also Regular strengths, these instilled treats send a tingle over your body and also a rush with your head.
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How did Donald McEachin die? Cause of death revealed
How did Donald McEachin die? Cause of death revealed
US Democratic Representative
Donald McEachin
died Monday in Virginia. Let's look at more details about Virginia Congressman Donald McEach and the cause of his death.
The cause of death was
Donald McEachin
.
Virginia Congressman Donald McEachin, a Democrat, died Monday after a long battle with colon cancer, just weeks after winning re-election to Congress. He was 61. In a statement released late Monday, McEachin's chief of staff, Tara Rountree, said: “We have watched bravely, for years, since 2013 fight and win the side effects of his colon cancer. He lost that battle tonight. .
In 2019, after recovering from cancer treatment and returning to Congress, McEachin's staff said he experienced "continuing complications" related to chemotherapy and radiation.
McEachin's thanks to colleagues
"I am grateful for the support and well wishes of my members and colleagues as I recover from surgery," McEachin said in a statement at the time. "Throughout my career, I have been a strong advocate for affordable, comprehensive health care for all, but this personal experience has reinforced the critical need to ensure that all Americans have access to quality care and prescription drugs at reasonable prices."
Donald McEachin
Illness
US Representative A. Donald McEachin, D-4th, has lost more than 60 pounds the hard way while dealing with a short-term medical problem that he hopes to fix with surgery. "I'll be healthy," California House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday after hosting a roundtable discussion on environmental infrastructure with a dozen state and local elected leaders and advocates.
McEachin, who turned 57 on Wednesday, says he lost weight as a result of a fistula, a cavity described by his doctor as "an abnormal connection between the bladder and the colon," as well as exercise that included walking across the Capitol. Hill in Washington, D.C., about 10 miles each week.
"As a kid, you learn, you get sick, you get better, you move on," he said after an event with Pelosi at the Boathouse Restaurant in Rockets Landing on Friday. "I am sick, I am getting well, and by God's grace, I will get on."
In a letter to McEachin over the weekend documenting his illness, Brian P. Monahan, a physician for the congressman who retains him, confirmed the diagnosis.
According to Monahan, McEachin's effective 2014 treatment for rectal cancer, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, resulted in a fistula.
The congressman, who claimed to be cancer-free, learned he had the disease in July after developing a urinary tract infection.
“You did a very thorough assessment,” recalled the doctor. "So when antibiotics control the infection, you now need abdominal surgery," Monahan said.
Who is Donald McGinn?
Aston Donald McGinn was born on October 10, 1961, in Nuremberg, Germany. Both his mother and father were teachers, and his father served in the army.
He completed his education at St. Christopher's School in Richmond in 1979 before earning a bachelor's degree from American University in 1982 and a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1986.
In 2008, he received a Master of Divinity from Virginia Union University's Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology.
He practiced law throughout his career and served in the House of Representatives from 1996 to 2002 and from 2006 to 2008, and in the State Senate from 2008 to 2016.
He was elected to serve in the US House for the first time in 2016.
Mack, Brianna and Alexandra were raised by McEachin and his wife Colette McEachin, a Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney.
Business travel
McEachin represented Virginia's 4th Congressional District, which stretches south to the North Carolina border and includes part of Richmond.
This month, he won re-election for a fourth term. "A tireless champion for the people of Virginia and a force for economic opportunity and environmental justice," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described her late colleague.
McEachin was described by Rep. Jerry Connelly, D-Va., as an "environmentalist, civil rights crusader, dedicated public servant, and man of substance." Still no useful partner. McEachin, a Democrat, served two terms in the Virginia House of Representatives, from 2006 to 2008 and from 1996 to 2002. He represented the 9th District in the Virginia Senate, which includes Charles City County, Henrico County, and Richmond. Until 2017.
In the general election, McEachin received 57.3% of the vote to win the open seat in Virginia's 4th Congressional District, vacated by Republican Randy Forbes in 2016. He ran for the Democratic nomination for Virginia Attorney General in 2001, but was defeated by Jerry Kilgore.
Tributes McEachin
His staff shared the news in a heartfelt statement shortly after his death, remembering the U.S. representative as "a hero who always, always fought." Put them first. "For years we have watched valiantly as he fought and won against the secondary effects of his colon cancer since 2013. Tonight, he lost that battle," the statement recounted.
Tara Rountree, McEachin's chief of staff, released the following statement after his death:
We are all devastated by the passing of our boss and friend, Congressman Donald McGee. Over the years we have bravely watched her fight and win against the secondary effects of her colon cancer in 2013. Tonight, he lost that battle, and the people of Virginia's Fourth Congressional District lost a hero who always fought for them. Put them first.
Until a new representative is elected, our office will remain open and continue to serve our constituents. The family asks for privacy at this time. Arrangements will be announced in the next few days.
Virginia Governor Glenn Young said on Twitter
"It is very sad to learn of the death . A valiant fighter to the end, he served Virginia admirably He worked tirelessly to improve the lives of his constituents Americans," Youngin said. "Suzanne I am thinking of his family and friends. community at this difficult time."
pic.twitter.com/ev2jRb5Gwr
— Rep. Donald McEachin (@RepMcEachin) November 29, 2022
Also read: How did Jack Flint die? Music icon cause of death has been explained
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Female business leaders share their strategies for fostering trust
Female business leaders share their strategies for fostering trust
To be a leader you have to earn the trust of those you lead. But how exactly do you build that trust, especially in a world full of uncertainty? A panel of four female business leaders shared some of their ideas and experiences during a roundtable discussion moderated by Reshma Sawjani, founder of Girls Who Code. of fate The Most Powerful Women Summit in California.
These women discussed…
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Tesla Autopilot, comparable automated driving programs rated 'poor' by security group
Barrons Roundtable discusses the shares shrinking margins amid stiff auto competitors.
The Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security rolled out a brand new security score system for partial automated driving programs, and the primary checks didn't go nicely for Tesla – or almost any of the electric vehicle big's rivals.
Beneath the system, the IIHS assigns the programs a score of excellent, acceptable, marginal or poor primarily based on its safeguards, and not one of the automated programs landed an general score of "good."
The inside of a Tesla Mannequin S is proven in autopilot mode in San Francisco, California, on April 7, 2016. (REUTERS/Alexandria Sage/File Picture / Reuters Photographs)
Of the 14 programs rated, 11 had been discovered to be "poor," together with Tesla's Autopilot and its Full Self-Driving model, which is in beta testing, together with Nissan's ProPILOT Help 2.0, Mercedes-Benz's Lively Distance Help DISTRONIC with Lively Steering Help, Ford's BlueCruise and BMW's Lively Driving Assistant.
POWER RESTORED AT TESLA GIGAFACTORY AFTER FAR-LEFT ACTIVIST SABOTAGE
The one system that carried out worse than Tesla's, in line with the findings, was Volvo's Pilot Help.
Shut-up of the Tesla Motors emblem towards a shiny blue sky in Pleasanton, California, on July 23, 2018. ((Picture by Smith Assortment/Gado/Getty Photos) / Getty Photos)
Ticker
Safety
Final
Change
Change %
TSLA
TESLA INC.
177.77
+2.43
+1.39%
However the three remaining programs didn't obtain glowing evaluations from the IIHS, both.
TESLA'S ELECTRIC SEMI-TRUCK TAKES ON DIESEL BIG RIG
The highest system was Lexus' Teammate with Superior Drive, which was deemed an general score of "acceptable." The No. 2 spot went to Normal Motors' Tremendous Cruise, and Nissan's ProPILOT Help with Navi-link got here in third – each programs obtained scores of "marginal" from the IIHS.
Ticker
Safety
Final
Change
Change %
GM
GENERAL MOTORS CO.
39.18
-0.34
-0.86%
F
FORD MOTOR CO.
12.11
-0.07
-0.57%
"Some drivers might really feel that partial automation makes lengthy drives simpler, however there's little proof it makes driving safer," IIHS President David Harkey stated. "As many high-profile crashes have illustrated, it may introduce new dangers when programs lack the suitable safeguards."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends an occasion throughout the Vivatech know-how startups and innovation honest in Paris on June 16, 2023. ((Picture by JOEL SAGET/AFP by way of Getty Photos) / Getty Photos)
Tesla and its chief govt, Elon Musk, have stated {that a} Tesla working with Autopilot engaged is about 10 occasions safer than the U.S. common and 5 occasions safer than a Tesla with out the know-how enabled. Federal regulators are investigating almost 1,000 accidents by which Tesla's Autopilot was in use.
The IIHS reported that it expects producers will proceed to enhance their programs' security options, and famous that the 2 Tesla programs it examined used software program that preceded the corporate's newest software program replace from December.
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Each automaker that responded to FOX Enterprise' requests for touch upon the IIHS report touted their commitments to security.
Nissan added in its assertion that the corporate is "evaluating the outcomes from the first-ever Partial Automation Safeguards take a look at and can proceed to work with IIHS in all issues associated to buyer security."
Ford stated, "We've been working carefully with IIHS since BlueCruise was launched in 2021. Whereas we don't agree with IIHS’s findings, we are going to take their suggestions into consideration as we proceed to judge future updates."
Mercedes-Benz famous in its assertion that "This new IIHS testing methodology doesn't assess the efficiency of the driving force help programs, as an alternative it focuses on safeguards to stop misuse. We take the findings of the IIHS partial driving automation safeguard scores very significantly."
A Volvo spokesperson stated in a press release that "At Volvo Automobiles we imagine a automobile is both autonomous or not, and on the time we don't promote any vehicles with what we think about to be autonomous driving options." They added, "We’re completely satisfied to see that IIHS is proposing countermeasures and take a look at protocols in search of to scale back the prevalence of each overreliance on and misuse of any driving help programs."
Tesla, BMW, and Normal Motors didn't instantly reply to FOX Enterprise' request for touch upon the findings.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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I Love You (Part Thirty-Nine) -- Aaron Hotchner
Written By: @desperately-bisexual
Request: None.
Warnings: Light smut!! I don’t think anything gets out of hand in this chapter. Talk of BDSM, Dom/sub relationship, etc. I think that’s it? SAVE YOUR SIMPING FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER! The black box is coming. Good lord...
Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader
Word Count: 11527
Timeline: One month after part thirty-eight.
