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songmingisthighs · 4 months ago

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Pitiful, You're Pitiful

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ch. vi

group : ateez

pairing : aged up!wooyoung × aged up!reader

genre : angst, mature

word count : 2.8 k

warning : argument, mentions of cheating, negative depiction of wooyoung, mentions of loss, calling an adulteress an assortment of names, idk what else tbh lmk if there is anything else I should add

a/n : I FINALLY UPDATED !!!!! this chapter might be slightly shorter compared to the others but trust me when I say it's very much intentional because I just want to focus this chapter on this one specific interaction. some sort of catalyst or like break from the obliteration of pyp!woo's image ig lmaooooo BUT YAY I DIDN'T FORGET TO POST PYP THIS MONTH !!!!

buy me coffee ?

After the fiasco that was your unveiling of a VERY important information about a staff of the academy, Wooyoung was immediately pulled in to get his side of the story. And of course, unfortunately, you. Luckily, you didn't get chastised by anyone because you were CLEARLY the victim in this situation. Heck, the HR team even reached out to apologize to you for the inconvenience you experienced due to their staff's "misconduct" because you're one of the founders's wives. It was an interesting way of saying that their staff is a cheating whore without any redeeming value but you'll take what you can get out of them and the situation. Which also includes his own friend group contacting you every now and then to make sure that you are okay and some (Yunho, Mingi, and Jongho) even going as far as swearing to denounce their familial relations with Wooyoung which was sweet.

Speaking of Wooyoung, he had been shoved into the heap of horseshit that he had piled on himself. You honestly have never seen him so down because he was "suggested" to take an extra two weeks of break to "settle down from the issue" which was really code for HR still having to clean up his mess because Harin decided to not go quietly. From what you heard from a reliable source (Jongho over pastry and coffee after he ditched his vocal classes to gossip), Harin came back the day after she officially got fired and made a ruckus. Literally, she went crazy and made a mess of the lobby; throwing chairs and tables around, scattering pamphlets, breaking vases, and screaming random weird things like how the company is a misogynist for firing a woman for something that was beyond her control. Safe to say, because Harin refused to move to a quieter spot, Hongjoong had to step in and reiterate all the mistakes she had made including but not limited to her having an affair with a married man who was her boss. Hongjoong had even told her that while there was another party involved, another party that acknowledged the mistakes that he had made and agreed to accept whatever disciplinary actions were required, it was also her choice to partake in such behavior. Long story short, a student uploaded the whole thing on YouTube and as of today, there were 15 different TikTok remixes ranging from EDM, screamo, and even a Donald Trump edit. Without Jongho pointing it out, you could imagine that Harin's career in South Korea was over, not because of the cheating, but because of her disorderly conduct.

You found yourself spending time rather peacefully in recent times which was surprising since your house seems to always be in a state of chaos. For once, Wooyoung didn't try to make you talk to him or about him. In fact, he had the decency to be very considerate of you and your feelings, particularly about being in the same room as him. It made you feel slightly bad to be honest because although you both were going through something, he was in the middle of being the butt of the joke and jab by everyone at the company. It was sad and pathetic but also very much deserved. Sure you sometimes found his isolation to be sad, pathetic, and downright pitiful, but then you remember what he did and you remembered how he put himself in that position without even considering the repercussions.

The same could be said about Dayoung. Well, only in the sense of her isolation seemingly from the rest of the world. Your outgoing, extroverted daughter seemed to spend a good chunk of time locking herself inside her room after school. Usually, you would have to turn into a negotiator three times a week just to get your daughter to come home right on her curfew. This time around, you had a worse time trying to get her out, even making her run some errands just so she could get some fresh air. It wasn't until a while later that Wooyoung clued in on why Dayoung was acting like that. The way you went off on Wooyoung for breaking the news in such a manner without you present or even consulting you. You did try to understand that maybe he just... slipped or that he was so emotional that it just slipped out but the point stood that he waited until you were trying to piece things together to finally tell you. Yet another secret he kept from you. Considering the frequency of things he said but hid away from you, you had to think if this was some sort of behavioural pattern that he hadn't exhibited even if you both had been married for quite a long time. Maybe he had became a master a suppressing it and all it took was you forcing the truth out of him to make said behavior to come back to the surface.

On the other hand, Woohyun was turning into a more mature and responsible version of himself. the day you both came home from confronting the slut, Woohyun became so very helpful towards you. The first thing he did was took your bag and brought it over to the kitchen table before he dashed to the bathroom to wash his hands, cleaning himself up before you had to tell him to. Then he made himself very available for you by making sure that he spent almost every single waking or available moments with you. When you;re in the kitchen doing the dishes or cooking, he would be on the counter or the dining table doing his homework. Sometimes he would even try to do chores like one time he tried to help you bringing his sister's laundry basket from the second floor and he ended up scattering everything down the stairs. Woohyun was upset and worried that you would be mad but instead, you laughed it up and helped him clean up before teaching him how to carry items that are heavier than him down. Although you couldn't find it in yourself to bring it up in case you ended up accidentally telling him yourself, you had a feeling that Woohyun was trying to distract you from the reality of what was going on with your husband in his own way. One of the things that solidified your assumption was the fact that Woohyun had limited contact with his dad significantly. The two of them used to spend time together playing games or pulling pranks on one another and even on you or Dayoung but he had suddenly refuse to spend elective time with Wooyoung no matter how much Wooyoung tried to negotiate with him with everything that he got. Despite that, Woohyun dudb't lose respect for his dad.

"Mom?"

You almost dropped the plate you were washing when you heard a voice come up from the doorway. It was surprising to see Dayoung standing there, timid like a deer because she was always happy, lively, and rambunctious, even straight-up disrespectful to you, your space, and your boundaries. But never this. She had been so... quiet for a week and it would've made you freak out had it not been for Wooyoung letting you know that Dayoung knew. That was all he said, she knew. You did not know what had gotten over you to not deck Wooyoung right then and there but he should absolutely consider himself a lucky bastard.

The sight of your own daughter standing there made you feel... anxious. You probably (most likely) should not be afraid of a bitty teenager, but how can you not? It's not like you thought that she was going to attack you or worse, ask you to give Wooyoung a sponge bath. But you just never saw your daughter this... Muted. It was as if she had stepped into an old TV where there was nothing but black and white. You silently wished that Woohyun had not gone to the zoo with his playdate friends because he would be a great buffer. Or witness for whatever that was bound to happen.

"D-do you need help with the dishes?" She asked, stepping closer to you slowly. At first, you were surprised, not exactly expecting that the first thing she would say was an offer to help you with a chore. But, you welcomed her with a smile and nodded, stepping to the side so she could come next to you and start wiping down the washed dishes.

There were no words exhchanged between the two of you for the first five minutes or so but it wasn't awkward. It was the first time that the silence was peaceful when it was just the two of you. Usually, the silence would always only come from Dayoung and it was because she was mad at you for something. Not at you and Wooyoung, just you. You were always the receiver of her animosity even when she was mad at her dad for whatever insignificant reason there could be, but this time was different.

"Mom..." she called you suddenly but what came next surprised you instead, "I'm sorry," she started, not looking at you which was unfortunate because you were staring at her with a very priceless dumbfounded expression. "I- I- what?" "I'm sorry for... This, my part in... Whatever's going on with you and dad. I'm really sorry for making you take care of him. Had I known, I wouldn't have made you take him in," she confessed and you could see that she was starting to tear up. Your heart broke and you really wanted to pull her in and give her the biggest hug that you could muster just to show your support for her but you knew that it would just make yourself feel better for accomplishing something and not actually help her feel better. So you took a step closer to her and breathed out a sigh of relief when she didn't push you away. "I'm really, really, REALLY sorry mom. He's the worst husband ever," she sniffed which made you chuckle as you blinked back the tears that were threatening to fall, "Well, I would say that Emperor Peter, Catherine the Great's husband is a far worse husband than your father."

Your attempt at making light of the situation was met with Dayoung squinting her eyes at you. "Mom, I'm serious. I've heard about my friend's dad cheating but not like this. Not in your situation, and not with someone dumb enough to think she can substitute a hand wrap for martial arts with boob tapes," she scoffed, annoyed. You sighed and shrugged, "Well, people are complicated, sweetie. I... I'm not mad, annoyed, or angry that you wanted me to take care of your dad because, in retrospect, it WAS the absolute right thing to do. I mean, your dad was injured and he's facing such a hard time at work. It would be absolutely wrong to just toss him to someone else. Who would we even toss him to? His friend? His parents?" "His whore, mom. We could've tossed him out and have his whore handle him."

