#“vermin” speech

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Gary Markstein

* * * *

  As of Monday evening, Speaker Mike’s Johnson plan for a “laddered continuing resolution” will fail without support from Democrats—the situation that led to the ouster of Kevin McCarthy. Talking Points Memo succinctly summarized the state of play as follows:

At least eight House Republicans, mostly Freedom Caucus members, have come out against the measure, meaning it’ll likely need Democratic help just to clear procedural hurdles on the floor.

At least one House Republican, Rep. Mike Ezell (R-MS), will be absent from Congress Tuesday due to his mother’s death.

Freedom Caucus members are annoyed that it’s a “clean” CR, meaning it’s not been larded up with their demands for spending cuts or stuffed up with unrelated culture war riders. 

Democrats, on the other hand, issued measured statements that suggest Democrats will support the laddered continuing resolution in sufficient numbers to allow passage. See The Hill, Democratic leaders suggest party could support GOP stopgap funding bill.

          If Democrats are given the opportunity to prevent Republicans from shutting down the government, they will. The burning question on Monday evening is whether Republicans will give Speaker Mike Johnson the votes to bring the laddered continuing resolution to the floor of the House for a vote. Stay tuned!

          [Update as of late Monday evening: According to The Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson will attempt to bypass opposition from extremists in the Freedom Caucus by bringing the bill to the floor with substantial support from Democrats. See GOP leaders aim to pass funding bill with help from Democrats amid conservative opposition | The Hill. If that happens, it will be good for all Americans—unless an aggrieved GOP member of the House files a motion to “vacate the chair” in an attempt to remove Johnson as Speaker. Once again: Stay tuned!]

Supreme Court pretends to release code of ethics.

          I wrote and deleted the following sentence a half-dozen times but finally concluded that we should not grant respect to Chief Justice John Roberts he is not due: In issuing an unenforceable “code of ethics” for the Supreme Court, John Roberts has flipped the American public a judicial middle finger. The code is a sham. It purports to “collect and summarize” existing rules and regulations followed by the justices, rules the justices interpreted to disregard the appearance and reality of impropriety and to engage in outright corruption over the last two decades.

          The alleged “code of conduct” is here: US Supreme Court Code of Conduct.

          The Justices of the Supreme Court—all of them—are flouting the rule of law if they believe the non-enforceable code of ethics is a good-faith response to the scandals that have undermined the legitimacy of the Court. John Roberts deserves the lion’s share of the blame, but each of the nine justices who signed the code has failed the American people and the Supreme Court.

          In an act of disrespect, the justices blamed the American public for “misunderstanding” the corruption that has plagued the Court. The code begins with this accusatory prologue:

The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.

          In other words, in the view of the nine justices on the Court, “It’s not us, it’s you.”

          The prologue is insulting to all Americans because it blames us for allegedly “misunderstanding” that several justices were engaging in flagrant corruption for twenty years.

          Let’s cut to the quick: The Court has been corrupted by bribes disguised as “gifts” from political benefactors—extravagant vacations, homes, recreational vehicles, and private travel on luxury jets. What does the new code say about gifts? It says:

A Justice should comply with the restrictions on acceptance of gifts and the prohibition on solicitation of gifts set forth in the Judicial Conference Regulations on Gifts now in effect.

          Got that? The justices “should” comply with regulations that are mandatory for all other federal judges. Not “must.” Just “should.” Without getting lost in the intricacies of modal verbs, “should” in this context is a “suggestion.”

          By comparison, the Judicial Conference Regulations on Gifts are mandatory prohibitions: “A judicial officer or employee is not permitted to accept a gift . . . .”

          John Roberts is a smart guy. He knows how to write a regulation that is mandatory. He chose to write a regulation that is squishy. He chose to omit any enforcement mechanism. So, “No, John, it’s not us. It’s you.”

The media finally gets the message.

          After Trump went “full Hitler” over the weekend, major media outlets are unable to ignore the historical parallels between Trump's hate speech and that of Hitler and Mussolini. Although the NYTimes’ headline on Sunday was anodyne, the Times called out Trump on Monday with this headline: After Calling Foes ‘Vermin,’ Trump Campaign Warns Its Critics Will Be ‘Crushed’ (“The former president’s Veterans Day speech used language similar to the dehumanizing rhetoric wielded by dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.”) This article is accessible to all.

          Similar headlines appeared in nearly every major media outlet in the US. (Check for yourself; do a Google search for “Trump vermin.” And media outlets are connecting Trump's use of the “vermin” hate speech with his statements earlier this month about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of Americans. See NYTimes (10/5/23), With ‘Poisoning the Blood’ Comment, Trump Escalates Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric.

          The rising alarm reached a higher pitch on Monday when several outlets released video statements from Trump's co-conspirators in the Georgia RICO case. Those recorded statements taken as a condition of plea bargains reveal that Trump communicated to others that “he was never leaving” the White House. See ABC News, 'The boss is not going to leave': Proffer videos show ex-Trump lawyers telling Georgia prosecutors about efforts to overturn 2020 election.

          Per ABC,

In the video of prosecutors' Oct. 23 proffer session with Ellis, she said that one of Trump's top White House aides, Dan Scavino, allegedly told her "in an excited tone" at a White House Christmas party weeks after the 2020 election that "the boss is not going to leave under any circumstances."