A/N: Posting this wayyyy early because @ thomassgolfball on TikTok posted a Greg Montgomery edit for me, so I’m in a great mood!
The weekend of our wedding was chaotic, to say the least. On Friday, the boys (including Morgan, Reid, Rossi, and Anderson) stole Aaron away for a bachelor party who knew where. It happened as we were walking to our car after work. We stepped out of the building together, hand in hand, having just finished saying goodbye to the security team in the lobby. We barely stepped off the sidewalk when Rossi approached from behind us, a car pulled up in front of us, the door back door opening, and Rossi rushed to get Hotch into the car. I sighed and yelled at Morgan, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, to not let Aaron get into too much trouble. And then they sped off.
I shook off the smile on my face and continued to our car a few rows back in the parking lot. From a distance, I saw Emily leaning against the hood of the car. Well, the boys had stolen Hotch off for a boy’s weekend, and it seemed that the girls were stealing me off for a bachelorette party. I held my hands up in surrender. Next thing I knew, Emily was wearing a smirk as she handcuffed my left wrist to her right wrist. She didn’t release me until we arrived at a spa retreat out in the middle of nowhere in Virginia. It was Garcia’s idea.
“Tada!” Garcia cheered, her arms stretched into the air, her fingers jazz-dancing. “Do you like it?”
I rubbed my wrist as the handcuff fell off. “I love it.”
“Good, because we’re here until Sunday afternoon,” Emily whispered in my ear.
Because Hotch and I were in such a rush to get married on our anniversary, which was on a Monday, we had to make sure that the BAU got a long weekend, that Jack’s school was aware he wouldn’t be in class, and that everyone else we were inviting (friends and family) knew that they would have to miss some work. The good news was that all of Hotch’s friends were prosecutors and Bureaucrats, so it was fairly easy to get them out of work. When we told the Director that we were getting married, he insisted that we invite him and give him the list of Bureaucrats we were inviting so that he could ensure that they got that Monday off. As for who I was inviting, the list was pretty limited since my friends were all in the FBI, and the one person from my past that I would’ve considered inviting was off the grid. She did that a lot. So, we kept it small. It was going to be lavish, but small. And that was okay. I didn’t need a big, ostentatious wedding. I just needed my future husband, the team, and my parents. But Hotch needed everyone to know that he was marrying me.
When we found out that the team was planning on kidnapping us for separate weekend-long celebrations, Hotch and I started talking in the roundtable room as the team was filing in about how we wanted the night before the wedding all to ourselves. We tried playing it cool by stopping when someone would enter the room; but we knew that they were listening. So, when Emily told me that we were leaving the spa retreat on Sunday afternoon, I was relieved. Hotch and I were going to have Sunday night all to ourselves. Wonderful.
Sunday didn’t matter when we were out at that retreat, though. We spent Friday night in a jacuzzi together, sipping on wine and gossiping. Unfortunately, I had to stop drinking because it was upsetting my stomach, but Garcia seemed to drink for me. JJ and I laughed at her when she downed the glass I couldn’t finish. When we were all pruning, we went inside the cabin the girls all contributed to renting at the retreat for the weekend. We slid into pajamas, grabbed a bunch of blankets, and we laid on the floor in the living room, a fresh log fire beside us. JJ was responsible for bringing the shitty snacks. Since this was supposed to be a “healthy spa”, they didn’t necessarily supply snacks like Cheetos, chips, chocolate, etc. JJ already had most of that laying around at home because of Henry, so she told Emily and Garcia that she would bring the food, and that she did. Since Garcia was drinking for me, and Emily was trying to catch up to her, I stuck to the chocolate.
Time passed by so fast. I didn’t even get tired. We all crashed in the early hours of the morning, but all I could do was smile up at the ceiling while listening to Garcia snore. I was happy. My wedding was approaching, and I was with a handful of the people I loved most on planet Earth. I didn’t need anything else… Except a massage. Thankfully, my wish was granted, because, when I was woken up by Emily, we headed for breakfast at the meal hall, then went to the spa cabin where Garcia had scheduled our massages. Garcia was hungover, of course. Getting her to the meal hall was hard enough, but dragging her out of the spa once our hour long massages were done was a near impossible task.
By the time lunch came around, Garcia was passed out in the bed she had claimed as hers when we first arrived. JJ, Emily, and I gave up on her. We decided to get lunch without her, then, when we were done, we were going to watch a movie in the cabin.
The biggest bed in the cabin was a California King that Emily and I were supposed to share. However, the three of us managed to sit—or, in my case, lay—comfortably on the bed while watching Pride and Prejudice, which was JJ’s idea.
“If Hotch doesn’t say something as romantic as that on Monday,” Emily said after Mr. Darcy had proclaimed his love for Elizabeth for the first time, “then I’m pulling you off the altar, and I’m going to marry you myself.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” I answered, playing along with her tease.
I fell asleep before the movie ended. When I woke up, I saw that Emily and JJ had fallen asleep, too, but they were wrapped in each other’s arms. I eyed them suspiciously for a moment before rolling out of bed to head to the bathroom. I really shouldn’t’ve eaten that much chocolate last night. My stomach was killing me, and I blamed it all on the snacks JJ brought.
“Y/N,” Emily’s voice followed a knock on the door, “are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just under the weather.”
“Nerves?”
“Or chocolate.”
She laughed. “Okay. Well, Garcia’s up, and she’s hungry, so we’re going to head to the meal hall, if you want to join us.”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“We’ll check on you when we come back.”
They technically never got that chance because I fell back asleep soon after they left. It was supposed to be a relaxing weekend, and I was certainly taking them up on the opportunity. Considering Hotch and I were going to have the night before the wedding to ourselves, then our entire honeymoon, and then the rest of our lives… I knew I was going to be restless for a while. Besides, sleep was good. With our busy schedules, we hardly got a weekend to just relax. I liked that I got to spend all of this time with the girls, then sleep as much as I wanted, and I could rinse and repeat that cycle until Sunday afternoon.
And I did. By the time Sunday afternoon came around, I packed up my bag (the one Emily had packed for me without my knowing on Friday when she left for her lunch break), and we headed home. Garcia was not allowed to drive. She and I slept most of the drive home, my house being the first stop.
“Don’t let him leave any hickeys,” Emily warned as I got out of the car.
I chuckled. “No hickeys, must have a speech superior to Mr. Darcy’s, and…”
“And no breaking your heart. Ever.”
“And no breaking my heart. Got it. I’ll let him know.”
“Have fun,” JJ teased with a sing-song voice. “We’ll pick you up tomorrow!”
“Bye, my loves.”
“Bye…” Garcia groaned.
The three of us laughed at her before I waved to them while they slowly traveled down the neighborhood’s street. When they turned out of sight, I headed up to the house, unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, then headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My stomach had stopped hurting, but now I had a raging headache. I swore then and there that if I was sick on our wedding day, I was going to call every single person invited in order to tell them that the wedding was off before leaving to elope with Hotch.
“You’re back,” Hotch noted happily as he stepped into the kitchen.
“Headache,” I pointed to my temple.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll get you a Motrin.”
“Wait—”
“What?”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards me. “I love you.” I jumped up on my toes and kissed him gingerly. “How was your weekend?”
“I don’t think Morgan understands that strip clubs aren’t my thing.”
“It was more for them than you.”
“I know.”
“You got a lap dance, though, right?” I questioned with a grin.
“No!” he defended.
“Why not?” I pouted at him and played with the hem of his V-neck. “It would have been fun for you.” I ran my hands over his chest. “Wasn’t that the point of your weekend?”
Hotch wrapped his arms around my waist. “The only person I want to ever look at or touch is you.” He kissed me. “So, how ‘bout a lap dance—”
“Headache,” I reminded him.
“You’re a tease.”
“I know. Sir.”
He laughed and kissed my forehead gently to help heal my headache, then he left to get me a Motrin, like he promised. I made my way to the living room. Since Jessica must have been in on the weekend plans, Jack was spending the weekend at her house. We didn’t have to worry about looking after a kid for at least another two weeks because we were leaving for our honeymoon on Tuesday, and because Monday would be our wedding night… Well, Jessica had offered to just look after him until we got back from our vacation. No kid, just us. As much as I loved Jack, I also loved the idea of just getting to spend a lot of one-on-one time with Aaron. If we had met at a different point in our lives, a point where he didn’t have a kid, and might not have ever been married to Haley, then it was possible that Hotch and I would have done everything the classic, boring way. Date for a few years, get engaged, stay engaged for at least a year, then get married, go on vacation, then have a kid. That would have left us with years of alone time. But since we had Jack to look after—not that I minded that one bit— everything was backwards; and with the chaos and tragedy in our lives, we were in a rush to be the classic, boring, nuclear family.
Mom, dad, and kid. That was everyone’s dream, right? The big house, the perfect family, and maybe even a pet to make everyone happy. But we already had the big house and the perfect family. All that was left to do now was make it all official with the wedding certificate and the rings on our fingers. I’d be content at that point.
“Motrin, a heating pad, a blanket, and your favorite pillow,” Hotch said, entering the room with full hands.
I craned my neck to watch him walk around the back of the couch. “You’re amazing.” I took the Motrin from him as he sat down. “Thank you, baby.”
“Of course.”
Hotch shook out the blanket before laying it over my body, then plugged in the heating pad so that I could rest it on the back of my neck. By the time he had me situated, I was already relaxed. When he sat down beside me, he put my favorite pillow on his lap, a silent signal that he wanted me to lay down on him so that he could play with my hair until I could fall asleep.
“I know that this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind when we were talking about spending the night together,” I said apologetically. “I’m sorry.” He shushed me. “I haven’t been feeling well all weekend. It’s my own damn fault for eating that chocolate.”
“You’re here. That’s all that matters to me.”
I closed my eyes in response to the comforting feel of his fingers combing through my hair. When we had been talking about spending this night together, I imagined that I’d be tied to the bed with Hotch between my legs, torturing me endlessly. This was nice, though, like he said. It wasn’t imperative for us to have sex in order to be intimate. Yeah, it didn’t suck, but we were going to have plenty of time to tie each other up and fuck each other until we couldn’t breathe. Hell, we had our whole lives to do that. For now, I enjoyed just lying down on his lap, curled under a blanket, falling asleep as he massaged my scalp to ease my headache.
