#I’ve never had an issue with my ballot being counted

[hannahhasafact]

My ballot still hasn’t been counted

Like Oregon is still blue and I doubt my rankings would have an effect on the Portland mayoral race but like

Doesn’t feel great to put it mildly

[brellhal96]

It’s... pretty complicated

Summary: College dramas in the life of a third-year student who decides to start, not a relationship, but something with a renowned professor.

Okay the GIF is not very related to the subject, but this man dressed in black has me at his feet.

Notes: This is quite cliché actually, but what does it matter, it is worth dreaming. It is planned to be written in several chapters, so the first is mostly to give context to the story, I hope you like it.

I base myself on Loki's physique, although I will mention Tom Hiddleston as the star of the scene, but my perfect image is in the essence of Loki in a black suit.

I study a completely different area to numbers and physics, don't be rigorous with me on the subject, only I think it an excellent area to show Loki's personality, I do not know why.

I will show at the beginning of the series a somewhat possessive relationship, but with the outcome I promise to shape this. It should be noted that not in a toxic sense.

I didn't mention a specific university, country, or geographic location.ical location.

It's the first time I've written anything obscene, I hope you like it.

Precautions: 18+, mention of fear or anxiety, unprotected sex, a relationship at the beginning somewhat possessive.

CHAPTER 1

I NEVER SAID I WASN'T INTERESTED.

Notes: Okay this chapter is kind of weird honestly, I didn't really put so much emphasis on the obscene, but I feel like it ended up fine, I hope you like it.

Word count: 6389

You had gotten used to the hot weather of the beginning of the year, in fact you had always preferred that climate. You spent the summer with your parents on a beach, sometimes you missed them too much, but your father's job and the university of your dreams were right at the opposite ends of the country. The first year was quite complicated, but then you got used to living alone, you actually lived two blocks from campus so your bike was the perfect means of transportation.

You made some friends here, Jared had become your best friend, his bond of trust scared you a bit as you could tell him anything without fear, but it was quite comforting to have someone like that by your side.

You had earned a scholarship for academic excellence, your studies were your priority since you were a child and you loved that. The only unpleasant thing about this scholarship is that it restricted your choice of teachers in half of your subjects since you were supposed to be with “teachers of excellence”.

When you compared your subject strip to Jared and Diane, they only shared one class the three of them together, Diane another, and Jared two more. In the end you weren't going to be alone in all the classes so that calmed you a little, studying physics wasn't so complicated, it was easy for you, but socializing wasn't much for you.

You went to building C, your first class was analytical mechanics and later thermodynamics, the teacher in the second was assigned to you by the institute, a Doctor Hiddleston, you've never heard of him, you just hoped it wasn't a headache. Your mechanics teacher was a love and with the first class you knew it was going to be one of your favorite subjects.

When you finished you went to your other class, you sat right in the middle in the third row, several were in groups apparently with their friends from previous years. You took your computer and got ready to take notes. Suddenly the door closed tightly and everyone sat a little scared.

A very good-looking man came in, tall, thin and dressed completely in black, I honestly he caused you curiosity why for some reason you felt that you had seen him before.

Without seeing the class began to write on the board quickly "I am Professor Tom Hiddleston and I will teach the subject of Thermodynamics" His voice was strong and deep and you immediately recognized it. You frowned when you remembered last year's science fair, you won first place in the area of electromagnetism prototypes against a fourth-year kid, which made you feel completely proud, yet two of the judges had not been what we call nice to the two.

When you remembered Professor Hiddleston's deep look at you that day, the judges asked random questions to the fourth-year kid and you, but apparently your future thermodynamics teacher was one of those who enjoyed making students nervous with difficult questions. His sidekick on that occasion was your freshman professor, analytic geometry, Professor Scott Lawford a fucking genius, you had cried with his subject, but passed with an A +.

They both enjoyed seeing the nerves invading you and your opponent, whispering to each other with their answers. At one point Professor Hiddleston asked you and you remember perfectly well that when you finished speaking he only looked at you and smiled mockingly for then wrote something on his ballot. In the end you won by three points of the total vote and the fourth year boy, currently fifth, became your friend, both came to the same conclusion, the two teachers were crazy.

He began to write down on the board the evaluation and the issues that are always mentioned at the beginning of the year. For a moment you panicked when he wrote that one of the exams was oral, you could not imagine the martyrdom he would create just to get a passing grade.

He took 20 minutes to explain and let us out to start the next class with the course. When you came out unintentionally you stared at him while he was erasing the blackboard, but apparently your look was uncomfortable enough for him that for a second he turn and he stared at you, you rushed out of the classroom after that. When you told Jared about this future journey that you had to go through you felt immense despair, but then you remembered that, if you could the previous years with teachers equal or worse to him, this was only one step more.

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The first three weeks of class were pretty normal, you made two more friends and breakfast in the cafeteria with Jared and Diane made you forget about the pressures of school, but just the moment you felt like you were fitting in perfectly with your new year, the thermodynamics class became strange.

The classes with Tom were very pleasant, he was kinder than his body language showed, only he was certainly of a very volatile character, there were days when he seemed angry and others when he seemed happy, it was weird, but it was even weirder that you were attracted to him.

Your previous class had lasted longer than expected and the teacher extended 5 minutes out of her time which translates into being late for thermodynamics. You panicked when you saw the locked door of the classroom, wondered if it was better not to enter the class and pretend a headache straight to the infirmary, but in the end you breathed for a second and you'd decided get ready to knock the door.

“Can I help you with something?"You had never noticed that he was quite tall, it was the first time you were quite close to him.

"Sorry my mechanics teacher accidentally spread...”

"You were able to leave her class to get to mine on time, don't you think?"His gaze was quite penetrating up close.

“I really sorry, won't happen again,” Your hands were shaking, but in reality, not for fear, but his presence so formal, so rigid and secure made you feel strangely attracted to him, when you thought that, you actually invaded the shame, how do you fall in love of a teacher as strange as him.

He just opened the door and walked aside to let you through. "I asked them to work in pairs, look for your partner and ask him to explain what I already explain”

On the board were written several formulas, you wondered how he managed in 7 minutes to score so much.

You asked several guys over there, but apparently the whole damn world already had a partner, in the end you decided to do it alone, you just hoped he wouldn't flunk you for it. A girl explained the instructions to you, apparently you had to pick up one of the sheets that the professor had placed on the desk and solve it with the formulas on the blackboard, you even had to sit up to the top rows because all the other seats were occupied.

You started cursing internally while taking one of the paper sheets from the desk. "Who are you going to work with?"The professor asked you without seeing you while making notes with a rather nice pen of Indian ink.

"I'll do it alone, I already asked ... ”

"Don't you understand what couples are?"He interrupted you and this time he gave you a rather intimidating gaze.

"Yes, but apparently all my companions already have one and I figured I could do it alone then" Your hands trembled again with the paper sheet between them.

"Who doesn't have a partner?"he looked back at his papers and yelled at the whole group. It was pretty funny for you because he himself proved you were right, no one was missing a partner. When he looked up and saw that no one answered he saw you again and then looked at the blackboard behind his back.

"Well, I'll do it with you then" He got up and brought a chair that was at the end of the living room for you right next to his desk.

For a moment you wanted to run out of there, you knew you shouldn't make a mistake or say something stupid because otherwise you'd die trying.

"Get your stuff and start working it out, just let me finish a few things. To be fair with your colleagues and with you I will let you do it alone and answer any doubts you have, because obviously I know how this is solved, but I also consider that it is a lot of work for one person, do you agree?" His gaze became a little kinder.

"Yes, thank you,” you smiled faintly, but felt an internal shock as he winked at you and continued to write with his fine pen. You sat right in the corner of his desk, they were just three problems but they really left you with little desire to live. The first one, you felt was quite easy to solve, even at one point you felt the professor's gaze on you when you were so focused on your operations.

"Don't you have any doubts?"His eyebrows were puckered and his gaze was no longer mocking but rather with bona fide interests.

"No, not really, well I go in the second exercise, possibly I do" You smiled as you watched your operations with inner pride.

"Can I see?"He extended his hand to give him the leaves you had carried until then. You gave them to him, just hoping he'd tell you you had everything terribly wrong.

As he watched your leaves you watched him, he was quite attractive now that you saw him without fear that he would not let you into class, his hair was dark and apparently a lover of black to wear, his eyes were cute and quite tender while they examined your answers.

"Go on, I don't want to confuse you” He put the paper sheets on the desk and saw you with a small smile on your lips as a sign that you were on the right track.

Just 10 minutes before the class ended you finished all three exercises, you had only asked him one question and it was about whether it was a 4 or a 9 in a formula that wrote the board, so you felt pretty happy that you did it alone.

"Ready" You smiled broadly, you were the first to finish and the only one who had done it alone.

"Are you sure?”

"Yeah, well, I hope it's not a 0 at the end of the day,” you laughed to yourself, and in the end you wondered if you had thought about it or said it.

”Then let's see " took his pen and began to review your work. You froze when you saw that he framed something in your results, but he didn't tell you anything. "Well, I really didn't expect less from the winner of last year's science fair, maybe punctuality, but what does it matter”

You smiled when you saw that your grade was an A, only that he kept the papers, apparently he had to register them on his lists or something. Just as you were about to get up to leave, he asked you to stay at the end of class.

You sat back in the seats vacated by the peers that have already gone, but for a second, remembered what you said I didn't expected less from the winner of the science fair last year, he remembered you, you know that he remembered you, sonreíste for yourself when thinking that.

When the whole room was half empty, he started putting away his things. ”Come with me, " he said as he walked out with a firm and fast pace, so much so that you had to walk faster than normal. You wondered where they were going, it was pretty strange since you'd never been through the labs where it went.

“I've noticed that you're pretty good in the area, actually amazing, I even remember your answers about your prototype against the fourth year kid, former student of mine, you were much better than his” he opened the door of one of the labs and with his arm gave you a signal to enter.

“Thank you, I actually always dreamed of doing this, " you said as you walked into the lab, quite big, you assumed they were the ones that grad boys used.

"I want to propose you something” You sat at one of the practice tables and he leaned with both hands on his desk. "Would you like to work with me on a project I have?, is related to thermodynamics”

For a second you saw him with an expression of if he was joking with you or if he was serious and he seemed to read your mind.

"It's seriously, I'm working on a model related to the second law" he approached you sitting in the chair in front of yours.

"I would love to then, but I do not know how I could be of help”

"In many things" he smiled

For a moment you wondered why suddenly the man who seemed bitter about life was being so kind to you.

“You do not have to tell me your answer now, I will send you the files I have of my progress by mail if you like and you could think about it”

"Sure, I will" You smiled and he too, for a moment everything was silent, somewhat uncomfortable to be honest but his look no longer caused you fear, but somehow attracted you to him.

It was quite strange because they both got up at the same time so you were right next to him and his height difference was no small one.

"Well I think I have to go, I'll see you the next class”

"Wait, I wanted to give you something that I kept here," he went to the back cellar of the lab and came back with a bun that said first place. "I'm sorry, I was supposed to give it to you that day you won, but I honestly didn't remember where I left it, so this belongs to you.”

When you saw the bun with your name on it, you were very happy. "I thought they didn't give anything," you laughed as you put it in your backpack.

"Yeah, excuse me, I tend to be a little clueless about those things.”

"No problem," you smiled and shyly walked out of the room.

The weekend you started to question why Professor Hiddleston made you feel so nervous, now you knew that you were one of his star students, to the degree that you could be his future colleague, but why couldn't you even hold his gaze? you know, for a moment you thought about flatly refusing his project if you couldn't even see it in the eyes, but after you thought about it, you figured it would possibly be a good idea, you could even learn more things by being his apprentice.

It was Monday's class, you didn't know why, but you were in the lab on Friday, apparently you were doing an experiment on the tables with some microscopes on. ”You did it " There was Professor Hiddleston next to you, his command was on your waist and suddenly he began to approach you to kiss you on the lips and it was even stranger because it was quite nice for you, to reciprocate.

Right then you woke up, you're fucking in love with your thermodynamics professor, "Excellent Y / N, that's all that was missing."

Monday's class didn't even look him in the eye and you sat up to the top rows, you felt pretty uncomfortable with yourself thinking of a teacher that way.

"Y / N wait" Just when class ended you rushed to pack your things and run out of the classroom, but it still didn't work. "Did you think about what I told you?"The professor actually looked pretty excited about his own project.

"Yes, I just wondered if the meetings or the times we work could be on Fridays, that would make things a lot easier for me" You said without seeing the professor in the eyes, it was somewhat uncomfortable after that strange dream of the weekend.

"Sure, then it's a deal,” he held out his hand as if they were going to close the deal with a strong squeeze.

"Deal" You shook his hand and when you saw him you felt that his look was not only kind, but he was actually trying to tell you something.

The classes went on normally, you felt a little excited being sincere that you went to work with the professor who was now at the same time your impossible love, but you had to be careful for him not to notice. They agreed to meet after your last class at the lab on Fridays, at 15:00 hours. You knew it wasn't right, but from the moment you were attracted to the professor every time you saw him, you started using lip gloss and curling your hair.

For several weeks they worked on their project, now you understood their sudden mood swings, it was quite frustrating to feel that you had advanced in something and then realized that something did not fit with the rest of the procedure.

One Friday when you arrived he was making notes on the blackboard, had taken off his coat and tie and folded the sleeves of his shirt in a way that looked spectacularly attractive.

"Y / N pass," he smiled when he saw you in the driveway. "Did you read the documents I sent you?"On Wednesday he sent you a very interesting document about some theories related to the project.

"Yes, I just made some notes from some parts that I honestly didn't understand" You left your backpack in one of the buckets at the ends of the room " I'm not very good at some things”

"Neither do I, but don't worry,” he winked at you and you felt like you were melting internally.

For an hour they tried to solve one of the most difficult equations within the theory they chose, it was quite fun as sometimes you would collapse and sometimes he, but both tried to cheer up so as not to erase the whole slate of despair.

”Ready," you said when you finally managed to solve the equation.

”You did it!" saw the board quite surprised and so did you. "Your boyfriend is lucky" For a second he himself kept quiet knowing that the last thing he said wasn't quite right.

"Boyfriend? that species is extinct within my social radar" You laughed trying to keep him from feeling uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." He saw you trying to analyze your expression.

"Well sometimes the unconscious makes us a bad move" You smiled broadly "besides I guess the lucky one is his girlfriend" you returned the same move trying to tempt the ground.

"It's also an extinct species to me," he smiled, but he avoid your gaze.

"Well, then we're free to go looking for it.”

"I thought you had a boyfriend," he said as he started writing the equation on the board on the computer.

"Why?"you sat at the desk, watching him write on the computer quite nervous.

"Nothing else" You knew he was lying to you.

"Nothing else?”

