#I like to think his parents are not from the five nations (same w Gai and Tenten)

[sinnbaddie]

This is very random but I wonder how Lee was born

He’s the type to spawn out of thin air

[patriotsnet]

Why Do Republicans Hate Gay People

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-hate-gay-people/

Why Do Republicans Hate Gay People

Presidency Of George W Bush

George W. Bush did not repeal President Clinton’s Executive Order banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the federal civilian government, but Bush’s critics felt as if he failed to enforce the executive order. He retained Clinton’s Office of National AIDS Policy and was the first Republican president to appoint an openly man to serve in his administration, Scott Evertz as director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. Bush also became the second President, after President Clinton, to select openly gay appointees to his administration. Bush’s nominee as ambassador to Romania, Michael E. Guest, became the second openly gay man U.S. Ambassador and the first to be confirmed by the Senate. He did not repeal any of the spousal benefits that Clinton had introduced for same-sex federal employees. He did not attempt to repeal Don’t ask, don’t tell, nor make an effort to change it.

In April 2002, White House officials held an unannounced briefing in April for the Log Cabin Republicans. On June 27, 2002, President Bush has signed a bill allowing death benefits to be paid to domestic partners of firefighters and police officers who die in the line of duty, permanently extending a federal death benefit to same-sex couples for the first time.

The 2004 Republican Party platform removed both parts of that language from the platform and stated that the party supports anti-discrimination legislation.

Two Reasons Why The Bathroom Bill Targeting Trans People Is Flawed

We believe this bill is flawed for two reasons. First, as conservatives who believe in liberty and in supporting small businesses, we do not think that government should single out businesses for special public censure if they do not enforce the governments current social views.

Americans are still sorting out how they feel about trans people and how they can be tolerant or hospitable neighbors even if they disagree. Government should not use private businesses as pawns in an ongoing culture war, especially with something as private as their customers genitalia.

Second, the bill is counterproductive. We understand that the legislature wants to give parents peace of mind that their daughters will not use the same restroom as biological males. Parents want to make sure their kids are safe this is a completely reasonable concern. But forcing trans women to use the same restroom as young boys can be more disturbing and disruptive to businesses.

Hear more Tennessee Voices:

Dads: imagine walking into the mens room with your son and seeing Caitlyn Jenner, in a dress, fixing her makeup.

More disturbing still is when trans men who are far along in their transition  people who look, act, and identify as male  must use the same restroom as young girls.

More:Tennessee Voices, Episode 118: Chris Sanders, Tennessee Equality Project

The Fairness For All Act Is A Republican Response To The Equality Act

In March, House Democrats introduced the Equality Act, the first comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights bill to pass the House. While it has been stalled in the GOP-controlled Senate, it would provide sweeping non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people in the US in housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care for the first time under federal law.

At the time, there were that some conservative groups were working on a compromise bill, and it appears the Fairness For All Act is that compromise.

A small coalition of religious conservative groups led by the American Unity Fund and including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1st Amendment Partnership, Center for Public Justice, and Council for Christian Colleges and Universities have rallied behind the bill.

Im excited about the solutions that are embodied in the legislation, because I think that those are the exact ideas that were going to need to pass federal civil rights for LGBTQ people, said Tyler Deaton, senior adviser at the American Unity Fund.

The Fairness For All Act would provide many of the same protections for LGBTQ Americans, but it also provides ample exceptions for churches and religious organizations to continue to discriminate against queer people.

What we like about it is the stated intentional desire for fairness and a proposed process that will encourage collaboration because weve seen that work in our state, he said.

Republicans May Begin To Embrace Gay Rights

As Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus pointed out, gay marriage and gay rights are platforms that a higher and higher percentage of Americans support. Priebus warns Republicans to be more open to other views on the issue, and less set in their ways. However, Republican strategist Ed Rogers points out the catch-22 in this situation. Most current Republicans still oppose gay marriage. Where 58 percent of Americans now support gay marriage, only 39 percent of Republicans support it, with 59 percent of Republicans opposing it. This leaves the Republican Party in a tough spot. They must either reform their views to bring in new members and gain support in coming elections, which would risk pushing away those that have stuck with the Party through the years, or stand by their age-old platform, and risk continuing to lose support throughout the nation.

The Disney Vault Is Annoying

Disney has drawn the ire of many adoring fans because it only releases its movies to the public for home consumption for a limited amount of time. They even coined a term for this tactic, The Disney Vault. Audiences think this is corporate greed at its ugliest. Disney has a commodity, and they try to build fervor and revenue by only letting the consumer have access to it for a short period. Its basically the same business model McDonalds uses with the McRib and we all know how much everyone hates that. Can you imagine if the Star Wars movies were only sold periodically? Thatd be an outrage, right? Well, you can expect it to happen since Disney bought the rights in 2012 to all things Star Wars, from George Lucas for over $4 billion. Its no wonder why Disney movies have been pirated since VCRs came on the scene in the 1980s.

American Views Of Transgender People: The Impact Of Politics Personal Contact And Religion

As the Supreme Court examines cases it has already heard this term about the rights of gay and transgender people, the American public in the latest Economist/YouGov poll are for the most part tolerant and supportive of transgender employment rights. However, Republicans take different positions.

The overall public supports laws prohibiting discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, with Republicans closely divided.

More than one in three people know someone who is transgender, and the probability of this is even higher among Democrats and younger adults. Those with personal contact are more likely to believe there is a great deal or a fair amount of discrimination against transgender people. Half of Republicans and 88 percent of Democrats say there is a fair amount or a great deal of discrimination against transgender people.

One in five adults believes employers should be able to fire transgender workers who wear work clothes that match their gender identity. About three times that percentage disagree. Republicans are more closely divided on this question: a third say employers should be able to fire those employees, while 44 percent say that should not be allowed.

There appears to be greater acceptance of female to male transitions than male to female ones. Men generally accept a female to male as male , but also believe that someone transitioning male to female is still male .

Image: Getty 

Here’s Where We Stand On Different Lgbt Issues

LGBT leftists tend to hate us because we put our principles first. We believe in religious liberty, free speech, God-given human dignity, limited government, and economic opportunity. 

For that reason we frequently oppose radical gender theory and leftist policies like the Equality Act. We support a nuanced, science-based approach to transgender policy issues. 

We recently spoke out in support of the legislature’s initiative to keep youth sports organized according to biological sex we find the effort to let biological males play girls’ sports anti-science and offensive.

As a result of stances like these, LGBT leftists regularly picket us, ban us, destroy our property, and call us ugly names.

Recently, our entire leadership team was kicked out of Nashvilles primary LGBT networking Facebook group, in contravention of that groups written rules, because the admins hated us.

We hope this background demonstrates our conservative bona fides. If we oppose a Republican LGBT bill, it is out of principle, not identity politics or blind devotion to those in the LGBT community who reject us. We were not asked to comment on the bill before it was passed, but we feel we would be remiss not to offer our perspective.

More:Tennessee’s anti-LGBTQ bills target vulnerable citizens who are worthy of dignity | Plazas

Views On Religion Its Role In Policy

When it comes to religion and morality, most Americans say that belief in God is not necessary in order to be moral and have good values; 42% say it is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values.

The share of the public that says belief in God is not morally necessary has edged higher over the past six years. In 2011, about as many said it was necessary to believe in God to be a moral person as said it was not . This shift in attitudes has been accompanied by a rise in the share of Americans who do not identify with any organized religion.

Republicans are roughly divided over whether belief in God is necessary to be moral , little changed over the 15 years since the Center first asked the question. But the share of Democrats who say belief in God is not a condition for morality has increased over this period.

About two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic leaners say it is not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values, up from 51% who said this in 2011.

The growing partisan divide on this question parallels the widening partisan gap in religious affiliation.

About six-in-ten whites think belief in God is not necessary in order to be a moral person. By contrast, roughly six-in-ten blacks and 55% of Hispanics say believing in God is a necessary part of being a moral person with good values.

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Lgbt Conservatism In The United States

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LGBT conservatism in the United States is a social and political ideology within the community that largely aligns with the American conservative movement. LGBT conservatism is generally more moderate on social issues from social conservatism, instead emphasizing values associated with fiscal conservatism, libertarian conservatism, and .

Changing Views On Acceptance Of Homosexuality

Seven-in-ten now say homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with just 24% who say it should be discouraged by society. The share saying homosexuality should be accepted by society is up 7 percentage points in the past year and up 19 points from 11 years ago.

Growing acceptance of homosexuality has paralleled an increase in public support for same-sex marriage. About six-in-ten Americans now say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally.

While there has been an increase in acceptance of homosexuality across all partisan and demographic groups, Democrats remain more likely than Republicans to say homosexuality should be accepted by society.

Overall, 83% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say homosexuality should be accepted by society, while only 13% say it should be discouraged. The share of Democrats who say homosexuality should be accepted by society is up 20 points since 2006 and up from 54% who held this view in 1994.