----
Monday morning, I woke up in our bed upstairs, Hotch cuddled up against my back. I smiled and kissed his knuckles. Hotch shuffled behind me as he was coaxed awake by my touch. Telling by the time, JJ, Emily, and Garcia were going to pick me up soon, but I didn’t want to leave our bed just yet. I was excited to get to the venue, but I was also fine where I was. Maybe we could just get married in bed.
“Good morning, my love,” he whispered groggily in my ear.
I hummed. “Good morning.”
“Is your headache gone?”
“Yeah. Did you carry me up here?”
“We fell asleep on the couch, and I woke up around seven, so I decided to bring you up here instead of leaving you down there.”
“Thank you.” I rolled over and kissed him, our eyes still shut. “I’m sorry, again, for last night.”
“Don’t be.”
“We could…” my hands drifted down his chest, “do something now…”
He moaned and tensed under my touch. “I thought we have to leave soon to get ready.”
“We’ll make enough time…”
“Not enough time for the black box, though.”
“We’ll just take it with us on the honeymoon.”
He grabbed my chin roughly. “Mmm… so, you want to be ruined for two weeks straight?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Hotch rolled on top of me, kissing me so roughly I couldn’t move or breathe. “Screaming my name and cumming for me over and over again?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You’re always so needy for me.”
“Only for you, Sir—” I groaned with annoyance when my phone started ringing on my bedside table. “Just ignore it.” I grabbed his face to make him kiss me again. When the call went to voicemail, Hotch rolled his hips against mine, letting me feel how hard he was getting. “Sir…” And then the doorbell rang. “No,” I groaned again.
Hotch leaned back. “I think it’s time to go.”
“Can’t they wait?” I asked, running my index finger over the outline of his erection through his pajama pants. He moaned and fell forward. “Please?” The doorbell rang again, but this time, it didn’t stop. It kept ringing over and over again until it got annoying. “I’m going to fucking kill them.”
“You have to go.”
“I don’t want to yet.”
“I’ll see you in a few hours when you come down the aisle. Aren’t you excited for that?”
I nodded. “But what about you?” I asked, referencing his erection.
“I’ll handle it. You’ll have two weeks to make it up to me.”
I pouted, then kissed him again. “She’s not going to stop ringing the doorbell,” I said, rolling out of bed. Hotch sighed, falling onto his back, his hand snaking under the waistband of his pants to palm himself. I rubbed my thighs together at the sight. “I’m going to kill Emily Prentiss,” I said to myself.
When I opened the front door, Emily was snatching her hand away from the doorbell on the doorframe. She smiled innocently. I told her that I needed to change into something comfortable, then I would meet them in the car.
I was not responsible for my dress, my shoes, my jewelry, or anything of the sort. My mom was responsible for making sure all of that arrived at the venue on time. My job was to show up. That was it. I made it very clear to everyone that those who were showing up to the venue early had a responsibility. If something were to go wrong, it had to make it up a chain of command before getting to me. If something couldn’t be handled by JJ or Penelope, then it made its way to Emily, my maid of honor (since I didn’t have anyone else coming that I was as close to. She was one of my partners in the field, so it only made sense to ask her to do it.) If Emily couldn’t handle it, my mom probably could. If, by some off chance, my mother couldn’t take care of it, then it could become my problem. Other than that, I just wanted to sit in the bridal suite. I wanted to get ready in peace, have fun with my friends for a few hours before the ceremony, and talk with my mom. That was it. If anything or anyone were going to bother me, I was going to be pissed. I didn’t want to be a bridezilla, but it was reasonable for me to request an entire day off, alright.
Hotch was cleaning himself up in the shower while I got dressed in one of his college hoodies and a pair of leggings. Before I could even hear him start washing his hair, I was out the door and in the car with JJ, Garcia, and Emily again. Garcia seemed much better than the last time I saw her. She wasn’t completely out of it, which was a plus, considering I wanted her to be there for the day. Besides, if she showed up still hungover, I think I would be in more trouble than her when Morgan would have found out.
When we arrived at the venue, JJ parked to the side so that the vendors could move about freely within the parking lot; then, when they were done setting up inside, there would just be more space for the guests to park. We had found this amazing, quaint place that was surprisingly cheap. The building itself almost looked like a warehouse—but it was all sandstone brick and glass. It was one floor, but the walls were ridiculously tall, and the glass ceiling inside in some of the rooms made it feel only that much bigger. The set up of the building inside was like a square donut. There was the main lobby when we first walked in, but just behind that was a hallway on either side of the front desk, and just between those two hallways was a glass door that led to the huge open-air courtyard where a vendor was setting up all of the foldable white chairs for the guests during the ceremony.
Garcia pulled me down the left hallway before I could stare at the courtyard for too long. The left side of the building, for our purposes, was reserved as the bride’s suite. Meanwhile, the right side was for the boys. My mom was adamant about Hotch not seeing me at all after leaving our house up until the ceremony. All of the superstitions about a groom seeing the bride in her dress before the actual wedding had tricked my mother into thinking that if Aaron happened to waltz into the wrong room, I’d topple over and die right then and there. So, he was supposed to stay away. The boys had the entire right side of the donut, and the girls had the left side. It was fair enough.
When we stepped into one of the large rooms that had been designated as the suite itself, I saw my mom standing in front of a tall clothing rack where my dress was hanging. She was fussing with it. If there was even one wrinkle, my mother snuffed it out. She was going to do whatever it took to make sure that dress looked good, even if it killed her sanity. But, she stopped for a moment when she heard the door open, and she turned to see that it was us, and she smiled.
“Finally,” she cheered, flinging her arms around me.
I hugged her back. “Hi, Mom.”
“You look pale.”
“I wasn’t feeling well yesterday.”
“What is it?” She released me from our embrace. Her motherly worry was plastered to her face, and she’s trying to figure out what was wrong with me before I could even respond.
I shook my head. “Chocolate and nerves. It’s nothing, Mom.”
“Well, we’ll just cover it all up with makeup, anyhow.” She pointed to the makeup artist and hair stylist that were getting their things set up to the side. “Don’t even worry about it.” She peered over my shoulder to look at the girls. “Champagne and snacks are on the table over there,” she pointed to the left, “hair and makeup will call each of you over one at a time,” she pointed back at the two women who were still getting set up, “and then your dresses are hanging over there,” she pointed to the right where a clothing rack on wheels was holding up the dresses they bought—since Hotch and I weren’t exactly doing the whole bridesmaids and groomsmen thing.
If it were up to my mother, we would have had a much bigger and extravagant celebration with a wedding party and everything, but I argued against it. The compromise was that my mom could pay for ridiculous things like champagne and snacks, while I got to decide that the ceremony would be small, short, and easy. So, my mom offered to pay for the girls’ dresses and the guys’ tuxes, as long as I got to stay adamant about not having matching dresses and having them walk down the aisle before me. My mom was fine with that.
“The bride goes last,” Mom continued. “So, just sit down and relax for a bit, baby.” She gestured to the two large couches over by the champagne and snacks, silently telling us to sit down and stay out of the way until we were called up to do something important.
I threw my hands up in surrender. There was really no point in fighting my mother about all of this, especially on an important day like my wedding. She was a… controlling woman. Elle got that from her. My mother liked knowing that everything was perfect and that she could handle it all herself, and if I got in the way by arguing, I was going to lose that fight. Not that I even wanted to try. Like I said, I wanted to lay back and relax. I was going to keep my feet up until I had to get into my dress and walk down the aisle towards Hotch, and then, I’d crash again.
“Want any?” JJ asked, holding up the bottle of champagne for me to see the offer. I shook my head. She cocked a brow at me, eyes searching all of me for answers. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” Garcia asked worriedly.
I shook my head. “Of course not.” I sat down abruptly. “I’m just nervous.”
“What’s there to be nervous about?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted with a laugh.
The four of us reclined, but the three of them kept chatting while I sat by, watching as they drank champagne. There wasn’t a reason to be nervous. I knew that. Of course I knew that. I loved Aaron, he loved me, and we wanted to get married more than anything. This had been our dream for a few years, but it never worked out for one reason or another. But, finally, the timing worked out. Finally, there was nothing standing in our way… and yet, I was still panicking. I didn’t doubt that this was the right thing to do and that we would be happy together. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was that really had me all wound up.
And then my mom whistled lightly from the doorway. Growing up, that was her call to me and Elle whenever we were out in public and she needed us to be by her side and behaving within an instant. I’d recognize that whistle anywhere. It was like saying: “Mom needs you now, and if you don’t come over here, she’s going to be mad.” So, I pushed myself to my feet and headed to the door,
“What is it?” I asked. “Is it Aaron?”
My mom chuckled at my panic. “No. He’s okay. Your dad’s giving him a hard time, but he’s okay, I promise. I need to show you something, though.” She grabbed my hand and snuck me out of the room before anyone could notice because the girls’ attention was on Garcia, who was sliding into her dress now. I followed my mom with a hesitant stride. “Come on, it’s a good surprise, Y/N.”
“I don’t understand—Shouldn’t I be getting into my dress?”
“In a minute. You’ll want to see this first.” She opened the back door of the venue, leading us into the alleyway. I cocked a concerned brow at my mother. “There.” She pointed, and I followed her gaze.
There was a figure standing in the shadows, hiding their face under the hood they were wearing, and their figure was hidden under all of the layers. It didn’t make any sense. Who the hell was that? Why would my mother risk bringing me out here? I tried asking my mom, but she only pushed me forward as an encouragement. I rolled my eyes and walked a few more steps towards the stranger.
And then I stumbled to a halt. Her face was familiar, like I had only seen her just yesterday, but everything else about her was different. Her hair, her style, her posture, even the way she did her makeup. She was half a stranger, half a reminder of home and family. A shuddered breath left my lips.
“Elle…”
When I saw her smile back at me and open her arms for a hug, I ran to her and crashed against her chest. Her arms wrapped around me tightly. I hugged her waist, squeezing her until she tapped on my shoulder for me to release.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t know how to invite you—”
“Mom sent me the invite,” Elle answered. I smiled against her shoulder and squeezed harder. She laughed at how she couldn’t breathe now. “I had to see you.”
“Wait ‘til I tell Aaron and Derek; they’ll be so excited!”