"Well you're a very cute and smart girl, I figured a lot of guys are interested in you.” He didn't even look you in the eye when he said that.

”I'm not really interested in anyone" You saw through the window as you answered" well, only in someone, but it's impossible” Oh God, now the unconscious had made the wrong move to you talking too much.

”Nothing is impossible" he looked up and seemed to know what you meant.

"Well, it's just that if I just had a sign I could know it's not impossible" You started fiddling with your wrist bracelet nervously.

"How what a sign?" he stopped writing and stood right in front of you, you were still sitting at the desk.

"I don't know" You felt the adrenaline start to accelerate your pulse as it approached you.

"A date, a kiss, or even invite you to work on a project?" He placed his hands on the edge of the desk rubbing your legs.

”Yes, that sounds good " Clearly you knew what he meant, his look and yours were fixed, you appreciated that the door was closed and it was the third level, the windows were facing nowhere, so no one could see what was happening.

"Well sometimes it is necessary that you also give signals, don't you think?" His gaze and yours really seemed to be completely fixed.

"Yeah, that sounds fair." You started breathing deeper.

Slowly, he tempting the ground, began to approach, for a moment you knew that this was not right, that it was not right, but fuck, your body wanted it as you have no idea. Slowly he started to kiss you, he was nice and actually a very good kisser, then he started to get a little rougher, but both you and he knew you wanted him, his arm held your hip and your hands hugged his neck holding on to him.

"Dr. Hiddleston, I bring the copies you ordered." Someone knocked on the door and immediately the feeling of running out overwhelmed you.

"Sure, I'm coming" saw you and he wiped the lip gloss you had left on him. You packed your stuff fast and when I was going to close the door again you walked out without seeing him in the face.

"Until Monday" You started walking fast.

"Y / N wait" was the last thing you heard when you started going down the stairs two at a time.

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You, Diane and Jared planned to go out that weekend, you weren't feeling well, but you also didn't want to leave them after you had planned this for days.

"Hey, you look pale," Jared saw you worried as they waited for food at the mall.

"Do you feel well Y/N?" Diane picked up a lock of your hair as you looked at nothingness.

”I'm a little worried," you said looking at the table now  "Can I ask for some advice?”

”You know you can Y/N" Jared saw you even more worried.

"What should I do if I like someone I shouldn't like?" Dress up Jared.

"Does he have a girlfriend or is he a fuck boy?" Diane asked pretty quickly.

"None, it's just...”

”Then I see no reason why you shouldn't like it."

”It's not that, but, he's like, I don't know how to say this" You didn't want to tell them that he was your thermodynamics professor, you would never actually do it. "I met him some time ago in the cinema, he's cute and kind to me, but he's older than me” you lied a little about it.

"How much are we talking about?”

"14 years, I think" you've never actually asked him about his age, but on one occasion while you were typing on his computer you saw his college professor card that had all his data on it by the way.

”Look at that, my best friend a whole league men" Diane actually got excited, started asking you what he was like and if you had already had something with him which was pretty strange, but Jared's expression wasn't really emotional.

"I can only tell you to be very careful Y/N" Jared took your hand " Do not let the pretty words lead you down a path other than the one you seek. And well, if he like you and you like him, I see no problem”

The weekend you thought about the kiss his gave, it was quite nice really nice, you had only had three boyfriends before and honestly their kiss had been better than all the previous ones. The problem was what were you going to do on Monday when you see him? Well that day you decided to wear a pink dress that your mother given you at Christmas, you never wore this type of clothes so it was going to be something quite new, you combed your hair differently even, you knew that if you were at least going to talk to him and he told you that it was a mistake he would miss something great.

Your legs started shaking when you walked into the classsroom, you sat as usual in the third row, Tom wasn't there yet, so that calmed you down a little more. You noticed that in this class you had not made friends, so to avoid the panic of seeing him in the eyes when he entered in the classroom you preferred to start talking to the girl who always sat next to you.

"He took a while, didn't it?" you smiled so you didn't look crazy.

"Yes something, but for me no problem" the girl smiled as well

"My name is Y / N, and you?”

"Meghan, you're going with the teacher Fox in relativity, aren't you?”

"Yeah, you too?”

"No but my boyfriend does, I've seen you come out of there when I expect it”

"Well, I don't really know many people.”

"Well, college is exhausting," they both smiled, actually Meghan seemed like a pretty nice girl.

"Speaking of the king of Rome, he's arrive." When she said that and you heard the door shut, fear invaded you, so you didn't look at him. You just focused on your computer monitor, but you knew he saw you.

The class felt as if it had lasted 20 minutes and not an hour and a half, the desire to leave was enough.

"Hey if you want we could have breakfast together today, apparently you don't have class now either, do you?" Meghan waited for you to put your things away.

"Of course I would love to and no, I don't have class” You fully appreciated that Meghan will not leave you in the classroom, without looking at Tom you went out with your new friend, you felt that had been a bit cruel, but the nerves were worse.

At the end of the day you didn't do anything about it and neither did Wednesday and apparently Tom wasn't interested in asking you to stay and talk either, or so it seemed.

On Friday you returned to the usual routine with the usual clothes and hairstyle, honestly you no longer felt in the mood to waste time on those things. The class went on normally until at one point you crossed eyes with him, it was a bit strange, but you pretended you didn't care and ignored him after a few seconds. At the same time in the classes you talked with Meghan, even going out to eat the cafeteria.

"Y/N can we talk for a second?"Back to being alone with him in the classroom at the end, Meghan said goodbye and whispered you in your ear that she will waiting for you in the cafeteria.

"Hey I didn't want to overdo you, let alone bother you, I apologize for it and also if you no longer want to work on the project I will fully understand it” His face seemed that he was really sorry about last week.

"I really don't know what to say." You were completely honest.

"I'm sorry I should have known that you're not interested in me at all and it's okay”

"I never said I wasn't interested”

He calmly checked the hallway and closed the classroom door

"You ran away, that tells me otherwise”

"Yes, but that's was I panicked, I didn't want to bother you”

"For God's sake, that doesn't matter anymore.”

"It does matter and quite”

"You want to talk about this then?”

"Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner”

"So am I, excuse me too” he hesitated for a second when he finally asked," Do you want to continue with the project?”

"Of course I do" You got a little closer to him.

"See you at 15: 00 then" He too approached and carefully kissed your hand to leave the classroom.

This time you arrived early, your teacher had let them out forty minutes earlier, so you decided to be somewhat punctual to your appointment. You read while you waited sitting on the chairs in the hallway, when you saw him come you smiled and he when saw you, smiled too.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think you were going to arrive so early” he closed the door carefully and just as he turned around you gave him a pretty long kiss and he reciprocated broadly.

"I'm sorry" You saw that he was actually happy about it "I think last time we couldn't finish it"

He held your face in his hands for a few seconds "I like you Y/N, I know what's not right, I know this not right, but fuck, I like you a lot”

”And you me" He kissed you again, this time a little rough, it seemed that he wanted to make his statement clear. ”I really wanted to kiss you in front of everybody on Monday in that cute dress."

"If you like it I can bring it more days," you winked.

After that day working on the project was much more fun, and even in the classes they shared gazes from time to time, it felt good, had passed enough time that you did not date someone. On the other hand, sometimes fear invaded you, you knew that if anyone found out about whatever it was you and Tom had, it was the end of your scholarship and even your college life.

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"Do you like lobster?"He asked you while making notes on the computer and you cleaned the board.

"I've never eaten it"

“What? How can you live without eating lobster in your life?" He came up to you and, holding you by the waist, turned you towards him.

"Well, we're not all millionaires so I can't buy lobster." You inadvertently smeared chalk in his hair when you touched him.

"Then I'll buy you lobster dinner. What do you say?" He caressed your face as he waited for your answer

"Mmmm, when?”

"Tomorrow, I'd wait a few blocks from here, you don't want anyone to see you getting in my car, do you?”

"I'd love for them to, but yes, send me the instructions and I'll see you there then.”

"Why would you love it?"He kissed your neck calmly.

"That they might see that you are mine" You smiled mockingly.

"Well, I mean you're mine too, so it would be a fair deal.”

For weeks now both were texting, it was interesting to see that teachers also have a life apart from teaching.

You dressed up, not so formal or so casual for the occasion, it was the first date you had, it felt a little strange, you wore on a low-cut black dress, something daring for your tastes, but it was the most suitable thing you found. When you arrived at the rendezvous point, you immediately identified his car.

“I can't believe how perfect you are, " he gave you a sweet kiss while you fixed your skirt so it wouldn't wrinkle. He came as always very formal.

The dinner was perfect, you did not know that the lobster tasted that way, you liked it a lot, the place was beautiful, the waiters very attentive and well, talking with Tom about things that were not thermodynamics was pleasant. In the end he invited you to his apartment, which you sincerely hoped was not just with the intention of kissing you.

When they arrived his apartment looked like a palace, it was very nice, very cozy, his kitchen was comfortable enough to cook anything, your apartment was too small for a kitchen like him.

He told you that he should make some calls, that you could explore the house if you wanted and you took his word, it was very nice place, in the hallway to the bedroom had his medals and recognitions, you did not know that he studied chemistry too, he's a genius. When you finished walking, you looked in the fridge for something to drink.

"Want some wine?"Because of its height it was much easier to reach the shelves above where it seemed to have the bottles of wine.

”I would love to"

He served two glasses in half, it was red wine with a very good smell, you knew it because your father was a wine lover, so much so that he had even taken you to vineyards to see how they did it.

"May I?"You asked, pointing out if you could play something on the record player in the room.

“Clear”

When yo put the pen on the record a fairly quiet song began to play, he took the cup out of your hand and put it on the ledge next to his, placed his hand on your waist and with the other he held your hand, you placed yours on his neck.

“Would you laugh if I told you it's the first time I've danced with someone? well, that someone who is not my father invites me to dance”

"Really?”

"Yeah, well I had a boyfriend that I took out to dance, that's why it doesn't count,” you laughed as you remembered that.

"Well, what an idiot, you are beautiful Y/N and I will dance with you as many times as possible”

You felt a lot of peace in his arms, he was much stronger than you, that was clear, but even just seeing him in the eyes you felt that everything was going to be okay. You weren't very good at dancing, but he gave you the confidence to even make a mistake.

For a moment he began to kiss you slowly, slowly while the music echoed to both of us, then he began to kiss your neck which in a way tickled you, but at the same time made you want it with all your soul. After a few seconds as his hands ran through your hips and yours his hair whispered into his ear: "Take me to the bedroom" you stared at him and he understood completely.

He carried you so easily that it seemed that you did not weigh anything, carefully put you in bed and wait for you reaction.

"For God's sake, I want to make you mine from the moment I saw you at that fucking science fair contest.”

"Well now is your time" You bit your lip slightly.

He knew you were too small in comparison to him, so he was very careful when touch you, first he started by your dress, very slowly unbuttoning it. He look you in your underwear the moment he managed to take it off you. On the other hand, you, in a somewhat desperate way, started to take off his belt.

"No, until I say so" Their gaze turned a bit dark, they could see the desire for each other in your eyes.

He started kissing your crotch carefully, you moaned slightly, you had no intimate contact with anyone for a long time, so you somehow didn't remember how glorious this feels. He kept kissing getting closer to your entrance, the heat began to flood your body, after walking your thighs he began to lick your entrance a little desperate, but at the same time touching the exact points to make you see stars. He put two fingers inside you and immediately your back curled, when he entered the third in you pulled his hair as you began to feel the heat in your stomach increase more and more.

”Tom, please, I'm almost there" you moaned as your eyesight began to blur completely.

His fingers began to move faster and for an instant you felt like the heat flooded your whole body, it was the first time that someone managed to make you come with oral sex. You pulled his hair back, but it didn't seem to bother him, even taking it as a way to know where or not to continue. Your legs clenched at the feeling and he proudly began to undress. When you saw it you felt that you really needed to have he inside you, his axis was quite large, more than you imagined and its well worked body made you feel needed.

"Fuck me like there's no tomorrow," you whispered as you recovered from the first round.

You felt the desire going between your legs, again you were so wet just to imagine he inside you.

"You know that if I hurt you or if you want me to stop I will do it immediately” He placed on you and spread your legs with his knee.

You just nodded, he was staring at you as he began to insert his shaft into you, it hurt a bit, tears started running down your cheeks and Tom's face looked worried, "Do you want me to stop?”

"No!" To drown the groans you hid your face on his shoulder as he began to take a rhythm in his onslaught, at one point the pain ceased and he took a stronger rhythm, one after another, you felt as your body began to attach quite well to its axis, to the degree that you glued more your hips to his, demanding more. When he noticed it one of his hands took the headboard and with the other placed one of your legs on his shoulder to give you what you needed. At some point he also started moaning, loud and deep, which made you feel even more excited in the middle of it all.

”Fuck, why are you so perfect?" he whispered into your ear as you began to feel your orgasm was about to bloom.

"Make me yours, only yours" you moaned almost without strength.

"You are only mine" His onslaught, although it seemed that you could not, began to be faster and deeper, you knew that sitting was going to be a challenge for you in the following days.

To drown your groans he gave you a very deep kiss, his tongue did all the work in the kiss, honestly for you it was a sea of sensations that would end you unconscious of pleasure. Just as they both reached the climax he saw you in the eyes and felt you fade away in sobs and moans.

”I'm almost there" he said as he clung even more to you and your legs began to close with pleasure.

"Me too" Didn't know if you understood what you meant, but at least you were trying.

"Let me feel you" His words were your release and his, you felt the heat of his seed inside you and it was enough for your orgasm to reach the necessary point of feeling a deep warmth throughout your body. The veins on her neck were too marked and you could also feel her breathing so heavy as she enjoyed her release.

He was over you for several minutes, the only thing you could hear in the room was his busy, deep breaths. You hugged him fondly and he hugged you, when he came out of you you felt a pretty weird void, but fuck, it was the best sex you'd ever had in your life.

After his breaths managed to take a moderate course he saw you in the eyes as he groomed your hair carefully.

”I didn't want to be too brusque the first time" His hand caressed your stomach, internally you told yourself that if this was not brusque you didn't imagine the next time how sore you would end up, but it's something that really excited you, in every way.

"We'll have many more times to do it" You smiled and planted a kiss on his lips. "Many more" smiled in the middle of the kiss which made you adore him even more.

Thanks for readign me 

[mzminola]

Hey so I used to not contact my reps much because telephone calls are terrifying, I never feel like I’ve got enough to justify a full letter in the mail, and I was raised with the idea that those are the only kinds of contact that “count”.

But, actually, that’s bullshit, and all the US reps at least have e-mail contact on their official websites. Nowadays I keep a dedicated document log of what I tell my reps. This means I can draft what I want to say in a document only I see, and then copy-paste it into all the relevant rep’s inboxes, and my make a note to myself of who I sent it to on what day.