Among Republicans and Republican leaners, more say homosexuality should be accepted than discouraged by society. This is the first time a majority of Republicans have said homosexuality should be accepted by society in Pew Research Center surveys dating to 1994. Ten years ago, just 35% of Republicans held this view, little different than the 38% who said this in 1994.

Acceptance is greater among those with postgraduate and bachelors degrees than among those with some or no college experience .

Reasons Why Conservatives Hate Democrats

November 5, 2014 by Samuel WardeNo Comments

20 Reasons Why Conservatives Hate Democrats

1. Democrats believe in higher education.2. Democrats believe in preserving the environment.3. Democrats believe in science.4. Democrats believe that carbon dioxide is dangerous.5. Democrats do not believe that minimum wage created our nations unemployment.

6. Democrats do not believe armed rebellion is a viable alternative to elections.7. Democrats do not believe that corporations are people too.8. Democrats do not believe that the sexual revolution created AIDS.9. Democrats do not know the proper height for trees.10. Democrats do not understand decent God-fearing Americans need missile launchers at home.

11. Democrats do not understand that banning abortions for high risk pregnancies can be a positive experience for women.12. Democrats do not understand that intelligent design is a proven scientific theory.13. Democrats do not understand that marriage is related to national security.14. Democrats do not understand that the media is a threat to national security.15. Democrats forgot that Hitler coined the phrase separation of church and state.

16. Democrats seem oblivious to the fact that most good Americans oppose gay marriage.17. Democrats seldom bring guns to crowded public events.18. Democrats want to force innocent multi-millionaires to pay taxes.19. Democrats want to let gays vote.20. Democrats want to let immigrants vote.

Log Cabins Better Record On Gay Issues

While Stonewall was cheerleading Obamas do-nothing Democrats, Log Cabin sued the government to kill DADT. In 2010, Log Cabin won an injunction preventing the administration from enforcing DADT. Only after fighting that injunction, and losing, did Obama finally repeal the law.

Log Cabin has also withheld its endorsement from high-profile Republican candidates who opposed marriage equality unlike Stonewall, we resist partisan groupthink, even when it costs us. We wouldnt be endorsing President Trump in 2020 if he werent truly an ally.

Trump openly supported LGBT equality before any of Stonewalls endorsees did. In 1999, while Democrats defended DADT, Trump opined that gays and lesbians serving openly was not something that would disturb me. In 2000, Trump proposed an amendment of civil rights law to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which would have rendered moot the employment discrimination case currently before the Supreme Court.

In 2015, though Trump needed religious conservative votes to win the Republican primary, he nevertheless stated publicly that religious freedom and LGBT rights are not mutually exclusive. He even rebuked his running mate-to-be, Mike Pence, for initially undervaluing LGBT interests in Indianas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, on which Pence ultimately reversed. Today, President Trump still has our back.

Stonewall Incorrectly Attacks President Trump

Stonewalls article censures Russia for orchestrating an industrial-scale genocide of gay men in Chechnya. Russias behavior is indeed alarming. So President Trump, collaborating with his Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, has launched a historic initiative to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide. Basham conveniently omits this fact.

Stonewall calls Trumps plan to reduce HIV/AIDS transmission by 90 percent within 10 years lip service because HIV+ immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are separated from other immigrants. But this policy is intended to provide HIV+ immigrants, some of whom face untreated AIDS, with needed medical care. Stonewall also neglects to mention that Trumps budget included $291 million to fight HIV in 2020 alone. Trump also convinced the antiviral research group Gilead to donate billions of dollars of HIV prevention medication for 200,000 people. That is hardly lip service.

Stonewall further insinuates, ludicrously, that Trump is bigoted for halting Obama-era attempts to tell public schools which bathroom transgender students can use. We say, good: The well-being of children who do not identify with their biological sex is vitally important, but it does not fall under the originally intended purview of Title IX and would thus be better explored at the state and local level without federal intervention. Executive overreach in the name of LGBT rights does nothing to recommend our cause.

Relies On Star Power Not Plotlines

Back in the day, Disney movies sold themselves because their plots were incredible. They showcased fairytales and chronicled the rise of the underdog. This worked in Disneys animated and live-action movies, and the company was untouchable for decades. Then, they had a string of flops like Mulan, Pocahontas and Hercules. Suddenly, Disney was fallible. So, instead of hiring better writers, they took the easy way out they started to hire big name talent to headline its projects. And they havent looked back. Disney has hired giants in the film industry to voice its characters, like Miley Cyrus and . And of course, Disney puts the most popular celebs in its live action movies, like Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.

Disney even has upcoming projects with Emma Stone, Reese Witherspoon and Emma Watson. But what good is it to have a big star in a movie if the plot is weak? The only good thing about this change in direction is that it finally steered Disney away from cramming cultural sensitivity down everyones throats. There was a period of time when it made sure to give every minority group its own movie, from Hawaiians in Lilo and Stitch to African Americans in The Princess and the Frog. Audiences perceived this to be the pandering that it was.

How Out Of Step Is The Republican Party On Gay Rights

The wedding wasnt the only reason conservatives targeted Rep. Denver Riggleman in a party convention , but it was the driving one. Which raises the question: How out of step with the nation is the Republican Party on same-sex rights?

Its an especially pertinent question on Monday, now that the Supreme Court, with the support of one of President Trumps nominees, just voted 6-3 that existing federal law protects gay and transgender workers from discrimination based on sex.

Thats a sea change in the legal landscape of protections for LGBTQ Americans. Before this ruling, in about half of the states, you could be legally fired for being gay or transgender. Now, you cant under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which the court ruled extends to LGBTQ Americans because it prevents discrimination on the basis of sex.

But like the Republican voters in Virginia who ousted Riggleman in favor of social conservative Bob Good, there is an active wing of the Republican Party seeking to push back on the march toward expanding legal protections for gay and transgender Americans. And they have powerful allies.

The Trump administration opposed interpreting the Civil Rights Act to encompass LGBTQ workers. The leader of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network called the six justices who supported this ruling, one of whom was Trump appointee Neil M. Gorsuch, activists, implying the court got ahead of where the public is on the issue.

Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

Mike Pence Accidentally Admits The Real Reason Republicans Hate Democrats So Much

Common Dreams

The grassroots organization People for Bernie on Tuesday advised the Democratic Party to take a page from an unlikely sourceright-wing Vice President Mike Penceafter Pence told a rally crowd in Florida that progressives and Democrats “want to make rich people poorer, and poor people more comfortable.”

“Good message,” tweeted the group, alerting the Democratic National Committee to adopt the vice president’s simple, straightforward description of how the party can prioritize working people over corporations and the rich.

Suggesting that a progressive approach to the economy will harm the countrydespite the fact that other wealthy nations already invest heavily in making low- and middle-income “more comfortable” by taxing corporations and very high earnersPence touted the Republicans’ aim to “cut taxes” and “roll back regulations.”

The vice president didn’t mention how the Trump administration’s 2017 tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited wealthy households and powerful corporations, with corporate income tax rates slashed from 35% to 21%, corporate tax revenues plummeting, and a surge in stock buybacks while workers saw “no discernible wage increase” according to a report released last year by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy.

Pence’s description of progressive goals was “exactly” correct, author and commentator Anand Giridharadas tweeted.

“Yes, and what’s wrong with making poor people more comfortable?” asked Rep. Ilhan Omar .

Gw College Republicans Invite Log Cabin Republicans And Lgbt Conservatives To Talk About What It Means To Be Gay And Conservative

Kicking off a discussion on the inclusion of LGBT people in the Republican Party, Charles Moran, the managing director of the conservative gay group the Log Cabin Republicans, told George Washington University students that they dont have to be a Democrat because youre gay.

The forum at the Marvin Center Amphitheater Tuesday night, hosted by GW College Republicans, brought together what Josh Kutner, director of political affairs for the group, described as an all-star panel of Republican and conservative political and media consultants: Dave McCulloch, managing partner at Capitol Media Partners; Brad Polumbo, an editor and columnist at The Washington Examiner; and Edith Jorge-Tunon, political director for the Republican State Leadership Committee.

Mr. Moran, who has 14 years of experience managing local and national Republican political races, started the discussion by asking panelists to explain how they came out as conservative and where they fit on the conservative spectrum.

Mr. Polumbo said he realized he was a conservative when he was dropped into the liberal bastion of the University of Massachusetts and wound up persona non grata in the gay community.

A Rand Paul libertarian and technically not a Republican, he said, I definitely have a very right-wing philosophy. I am more than willing to punch at both sides.

Live your life honestly, Mr. Moran advised. Be present. Share and be aware. Accept them for who they are and who they are not.

We’re Portrayed As A Perversion

From the left, right, and even a few biased researchers, people accuse transgender people of being perverts, fetishists, and likely rapists. This is in great part why the right-wing tactics against non-discrimination ordinances have been so successful: the right wing tells people that it’s a choice between protecting their wives and daughters or a tiny group of perverts.