The very second the words left Dayoung's mouth, your eyes widened and your neck snapped in her direction to see her frowning, staring up at you. "He's a cheating bastard and we have the right to not even be in contact with him anymore," she curtly stated. "Jung Dayoung," you started shakily. Dayoung simply shook her head to cut you off, "No, mom, oh my God, you need to stop being a doormat." "Dayoung!" you exclaimed, surprised that she was able to say such a thing and perhaps slightly offended. "It's true! God, mom, how long have you known that he has a side piece who's as dumb as a bag of rocks? How long have you held everything in and just let him walk all over you? He fucking CHEATED on you mom! When you were so down in the dumps to the point that you couldn't even take care of yourself properly! You used Woohyun and I as a distraction, shoving all the attention and care to what, fill in the void over the loss of my would've-been sibling? And where was he? He was with some other woman because he is the worst of the worst and I will never forgive him for what he did to our family!"

Maybe it was the volume of her voice or the massive weight of her words but you felt your blood boiling and before you even realized it, you had shoved a plate into the sink and you were huffing, "Jung Dayoung that's enough, you should not talk about your father that way." "Why? Why shouldn't I, mom? My God, this is the first time in like, maybe ever that I'm standing up for you, this is me protecting you and yet you're still trying to make excuses for that pathetic son of a bitch who betrayed his family!?" "He did not betray our family, okay? He betrayed me, Dayoung!"

Just like it was the first time Dayoung defended you, you had experienced your first time screaming at her and to say that she was scared was an understatement. Dayoung shut her mouth and stared at you with sadness in her eyes because she had yet to comprehend why you were still trying to stand up for your cheating husband.

"Your dad did nothing to our family, sweetie. He did this to me," you sighed, closing your eyes and exhaling shakily as you used both of your hands to hold onto the counter to stabilize yourself. "Sure, he might have altered the dynamic and whatever else in our family but he... What he did was nothing against our family but it was just against me. At least, that's what I think. I don't think I have it in me to find out exactly why he did what he did because I'm weak, Dayoung. I'm a coward like that." you turned to her and shed a tear, breaking Dayoung's heart as she realized just how strong you were all this time.

"Then why, mom? Why are you still letting him off?" Dayoung asked, her voice cracking. You tearily chuckled and shrugged, "Who said that I am? I'm doing this, ALL of this, not because I want to. I did it, because for the longest time, that was what we have agreed on in our marriage. He deal with the monetary stuff and I deal with the family stuff. As much as it hurts, no matter if I like it or not, he is still my family because his behavior be damned, he... He gave me you and your brother and that is something I would never regret. For that, I will always be thankful to him and that is also why you should still respect your father. You can be mad at him, you can be hurt by what he did, but your respect should be non-negotiable not because he deserved it, but because your dad an I taught you better than that. He truly loves you, Dayoung. He might not love me anymore but you and Woohyun are the apples of his eyes, you are his stars in the dark night sky, and you are the best thing he had and would ever achieve. Do you understand me?"

Dayoung groaned and dropped her head on your shoulder as she wrapped her arms around your waist. "Damn it mom, why do you have to make it hard for me to unleash my wrath on him?" You couldn't help but chuckle and return her hug, "Sorry sweetie, part of my job is to make sure you grow up to be a decent human being and sometimes I have to make or say things you don't like," you chuckled, making Dayoung roll her eyes but nudge her hips with yours.

As you spend a heartwarming moment with your daughter, you can't help but let your mind slip and travel somewhere else. You couldn't help but think about how you and Dayoung would probably not have experienced such a changing moment in your life. So as much as you hate it, there was a silver lining in this whole shenanigan.

Beyond the heartwarming scene in the kitchen, alone in the dark and cold emptiness of the living room, Wooyoung stood with his back to the wall. Having come down when he heard the commotion, Wooyoung initially thought he might have to step in to get Dayoung off your back. But when he heard you yell back at Dayoung, he stopped in his tracks and debated If he should stay or leave until his interest was piqued and he ended up listening in on the conversation which left him feeling broken down. Despite the gnawing pain that made him feel like he couldn't breathe, he knew he deserved that and more. He should not complain and instead, he should just accept the harsh truth. Not just the facts that you laid out to Dayoung, but also the truth that your action further proved that he was truly the devil in this equation. And perhaps he doesn't deserve to be forgiven.

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deadpresidents · 6 months ago

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On the cliffs of Normandy, in a small holding area, the President of the United States was looking out at the English Channel. It was only six weeks ago, on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and President Biden had just finished his remarks at the American cemetery atop Omaha Beach. Guests had been congratulating him on the speech, but he didn't want to talk about himself. The moment was not about him; it was about the men who had fought and died there. "Today feels so large," he told me. "This may sound strange -- and I don't mean it to -- but when I was out there, I felt the honor of it, the sanctity of it. To speak for the American people, to speak over those graves, it's a profound thing." He turned from the view over the beaches and gestured back toward the war dead. "You want to do right by them, by the country."

Mr. Biden has spent a lifetime trying to do right by the nation, and he did so in the most epic of ways when he chose to end his campaign for re-election. His decision is one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history, an act of self-sacrifice that places him in the company of George Washington who also stepped away from the presidency. To put something ahead of one's immediate desires -- to give, rather than to try to take -- is perhaps the most difficult thing for any human being to do. And Mr. Biden has done just that.

To be clear: Mr. Biden is my friend, and it has been a privilege to help him when I can. Not because I am a Democrat -- I belong to neither party and have voted for both Democrats and Republicans -- but because I believe him to be a defender of the Constitution and a public servant of honor and of grace at a time when extreme forces threaten the nation. I do not agree with everything he has done or wanted to do in terms of policy. But I know him to be a good man, a patriot and a president who has met challenges all too similar to those Abraham Lincoln faced. Here is the story I believe history will tell of Joe Biden. With American democracy in an hour of maximum danger in Donald Trump's presidency, Mr. Biden stepped in the breach. He staved off an authoritarian threat at home, rallied the world against autocrats abroad, laid the foundations for decades of prosperity, managed the end of a once-in-a-century pandemic, successfully legislated on vital issues of climate and infrastructure and has conducted a presidency worthy of the greatest of his predecessors. History and fate brought him to the pinnacle in a late season in his life, and in the end, he respected fate -- and he respected the American people.

It is, of course, an incredibly difficult moment. Highs and lows, victories and defeats, joy and pain: It has been ever thus for Mr. Biden. In the distant autumn of 1972, he experienced the most exhilarating of hours -- election to the United States Senate at the age of 29. He was no scion; he earned it. The darkness fell: His wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident that seriously injured his two sons, Beau and Hunter. But he endured, found purpose in the pain, became deeper, wiser, more empathetic. Through the decades, two presidential campaigns imploded, and in 2015 his son Beau, a lawyer and wonderfully promising young political figure, died of brain cancer after serving in Iraq.

Such tragedy would have broken many lesser men. Mr. Biden, however, never gave up, never gave in, never surrendered the hope that a fallen, frail and fallible world could be made better, stronger and more whole if people could summon just enough goodness and enough courage to build rather than tear down. Character, as the Greeks first taught us, is destiny, and Mr. Biden's character is both a mirror and a maker of his nation's. Like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, he is optimistic, resilient and kind, a steward of American greatness, a love of the great game of politics and, at heart, a hopeless romantic about the country that has given him so much.

Nothing bears out this point as well as his decision to let history happen in the 2024 election. Not matter how much people say that this was inevitable after the debate in Atlanta last month, there was nothing foreordained about an American President ending his political career for the sake of his country and his party. By surrendering the possibility of enduring in the seat of ultimate power, Mr. Biden has taught us a landmark lesson in patriotism, humility and wisdom.

Now the question comes to the rest of us. What will we the people do? We face the most significant of choices. Mr. Roosevelt framed the war whose dead Mr. Biden commemorated at Normandy in June as a battle between democracy and dictatorship. It is not too much to say that we, too, have what Mr. Roosevelt called a "rendezvous with destiny" at home and abroad. Mr. Biden has put country above self, the Constitution above personal ambition, the future of democracy above temporal gain. It is up to us to follow his lead.