Say what you want (vote no/yes, do more X, don’t Y, I mostly agree with Z but please reconsider part of it). They’re not psychic, and polls only do so much. You don’t need to say much, though you can if you want to, or feel moved to.

You can say why you want something, but you don’t have to.

You can talk about personal experiences, but you don’t have to.

You just need, at minimum, to tell them what you want.

~

Very rarely do I click the “I want a response” button. One of the few times I did was when writing my (now former) District Rep. Rick Larsen about the e-mail forms themselves. At the time, you had to pick a form of address, a title, and the only options were Ms, Mrs, Mr, and Dr. Meanwhile, Senator Patty Murray’s website includes “Mx.” and also just a blank, Senator Maria Cantwell’s includes “None”.

Being a nonbinary, non-doctor constituent, I felt tripped up whenever contacting Rep. Larsen. So after a whole bunch of other e-mails, I wrote in to say “Hey, as a nonbinary Washingtonian without a medical degree, being forced to pick a gendered title makes me feel like I’m lying when I write in.”

This was around the same time the Sierra Club’s petition to include “Mx.” on all congressional web forms was going around.

I got a call back from a staffer, who asked me to expound on the issue. I did, and I passed along what I saw on the two Washington Senator’s websites, for concrete samples of how to be more inclusive, or at least not exclusive.

And now when you go to Representative Rick Larsen’s e-mail contact page, and click the drop down menu for your title, one of the options is Mx.

[image: a cropped screencap of Rep. Larsen’s constituent contact page, with the Title menu opened to show current options Ms, Mrs, Mr, Mx, Dr.]

The ballot box matters. And so does this.

[seriousbusinessforhumans]

April, 2021

It’s now been five and a half years since a long-gone Seattle mayor declared the thousands sleeping in the greenbelts and under bridges to be a full-on civil emergency — a proclamation that remains in effect, but which, due to political dysfunction, has never led to urgent action or results. So it’d be understandable if you do an eye roll when I say this: Something just shifted.

“I believe this is a breakthrough,” says Lisa Daugaard, executive director of the Public Defender Association in Seattle.

“This is a tipping point for the city,” agreed Tim Ceis, a business lobbyist who is usually on the opposite side from Daugaard. “We’ve been fighting about this for 10 years. We’re not fighting about it anymore.”

What happened is a coalition of downtown business leaders and nonprofit representatives this past week introduced a plan that would effectively force the city of Seattle to finally treat homelessness as an emergency.

It’s a citywide ballot measure, purposely crafted away from City Hall and any politicians, that would do three basic things:

It would force Seattle to stand up 2,000 emergency or permanent housing units for homeless people in a year’s time.

It mandates that Seattle help pay for behavioral health and drug treatment services to go along with the housing.

And, most controversially, it requires that, as the shelter becomes available, “the City shall ensure that City parks, playgrounds, sports fields, public spaces and sidewalks and streets remain open and clear of encampments.”

“The premise is that the services and housing units defined have to be available, and once they are, you can clear an encampment,” said Tim Burgess, a former Seattle City Council member.

What’s remarkable here isn’t that some Seattleites agreed on a plan to both shelter homeless people and start clearing the city’s parks (although that is remarkable!). It’s that it is the same groups, and many of the same people, who spent years warring over encampment sweeps, over the city’s Navigation Team and over the failed head tax on businesses that was supposed to fund some homeless housing three years ago.

Business groups, led by the Downtown Seattle Association, are on board and have already raised $520,000 for the campaign. So are neighborhood groups that have always pushed for more city control of unauthorized encampments. But so, too, are major homelessness services advocates like the Downtown Emergency Service Center, Plymouth Housing and the Chief Seattle Club.

Daugaard says the coronavirus pandemic blew apart the stagnant politics on the issue. It turned a simmering crisis into “a catastrophe,” she says, with tents in the city up 50%. It also caused a “sea change” in people’s perceptions of what constitutes legitimate shelter.

Basically the old mats-on-the-floor model is out, as are any barracks-style shelters. In are repurposed hotel rooms and tiny houses — places that give privacy and a locked door, and don’t crowd homeless people into group settings. Stand-alone shelter became a necessity during COVID-19 due to disease control, and the units were also found to be more effective at lifting people up off the streets.

They also tend to make police-led “sweeps” of encampments less necessary, because people living outside want to go to a tiny home or a hotel room. This is the crusade I’ve been on since I saw tiny home enthusiasts “clear” a park in the New Holly neighborhood last fall, not by forcing the people camped there to leave, but by showing them photos of the homes. No police required.

The same premise is working with a new program called JustCare. It offers hotel rooms and counseling services to chronically homeless people, and has had success moving 130 of them up and out of some Pioneer Square-area camps.

“COVID imposed on us a sort of instant reform,” says Daugaard, who works with JustCare. “Business people have been coming up to me and saying ‘hey, that thing you’re doing with the hotel rooms, can we please do more of that?’ ”

The long-term answer is still permanent housing, which unfortunately can take years to build. The idea is that hotel rooms and tiny homes can be a bridge between the streets and permanent housing.

All of this is costly — providing 2,000 emergency shelter units in hotels or tiny home villages, with management and services, will run $50 million to $100 million annually. The initiative, fashioned as an amendment of the city’s charter, includes no money with it. It mandates that the city spend at least 12% of its general fund budget on the issue (that’s roughly $200 million).

For context, that’s about the amount of money the feds are sending Seattle in COVID-19 relief aid. And it’s also the amount forecast to be raised by the city’s controversial payroll tax on large businesses (the so-called JumpStart tax).

That tax is being challenged in court by Seattle business groups, but it seems to me this business-backed initiative undercuts that challenge. You can’t very well demand a costly government mandate with one hand, while undermining the revenue stream that could pay for it with the other.

“My sense is they now care more about the bad street conditions than they do about that tax,” Daugaard said of the business coalition.

We’ll see. The breakthrough here is political only. The initiative, called Compassion Seattle, still has to qualify for the ballot and then go before city voters. If approved, then it would have to be put into effect by a city government that has struggled mightily with this issue — and is being implicitly rebuked for its failures by this measure.

It also may be opposed by some who don’t trust the forces behind this — namely, big business — and fear it could lead to mass encampment removals, without the promised housing. So the path, as always, is fraught.

But like I said up top, something definitely just shifted. For Seattle’s most stuck problem, that alone counts as major news.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

a post about the Democratic primary, which I did not enjoy writing

I haven’t talked about the Democratic primary here for a couple of reasons. I think that wrapping our minds about what Trump is doing in power – and what he and his backers did to get him that power – is a lot more important than any campaign tactic his eventual Democratic opponent can use, or even who the Democratic candidate is. I don’t even know who I’ll be voting for myself.

What I do know is that above all other issues, I’ll be voting on democratic values. That includes more conventional voting rights and election integrity issues that we’re used to discussing in American politics. It’s also about pounding the brakes on democratic backsliding at home, and giving institutional and moral support to people around the world who want the same. If we make enough progress on this issue, we can make enormous strides on other progressive priorities. If we don’t turn back this authoritarian tide, we will lose on everything else.  

And on my #1 issue, I’ve developed serious concerns about Senator Bernie Sanders.

This is a long post because it’s an attempt to articulate an uncomfortable pattern which requires a lot of context, but I hope you’ll take the time to read it, so let me assure you of a few things it’s not:

Concerns about Sanders seem to be collapsed into “is he as extreme and irrational a leftist as Trump is a right-winger” or “is he too kooky to win an election.” I’m not doing either of those. There is an argument out there that Sanders is too far to the left on policy. I’m … really not the person to do that argument justice. There’s an argument that, whether or not you like his policies, he would have a harder time winning a national election in a year that Democrats cannot afford any more disadvantages. I think this election really is going to be won or lost by the voters choosing to accept or reject Trumpistani autocracy, but it’s entirely responsible to consider that kind of thing. I have a substantive concern about Bernie Sanders, not because I oppose progressives but because I am a progressive, and I don’t pretend to have any insight into how it might affect his chances of winning a general election.

I don’t care a whole lot about what Senator Sanders feels in his heart or whatever. I tend to think this is more about being misguided than malicious, but that’s not make or break for the pattern I’m trying to describe.

I’m not trying to endorse someone else by process of elimination; like I said, I haven’t decided yet who I’m voting for myself.

I’m old enough to remember four years ago when only a few nerds had ever heard of superdelegates. Superdelegates, or unpledged delegates, are party activists and officials who get to vote at the convention along with the pledged delegates who are assigned in the state primary contests. They’re the backup plan put in place after the clusterfuck of 1968. We also got better at avoiding clusterfucks after 1968, so they weren’t an issue. Until 2016, when Sanders decided they were an issue for him because he was going to lose the old-fashioned way, and “superdelegates” were a convenient boogeyman he could use to turn progressives against the Democratic party. Then his campaign successfully talked itself into believing that this conspiracy theory about superdelegates going against the voters, so they started arguing that the superdelegates should take the nomination away from the winner and give it to him. This was always a pipe dream, but it did inspire Sanders supporters to dox a bunch of counterrevolutionary elected officials and progressive activists. Remember, he’s a member of the Senate Democratic caucus, so he’s talking all this shit as a superdelegate.

The sore losering only helped Donald Trump and his Russian backers, but it was delegitimizing enough that the Democratic National Committee felt pressured to revamp the presidential nomination process. Thus, a “unity” committee was formed to placate the feelings of those who were implacably infuriated that the person with the most votes had won the nomination. (The Republicans, whose party processes had allowed an unqualified, unstable, ideologically unreliable foreign asset to take over, made no such alterations.) The big concession on superdelegates is that they don’t vote on the first ballot. If someone wins a majority, then they win the nomination. If nobody gets a majority, then there’s a second vote where the pledged delegates are released and the superdelegates also get a say.

Presumably because pro-Sanders activists were so instrumental in drafting the new rules, they were all set to start gaming those rules before voting began. In early January, when it was assumed that former Vice President Biden would win more delegates than anyone else but come up short of a majority, groups supporting Sanders floated the idea that Warren’s delegates should be ready to join Sanders, or vice versa. The reasoning was that a vote for Warren or Sanders should be considered a vote for what they considered the relatively progressive wing of the Democratic party, and therefore pooling the two candidate’s votes together would represent the will of the electorate. Six weeks later, with Sanders having eked out a plurality in a few early states – more delegates than anyone else, but nowhere near a majority, and losing the popular vote – he’s out here warning that it would be very, very bad for everybody if the person who wins the plurality isn’t guaranteed to win the nomination. If 66% of voters split between two “establishment” candidates, well, that 34% who voted for the “anti-establishment” Sanders better get their way, or the party gets it!1

Sanders representatives also insisted states be allowed to keep holding undemocratic caucuses – until he was outplayed in the Iowa delegate count, at which point they realized the establishment $hills had been right about voter suppression being bad.

Look, real talk, small-d democracy is about trying to do what the voters want. If Sanders stays exactly where he is in the polls – winning a plurality of delegates with only about 1/3 of the voters – he will be getting a lot less support than he did in 2016. When he lost by a whopping 12-point margin, despite being propped up by the Kremlin, the Koch brothers, and thousands of years of patriarchy. If these trends hold (and they might not!) Democratic voters, who are the voters most likely to support his policies, do not want him. So – and I’m editorializing a little bit in this final assessment – spare me.

America is a big country and the Democratic Party is a broad coalition. There are going to be good arguments for and against a lot of different ways to pick a presidential nominee, but a key part of doing it as fairly as possible is to choose the rules beforehand and then stick to them. Campaigns making the best case for their candidate isn’t a bad thing, and a politician being able to change their mind is a good thing. But Sanders whips his supporters up with sweeping claims about the legitimacy of the process – until the opposite claim looks like it might be advantageous to him, at which point his campaign completely reverses itself on whether or not the rules of the election are fair. This is not acceptable. We cannot be playing this game when we are trying to defend the legitimacy of democracy itself against the most powerful person in the world.

On its own, I’d find that frustrating. But once a frustration starts overlapping with a genuine national security issue, it stops being a frustration and starts being a serious concern.

Senator Sanders was informed a month before the Nevada caucuses that the Russian government was supporting his campaign. Again. We still don’t know what kind of support they were giving him, though it’s probably more or less what they were doing in 2016 – pushing propaganda and making it harder for people to have productive discussions about the primary. He didn’t say anything about it, except to obliquely reference Russian trolls when he was challenged on the debate stage about some of his supporters being abusive online. (We’ll come back to that one.)

When this story broke, as it clearly would, Sanders reacted by attacking the newspaper. He claimed that the briefing his campaign received was classified, which a) it is unlikely to have been properly classified, which he would’ve known if he’d tried to work out a way to go public and b) didn’t stop him from using some of that information to his advantage during a debate. His campaign went around crowing about these great victories where he squeaked out pluralities knowing that those victories were tainted by a foreign government helping him and/or sabotaging his competitors. (Meanwhile, these competitors were not even told that they were at risk.)

He responded similarly to the Russian support he received in 2016. He failed to educate his supporters about the seriousness of the attack as it was happening. When asked later, he begrudgingly admitted to having known about it, falsely claimed to have tried to alert the Clinton campaign, and attempted to deflect criticism by literally blaming the victim. Admitting that he lost despite benefiting from the criminal sabotage of his opponent, rather than because he was the victim of some nefarious party establishment conspiracy, would have damaged the story he tells voters and been a blow to his ego.

Because he chose to deflect rather than face the issue, he has never dealt with the ways that the ways that the Russian attack probably did poison his movement. Nobody else has really wanted to deal with it either, so I’ll stipulate that this is my opinion, but I think it makes sense.

There is a qualitative difference between what Sanders tries to communicate to people and what his supporters do in response. I do not believe that Sanders wanted his supporters to vote for Trump, stay home, or discourage others from voting in 2016. I do not believe he wanted progressive organizers to be inundated with death threats. I do not think he wants people like anti-racist filmmaker Ava DuVernay or Parkland parent Fred Guttenberg to be swarmed with abuse online. I sincerely believe that if you hooked Sanders up to a lie detector, he would say that’s bad stuff and he doesn’t want any of it, and I am not inclined to be overly generous to Senator Sanders.

And yet it keeps happening, and it can’t just be blamed on Russian bots. Real people physically showed up in Philadelphia to heckle speakers at the convention in 2016. Abusive phone calls to perceived establishment enemies of Sanders really do slow down after he explicitly says he doesn’t want people to do that – which means that he dissuaded real people, who started down that ugly path because they thought it was what he wanted. There is an observable mismatch between what is being said and what is being heard. Something is jamming the signal.