Many Trump Supporters Are Lgbt

So Stonewall is wrong. But something more important is going on here. What really infuriates Basham is that Log Cabin has given cover for the presidents claim that some of biggest supporters are LGBT. As if saying so were a crime Trump commits in secrecy while his fabulous gay accomplices at Log Cabin run interference. But its just a fact: Many of Trumps most fervent supporters are LGBT people.

Left-wing gay activists, however, depend on creating the impression that all LGBT people are Democrats. Democrats then use this false narrative to consolidate unearned moral authority. That is why, when the prominent gay billionaire Peter Thiel expressed support for Trump, The Advocate promptly ran a piece arguing he isnt actually gay he just has sex with men.

The point of such chicanery is to insinuate that all Republicans are homophobes, and all homophobes are Republicans. That only works if Democrats speak for all gays. So just one prominent gay or trans Republican punctures the lie that the left has a monopoly on gay rights.

Log Cabin Republicans stand to disabuse the public of that lie. The Stonewall Democrats dont want you to know we exist. But we do, our ideas are better than theirs, and were not going anywhere.

Trans Rights: A Perplexing Issue

Like many other gay conservatives, however, he seems to disconnect gay rights and transgender rights. Kabel recalled a recent article with a quotation from the conservative activist Tony Perkins that contrasted the Democratic and Republican platforms in 2016.

“The only issue Perkins raised was the transgender bathroom issue,” Kabel said. “And I thought, ‘That means we won.'”

Kabel called transgender equality “one of the most perplexing issues going.”

“Transgender people deserve support and protection just like anybody else, but it’s a very complex issue,” he said. “It’s remarkable when you hear their stories, but it’s just a very perplexing issue about how to really address it and do it so that they’re protected but other people aren’t hurt, so that people’s religious views are actually taken into consideration.”

Transgender visibility is all but absent in the Log Cabin Republicans, from their leadership to their messaging.

An OUTSpoken Instagram post compares the LGBT left to the LGBT right by putting an image of a person who appears to be transgender or gender-nonconforming next to a shirtless picture of former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, while the campaigns store sells T-shirts bearing slogans like “gay for Tucker” “gay for Melania” and “gay not stupid.

OUTspoken sent Brokeback Patriot, who has stated trans women are not women, to New Orleans Southern Decadence party to ask passersby if they think Trump is pro-gay.

[bensakindofmagic]

IT’S ANOTHER BEN HARDY FANFIC (pls read it) Ben Hardy x female reader WARNINGS: talking about sex/toys/drugs - also there will be swearing throughout, I’ll try to warn you before each chapter but some might slip through w/c: 1.5k+ A/N: it’s kinda short cause it’s the first chapter and we’re setting everything up, also pls note that I have no idea how an actual film set operates so reader is a Cast PA but I’ve made up her job a bit, pls be nice to me I hope you like it :)

Chapter One “Okay, let’s do one more run through of Hammer to Fall and then we’ll break for lunch,” you heard the call from the side of the makeshift stage. It was the first week of your new job, day four of rehearsals for Live Aid, and you already felt like you were getting your ass kicked. After a few years on the film circuit as a runner and low level AD, you had lucked out and landed a job as Cast PA on the new Queen film, Bohemian Rhapsody. Being a huge Queen fan, you had accepted the job in a heartbeat, but it being your first time working directly with the cast, you were pretty nervous. Being Cast PA meant you worked with the main talent personally, making sure they were where they needed to be when they needed to be there, acted as a liaison between them and production, and generally fulfilled any requests that they might have for the duration of the shoot. The hours were gruelling, which you were used to from previous jobs, but that, paired with the increased pressure and inexperience, had you running around frantically all hours of the day, usually trying to fix some mistake (which frustratingly often wasn’t yours). The upside was that the cast were all lovely; no divas, no assholes. You’d told them from the off that you were new to the job, and they were patient and kind, even helping you out here and there. Joe, the guy playing the bassist, was particularly sweet. He’d been on film sets for most of his life - he was the kid in Jurassic Park, you had learned much to your excitement - so was more than used to the environment. He reminded you what the abbreviations stood for when your mind went blank, and always met your eyes with a smile when he caught you looking stressed. Gwilym and Rami were lovely too - and seeing the first glimpses of his performance as Freddie blew your mind - as were Lucy, Allen when you’d met them before the principle photography started, and the whole cast. Well, almost the whole cast. It was that Ben Hardy; you knew he was going to be trouble the moment you laid eyes on him. He was far too pretty for your liking, with eyes like forrest pools, deep and warm and inviting, and plump lips that always seemed to be hiding a smirk. The first time you shook his hand you had to tear your eyes away from the rippling muscles in his arm, barely covered by a tshirt. You could tell that keeping yourself from crushing on him would be a challenge, but we all have to make sacrifices now and again. You had decided long ago that you would never jeopardise your career over a guy, so as far as you were concerned, all four of them were out of bounds. You watched the guys from the wings; it was just a rehearsal so they were all in their own clothes, no one had the hair on, and it was a little bit ropey, let’s not beat around the bush. They were each so focused on their own performances, getting every detail right, they it seemed a little isolated, disjointed. But you saw how much potential they had, and the thrill of what this project would become was most of the reason you managed the twat-o’clock-in-the-morning starts. They seemed to swell, each getting into his own performance, and you saw that they could build to become more than the sum of their parts. Rami was prancing about like he owned the stage, Gwilym concentrating so hard on getting the guitar solo right, Joe was killing it with the Deacy two-step, and Ben, shredding those drums, veins bulging, open-mouthed, wisps of hair sticking to his sweaty forehead… Let’s not get distracted now, you’re at work. “Nice work guys, that’s lunch.” After returning their props and instruments the guys came tumbling off stage towards you, and you started leading them towards the canteen. “So Y/N, what did you think? We look okay?” asked Gwilym once you were all sat down with your food. “Mhm it was great,” you mumbled, a little more interested in your spaghetti bolognese - you were starving. Rami chuckled, “You sound unenthused.” “No really, I mean obviously it needs a bit of practice but that’s what rehearsals are for right?” “Oh no please, Y/N,” Ben said with light sarcasm, “tell us what you really think.” You smiled, trying not to blush. “I guess you just don’t quite feel like a band. It’s probably just because you didn’t know each other that well yet, but that’ll get there. I could sort out some bonding time if you like?” “What, like group puzzles and trust exercises?” he scoffed. “I was thinking more along the lines of getting hammered and playing drinking games, but whatever floats your boat,” you sassed. Given that you were met with satisfied grins and nods of approval, you figured they were in.

The five of you were sat in a circle on the floor, a shot glass in front of each person and a bottle of tequila in the middle. You filled up each glass, spilling a little on the way from the pints you’d already had. “Okay, this is a ‘getting to know you’ exercise,” you said, trying to hide that you were stumbling over your words a little, “so I want personal questions. And you have to be honest! If I think you’re lying you have to take a shot, okay?” “I feel like I��m 16 again at a house party cause someone parents are out of town”, Ben sniggered. Ignoring him, you decided to kick things off. “We’ll start with a classic - never have I ever joined the mile high club.” Joe drank, much to the delight of the other guys. “What? It was with an air-hostess, she was hot. I wasn’t gonna pass up the chance to fulfil a schoolboy fantasy.” You grinned, this was going to be fun. Rami shifted excitedly and piped up, “Okay me next, me next. Never have I ever slept with someone of a different nationality to me.” Gwil drank and told the story of a summer fling with a French girl he met on a school exchange. You also drank. “I lived in Italy for a year after uni,” you explained as you refilled your glass, “and you best believe to got that Italian dick. They know what they’re doing over there.” You were vaguely aware of Ben blushing. “I didn’t know you lived in Italy, Y/N,” Gwil said. “Well then, it would appear that the game is working. And by the way, just to clarify, it’s not a requirement that the questions be sex related,” you chuckled. Gwil cleared his throat, “Never have I ever been to a gay bar.” Again you drank, and Rami too. “Gay bars are the best, they’re so much fun!” he exclaimed. “You guys are missing out.” The game continued in much the same fashion, with the majority of questions being about the bedroom. You learnt more about their sex lives than you did about anything else. It was Joe’s turn, and after some thought he said, “Never have I ever used toys in the bedroom.” You cocked an eyebrow when Ben brought his glass to his lips, as you did the same. He shrugged, “I’ve been in a relationship for a long time, you have to spice things up every now and again.” Your heart fell a little when he said he was in a relationship, long-term at that. Well anyway that settles it, you thought to yourself, you can’t fancy him, he has a girlfriend. You just hoped that your face didn’t betray your disappointment. “What’s your justification Y/N?” Joe asked. “What?”
“Sex toys,” he clarified. Your face collapsed into a look of disbelief, “Do I need to justify it? They’re fun, enough said.” The guys laughed and said they’d take your word for it, to which you rolled your eyes, but you thought you noticed a hunger on Ben’s face. You couldn’t look away as he pulled his bottom lip through his teeth. You pushed the image from your mind as Gwil said,”Never have I ever smoked weed.” “What, never?!” Joe hollered in disbelief, as you all drank your shot. The more you drank the more outrageous the questions got - “never have I ever used a whip”, “never have I ever had actual sex on the beach”, “never have I ever thought about someone I know personally while masturbating”- and before long you were all plastered. At points the game got half forgotten as you all fell about into fits of giggles. In your drunkenness you kept staring at Ben, noticing the way he wet his lips, or how deep and velvety his voice was when he laughed, or how his whole face seemed to lift when he smiled widely, how it added depth to his features. He was just so pretty… But when someone said they’d never had a crush on a colleague you steadfastly refused to drink. You categorically did not have a crush on Ben Hardy. Absolutely not.

