#Chris Whelan

[joyxande]

Times Square NYC – 1996 | Chasing Classic Cameras with Chris

[rqgnarok]

more than just a short time — jamie whelan

fandom: law & order organized crime

wc: 2,579 

warnings: SPOILERS for the season finale of law & order organized crime, canonical character death, canon mention of hospitals and violence. very self deprecating talk from a disabled character. ANGST. ANGST, ANGST, ANGST. female!reader

summary: Can someone be a widow if their partner only ever planned to propose?

author’s note at the end.

Jamie doesn’t wanna see her.

She’s on her way up, Bobby tells him gently. Jamie wishes the surge of relief that courses through him wasn’t mixed up with the abhorrent need to send her away, be as rude as possible to have her leave the room before she comes to terms with what he’s become.

He doesn’t. Jamie nods at Reyes and licks his lips. He feels his eyes burn when the door opens to (Y/N) walking in, clutching the strap of her purse like it’s a lifeline, eyes wide and terrified and determined all at once. Bobby cups her elbow in silent support as he leaves the room, and Jamie swallows the mean words that try to climb up his throat at the sight of someone else doing what he can’t; comfort her, touch her, be the steadiness she needs in a moment of chaos.

Neither of them speaks as they’re left alone, a bubble of something-not-quite-peace enveloping them and making the outside world a mere blur at the other side of the doors. It’s only them and the ticking clock, the smell of alcohol and disinfectant, and the lack of color and life one expects from this specific wing at Bellevue. 

They’d met in a bar around four years ago. Jamie had just made detective and some of his buddies at the four-nine were adamant about at least buying him some drinks in celebration. Just after finishing his first beer, another one had been delivered to the table, the waiter pointing to where (Y/N) was sitting at the bar, smile sheepish and face flushed at being caught. 

She’d heard them celebrating and figured there was no harm in inviting the next round. Jamie leaned into her space with a charming grin and said something stupid about being harmed by meeting someone so beautiful and not asking for their name. To this day (Y/N) calls it the worst pickup line she’s ever heard, but it got him a laugh and a date that very same weekend. 

It’s been good. It’s been great – the last time Jamie was so infatuated by someone he’d been thirteen and crushing after the next-door neighbor. He fell so hard for (Y/N) and simply kept falling as they moved in together before their second anniversary and started looking for rings a couple of months before he transferred to Organized Crime.

The development of their relationship has been both a whirlwind and the most obvious thing Jamie’s ever lived through. Of course he was supposed to meet her. Of course he fell in love with her from the very first night. He hasn’t been able to imagine his life without her since their first date. 

Jamie doesn’t want her here. Jamie needs her by his side. These are two things that have to coexist now, his new reality far from the idea he had for the rest of his life.

He doesn’t tell her to go.

“Hi, sweetheart,” (Y/N) talks first, breaking the silence and the distance between them all at once as if snapping out of a spell. She drops her things in the chair left behind by Bobby and is by his bed in an instant, hands hovering all over him like she’s unsure of what parts of him she can touch without hurting him. 

Jamie wills for his fingers to twitch, for his hand to wake the fuck up and reach for her, help her cross those last few inches she isn’t daring to do on her own. 

He remains limp against the bed. (Y/N) finally touches him, her fingers against his cheek. It’s enough for Jamie to shudder with a cry, turning his head so he can soak in the touch. She’s warm and steady against his skin and Jamie mourns his situation for the hundredth time in the last hour.

“Jamie,” she says, murmured and weepy. Jamie’s eyes close in agony but it feels too much like being dead already, so he opens them again. The sight that greets him is devastating: his almost-fiánce-never-to-be-wife, asking him for something he can’t give her. The lifetime together he’s been waiting to promise in his proposal has gone up in smoke in the blink of an eye.

It was the right thing to do. Jamie knew– not even the blinding pain that shocked through his nerves had been enough of a distraction to the urgency in Stabler’s voice– that the second Kyle died, the chance to put down Shadowerk would go with him. 

There really was nothing he could’ve done. The bullet had reached his spine the moment it entered his body. He was dead the second he walked into that godforsaken camp.

But (Y/N) hadn’t known that when she kissed him goodbye that morning. She’d stood on her tippy toes and wrapped her arms around his neck and joined their mouths together, tasting of toothpaste and languidly using her tongue to make him late for work.

“Hi,” he says, voice dry, trying not to sound as miserable as he is and failing. 

He’d already canceled a vacation on her earlier that week. A pre-honeymoon, he’d started calling it in his mind, maybe finally the right time to propose. He worries for a ridiculous moment if (Y/N)’s gonna be able to get a refund out of that, fretting terribly for what’ll happen to her after he’s gone.

He knows she can take care of herself but she’s not supposed to have to. Not while he’s alive and breathing.

Jamie’s overcome with how badly he wishes he’d called in sick. That he let (Y/N) drag him back to bed like she almost did and throw caution to the wind, burrow himself in her arms and her laugh, and leave the curtains drawn shut, embracing the safety of the darkness. He was so afraid of letting Bell and Stabler down, of having Reyes go out there without someone that cared for him watching his back, and where did that get him?

Without his body. Without a future with the love of his life.

The love of his life who can never find out what he asked of Bobby. Even if she loves him enough to do it for him– Jamie loves her too much to even ask. He won’t do that. He’s already planning on making her a widow, having her do it is just cruel. He made a promise a long time ago that he wouldn’t let the job make him someone he didn’t recognize and he’s not about to start bailing on it now.

Can someone be a widow if their partner only ever planned to propose? Jamie almost suggests they get a priest in here and use Bobby as a witness, but (Y/N) deserves better than that. And she’ll find it someday, Jamie’s sure of it, with an accountant or a banker or someone with a boring job who doesn’t leave the house to get shot at and get paid too little for it. 

“My day sucked,” he jokes weakly despite the inner monologue that’s rushing through his brain, trying to get her to smile and his voice cracking with emotion in the process. (Y/N) struggles with it but she manages an upward tilt of the lips, eyes wet. 

His pretty girl, so fucking resilient.

“I bet,” she tells him. She doesn’t stop touching him, which Jamie appreciates as much as he does the effort at light conversation. “Office coffee was that bad, huh.” 

Jamie’s laugh turns into a sob so quickly that he reasons it wasn’t really ever a laugh. His fragile good humor is gone in an instant, lip wobbling and features scrunching in agonized despair.

“I’m sorry,” he cries earnestly and without restraint for the first time since his mom died, probably. He shuts his eyes but it does nothing to stop the flow once it's started and (Y/N) can’t wipe all his tears fast enough. “We should’ve gone on vacation, I shouldn’t have gone to work at all, I’m so sorry–”

“Hey,” she cuts him off, equally as devastated. “Honey, it’s alright, it’s okay. You were doing the right thing, there’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”

He keeps apologizing anyway, fervently. Jamie isn’t strong enough to stop when (Y/N) starts to cry, too. She just holds him as best she can while they cry together. “You don’t deserve this, you don’t need less than half a–”

“You’re alive,” (Y/N) insists fiercely through tears. Jamie doesn’t tell her how this can’t be much of a life. “You came home to me, baby. That’s all that matters to me, you understand?”

Jamie hums an affirmative and keeps crying, and (Y/N) keeps soothing her fingers over his cheeks, his mouth, his temple, his hair. Jamie’s tremendously grateful for her, even if the need to make himself small and let (Y/N) hold him will never be satisfied again. 