Jamming the signal, incidentally, requires exactly the kind of stuff that troll farms do best. Post “edgy” guillotine memes and see who bites. Flood brutal criticism of mainstream Democrats with applause. When ostensible leftists use their independent platforms to spread disinformation or even just nastiness, toss a few coins in their Patreon – they don’t have to know they’re working for you, they just have to learn that pushing the envelope is profitable. Shout down even mild criticism by spamming it with garbage, so that skeptics withdraw or become defensive, while supporters internalize the idea that abuse is an acceptable response to dissent. Work hard enough to desensitize a campaign to that kind of behavior, and you might even get it to put a bunch of spiteful trolls in charge.

This is a theory, but I think it is the most likely theory. I certainly think it’s more persuasive than the alternatives, which are “those intelligence and disinformation professionals have spent the last few years shouting into the void and having no discernible effects on target populations, and also, all these people who say they’ve been hit with the exact type of toxicity that disinformation effort seems designed to provoke are actually all hallucinating and/or lying because the unbelievers of The Establishment(TM) are all conspiring to take Bernie down” and “this Russia thing is a fake news Democrat deep state witch hunt.”

I’m not saying I think Bernie Sanders is a Russian asset. I’m saying that the Russians seem to think he’s an asset to them.

The Sanders campaign has a complicated problem on its hands, and I don’t know what they should do about it. But it isn’t enough for Sanders to say “I don’t care who Putin is supporting.” It is his job as a United States senator who swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution to care about who Putin is supporting. It is his job as a presidential candidate to care enough to ask why Putin is supporting him. Even if he doesn’t care morally, he has to care politically, because plenty of voters care, and if he can’t give us an explanation we’re going to start trying to figure it out for ourselves.

Which makes it time to stop ducking the ugly question: why is Senator Sanders useful to people who are against everything he stands for?

Maybe, as the press and the Bloomberg campaign seem to think, whoever’s designing this strategy thinks Sanders is the most likely to lose to Trump, so of course they prefer him over the stronger competition. I hope they’re right. It would certainly be comforting to think that Trump’s Russian backers think we’re going to have a free and fair election based on how voters feel about the nominees, because it would mean they’re not relying on their ability to hack state boards of elections. And it would be comforting because the other possibilities get pretty depressing. Unfortunately, the Kremlin whisperers putting out this comforting explanation were also quite certain that the Russian government was just trying to cause chaos and didn’t have a preferred candidate in 2016 (they did), the Russian government only supported Trump because they hated Hillary Clinton (she’s not running and they’re still at it), that the propaganda campaign couldn’t have had an impact (it did), that the Russian government would never have attacked actual voting infrastructure because norms or whatever (lol) …. the mind-readers turn out to be big on the wishful thinking, is what I’m saying here.

Maybe it’s just a narrow convergence of policy. Sanders was one of only a small handful of legislators who voted against the Magnitsky sanctions that the Russian government is desperate to overturn. He failed to support further sanctions on Russia for the 2016 election interference – again, interference which helped his campaign. He’s called for neutralizing NATO against Russian aggression by letting Russia join. From the Russian government’s perspective, that’s as good as destroying it like Trump has been trying to help them do. Maybe those things are enough. I think those are bad positions and he should have to explain them. But he seems less committed to those things than Trump, who’s spent three years failing to deliver.

If four years of the Trump show have taught us anything, it’s that you can’t just write off the tinfoil hat conspiracy stuff; you have to acknowledge it and explain why it’s unlikely. So yes, it is theoretically possible that Russian intelligence believes they have some leverage over Sanders, either to manipulate him or to kneecap him at a moment they think is most advantageous to Trump. That doesn’t mean Senator Sanders has done anything wrong. It just means that there’s a bit of footage from when he visited the Soviet Union back in the day, and they might think they can use it to make a damaging deep fake. Personally, I think that’s pretty unlikely to be the motive here, because the cost-benefit analysis seems pretty thin, but we’re just trying to take a clear-eyed inventory about what’s possible.

A few hours after the Post broke the news about the Russian efforts to help him, his official Twitter account posted this:

I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us.

If you’ve been paying a bit of attention to Sanders you’re probably not too startled by that comment, which is exactly the problem. In a few short words, it boosts some of the most insidious narratives that pro-Trump propagandists have also been pushing over the past few years. It’s framed as a belligerent defiance of “party establishments” - AKA, those same American institutions that we know our adversaries want to destroy. It sets up a nihilistic false equivalence between the Democratic and Republican parties. In this little story, it’s Sanders up against shadowy forces and their conspiracy against him – he’s the real victim here, but also the center of the universe. (Sound like anyone else the Russian troll farms like?)

This tweet may or may not have been in direct response to the Washington Post’s breaking the story about Russian intelligence helping his campaign again, but the timing sure looks like a great American newspaper was being lumped in with the big, spooky “establishment” trying to “stop” Sanders. (A week and a half later, he’s still sore at the Post about something.) That, too, would fit a disturbing pattern of Sanders world’s relationship with critical press, or even with criticism in general. While all this was going on, there was a Daily Beast story about the kind of alarming behavior that seems to keep happening in pro-Sanders circles. A low-level staffer was running a gross Twitter feed that reflected badly on the campaign. The campaign responded to the story by taking out the trash, but supporters responded to the story by swarming the reporter and sharing pictures of his home address. This wasn’t surprising. If you dip into Democratic-leaning podcasts or cable news shows, it’s really common to hear people preface any criticism of Sanders with a semi-jokey “don’t yell at me on Twitter, guys!” or respond to someone else’s criticism with a rueful “RIP your menchies [Twitter inbox].” Journalists and political commentators know to expect disproportionate retribution when they criticize the Dear Leader. (Sound like anyone else the Russian troll farms like?)

Maybe you’re the kind of person who likes to give the benefit of the doubt. Couldn’t all that be  #ActuallyAboutEthicsInJournalism? I suppose a good test would be: what’s the response to negative feedback from a group of people, not just an individual who can be intimidated? And the answer is: conspiracy! Paid Protesters! Fake news, folks! That is not progressive, it is not healthy for our politics, and it’s exactly the kind of behavior that autocratic regimes around the world are always trying to normalize. Democrats, and all other small-d democrats, cannot start rewarding it.

That’s the context for this: Sanders has a long track record of defending authoritarian governments which call themselves socialist, communist, or otherwise leftist. Of course, authoritarian governments are more like gangster kleptocracies than “socialism” as Sanders sees it, but he just keeps rejecting opportunities to walk it back.

Too many progressive commentators with platforms have shrugged this off as some kooky Cold War thing that the media is blowing out of proportion, but it’s not just uptight Wall Street Journal opinion writers pushing back. A lot of Americans are Americans because their families ran for their lives from exactly these regimes. Five years of Latin American immigrants being Donald Trump’s favorite target, now we’re going to make people who fled Castro’s Cuba or Chavez’s Venezuela eat this shit sandwich? Mayor Pete Buttigieg was the first openly gay person running for the US presidency; was he supposed to add a bit in his stump speech about whether a dubious “literacy program” would help him in a concentration camp? The world is a complicated place where American leaders have to make hard decisions and don’t always get to work with nice people. That’s no excuse to be casual about rubbing salt in raw wounds.

I haven’t spent the past three years angry that Donald Trump fluffs up dictators because I’m looking for excuses to hate Donald Trump. Really, I’m good there. I’m angry about it because democracies are good and dictatorships are bad. When the American president is clear on that point, it really can make the lift just a little bit lighter for activists and freedom fighters and oppressed people doing the hard work of citizenship all over the world; when the American president fails to speak that truth, their work gets a little bit harder. I think their work is hard enough already.

You know that cliché about “Mussolini made the trains run on time”? It’s fascist propaganda. “Sure he locked up dissidents and inspired Hitler, but Infrastructure Week was a real success!” And he fucking didn’t even, because of course he didn’t, he was busy murdering everyone who could burst his narcissistic bubble. The Italian fascist regime polished up a few tourist-friendly routes and boasted to privileged visitors about how the trains were running on time. Then those visitors would go home with an innocuous sound bite to sanitize a brutal regime. Look, Prince Mohammad is letting women drive [and imprisoning the activists who made that a winning issue for him]! Sure, Putin is a heavy-handed old KGB guy, but he’s cracking down on corruption [as an excuse to imprison critics]. I’m not defending Castro, but hey, literacy program. Look, I’ve been to the Soviet Union, the bread lines didn’t look too bad on my guided tour!

Maybe the big money donors behind this Russian intelligence super PAC think Sanders will be susceptible to manipulation by their authoritarian regime because he keeps saying that he’s susceptible to manipulation by authoritarian regimes.

When someone seeking the United States presidency says that? Believe them.

I’m not saying Sanders is an aspiring dictator like Trump. I mean, I could be wrong, but that’s not my concern. A lot of politics is made up of civic habits. If we validate these tactics, we make bad habits that soften us up for a smart, focused Trump to come along in four or eight years. We can’t afford leadership that doesn’t understand, on a gut level, why those bad habits are dangerous.2

I’m not saying he’s the only flawed candidate on this issue, but he troubles me more than any candidate with even a slim path to the nomination. Representative Tulsi Gabbard is an exponentially more dangerous character – or at least she would be, if she somehow pulled ahead of “none of the above.” I have serious issues with former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg; I’m less concerned about those issues because people can criticize Bloomberg without anyone mocking them for having been raped.

Because I think democracy is the most important issue on the ballot, I’m not going to mislead you with false equivalence. Sanders would not be as bad on Trump on these issues. He would not be stacking the courts with right-wing judges who are overtly hostile to voting rights, he doesn’t stand to rake in cash by cozying up to autocratic regimes, and an administration which pays lip service to democratic values is preferable to an administration which is overtly hostile to them. A vote to reduce harm can be cast with a clear conscience. It’s still the primary, though, so we have the chance to cast a general election vote for real improvement rather than damage control.

If I haven’t convinced you of anything, fair enough. If I have convinced you that this pattern is serious enough to consider as you’re voting in this primary … this isn’t one of those posts where I try to wrap up with a concrete suggestion about something you can do, for obvious reasons. I have a suggestion about voting tactically, though. Primary delegates are awarded proportionately to every candidate who makes it over what’s called a viability threshold. Basically, a candidate who gets 15% of the vote wins something like 15% of the state’s delegates, while a candidate who gets 14% gets zero. A vote for someone with 3% support is a vote for whoever wins the state, whether you like that person or not. Check FiveThirtyEight to see which candidates are polling above 15% (preferably above 20% to get outside the margin of error) and then choose your favorite of those candidates.

1A good argument for this particular system is that it gives candidates two chances to prove that they can build a coalition, because that is something Democratic presidents need to do. You can win an outright majority going into the convention, which requires satisfying a lot of diverse groups of people. If nobody can do that, then the convention gives you another shot to show you can win people over. If you have a plurality then you have a head start. If you can’t get from a plurality to a majority, you probably shouldn’t be nominated, because you would be a shitty president.

2The topic of this post is democracy, not politics, so I don’t want to go too far into it, but I do want to shoot down the bullshit counterargument: ��oh, blah blah, knife to a gun fight, Democrats are wimpy little girly-men who always play by the rules, Republicans are big strong daddies who understand power, blah blah.” Guys? Guys. You’re not going to out-shitpost the Republicans; they have unlimited money flowing into sophisticated propaganda machines. You’re not going to out-bully the fascists as a means to an end; bullying is the end for them and they have a lot more practice at it than we do. You don’t get into a pissing match with a drunk. IDGAF about sinking to their level, it’s about refusing to fight on their turf. We’re not going to win their game on their terms.

[is6621]

Why don’t we vote online? / By Crystal Chen

With the election now less than a month away and deadlines for voter registration approaching, there is a surge of posts online urging everyone to register to vote. Even social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are offering buttons such as “Register Now” or “Apply for an absentee ballot.” With the country still combating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the appeal of an absentee ballot to individual voters is much higher this year. As of September 30, more than 72 million absentee ballots have been requested or sent to voters in more than 30 states.

But with the rise in the number of absentee ballots being requested, it brings to the forefront a question that’s been considered many times: why don’t we cast our ballots online? And it’s usually followed up with another question: is voting online for 200 million voters even feasible? As a first-time voter in the 2020 general election who requested her absentee ballot a month ago, I’ve thought about these questions multiple times as I diligently check the status of my ballot and eagerly await its arrival. With each day that my ballot doesn’t arrive, the more nervous I am about even receiving one. But I’m not in New York... so why can’t I vote online?

Using the internet for sensitive things isn’t unheard of. People often use their mobile phone to deposit checks, store all their credit card information in a Wallet app, and electronically sign leases and contracts. If electronic devices are so integrated into our lifestyle, it seems that voting could easily be integrated in as well. After all, we’re in a decade where technological advances have made leaps and bounds. How can pen and paper be superior?

In actuality, online voting does exist. About thirty-two states and the District of Columbia offer this option, whether through fax, e-mail or an online portal. But the catch is that it’s only available for certain voters in special circumstances. Reading this, you might be able to tell why that system is in place. It’s severely limited to a small number of voters, meaning the systems created for this usage are able to handle the processes being requested from it. The reliability of an online platform for something as sensitive as the voting process is important to consider.

However, the reliability of an online platform to handle the influx of usage isn’t the only type of reliability needed. It’s important to recognize that the internet will never be 100% secure and the threat of hacking looms large. Especially in America, where the presidential election is extremely critical in determining the direction of the government for the next four years, security cannot be taken lightly.

With the set-up of an internet election comes many working parts. There are plenty of points in the process that are vulnerable to hacking or bypassing the laws. First, there could be trouble guaranteeing that voters are who they say they are. Ric Militi, creator of Zip (a question and answer application), prorposed that a simple registration with a unique number such as a social security number could fix this issue. But it isn’t the only issue we would need to tackle. Online voting platforms would still need to account for the security of each individual voter’s devices, some of which could be infected with malware, its own server connection to the internet, and the chances of an enemy attack from other countries.  

Remember the part where I said online voting is available for certain voters in special circumstances? MIT researchers found that Voatz, an application used for this type of online voting in 2018 in 24 West Virginia counties and other regions, had vulnerabilities that could have been exploited. Simply, Voatz and other similar applications are not safe. While there was no evidence that the app had been hacked, the possibility of it and the consequences of a hacking is too grave to be seriously considered for widespread online voting.

For cybersecurity experts and computer scientists studying election software, they are strongly against online voting. In 2014, a team of computer scientists who build secure systems for the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense showed how easy it is to change the content of a voter’s PDF file over the internet from when the voter initially sends it to when the ballot is received.

It’s important to recognize that even though we as a society may be in the smart age, government technology is still about 10 years behind companies like Facebook and Google. So maybe Facebook and Google can build platforms to hold elections? But that brings into question our privacy. Do we want huge technology companies to have access to our private information and who we end up voting for in the election? Some might argue that these companies already have that information, or have enough information about us to predict the decision we will make. But I suppose it’s one thing to concede that this information is being taken due to being a user of their platform and another to willingly give it to them.