[maggotmouth]

     hullo it nora, back for more mess. this unhinged little nightmare is cecily who i first birthed around 3 years ago and i am so excited to finally be playing her again. feral wolf girl who loves silk babydoll dresses and bubblegum but would also cut your femoral artery if she was bored. is the eptome of that “somethin dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls” trope. amma crellin meets harley quinn meets addy hanlon.  ( pinterest )

APP.

( nora. 22. gmt. she / her. ) it might be HER FRESHMAN year but I still think CECILY DE ROSA looks exactly like FREYA MAVOR and sometimes I think the FEMALE is actually them. Of course I’m wrong, as they’re 19 and studying THEATRE while living in FIDELIS here at Lockwood. The GEMINI can be rather PUCKISH and CANDID, but also kind of SELF-CENTRED and HYSTERICAL. Their most played song on Spotify was CELL BLOCK TANGO by CATHERINE ZETA JONES AND THE COMPANY OF CHICAGO, so I think that says a lot.

BACKGROUND.

tw death suicide murder proceed w caution

born as ‘lamia romana’ in italy to catholic parents. her father was a struggling alcoholic and incredibly depressed. when cece was 4, and her brother was 3 her father fed the gas pipe through the back of their car whilst they prepared to go on their family holiday because he knew suicide would leave his wife and children penniless so he decided the most selfless thing would be to take them with him

cecily (lamia) and her brother luc by some miracle survived the accident, but were left orphaned. they were sent to a convent where they were raised by nuns. cece was incredibly religious. it became her whole life. she was devoted to god completely, almost crazed, because in the absence of parents she transferred the need for a guider and protector onto this spiritual other evoked by her religious beliefs.

she always had a strained relationship w her brother because she believed he wasn’t as devoted to catholicism as she was. when she was 13 he claimed that god wasn’t real and that she was a freak, and in a violent rage cecily thrust a crucifix through his throat. it was completely out of character for her. she screamed until her throat went dry. eventually,  when the nuns managed to tear her away from her brother’s body, she was taken to a psychiatric hospital in manhattan where she stayed for two years. driven to madness, she convinced herself that she had been possessed by the devil the moment she killed her brother, and soon she began to accept her fate, as not holy, like she had anticipated, but in fact it’s ungoldy antithesis

when she was released, she was adopted by an american distant aunt and uncle and sent to a manhattan boarding school under the new name ‘cecily de rosa’. see also: st. trinnians. lifted of any religious obligation, cecily grew wild. she delighted in acting up, cheeking her superiors, causing havoc and chaos, terrifying the other girls. sex became her weapon – she would seduce the boys from the local comprehensive and drop them like flies. to her, it was merely a game. 

uses sex as a weapon, a way in which to manipulate men, having filmed sexual liasons with both a former acting coach and a TA to use for the purposes of blackmail. 

 her expulsion from school was threatened after she streaked the school naked and doused in pig blood, but her academic prowess was an asset to the school, so they learnt to put up with her antics. she applied for yale but didn’t get in.

 she atended juliard for a year but was thrown out for indecency

theatre-wise, one of Cecily’s most commendable traits is her sheer tenacity and lack of inhibition – she is willing to do whatever it takes to climb to the top, and kick as many other people down as necessary on her way there. tthis unhinged hunger for success was evidenced when, in her breakout role, cecily played Tamora in Titus Andronicus. feeling the presentation of one of shakespeare’s most terrifying women was ‘pussy-footed’ and dulled down for a male audience, cecily took matters into her own hands, and during the famous banquet scene where Tamora is fed her own sons, she ate a pig’s heart live on stage – receiving both awestruck and horrified press reviews for her performance -- and getting expelled from her drama school. (thats why she is now at lockwood)

she is in a sorority house n the gymnastic squad. she speaks fluently in four languages. the kind f sociopathic lana del rey writes songs about. 

was raised Roman Catholic, and although she is now estranged from religion, it’s still an integral part of her identity. She holds it partially responsible for the need to repress emotion she still experiences. The only time she allows herself to truly feel, without perceiving it as a weakness, is when she’s performing

cecily was raised with dual-nationality and is multi-lingual. Her parents frequently spoke both Italian and English around the house, leading cecily to do the same. She is also somewhat familiar with Latin, having studied it alongside Literature, Contemporary Dance and Theatre at a manhattan-based performing arts boarding school.

ethereal wood elf. plays flute and does ballet. her favourite tv shows are making a murderer and dance moms. she is big on Tchaikovsky and Bukowski. poetry to cecily is soup of the soul, despite the fact that the only things she really feels are apathy and mild disgust. her poems mostly centre around the beauty of violence -- writing about it often prevents her from committing violent acts -- and also her cat.

loves gettin fucked up. always high on sometin -- cocaine, ecstasy, love, her own ego.

had her first taste of alcohol at 15 and has stayed fond of spirits ever since. likes literature of the macabre, isn’t fond of social media, and loves knee high socks and glitter. she bites her nails, will only take cold showers, and doesn’t drink coffee. loves cats. is vegan.

she sleeps like a cat, regularly but short amounts of time, and is usually found awake at night stalking the streets in the pursuit of self-destruction. she views herself as pansexual because she is attracted to people rather than genders but she thinks men are trash. probably biromantic or homoromantic. she loves the chase. she likes meaningless sexual liasons, but if hearts are broken in the process, even better. hearts are breakable and she believes those who have them are foolish.

aesthetic:  peroxide hair in a bathtub, bleach, glittery socks under spaghetti strap heels, silk slip dresses, glitter smeared beneath eyes, split knuckles, nose bleeds, a bubble of blue gum snapped against cherry flavoured lips, orange peel, knee-high socks, tartan two-piece skirt and blazers, kate moss posters ripped out of vogue, littering a bedroom wall, yearbook photos tacked together with red thread, clip in highlights, stick on earrings, french music humming from a crackly gramophone, a hip flask covered with hello kitty stickers

PLOTS.

i currently have NO PLOTS for her so everything is open. if you want a cousin / ex-lover / friend with benefits  / bully, or are dying for a specific connection, let me know or like this post and i will msg you!! LOVE U ALL xoxo

more plots all of these are plagiarised:

“you were drunk and you climbed in through my apartment window and I’m not really sure how you managed it because not only is the fire escape broken but you are really fucking plastered wtf please, teach me your skills?”

“i set your kitchen on fire ‘by accident’ because i hate your guts, and you know it was me but you have no evidence”

“we’re in a breakfast club style all day detention”

“you came over for ‘help studying’ and my roommate came home five minutes after we were done hooking up and you got roped into a conversation about her dogs and everyone is uncomfortable”

“we’re friends but it’s a really toxic relationship made up of trying to one up each other all the time”

“I caught you writing gay porn in the library and now you’re terrified i’ll tell everyone, but really i’m just waiting for the next instalment”

“i asked you to help me sneak my cat into my dorm but we got caught by the janitor and now we’re both in the principal’s office”

“you saw me come back to my apartment covered in blood one night, but you’ve never asked about it because you’re scared that yours might be the next blood i’m covered in”

“you broke into my apartment while I was out for whatever reason and when I came home I knocked you out and now you’re unconscious on my floor and idk what to do?”

“i just decked you in the face because i’m drunk and you were pissing me off but ow my hand really fucking hurts i think i might have broke it and oh look your nose is bleeding and now we’re both sitting awkwardly in the hospital while i glare at you from across the room. but wait are you giving me sex eyes?? stop that i’m supposed to mad at you??”

“you keep dragging suspicious sacks up to and down from your apartment and I don’t know what your deal is or why I still wanna bone you”

“we’re in the same rocky horror troupe”

“i stayed over at your house and woke you up in the middle of the night to have sex while your roommate is asleep and every time, your room mate yells “STOP FUCKING, JESUS CHRIST” right when we’re about to finish”

“we used to have a thing but  now we hate each others guts and can’t be in the same room without yelling at one another”

“i had a drunk one night stand with your brother last year and i threw up in your room, and now we’re in a class together and it’s really awkward.”

[faithfulnews]

New study: the majority (69%) of divorces are initiated by women

Is this “I’ll do what I want” attitude compatible with life-long married love?

This new report from Live Science gives us some numbers about who initiates divorces most frequently.