“You’re not half of anything,” she continues to reassure him without room for discussion. “You’re my everything. My whole entire life, Jamie–”

“I kept thinking of you,” he weeps, his breaths coming fast and hurried without the usual feeling of his abdomen pulling with the force of his grief. “All the time I’m out there, all I do is think of you, and I thought this time, I– I– I–”

She says his name helplessly, pressing a fervent kiss to his temple while some of her tears fall into Jamie’s hair, her breath stuttering. (Y/N) wraps herself around him as best she can without disturbing his injuries and the machines that are keeping him alive, leaving her in a most awkward position she doesn’t complain about once. Jamie’s love for her is too strong to be contained inside his body.  

“I love you,” he tells her after enough time has passed that Jamie’s almost certain he won’t break into another sob. His voice quivers but that’s about it, and he thinks he’s allowed. (Y/N)’s fingers tremble against his temple. “I love you so much.”

“I love you,” she answers without hesitation, her voice a little shaky, too. She scratches at his hair and Jamie’s shiver is cut down to his neck. “I love you, baby, and we’re gonna be alright. We’re gonna be okay.”

“I don’t think we’ll make it to Alaska,” he tries not to scoff in disappointment because he knows (Y/N) won’t like it, and she proves him right when she purses her lips like she does when trying to convince herself not to slap him in the back of the head.

“Don’t be stupid,” she says, but it’s so, so soft it sounds like a term of endearment. Idiot, like honey, sweetheart, baby . “I don’t care about that. We can get shitfaced and take pictures with your thumb on the lens at home, you know.”

“Hey,” he says, trying and failing not to think about wedding rings at the bottom of champagne glasses or hidden in chocolate mousse cakes. He’s always made fun of people who think proposing with a choking hazard is a good idea but Jamie now aches for that stupidity, that normalcy that won’t ever be for him. He refuses to propose in a hospital room when he can’t even put a ring on her hand himself. “We probably won’t get a refund out of that.”

“That’s okay,” (Y/N) soothes. Nothing is, but Jamie lets her try. Maybe she’ll have better luck at pretending than he did. “I don’t mind.” 

They fall into silence and he almost goes to sleep under her hands, pacified to unconsciousness half due to exhaustion and half due to her presence: the calm in the middle of the storm. Jamie isn’t mad anymore, can’t be when she’s got him wrapped around her finger.

“I love you,” he can’t tell her enough, sleepy and quiet. The rush of air she lets out is the only indication that (Y/N) heard him. 

Breathing’s getting harder, already a chore, and now the thought of the device running out of batteries or accidentally disconnecting from where it's keeping him alive makes him anxious. (Y/N)’s worried, he can tell even if she almost never voices it because she refuses to make him feel guilty about doing the job he loves. Jamie wishes she’d tell him off, scream and cry at him and not bottle it all up. It’ll only be worse when he–

He says, "Want every day with you," with sharp breaths between each word because he's too exhausted to say I want to spend the rest of my life with you. There's a ring in my locker at the station that I've been waiting for the right moment to give to you. He doesn't say, every moment is right when we're together and I'm sorry I'm only realizing that when I’m unable to breathe on my own.

(Y/N) smiles, shaky and watery, and the most gorgeous sight Jamie’s seen in his life. She knows, and Jamie knows she does. The knot that had built up the whole time he'd struggled to stay awake, waiting for her in this hospital bed, loosens.

It’s gonna be okay. She’s gonna be alright, even if she’ll miss him. She’ll grieve and move on knowing, without a doubt, that Jamie loved her like he’s never loved anyone before. It’s enough for him. He can only hope it’s enough for her, too. 

“Honey,” she rouses him gently from an accidental slumber hours later, the sun that gave little light to the room now gone behind the horizon, (Y/N)’s fingers still caressing his face. She looks exhausted and worried and the most beautiful Jamie’s ever seen her. Her smile is brittle and shaky. “Your dad’s here. I didn’t want to wake you up, but–”

“‘s okay,” he tells her. “Can you give us a few minutes?”

“Sure,” she says softly, hesitation clouding her features only for a second before she’s leaning in for a kiss, firm and lingering. Jamie exhales into it, something in his chest unfurling at the touch. He hadn’t realized they hadn’t kissed yet. “I’ll bring him in.”

“Wait,” he says, managing a boyish grin with lidded eyes. “Do that again.”

(Y/N)’s smile is bright, and Jamie’s glad to taste it when she goes in for another kiss on his mouth and then moves on to his cheek, his nose, his chin, his forehead. “Insatiable.”

“You love it.”

“God help me, I do,” she pats his chest carefully. “Let me go get your dad before he wonders what we’re doing in here.”

“Okay,” he says quietly, and once last time because he can’t help himself. “I love you.”

(Y/N) turns from where she already had one foot out the door, expression tender. “I love you back. See you in a minute.”

Later, after crying in the safety of his dad’s presence like a little boy and saying his goodbyes, Jamie closes his eyes as his breaths begin to recede. The shrill sound of his heart monitor, the panic that takes over the room when he stops breathing, he’s aware of none of it. 

Behind his lids isn’t death, but the Northern Lights and (Y/N) underneath them, showered in colors and smiling at him like she did that first night in a bar, young and unknowing. She offers him her hand and Jamie takes it. Nothing hurts.

 ________

this fic snuck up on me ngl but the season finale fucking wrecked me. i’m still thinking about writing a fix it.

short (considering my standards lol) and somewhat sweet? hope you enjoyed and if u want tell me what u think!

<3 

masterlist / ao3 / buy me a coffee

[kirsteng42]

God I love this scene as they have actually succeeded in something!!!

That’s the post

[i-got-the-feels]

Vegas Kornwit Theerapanyakul

Paul Heyman/Florence Griffith Joyner/Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass/Ulquiorra Cifer/Washington Irving/John le Carré, The Looking Glass War (George Smiley, #4)/Carla H. Krueger, Sex Media/Sophie Page, To Marry a Prince/Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty/Chris Crutcher, The Crazy Horse Electric Game/Luciana Susan Kay/Aletheia Luna (Awakened Empath: The Ultimate Guide to Emotional, Psychological and Spiritual Healing)/Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster/Richelle Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher/Max Porter/Chris Crutcher, The Crazy Horse Electric Game/Gloria Whelan, Summer of the War/Billy Ray Chitwood, The Cracked Mirror: Reflections of an Appalachian Son/Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents/Robert Murray McCheyne/Faraaz Kazi, Truly, Madly, Deeply/Jules Verne/Stephen King, The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7)

[thecraftyacademic]

♱𝔡𝔞𝔯𝔨 𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔰𝔶 𝔞𝔯𝔱 𝔯𝔢𝔣𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔰♱

I created a Pinterest board for dark (mostly medieval) fantasy references because I enjoy the genre so much. Upon putting it together, I've unfortunately been noticing a lot of AI-generated artwork which is really upsetting to see. :( I've been struggling to find a solid, collective batch of references from actual artists and human-made media so I'm making this post just so that there's something digitally to refer to.

Artists Reza Afshar Juan Miguel López Barea Zdzisław Beksiński Clyde Caldwell Frank Frazetta Piotr Jabłoński Chris Nazgul Keith Parkinson Luis Royo Justin Sweet Keith Thompson Boris Vallejo (and Julie Bell) Michael Whelan Takato Yamamoto Andrej Z.T.

