#A Level Results 2016

[batsplat]

if you could change the outcome of any 3 motogp races (the outcome of the championship doesn’t change regardless tho) which ones would you chose?

one of those asks that immediately made me forget every single race I've watched in my life. it's a tough one, especially with the championship thing... I'm gonna add another criterion here and say nothing to do related to injury/death

so... I came up with one quite quickly, then got stuck, then came up with a second and got even more stuck. I'm quite reluctant to change any 'plot-relevant races' in the context of specific careers and rivalries, plus I'm ideologically opposed to stealing any win off a non-alien and giving it to an alien. which then kinda left me?? well. stuck. I don't like these picks but well maybe I'll come up with something better at some point

assen 2018: I simply could not come up with a third race so I'll just throw this one in. dovi + valentino really really should have gotten onto the podium in this race, those were extremely podium-worthy performances, it was such a deeply silly incident between the pair of them that took them out of podium contention. also it's still seen as a classic race and... I don't even begrudge the two beneficiaries for their podium, it's just one where the three best riders that day didn't end up on the podium and I would change that!! I don't even really care that much but also look I had a spot to fill. would've enjoyed the rancid podium vibes, it's what a race of that quality deserved

sepang 2018: just deeply annoying? like, I think it was a super impressive performance, the consistent lap times trick from a 78 year old was very neat, it was cute when jorge did unprompted valentino prop for metronome solidarity reasons, it's one of literally two premier class races where valentino crashed out of the lead so I don't even hold it against him. but... well, that one might have been building to a battle between marc and valentino, and it would've been fun to see that! not least because of location + relationship vibes in 2018. I'd change the result in preventing the crash, don't really care who wins after that point - hey, they can crash each other out if they want. I Just Wanted To See It

styria 2020: bit of a niche one but I remember being pissed off by this so I'm going with it - this should have been mir's win without the bloody red flag. now I'm very sorry that maverick was just having an abysmal time in austria, peace and love to him, I'd probably never step foot in the country again after the eight days he had in that country.... but still, his bike attempting to murder him did ruin what really should've been joan's first win. I'm very defensive of mir's win stats and I was supporting the title bid with zero wins agenda once that looked plausible, but now that he's just gotten stuck on one win for quite a few years... well, again, I do think it's kinda iconic but I'd also let him have two. and back then he wasn't even really looking like a title contender and was still going for his FIRST win.... I was feeling very sorry for him so. there

[dandelionsresilience]

Just in case Trump wins:

right after Trump was elected in 2016, suicidality skyrocketed. If you’re considering suicide in the wake of the election this year, at least wait until after it’s absolutely certain that he’s won - after every vote has been counted, every state certified, and maybe even after he’s been sworn in (IF he wins), just to make sure he doesn’t go to prison instead. Watch the results come in live here, but don’t obsess or let them sway your vote. (To be clear, I don’t want a single person to commit suicide over the election results, no matter what. But I know from experience that “don’t do it” is thoroughly unhelpful, so instead I’m saying at least wait.)

if you’re considering suicide because you fear worsening material conditions, you might think a hotline can’t help with that. and it’s true that they can’t change legislation or promise you’ll be safe. but it’s worth double checking whether what you’re actually hurting from is in fact unfixable. right now, just getting through the emotions can help you regain a more objective view of the situation, and then you can work on surviving it. plus, when something bad happens, we tend to vastly overestimate how bad it will seem in the future, no matter how bad it actually is.

In my experience, it might take a few tries before you find a hotline that picks up, either because they’re so busy, or they’re closed at that time, or they simply don’t serve your location or demographic, so under the thingy I’ve listed more than just the same handful that tend to show up on other websites. Even if you’re not actively suicidal, you can talk to them about your hard feelings, ask for material resources, or just vent to a compassionate listener.

FIND HELP

HopeLine - call/text: 877-235-4525

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - call/text: 988 | chat

Crisis Text Line - text HOME to 741741 | chat

help getting out of the military

for underrepresented adults:

Thrive Lifeline - text THRIVE to 313-662-8209

for pre-teens, teens, and young adults:

Your Life Your Voice - call: 800-488-3000 | text VOICE to 20121 | email

for teens (limited hours):

Teen Line - call: 800-852-8336 | text TEEN to 839863 | email

for trans and questioning people:

Trans Lifeline - call: 1-877-565-8860

for people with substance dependency:

Never Use Alone Overdose Prevention Hotline - call: 877-696-1996

for BIPOC (“with an LGBTQ+ Black Femme Lens”):

BlackLine - call: 1-800-604-5841

for college students of colour:

The Steve Fund Crisis Text Line - text STEVE to 741741

for LGBTQ+ young people:

The Trevor Project - call: 1-866-488-7386 | text START to 678678 | chat

for homeless or runaway youth:

National Runaway Safeline - call/text: 1-800-786-2929 | (has chat and email, but I think the link includes tracking)

for Muslim youth (limited hours):

Naseeha Youth Hotline - call: 1-866-627-3342

Amala Hopeline - call: 1-855-952-6252

for Jewish queer youth (warmline, may take up to 24 hours to reply):

JQY Warmline - call/text: 551-579-4673

for veterans:

Veterans Crisis Line - call: 988, option 1 | text: 838255 | chat

for veterans and their families:

Lifeline for Vets - call: 888-777-4443

for pregnant people:

Crisis Pregnancy Hotline - call: 888-628-3353 | text: 714-448-8323

for parents unsure of their ability to care for a newborn:

National Safe Haven Alliance - call: 888-510-2229 | text SAFEHAVEN to 313131

International Council for Helplines Member Organisations

Warmlines - for emotional support, if you just need to talk; a lower level of support than crisis hotlines

NAMI Helpline directory

Key warmline directory (unclear if 317-550-0060 might also be a warmline, I haven’t tried it)

Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line (limited hours) - call: 888-407-4515

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I promised you some lions! Let's talk about manes, males, and management.

This is Tandie, the current male lion at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Notice anything odd about him? He's got one of those hilarious awkward teenager manes. Except... this cat is nine years old.

I was, of course, immediately curious.

Manes serve a lot of purposes for male lions, including being an indicator of health and fitness - it's actually a sexually selected trait and a social signal. Mane texture / hair quality / length is dependent on nutrition and the body having energy to grow (and carry around!) that much hair! The color is also a signal: males with darker manes have been found to have higher testosterone levels.

In one research report, wild males were much more likely to avoid a lion decoy when it had a longer or darker mane - but the girls really loved a dark mane. It's thought this is because a long, dark mane is an indicator of mate quality. Males with longer, darker manes have higher testosterone and were pretty healthy: meaning they had more energy for fighting, had a better chance of recovering if they got injured, and generally had a higher rate of offspring survival. Manes matter!

So, back to Tandie. He was actually born at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2014 alongside two brothers, to dad Xerxes and mother Adia.

This was Xerxes (rip).

Obviously, a very large, dark, lush mane on Xerxes here. So where did these blond muttonchops come from on his son?

I asked the zoo docents and got an answer that didn't make a lot of sense. They told me that after the three cubs grew into adolescents, they were moved to the Oakland Zoo together. But living together suppressed his testosterone, and he never grew a mane.