It says:

Women are more likely than men to initiate divorce in the United States, but they are no more likely than men to initiate breakups in a dating relationship, a new study finds.

“The breakups of nonmarital heterosexual relationships in the U.S. are quite gender-neutral and fairly egalitarian,” study author Michael Rosenfeld, an associate professor of sociology at Stanford University, said in a statement. “This was a surprise because the only prior research that had been done on who wanted the breakup was research on marital divorces.”

Previous research had found that women are more likely to initiate divorce, at least in the United States, Europe and Australia. In the new study, Rosenfeld compared divorces to nonmarital breakups, in an effort to understand the driving forces behind each type of breakup.

To investigate, he looked at data from the 2009 to 2015 waves of How Couples Meet and Stay Together, a nationally representative survey spearheaded by Rosenfeld and his colleagues. The new study includes 2,262 adults, ages 19 to 64, who reported having opposite-sex partners in 2009. By 2015, 371 of the participants had broken up or gotten divorced.

Women initiated 69 percent of the 92 divorces, Rosenfeld found. But there was no statistically significant difference between women and men when it came to nonmarital breakups, regardless of whether they were living together, he said.

The Ruth Institute reports on a few studies:

Female unions seem to have the highest divorce rates, followed by male unions, followed by opposite sex unions.

“For Sweden, the divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50% higher than the risk for heterosexual marriages, and that the divorce risk for female partnerships is nearly double that for men.”

“For Norway, divorce risks are 77% higher in lesbian partnerships than in those of gay men.”  (The Norwegian data did not include a comparison with opposite sex couples.)

In California, the data is collected a little differently. The study looks at couples who describe themselves as partners, whether same sex or opposite sex. The study asks the question, how likely is it that these couples live in the same household five years later. Male couples were only 30% as likely, while female couples were less that 25% as likely, as heterosexual married couples, to be residing in the same household for five years.

It really seems as if there is something about women in particular that causes them to be unable to keep to commitments in their actions, despite what they might say with their words.

So I am seeing a couple of problems in young, unmarried women that might explain this.

Feminism is bad

First, there is the feminism. Feminism was the driving force behind no-fault divorce. Today, young unmarried women are being taught to view marriage as stifling to their freedom. So if they do get married, they are often resolved that marriage should not affect their freedom in any way. That is just not the way marriage works, though – both spouses need to be equally ready to have their freedom infringed upon by things that HAVE TO GET DONE. Lots of things that have to get done will not be fun, thrilling or amusing – and that’s why it’s good to be prepared to do them before you marry.

My friend Dina says that she only knows one happily married couple from among her friends. The most frequent case she sees is wife is working in order to pay for big house, two cars, etc. and wife is denying husband sex, which makes him disengage from the marriage. A working wife tends to not be as responsive to the needs of husband and kids as a non-working wife, probably in part due to work stress. There is an epidemic of sex-withholding by women, and it causes men to disengage from marriage because they feel unloved. Although women tend to rebel against the idea that the man’s bad behavior is their fault, and that there is a “contractual” nature to marriage, that is how marriage works. You cannot stay married, women, by just doing whatever you feel like, and NOT doing whatever you DON’T feel like. Men will disengage when their needs are not supplied, and that’s no fault of theirs. It’s your fault. Denying relationship obligations causes men to underperform.

Feminism is often linked closely to “independence”. There is a lot of confusion over what the word independence means among young, unmarried women. A man uses that word to mean “lack of financial dependence on parents, the state, etc. because of good decisions in education, career and finances”. But a woman means “not having to care about the needs of a man and the leadership of a man, or the needs of children while still getting what I want from men and children”. That attitude is not compatible with life-long married love.

Emotions are bad

Second, emotions. In my experience, young, unmarried women are less likely to have reasoned out their own life plan in a practical step-by-step manner. Instead, they tend to do whatever makes them feel good moment-by-moment without any realistic plan. One Christian woman was recently telling me how attracted she was to an atheist moral relativist who had been promiscuous from the age of 15. She explained that her emotions were kindled by his GQ looks, 6-pack abs, mysterious European accent, seductive manner and witty conversations. Although she is apparently a Christian, she doesn’t take Christianity seriously in her decisions about relationships and marriage.

Peer-approval and culture play a large part in determining what women think is attractive in a man, as well as their life goals, and women are driven by these cultural standards more than men who focus on honoring their commitments regardless of their emotions. In my experience, women struggle to make their day-to-day actions match their socially-acceptable goal of getting married “some day”. Marriage is for “some day” for today’s busy women, but fun and thrills is for today. “Live in the moment”, they often tell me. If you try to talk to them about roles and responsibilities in a marriage, they will withdraw and rebel. But marriage is about each spouse doing his or her job, and feeling content about what the couple is building together. You can’t make life-long married love from emotional craziness and pursuing fun and thrills with seductive promiscuous moral relativist atheists.

How to pick a woman who won’t divorce you

Young men, I advise you to choose wives who have had to do things that they did not feel like doing. That can involve things like getting a STEM degree, getting a job in STEM, moving out of her parents’ house, getting a “boring” job that helps her pay off her debts, keeping commitments when she doesn’t feel like it, and caring for other people and even animals.

Basically, the more the woman has ground down any narcissism and hedonism she may have, by having to do nasty calculus and horrid lab work, the better. The more accustomed she is to constraints, responsibilities, expectations and obligations, the less likely it is that she’ll divorce you for unhappiness. And all of this goes for men, as well. STEM degree, STEM job, save money, serve others, give to charity.

Marriage is not the time for people to be carried away by their emotions. It’s an enterprise, and it works when both people are rational, practical, hard-working and self-controlled.

Go to the article

[mindthump]

Overlooked No More: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary https://nyti.ms/2XsJPxN

Overlooked is a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. This month we’re adding the stories of important L.G.B.T.Q. figures.

By Alan Cowell

LONDON — His genius embraced the first visions of modern computing and produced seminal insights into what became known as “artificial intelligence.” As one of the most influential code breakers of World War II, his cryptology yielded intelligence believed to have hastened the Allied victory.

But, at his death several years later, much of his secretive wartime accomplishments remained classified, far from public view in a nation seized by the security concerns of the Cold War. Instead, by the narrow standards of his day, his reputation was sullied.

On June 7, 1954, Alan Turing, a British mathematician who has since been acknowledged as one the most innovative and powerful thinkers of the 20th century — sometimes called the progenitor of modern computing — died as a criminal, having been convicted under Victorian laws as a homosexual and forced to endure chemical castration. Britain didn’t take its first steps toward decriminalizing homosexuality until 1967.

Only in 2009 did the government apologize for his treatment.

“We’re sorry — you deserved so much better,” said Gordon Brown, then the prime minister. “Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was, under homophobic laws were treated terribly.”

And only in 2013 did Queen Elizabeth II grant Turing a royal pardon, 59 years after a housekeeper found his body at his home at Wilmslow, near Manchester, in northwest England.

A coroner determined that he had died of cyanide poisoning and that he had taken his own life “while the balance of his mind was disturbed.”

At his side lay a half-eaten apple. Biographers speculated that he had ingested the poison by dousing the apple with cyanide and eating it to disguise the toxin’s taste. Some of those who studied his personality or knew him, most notably his mother, Ethel Turing, challenged the official verdict of suicide, arguing that he had poisoned himself accidentally.

To this day Turing is recognized in his own country and among a broad society of scientists as a pillar of achievement who had fused brilliance and eccentricity, had moved comfortably in the abstruse realms of mathematics and cryptography but awkwardly in social settings, and had been brought low by the hostile society into which he was born.

“He was a national treasure, and we hounded him to his death,” said John Graham-Cumming, a computer scientist who campaigned for Turing to be pardoned.

Above all, Turing’s name is associated for many people with the top-secret wartime operations of Britain’s code-breakers at Bletchley Park, a sprawling estate north of London, where he oversaw and inspired the effort to decrypt ciphers generated by Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine, which had once seemed impenetrable. The Germans themselves regarded the codes as unbreakable.

At the time, German submarines were prowling the Atlantic, hunting Allied ships carrying vital cargo for the war effort. The convoys were critical for building military strength in Britain and eventually enabled the Allies to undertake the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944, heralding the collapse of Nazi Germany the next year.

Only by charting the submarines’ movements could Allied forces change the course of their convoys, and for that they relied on the cryptologists of Bletchley Park to decode messages betraying the Germans’ deployments.

The enduring fascination with Turing’s story inspired the 2014 movie “The Imitation Game,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley. But his scientific range went far beyond the limits of cinematic drama: He laid down principles that have molded the historical record of the relationship between humans and the machines they have created to solve their problems.

Image

Turing and colleagues working on the Ferranti Mark I Computer in 1951. It was based on a prototype built five years earlier at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Professor Max Newman.CreditSSPL/Getty Images

Even before World War II, Turing was making breakthroughs.

Credit for the creation of the first functioning computer in 1946 went to the researchers John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly for their machine the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or Eniac, which they had developed at the University of Pennsylvania during World War II.