Elle suddenly pushed me out of our hug so that I could see her stern face. “You can’t tell anyone I was here, Y/N.”
“What?”
“Especially Hotch.”
“What are you talking about?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to worry about it.” She grabbed my hands before making me spin around in a small circle for her. “Look at you!”
I wasn’t fooled, however, by her attempt to distract me from what was really going on. All this time, I didn’t know why she left, where she went, what she was doing, and I certainly didn’t think anyone had contact with her, let alone my parents. When I thought about inviting her, I tried calling her old phone number, which had been disconnected. When I tried her email, it didn’t go through. And when I asked my parents if they knew anything, they said that they would handle it. Of course, I didn’t understand what that meant at the time. But now that my sister was standing in front of me for the first time in two and a half years, I thought I would want to be happy and distracted with her, but now I just wanted answers. So, I asked. All of these burning questions that had been churning in my head over the past few years finally spewed out of me. There was nothing I could do to stop or control it. There was just so much, yet so little time.
Elle looked at the ground and kicked a pebble around. “It was just in everyone’s best interest if I left,” she finally said. That wasn’t a real answer. We both knew that it wasn’t enough for me, yet… I didn’t fight. It was the weirdest thing. For once, when it came to Elle, I didn’t pry. “I’m really happy for you, Y/N.” She looked up at me and smiled. It wasn’t faux or forced. It was a genuine smile that she always wore.
I couldn’t believe I almost forgot how much her smile made my day, and how her laugh was like music to my ears, and how much I just fucking missed her. She had been gone so long, she had turned into a distant memory in the back of my mind. Now that she was there, however, everything was returning to me like she hadn’t been gone even a day.
“You’re not going to come in; are you?” I questioned, my smile fading. Hers disappeared, too. “Morgan and Reid miss you a lot. I know they would really love to just see you one more time—”
“Y/N, I can’t. I made promises to people, and I made promises to myself. This part of my life is behind me.”
“So, then, what are you doing with your life?”
“Traveling. A lot.”
I smiled. “Really?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling back. “I always wanted to get out and see the world, you know that.”
Actually, no, I didn’t know that. Elle had a very specific idea as to what her life would look like, and I knew what those plans were because it was practically the same dream I had for myself, too. Because of her dad, she wanted to become a cop, so she did. Because of my dad, I wanted to join the FBI, so I did. There was never any mention of getting out to see the world. How could we afford to go traveling all the time when our careers always came first to everything else? She had been doing so well for herself in Seattle, and then she joined the BAU. Things were really working out for her. Yet, the one time she decided to travel outside of the country for vacation, her entire life fell apart. One would think that experience would have stayed her secret urge to travel. However, it didn’t. I couldn’t blame her, though, for wanting to get out and travel the world, if that was really what she wanted, and if she was happy doing it—and it seemed like she was really happy. That was all I ever wanted for her. So, I didn’t argue.
“What have you been doing while traveling?” I asked. The FBI paid well, but not well enough to travel and spend money for the rest of her life without working.
“Oh, you know…” she trailed off. I shook my head because I didn’t know. She was being awfully vague and awkward. Maybe it was just the fact that we hadn’t talked in so long, so there was a disconnect; but we had gone decades without talking while she was working sex crimes in Seattle and I was stuck in Quantico. This was no different than that. So, what gave? “Partying and boys, mostly.”
I squinted at her. “You’re not working at all?”
“I don’t need to. I keep a pretty low profile while I’m out there.”
“Someone’s coming,” Mom hissed from the back door of the venue just down the alley.
When I turned to give her an acknowledging nod, I suddenly felt Elle crash into me for another hug. She wasn’t a big hugger. In fact, Elle struggled most times with any kind of affection. I was pretty sure that it stemmed from the fact that she lost her father, her favorite person, when she was really young, and she didn’t know how to cope with that loss. Our mom wasn’t a very affectionate person either, which was possibly where Elle got it from, but it also made sense that Mom didn’t know how to console and love Elle the same way her dad, which was just another disconnect to the idea of affection for her. But there were moments like these where Elle would find courage within herself to show her love for me. A hug was so small. Jack and Hotch hugged me all the time. Morgan and Emily hugged me all the time. I was a big hugger. Not Elle, though. That was why this had caught me so off guard, and actually made me break into tears.
“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered into her hair.
“I know.”
“Elle,” Mom hissed another warning.
So, Elle released me from her embrace. “I’ll see you around.”
I knew that was a lie. There was no way she was ever going to come back again. I could see it in her eyes and in her behavior. Sometimes, especially in moments like these, I really hated being a profiler. “I’ll see you around.”
Elle smiled lightly at me as she pulled the hood of her jacket over her head, then turned on her heels and calmly made her way out of the alley while keeping her head down.
“What are you two doing out here?” Dad asked, walking into past Mom to see me standing alone in the alleyway. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting into your dress?”
Mom hit his bicep, then started pulling him back inside. “Stop messing with perfection.”
Even though they were divorced, the two of them were still close, and they were comfortable with playing around like that. They almost reminded me of how I was around Morgan. We were serious, but we loved each other, and we knew how to be silly in order to show affection and lighten the cloudy days of our lives. My mom and dad did all of those things, too. It was a wonder they got divorced in the first place. I mean, now that I was older, and there was hindsight and all, I knew that they got divorced because their jobs got in the way; the same reason Hotch and Haley got a divorce. They still loved each other, and they still loved me and Elle, but it was just hard for them to be apart so often. Mom was always off traveling the world for the CIA, meanwhile Dad was stuck at the Academy, teaching a bunch of kids whose dream was to be in the FBI, just like mine had always been. They just got busy. Work got in the way, but they never fell out of love.
Honestly, though, that was the reason I had so much hope for mine and Hotch’s relationship. We worked together. Our time at work and home were spent together. There were only a handful of times when we really missed each other; but we always knew that we would come back together and keep working cases together, or go home to fuck each other until our minds stopped working. We worked because of that. Our job didn’t get in the way of our relationship, which meant that it was just one less thing we had to worry about.
Mom poked her head back out of the venue to ask if I was alright. When I nodded and forced a smile onto my face, she invited me back inside, and led me to the bridal suite so that I could get my hair and make up done before sliding into my dress. “Guests are starting to show up,” she explained frantically while pushing me into the hair and makeup seat. The two women who had just finished getting JJ ready immediately started attacking my hair and face before I could even register what the hell was happening.
“Can you let me know if Sean shows up?” I asked.
My mom stared at me with wide eyes through the mirror. “You invited him? Why didn’t you—” She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Does Aaron know?”
“No.” I didn’t tell anyone on purpose.
When I invited Sean, I had done it secretly after Hotch insisted that he didn’t want his brother to be a part of the ceremony as best man or groom—or whatever the hell we were doing. After Haley’s funeral, when we realized that Sean hadn’t shown up, Hotch promised that he was done with his brother for good. But I just couldn’t let them fall out like this. To be fair, a lot of people didn’t come to Haley’s funeral for one reason or another. I knew that Sean was somewhat of a fuck up, but he didn’t deserve to be punished for showing up to Hotch’s ex-wife’s funeral… Right?
By the time I was done getting “prettied up”, as my mother would put it, and I shimmied into my dress, there was still no news of Sean, or, frankly, Elle. Some part of me held out hope that she would have turned around to come back and see me walk down the aisle. Maybe I was foolish. But I always thought that my sister would be there for my wedding day. Even though she and I didn’t exactly get along sometimes, and there was a fair period of time where we didn’t talk, I imagined that she would be there. I imagined that she would be celebrating this day with me. Perhaps that was why I had invited Sean, too, because Hotch secretly felt the same way about having his brother there. Maybe the two of us were just destined for each other and that was it… We didn’t deserve our families. I mean, Aaron’s family didn’t deserve him; but I knew that he always wished that he had grown up in a better family. It was a miracle that he turned out the way he did. He was so close to becoming Sean; but he didn’t. That was admirable.
“Everyone decent?” Dad asked after knocking on the door suddenly, snapping me out of my train of thought. Mom told him that he could come in. As he stepped inside, his mouth fell agape, a small smile crawling onto his face. “Y/N…”
“You’re not allowed to cry yet, Ken,” Mom scorned.
“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted her. As she rolled her eyes and giggled at his silliness, she started ushering the girls out of the bridal suite so that they could go find seats at the ceremony and let everyone know that we were about to start. The door closed behind them. “You ready for this?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“It’s not too late to back out now,” he joked.
“Do you want me to?”
He shook his head. “Not in a million years.”
“You like him, right, Dad?”
He stared at me for a moment, his smile fading so that he could pout at my doubt. “I think he’s perfect for you, Y/N. I’ve never seen you so happy. As long as he makes you happy, and as long as he treats you well, I’ll love him like he’s my own.” I smiled at the ground. “And, no, I don’t think it’s weird that he’s older than you.”
“I know you don’t,” I played along.
He stepped forward and tilted my head up with the side of his curled index finger. “Let’s get the boring part over with, shall we?” I nodded. “Alright.” He turned and opened the door, holding out his arm for me so that I could loop my arm with his.
When we stepped into the hallway, the woman who had done my hair handed me my flower bouquet to carry down the aisle, to which I quietly thanked her for. We traveled down the hall a few steps before I stopped. Dad took a step forward like he was already going to lead me down the aisle, but I felt frozen in place. Deep down, I knew that I was ready to marry Aaron Hotchner. I knew that I wanted nothing more than to finally call myself Y/N Hotchner, and to be his entirely. Yet, I couldn’t seem to move my feet. The corner was right there, with the aisle just past it, and Hotch waiting at the end of it. He was waiting for me, and I was absolutely panicking.
I didn’t want us to fail. That was the first time I had admitted it to myself like that. I knew that we were destined for great things and that we loved each other so much, but I was terrified of failing him like Haley failed him. He had been through so much, and I really, really didn’t want to let him down like everyone else had. I knew that he made me happy, and that I made him happy… but what would happen if I ever lost him? I couldn’t bear to think—
“It’s going to be alright,” Dad promised, squeezing my hand.
My breath sputtered as a tear slipped down my cheek. “Were you this scared when you married Mom?”
He smiled and nodded. “I thought that I was going to throw up all over my tux.”
“What helped?”