          Admitting Jenna Ellis’s testimony against Trump will be difficult. But it is possible that Dan Scavino is cooperating with prosecutors, which would allow Scavino to testify against Trump. See Politico (6/3/22) DOJ declines to charge Meadows, Scavino with contempt of Congress for defying Jan. 6 committee.          

          So, Trump is parroting Hitler’s hate speech in 2023. In 2021, he attempted to remain in power by brute force reminiscent of Hitler’s use of violence and thuggery to force his way into the Chancellorship of Germany. That is why major media outlets can no longer treat Trump as a legitimate participant in the democratic process. He seeks to destroy it. The spate of news stories about Trump’s parallels to Hitler is a sign that some media outlets may have realized their error. Let’s hope that they all awaken from the slumber soon!

[...]

Concluding Thoughts.

          I often feel conflicted writing about parallels between Trump and Hitler. The comparisons are important and urgent. We cannot look away. At the same time, there are millions of Americans for whom such comparisons raise deep fears and anxieties. I do not want to unnecessarily dwell on Trump's hateful rhetoric mimicking Hitler’s speech, but it would be irresponsible not to address it.

          But there is one part of the reporting on the parallels that bothers me. Many outlets talk about Trump's plans to stage a hostile takeover of the DOJ and FBI, to round up millions of immigrants and deport them without due process, and to jail his opponents. Many commentators and activists urge Americans to foil Trump's dark plans by defeating him at the ballot box. That is, of course, Plan A.

          What bothers me is the assumption that if Trump wins, we will be like sheep to the slaughter or potted plants or helpless victims. Not true. While I firmly believe that we will defeat Trump, if we don’t, we can bring the US economy to a stop in a week if Trump runs roughshod over the Constitution. We shouldn’t have to go there, but if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, why would any democracy-loving American go to work? Or pay taxes? Or help keep the government open, the lights on, and the trains running?

          Civil rights advocates in the 1950s and 1960s realized the power of boycotting buses and lunch counters. American businesses will not tolerate massive strikes and economic boycotts for a day, much less a week.

          My point is this: While we should take the threat posed by Trump seriously, we should not accept the fantasies of obedient surrender by two hundred million Americans that are the premise of the fever dreams of Trump's minions. Trump's sycophants drawing up detailed plans for turning America into a dictatorship have forgotten one detail—the consent (and cooperation) of the governed. We hold ultimate power—a fact that Trump has overlooked.

          I don’t believe we will ever get to such a dramatic confrontation. But if we must endure Trump's Hitleresque rhetoric and hear about his plan to turn our democracy into a dictatorship, we should keep top of mind that America’s economy depends on the daily participation and productivity of hundreds of millions of Americans. Take that away and Trump can sit in the dark in the Oval Office with a phone that can’t send tweets, call for a cheeseburger, or arrange for a tee time. He wouldn’t last a week under those conditions.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[tomorrowusa]

Benito Mussolini = il Duce Donald Trump = still Douché

Ridicule is a potent weapon. Don't neglect it around obnoxious MAGA relatives who spew crap during the holidays.

[shironezuninja]

Planning to read Spidey going on trial over the Venom crimes when I have more time. At the moment, I can’t remember who was drawing him for those issues: Todd McFarlane or Mark Bagley.

[singingcicadas]

Megatron's Opposite Day

"I free slaves"

This is Soundwave binding Ratbat but seeing as Megatron did the same thing to Pentius by putting his spark into Trypticon and reformatted Rumble and Frenzy into cassettes against their will I think he approves a lot of this practice

Megatron on Optimus and humans, after his defeat in All Hail Megatron ⬇️

he really salty

"I implant ideology" aka brainwashing

Decepticon cause = Megatron. nuff said.

"I liberate cities" says the person who let Nyon burn to make a point

Cities are too small, think bigger

Holding New York hostage.

"Like Autobots, they believe in the sanctity of life" which he doesn't. Kudos for being honest.

Allowing troops to do free-rein massacre is a reward for conquest. Nothing like some easy murder for de-stressing.

The Simanzi massacre which halved the Cybertronian population is off-screen so it doesn't deserve its own pic

"The revolution"

"We only feel good when we stand with a blade in one hand and a throat in another" "Let's make the entire face of the planet into our new gladiator arena"

What nice, confidence-inspiring revolutionaries. I'm sure they'll rule the population with benevolence after they've killed all the Necessary People with Necessary Violence. Final interpretation of what constitutes as Necessary is reserved for the sole discretion of Megatron, ofc.

Good goals.

Sentinel might be an absolute asshole but at least he's got one thing right: they're literally a gang of thugs who gets high off murder.

"The people are my utmost concern"

'The people': ................

"Battling for freedom"

Freedom of what? Function? Autonomy?

Religion?

the ability to choose whether to fight? on which side to fight?

Idk why they used the word "pogrom" for this, it's way too specific

Anyways it doesn't matter, they won't be missed.

Good for Bumblebee for calling him out. Screenshotted this just to appreciate Megatron's bitchy face ⬇️

Other urban legends:

"Megatron loves Cybertron" let's just burrrrn it

He did fight to save Cybertron in Chaos Theory but also made it pretty clear why he did it. It's not out of the goodness of his heart or any sentimental reasons like that. It's an ego/dominance thing.