-- "Joe Biden, My Friend and an American Hero" by Jon Meacham, New York Times, July 22, 2024.

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nezuscribe · 2 months ago

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Kamala pledged to be tougher on the border than trump, wouldn’t ban fracking, pledged allegiance to israel, and gave no strong support to trans people. But yes, blame the marginalised communities who didn't vote for her instead of the white woman and men who overwhelmingly voted for Trump

The racists always reveal themselves...

hi! so no! before you call me a racist, take some fucking time to understand who i am. i am a iranain woman, of which has seen the immense harm the Democratic Party has done to my people by funding the islamic regime. and i don’t blame only the marginalized communities, i blame everybody of which had the ignorance and stupidity to believe that donald trump or jill stein would have been the solution to all of our problems.

why i bring up minorities is because i have seen first hand from my own family the selfish tendencies they put first when voting for trump. No matter how much i argued, brought up the facts, the history of what he has done, they still don’t listen.

and while you listen to me from up on your high horse, hear this. i never once said kamala would have been our knight in shining armor. she would and could have done things that i don’t fundamentally agree with. but i can promise you that had she been in office, the betterment of the american people wouldn’t have been at stake. me, a minority person, wouldn’t have to live through the same fear I lived in when trump was president.

You want to argue about racism? I have been called an Arabic Prince, a camel owner, an oil salesman and more. You think this all came from nowhere? Trumps rhetoric and cult following increased these things. And so you wonder why i focus on the minority? Because they see these things, they hear them, and still vote for a man who perpetuates it.

You want to argue more? Get off of anon and argue like a fucking person

#nezu speaks #anon reply

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soldiergrimes · 6 months ago

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I Would Take A Bullet For You

Pairing: Joe Biden x Donald Trump

Summary: After Trump's assassination attempt, Biden is distraught. He needs to go check up on his secret lover in the hospital.

Trigger warnings ⚠️: suicide

"Donald?" Joe Biden repeated once again as he walked through the hospital. He finally found his room and the secret service guards quickly stepped inside to let him in.

Joe walked into the room, Donald's head was now bandaged up and he was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed.

Donald looked up as Joe approached his bed. "Joe..? You're here..."

Joe immediately moved forward, standing right in front of him now. "Of course I'm here." He slowly reached out to take his hand in his. "I was worried.."

"Don't be.. I'm still alive after all" Donald smirked.

Joe smiled at Donald's optimistic and confident attitude, it was one of the things he loved the most about him. But his smile quickly faded as the thought of Donald dying plagued his mind.

"I don't... I don't know what I would've done if I lost you" Joe's eyes locked with his, his voice filled with emotion.

"Don't worry, Joey.. I'm right here" Donald reassured him softly, bringing his hand up to cup his cheek. The sensation brought butterflies to the older man's stomach.

"I know, I was just so worried, Donald.." Joe whispered.

Joe knew that the feelings they had for each other had to stay a secret, but sometimes he wished for a world where they could declare their love for one another without shame. The thought brought a bittersweet smile to Joe's face.

"Can I kiss you?" Joe asked as he leaned in.

"Always." Donald replied, their lips connected in a passionate and emotional kiss.

Caught in the moment, neither of them noticed the security guard walk back into the room to check on Trump. Trump caught the man's eye and quickly pulled away from Joe.

Joe noticed this and frowned, he knew that Donald was more nervous about people finding out than he was. There was even a small part of Joe that wanted people to find out, he didn't like holding in this secret.

The security guard left the room without saying a word.

Donald avoided Joe's gaze before Joe spoke up again.

"What are you afraid of?" He asked the man.

Donald looked back up at Joe, "This... This isn't supposed to happen. We're supposed to be enemies.." Donald said.

Joe put a hand on his shoulder, rubbing him with his thumb.

"Maybe.. but maybe we're meant to be together." Joe spoke softly, trying to comfort his lover.

Donald got lost in Joe's ocean eyes, his breath catching in his throat. "I think I love you" he suddenly blurted out.

Joe's eyes widened in surprise but a smile spread across his face.

"I love you too, Donny" Joe leaned in again to give him a kiss on his forehead. "I've always loved you."

Donald's heart raced at Joe's confession, he had never felt this happy in his entire life.

But Donald quickly reminded himself that this wasn't right and he pulled away.

Joe frowned again and opened his mouth to speak but Donald cut him off.

"Joe.. I- I can't.." His voice cracked.

"Donald, look at me." Joe cupped his cheek again, forcing his eyes to meet his. "We can do this."

Donald looked into his eyes, "What happens if the world finds out?"

"They can think whatever they want to think, but we'll always have each other. So whatever they say, it doesn't matter." Joe's words were encouraging, he was hoping that Donald would agree and they could finally come out.

Donald hesitated for a moment before he spoke again, his eyes filled with determination and trust. "Okay."

Joe smiled "Okay?" He asked again, making sure he was being honest. "You want to tell the world?"

Donald nodded and smiled, "I want them to know how much I love you."

Joe smiled and pulled him into a hug.

"you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Donny" Joe whispered in his ear.

"You are too, Joey. I've never been happier" Donald said as he held him tighter.

Joe spent that night in his hospital room and they made love until the early hours of the morning.

The next day, Donald had to appear on live TV after his assassination attempt. It was almost time for him to go on and he tried his best to hide his nerves, he stood up straight and walked to the stand.

Donald spoke about his usual stuff until he finally mentioned Joe.

"And there is something else I have to tell America" he spoke, his voice loud with conviction. "Joe Biden and I.. Are in love."

The crowd went quiet for a moment until Joe walked up to Donald and joined him. Donald wrapped his arm around his waist and leaned in for a kiss.

Joe and Donald shared a passionate kiss in front of live television, Donald knew he should be worried, even ashamed, but he had never felt happier. As they pulled away, the crowd erupted in cheers as Donald and Joe smiled for the camera, holding hands.

*10 years later*

Donald and Joe proceeded to spend the rest of their lives together, they bought a home and raised a family together and this was the happiest any of them have ever felt.

Though the happiness didn't last because Joe eventually fell sick.

After months of hospital visits and medicine, Joe ended up passing away. The grief and sorrow Donald felt was unlike any he had ever felt before.

And the pain of his loss sadly brought Donald to take his own life so he could be with Joe again.

The End

#donald trump #joe biden #donald trump x joe biden #trump x biden #donald trump fanfic #joe biden fanfic #2024 presidential election #trump x biden fanfic #satire #crack fanfic

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mrs-stans · 1 month ago

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The Actors Roundtable: The fear factor behind great art

By Elena Nelson Howe

Photography by Christina House

Once an actor finds his name popping up in Oscar conversations, he’s pretty much arrived in the industry, right? Actually, no, not necessarily, says Jeremy Strong, who plays unscrupulous lawyer and Donald Trump mentor Roy Cohn to much acclaim in “The Apprentice.”

“There’s a thing called ‘arrival fallacy,’ which is that the horizon is just always receding. You don’t arrive. I mean, I’ve never felt like I’ve arrived. It’s just a search, and you’re on the frontier of uncertainty and doubt, and taking risks.”

“And then the bottom falls out, and you keep looking,” adds Adrien Brody, who plays the Holocaust survivor and visionary architect at the heart of Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.”

“That frontier just keeps moving,” Strong agrees.

Even now, with this season’s breakout performances and glowing reviews, a conversation among several actors shows they share the same fears and doubts as the rest of us.

Tune in to Spectrum News 1, where this conversation will air on Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. and will repeat throughout the month.

“I don’t think I ever looked at the next job and went, ‘All right, it’s coming and here we go.’ I think it’s always just the terror of, ‘OK, I got the job. Am I going to ruin it?’ The fear of, ‘I’m wrong for it,’” says Kieran Culkin, who stars in the affecting “A Real Pain” with the film’s writer-director, Jesse Eisenberg.

These three actors — along with Peter Sarsgaard, who stars in “September 5,” about the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics; Colman Domingo, who plays an incarcerated man who discovers the transformative power of art in “Sing Sing”; and Sebastian Stan, who not only plays the future president in “The Apprentice” with Strong but also stars in “A Different Man,” a cautionary story of inner discovery — got together last month for The Envelope Actors Roundtable moderated by Spectrum News 1 host Kelvin Washington. They shared their thoughts on auditioning, responding to fear and the hard truths of the world around us.

Actors Colman Domingo, from left, Peter Sarsgaard, Adrien Brody, seated, Kieran Culkin, Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong.