“Seeing your mom come down the aisle,” he answered quickly, like he had anticipated the question. “I remember that I couldn’t stop shaking and my head wouldn’t stop spinning, but then I saw her, and everything suddenly made sense.” He reached up and wiped the tear from my cheek. “Once you see him, you’ll feel better. I promise.”
“I don’t want to fall over,” I admitted. I was so nervous about taking that first step and tripping over myself. I felt like I could collapse at any second between the panic coursing through my veins and the tightness in my lungs.
“I won’t let you.”
I let my eyes flutter closed before taking in a deep breath, holding it, then slowly releasing it. I did it again, this time a little faster, and my head stopped spinning long enough for me to nod a signal that I was ready. He squeezed my hand again, then took another step, pulling me along carefully. I finally took the first step forward. I felt a sigh of relief leave my chest as I realized that I hadn’t fallen over yet. We took another step, this time with a longer, braver stride, and I felt more confidence wash over me. I was one step closer to seeing him, and that was enough to encourage me to keep going. So, we continued on, one step after the other, slowly gaining speed until we hit the cliché wedding walk pace. We reached the corner, and I closed my eyes again as my breath picked up once more. Hotch was waiting just around the corner. I would see him for the first time on our wedding day, and for the last time as my fiancé. This was real. It was really happening. We were about to do this.
“Just find him and breathe,” my dad whispered.
I nodded again, and he led me around the corner. I opened my eyes as I heard the audience rise to their feet and turn to face me. I looked around the space, spotting the team at the back of the crowd, spread out amongst the bride and groom’s sides. Morgan was standing on my side, just beside the aisle, and he smiled at me. I felt my racing heart slow down a bit when I managed to smile back, but it wasn’t until I looked past the crowd and down the aisle to find Hotch standing with Jack at his side that I finally found tranquility. Every bit of panic left me in one, relieving wave. Every ounce of worry or conflict disappeared without a trace. Just like my dad said, when Hotch’s eyes met mine, I suddenly forgot how scared I was, and I was overwhelmed by happiness and excitement. I felt like I could start running down the aisle now if it meant that I would just be in his arms again.
My eyes pouted, but I smiled at him as brightly as I could. He was smiling back, even though his jaw was practically on the floor in response to seeing me in my dress. And all I could think about was getting to kiss his lips for the first time as his wife. I wished we could skip the whole ceremony altogether and just get to that part. I wished that I could teleport down the aisle and jump into arms, both of us refusing to let go of one another.
We took another step and I watched as Jack looked up at his dad, both of them sharing a smile of excitement between each other. With every row of the crowd we passed, I felt my speed pick up, almost like I was dragging my dad along with me now instead of the other way around. I was in a rush to finally get there, hear that we were married, kiss him, and hold him in my arms forever as husband and wife. There wasn’t a moment to waste.
As we passed the last row, I felt myself nearly trip over my dress as I got a little too excited with my steps. Dad caught me, just like he promised, and I chuckled to myself slightly, looking up at Hotch to see that he was acting like nothing happened. Dad leaned in when we were standing just in front of Hotch, Jack, and the officiant. He kissed my cheek and squeezed my hand one last time before untangling our fingers and unlinking our arms. I felt my nerves return as I realized that there was no one there to hold me upright anymore, no one to catch me if I were to trip again.
I felt my anxiety return, my heart racing in my chest, my blood pumping in my arms, my lungs struggling to take normal breaths, my head beginning to spin. I closed my eyes, trying to find my balance and my ground— and then I felt him. His large hand was over mine on my bouquet, his thick fingers trying to pry my left hand away from the flowers. I let him do as he wished, my eyes fluttering open as he took my hand in his and pulled me towards him carefully.
Hotch’s eyes met mine as he led me to stand closer to him, my right shoulder facing the crowd. We stared at each other with that same light that I noticed every morning when we woke up and he would remember how happy he was to have me there with him. I got lost in his chocolate brown eyes as he lifted his other hand up to my face and brushed some of my hair back behind my ear.
“How obvious was I?” I asked quietly.
Hotch bit back a laugh. “I don’t think anyone noticed.”
“Trick question. If you noticed, everyone noticed,” I snickered. Without warning, he leaned in slowly and pressed a gentle, loving kiss against me. It felt like a ghost had barely kissed me. Just as I felt that he was there, he was gone. “You’re supposed to save that for the end,” I whispered as he pulled away slightly, his breath still hot on my nose.
He kissed me again with the same considerate touch. “I couldn’t help myself.”
“Friends and family,” the officiant began loudly, practically tearing me and Hotch apart due to shock. We giggled at each other quietly. “We’ve gathered here today to celebrate the joyous union of Y/N Greenaway and Aaron Hotchner. As I understand it, the bride and the groom have both prepared something to say before we start with the official vows.”
Hotch nodded, squeezing my hand that he was holding. He released me for a short moment so that he could fish out his speech from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. I giggled at him. He was shaking just as hard as I was, and it was made plain to me when the flimsy paper trembled in his touch. He smiled at my giggle. “The past two years have been… taxing, to say the least. Together, we’ve really been rung through the works, and there were times when I thought we wouldn’t make it to this day for one reason or another. But for the past three years, you have stuck by my side, no matter what, and you’ve given me a reason every day to keep pushing and keep living. I wouldn’t be here today without you. It’s true. Every day, I look at you and Jack, and I remember that I love you both more than anything in the world. I know that I will always fight for you because I love you, and no matter what the world throws at us, that will never change. Your messes are my messes, Y/N. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. I swear that from this day on, I will be by your side, supporting every decision you make, cheering you on while you make a difference in the world, and loving you as vigorously as I can until my dying day. I promise to never hold anything back from you—emotionally, physically, spiritually… and, of course, when it comes to secrets. My whole world belongs to you, Y/N, and I want it to remain that way until my last breath, or until the world stops spinning. I love you.”
I smirked and bit my lip. “I love you, too.”
“Stop biting,” he whispered dominantly.
“I can’t help it.”
“Your turn,” the officiant said to me.
“Right—” I said with a laugh. I surprised Hotch by letting go of his hand so that I could dig into the right-side pocket of my dress to retrieve my speech. “Pockets,” I teased him. He bit his lip. “Don’t bite.”
“I can’t help it,” he whispered through his teeth.
I rolled my eyes at him before glancing down at my paper. I had written it a thousand times before landing on this version that I was… satisfied with. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough words to tell Hotch how much I loved him. At least, there weren’t the right words. I used what the English vocabulary had available, seeking out some of Reid’s help, if I were being honest, but it still wasn’t exactly what I meant. There would never be a speech long enough to list all of the ways I loved Aaron Hotchner. Even if the words to express my love for him existed, my lungs probably would have given out before I could have finished telling him. The good news was, he knew. Hotch knew the truth. This whole show was for the people we loved, like Jack, my parents, and the team. This was for them to see how infinite my love was for him. Hotch didn’t need to hear it. Every kiss I pressed to his lips was my way of telling him in the only way that made sense. Telling him: “I love you” were the only words that came anywhere close to what I meant. Scratching his back as he thrusted into me was a way of telling him that he was mine, and that I loved him, and I would never stop loving him. He knew all of that. So, even though words failed me during that speech, I knew that the one person there who knew the truth about my love for Aaron Hotchner was the only one who mattered.
“I made a promise to you once that I would love you unconditionally and I would always fight for you. It took you a long time to believe me when I said that your messes are my messes, but they are, and they always will be. No matter what, I will never stop loving you for that very reason. I do love you, Aaron. I love you and I love Jack more than anything in the whole, wide world. You welcomed me into your life, into your home, and into your family. You let me love your son like he’s my own, and I know that I will spend the rest of my life thanking you for that opportunity. And I want to spend my life thanking you. I want to spend every second by your side, running around the country while we do what we love, coming home to our son to hold him in our arms, and repeating that process. I love my life with you. I love you. No one can ever take that away from us. Ever.”
He gave me a look that asked if he could kiss me. I had to shake my head because we still had to get through the rest of the ceremony, and I wanted the very next kiss to be the first one that would start off the rest of our lives together. I wanted it to be the kiss. I didn’t want to ever forget the next kiss. So, I glanced away from him, just to deter his urge.
The officiant looked to Hotch, “Please repeat after me. ‘I, Aaron Hotchner.’”
Hotch reached up to my face and brushed some of my hair back behind my ear. “I, Aaron Hotchner.” He continued to repeat every line, each one gaining in speed as his excitement took over. “Take you, Y/N Greenaway… To have and to hold… For better or for worse… In sickness and in health… To love, to cherish, to appreciate for as long as we both shall live.”
I had memorized the words before the officiant even turned to me. I knew that I had to be patient, and to repeat the same words at the same pace that Hotch had just done, but I wanted nothing more than to just race through it, say “I do” then kiss my husband for the first time. But patience was key. So, when the officiant started, I followed.
“I, Y/N Greenaway, take you, Aaron Hotchner, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. To love, to cherish, to appreciate for as long as we both shall live.”
It felt like a million pounds had been lifted off my chest by the time we got through it all. The long part was done, and now came the best part. The words “husband and wife” barely left the officiant’s lips before Hotch and I were jumping each other. He grabbed my hips roughly, pulling me against him as eagerly as possible, and he tilted his head down. I swung my arms around his neck, letting him lift me off the ground somewhat, and I pressed my lips to his for the first time as his wife. I smiled against him. Hotch giggled as the officiant finally said the cliché: “You may kiss the bride” a few seconds too late.
“Don’t let go yet,” Hotch begged before kissing me again.
I pulled away for air. “I’ll never let go.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I leaned into him. “I love you—” We kissed.
----
At the reception, I felt my head spinning. It was like an out of body experience. I was standing there beside Hotch, his arm wrapped around my waist, his hand on my hip; and we were talking to everyone who had come to the wedding and wanted to give us their personal congratulations. But I just couldn’t hear them. I was staring at Hotch, admiring how perfect he was. He was finally mine. I couldn’t believe that only a few hours ago, we were standing on the altar, sliding our wedding bands onto each other’s ring fingers. And now we were standing there… And I was just trying not to tip over. Even if I did waver, Hotch would have caught me. I trusted him with my life, and I understood that he could catch me if I ever fell—just like he had caught me when I tripped somewhat on my way down the aisle. He had me. I was all his, and he was all mine. We would always be there to protect each other.