Until (though more likely if it will ever) online voting can become more secure and reliable, millions of voters will have to carefully read the instructions on their ballots and put pen to paper to cast their vote, whether at home or in-person.

Sources:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/11/08/why-cant-we-vote-president-online/93454572/

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/23/why-us-cant-vote-online-in-2020-presidential-election-trump-biden.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-cant-we-just-vote-online-let-us-count-the-ways/2020/04/24/68ecea92-7850-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/absentee-ballot-early-voting.html

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/why-you-cant-just-vote-on-your-phone-during-the-pandemic  

[errantimpulses]

In case any of you are wondering about the reasoning in my earlier post, and why I hate Bernie Sanders, below the cut are some numbers and comments.

But the bottom line is he’s a piece of shit.  If you think he’s “better” than most candidates, you’re wrong.  It’s a fact.  You can vote for him, sure.  But don’t pretend he’s “better” (I’ve already gotten one reply saying “but Warren is a career politician!”  ....hahah... guess who else is?!  literally, Sanders has been in some sort of political office since 1991, and warren since 2010, but WARREN is labeled the “career politician”?!  HOW.  HOWWWWW.  (Hint: sexism!)). 

And yes, he does hate women.  He has LITERALLY said it’s okay to vote against women’s RIGHTS if it means he gets his pet projects going.

1) Bernie ran an incredibly divisive primary against Clinton

1a) This was despite them having almost identical voting records.  They had something like a 92% similarity in voting records.

1b) Their differences were minuscule.  Sanders touted a $15 min wage and Clinton a $12.  There’s no fucking difference between the two - the guy who originally came up with the $15/hour minimum wage has even said he just pulled a number out of his head - i.e. did no research as to whether it was feasible or reasonable....  I just deleted two paragraphs on the problems with this, but if you want it, I got it.

1c) He CONSTANTLY accused her of rigging the primaries when there was absolutely no evidence that any such thing had happened.  People complained they weren’t eligible to vote when they showed up....which might have been a thing (honestly, Maricopa has some shit happening ALL THE TIME), but unless someone said, “hello, I am here to vote for Bernie, where is my ballot!” How the fuck would the workers know to discriminate against them?  Then he complained about the superdelegates “deciding the primary”  This is a problem for a couple reasons because:

1ci:  It made her look less honest going into the general election

1cii: That’s not actually accurate - if you remove the SD from the primary counts, Clinton still would have one (what some fuckwits don’t seem to comprehend is that if you remove the SD votes, you have to remove those from the TOTAL as well, which shifts the 50% mark)

1ciii: It made his fan base distrust her - “Never Hillary” was a thing on the left.

1civ:  SANDERS is a super-delegate, and he had no issue with acting as one.  He’s a fucking hypocrite - superdelegates are good and something that should be used, oh except when they work against him?

1d) He lingered far too long, riling his base to almost threaten the election.  People LITERALLY said, “if you don’t run Bernie as the primary candidate, I’m voting for Trump.”  What the ever-loving fuck?  THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE wanted Clinton.  But a minority wanted to hold an election hostage.  And they did it.  GOOD JOB.  PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK.  Because he lingered for so long, when he finally gave his, “well you should vote for her, she’s better than Trump” it was TOO LATE.  Why?  Because he’d been telling them for months she’s just as bad as Trump, and fanning the flames of her being dishonest.  So no fucking surprise his base overlooked one thing that went against 99% of what else he’d said.

1e) going back to the dishonesty, Clinton was found to be the most honest candidate, not Sanders.  Sanders used that dishonesty to smear Clinton because he knew folks would eat it up.  because when Bernie says, “Clinton takes money from big oil!” His fans lap that up, and don’t bother reading the articles that say, “well, yeah, you could say Clinton benefits from big oil, but only in a general way that all politicians - including Sanders himself - do.

1f) He was neither as qualified nor as fresh!  People have things against entrenched politicians - which I totally get.  TOTALLY.  But SANDERS was also an entrenched politician!  He wasn’t fresh-faced and new to Washington - he wasn’t Obama!  So he wasn’t new and uncompromised.  Yet, he didn’t have as much experience running higher-level government as Clinton.  How does this jive in people’s minds?!  He doesn’t have as much experience as Clinton, yet he’s just as much entrenched in politics as her!  Again, it’s not Obama v Clinton!  

2) because of 1, the general election was compromised.  Sanders and Trump painted Clinton as dishonest, entrenched in politics, etc. (again, she had a higher honesty rating than EITHER of the two male candidates).  And never forget Clinton WON the popular votes.  She won the popular vote in the primary (hell even some states Sanders won through caucus she still won the open vote which didn’t even count!) and general election.  But she lost the electoral votes. And here’s why.

TWICE as many people voted third party in 2016 vs 2012. And it’s not like people just really liked these candidates - most were the same that ran in 2012.  Clinton lost some states, but if in only Florida and Michigan HALF the third party votes (ie. if they matched 2012 levels) went to Clinton, trump would not be president.  Why were there so many third party?  Fucking protest votes.  People trusted “everyone else” to vote for the person who was obviously qualified while they staged a “protest” and were shocked when we ended up with Trump.

If you did this, FUCK YOU.

And if this is you and you’re saying, “I should be able to vote for anyone I want!” Yeah, you should, but your vote has ramifications.  If would be AWESOME if we didn’t have a two-party system, but until we DON’T a third-party vote is akin to not voting at all.

3). In 2012 we were “Ready for Hillary”.  Literally, this was a rallying cry.  It was expected she would run.  By like, everyone.  And it was expected she’d be the democratic nominee, because who the fuck had more experience, besides Obama?!  But then Sanders reared his head and the misogynists suddenly found a ton of reasons why they didn’t want to vote for Hillary, even though they’d been on board before.  Sanders preyed on misogyny the same as Trump preyed on racism.  Sanders saw he was running against a woman who was MUCH more qualified than him, and he still said, “I think I can beat her.  And if I don’t, I’ll whine about it.”  Fuck that guy.

4) As 2016 drew to a depressing close, Sanders supporters said, “it’s not women I hate, it’s just Clinton!  She’s so untrustworthy!  If it was like, Elizabeth Warren, I’d be on board!”  In 2016 I said, “no you fucking wouldn’t.”  And here we are, and no they fucking aren’t.  Sanders is running, and it’s a scapegoat for misogyny.  Again.

5) Sanders is a misogynist.  He does not value women.  He has literally said we should vote for more democrats that do not support women’s rights, as long as they support his own financial plans.  Like.  Women’s RIGHTS.

6) Sanders is getting a lot of support for being “uncompromising”.  And he’s the problem with that.  6a) it’s not true - he will compromise when he has to and, related to 6a, 6b) you HAVE TO COMPROMISE IN POLITICS.  It fucking sucks, but you don’t get shit done if you don’t compromise.  And that’s the problem.  You need to walk before you can run.  Dream of running.  Dream big.  The thing is you need to reconcile reality with your dreams.  And WORK to make them meet.  Would it be nice if Bill Gates (who runs a ton of charities, so way to single HIM out, Bernie, wtf) gave every cent of his money back to the people?  Sure, but in reality, that’s NOT how it’s going to work, so why are people getting upset at Warren stating that.  We live in goddamn reality.  It’s like....people are getting upset because Warren wants to give then $5, but Bernie says he’ll complete a bank heist by himself and give everyone $1k.  And people believe this shit?  I just.   I.  I can’t.

So bottom line.  Being uncompromising on just about everything is NOT a good thing.  It shouldn’t be a selling point.  You can be uncompromising on some of your major ideals.  And good for you if you are.  But chances are, all the candidates will be uncompromising on those as well.

I mean.

Unless you get Bernie who wants to throw women’s rights under the bus hahaha

[katapunberbicara]

A not so satisfying yet interesting ending in the search of justice

I am so sorry my dear little prince because I’ve grown mentally as a grown-ups who is interested in politics and matters of consequence than my younger version ever. I miss pouring my opinions out, {right here}, by writing this issues down explicitly on the blog rather on the social media, because it is quite comfy here {besides, some of my followers on social media prefer to live all comfy far from political issues}. O my dear, I really want to write it so bad, so that I do not forget by the time being. Because you ever said that to forget is bad.

Four days ago was the last trial which resulted the binding and final judgement for every parties. The trial was begun with the reading of the legal consideration point by point started at 12.30 until 21.16 WIB. How tiring, yet thrilling. After waiting for several hours, it was decided that the pleas were rejected entirely by 9 of 9 the judges {o, How could there were no dissenting opinions?}. The judges had decided that to try the election fraud was not their authority {but the election supervisory agencys’s authority}, nor were the relation between the proofs found and the result of the election. Even the proofs did not explain when and where the event took place. So they never at once said clearly and explicitly that the election fraud was wrong or right. It seemed that the judge likely preferred judicial restraint approach more than judicial activism approach. It is simply saying that they had limited themselves to make policies out of their domain when they were actually allowed to do so as for the human right and the principle of democracy. Until here, I assumed that the judges were trapped and weren’t brave enough going out from their authority which was only in terms of disputes over the vote.

Some might argue by saying what do you expect from us proving everything during this speedy trial around 2 weeks with only 15 witnesses and 2 experts allowed to speak in one day? {And remember that, this is Indonesia! It would be very very impossible!}. And everyone still forced to bring in this issues to the constitutional court which was indeed the last choice left to search justice. But, that is how the procedural law of the court works. Even Prof. Eddy, when becoming the legal expert at the court, ever said procedural law was the worst. The applicant must be able and responsible to prove their assumption in a very limited chance. He even added, sometimes the winner is not always right, nor the loser is always wrong. But once again, this is how the law works. So that was why everyone assumed that it wasn’t gonna be working this time.

In law, there is principle saying Semper necessitas probandi incumbit el qui agit, which had meaning, “the burden of proof is always delegated to the plaintiff.”

Prof. Eddy came out with the ilustration when Ali bin Abi Thalib R.A., once as khalifah, had found his armour was in front of the house of the jews. Thus, they arrived at the court and the judge asked him to prove. At the end, Ali bin Abi Thalib R.A. could not bring the proof nor witness to prove the armour was his so that the judge finally decided that he was wrong {before that, he wanted to bring his son and his wife, but since the child’s testimony of a father was not permitted in the court and lack of witnesses, so he didn’t}. Soon after the trial had finished, the jews suddenly confessed that he had lied to them, and then converted to Islam.

This story implies that being fair’s never been easy. It had been questioned and disscussed by everyone that sometimes enforcing legal certainty might be far from enforcing justice. Prof. Satjipto Rahardjo ever said that the law itself is not a final scheme, but it is progressive following the dynamics of human race. So the existence of law is actually not for a legal certainty but to seek and enforce justice in the community. Back to this issue, some might be disappointed due to their high expectations on judges of the constitutional court to have more progressive paradigm in addressing this issue than the old one which only consider the result of the election. While somebody else would say, o hey, we can not please everyone. But in my opinion, the judges as the guardian of the constitution should also consider the process indicated violating the principle of general election {especially honest and fair}, since the results were closely associated with the process {unfortunately, the judges had decided to be solely responsible on what only mattered to the results}.

Furthermore, during the fifth trial there was disscussion the using of new approach in dispute resolution, one of those was the use of technology. The old approach is comparing ballot paper manually, but as for sophisticated crime, it is hard to present the proofs physically. I remembered how the witnesses and expert had found the chaos in the final voter list and the vote counting information system (Situng), but somehow it sounded weird for me as the general elections commision always said Situng was used to give information to the public, so if there were mistakes, it would have been corrected through the tiered recapitulation. But if so, why was the result on Situng very close to the tiered recapitulation where there were so many mistakes found on Situng? {unfortunately, for this argument the judges had decided that there was no relation between it and the result of the election}.

After all, the decisions are final and binding so we have to respect. Besides, I do understand what was lastly decided by the judges with rejecting all the pleas was a way safer than granting some or all the pleas, such as holding a re-election or disqualifying one of the candidates. There would be high fees in exchange for such condition, let’s say 24 T to hold a new re-election. In my opinion, this is called ‘a not so satisfying yet interesting ending in the search of justice’ so I’ve done some research while writing this issue to make me more understand about law and its principle. Last but not least, by quoting the Prof. Eddy’s sentence ‘the assumption is only assumption if only can not be proven legally’ so do not be provoked by this writing, but do your own research. We need so many criticism to support our lovely country flourishing.

Lastly, as Prof. Salim Said ever said right after the announcement, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So pls stop using every seductive actions to gather everybody into the government, that should be somebody else taking place sincerely as the opposite in order to keep the system balance. For whosoever the winner, I hope you always remember to say astaghfirullah to keep yourself avoid the wrongness and always ask for His forgiveness. And for those whom lose this time, alhamdulillah, the winner may have the power and authority, but the contender may have blessing from God which save him from the burden of trust that could not be borne even by the mountain.

Pekanbaru, 1st July 2019 | ©Hairatunnisa

[theunderdogwrites]

Trout Mouth & Freedom of Speech

The building I currently live in has been having an increase in break-ins to our underground parking. Storage cages are being forced open to gain access to bikes (easy to pawn for quick cash) and car windows are being smashed when valuables can be seen from just looking inside. There is now noise within the complex, with people screaming that they want cameras installed and a security guard to patrol the parkade during the early morning hours.

While this MIGHT help the situation there is no guarantee that it will stop these wanton crooks from their dastardly deeds. One, because they can simply cover their faces from the cameras and avoid the security guard. And two, because the real issue of security isn’t being addressed – people are not taking any responsibility for the safekeeping of their own building. Not waiting for the large parkade doors to close before leaving the property. Buzzing up SkipTheDishes drivers instead of going down and meeting them at the front doors, therefore allowing anyone to follow them into the building and gain access to the parkade. Leaving their key fobs in their cars where they get stolen. And caring only about themselves to the point where they fail to report any strange activity around the property.

The lack of personal accountability is a real problem. And not just in my building.

The definition of Freedom of Speech as given by Dictionary.com is as follows:

“the right of people to express their opinions publicly without governmental interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or rebellion, etc.”

Let me Coles Notes a few things here:

-    Wednesday January 6, 2021 Trump gives a “spirited” speech at a rally in Washington that manages to provoke his feistier followers into marching down to the Capitol Building and storming inside using force. Five people died and dozens were injured.

-    Within a week Trump is banned from Twitter, Facebook, suspended by Instagram for two weeks and Parler (social media app used by many vocal extremists, Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists) was booted by hosting services such as Amazon, Apple and Google.

-    Trump is reduced to only being able to use the Amazon product reviews section to intimately reach his supporters

-    Uproar over censorship/freedom of speech begins.