Plus his wording when he's trying to convince Optimus to let him go with the Lost Light: "I broke the planet. And that, Optimus, is why I owe it to you - to everyone - to find a replacement."

Replacement.

In other words: I made a mess and can't be bothered to clean it up, so I want to get away from it and find somewhere new to start clean.

I don't think Optimus appreciates the favour.

"Megatron tore down a corrupt government" which is true, just too bad that he's worse

He's also, um, a closeted Zeta admirer?

"Megatron advocates equality" ???

Megatron x dictatorship is literally his OTP. They were inseparable for four million years. A lot of people died trying.

"Megatron cares about the Decepticons" no he doesn't. Not his troops nor its cause.

Like for one thing he treats them with complete scorn

Admits that the most useful thing about keeping Starscream around is that he can bully underlings into line

Wants to use the humans' nuke to get rid of his troops and reformat them into peaceful drones after they outlive their use because they were "too ruthless" for his perfect peaceful society

Has zero scruples about fighting Deceptigod, just affronted that his own soldiers are being used against him

And basically just drops the Decepticons like a bag of vermin after he surrenders. He never once mentions them of his own accord, other than to insist he has nothing to do with them. Even his surrender speech is something Optimus makes him do as exchange b/c he wants to go on parole. He wasn't planning on making a public address otherwise, he was just going to leave them hanging.

Looking at the publication timeline, Megatron started out as an established Evil McEvilson-type villain similar to how he is in G1 and it's not until Chaos Theory in 2011 that JRo really gave him a sympathetic backstory that drew his characterization away from the bloodthirsty pugno ergo sum warlord into someone who once held ideals about societal reform and remains convinced of his own moral supremacy throughout the 4 mill years of death and war, adding worldbuilding such as Functionism/oppression/government corruption as justification for the beginning of the Decepticon movement. But because the start of the Decepticons was already written in Megatron Origins and every evil thing he'd done up till Chaos Theory can't be retracted and they had to keep Megatron as a villain until his story was no longer central to the Autobot-Decepticon war line, and JRo didn't try to downplay the atrocities he'd committed (some of the most sadistically disturbing things Megatron did were exclusively in MTMTE flashbacks), but rather tried to distance him from them and placed the focus on the juxtapositions to emphasize change, this as a whole just resulted in Evil McEvilson getting turned into Hyper McHypocrite.

[mariacallous]

Rhetoric has a history. The words democracy and tyranny were debated in ancient Greece; the phrase separation of powers became important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”

This language isn’t merely ugly or repellant: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster displayed a drawing of a louse with a caricature of a Jewish face. The slogan: “Jews are lice: they cause typhus.” Germans, by contrast, were clean, pure, healthy, and vermin-free. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and the purity of our blood.”

Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. In my files, I have the notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, during which one of them called for a struggle against “vermin activities” (there is, inevitably, a German word for this: Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of the regime’s critics. In this same era, the Stasi forcibly moved suspicious people away from the border with West Germany, a project nicknamed “Operation Vermin.”

This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”

In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.

Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics. Even George Wallace’s notorious, racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, his inaugural speech as Alabama governor and the prelude to his first presidential campaign, avoided such language. Wallace called for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But he did not speak of his political opponents as “vermin” or talk about them poisoning the nation’s blood. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps following the outbreak of World War II, spoke of “alien enemies” but not parasites.

In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. Trump blurs the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants—the latter including his wife, his late ex-wife, the in-laws of his running mate, and many others. He has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. “I haven’t read Mein Kampf,” he declared, unprovoked, during one rally—an admission that he knows what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether or not he has actually read it. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric,” he told an interviewer, “if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen.”

His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity.

These are not jokes, and Trump is not laughing. Nor are the people around him. Delegates at the Republican National Convention held up prefabricated signs: Mass Deportation Now. Just this week, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan: Trump Was Right About Everything. This is language borrowed directly from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted a photograph of a building in Mussolini’s Italy displaying his slogan: Mussolini Is Always Right.

These phrases have not been put on posters and banners at random in the final weeks of an American election season. With less than three weeks left to go, most candidates would be fighting for the middle ground, for the swing voters. Trump is doing the exact opposite. Why? There can be only one answer: because he and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the “bloodbath” that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents���none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics.

But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics. Several generations of American politicians have assumed that American voters, most of whom learned to pledge allegiance to the flag in school, grew up with the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion, would be resistant to this kind of language and imagery. Trump is gambling—knowingly and cynically—that we are not.

[wilwheaton]

During a Veterans Day speech on Saturday, Trump called his political opponents and critics “vermin” and accused them of being a bigger threat to the U.S. than countries such as Russia, China, and North Korea. Historians and researchers were quick to warn that his language was reminiscent of authoritarian leaders including Hitler and Mussolini. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung defended the former president’s comments with some reasonable language of his own. “Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House,” Cheung told The Washington Post on Monday. Cheung later added that he meant to say their “sad, miserable existence” instead of their “entire existence.”