Tumblr Accounts (includes artists) @buriedknight @darkartfinds @descendinight @godivaghoul @jakubrozalski @lowstrear67 @madcat-world @plastiboo @saprophilous @vane-sya @vyrosk @wolfhidewinter @yehuoji

Movies (not a lot, I know, I'm not a big movie person) Dragonslayer (1981) Excalibur (1981) Legend (1985) The Dark Crystal

Reference Books Castlevania: The Art of the Animated Series Demon's Souls (Black Phantom Edition) Artbook Dracula X ~Nocturne in the Moonlight Dark Souls Design Works Magic and Dark Fantasy Coloring Collection Santa Lilio Sangre - Ayami Kojima Artworks Art Book Sketching from the Imagination: Dark Arts Substrata: Open World Dark Fantasy The Art of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Other/Miscellaneous Resources Dark Fantasy Resource Pack - RPG Maker MV Demon's Souls Concept Art Diablo Concept Art Symbaroum Shadow of the Demon Lord World Anvil Royalty free Dark Fantasy music

I hope that this may be helpful to others too. Feel free to add on to this!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 9, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 10, 2024

Yesterday we learned from a forthcoming book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward that in 2020, while he was president, Trump secretly shipped Covid-19 testing equipment to Russian president Vladimir Putin for his own personal use at a time when Americans could not get it. To be clear, this equipment was not the swabs we now use at home, but appears to be what at the time was a new point-of-care machine from Abbott Laboratories that claimed to be the fastest way to test for Covid-19. 

Journalist Karly Kingsley points out that at the time, central lab testing to diagnose Covid-19 infections took a long time, causing infections to spread. Machines like Abbott’s were hard to get. Trump chose to send them to Putin—not to charge him for them, or to negotiate for the release of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, two Americans being held by Russia at the time and later released under the Biden administration, but to give them to him—rather than keeping them for Americans.

It’s hard to overstate just what an astonishing story this is. In 2016, Republicans stood firm against Putin and backed the arming of Ukraine to stand against Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. But that summer, at Trump’s urging, the party changed its platform to weaken its support of Ukraine. In 2020, it appears, Trump chose to give lifesaving equipment to Putin rather than use it for Americans. And in 2024, Trump’s willingness to undermine the United States to cozy up to an adversary his own party stood against less than a decade ago does not appear to be a deal breaker for Republicans.

As Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) put it: “What has this country come to if the revelation that Trump secretly sent COVID testing machines to Putin while thousands of Americans were dying, in part because of a shortage of testing machines here, doesn't disqualify him to be President?” He continued: “Donald Trump helped keep Putin alive during the pandemic and let Americans die. This revelation is damning. It's disqualifying. He cannot be President of the United States.” 

Increasingly, Trump’s behavior seems to parrot the dictators he appears to admire. 

After 60 Minutes called him out for breaking a fifty-year tradition of both candidates talking to 60 Minutes and backing out of an interview to which he had agreed, Trump today accused the producers of 60 Minutes of cutting Vice President Kamala Harris’s answers to make her look good. He suggested that such cuts were “illegal” and possibly “a major Campaign Finance violation” that “must be investigated, starting today!” “The public is owed a MAJOR AND IMMEDIATE APOLOGY!” he wrote. Trump is trying to cover for his own failure by attacking CBS in an echo of dictators determined to control the media.

In a post on his social media site tonight, Trump appears to have declined to appear at another presidential debate with Vice President Harris. After declaring he had won the previous debate with Harris and rehashing many of his grievances, he wrote: “THERE WILL BE NO REMATCH!”

As Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post recounted yesterday, a report from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, revealed that the Trump White House prevented a real investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. More than 4,500 calls and electronic messages about Kavanaugh sent to the FBI tip line went directly to the White House, where they were never investigated, and the FBI was told not to pursue corroborating evidence of the accusations by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez although lawyers for the women presented the names of dozens of people who could testify to the truth of their allegations.  

A number of senators said the lack of corroborating evidence convinced them to vote in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation. As Steve Benen of MSNBC recalled, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said at the time that it appeared to be “a very thorough investigation,” while the late Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said that the 2018 FBI report “looks to be a product of an incomplete investigation that was limited perhaps by the White House.”

After he left office, Trump told author Michael Wolff that he had gone to bat for Kavanaugh, saying: “I…fought like hell for Kavanaugh—and I saved his life, and I saved his career.” Kavanaugh was the crucial vote for Trump’s right-wing agenda, including ending the federal recognition of abortion rights by overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Ken Bensinger reported in the New York Times today that Trump’s team has refused to participate in preparations for a transition to a potential Trump presidency. Normally, the nonpartisan transition process, dictated by the Presidential Transition Act, has candidates setting up teams as much as six months before the election to begin vetting and hiring political appointees and working with the administration in office to make sure the agencies continue to run smoothly. 

With the election less than a month away, Trump has neither signed the required agreements nor signed the transition’s ethics plan that would require him to disclose private donors to the transition and limit them to contributions of no more than $5,000. Without that agreement, there are no limits to the money the Trump transition can take. Trump has also refused to sign an agreement with the White House requiring that anyone receiving classified information have a security clearance. Currently, his aides cannot review federal records.

Trump ignored the traditional transition period in 2016, cutting off communications with President Barack Obama’s team. He refused to allow incoming president Joe Biden access to federal agencies in 2020, hampering Biden’s ability to get his administration in place in a timely fashion. Now it’s possible that Trump sees no need for a normal transition because Project 2025, on which he appears to be relying, has been working on one for many months. 

It calls for him to fire most federal employees, reinstating the policy he started at the end of his term. To fill their positions, the Heritage Foundation has been vetting loyalists now for months, preparing a list of job candidates to put in place a new, right-wing agenda.  

Yesterday, on California’s KFI radio station, Trump told host John Kobylt that Tom Homan of Project 2025, who as director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement oversaw the family separation policy at the southern border, will be “coming on board” a new Trump administration. 

This afternoon, Trump told an audience in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that he expects to put former rival Vivek Ramaswamy into an important position in his administration. On October 7, 2024, Ramaswamy suggested on social media that he wants to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. He wrote: “Shut down the entitlement state & you solve most of the immigration problem right there. We need to man up & fix the root cause that draws migrants here in the first place: the welfare state. But no one seems to want to say that part out loud, because too many native-born Americans are addicted to it themselves.”

Trump has expressed frustration with the independence of the Federal Reserve, expressing a desire to make it answer to the president. In an interview with Barron’s, one of his advisors, Scott Bessent, has floated the idea of creating a shadow Fed chair until the term of the current chair, Jerome Powell, ends, thus undercutting him without facing a fight over firing the Fed chair. 

This agenda is not a popular one in the U.S., but Trump is getting a boost as Russian operatives work to swing downballot races toward the Republicans. In a briefing on Monday, October 7, experts from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told reporters that China and Iran are trying to influence the upcoming election and that “Moscow is leveraging a wide range of influence actors in an effort to influence congressional races, particularly to encourage the U.S. public to oppose pro-Ukraine policies and politicians. Russian influence actors have planned, and likely created and disseminated, content, particularly over social media, intended to encourage the election of congressional candidates that Moscow assesses will oppose aid to Ukraine.”  

Russia, an ODNI spokesperson said, uses “influence-for-hire firms, or commercial firms with expertise in these type[s] of activities.” It also coopts “witting and unwitting Americans to work on Russia’s behalf,” to “launder their influence narratives through what are perceived as more authentic U.S. voices.” 