These excerpts from that conversation have been edited for length and clarity.

It’s a journey. It’s a process. So how do you approach auditions?

Sebastian Stan: The best advice I ever got was from Israel Hicks, who was the theater head at Rutgers, where I went to school. And he always said, “You’ve got to just bring the day with you to the audition.” Whatever’s happening up to walking in that door just ... like maybe you spilled coffee on you, or you got a bad phone call, or whatever. You just bring in the truth of that day.

Peter Sarsgaard: But for me, every day that I had an audition that I cared about was a day of high anxiety. And so I only did well in the auditions where it was extremely high stakes. I couldn’t deny what I was feeling. I would’ve looked like a psychopath. I had to let it out. And so the jobs ... I remember doing auditions sometimes where I would be bizarrely emotional in a scene that was not emotional. Because I f— wanted it.

Jeremy Strong: I had a manager once who told me, “You know, you seem desperate. That’s why you’re not getting it: You seem desperate.” And I said, “I am desperate.” This is like we’re fighting for our lives trying to do this thing.

Sarsgaard: It feels like that sometimes.

Strong: ... and you really want to work. It does feel miraculous when you get the chance to work.

Adrien Brody: I booked a movie when I was 14, which was one of the first things I went out for. And my dad took me to the audition, and he told me, “Go in there like you already have it. You’re just showing them how you’re going to do it. Don’t go in there asking for the job.”

Kieran Culkin: I think I was told in my first audition almost the opposite, which was like —

Brody: Go and beg them.

Culkin: — It was like, “You’re going into something that’s not yours so you don’t have to feel, so [acts stressed].” You said your first audition was something you booked?

Brody: And then it was 17 years of not getting work.

I knew I had to invite in tenderness and a grace that he maintained while he was on the inside.

— Colman Domingo

From auditions to current performances, Colman, you play John “Divine G” Whitfield, a man who was wrongfully incarcerated in “Sing Sing,” and the real guy is also executive producer. What’s that experience like, trying to showcase his journey while he’s there and a part of this film?

Colman Domingo: You have to honor the spirit of the person but also liberate yourself from a portrayal of them. I feel like even when I met him, I downloaded information. I didn’t ask him anything, because I’m not that person who wants to pry into someone’s life or say, “How was it for you in the inside?,” all that stuff. We just got to know each other like we get to know anyone, you know what I mean? The most banal, simple things.

And there were two things about him: when I found out that he considered himself sort of a jailhouse lawyer and how he was always in the law library, and he was advocating for others for good food, for his own liberation eventually, but also even — when he founded this theater company there — Rehabilitation Through the Arts. And all these inmates were finding that thing that was so sorely needed in this dangerous place: a place to unpack, to be tender, to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Grown men going to places that they may have never been allowed to experience or be, especially Black and brown men in particular. I knew I had to invite in tenderness and a grace that he maintained while he was on the inside.

“I can see how past suffering informs insight and informs a kind of creative fervor and the need to leave something indelible behind,” Adrien Brody says of “The Brutalist” and his own family history.

Kieran, you were working with Jesse Eisenberg, who’s also the screenwriter and director. Which version was easier to work with, Jesse the actor or Jesse the director?

Culkin: He was great at all of those things. I mean, going into it, he wrote a beautiful script. And I knew him to be a great actor. I didn’t know what he was going to be like as a director. But that was the first time I’ve worked with an actor that also directed. Have you guys done that yet? It’s tough. That is like, Day 1, him doing a scene with you as your partner, and then they go, “Cut,” and then go, “Here’s how you can do it better.” And I’m sitting here going like, “Oh, you’re going to judge me? Because I got f— notes for you too. I know how you can do it better too.” And then the defenses go up and all that. But he was fantastic. And it was only his second film [as writer-director].

“I felt like I understood him right away and understood this dynamic right away,” Kieran Culkin says of his “A Real Pain” character’s relationship to his cousin, played by Jesse Eisenberg. (Searchlight Pictures)

I think we can all relate to your character, Benji. It’s almost one of those, “I love him because he’s crazy. But he also drives me crazy because he’s crazy.” What part of that resonated with you?

Culkin: When I read it, I found the guy to be really surprising and really just ... I felt like I understood him right away and understood this dynamic right away. But then 20 pages in, he would say something completely surprising. And I went, “Oh, this guy, almost in spite of you, if you asked him a question, he’s going to give you something you’re not going to expect.”

And I loved it. So I just went, “I’m not going to prepare at all.” I didn’t read it again for a year. And then right before we did it, I read it once. I would not want to know what the scene we were doing was until I was walking to set that day, which would give Jesse a lot of anxiety. I’d be like, “What are we shooting today?” And he’s like, “You’re kidding. You have a whole speech.”

Brody: You should work with Ken Loach. I did a movie with him, and he would give us half the scene. And so you wouldn’t know what the end of that scene was because he was working with predominantly nonactors. And then so whoever the catalyst was in the scene got that section. And this person would fall down, and you didn’t know if that person just —

Culkin: Tripped or that was the scene? I want to do that. I want to work with that person.

Sarsgaard: I auditioned for him, and it was like, “All right, let’s just improvise.” And I’m like, “Well, give me a ... Where do I begin?” “Just do something.” And I found it incredibly difficult. For me, the reason I do it is the story. So I don’t need to know what I’m going to do in the scene, but I’m driving the story?

“It’s like game day. They’re just in it. They just went 22 straight hours of just doing it,” Peter Sarsgaard says of the team covering the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics, the story of his film, “September 5.”

Strong: Peter and I had to do a thing yesterday called Fearless Performances. And we didn’t have time to say it, but I woke up this morning thinking it’s such a misnomer because there’s so much fear involved, at least for me. [To Culkin] I was thinking about a conversation we had when you were thinking about doing Jesse’s movie. You were on the precipice of it. It felt like a big risk and something you hadn’t done. And what I love about what we all get to do is attempt to do something that you don’t know that you can do. I’m working in sort of Bruce Springsteen world right now, and he said something in his autobiography, that “the experience that you have, the exhilaration of it and the depth of it is directly proportional to the void that you’re dancing over.” And so I find that that equation works.

Stan: I think all of it is fear now. For me, literally, if I’m thinking I can’t do it, [it] is maybe the biggest sign that I should be trying to do something. It’s so easy to fall into these little tricks, what’s worked before, and you just do it again. So, especially with these last two for me, it was so paralyzing at times that I was almost driven by it.

I think all of it is fear now. For me, literally, if I’m thinking I can’t do it, [it] is maybe the biggest sign that I should be trying to do something.

— Sebastian Stan

Playing Donald Trump, was that fear? He’s been the president, he’s going to be the president again. What were the challenges or your mind-set going into that?

Stan: Well, I mean, this is such a collaboration. It’s the director, it’s who are your partners. It’s this whole thing about trust and being able to go there with somebody. But then, there’s something about when you get older and you want to feel like you’re part of a meaningful work. You’re adding to a conversation, reflecting these times that we’re in no matter how uncomfortable they are.

“The movie is sort of about this relationship in a sense, a love story,” Jeremy Strong says of Roy Cohn and Donald Trump in “The Apprentice.” (Pief Weyman/Apprentice Productions)

Strong: The movie is sort of about this relationship in a sense, a love story. This sort of dark chrysalis that created the Donald Trump that we know today. What joined them together, I think, were kind of dark affinities. They were both these outsiders from the boroughs with tremendous life force and ambition with a shared, I think, lack of scruple or ethical core, for whom winning was the only moral measure.

It’s been strange to talk about this movie as a movie right now, because it’s about a very living danger, and I look at what’s happening in this country right now, and I think you can trace so much of it back to the influence of Roy Cohn and his ideology, and his nihilism, and his sort of gospel of hatred and divisiveness. That’s the political side. The creative side was really fulfilling. Roles like this are kind of a holy grail for an actor, where there’s a degree of difficulty, and you want to try to transform, and you want it also to be alive and not just mimetic and all those things.

“You have to honor the spirit of the person but also liberate yourself from a portrayal of them,” Colman Domingo says of playing a real person in “Sing Sing.”

Some of these films, there is a historical gravity to them. Adrien, with “The Brutalist,” your character comes to America after the genocide but then realizes it’s difficult to succeed here. Where did you go to channel this character?