But Turing’s notions preceded the Eniac. He conceived what became known as the universal Turing machine, which envisioned “one machine for all possible tasks” — essentially computers as we know them today, Andrew Hodges, Turing’s biographer, wrote in a condensed version of his 1983 book, “Alan Turing: The Enigma.”

Turing’s vision, Hodges said, was that one machine could “be turned to any well-defined task by being supplied with the appropriate program.”

He added, “The universal Turing machine naturally exploits what was later seen as the ‘stored program’ concept essential to the modern computer: It embodies the crucial 20th century insight that symbols representing instructions are no different in kind from symbols representing numbers.”

Later, technology that emerged from the Manhattan Project, the United States-led effort to develop the atom bomb, also relied on Turing’s ideas.

“What had begun as a British idea was scaled up to industrial size by the Americans,” David Kaiser, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in 2012 in The London Review of Books.

Turing’s postwar work at the University of Manchester, on the first functioning British computers, was also significant: It reflected the emerging power of electronic computing in the Cold War race for nuclear supremacy. And he remained fascinated by the interplay between human thought processes and their computerized inventions. Even in 1944, Hodges wrote, Turing had spoken to a colleague about “building a brain.”

Image

Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing in the 2014 movie “The Imitation Game.”

In an article published in 1950 in the academic journal Mind, Turing developed a method that came to be known as the “Turing Test,” a sort of thought experiment to determine whether a computer could pass as a human. As part of his experiment, a human interrogator would ask questions and try to figure out whether the answers had come from a computer or a human.

Many years later, on a visit to London, President Barack Obama placed Turing in a trans-Atlantic pantheon of innovation and discovery, saying, “From Newton and Darwin to Edison and Einstein, from Alan Turing to Steve Jobs, we have led the world in our commitment to science and cutting-edge research.”

Alan Mathison Turing was born in London on June 23, 1912, the second of two sons of Ethel Sara Stoney and Julius Mathison Turing, who had met in imperial India, where his father was a senior colonial administrator. After Alan’s birth they left him and his brother, John, in the care of foster parents in England while they returned to India so that Alan’s father could continue his work.

“Alan Turing’s story was not one of family or tradition but of an isolated and autonomous mind,” Hodges wrote.

In his early days, Turing’s education reflected the overwhelming social requisite of his class to secure a place at a reputable private boarding school. Alan, at age 13, enrolled at Sherborne School, in southern England, where his fascination with science raised alarms in an educational system based on the study of what were called the classics — works in Latin and ancient Greek.

“If he is to be solely a scientific specialist, he is wasting his time at a public school,” Nowell Smith, Sherborne’s headmaster, wrote to his parents, as recorded in Hodges’s book.

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A young Alan Turing sailing with classmates from King’s College in Cambridge, where he studied mathematics. He graduated in 1934 with a first class honors degree.CreditREX/Shutterstock

Nonetheless, he secured a place at King’s College in Cambridge to study mathematics, graduating in 1934 with a first class honors degree. With remarkable academic precocity he was made a fellow of the college in 1935. A year later, he published the groundbreaking paper “On Computable Numbers, With an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem” (or “decidability problem”), a reference in German to a celebrated riddle that the American logician Alonzo Church had also explained.

Both Turing and Church reached the same conclusion — a basis for computer science — that there is no single algorithm that could determine the truth or falsity of any statement in formal logic (though Turing’s thinking was more direct).

Turing completed a doctoral thesis at Princeton in 1938 before returning to Cambridge. With Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in September 1939, he joined the Bletchley Park code breakers at the Government Code and Cypher School, working in makeshift huts clustered around a mansion.

Their greatest initial challenge was figuring out the method of encryption of the German Enigma device, which was invented 20 years earlier by Arthur Scherbius, a German electrical engineer who had patented it as a civilian machine to encrypt commercial messages. The machine worked by entering letters on a typewriter-like keyboard and then encoding them through a series of rotors to a light board, which showed the coded equivalents. The machine was said to be capable of generating almost 159 quintillion permutations.

The British were helped initially by a Polish mathematician who had been studying the Enigma machine and had provided vital details after Hitler’s forces invaded Poland in 1939. But under the direction of Turing and another Cambridge-educated mathematician, W.G. Welchman, the Bletchley Park code breakers greatly expanded and accelerated those early efforts. Using a huge contraption called the Bombe, they mimicked the operations of the Enigma machine to break its codes.

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The back of a huge contraption known as the Bombe, which the Bletchley Park code breakers used to break ciphers created by Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine.CreditSSPL/Getty Images

“The critical factor was Turing’s brilliant mechanization of subtle logical deductions,” the biographer Hodges wrote.

In 1942, Turing was assigned to visit the United States for several months of high-level consultations on the encryption of conversations between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston S. Churchill. His wartime work earned him a high civilian award, and he was named an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

In the postwar years, Turing’s fascination with computers led him to design the Automatic Computing Engine. Although it was never built, Turing believed that “the computer would offer unlimited scope for practical progress toward embodying intelligence in an artificial form,” Hodges wrote.

In May 1948, Turing moved to Manchester University’s computing laboratory and bought a house in nearby Wilmslow. Among his enthusiasms were his work on various scientific themes, including morphogenesis, the theory of growth and form in biology; his continued secret ties to Britain’s postwar code breakers; and long-distance running.

He was also, Hodges said, beginning to explore the homosexual identity he had hidden when he proposed marriage in 1941 to Joan Clarke, a Bletchley Park cryptanalyst. He later withdrew the offer after explaining his sexuality to her, and the two remained friends.

About 10 years later, the police were investigating a burglary at his home when he admitted to having had a physical relationship with a man named Arnold Murray. Murray told Turing that he knew the thief’s identity, and detectives, in their questioning, asked Turing about his relationship to Murray.

In March 1952, Turing and Murray were charged with “gross indecency,” and both pleaded guilty in court. Murray was given a conditional discharge, but Turing was ordered to undergo chemical castration by taking doses of the female hormone estrogen to reduce sex drive.

Two years later, the motive for his apparent suicide, at age 41, remained unclear and left many questions. At the time, Hodges wrote, known homosexuals were denied security clearances, which meant that Turing could not be involved in secret work during the Cold War, leaving him excluded and embittered. While a coroner deemed the death a suicide, the telltale apple at Turing’s side was never forensically examined.

“Eccentric, solitary, gloomy, vivacious, resigned, angry, eager, dissatisfied — these had always been his ever-varying characteristics,” Hodges wrote, “and despite the strength that he showed the world in coping with outrageous fortune, no one could safely have predicted his future course.”

[investmart007]

WASHINGTON | The Latest: Sen. Rand Paul keeping 'open mind' on Kavanaugh,

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/50pnsE

WASHINGTON | The Latest: Sen. Rand Paul keeping 'open mind' on Kavanaugh,

WASHINGTON — The Latest on President Donald Trump’s nomination of a Supreme Court justice (all times local):

9:50 p.m.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says he’s keeping an “open mind” on President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.

The conservative senator tweeted Monday that he looks forward to the upcoming Senate hearings, reviewing the circuit court judge’s record “and meeting personally with Judge Kavanaugh, with an open mind.”

Paul was among conservatives signing on to a statement of support last week for fellow conservative Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.

Conservative and libertarian-leaning activists raised concerns about Kavanaugh. Some conservatives said Paul said he might oppose a Kavanaugh nomination, but Paul did not publicly say he would vote against him.

9:30 p.m.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a “superb” Supreme Court pick and that senators should “put partisanship aside” in considering him.

President Donald Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination Monday evening.

Democrats are already lining up against Kavanaugh as too conservative. But McConnell says senators should give him “the fairness, respect, and seriousness that a Supreme Court nomination ought to command.”

McConnell says Kavanaugh believes judges should ignore their personal and political views and simply “interpret our laws as they are written.”

The Kentucky Republican faces a challenge in winning Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Republicans hold a mere 50-49 Senate majority, with the prolonged absence of the ailing Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain. The defection of one Republican would kill the nomination unless at least one Democrat votes yes.

___

9:25 p.m.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh says he is “humbled” and “deeply honored” to have been selected by President Donald Trump for the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh told the president Monday night as he took the microphone to accept his nomination that he was “grateful to you” and “humbled by your confidence in me.”

He also says he is “deeply honored” to be nominated to fill the seat of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he clerked.

Kavanaugh says that if he’s confirmed, he “will keep an open mind in every case” and “always strive to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law.”

He also thanked his parents and talked about his young daughters, whose basketball teams he coaches. He says his daughters’ teammates call him “Coach K.”

___

9:20 p.m.

The Senate’s top Democrat says President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court puts abortion rights and health care protections for women “on the judicial chopping block.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says by picking Kavanaugh, Trump is delivering on his pledge to “punish” women for their choices.

He says he will fight the nomination “with everything I have.” He’s urging people to make their voices heard, an indirect reference to voicing their objections to senators.

Schumer says if Kavanaugh is confirmed, “women’s reproductive rights would be in the hands of five men on the Supreme Court.”