Not all of Trump’s supporters appear eager to stick around to see if Trump will win another term. Today news broke that Patrick M. Byrne, the former chief executive officer of OverStock, who became a fervent advocate of the idea that Trump was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election, has left the country, apparently permanently, to live in Dubai. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Byrne, as is President Biden’s son Hunter. The younger Biden sued Byrne for defamation last November after Byrne claimed Hunter Biden sought a bribe from Iran. 

In September, Biden’s lawyers were trying to schedule a date for Byrne’s deposition when his lawyer abruptly “claimed for the first time that Defendant has moved his residence to Dubai and if Plaintiff wanted to take his in-person deposition counsel would have to fly to Dubai to do so, to which Plaintiff responded with various related inquiries to try to resolve this matter and defense counsel stated Defendant would not be returning to the United States for the foreseeable future.” 

Byrne claimed to have fled the U.S. because the Venezuelan government has put a bounty on him, but as Biden’s lawyers note, “the Defendant’s truthfulness is directly at issue.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[nacrella]

Let me tell you, May 19th is cursed. (though it’s The Youth Day here)

I remember last year today, I woke up into a L&O universe disaster. We lost Muncy and Whelan all of a sudden. Their exits were so unexpected and sloppy written that I couldn’t even believe.

And this year, I’m losing CSI: Vegas on the same exact day… I thought my curse was that none of my favorite shows or characters lasted long, but I guess today is cursed too.

At least Mandeep’s debut single is going to be in the finale episode. Let us rejoice us with this ❤️‍🩹

Okay I just woke up into another chaos and I need answers WTH IS GOING ON ARE YOU SERIOUS SVU?? 

I've been crying since I woke up and I'll keep crying for some more time. Did Muncy actually leave? And your reason is that fans hated her?? Fans just started to like her!! Have you seen the hate for churlish? And what will happen to my dear veluncy 😭 I was expecting them to end up together. How could they do this to us? At the end of the day, all the bensler fans are happy... but we'll never get more scenes of our ship again. I'm sooo mad and sad at the same time. Veluncy was the only reason I kept watching svu but now I'm done with it. I didn't even watch the episode. And frankly, I'm not planning to watch it bc I know I'll cry AGAIN. The only thing they care about is bensler... I think bensler was Dick Wolf's tactic to keep fans hooked on the show for years. I thought that the fans would get what they wanted in the season finale and that veluncy would be paved the way. We didn't deserve this ending... I won’t believe it until Molly explains. I want muncy back! I want my veluncy back 🥺

And the terrible things don't stop there. Whelan's dead? Is he really? I can't get over how they write terrible endings to all my favorite characters. Duarte, Whelan and now Muncy... Whelan didn't deserve such an ending and so much hate. Most of the fans have so much hatred for the new characters and don't give them a chance. Then they say they're glad they're leaving and it drives me crazy. I think we would all be happy if a separate series for the bensler and a separate series for the side characters 🫠

What about those deleted scenes? I don't really care about the deleted scenes after Muncy's departure and Whelan's death, but they deleted the scene with Velasco working with Reyes. Everything I was excited about about this crossover has turned out so badly. Looks like I will keep crying for a while 🤧 Depression mode: on.

I just want to wake up again and see that it was all a nightmare. I’ll never be ready to watch these episodes. Unless Muncy comes back next season saying "hey I'm back", I won't be in a good mood. What will Velasco do without her? She was the only one who really trusted and loved him. As he said, Muncy was his “only real friend”.

I’m also sad about Jet and Jamie… they could make a cute couple 🥺 There might be an open door for Muncy but Whelan is gone forever now. I still don’t want to believe. He was baby Stabler. My tears will become a fountain when I watch the scene he dies (if I can watch it) Svu writers are really good at ruining good things…

I think it’s time for Benson and Stabler to retire.

Let's talk about what's on our minds. None of us seems to be able to get out of this depression for a while. I’m open to any comments 💔

[paulsspaceshippictures]

Not the Discovery:

Manchu, illustrating the Ares from The Sands Of Mars

Buck Rogers's Searcher

Peter Elson's cover to Welcome To Mars by James Blish

Peter Elson's cover to Finity's End

The Von Braun Round-The-Moon ship

Chris Foss

Jeff Hawke's Galileo

Peter Elson again, there's a tiny Discovery in the background of this one

Michael Whelan.

David A Hardy

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson Oct 9

Yesterday we learned from a forthcoming book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward that in 2020, while he was president, Trump secretly shipped Covid-19 testing equipment to Russian president Vladimir Putin for his own personal use at a time when Americans could not get it.

To be clear, this equipment was not the swabs we now use at home, but appears to be what at the time was a new point-of-care machine from Abbott Laboratories that claimed to be the fastest way to test for Covid-19. 

Journalist Karly Kingsley points out that at the time, central lab testing to diagnose Covid-19 infections took a long time, causing infections to spread. Machines like Abbott’s were hard to get. Trump chose to send them to Putin—not to charge him for them, or to negotiate for the release of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, two Americans being held by Russia at the time and later released under the Biden administration, but to give them to him—rather than keeping them for Americans.

NOTE: DOJ!! THIS IS TREASON! ADD THIS TO THE CHARGES

It’s hard to overstate just what an astonishing story this is. In 2016, Republicans stood firm against Putin and backed the arming of Ukraine to stand against Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. But that summer, at Trump’s urging, the party changed its platform to weaken its support of Ukraine. In 2020, it appears, Trump chose to give lifesaving equipment to Putin rather than use it for Americans. And in 2024, Trump’s willingness to undermine the United States to cozy up to an adversary his own party stood against less than a decade ago does not appear to be a deal breaker for Republicans.

As Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) put it: “What has this country come to if the revelation that Trump secretly sent COVID testing machines to Putin while thousands of Americans were dying, in part because of a shortage of testing machines here, doesn't disqualify him to be President?” He continued: “Donald Trump helped keep Putin alive during the pandemic and let Americans die. This revelation is damning. It's disqualifying. He cannot be President of the United States.” 

Increasingly, Trump’s behavior seems to parrot the dictators he appears to admire. 

After 60 Minutes called him out for breaking a fifty-year tradition of both candidates talking to 60 Minutes and backing out of an interview to which he had agreed, Trump today accused the producers of 60 Minutes of cutting Vice President Kamala Harris’s answers to make her look good. He suggested that such cuts were “illegal” and possibly “a major Campaign Finance violation” that “must be investigated, starting today!” “The public is owed a MAJOR AND IMMEDIATE APOLOGY!” he wrote. Trump is trying to cover for his own failure by attacking CBS in an echo of dictators determined to control the media.

In a post on his social media site tonight, Trump appears to have declined to appear at another presidential debate with Vice President Harris. After declaring he had won the previous debate with Harris and rehashing many of his grievances, he wrote: “THERE WILL BE NO REMATCH!”

As Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post recounted yesterday, a report from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, revealed that the Trump White House prevented a real investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. More than 4,500 calls and electronic messages about Kavanaugh sent to the FBI tip line went directly to the White House, where they were never investigated, and the FBI was told not to pursue corroborating evidence of the accusations by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez although lawyers for the women presented the names of dozens of people who could testify to the truth of their allegations.  

A number of senators said the lack of corroborating evidence convinced them to vote in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation. As Steve Benen of MSNBC recalled, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said at the time that it appeared to be “a very thorough investigation,” while the late Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said that the 2018 FBI report “looks to be a product of an incomplete investigation that was limited perhaps by the White House.”