Brody: Well, my mother is a Hungarian immigrant and an artist, a New York photographer. And she’s also someone who has kind of guided me in my understanding of art and the yearning to leave behind something that is meaningful and brings more light than darkness to this world. She and her parents fled war-torn Budapest in 1956 on the back of a truck, under a bed of corn, as they were shooting flares and trying to basically shoot down people fleeing the Soviet occupation.

I witnessed how hard it was for [my grandfather], because his English-language skills were not up to par, it prevented him from getting work. And so that’s a layer of connection, a feeling of knowing the journey and very different from [character László Tóth’s] journey, but there are very many parallels. And his journey of fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe and surviving concentration camps. I can see how past suffering informs insight and informs a kind of creative fervor and the need to leave something indelible behind.

Strong: There’s an intersectionality with these films as stories with real things in our world. I feel like the world is on fire. And there’s a role for storytelling that is so essential in our world right now. And I don’t think there’s another art form that has that connective power, arguably.

Stan: And the idea that in a system like Sing Sing, there’s a level of acceptance of self that’s happening on such a deeper, more profound level than it’s actually happening in the real world. Because I feel like “The Apprentice” and “A Different Man” are so much about identity and self-truth, and the loss of self, and the denial of reality, which is a very real thing that’s happening now. I don’t know if people are interested in the truth or confronting themselves, or wanting to accept themselves. People are more interested in inventing their own version of things.

Peter, talking about the gravity of world events: “September 5” does this in such detail, what was happening there in Munich. What it’s like having to deal with something of that magnitude?

Sarsgaard: Just by talking to the guys involved, I mean, they don’t think about the fact they’re involved in something of that magnitude, because it’s like game day. They’re just in it. They just went 22 straight hours of just doing it, and doing it, and doing it. They pointed a live camera at a balcony, and 700 million people watched that image. It’s a balcony, but it is the potential for violence that is really keeping them there. For some of them, their hearts are pounding because they’re hoping for the survival of the people that are in there. And I think that’s a good many people. But we have to acknowledge this other part of humanity that’s a kind of schadenfreude where we’re lusting for some violence.

The way that at any given moment in our lives, right now, we could pick up our phone, and the most horrendous thing imaginable is going on in the world, and then we can sit and joke with each other, and eat popcorn, and go watch a comedy. I mean, I don’t really have the answer. I think one of the lovely things that my movie does is ask a lot of questions about the way that we consume media, about, “Does a camera tell the truth anymore?” This idea that these guys had new technology, which was a live camera, and the minute the hostage crisis happened, they pointed it.

Well, now why do we have to watch a live crisis situation? Is that news? Is that going to help us understand our society better? Could we learn about it tomorrow? Is it going to help the hostages get freed? Now, obviously with police brutality, stuff like that, I would say wonderful. But to get our daily news, when everyone has a camera in their pocket — first of all, there’s point of view. This frame is not the

truth. The truth is all of it, right? And there’s also AI. There’s a million different reasons why we can’t trust an image anymore.

“It was a very powerless experience ... a terrifying experience. How people pretend you’re totally nonexistent,” Sebastian Stan says of walking in New York City wearing the makeup for the disfigured man he plays in “A Different Man.”

Sebastian, in “A Different Man,” there’s a self-reflection in your character, who has an opportunity to present himself differently. What did you learn about how we view ourselves versus how others view us? And talk about working with Adam Pearson, who has some of these same physical challenges in the film.

Stan: Adam Pearson, who’s a great actor from “Under the Skin,” and he’s got neurofibromatosis, which are these tumors that develop at around 3 or 4 years old. And the biggest gift I was able to receive working on that movie was his mother coming up to me and saying afterward, “I’ve always wished for someone to walk in his shoes. And you were able to do that.” And I was lucky. We had a great prosthetics artist, Mike Marino. And I was able to walk around the city in that, and no one recognized me. And it was a very powerless experience ... a terrifying experience. How people pretend you’re totally nonexistent.

Well, part of why the movie’s special, and I wanted so deeply to be involved with it, is that it talks about this curiosity that we all have. But we haven’t learned about the regular person out there. The regular person has to fight against these narratives that we’ve grown up with in terms of not knowing how to handle that moment. So two things happen: ignorance or judgment. And the filmmaker, who’s disfigured himself, really wanted to bring it out in the open. And for us to go on this journey and get more in touch with how can we approach that in a different way. But on a more relatable basis, it really is about lying to yourself. And once the lie happens, what you have to keep doing to maintain the lie and suppress the truth.

Brody: And they’re so hard to undo.

Stan: And how far we can go to not face that painful moment with ourselves. And that’s what the character endures. By the time [he sees it] it’s too late, his life’s been taken away from him.

Thanks for being here, gentlemen ...

Brody: This has been kind of special. I didn’t know what to anticipate. We’re all kind of really and thematically talking about what’s propelling each of us. And with the exception of you needing f— panic and —

Culkin: I was going to say, we’re all a little bit different.

Brody: But I love that too though. You know what it is? You’re super honest. You are honest with your work.

Culkin: Yeah, thanks.

Brody: Your comedic sensibilities.

Culkin: [To camera] You still rolling on this? Let’s get a nice sound bite.

#Sebastian Stan #Jeremy Strong #Colman Domingo #Peter Sarsgaard #Adrien Brody #Kieran Culkin #Los Angeles Times #Roundtable #Interview #The Oscars #mrs-stans

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the-scarlet-witch-22 · 2 months ago

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I've thought about posting this more publicly, but I'm hesitant to do that because this isn't a topic I discuss very often. My blog has always been kind of a public diary in a way, so I'm going to leave this up for now.

I am terrified of another Trump presidency for so many reasons. I'm a gay woman who is in a relationship and would like to be able to not only get married, but have my marriage be recognized in every state in this country. I'm the older sister and future sole guardian of a sibling who has developmental disabilities. It pains me more than I can express how awful it is living in a country that does the bare minimum to support its citizens, especially its disabled ones.

I've been very vocal on my disdain and disgust for how the Biden administration and our government as a whole is handling the Palestinian genocide. Anyone who knows me knows this. I've gotten involved and plan on continuing to protest and do what I'm able to.

With that being said I did vote for Kamala Harris, and I've gotten into debates with people I considered to be friends over my decision to vote. The number one argument that being highlighted was "it doesn't matter who wins because both Harris and Trump are Zionists who don't care about Palestine."

I agree that our government is deeply rooted in Zionism, and it genuinely pains me to know that human rights of people who are not white do not matter to our government.

However, as someone who has been a very vocal advocate for human rights the majority of my life, saying "it doesn't matter who wins because the outcome will be the same" is not only incredibly ignorant, it's just plain stupid.

Donald Trump has made a name for himself as a racist. Someone who has been blatantly and openly homophobic. He has made disgustingly ableist comments on disabled Americans time and time again. He's a rapist, he has sexually assaulted multiple women. He started an insurrection that resulted in violence I have never seen taking place on the Capitol.

And now he's going to be sworn back in this January.

I'm angry, and I'm sad. Not only as a member of the LGBTQ community and a supporter of our disabled community, but also as someone who was sexually assaulted. This isn't something that I talk about very often, publicly or privately, but it is so fucking painful knowing that our country does not view SA survivors as real people who deserve to live knowing their abusers will be held accountable for their actions.

Because why the fuck would anyone want to come forward, knowing their abuser can become President not once, but twice and win the popular vote the second time.

I hate this country, and I mean this when I say if you voted for Trump or voted third party, or didn't vote at all, you are part of the problem and the next four years are going to undo the most basic of human rights this country has barely started to grant its citizens.

Fuck each and every one of you.

#I'm not putting any tags on this it's mainly a vent to let out things I tend to bury down #I also do not have the patience to kindly debate anyone on this I will bitch you out if you say anything defending this

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darkmaga-returns · 30 days ago

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Yet another politician has come out to abandon the Democratic Party, which has begun breaking off into factions in recent years. Donald Trump himself was once a Democrat, as were RFK, Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, and countless others. Rep. Susan Valdes of Florida has become the latest politician to switch affiliation from Democrat to Republican.

Valdes explained that her affiliation with the Democratic Party was simply out of habit. We see this throughout the nation as people who have historically voted blue or red will continue to vote on party lines even if the ideology has changed. “I have done so as a Democrat partly out of habit — I come from a family of Democrats — and partly because I believed the Democrats were the party most concerned with the working families I represent,” Valdes stated.