“Oh, look, it’s my favorite taken agent,” someone cheered before tickling my sides. I laughed and gently sent my elbow back into his stomach. He playfully groaned after releasing me so that he could guard his stomach. “Man down! Man down!”
I turned and hit his arm. “Derek Morgan, you are acting like a child.”
“Only for you, sweetness.” He reached out to wing his arms around my shoulders, pulling me in for a tight hug that we both strained our strength for. “I’m so happy for you.”
Before I could respond, I felt someone tap my shoulder for their attention, and then they were quickly prying me off of Morgan. I giggled again as she pulled me into a hug that was even tighter than the last one I had just been trapped in. Emily laughed. “I told you they’d all see the truth,” she said giddily in my ear.
“Is he a Mr. Darcy contender or what?” I whispered back. We both laughed as we parted. I stared at her for a moment, admiring her smile. “I love you, Em. I don’t say it enough. But I do.”
She smiled and punched my arm lightly. “What’s got you being all sappy?”
“Mr. Darcy.”
“Ah. Yeah, I can see how that could happen.” She searched my face. “You look better than yesterday.”
“I feel better. It was just nerves.”
“Are we all congratulating the bride?” I heard a familiar voice ask behind me.
I smiled and turned. “Cody!”
I hugged him—but this wasn’t like with Morgan or Emily. No. Cody was the Director of the FBI, and therefore he was still my boss. Yes, Hotch and I were good friends with him, but there still had to be some level or respect and professionalism with him around while still outside of work. So, our hug was brief and polite. It didn’t mean much. But the looks on Morgan and Emily’s faces were priceless, honestly.
“They’re playing a slow dance for us,” Hotch told me. He grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the dance floor before I could finish talking with the Director and Emily, or even really get a chance to wave goodbye to them.
I giggled at how fast everything was happening. One second I was on the altar with him, then I was talking to Morgan and Emily, then the Director butted in, and now I was dancing with Aaron—my husband. The world was wild sometimes.
“You shouldn’t interrupt me next time.” I brushed his hair back out of his face then scratched my fingers down his five o’clock shadow.
He smirked and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “But you’re all mine now, and I don’t want you to forget it.”
“I’m all yours,” I whispered back, cupping my palm over his cheek. “Always.”
He pulled me close for a kiss until our chests were touching and he was almost towering over me, his hands on the small of my back the only thing keeping me from falling to the ground. I let my arms curl around the back of his neck. We giggled against each other’s lips as we ran out of breath, but he was adamant on still kissing me and proving his dominance to me as if no one were watching. Well, as if all of our friends and family at our wedding weren’t watching. That only made me laugh harder.
He nibbled on my jaw. “I love you, Y/N.”
I tangled my fingers in his hair, pulling at the strands lightly until he removed his lips from my skin in order to let me get a proper look at him. His eyes were dialed, a sign of love and lust. He was so predictable. But he had enough self-restraint to recognize that he couldn’t jump me then and there while everyone was watching as we swayed, laughed, and kissed. My mom was smiling and crying, thinking that we were the cutest, most innocent thing she had ever seen. If only she knew. My dad, on the other hand—as well as Rossi and Morgan—had a look that said: If you hurt Y/N, we’ll kill you ourselves. He would never hurt me, though. I knew that better than anyone else. Aaron Hotchner cherished me more than I could ever cherish him; and that sometimes frustrated me, but it ultimately made me feel infinitely and unconditionally loved.
Hotch rotated us as we continued to sway. I could now see the other side of the room where Emily, Reid, Garcia, JJ were all standing, pointing and gawking at us. I rolled my eyes at them. They were so embarrassing sometimes. But I loved them. Endlessly. There was nothing they could ever do or say that would make me love them any less. It just wasn’t possible. They were my family, and I was theirs, and that meant the whole world to me, considering the way my family fell apart. My parents split up for dumb reasons, and my sister was off the grid, becoming a free-spirit or some shit like that. Now, however, I had Jack and Hotch, my real family. It was a nice consolation that I had the BAU in my corner, there to protect me and save me if need be, there to love me or scold me if I fucked up on a case. Even JJ, the one who doubted mine and Hotch’s relationship since the beginning, was a part of that family, and I still valued her opinion and her love. Like I said, I would always love them. If we fought, so be it. But, in the end, we were always going to be siblings, in a way.
“Do you ever wonder what the team would look like if Elle and Gideon were still there?” I asked Hotch quietly.
He cocked a brow at me. We had gone from practically sticking our tongues down each other’s throats to talking about random, old memories. I understood why it caught him off guard. I understood that it probably wasn’t the best time to ask; but it had been weighing on my mind as we swayed to the slow music.
“Sometimes,” Hotch agreed. “But I’m extremely grateful that we found Emily, and that Rossi came back.”
I nodded and rested my cheek against his chest. “I miss them.”
“I know.”
“Even though Gideon was a total asshole.”
Hotch chuckled. “Yeah. Even then.”
As the song came to a slow, steady end, Hotch and I parted from our embrace to kiss again, this time with a little less lust and a little more passion. And then Bohemian Rhapsody started playing. I laughed and pressed my forehead against his.
“I should probably let you get back to chatting with everyone,” he whispered.
I shook my head. “Just dance with me for a little longer.”
Hotch grinned, grabbing my hand, then stepped back from me before pulling me in and spinning me around until my back hit his chest. I was wrapped in a hug now. I rested my head against him, letting us sway and bounce to the music at a faster pace than we had been going with the last song; and since the slow dance was over, everyone else had wandered back onto the floor, too. So, Rossi wandered over. Jazz hands out, feet shuffling, his iconic Italian smirk on his face, he came to congratulate us.
“Bella!” he cheered, reaching to grab my face between his palms. “You two certainly know how to put on a show.” He kissed each of my cheeks roughly. “You, on the other hand,” he said, turning to Aaron, “need a few dancing lessons. I’m available on Thursday evenings." He patted Hotch’s shoulders.
“I know how to dance,” Hotch argued playfully.
“Clearly not.”
We all giggled. That was when I spotted a familiar face from across the room, which caught me off guard. He was sitting at the bar we had, ordering yet another drink from the bartender who hadn’t cut him off yet. I shook my head. Of course, he was late. And of course, he had to be getting drunk the first chance he got. I didn’t want to hold any biases against him, but he was making it really hard to keep defending him when he continued to pull shit like this and refuse to recognize that it was a problem. I just wished that he would let us help him.
I looked at Hotch and excused myself for a moment. He nodded an acknowledgement before turning back to his conversation and I left to walk across the room. “Taking advantage of the open bar?” I asked as I approached Sean.
He turned with a full glass in his hand. When he saw that it was me, he rolled his eyes slightly. “That’s what it’s here for, isn’t it?”
“Aaron’ll cut you off eventually.”
“I’ll be gone before then.”
“Will you even try to talk to him?”
“He doesn’t want me here. Why would I?” Sean sighed while setting his glass down. “Sorry. I know that it’s your day, and I have no right to stir up family drama.” He smiled. “I’m happy for you guys.” He started to walk away, but I caught his bicep.
I searched his eyes. “He really does love you, Sean. He’s just been hurt too many times.”
“Yeah, well… Him and everyone else in the world.” He pulled his arm away from me before striding off.
I sighed in defeat while shifting my weight on the balls of my feet. I just wanted them to make up. Ever since Haley’s death last year, Hotch had gone out of his way to make sure that none of us were affiliated with Sean. When he didn’t show up to the funeral, that was Hotch’s breaking point. He needed his brother there, yet Sean was too busy doing who knew what. Like, what could have been more important than that funeral? I didn’t understand. However, I still wanted Sean around because I knew that Hotch and Jack both needed him in their lives. Hotch, on the other hand, wasn’t having it. This was why. I should have known better. I should have known that Sean would still disappoint, no matter what. At least he showed up at all.
“Thank you,” someone whispered in my ear as they snaked their arms around my waist. I rested my head back against their shoulder. “You tried… That’s all you can do.”
I shook my head. “I thought he would just try to talk to you.”
Hotch ran his hands over the fabric of my dress, my stomach tensing up because it tickled a bit. “It’s okay.” He kissed my neck. “Hey.” He was trying to catch my attention, so I hummed a tone that asked him what was on his mind. “You wanna get out of here?”
“It’s our own wedding.”
“They won’t miss us anymore. All the important stuff is over.”
“It’ll be embarrassingly obvious.”
He hummed and smiled against my ear. “How about this…” He grabbed my hips roughly. “We’re leaving. Now.”
I gulped at the dominating, stern tone that practically vibrated throughout my entire body, sending a chill up my spine in response. Well, that was a preview as to what the next two weeks were going to be like for me. It made me smile. “Yes, Sir.”
Hotch nibbled at my earlobe light before whispering, “I love you.”
I turned my head so that I was looking at him while still resting against his shoulder. I kissed him. “I love you, too.”
--------
criminal minds family: @peggy1999 @gorgeousdarkangel @alex--awesome--22 @oceaneblu @brithedemonspawn @absolutemarveltrash @bshelley322 @rousethemouse @sunshinepower17 @weexinling @pettttyyyc
#Criminal Minds#criminal minds fanfic#Criminal Minds Fanfiction#criminal minds smut#criminal minds imagine#aaron hotchner#Aaron Hotch Hotchner#aaron hotchner fanfic#aaron hotchner fanfiction#aaron hotchner imagine
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Excerpt from this story from Rolling Stone:
In September 2020, a powerful tech executive named Pat Gelsinger says he was slapped in the face by reality.
Sheltering at home in California with his family, Gelsinger watched a nearby wildfire spew smoke and ash and turn the sky orange. Never before had society experienced crises at this scale, he realized, a “global triple threat” of climate chaos, racial inequality, and an out-of-control pandemic. Gelsinger, who is now CEO of Intel, felt a moral duty to get the climate emergency under control while bridging social divisions. “For me, these are no longer just important issues to debate,” he later explained. “It’s personal. It’s urgent. And it’s the right thing to do.”
The Biden administration is right now attempting to pass a $3.5 trillion spending package known as the Build Back Better Act that activists say could be a massive down payment on addressing climate change that also eases racial disparities by directing investments to disadvantaged communities.