After he left office, Trump told author Michael Wolff that he had gone to bat for Kavanaugh, saying: “I…fought like hell for Kavanaugh—and I saved his life, and I saved his career.” Kavanaugh was the crucial vote for Trump’s right-wing agenda, including ending the federal recognition of abortion rights by overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Ken Bensinger reported in the New York Times today that Trump’s team has refused to participate in preparations for a transition to a potential Trump presidency. Normally, the nonpartisan transition process, dictated by the Presidential Transition Act, has candidates setting up teams as much as six months before the election to begin vetting and hiring political appointees and working with the administration in office to make sure the agencies continue to run smoothly. 

With the election less than a month away, Trump has neither signed the required agreements nor signed the transition’s ethics plan that would require him to disclose private donors to the transition and limit them to contributions of no more than $5,000. Without that agreement, there are no limits to the money the Trump transition can take. Trump has also refused to sign an agreement with the White House requiring that anyone receiving classified information have a security clearance. Currently, his aides cannot review federal records.

NOTE: THEN WHY THE HELL IS HE BEING ALLOWED TO RUN FOR OFFICE? THE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE SHOULD DISQUALIFY HIM NOW!!!!!

Trump ignored the traditional transition period in 2016, cutting off communications with President Barack Obama’s team. He refused to allow incoming president Joe Biden access to federal agencies in 2020, hampering Biden’s ability to get his administration in place in a timely fashion. Now it’s possible that Trump sees no need for a normal transition because Project 2025, on which he appears to be relying, has been working on one for many months. 

It calls for him to fire most federal employees, reinstating the policy he started at the end of his term. To fill their positions, the Heritage Foundation has been vetting loyalists now for months, preparing a list of job candidates to put in place a new, right-wing agenda.  

Yesterday, on California’s KFI radio station, Trump told host John Kobylt that Tom Homan of Project 2025, who as director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement oversaw the family separation policy at the southern border, will be “coming on board” a new Trump administration. 

This afternoon, Trump told an audience in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that he expects to put former rival Vivek Ramaswamy into an important position in his administration. On October 7, 2024, Ramaswamy suggested on social media that he wants to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. He wrote: “Shut down the entitlement state & you solve most of the immigration problem right there. We need to man up & fix the root cause that draws migrants here in the first place: the welfare state. But no one seems to want to say that part out loud, because too many native-born Americans are addicted to it themselves.”

Trump has expressed frustration with the independence of the Federal Reserve, expressing a desire to make it answer to the president. In an interview with Barron’s, one of his advisors, Scott Bessent, has floated the idea of creating a shadow Fed chair until the term of the current chair, Jerome Powell, ends, thus undercutting him without facing a fight over firing the Fed chair. 

This agenda is not a popular one in the U.S., but Trump is getting a boost as Russian operatives work to swing downballot races toward the Republicans. In a briefing on Monday, October 7, experts from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told reporters that China and Iran are trying to influence the upcoming election and that “Moscow is leveraging a wide range of influence actors in an effort to influence congressional races, particularly to encourage the U.S. public to oppose pro-Ukraine policies and politicians. Russian influence actors have planned, and likely created and disseminated, content, particularly over social media, intended to encourage the election of congressional candidates that Moscow assesses will oppose aid to Ukraine.”  

Russia, an ODNI spokesperson said, uses “influence-for-hire firms, or commercial firms with expertise in these type[s] of activities.” It also coopts “witting and unwitting Americans to work on Russia’s behalf,” to “launder their influence narratives through what are perceived as more authentic U.S. voices.” 

NOTE: IF THIS DOESN'T ABSOLUTELY INFURIATE YOU , YOU'RE EITHER UNCONSCIOUS OR NOT PAYING ATTENTION!!!!!!

Not all of Trump’s supporters appear eager to stick around to see if Trump will win another term. Today news broke that Patrick M. Byrne, the former chief executive officer of OverStock, who became a fervent advocate of the idea that Trump was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election, has left the country, apparently permanently, to live in Dubai. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Byrne, as is President Biden’s son Hunter. The younger Biden sued Byrne for defamation last November after Byrne claimed Hunter Biden sought a bribe from Iran. 

In September, Biden’s lawyers were trying to schedule a date for Byrne’s deposition when his lawyer abruptly “claimed for the first time that Defendant has moved his residence to Dubai and if Plaintiff wanted to take his in-person deposition counsel would have to fly to Dubai to do so, to which Plaintiff responded with various related inquiries to try to resolve this matter and defense counsel stated Defendant would not be returning to the United States for the foreseeable future.” 

Byrne claimed to have fled the U.S. because the Venezuelan government has put a bounty on him, but as Biden’s lawyers note, “the Defendant’s truthfulness is directly at issue.” 

[paulinawoodpecker]

Tad the lost explorer and the crystal’s odyssey cast

@jakkiisthatboy2

Main Voices:

Tad: Trevor white

Sara: Alex Kelly

Mummy: Joseph Balderrama

Tiffany maze: Gemma whelan

Ramona: Pippa Bennett Warner

Victoria: Elena Sanz

Ramirez: Elena suarel

Reena Roberto Ramirez: Olivia Rodrigo

Lukas Williams: Patton oswalt

Flora peace: Ariana grande

Minnie wakanda: Kiki Layne

Snowy Moscow: Taylor swift

Jessie wakins: Tiffany haddish

Kelsey swells: Ariel Winter

Chai Ming Kong: akwafina

Nagham hugh: beyonce

Roger: Roger Craig smith

Kenny: Ken jeong

Christopher: Chris Pratt

Kevin: Kevin hart

Jeremy: John Leguizamo

Dagenia: Moses Ingram

Oganda: Danai Gurria

Liza: Letitia wright

Jaiden: Max Charles

Young Jaiden: Shelby young

Indiana Jones: Dustin Hoffman

Tiffany mordon: Sheila Victor

Blair: dove Cameron

Ying: Constance Wu

Andrea: Christina Vee

Riña: Brittney spears

Max: Adam James

Jack: Ramon tikaram

Pickles: Gary Martin

Singing:

Tad: ZAYN

Sara: Tori Kelly

Mummy: Joseph Balderrama

Tiffany maze: Taylor swift

Ramona: Bebe wood

Victoria: Awhimai Fraser

Ramírez: Beyoncé

Reena: Olivia Rodrigo

Lukas: Justin Bieber

Anne: Philpha Alexander

Tiffany mordon: Renee Rapp

Riña: Brittney spears

Max mordon: Adam James

Blair: dove Cameron

Ying: Constance wu

Andrea: Christina Vee

Other voices:

Michael Jefferson: Ray Romano

Anderson: Josh Gad

Joe: Nicholas cage

Ryu: Ed guaghan

Brian: Ben cura

Professor Lavoff: Jim Carter

Katie peace: Leslie Mann

Josh rackham peace: Peter Dinklage

Minnie’s mother: Queen Latifah

Nala: Lupita nyong’o

Jax wakins: Will Smith

Angelica wakins: Anika noni rose

Mary: Jennifer Lopez

Jacob: Jason Sudeikis

Riley: Madison Polan

Jess: Carrie Kearnen

Mark: Zac effron

John: Raymond Ochoa

Kohl: Jason Segel

Kanji: Michael cena

Grandpa Lu mian: Dustin Hoffman

Grandma Jie mei: Lucy Liu

Charlotte: Selena Gomez

Ronald: Robert De Niro

Jackie: Kristen bell

Joe: Davis Cross

Mika: khalessi lambert tsuda

Lin Jung: simu liu

Regina: Issa Rae

Messiah: Eddie Murphy

Miracle: Nicki Minaj

Emily: Zoe Perry

George: lance barber

News reporter: Keegan Michael key

Margie: Lani Minella

Song list:

Do what you gotta do: dove Cameron: (max’s and Reena’s argument)

What was I made for: Billie Ellish (the mind of memories form first to third film)

Perfect people: Becky hill (mummy’s capture)

Stuck with you: Ariana grande and Justin Bieber (Reena and Lukas’s love song)

World burn: Renee Rapp (Tiffany’s revenge)

World burn reprise: Renee Rapp (Tiffany mordons villain song; she starts making everyone mean using her powers; her revenge on tad)

A different beat: little mix;(the Chicago cats kahoot challenge course)

Hold on: becky hill (the journey)

Lazarus drug: (epilogue song)

I’m ready: Sam smith and Demi lovato (end credits)

Empire: Ella Henderson ( playing in the background when end credits rolling)

[memorableconcerts]

Happy Mondays - "Kinky Afro" - 1990

Os Happy Mondays foram uma banda de rock alternativo/dance formada em Salford, Grande Manchester, em 1985, e tiveram seu auge entre 88 e 91. O nome não vem da canção "Blue Monday" da banda New Order, como muitos supõem, mas da 1ª segunda-feira de cada mês, altura em que se recebe o subsídio de desemprego.

Os Happy Mondays lideraram a emancipação multicultural de Manchester, conhecida por Madchester, juntamente com os Stone Roses; a banda inclusive contava com um dançarino "louco", Bez, que dançava e tocava maracas. Musicalmente, pegaram na música House, no Funk dos anos 70, na Soul nortenha e no Krautrock. O aparente psicadelismo e surrealismo nas letras e na música era a única coisa que tinham em comum com os Stone Roses. Os Roses tinham um ar hippie, os Mondays eram um puro gang!

O grupo formou-se em 1984, sendo contratados após uma batalha de bandas que acabou mal para eles para a Factory Records. No ano seguinte é lançado Forty Five EP.

Dois anos depois, lançam o álbum de estreia, com o título peculiar de Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out), produzido pelo membro fundador dos Velvet Underground, John Cale. TInha boas canções, como "24 Hour Party People", mas não chegava aos pés dos já históricos concertos no Hacienda.

A partir de 1988, tudo começa a mudar. Os sons da Acid House invadem o Hacienda. E tal se reflecte na banda. O álbum Bummed, produzido por um Martin Hannett cada vez mais alucinado, já tinha verdadeiros clássicos de dança como "Wrote For Luck" ou "Lazyitis". "Wrote For Luck" teve duas célebres remisturas: "WFL", por Vince Clarke, e a "Wrote For Luck " de Paul Oakenfold. Este último produziria o álbum seguinte.

A cassete Hallelujah marca um ponto de viragem na história musical britânica. O sucesso do single "Hallelujah" leva a que os Mondays toquem no mesmo programa do Top Of The Pops com os Stone Roses. Foi aí que a música alternativa britânica entrou finalmente no mainstream. "Lazyitis" foi regravada, contendo um dueto entre Shaun Ryder e Karl Denver.

E então chega o auge: o álbum Pills'n'Thrills and Bellyaches torna-se um grande sucesso crítico e comercial, com "Kinky Afro" e "Step On" presentes nos tops da América e do Reino Unido. O concerto no G-Mex, captado em VHS, mostra Madchester em toda a sua glória.

Mas depois do auge, a queda. Shaun e Paul Ryder afundavam-se cada vez mais nas drogas, em particular no ecstasy e no crack. O álbum seguinte, Yes Please, produzido pelo casal dos Talking Heads, Tina Weymouth e Chris Frantz, é um fracasso, sobretudo por parte da crítica, agora concentrada no shoegaze no Sul de Londres e nas bandas Grunge de Seattle. A Factory Records faliu, devido aos elevados custos de produção (que foram usados, juntamente com o próprio equipamento de gravação e as roupas do grupo, em crack).

Shaun Ryder e Bez formaram os Black Grape, que continuaram o que Ryder idealizava para o seu próprio grupo, embora influenciado desta vez pelo Hip-Hop.

Fizeram duas reuniões, em 1999, sem Paul Davis e Mark Day, e em 2004, só com Shaun Ryder, Bez, Gary Whelan e músicos contratados. Foi lançado o álbum Uncle Dysfunktional em 2007, embora tenha sido praticamente ignorado pela imprensa.

A influência dos Mondays sente-se em muito lado, desde os Oasis até aos Chemical Brothers até aos Kasabian. Manchester continua a ser uma cidade com grande amor à música. Mas falta um Hacienda, um Tony Wilson, um Martin Hannett…

[whyyourteamisgood]

2024 - Week 15

BUF - Tyler Bass had 5588 kickoff yards, second most in the league

NE - Joey Slye's 63 yard FG remains the second longest made FG in the league this year

MIA - Jake Bailey has pinned 13 punts out of bounds, most in the league

NYJ - Quincy Williams has recovered two opponent fumbles, tied for second in the league

BAL - Justin Tucker has 5320 kickoff yards, second most in the AFC

PIT - Chris Boswell leads the league with 144 points

CLE - Corey Bojorquez leads the league with 75 punts

CIN - Ryan Rehkow's 80 yard punt is the second longest in the league this year

TEN - Nick Folk has hit 95.4% of his FGs, best in the league

JAX - Logan Cooke has a 46.1 net punting average, most in the AFC

IND - Rigoberto Sanchez has forced 22 fair catches, tied for most in the league

HOU - Tommy Townsend has 34 punts inside the 20, second most in the league

KC - Drue Tranquill has recovered two opponent fumbles, tied for second in the league

LV - Daniel Carlson has made 9 FGs under 30 yards, tied for second most in the league

LAC - Elijah Molden leads all corners with 29 assisted tackles

DEN - Will Lutz is 35/35 on extra points, most in the league without a miss

DAL - Brandon Aubrey leads the NFC with 122 points

WAS - Tress Way's 74 yard punt is tied for the longest in the NFC this year

PHL - Braden Mann averages 65 yards per kickoff, second most in the league

NYG - Jamie Gillan has only had 15 punts returned, fewest for any punter who has started 10 or more games

GB - Daniel Whelan's 74 yard punt is tied for the longest in the NFC this year

CHI - Tory Taylor leads the NFC with 66 punts

DET - Jack Fox is leads the league with a 51.1 yard gross punting average

MIN - Will Reichard has only allowed 7 returns of his kickoffs, tied for fewest for anyone with 35 or more kickoffs

NO - Matt Hayball has 33 punts inside the 20, the most in the NFC

TB - Chase McLaughlin has made 9 FGs under 30 yards, tied for second most in the league

ATL - Jessie Bates has 4 forced fumbles, tied for the NFC lead

CAR - Johnny Hekker has had 15 punts downed, most in the league

SEA - Leonard Williams has 92 INT returned yards, the most of any front 7 defender

LAR - Ethan Evans has pinned 9 punts out of bounds, most in the NFC

ARI - Chad Ryland averages 65.3 yards per kickoff, most in the league

SF - Maliek Collins has recovered two opponent fumbles, tied for second in the league