Trump Team Responds to Hitler Accusations by Proving Accusers Right

[delicatuscii-wasbella102]

I am totally lost for words, HOW is the voting so close? Are americans SO blinkered that they want this man in again? He is a convicted felon, 34 felony counts, Classified Documents found in his Mar-a-Largo, which he didn't get convicted for, But they were classified and in his home. Federal Election Interference Case, Georgia Election Interference Case. The hate toward women, His friendship with Epstein and Diddy, His use of religion, to brainwash the masses, and on and on He mixes unity with hate, always undertones of racist rhetoric and not just immigrants, but toward the American people, And the purpose of this kind of rhetoric is to dehumanize people, Trump said and I quote -  “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” As If they are vermin, then they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.  Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. "This language isn’t merely ugly or repellent: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” "Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. " The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the “bloodbath” that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win or even if he does win will be the continued of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents, Women, minorities, in fact anything he doesn't agree with, then spawns your dictator.

[shini--chan]

Yandere England - Thrall

A/N: Only the first few hundred words are displayed here. Follow the link at the end of the post to read the rest of the story. Read the warnings! This is the darkest work I've written yet.

Trigger warnings: Stockholm Syndrome, suicidal ideation/attempt, descriptions of corpses, captivity, implied dub/non-con, self-harm

You first started to notice that not all was well when you no longer were bothered by the smell of his cologne. Usually, the artificial aroma of bergamot and amber makes your nose twitch and disgust curl beneath your lungs, given how much you associate it with him. One day, you feel comfort instead of revulsion when the aroma hits your receptors. 

How could you even imagine growing comfortable around him?! He is hideous in his nature, his baseline morality just as corrupt as the fey in the stories he so loves. To him, people are pawns or toys or vermin. Respect doesn't come naturally to him and he is so prideful it is a sin. And yet - the thought of his sharp features and crisp speech makes warm gather in your belly and it is revolting as it is comforting. 

The days continue to bleed into each other - you've long since stopped counting how long. Noting every further day you were subject to his mercies and not free would be gruelling in its own way. Memories of your past had become bittersweet. 

Arthur Kirkland was in no way a kind man; he was proud and patronising and full of rough edges that you wound yourself on all too often. When he had sealed you away from the rest of the world, you had promised yourself that you would stand steadfast and not bow down to his whims. So what was this? Why could you look him in the face and no longer feel your heart hardening? When had his words once again become so wounding? 

Once, you had liked Arthur, maybe even loved him and that was what you consider your greatest sin. Once, you had been naive enough to ignore all the warning signs, and so hopeful that you had brought in the facsimile of a gentleman that he had presented to you. That was before you had found out that he just considered morals as something fashionable to wear in public and impress the right people. Now you knew better, so why were you making all the same mistakes again? 

In the deep night, you laid awake and mulled over the disturbing developments. It robbed you of your sleep, and the overthinking blessed you with a pounding headache. You made sure not to move or to make a sound, despite how much you wanted to curse and thrash around. Your "lover" had punished you for less than you kicking him in your sleep. 

More than once had you heard the phrase of a person being their own worst critic. Perhaps the same applied to one's enemies; perhaps the jungian shadow side of your's was enacting a campaign against your very identity, putrefying what had been meticulously preserved. You finally managed to fall asleep by drowning yourself in your own self-loathing. 

Kirkland didn't show any outward signs of seeing your weakness, or perhaps he was waiting for the point of no return before delivering the killing blow. It didn't matter, because you were too busy monitoring your own actions. Each ebb of comfort you felt in his presence made your hair stand on end. 

Full story on ao3

Art and characters are not mine!

[tenderleavesbob]

Whumptober 18/31

No. 18: Alternate Vermin

Warriors kept fading in and out of consciousness. Wild didn’t know if it was because of the head wound or the blood loss. He moaned when Wild jostled him too much. Wild flinched every time. He had his Slate back, and it didn’t mean a thing. It was packed with potions, none of which he dared use. 

What made everything worse was when Warriors grabbed his hand in a half-coherent moment and squeezed it. Their hands were stained red. Warriors’s smile was dazed and sweet. “ ‘re doin’ good,” he slurred. “It’ll be ‘kay.”

He faded away again before Wild could even try to answer. Wild wanted to throw his head back and scream.

When he was a knight, did he know how to handle a wound like this? Had he forgotten something which could save Warriors’s life now?

Warriors wasn’t bleeding through the bandage, but he also didn’t look any better. Wild clumsily tried to clean the dried blood and debris from Warriors’s hair as he thought. Was it better to look for the others and risk moving Warriors or stay here and hope the others found them? They were looking. He knew the others wouldn’t stop until they were found. Any other time, that would give Wild a warm feeling.

“I’m going to take care of you, Captain,” Wild whispered. “I promise --”

Wild paused and looked at the walls. He could have sworn he heard noises. Was it the others? Were they close?

No. It didn’t sound Hylian or even lupine. He frowned and flicked his ears. They were soft, almost frantic noises. Wild couldn’t even tell where they were coming from. There was the door beside them, which Wild guessed Warriors had come through. Considering how he looked, Wild had no interest in seeing what was beyond it. Maybe there were more tunnels like he came through?

Something poked out of the wall. Wild tensed. He hadn’t been expecting that.