Below is a link to the transcript (and video) of Trump’s “Save America” speech he gave just before the attack on the Capital Building. It’s long of course, but I encourage you to skim through it, or put the video on and listen while you’re doing other things. You may think it’s not significant and you don’t want to hear the ramblings of #45, but it IS important if you care about freedom of speech and the obligation we have to not be total raging assholes with no regard for morality or law and order.

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6?cjevent=47b9f152576311eb8162015f0a1c0e10&cjdata=MXxOfDB8WXww

Since the election Trump has been peddling his theory that the election was stolen from him by way of shifty voting and ballot counting procedures and a conspiracy to turn Trump votes into Biden votes. He’s been pushing this idea hard and without reprieve despite no creditable evidence and despite his hand-picked Supreme Court ruling against his claims. I don’t feel anyone with a brain thought he was ever going to go quietly if he lost. You don’t spend your first term in office talking about how they should allow for three or more terms if your plan is to exit with grace.

I never had a problem with Trump wanting to challenge the election results. Whatever floats your boat Cheeto. I didn’t like that he asked for donations from supporters during all this and managed to gather over 200 million dollars. Something I feel he did just to fill up his own coffers with zero respect for those putting their money behind him. But I digress…

Without tangible proof, Trump is now hawking these inaccuracies to his supporters, of which there are MANY. And breeding within those MANY are the extremists. And within those extremists are those who just love the chaos.

“Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” Alfred Pennyworth, The Dark Knight

Yes, I just quoted a Batman movie.

You can say that Trump has been telling lies for over four years and you’d be right, but the difference now is this latest set of fabrications has inspired some of his supporters to engage in acts of violence (it’s being called domestic terrorism) against their own democracy. These individuals are currently being hunted down and arrested and WILL be charged with a number of offences while Trump throws them under the bus and takes no responsibility for anything. Oh, and he blamed the Democrats for causing all this anger.

Side note: One day people will listen to me about this… one day.

Below is a link to the trailer for a Netflix documentary titled ‘GET ME ROGER STONE’. Roger Stone is a political strategist with over 40 years on the Washington scene. He is credited with inventing negative campaign attack ads among other diabolical maneuvers. He is also partially responsible for Donald Trump’s effectiveness in winning over voters and his ability to seemingly get away with everything. I’ve been yelling about this guy for four years, but he is so slick. He was recently indicted in connection with the Russia investigation. Trump issued him a full pardon. He has this thing called Stone’s Rules (with regards to operating within politics) and one of those rules is:

-          Never admit to any wrongdoing

-          Deny. Deny. Deny.

-          Go on the attack.

Does that sound like anyone you know? Maybe someone who was just impeached for the second time for something he won’t admit to doing, has adamantly denied and blamed on others?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IPyv4KgTAA

I am 100% for freedom of speech. I believe you should be allowed to say whatever you want to say, whenever you want to say it.  If you wish to chant at the top of your lungs, “Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!” you have every right to engage in comedy. If you wish to strip down to your soft cotton bush pants and yell, “the President personally invited me here!”:

 Then you’re probably this guy who is quickly learning that actions often have consequences, as does freedom of speech.

While you’re allowed to use your voice to express your opinion, there is this little pesky caveat that comes along with speaking freely and that is – you will be held accountable. And rightly so.

Do you remember the old school yard mantra – sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me? Am I the only one who never bought that baloney? Words can hurt. The power of words is far greater than that of sticks and stones. Words spoken, no matter how hard your try, cannot be taken back. You can’t put them back in your mouth. Or back in your head. Once they’re out, they’re either doing some good or they’re doing some damage. Speak freely and speak often, but know your audience and take some fucking responsibility for the ripple effect your words might create.

Was banning Trump from pretty much all social platforms the right thing to do? Or is it a scary precedent that threatens freedom of speech?

For starters, Trump was banned by COMPANIES, not the government. These companies therefore reserve the right to ban anyone from using their platform who they consider to be in violation of their terms and conditions (user agreement). Within that wordy legal document that we all barely skim over is usually a part about not using the application to abuse and harass others and not posting anything that incites violence or brings harm on groups or individuals. In other words, don’t use a service like Twitter to spread bullshit amongst your unhinged supporters who then get filmed at the Capital Riots chanting “the President sent us!!” as they throw fire extinguishers at the police.

Over the course of four years Trump sent out an estimated 56,000 tweets. I have a Twitter account. I tweeted once then gave up, so I have to give it to the old guy, those early morning toilet tantrums on Twitter really added up. During that time, he was fact checked A LOT and to the surprise of NONE he lied MANY times. My one and only tweet was also a lie. I believe I said something along the lines of “Happy to be here!”.

During the 2020 election year many of his tweets were flagged and labelled as misinformation. He wasn’t banned until after the Capital Riots out of fear he would continue to ramp up his extremist supporters and provoke them into further acts of violence. Without Twitter and Facebook etc. Trump has been deprived of his oxygen – his ability to intimately interact with his followers. Because when you strip back all the yelling and flag waving and crying about the right to say whatever the fuck you want… you are left with a simple lesson we all (should have) learned when we were children. If you choose to behave badly, then the consequences you shall suffer.

Here is a link to a list of all the platforms that have banned Trump. Whether it be hashtags or online shopping stores, companies are taking a serious stand NOW on the spreading of anything Trump: (you should read this as it goes into context as well)

https://www.axios.com/platforms-social-media-ban-restrict-trump-d9e44f3c-8366-4ba9-a8a1-7f3114f920f1.html

It’s funny how some people believe they deserve to be able to use and abuse a free service like Twitter for their personal needs such as attacking others, but don’t believe in things like universal health care, equal pay, unicorns, Covid-19, love, climate change and the possibility that Walter White is still alive.

I personally have never broken any online platform user agreements with regards to abusive speech. In person, most definitely. I’m rarely inspired to battle online people who are looking for a fight because by not engaging with these keyboard warriors I am performing acts of charity for the cerebrally challenged. In the real world, well, you know what they say – it’s hard out here for a pimp.

Trump has behaved poorly for years now. His Republican party members (looking at you Mitch ‘melty face’ McConnell) hid behind him like the bottom feeders they are and got fat with power in his wake. The GOP will never be the same again. Trump’s grip on this party is akin to that of an uncatchable boa constrictor lost in high rise building’s plumbing. Slithering around deep in the bowels of the structure threatening to re-emerge as something far worse. If you lived in that building, you’d never be comfortable again. Your whole existence would be based on fear. Fear, which just so happens to be an effective weapon when trying to control others.

There is another concern floating around right now and that is the power of the big tech companies to control what we can see and what we can’t see. I’ve not given this enough thought yet to be able to provide any coherent ramblings. BUT it is definitely something we all need to be aware of and watching in our very near future.

I’m left with one question – was Trump responsible for the Capital Riots?

It would be so easy to blame him, as many have. And now that he is literally on his way out, getting those final kicks in is giving many people a stock pile of delight. So, the most satisfying answer is – fuck yes. But let’s not forget all the Republicans that have remained silent for the past four years as Trump went on TV’s around the globe and called Africa and Haiti “shitholes”. Mocked a disabled reporter. Stated that Americans who died in wars were “losers and suckers”.

And all of this:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html?_r=0

If you are a parent or a care taker of children are you prone to sitting silently and allowing those children to run amuck in a restaurant yelling at people and causing havoc in hopes the manager will give you free ice cream to shut that child down? Is it that child’s fault you refuse to discipline them out of fear they’ll replace you with a more agreeable parent? Are you getting my point?

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” — Robert F Kennedy

One final thing…

Let’s not forget not all Trump supporters agree with what happened at the Capital. Over 74 million Americans voted for him because they believed he made their life better. And maybe for some of them, he did. Within those 74 million voters, are good people. Individuals who didn’t vote for insurrection, but for hope for their future.

[libertarianbarbarian]

Who the hell is Benford?

Who the hell is Benford?

   Facts

-https://brilliant.org/wiki/benfords-law/

-https://www.cookcountyclerk.com/election-results

-https://results1120.cookcountyclerkil.gov/summary.aspx?eid=110320

-https://www.waynecounty.com/elected/clerk/election-results.aspx

-https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/PA/Allegheny/106267/web.264614/#/detail/0004

-https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-biden-election-results-11-07-20/index.html

-https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2020/11/06/biden-growing-leads-key-states-closer-electoral-college-win/6191429002/

-https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/07/2020-election-winner-biden-final-count-results.html

 OPED-WARNING

             Ok, there’s a lot going on here. I had my grandstanding moment and while I’m going to keep on pumping out my opinions based on as much fact as I can. So here we go, benfords law. I’m sure that everyone’s heard the term, if you haven’t you’ve heard all the other shit going on about the election now and days. Yes, it’s true, we have the election still going on right now. NO MATTER WHAT THE MEDIA SAYS RIGHT NOW.

           “But Mr. Barbarian, how else would I know who won the election?” Well my completely fake and innocent quotation I’ll tell you just how. Do your own research. I had to, granted it was a little before now, but it’s a lot better than the crap that the media’s gonna peddle to you now and days.

           See I’ve heard and seen a lot of horse crap because of this election. The left/liberal/democrat side of things will absolutely claim Joe Biden won. The right/republican/conservative side of things will tell you it’s not won yet. Some of those who’ve been stuck in the middle will tell you “Well hey normally I don’t agree with media, but I want this to be all over…so fuck it Biden’s president elect.” Or something to akin to that.

           Well here’s the issue, none of the sides are wrong only one part of it is. Ok so we know it was Biden v. Trump for the presidency. We also know…ahem…that things are a little fishy with the mainstream media/big tech who I absolutely adore *complete sarcasm*. To some extent they’re right at the moment, or they would be any other year.

           We’ve gotten so complacent that when we’ve had presidential elections in the past there was one clear and obvious winner between the two candidates. When all the poll’s, accept this year, projected a winner the media would go ahead and tell you who was going to be our new president elect. But there’s a stipulation to that. They didn’t tell you what had to be done before he became the actual president elect.

           There’s a whole process of which all the votes still have to be counted. After that he or she still had to get approved by congress after that was all said and done. At the same time if there was to much of a lead between the two candidates the loosing side would normally just concede. What we have here, is in my mind, a normal election cycle for the president.

           We’ve had over a couple of decades at this point of the lead being so high that the looser just gives up. Its kind of like being in a football game, looking at the scoreboard and deciding that because the other team has a big ass lead on you, you’re just gonna give up. That’s not normal for any damn football game I’ve seen…and I’m a Vikings fan, we lose A LOT! Hell, we don’t even have a Lombardi trophy to our damn name. Anyways, that’s what the hell our chosen few that want to run for president have been doing for…probably almost a century now.

           Yeah, we had the whole Florida thing in 2000, but really all that came down to was “Oops I fucked up the programming. My bad guys!” Not to mention that was a special case and it took 36-37 days to fix that shit. This election year though is a whole different game. We’ve got two teams sitting there trying to win and it’s a tied score.

           Um…that was oversimplifying it. No, there’s no way to “every-man” this one. Ok so basically, we’re starting off with a tied score between Trump and Biden. There was some crazy shit that went on during the game though. Some people were told to use sharpies on their ballots when it could have actually made the things not read in the machine. There’s little evidence on that one, they were talking about it days before the election. There’s the whole observer thing, where they were only allowed to be 20 feet away, then they were supposed to be 6 feet away but never got the chance.

           There’s a lot of shit. Now in this game Trump can completely call the ref on his bullshit. Hey if you feel like it will give you the edge and you feel like it will help you win as a competitive person go for it. Are they legitimate? Well that’s what we got the courts for, if they aren’t well then Trump looks like a big ass with yolk on his face. Nuff said.

           The one that I knew nothing about that keeps popping up though was this “benfords law” bullshit though. I had to take a good hard long look at it. I went back to school, cracked open my dusty ass math book and said, “What in the fuck is benfords law?” Now I know. And for once I’d hate to say it fellow Trump supporters but it’s one that we shouldn’t be putting out there. Yes, I want Trump to be president for another four years. No, I do not like Biden at all cause he’s full of shit. This “benfords law” thing though…it uh…it made us all look like a bunch of dumb asses though.

           Basically what it says is if you have enough numbers in the real world, or data, at random one of the biggest things you’ll see is that the number 1 is going to pop up the most. Well looking at the graphs from the election, a couple of the graphs for good ol’ Sleepy have other numbers at a greater value than 1. Someone that I guess heard the name “benfords law” or knew about it loosely said that Sleepy’s votes are violating a basic mathematics law.

           We’re all shitty to each other right now. Everyone’s pointing a finger or trying to piss the other off or just emotional over the election, then that shit came out. We saw it, we ran with it, we posted it. Well there’s a catch to our pal benford, there has to be enough variety to the data that you have. Que? What nonsense are you talking about here? Well um, turns out that yes there were a couple of counties that reported this shit…but not in one state…in completely different states. One we knew we’d lose Illinois, the other in PA, and then another in Michigan.

           Just one county that I could find specifically in each state. I could be wrong, there could be a little more in each state, but that’s all I found. We’d pretty much have to have about 90-95% of the whole damn state for “benfords law” to kick in. Yeah, they use it for elections and shit, but they also use it for tax fraud as well. They kind of use it for all of us that pay our taxes and then get that sweet return at the end of the year. The government puts all the numbers together then averages them out then see who’s sticking up to high on the graph numerically that doesn’t make sense to “benfords law”, then they do an audit of the person.

           With that said this “benfords law” thing kind of doesn’t stick. I get it, you’re pissed reading that. You want Trump to have another four years, I’m an asshole for not finding another way to help out #teamtrump with “benfords law”. Listen, before you get on the high horse don’t forget one thing, we’ve already got a couple of ways for him to win. The biggest thing though is that’s some bullshit what you said right there.

           If Biden wins, it would suck…big time. We did the same thing to the left, whether they were right wrong or corrupt is another issue entirely. We elected Trump in 2016 over Hillary Clinton and the left has been bitching about it ever since. My suggestion is, pull that stick out of your ass and find the best way to fix things. No this is not perfect; it’s never going to be perfect but as Americans its our job to get it as close to perfect as possible. While you’re sitting bitching about Sleepy just remember that’s time that you could be spending campaigning for local office, state office, or hell what I’m going to do and get your name out there and go for the big time. It does no one favors just sitting around bitching to much including yourself.

           So, all I got to say this go around is that the “benfords law” thing is bunk. The more we bitch about it the more idiotic we look. We literally just gave the liberals/left/democrats something to shit talk us about by spreading it so much. I as a Libertarian wanted and needed to know more and can tell you for one, I almost fell for the trap too. Put some time and energy in to wearing that MAGA gear that you got to represent our president and get some planning done. Make a sign, a slogan, think of how you’d fix the country and go do it. It ain’t gonna be easy but if it fixes this country it will be fucking worth it.  