But “woke” CEOs such as Gelsinger are part of lobbying efforts trying to torpedo it.
“Make no mistake, these policies are a step backward for the U.S. economy that will harm all Americans,” reads a statement earlier this month from the Business Roundtable, a lobby group that Gelsinger belongs to along with top executives at corporations like Apple, Microsoft, BlackRock, and Disney. The Roundtable is reportedly waging “a significant, multifaceted campaign” costing potentially millions of dollars to defeat the corporate tax hikes which would help fund and make possible Biden’s Build Back Better plan — even as its individual members say there is nothing more important than stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions.
That lobbying effort includes social media posts claiming the proposed tax increases would destroy one million jobs, along with an initiative called “Recover. Compete. Win” that urges people to contact their members of Congress with the message “that higher taxes on job creators will harm American workers, stifle wage growth and slow economic recovery.”
“Frankly, what’s clear about watching these business leaders and billionaire CEOs,” Janet Redman, the director of Greenpeace USA’s climate campaign, tells Rolling Stone, “is they only really care about padding their own wallets.”
#climate activism#corporate climate activism#greenhouse gas emissions#Business Roundtable#lobbying#climate legislation
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How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Got Involved With the Vax Live Concert
By Marc Malkin
How do you get Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to sign on as campaign chairs of Global Citizen’s Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World?
Just ask.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex immediately jumped on board when they were approached by Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans. “We said we need champion of this campaign. Quite frankly they were immediately on the same page. It wasn’t a convincing. It was a conversation,” Evans told Variety at the concert taping on Sunday night at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. “They were so excited. They said, ‘We believe in the importance of vaccine equity.’ For them, it was an easy decision to do the right thing because they were so passionate already.
“When I spoke to Megan, she said we really should call on the private sector to rally and for American businesses to step up, so they convened a roundtable and they started getting to work, and they invited the private sector leaders to be part of the effort,” Evans continued. “They’ve approached it with such sincerity and such leadership. I’ve been extremely impressed with their amazing commitment to the cause.”
Harry appeared at the concert while Markle, who is pregnant with their second child, remained at home.
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This sums up Harry&Meghan for me. Not only joining a good cause but coming up with ideas and putting them into action, directly helping the cause.
#meghan markle#prince harry#duchess of sussex#duke of sussex#hugh evans#global citizen#vax live#variety
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Biden Bids to Empower Consumers: The Right to Repair
Empowering Consumers Through the Right to Repair
On October 24, 2023, the White House took a significant step by convening a roundtable discussion, bringing together federal and state officials, small business owners, and private sector leaders to shed light on the crucial concept of the "right to repair."
At its core, the right to repair is a fundamental principle that grants individuals the autonomy to fix their possessions when they break, either on their own or by taking them to independent repair shops.
This approach provides consumers with more options for repairing their devices, reduces costs, simplifies the repair process, and fosters healthy competition—a central component of President Biden's economic strategy, known as Bidenomics.
A Presidential Commitment
Lael Brainard, Director of the National Economic Council, emphasized the significance of the right to repair in President Biden's consumer-centric agenda. She highlighted the importance of leveling the playing field for small independent repair businesses. The roundtable participants engaged in insightful discussions regarding the progress made since President Biden endorsed the right to repair through his Executive Order on Promoting Competition.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan elucidated the advantages of competition in repair markets, underlining how it drives down costs and expands opportunities for small businesses. She also highlighted the FTC's bipartisan and unanimous enforcement policy, citing successful cases that have simplified the repair of a wide array of products, from grills to motorcycles.
Extending Product Lifecycle
Janet McCabe, Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), delved into how the right to repair extends the lifecycle of products. This not only reduces waste but also plays a pivotal role in combating climate change. She expounded on the EPA's efforts to promote the repairability of farm equipment, underscoring the environmental benefits of this approach.
State-Level Achievements
The roundtable also featured a bipartisan group of state officials who recounted legislative accomplishments from the past year. These successes included the passage of right-to-repair legislation in California, Colorado, Minnesota, and New York.
A farmer from Colorado and an independent repair shop owner from Minnesota shared how these legislative victories will lead to cost savings for consumers and farmers while simultaneously creating new opportunities for small businesses.
Industry Support for Right to Repair
Several businesses expressed their support for the new legislation during the roundtable. Apple, in particular, called for robust national right-to-repair legislation and announced its commitment to honoring the provisions of the recently enacted California right-to-repair law nationwide. This step is set to benefit consumers across all states.
California's new law mandates manufacturers to provide the necessary parts, tools, and documentation to independent repair shops and consumers at fair and reasonable prices, thereby enhancing consumer choice and accessibility. Allstate Insurance also voiced its support for greater access to parts and independent repair options for vehicle repairs, emphasizing the potential for substantial cost savings.
Government Initiatives and State-Level Action
Both the federal government and individual states have taken several steps to advance the right to repair across various industries:
- The FTC voted unanimously to strengthen law enforcement of right-to-repair restrictions, ensuring that small businesses, workers, and consumers can exercise their right to repair. Settlements in multiple right-to-repair cases have already been announced.
- The EPA affirmed its support for the right to repair and clarified its compatibility with Clean Air Act provisions, demonstrating the alignment of the right to repair with environmental laws.
- A report from the EPA highlighted the hazards of improper disposal of lithium-ion batteries found in cellphones and laptops. The report emphasized that when batteries are easy to remove from consumer devices, it leads to longer product lifespans, reduced waste, and safer battery recycling.
- The U.S. Copyright Office expanded exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to provide greater access to diagnosis, maintenance, and repair capabilities.
- Over 30 states have introduced right-to-repair legislation covering various sectors, with recent laws passed in Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York over the last three years.
This roundtable signals a commitment to empowering consumers, reducing waste, and supporting small businesses through the right to repair—a crucial step toward a more competitive and sustainable future.
Sources: THX News & The White House.
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#Apple'sRepairCommitment#BidenomicsandRepairRights#ConsumerChoiceandRepair#CopyrightActExemptions#EnvironmentalBenefitsofRepair#FTCandRepairCompetition#NationalRepairLegislation#RighttoRepair#SmallBusinessSupport#State-LevelRighttoRepair
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How does working In tv work with everyone in separate places?
So the show I work on permanently is a political roundtable show discussing the week’s events (not like, talking heads fighting all the time, usually it’s like ‘here’s what republicans feel about this event, here’s what the democrats feel, here are statehouse reporters offering neutral takes’, pretty chill usually).
I was a camera op on the show in the studio (technically still am studio lead), but the graphics director and line producer had other work to do at a pharmaceutical company (they have in-house media teams) and he’s STILL there because of all the stuff they’re doing internationally to help develop COVID treatments and tests.
How it works is that in the control room (a large glass-wall room like what you see on TV) are only 3 people: The Audio guy (and I bought a curtain for the audio booth to help dampen noise a while back from talkative producers, so it’s fairly insulated now), me about 15-20 feet away at the producer’s station with the graphics keyboard pulled over, and the director at the front of the room like 20 feet from me (there is a hard wall separating the audio booth from his back, so he and Audio are safe from one another).
In the studio is one camera op (the other 2 shots are locked). The host sits at a desk with an earpiece in connected to me and a single camera operator standing about 30 feet away from him. Behind the set wall is our TEAMS Coordinator.
Usually the guests sit around a big desk to talk about the events (I say ‘guests’, but most of them have been ‘guests’ every episode for 25 years minus days when they’re ill, so I just call them ‘hosts’ usually). During COVID, we’re keeping them at home and they dial in via a TEAMS chatroom (or Skype or Zoom if we’re having issues with TEAMS that day). The TEAMS coordinator monitors the room and once the show starts pretty much has nothing to do unless there’s an issue.
Tape (the people who record the show) is always their own private room because they roll the packages during the show so they need to be able to talk as they need (they = gender neutral pronoun, not plural. It’s one person).
During the show itself I communicate with the person who does captioning (we use a California company and pipe them a private signal for the show), time the show for the director, and give separate time cues to the host so he can pace packages. I also make the call to drop packages if we’re running long (we rarely get all 6 in, but the 6th is always a throwaway, it’s more of an emergency bumper if they get through the 5 topics too fast).
After the show is done we upload the raw audio file to a private server where the radio engineers can access it and turn it around to air live on radio about 60-45 minutes after we finish shooting.
So it’s really easy to do our shows actually. Everyone connects via their computer and then we just have the host relay messages before we start like “center your shot, don’t leave too much space above your head”, stuff like that :)
I am first alternate on another weekly show we do that is business themed (so I fill in for teleprompter, studio cameras, or audio if any of those people can’t make it, which I’ll be doing this week actually). For that one things are a bit more complex, but we have 2 studios. So if we have to have another person on camera beside the host and they won’t just skype in, we can throw them in an entirely separate room.
The lead producer for the political show described trying to adapt to all of this during COVID “Redesigning the aircraft while in flight”, but we’ve come out the other side and have figured most of the issues out :)
#ask#royallynotoverit#mine#except like today when we were getting ready to roll and someone's internet just full on went dead#and it was the 87 year old who isn't tech savvy#so we're trying to explain to her through text how to use her phone as a hotspot#because she refuses to answer the phone and just let us talk her through it#and that turned into a 30 minute delay#luckily we were starting a bit early so they still had an hour and 15 minutes to get the file to radio for broadcast
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If you think I’ve been super chatty over the last few months, then you are correct! Keeping busy and staying connected with some #podcast & #livestream opportunities, and had to share some of the details of my recent time with the buds of DRUNK WITH BUDS 🎧 Unfortunately I wasn’t able to record this episode with them in person ... however, they all made me feel welcome, and very included in their weekly roundtable conversations last week, via the phone line ☎️ We chatted #sdbeer and gave our thoughts on a few of my favorites here in #sandiego 🍺 Even if you don’t want to hear me yet again, give these guys a listen on any of their episodes! You’ll be sure to crack a smile or even lol 😂 Just hit the link in their bio @drunkwithbuds 🍻 Beers pictured by: @alesmithbrewing @burgeonbeer @northparkbeerco 🍻 #drunkwithbuds #beerposcast (at Carlsbad, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGXoQ9wnykb/?igshid=12vjp327x8pub
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On June 27, Facebook published a report entitled “Global Feedback and Input on the Facebook Oversight Board for Content Decisions” on the progress of its plan to create an international review committee to oversee its censorship regime. A careful examination of this report shows that the real purpose of the planned Oversight Board—contrary to Facebook’s pretensions of creating an “external appeals process” and safeguarding “free expression and safety for all users of our platforms”—is to expand and systematize social media censorship in defense of world capitalism.