The small, gray thing twitched. Not taking his eyes off of it, Wild flicked through his Slate, settling on the weapons’ screen. His finger hovered over a broadsword.

The thing twitched again. As Wild watched, an odd looking rat stepped out of the wall. Wild exhaled and let his shoulders slump. It didn’t look like the rats from his era, but he guessed it wasn’t too surprising that there would be rats in the dungeon. Wild resumed cleaning Warriors’s hair as the rat crept closer. To his disgust, it began lapping at Warriors’s blood on the floor.

Awful but manageable. At least, until the other rats began emerging from the wall.

All of them were like the first: similar to the rats of his era but something off about their proportions. Their nails and teeth seemed too big, their eyes too sharp as they circled the blood. The scrabbling from the walls continued, and Wild realized with growing horror that there were more. One of them moved away from the others, pointed nose to the ground as it followed the blood to its source. With a curse, Wild kicked it away. It flew back with a yelp.

All of the other rats stopped. In one eerie motion, they all raised their heads and looked at Wild and Warriors. The blood drained from Wild’s face.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Wild breathed. He hooked his Slate to his belt and grabbed Warriors. “We need to move.”

One of the rats chittered. It sounded less animalistic and more like an awful, garbled parody of speech. The others responded, large ears and long tails flicking.

“We need to move now.” Warriors was lighter without his armor but still too heavy for Wild to carry. He grabbed Warriors’s arm instead and threw it over his shoulders, hoisting the man upward. Warriors’s pained cry echoed through the hall. The chitters grew louder. The walls sounded alive around them.

“We need to move, we need to move,” Wild chanted, half-running, half-stumbling down the hall. Warriors’s eyes were closed but his legs were awkwardly moving like a newborn colt’s. He made soft, endless noises of pain close to Wild’s ear as Wild dragged him along. The rats followed at their heels and through the walls, their long nails clicking on stone. Their faces were painted red with Warriors’s blood.

“Rulie didn’t mention this!” Wild panted. A rat nipped his heel. Wild kicked it away and forced his shaking legs to move faster. 

Shining eyes watched him from the hole in the wall. Wild didn’t look back. He didn’t dare. 

There was a stone door in front of them. As they approached it, it opened with a low groan. Wild pushed himself to his limit. It sounded like there was an army of rats behind them.

I’ll save you, Wild thought.

Then there was only a blinding light.

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[pudding-parade]

Sorry, but I have to get political on all your asses, at least those of you who live in the US. It will be a one-time thing on this subject, the only thing that I will say here about the election before it happens. And yeah, I'm going to say this on a blog devoted to a stupid video game. Why? Because I know that I have younger American people who follow me here, and if y'all are like some of the younger people I've talked to in real life and online in other venues, I have concerns. So I'm going to say all this as an old-ass, progressive American. Because if I can wake up one apathetic mind out there, it will be worth it. And if you're pissed at me for making a single political post at this important juncture, then fuck off and unfollow me or send me nasty messages or whatever you want to do. I don't care. And I'm not cutting this, either.

My dear followers: Donald Trump cannot -- CANNOT -- become president again.

Late last night, Trump posted on his Truth Social account a video containing language and images reminiscent of the World War era. It was about his fantasies of what America would be like, should he win the general election in about five months. It contained suspicious imagery and phrases like "creating a unified Reich." Does that sort of language sound familiar? Especially when combined with his rhetoric about immigrants being "vermin" that "poison the blood of our country?" Ring any bells? I'm sure it does for any German folks who might read this.

Trump's post was only taken down about 12 hours later, after backlash over it, and then Trump claimed that a "low level staffer" posted it, not him. Which is either a lie OR he was lying when he said previously that only he and his campaign's communications director have or will ever have access to that account. If you want more info about this, here's a short video from Jesse Dollemore, an independent commentator:

This election isn't about liberal/progressive vs. conservative. It truly doesn't matter what your personal ideology is because this election is about saving democracy. This is about preserving your freedoms, because we won't be able to do anything about any other issue, whatever our individual ideologies and pet issues are, if our basic freedoms upon which this country was founded -- freedom of speech and to protest, freedom of (and from) religion, freedom of the press -- are chipped away until they are gone. Because that's what autocrats do. They want freedom only for themselves, and Donald Trump and his cronies and hangers-on are all autocrat wannabes.

And if you -- Yes, you, even if you're sitting in the middle of blood-red state -- don't vote for Joe Biden, you will be doing your part to hand the autocrats what they want, because a non-vote or a vote for anyone other than Biden is in fact a vote for Trump and autocracy. Similarly, you must also vote for Democrats for all other positions, local, state, and federal so that America's overt flirtation with autocracy that's been going on since at least the 1990s might finally end once and for all.

Yes, yes, I know: "But Genocide Joe!" Think about it: Do you seriously think that Trump, who licks Netanyahu's asshole because he sees him as the kind of "strong man" that Trump wants to be, is going to help Gaza? Or that he'll go against Putin and continue aid to Ukraine? Because if you think that he will do either of those things, I have several bridges I'd like to sell you. No, Trump is going to "put America first." He says it all the time, and what he means by that is that he will do nothing except whatever it takes to keep himself and his cronies in power while also isolating America by severing ties to our allies. Gaza will be given to Netanyahu just as Ukraine will be given to Putin, should Trump win, and he won't give a shit. In the end, Biden (and Harris, should she have to take over) will listen and help Gaza, maybe not as much as we'd like because the Middle East situation is complicated and there are no simple solutions, but a Biden-led government will certainly help more than another Trumpian government would. And Biden will definitely continue to aid Ukraine, because that situation isn't complicated at all.