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 11.23

Beer Birthdays

Henry Flach (1835)

Honza Kocka (1968)

Phil Cutti

Five Favorite Birthdays

Chris Hardwick; comedian (1971)

Steve Landesberg; actor (1936)

Harpo Marx; comedian, actor (1888)

Wayne Thiebaud; artist (1920)

Doctor Who; fictional character (1963)

Famous Birthdays

Alexander; Byzantine emperor (870)

Pete Allen; English clarinet player & saxophonist (1954)

Susan Anspach; actor (1942)

Rick Bayless; chef, restaurateur (1953)

Jerry Bock; composer (1928)

Nelson S. Bond; author and playwright (1908)

William "Billie the Kid" Bonney; outlaw (1859)

Kelly Brook; model and actress (1979)

Vincent Cassel; French actor (1966)

Miley Cyrus; actor, pop singer (1992)

Guy Davenport, writer (1927)

Manuel de Falla; Spanish composer (1876)

Erte; French artist (1862)

Joe Eszterhas; Hungarian-American screenwriter (1944)

Mary Brewster Hazelton; painter (1868)

Jennifer Michael Hecht; historian, author & poet (1965)

Bruce Hornsby; pop keyboardist, singer (1954)

Boris Karloff; English actor (1877)

Pierre Charles Le Monnier; French astronomer (1715)

Johnny Mandel; songwriter (1925)

José Clemente Orozco; Mexican painter (1883)

P. K. Page; English-Canadian author and poet (1916)

Alan Paul; jazz singer (1949)

Krzysztof Penderecki; composer (1933)

Franklin F. Pierce; 14th U.S. President (1804)

David Rappaport; actor (1951)

Edward Rutledge; signer of the Declaration of Independence (1749)

Charles Schumer; lawyer and politician (1950)

Isaac Todhunter; English mathematician (1820)

Bill Troiano; tuba player (1952)

Johannes Diderik van der Waals; Dutch physicist (1837)

John Wallis; mathematician (1616)

Theodore Dwight Weld; author (1803)

Gloria Whelan; author and poet (1923)

[misfitwashere]

This is from a few days ago, but IMHO it's worthy of a read:

October 9, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 10, 2024

Yesterday we learned from a forthcoming book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward that in 2020, while he was president, Trump secretly shipped Covid-19 testing equipment to Russian president Vladimir Putin for his own personal use at a time when Americans could not get it. To be clear, this equipment was not the swabs we now use at home, but appears to be what at the time was a new point-of-care machine from Abbott Laboratories that claimed to be the fastest way to test for Covid-19. 

Journalist Karly Kingsley points out that at the time, central lab testing to diagnose Covid-19 infections took a long time, causing infections to spread. Machines like Abbott’s were hard to get. Trump chose to send them to Putin—not to charge him for them, or to negotiate for the release of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, two Americans being held by Russia at the time and later released under the Biden administration, but to give them to him—rather than keeping them for Americans.

It’s hard to overstate just what an astonishing story this is. In 2016, Republicans stood firm against Putin and backed the arming of Ukraine to stand against Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. But that summer, at Trump’s urging, the party changed its platform to weaken its support of Ukraine. In 2020, it appears, Trump chose to give lifesaving equipment to Putin rather than use it for Americans. And in 2024, Trump’s willingness to undermine the United States to cozy up to an adversary his own party stood against less than a decade ago does not appear to be a deal breaker for Republicans.

As Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) put it: “What has this country come to if the revelation that Trump secretly sent COVID testing machines to Putin while thousands of Americans were dying, in part because of a shortage of testing machines here, doesn't disqualify him to be President?” He continued: “Donald Trump helped keep Putin alive during the pandemic and let Americans die. This revelation is damning. It's disqualifying. He cannot be President of the United States.” 

Increasingly, Trump’s behavior seems to parrot the dictators he appears to admire. 

After 60 Minutes called him out for breaking a fifty-year tradition of both candidates talking to 60 Minutes and backing out of an interview to which he had agreed, Trump today accused the producers of 60 Minutes of cutting Vice President Kamala Harris’s answers to make her look good. He suggested that such cuts were “illegal” and possibly “a major Campaign Finance violation” that “must be investigated, starting today!” “The public is owed a MAJOR AND IMMEDIATE APOLOGY!” he wrote. Trump is trying to cover for his own failure by attacking CBS in an echo of dictators determined to control the media.

In a post on his social media site tonight, Trump appears to have declined to appear at another presidential debate with Vice President Harris. After declaring he had won the previous debate with Harris and rehashing many of his grievances, he wrote: “THERE WILL BE NO REMATCH!”

As Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post recounted yesterday, a report from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, revealed that the Trump White House prevented a real investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. More than 4,500 calls and electronic messages about Kavanaugh sent to the FBI tip line went directly to the White House, where they were never investigated, and the FBI was told not to pursue corroborating evidence of the accusations by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez although lawyers for the women presented the names of dozens of people who could testify to the truth of their allegations.  

A number of senators said the lack of corroborating evidence convinced them to vote in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation. As Steve Benen of MSNBC recalled, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said at the time that it appeared to be “a very thorough investigation,” while the late Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said that the 2018 FBI report “looks to be a product of an incomplete investigation that was limited perhaps by the White House.”

After he left office, Trump told author Michael Wolff that he had gone to bat for Kavanaugh, saying: “I…fought like hell for Kavanaugh—and I saved his life, and I saved his career.” Kavanaugh was the crucial vote for Trump’s right-wing agenda, including ending the federal recognition of abortion rights by overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Ken Bensinger reported in the New York Times today that Trump’s team has refused to participate in preparations for a transition to a potential Trump presidency. Normally, the nonpartisan transition process, dictated by the Presidential Transition Act, has candidates setting up teams as much as six months before the election to begin vetting and hiring political appointees and working with the administration in office to make sure the agencies continue to run smoothly. 

With the election less than a month away, Trump has neither signed the required agreements nor signed the transition’s ethics plan that would require him to disclose private donors to the transition and limit them to contributions of no more than $5,000. Without that agreement, there are no limits to the money the Trump transition can take. Trump has also refused to sign an agreement with the White House requiring that anyone receiving classified information have a security clearance. Currently, his aides cannot review federal records.

Trump ignored the traditional transition period in 2016, cutting off communications with President Barack Obama’s team. He refused to allow incoming president Joe Biden access to federal agencies in 2020, hampering Biden’s ability to get his administration in place in a timely fashion. Now it’s possible that Trump sees no need for a normal transition because Project 2025, on which he appears to be relying, has been working on one for many months. 

It calls for him to fire most federal employees, reinstating the policy he started at the end of his term. To fill their positions, the Heritage Foundation has been vetting loyalists now for months, preparing a list of job candidates to put in place a new, right-wing agenda.  

Yesterday, on California’s KFI radio station, Trump told host John Kobylt that Tom Homan of Project 2025, who as director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement oversaw the family separation policy at the southern border, will be “coming on board” a new Trump administration. 

This afternoon, Trump told an audience in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that he expects to put former rival Vivek Ramaswamy into an important position in his administration. On October 7, 2024, Ramaswamy suggested on social media that he wants to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. He wrote: “Shut down the entitlement state & you solve most of the immigration problem right there. We need to man up & fix the root cause that draws migrants here in the first place: the welfare state. But no one seems to want to say that part out loud, because too many native-born Americans are addicted to it themselves.”