In publishing the report, Brent Harris, Facebook’s Director of Governance and Global Affairs, explained that the company was closing a six-month “global consultation” period and turning to the selection of the 40 members of its Oversight Board. Harris writes that the selection process will include “engaging consultants and executive search firms” to begin nominations. Indicating just how “open” and “diverse” the board will be, Harris adds, “Facebook will select the first few people and those members will then help select the remaining people.”
The heavily footnoted 37-page report is a summary of the responses of 2,000 people from 88 countries who attended 28 “workshops, roundtables, and town halls” on five continents to discuss Facebook’s Oversight Board proposal. Facebook representatives also met with “250 people through one-on-one meetings” that included “experts from multiple disciplines in both the private and public sector.” None of these corporate and government “experts” are named in the report.
Additionally, Facebook received 1,206 responses to a public online questionnaire and accepted essays from private individuals and white papers from civil society organizations and individuals on the membership, decision-making process and rules of the board. Lastly, Facebook prepared a comparative analysis of eight “oversight models” currently in use across business and government, including those of the academic research community and the US Court of Appeals system. All of these items have been gathered together and published in a 180-page appendix to the main report.
The proposal for the creation of a Facebook Oversight Board began with an announcement by company CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November 2018. At that time—in an ongoing response to pressure from the US political establishment over “fake news” and unsubstantiated claims of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election—Zuckerberg outlined his concerns about “interference in elections,” “misinformation” and “polarization and extremism” on Facebook.
In his “Blueprint for Content Governance and Enforcement,” Zuckerberg was explicit in proposing the creation of an “independent body” that will have binding authority to remove content that seeks “to divide us.” In other words, under conditions of a global movement to the left by masses of people, Facebook planned to create a committee to ensure that its censorship of the working class and revolutionary socialist ideas has the imprimatur of an ostensibly impartial body.
Zuckerberg’s blueprint was followed last January with the publication of a Draft Charter for the Oversight Board. The draft included a series of eleven questions regarding the membership and decision-making process of the board along with Facebook’s own “suggested approach” to the questions.
Following a range of responses by the corporate media and non-government organizations (NGO) to both Zuckerberg’s blueprint and the draft charter—some expressing enthusiasm and others skepticism—Facebook initiated its “global consultation” process. Among the more perceptive responses referred to the Oversight Board as a “faux regulator,” lampooned it as an “empty gesture” and, in a Washington Post column, editorial writer Molly Roberts mocked Facebook as having “declared sovereignty” with its phony Supreme Court-like proposal that does not allow the public to vote on anything.
What all of these bourgeois critics lacked—and are opposed to—however, is an objective assessment of the corporate entity called Facebook and the political and ideological motives behind the drive to create a global censorship infrastructure within the world’s largest social media platform. No one should accept for one second Facebook’s or Zuckerberg’s claim that an Oversight Board is going to halt or even mediate the company’s ongoing censorship practices—including the unilateral removal of posts or scrubbing of accounts without explanation.
Facebook is a global US-based corporation with 37,700 employees headquartered in Menlo Park, California and with offices in 22 US cities as well as 47 other corporate centers and 16 data facilities across six continents. As of this writing, Facebook’s Wall Street value stands at approximately $550 billion. This is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of all but the top 20 countries of the world.
The majority of Facebook stock is controlled by the following individuals and organizations: Mark Zuckerberg owns 28.4 percent, the venture capital firm Accel Partners owns 11.4 percent, former Facebook employee Dan Moskovitz owns 7.6 percent, the Moscow-based Digital Sky Technologies owns 5.4 percent and former Facebook employee Eduardo Saverin own 5 percent. The balance of 42.5 percent ($234 billion) is shared among a combination of individuals, institutional investors, mutual funds and exchange traded funds.
Despite the negative investment implications of the “fake news” furor and the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal—Facebook will likely settle a $5 billion fine with the FTC for violation of a 2011 consent decree—the company earned a net profit of $22 billion in 2018, up by nearly 40 percent over 2017. The expectations on Wall Street remain high for 2019, as global user numbers continue to climb.
Facebook’s primary platforms are Facebook (2.4 billion users), Instagram (1 billion users) and WhatsApp (600 million users). It is by far the most popular social media company in the world with more than 80 percent of its users outside the United States. For masses of people in countries around the world—especially those that are less developed—Facebook is more than a social media platform; it is the internet.
Herein lies the contradiction facing Facebook, the big technology sector of the economy including Google, Amazon and Apple and the entire ruling elite that has reaped billions since the financial crisis of 2008. On one hand, the world capitalist system depends upon the enormous financial performance of the tech sector, including the growing adoption of wireless broadband internet service, smartphones and social media by the world’s population.
Additionally, the ongoing production and management of these technologies are based upon ever greater forms of exploitation of the international working class from the high-tech assembly factories in Asia to Amazon’s sweatshop warehouses in Europe and North America. This is the basis upon which the enormous profits of these companies have been generated and is expected into the future.
However, on the other hand—as the international class struggle is reemerging and masses of people are gravitating toward socialism—the ruling elite is terrified that these technologies will also become the instruments of social and political struggle in the hands of the masses against the capitalist system itself.
These objective factors form the backdrop of the discussions taking place about Facebook’s “content decisions.” Knowing that they cannot overtly censor left-wing and oppositional views on their platforms, the social and political forces behind Facebook are seeking to erect an infrastructure based upon the same language used for decades by US imperialism to cover its criminal war aims, regime change operations and occupational conquests. The American ruling establishment is directing Facebook to proceed with an international censorship regime under the cover of spreading “democracy,” “freedom” and “human rights.”
That the Facebook Oversight Board project corresponds to the global interests of US imperialism is proven by the participants involved directly in the initiative. Although none of the private and public sector “experts” who were interviewed for the project are mentioned by name, several key individuals and organizations are credited in the document for their contributions. The following biographies are significant:
· Zoe Mentel Darmé is Facebook’s Manager of Global Affairs and Governance; she is credited with writing the Oversight Board report. Darmé has been with Facebook since December 2018 and was clearly brought on for the purposes of this project.
Prior to her employment at Facebook, she worked for six years at the United Nations as a Policy and Planning Officer, specializing in the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). This department, which traces its roots back to the US-dominated arrangements after World War II, has been involved in every operation of American imperialism since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and integration of the countries of the former-USSR and the Eastern Bloc into the world capitalist system.
On her LinkedIn page, Darmé boasts of her work in various UN departments and functions, including drafting “a wide variety of strategy papers, reports, funding proposals and other documents necessary for the smooth conduct of divisional business” as Communications/Programme Officer for the Police Advisor to the UN DPKO.
· Kevin Steeves is, according to Facebook, an independent researcher credited with helping Darmé write the Oversight Board report. Steeves promotes himself on LinkedIn as an Independent Advisor and Consultant on Global Affairs, Peace and Security from Alsace, France.
Prior to working as Director of the imperialist think tanks European Implementation Network in Strasbourg and Chatham House in London, Steeves also worked in New York City for nine years as a Policy Officer and Special Assistant for the UN’s DPKO. In the late 1990s and early 2000s he worked for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a major post-war institution of American and European imperialism dedicated to “arms control” and “human rights.”
In 1999, Steeves was a professional consultant for the OSCE in Croatia with an office in Zagreb involved in securing Western imperialist interests in the former Yugoslavian territory under the cover of protecting “national minorities” and promoting “democratic institutions” and defending “human rights.”
· Noah Feldman is currently a professor of Law at Harvard University. According to the Facebook report, Prof. Feldman is the author of two white papers that have been the basis of the Oversight Board concept and he has worked with Zuckerberg directly on the project since the original announcement of November 2018. The Facebook report says, “Core features of Feldman’s white paper remain, and he has been advising Facebook on the Board throughout its development.”
After graduating from Yale Law school in 1997, Feldman worked as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice David Souter. He is currently an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank of US imperialism going back to World War I and a fellow at New America Foundation, a more recent organization established to support US imperialist interests that includes Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
After the invasion of Iraq by the Bush Administration in 2003, Feldman distinguished himself by working on the Iraqi Constitution which was drafted and approved in 2005. Feldman provided liberal justifications—including the publication of documents such as “The new Iraq: An Experiment in Islamic Democracy”—for the overthrow and brutal execution of Saddam Hussein and the transfer of the Iraqi oil fields to the imperialist petrochemical monopolies such as British Petroleum and Exxon-Mobile.
These are among the most significant and known individual contributors to Facebook’s plans for a censorship Oversight Board. There are undoubtedly more “experts” whose names have yet to come to light. It is also worth mentioning the participation of the corporate law firm Baker McKenzie and the marketing agency George P. Johnson (GPJ).
Baker McKenzie, which has specialized in human rights law and boasts its progressive credentials by having elected a female chair of its global executive committee, represents “venture capital funds, investment banks, tech powerhouses, household names, multinational technology companies, famous consumer brands, world-leading automotive companies and private equity houses.”
GPJ is multinational corporation that specializes in corporate branding and “event marketing.” With deep roots in corporate America that go back to the early twentieth century, GPJ counts among its clients the big three American auto companies as well as Toyota and Nissan and the tech companies IBM, Cisco Systems, Siebel and Intel.
Behind all the talk by Zuckerberg and Facebook executives about aligning social media content decisions with “democratic ideals and enlightenment philosophy of free thought and free expression” is a strategy to safeguard the interests of corporate America and the global agenda of US imperialism in every corner of the globe. The creation of an Oversight Board for Facebook—like so many local police department oversight committees that have supervised a steady increase in police violence and murder of working class and poor people across the US—is so much window dressing behind which the censorship of social media content will be intensified.
The defense of free speech and the right to utilize social media tools to organize the growing struggles of the working class and youth against unemployment, poverty, low wages, college debt, police violence and war cannot be trusted to any faction of the ruling establishment or giant tech company. Only the working class can defend the most basic democratic rights through an internationally coordinated struggle against the capitalist system and for socialism.
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