And in the end, it's not really about Ukraine and Gaza, though they are of course important. It's about us. Should Trump get into the White House again, he will surround himself with people who want America to be a plutocratic and authoritarian autocracy, very similar to Putin's Russia. This is not hyperbole. This is fact. A vote for Trump -- either actual or de facto by fucking around with not voting or voting for a third party because you think it's a "protest" -- is a vote to end democracy, plain and simple, which might very well mean that you'll never be able to protest again another day.

How bad could Trump be, you ask? Who cares who is president? Well, have a look at Project 2025. It's a 900-page "playbook" for the next "conservative" administration. (In quotes because there is nothing "conservative" about these people, including Trump and his cronies; they are radicals.) It is nothing less than a plan to destroy the federal government, the Constitution, and the freedoms that it enshrines and protects, which means the end of democracy. They published a similar tome before Reagan was elected, and once he was in, Reagan followed through with a lot of it. I have no doubt that Trump would, too, given that his "Agenda 47" platform is basically the same. Here is an article that summarizes Project 2025 and details some of its directives. And here is an article from Time Magazine, of all things, where the writer of it interviewed Trump about his vision for America, should he win. The first line of the article is, "Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice." You can read the transcripts of the interviews, too, so you can rest assured that the interviewer isn't being hyperbolic.

It ain't good, folks. Part of this extreme-right agenda is ridiculously expanding the power of the executive branch so that it would no longer be checked and balanced by Congress and the Supreme Court, which effectively turns the presidency into a dictatorship. And if Biden does not win, at least some of this bullshit will come to pass, especially because Trump already has the Supreme Court in his pocket. And he'll be able to appoint more young, far-right lunatics to that, too, should he win.

I'll repeat that Trump CANNOT win. I'll be the first to say that, as a pretty extreme (but also pragmatic) progressive, I'm not Biden's biggest fan, for various reasons. He is way farther right than I am, though he has been far more progressive-friendly than I expected and he has gotten some very good things done. But even if he wasn't and hadn't, he will preserve democracy and because of that, I will be voting for him without hesitation. I won't even have to hold my nose. Trump and his cronies in Congress and the Supreme Court will destroy democracy if you -- Yes, YOU! -- let them. And if you let them by deciding not to vote or doing some sort of lame "protest" vote, especially if you live in that handful of states where every presidential vote matters, you will have no one to blame but yourself and others like you. People being apathetic or doing "protest" votes is what got us Trump the first time around.

For fuck's sake, do the right thing.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Diner Journalism

Tom the Dancing Bug – Chagrin Falls: "Diner Journalism"

TOM the DanciNg Bug Chagrin Falls "DINER JOURNALISM" by RUBEN BOLLING

==

Panel 1: a sign outside a diner

CENTRAL DINER WELCOME BACK ELITIST COASTAL REPORTERS

==

Panel 2: a reporter talking to a waitress

Waitress: Hey, Bill. It's been a while! What's your angle, hon? Reporter: Trump's enduring popularity with salt-of-the-Earth real Americans. Waitress: You'll want Roger and Abby over in booth 4. Roger (in a red cap): Over here!

==

Panel 3: A reporter calling out to men in red caps in booths

Reporter: Anybody here a real American farm owner with a severe labor shortage who doesn't know that Trump opposes immigration? Man in red cap: Me! Have a seat!

==

Panel 4: A reporter and a cameraman at a booth with a woman (Sandra) eating a hamburger

Reporter: Hi, Sandra. Just sit here while I tape my intro... Sandra: Alright. Reporter: "Here in America's real heartland, very real Americans have not wavered in their support of Donald Trump."

==

Panel 5: The reporter from panel 4 continues to speak, while a woman reporter holding a notebook calls out to men in booths wearing red caps

Panel 4 reporter: Outside the ivory-tower confines of the coastal bubble where not-real Americans live, the prosecutions of Trump are seen as... Woman reporter: I'm on deadline! Anyone here a charismatic White Supremacist? Man in booth: Yo!

==

Panel 6: Reporter with a laptop at a booth with a woman drinking coffee

Reporter: Maybe with less racism, tell me again why you support Trump. Woman: Well, when he talks about non-Whites, he really tells it like it is. Reporter: Mmm... A little less.

==

Panel 7: Angry man in MAGA cap at booth talking to rapt reporter

Man: Yes, I'd like to punch you in your lamestream vermin face. Reporter: Fascinating! What are your views on Bud Light? On the price of eggs? Tell me *every*thing!

==

Panel 8: Couple talking to reporter while new man enters diner and speaks to Beth, the waitress

Man from couple: Everyone at January 6 was an FBI agent! Woman from couple: And everyone was a freedom-fighting patriot! Reporter: Got it. Both. Man talking to Beth: Table for one.