Schumer and other Democrats have cited campaign statements Trump made to assert that any of the candidates Trump mulled would oppose abortion rights and the Obama-era health care law.

___

9:15 p.m.

President Donald Trump has introduced his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as “a judge’s judge” and cited his “proven commitment to equal justice under the law.”

Trump announced Kavanaugh as his pick Monday night on prime-time television.

The 53-year-old Kavanaugh is a longtime fixture of the Republican establishment. He has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington since 2006. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during the investigation of President Bill Clinton. Kavanaugh also worked in the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Trump says Kavanaugh has “impeccable credentials and unsurpassed qualifications.”

Trump made the announcement in the East Room of the White House and rousing applause broke out as Kavanaugh entered with his wife and two daughters

___

9:10 p.m.

President Donald Trump made his final decision to nominate Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday night.

A senior White House official says Trump called Kavanaugh on Sunday evening to inform him that he was his choice to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, Trump phoned Justice Anthony Kennedy to inform him that his former law clerk would be nominated to fill his seat. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also received a heads-up from the president. The president briefed Senate Republicans at the White House Monday evening shortly before making the public announcement.

The official says Trump decided on Kavanaugh because of his large body of jurisprudence cited by other courts, describing him as a judge that other judges read.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

— Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed

___

9:05 p.m.

President Donald Trump is nominating influential conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he seeks to shift the nation’s highest court further to the right.

Trump chose the 53-year-old federal appellate judge for the seat opened up by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh would be less receptive to abortion and gay rights than Kennedy was.

Kavanaugh is Trump’s second high court pick after Justice Neil Gorsuch. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch served as law clerks to Kennedy at the same time early in their legal careers.

Kavanaugh is a longtime fixture of the Republican legal establishment. He has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington since 2006. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during his investigation of President Bill Clinton and worked in the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency.

___

9 p.m.

A senior White House official says President Donald Trump intends to nominate influential conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he seeks to shift the balance of the court further to the right.

Trump plans to announce Monday that he has selected the 53-year-old federal appellate judge for the seat opened up by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the official announcement.

Kavanaugh is a longtime fixture of the Republican legal establishment. He has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington since 2006. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during his investigation of President Bill Clinton and worked in the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency.

— By Associated Press writer Zeke Miller

___

8:55 p.m.

A senior White House official says President Donald Trump intends to nominate influential conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he seeks to shift the balance of the court further to the right. Trump plans to announce Monday that he has selected the 53-year-old federal appellate judge for the seat opened up by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the official announcement.

— By Associated Press writer Zeke Miller

___

6:55 p.m.

Sen. Orrin Hatch says he has spoken with President Donald Trump about his nominee to the Supreme Court and doesn’t believe he’s going to pick Amy Coney Barrett.

The Utah Republican said Monday of Barrett: “I don’t think she’s going to be the one who’s chosen this time.”

The senator had stumped publicly for her and called her an outstanding judge. But the president in recent days seemed to narrow his shortlist for the court down to two other appellate judges, Brett Kavanaugh and Thomas Hardiman.

Hatch demurred when asked by reporters whether Trump is nominating Kavanaugh.

He says: “I’m pretty sure who it’s going to be, so I don’t want to give something up.”

Trump is announcing his selection Monday night.

___

6:25 p.m.

Is there a Supreme Court sign in these tea leaves?

A D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 opinion issued Monday is raising speculation that Judge Brett Kavanaugh is President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

Here’s why: Kavanaugh’s court rarely issues opinions on Monday. But if Kavanaugh is Trump’s choice, he likely would step away from pending cases. In the case decided Monday that had to do with attorneys’ fees, there would be no majority if Kavanaugh were to withdraw.

Trump is set to announce his choice Monday night.

Mike Sacks, a reporter for the Fox television affiliate in New York and a self-described lapsed lawyer, was among the first to make the connection on Twitter.

___

4:35 p.m.

Three Democratic senators sure to face tremendous pressure over whether to back President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee have been invited to Monday’s White House announcement of the pick. But Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin all say they won’t attend.

All face tough re-election races this November in states Trump won easily in 2016.

All three states lean heavily Republican. But nearly all Senate Democrats and many Democratic voters are expected to oppose Trump’s nominee. They say the person would likely take strongly conservative views on issues like abortion and health care.

The White House would love to have the Democrats’ votes for confirmation. Issuing the invitations makes the lawmakers choose between humoring voters who think they should be bipartisan and others who feel they shouldn’t condone Trump’s pick.

___

4:10 p.m.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas says Republicans know they’re in for a contentious battle to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve on the Supreme Court, but “won’t back down from the fight.”

Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, says it’s “extremely disappointing” that some Democrats have made clear they’ll oppose the nominee even before the president announces his choice.

Cornyn says Democrats have pledged to stop the nominee at all costs, but “we will see President Trump’s nominee confirmed on a timely basis.”

Cornyn spoke shortly after Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said any of Trump’s likely nominees poses a threat to the Affordable Care Act and a woman’s right to have an abortion.

Senators are trying to frame the debate before Trump’s 9 p.m. announcement.

___

3:30 p.m.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says a weekend move by the Trump administration to undercut the Affordable Care Act is another reason for senators to closely scrutinize the president’s Supreme Court nominee.

With little warning, the Republican administration announced it is freezing payments under an “Obamacare” program that protects insurers with sicker patients from financial losses. If the decision is made permanent, it would lead to higher premiums.

Schumer says the administration’s action highlights the stakes for senators. Trump is announcing his pick to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on Monday night.

He says, “Because President Trump has said repeatedly that he would nominate judges to overturn the ACA, the Supreme Court vacancy is only further putting health care front and center, raising the stakes for maintaining these vital health care protections.”

___

1:55 p.m.

Former Sen. Jon Kyl will guide President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee through the Senate confirmation process.

White House spokesman Raj Shah says the Arizona Republican “has agreed to serve as the Sherpa for the President’s nominee to the Supreme Court.”

Kyl, a former member of Republican leadership, served on the Senate Judiciary Committee before retiring from the Senate in January 2013. He works for Washington-based lobbying firm Covington & Burling.

The White House hopes Kyl’s close ties to Senate Republicans will help smooth the path for Trump’s eventual selection to win confirmation. Trump is set to announce his pick for the vacancy left by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy at 9 p.m. Monday.

Former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte served as the ‘sherpa’ for Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017.

___

1:15 p.m.

President Donald Trump has yet to announce his pick for Supreme Court, but Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania — up for re-election — says he’ll be opposed.

Casey says the list of judges Trump has used to find a Supreme Court nominee is the “fruit of a corrupt process straight from the D.C. swamp.” He cites involvement of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in drafting the list.

The Democratic senator is up for re-election this year in a state Trump won in 2016. The race is not expected to be competitive.

Bob Salera, a campaign spokesman for Senate Republicans, said Casey has “given up any pretense of being a moderate voice” by opposing Trump’s nominee sight unseen.

Casey says he is “pro-life,” but regularly sides with supporters of abortion rights in Senate votes.

___

10:25 a.m.

The conservative Judicial Crisis Network is set to launch a $1.4 million ad buy on behalf of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

Trump is expected to reveal his pick at 9 p.m. Monday. When the announcement is made, the campaign will kick off. It will feature cable and digital advertising in states including Alabama, Indiana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

The campaign will include a biographical ad about the nominee.

The group started advertising after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement. The new ad brings their total investment to $2.4 million. They will also launch a website with information on the nominee

___

6 a.m.

President Donald Trump is going down to the wire as he makes his choice on a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. But he says with his final four options “you can’t go wrong.”

Trump spoke to reporters Sunday afternoon as he concluded a weekend in New Jersey spent deliberating his decision at his private golf club.  Trump insisted he still hadn’t locked down his decision, which he wants to keep under wraps until a 9 p.m. Monday announcement from the White House.

While Trump didn’t name the four, top contenders for the role have included federal appeals judges Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge, Amy Coney Barrett and Thomas Hardiman.

__

By Associated Press

[investmart007]

WASHINGTON | The Latest: McConnell calls Kavanaugh a 'superb' court pick

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/fpHCLY

WASHINGTON | The Latest: McConnell calls Kavanaugh a 'superb' court pick

WASHINGTON — The Latest on President Donald Trump’s nomination of a Supreme Court justice (all times local):

9:30 p.m.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a “superb” Supreme Court pick and that senators should “put partisanship aside” in considering him.

President Donald Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination Monday evening.

Democrats are already lining up against Kavanaugh as too conservative. But McConnell says senators should give him “the fairness, respect, and seriousness that a Supreme Court nomination ought to command.”

McConnell says Kavanaugh believes judges should ignore their personal and political views and simply “interpret our laws as they are written.”

The Kentucky Republican faces a challenge in winning Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Republicans hold a mere 50-49 Senate majority, with the prolonged absence of the ailing Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain. The defection of one Republican would kill the nomination unless at least one Democrat votes yes.