The Democratic Party is no longer the anti-establishment, anti-war party that it was decades ago. The false virtue signaling to specific groups while ostracizing others is not the same Democratic Party of love and peace that opposed the Vietnam draft. Countless citizens and politicians simply vote along party lines per tradition without realizing that the ideology has completely changed.

“I’m tired of being the party of protesting when I got into politics to be part of the party of progress. I know that I won’t agree with my fellow Republican House members on every issue, but I know that in their caucus, I will be welcomed and treated with respect,” Valdes continued.

Florida has never had more Republicans in the House of Representatives. Some may say this large switch happened during COVID when people flocked to the Sunshine State to flee oppressive COVID laws. Especially with remote work becoming commonplace, people then had the ability to move to states that aligned with their viewpoints.

The Democrats have refused to acknowledge that their entire Marxist agenda failed. Bidenomics failed. The Build Back Better movement is failing and the people are not sold on the globalist regimes. The left bought their personal political narrative that demonizing Trump would indeed send people running into their arms. Trump’s victory sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party once they realized that all their propaganda had FAILED – the people still preferred Trump over the current status quo. Americans are not happy with the leftist regime.

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roguekhajiit · 6 months ago

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Magats are so deep in the kool-aid bowl it's surprising they haven't drowned in it yet.

Trump has been recorded live, promising that Christians will never have to vote again so long as they get out and vote for him. Once they do that it will be the last time they ever need to vote.

"In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote."

- Donald Trump at Turning Point Action's Believers Summit in West Palm Beach July 26, 2024

Everyone else sees his words for what they are; a threat to our very democracy. But his cultists simply grab themselves another cup of kool-aid and scoff. "Oh, you're just taking him out of context. That's not what he meant at all!"

So let's look at his other claim then, his promise to erase an important part of the 14th amendment.

Amendment 14, Section 1 :

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

"As part of my plan to secure the border on Day 1 of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship."

- Donald Trump, May 2023

So he's gonna what, white out any part of the Constitution or its amendments that he doesn't agree with?

But of course, this plan to do away with birthright citizenship doesn't apply to him or his friends and family. No, because if he made it retroactive, that would mean his sons, his Dad, and even he himself would be stripped of all citizenship. Along with every other fucking white, non-native, racist fucktards who yell "Go back to where you came from" at any person of color they see at their local Wal-Mart. I guarantee they also have a "If this flag offends you, I'll help you pack" bumper sticker on their obnoxiously lifted, compensation prize, Ram 3500.

But his policy, of course, would never apply to himself and his precious white Christian cultists. No, it only applies to people of color. People who look like Kamala Harris and Barack Obama. People with naturally occurring melanin who, as a result, don't need to have a recurring appointment with a spray tan booth.

Of course, it only applies to people who look like his political opponents and their supporters. Why else would he and his cult continue to mail out political smear campaigns naming politicians WHO AREN'T EVEN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT ANYMORE as the biggest threat to our country?!

Honestly, I think it's time to take a break from the Kool-Aid, folks. Barack Obama isn't living in the basement of the White House telling Joe Biden and Kamala Harris how to run the country. He doesn't have a back stock of Biden clones that he awakens anytime the current one expires. He's in his personal home office writing books.

The current threat to this country isn't Biden or Obama, or Harris. It flocks around a rotten peach and wears a red hat.

#maga is a cult #maga morons #maga cult #fuck maga #magats #never trump #trump is a criminal #fuck trump #deport trump #deport maga #save our democracy #birthright citizenship #vote democrat #vote blue #vote harris #get out the vote #they drank the kool-aid

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justinspoliticalcorner · 1 month ago

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Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

On the issue of immigration, Trump once again claimed he would end birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship has been a part of American law for 156 years, since 1868, and the adoption of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The law gives people born in the country automatic citizenship if they are born on U.S. soil or if at least one parent is a U.S. citizen at the time of their birth. Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker that he planned to abolish this right on the first day of his presidency. When Welker noted that it is a constitutional right, Trump said, “Well, we’re going to have to get a change, maybe have to go back to the people but we have to end it.” No matter the meager size of Trump’s electoral victory, getting rid of this bedrock American right cannot be done via an executive order and a constitutional change requires an involved multi-state process that historically has taken years. The last time an amendment was made official was 1992 and the amendment in question, the 27th Amendment (regulating congressional pay) was introduced in 1789—a 202-year gap.

Related to immigration, Trump also said that he would not just push to deport undocumented immigrants, but entire families. Asked about families where children are legally in the United States while living with undocumented parents, Trump said, “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is if you keep them together, and you have to send them all back.” Trump isn’t even being consistent with his own actions. It was under his first presidency that U.S. immigration policy was changed so that families were separated at the border. The policy created enormous international and domestic criticism, and the Biden administration has spent all four years of its existence trying to reunite those families. When he first ran for president in 2016, Trump ran on a platform of repealing the Affordable Care Act and promised he would reveal a replacement. He never did. Asked by Welker about health care on Sunday, Trump still had nothing to offer. “We have the concepts of a plan that will be better,” Trump said, repeating the phrase that was widely mocked after most agreed he lost the presidential debate to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump went on NBC’s Meet The Press Sunday, in which he called for the repeal of birthright citizenship and deportation of entire families, including those that have undocumented immigrants and US citizens in the family.

#Donald Trump #Kristen Welker #Meet The Press #NBC #NBC News #Birthright Citizenship #Family Separation #Obamacare Repeal #Obamacare #Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

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akiizayoi4869 · 2 months ago

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Maybe Harris wouldn't like to hear this considering her pledge to be the president for all american people, but honestly a good chunk of Americans don't deserve her. They don't deserve better. Trump's presidency and all the shit it'll inevitably entail is what they deserve.

Normally I wouldn't like to hear this either because I'm just not that kind of person, but I really cannot bring myself to care at this point. I wholeheartedly agree with you, anon. I'll give them 2016, because nobody was really taking him seriously and we didn't know how bad things would get. I mean really, the man was even worse than BUSH, something that I never thought that I would say. I'll even give them 2020, because a lot of the shit that happened after that election obviously hadn't happened yet. But now? After seeing and hearing everything that's come out about him? The documents? Being convicted of 34 freaking felonies? January 6th? Some people are ignorant enough to belive that all of this are lies, but there's also a large portion of people who voted for him that know all of these things are true, that know that his claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him were false, who cannot stand him, who agree with the people who call him a fascist, a wannabe dictator, and America's Hitler. And yet they still voted for him. They know that his outlandish claims of transgender surgeries in prisons, his claims that Haitian immigrants were eating people's pets, and doctors doing after birth abortions were all false. They can't stand his rhetoric. And yet they still voted for him. Because they foolishly believe that he'll make the economy better, even though the economy is actually fine. Much better than what it was four years ago when Trump was still the president. But people don't feel that way because of the prices of groceries, gas, etc. Also because the misinformation from the right wing media has gotten so bad to the point where it's overtaken the truth. Because they foolishly believe that everything he said wouldn't happen to them. Clearly they believe it now since a lot of people have been searching "what are tarrifs?" and "can I change my vote?" since he won the election. At this point though, I really don't care about these people, because they choose to be willfully ignorant. What I do care about? Is that the rest of us have to suffer because of their stupidity.

My mother, for example, is on a bunch of medication because she had a brain aneurysm and a stroke back in 2006. Which then resulted in her having seizures, something that thankfully hasn't happened to her since 2010. You know how she's able to afford all of those medications? Because of health insurance. The affordable care act. And now Donald Trump and the Republicans are threatening to take that away, and they might just be able to succeed because they have control of the government now! And to make matters worse, the majority of the Republican party is now his cult following, so obviously they're not going to stop him and will go along with whatever he wants to do.

I'm also on seizure medication. I had one back in 2018, and unfortunately I had one again this year, back in April. I'm able to afford the medication that I need because we have health insurance. If that gets taken away? The cost of that medicine is going to go sky high, just like seeing a doctor or going to the hospital is going to cost an arm and a leg if health care AND social security gets taken away. All because these dumbfucks voted him back in for a second term. So yeah, I don't feel sorry for these people at all. Like you said, they are going to get exactly what they voted for and deserve the moment this man is sworn in once again.

#us politics #donald trump #2024 presidential election #asks #anon #aki answers things

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forest-faerie-witch · 2 months ago

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RIP America

I have been up all night. I've been following the campaign since Harris was at the first DNC. I have hoped and hoped that she would win. But now, as that lunatic is 3 points from winning, my chest is tight and I'm fighting tears.