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/technology/tech-were-using-from-bubble-memory-to-hot-spots-and-a-fly-rod/

Tech We’re Using: From Bubble Memory to Hot Spots and a Fly Rod

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? David E. Sanger, a national security correspondent based in Washington, discussed the tech he’s using.

You previously were a bureau chief for The Times in Japan, one of your many roles for the newspaper. When you arrived in Tokyo in the late 1980s, what tech were you equipped with?

In retrospect, nothing very impressive. Our “portable” computers weighed about the same as an electric typewriter, had a tiny cathode-ray tube screen that showed a paragraph or two at most and stored stories on magnetic bubble memory, which in the 1980s was supposed to replace hard drives.

Needless to say, it was a technology whose time never arrived. Oh, and the computer had two black rubber cups on the top. You put the handset of a hard-line phone into them and dialed up a computer in New York to transmit at the astoundingly slow speed of 300 bits per second. Half the time we had to give up and call the dictation room, where someone would type out the story that you read to them.

When we gave up on bubble memory computers and moved to the first laptops, I sent a note to New York asking what to do with these dinosaurs. The answer I got back was: Your office looks out over Tokyo Bay. Figure it out.

So today the technology is lots faster, but perhaps not a lot more reliable. What’s the worst tech failure you’ve suffered?

Naturally, things die when deadlines are tightest. There was the time I was rushing off the back stairs of Air Force One in the Middle East with an open laptop, story half-written and late to the editing desk, and managed to drop my computer 20 feet on the tarmac. (Not good.) I’ve had modems die in Egypt, and the blue screen of death crawl across my laptop in India. Power supplies don’t like variable current — I’ve melted my share.

This has all made me focus intently on what NASA calls “mission-critical components.” If you can’t file your story — or record video, or connect up with “The Daily’’ — you might as well not be there.

So I travel with a laptop and a backup iPad with a keyboard, so there is always a way to write. I take two phones — and two booster battery packs. I carry an AT&T portable hot spot, and still I’ve had to fall back at times on the built-in Wi-Fi hot spot on my iPhone. Oh, and a Logitech camera that allows me to do TV hits over a Skype connection without using the built-in pinhole camera in the laptop.

So my backpack weighs plenty — and my wife and our sons think carrying it everywhere is faintly ridiculous. Until they run out of cellphone power.

You’d think that belt-and-suspenders approach would cover everything. It doesn’t. In Hanoi, Vietnam, this year for a summit meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, we were, as my colleague Edward Wong put it, “comms cursed.”

Lots of things failed. It didn’t help that I was staying in the Metropole hotel, where the meeting was being held, and security personnel blanketed the lobby with a cellphone suppression technology that keeps terrorists from detonating bombs remotely. Turns out it also keeps reporters from updating their stories on the web.

You published your third book, “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age,” last year. It’s a geopolitical look at how nations are using cyberweapons, and not just for espionage. Ever been a target?

I’m afraid that if you are in my line of work — writing about the intersection of technology, spying, cybersabotage and national power — you attract attention from intelligence services.

In Beijing in 2017 with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, I made the mistake of looking up something about the Tiananmen Square massacre from my hotel room, over a portable hot spot. Big mistake. The hot spot stopped working. I couldn’t revive it in Japan, or back at home. We later determined that Chinese intelligence had fried the firmware.

A few years ago I began seeing that big red banner over my email account that declared: “We have detected a state-sponsored attacker seeking to obtain your data.” That could be anyone: Russians who didn’t like our investigations into the 2016 presidential election and subsequent hacks; Chinese People’s Liberation Army officers who didn’t care for our work exposing Unit 61398, which stole intellectual property; North Koreans who didn’t like our coverage of the Sony hack, the Bangladeshi central bank cyberheist or the cyberattacks on their missiles.

And I’ve survived enough F.B.I. leak investigations to become mildly paranoid about our own government.

So what do you use to protect yourself?

There is no permanent technological solution to hacking, data manipulation and, soon, deep fakes — like climate change, this is a problem we have to manage. Ultimately, we will need a mix of technology, political agreements and retaliatory responses that establish that attacks are not cost-free.

That said, I’m a big fan of Google’s Advanced Protection program. It uses a combination of a key that fits in a USB slot (with a button that must be pressed) and a Bluetooth dongle, each registered to your computer or cellphone. Try to get access to someone’s accounts on a computer without that hardware present and you don’t get in.

If you were cyber king for a day, what mandates would you issue?

First, I’d ban the use of any voting machine that doesn’t rely on a hand-marked paper ballot, so there is something to count later. I’d require encryption for all personal information that you are asked turn over, including when I hand my passport to a hotel clerk. (Hear that, Marriott? It’s time.)

And I’d make it illegal to have Social Security numbers used as an identifier on any electronic document, site, app or password combination. It’s the one number in your life you simply cannot change, without extraordinary effort. It was never intended to be used as a secure identifier. So let’s not try.

What favorite cool technology do you always take with you?

Sanity-preservation devices that cut me off from the world, from editors and from the complaints of presidents, secretaries of state and national security officials. The three most vital: Bose noise-canceling headphones, a small shortwave radio and a seven-piece, four-weight fly rod that breaks down to fit in a tube under a foot long.

When the weather warms up, I carry the rod in that overloaded backpack along with a reel and a box of flies. No batteries required. I’ve been known to sneak out of hotels in early-morning hours to cast into rivers, harbors, ponds, you name it. I don’t even care if nothing’s biting — the casting is therapeutic.

Don’t tell the bosses, O.K.?

[bublp0pr]

Thaaaaat’s politics!

fanfiction idea:

A story focussed around an NPC character. Minimal to no reference to Sans, Papyrus, Alphys, Undyne, Mettaton, Asgore, Toriel. 

(I mean, obviously to put things in motion you need a bit of a catalyst so I’ll include Flowey to make things interesting, but still)

So Flowey is playing around with his power and has a friendly chat with the “Thaaaaaaat’s politics” bear. And he goes “You know, mister, you really should run for mayor.” 

Now, Bear has a crush on the inn keeper, who lost her husband in the Core accident and is now a single mother running the business on her own. But he’s never had the courage to actually confess. The little bun needs a responsible role model in their life and he’s not sure he can fit that bill. Flowey manipulates him, saying that he could impress her if he became mayor. This is the turning point for him and he becomes driven to make this happen and rock the boat.

He starts gathering support from the other under appreciated NPCs in Snowdin. We take a little look under the hood at the 1 dimensional characters, flesh them out a bit with relationships and backstory, establish their families and personalities etc. as Bear tries to convince them to meet in the centre of town. 

They congregate together and have a discussion that raises some pretty convincing points about some of the not-so-sensible things Asgore has put in place and all the discontent that happen under the current system 

(Papyrus is there too i suppose, he personally doesn’t see the problem with dangerous puzzles at every turn and “overcrowding” just means more chances to make friends in his opinion. He does get mildly concerned when people point out that their only law-enforcement is by an over powered fish lady with low impulse control and mild anger management issues, who doesn’t even live in Snowdin or understand their town’s core values... Sans is just too lazy to even bother showing up. But never mind them! Who needs main characters?! pffft)

At the end of the day, they agree to send out some representatives to the capital to  bring their concerns to the capital and demand that they be given the right to have their own mayor. A very confused king listens to them over a cup of tea agrees lets them hold an election.

And here’s where Flowey has to come back in to keep the story interesting. Because underhanded political feuding is something he’d love to get his sneaky little vines all tangled in. 

Bear runs of course but so does the shopkeeper, Dogaressa, Grillby (not that he wanted to, he hates public speaking. But his customers pushed him into trying because of how well-liked he is), one of the ladies who writes the newspaper and Sans (again, someone else volunteered him, more for the joke of it. Papyrus confronts him about it, [insert pun here] and he somehow pulls out before it’s even started.) 

He starts the campaign out strong, trying to gain respect in the community and presenting strategies for re-allocating their resources to improving the lifestyle of locals. But with Flowey as his campaign manager, this isn’t going to be a clean fight >:)

Flowey knows what makes people tick: empty promises, bribes, scandal, blackmail, slander. Again and again he offers to “help” Bear win the election. It starts off with harmless suggestions, nothing he’d feel... uncomfortable with. Just a little leverage. That’s all. At the start Bear insists that he’s better than that. He got into this thing to clean up this town, not step on monster’s toes to gain power. 

The town starts to divide into different sides of support. Everyone really gets into the festivity of the thing, with parades, posters, flyers and all sorts of stuff. Monsters raise good points and get inventive with how they sell their persona. Conversation on the UnderNet is abuzz about this new system and what it could mean for other locations such as Waterfall and Hotland in the future. Polls about who people think will win turn up in the newspaper. Mettaton starts a TV special promising full coverage of the story. There’s a new energy to the place that the monsters hadn’t even realised they’d been missing. 

Unbelievably, it’s the lesser encounter enemies that start to become the main demographics for voting. Making allowances for the anarchist desires of the teenage gangs in the woods, promising better treatment of Gyftrots in future with more efforts to raise awareness of the mistreatment during this gift-exchanging holiday, the removal of the snowball tax, distribution of more caps for icecaps, more union breaks for Royal Guardsman (Sans is mysteriously always suddenly very present when people bring up this one)

But the competition starts to become more ruthless (thanks to some intervention from anonymous plant sources) And slowly, as he gets more desperate, he gives in starts to try out some of Flowey’s “friendly suggestions”. (Thaaaaaats politics!)

I saw Dogamy with a certain bunny at Grillby’s the other night... Haha. Can’t you keep a collar on that husband of yours Dogaressa? 

What would Undyne say if she found out about all those “dog treats” you’ve been sniffing Doggo? My my, if someone were to... oh, I don’t know, tell her. What would she do I wonder?

So you want out of your job sending ice to the Core, Ice Wolf? ...I know a guy. That can be arranged.

One by one, the competition drops out in fear, stress or shame. There’s some last minute underdog candidate but they haven’t so much as shown their face since signing up (does it really even count as running if they just suddenly trot into the room and leave a paw print on the ballot paper and then running away again before people could make copies ; ) ??) Bear looks like he’s going to win. 

Feeling confident about his chances, the night before election he builds up his courage and goes to confess his feelings to the innkeeper. She rejects him because of the awful way he treated her sister, (Flowey had threatened to distribute her secret cinnamon bunny recipe to every vendor in the underground). He goes to Grillbys and tries to drink his feelings away. Grillby remains silent, but Bear knows he’s judging him. “Tt’s all that flower’s fault!” He’d moan. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t think it would be like this!” 

Flowey’s waiting for him outside when he leaves for the night. He’s not happy that his toy is acting so irresponsibly the day before election. They deserve a small scolding, a little reminder of who’s really in charge here. There’s too much at stake here. Once Bear becomes mayor, Snowdin will be his. An entire town in his pocket! The possibilities are endless... He can’t afford stupid mistakes so close to getting his prize. 

Bear, with a little liquid courage still in his system, stands up to Flowey. He says that he can’t take this anymore and has decided to step down. 

...

Flowey doesn’t like being told no. 

Perhaps he wasn’t clear enough. Did he honestly think that Flowey had dirt on every person in Snowdin and couldn’t tear his reputation apart too? “I’ll tell Asgore what you’ve done... I’ll tell him every single dirty crime you’ve committed for this. Hehehehe! We’re in this together you and I! To the very end.”

Bear has no choice. In dismay he goes back to his home, ashamed of the monster he has now become. 

The next day, Asgore himself visits Snowdin for the counting of the votes. Bear looks up at that stage like a man looking at his own guillotine. From the trees, Flowey watches with a keen eye. He’s already tampered with the votes. Snowdin’s as good as his. He just needs to make sure there’s no funny business. 

Bear searches through the crowd of people and spots the innkeeper. Walking over to her, he apologises for everything he’s done and what he’s about to do. “Wait, what? What you’re about to... Bear?” He’s already walking towards the stage. A fluffy white dog is sleeping on one side of the stage. It looks quite comfortable despite the noisy location. Asgore smiles at him as Bear takes his place on the stand. The dog is the first to speak. With a small yawn, it stands up and moves to the microphone. It lets out another yawn and a small bark before pantering back to it’s warm little spot on the wooden stand. 

Bear looks at it nervously. Dammit. Who’s supposed to say no to a speech as direct and persuasive as that?? He shuffles his cards and walks to the podium. Looking down at his furry paws, he can see them trembling. With a sigh he looks up at the crowd. He sees the faces of those he used to get here today. With one last glance, he tosses aside the notes carefully written by Flowey and tightens his grip on the microphone. 

Mettaton shoves BurgerPants, who’s carrying the heaps of camera equipment shakily in his hands. “ARE YOU FILMING THIS YOU WORTHLESS THING?” Last minute drama. How thrilling!! With a grumble he zooms in on the determined look in Bear’s eye.

“I would like to formally apologise for how I’ve acted. I started this simply wanting the best for my town and somewhere along the way, I lost that focus. To my fellow candidates, my fellow citizens of Snowdin, my fellow monsterkind: I am sorry for how I have behaved towards you. I... am unfit to be your mayor. For this reason,” He glances at the king, “I have decided to abdicate.” 

There are collective gasps from the crowd. Monsters watch in a mix of pride, shock and confusion as the tiny white dog receives a sash around it’s neck and licks Asgore’s face.

Flowey is seething in the background. How dare he?! A sick grin twist on his face. “Oh... you think you’re so clever do you??? We’ll see who’s clever you idiot.” 

Vines spread their way through the crowds of people without them noticing. 

Bear leans down and shakes Annoying Dog’s paw with a weak smile. It barks happily, but looks like it would rather be returning to its nap. 

Once in position, the green rope grows sharp thorns and becomes tense, tearing through the hoards of people. There are shrieks as all the monsters are suddenly raised in the air. Flowey emerges from the ground, a large smile on his face. “Sorry folks! Change of plan! Looks like it’s going to be a hostile takeover.” He cackles loudly. Monsters try and fail to struggle against him. 

“Bear, Bear, Bear!” He sighs in mock disappointment. “I had such high hopes for you! But now look what you’re gone and done! I tried to warn you, I really did. What is it with monsters and never,” He squeezes the monster tighter “following through?”

Bear is terrified. He’d never seen Flowey this dangerous before. Sure, there’d been that disturbing look to his face when he spoke about certain things... but never like this. “P-p-please...” He starts blubbering, scared for his life. 

This is starting to bore Flowey. He’d never be able to control the monsters properly after this point. As soon as he lets go of Asgore, he’s dust. In fact, in a few minutes Undyne’s probably going to arrive as well. Maybe he should just reset. 