Trump has expressed frustration with the independence of the Federal Reserve, expressing a desire to make it answer to the president. In an interview with Barron’s, one of his advisors, Scott Bessent, has floated the idea of creating a shadow Fed chair until the term of the current chair, Jerome Powell, ends, thus undercutting him without facing a fight over firing the Fed chair. 

This agenda is not a popular one in the U.S., but Trump is getting a boost as Russian operatives work to swing downballot races toward the Republicans. In a briefing on Monday, October 7, experts from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told reporters that China and Iran are trying to influence the upcoming election and that “Moscow is leveraging a wide range of influence actors in an effort to influence congressional races, particularly to encourage the U.S. public to oppose pro-Ukraine policies and politicians. Russian influence actors have planned, and likely created and disseminated, content, particularly over social media, intended to encourage the election of congressional candidates that Moscow assesses will oppose aid to Ukraine.”  

Russia, an ODNI spokesperson said, uses “influence-for-hire firms, or commercial firms with expertise in these type[s] of activities.” It also coopts “witting and unwitting Americans to work on Russia’s behalf,” to “launder their influence narratives through what are perceived as more authentic U.S. voices.” 

Not all of Trump’s supporters appear eager to stick around to see if Trump will win another term. Today news broke that Patrick M. Byrne, the former chief executive officer of OverStock, who became a fervent advocate of the idea that Trump was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election, has left the country, apparently permanently, to live in Dubai. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Byrne, as is President Biden’s son Hunter. The younger Biden sued Byrne for defamation last November after Byrne claimed Hunter Biden sought a bribe from Iran. 

In September, Biden’s lawyers were trying to schedule a date for Byrne’s deposition when his lawyer abruptly “claimed for the first time that Defendant has moved his residence to Dubai and if Plaintiff wanted to take his in-person deposition counsel would have to fly to Dubai to do so, to which Plaintiff responded with various related inquiries to try to resolve this matter and defense counsel stated Defendant would not be returning to the United States for the foreseeable future.” 

Byrne claimed to have fled the U.S. because the Venezuelan government has put a bounty on him, but as Biden’s lawyers note, “the Defendant’s truthfulness is directly at issue.” 

—

[mirandamckenni1]

Mo Ghille Mear (My Gallant Hero) - Choral Scholars of University College Dublin Help support Choral Scholars by joining our channel, and get access to exclusive perks! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDcnhh99zuRBWEKoKSsE7gg/join Traditional Irish arr. Desmond Earley Text by Seán Clárach Mac Dómhnaill From the album ‘Invisible Stars – Choral Works from Ireland and Scotland’ The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin Artistic Director: Desmond Earley Solo: Mark Waters Bodhrán: Tristan Rosenstock (track) / Brian Garvin (visual) Released on Signum Records BUY IT NOW: https://ift.tt/SV7gjl5 Sheet music: https://ift.tt/tnJF2ia The UCD Choral Scholars released their debut international recording on Signum Records on 11th December 2015 (USA and Canada – 12th February 2016). The disc, entitled Invisible Stars is an enchanting collection of traditional and contemporary choral music from Ireland and Scotland and features arrangements and new compositions by some of Ireland’s most celebrated composers for choir, including Michael McGlynn, Brendan Graham, Ivo Antognini, Bill Whelan and the group’s artistic director, Desmond Earley. Video by Zucca Films: https://ift.tt/G9pYE4K A Zucca Films Production DoP - Richard Kendrick Editor - Emmet Reddy Animator - Chris Lynch Colourist - Leandro Arouca @ Media Milk, Dublin Costume - Alex Calder Art Director - Declan Winser Website: https://ift.tt/uAatnWh Facebook: https://ift.tt/VZ3TYke Twitter: @UCDChoral via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxjvNUNXhkU

[yourusatoday]

Investec Ltd: Executive Leadership Profile

Introduction to Investec Ltd

Investec Ltd is a distinguished financial services company that provides a diverse range of financial products and services to a niche client base in three principal markets: the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Australia. With a commitment to exceptional client service and innovative financial solutions, Investec Ltd has established itself as a prominent player in the global financial sector.

Executive Leadership Team

CEO and Managing Director

Fani Titi Fani Titi is the CEO and Managing Director of Investec Ltd. With extensive experience in finance and business leadership, Titi has been instrumental in driving the company's strategic initiatives and growth. His vision and leadership have focused on fostering a culture of excellence and innovation, ensuring that Investec remains at the forefront of the financial services industry.

Chief Financial Officer

Morne du Plessis Morne du Plessis serves as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Investec Ltd. He oversees the financial operations, including budgeting, financial planning, and reporting. Du Plessis's expertise in financial management and his strategic approach to fiscal discipline have been critical in maintaining the company's financial stability and supporting its growth ambitions.

Chief Operating Officer

Ciaran Whelan Ciaran Whelan is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Investec Ltd. He is responsible for overseeing the company's day-to-day operations, ensuring operational efficiency and effectiveness. Whelan's focus on operational excellence and innovation drives the company's efforts to provide top-tier financial services to its clients.

Head of Group Risk

Chris Meyer Chris Meyer holds the position of Head of Group Risk at Investec Ltd. His role involves managing and mitigating the risks that the company faces. Meyer’s comprehensive risk management strategies ensure that Investec operates within its risk appetite while pursuing its business objectives. His expertise is crucial in safeguarding the company's assets and reputation.

Chief Investment Officer

Marc Kahn Marc Kahn serves as the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Investec Ltd. He is responsible for the company’s investment strategies and portfolio management. Kahn's deep understanding of investment markets and his strategic insights have been instrumental in achieving favorable investment outcomes for the company and its clients.

Head of Human Resources

Catherine Berman Catherine Berman is the Head of Human Resources (HR) at Investec Ltd. She leads the company's human capital management, focusing on talent acquisition, development, and retention. Berman’s commitment to fostering a positive and inclusive work environment ensures that Investec attracts and retains top talent in the industry.

General Counsel and Company Secretary

Samantha Lee Samantha Lee serves as General Counsel and Company Secretary for Investec Ltd. She oversees the company's legal affairs and provides guidance on corporate governance and compliance matters. Lee's extensive legal expertise ensures that Investec operates with the highest standards of legal integrity and corporate responsibility.

Strategic Vision and Goals

Investec Ltd is committed to delivering exceptional financial services while fostering sustainable growth and innovation. The executive leadership team's strategic vision encompasses several key areas:

Sustainable Finance: Promoting investments and financial products that support environmental sustainability and social responsibility.

Technological Innovation: Leveraging cutting-edge technology to enhance client service and operational efficiency.

Client-Centric Approach: Prioritizing client needs and delivering tailored financial solutions.

Operational Excellence: Continuously improving operational processes to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.

Global Expansion: Expanding the company’s footprint in key international markets to drive growth.

Corporate Governance

Investec Ltd adheres to robust corporate governance practices, ensuring transparency, accountability, and ethical conduct. The board of directors, comprising experienced professionals from diverse backgrounds, plays a critical role in guiding the company's strategic direction and overseeing its governance framework.

Conclusion

Investec Ltd.'s executive leadership team is dedicated to advancing the company's mission of providing superior financial services while fostering innovation and sustainability. Through strategic vision, strong governance, and a client-centric approach, Investec Ltd continues to solidify its position as a leader in the global financial services industry. The leadership's focus on sustainable finance, technological innovation, and operational excellence ensures that Investec is well-positioned to meet the evolving needs of its clients and stakeholders.