I've been terrified through this whole thing. Afraid of losing my right to control my own body. Scared of losing my disability income. Worried about my daughter's rights. I'm deeply troubled about our world. What is going to happen to Ukraine now? To our immigrant friends?

There are things I can't wrap my head around. How is it OK for a convicted criminal to not only run for public office, but THE public office? To lead our entire country?! How is this lawful? How did our founding fathers not anticipate this? Did they just think "Well, it's just common sense, right?" They obviously didn't have the foresight to see the state of human beings in this century.

And what happened to separation of church and state? Why are the religious nuts still waving their bibles around at my uterus? How about, it's NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS! You wanna believe in your god? Good for you. But don't tell me how to live just because we don't agree. I don't tell you what to do. I don't care. It's a free country, right? Well, apparently not if we are still being held to christian ideals.

This country was NOT based on religion. It was based on the freedom from religious persecution. (Do your homework people). It is NOT one nation under god. That was added to our money and our pledge in the 50s by... you guessed it, the religious right. Look it up. It's fact.

And now women are going to continue to die because of the abortion bans because of that fucking maniac's overturning of Roe v Wade. And once he's in office his MAGAtards are going to feel it's open season on all "other" people. Gays, trans, some of whom I call friends. It's going to be the wild west. Redneck ideology will only be rivaled by the christian right, comingled in most cases.

Haven't we had enough racism? Isn't there enough hate already? You guys - the HALF of our country who thought it was a great idea to put this fucking piece of shit back in the white house - are going to see. Yeah, you think he's so funny. "Oh he just says it like it is, says what's on his mind, etc." Oh yes, so presidential. If I want to talk shit with people, I don't go to the white house for it. I want my commander in chief to be presidential. Not a fucking convicted rapist, cheater, misogynist, lying waste of air.

He is going to pardon himself. All he's wanted through this whole thing was to win so he wouldn't go to prison. You'll see. He does NOT CARE ABOUT YOU! All he cares about is Donald Trump. He surrounds himself with sycophants who lick his arsehole and do his bidding. He'll let all the lunatics out that attacked our capitol. Insurgents. People, wake the fuck up! Think about this. All you who consider yourself "patriots," how would you feel if a group of people attacked the capitol when it wasn't your idea? You'd be furious!

I'm not saying Kamala was perfect. And she did the best she could in the short time she had to run. But at least she had solid plans for furthering our people. Her vision was one of unity, safety, equal rights and building the economy where everyone has a fair shot. I've never heard a single detailed policy from that... thing. All he does is wave his hands around and say don't worry, it's going to be great.

WHAT'S GOING TO BE GREAT?!!!!! Explain it to me. Tell me how you're going to do these things? Oh right. Tariffs. The idiot doesn't even know how tariffs work. Tariffs will cost the AMERICAN PEOPLE! If an exporter has to pay more to export their goods to us, then the companies that buy those goods have to pay more, and in turn, we pay that difference. The man is a moron. It's no wonder all his businesses fail and he filed bankruptcy 6 times.

He has no idea how to run a country. He let 100s of thousands of people die with his deplorable handling of COVID. Inject bleach... how fucking stupid can someone be. He inherited a good economy from Obama and fucked it up. And then has the nerve to further hypnotize his cult followers saying his presidency was the best ever. His economy the best ever. Everything the best ever. When the rest of the world knows he was the least popular president - ever. Was the worst president. He's so deluded by his own ego he believes his own lies and then so do his followers.

I'm old. I have a small income. I can't afford to pack up and try and find another country to live in. And believe me, I've been looking into it. But the only way you can live in another country is if you have MONEY. If you can't contribute to society in another country, good luck moving there. But the prospect of living in a Trump dystopia is terrifying.

Let's hope that I'm wrong. I'm really hoping I am.

#anti trump #fuck donald trump #fuck trump #wake up america #fuck maga #maga cult #maga morons #we are doomed #pro choice

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mariacallous · 7 months ago

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Former President Donald Trump once again attacked the writer E. Jean Carroll and suggested his political enemies could soon face jail time in a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday night.

Trump called in to the conservative network Newsmax, just days after a Manhattan jury found him guilty on all 34 counts in his hush money trial. Jurors agreed he had falsified business records to cover up allegations of an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump is set to be sentenced on July 11 and legal experts have wondered whether his repeated violations of a gag order in the case will weigh on the judge’s punishment. Trump appeared to violate the terms of that order — which bars him from making any public comments about the jury, and hasn’t yet been lifted — once more in the Newsmax interview.

He went on to address his recent, false claims that he never called for his onetime Democratic rival Hillary Clinton to be locked up.

“I said, ’Wouldn’t it really be bad? … wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state … put the president’s wife into jail?” Trump said Newsmax.

“But they want to do it,” he went on, appearing to speak about his political opponents. “You know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to. And it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”

Trump continued to lambast his recent verdict and spoke about the other cases currently filed against him before discussing the dual defamation verdicts levied against him by Carroll.

“I’ve never met this woman, I don’t know this woman,” Trump said Monday, statements that are similar to those at the center of the cases filed against him. “And I’m supposed to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a fictional story.”

Carroll sued Trump twice and won. A jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing her at a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and defaming her afterwards, awarding the writer $5 million in damages. Carroll sued again for defamation after his repeated attacks against her. The jury in that case awarded her $83.3 million in damages after her attorneys argued he needed to be penalized with an amount large enough to make him stop.

The former president has posted a mammoth bond while he appeals the second case.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, has said Trump’s ongoing attacks could be the basis for yet another defamation suit in the future. She recently told the New York Times that “all options are on the table” moving forward.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 months ago

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Matt Davies :: @MatttDavies

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 11, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 12, 2024

Today’s fallout from last night’s presidential debate between Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee former president Donald Trump has shown Harris solidifying her dominant position. Trump increasingly looks as if the anger he has been displaying is a way to hide the fear that he is losing control.

After debates, surrogates for a nominee talk to journalists in what’s known as a “spin room,” where they try to spin the event in favor of their candidate. John Bowden of The Independent described his time in last night’s spin room as “the strangest moments of my political career.” As usual, Republican surrogates immediately attacked the moderators for fact-checking the debate.

But it was clear, Bowden wrote, that the campaign officials were panicking. Even Fox News Channel reporters said that Trump had performed badly, and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called the debate a “disaster.” But MAGA Republicans, whom Trump has elevated far beyond any position they could achieve without him, were lashing out on his behalf.

Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance attacked the moderators and doubled down on the lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their neighbors’ pets, despite statements from Springfield police and the town manager that there is no evidence for such a statement. Anti-immigrant Trump advisor Stephen Miller melted down when Hispanic reporter José María Del Pino asked him where he got his figures saying that crime in Venezuela had dropped dramatically.

The Trump campaign had told reporters that Vance would be the top surrogate for the evening, but after the debate, Trump himself appeared in the spin room to override his surrogates’ attempts to blame his performance on the moderators and instead assure reporters that he had won the debate. It is highly unusual for a candidate to go to the spin room in person, and his appearance demonstrated that Trump was aware that he was in trouble. Reporters seemed to agree: “If you won tonight, why are you here?” one can be heard saying to him. “Why not let the performance speak for itself?”

“Trump has come in the spin room and he is desperately trying to get the attention that I think he needs as oxygen at this point,” an MSNBC reporter told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. “Is he literally standing there like he’s his own surrogate trying to get people to talk to him about his own performance?” Maddow asked. “Wow. That’s something. That is not a sign of strength or confidence in your own performance when you’re trying to extend past the final bell….”

Answering questions did not appear to help him. When asked once again to answer whether he would veto a national abortion bill, he answered: “It was a perfect answer on abortion, and I’ve done a great job on that, and I’ve brought our country together.” And then he walked out.

All day today, he posted and reposted statements that he had won the debate—including a message of support from former Tenet Media commentator Benny Johnson, whose paycheck was paid by Russia—but it was hard to miss that Trump’s performance was historically bad. Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who studies focus groups, said that “[a]cross the board,’ a “focus group of swing voters from swing states” thought Harris won the debate. Longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz went on record saying that Trump’s debate performance would cost him the presidential race. The Harris campaign’s ongoing trolling of Trump was perhaps even harsher: it posted the entire hour and forty minute debate as a campaign ad.