Hmmmm.

Here's a photo from 2016, when the brothers debuted at Oakland. They're a year and a half old in this photo.

(Photo Credit: Oakland Zoo)

And here's from an announcement for their third birthday.

(Photo credit: Oakland Zoo)

Okay, so these dudes obviously all were growing manes as of 2017. I think Tandie is the one on the left in the first photo, and laying down in the middle on the second. What happened?

I was just in the Bay Area for a zoo road trip, of course I went to Oakland and tracked down a docent to ask some questions.

It turns out that shortly after the brothers turned three, they started acting like adult male lions: they started scuffling regularly. It's a normal social thing for male lions to live in groups, called coalitions, but according to my lion experts there's generally a baseline level of some social jostling within them. It wasn't quite clear from what the docent said if they couldn't manage the boys together, or if they just wanted to avoid the scratches and small wounds that result from normal lion behavior. Regardless, they put all three of the boys on testosterone blockers in order to be able to keep them together as a social group.

Now, I don't know a lot about the use of hormone alteration as a form of captive animal management, except in the case of birth control. I don't think it's something that's unethical - there was just a webinar on it that I saw go by - but I don't think it's commonly done with big cats. Lions have kind of complicated reproductive cycles, and for instance, we've been learning that female lions can take much longer to come into estrus again than expected after coming off hormonal birth control.

In males, testosterone blockers (or being neutered) means they lose their manes. This is why a lot of rescues will do a vasectomy on their males instead of a neuter - it allows them to keep their mane and the social signals that accompany it.

Tandie returned home to Woodland Park Zoo after Xerxes passed in early 2022, and the docent told me all of the lions had been off their blockers "for while." I'd guess those things happened around the same time, since bringing the trio down to a duo at Oakland would reduce some of the social tensions.

Hormones are such interesting things, though. One of Tandie's brothers has a full mane again, and the other is still totally mane-less.

As for Tandie, his mane is growing back in, and it looks like he might rival his dad for length and coloration.

He started here, in February:

Yesterday:

What a difference four months (and maybe proximity to a girl) makes!

[friskyfreddie2024]

America: You Fucked Up

You could have chosen Hope. You chose Hate.

You could have chosen Empathy. You chose Enmity.

You could have chosen a New Beginning. You chose the Nazi.

We could have finally been rid of this cancer on American democracy. He could have been banished to obscurity, remembered only as the worst president in American history, and finally held responsible for his numerous crimes.

The ignorant, racist, misogynistic, white supremacist, pathologicial liar is now going back to the White House. He is a convicted felon, an admitted sexual predator, a total fraud, and a demented old man. He belongs in prison.

What did you do?

You ignored that the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world, that inflation is at its lowest level in four years, that unemployment is at its lowest level in three years. You believed the lies about how terrible the economy is. I knew better.

You forgot about his 30,000+ lies while he was in office. I remember.

You forgot about his complete mismanagement and ignorance over COVID, resulting in the deaths of over one million Americans. I remember.

You forgot about the saber rattling over military exercises in the pacific, when Kim Jong Un threatened us with nuclear missiles, causing us to fear whether we'd see another day. I remember.

You forgot about waking up every morning dreading to hear the latest abomination he tweeted. I remember.

You forgot about "very fine people on both sides." I remember.

You forgot about "only the best people" like Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, Tom Price, Scott Pruitt, Steve Mnuchin, and many others who were given cabinet positions despite having zero qualifications for the job. I remember.

You forgot that 40 of his former cabinet members and dozens of former generals and officials refused to support him, saying he was "unfit to serve." I remember.

You forgot about January 6, "fight like hell". I remember.

You forgot that when he was told that his vice president was secured because the rioters wanted to kill him, he said, "So what?" I remember

You forgot about The Big Lie, "Release the Kraken" and 60+ failed attempts to overturn the election in the courts. I remember.

You forgot about "I just need you to find 11,780 votes." I remember.

You forgot about "They're eating the cats! They're eating the dogs!" I remember.

What now?

When a woman suffering an ectopic pregnancy dies because she doesn't have access to medical care, that's on you.

When they take away your neighbor, your co-worker, your friend, and deport them, that's on you.

When a woman is forced to suffer the agony of carrying her rapist's baby to term, that's on you.

When a transgender kid harms themselves because they can't get the medical care they need, that's on you.

When your middle-class taxes GO UP, while billionaires get even more tax breaks, that's on you.

When schoolchildren are killed by an assault rifle in a mass shooting, that's on you.

When children grow up ignorant because you banned books and dictated how history is taught, that's on you.

When Grandma can no longer afford a comfortable life because the Social Security she paid into all her working life, and provided income on which she now depends, has been cut, that's on you.

When violence against Jews, Asians, Hispanics rises again, that's on you.

When prices on the goods you buy skyrocket due to tariffs, that's on you.

When Ukraine, deprived of our support, is overrun by Russia, that's on you.

When the U.S. is the laughing stock of the world (as we were 2016-2020), that's on you.

What should you have done?

You should have exercised critical thinking skills, recognized the thousands of lies you were being told, recalled that his administration had four years to live up to his promises and failed at all of them. You should have realized that he is a profoundly stupid individual who doesn't give a shit about you or your family or anything except himself.

You had the last nine years to see that, and you still fell for his bullshit.

[potofsoup]

i love your fourth of july comics every year but this years feels extremely optimistic about biden’s abilities in the face of him letting roe get overturned and funding a gen*cide at worst or letting it happen at best by taking the bare minimum of regulatory action… i mean can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands? and how do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?

Hihi! Thank you for reading and enjoying my July 4th comics every year! I am in a non-US airport en route to a month-long trip in a place with sketchy internet, so sorry in advance for sloppiness in my response (and potentially going radio silent).

But:

I don't think he "let" Roe get overturned, since that was the Supreme Court's overwhelming conservative majority, which really started with Mitch McConnell refusing to approve Obama's appointee and forcing it into a 2016 election issue. The fact that Trump got to appoint 3 Supreme Court Justices is what got us here.

Re: Biden and the Israel/Hamas war ... on the one hand, there's definitely more that he could have done, but on the other hand, they are a whole other country over there. It's Hamas that initiated the Oct 7 attacks and took the hostages. It's Netanyahu and his right-wing government who decided to retaliate to such extreme extent. Biden can talk about how he would really like Netanyahu to stop fighting and step down, but at the end of the day that's not his call, any more than he can stop the Sudan fighting that is near-genocidal either.

So, to come to your question #1: "Can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands"?

For me, it's a resounding YES. Guyz, he has passed so much good domestic policies. My spouse works in green energy and the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act halved his anxiety and gave him legitimate hope. The tumblr post I linked to in my comic has links to many of the other great things that Biden has done. Tbh I voted for him in 2020 because "a moldy onion is still better than Trump", and I've been pleasantly surprised. Like how he tried to cancel student loans, the Supreme Court overturned it, and then he came back 6 months later with a different way to do it that didn't lead to a court challenge.