==

Panel 9: Man who entered restaurant turns to leave while Beth the waitress talks with him

Beth: Are you coastal media elite or heartland real American interview subject, hon? Speech bubble from out-of-panel: "Then Jack slams his real American fist into my effete, overeducated jaw!" SFX: POW! Man leaving diner: Never mind. I'll eat at home.

==

The End

[tomorrowusa]

Trump is trying to normalize his fascist rantings by just repeating them a lot. That way they are no longer considered news and subject to outrage. But it still allows him to fire up his unhinged and violent base.

Donald Trump, just weeks after using the fascist terminology “vermin” to describe sections of American society he dislikes, again declared at a New Hampshire rally that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”. [ ... ] “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done,” Trump told the crowd. “They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America … but all over the world. “They’re coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.” It is the second time Trump has used the poisoned blood phrase, which has been widely condemned for echoing white supremacist rhetoric. The first time he did so, in October, Joe Biden said the former president, who faces 91 criminal charges, was starting to use language heard in Nazi Germany.

Donald Trump is the true poisoner of public discourse in the United States. Things were notably nicer before 2015.

Trump probably is a cinch for the GOP nomination. Even if Nikki Haley does surprisingly well in New Hampshire, that will have little impact on Republican primaries in places like Texas, Tennessee, or Missouri. Trump's rhetoric is focused on the general election.

Mehdi Hasan describes Trump's strategy for fascist normalization.

The broadcaster Mehdi Hasan said on Saturday: “Classic Trump: say something crazy outrageous, neo-Nazi-like and it gets headlines, creates outrage. “So wait a little. Then say it again, no one notices, no coverage, and it gets normalized and mainstreamed. “Let’s be clear: migrants ‘poisoning the blood’ is Hitler rhetoric.”

In this rally Trump was quoting Vladimir Putin. That should give us some idea of whose best interests would be served by a Trump victory. Putin and Trump are certainly on the same page regarding hating liberal democracy.

Trump quotes Putin condemning American democracy, praises autocrat Orban

“Donald Trump sees American democracy as a sham and he wants to convince his followers to see it that way too,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University who researches democracy and rhetoric. “Putin hates western values like democracy and the rule of law, so does Trump.” Trump quoted Putin, the dictatorial Russia president who invaded neighboring Ukraine, criticizing the criminal charges against Trump, who is accused in four separate cases of falsifying business records in a hush money scheme, mishandling classified documents, and trying to overturn the 2020 election results. In the quotation, Putin agreed with Trump’s own attempts to portray the prosecutions as politically motivated. [ ... ] He went on to align himself with Orban, the Hungarian prime minister who has amassed functionally autocratic power through controlling the media and changing the country’s constitution. Orban has presented his leadership as a model of an “illiberal” state and has opposed immigration for leading to “mixed race” Europeans. Democratic world leaders have sought to isolate Orban for eroding civil liberties and bolstering ties with Putin. [ ... ] In the speech, Trump also repeated his own inflammatory language against undocumented immigrants, by accusing them of “poisoning the blood of our country” — a phrase that immigrant groups and civil rights advocates have condemned as reminiscent as Hitler in his book “Mein Kampf,” in which he told Germans to “care for the purity of their own blood” by eliminating Jews.

Calling out Trump and pointing out his dictator comments will have no effect on his hardcore MAGA fanatics. But the more wishy-washy Trump-curious voters might be a bit more open to well targeted criticisms – as long as we don't use the same type of rhetoric that liberals are usually associated with. In close elections, small groups of voters count a lot.

[shironezuninja]

When I’ve gotten more rest, I’d like to know more about these Cyber looking Trial mercenaries that have tangled with Spidey after reading The Arachnis Project issues.

[amtskind]

why was gregor samsa unbothered?

recently, someone on reddit asked the question "why does gregor seem unbothered by his transformation into a vermin, and instead thinks about trivial problems". i tried myself on my interpretation of said fact, and decided to post my answer here as well:

to some degree the insect-metaphor is not to take literally, as it often happens in literature. think of kafka's original wish, not to print any insects on the book's cover.

first, let's establish the samsas' life: gregor is the family's only financial income after his father failed his own business and had many debts to pay off, so all the samsas are depended on him. some may even argue, they exploit him, since the whole family is fully able to work (as seen after his transformation) and yet decides to make gregor work for him all alone. we don't know, if gregor does realize that, if he denies it for the sake of his sanity - or if he really doesn't notice. he thinks positively about his family.

gregor carries a lot of responsibility, he doesn't want to fail, because he cares for his family.

but other than work and family, gregor's life is incredibly limited. no friends mentioned, no love-interest in sight (but the desire referenced through the picture of a woman in his room).

his transformation into a vermin with bug-like features could be a metaphor for an incident, that made him unable to work and fall into isolation (like an illness). as gregor was almost a farm-animal in the literal sense before, he now lost all his use, making him useless and an "unnecessary burden".

try to picture the scenario, that you wake up - for example, without your limbs or without your speech. you may freak out or feel alienated by yourself, but in the first place you will miss your former life - your routine - your "use in society", as harsh as it sounds.

gregor's indifference towards his "new form" shows, that living as a "bug" per se isn't that hard. he hopes, people would accept that, just as he does. but society - in this case his family and colleagues, don't. they despise him, hide him, isolate him, just like some people do with those, who they view as deviant or useless.