Meanwhile, by 2:00 this afternoon, Taylor Swift’s endorsement had prompted 337,826 people to start the process of registering to vote.

All day today, reporters fact checked Trump’s statements, proving them lies. But lies have never damaged him; they reinforce his dominance by forcing subordinates to agree that the person in charge gets to determine what reality is. Victims must surrender either their integrity or their ownership of their own perceptions; in either case, once they have agreed to a deliberate lie, it becomes harder to challenge later ones since that means acknowledging the other times they caved.

That’s why the lie about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration is so important: it is the foundational lie on which all the others stand. Harris, who spent her legal career dealing with criminals and abusers who depend on this technique, knew exactly how to undermine it. She made fun of it, making his “obsession with crowd sizes” a national joke. The jokes set him off not only because he cannot bear to be laughed at, but also because challenging that lie challenges all the others.

Following Harris’s lead, posters on social media turned to memes today, setting Trump’s assertion that “they’re eating the cats,” to Vince Guaraldi’s theme “Linus and Lucy” from the Peanuts movies, for example, and designing the same statement as a Dr. Seuss book, as well as posting pictures of live pets wrapped in bread and rolls.

Observers correctly noted that the racist trope of immigrants eating pets dehumanizes marginalized people who are already vulnerable, putting them in danger. While posters and media have repeatedly pointed out that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are there legally and have revitalized the city, making fun of those sharing such a stupid lie has a different kind of potential to defang it.

And, aside from Trump’s evident worry, there are signs that Trump is vulnerable. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had scheduled a vote today on the continuing resolution to fund the government before the government will have to shut down on October 1. That measure included the voter suppression measure Trump demanded yesterday in all caps. Today, Johnson pulled the vote.

Republicans are also breaking with Trump over the idea of an interest rate cut. Trump does not want the Fed to lower the cost of borrowing money before the election despite the softening job market—cheaper money should bolster the economy and provide more jobs—and has vowed that if he is reelected, he will take control of the Fed, which is now an independent institution. But Republicans are backing away from his demands. Representative Dan Meuser, a Trump supporter from the swing state of Pennsylvania, told Jasper Goodman and Eleanor Mueller of Politico that he supports a cut. “You’ve got to put the greater good ahead of looking political,” he said.

Today the share price of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), the owner of the Truth Social platform, fell to new lows. The stock fell more than 10% today, ending the day at $16.68 from a high over $60 a share in April. In May, Trump’s stock was valued at more than $6 billion, although the company is losing money and has very few users. The drop over the last several months has wiped away more than $4 billion of that value. Trump needs money for his legal bills and settlements, as well as his businesses, and can begin to cash out on his stock soon, but selling much of it was always going to be a problem because if he dumped it, the bottom would fall out. Now selling is a problem because its value is dropping.

In the face of concern that Trump and Vance have been suggesting they would challenge the results of the 2024 election, the Department of Homeland Security took steps to protect the January 6, 2025, session of Congress that will count the electoral votes that will decide the presidency. They have put January 6, 2025, on the same security level as the Super Bowl or a major event like the U.N. General Assembly.

Finally, today is the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, the day terrorists from the al-Qaeda network used four civilian airplanes as weapons against the United States, and Trump used its commemoration to demonstrate another dominance trait: that he will behave however he wishes. Trump attended a remembrance with right-wing extremist Laura Loomer, who has shared not only the false pet-eating conspiracy theory, but also the false theory that “9/11 was an Inside Job!” Recently, she posted an appalling attack on Vice President Harris. Today she posted that she joined Trump because “I believe in unconditional loyalty to those who are deserving. And there is nobody more deserving of our loyalty and unwavering support than Donald Trump."

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris each issued statements about the anniversary. Biden vowed that the nation will never forget the attack, those lost, their families, and “the heroic citizens and survivors who rushed to help their fellow Americans. And never forget that when faced with evil—and an enemy that sought to tear us apart—we endured.”

Harris echoed Biden. She also emphasized the national unity the crisis created as people came together to deny the terrorists the achievement of their goal “to attack and destroy our way of life—our democracy, our freedoms, and everything we hold dear as Americans.” She thanked the military personnel who served in Afghanistan and elsewhere to root out terrorism, and urged Americans to “reflect on what binds us together as one: the greatest privilege on Earth, the pride and privilege of being an American.”

All three were at a commemoration of 9/11 today. Trump and Harris shook hands, and he tried the dominance trick of using the handshake to pull Harris toward him, which she firmly resisted. His social media website confirmed that the world of professional wrestling is very much on Trump’s mind as he apparently tried to reassure himself he, and not Kamala Harris, is the dominant political figure in the country. He clearly doesn’t want to agree to another debate and is trying to spin his reluctance as a show of power.

“In the World of Boxing or U[ltimate] F[ighting] C[hampionship] when a Fighter gets beaten or knocked out, they get up and scream, ‘I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!’” he wrote. “Well, it’s no different with a Debate. She was beaten badly last night. Every Poll has us WINNING, in one case, 92–8, so why would I do a Rematch?”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Matt Davies #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #UFC #boxing #debate #poliitcal #election 2024 #Kamal Harris #9-11 #funding the government

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thedetectiveinthephonebooth · 2 months ago

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A Message to Fellow Voters

I don’t often post original content but today on the eve of the next Presidential election I wanted to share my story. Picture this if you can the year is 2016 (the year of dabbing Squidward, here come dat boi, and Damn Daniel) I was a freshman in college well into the fall semester. It was exciting to finally be able to vote in a presidential election and it was a sign to myself that I was becoming an adult. Bernie Sanders was gaining attention among the Millennials/oldest Gen Z. Ted Cruz was being accused of being the Zodiac killer. I remember having a watch party for debates leading up to the election and there was a feeling of surprise when the candidate announced for the Republican Party would be Donald Trump the guy I had known from his early 2000’s show The Apprentice. We looked at each other and laughed at how ridiculous he was as the months counted down to Election Day. It was….. strange to seemingly watch the events that would follow. The red hats starting to appear on walks through campus. The flags starting to go up around local neighborhoods. On a day my friends and I had planned to go to the island and enjoy the last warm days of the season we ended up stopped in bumper to bumper traffic as the traffic sign announced not construction but delays from a rally being hosted at an amphitheater that was known for hosting music festivals and college graduations. We were again annoyed but there was no way he could win. It was crazy, he didn’t have the experience and he seemed to say more insane rhetoric every day. As Election Day approached I finally received my absentee ballot for my home state and began filling it out, my anxiety had begun to peak and the angry shouts of random people seemingly continued to multiply. The night of the election I gathered with friends with bated breath although she was not my first choice for candidate there was an opportunity for history to be made. A woman for president? That meant something to me and I hadn’t even realized how special that was until that moment. The votes came in, the states declared, as the previously confident poll forecast was proven wrong the feeling in the air changed into one of somber horror. The next morning solidified the results and created confusion from an outcome I had no clue could be achieved. A candidate had won the popular vote and yet had failed to secure the electoral. The following days created hushed conversation and feeling on unease. I found myself joining local efforts to speak up against the rhetoric that had seemingly approved the right to spew hate. The following years showcased that whatever norm we previously had was gone and the future was in fact uncertain. The 2020 election I found created a sense of distress that seemingly never ended. I saw people that once were civil with one another turn on a dime to resent and hate the opposing party. In a world being rocked by a pandemic that had effectively brought our lives to a halt it seemed as if we had reached a new level of insanity. I didn’t want to vote for the candidate selected for the Democratic Party but I knew the importance of this election and what this meant for my country. I remember becoming physically ill to the point I couldn’t stand moving. I went to bed hoping that my vote made a difference and that others would agree that this new “normal” was not the opinion of the majority. The next morning was a sense of relief but also one of hesitation as conspiracy theories began spreading like rapid fire. January 6th was the day I was convinced that my country may fall. Mobs storming the steps of the capitol and seemingly uncaring for what this building stood for. This country is by no means perfect, but it is my home. I have seen this country do amazing things and I have seen it fail. Despite all of this I have hope for our future. We have ideas and dreams that show that we do care for the world around us and in most cases would rather help the person next to us then shun them away. So I ask this Election Day please use your voice and vote to protect our democracy.

#thedetectiveinthephonebooth #personal #us politics #presidential election #election 2024 #harris walz 2024 #vote blue

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