Is he perfect? Hell no. There's tons of stuff that I wish he did more about, or he went further on, but also he's just one guy heading one branch of government who is heading into an election year. (Just like FDR promising not joining WWII, while behind the scenes doing all the Lend-Lease Act stuff). And "the people" have lots of demands, many of them conflicting.

I'd also like to push at the unspoken part of your question... "Can he really be trusted to do the right thing..." compared to whom? Because right now the answer is "compared to Trump." And compared to Trump... I don't even trust Trump to respect the results of a legitimate election. Heck, he might just take his favorite state secrets, sell them to the highest bidder (or just show them off to someone for funzies), and then claim Presidential immunity. A decent Democrat who got stuff done vs someone who probably wants to pardon himself and all his friends and do Project 2025 stuff is not even on the same level. (Do I wish that there was a viable Democratic alternative to Biden? Sure! But who?) Heck, at this point -- imagine if it's Kamala Harris vs. Trump. Who would you vote for?

As for your question #2: "How do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?"

We don't. But also what can we do besides showing up to vote?

Actually, I need bullet points for this:

The 2022 midterm elections brought in fewer-than-expected election-deniers into crucial electoral offices at the state level, which means that hopefully most state electoral boards will continue to have integrity

Yes, voting is harder but at least we can still vote. So it's about getting out there and getting your vote counted. For some states, it involves waiting in 8 hour lines. For some states, it involves bringing 2 forms of ID. Document. Track. Make sure it's dropped off in a real ballot box and not a fake one. Don't believe messaging that the voting is happening on a different day or location, etc.

A 50.1% majority is easily challenged. A 55% majority, less so. Which means getting people out to vote.

The more people know about and think about the reality of a second Trump term (versus being disappointed by a Biden term), the more they will be motivated to vote against Trump.

Finally, let's be real here: I'm braced for a 2nd Trump term. That said:

I'm still going to go and vote for Biden, because the only way to prevent a 2nd Trump term is to vote.

A Trump term where either the House or Senate is controlled by the Democrats will be *very* different from a clean Republican sweep.

Even with a clean Republican sweep on the federal level, States have so much more power now, and voting the state level stuff will help shore up Democratic goals for the future. States get to draw voting districts however they want. States get to decide on abortion policies. If you live in a deep Red state, there still might be things to vote for that make it easier to live in now, and turn it purple a few elections down the line.

So at the end of the day, it's "Vote AND". Vote and keep living your best life. Vote and tell others about Project 2025. Vote and have hope. Even if Trump wins, at least you'll have voted against him. Vote and stay to build up a progressive wave for the next election.

[onceuponatown]

The Great Molasses Flood was a disaster in Boston that occurred after a storage tank collapsed on January 15, 1919, sending more than two million gallons (eight million litres) of molasses flowing through the city’s North End. The deluge caused extensive damage and killed 21 people.

The tank was built in 1915 along Boston’s waterfront on Commercial Street, opposite Copp’s Hill. It was operated by the Purity Distilling Company, a subsidiary of United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA). At the time, industrial alcohol—then made from fermented molasses—was highly profitable; it was used to make munitions and other weaponry for World War I (1914–18). The tank’s immense size reflected the demand: it measured more than 50 feet (15 metres) high and 90 feet (27 metres) in diameter and could hold up to 2.5 million gallons (9.5 million litres) of molasses. Built quickly, the tank was problematic from the start, leaking and often emitting rumbling noises. Nevertheless, it continued to be used, and after the war’s conclusion USIA focused on producing grain alcohol, which was in high demand as prohibition neared passage.

At approximately 12:30 PM on January 15, 1919, the tank burst, releasing a deluge of “sweet, sticky death.” According to reports, the resulting wave of molasses was 15 to 40 feet (5 to 12 metres) high and some 160 feet (49 metres) wide. Traveling at approximately 35 miles (56 km) per hour, it destroyed several city blocks, leveling buildings and damaging automobiles. Although help arrived quickly, the hardening molasses made rescue efforts difficult. In the end, 21 people were killed, many of whom were suffocated by the syrup, and approximately 150 were injured. In addition, the Boston Post noted that a number of horses had “died like so many flies on sticky fly paper.” Clean-up efforts lasted for weeks, and Boston reportedly continued to smell like molasses for years afterward.

Numerous lawsuits were filed in the wake of the disaster. While victims alleged that the tank was not safe, USIA claimed that it had been sabotaged by “evilly disposed persons.” In 1925, however, it was ruled that the tank was unsound, and USIA was ordered to pay damages. In addition, the disaster resulted in stricter construction codes being adopted by states across the country.

For years, questions were raised over how such a seemingly benign substance could have caused so many deaths. In 2016, researchers released a study that placed the blame on cold temperatures. While warm weather would have caused the molasses to be less viscous, the winter temperatures made the syrup markedly thicker, severely impeding rescuers.

[crag-dreams]

It’s the Saturday before Election Day 2024 here in the US, and stress/anxiety/fear/etc… is pretty high for a lot of people. That’s warranted, because another 4 years of Trump/GOP rule will harm so many people. You should do whatever you need to manage the next few days (including voting if you haven’t already), but I really want to encourage you to stop giving polls and “close race” media coverage much / any of your time or consideration.

Polling processes are wildly obsolete for how Millennial and Gen Z voters act compared to Gen X and Boomers (this is not a dig at these generations, just a factual observation). Polls are also easily manipulated to return a desired result, and the people running polls have a vested interest in getting your engagement. Keeping the results tight keeps eyeballs on them.

Similarly, the 24/7 media environment needs you constantly on edge and worried so you keep checking in and listening. They have no interest in a boring election or landslide victory. The majority of journalists have not risen to address this moment with the deliberate, in-depth reporting that we need. It’s far easier to throw together click-bait headlines to pump their numbers. It’s why they spend days covering the tiniest slip by Harris/Walz (and previously, Biden) while giving Trump/Vance a pass on every insane thing they say. Trump is *incredible* for news companies. He is so outrageous that their headlines write themselves, and as long as they don’t follow-up to truly report on him in a way that would end any other politician, they have unlimited content. Whatever you think about Biden, just remember: a single debate performance that wasn’t great was seized upon by the media (because it made for great engagement) and ended his candidacy. Trump can say the most batshit things (they’re eating the dogs!), and they minimize it at every opportunity, because he is good for them. They are sacrificing their journalistic integrity and responsibility at the expense of real people’s lives and rights.

So, what do we do if polls and most news coverage isn’t useful? Remember:

Trump lost the 2020 election. The Electoral College is the only reason it was even close. People were fed up then, and they are even more fed up now.

Roe was overturned by an activist Supreme Court that Trump is responsible for. In virtually every state-level election since then, the results have been outstandingly positive for Democrats, including in the Deep South™. This is why so many GOP politicians have stopped talking about abortion, even going so far as to remove their position from their websites, or directly contradicting themselves when asked about it. The only person making a decision about a woman’s body should be that woman, and these predominantly white dudes still don’t realize how badly they fucked up.

The majority of Trump’s former Cabinet and senior leadership have very publicly turned on him. While it would have been nice for them to do this earlier, it’s unprecedented to see so many prominent Republicans declare they will not vote for him. This doesn’t impact the hardcore MAGA crowd, but it absolutely speaks to more centrist Republican voters.