A monster manages to wriggle their way out from his grip. Flowey sends bullets towards them flippantly, turning the thing to dust. “Here’s how this is going to work, pal. I’m going to kill you-” There’s a small wail at this.  “SHUT UP!” He screeches at him. “I’m going to kill you. And then I’m going to start turning the rest of these monsters to dust one by one until Undyne arrives. Unless Mr Asgore here takes me to the human souls.” It’s not a well thought out plan but this timeline’s already ruined anyway, it can’t hurt to be direct. 

Asgore lifts up his head in confusion, then it morphs into horror. He goes grim. 

“No.” 

Flowey starts laughing. “Hear that people?! KING ASGORE here, doesn’t think your lives are worth saving!” There are a few mumbles from the crowd. Asgore remains stoic. The good of monsterkind is worth more than the life of the individual. Flowey leans in closer to him. “You know, these worthless idiots do have a point. You’re a pretty sucky king, Fluffy buns.” He giggles at the stupid nickname. Asgore stares at him with an intense anger. “Let these people go.” Flowey tilts his head. “Sure thing! Will do! Just give me the souls.” The two are inches apart, glaring at eachother unwaveringly. 

A blue spear sails between the two. Ah. That’s his cue to leave. “Well, this has been fun!” He calls. “We should do it again sometime! Maybe next time you can play along a little better though, Bear?” 

Bear is in over his head here. He just hangs in Flowey’s vines, powerless. 

Flowey pulls back his attacks and disappears into the ground with a grin as the rest of the Royal Guard approaches. 

RESET. Continue?

[anagamitofotografia]

News reports and helpful updates on POS Equipment and POS.

It’s an early Wednesday afternoon and I’m speaking with Roberto Treviño, one of San Antonio’s boldest progressives currently in elected office, about the final stretch of his District 1 council runoff against environmental activist Mario Bravo.

To start, I ask Treviño to list the core values that would sum up the essence of his six and a half years on the dais. 

“They are compassion, equity, and simply being thoughtful about everyone,” he says via phone with a warm, raspy voice. 

Treviño, 50, faced five challengers in last month’s election. Of the 12,569 in-district ballots counted, the incumbent earned 44.9 percent of the vote (5,645 votes) and Bravo registered 33.6 percent (4,225 votes), resulting in Saturday’s runoff. 

As an outspoken housing advocate, Treviño has fought for initiatives like the Under 1 Roof program and the City’s emergency housing assistance program. Addressing the issue of homelessness has been a top priority throughout his tenure, however, his approach to solving the matter has drawn sharp criticism from some D1 residents.

Among his accomplishments has been his efforts to protect small businesses through hospitality relief programs, which has prevented many pandemic-related closures.

READ MORE: Catching up with District 2 Council candidate Jalen McKee-Rodriguez

“As a councilman, you want to be that bridge to find a way to connect your community with resources to get them access [to assistance],” he says. 

Regardless of the electoral outcome, Treviño believes he’s made a difference in the way local government operates.

“City Hall will never be the same again,” he says. “Now it is an ultra-accessible City Hall. [That’s] because of me.” 

Ahead of the election, the citizen-architect paved his own way as the only council member to support Proposition B, the ballot measure to repeal the police union’s collective bargaining power, and also endorsed progressive Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, the opponent of his District 2 colleague, Jada Andrews-Sullivan, because the candidate’s views on equity and housing were in step with his own. 

READ MORE: Hidden mural uncovered at San Antonio museum after 10 years

“I think Jalen [and I have] worked on similar issues,” he says. “We provide a voice to people who feel like they are voiceless.”

Perhaps the most-circulated upbraiding of Treviño’s work was his handling of the $450 million Alamo Plaza redevelopment project.

On this point, he seems happy to set the record straight. 

“The [Alamo Plaza] project, as agreed upon by [all participating committees], was blocked politically by the Texas Historical Commission, effectively cancelling out a great project,” he says. “The disagreement that I had was that City management came up with a solution where the City would pay for improvements on State-controlled property. The fight wasn’t over the Cenotaph. I realize the Cenotaph can’t move.” 

The City, he explains, will be spending more money in the end.

“It’s a stand [I took] based on every [principle] we’ve talked about: Our need for more housing, our need to help the homeless, our need to help small business, and our need to improve infrastructure. All those things cost money, so why would we spend our money on State-controlled property? Answer me that.”

When he can take a break from the campaign, Treviño enjoys spending time with his family and Captain, his German shepherd, who pops up on my Instagram feed on occasion.

“It’s a reminder that there’s people that love [and] care about you,” he says. 

But now, he’s razor-focused on this high-stakes runoff.

“A fourth term is very important to me because of all these programs that I’ve started that I want to see through,” he says. 

I tell him that the road to get there seems like a lot of hard work. 

“It is,” he says heartily. “But it’s worth it.” 

The above article was first provided on this site.

We trust you found the above of help or of interest. Similar content can be found on our blog here: www.westtxpointofsale.com Let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what topics we should cover for you next.

[afrolatinxsunited]

News reports and helpful updates on POS Equipment and POS.

It’s an early Wednesday afternoon and I’m speaking with Roberto Treviño, one of San Antonio’s boldest progressives currently in elected office, about the final stretch of his District 1 council runoff against environmental activist Mario Bravo.

To start, I ask Treviño to list the core values that would sum up the essence of his six and a half years on the dais. 

“They are compassion, equity, and simply being thoughtful about everyone,” he says via phone with a warm, raspy voice. 

Treviño, 50, faced five challengers in last month’s election. Of the 12,569 in-district ballots counted, the incumbent earned 44.9 percent of the vote (5,645 votes) and Bravo registered 33.6 percent (4,225 votes), resulting in Saturday’s runoff. 

As an outspoken housing advocate, Treviño has fought for initiatives like the Under 1 Roof program and the City’s emergency housing assistance program. Addressing the issue of homelessness has been a top priority throughout his tenure, however, his approach to solving the matter has drawn sharp criticism from some D1 residents.

Among his accomplishments has been his efforts to protect small businesses through hospitality relief programs, which has prevented many pandemic-related closures.

READ MORE: Catching up with District 2 Council candidate Jalen McKee-Rodriguez

“As a councilman, you want to be that bridge to find a way to connect your community with resources to get them access [to assistance],” he says. 

Regardless of the electoral outcome, Treviño believes he’s made a difference in the way local government operates.

“City Hall will never be the same again,” he says. “Now it is an ultra-accessible City Hall. [That’s] because of me.” 

Ahead of the election, the citizen-architect paved his own way as the only council member to support Proposition B, the ballot measure to repeal the police union’s collective bargaining power, and also endorsed progressive Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, the opponent of his District 2 colleague, Jada Andrews-Sullivan, because the candidate’s views on equity and housing were in step with his own. 

READ MORE: Hidden mural uncovered at San Antonio museum after 10 years

“I think Jalen [and I have] worked on similar issues,” he says. “We provide a voice to people who feel like they are voiceless.”

Perhaps the most-circulated upbraiding of Treviño’s work was his handling of the $450 million Alamo Plaza redevelopment project.

On this point, he seems happy to set the record straight. 

“The [Alamo Plaza] project, as agreed upon by [all participating committees], was blocked politically by the Texas Historical Commission, effectively cancelling out a great project,” he says. “The disagreement that I had was that City management came up with a solution where the City would pay for improvements on State-controlled property. The fight wasn’t over the Cenotaph. I realize the Cenotaph can’t move.” 

The City, he explains, will be spending more money in the end.

“It’s a stand [I took] based on every [principle] we’ve talked about: Our need for more housing, our need to help the homeless, our need to help small business, and our need to improve infrastructure. All those things cost money, so why would we spend our money on State-controlled property? Answer me that.”

When he can take a break from the campaign, Treviño enjoys spending time with his family and Captain, his German shepherd, who pops up on my Instagram feed on occasion.

“It’s a reminder that there’s people that love [and] care about you,” he says. 

But now, he’s razor-focused on this high-stakes runoff.

“A fourth term is very important to me because of all these programs that I’ve started that I want to see through,” he says. 

I tell him that the road to get there seems like a lot of hard work. 

“It is,” he says heartily. “But it’s worth it.” 

The above article was first provided on this site.

We trust you found the above of help or of interest. Similar content can be found on our blog here: www.westtxpointofsale.com Let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what topics we should cover for you next.

[afroavocadowitch]

News reports and helpful updates on POS Equipment and POS.

It’s an early Wednesday afternoon and I’m speaking with Roberto Treviño, one of San Antonio’s boldest progressives currently in elected office, about the final stretch of his District 1 council runoff against environmental activist Mario Bravo.

To start, I ask Treviño to list the core values that would sum up the essence of his six and a half years on the dais. 

“They are compassion, equity, and simply being thoughtful about everyone,” he says via phone with a warm, raspy voice. 

Treviño, 50, faced five challengers in last month’s election. Of the 12,569 in-district ballots counted, the incumbent earned 44.9 percent of the vote (5,645 votes) and Bravo registered 33.6 percent (4,225 votes), resulting in Saturday’s runoff. 

As an outspoken housing advocate, Treviño has fought for initiatives like the Under 1 Roof program and the City’s emergency housing assistance program. Addressing the issue of homelessness has been a top priority throughout his tenure, however, his approach to solving the matter has drawn sharp criticism from some D1 residents.

Among his accomplishments has been his efforts to protect small businesses through hospitality relief programs, which has prevented many pandemic-related closures.

READ MORE: Catching up with District 2 Council candidate Jalen McKee-Rodriguez

“As a councilman, you want to be that bridge to find a way to connect your community with resources to get them access [to assistance],” he says. 

Regardless of the electoral outcome, Treviño believes he’s made a difference in the way local government operates.

“City Hall will never be the same again,” he says. “Now it is an ultra-accessible City Hall. [That’s] because of me.” 

Ahead of the election, the citizen-architect paved his own way as the only council member to support Proposition B, the ballot measure to repeal the police union’s collective bargaining power, and also endorsed progressive Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, the opponent of his District 2 colleague, Jada Andrews-Sullivan, because the candidate’s views on equity and housing were in step with his own. 

READ MORE: Hidden mural uncovered at San Antonio museum after 10 years

“I think Jalen [and I have] worked on similar issues,” he says. “We provide a voice to people who feel like they are voiceless.”

Perhaps the most-circulated upbraiding of Treviño’s work was his handling of the $450 million Alamo Plaza redevelopment project.

On this point, he seems happy to set the record straight. 

“The [Alamo Plaza] project, as agreed upon by [all participating committees], was blocked politically by the Texas Historical Commission, effectively cancelling out a great project,” he says. “The disagreement that I had was that City management came up with a solution where the City would pay for improvements on State-controlled property. The fight wasn’t over the Cenotaph. I realize the Cenotaph can’t move.” 

The City, he explains, will be spending more money in the end.

“It’s a stand [I took] based on every [principle] we’ve talked about: Our need for more housing, our need to help the homeless, our need to help small business, and our need to improve infrastructure. All those things cost money, so why would we spend our money on State-controlled property? Answer me that.”

When he can take a break from the campaign, Treviño enjoys spending time with his family and Captain, his German shepherd, who pops up on my Instagram feed on occasion.

“It’s a reminder that there’s people that love [and] care about you,” he says. 

But now, he’s razor-focused on this high-stakes runoff.

“A fourth term is very important to me because of all these programs that I’ve started that I want to see through,” he says. 

I tell him that the road to get there seems like a lot of hard work. 

“It is,” he says heartily. “But it’s worth it.” 

The above article was first provided on this site.

We trust you found the above of help or of interest. Similar content can be found on our blog here: www.westtxpointofsale.com Let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what topics we should cover for you next.

[pezonesnegros]

News reports and helpful updates on POS Equipment and POS.

It’s an early Wednesday afternoon and I’m speaking with Roberto Treviño, one of San Antonio’s boldest progressives currently in elected office, about the final stretch of his District 1 council runoff against environmental activist Mario Bravo.

To start, I ask Treviño to list the core values that would sum up the essence of his six and a half years on the dais. 

“They are compassion, equity, and simply being thoughtful about everyone,” he says via phone with a warm, raspy voice. 

Treviño, 50, faced five challengers in last month’s election. Of the 12,569 in-district ballots counted, the incumbent earned 44.9 percent of the vote (5,645 votes) and Bravo registered 33.6 percent (4,225 votes), resulting in Saturday’s runoff. 

As an outspoken housing advocate, Treviño has fought for initiatives like the Under 1 Roof program and the City’s emergency housing assistance program. Addressing the issue of homelessness has been a top priority throughout his tenure, however, his approach to solving the matter has drawn sharp criticism from some D1 residents.

Among his accomplishments has been his efforts to protect small businesses through hospitality relief programs, which has prevented many pandemic-related closures.

READ MORE: Catching up with District 2 Council candidate Jalen McKee-Rodriguez

“As a councilman, you want to be that bridge to find a way to connect your community with resources to get them access [to assistance],” he says. 

Regardless of the electoral outcome, Treviño believes he’s made a difference in the way local government operates.

“City Hall will never be the same again,” he says. “Now it is an ultra-accessible City Hall. [That’s] because of me.” 

Ahead of the election, the citizen-architect paved his own way as the only council member to support Proposition B, the ballot measure to repeal the police union’s collective bargaining power, and also endorsed progressive Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, the opponent of his District 2 colleague, Jada Andrews-Sullivan, because the candidate’s views on equity and housing were in step with his own. 

READ MORE: Hidden mural uncovered at San Antonio museum after 10 years

“I think Jalen [and I have] worked on similar issues,” he says. “We provide a voice to people who feel like they are voiceless.”

Perhaps the most-circulated upbraiding of Treviño’s work was his handling of the $450 million Alamo Plaza redevelopment project.

On this point, he seems happy to set the record straight. 

“The [Alamo Plaza] project, as agreed upon by [all participating committees], was blocked politically by the Texas Historical Commission, effectively cancelling out a great project,” he says. “The disagreement that I had was that City management came up with a solution where the City would pay for improvements on State-controlled property. The fight wasn’t over the Cenotaph. I realize the Cenotaph can’t move.” 

The City, he explains, will be spending more money in the end.

“It’s a stand [I took] based on every [principle] we’ve talked about: Our need for more housing, our need to help the homeless, our need to help small business, and our need to improve infrastructure. All those things cost money, so why would we spend our money on State-controlled property? Answer me that.”

When he can take a break from the campaign, Treviño enjoys spending time with his family and Captain, his German shepherd, who pops up on my Instagram feed on occasion.

“It’s a reminder that there’s people that love [and] care about you,” he says. 

But now, he’s razor-focused on this high-stakes runoff.

“A fourth term is very important to me because of all these programs that I’ve started that I want to see through,” he says. 

I tell him that the road to get there seems like a lot of hard work. 

“It is,” he says heartily. “But it’s worth it.” 

The above article was first provided on this site.

We trust you found the above of help or of interest. Similar content can be found on our blog here: www.westtxpointofsale.com Let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what topics we should cover for you next.