___

9:25 p.m.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh says he is “humbled” and “deeply honored” to have been selected by President Donald Trump for the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh told the president Monday night as he took the microphone to accept his nomination that he was “grateful to you” and “humbled by your confidence in me.”

He also says he is “deeply honored” to be nominated to fill the seat of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he clerked.

Kavanaugh says that if he’s confirmed, he “will keep an open mind in every case” and “always strive to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law.”

He also thanked his parents and talked about his young daughters, whose basketball teams he coaches. He says his daughters’ teammates call him “Coach K.”

___

9:20 p.m.

The Senate’s top Democrat says President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court puts abortion rights and health care protections for women “on the judicial chopping block.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says by picking Kavanaugh, Trump is delivering on his pledge to “punish” women for their choices.

He says he will fight the nomination “with everything I have.” He’s urging people to make their voices heard, an indirect reference to voicing their objections to senators.

Schumer says if Kavanaugh is confirmed, “women’s reproductive rights would be in the hands of five men on the Supreme Court.”

Schumer and other Democrats have cited campaign statements Trump made to assert that any of the candidates Trump mulled would oppose abortion rights and the Obama-era health care law.

___

9:15 p.m.

President Donald Trump has introduced his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as “a judge’s judge” and cited his “proven commitment to equal justice under the law.”

Trump announced Kavanaugh as his pick Monday night on prime-time television.

The 53-year-old Kavanaugh is a longtime fixture of the Republican establishment. He has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington since 2006. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during the investigation of President Bill Clinton. Kavanaugh also worked in the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Trump says Kavanaugh has “impeccable credentials and unsurpassed qualifications.”

Trump made the announcement in the East Room of the White House and rousing applause broke out as Kavanaugh entered with his wife and two daughters

___

9:10 p.m.

President Donald Trump made his final decision to nominate Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday night.

A senior White House official says Trump called Kavanaugh on Sunday evening to inform him that he was his choice to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, Trump phoned Justice Anthony Kennedy to inform him that his former law clerk would be nominated to fill his seat. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also received a heads-up from the president. The president briefed Senate Republicans at the White House Monday evening shortly before making the public announcement.

The official says Trump decided on Kavanaugh because of his large body of jurisprudence cited by other courts, describing him as a judge that other judges read.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

— Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed

___

9:05 p.m.

President Donald Trump is nominating influential conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he seeks to shift the nation’s highest court further to the right.

Trump chose the 53-year-old federal appellate judge for the seat opened up by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh would be less receptive to abortion and gay rights than Kennedy was.

Kavanaugh is Trump’s second high court pick after Justice Neil Gorsuch. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch served as law clerks to Kennedy at the same time early in their legal careers.

Kavanaugh is a longtime fixture of the Republican legal establishment. He has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington since 2006. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during his investigation of President Bill Clinton and worked in the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency.

___

9 p.m.

A senior White House official says President Donald Trump intends to nominate influential conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he seeks to shift the balance of the court further to the right.

Trump plans to announce Monday that he has selected the 53-year-old federal appellate judge for the seat opened up by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the official announcement.

Kavanaugh is a longtime fixture of the Republican legal establishment. He has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington since 2006. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during his investigation of President Bill Clinton and worked in the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency.

— By Associated Press writer Zeke Miller

___

8:55 p.m.

A senior White House official says President Donald Trump intends to nominate influential conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he seeks to shift the balance of the court further to the right. Trump plans to announce Monday that he has selected the 53-year-old federal appellate judge for the seat opened up by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the official announcement.

— By Associated Press writer Zeke Miller

___

6:55 p.m.

Sen. Orrin Hatch says he has spoken with President Donald Trump about his nominee to the Supreme Court and doesn’t believe he’s going to pick Amy Coney Barrett.

The Utah Republican said Monday of Barrett: “I don’t think she’s going to be the one who’s chosen this time.”

The senator had stumped publicly for her and called her an outstanding judge. But the president in recent days seemed to narrow his shortlist for the court down to two other appellate judges, Brett Kavanaugh and Thomas Hardiman.

Hatch demurred when asked by reporters whether Trump is nominating Kavanaugh.

He says: “I’m pretty sure who it’s going to be, so I don’t want to give something up.”

Trump is announcing his selection Monday night.

___

6:25 p.m.

Is there a Supreme Court sign in these tea leaves?

A D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 opinion issued Monday is raising speculation that Judge Brett Kavanaugh is President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

Here’s why: Kavanaugh’s court rarely issues opinions on Monday. But if Kavanaugh is Trump’s choice, he likely would step away from pending cases. In the case decided Monday that had to do with attorneys’ fees, there would be no majority if Kavanaugh were to withdraw.

Trump is set to announce his choice Monday night.

Mike Sacks, a reporter for the Fox television affiliate in New York and a self-described lapsed lawyer, was among the first to make the connection on Twitter.

___

4:35 p.m.

Three Democratic senators sure to face tremendous pressure over whether to back President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee have been invited to Monday’s White House announcement of the pick. But Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin all say they won’t attend.

All face tough re-election races this November in states Trump won easily in 2016.

All three states lean heavily Republican. But nearly all Senate Democrats and many Democratic voters are expected to oppose Trump’s nominee. They say the person would likely take strongly conservative views on issues like abortion and health care.

The White House would love to have the Democrats’ votes for confirmation. Issuing the invitations makes the lawmakers choose between humoring voters who think they should be bipartisan and others who feel they shouldn’t condone Trump’s pick.

___

4:10 p.m.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas says Republicans know they’re in for a contentious battle to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve on the Supreme Court, but “won’t back down from the fight.”

Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, says it’s “extremely disappointing” that some Democrats have made clear they’ll oppose the nominee even before the president announces his choice.

Cornyn says Democrats have pledged to stop the nominee at all costs, but “we will see President Trump’s nominee confirmed on a timely basis.”

Cornyn spoke shortly after Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said any of Trump’s likely nominees poses a threat to the Affordable Care Act and a woman’s right to have an abortion.

Senators are trying to frame the debate before Trump’s 9 p.m. announcement.

___

3:30 p.m.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says a weekend move by the Trump administration to undercut the Affordable Care Act is another reason for senators to closely scrutinize the president’s Supreme Court nominee.

With little warning, the Republican administration announced it is freezing payments under an “Obamacare” program that protects insurers with sicker patients from financial losses. If the decision is made permanent, it would lead to higher premiums.

Schumer says the administration’s action highlights the stakes for senators. Trump is announcing his pick to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on Monday night.

He says, “Because President Trump has said repeatedly that he would nominate judges to overturn the ACA, the Supreme Court vacancy is only further putting health care front and center, raising the stakes for maintaining these vital health care protections.”

___

1:55 p.m.

Former Sen. Jon Kyl will guide President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee through the Senate confirmation process.

White House spokesman Raj Shah says the Arizona Republican “has agreed to serve as the Sherpa for the President’s nominee to the Supreme Court.”

Kyl, a former member of Republican leadership, served on the Senate Judiciary Committee before retiring from the Senate in January 2013. He works for Washington-based lobbying firm Covington & Burling.

The White House hopes Kyl’s close ties to Senate Republicans will help smooth the path for Trump’s eventual selection to win confirmation. Trump is set to announce his pick for the vacancy left by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy at 9 p.m. Monday.

Former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte served as the ‘sherpa’ for Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017.

___

1:15 p.m.

President Donald Trump has yet to announce his pick for Supreme Court, but Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania — up for re-election — says he’ll be opposed.

Casey says the list of judges Trump has used to find a Supreme Court nominee is the “fruit of a corrupt process straight from the D.C. swamp.” He cites involvement of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in drafting the list.

The Democratic senator is up for re-election this year in a state Trump won in 2016. The race is not expected to be competitive.

Bob Salera, a campaign spokesman for Senate Republicans, said Casey has “given up any pretense of being a moderate voice” by opposing Trump’s nominee sight unseen.

Casey says he is “pro-life,” but regularly sides with supporters of abortion rights in Senate votes.

___

10:25 a.m.

The conservative Judicial Crisis Network is set to launch a $1.4 million ad buy on behalf of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

Trump is expected to reveal his pick at 9 p.m. Monday. When the announcement is made, the campaign will kick off. It will feature cable and digital advertising in states including Alabama, Indiana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

The campaign will include a biographical ad about the nominee.

The group started advertising after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement. The new ad brings their total investment to $2.4 million. They will also launch a website with information on the nominee

___

6 a.m.

President Donald Trump is going down to the wire as he makes his choice on a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. But he says with his final four options “you can’t go wrong.”

Trump spoke to reporters Sunday afternoon as he concluded a weekend in New Jersey spent deliberating his decision at his private golf club.  Trump insisted he still hadn’t locked down his decision, which he wants to keep under wraps until a 9 p.m. Monday announcement from the White House.

While Trump didn’t name the four, top contenders for the role have included federal appeals judges Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge, Amy Coney Barrett and Thomas Hardiman.

__

By Associated Press