Trump has been convicted of sexual assault, and he is an adjudicated rapist. He’s been convicted of 34 felony indictments, with more to potentially come. Even though it seems like he never suffers consequences for these legal issues, it costs him voters. People who could justify supporting him before are finally reaching a limit, even if they don’t publicly admit it. (Some do!)

Also, more and more people who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 are willing to publicly admit they are tired of him and can’t do it again. His rallies are smaller and smaller, the crowds are less engaged, and, yes, people leave during his rambling rants more and more often.

Gen Z is getting to vote for the first time at any real scale. Say what you will about TikTok and other platforms, but they are more informed and showing up and caring about issues that didn’t move the needle for Gen X or Boomers. Remember the Access Hollywood, grab ‘em by the pussy, tape? That should have ended his original campaign, but it didn’t. Gen Z has found out about that, and it’s just one of so many things driving them to get out and vote. The turnout is going to be incredible.

Because we still use the stupid Electoral College, this election largely comes down to swing states. The Trump campaign has done almost everything imaginable to lose those voters. Whether it’s bashing unions (Trump said a child could do the same job as automotive workers building cars, he bragged about not paying overtime, etc…), immigrants (they’re eating the dogs, GOP-led states demonizing them), Puerto Ricans (calling their home a floating pile of garbage, Trump denying hurricane relief for almost two years), or women (abortion, telling women they should vote how their husband wants them to, Vance thinking their purpose is nothing more than baby-making, stay-home, wait-on-a-man’s every need), they are losing the swing states.

Elections are *incredibly secure and trustworthy.* The Trump/GOP camp has attacked this at every opportunity with virtually no success. The few instances of voter fraud we’ve seen in the last few years are almost entirely from Republicans. They have already started the narrative that the election is rigged if Trump loses. This narrative will only increase as results start to roll in on Tuesday. Don’t even worry about it. They will lose every / almost every single lawsuit they try to bring. It will have no impact on the eventual outcome.

Early voting, including absentee and mail-in ballots, turnout is incredibly encouraging. The higher the turnout, the better, and people are showing up. There’s fatigue and embarrassment on the GOP side (you’re gonna eventually hear from those voters that they stayed home, voted for Harris, etc…), and there’s excitement and motivation on the Dem side.

Are there reasons to be worried? Of course. The Trump campaign is going to try and obstruct the voting process in every way they can. They’re blocking poll monitors in Texas and Florida. Drop boxes in some states have been attacked. Voter rolls have been illegally purged. They’re bringing lawsuits (most of which they’ve already lost) even before Election Day. They’re going to claim fraud. They’ll probably incite violence again.

These are the actions of a desperate campaign that isn’t trying to actually win, because they know they’ve already lost.

So, we can acknowledge our stress, anxiety, and fear, but we don’t have to let it ruin the next few days. Get outside and enjoy (hopefully) beautiful Fall weather. Snuggle your pets. Listen to your favorite albums. Read a great book. Hang out with your people. Vote.

We’re a few days away from a massive weight being lifted from our shoulders. Don’t let it weigh you down until then.

[ngdrb]

Former Trump official warns ex-president is gearing up to claim 'rigged' election again

Donald Trump and his allies are preparing to make claims of election and voter fraud if he loses in November - according to election experts and a number of old-school Republicans.

Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles, a Republican who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, said that if Trump loses, he and his associates “will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks,” according to The Guardian. 

“They’ll claim everything went wrong if they lose. I’d be surprised if Trump doesn’t try to incite insurrection if he loses the election,” the mayor said.

Both Trump and his allies are pushing the same lies as they did in 2020 about voting machines and drop boxes, but they’re now also attacking prosecutors on the state and federal levels who have charged the former president for trying to overturn the election. They have claimed that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” and “lawfare” in attempts to paint the former president’s legal woes as political prosecution.

David Becker at the Center for Election Innovation and Research told The Guardian that  “A lot of false claims are masquerading as efforts to change policy to improve election integrity when in actuality they’re just designed to sow distrust in our system if Trump loses.”

“This is all designed to manufacture claims that if Trump loses, the election was stolen and to sow discord, chaos, and potential violence,” he added.

The right-wing organization Turning Point USA claims to be spending tens of millions on getting out the vote for Trump in important battleground states, also hosting several large rallies where false allegations that the 2020 election was rigged are still being shared.

Both in 2016 and 2020, Trump was unclear if he would accept the election results. Similarly, at the presidential debate with President Joe Biden on June 27, he said that he would accept the results if the election is “fair and legal.” That response came after he was asked three times about accepting the results and shortly afterward he yet again claimed that American elections are fraudulent.

In April, Trump hosted House Speaker Mike Johnson at Mar-a-Lago for an event prompting the lower chamber to pass legislation making it illegal for noncitizens to vote – something that was already outlawed and in the past has happened on a very small scale. 

The group True the Vote sent out a fundraising request in March pointing to their attempts to put together “arguments for litigation” as well as other measures to take aim at what they claim will be “chaos” around the election because of “illegal voter registrations.”

Both election experts and Republican stalwarts have told The Guardian that Trump and his allies are preparing to claim that November’s election has been rigged if the former president loses the election.

Former Republican Michigan Representative Dave Trott told the paper that “Trump continues to encourage his supporters like Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA to question the integrity of our elections.”

“He has no evidence or basis for claiming fraud and is only perpetuating these lies so he has a plan B to disrupt democracy in the event he loses,” he added.

Former Republican Pennsylvania Representative Charlie Dent told The Guardian that he believes Trump will claim fraud again if he loses in November.

“I expect he will do the same thing in 2024,” he said. “If he loses he will raise Cain in state capitals and he will descend on state capitals with his allies to make the case for fraud.”

The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary, and analysis for the independently minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently-minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

[houseofbrat]

Bernie Would Have Won

By Krystal Ball

There are a million surface-level reasons for Kamala Harris’s loss and systematic underperformance in pretty much every county and among nearly every demographic group. She is part of a deeply unpopular administration. Voters believe the economy is bad and that the country is on the wrong track. She is a woman and we still have some work to do as a nation to overcome long-held biases. 

But the real problems for the Democrats go much deeper and require a dramatic course correction of a sort that, I suspect, Democrats are unlikely to embark upon. The bottom line is this: Democrats are still trying to run a neoliberal campaign in a post-neoliberal era. In other words, 2016 Bernie was right.

Let’s think a little bit about how we got here. The combination of the Iraq War and the housing collapse exposed the failures and rot that were the inevitable result of letting the needs of capital predominate over the needs of human beings. The neoliberal ideology which was haltingly introduced by Jimmy Carter, embraced fully by Ronald Reagan, and solidified across both parties with Bill Clinton embraced a laissez-faire market logic that would supplant market will for national will or human rights, but also raise incomes enough overall and create enough dynamism that the other problems were in theory, worth the trade off. Clinton after all ran with Reagan era tax cutting, social safety net slashing and free trade radicalism with NAFTA being the most prominent example. 