gregor could have adapted to his new life, if his family let him - but the samsas didn't - and the hierarchy turned, the family grew and moved, but without gregor. and when gregor accepted, that he will never live his life "nomally" again (not necessarily as a human, but simply enjoying the same things as he did before - like his family's company), he crawls in the corner to die. in some altruistic act, to not be a burden to his family anymore. kafka shows us, how vile and fatal isolation is.

the insect-metaphor as a whole paints the picture, how unlivable gregor's life was already. his exploitation via. work isolates him from the outer life and he is unhappy about it. but as always, gregor tries to deny it, maybe for his own comfort - to at least think, this life is worth living. but despite everything, deep down he knows he is full of sorrow and stress. his transformation was the final mirror to his life, that pulled him (or moreso the reader, as gregor still hangs onto hope for the bettering and love for his family) out of the disillusioned view, that things were normal.

gregor clinges onto his routine, his past - oh so "happy" life and general altruism - and as always, puts himself last, not minding his horrific state.

in the end: what could he have done anyway? the protagonists of kafka are a subject to an enigmatic, unknown rule or power, which they don't question any further. sometimes, you aren't in control of your life. "it is what it is."

[mariacallous]

Donald Trump has once again evoked Nazi rhetoric.

At a rally in Aurora, Colorado, on Friday, the Republican presidential nominee weaponized violent and dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, referring to them as the “enemy from within” while advocating for harsher criminal punishments for the vulnerable demographic, including promising the death penalty.

“But I protect you from outside enemies. But you know I always say, we have the outside enemies, so you can say China, you can say Russia, you can say Kim Jong Un … if you have a smart president it’s no problem,” Trump said. “It’s the enemy from within.

“All the scum we have to deal with that hate our country,” he continued. “That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia.… Everyday Americans like Cindy are living in fear all because Kamala Harris decided to empty the slums and prison cells of Caracas, and many other places. Happening all over the world.”

That is, on its face, untrue. But according to Trump, that (falsely) means crime is down in the rest of the world as a result.

“Every country, you know, prison populations all over the world are down. Crime all over the world is down. Because they take the world’s criminals, gang members, drug dealers, and they deposit them into the United States. Bus after bus after bus,” Trump said to a cacophony of boos from the crowd of his supporters.

The world’s prison population has, statistically, gone up by more than 25 percent since the year 2000, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

“They took the criminals out of Caracas, and they put them along your border, and they said if you ever come back, we’re going to kill you,” Trump said.

“Think of that!” he continued. “We have to live with these animals. But we won’t live with them for long!”

At that, one person in the crowd shouted, “Kill them!”

In the same speech, Trump called for the expeditious “removal of these savage gangs,” promising that, if elected, he would appoint “elite squads” to conduct mass deportations. He also vowed to enforce the death penalty for “any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”

Last year, the MAGA leader leaned on appalling language that immediately echoed Adolf Hitler’s fascistic rhetoric designed to dehumanize his enemies. Trump referred to his political rivals—the GOP-anointed “Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs”—as “vermin,” and claimed that immigrants are “destroying the blood of our country.”

[str8aura-no-not-that-one]

so, no normal rabbits are seen in Hop 2011, only weird CGI ones. When Fred hits EB with his car, he doesn't go 'holy shit, a rabbit with human eyes and a shirt on', he goes 'fuck I hit a wild rabbit'. With this, can it then be assumed that all rabbits in Hop are mostly bipeds that wear clothes and are as expressive as a human, and its only the fact that EB talks that makes him strange? if this is the case, it can be assumed that all rabbits (and possibly chickens) can talk, and are simply upholding a masquerade over the humans because... I don't know. Even EB's ability to speak is dubiously impressive, because a number of bystanders see him talk and react with only mild surprise, like the waitress who gets him his food at a public diner or David Hasselhoff. when he gets onto Hoff's show, his talent that makes him television worthy is being a drum prodigy, rather than being a talking rabbit, although I'm sure they also advertised that fact if its at the least uncommon. But! If rabbits can talk to humans, but simply prefer not to for some reason, there's no reason Fred should have been shocked when EB begged for his life (which seems like a good reason to break such a lax and unregulated masquerade), or even tried to kill him with a rock in the first place. if only Easter island rabbits can talk, and the rest of the species more closely resembles the Pink Berets (Ie can vocalize and move with clear intelligence, but don't actually speak any human languages), it still seems unethical to kill one with a rock (or cook one, as we later see EB using a cooked rabbit as bait without much existential concern), but I can at least see Fred doing it because Fred is awful. Magic exists in this universe, as is seen at the end of the movie when it turns Carlos into a rabbit bird hybrid, so its possible that the magic of Easter Island is granting normal rabbits the power of speech, although 'normal' still means wearing clothes in the Hopverse. Ergo, it can be assumed that normal rabbits are understood to be very intelligent but still animals (much like dolphins or apes) in this film's universe, and the debate of whether or not killing rabbits is immoral (which it is) rages in the background of the film's universe, and Fred is staunchly on the side of 'kill them, they're just vermin', which you'd think would drive a wedge between him and EB as coworkers