Ultimately, of course, this strategy fueled extreme wealth inequality. But for a while this logic seemed to be working out. The Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended. Incomes did indeed rise and the internet fueled tech advances contributing to a sense of cosmopolitan dynamism. America had a swaggering confidence that these events really did represent a sort of end of history. We believed that our brand of privatization, capitalism, and liberal democracy would take over the world. We confidently wielded institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO to realize this global vision. We gave China most-favored nation trade status.

Underneath the surface, the unchecked market forces we had unleashed were devastating communities in the industrial Midwest and across the country. By the neoliberal definition NAFTA was a roaring success contributing to GDP growth. But if your job was shipped overseas and your town was shoved into economic oblivion, the tradeoff didn’t seem like such a great deal.

The underlying forces of destruction came to a head with two major catastrophes, the Iraq War and the housing collapse/Great Recession. The lie that fueled the Iraq war destroyed confidence in the institutions that were the bedrock of this neoliberal order and in the idea that the U.S. could or should remake the world in our image. Even more devastating, the financial crisis left home owners destitute while banks were bailed out, revealing that there was something deeply unjust in a system that placed capital over people. How could it be that the greedy villains who triggered a global economic calamity were made whole while regular people were left to wither on the vine?

These events sparked social movements on both the right and the left. The Tea Party churned out populist-sounding politicians like Sarah Palin and birtherist conspiracies about Barack Obama, paving the way for the rise of Donald Trump. The Tea Party and Trumpism are not identical, of course, but they share a cast of villains: The corrupt bureaucrats or deep state. The immigrants supposedly changing your community. The cultural elites telling you your beliefs are toxic. Trump’s version of this program is also explicitly authoritarian. This authoritarianism is a feature not a bug for some portion of the Trump coalition which has been persuaded that democracy left to its own devices could pose an existential threat to their way of life. 

On the left, the organic response to the financial crisis was Occupy Wall Street, which directly fueled the Bernie Sanders movement. Here, too, the villains were clear. In the language of Occupy it was the 1% or as Bernie put it the millionaires and billionaires. It was the economic elite and unfettered capitalism that had made it so hard to get by. Turning homes into assets of financial speculation. Wildly profiteering off of every element of our healthcare system. Busting unions so that working people had no collective power. This movement was, in contrast to the right, was explicitly pro-democracy, with a foundational view that in a contest between the 99% and the 1%, the 99% would prevail. And that a win would lead to universal programs like Medicare for All, free college, workplace democracy, and a significant hike in the minimum wage.  

These two movements traveled on separate tracks within their respective party alliances and met wildly different fates. On the Republican side, Donald Trump emerged as a political juggernaut at a time when the party was devastated and rudderless, having lost to Obama twice in a row. This weakened state—and the fact that the Trump alternatives were uncharismatic drips like Jeb Bush—created a path for Trump to successfully execute a hostile takeover of the party.

Plus, right-wing populism embraces capital, and so it posed no real threat to the monied interests that are so influential within the party structures. The uber-rich are not among the villains of the populist right (see: Elon Musk, Bill Ackman, and so on), except in so much as they overlap with cultural leftism. The Republican donor class was not thrilled with Trump’s chaos and lack of decorum but they did not view him as an existential threat to their class interests. This comfort with him was affirmed after he cut their taxes and prioritized union busting and deregulation in his first term in office.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party put its thumb on the scales and marshaled every bit of power they could, legitimate and illegitimate, to block Bernie Sanders from a similar party takeover. The difference was that Bernie’s party takeover did pose an existential threat—both to party elites who he openly antagonized and to the party’s big money backers. The bottom line of the Wall Street financiers and corporate titans was explicitly threatened. His rise would simply not be allowed. Not in 2016 and not in 2020.

What’s more, Hillary Clinton and her allies launched a propaganda campaign to posture as if they were actually to the left of Bernie by labeling him and his supporters sexist and racist for centering class politics over identity politics. This in turn spawned a hell cycle of woke word-policing and demographic slicing and dicing and antagonism towards working class whites that only made the Democratic party more repugnant to basically everyone.

This identity politics sword has also been wielded within the Democratic Party to crush any possibility of a Bernie-inspired class focused movement in Congress attempted by the Justice Democrats and the Squad in 2018. My colleague Ryan Grim has written an entire book on this subject so I won’t belabor the point here. But suffice it to say, the threat of the Squad to the Democratic Party’s ideology and order has been thoroughly neutralized. The Squad members themselves, perhaps out of ideology and perhaps out of fear of being smeared as racist, leaned into identitarian politics which rendered them non-threatening in terms of national popular appeal. They were also relentlessly attacked from within the party, predominately by pro-Israel groups that an unprecedented tens of millions of dollars in House primaries, which has led to the defeat of several members and has served as a warning and threat to the rest.

That brings us to today where the Democratic Party stands in the ashes of a Republican landslide which will sweep Donald Trumpback into the White House. The path not taken in 2016 looms larger than ever. Bernie’s coalition was filled with the exact type of voters who are now flocking to Donald Trump: Working class voters of all races, young people, and, critically, the much-derided bros. The top contributors to Bernie’s campaign often held jobs at places like Amazon and Walmart. The unions loved him. And—never forget—he earned the coveted Joe Rogan endorsement that Trump also received the day before the election this year. It turns out, the Bernie-to-Trump pipeline is real! While that has always been used as an epithet to smear Bernie and his movement, with the implication that social democracy is just a cover for or gateway drug to right wing authoritarianism, the truth is that this pipeline speaks to the power and appeal of Bernie’s vision as an effective antidote to Trumpism. When these voters had a choice between Trump and Bernie, they chose Bernie. For many of them now that the choice is between Trump and the dried out husk of neoliberalism, they’re going Trump.

I have always believed that Bernie would have defeated Trump in 2016, though of course there is no way to know for sure. What we can say for sure is that the brand of class-first social democracy Bernie ran on in 2016 has proven successful in other countries because of course the crisis of neoliberalism is a global phenomenon. Most notably, Bernie’s basic political ideology was wildly successful electorally with Andrés Manuel López Obrador and now his successor Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico, Lula Da Silva in Brazil, and Evo Morales in Bolivia. AMLO, in fact, was one of the most popular leaders in the entire world and dramatically improved the livelihoods of a majority of his countrymen. Bernie’s basic ideology was also successful in our own history.

In the end, I got this election dead wrong. I thought between January 6th and the roll back of human rights for women, it would be enough. I thought that the overtly fascist tendencies of Donald Trump and the spectacle of the world’s richest man bankrolling him would be enough strikes against him to overcome the problems of the Democratic Party which I have spoken out about for years now–problems Kamala Harris decided to lean into rather than confront. Elevating Liz Cheney as a top surrogate was not just a slap in the face to all the victims of American imperialism—past and ongoing; it was a broad signal to voters that Democrats were the party of elites, playing directly into right-wing populist tropes. While the media talked about it as a “tack to the center,” author and organizer Jonathan Smucker more aptly described it as “a tack to the top.” And as I write this now, I have zero hope or expectation that Democrats will look at the Bernie bro coalition and realize why they screwed up. Cable news pundits are already blaming the left once again for the failures of a party that has little to do with the actual left and certainly not the populist left. 

Instead, Trump’s victory represents a defeat of social democratic class-first politics in America—not quite final, but not temporary either. The Democrats have successfully smothered the movement, blocked the entranceways, salted the earth. Instead they will, as Bill Clinton did in the ‘90s, embrace the fundamental tenets of the Trumpist worldview. 

They already are, in fact. Democrats have dropped their resistance to Trump’s mass deportation policies and immigrant scapegoating. The most ambitious politician in the Democratic coalition, Gavin Newsom, is making a big show of being tough-on-crime and dehumanizing the homeless. Democrat-leaning billionaires like Jeff Bezos who not only owns Amazon but the Washington Post have already abandoned their resistance.

Maybe I will be just as wrong as I was about the election but it is my sense that with this Trump victory, authoritarian right politics have won the ideological battle for what will replace the neoliberal order in America. And yes, I think it will be ugly, mean, and harmful—because it already is.

[darkmaga-returns]

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, legacy news networks were already sliding toward 2016 levels of melting down about the increasingly definite prospect of a presidential victory by Donald J. Trump. For them, Harris’ stinging defeat is personal — because it’s just as much a defeat for them as it is for her.

The corporate media industrial complex has spent Donald Trump’s entire political career trying to destroy him. Hand-in-hand with triple-letter government agencies and Democrats, they ran a hoax painting Trump as a Russian stooge based on ridiculous rumors commissioned by his opponent’s campaign in 2016. They continued to spread the lie for the duration of his presidency, awarding each other Pulitzers for it. And they’ve only ramped up their efforts since then.

The problem they’re reckoning with tonight is this: those efforts didn’t work. They’re no longer able to control Americans by controlling their information intake, because their credibility is farther deep-sixed than the Clinton family’s enemies list.

A TV executive anonymously fretted last week that “If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form.”

Even before the election results were in, that was true of the corporate press. Jeff Bezos knew it when he reportedly ordered The Washington Post to withhold an endorsement of Harris. But now, they can’t avoid it.

Since the last presidential election, the media have screeched incessantly about Trump “inciting an insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They made documentaries comparing Trump to the Ku Klux Klan. They portrayed Trump as the ringleader of a terrorist attack and not as a president who gave a speech and urged his supporters to protest peacefully.

Tuesday night’s results are a resounding indication that Americans didn’t buy it.

[soleminisanction]

Okay this misconception keeps coming across my dash and it drives me nuts because it means people are lumping two very different versions of the DC universe under one disparaging banner. So let me just say this to get it off my chest because I'm this close to shaking somebody:

The New 52 ended seven years ago in 2016.

That started a section of DC's history called "Rebirth" in which they started bringing elements of the pre-Flashpoint continuity back into the timeline. The first changes came in a big burst called Convergence -- which is how Jon Kent effectively manifested fully formed at 10 years old -- while other reintroductions like Kon-El, Bart Allen, Cass Cain, etc. were more gradual.

The original plan, being forced through by King of Bad Decisions Dan Didio, was that after ~4-5 Rebirth would give way to another full reboot known as 5G. I could go into detail about the plans but they're honestly not important to this post because Didio was (thankfully, finally) ousted from his role as publisher early in 2020, along with something like 80% of the higher-level editorial staff. DC had a complete creative turn-over at the start of the pandemic and completely changed directions as a result. The material being developed for 5G was retooled into the hypothetical future event "Future State" to buy the new staff time to pull together their new direction.

That new direction is called INFINITE FRONTIER. It started in 2021 and THAT is the era of DC comics we're in now. Infinite Frontier is an active push to bring back the pre-Flashpoint characters, as well as some pre-Crisis ideas and characters, while also keeping the few elements of the New 52 that people actually liked (like Jason Todd's more heroic characterization) and actively pursuing diversity initiatives both in creative staff and in creations. And outside of the big events, they're making a real effort to keep these comics short and self contained in the hopes that that'll make them more accessible. So it's actually really easy, if you read comics pre-Flashpoint and dropped off, to just pick up a series and go with the flow. Anything confusing is just a Google away.

Please, please don't make the mistake of thinking modern comics are as bad as the New 52 just because some people are butthurt their ship isn't getting canonized. There have been some really good comics made in the last few years that you should totally try! Spirit World, Monkey Prince and the entire We Are Legends line has been genuinely fantastic. The new Birds of Prey is shaping up to be a ton of fun. Dark Knights of Steel is an entertaining Elseworld. Urban Legends and Brave & the Bold have done some really fun things with shorter anthology books. One Minute War was a really fun Flash family event and everything Stargirl's done recently is liable to make you cry.

I'm begging people to give these comics a chance. It's just really sad to see them being dismissed out of hand.

[batboyblog]

2016 is often considered the point when leftism managed to get itself into the mainstream and became more popular, but I honestly can't help but wonder, given the sheer descent into conspiracy theory and selfish cruelty of the current state, whether in hindsight it was actually leftism's step into decline.

I've been thinking about this a lot, sadly I'm getting the start of a Migraine, so the edges of my thoughts are all fuzzy so idk if I'll be able to do what I think justice, but lets try.

The human mind doesn't really like complexity, it'd a pattern recognition machine built to find food and stuff that thinks you're food in the African brush. So we like to find patterns and lump stuff together, its hardwired in.

so "Leftism" I do understand what you mean, but I think it covers a really wide area.

and I think in politics we like to assign ideological and policy logic to things to political movements, it has to be about a coherent and rational ideology and world view we think. But... I think, often times it's emotional as much as anything. Did people vote for JFK or Reagan so much for policy as they, personally in their person, seemed to be the antidote to what was wrong in the moment? JFK seemed young and energetic when compared to an elderly and ill President Eisenhower, Reagan had the claiming aging leading man energy to make everyone feel like it'd be okay, a movie cowboy to lead us against bad guys we didn't understand while nice guy Jimmy Carter seemed stuck.

So back to 2016, I think there was so real ideology to start. The Left of the Democratic Party felt empowered after 2006, the left of the party had been against the Iraq War from the jump and that turned into the organizing issue that pushed Republicans out of power in 2006. A San Fran liberal, founding member of the House Progressive Cause was the first woman Speaker (and in favor of gay marriage too). In 2008 the Left of the party for largely emotional reasons sided with Obama over Clinton, even though they largely overlapped on policy and where there were (minor) differences she was to his left.

so riding high from two back to back wins, having gotten a lot of progressives elected to the House and Senate (like Bernie Sanders) progressive Dems were pretty let down by the real results, the ACA got bogged down and their dearest wish list item, the public option, which Pelosi fought for so hard, failed to make it into the final bill, and then 2010, a blood bath. And understandably there's been some frustration with Obama for not living up to the hype and also failing to really focus on state level races, Democrats got tarred hard

BUT! there's also an emotional side, Occupy Wall Street. I remember at the time being interested in it, I was young and more radical, but soon I got really frustrated because they had no demands, I watched every night MSNBC which was very sympathetic, but no one could articulate what it is they wanted, past a vague idea of "punish" the guilty.

I think there's a lot of restless frustration, some of it grounded and based in reality some of it not, in this country and its only grown over time as well as a contempt for and a break down of any kind of respect for experts and norms any anything established.

SO! I think that emotion latched onto Bernie and the left of the Democratic Party. As someone who worked that election I can tell you, at first knocking doors in New Hampshire, I got the taste of the very start of the campaign. And people would say "oh I'm voting for Bernie now, but I'll vote for Hillary in the general" but soon it went from friendly, from "we're pushing her to the left" to something bitter and angry. I had Bernie supporters tell me 1990s Fox News conspiracy theories around the Clintons, I had a Bernie supporter (in the general election) follow two college girl volunteers for blocks back to our office to SCREAM at us all.

Bernie won the New Hampshire Primary pretty commandingly that year, and partly because he had a strong volunteer network. But in the general despite many efforts we could barely get any of his regular volunteers to come work with us against Trump. I remember one lady who showed up just once and looked RIP SHIT! to be there, I think she said that all the positive stuff we said about Clinton, at a canvass launch for Clinton, made her "sick" and "don't expect me to say anything nice about her!" and she was one of only a tiny number of Bernie people who showed up in the general so she was better than some.

I remember the only Bernie Volunteer we got to become a regular. He'd knocked doors for months in New Hampshire for Bernie, organized his own phone bank into Nevada for their primary, drove down to South Carolina and spent the week before their primary knocking. Clearly a true believer, and when he decided to volunteer with us they kicked him out of the Facebook group he started and stopped speaking to him. I'll always remember what he said, that around the Bernie office they used to say that "a Trump voter was just a Bernie voter who hasn't been educated yet"

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, there were real motivations of the progressives and the left of the party, real policy based frustrations, particularly around how health care worked out, and I think Bernie Sanders himself was running because of that and to express that. But it tapped into something else, something not really political and much more emotional, rage and bitterness and a need to punish, the same energizes Trump taps into. It made a permission to be nasty to people you don't like, particularly women, I won't repeat the things people said on the phones, horrible.

now in 2024, almost 10 years later, there's a lot more depression mixed in, Trump talks about America as a 3rd world country all the time, there's just a vibe of having given up, hopelessness. There's a genocide and everything is horrible and hopeless and give up and die.

I don't believe in giving up, I don't believe in bitterness, I'm not a sunny person in real life, but I believe the point of politics, the politics I'm a part of, is lifting people up. It might be corny and uncool, but I believe in America, not that we're prefect, no, we're not, but together we've done great things, we fought a world war and went to the moon, and we can do great things together still always if we believe in each other, build each other up, stop being so afraid and weak and sad. I want to be beat fascism again, I want to go to the moon again, I want to beat climate change, and finally finally make the promise that all men are created equal REAL, and I don't believe in hiding behind walls, and crying that we can't do it any more, fuck that shit.

[bugblast]

NEW updated furby speculative evolution chart!!! :] click 2 zoom in or read under cut

SHELBY (2001) Evolving throughout Paleozoic Era, mainly Permian Period. ~275 MYA. Related to clams and horseshoe crabs. Lives on coasts.

FURBY (1998-9) First appeard in late Triassic period. ~220 MYA. Similar to early mammals like Morganucodon, with Lystosaurus-like beak and reptillian parietal eye (infared sensor). Lives on sandy beaches.

FURBY (2012) Like some birds, evolved to have brighter colors in response to tropical environment and abundance of species. Ears are made of cartilage, and larger eyes as a result of having no natural predators. (It's literally called Furby Island).

BOOM (2013) Different coat patterns evolve through selective mating. Holes in ears for wider range of hearing.

PARTY ROCKERS (2013) Experimental subspecies with differing beak, ear, and eye proportions. Honestly probably boardering on extinction.

EMOTOTRONIC (2005) Emerged during early Cretaceous period. ~105 MYA. Similar to Repenomamus in size in order to compete with dinosaurs. Thick, leathery skin replaces beak, and forms toenails for rougher terrain. Lives in lush tropical forests.

FUNKY (2006) A selection of Emoto-tronics that developed brighter colors, and tails developed from selective mating.

CONNECT (2016) Antenna forms for advanced communication. Beak size shrinks to compensate for larger eyes, ears, and increased brain size. Almost like aliens.

FURBY (2023) Glowing ears fromed from gradual absorpsion of antenna. More advanced communication and higher level of conciousness. Beak continues to shrink and eyes continue to enlargen.

FURBLETS (2023) Smaller subspecies, exchanged bioluminescence for higher range of motion. Can fold ears over body for protection.

[grubbyraccoonhands]

Most popular formula 1 ships are based on teammate pairs (charlos, maxiel etc), as they have the most content produced of them interacting and at least some level of tension.

The ships that break out from the this dynamic must meet either of the following criteria: childhood friends or rivals (piarles) or insane sexual tensions (sewis). Some ships can even have a combination of the two (Lestappen) but adding that to being teammates might result in extreme consequences (see Brocedes, 2016 et al.).

In this essay I will-

[37sommz-archive]

✼. THRU SPACE 'N TIME | PROFILE.

Born in Gold Coast, Australia on December 23, 1999, Michaela Sommers was introduced to the world of motorsports from a early age. Her father, Tobias, and his younger brother, Travis Sommers, were avid Formula racing fans who idolized the likes of Senna, Schumacher, and Lauda. The motorsports bug skipped over Sommers' older sister, Samantha, before biting her at the mere age of six. By her ninth birthday, Michaela was competing in karting championships along the Australian east coast.

Despite her natural aptitude for racing, Michaela recalls facing discrimination for both her race and gender quite early on while karting. Despite the negativity that would swirl around her reputation, the young driver would win her first national championship at the age of twelve with plenty of rumors circling concerning her future in the sport. Sommers would attempt to enter her first international competition, but was barred from entry after her father lost his job in the summer of 2012.

Without much hope, Michaela would step back from racing for nearly six months before eventually deciding to join her uncle who had moved to England after his marriage just years prior. Travis then became Michaela's manager, working endlessly to ensure his niece would be able to continue climbing the karting ladder. Shortly after her move to England, her uncle would connect with Australian F1 driver Mark Webber who would travel to watch her race in a regional competition in 2013. Stunned by her potential, Webber helped the young girl to catch the attention of a racing team competing in the Ginetta Junior Championship alongside future McLaren teammate Lando Norris. Sommers' transition to racing cars would prove successful, securing a junior championship at just 14 years old.

Sommers would continue working through the ranks, receiving extensive media attention and comparisons to Lewis Hamilton as a teenager. Spending one year at the Formula 3 level, Michaela would race for British team Jagonya Ayam in 2015 finishing fifth in the championship and second in the rookie cup, both below Charles Leclerc. Her performance would catch the attention of Italian team Prema Racing who signed her to development for higher formulae alongside Pierre Gasly for the 2016 season.

Despite an average result, ending her rookie season in sixth place, Prema would resign the Australian who would be simultaneously be selected to join the Ferrari driver development program for the 2017 season. That same year, Sommers would wrap up her Formula 2 season in second place, once again behind Charles Leclerc.

Eventually, Michaela would finally secure a Formula 2 championship in 2018 while signing on as a reserve driver for Ferrari. Her official Formula One debut came after Sommers signed on to be Alfa Romeo's second-seat driver for the 2019 season, securing one-point in her debut race before finishing her rookie season in eighth place.

✹.⠀⠀،،⠀THE BASICS.

birth name: michaela jeanette sommers alias: mickey sommers date of birth: december 23, 1999 zodiac sign: capricorn hometown: gold coast, australia ethnicity: australian & xhosa nationality: australian, south african languages: english, italian weight: 121 lbs (55 kg) height: 5'7" (169 cm) dominant hand: left family: tobias sommers, miriam sommers, samantha sommers faceclaim: tinara westbrook

✹.⠀⠀،،⠀THE FORMULA CAREER.

01. GINETTA JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP (2014). ✼.⠀team: jhr developments ✼.⠀number: #72 ✼.⠀teammates: alex sedgwick, dan zelos, jamie chadwick, senna proctor ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x7) ✼.⠀championship standing: 1st

02. FORMULA THREE (2015). ✼.⠀team: jagonya ayam ✼.⠀number: #54 ✼.⠀teammates: gustavo menezes, ryan tveter ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x1) ✼.⠀championship standing: 5th

03. GP2 SERIES (2016). ✼.⠀team: prema racing ✼.⠀number: #20 ✼.⠀teammates: pierre gasly ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x3) ✼.⠀championship standing: 6th

04. FORMULA TWO (2017). ✼.⠀team: prema racing ✼.⠀number: #2 ✼.⠀teammates: charles leclerc ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x5) ✼.⠀championship standing: 2nd

05. FORMULA TWO (2018). ✼.⠀team: prema racing ✼.⠀number: #3 ✼.⠀teammates: nyck de vries ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x7) ✼.⠀championship standing: 1st

06. FORMULA ONE (2019). ✼.⠀team: alfa romeo racing ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: kimi raikkonen ✼.⠀highest race finish: 4th (x1) ✼.⠀championship standing: 7th

07. FORMULA ONE (2020). ✼.⠀team: alfa romeo racing ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: kimi raikkonen ✼.⠀highest race finish: 3rd (x2) ✼.⠀championship standing: 7th

08. FORMULA ONE (2021). ✼.⠀team: mclaren ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: lando norris ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x1) ✼.⠀championship standing: 4th

09. FORMULA ONE (2022). ✼.⠀team: mclaren ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: lando norris ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x2) ✼.⠀championship standing: 4th

10. FORMULA ONE (2023). ✼.⠀team: aston martin ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: fernando alonso ✼.⠀highest race finish: 2nd (x7) ✼.⠀championship standing: 3rd

✼. view:⠀navigation page⠀⸻⠀join the taglist⠀⸻⠀request.

[simply-ivanka]

Kamala Harris’s ‘Joyful’ War on Entrepreneurs

When Democrats talk about boosting the middle class, what they mean is government employees.

By Allysia Finley Wall Street Journal

Americans who tuned in to Kamala Harris’s coronation last week heard from plenty of celebrities, labor leaders and politicians. Missing from the “joyous” celebration, however, were entrepreneurs who generate middle-class jobs.

No surprise. Cheered on by the crowd, Democrats took turns whacking “oligarchs” and “corporate monopolists.” By the time Ms. Harris took the stage, the pinatas’ pickings had been splattered around. This is what Democrats plan to do if they win: destroy wealth creators so they can spread the booty among their own.

Corporate greed is “the one true enemy,” United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain proclaimed. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders insisted the party “must take on Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Tech, and all the other corporate monopolists whose greed is denying progress for working people.” Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey railed against “greedflation” and accused corporations of “extorting families.”

Barack Obama lambasted Donald Trump and his “well-heeled donors.” “For them, one group’s gains is necessarily another group’s loss,” Mr. Obama said. “For them, freedom means that the powerful can do pretty much what they please, whether it’s fire workers trying to organize a union or put poison in our rivers or avoid paying taxes like everybody else has to do.”

Democrats treat wealth as a zero-sum game, and so Mr. Obama’s straw men are rich. They get richer by making everyone else poorer—and taking away from the well-off is the only way to enhance the lives of the poor and middle class. Hence, the left’s plans to raise taxes on “billionaires” and businesses to finance more welfare.

It isn’t enough that the top 1% of earners already pay 45.8% of federal income tax, which funds government services and welfare for the bottom half. As for poisoning rivers, perhaps Mr. Obama forgot that his own Environmental Protection Agency caused the 2015 Gold King Mine disaster, which spilled toxic waste into Colorado’s Animas River.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, the former president invoked “the better angels of our nature” even as he appealed to America’s darker angels. His speech brought to mind a recent homily by my local parish priest about the dangers of class warfare and envy, one of the seven deadly sins.

Success, the priest explained, isn’t a zero-sum game. When a businessman succeeds, he creates jobs that help the poor. Envying and tearing down the successful makes everyone poorer. Rather than plunder the wealthy, society should celebrate success and try to help everyone prosper.

Democrats derisively refer to such ideas as “trickle-down economics.” They denounce and diminish business success, and claim the wealthy have profited from greed and government support. Who can forget Mr. Obama’s line in 2012 that “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that”?

Rather than try to make it easier for businesses to succeed—say, by reducing taxes or easing regulations—Democrats want to do the opposite. They call for “leveling the playing field” and “growing the middle class out,” euphemisms for taxing success so government can hand out money. But government doesn’t create wealth. People do.

While business success isn’t zero-sum, government growth can be. Its expansion makes it more difficult for business to thrive. The result is fewer jobs, lower wages and less tax revenue, which finances essential public services such as law enforcement and the “safety net” for the indigent.

Mr. Trump’s appeal in 2016 partly stemmed from slow economic growth during Mr. Obama’s presidency. The Republican promised to make all Americans richer by liberating businesses from government’s shackles. Mr. Trump’s deregulation and tax cuts worked: Average real wages increased nearly 70% faster during his first three years than during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Yet most Americans have become poorer under Mr. Biden, as government spending has fueled inflation, which has eroded wages. Job growth has become increasingly concentrated in sectors that depend on government spending. When Democrats talk about boosting the middle class, they mean the class of government workers.

Government, education, healthcare and social assistance account for more than 60% of the new jobs added in the last year. In the 17 states where Democrats boast a “trifecta”—control of the governorship and both legislative chambers—the share is 98%. In the 23 states with Republican trifectas, it’s 47%.

Likewise, average wage growth since the start of the pandemic has been lower in high-tax states such as Illinois (13.6%), New York (14.4%) and California (17.2%) than in low-tax Florida (22.5%), Texas (23.3%) and South Dakota (26.9%). If middle-class Americans want to get richer, they ought to move to Miami, Dallas or Sioux Falls.

“As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty, or to abolish special privilege,” Henry Ford once observed, “we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow.” That’s the joyous future Americans can expect during a Harris presidency.

Appeared in the August 26, 2024, print edition as 'Kamala Harris’s ‘Joyful’ War on Entrepreneurs'.